...
Before the wind nymph was taken from up above on earth, Seijuro had been guarding the entrance to the Captain's royal hall, where his black heavy thrown sat. It was dull work, but Seijuro is a soldier, had himself been a high ranking official in the wars before, and dutifully fulfilled whatever objective was handed to him.
When brimstone and fire erupted and morphed into a spiraling, spiked tower on the side of the castle, the guard doesn't question it. He is a soldier. Stoic. Stony. Silent. However, he does look when the Captain returns from the upper world, angrily snarling at a bundle that is thrown over his shoulder.
The Captain grimaces as the bundle squirms and tries to wriggle free.
"Let me g—go! Help!"
"Shut up already!" The Captain motions for the hall doors to open, and he passes a bowed Seijuro without a second glance. Inside the hall is the Queen.
"Hiruma—just what…? Just what do you think you're doing?" The Queen glides across the floor to where the Captain tosses the—it's a nymph, a nymph—on the gray, cold ground. There's heavy, black shackles on the nymph's skinny wrists and a ball and chain around both his ankles. The Queen bends down to examine the nymph, her hands glowing as she tries to heal his bruises.
"This little fucker is speedy," the Captain leans down and grabs the nymph's chin in his fingers, "easy on the eyes, too."
The Queen's eyes flash, "What are you planning?"
"There's things brewing in the future," the Captain cackles, "I'm going to need him."
The Underworld is gray and uncomfortable, humid and cold. The Captain has ebony hair; the Queen has pale white skin; Seijuro wears black, glossless armor. But the nymph—the nymph—is color incarnate. He is a vivacious golden that Seijuro only sometimes remembers from his living days back on earth, before his soul had succumbed to death and he'd joined the Underworld's army.
And he sees the nymph often. Every time he tries to escape.
The nymph is wearing gossamer, pale and shimmering, and he practically flies away. His chained feet step on thunderous gales of wind that have never so much as breezed through the Underworld, but the gales follow his command.
But Seijuro is good at his job, and he tackles the small nymph to the ground as gently as he can before the nymph can even leave the steps of the hall. Seijuro knocks the breath out of a wind nymph. His lips twitch just a bit at the irony.
The nymph's eyes are wide with shock. "You… you caught me."
"So did the Captain," Seijuro scoops the small nymph up and escorts him back into the hall, where the Captain is seething.
"N—no, no… he tricked me into coming here," the nymph whispers, licking his lips until they are shiny. "But you caught me."
Seijuro bows before the Captain. "Sir, the nymph."
"The little shit," the Captain grumbles from his throne. Next to him, the Queen rolls her eyes.
"Thank you," she says, patiently, reluctantly, sympathetically.
It's not so much that Seijuro sees the nymph escape, so much that he feels it. The nymph is moving much too fast for eyes to track; all there is, is the rushing sound of air and wind shrieking by as the nymph speeds through, and the loud banging of the doors opening.
There is a real urgency to the nymph's movements this time, and he almost makes it.
"W—what?" The nymph is once again out of breath.
Seijuro is panting as well, having barely caught the nymph in time. He was so close to escaping, but Seijuro's immortal soul depends on keeping his position.
"Again…?" the nymph is quiet and incredulous. His eyes are shining at the corners.
"I must return you," Seijuro says to the ground, doesn't meet the nymph's gaze. "You must understand."
"I do."
The guard takes the nymph in his arms again and marches to the hall.
"You're very fast," Seijuro says. It's true.
"I used to think I was the fastest."
The Captain locks the nymph up in the spiked tower that he created when he first caught the nymph. He harrumphs and stomps and curses up a storm before placing Seijuro in front of the sturdy stone wall and instructing him to keep him there at all costs.
"Yes, sir."
"Don't you dare fail me."
"Understood."
Behind him, the nymph lets out a quiet, barely audible sob. The guard keeps his eyes forward.
There is no clear passage of time in the Underworld. The rock sky remains dark and rough, dripping with stalactites. There's no weather since there is no wind. (Or at least there wasn't until recently.)
The wind bites into the guard's face, but he doesn't resent the nymph for it. It's in his nature, literally. He can hear the nymph pacing all around his small, circular room, muttering to himself. When he gets frustrated, the wind whips up in earnest, and when he gets in a sullen mood, the wind dies away. The longer the nymph is confined, the more time he spends quietly.
Seijuro finds himself missing the breeze.
There are three small windows, one carved in the middle of door and the other two on either side of it. The nymph, unlike Seijuro, can sleep. The guard is fairly sure that the nymph doesn't need sleep, but there are only so many ways to pass time while being a prisoner.
The nymph sleeps a lot at first. The only reason the guard isn't concerned is because he can see the nymph roll over in his sleep. But soon the nymph tires of that, and his restlessness grows.
A nymph doesn't belong inside a prison, much less a wind nymph.
When the guard peeks inside—in rough estimations of what he thinks are hour increments—the nymph is always pacing around the room. He paces across the cold, stone floor barefoot. Jumps from his bed to his nightstand to the lone wooden chair. Once, the small nymph launched himself at the door and tried to shoulder it down. He only stopped when he was raggedly out of breath. The guard peered inside to his body trembling.
Against his better judgement, he asked, "Are you alright?"
"Aha, yeah… made a little mess," the nymph had winced.
"I'll get the Queen."
"No, I'm fine," the nymph choked out. He was cradling one arm in the other, hunched over against the door. "I can handle it myself. I j—just need time."
Seijuro had looked away while the nymph healed himself.
The guard receives a scroll from a messenger.
"From the Captain!"
The guard opens it. He's apprehensive. There are few good things that the Captain makes known with soul soldiers.
Your service will be used soon.
There are some gods angry regarding the kidnapping of a certain person.
We will show them only hell. No mercy.
—Captain
His afterlife is never in his own hands, Seijuro laments momentarily. But it doesn't matter. His eyes slide to the inside of the tower, where the nymph is sleeping on the bed. It's not like he has anything to exist for.
"I'm Sena," the nymph says one day. His face is against the bars. The guard thinks that Sena probably has to stand on the tips of feet to look out. "You're faster than me."
"It would appear so," Seijuro says, and steps closer to the window so that Sena doesn't have to crane his neck so high. Their faces are very close together.
"But I want to be faster."
"That's a fine goal."
"I can't do that here."
"There's nothing I can do about that."
"You could let me g—out. And we could race. For me, so I could practice."
Seijuro actually chuckles. "I can't."
"Thought I'd give it a shot."
The guard gets a second scroll soon.
Three days, and it begins.
—Captain
The nymph is running his hands over the stone wall, probably looking for weaknesses, when Seijuro opens the door.
"What?"
"You have to start at the end of the room. That's the running start you get. I'll chase you. If you escape, then... that's it."
The guard knows that the nymph had been training. If the nymph wasn't sleeping, he had been training, all the while Seijuro remained stock still. The guard knows this, and yet he offers Sena his freedom anyway. It's far and away out of his realm of authority.
"You mean it?" the nymph asks, clutching at his robes nervously as Seijuro enters the small room. He kneels in front of Sena and starts unlocking the weighted shackles. He slides the restraints off Sena's slender legs, feeling the muscle tensing underneath.
"One chance," Seijuro unlocks the manacles from Sena's thin wrists. "That's all I can give."
The nymph nods, eyes round and liquid. "What will happen to you if I make it?"
"Nothing that I won't expect. Are you ready?"
The guard exits the nymph's room, and leaves the door open. He readies himself, eyes forward. It's no use trying to see when Sena leaves, Seijuro knows that he'll feel it first. He waits, at the ready, for a few minutes, while Sena steels his nerves.
Finally, with a shriek of the wind, he feels the nymph fly. Seijuro chases. They run—Seijuro doesn't show mercy: every steps he takes closes the gap between them.
He propels himself forward, one hand stretching in front of him.
Sena is almost at the gates.
Seijuro almost has the nymph within his grasp.
(They made a deal, and they both have everything at stake.)
And then—
Faster than anything the guard has ever witnessed—
The nymph just—
Sena just—
Flies out and away—
Past his hand—
Escapes—
Seijuro gasps, hands on his knees, as the gates of the Underworld shut once more. Sena had put on one last burst of speed at the last possible moment and had escaped. His act of defiance didn't go unnoticed. He can feel the ominous presence of the Captain approaching. But after this whole ordeal and with that speed, Seijuro knows that nothing will ever capture Sena again, not even a trick play.
Being undead, Seijuro can't feel pain. It was useful when fighting in the wars. The Captain, however, graciously decided to return pain to Seijuro for his punishment. He's in the dungeon, and has been here for what is approximately a little bit over a week. He's suspended in the air, all his weight supported on his restrained arms. His arms have long since gone numb from being shackled over his head, and every few seconds a jolt of white pain courses from his armpit to his palm, leaving him shuddering. He hears footsteps splashing nearer.
There's a sudden rush of wind, sharp and biting against his face, and his arms are freed. The blood flowing back into them is a painful relief. A softer, strong wind cradles him in the air, keeping him from pummeling to the dungeon floor.
"I'm sorry I took so long," Sena sobs, flittering up to him in the wind.
"Why are you here?" Seijuro asks. Sena has to hold Seijuro's face in his small hands. The guard doesn't have the energy to do it himself.
"I couldn't just—just," Sena can't finish his sentence, and settles for briefly pressing their foreheads together. "We have to leave together while the others are fighting." Distantly, Seijuro can make out the sounds of war.
But it's not calling for him.
They escape to the world of the living.
Seijuro, for the first time in years feels the warmth of the sun his skin, and then the warmth of a kiss on his cheek.