In retrospect, it was the demon's fault. If it hadn't killed his horse as well as damaged Kurogane's armor, he wouldn't have been so desperately short on cash that he would stoop to accepting the assignment, which was so far from his field of expertise. Everything after that was just fate, as Tomoyo would say with that smile in the corner of her mouth.
"Are you sure you can kill a dragon? You don't seem very - ... well, prepared," said the priest, eyeing Kurogane with some concern.
"I'll be fine," Kurogane replied curtly. He'd taken down demons larger than most dragons before, solo; like most demon hunters he had no respect for their dragon-slaying counterparts, who traveled in caravans stuffed with unnecessary supplies and would never dream of encountering their prey on an open field of combat. Cowards, the lot of them.
"It's a big one," the priest added, as though Kurogane hadn't worked that out for himself. No small dragon could have left those tracks buried in the cattle pasture, let alone flown off with a cow in each back foot. It was still smaller than a particularly nasty demon he had fought sixty ri west of here, and from what the locals said, it was an acid-spitter, which meant it wouldn't be able to use its breath weapon against a close-range melee opponent. If he was going to deviate from his norm he'd take an acid-spitter over a firebreather any day.
"I'll be fine," he said again. He'd spent the day getting his armor repaired and stocking up on what supplies he could; it was a few days' trek out to the lakeside cave the black dragon had made its home.
"Then may fate shine on you," said the priest, and then insisted on praying over him, and then burnt incense for him, and all in all Kurogane was lucky he escaped the town within the day.
It was good weather for traveling. The sky remained resolutely blue, and he kept half an eye on it at all times, looking for the telltale black shape that would be too angular to be a crow. He saw a bright scarlet shape distantly, but it had the long tapered wings of a cross-country courier, hired by the royal family, and would not be stopping until it reached its destination.
Although he missed his horse, his pack was light and the air was clear and sweet. He crested gentle hills and waded through shallow streams; he found the river that was supposed to feed the lake he sought on his second day out from the town. There was a small village, perhaps six or seven huts, on the shore; he bought a bowl of hot steaming food from a woman with a kind smile and sat on the docks to eat it, watching thoughtfully as men and women poled their way up and down the river with nets. Their goal did not seem to be fish, and he was proven right when one tiny floating vessel - too minuscule to be a boat - came to shore, heaped high with shimmering, shifting discs, familiar to anyone who spent time around Nihon's nobility and their bright shining costumes.
Children set upon the haul as soon as it was emptied upon the dock, sorting the river dragon scales into piles in no apparent order that he could see. White scales went with blue and green, and large ones were mixed with small. The damaged scales were tossed aside, rejected, but mindful of their healing properties, he bought a few with the last dregs of money in his coin purse.
He prepared them there on the dock, sitting cross-legged and crushing them carefully between two shaped river stones. His mother had begun his lessons in this field and it was her method he used rather than Tomoyo's, who had finished it; he mixed the powder with thyme and willowbark, for luck and less bloody wounds. He didn't realize he had an audience until he set the stones down.
The fact that the man had managed to remain so unnoticed surprised him. He looked out of place, sitting cross-legged on a pylon at the other end of the docks, his elbows on his knees and his face propped on the back of his hands; when he saw Kurogane looking at him he smiled, his startlingly blue eyes crinkling. His hair was longer than Kurogane's own, a fine ash blond, and his clothing was unfamiliar and foreign. The villagers didn't seem to notice him. Kurogane scowled at the stranger, embarrassed at being caught off guard, and mouthed what are you looking at across the wooden dock, over the heads of the children bent low over the scale harvest.
"You, of course, Mr Grumpy," said the stranger cheerfully, his voice loud enough to carry over the excited hum of the villager's discussions. Kurogane narrowed his eyes and the blond unfolded himself, sliding off the pylon. There was a fluid grace to his movements as he approached Kurogane, his hands folded behind his back. "What are you doing?"
"None of your business," Kurogane said gruffly, his hackles still up from the mr grumpy remark.
"Of course it's not any of my business! I'm asking because it's not. If it were my business I'd know already and thus, wouldn't need to ask. Pay attention," the stranger replied airily. He bent and picked up one of the scale powder-dusted rocks, and Kurogane snarled at him. "Hyuuuuu~! Such a grouchy puppy!"
"I - I'm not - I'm not a fucking puppy!" Kurogane hissed, incensed, and the blond gave him a lazy smile. His eyes were bright with amusement.
"If I don't have your name I can only call you by a nickname, yes? I'm Fai~!"
"Kurogane," he said stiffly. The blond pursed his lips.
"Kuro-gane," he murmured as if to himself, giving the name three syllables instead of the four Kurogane had quite clearly enunciated. "Kur-ga-ne? Kuro-tan?"
"Kurogane!"
"Puppy is easier to remember," Fai protested, pouting. He turned the rock in his hand over and then licked the dust off it with one wet pink tongue, before Kurogane could stop him. "Hyuu~! Dragon dust is powerful!"
"You're not supposed to eat it, you goddamn idiot," Kurogane replied, although truthfully he was impressed the man hadn't passed out. Raw powder could have that effect on people.
"Tastes like mint," Fai said thoughtfully, and Kurogane shook his head and turned back to the glazed bowl of powder and herbs. It took a lot of mixing to gain the full effect of the concoction, and he bent over his task, hoping the blond would get the hint.
Instead, Fai set down opposite him, his legs before him and his palms resting comfortably on his knees. His eyes were alert and intrigued. He watched Kurogane work for a while; after two more boats had returned with their cache of scales he said, "So why are you here?"
"Looking for a dragon," Kurogane grunted.
"For scales?" Fai tilted his head to one side and Kurogane sighed.
"To kill it," he said brusquely. "There's a particular black dragon who nests at the lake at the mouth of this river. She's been killing cows."
Fai blinked at him. "That's it? That's worth a death sentence?" He bit his lower lip.
"The cows don't belong to her," Kurogane pointed out. "You think she'd let humans live if they stole her treasure?"
"Of course not," said Fai. "But treasure is treasure. Cows are food."
Kurogane snorted. "If she wanted them so bad she could trade her treasure and buy some. She's stealing from humans who need those cows."
"Oh," Fai said, and sounded less than exuberant for the first time since he'd invaded Kurogane's space. Kurogane eyed him cautiously. "Aren't you going to try talking to her first? At home - in my country dragons listen to reason."
"This is Nihon," Kurogane replied shortly, and the blond pouted at him. "Why are you here?"
Fai paused, and a slow smile curved his lips. "I'm looking for a dragon too," he said. "We should team up."
"No."
"Kuro-rin is mean! Two are better than one!"
"MynameisnotKuro-rin and what the hell could you do to a dragon? You'd snap in half if one looked at you!"
"That's easy," Fai said. "I can do this."
And he raised a hand and drew a shining blue shape in the air, a shape that flickered and twisted and then exploded in little sparks of light. Behind him, on the docks, the children paused in their sorting of the scales to gape in wonder.
"... You're a wizard," Kurogane said, scowling.
"More of a mage than a wizard," Fai replied helpfully.
Kurogane snorted. "Like there's a difference. I'm not splitting the reward money with you. I need a new horse."
"I don't care about the money," Fai said. "I just want to see her. Talk to her, maybe. It's a... thing, back home."
"You're a little too old to be undergoing a rite of manhood," Kurogane said, eyeing the mage, who threw his head back and laughed. "What's so funny?"
"N-nothing," Fai said, still grinning. "That's not why I'm here, either way."
"You're a thief, aren't you," Kurogane said with a groan. Thieves were the worst sort. They broke into dragon caves and stole their treasure, and they were never the ones who suffered when the dragon realized its belongings were missing.
"Nope," Fai replied cheerfully. "
"Well, you're not a dragon hunter," Kurogane said.
Fai raised an eyebrow. "Oh~? How can Kuro-dragonsbane be sure?"
Kurogane bristled at the teasing title, but forced himself to ignore it. "You're not nearly drunk enough, and there's only one of you. No real dragon hunter would be that brave."
"Aren't they brave enough, doing what they do?" Fai asked sweetly, and Kurogane growled.
"Not you too," he said. "Do you know how dragon hunters work? They travel in gangs, trick dragons into swallowing drugged meat, tie them down and then tear them apart while they're unconscious. That's not bravery. Their profession is a disgrace to the name 'hunter'."
Fai's blue eyes flashed, although with what Kurogane couldn't say. "And you aren't a dragon hunter usually?"
"I hunt demons," Kurogane corrected. "And I don't rely on tricks to kill them. I have my honour."
"I see," Fai said, thoughtfully. He looked away, out over the choppy ripples of the river. Kurogane watched him tersely for a few seconds, and then returned to grinding the scales in the bowl to dust, keeping half an ear out.
After a moment, Fai said, "I'm a scholar."
Kurogane grunted.
"I wanted to see a dragon close-up, and, well, when I heard she was here I couldn't pass up the opportunity! I've never seen a dragon with my own eyes before." Another pause, and then the blond said, slyly, "I bet Kuro-hunter hasn't seen one either."
"Of course I have," Kurogane said, matter-of-factly. "Maybe they're rare where you're from, but there's a lot of them in Nihon. I've only seen a few on the ground, though, mostly they keep themselves up high."
"Oh!" Fai clapped his hands in delight. "Tell me about them."
"There's... not much to say," Kurogane said, uncomfortable with the intense way the blond was watching him, those piercing blue eyes fixated on his face. "I saw a rockborer at a steel mine once. They tame them for quarrying. And I saw a river dragon talking to a shrine Miko... that was a long time ago."
His hand had drifted to Ginryuu's scabbard, and he realized his fingers had unconsciously tightened on the leather. With a grunt he forced them to relax. It had been a long time ago indeed since he stepped outside to see them, his mother kneeling by the river surface, her face level with the great green eyes of the beast. They had been talking like old friends, in hushed low voices, and he had stood and watched them in awe for some time before they noticed him, the dragon vanishing under the water.
"Is that it?" Fai asked, sounding disappointed.
"What more is there? Dragons are dragons!" Kurogane couldn't keep a note of defensiveness out of his voice, but the blond's pout was grating.
"Storm dragons!" Fai replied immediately, as though it should be obvious, and Kurogane rolled his eyes. "What's wrong, Kuro-dismissive?"
"I don't believe they exist anymore, that's what's wrong," Kurogane growled. "Nobody's seen one in centuries. Probably we killed them, I hear their leader was really dangerous. They used to be real bastards to humans."
He ran the fingers of his left hand over the sculpted mouth of the dragon carved out of Ginryuu's hilt as he spoke, the little fangs sharp and pointed. The carving never seemed to lose its shape, no matter what happened to the sword; she had been a gift, given freely generations ago. Family legend said the founding Suwas had been dragon-slayers of an exceptional caliber, back when the job meant something. It had been one of the few things to survive the fall of his home; not even the dragon fire had melted it.
"Sometimes," Fai agreed, sounding wistful. "But they were supposed to be so pretty."
"Pretty doesn't matter when it's a dragon with teeth longer than this sword," Kurogane said shortly, and turned back to crushing the scales, ignoring Fai's attempts to continue the conversation.
Idiot.
Of course, because the gods hated him, he ended up stuck with the blond. When it came time for him to continue his route upriver the mage simply followed him; he had no supplies, no pack, and when Kurogane yelled at him merely shrugged and smiled and said, "Magic, remember?"
"You're a moron," Kurogane told him. The sun was going down, but he had excellent night vision and had had a lengthy break; he intended to keep walking long after the stars came out. "I'm not gonna wait for you."
"You won't have to," Fai said cheerfully, and unfortunately the scrawny bastard was right. He was fast and quick, and he not only kept up with Kurogane just fine but had energy to spare, darting into undergrowth to explore the surroundings or - on three separate occasions - scaling trees like a cat to look out over the landscape. After the second time Kurogane gave up wishing that the fool would fall out head-first; he seemed to have the luck of the gods themselves.
That night Kurogane built a campfire out of dry wood on barren rocks close to the river bank. Fai turned up with food; a couple of geese, their heads suspiciously melted. Kurogane glared at him and Fai merely grinned and said gleefully, "I wasn't planning on eating the heads, were you?"
"Two is a waste," Kurogane replied. They were big birds. Fai merely shrugged again, and smiled his stupid smile, and then watched with rapt fascination as Kurogane plucked the first goose, making no move to help. Kurogane gritted his teeth as he gutted the creature, and Fai's eyes followed the shining heap of viscera as he tossed it out into the dark, away from the fire.
"Hyuuu~" Fai said, that idiotic noise again. "Peo - Nihon people eat so messily."
"Of course," Kurogane said, stung by the superiority of the sentence. "It's never nice to watch food being prepared."
"Unless you eat it whole!" Fai said, grinning, and Kurogane rolled his eyes. He cut the wings off and quartered the bird and sent Fai out to find both thick branches to roast the pieces on and to fill up Kurogane's water canteen; the mage seemed to find the whole thing hilarious, and held his goose meat gingerly over the fire as though he couldn't see the point while Kurogane washed his bloody arms clean. Kurogane was quite sure the meat Fai roasted over the fire wasn't entirely done before he ate it; he'd hope the idiot would contract food poisoning, but his damnable luck would probably mean he survived unscathed.
After the meal he unfurled his bedroll by the campfire, pointedly turning his back on the obnoxious blond, and let sleep take him, to little purpose; he was woken a scant few hours later by the sound of the night scavengers quarreling over the unwanted goose guts. Fai was sitting up by the fire still, feeding it tiny twigs; his pale blond hair looked richer and darker in the light. "You should sleep," Kurogane said shortly. "It's safe here. I'd know if something approached."
"Kuro-puppy makes a good guard dog," Fai said, and his teeth were very white in the fire's glow. He shifted, lying down where he had sat and wriggling to try and get comfortable, and Kurogane growled and went for his pack, rummaging through it until he found his favorite black winter cloak. He pitched it over the fire - its ends blowing gaps in the flames - and it hit the wizard square in the face.
"Sleep on that," he said, and when Fai opened his mouth, added, "Just do it."
Fai's lips curved into a smile and he spread the cloak out, squirming on top of it.
For a while there was blessed silence from the mage. Kurogane's eyes began to drift closed; he was almost all the way asleep when Fai said, quietly, in a voice so small it could barely be heard over the fire, "Thank you."
"Shut up and sleep," Kurogane said, and then, feeling unwillingly guilty, added, "We have a lot to do tomorrow."
Fai's soft heh of amusement followed him into dreams.
The next day started poorly, with thick grey clouds all the way to the horizon. Something had gotten to the second goose corpse in the night; it had vanished without a trace, not even foot prints around the area it had been stolen from, and that bugged Kurogane: nothing should have gotten so close to the camp with him unawares. On top of that, there was a familiar reek in the air, and a pull to the south that he recognized.
He shook Fai awake, or tried to. The blond just turned his face away, huddling further down into the thick, over-sized cloak, and mumbled something in a language Kurogane couldn't recognize. He woke up nicely enough when Kurogane emptied his water canteen over the wizard's head though, which had the twofold benefits of getting him moving and providing a bright spot to Kurogane's day.
"Get up," he said, biting back a grin as the blond surfaced from the depths of slumber like an enraged river dragon, his soaked hair plastered to his forehead and sputtering. "There's demons around."
Fai paused, mid-swipe as he tried to thumb his wet hair out of his eyes. "Demons?" he said.
"Yeah. Probably two, and not near here. They're not coming this way, but I've gotta take care of them anyway, in case they see that village and get ideas."
Fai scrambled to his feet as Kurogane turned back to his pack, folding his bedroll up and storing it. The wizard was moving stiffly; Kurogane caught himself wondering if he had anything in his herbal stores that would alleviate the idiot's morning pains and stopped himself. Fai had chosen to tag along with no supplies, let him find out for himself what the lifestyle entailed.
Ginryuu had been tucked under the edges of his bedroll, as was his custom. He picked her up and noticed Fai's eyes tracing her admiringly, coming to linger on her hilt. "What," he said.
For a second Fai looked like he might say something, and then he turned his head away. "Nothing," he said. "So, are we going after these demons?"
"Of course," Kurogane said, and then paused, backtracking. "'We'?"
"I can handle myself," Fai replied proudly, and pushed on before Kurogane could quite express just how much he did not believe this. "Do you normally hunt demons for free?"
Kurogane glared at him. "Yes," he said tightly.
"But you need a fee to hunt dragons." Fai was still evading eye contact; with his face turned away, it was hard to read his expression, but his body was tense, muscles stiff.
"Yes," he ground out.
"Is it something to do with the sword?" Fai asked, looking at him truly, and Kurogane blinked. This was not what he expected. "Since she's dragon made," Fai added. His gaze was steady on Kurogane's. "How did you come by her?"
"She was a family heirloom," Kurogane growled, narrowing his eyes. Fai looked surprised, but then thoughtful. "How do you know she's dragon made?"
"Scholar, Kuro-tan. I know dragon artifacts," Fai replied quietly, and Kurogane snarled. "Your family must have done a very great service for a very powerful dragon. I never thought I'd get to see another artifact like that."
He sounded wistful, but Kurogane just saw Suwa burning, black wings beating steadily away through a smoke-stained sky. "She's ours," he said, coldly. "Who made her doesn't matter. She's ours."
Fai watched him, the carefree expression he usually wore subdued, and then he nodded. "Alright," he said. "She's yours." He broke eye-contact then, bending down to pick up Kurogane's cloak, and began to fold it neatly with long, slender fingers. "You said the demons were far away from here?"
Kurogane latched onto the change of topic gratefully, letting his hackles go down as he took the cloak from the mage and put it back in his pack. "A few hours out of our way," he said.
Fai smiled at him, a wan, thin smile that didn't touch his eyes. "We should get moving," he said, and Kurogane grunted agreement, turning away so he didn't have to look at the mage. Ginryuu felt hot in his hand, her magic responding to his emotional state, and he took a deep breath and thought of what Tomoyo had taught him, pushing his anger away from him and into the steel of her blade. He ought to have known she was dragon made; not even Amaterasu had a sword of her caliber. He'd never even heard of a blade that could match her.
He'd seen a few other draconic artifacts, of course, in Shirasagi; relics of past emperors and empresses, suits of armor that gleamed rust-free after decades of storage. They had been hidden after Suwa fell, after the storm dragons had failed to respond to their ancient pact with Amaterasu for answers and alliance.
For a while Fai and he walked in silence, Fai very carefully looking anywhere at the landscape except at him. The mage did not explore the way he had yesterday, and Kurogane found he missed the idiot's excessive energy. It seemed an odd trait for a scholar, even a wandering one, but perhaps it went with his chosen specialty.
"I've never seen a demon before," Fai said, interrupting the silence. "Kuro-ninja knows them better than I. Are they scary?"
"You ask that now you're on your way to meet them?" Kurogane couldn't keep his irritation from his voice and didn't try; the mage was woefully unprepared.
"Well, it's better than asking it on the way back from meeting them," Fai said in a patronizing tone, and Kurogane growled. "How did you end up being a demon hunter?"
"Does it matter?" Kurogane asked.
"Of course. What else do we have to do during the walk, hmmm~? Unless Kuro-cranky wants to play I-Spy with me -"
"No!"
"- then talk." Fai grinned at him, satisifed with himself, and Kurogane sighed heavily.
"No," he said. Fai pouted at him but he'd been ready for it and just scowled at the mage. "It's personal," he said forcefully. "Do you see me asking you how you became a travelling dragon scholar?"
"Oh, that's easy, I lost a bet," Fai said dismissively, and Kurogane manfully resisted the urge to hit him upside the head. "There was alcohol involved, I think, and then I - umph!"
"Shut up," Kurogane told him, keeping his hand firmly over the wizard's mouth. He could feel Fai's smile against his palm, his hot breath, the slight press of his teeth. Abruptly Fai licked him; the sensation sent a bizarre shiver up his spine and awkwardly he pulled back, feeling unsure and lost as to why. "What are you, twelve?" he growled, to cover up for his reaction.
Fai opened his mouth to say something and stopped; Kurogane felt it too, at the same time, and he hooked two fingers in the mage's collar and pulled him into the grass just as the dragon burst over the trees.
She was carrying another cow pressed close to her chest, and her wings were long and elegant. Her tail was clubbed and spiked, a weapon on its own right; she flew low to the treeline, close enough that Kurogane could see the red of her eyes. Her hide was a deep glossy black, her scales small and spaced together. She had what appeared to be a set of horns swept low around her face, jutting out below her jaw and curving down toward the ground; Kurogane guessed they were where her acid came from, to avoid her burning her own hide. Fai had gone tense next to him; as her shadow passed over them the blond murmured something that sounded like shingfou, words that Kurogane did not recognize; they were not nihingo and he guessed them to be from Fai's unknown tongue.
They remained in the grass until she had disappeared from sight, headed unerringly upriver, and then Fai rolled over and pushed himself upright, his weight supported on his hands, staring after her.
"That was a dragon," Kurogane said pointedly, getting up and dusting himself off. "Did she look reasonable to you?"
"I know," Fai said, eyes still fixed on the shrinking black speck. "I just wasn't expecting her to be so..."
"Big?" Kurogane suggested, with a faint aura of smugness.
Fai said nothing for a moment, and then sighed. "Lost," he replied, quietly, and then climbed to his feet. "We should... we should find those demons. And then her. Before she moves on from cows."
"You think she'll turn into a man-eater?"
"She already has," Fai said softly, but quietened after that. Kurogane let it go. Maybe there were visible signs, or maybe the mage was just rattled by his first sight of a dragon. It didn't matter.
He closed his eyes, seeking the foul presences he knew so well; the demons were perhaps one and a half ri away, moving south still. They were moving very slowly, which could be caused by any number of things. "Come on," he said, and Fai obediently fell into step behind him.
They were back on the river path by late afternoon, Kurogane cleaning blood from Ginryuu's blade with the tattered rag that had been Fai's overcoat. The scholar had been lucky; the blow that had slit the coat would have disemboweled him, if Kurogane hadn't hauled him backward in time. Not that that stopped the mage from whining about it.
He hadn't been useless, though, Kurogane would give him that. The flickery lights he'd summoned on the docks had made a reappearance, but as fierce, concussive explosions that shredded demon flesh and made noises like fireworks; he'd taken down the one with no legs alone, his magic so strong Kurogane could smell it from across the battlefield. He hadn't seen what else the mage had done, too busy with his own demon, but he'd seen the marks on the corpses; blackened cracked flesh and torn hide, the muscle underneath peeled away as though something with razor claws had slashed at it. Fai said afterward that it was a simple matter of throwing a knife in the air and letting magic drive it in harder than muscle ever could.
He was walking well enough; the bleeding had stopped a long time ago, although he kept an arm wrapped around his midriff as he whined. Kurogane tuned him out with a skill that was becoming effortless. He'd heard the difference between Fai truly surprised and Fai moaning for moaning's sake, and he didn't think this was Fai's first war wound either.
The river path was mostly overgrown, and as they walked further uphill the more nature had tried to take it back. Kurogane remembered this area dimly, the layout different on the ink and paper maps to actually treading it with his own feet; there had been a shrine in the middle of the lake, a holy place, but it had fallen decades ago. Perhaps that was where the dragon denned.
The road ended with four ri to go; the river was shallow here, and dry. Fai wanted to go around but Kurogane didn't see the point in elongating their trip, and they ended up traveling across the exposed stones of the river bed, Fai grumbling about how he would trip and fall and break his neck and Kurogane responding to let him know that would be perfect. There was no bite to his words, and Fai kept looking at him with a smile dancing at the corner of his mouth. It was companionable, sweet in a way Kurogane hadn't ever had before; his relationship with the royals was always tainted by the power differential, and Souma had been his master, showing him the ropes of demon hunting after he had first arrived alone and wounded at the castle. She would never be his friend, not entirely.
Fai was obnoxious; he hardly ever shut up, he knew too much, and he acted like an idiot near all the time. Kurogane got the feeling that the mage was lonely, though, or why else would he have chosen this route? Why else would be be wandering, possession less, attaching himself to the first person he saw who would put up with him?
He felt like he had known Fai for a while, although why he should feel this way was lost on him. Fai treated him like an old acquaintance, but then Fai probably treated everyone like that, which was why Kurogane didn't feel too bad about suggesting they stop for the night just before the dragon's lair.
"She's right there, Kuro-puppy," Fai said, raising an eyebrow. There were only a few trees between them and the lake.
"Kurogane," he corrected, absently. "Yeah, I know. But look, moron: you're wounded. She's a dragon. I know you want to see her, but she's going to crush you into the dirt."
"I'm fine, Kuro-nanny - "
"Have you ever slain a dragon before?" Kurogane demanded. Fai went very quiet, watching him with a blank expression, and Kurogane pressed on. "I haven't. I don't want to fuck around."
"Are you worried about me?" Fai said, sounding thunderstruck, and Kurogane hissed in instant denial. The idiot began to laugh, and Kurogane could feel mortification burning in his cheeks. "You are! Kuro-growly is worried about me~!"
"Iamfuckingnot!" Kurogane snarled, but Fai turned away, his shoulders shaking. Mortified, Kurogane turned on one heel and stomped away, fuming. Of course he wasn't worried about the blond. He'd only just met the moron, the idiot, the - the - Fai.
Fai came and found him after a while; he was sitting morosely on an overturned log at the top of a small ridge that sloped sharply downhill to the lake. The shrine was clearly visible on an island in the centre of the water; it had been abandoned for a long time, and it showed. The cave the dragon denned in was visible more for the scarring around it; huge swathes of vegetation had been flattened and destroyed, and she had left a trail of cattle bones outside. Her latest kill had been dumped on the beach leading to the lake, half eaten. A crow was perched on the wet red glint of a ribcage, bent over to tug on something.
"So do we have a plan?" Fai asked quietly, slinking up behind him and joining him on the log. His eyes were bright in the gloom.
"Yeah," Kurogane said. "We need to get her out of that cave. Otherwise she's just going to crush us against the walls, and I can't use Ginryuu."
"That should be easy enough," Fai said mildly. "If our presence alone doesn't bring her out I can get her out with magic."
Kurogane eyed him thoughtfully and then grunted consent. "She's an acid-spitter," he said, "But from the look of her she can only spit straight down. Don't stand under her and try and keep her own body between you and her jaws. Her acid hurts her, too."
"Her hide looked weak at the back of her neck, right at the base," Fai said. "It's a common weakness."
Kurogane nodded; that was good to know. "Watch the fucking tail," he said, thinking of its barbs and spikes.
Fai's lip peeled back slightly, exposing his teeth. "I wasn't intending to run into it," he said, amused, and then he moved - faster than Kurogane had expected. He seized Kurogane's left hand in both of his, flattening it out.
"What are you doing?" Kurogane said, his heartbeat quickening despite himself. His voice at least sounded level.
"Protection charm," Fai said distracted, and, keeping Kurogane's palm exposed by holding his fingers away, drew blue runes in the air just over Kurogane's hand. They fell, gracefully, downward and when they met his skin they tingled icily. "Should render her acid a little less dangerous. It won't save you if you take a face ful, though."
"I wasn't intending to stand in it," Kurogane replied, in conscious mimicry of Fai, and Fai grinned at him. His face looked even paler than usual in the dusk, but his eyes looked more alert. The odd buzzing sensation from the runes he'd inscribed was spreading, flowing, up from Kurogane's palm through his arm and on to the rest of him.
Abruptly Fai seemed dangerously close; Kurogane took his hand back, seeing no more runes forthcoming, and Fai did not fight him. They looked away from each other, Fai into the wilderness at his left, Kurogane fixating on the cave entrance below them.
"We should. Um." Fai cleared his throat. It was the first time Kurogane had heard him sound flustered. "We might as well sleep. Or one of us should, anyway, the other can keep watch."
Kurogane studied him thoughtfully, and then nodded. "I'll take first watch," he said brusquely.
"I think I should," Fai said. "Your night eyes are better than mine." He still wouldn't meet Kurogane's gaze, and Kurogane sighed and nodded.
"Don't do anything stupid," he said, pointedly, and went for his bedroll.
"I would never," Fai said, and Kurogane had never heard a clearer lie.
Sure enough, he caught Fai sneaking toward the cave not even an hour later. It was depressingly easy to trick the idiot; he simply went limp and relaxed his breathing, and after twenty minutes listened as the pine needles crunched under Fai's feet as he mage attempted to leave in stealth. He gave the man a ten minute headstart before sneaking out of his the camp and going in pursuit.
Your night eyes are better than mine. Yeah, right.
Hadn't the moron been paying attention? There would be no reasoning with dragons, especially not this one. She stole from humans quite knowingly, and some of the bones outside her cave had not looked like cattle bones. She was no doubt sentient, Kurogane would grant her that, but she reminded him strongly of the dragon that had visited Suwa province. Sentience did not guarantee a worthy character.
His boots made no sound upon the carpet of pine needles. Fai was quiet and sneaky, but Kurogane had had a lifetime of being quieter and sneakier, and Fai didn't realize he was there until he slipped up behind the blond and put his hand firmly over the idiot's mouth.
Fai threw him into a tree.
There was no finesse to the move; the mage simply instinctively whipped his body to one side, lashing out with a hand as he did so, but the blow was a hard one, much harder than that skeletal frame should have been capable of. Kurogane hissed silently and Fai stared at him, his eyes almost seeming to shine, cat-like, in the silvery darkness.
"Kuro-chan," he said, dumbly, and then flushed. "It's - it's not -"
"Idiot," Kurogane said, shoving back against the tree. His ribs twinged; he adjusted his armor. "I knew you were lying."
"I wasn't - Kuro-puppy, you don't understand -"
"Lay off the fucking nicknames," he said, sounding tired. Fai closed his mouth and watched him uncertainly. Kurogane paused, thinking out how to go ahead. "I know you're not a scholar," he said carefully. "I noticed the lack of books. I don't know what you want with the dragon. But whatever it is, she's not going to do it."
"Kurogane," said Fai quietly. He pronounced the name right, but it still felt wrong to Kurogane, like a fumbled chord in a song.
"I know you think she's sentient," he said, ignoring the mage. "She might be. That doesn't change the fact that she's evil. They all are. You wanted to know why I became a demon hunter? Because a sentient black dragon burned down my home, wizard, and killed my parents, and when we asked the storm dragons why they ignored us. My family shrine was safe for dragons." He looked away, his jaw set. "The people who took me in... they trained me. To kill demons, like them."
"I... I'm sorry," Fai said. His voice was a thin thing, sorrowful, and Kurogane hated him for it suddenly. It was not his sorrow to claim.
"Shut up," he said. "You could go down there. You could ask her to stop killing cows and people. She might even agree, she might even let you leave, but she'll kill you before you get back. Maybe it used to be that the storm dragons kept the rest of them in line. I don't know. The dragon who burned my home down was one."
"Suwa," Fai said, and his eyes widened in shock. "You're -"
"Shut up," Kurogane snarled, incensed by the name, at the lasting legacy of the Suwa family: never trust a dragon. He leaned closer, forcing Fai to move back. "My mother burned to death, mage. My father was slaughtered by the demons that followed the dragon like a shadow. I am not sending you to your death."
"I have to go," said the mage, wretchedly. "It's my task, Kurogane. I'm sorry about your family. We never-"
"Yeah," said Kurogane. "No." And he hooked his left arm across Fai's shoulder, bringing the blond right up against his chest and trapping his hands between them even as he brought his right hand out from his behind his back, slapping the cloth it contained firmly over Fai's mouth and nose. Fai's eyes widened in shock and he jerked, and then again, harder, but Kurogane clutched him tighter with every inch of muscle he had, teeth gritted as Fai's convulsions weakened. He had counted on Fai deliberately not using his magically enhanced strength here. It was not the kind of person the idiot was.
"Dragon scale powder and lime," he said, and Fai's eyes narrowed even as his thrashing slowed. "You won't be out for more than an hour."
Fai went limp.
In the end, he left Fai with the bedroll and his spare dagger, tucking a tanto into his boots. The potion he'd made on the dock he drank as he strode down to the lake entrance. He tried to remember the things they'd discussed earlier - avoid the tail hit her behind the neck bring her outside - but his thoughts kept running to Fai; to the ticklish feeling of Fai's finger tracing over his palm, the curve of Fai's stupid smile, the nagging feeling of familiarity, the look on Fai's face when he'd told him about his family.
Idiot, he thought, angry at the mage and at himself both. The blond was just someone who had followed him from the village, a wanderer and a liar. He wasn't even a friend.
He touched his hand to Ginryuu's hilt, trying to disperse his anger the way he had been taunt; his mind went back to those lessons - his wiry teenage frame just capable of supporting Ginryuu's weight, Souma kicking him about the palace gardens without even using her hands. You are not here by accident, Tomoyo had said. But your revenge should not control you. Demons do so much more damage than dragons. Learn.
Well, he had a black dragon before him, and he had been practicing for so long on demons.
He drew Ginryuu from her scabbard in one fluid moment. Her blade was glowing red with his anger, the way it hadn't since that night. She was dragon-made, perhaps, but she was, always, his and in his hand she felt like fire.
He skirted the lake on its eastern shore, making a respectful gesture to the abandoned shrine at its centre. Calling in divine favors didn't seem like such a bad idea. Up close the cave stank, the leathery dry smell of dragon mixed with the decay of old blood and old corpses, and the sharp scent of acid.
He kept his footsteps soft and even as he slipped into its mouth. It was dark and she was not nocturnal. Sure enough, she was stretched out on the floor, asleep when he entered; her great wings were hoisted up, high on her back, their trailing edges covering and shielding the supposed vulnerable spot on the base of her neck.
She slept like a cat otherwise, her forelegs stretched out and her head pillowed on them, her tail wrapped around her hind legs. She was lying partially next to and partially on top of her treasure; her acidic horns were arranged so they touched no part of her flesh. The spiked club at the end of her tail twitched in the throes of her dreams.
Kurogane let his lip peel back from his teeth. He could, perhaps, end her like this. One great overhead leap with Ginryuu while she slept and that long thin neck would be easily severed. And then he would live knowing he had shamed his parents, that he had let down Tomoyo who had taught him the virtues of honor, that he had used the cowardly tactics of the dragon hunters.
Instead he picked up a heavy goblet, and threw it at her. It struck her pretty solidly on the head; she surged awake with a hiss of rage, baring her teeth at him, her red eyes flaring in anger. When she saw him some of the anger ebbed out of her body to be replaced with confusion; her wings lowered but remained spread, her teeth were concealed. "Human?" she said, sounding confused. Her forked tongue flickered. "What issss this? Are you here for my treasure?" Her spiked tail flicked pointedly side to side, sending gold coins cascading down atop each other, and she lifted her wings and unfurled them to their fullest, lazily, as a cat might stretch. "You are welcome to try."
"I'm here to kill you," he said.
"You? You think you could kill me, Xing Huo? You? Kill the premier minion of the rebel ssstorm dragon himssself?" Her teeth flashed as she laughed throatily; Kurogane said nothing, merely sliding Ginryuu into an attack position, and her laughter died abruptly. "That sssword," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"Where did you get it?" When he didn't answer she threw her head back and roared; he didn't so much as flinch. "Where did you get it?"
"It's mine," he replied quietly.
She spat at him, then, but he had seen it coming and skittered back, dancing out of her range. Her acid scored the floor, black patches that bubbled, and she snarled in frustration, folding her wings; he slid neatly out of the cave, Ginryuu blazing in his hand.
She burst out of the cave faster than he would have expected and lunged for him with a paw; he leaped over it, easily, twisting Ginryuu as he landed to slash across her foreleg. She roared in anger and went for him, but he ducked under her chest, and her acid spit hit her own leg; her shriek of pain almost deafened him.
He fell then into the ease of battle, every motion economical, his eyes for her and her movements. Ginryuu sung at the end of his arm like a part of him; she cut through Xing Huo's hide easily enough, over and over, scoring thin sharp scratches that showed the red of flesh and muscle underneath the black scales. He himself took a few blows that he couldn't entirely avoid, and once the edge of an acid spray to his torso; Fai's charms lit up then, and though his skin smoked and burned the acid did not eat through into the muscle.
He took out her eye and she broke his left wrist with a beat of her tail; he cut a deep gouge across her shoulder and she caught him with her claws, leaving deep furrows in his thigh. His adrenaline was up and he never felt the pain; every sight of her blood only served to push him further, to drive him harder.
He found himself grinning, the old grin of rage and hate; dancing aside from a tailswipe that would have shattered the bones in half his body he savaged her wing membrane for no other reason than it would hurt. She spat acid at him and doused herself again; in her violent heaves of agony her acid-scourged tattered wing clipped him across the shoulder and sent him rolling across the floor.
He regained his feet quickly and alongside her, sensing his chance; her tail was thrashing, knocking trees over, and her head was angled toward her cave; he slid a foot atop the rockface and used it to climb upward. He was aware now of the sting of his many numerous wounds, but as he climbed to the top of the ridge that sheltered her cave he could see she was worse than he was; bleeding from dozens of scratches, beating her damaged wing, limping on the foreleg he'd scored at the start.
He summoned up more anger; anger at her, for being a dragon; anger at the death of his parents; at Fai for thinking this was a reasoning creature; at the storm dragons, the magician class that was supposed to prevent this from ever happening, and who hadn't. He felt the rage boiling in his veins, black and furious in his chest, and then he pushed it into Ginryuu.
"I burnt your parentsss, Youou!" she snarled, and he flinched at his childhood name, thought long abandoned. "Massster Reed ordered me to do it, but I enjoyed it. Your mother wasss in our way! Sssuwa province treated dragonsss well, so we burned it, and Nihon learned, oh yesss it did." She whipped her head from side to side, blood flying from her opened eye, seeking him, and limped around. He could see the back of her neck; one blow would end it. He couldn't move.
"Massster should have been the Ssstorm King!" she snapped. "He wasss the only one worthy of the power! Ssso we broke the treatiessss with the humanssss, and we should have won if the ssstorm dragonsss hadn't banded together! Your kind killed ssso many of usss in revenge, victory wasss so clossse..."
Kurogane narrowed his eyes, linking with Ginryuu, feeding her all the anger he could.
"Your mother died alone and in pain," Xing Huo said, spitefully, and Ginryuu burst into brilliant scarlet flames. He leapt, his eyes fixed on the back of her neck, his heart seething and Ginryuu thirsty for her blood. He leapt, intending to end it here, to lay to rest the ghosts of his parents, dead by this creature's hands.
She caught him mid-leap with her spiked tail with a sound like splintering wood, and sent him crashing to the floor. His sword spilled out of hands that seemed not to work properly, and he landed with a crunch on the ridge, his body twisted at an angle that was painful and impossible.
He could feel wrong inside his chest, fluid where none should be. The pain was intense. Xing Huo made a triumphant noise somewhere in front of him and he tried to growl at her, but his throat was oily with blood and it was all he could do to spit it out.
"Be sssilent," she said, and nosed at Ginryuu. "I wasss right. Thisss is the blade forged for the Sssuwa line by Fluorite all thossse yearsss ago. How did you sssurvive? How did you come to wield thisss sssword?"
"It's mine," he said, trying to move his arm, the unbroken one, toward the tanto in his boot. "It's mine."
"Impossssible," she said loftily. "You should have died. Massster himssself wasss sure of that."
"Didn't look close enough, did he," Kurogane growled, and she turned her head to look at him thoughtfully.
"No," she said. "Not that it mattersss. You are dying here."
His questing fingertips found the very edge of the hilt. He tried to move his leg, to raise the blade closer to his grip, but his entire lower body seemed oddly numb. "Heard that before," he said.
"Possssibly," she agreed amiably. "But likely true thisss time. You are a broken doll, little man. Your ssspine is shattered." She leapt lightly up onto the ridge next to him; droplets of acid fell from her horns, sizzling as they touched the ground. Her teeth were very red, and blood oozed thickly from her ruined eye. Scratches, he thought in dismay; everything I did to her was just a scratch. "You were brave," she added respectfully. "But sstupid. You sssmell of blood and death, human. Blood and death and..."
She sniffed at him thoughtfully, and Kurogane tried to bend sideways to reach the knife, but the ensuing wall of pain indicated that idea was a bad one. Shame. He could have stabbed her as she ate him, maybe left some scarring. "Shut up," he said, weakly.
"You sssmell of rain," she said, and was it a near-death aural hallucination or did she sound rattled? "Why do you smell of rain?"
It didn't seem worth the energy to reply. He let his head loll to one side.
"Because he was with me," said Fai, in a voice like the crashing of thunder, a voice that echoed and boomed like the sound of the sea. Kurogane turned toward it; his vision seemed to be fading, but even he recognized the great shape standing bristled in the doorway as not being human.
Xing Huo's reaction was immediate; she hissed like a cat, flaring out her wings, and spat acid. It pattered against Fai's hide to no effect; it may as well have been water. Kurogane's eyes were closing by themselves; he found himself reaching for the lessons Souma had taught him, as an orphan filled with nothing but rage and pain; lessons designed to centre him, to take him away from distractions.
When he opened his eyes again the fight was still happening, but the sound was oddly muted, as though he were underwater. Fai was easy enough to spot; he was a bright silver, and he moved like lightning, his claws leaving long rents in Xing Huo's hide. Her acid having already proven ineffective she was trapped; she couldn't get her tail to bear on him, and every time she swiped at him with her foreclaws he ducked or dodged.
It would have been an uneven match even if Kurogane hadn't half-blinded her, or left the great bloody gashes along her flank. Fai was larger than her, and like all storm dragons blessed with innate magic. Lightning flashed, unmistakable; Kurogane hoped it hurt her, but there was no rage or pain behind the thought. He turned his head to one side and coughed up more sticky black blood.
"I saw your master dead myself," Fai hissed. "The Storm King sent me to find you."
"My massster was the true sssStorm King!" she snarled, and Fai moved so fast Kurogane didn't even see it; one moment he was in front of her, his forequarters hunched down, and the next he was wrapped around her, his teeth buried in the back of her neck. Thick black blood oozed to the floor; Xing Huo whimpered. Fai's claws punctured through her hide, and then his jaws closed with an audible crunch and he whipped his head from side to side as she twisted and bucked under him and then finally stilled.
Fai let her go, and then he turned and his eyes found Kurogane's; blue eyes, piercing eyes, the exact same shade of blue, and he jumped lightly up onto the ridge, his landing stirring the rocks underneath Kurogane and making him cough weakly, a wretched bubbling sound.
"You never - said you... were..."
"Shut up," Fai said, in a low frightened voice incongrous with his immense, alarming appearance. "Idiot Kuro-chan," he added, and then, in a rush, "Your family line is of my blood. I can heal you, but it will cost you. Yes or no?"
"What..."
"Servitude! Not forever. Hurry."
Even the meditation state couldn't erase the pain anymore; it was blooming red and cloying across his body in sharp bursts. He thought of dying like this, honourably and nobly; it would be a great thing, he was sure; but he had never wanted to die, he had refused to all those years ago, and his surname said why. Last of his line. Kurogane closed his eyes, felt Fai's hot breath on his face. Servitude was one thing. Death was another. "Yes," he said, and the blue light burst through him like wildfire.
He dreamed he saw his parents, holding hands at the river edge. His mother had her hair unbound, and it blew lightly in the breeze, long and silky. His father had his arm around her middle, and as Youou watched he bent his head and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. Both of them smiled at him, then, and lifted their arms to wave; his father cupped his hands around his mouth, and called something to him, something that made him laugh and cry at the same time, with love and joy and healing sorrow, but as soon as the tears fell he forgot what had been said.
Youou raised his own arm and waved them farewell, his cheeks wet and his chest aching, but it was a good ache, his mouth twisted into a smile.
He opened his eyes to the sound of water, somewhere nearby. As he did so he dislodged his tears, which rolled down the side of his face; he blinked to rid them from his eyelashes. There was a sweet scent on the air, like citrus fruits.
"Here," said Fai, leaning over him, human again. He touched something to the side of Kurogane's face, collecting the liquid. It felt like silk.
"You," Kurogane said.
"Me," said Fai, amused. "You took a beating there, Kuro-chan."
"You healed me," Kurogane said, and Fai's mouth tweaked, a sympathetic smile. "You healed me because you're a storm dragon."
"Yes," Fai replied quietly. "I did. I am. I am a storm dragon, and I am the same storm dragon -" he lifted Ginryuu so Kurogane could see it; his long fingers were around the hilt, his thumb rubbing over the carved silver dragon - "who made your sword."
"You put yourself on my family sword," Kurogane said. His limbs ached, and he could feel the soreness of his chest and spine; he wouldn't be moving anywhere anytime soon, which was a shame because the urge to smack the blond idiot upside the head had returned.
"Um... yes?" Fai was looking at him, his mouth working. "... To be honest, that's not the part I thought you were going to focus on first."
"You vain bastard," Kurogane said, and Fai laughed in surprise.
"It was your great-great-great-grandfather's idea, actually," he said, grinning. "He was the best demon hunter I've ever met."
"My great-great-great grandfather was a moron too, then," Kurogane told him, closing his eyes again.
For a long moment silence reigned, interspersed with the whistles of songbirds. Fai touched his cheek with gentle fingers, and Kurogane found he didn't have to resist the urge to bite his hand off, because it wasn't there, Fai slipping past his defenses.
"I agreed to be your servant, didn't I," he said after a while.
"Mmm," Fai agreed. "Don't worry. It's only for a year, and there'll be other humans. And you can always tell me to 'shut up, idiot' if I give you an order you don't like. I bound you to servitude, not slavery."
In an apologetic tone, he added, "It seemed like the kindest option."
"I knocked you unconscious and left you by the lake," Kurogane reminded him.
"Yes," Fai said. "I suppose that makes us even."
"You put yourself on my sword," Kurogane said again, because he kept coming back to that fact, and the dragon laughed, a huff of amusement.
"What happened to it being your family sword?" Fai asked, his fingers moving gently across Kurogane's cheek.
"My family are at peace now," Kurogane said. "I avenged them. Didn't I?"
"Yes."
"So it's just me. For now, at least. That is, unless you're planning on taking the sword back, in which case I will hurt you for it."
Fai grinned at him and picked up his hand, the same hand he had drawn the acid protection runes over. He tucked Ginryuu's scabbard against Kurogane's side, and gently closed Kurogane's fingers over it; the leather felt familiar to his skin. "No," he said. "She's Kuro-sama's now."
"And don't you forget it," Kurogane said, allowing himself to smile back.
"As if I could. Kuro-puppy barks so loudly when people take his things." Fai touched his cheek with his thumb and there was a look in his eyes that Kurogane knew very well, as the thing he had felt at the edge of the lake when he had thought Fai mere human, at the thought that Fai might face down a dragon.
"Hey," he said gently. "Thank you for worrying about me. But I'll be fine."
"Yeah," Fai agreed, his mouth curving upward, and then he leaned forward and kissed Kurogane, chastely.
It was the lightest brush of lips, and he drew back fast enough that Kurogane could have pretended it never happened. Instead he swallowed, licking his lips, and said, "Do you kiss every human you meet?"
"Not as many as you would think," Fai replied in a serious tone of voice, but the line of his upper mouth gave him away and Kurogane just silently bared his teeth at the dragon.
"We made a good partnership," he said, and was surprised at how tired his own voice was. "Against the demons, I mean."
"Yes," Fai said. "That might come in handy, in the mountains."
"Will you kiss me again in the mountains?" Kurogane asked, and Fai chuckled and leaned closer, until his mouth was just inches from Kurogane's ear. Kurogane let his eyes slide closed.
"You'll see," he said, and the promise in his voice followed Kurogane into his dreams.
A/N: I have no idea where this came from, and it's probably mikkeneko's fault. Spot the World of Warcraft reference!
In case Xing Huo's speech infliction isn't allowed by ffnet, which in my experience tends to obliterate triples of letters, she's lisping her Ss. Esses. W/e.
I may be writing a follow up to this... in the mountains.