Chapter Text
The deadened fields of Elna stood before Marik. Every time he passed through, a chill settled in his spine and didn’t let go. The only reprieve from the feeling was being sidled close to Ryou beneath a cloak to hide from the rain, which bore an even stranger sensation of something tickling his ribs. Disgusting little feeling. The voice in his head was cackling at him and scolding him without words.
Ryou was far less affected by the landscape. His easy pace quickened to a jog the further into the province they got. Eventually, he slipped from Marik’s grasp and sprinted down the dirt path through the village.
After days and days of skulking along the mountain passes, he’d finally found some energy. Neither drizzling rain nor snow would stall him any longer as they came to the crest of a village some miles past the mouth of the Magi Pass. Wherever Ryou had once lived was at the very edge of the village, where the homes were the most scarce and where going to the well would have been a chore each day.
“You’re going too fast, dammit!” Marik said, joining Ryou at a house surrounded by a twisted metal fence with uneven posts. There was no livestock, nor garden. Only the remnants of a turned over trough and dry plots. Even the pots for herbs had fallen aside and cracked. Along the middle wooden planks of the house were Old Tongue writings, and Marik made note of a strange runic symbol carved above the door. Though unfamiliar, it was hard not to recognise the same eye that his rod bore.
Ryou had both hands on the door.
“Well, we’re here. Go in.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Just go in before I kick the door down,” Marik insisted. “It’s wet as sin out, and I’m freezing.”
Ryou knocked before pushing the door in, his smile buttoned down. If Marik didn’t know better, he’d say the kid was about to jump out of his skin in excitement. He’d practically skipped inside and didn’t bother holding the door open for his travel partner. “Amane? I’m home, sister, isn’t it wonderful?” he asked, chortling. “I’m sorry I didn’t send you any letters, but I left in such a hurry and wasn’t given much time. Amane?”
Ryou circled from the main room and through the back doors. He knocked on each and entered. She. He came back, his hands were clasped at his waist. “This is strange.”
“What is?”
“She’s not here.”
Ryou went to the low-sitting table. There were several half-completed garments alongside sewing needles and other bolts of cloth tucked beneath. Amongst those things were crumpled parcels, half-opened, with his letters and coppers inside. What struck Marik more was the dust Ryou flicked off the table.
“Are you sure this is where she’s been staying?”
“She wouldn’t leave our father’s home, no,” Ryou replied. “Perhaps she’s at one of the other seamstresses' homes. She told me that there were several she worked with on projects.” He shuffled back to the door, but not without looking over his shoulder to the rest of the house. Dim. Disheveled. Marik wouldn’t have called it lived in, but he’d suffered worse in Ishizu’s storage shed.
“Don’t make us go back into the rain.”
“My fool wishes to see his sister,” Ryou’s thief said. “I will not deny him that.”
Marik groaned and followed, insisting they huddle beneath the cloak, but Ryou’s thief didn’t oblige. He strolled through town and knocked on doors, asking curt questions that, as soon as he asked, made whomever he asked slam their door in his face. The darker being didn’t curse them. He moved through town until he found an elderly man sitting in front of his house just admiring the rain.
Unprompted, the old man said: “You’ve come back home, haven’t you? Bakura‘s boy.”
“I have,” said the thief.
“Then you must’ve heard the news.” Marik found a dry spot beneath a thin branched awning behind the old man. He paid no heed and added: “I always did hear it takes a long way for Domi’s Capital to hear what we have to say. And that’s when it matters.”
“I’m not interested in the lay of the land, old man. I’m merely here to find Ry—my sister.”
“Mmhm. That’s what I was talking about.” The old man sighed and motioned Ryou closer. He complied. “I don’t want to be the one to tell you this young man, but that fine girl’s been buried in the ground since the emperor last came through here. Bastard general got her in the riot, called her a witch and strung her up at the gate for doing what the rest of us couldn’t: admonishing him about using evil magick and spells here.”
Ryou’s face blanched. His chin hit his chest. “Amane…she…”
“She was a brave girl. Wanted to do what was right for all the wrong that man had done to us,” he set his hand on Ryou’s. “Your father’d have been proud of her.”
Ryou slapped his hand away. “This fool’s father got her killed! You think any part of us would be proud of her! We told her to be careful and to stay safe, to stay away from you cretins who’d mock her! You killed her! You!”
“Now, son, I know it’s hard to hear, but we—,”
Marik couldn’t say whether it was the thief or Ryou himself who grabbed the man by the neck. “You killed her for being different! You sent her to the general. I know you did! Why would she go on her own!” And he shook the man who gargled for words, up until Marik lashed out and shoved him away.
“Enough,” Marik hissed. “This man knows nothing.”
“Get out of my way!”
“No. I said I would act kindly to your fool, and this is me being kind.”
“This man is hurting us. This town is hurting us,” Ryou’s thief snarled. His hair began floating around his face, and a faint glow overtook him, but there were tears welling where his docile self hung back as the rage took over. The creature wanted to protect him from the worst of this tragedy. Marik felt for him; his own creature stirred and snapped at the thought of losing Ishizu in any worse fashion than he already had. But he had to keep those thoughts at bay and grip tight to hands that clawed at his chest and tried to tear through him to get to the old man who had collapsed on the ground.
The villagers poked out of their homes.
Some gathered close, murmuring to one another. “Get that damned heathen out of here!” one cried.
“Demon child!”
“Freak!”
Swaddling Ryou as best he could in the cloak, Marik pushed them down the pathway, cutting through the crowd that happily parted while throwing mud and jeering at them. The cluster of townsfolk chased them to the isolated house at the edge of town. An errant rock cracked Ryou in the temple, felling him to his knees, and he screeched until his voice died. The glow strengthened to a star-bright shine, enough to instill fear in Marik as the voice in his head cackled.
Kill. Kill them all…
The rain around Ryou dispelled. Rocks levitated, and Marik noted the shimmering glow of the runic eye over the house.
With the townsfolk on their heels, Marik made the quick decision to pull Ryou into the house, even if the wooden door did little for protection. It'd give them a few more moments from the mob.
Blinding light and blustering wind burst outwards in an expanding ring from Ryou's fallen figure. Marik covered his head with his arms as though it would protect him from the intense, burning warmth overtaking him. He expected to be a thoughtless pile of ash in seconds, but when the wind and the light died, he was still standing.
Nothing else did.
Outside the torn open porthole shutters stood nothing. No buildings. No trees. No angry townsfolk gathered at the foot of the door. Even the rain had stopped, though only for a moment, and it was quick to resume and wash away the chalky, ashen mounds of everything that had once existed in the radius around Ryou.
Marik's creature throbbed with excitement. "Ryou?" he called, and he stepped outside to take stock in how far whatever spell Ryou had cast had spread. On one end, the mountainside had quelled it; on the opposite, far down the road, were the split halves of trees where they'd only been partially singed. And the eye symbol the door still shimmered, as did the markings about the door.
He went back inside. "What have you done, thief?"
Quiet. Rain patter. Then, after so many moments, Ryou said: “I’m so sorry, sister. I didn’t even find out where you’re buried…” and he buried his face in his hands. Marik almost wept for him.
—
After three days of riding, The Man and his party rested beneath a thick swath of trees that blocked out most of the rain. It didn’t even feel like rain anymore, they’d gone so numb. His fingers were shriveled in his gloves, and his cloak had doubled in weight.
“How much further?” Isono asked.
They built a small encampment, enough that the four of them could huddle shoulder-to-shoulder beneath a tent and make a fire to cook. Carefully, the Man took the map out to consult it. A single raindrop struck it.
“Maybe two more days. We’re on the road now, and there’s a monastery ahead. We can ask for…”and he shook his head. “Never mind that. We’ll find someplace to get out of the rain soon enough. That can become the base of our search.”
“But if there’s a monastery, si—,” the Man shot Isono a glare, and the attendant nodded. No formalities, they’d agreed. They were a party of scouts to the ally, lost travellers to the unknown, and bandits to the enemy. “If there’s a monastery, they might give us provisions if they don’t think we’re part of the war effort.”
“I’ve got good word they’ve closed off those doors. I don’t think we’ll find sanctuary many places. An abandoned building, maybe.”
“There ain’t a lot of friends these places,” one of the riders said, “not with how the emperor’s been treatin’ them.”
The second rider nodded gently, adding: “No disrespect to him, of course. But it hasn’t made any of this easy. Sloughing through the mud and rain, going on a wild chase after a spark of light. Craziness, there’s a war, isn’t there? Be better if we had some of the monk’s porridge to at least get through the night, but what will we do? Mayhaps we’ll use some old buildings as kindling.” And he got to work slicing off pieces of bread and meat with a dull knife, passing them around. Even to these riders, the Man was just another scout, and he’d be happy to keep it that way. The leader, naturally, but no one of note. Just Seto. Maybe not even good enough to bear a family name.
They ate, dried their clothes as best they could, and slept a few hours before packing up and heading out again.
The dense forest path was one of the many that Otogi had mentioned that merchants used between Ne-Yah and tribal land. The only indication they were going the right way were crushed grass, a faint dirt path turned mud, and deliberate knife marks on the larger trees, not that those didn't give any indication of which direction they were going. They pressed forward, and he let the riders navigate to make sure they didn’t go in circles. Along the way were small shrines to the Chosen Three. The riders paused to pray, and the Man found himself staring at water gushing from the Ra’s mouth for the duration. Someone more spiritual than him would have taken it as an auspicious omen; the ceaseless rain did that much. There wasn’t a need for petty symbols, and yet, he wondered if they were all gushing water, or if this was a flaw of a single stonemason’s carving.
The Man spent those long hours in silence and rain considering himself. As soon as they’d left camp, he shed Buruaizu from his body and clothes, and he found himself purging even the smallest notices of authority or grandeur. In the middle of this wilderness, he was nobody. He’d been nobody since they crossed the mountains with an army—the army thought him something. Used him as a figurehead. Shed blood in his name, as so many soldiers had for centuries, and yet, they were the only marching men that thought anything of him. Gozaburo had told him that everything was his, if he wished it. All he had to do was have the guts to reach his hand out and take it, no matter the cost. Every king wanted every piece of land; there were no other sovereigns greater than the Son of Heaven, and to consider them equals was akin to merely allowing them to live on his land, until he didn’t want them there anymore.
But he didn’t own this land in this forest. The sparse signs of civilisation that slowly appeared in the thinning of trees owned it. The people in their tiny, one-room houses that dotted the mouth of the valley owned it. Those hovels would be gifts to the children sitting on the porches and scooping mud up in their hands. They waved and tossed mud balls, running between the legs of the horses, giving no mind to who was riding or what colours they wore.
Crossing back into Ne-Yah, as they did near sunset on the third day, didn’t guarantee him that this land was his either. No more than those houses, or the trees that occupied the muddy valley. Ne-Yah didn’t seem to want to belong to anyone, not even the Jounouchi’s. They lived somewhere, took up a magistrate’s manor that likely had its own servants and fields to tend, but they borrowed the land from him the same as other kings or lords. Were he to come into their home, could he just take it?
Buruaizu would say yes.
The Man, however, imagined himself saying it to Jounouchi in much the same way he had the last time they’d seen each other. The innocent look of a lost puppy bleeding from Jounouchi’s face while he held out his hands—except his hands would catch the rain and reality, and they’d shake. The Man knew he couldn’t eviscerate people in the same way Buruaizu did; that would require detaching himself from humanly wants and needs and emotions. Moreover, as they trotted into a place where leaves no longer covered their heads, he knew that he didn’t have to. He—Seto, the Man—could act however he damn well wanted.
Long and deep into a ride through the night and into the next morn, that thought rested as heavy on his back as his rain-soaked cloak, because he made himself the leader of this scouting squad and, though they spoke sparingly of plans and their mission, he made the decisions, however quiet. In the still of a long morning, when they were forced to stop amidst a wash of debris crossing the clearest path, he wondered if he should have gotten off his horse and helped.
He wanted to.
He was saddle sore, however. His knees were locked and his back was stiff. He watched them pull debris and told himself that acting high and mighty was his wont for the moment. That he was comfortable where he was, and that acting however he pleased meant being humanly selfish, not considering every single person and their plight and bearing it on his shoulders as Buruaizu did. A man that stood alone on a tower, worshipped but almost unconsidered. He would be haughty now, in a different way than before, and he smiled as they pulled heavy branches and a half-fallen tree from the pathway.
Water gushed out in a wave. All the leaves and limbs washed away with it, long down a slope into muddied farmlands.
And then there was a scream.
Not a man’s. Not a woman’s. A small child. And in the quick and early light, he barely saw the blur of a human being tumbling down the flow of mud and water.
“The hell was that?” One of the rider’s groused, and Isono ran beside the flooding mess of water and Earth, disregarding Seto as he did. The screaming became fainter, and the forest thicker in the middle-distance from where they stood, and where they were going. But he could hear it, and he spurred his horse to follow the birds that scattered down the way.
Isono became a blur behind him. His horse kicked and jumped around the mess of undergrowth. He barely navigated the water where it trickled down to a more manageable stream. And there, at a slope of rocks that crept back up towards the mountains, the water abated enough that he could see the small hands of a child clinging to a thatch of branches that had clumped together.
Climbing down from the horse, Seto approached with caution. She was noiseless, caked so thick in mud he couldn’t make out skin from shirt. He didn’t know if she’d dashed her head into the ground tumbling down. Would that be his fault? For making the men move the debris so they could continue? But he knelt beside her, touching her arm, and she flinched beneath him.
“Mama…”she whimpered.
Footsteps splashed behind Seto. “Is she…?” Isono asked, breathless.
“Yes.”
“There must have been a home somewhere nearby.”
With little effort, Seto untangled the girl from her prison. Gently, he picked her up. She weighed no more than a pack one of the foot soldiers might carry with them. Her limbs were spindly and frail—that she seemed mostly intact was impressive enough. And as he laid her against his shoulder, half-cradling her, she began to kick and writhe. “No! Nnnno! Not mama, not mama!”
“Shh, child. Shh. That’s not nice,” Isono chided, holding his hands out to take her even as her little nails tried digging into Seto’s neck. “She’s just afraid, si—Seto. We can take her to her mother, and she’ll be well.”
Patting her back, Seto did his best to hold on. Heels dug into his ribs. Fingers tugged at his hair. Judai wasn’t half this fussy, just curious. Even when he remounted his horse and held onto the girl with one arm, she fought and screamed and cried until her lungs gave out. Such was the way of a three or four year old, especially now that the crisis had passed. But he tried to be kind, and he hummed softly in the way his mother used to, because he was too tired to care about whether or not he was doing a good job as he made his way back to the scouting party and along the area they had just cleared. “Her home is nearby,” was all he said to the men following him along the washed out remnants of a path marked by rounded stones up a short embankment.
And he was right.
Not that it mattered. Water and loose rock coming down the mountain had left the outline of a village. Some six or seven wooden homes, positioned in a semi-circle, had been shredded through, and covered by, a mudslide that may have happened as they were unsticking their path. None of the buildings were liveable; no bodies ambling about. The only solid structure seemed to be the well at the centre of the village.
“Do you think this is—?” Isono began.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
Seto looked down at the girl balling her hands in his cloak and staring out at the village. “She’s quiet,” he murmured. And as he said so, she mewled: “Mama,” before burying her face in his chest.
Something heavy overcame him. His arms hung painfully from his shoulders, as though he was made suddenly aware of the stinging rain. Pushing the small girl closer to his chest, he tried to cover her with the wet edges of the cloak, to at least spare her any remaining wrath of the rain. But it had already taken everything it could have, he mused, and they’d only happened upon it because of her. Had he stayed with the encampment and the generals, he wouldn’t have even heard the reports of a mudslide in a border village. Its pittance in taxes didn’t matter; its grains were insubstantial. Its people were minor. The place just wasn’t important enough—if anything, someone would come along and rebuild with the remnants of the houses, unaware that a mudslide had even taken it away, and it could become a new village with new people. And he—who overlooked all, who was supposed to be the father of all his citizens—would have known absolutely nothing.
Seto bit his cheek and marched on.
—
They came across paddies that were once crop-rows sitting in the shade of the mountains. Steam pillowed around the wide fields, making visibility nigh existent. A farm, with wilted stalks of grain drowning helplessly in its ditches, at least gave them signs of life. A village or town that needed all that grain to feed its citizens, at the very least; but unlike everything else in the area flooded with water and mud and silt, a singular patch of dewy, almost unbothered grass with bulb like blooms bloomed in a wide berth just in front of the two-story farmhouse. The horses jutted away from the grass, side stepping and nibbling on their bits before Seto finally stopped the retinue.
Seto didn’t know he’d made it to the magistrate’s seat of Ne-Yah. The singular building nestled alongside the farm plot didn’t impress him. Maybe it looked better in the sunshine, but it bore a gold-line nameplate on the outside of the door that read: Jounouchi, plainly. Much less grandiose than any other magistrate’s home he’d been to, but then, this house neither wore the Imperial colours nor seals. Why should it? Its head of house was deposed, and short of putting up white mourning ribbons, the lack of allegiance to Domi suited it well enough. So much so that he considered passing it by, mostly for that reason, but for a small secondary thought: who would be here? The wife and the daughter were wards in his Palace, the father was dead, and Jounouchi was hitherto absent.
It made the lantern-light dancing inside all the more curious.
Bandits? Beggars? Soldiers? Perhaps some smug townsperson thinking they were strong enough to be the new warlord of the province.
The door opened, and a wrinkled woman shuffled out with a basket of laundry. She shook out robes and rags alike, humming to herself, and after a few moments she finally looked up to the four horsemen lingering by the porch.
“Can I help you?” she asked, tepidly stepping back. She reached for a broom. “My master is not well enough for company, if you seek an audience.”
Seto narrowed his eyes as Isono asked: “And who might be your master, ma’am?”
“Why the Lord Jounouchi. Do you lot know where you are?” the woman asked, letting go of the broom and wiping her palms off on her apron.
“We do not. We came from down the mountainside searching for a warm place to stay, but we’re afraid we might have gotten lost in all this wet,” he explained, and Seto exchanged a wary glance with his attendant before looking about the grounds. This was Jounouchi’s childhood home; the place he spoke of in his lazy reveries on quiet nights. Had he come here, or was the servant being wilful?
The old woman laughed. “I’m sure. We haven’t seen a carriage or a horse in days. You’re liable t’ get sick in this weather. If you’d like, you can sit on the porch to dry off. There’s a stable out back for the horses, but not much hay, mind you.”
Isono thanked her, and they tied their horses up in the nearby stalls before finding shelter under the awning. Raindrops still slipped through the gaps in the eaves, but for the first time since they’d broken camp, they were dry.
Seto took one of the rags from the old woman’s laundry basket and tried to wipe off the young girl’s face. She’d barely moved or spoken since they’d left the village, and didn’t turn her head away when he daubed her face and pinched out clumps of mud from her hair.
When the woman returned with blankets and a lantern, she clicked her tongue. “Poor child. Looks absolutely filthy. Where was it you said you travelled from?”
“We didn’t, ma’am. But…we doubt it exists anymore,” Isono replied solemnly. He spun a tale of war and fatigue, loss and hardship, all while Seto lost himself in tidying up this small child whose name he didn’t even know. It busied his wrinkled fingers and let him stop thinking for a few moments. The other riders joined in the conversation, and he vaguely heard them ask questions about food, coffee, and shelter. Isono asked if the war had affected them, to which the older woman replied: “Other than take more young boys to be speared with magick? I don’t think so. No one’s rotted our plants. A shame our emperor won’t let us use magick, too. The old Lord—my old Lord, not the emperor—he always worried this day would come. That we’d be the first that they hit with those ugly glass bottle spells. So far I haven’t cleaned up any glass, but I suspect the day may soon come. And I don’t know if my new Lord is well enough for that.”
Seto’s ears burned.
“And who is your new lord, madam?” Isono asked.
“Why, Jounouchi’s son, Katsuya. He came back here all riddled with burns and holes. Can’t half see, mutters in tongues in his sleep. It’s a wonder what the emperor must’ve done to him. My old Lord said that Buruaizu planned on using his son as some sort of…of…goodness, I don’t know,” she said, red-faced and flustered. She turned back to the house. “Looks like he was right. Poor child. I raised him with his Ma, and he comes back like this.”
Lowering his head, a small sound escaped Seto and bit his tongue to stall it.
Isono set a hand on his back. “Might we pay our respects to the magistrate for gracing us with his kindness?”
“Aye. But be quick about it. Here,” she held out her hands for the girl when Seto stood with her. “I’ll take your daughter to the bath. She must be so miserable.”
With his tongue almost bitten through, Seto regained whatever composure he could and nodded curtly, barely letting go of the girl. When he did, the old woman added: “You don’t look so well yourself. All this madness has made you lose your tongue, hasn’t it? Perhaps you lot should stay the night. There’s room enough and a pot of stew.”
She disappeared into the house.
Seto shed his cloak and stepped out of his boots to try and bring some sense of politeness and dignity to the magistrate’s quaint home. Just inside was a modest kitchen hearth with a hearty soup simmering. A low dining table sat to the right, and above it was along an altar bearing Katsuya’s name in Old Tongue, though the incense hadn’t been burned in a long while. They passed through a long hall of paper windows and squeaking floorboards to a doorway hidden by a red curtain, engulfed in the thick scent of rosemary and lavender—a sickroom.
Isono pulled the curtain back, and Seto stepped through.
The sharp cut of his teeth on his tongue hurt. Seto was sure he’d severed it, but it only filled his mouth with the burning, acrid taste of blood.
This wasn’t the Jounouchi he remembered. The one dressed neatly in red or purple silks and skirts, now replaced with thin cotton robes that didn’t hide the gauze wrapped finger to shoulder, neck to waist. This wasn’t his concubine that swept his golden hair out of his face with pins and combs, now unkempt and narrowly hiding the cheesecloth covering his eyes. Seto didn’t remember when Jounouchi’s hair had gotten so long, long past his shoulders, only that he’d gotten used to it. Tentatively, he reached out to touch one of the strands spilling over the edge of the bedroll, before quickly bringing his hands back to his lap. Who was he to touch a magistrate? He was merely some traveller who asked to pay respects and now looked like the fools in his court who were once willing to pluck the golden strands from Jounouchi’s head.
“It seems the cartographer was wrong,” said Seto.
“So he was.”
“This is the last place I would’ve looked.”
“Fate is funny that way, sire.” Isono bowed to Jounouchi so deeply that his forehead kissed the floor. “We cannot deny the Chosen Three’s hand in this.”
“So you say.”
Isono rose. “What’s our mission now? Do we take him to the Capital?”
“Were the circumstances better, I’d say yes,” Seto replied. He watched Jounouchi’s chest rise and fall, as he had before when the he’d succumbed to bouts of unconsciousness. He struggled this time, as he did all the others. His breaths stiffened. “I don’t think anyone would think it’s wise to move him now. Not like he is, and not in this rain.”
“No, but he’d heal better with Palace physicians.”
“Then bring them to him,” Seto ordered.
“And yourself? Will you return to the battlefield?”
Seto eyed Jounouchi as he spasmed beneath the blanket. Only then did he tempt to reach out and touch his wrist. “The best place for me to be is right here,” he said calmly, in the cool voice of Buruaizu, though he detested its sound. He didn’t want Jounouchi to hear it, nor did he like the blood that had filled his mouth when he spoke with it. “Strategically.”
Isono set a hand on Seto’s shoulder. “Of course, sire.”
“Seto.”
“Right. Seto,” and his hand slipped away. “I’ll tell the scouts that you and the child have taken ill and are staying here until you’re well. I think it’s best we return to the camp and—,”
Jounouchi stirred, coughing and slipping from Seto’s grasp. He pulled all of the blankets with him, curling up into a tight ball, and shivered.
“I…don’t care what you do,” Seto whispered. “Not right now. Leave me be.”
And so Seto was left alone with a shivering body that he didn’t know how to interact with. It wasn’t as if Jounouchi knew he was there. Buruaizu told him it was best to ignore these wanton distractions, and the Man was conveniently silent. No. Not so much silent as he was stunned ever since arriving. Overtaken by a feeling he couldn’t quite define, Seto found himself prostrating like all the servants, concubines and courtiers grovelling at his feet everyday. His forehead touched the tips of his fingers in the way that all those in the Palace were taught to politely bow before their sovereign. His throat tightened; his back ached; he didn’t dare raise his head, because he could convince someone, somehow that he was just exhausted, not bending his knee. And as such, he might also hide the hot, unbidden tears that streaked down his cheeks.
—
For the next few days, Jounouchi oscillated between wake and sleep. They may as well have been the same–he couldn't see anything but outlines and shadows beneath the cheesecloth. Another part of the Maximilian's mind tricks; leaving him in a perpetual state of unsureness as the family maid, Asa, sidled up beside him at various points in the day to feed him soup and bread.
So when she came in and sing-songed, "Good morning, milord," he was vaguely aware of the yellow morning light creeping through the paper windows. He believed her; he cautiously, perhaps even bitterly, accepted that everything was real while also preparing himself for the inevitable moment that the Maximilian burst the dreamscape that was his home, no matter how scarred he or the house or the land around him was. Out of spite, he enjoyed the familiar sounds of the windchime echoing from the porch. The taste of dried lamb and the occasional mugwort curative that perpetually permeated his childhood home. It had to be real. Had to be.
"You're looking well today," said Asa, sitting him upright.
Jounouchi bit back a cough. “I wish I felt it.”
“Bodies take time to heal, and you always were a slow one. Don’t rush it here; the farmers and mongers can wait for you.”
Right. He was the magistrate of Ne-Yah. She’d reminded him of it every morning, but it still hadn’t sunk in yet. Whether he thought he was good enough to fill his father’s shoes was one thing—if his father could amble through life up until now and be a half-decent leader, then Jounouchi could do the same. He’d been taught as much. But it wasn’t about that. If this wasn’t a mindgame, he’d have to face Kaiba in a completely different preview. A courtier to his liege, to which his shoulders dropped and he shook his head.
“Maybe I’ll take a few months, then. I’m sure they’re fine on their own.”
“Oh you. Being cheeky.”
“Heh.” His ears pricked to the sound of measured footsteps entering the room. "Who's there?"
Asa chuckled. "My apologies, milord. I've brought a helper with me today. He and his daughter have been staying with us this past week, and he's been doing chores around the house."
Jounouchi caught the outline of a body. Thin, tall. "What's your name?" he asked the shadow.
Asa patted his arm. "Don't even try. War's shook his brains up so much that he's lost his tongue. I'm grateful though. He's a little workhorse, even if he is a little wet behind the ears. Don't think I've seen a man who doesn't know how to use a broom," she said, taking his hand and unwinding the bandages. "Unless you don't wish him here, of course."
Jounouchi's breath hitched at the idea of a voiceless stranger in his home. Then again, servants brought from Kul came with their tongues cut out. It was gruesome, but hardly strange. And as far as Jounouchi was concerned, this man had no home. He could have been a trick—some kind of monster conjured by the Maximilian to keep him guessing.
The stranger held his hand at Asa's command, and the touch stalled his crazed thoughts. Calloused. Slender. Cool. Equal parts careful and gentle within the deliberate hold. And worst of all: familiar.
"He doesn't write neither?" Jounouchi asked.
The wounds were daubed, the bandages rewound. "No. Not that I asked, and I haven't the courage to enter your father's office for ink and parchment. Not since his death.”
Jounouchi nodded. The stranger took his other arm to give Asa access, and it continued that way until his robe pool at his waist. He found himself touching the blistered, healing burns that seemed to swirl in wide circles. Like they were intentionally drawn on his skin.
"I dunno if I asked, but what happened to me?"
"I couldn't say," Asa replied. She rubbed repugnant salve against the welts. Jounouchi shivered. "The town doc says they're not from lightning. I didn't think they was, since in all this rain I haven't seen a shred of lightning or thunder. You'd think the sky was depressed. Imagine that, the sky being sad. Silliness."
So his fingers followed the raised designs until she bound his chest. From behind, the stranger pulled up his robe.
Jounouchi lurched forward, barking: “Stop that!” before curling up tight. He sucked in a shuddered breath. "Sorry. Sorry, I dunno who you are an' it's…it’s a little weird. I don’t mean to be all…" and he didn't have the strength to finish. Or the care. This was his home, his manor! He was the magistrate, even if it was only in a dream. "Just…let’s start this different. C'mere. Sit next to me an' don't move."
The stranger shuffled over.
Jounouchi reached out towards the blotch of grey and blue he thought was the person. Tentatively, he touched the man's chest and robes before inching upwards along his collarbone and the crease along his neck. Strong, but flinching at the touch. He swiped the sides of his fingers along the steep edge of jaw before letting all five digits find purchase on the skin. Only then did the second hand reach up, prodding the sharp cheeks and thin lips. Small but pointed nose, or so he believed. The stranger's hair was short and covered his forehead and ears, and from what Jounouchi could tell as he bowed his head, there wasn't enough hair to tie back or pin up.
This was new. Maybe foolish to think he could make a mental picture when he’d never been blind before. But he’d played this game when he was young, going around to his friends while blindfolded and trying to guess who was who by how well he knew their features. What he did know was this: that the stranger passed for human convincingly. Young, thin, and decently kept, or so he imagined. And he didn’t dislike his mental image. Despite that, he could shake his familiarity in the stranger's calmness, and the controlled and still air he gave off. "Ya remind me of someone," Jounouchi murmured, and his hands dropped. “Maybe that’s what the Maximilian wants. Make me think I’m seein’ something that I don’t wanna see. Or maybe that’s why I’m blind, huh?”
“Hush now.”
“Ya said you all don’t know why I’m like this. How’d I even get here?” And he touched his own face, wondering if the deepest recesses of his mind were being exploited. But he at least felt his nose and his lips and his ears. They seemed the same. Were he to look in a mirror, he might hesitate. And his hands slipped to the thick bandage on his neck. “I remember that I put a…a piece of glass up to my neck until I was bleedin”,” he said, pantomiming the motion. “I was arguin’ with him, an’ then all the sudden I wasn’t. I was on the ground, an’ there was rain and—,” heavy coughs overtook him, and he buried his face in his knees.
A wide hand rubbed his back, tentatively at first, and then deeper after.
“Away you. Away,” Asa chided. The hands stopped. “Fetch some water and breakfast. You can do that fine enough.”
“No.”
“Milord?”
“Let him keep doin’ that,” Jounouchi said. “Maybe it’ll help. I dunno, but I like it.”
“Of course. I’ll go gather breakfast, then.”
And she left him alone with the stranger whose face he half-imagined. Someone who treated him kindly, better than he’s been treated at the Palace. Maybe it was because there weren’t rules here. He made the rules, and he was free to act how he wished and do as he pleased, even if it meant falling asleep to the lull of a familiar stranger kneading away the pangs gripping his chest.
—
The off-yellow lotus seed soup waited patiently for Anzu to dip her spoon in. It had been waiting for a candle length since she requested the treat from the kitchen, and even now she couldn’t bring herself to sip the sweet soup. As far as anyone was concerned, it was a light and healthy soup that was good for blood flow and energy for her pregnancy.
Beside it, however, was a small, ornate box meant for rings and short combs. While her maid retrieved the soup, she’d emptied the box and placed all of her procured pouches of cinnabar inside it, most of them untouched. All except for the one at the top, now ripped open with her soup spoon placed inside it.
She wasn’t going to take much. The amount that went into the batches of Miho’s cakes was three or four spoonfuls. Added, or maybe substituting, something else. She only had half a spoon shaking in her grip. Dunking it into the broth and taking a bite meant this plan was in motion, as though she hadn’t had Honda gather all this cinnabar for her plan, anyways.
Taking in a deep breath, Anzu stirred the spoonful of red powder into the soup until it vanished.
No more stalling. This had to be done. With Miho having fits of tantrum in her apartments the last few days, there was no better time than to plant the seeds and follow through. All she had to do was bring the spoon to her lips.
“Milady?” Anzu’s maid called.
She dropped the spoon. “Yes?”
“Ai is here. She asks if you’d join the Empress in the Imperial Gardens.”
Furrowing her brow, Anzu looked out the porthole to the inky, rainy evening. The sun had long been down. Odd, that the Empress would make a request at this hour, almost as if to spare her of this fate. “Tell her I’ll be there as soon as I’m finished.”
Holding her breath, Anzu brought the bowl to her lips and suckled it down, seeds and all.
She hurried to dress and headed out to an awaiting covered carriage, but not before tucking the box of cinnabar in the folds of her cloak. Along the route, they made a brief stop at Jounouchi’s apartment where her maid knocked and, after several moments, Otogi ran out the door. He pressed tight against the carriage at Anzu’s beckoning, away from the heavy rain. She passed the box through the window. “When you next see him, give this to Honda and tell him to discretely place it somewhere in Miho’s sitting room.”
Otogi thumbed the box lid. “Should he hide it?”
“Not well,” she said, winking.
The carriage continued on, and Anzu rubbed her stomach. Her child would be protesting soon enough. It was only a matter of when.
Once at the gardens, the carriage strolled along the wider paths towards awaiting lamplight towards the far corner. It came to a stop at an archway trellis, with withered vines hanging listlessly from its arms. Her maid was quick to open a bright pink parasol while they followed a guardsman back into the section of the gardens kept off-limits for most of the year.
There laid the exotic plants and trees that were often gifts to the Imperial house. Things that couldn’t be found living in the empire, or if it did, they were scarce and dotted the countryside. Anzu couldn’t help but see the row of unflowered magnolia trees, as well as other buds and leaves crushed under the weight of the rain.
In the far-left corner of the garden was a single lamp struggling to stay alight. Kisara with her hood pulled up and cloak clutched tight, with Ai remained vigilant with a parasol. “You asked for me, your Majesty?”
“Yes, Sister. Come here.”
She made space for Anzu to stand beside her, and took her hand. “Look.”
Before them were the rows of orchids that, this time of year, would have been blooming in preparation for the Orchid Festival. Anzu had been so lost in her worry about the soup sitting atop of her stomach that she hadn’t noticed how unaffected the entire row had become. The rain washed from them, jouncing their leaves but otherwise remaining dry. A faint glow prickled from the buds.
“Did magicks cast some kind of protection on them?” Anzu asked.
“No. They seem to be doing this on their own.”
“Odd.”
“My, yes. But delightful, don’t you think? If anyone needed to see them, I thought it might be you.”
“Need, your Majesty?”
“Yes. This flower is known to be delicate, but look at it. Even after this harsh weather, it endures.”
“Wherever it comes from must have worse conditions than this,” Anzu mused. “I don’t think I ever saw it up in Wabo.”
Kisara shook her head. “It’s from Elna, as I understand, on the banks of the Bahrastros. Though after the last conflict, this may be the last patch left growing.”
“Hopefully it blooms fully.”
“If it doesn’t, it will have at least survived.”
Anzu squeezed Kisara’s hand. Comforted by the thought, they stood admiring the glittering flower long into the night.
—
Seto laid his head against the wall and closed his eyes. His body was tired. His legs ached and his shoulders were rough from carrying laundry, timber, and hoisting the little girl around in a sling on his back so she didn’t get underfoot. That had surprised Asa. She had prepared to teach him how to wrap it around his shoulders, but he had recalled the way the nursemaids did it for Judai, though took several tries before getting it snug. The last thing he wanted to do was fail in any part of this ruse.
He hadn’t even meant for it to be a ruse.
Things just happened without his consent. He had consigned himself to this tide, as the Man he was. It was almost comical how it all came about; he hadn’t spoken a word around Asa for the first two days, and when he emerged, a dampened look had set on her brow. “You’re doing all you can to stay together, aren’t you?” she said, and while he fought to come up with an answer, she shook her head. “War takes everything from a man. I’ve seen my share of ‘em. Don’t need to make your voice heard to me, but if you’re feeling better, I could use you around the house until you get all your bearings back.”
She thought he was mute, and he supposed in his melancholy stupor, his voice had left him. And as he as he realized that, a plot unfolded: stay mute, and have the opportunity to stay with Jounouchi until the Palace physician arrived. That gave him a fortnight or more, depending on how washed out the roads from the Capital had become.
It was another selfish wont, to play a derelict, mute man running away from war with his daughter. Asa didn’t question it; she put him to work, fed him twice a day, and laid out bedrolls in the servant’s room for him and the little girl. And occasionally, when the chores were done and the evening was calm, he would sit with Jounouchi during dinner time and make sure he didn’t make a mess of himself.
Stubborn. His puppy was still stubborn as hell. Whatever the Maximilian had done to him left his muscles weak and his body ravaged with what Seto could only call dark magick. Nothing left scars on a body like that otherwise. That he still had any drive to try and dress himself, comb out his hair, or rise from bed was more strength than Seto imagined he would have had.
And that thought racked him.
Each night, he sat at the window watching the rain flitter down from the hidden stars. Ten moons had gone by without seeing Jounouchi, and now when he closed his eyes, all he could see was the wounds. All the more reason his army was charging into battle as he sat here playing out an agrarian fantasy in a lord’s manor, but the rage didn’t end there. No amount of scorched Earth would make up for the fact that the enemy resided inside of him. That he’d cast Jounouchi away so carelessly, and sent him into the cold night while not batting an eye as to whether or not he should have proceeded with the father’s execution. That singular decision caused a ripple across nations. One errant death would cost thousands more. The history books wouldn’t even recognise that. His own court historians would never make the connection between the actions of his harem and the politics of the continent, not unless he was brave enough to tell them the truth.
The truth.
Seto wasn’t strong enough to bear the weight of that truth. And Jounouchi suffered for it; was still suffering for it. He wasn’t strong enough for the dreams that had plagued hims night after night since he’d arrived, and especially not on this particular night. He hadn’t known he’d fallen asleep with his back against the wall. He thought he’d been avoiding sleeping, knowing that he tossed and turned all night before awaking, sweating and breathless while remembering nothing. So it surprised him to look up and find Jounouchi opening the door and standing in the threshold, motionless and bleeding out from his bandages.
Seto’s eyes snapped open. Another bad dream; another soaked bedroll. He caught his breath and scrubbed his face with his hands before flipping onto his back and staring at the ceiling, wondering if he was going to be trapped in a sea of nightmares for as long as the guilt gripped the Man’s heart.
The soft thudding of footfall grounded him. Perhaps he was still in the dream, but he steeled his nerves to meet it as he navigated up and around Asa and the little girl to step out into the hall.
There, he met Jounouchi shouldering the wall and staggering towards the front of the house.
Jounouchi didn’t stop walking, however. Not even when Seto brushed his arm. Real and unbleeding.
“Who’s there?” Jounouchi asked.
Seto almost answered. Exhaling, he reached out and tapped Jounouchi’s wrist twice before taking his hand and turning it palm up. He wrote the character for ‘me’ with his pointer finger. He hadn’t given himself a name yet; he’d avoid it if he could.
“You, huh?” said Jounouchi. He took his hand back and balled it at his chest. “The hell you doin’ up so late? Nah, don’t answer that. I know ya can’t. I guess ya can’t sleep, either what with how loud the rain’s been.”
“Mm.”
Even without eyes, Seto felt Jounouchi looking straight through him. As though simple sound said too much and told Jounouchi exactly who he was. The unsuredness lasted mere moments before the blond regripped the wall and continued to shuffle down the hall.
Seto followed.
“Ya don’t gotta keep an eye on me. I’m only going outside for the fresh air,” he explained. He went a few more steps and almost slipped. Like a baby fawn learning to walk for the first time.
Huffing, Seto looped his arm around Jounouchi’s waist to give him stability. He waited to be bucked away like the stranger he was, but Jounouchi straightened his back instead and continued forward. This was good enough, it seemed. And it had been the most he’d touched his precious concubine in so long that his heart wanted to jump out of his chest.
They settled down together on the porch, their feet hanging off into the dirt. Jounouchi dug his toes in the mud and leaned far forward where the crown of his head caught raindrops. Seto watched him stretch his arms out and catched the rain between his fingers before curling them against his chest. He sighed and bowed his head. “You still there?”
“Mm.”
Jounouchi’s lips parted. “Good. I dunno if I wanna be alone right now. I had some bad dreams,” he admitted. His head rolled against his shoulder. “I dunno if they’re real or not anymore. I go to this place in my head, and all I’m doing is climbing the stairs of a tower forever an’ ever. Someone told me that I’m s’posed to be there, but…”
Jounouchi paused, pained. His hair slipped over his shoulders. He pushed it back.
Seto waited, admiring the unaffected patch of grass from days before. Its trail slithered under the porch, and some of the tall blades had grown through the floorboards. Moreover, in a few days time, he noted that rounded bulbs had formed and hung from the thicker stalks, threatening to bloom. He couldn’t identify what flower they might be; in better circumstances, Jounouchi could have.
“I know that prolly makes no sense to you. I’m just talkin’ because I don’t know what else to do or...I…” his fingers touched his lips. “Sometimes, I don’t feel like I’m real when I wake up here. I don’t even know if you’re real. No offense, a’course, but if ya knew all that’s happened you–,”
Without asking, Seto turned up Jounouchi’s palm and wrote ‘I’m real’ as cleanly as he could. And when Jounouchi didn’t react, Seto guided Jounouchi’s hand to his chest and guided it beneath his robes, pressing the palm to bear skin so that he could feel the heart that throttled inside his chest. He still hadn’t come down from the nightmare. He waited for blood to seep through the bandages, because neither of them thought this was real. After many moons, the both of them had buried their bonds so efficiently that neither one of them believed what they were seeing. Yet here they were, with Jounouchi leaning ever closer to him, until his ear was pressed against Seto’s chest.
“Guess that is a heart,” said Jounouchi. His head remained against Seto’s chest. “I don’t even know if monsters have hearts. I don’t wanna get close enough to them to find out.”
Seto chuckled.
“That’s not funny. There’s a lot of different kinds of monsters out there. The kind that hides in dark places. Or the kind that burns down cities. The kind that spends time with you an’ convinces you to let them hold your whole life in their hands,” he sucked in a breath. “Sorry. This is prolly too much for taking in a cool breeze.”
“Mm-mm.”
“Yeah, it is. I’m sitting here actin’ like you ain’t gone through somethin’ just as bad as I have. I mean, look at us: no eyes, no voice. We’re like that old story about the heron and the otter. At least, I think that’s how it goes. I don’t remember it too well, but Asa might know. Either way, if we’re anything like the old story, we need to help each other out to get to the end or else we might not make it.”
Seto rolled his eyes and thought about wrapping his arms around Jounouchi. Were they sitting in the Imperial gardens, he wouldn’t have hesitated. This wasn’t his Palace. And, regretfully, Jounouchi was no longer his. So he braced himself in order to carry the weight of Jounouchi lying against his chest. Mist wafted onto his face in a stiff wind. The rain eased up and the clouds parted long enough to let moonbeams stray in before disappearing behind rolling clouds.
Seto nodded off sitting upright.
Not long after, little feet padded up and roused him. “Mmmm. I gotta….I gotta…” the little girl whined, and she stomped around in a circle.
“Oh right. Asa said ya had a daughter.” Jounouchi lifted from his chest. “Hey there. What’s your name?”
She looked down and crossed her feet over one another. Seto was just as curious, and nodded in encouragement.
“Bo! I am Bo. Who’s you…?”
“You can call me Jou.”
Bo giggled and crammed her hands into her face. “Bo. Jou. BoJou,” she half-sang, before starting her stomping again. She shook Seto’s sleeve. “Pease, I gotta…I gotta…”
Pinned beneath Jounouchi, Seto cautiously looked to the blond and back to Bo, not able to find a motion or a noise that would signify that he was getting up. Or rather, that he didn’t want to, because he didn’t want to leave Jounouchi alone in the dark. As he’dsaid, there may have been monsters lurking.
“Go on. Take her and get her back to bed. It’s late,” Jounouchi said, and he leaned away, but not before landing his hand overtop of Seto’s. He picked up, stalled, and set it back down again. “But when you’re done, come back an’ help me get back to bed, a’right?”
The simple request was filled with haughtiness. Jounouchi slid into the authority of a magistrate just fine. Bowing his head the way Isono bowed to him, Seto hurried away and helped Bo relieve herself before tucking her back into bed. After, he came back to find Jounouchi leaning against a porch beam, snoring. Gingerly, he picked his concubine up, letting Jounouchi’s head slump heavy on his shoulder, and carried him to bed.