Onyx: (glares at S) Remind me again why I'm here? You wrote this.
S: Because you're my muse, my editor, my Yami, and you love me?
Onyx: Try again.
S: (sighs) Because you give good Elf-angst?
Onyx: That works.
Celtos: I can't believe you're publishing this… some of that is a bit private, you know!
Damus: ALL of it is a bit private.
Onyx: (waves a bundle of papers at them) Full disclosure, gentlemen. It's in your contracts.
Damus/Celtos: (GROAN)
Damus: A word of advice? Don't do this sort of thing with Cayenne. He'll use that contract to paper-cut your head off.
Onyx: (thoughtful) I hadn't been planning on doing a 'how Cayenne and Lustire got together' story, but now that you mention it…
S: (looks frightened)
Onyx: (pulls her notebook out of nowhere and begins writing)
S: Rolling story. Before a psychotic blue-skinned mage comes along and paper-cuts our heads off.
DISCLAIMER: I do not, in any way, shape, or form, own the rights to Yu-Gi-Oh. I make no monetary profit from this story, and anything you recognize (which should be very, very little) isn't mine. The names are mine, please ask before using them. Comments concerning 'Wood Elves' are made in reference to Tolkien's Elves, which I also own no part of, save a Legolas poster. Is this the longest disclaimer in history yet?
ARCHIVE: Feel free, just keep my name attached and please tell me where.
READER CONTEST: For this story. Read carefully, see if you can answer the question at the bottom. First reviewer to do so gets to request a free one-shot!
WARNINGS: (scratches head) Uhm… Some angst, implied sex scene, and this whole thing could have come out of a bad romance novel. Which you can probably tell from the title. Nothing else.
UNDER THE MOONLIGHT
The Dark Magician sighed. In the past two days, his life had been turned completely on its ear.
A new Deck – Some random mash-up of monsters with nothing in common, he thought gloomily, then remembered, not encouragingly, that his cousin the Chaos Mage had been added that morning.
A new life … Damaged though his memories were, he couldn't recall there being anything wrong with the last one. Then again, he couldn't recall his own name, either, so perhaps that wasn't the best indicator.
The calm of a meditative state danced away again, elusive as a cool breeze in the middle of an Egyptian summer. Sighing again, more loudly this time, he finally opened his eyes. He was tucked into the most secluded spot in the entire Deck, a tiny clearing besides an equally small outlet of a very large lake. Two massive old trees formed a solid wall at the back of the clearing, and their tangled roots created a nest-like depression in the ground, just the perfect size for his folded legs. Thick bushes ringed the front of the clearing, perched on the edge of a short, steep slope down to the narrow strip of sand at the water's edge. The bushes hid both the magician and the clearing, small enough to cross in three steps, from view. With the peaceful little nest-seat, the small, deep inlet and its narrow, sandy shore, it was a downright idyllic place, and the perfect spot for meditation.
When, of course, he could focus his mind enough to achieve an actual trance, which he was having no luck doing tonight. Settling his hands on the protruding roots to either side of his knees, he was about to stand up when he caught the faintest sound of footsteps.
This spot was the quietest in the Deck for more reasons than one. Aside from being quite small, the path to access it bore a greater resemblance to a goat-track than anything a human-sized monster could negotiate. Magician or not, he could never make his way down without brambles plucking at his clothes. Whoever was coming down now was doing a significantly better job than he did. This was impressive enough in itself, given that it was the middle of the night, and even the light of the full moon couldn't quite penetrate the trees.
Scowling, he plunked himself right back into his comfy little hollow and cast a spell around himself that would prevent his life-force from being detected. The only reason he could think of for anyone to be coming down here was to talk to him, and he had no desire to talk.
That thought lingering in his mind was part of why he was so surprised when a monster stepped out of the forest path that he had never seen before. Looking at the newcomer, the Dark Magician felt the breath stop in his chest. This new creature was… extraordinary. He was wearing heavy-looking armor in shades of green and silver, with a brown leather jerkin exposed beneath. There was a broadsword strapped to his belt that seemed completely at odds with the waist-length spill of golden hair and the sharply pointed ears visible beneath his helmet.
Elf, the Dark Magician thought, and in the same instant contradicted himself. Elves don't use broadswords! But this fantastic creature could be nothing else.
The initial shock was wearing off, and the Dark Magician could look a little more closely at his unexpected companion. Doing so, he was surprised to notice the slump in the Elf's broad shoulders, and horrified to see the pattern of singing on that golden hair, washed to the color of electrum in the moonlight.
After he noticed the singed marks, it took a moment more for him to understand the pattern. The worst of it was just below the Elf's shoulder blades, an almost circular pattern of scorching, not quite enough to burn through.
The conclusion presented itself a heartbeat later, and the Dark Magician felt a surge of nausea rise through him. A majik bolt. Someone, one of his own family, had looked at that magnificent Elf and aimed a blast of majik at the middle of his back. There weren't too many options for who could have done so, either. He was here, of course, his sister couldn't control her majik well enough to do something like that, and his grandfather never would.
Which left only his recently arrived cousin to thank for the Elf's cruel welcome.
He was raising a hand to undo the enchantments around himself, allow the Elf to sense his presence, when the Elf quietly pulled off his helmet, folded his legs and dropped into a sitting position on the narrow strip of sand. One of the Elf's strong hands moved, sweeping the singed gold of his hair forward over one shoulder, trying to examine the damage. Several strands of it got tangled in the shoulder guards of his armor, and the Elf let out an aggravated his before jerking a dagger from one of his boots.
The Dark Magician could only watch in frozen horror as the Elf bundled his hair against the back of his neck, set the blade of the knife under it, and yanked. Those long, impossibly thick locks fell away under the cruel bite of the steel, the ends now falling inches short of his shoulders.
The Elf swore once, a bitter epithet in his own, musical tongue, and threw the cut length of his hair away. It landed with a muffled thump on the sand, a mess of twisted golden silk.
Pushing himself to his feet, the Elf began unbuckling his armor with deft, angry movements. As furious as he seemed to be, he did not throw the armor, but dropped it neatly and carefully to the sand. With the armor gone, he stripped off the tight leather jerkin and the linen shirt that went under it, baring his golden back to the magician's eyes.
The mage barely suppressed a cry of horror.
The smooth, gleaming skin of the Elf's broad back was distorted, marred by a brutal scar that stretched from his right hip to his left shoulder. The jagged white mark was almost the width of the magician's palm. It wasn't smooth, either, but jagged, as though the flesh had been torn away rather than cut. Although the wound had clearly long healed, the thought of the agony the Elf must have endured was heartbreaking.
It took the mage another three heartbeats to realize that the Elf was now completely nude before him. Aside from that brutal scar, the Elf's skin was smooth and golden, gleaming in the pale light of the moon. Rolling muscles and lean planes composed his entire figure; long, powerful legs, narrow hips, the enticing curve of his buttocks, broad, muscular shoulders, and strong, not quite heavy arms.
His build was a bit bulkier than one usually saw in an Elf – more breadth in the shoulders and chest, more muscle in the arms and legs. Mountain Elf, the magician's scrambled memory provided. Kin to the Wood Elves, the Fair Folk, the Mountain Elves are more powerful, more tolerant of the cold and darkness, hardier than their woodland cousins, but equal in grace, beauty and song.
The mage directed his attention back to the Elf again, only to find that the golden figure stood shoulder-deep in the water of the inlet. His face was turned upward, the silver light of the moon above playing over the black-inked tattoos beneath his closed eyes, and a slow song was falling from his lips.
It was in Elven tongue, of course, not the same dialect that the magician himself knew, although he could understand enough to recognize the song. It was the Ballad of the Moon Goddess, the story of a very young Elf who fell in love with the Maiden of the Moon, a great princess who later died saving her people, only to be reborn as the spirit of the Moon herself. The young Elf had spent thousands of years searching for a way to reach his love, until he finally lost the will to live and perished of a broken heart. However, the gods took pity on the young Elf, and transformed his spirit into a start that would be forever beside the Moon, that the two young lovers might never be parted again.
The mage had heard Elven ballads, even this particular one, before, but the raw longing and pain in the Elf's voice made the song all the more poignant. Without the mage's notice, a single tear slipped down his porcelain cheek – and with it, slipped away the majik spell that kept him hidden.
The Elf reacted instantly, whirling in the water to face the life-force that had appeared so suddenly behind him. He ducked down until the ends of his golden hair touched the surface of the water, his expression that of a cornered animal; determination and anger with no small amount of fear.
Hastily, the magician scrambled to his feet, holding his hands out in a gesture of peace. "Do not be afraid," he called in the dialect of the Woodland Elves. It was not the same as the dialect that this Elf spoke, but it was the only Elvish he knew.
The Elf in the water relaxed, fractionally. "You speak the tongue of my cousins," he said after a moment, speaking the Wood-Elf dialect as fluently as his own. His eyes were riveted to the mage, and in the gleaming moonlight, the Dark Magician thought that perhaps the Elf's eyes were amber. That was unusual; the Mountain Elves usually had eyes of blue, or, more rarely, green. Only the Wood-Elves frequently displayed eyes in shades of brown.
"I mean you no harm, my friend."
The Elf didn't respond, just watched him with those unnerving eyes before asking flatly, "How long have you been there?"
The magician sighed, glanced appraisingly at the position of the moon, and did a few swift mental calculations. "About fourteen hours."
The Elf swore, a term ugly enough that the mage had only ever seen it in printed references – and graffiti at that – and vanished under the water. Bewildered, the magician stared into the depths of the inlet, struggling to see past the surface of the water to where the Elf had gone. So intense was his focus, in fact, that he cried out in alarm when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. Spinning around, he found, much to his astonishment, that the Elf was standing behind him. Not only that, but in the few heartbeats he had been out of sight, the Elf had retrieved his pants, put them on, and snuck up on the mage, all without making a single sound.
"How…?" Gesturing helplessly between the lake and the Elf, his pants in particular, the magician met the Elf's gaze again. His eyes had not deceived him earlier – the Elf's eyes were certainly a penetrating shade of amber. "How did you do that?"
"Regardless of what you may have heard," came the acidic response, and the distracted magician noticed offhandedly that the Elf was now speaking the Common Tongue as fluently as he had Elvish, "I am an Elf. I move as one."
Staring down into the Elf's furious, gleaming eyes – for the Elf was a hand's-breadth shorter than him, or slightly more, the magician grappled with his composure. "I haven't heard anything," he managed, the bewilderment in his voice genuine. "And beyond the most beautiful being I have ever seen, I have no idea who you are." Perhaps that much honesty is uncalled for so soon after first meeting.
"Beautiful?" The Elf snorted and spun away, turning his scarred back to the mage. "This is your idea of beauty? This?! I will not be mocked, mage, not by another delusional bastard who believes the Great War never ended!" With that, pronouncement, the Elf vanished, so abruptly that the magician reeled in surprise.
This time, though, the mage watched the pile of clothes the Elf had left, and was rewarded when the Elf reappeared there, picking up his linen shirt and shaking it out.
As quickly as he could, the mage bounded down the slope to the beach, catching the Elf's wrists with gentle fingers.
"Please… please." Not the most eloquent statement ever, but the Elf seemed to understand, and he quietly lowered his hands, dropping his shirt to the ground.
"Every word I spoke to you was genuine," the mage whispered. "A bit overly honest, perhaps, but true." Greatly daring, he reached out one hand and carefully touched one of the inverted triangle tattoos beneath the Elf's gleaming eyes. "You are beautiful."
Those radiant eyes met his for a moment before darting away. "If that is the case," the Elf answered, his voice lower and more musical than it had been, "I owe you an apology. For my… earlier reaction and comments."
"It is nothing to apologize for," the mage answered quickly. "We are all under stress. I am the Dark Magician. I would give you my real name," he explained, a slightly sheepish grin finding its way onto his face, "but I don't recall it at the moment. You can call me Damus, if you wish, that will do as well as anything else."
"Damus," the Elf echoed, clasping the mage's wrist rather than his hand. It was a warrior's greeting, and the newly-named Damus returned it easily. "Dark Magus… not exactly original, but suitable." A faint smile took the bite from the Elf's words, and Damus found himself smiling back.
"And you?" the magician challenged, more at ease by the moment. "What am I to call you, aside from beautiful?" Much to his surprise, and delight, the Elf blushed a fine red hue, surprising for someone with such rich golden skin.
"I am the Celtic Guardian. And for the time being, Celtos will suffice."
"My pleasure… Celtos," Damus replied, bemused, as the pair of them settled down, side-by-side on the sand. The silver light of the moon caught the polished blade of Celtos' sword, laid carefully atop his leather jerkin.
"If you don't mind my asking," Damus began, a bit carefully, "why did you learn to use a sword? That's rather unusual for your people."
The careful question raised a bitter, barking laugh from the Elf, and Damus looked at him with concern. "I'm sorry, did I - "
"I have no aptitude for a bow and arrow," Celtos said simply. "My parents despaired of making me a 'true son of Elven blood' – I am their failure."
Damus' breath hitched, and he reached out to squeeze the Elf's shoulder. "No parent should say that to their child. It is beyond cruel."
"They never needed to say it," Celtos answered, bitterness creeping into his voice. "I could see it in their eyes, in their faces. I am too short, too bulky, too slow, too different. I am everything an Elf is not supposed to be."
Ignoring the slow trace of tears down his own face, Damus reached out, cupping the Elf's chin, and turned those brilliant amber eyes to meet his own.
"And that," Damus whispered, "is why you are perfect." And then, with the infinite care and kindness the Elf must never have seen, he touched a kiss to those sweet lips, tasting the honeyed Elven skin as he flicked his tongue against them, almost weeping with happiness when that sweet mouth opened to him…
Time became a blur of whispered words and heated bodies, skin gleaming in the moonlight as clothes fell away, a whispered spell and the blissful union of bodies, until both reached their peak and their voices rang together in the quiet night.
OOOOOOO
When the sun rose hours later, it found the pair waist-deep in the waters of the inlet, scrubbing one another clean with washcloths and soap that Damus had summoned from his quarters. Pausing in the midst of scrubbing the Elf's back, working carefully across the old scar, Damus frowned a little as something occurred to him.
"I hope you didn't think me too forward, last night…"
Celtos went still under his hands. Alarmed, Damus touched the Elf's shoulder, and found it trembling under his fingers. Frantic now, he opened his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by the most incredible sound he'd ever heard.
Celtos was laughing.
It was a magnificent laugh, deep and rolling, echoing through the small clearing, dancing like musical silk in Damus' ears and over his skin. In that moment, Damus knew that he would have given everything to hear that sound again.
"You? Forward?" Celtos chuckled, turning to face the magician. "I've known you for eight hours, and already you've seen every inch of my body, touched parts of it that aren't seen, heard my deepest fears and told me that they should be forgotten… Yes, I think you forward!!"
"I suppose it was a foolish question," Damus mumbled, finding a blush on his own cheeks, for a change. Any response Celtos would have given, however, was cut off by the sound of someone crashing none-too-gracefully through the brush on the trail.
"It's my sister," Damus said, recognizing the feel of her magical aura. Celtos went white and moved to dive underwater, but Damus dragged him back by the elbow. "This isn't how I might have chosen to tell her otherwise," he whispered, his lips caressing the Elven ear enough to make Celtos pliant in his arms, "but it will certainly get the point across."
And he drew the Elf in for a kiss just as Mirai fell onto the beach.
"Hey, big brother – Oh!"
THE END
(OF THE BEGINNING)
S: XX Longest one-shot I have ever written… Six full pages. Almost three thousand words. Neither of the above count Author's Notes, the World's Longest Disclaimer, or the Reader Contest info. And the whole thing still seems like it's come out of a bad romance novel. Agree, disagree? Like? Love? Loathe? Please review!!!
READER CONTEST:
OnyxAgain with the television references, Hikari?
S: Yeah. Tell me, who spotted the television reference in this story? It's a pretty big one. Tell me the name of the popular cartoon (no, it is NOT Yu-Gi-Oh, don't be ridiculous!!), the two characters that the reference refers to, and just to make it interesting, the network that created it. As with my other Reader Contest, the first reviewer to spot the reference gets a free one-shot. Happy hunting!