Weathervanes
Genres: Horror, Suspense
Summary: He stares at her, then, as if he can unsettle everything she knew, pull all of her beliefs and thoughts out of her with a single glance of those dark, hooded eyes. One glance, and she doesn't even know herself anymore. It is that strong a reaction. / Ceaseshipping Miho x Dark Marik, Fractured Fairy Tale, Soul Room, Dark
A/N: Written for the YGO Fanfiction Contest Season 9, Round Six, with the pairing of Ceaseshipping (Dark Marik x Miho Nosaka), although the story also contains a side-helping of Miho x Marik. This takes place in a pseudo-canon, and tries to reconcile Miho's exclusion from the Duel Monsters anime. Since we don't know all that much about her background, I've taken a few liberties there. Warnings for horror and violence. I hope you enjoy the story.
Weathervanes
The chickens squawk too loud for her liking. They wake her up early when she would much rather be sleeping in, interrupting her dreams of long dresses and sunsets and princes. Sometimes she dreams of chickens, and while they can always speak in her dreams, they do so quietly, pecking at the ground. It makes her laugh when she recalls it later.
Her grandmother allows her to raise an egg, once. It's fun work, watching the formation and process of life from start to finish, and the tiny chick scrambles around in her palms and clucks when she deposits it in a patch of hay. She loses track of it, occasionally, but when her grandfather asks her to help with the feeding she always gives her chick a little extra, and pats it on the head with slim fingers.
The next holiday she visits them again, and inquires after the little chicken. Her grandmother smiles, and assures Miho that the chicken was quite good.
She visits the pens later that evening to find the majority of them empty, the ground scattered with feathers and the indentations from hundreds of claws.
The soup that evening is the most delicious she has ever had. She does not think of the chickens again after that, not when there are so many more interesting subjects out there; not when she has her friends and her magazines and her classes to throw herself into. Not when she has time to forget.
Miho stubs her toe against the side of the curb, cursing the darkness and the dim street lights. Why she had to have junk food at this hour was beyond comprehension, but the hunger had eaten away at her stomach and her resolve until she slipped out the door of the apartment she shared with her parents and headed to the convenience store down the street. Her keys jangle together in one pocket and her money in another, and she walks quickly, deciding to buy extras of everything so that it won't be so easy to eat all the Konpeitou and Kinako sticks in one sitting again.
She studies the faces of the others walking around her; there are so few of them that after a minute of the exercise she gets bored, and turns the walk itself into a game, stepping only once in each sidewalk square and alternating feet, hopping and twirling at the intersection. The convenience store is still open, and she enters, smiling and chatting with the cashier as she selects her snacks. Plastic bag in hand, she repeats the game on her way back, trying to decide whether to sneak a bite or two now, or wait until she returns home. She clutches the bag tighter in answer, and almost misses the figure lounging nonchalantly against the wall near the alleyway, just one sleeve and the edge of his face visible in the thin light.
It's his face that makes her pause, that makes her cheeks flush and adds a bounce in her step. She sees a lot of older students around this part of town, but this one has a foreign, exotic look about him. It makes her lean in a little closer, to see if he's smoking, to see if he's wearing any school colors she might recognize, to try and smell his cologne, if he's wearing any. He nods in her direction, and she finds herself nodding back, fighting a grin from stretching the corners of her mouth. She'd have something new to gossip about with her friends, and maybe she wouldn't even have to embellish on the details.
"You look new around here," she comments, for something to say and because it's true. She hopes he asks her to recommend some of her favorite hangouts, and then she'd have a good chance of running into him again. Instead, he slouches forward and shoves both hands inside the pockets of his jacket.
"I am, actually. I take it you know the area well?"
She allows a full grin to flourish as she regards him again, moving further into the shadows as he doesn't seem too keen on moving to walk beside her. "Yes. I've lived here pretty much all my life."
"I need a little help in that area." His voice is just as alluring as his looks, and Miho finds herself nodding and agreeing even before he asks. "Think you can help me?"
"Oh, of course!" She worries the answer is given too quickly; she doesn't want to seem desperate. "What would you like to know?"
He beckons her closer with a curl of a finger, and as she leans in she notices the odd shine of gold in the darkness. It seems to light itself from within, and it mesmerizes her until she realizes that he isn't speaking anymore, but she can still hear him somehow.
"Excellent." He extends his free hand to grasp her chin, turning it to face the surge of golden light as he reaches towards her mind. She will be of great use to him, of that he is already certain.
Another figure emerges from the alleyway and hands him a black cloak, which he drapes around her shoulders, pulling the hood up to cover her head and tugging the brim of it over her eyes.
The countryside in the Iwate region is beautiful this time of year, Miho reflects. It's much sharper than she remembers, and somehow more peaceful. The hills alternate between green and brown and a soft gold, although the trees are always that same piercing verdant green, and to Miho there is no more beautiful color in the entire world.
Her grandmother has her doing small chores, and it's the kind of repetitive work that Miho enjoys, although as her hands become accustomed to the motions of folding laundry and sorting papers her feet dance around the room instead, restless and insubordinate. She asks to take a break, to place a phone call to her friends. Her grandmother informs her that the wires are down, and Miho instead asks to go into town. There will surely be a phone there for her to use.
She walks along the muddied road, trying not to get her shoes too dirty. It is a lost cause; she should not have chosen white ones, but she knew when buying them that they would not last that long before changing.
The townsfolk are largely unfamiliar to her, and the one public phone is being occupied by an older woman prattling on about her nieces, the weather, and the new equipment she ordered that hasn't come in yet. Miho waits as long as she can, eventually growing bored with it and deciding to try again later. On her way back along the main road, she catches an odd sight on the far side of the street.
A man stands with his thumb out, as if hoping to hitch a ride. Miho wonders, briefly, how someone could have even gotten to their small town without a ride in the first place, and another woman notices her staring and taps Miho on the shoulder.
"He's been there all day, poor thing," she says.
Miho glances back and forth, uncertain. "Do you think I should go and talk to him? Is he new?" She doesn't know why it seems so important to her, all of a sudden.
"If you like." Her tone is neutral, and Miho shrugs and skips over, clasping her hands behind her back.
"Hello." She greets him casually, and blows her bangs out of the way when they fall in front of her eyes.
"Hello," he responds in turn. The conversation turns stagnant, but Miho continues to study him, from the bone-colored hair to the odd, dark clothing. He doesn't look like a farmer or a woodcutter or even a shop-worker, but Miho thinks it too rude to ask his profession, on the off chance he doesn't have one.
Instead, she blurts out, "Your eyes…they look so strange."
Realizing her blunder a moment later, she clarifies hastily, "I don't mean it like that. But they are different, when you look at me in this light. One is this brilliant violet, but the other is much darker. It's really pretty, though. The colors. Do people comment on that often?" Realizing again that she's said too much, Miho presses her lips together as firmly as she can, and rocks back on her feet.
His eyes seem at odds in more than just color, she notices. One watches the street lazily, darting to another subject as he turns his head, while the other hasn't moved from its target since she moved from the other side of the road. It stares at her, appraising her.
"No, they don't." He sighs, gesturing towards her limp ponytail. "Your ribbon's come undone."
She reaches back and clutches at the loose ends of the ribbon, but he motions for her to turn around, and she obeys without thinking, letting him tighten the knot and tie both ends back into a bow. "You can call me Marik, you know."
"No, I don't," she mumbles. "I don't know any Mariks. What are you doing here?"
"I came to thank you," he says, and at her clueless blinking continues, "so I'll say it now: thank you. I have no more business with you."
"Oh." She doesn't have the slightest idea what he's talking about. "Thanks? I suppose?"
"This is a beautiful place," he remarks softly. "I would not have expected it from you."
"What?" He's tied the ribbon too tightly, it's pulling her hair and giving her the beginnings of a headache, but she doesn't want to insult him by tugging it loose.
"Just…stay here. Don't go anywhere. Don't get any ideas…okay?" Marik's harshness is lost on her, and Miho giggles and rocks back on her feet again.
"Where would I go? There's only the town—and I'm already here—or the forest, or the farm—"
Marik stops her by settling a hand against her arm, and instead of watching the violet eye turns to the darker one. It narrows, and the look becomes almost amused. "You're oddly perceptive. That's not good for you. Just think about what I've said."
As he turns to leave, Miho calls, "It was nice to meet you!" He doesn't respond, but at least she can say she didn't forget her manners.
Later she's washing the dinner dishes when her grandfather storms inside, not even bothering to hang up his coat or hat.
"What is it?" she asks.
"One of the chickens turned up dead. It looks like it's been bitten or clawed at—deep gouge marks all along its belly, and some of the organs have been pulled out. Some animal's work."
"Oh." She doesn't know what more to say. "Just one?"
He looks at her strangely, and continues, "Yes. None of the others in the area have had problems, but I'll reinforce the pen just in case. I can't remember the last time something like this happened. Sure, animals get in the feed all the time, but never the pens." He shakes his head, stumbling through the kitchen.
The water that comes from the faucet is cold as ice. Miho dries a plate and reaches for a cup.
One of her favorite things to do is gather flowers; they spring up everywhere, alongside the buildings and around the trees, and she likes to arrange them in displays on the tables in the house. Most of what she finds is blue, although there are a few purple flowers amidst the grass, and she's collected two that are shockingly red. It will make for a nice centerpiece.
She stoops to pick another wildflower when she hears the sharp crackle of a footstep over twigs, and when she looks up Marik is standing there again, at the fringes of the forest. She can't tell if he had just been walking towards it or if he had been coming from it. She remembers, vaguely, an old memory of her mother telling her not to go in the forest, because of the animals. Faithfully, she hasn't, and considers the warnings true if what happened to the chicken is anything to go by.
"Why are you here again?" she asks, folding the flowers inside one dress pocket, adjusting the blooms so they stand upright. "I thought you said—"
"I know what I said. There's been a change of plans." He doesn't look nervous, but from the way he glances at her she would classify it as some form of unease. "Have you seen…him?"
"Who?" She stares ahead blankly, and Marik moves a few steps closer, his shoes snapping twigs with every step.
"You'd know him when you saw him, and I think you have. He can cross over when I do, like this…" He pauses, raking a hand through his hair. "I am one man. Sometimes I am another. Sometimes I am both." He shrugged, then, as if it didn't mean anything at all. "He knows too much about pain. About death. Stay away from him, and tell me immediately if you see him."
"How will I see him if I stay away?"
"You won't if you're lucky." He pauses again, and Miho has the sudden urge to step forward and press one of her flowers into an open buttonhole at the top of his shirt. She doesn't, and he steps away. "If you're unlucky, he'll come to you."
Miho thinks of all the times she hasn't won the lottery, and all the school raffles where she held a losing ticket. The number is small, but it's still hardly enough to call herself either of the two.
The windows in the kitchen are large, and when she sees a flash of brown or black out of the corner of her eye she screeches, "Wolf! I see it!" at the top of her lungs. Her grandfather comes running, but a second glance shows nothing out of the ordinary in the expansive yard.
"The chickens. I'll check on them. Are you sure it was a wolf?"
Miho didn't see anything more than a blur, but it looked so strongly like a wolf-shaped blur, and she explains as much to him. "I'm not sure…I think it was?"
"Stay inside, just in case."
He takes too long—Miho assumes after fifteen minutes that he must've come back through a different door—and she wanders outside to sit on the grass, leaning against the wooden steps. She's not afraid of a wolf or a blur, and she shifts her legs from time to time to keep them from falling asleep beneath her weight.
There's a dreadful squawking coming from the chicken pen—she can hear it from where she sits, and she reluctantly pulls herself to her feet and stumbles over. She notices first that the latch has been bent, and it's an ordeal to twist it back into place. There's a bolt missing, a part of the lock; it will still hold, but she knows it's only tenuous. She finds her grandfather and tells him, and he scribbles something onto a piece of brown paper and presses it into her hands, asking her to get the necessary piece from the hardware stores in town. She agrees, and has barely crossed over the next hill when she spots a familiar figure standing amid the grasses. Mud coats his boots, and his hair sticks up in all directions—she even thinks she sees a few leaves tangled with it. He turns his eyes towards her, those hooded almost-indigo eyes, and she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's not Marik standing before her.
Who it is, however, remains a mystery. He must be the other one, the one that Marik spoke of. He doesn't speak to her, so after a moment she breaks the silence.
"Why are you here?" she asks, to gauge if his answer will be any different.
"Freedom," he says, as if he could breathe the word and live on that alone. "It's intoxicating, having this much open space. There's so much here to explore, to taste, to experience. I have never tried this with anyone before. Typically the spaces are so bleak to inspire nothing. You have creativity." His grin bares every single one of his teeth.
"I don't understand." She's never been good at that sort of thing, for all that she can read social cues and follow trends.
"His plans are not my own." He holds his chin higher than the other Marik, she realizes. He never tilts it down, not even to talk to her. "I take orders from no man."
Repeating her lack of comprehension would be useless. She shrugs, settling for a giggle; a hair toss would be too much. "I'm exhausted just listening to you talk! I hear what you're saying, even if I don't get it. You don't like Marik, do you?" It's the clearest thing she can interpret, from his body language to the way he sneers when she mentions the name.
"I can do anything he can—have anything he can—and since you've given him an opportunity it's only fair that I collect one as well. And I will collect, and soon, of that you can be assured."
"How can I?" Miho stops, her shoes sinking slowly into the mud. "I can't help you."
"You already have." He stares at her, then, as if he could unsettle everything she knew, pull all of her beliefs and thoughts out of her with a single glance of those dark, hooded eyes. One glance, and she didn't even know herself anymore. It was that strong a reaction.
She gets the piece from the hardware store; it weighs heavily in her pocket on the walk back. Once again, the phone was occupied by the same woman, who hardly even moved when Miho tapped her on the shoulder and asked for a few minutes to make one short call.
Upon returning, her grandfather asks if she's seen any sight of the wolf again that day. She tells him yes.
A second dead chicken appears, this time left on the back doorstep, its blood smeared over the wood as if it had been dragged there. It was headless, the cut on the neck clean and even. Miho knows it could only have been made with a knife, not with teeth or claws. No animal could do it that cleanly. She keeps these thoughts to herself; she doesn't want to think about what it could mean if she is right, or if she brings a voice to the thoughts lurking in her mind.
She has the house to herself for most of the day, but it's not a surprise to her anymore to see Marik loitering around the edge of the forest. She brings him a cup of tea, which he refuses, so she drinks it herself to keep from wasting it.
"You spoke to him." It's said as a statement, not a question, because somehow he already knows.
"There's no harm in it," she begins, but he cuts her off so fiercely that she almost drops the teacup from surprise.
"Harm? You don't know the meaning of that, do you? You've let him know too much about you. He will harm you. I will harm you. Idiotic. I told you to stay away. You're a terrific listener."
"I don't believe that. You don't look like a bad person." It's just that, the look, so disarming, that while she can tell he's got weapons in the strength of his arms and the way his smile can turn cruel, she can forget it all just by looking into his eyes. With the other Marik, it's even worse. She doesn't want to tell him that.
"No! I've done terrible things—I will do terrible things. Let that be enough to stop you."
When Miho kisses him—lightly, on one cheek—she hopes her breath smells of tea instead of the natto she had for breakfast. Marik seizes up, and she can see again when he turns his face how his right eye is darker than the other.
"If you're living in the forest, you don't have to." She talks without thinking again, not even knowing if her conjectures have any basis in truth. "There are a few inns in town, and I could always put you up at my place if you did need somewhere to stay—"
Marik laughs, displacing her own words. "You don't know what lives in the forest, do you?"
"An animal," she says. "A wolf."
"Not hardly. A hunter of wolves. Of animals." Marik glances at the chicken coop, where the new bolt looks out of place amid the rust on the hinges. "Lock your door tightly, Miho. Lock the windows even more so. Build walls for yourself. Stronger walls than those made of chicken wire."
She ties her hair ribbon methodically, using the mirror for guidance. Her own hair is unfashionably long, but she likes it that way; if her hair was shorter, she couldn't tie it back the way she liked, so the long ponytail would beat against her neck as she moved. While green is her favorite color, there are so many things she likes in yellow.
She walks towards the large window in the kitchen at the same time that the other Marik does from the outside. She stands, facing it, and lifts a palm to the glass, feeling the way it seems to suck all the warmth from her skin. He reaches back, pressing his own larger hand to the window. It remains just as cold as before.
"Let me in." He mouths the words, and Miho shakes her head. He frowns, and makes a tsk sound in the back of his throat that she can't hear. She notices for the first time how his nails are rimmed with red.
She draws her hand back, clutching it in her other hand to warm it. He laughs, but she cannot hear a sound through the glass and the walls separating them. "I'll come to collect," he mouths again, slow enough for her to catch every word.
She waits until she is sure he is gone before she chances to unlock and open the door, sticking her head outside and turning to look at the buildings around them. There is the chicken coop, barns and garages, storage sheds and the house itself. A high squeaking noise draws her attention to the roof.
The wind has picked up speed, and the weathervane perched at the top spins and spins, moving in circles to point in five different directions before settling on one. She follows its path; the wind is blowing in the direction of the forest.
Before she shuts the door again, she thinks she can see a pair of dark eyes through the trees.
The third chicken's wings are cut, but it is allowed its beak and head, at least. The body is a mess, the ground littered with feathers, and it is propped against the side of the pen, as if it was still alive. Miho takes it upon herself to bury the body, covering it with dirt so no one will know it was ever there at all.
The townspeople have decided that it isn't an animal, as one of the workers—hardware store? Post office?—reported a break-in the previous night. An alert has gone out, warning about a suspicious figure dressed in black, but Miho doesn't fear them any more than she fears the wolves she thinks she sees or the strange men traipsing through the forest and taking arbitrary chunks of her company.
It is early and she is alone again when there is a knock on the door, so she runs to answer it, glancing first in the window to see a bedraggled Marik standing there. She opens it, and he all but bursts inside, grasping her by the arms.
"There isn't much time. I cannot explain as well as I would like, but there is something you must do for me. Think you can help me?"
"Oh, of course," she answers quickly. The air seems to grow colder and she shivers, gaining warmth from Marik's hands. "What is it?"
"I have captured a madman, and I intend for you to hold him prisoner while I am gone. There is something of great importance I must do. A game I cannot lose."
Miho struggles against him as Marik begins to lead her from the house, leaving the door clattering against the frame. "You mean…him?"
"Precisely. In a construct such as this, I cannot fetter him. My normal methods fail. But you, you can trap him here. If you just think of it, if you will it." He leads them towards the barn, pushing open the heavy doors and allowing Miho to slip inside.
"I don't understand—"
"You will," he says.
The other Marik, with the darker eyes, is bound to one of the columns supporting the roof with rope around his hands and feet, keeping him upright. He turns towards Miho, his face unreadable.
"I trust you had pleasant dreams?" he asks, relaxing against the ropes.
She stops at that, frowning. "No…I haven't had any dreams. Not in a long time. I…" and she pauses, thinking harder. "I am not sure the last time I had a dream. Maybe I cannot remember them."
"Keep him here," Marik instructs again, standing no closer to the other man than he has to. "Do not let him escape." And he is gone, back out the barn door and vanishing into the mid-morning.
"There's a lot I can collect if I am to have everything from you he has received," Marik tells her conversationally. "I'll settle on one, however."
"I am not releasing you," she says.
"I can manage that on my own."
Wary of approaching him to test his bindings for herself, she remains where she stands, crossing her arms. "Tell me, then."
"None of this is real, my dear," he says, and with a snap the ropes crumple around him, sawn in half from a hidden blade she recognized, with a sinking stomach, from her grandfather's hunting equipment. "You have only to wake yourself up and we both shall be released. I will return to his mind—he cannot escape me so easily."
"That's ridiculous. Prove it." Miho takes a small step backward, her eyes focused to the knife blade held expertly in his right hand.
"He did this to you, don't forget that. Do you not remember? He is a criminal, and he has been gathering information from your mind while you sleep here, in the world of your creation. Comfortable and familiar—at least, until I arrived."
"What does that mean? For me?" She takes another step back. "Listen, I'm trying. I'm really trying to do what you say, but it's difficult." She left out the unspoken because you're pointing a knife at me.
"It means that I have come to collect. If you will not bring yourself to end the illusion, I will sever it for you."
"I don't underst—" she began, but Marik silenced her with a single atavistic smirk.
"Run, girl. Run."
She scrambles backwards, out the door and in a straight line, running as fast as she can. Her path takes her straight towards the forest, and she barely hesitates before plunging past the first layers of undergrowth, leaping over fallen tree branches. There is no hiding the noise of her footsteps or her heavy breathing, but to her the loudest noise is her heart beating furiously within her ribcage.
The trees are dense and the branches pointed, and Miho stumbles as branches catch in her hair, tearing the ribbon from her ponytail. She leaves it and stumbles forwards, for the first time realizing that Marik could really hurt her. That he could kill her. That he was intending on it.
Each of the mutilated birds had been a warning, she could see it now—this could be you. She wonders how he planned on killing her. It isn't a pleasant thought, but if he is right, it will be just like waking up. She won't even feel it.
But she doesn't believe him. How can it all be fake, when she has her family right here and her friends on the other end of a telephone call or postcard? Maybe the lines are fixed by now.
She trips over a raised tree root and hits the ground, sliding into leaves and dirt. Behind her, she can hear laughing. Twisting herself around, she can see him standing there, knife held in his outstretched hand.
"Are you ready for me to give you freedom yet?"
She glances around them, but there is no escape. She does not know this forest and there is no one to help her—it hits her hard that Marik left her to this madman. The tree branches seem to converge and loop above their heads, drowning out the sky with their canopy of green, casting everything beneath its grasp in a sickly hue. The wind has picked up, and leaves shake in the wind, beating against their stems.
"Does it matter?" She thinks she might finally be starting to understand him.
He lifts his other hand. Clenched in it is a yellow hair ribbon, wound around his fingers. "I am removing you from his service. It won't set him back by much, but it's a start. Most of those he controls don't get that option." He drops to his knees, leaning over her.
"I could cut the jugular. But that would be messy, no," he muses, settling the hand holding the ribbon against her neck and dragging it down. "Here—between the ribs, upwards." He traces a line with a fingertip. "And through the heart."
"No—" Still she protests, even as he brings the knife down to trace the same line.
"Yes," he says. She feels his teeth at her throat and then a sharp, hot pain—and then nothing at all.
Her mother hands her a cup of tea and a plate of snacks, her favorites. She doesn't touch them, and lets the tea grow cold before she drinks it.
"What do you want?" her mother asks. "The newspapers have been calling—they want to interview you, about what happened. Do you want that? Just tell me." Her father refills her teacup.
Miho hesitates, but when she answers she is sure of it. She smiles at them.
"I think I'd like to spend some time with my grandparents, in the countryside."
End.
Notes:
1) The particular fairy tales I drew inspiration from were Red Riding Hood and The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and I combined elements of each in building what Miho's soul space might've been like. Iwate is highly productive in agriculture and forestry, and the junk foods named at the beginning are real. Miho's canonical favorite food is natto.
2) Thank you for reading. I would appreciate and value your reviews.
~Jess