The Unwritten History of Shin Makoku
"What has happened to his majesty? He isn't the type of person to say things like that," Lawrence asked reflecting on the day's peculiar events. He could still feel the ground beneath him trembling from the Shinou's misdirected anger.
"He must be exhausted." Erhard began, aiming to excuse the same actions he would have preferred to condemn in another man. "He is irritated because he cannot personally go into battle and be on the front lines like before."
There was a long pause before the human replied. "You're right. Things have changed from when we raced through the battlefield." But he wasn't exactly speaking of the Shinou anymore. He kept his eyes steadily peering into the dimming night sky before him on the balcony.
"They have. How are things in Dai Shimeron?"
He shifted slightly before deciding upon a tempered version of the truth. "Uneasy. And my cousins are not aiding in the matter." Honestly, the Belals seemed to be provoking much of the unrest, but that was a matter that seemed distant at the moment as he breathed in the cool evening air. "Are you still writing as dutifully as you were back then?"
The two blue-grey arrangements of hair slid up and down his chest as Erhard nodded in response. "I may need a thicker journal soon."
"I don't suppose any of your time might have been sparred to compose a letter." Lawrence's eyes remained resolutely fixed upon some dark blob which provided a nice distraction from the words he had not meant to speak.
"I was not sure it would have been welcomed."
"When we last parted I told you the Wincotts and their correspondence would be welcome in Dai Shimeron as long as it was in my power to make it so." He turned, facing his once comrade in arms.
Erhard smiled lightly. "Now if only our homeland of Caloria felt the same way." But they weren't talking about lands now. Not really.
The human took a step closer to the mazoku. "Not here," Erhard pleaded softly, feeling far too visible and vulnerable upon the balcony.
Lawrence nodded slightly and extended his hand, silently communicating for the older man to lead the way.
They walked shoulder to shoulder through the drafty castle halls without a word spared between them until they reached the elder Wincott's workspace. With the heavy, wooden door tightly secured behind them, the human leader of Dai Shimeron fell upon the demon, easily joining their mouths and pulling the finely dressed body flush against his dusty traveling cloak.
Their first time together had been even more abrupt and impassioned. It had been just before a battle and the energy of anticipation had clung heavily to the very air. They had met to discuss deployment plans for the soldiers in their command.
Each of them were fine strategists in their own right, and it seemed as though they fed on each other's ideas, quickly forming a solid plan of attack. The connection between them was almost palatable.
When Weller hooked his hand in the older man's belt to drag him closer it had surprised both of them. Neither ever allowed their emotions to get the better of them. People depended on their level-headed leadership. But even for the most controlled man, sometimes release was necessary.
That encounter was fast and unrelenting. They had only moved aside the clothing that most needed to be removed. There was no kissing although they did taste one another's skin.
And when it was over they simply composed themselves and shook hands, wishing each other a successful battle before returning to their duties. The only evidence of their intimate encounter was the musk of their expended fluids that lingered.
It was later, after the battle was waged and the killing fields lay thick with blood and death, that the exhausted men saw one another again. While the other captains shared brew around a campfire or visited their fallen men in the medical tents, Lawrence and Erhard quietly gazed upon the stars and reflected on the days events together.
The trees above them shaded the starlight enough to make their position too dark for anyone else to notice the way their hands held each other.
And now, reunited, they didn't say they missed each other with words. Instead, it was the way Erhard's fingertips slid gently across Lawrence's cheek and the way Lawrence drew out their kisses that spoke for them.
They would take their time, because it was the only time they had.
The truce between the humans and demons was a fragile thing, and this union between the leader of Dai Shimeron and the head of the Wincott house would not have been easily tolerated by either side if at all.
Tomorrow, Lawrence would shake Erhard's hand and wish him well as he might do with the heads of the Walde and Bielefeld houses as well. And he would ride away with his eyes fixed upon some distant point before him, carefully preventing him from turning back for another look at what he was leaving behind.
Once he was gone, Erhard would return to his study and open his growing journal which was quickly becoming a repository of information for future generations. He would write of the brave and fair human leader who allied himself with the demons to fight Soushu and later maintain a rapidly weakening peace. But there were some chapters that would never see ink on parchment.
Some things, like tonight, would be written only in their memories.