Branded variety
Summary: What would it be like if Yamato was a priest and Taichi was a pirate? O.o
AN: It's cheesy, it's fluffy, it's silly, it's romantic… it's TAITO!
I got this sudden idea in my head and HAD to write it down. It's written quickly and not Beta'd, but whatver.
Might have slight OOC:ness but I've tried to do this properly. It's only first chapter though. (I completely made up the title, I have no idea if you can put those words
together. But hey, it's my story, I decide what it'll be called).
Warnings: Gayness, violence, language
Chapter 1: Of dreams and storms
There was the kind of freshness in the air that could only mean early summer. The flowers in the cherry blossom trees made the slope look like a pink carpet, descending from the road where the young man was standing. A small river twisted through the emerald grass in the valley, and beyond that, the snowy mountains of the South reached towards a heaven so brilliantly blue that tears stung in the watcher's equally blue eyes. Eastwards, a thick forest made its way towards the ocean hidden behind steep hills. Birds sang and butterflies fluttered in the light of the setting sun. Somewhere in the valley below, a wild horse called for its comrades to join him, and they bolted through the valley, joy of living embodied.
Gathering his white robes, the young man tore his eyes away from the stunning view. No matter how much he wanted to stay here, he had to return to the Temple. As he turned to follow the dusty road the light of the sun made his hair glow like gold, and it was like this, with the sunlight caressing his every feature, dressed in white, blue eyes competing with the sky, that Taichi Yagami saw Yamato Ishida for the first time.
As Yamato prepared himself to continue the long walk back to the temple, there was a sudden sound behind him. He turned around quickly, prepared for the worst. One could never be too careful nowadays. Many were the young men who had went out for a walk on their own and never returned. Thieves haunted these beautiful lands. And from the eastern sea, pirates attacked the cities mercilessly.
The man standing in front of him was nothing like he'd expected. The first thing Yamato noticed was his hair; almost gravity defying in the way it stood out from his head. But it had a nice chocolate colour that went nicely with his warm brown eyes and tanned skin. He had the body of someone who runs and works a lot. His pants were torn and patched and the white coarse shirt was unbelievably dirty. His leather boots had obviously seen better days and so had the bundle hanging carelessly over his right shoulder. His ears were pierced and his arms were adorned with tattoos and scars. Around his neck hung a bracelet made of sharp animal's teeth.
Yamato struggled to take the image in. For a boy like him, who had lived his entire life in a Temple where his only company was other boys just like himself, and his only trips to the city were made in a carriage with soldiers keeping the mob away from him, this was astonishing. The young man – probably in Yamato's age – smiled with surprisingly white teeth, and there was indeed something ruggedly handsome about him.
'He's a pirate.'
The thought appeared in his head quite suddenly, and he slowly grasped the short knife attached to his belt, thinking that if this person indeed showed to be dangerous, then at least he would get the chance to slit his throat if he came close. The man with the chocolate eyes smiled wider when he saw the small knife and gestured at the sword that hung from his hip. Feeling rather defenceless, Yamato started to back away, inwardly cursing for not having listened to the warnings about thieves and pirates. 'If I survive, I will never leave the Temple again' he desperately promised himself as the other man approached him.
He wasn't prepared for what happened next.
"Hi there. I'm Taichi. Relax, man, I'm not gonna attack you or whatever."
A tanned callused hand adorned with several rings was offered to him. Perplexed, he shook it.
"I… um… I'm Yamato."
"Nice to meet you, Yamato", Taichi smiled.
Who was this person? Yamato couldn't for his life connect Taichi to the stories about ravaging pirates. And yet there he stood, the skull and the snake – the King's mark for piracy – burnt into the skin on his right arm.
"So, forgive me for not minding my own business, but what are you doing so far from the teple?" Taichi asked. "You could be attacked, you know."
"Yes, I know" Yamato answered, fully aware of the fact that Taichi knew that he was still afraid of him. "I was actually on my was home. I think I should continue on. It was nice meeting you, goodbye."
He began marching along the road which clung to the mountainside. On the right side, the land sloped down towards the valley. On the left side, the ground was made out of sharp rocks and grass, and the land was climbing towards the top of the mountain where the Temple of the Lords stood in all its glory.
The sound of footsteps behind him made Yamato turn around. Taichi was strolling peacefully along the road, admiring the view. He frowned at Yamato.
"What's up?" he asked innocently.
"You know what's up", Yamato answered, blushing slightly, angry with the stranger for making him feel so vulnerable and weak.
"No I don't" Taichi said calmly and stopped in front of the blond. "Maybe you can enlighten me?"
Yamato took a deep breath, trying to calm down. There was no need to get upset. This was just an ordinary person who was making his way home, just like Yamato himself. An ordinary pirate, to be more precise. 'Dearest Lords, help me', he thought desperately. 'Don't let him kill me.'
"People like you and people like me don't just run into each other and say 'hello'", Yamato said, trying his best not to sound frightened. "In fact, people like me run away from people like you, or worse, get killed by people like you. And people like you get sentenced to death by people like me."
Taichi merely shrugged.
"Don't get yourself so worked up. I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm on my way home just like you. But if it makes you feel better, maybe I should go first."
"Yes please."
Yamato still had his suspicions, but Taichi gave him a friendly smile and a wave before he disappeared.
Not many exciting things happened in the blond's everyday life, and even though he'd been scared, he felt more alive as he walked towards the Teplme than he had felt in a very very long time.
"Yamato, wake up!"
The call startled him, and he fell out of his bed with an un-characteristical clumsiness. Getting up from the floor, he mentally cursed the night. He'd been having constant dreams about the chocolate-eyed young pirate, Taichi. He couldn't remember most of them, and the ones he did remember were too embarrassing to even think about in broad daylight.
Yes, Yamato was homosexual, as were all of the other men serving the Lords. This was what they were brought up to be, male lovers for male Gods, and the women in the Temple were seen as sisters and never more.
The more Yamato thought about him, the more stunning did he find the brunette he'd met the day before. This disturbed him a lot considering how dangerous the man might be. It also disturbed him because he would probably never see him again, if not to sentence him to death for piracy.
The priests at the Temple were the ones who made all the juridical decisions in the country. They were the priests and the law, and the only persons above them on the social ladder were the royal family. They were admired, lusted for and feared by a whole nation. Among the people living on the countryside, people who had never seen a priest of the Temple for real, there were stories and myths about them that gave them almost god status.
And still, this young pirate, probably not even 20 years old yet, had shook Yamato's hand as if he'd met an ordinary farmer. This puzzled him.
But before he could start pondering the strange behaviour of Taichi, the door to his room opened. A beautiful young girl, with slender legs and a perfect complexion, entered the room.
"Yamato! Didn't you hear me? I've been calling for ages!"
"I'm sorry Mimi" he said and offered her a sheepish smile.
She laughed and threw his clean robes to him.
"Come on, get dressed, I'm hungry!"
Mimi was Yamato's maid. She'd been sold to the High Priests when she was just a child, about the same time as Yamato arrived, and they had grown up together. She was more like a friend than a servant, and he was glad to have her.
When he'd finished putting his white robes on, they exited the room. The hallway was pretty empty as they made their way outside. The garden was filled with white-robed priests, sitting in the grass under the apple trees or on the stones by the pond. Some were feeding the birds leftovers from breakfast, some were playing instruments or singing, and some were reading or talking. It was all very peaceful.
Yamato usually loved the Temple for its peace and cleanness, but today it felt a bit too peaceful. A certain brunette repeatedly interrupted his thoughts, and he couldn't enjoy his meal but kept thinking about the intriguing stranger. Seeing as this was the first exciting think ever to happen to him, he was entitled to be slightly obsessed with it, he reasoned.
He'd told his closest friends about the encounter the night before. Among them were his own brother, Takeru, a blue haired boy named Ken, and Koushiro, usually referred to as Izzy. They were all worried, pleading him to stop his daily walks outside the Temple grounds. But Yamato refused. Partly because he would hate to feel like a prisoner inside the Temple, and partly because he wanted to see Taichi again.
He was not in love. That was for sure. Even though he knew that he thought about the brunette far more than he should've, he did it only because he was curious about him. Those dreams were probably only a reaction to his very stunning appearance, Yamato told himself. But he wanted badly to talk to this person.
The only people Yamato met were the priests and the servants of the Temple. There was nothing wrong with them, not at all, but they were all the same. They were hardly ever agitated, angry, excited or thrilled. They were raised to be composed and posses an enormous self-control. Taichi had expressed more feelings in the two minutes they'd talked than he'd seen his friends express during the last year.
Despite being told not to do it every now and then, Yamato kept his habit of walking outside the Temple. But as the weeks passed by, he slowly lost hope of meeting the young pirate again.
One afternoon, he went out even though thunder roared in the distance and the sky was dark. He wasn't going to walk very far, he'd probably make it back before the storm hit him. He walked past a few farms and then reached the forest that grew on the mountainside. The slope was not steep at all – almost not noticeable - as the mountain was of the rather flat kind.
The trees were a pure emerald green this time between spring and summer. He walked slowly, feeling the air thicken as the thunder drew nearer, smelling the trees and the dirt under his feet and the rain that approached.
As he was about to turn around and return to the Temple as a movement caught his eyes.
He forgot about time and space as he watched the hind grace, completely unaware of the human lurking among the undergrowth. Taichi. He was so still, like a statue, and Yamato didn't complain about the opportunity to stare at him. He looked just as he remembered him, maybe a bit thinner and more tired though.
Suddenly, the hind lifted its head, blinked, and graciously bolted away. Taichi growled in frustration and stood up, and it was only then that he noticed the blonde.
"Oh… hey", he said, obviously a bit perplexed.
"Hi", Yamato said with an embarrassingly squeaky voice. "I'm… I'm so sorry if I scared away your dinner."
"Nah, it was probably the storm that scared her. Doesn't matter. I'll survive."
He grinned as he joined Yamato on the road, and as he got closer the priest could see how thin he actually looked. He must be starving.
"So… Yamato, right? Why are you out on your own in the middle of the forest when there's a storm on its way?" Taichi asked curiously.
"Well… I wanted to go for a walk is all" he answered.
"In a storm?"
He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow, reminding Yamato a lot of Takeru when he was sceptical.
"Yeah."
"Oh. Okay."
He didn't say anything else, just looked at Yamato with his kind brown eyes.
After a few seconds that felt like hours, Yamato couldn't hold back any more.
"Don't you know who I am?" he asked, sounding angrier than he'd meant to.
Taichi didn't flinch.
"You're a priest."
"Then why don't you treat me like one?"
This time he said it calmly, not accusing but merely inquiring.
The brunette thought about it for a few seconds before answering.
"Because beneath those robes you're probably just as human as I am."
Good answer. Yamato pondered his next question.
"But don't you realise I could have you hanging by your neck by this time tomorrow? I've seen your brand, you know, I know what you are."
He didn't flinch this time either.
"You wouldn't."
"How do you know that?"
"I just know."
He didn't elaborate and Yamato didn't know what to say. Could it be this simple?
Somehow, knowing that he thought of him as a person and not like some sort of god made the blonde relieved. He used to hate it when people looked at him as if he was one of the Lords impersonated. Sure, he was their voice on earth, but he was more of a medium than anything else.
A sudden flash, lighting up the forest, made them both jump. The thunder wasn't far behind and with the sound came the rain. One moment, there was nothing, and the next it felt like they were standing in a waterfall.
"Shit!" Taichi exclaimed.
Yamato had grown up in the Temple and this was actually the first time hed ever heard someone say such a thing. He was shocked.
"We need to find some cover" Taichi yelled over the sound of the rain and the thunder that just kept rumbling.
"I should get home" Yamato all but yelled back.
"No way, it's dangerous. There'll be landslides and you'll probably get hit by lightning or something. Come with me, I know an abandoned barn not far away."
He hesitated. On one hand, he could try to get home, all alone in the storm. On the other hand, he could get to safety but be accompanied by a possibly dangerous pirate. However, the storm seemed more threatening than Taichi, and so he agreed to come with him. As they ran through the forest, IYamato knew deep inside that his life was probably about to take a turn he couldn't quite predict or comprehend but none the less feared and welcomed.
That's all for now. What do you think? Review pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease )