The Poisoned Pawn
Disclaimer: nope, it's impossible. Magi's just too awesome.
CHAPTER ONE: Alive and Dead Eyes Clasped in Fate
-.-.-.-
Admit it. You've thought about jumping into the endless, dark, inviting abyss of depravity more than once.
Because honestly, you couldn't get any lower than you already were.
-.-.-.-
His hypnotic eyes, the first things she saw, turned right away into a mystery.
What she observed about him were all quite basic at first. Small, insignificant questions, even when the answers seemed as plain as day, like wondering if the sky was blue or if the ice was cold.
He was a puzzle with missing pieces she would never complete.
She flipped over worries, habits, expressions; tapping against the hollow gaps of forgotten memories. Still others hid, and some vanished in the thin air.
There was one part of this riddle of a boy, however, where she never allowed herself to connect the broken bits. The girl was too uncertain, too scared that she might be wrong. She kept weighing the options, second guessing herself, an infinite cycle of adding to the scales.
A haze of confusion she wandered forever in, that surrounded his two slanted crescent eyes.
Easily, someone else - anyone really - could say with certainty that they were red. It was so obvious, transparent in it's own stand as a question. But for Kougyoku, something as simple as that inexplicably confused her when it came to him.
Bright, maddening red, or dark, drowning crimson? She couldn't tell which shade of life, or if it had simply been a trick of the light, an everchanging illusion from her angle of the boy's darkened pale face. The sun shined behind him, forming a halo around his head of black hair as the Magi's shadow towered over the princess's own beaten, sniveling form.
Not physically beaten. No bruises marred her skin, no blood, nothing broken. Just a gloomy, weak little girl who would never make it anywhere.
But the boy's smile curled genuinely, and his outstretched hand was real, tangible. Not half-hearted encouragements from sullen servants who whispered while walking on wood and stone, nor pushes to her back from Ka Koubun that always made her stumble over silk and gold.
A boy she'd barely spoken to gave her a choice. A dilemma to accept that pale, outstretched hand and have no idea what came next, or refuse and instead accept her apparent fate. A decision given to her by someone so powerful, holding such high standing position as Oracle and Magi of Kou Empire, that he couldn't be called a mere boy anymore. Spiderwebs of ties and advantage, power and threats, held him up in his personal golden seat displayes in the large throne hall.
"You are strong Kougyoku!"
Those words that pushed past his smiling lips froze her. The smell of something sweet, and a sour darkness stung her nose, his long, full braid curling behind him.
The girl's tears blurred her vision, still unable to decide if his eyes were rubies or blood, gems or sins.
But the princess glowed with happiness and hope as she reached up hesitantly, a beam of sun glinting off the gold threads woven in her layered sleeves.
Surely he came as a rare blessing from life and destiny, a nod of acknowledgment from the revered god she heard chanted behind silken veils.
She took his hand.
And that perhaps was her fated choice.
-.-.-.-
Air passed through her creaking lungs like clock work. Her heart beat slowly for that one moment like the dull bell of dying time and a new end. She felt a smile push itself out to show disinterested the world, even as her own world revolved one last time on its bending, twisted axis, before inching towards it's first and final stop for rest after all these years.
The woman smiled, because she remembered a red gaze, a capricious grin, and she did not regret taking that pale, white hand that first time. The last of her storm exhaled, rolling out through chapped lips, as her spirit rose, lifting lightly in a gentle sigh of warmth.
Her light floated up and scattered, gliding away into the skies to join the great Flow of Life
-.-.-.-
The first time Judar met her formally... well, he himself could not remember. A young girl who held down her head and hid behind her long, traditional sleeves. An imperial princess who shook in nervousness, clearly mortified to be in front of the whole royal court, while Judar stood as the eight year old Oracle, and Magi of the expanding empire.
She hadn't been introduced, nor acknowledged in the proceedings. A lavishly dressed lump of air in a shadowed corner of a brightly lit hall drowning in riches.
All of this, he would not recall. The boy's bored red gaze glossed over her, moving on. Their first time meeting was lost in the abyss of Forgotten, a picture of a blurry scene that no one wanted. A thread of fate slipped past their fingers without them even noticing it was ever even there.
They stumbled into a second meeting years later, when Judar turned ten and the eighth princess nine. In the middle of a walkway, she moved aside out of his way, mumbling sorries and lisping regrets.
The boy looked blankly at her before poking her cheek in curiosity, wondering if it still remained there after being hidden all the time behind her sleeves. She squeaked at the contact and moved her arms up to hide her entire face in fear.
Fear of being touched? Fear of being seen? Fear of him? He never found out what it was she feared, or ever really even tried.
Judar was having the time of his life in the palace. Everyone so easy to annoy, everything so easy to destroy. He still had to be careful sometimes around the elder royals, including that wrench of a empress. The youngest eighth however, never retaliated. Nor did she ever speak.
The boy honestly thought she was mute for the longest of times.
The third time he saw her clearly, when he saw a different side of her, he sat perched high in a tree. Above the world, above everyone else who stumbled on the dirt grounds and choked in dust. She stormed into the close by empty training grounds during the night, hair down and tangled, a new expression never seen before on her face.
Judar watched in curiosity as she held her wooden sword in two quivering hands, wondering what she was there when her training classes were over already. He scoffed, thinking that she was going to collapse and cry as usual. It was a habit of hers, he noticed.
Instead, the girl swung with an angry cry at the target post. Tears flung into the air from bright, fiery eyes; her red hair flew around her in a mess. The post cracked and splintered under her steady-handed force, dust and dirt tumbling under her feet.
Stopping in mid-chew of peach, Judar rolled over on the branch to get a clearer view, his braid swinging with the movement as he watched interestedly at what she would do next.
But the young girl had apparently used up all her fury, and her eyes watered slightly while she whimpered at stinging red fingers. The seemingly delicate princess left the sword and hurried out of the area.
Judar rolled back to a more comfortable position, knowing the show curtains had closed, and continued eating, wondering at what he just saw.
The fourth time the Magi met her, she kneeled crying in a small courtyard. The servants whispered while they scurried past on the walkways, but no one spoke a word to the girl. A lavishly dressed shadow in a ignored, dusty corner of a sun lit garden full of flowers.
The princess' shoulders shook silently as her face, as always, remained covered. Judar laughed at her similarity to a turtle before tilting his head. He smirked as a new plan formed and twisted into his head, tossing back and forth in his mind.
Judar walked in front of the kneeling girl who just turned twelve, and held out his hand, bending down to meet her watery pink eyes. His form shadowed her being as he smiled amusedly at her stupid innocence.
"You are strong, Kougyoku!"
She looked up with hope and fear, staring at Judar's hand as if it were gold. Her dainty fingers peeked out from her long sleeves and she reached up, grasping his hand.
He pulled her up quickly before suddenly letting the girl's hand go. She stumbled to the side, while the boy pointed and laughed. The princess, somewhat princess, hit Judar in the shoulder once with an angry pout, before smiling along with him, starting their story in her mind, as the boy schemed in his own.
Everything was going so well. His Kou empire, growing and destroying everything in its path. Princes and princesses capturing dungeon left and right with his persuasions.
Another tool, perhaps another king vessel in the bin. After all, Kougyoku was so easy to manipulate and trick, even then harboring more potential than five of her other step sisters, three already married and useless. Her naive and gullible personality would be the strings, and she his minor puppet.
Besides, she was interesting enough.
-.-.-.-
"Hey, Judar?"
"What is it?"
"Do you have anything you miss?" Kougyoku asked sadly, cradling the wilted flower she had wanted to plant, but didn't make it soon enough. She was only eleven, she didn't know much. But loss in a palace was not an unnatural occurance.
The boy snorted, glaring crimson eyes at her. "Oi, that's such a stupid question. Here let me think..." He made a show of tapping his chin and scratching his messy black hair before leaning in with cold, serious look in his red, red eyes and a playful smile twisting his lips.
"Nope."
The sudden tension in the air vanished with him as the Magi walked away while looking thoughtful, wondering idly what he should do next. The princess stood rooted to that spot, staring at nothingness.
'Will you ever miss me then, if I were to go?'
A pile of earth, a windy cliff, a torn red ribbon, a shattered mirror.
'If I were to go?'
One song from the rivers and seas. And one color. The crimson color in the essence life and forsight of death.
The girl shook her head, pushing away the thoughts. 'Nah, bad question to ask. Besides, we're only children right now. He'll probably think differently when he grows up.'
Of course, that never happened. At least, as far as this story goes.
-.-.-.-
Oh yes. It was obvious. Of course, his eyes were red, like the skies were blue and ice was cold.
However... somedays the sky is bleached white. Some instances stained in crimson splatters. The snow, cold, could burn like fire.
And if so, how can you say whether or not his eyes are alive or dead?
-.-.-.-
Author's Note -
Inspired by the concept of "shattered memories". Main story goes in order with the original story line, but jumps around ages sometimes, so keep an eye on that. It would be less confusing.
Judar and Kougyoku has a very complicated but simple relationship in my mind. Complicated because of the contradictions, and simple because of the rather straightforward base it had. Judar was actually said to be made after Kougyoku as a companion, although their relationship doesn't show in the manga as often as backstage.
I was vague about how and when Kougyoku "died" because she hadn't yet in the original story. I'm not doing anything certain until the manga actually showed it.
The part when Judar briefly wonders what he was like before when he was a child was inspired by at the end of Hakuryuu and Gyokuen's fight when he tripped and kicked the dying empress, saying,"One year, two years, twenty years. If it weren't for you I would have... I would have been more..." before he looked confused and said, "What was it again? Slipped my mind."
Hope you will enjoy this story. There won't be many chapters I'm guessing, but I'll try to move the plot with the original's. I'll be adding more to the chapters even after I post them if I get the inspiration.
Thank you for reading to this.