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damalurbackupTITLE: The Execution of All Things, Pt. 6
CHARACTERS: Kurogane/Fai
NOTES: See part the first.
SUMMARY: Fai is dead. A world is ending. Kurogane copes about as well as you'd expect.
Act 6.
6.1 | your horoscope for today
Gemini (May 21 - June 20)
This week is highlighted by a need for flexibility. You may face unexpected loss, but at the same time new doors will open. Demands on your time will run high, especially if Aries is involved; look for events to fall at the extreme ends of the emotional spectrum. There's a sense of urgency to your chart this week, as things are rapidly coming to a head. Avoid travel, doctors, and risky financial investments.
6.2 | the story of that night, part iii
Afterwards, they lie together on rumbled sheets. The sun is just setting, and it fills the rooms with a golden, dying light. Wordlessly Fai rises from the bed and slips into his coat; Kurogane watches him with lazy predator's eyes, and when Fai leaves the room Kurogane follows without bothering to dress.
Fai goes no farther than the bathing room, though; there's a large tub sunk into the stone ground, and he kneels to work the faucet and then, once the tub is full and steaming, he slips into the water. Kurogane again follows. They sit across from each other for long moments, Fai's head tilted back and his eyes closed, Kurogane studying the look on his recent lover's face.
"I didn't expect - " he starts awkwardly, and then stops. Fai's lashes flicker, but his eyes stay closed. Go ahead, he thinks. Be my guest. No - I dare you. I dare you to leave me, I dare you to forget about me, I dare you to deny this. Do it.
But instead, Kurogane says, "I didn't expect to feel like this. About you." It's as close to a confession as Fai is likely to get; his eyes slit open, slivers of blue in a pale face. Kurogane very nearly fidgets under his regard, and finally Fai smiles.
"Nor did I," he says, and it's as close to a confession as Fai is likely to give. Kurogane stills, then stretches out one long arm and draws Fai to him.
"Here," he says gruffly, and opens a bottle of flowery-smelling soap on top of Fai's head. Unbound, the magician's hair brushes his shoulders; Kurogane's large hands massage the shampoo into the fine mess, and Fai hums contentedly.
"Dunk," Kurogane orders, and Fai slips below the surface of the water until Kurogane tugs him up again. "There," Kurogane says. "At least you'll have clean hair tomorrow."
"Until the blood starts flying," Fai agrees, his voice no more than a murmur. He feels more relaxed than he can ever remember: serene, sated, and absolutely liquid, in the perfect mood to drape himself over a bed or a body and just drowse.
"You're going to fall asleep," Kurogane rumbles from a distance, and Fai blinks up at him.
"No m' not," he mutters, and Kurogane's chest rumbles again.
"Fine," says the ninja. "Up, then," and Fai finds himself propelled out of the water and bundled in a towel and then back to bed.
As they lie next to each other, Fai jerks back to wakefulness. "Kuro-pon," he says, but his voice isn't teasing. "Tomorrow, if we live - someday - "
A warm hand cups his neck. "Someday," Kurogane echoes sleepily. "Someday."
Satisfied, Fai sinks back down; and together the lovers sleep until dawn.
6.3 | when Fai wakes
Fai never wakes slowly; instead, the transition is always jolting and instant. It's the end result of decades spent on the move, in danger, being stalked by some craven hunter.
Bits of his dreams linger for a handful of seconds, just wisps - an image of eyes, or the tactile impression of scales. He doesn't remember his dreams, not wholly, not usually, and this morning is no exception. With a sigh he rolls from his pallet and stretches bonelessly, like a cat. His back pops with a satisfying series of cracks; he's not quite young anymore, although with his magic he'll never quite be old, either.
Some thoughtful soul - probably Keiichi, Fai thinks - put a bucket of water just outside his tent. Fai dips his hands in the cold water, then splashes his face and dabs it dry with the corner of his shirtsleeve. He picks his red brocade coat up delicately, with just the fingertips of his left hand, and ducks outside to put it on. The sun is just clearing the horizon; he studies the landscape idly as he does up the fastenings, and then his gaze shifts to the dimension gate hanging above the northern hills.
He freezes.
The gate is growing.
No, the gate is not just growing; it's multiplying like a dark cancer against the sky, it's ripping apart the heavens, it's a disease, it's a plague, it's broken -
And below the gate, just a slender sliver on top of a hill, is a figure.
Fai scoops up his boots with one hand and doesn't bother putting them on before he runs.
6.4 | magic
Every magic user feels their craft differently. Thaumaturgy is, after all, something that comes both from within and from without: sorcerers are simultaneously a source of and a channel for magic.
Fai feels magic like the wind: it's a cool breeze, it's breath, it's strong and wild and subtle and soft. It surrounds him, it flows from him and from all things, both living and unliving. He can harness it only in his mind and cage it only with his will; and it has a will of its own, too, a will that sometimes fights and sometimes joins with his. Magic speaks to Fai; magic is wordless. He would sooner lose his sight than his sense of magic. Magic is.
Picture a valley in bright sunlight after a hard rain: the entire world is saturated with green and blue and yellow. Sunshine and cerulean hang above, a thick carpet of viridian grass lies below, and then comes the wind - then comes the wind, caressing and urging and playful, and on the wind comes the faint scent of honeysuckle. That's how magic feels to Fai.
The gate, though - the gate has become a blight upon Fai's world, a mouth, a maw turned ravenous and devouring and dark. Someone is working great magic at the dimension gate, the Egret Gate, and Fai can feel it. No wind blows through the egret gate but a tempest; no magic works there but what is perverted.
Fai can feel it.
6.5 | what Keiichi sees
Keiichi's bent over, tying up his shoelaces, when Fai passes him at a flat run. The magician is carrying his boots, and his red frockcoat is flapping around his knees; Keiichi doesn't think he's seen anyone move so fast in his entire life. Fai looks like he's heading for the dimension portal, and Keiichi can't help but be curious - so he unlocks his bicycle from the tent post and follows.
They're going uphill, and even on wheels Keiichi can barely keep up. Fai is dodging trees so quickly that the most Keiichi can do is keep his eyes fixed on the other man's yellow hair and pedal furiously. But then Fai stumbles hard and catches himself on one hand, and Keiichi gets close enough to see that he has cut his bare foot on a sharp rock. Before Keiichi can offer his help, though, Fai swears and rights himself and blurs into motion again.
Keiichi's bike groans in protest, but he keeps driving it; something is serious, something is wrong, and he wants to be there to help. The creaks of his bike chain mix with a sudden rustle from above, and he looks up to see a dark shape leaping from limb to limb. Red eyes flash at him, and then the shadow's gone; he's lost sight of Fai, too.
Twenty, thirty laborious seconds pass before he finally crashes into the clearing at the hill's top. The shadow from the trees has resolved itself into Tsukuyomi's dark-haired guard, Kurogane; he stands next to Fai, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder. Opposite them, below the world gate, is another dark-haired man: shorter than Kurogane, with glinting silver spectacles and a sardonic, pleased expression.
"Too late!" says the stranger, and Keiichi strains to hear. He thinks the man is whispering, but no, he's actually shouting to be heard over a roar coming from the gate itself. "Too little, too late!" says the stranger, and then he falls backward into the portal.
6.6 | a proposition
"Kyle Rondart," Kurogane says; Fai can't hear the words, but he can read the other man's lips. There is a world of promise in Kurogane's expression. The roar from the gate in front is static and nearly deafening, like listening to a lion with his head in its mouth. Fai can hardly hear himself think, but this isn't a time for thought. This time demands action.
"I have to go!" he shouts back. Kurogane's head whips towards him, and the other man pins him with a gaze. "I have to go!" Fai shouts again, and then, "Come with me!"
He doesn't hesitate to ask. Whatever is between them, whether it is affection or camaraderie or anger or something else still, they've always been a team to beat. Together they can conquer nations; even now Fai doesn't doubt that.
Kurogane nods, as Fai knew he would, and then he stretches out his real hand. His palm is rough and scarred and broad, and Fai reaches out and clasps it. Their eyes meet over their twined hands for a hundredth of a moment, but that's enough; then Fai steps forward and tugs Kurogane along behind him -
And together they go through.
6.7 | people Fai has loved
Fai loves more people than Kurogane does, but Fai does not love more easily. He's lived longer, though, and his life has been less cloistered.
He loves his twin, loves the real Fai, loved him even before they were born. Sometimes he thinks he can remember their mother's womb, the warmth, the dark, the way their hearts beat in unison. Mostly he just remembers the tower, though, and his brother's small face at the top, and trying to climb to him on a ladder of corpses. For that he doesn't love his brother any less; if anything, he loves him more, because his other half is eternally a child, forever innocent and unchanging. Death immortalized that love.
He loves Ashura, or at least he did. His last memory of Ashura is of a maniac intoxicated with his own power, but for decades Ashura was his mentor and his savior. He loves Yuuko in a similar way - he looks up to her, admires her for her wisdom and her strength. Too, he and Yuuko are conspirators; in this life they are conspiring to save a world, but in some other place he thinks they might have had fun together.
He loves Chii, Chii who was made in his mother's image; and he loves Sakura, his only princess. Sakura has his fealty, and she is the only one. (He is a prince himself, remember, and it is not in him to bow easily to others.) Sakura, though, he serves with gladness in his heart.
He feels a certain combination of love and respect and pity for those he's met in Tokyo. He admires Yuzuriha and sees himself in Subaru; he holds a certain fond affection for Keiichi. Maybe he does love more easily, now that he's been reborn. Many things come to him more easily in his third life.
He's always loved Kurogane -
And isn't that what this story is about?
Like a body, the best stories are built of layers twined about each other: the plot is a skeleton, the theme a brain. Characterization and style and setting are all just flesh, details, the features on a story's face. But the heart of the story - ah, the heart of any good story is always the same.
The heart of all the best stories is love.
6.8 | entropy
They step through the other side onto the witch's yard. There's a sudden lack of noise that leaves their ears ringing; worse is that yard is empty, with no sign of Rondart or even the witch herself. Fai's blank expression sets and he starts forward, but Kurogane catches him by the elbow and gestures. Fai tilts his head back and looks up.
The sky is yellow.
This world is dying.
<< | >>
CHARACTERS: Kurogane/Fai
NOTES: See part the first.
SUMMARY: Fai is dead. A world is ending. Kurogane copes about as well as you'd expect.
Act 6.
6.1 | your horoscope for today
Gemini (May 21 - June 20)
This week is highlighted by a need for flexibility. You may face unexpected loss, but at the same time new doors will open. Demands on your time will run high, especially if Aries is involved; look for events to fall at the extreme ends of the emotional spectrum. There's a sense of urgency to your chart this week, as things are rapidly coming to a head. Avoid travel, doctors, and risky financial investments.
6.2 | the story of that night, part iii
Afterwards, they lie together on rumbled sheets. The sun is just setting, and it fills the rooms with a golden, dying light. Wordlessly Fai rises from the bed and slips into his coat; Kurogane watches him with lazy predator's eyes, and when Fai leaves the room Kurogane follows without bothering to dress.
Fai goes no farther than the bathing room, though; there's a large tub sunk into the stone ground, and he kneels to work the faucet and then, once the tub is full and steaming, he slips into the water. Kurogane again follows. They sit across from each other for long moments, Fai's head tilted back and his eyes closed, Kurogane studying the look on his recent lover's face.
"I didn't expect - " he starts awkwardly, and then stops. Fai's lashes flicker, but his eyes stay closed. Go ahead, he thinks. Be my guest. No - I dare you. I dare you to leave me, I dare you to forget about me, I dare you to deny this. Do it.
But instead, Kurogane says, "I didn't expect to feel like this. About you." It's as close to a confession as Fai is likely to get; his eyes slit open, slivers of blue in a pale face. Kurogane very nearly fidgets under his regard, and finally Fai smiles.
"Nor did I," he says, and it's as close to a confession as Fai is likely to give. Kurogane stills, then stretches out one long arm and draws Fai to him.
"Here," he says gruffly, and opens a bottle of flowery-smelling soap on top of Fai's head. Unbound, the magician's hair brushes his shoulders; Kurogane's large hands massage the shampoo into the fine mess, and Fai hums contentedly.
"Dunk," Kurogane orders, and Fai slips below the surface of the water until Kurogane tugs him up again. "There," Kurogane says. "At least you'll have clean hair tomorrow."
"Until the blood starts flying," Fai agrees, his voice no more than a murmur. He feels more relaxed than he can ever remember: serene, sated, and absolutely liquid, in the perfect mood to drape himself over a bed or a body and just drowse.
"You're going to fall asleep," Kurogane rumbles from a distance, and Fai blinks up at him.
"No m' not," he mutters, and Kurogane's chest rumbles again.
"Fine," says the ninja. "Up, then," and Fai finds himself propelled out of the water and bundled in a towel and then back to bed.
As they lie next to each other, Fai jerks back to wakefulness. "Kuro-pon," he says, but his voice isn't teasing. "Tomorrow, if we live - someday - "
A warm hand cups his neck. "Someday," Kurogane echoes sleepily. "Someday."
Satisfied, Fai sinks back down; and together the lovers sleep until dawn.
6.3 | when Fai wakes
Fai never wakes slowly; instead, the transition is always jolting and instant. It's the end result of decades spent on the move, in danger, being stalked by some craven hunter.
Bits of his dreams linger for a handful of seconds, just wisps - an image of eyes, or the tactile impression of scales. He doesn't remember his dreams, not wholly, not usually, and this morning is no exception. With a sigh he rolls from his pallet and stretches bonelessly, like a cat. His back pops with a satisfying series of cracks; he's not quite young anymore, although with his magic he'll never quite be old, either.
Some thoughtful soul - probably Keiichi, Fai thinks - put a bucket of water just outside his tent. Fai dips his hands in the cold water, then splashes his face and dabs it dry with the corner of his shirtsleeve. He picks his red brocade coat up delicately, with just the fingertips of his left hand, and ducks outside to put it on. The sun is just clearing the horizon; he studies the landscape idly as he does up the fastenings, and then his gaze shifts to the dimension gate hanging above the northern hills.
He freezes.
The gate is growing.
No, the gate is not just growing; it's multiplying like a dark cancer against the sky, it's ripping apart the heavens, it's a disease, it's a plague, it's broken -
And below the gate, just a slender sliver on top of a hill, is a figure.
Fai scoops up his boots with one hand and doesn't bother putting them on before he runs.
6.4 | magic
Every magic user feels their craft differently. Thaumaturgy is, after all, something that comes both from within and from without: sorcerers are simultaneously a source of and a channel for magic.
Fai feels magic like the wind: it's a cool breeze, it's breath, it's strong and wild and subtle and soft. It surrounds him, it flows from him and from all things, both living and unliving. He can harness it only in his mind and cage it only with his will; and it has a will of its own, too, a will that sometimes fights and sometimes joins with his. Magic speaks to Fai; magic is wordless. He would sooner lose his sight than his sense of magic. Magic is.
Picture a valley in bright sunlight after a hard rain: the entire world is saturated with green and blue and yellow. Sunshine and cerulean hang above, a thick carpet of viridian grass lies below, and then comes the wind - then comes the wind, caressing and urging and playful, and on the wind comes the faint scent of honeysuckle. That's how magic feels to Fai.
The gate, though - the gate has become a blight upon Fai's world, a mouth, a maw turned ravenous and devouring and dark. Someone is working great magic at the dimension gate, the Egret Gate, and Fai can feel it. No wind blows through the egret gate but a tempest; no magic works there but what is perverted.
Fai can feel it.
6.5 | what Keiichi sees
Keiichi's bent over, tying up his shoelaces, when Fai passes him at a flat run. The magician is carrying his boots, and his red frockcoat is flapping around his knees; Keiichi doesn't think he's seen anyone move so fast in his entire life. Fai looks like he's heading for the dimension portal, and Keiichi can't help but be curious - so he unlocks his bicycle from the tent post and follows.
They're going uphill, and even on wheels Keiichi can barely keep up. Fai is dodging trees so quickly that the most Keiichi can do is keep his eyes fixed on the other man's yellow hair and pedal furiously. But then Fai stumbles hard and catches himself on one hand, and Keiichi gets close enough to see that he has cut his bare foot on a sharp rock. Before Keiichi can offer his help, though, Fai swears and rights himself and blurs into motion again.
Keiichi's bike groans in protest, but he keeps driving it; something is serious, something is wrong, and he wants to be there to help. The creaks of his bike chain mix with a sudden rustle from above, and he looks up to see a dark shape leaping from limb to limb. Red eyes flash at him, and then the shadow's gone; he's lost sight of Fai, too.
Twenty, thirty laborious seconds pass before he finally crashes into the clearing at the hill's top. The shadow from the trees has resolved itself into Tsukuyomi's dark-haired guard, Kurogane; he stands next to Fai, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder. Opposite them, below the world gate, is another dark-haired man: shorter than Kurogane, with glinting silver spectacles and a sardonic, pleased expression.
"Too late!" says the stranger, and Keiichi strains to hear. He thinks the man is whispering, but no, he's actually shouting to be heard over a roar coming from the gate itself. "Too little, too late!" says the stranger, and then he falls backward into the portal.
6.6 | a proposition
"Kyle Rondart," Kurogane says; Fai can't hear the words, but he can read the other man's lips. There is a world of promise in Kurogane's expression. The roar from the gate in front is static and nearly deafening, like listening to a lion with his head in its mouth. Fai can hardly hear himself think, but this isn't a time for thought. This time demands action.
"I have to go!" he shouts back. Kurogane's head whips towards him, and the other man pins him with a gaze. "I have to go!" Fai shouts again, and then, "Come with me!"
He doesn't hesitate to ask. Whatever is between them, whether it is affection or camaraderie or anger or something else still, they've always been a team to beat. Together they can conquer nations; even now Fai doesn't doubt that.
Kurogane nods, as Fai knew he would, and then he stretches out his real hand. His palm is rough and scarred and broad, and Fai reaches out and clasps it. Their eyes meet over their twined hands for a hundredth of a moment, but that's enough; then Fai steps forward and tugs Kurogane along behind him -
And together they go through.
6.7 | people Fai has loved
Fai loves more people than Kurogane does, but Fai does not love more easily. He's lived longer, though, and his life has been less cloistered.
He loves his twin, loves the real Fai, loved him even before they were born. Sometimes he thinks he can remember their mother's womb, the warmth, the dark, the way their hearts beat in unison. Mostly he just remembers the tower, though, and his brother's small face at the top, and trying to climb to him on a ladder of corpses. For that he doesn't love his brother any less; if anything, he loves him more, because his other half is eternally a child, forever innocent and unchanging. Death immortalized that love.
He loves Ashura, or at least he did. His last memory of Ashura is of a maniac intoxicated with his own power, but for decades Ashura was his mentor and his savior. He loves Yuuko in a similar way - he looks up to her, admires her for her wisdom and her strength. Too, he and Yuuko are conspirators; in this life they are conspiring to save a world, but in some other place he thinks they might have had fun together.
He loves Chii, Chii who was made in his mother's image; and he loves Sakura, his only princess. Sakura has his fealty, and she is the only one. (He is a prince himself, remember, and it is not in him to bow easily to others.) Sakura, though, he serves with gladness in his heart.
He feels a certain combination of love and respect and pity for those he's met in Tokyo. He admires Yuzuriha and sees himself in Subaru; he holds a certain fond affection for Keiichi. Maybe he does love more easily, now that he's been reborn. Many things come to him more easily in his third life.
He's always loved Kurogane -
And isn't that what this story is about?
Like a body, the best stories are built of layers twined about each other: the plot is a skeleton, the theme a brain. Characterization and style and setting are all just flesh, details, the features on a story's face. But the heart of the story - ah, the heart of any good story is always the same.
The heart of all the best stories is love.
6.8 | entropy
They step through the other side onto the witch's yard. There's a sudden lack of noise that leaves their ears ringing; worse is that yard is empty, with no sign of Rondart or even the witch herself. Fai's blank expression sets and he starts forward, but Kurogane catches him by the elbow and gestures. Fai tilts his head back and looks up.
The sky is yellow.
This world is dying.
<< | >>
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Date: 2009-02-05 04:07 am (UTC)