Die: Well, hello again! I know, I should really be working on something else, but I want something a little more... entertaining.
Bakura: Why do you like playing with us?
Melvin: Yeah!
Die: Because I do!
Melvin: Well, I think you should've made the chapter longer.
Die: I didn't because this is more of a prologue anyway, and it SHOULD get longer... Now, Ryou, Marik, perform your sacred duty!
Marik: This plot was inspired by the anime Spice and Wolf, but she will make as many attempts as she can to try to break away from the storyline as she can, and there will be NO recycled characters from the show.
Ryou: Black Die does not own Spice and Wolf or Yu-Gi-Oh! She does, however, own her iPod which has numerous episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series on it.
Chapter One: Trinity of Felines
xx~~East~~xx
Once, a long time ago, a pact was made between three great leopard and the humans of the world. The white leopard of the north was a fearsome creature, wonderful for battles and invoked to imbue his strength among the men of the nation. The golden leopard of the south was a handsome thing, known for his perseverance and respected for his ability to protect things, often invoked for said protection or to gain the strength needed to soldier on in a difficult situation. The black leopard of the west, a beautiful specimen, was known for his compassion and understanding, invoked to help someone gain something they loved or get over an emotional loss. In return for such generosities, the cats merely asked that they not be forgotten. And so it was for hundreds of years.
Then the Church began to grow in power. The leopards were no longer needed when there was an Almighty God to deal with their very real problems of poverty and disease instead of three little gods who could barely handle the little problems in life like the snake infestations and the robbers on the road. Thus, it was to be expected that the leopards faded slowly from the people's memories until they themselves weren't entirely sure why they called upon the cats during harvest festivals or for rituals. Little did anyone expect the great lion of the east to grow bored with their refusal to take mates and force them back into the human world for so long. It was only the pleading of his own mate, a smaller lion, that persuaded him to at least grant the three leopards their usual forms and some semblance of their normal powers.
xx~~South~~xx
Tears slid down the face of the young teen boy as he wrapped himself awkwardly in bandages, his back a burning mess of yellow pus and black-brown-red flesh interspersed between strips of bronze skin. "Marik?" a voice asked, its owner stepping from the shadows, "would you like some help with those bandages?" He jumped at the appearance of his adopted brother Odion, but calmed a little at the sight and nodded. The older boy took the roll of gauze from his fingers and pulled a few strands of errant platinum blond hair over the boy's shoulder so that it escaped the injuries, more expertly dressing the wounds and tying it in a neat knot when he was finished. "Of course," he muttered, his hands remaining on the injured skin even after the wounds were dressed, "you do realize what the price is for such assistance, don't you?" Before he could answer, Odion had ripped the remains of his dirty tunic from his waist and thrust himself into the younger's virgin depths, earning screeches of agony and pained writhing until Odion grew tired of it and tied the boy down with scraps of his own ruined clothing.
Lavender eyes clouded with tears as his bandages colored with the crimson of his reopened wounds, but when he focused on the form of his sister, he reached forward only to end up with a ball of sandy fabric shoved down his throat, causing him to gag. His eyes continued to plead for help until Odion finally pulled out, which unleashed a river of white-speckled red from the boy's abused ass, but Ishizu remained impassive. She merely kissed Odion sweetly on the lips that had only a few moments before been spewing insults at her younger brother and left him crying on the floor to cry himself into unconsciousness. In the flickering light of the candle, he saw gleaming dark lilac eyes that belonged a golden cat creature easily as big as he was come out around him, but when he cowered away, it just pulled him forward with one deft paw and began licking at the open wounds outside of the bandages with a surprisingly gentle tongue. Frightened, Marik closed his eyes and waited to feel the sting of sharp teeth sinking into his flesh.
xx~~West~~xx
Duke sighed heavily as he led his horse into the stable at the church courtyard, knowing there wasn't quite enough in his wooden cart to call for bandits. He had gotten a good price for his load of dice, but of course, such things were rare these days. Once he'd made sure the animal was successfully put away, he dropped some of his things off in the card as well before he headed out again towards the dark streets of his favorite bar. He liked the company of hot girls, though his long black hair and breathtaking emerald eyes attracted plenty of attention from the homosexual community. To be honest, he didn't care what gender it was he was fucking, but he just went with the women since he had his reputation to think about. He would only get with a male if he loved him, which would be a rather difficult thing since he was always traveling. It was a simple matter to pick up a large-breasted blonde girl at the bar and he was going back to her room when he paused in the doorstep of a house, his eyes fixated on the scene going on at the street before them.
A group of priests were leading forward a beautiful cat creature black as the night with a steel collar with four poles attached as the thing snarled past the muzzle and tried to rake them with razor-sharp claws even as it was being dragged in the direction of the church. If Duke had to guess, they suspected the large feline to be a pagan god and were going to slaughter it in order to get rid of the threat to their supremacy. A loud roar made its way past its maw as it jerked its head back, its gleaming golden eyes meeting Duke's for a long moment and freezing him in time for the brief moment they were in contact before a harsh yank to the poles had it stumbling forward to its knees. "Hey!" the girl protested, hands on her hips as she looked at him with narrowed eyes, "are you going to have sex with me or not?" He shook his head, looking up as he greedily drank in that handsome form before the dark figure of the church gates.
xx~~North~~xx
Ryou let out a little scream as he struggled against the hands on his arms, trying to escape the hold, but he couldn't quite manage it. His pristine white robes and long white hair made him look all the more like an angel, the entire reason why he was being pushed into the strange crevice where the people of his village would make sacrifices to the great leopard who kept them safe. With the war looming, there was no other way they could think of to protect their loved ones other than a blood sacrifice of the one boy who had no family in town since his mother and sister had died in a raid several years back and his father was on an extended business trip. His whimpers drowned out the sound of the village elder as he read out the speech to the great leopard, but he let out a terrified scream as he was simply pushed over the edge without warning or preamble.
A harsh cry escaped his lips when he hit the bottom, his legs giving out under him and his right ankle poking out at a rather strange angle. His doe eyes looked up at the surface, forlornly wishing he could reach the wonderful moon that shed its pale light over his form, but it was not to be. The cliff was too sheer for him to have been able to climb up even if he hadn't been injured. His eyes widened then as he saw the handsome silver fur of the creature perched on the edge of the cliff, its mahogany eyes burning in the light. Its tail twitched a couple times and Ryou wondered if it was the animal that profited so much from living inside the crevice where they threw live people and animals for the great leopard's pleasure, but the thought only remained for a moment before he realized it had jumped down to the bottom of the cliff and stalked towards him with the methodicy he'd seen before in a pack of wolves approaching a baby cardinal that had fallen from its nest. The only difference between the two scenarios would be that this time, no one would come to save him like he had with the little bird.
Die: For those of you who didn't realize the truth... Yami is the great lion and Yugi is his mate.
Bakura: Good night, fangirls. May Zorc destroy the world while you sleep.
Melvin: Reviews will earn you hugs!
Marik: I think you should review so that you can hug him!
Die: Hey Ryou, can I borrow your Gaydar?
Ryou: Bakura's borrowing it right now...
Bakura: *snickers evilly when Ring points to his hikari*