Discovered by an astounded Yakumo, these two lovers not only have to convince her they don't want her dead, they also have to make sure she doesn't tell anyone about their …situation. A pairing you've never seen before. Oneshot. No OC's, none of that crap, just pure, unadulterated, unseen pairing. A few added characters, a little bit of a different state of affairs on Enterra, but I wouldn't go so far as to say AU... but you get the drift. Also, I know the female character is supposed to be a "queen", but because I gave her parents she's now a princess instead, which makes her and her lover on equal fronts, kind of. Anyway, enough intro… enjoy!
"Sucks."
"…yeah, I guess."
"You guess?" He let out a healthy mix of a bellowing laugh and a radiant chuckle, enough to make her smile, despite their circumstances. "Your parents are the most racist—hell, they started a war against my poor little brother because we're Reptilian! And you guess this whole thing sucks?" He sighed with a grin. "You need to stop riding on the fence, baby, admit when something sucks."
"Okay… I guess this… sucks," she said, hesitating saying such a foul word. She was raised to be a lady, nothing less, and such dirty vocabulary like the things her partner said with the greatest of ease she could barely get off her tongue without her cheeks flaming red. His smile sustained and he looked at her with compassion.
"Yeah, sucks," he tightened his hold around her. Sitting down, leaning against a rock in the middle of the forest, his forest, with the woman he loved in his arms. He went in for a kiss and she reciprocated. They didn't speak to each other for the next fifteen minutes. He had her preoccupied.
In the meantime, a brown-haired girl was taking a walk. Yakumo by name, human by species, dove through the trees and brightly colored flowers and landscape until she was thoroughly lost. Mushra had, once again, done something so irritating that Yakumo was forced to drive herself away from the camp ground in order to maintain a level head and "keep the peace", as she liked to do so often. She walked and walked and walked until she had no more anger left, which unfortunately took a bit of time, which got her pretty far in the forest. She considered calling out for help, but she didn't want to panic her friends—she could make it back to the camp by herself by dark. Her father had always taught her self-reliance, so when the time to rely on herself came, she was prepared. She followed her gut all the way back to where she thought was the camp, but was wrong—instead, she found a clearing with a wonderful little waterfall and a rock facing it. There were two Enterrans leaning on it. This would be a great time, she thought, to make some new friends by asking for directions (Yakumo's little brain still hadn't absorbed that she was being hunted in several different regions by several different races of Enterrans, and not everyone was a friend). She swallowed and approached the stone, preparing to be as kind as was necessary to these strangers.
"Excuse me," she said in her soft, mousey voice, "would you happen to know the direction of Zortown?" And simultaneously, with the precision of two puppets being controlled by one puppeteer, Prince Gyasa and Princess Ruesphine turned around to face Yakumo. Ruesphine was mortified, Yakumo was dumbfounded, and Gyasa was ready to kill her to keep their relationship on the down-low and Ruesphine's reputation intact. He stood up, six foot eight inches, looming over five foot four Yakumo like impending doom.
"Hey, look, this isn't what it looks like…" he started as Ruesphine stood behind him, scared out of her mind that this little girl would ruin her life. Yakumo was petrified with fear—two of her mortal enemies stood in front of her, two people that had almost or would most certainly kill her.
"Please… don't hurt me," was the only thing her pacified mind could come up with. Ruesphine's shock turned instantly to sympathy for the poor little girl she didn't know was a human. She gently touched Gyasa's arm and they looked at each other briefly.
"Let me… I think she's afraid of you," she said to him with more peaceful intentions than Yakumo herself could ever harness. Gyasa cooperated and stepped back, letting the broads go on and do whatever woman thing was required to get him and Ruesphine out of there as fast as possible. Ruesphine stepped forward towards the paralyzed Yakumo, her Bird Enterran appearance being only relatable in Yakumo's mind to an angel. "Listen…" she began, taking Yakumo's hands in hers. They were soft, a good contrast to Gyasa's hardened, worked hands. "We're not going to hurt you. Please, just leave us and forget all you've seen here… it'll be better for all of us." Yakumo broke out of her trance at the unexpected kindness of the Bird Princess Ruesphine and all of a sudden became inquisitive.
"Wh… wait… you and he are…?" She didn't even need to finish her sentence before Ruesphine gave her a knowing smile, the kind only girls can give to one another. Yakumo smiled respectfully and slightly congratulatory in return. But her face suddenly turned sterner when she realized the couple's situation, or what she knew of it, taken from context. "Why are you two hiding out in the middle of the forest?" Ruesphine gazed sadly at Gyasa; he tried to hide how much that look ripped him apart, but didn't too successfully. He swallowed, nervous, unable to comprehend the language of women and how they could connect so easily. "You two should be celebrating your love… not hiding it." Yakumo didn't know much about love and boyfriends and fiancées and husbands and being together for life, but she knew the basics—she knew about her father and mother, she knew about the feelings she got when she saw Mushrambo, she knew what she read in picture books when she was a child, and that was all she needed to know. Ruesphine looked at Yakumo with the same sad eyes she gave Gyasa, and Yakumo listened to her eyes as much as she listened to her words, the two girls still holding hands like sisters.
"My parents are king and queen of the Bird Nation… Gyasa's prince of the Reptile Nation, but his brother Ryuma takes care of most everything. My parents…" She gathered herself. "They hate the Reptilians."
"…racist is what they are…" Gyasa muttered, mumbling an unintelligible adjective of a curse word before the phrase. Ruesphine agreed but was afraid to say. Yakumo could tell.
"Our two nations are at war right now. If my parents knew we were together…" She gathered herself again, taking a deep breath, saying the truth for the first time to a girl she had met ten minutes ago. "…they would disown me. And they would kill him." Tears were in her throat and her blue eyes were glossy with distress and agony. "Ryuma knows, he's much more tolerant of this kind of thing, but…" She sighed deeply, unable to go on though no more needed to be said. Gyasa wanted to hold her, he knew that's what she needed, but he would wait until the human girl was gone. Yakumo nodded and dropped Ruesphine's hands, instead going in for a warm, tender embrace, giving Ruesphine some Yakumo Wisdom as a final parting gift.
"If you two love each other, you'll see through all that, no matter how hard it gets," she whispered in Ruesphine's ear, eyes closed, near tears herself. "Just love each other. Whether you have to hide it for the next few months or the rest of your life…" she took a breath, ready to impart her final wisdom on the beautiful bird girl, lowering her voice so only Ruesphine could hear, "love is worth it." She let go of Ruesphine's hug and saw that she was crying softly, translucent tears running down her flushed cheeks more like a drop of water than a spray of emotion—the real emotion was in her eyes, not flowing out of them. Yakumo raised her voice again to a normal volume. "I won't tell a soul," she said emotionally. "Goodbye, Ruesphine," and as hard as it was to look at her lover, Yakumo stared straight into his green, opulent snake-eyes and said, "Goodbye, Gyasa," and left. Gyasa came up behind Ruesphine and touched her lightly on the shoulder. Almost as an immediate response, she slipped her fingers around his triangular chest and hugged him with all the love Yakumo had hugged her with.
"You know who that was, don't you?" he asked gently, in the mood of the moment.
"No," Ruesphine almost whispered, her throat harsh and tearful.
"It was that human girl, Yakumo," he said as gently as he had asked.
"I don't care," Ruesphine said, her face pressed to his chest, swaying back and forth unintentionally with the beating of their hearts. "She's an angel."
Yakumo had no trouble finding her way back to the campground from there. Whether it was panic or adrenaline, she didn't know. Either way she didn't care. Her mind was empty and she was back at the camp before she could remember how she got there. Her friends were wondering desperately where she had been, worried out of their minds, Mushra almost venturing out to look for her—it was getting close to sunset. When she returned, Mushra even began to yell at her. And the first thing she did was give him a generous hug. She then proceeded to give one to Saago, Kutal, Rey, Sen, and Estee, all without a word. Mushra thought about asking why, but blew off the gesture instead—humans were strange creatures, he thought. And as the sun set on the forest, with Hacuba recharging, the kittens playing, Saago and Mushra gathering firewood and Kutal starting dinner, Yakumo couldn't help but wonder if Gyasa and Ruesphine were still in the forest, still on the rock, still talking in a code only known to lovers, still saying a million things to each other with only a glace and a moment holding hands. She even felt a pang of jealousy, knowing that she was forever devoted to the cause of peace and didn't have time for things like love, things she knew they'd be spending the rest of their lives on. And as hints of orange and red and pink and blue lit up the Enterran sky, welcoming the dark blue night with bright rays of unidentifiably gleaming, dripping light sent by the setting sun over the horizon of trees, Yakumo wondered if they would be more in love tomorrow than they had been today. She hoped so.