In the Garden
In the Garden
by omi
In the depths of the garden, Oriya smoked. The bittersweet fragrance of opium intermingled with the heady scent of orchids floating in the cool night air. Dawn was still two hours away, and the moon hung heavy just above the treetops.
The folds of his kimono fell elegantly around him, his hair a dark spill down his back. He felt, thought Oriya idly as he exhaled and watched the smoke drift up towards the moon, like the abandoned concubines of the palace, hopelessly awaiting the pleasure of the distant Heavenly Emperor.
Bitter.
Venomous.
Barren.
And yet threaded amidst the dark despair was a fragile smoke-pale thread of hope that perhaps one day He would come back to him. He would stroke his pale, pale neck and tell him He still wanted him, that he was needed, that in His own warped way, he was loved.
And so Oriya waited in his garden of orchids, and smoked.
His emperor was a vision in white. Hair glowing silver in the moonlight, eyes half-closed even in the night, and mouth turned up in the faintest, cruelest smile.
"I need you," he said.
Oriya's heart leapt painfully against his chest --
"-- to do something for me," he continued.
And Oriya's heart shattered into a thousand little pieces for the hundredth time.
His eyelashes swept down, delicate as moth wings, hiding his eyes, his disappointment. "Really," he retorted dryly, his fingers playing with the lines of his pipe, of the small tasseled bag that contained his opium. "I can't imagine what it is I can do for the great Doctor."
Muraki smirked, and in two quick strides, was standing just above him. "But you do so many things so well," he purred. "Just a little thing, a small diversion, a tiny delay..."
Oriya looked up, and asked, the bitter words spilling from his mouth as precisely as a sword's stroke. "And what is in it for me?" His eyebrow crooked up, as Oriya feigned the calmness he did not feel, forcing his face into a precarious brittle stillness.
The lines of Muraki's mouth curved further, and his hands came up and brushed the side of Oriya's face, down the lines of his jaw, and around the pale column of his neck. "I am sure I can think of something," he murmured, his voice low and deep into his ear, even as his hands stole into the 'V' of his kimono.
Unbidden, Oriya's breath quickened.
The pale wiry hands tightened slowly on his skin, bringing equal parts pain and pleasure. Oriya closed his eyes. Defeated, he sank slowly down onto the floor, the folds of his kimono unfurling like a flower in the night.
Another moonlit night, and Oriya takes out the sword he has kept away.
The elaborately carved sandalwood box laid carelessly on the ground, the silken wrappings discarded at his feet. He drew his sword from the lacquered scabbard inlaid with gold, the scabbard clattered down.
Perfect, gleaming, the weight of the sword sang within his grasp. He swung it, once, twice. And around him, orchid blossoms fell silently.
fini