Title: Slip away
Fandom: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Implied KuroFai
Disclaimer: Yep, of course, I'm CLAMP. Those four Japanese females? They're just a front hired by me to present a public appearance. I'm the true mastermind behind it all, I tell you!
This will later be extended into a series of drabbles.
01. Slip away
"Your hand," the mage says, and Kurogane only hesitates a moment before complying.
Souhi hovers gracefully in the air as tendrils of magic entwine themselves around its sheath. The circle of runes traced by the mage glow faintly, and then the sword is melting into his hand as easily as a hot knife through butter. It tingles faintly and feels strangely cold, but does not hurt.
The last traces of the magic sink into his palm to leave behind only warm, callused skin and a faded scar.
He curls his hand into a fist. "Is this allright?" he asks gruffly.
The mage smiles; a taut, hollow stretching of his lips that is too brittle to even be called a mask anymore. There is a kind of quiet resignation in his one eye.
"I've already used a lot, right?" he smiles wearily. "Magic power."
Kurogane clenches his fist tighter and says nothing more.
A few moments later, they stand on the brink of a cliff in Celes, and the glow and tingle of Mokona's magic has been replaced by sharp, fleeting hail and pellets of snow. Cold sinks into their bones, cuts through the fur-lined clothes, works its way up from the ground through the soles of their shoes, and gathers in drifts on their eyelashes. Castle Ruval gleams faintly in the distance through the scudding haze. Beautiful and cold.
Kurogane can sense the tension in Fai's shoulders, the harsh arch of his back. The mage has always seemed close to breaking, but in this instant he is like spun glass. So fragile that he might shatter at a touch.
His palm is still tingling faintly, and he clenches it once more. The warrior in him supposes he should be glad. To a ninja, a sword is his life, and he has just been granted a way of ensuring that Souhi will never leave his side. But standing on this naked precipice and looking out over this frozen land, he finds he cannot feel relief.
It is not the sword that he fears will slip away from him.