Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters presented here and am not making any profit off of this whatsoever.
Title: Pull Back The Curtain
Word Count: 5,893
Rated: PG-13
Romance: Juudai x Yubel
Notes: All of these take place in their past life. This was written for Rhodanum.
Summary: We only saw a small piece of Juudai and Yubel's past. We did not see how they met and grew to know one another or how some decisions were made. A look into the past...
Prince Juudai struggled as hard as he could against the ropes holding him to the rickety chair. If he fought much harder, he was certain that it would fall over. It had already creaked a few times, so he put even more effort into it. If it fell, he could get out of there. Then he could get out of this entire place and go back home!
He wanted to be home so badly, in his warm, safe room, where he wasn't tied up in thick metallic ropes that cut into his arms and legs, and where he wasn't smelling smoke coming from somewhere.
Wait, smoke? He sniffed hard and behind his blindfold, his eyes widened. Smoke. There was a fire somewhere, and he didn't think that it was because of some nice safe fire to be used for cooking or light. He coughed some, the sound muffled by his gag, and yanked even harder at the bonds keeping him in the chair. About all that gained him was a few more cuts on his wrists and ankles, but he wasn't going to give up.
His head snapped up a few seconds later as he heard what could only be the sound of footsteps rushing towards him. They didn't sound quite like the ones who had brought him in here, but they hadn't been around enough times for him to be certain. He hadn't seen any of them, either. He hadn't seen a single thing since the attack on his carriage that had led to him being here.
"Hold on!" It was a light sort of voice, a girl's voice, but not one that he knew. She was right beside him, her fingers working at the bonds that held him to the chair, and he felt the heat of her breath as she coughed. The smoke had to be getting to her too. "I'll get you out of here!"
Juudai wanted to ask who she was and what she was doing there, but the important part of her being there he could already figure out: she was saving him. That was all that he needed to know. She tugged and tugged at the bonds, coughing harder with every moment.
"I have to hurry and get you out of here," she said, her words interrupted now and then by coughing spasms. "That fire's getting closer!"
Pain lashed through one of his wrists suddenly as she worked on the bindings, then suddenly, it was gone. Or mostly gone, at least. But with a metallic slither, he was at least partially free. He winced to move his arm, but he reached up to tug at the gag and the blindfold, hand going from one to the other as he did his best to get rid of them.
"Oh! I should've done that first!" She all but squeaked in surprise, then helped him to get them off of him. He blinked a few times as the blindfold fell away, then turned to try and see what his savior looked like.
The first sight that caught his eyes were her eyes, a lively turquoise-blue that were full of worry even as she started to work on the other rope binding his wrist. "I'll get you out of here, your Highness!" she declared quickly.
"Thanks!" Juudai coughed a few more times himself, and rubbed at his chest with his free hand. It was starting to hurt there, and he couldn't really see too far away from either of them, as the thick gray smoke curled in around them. He hoped that they would be able to find a way out once he was free.
Inch by inch, even as the smoke grew thicker and thicker, she was able to pry the bonds off and helped Juudai up out of the chair. "Come on, let's go!" She began to drag him forward, since walking was a little beyond him at the moment. His legs not only were scraped and battered from being bound, but he hadn't moved out of that chair in hours.
"You can do it!" she encouraged him as they staggered forward. Juudai wasn't going to contradict her, not after everything that they'd already done together. As hard as he'd been trying, he hadn't been able to really get anything done until she'd shown up. In the few brief minutes that they'd known each other, Juudai felt more complete than he ever had in his entire life.
The roar of the fire was far too loud and far too close for him to hear anything that was going on outside, so when they finally stumbled through the doors and into the much cooler air, Juudai was shocked to see his parents and most of the palace guard riding up. Water was being sprayed from somewhere on the blaze now, he noticed even as he sank to the ground, his savior's arms still around him. He didn't really want to stop feeling them, either. He didn't ever want her to go anywhere, not unless he was with her.
"Juudai!" His parents hurried over to him, and the palace doctor was only a few steps behind them, ready to check his injuries. There were the expected questions of if he were all right and just what had happened, and he did what he could to answer them. His captors had done little beyond keep him tied up for something over a day, and he had no idea of how the fire had gotten started. They had wanted some kind of a ransom, so it was unlikely that they were the ones who had started it.
The longer he was out in the clean air, the easier it grew for him to breathe, and everything began to assume the quality of some kind of dream. If it were a good dream or a nightmare, he hadn't decided yet. After all, it was a little bit of both. First he'd been abducted and battered and bruised for reasons that made no sense whatsoever to him, and then he'd been rescued by what had to be some kind of heaven-sent angel.
He looked around quickly to try and find her, and frowned when he saw his savior as she started to take steps away from them. Juudai turned to catch her hand in his quickly and gently. "Don't go," he said, smiling at her. "I want you to meet my parents. And…you still haven't told me what your name is anyway."
She blushed a becoming shade of pink, and helped him to stand up at the doctor's request. "My name? It's Yubel."
Yubel hurried her way through the corridors of the palace, heading for Juudai's rooms. He'd wanted to go down to the ocean with her, but his tutor had insisted on the young prince staying to finish his assignments. She had been willing to wait, at least a little, but something had encouraged her to go: the fact that Juudai's birthday was going to be soon, and she had needed a good excuse to get out to the marketplace without him being with her.
That part of her plan had went off quite swimmingly. She'd found and bought a beautiful shell bracelet which was now hidden in her personal quarters. She was certain that Juudai would love it, since the shells had had small images of fish and sealife painted on them in glistening colors. She'd noticed that Juudai loved the ocean and everything to do with it quite clearly in the year since they'd first met one another.
At the moment, she had something else that she wanted to give him, and that very soon, since it would get cold if she didn't. She peered into the room and smiled happily to see that the tutor was putting away his books and preparing to leave, a certain sign that the lessons were over with for the day.
"Juudai!" She rushed in, the box held tightly in her grip, and grinned cheerfully at him. "I've got a surprise for you."
His warm brown eyes lit up at the sight of her, and he sniffed a little as the aroma of her surprise tinged the air. "What is it? It smells kind of good."
"I ran into this guy down at the beach," Yubel said, setting the box on the table. "He was frying these up there and eating them. It's fried shrimp! I tasted it, it was incredible! The best thing I've ever tasted. So he gave me some to give to you."
Juudai looked at the box, a faint sort of frown crossing his face. "Fried shrimp?" He didn't look all that thrilled, all things considered. She wasn't too surprised; for the most part people in the palace considered shrimp, no matter the style it was made in, to be cheap peasant food. Like most kinds of fish, it was freely available from the oceans, and thus it was one of those items that filled the plates of the poor. Foods which were more difficult to acquire, such as beef and venison, were what those of wealth and taste had set forth on their tables.
"It's good!" Yubel insisted. She'd thought much the same way before she'd had a taste of it, and she wanted to have some more if she had the chance. She wasn't going to take any of these, though. This was for Juudai, and she wanted to see what he thought of them first. Of course, if he didn't like them, then they were fair game.
Juudai frowned some. She didn't like it when he frowned. To be honest, she didn't like it when he was unhappy in the slightest little bit. But she would always do what she could to cheer him up, no matter how insignificant her attempts might be.
"Are you sure that it's safe?" Ever since his abduction the previous year that had led to their meeting, Juudai had been a little more careful about what he did. Not a great deal more, as long as the two of them were together, but now and then something that resembled caution did make its presence known.
"Of course I am!" Yubel wasn't offended at all. Nothing that Juudai could do could possibly make her angry at him. The more that they grew to know each other, the more certain she was that he was the most wonderful person that had ever lived. Sure, he had a few rough edges, but who didn't? Those just served to make her like him even more.
Juudai fished one out and gave it the kind of look that was more properly bestowed upon swill than upon food of any kind, especially food that smelled and tasted as good as this did. Yubel admitted to herself that she was looking forward to him actually tasting it. The look that she imagined would be on his face, the way he'd have to apologize for doubting her…oh, that would just be far, far, too good!
"Come on, give it a try!" she urged, grinning. "What's it going to hurt?"
He scrunched up his nose and looked at her. "What would Mother and Father say?"
"If they could taste this, they'd probably tell you to get your own box of it, because they were going to keep this one!" Yubel declared, grinning impishly. "Eat it! It's going to get cold and then it really will be bad!"
The young prince looked at it again, then shrugged and plopped it into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed, the oddest look of concentration on his features, which quickly faded away into a deep expression of pleasure and delight. "Whoa! That was great!" He dived for another one, eating it even more quickly than he had the first, and Yubel just had to laugh. The look was everything that she'd imagined and then some.
"Here, have some!" Juudai held out several towards her and she took them quickly. They weren't quite as hot as they'd been when she'd been given them at the beach, but they weren't ice cold either. She wished that she had studied more of the fire magic type of spells; those could have been very useful in heating these up. "These are so great! Thanks, Yubel!" He all but glowed as he thanked her, and Yubel's heart skipped several beats at the very thought of how happy her simple little gift had made him. She could only hope that he would like that other present just as much when his birthday came around and she could give it to him.
"It was my pleasure," she murmured, ducking her head just a little, but not so far that she couldn't still see his glowing eyes and happy smile. Seeing that smile was worth anything and everything that could ever be asked of her. She would do anything for Juudai, anything at all, whether or not he asked it of her, just for the chance to see that smile, or just to know that he was that happy. "Really, Juudai. Really it was."
Sea and sky reflected one another; one an endless bowl of stars and space, the other a limitless vault of water and life. Yubel was aware of both, just as she was aware of Juudai next to her. It would have been impossible for him not to notice him, after all. They'd been friends for years now, and there were times when she wondered if they could be more than friends.
It could happen. He wasn't necessarily bound to marry someone who was royalty. As long as they were at least a noblewoman of some kind, the laws of who a prince or princess of their realm could wed were not that restrictive. After all, the neighboring lands might not always have someone of the right gender and a fitting age at the correct moment.
But she also hadn't brought the possibility of it up to Juudai. He hadn't breathed a word to her about it, either. She couldn't even be certain if he had ever entertained the notion. She knew him better than anyone else in the entire world, but there were still parts of his mind that were closed off to her.
She ran a hand down through the sand beneath them, and her other hand closed automatically around his. It was getting late; they should probably both head inside. But she couldn't bring herself to leave this place. It was so seldom now that they had this much peace to themselves.
"Do you ever think about the future, Yubel?" It was neither the first time nor the last that a question like that would ever be asked by someone, especially not by a boy to a girl. But it was the first time that he'd asked her that himself.
"Sometimes." Yubel tilted her head to look at him. "What exactly did you mean?"
"I don't know." Juudai shrugged briefly, still looking more up at the stars than anywhere else. They were beautiful stars. She couldn't blame him for looking at them, especially since she was doing the same thing herself. "Just the future, I guess. We don't really know what's going to happen."
"Of course we don't." Yubel laughed. "That's why it's the future and not the past."
He laughed a little as well. "I guess you're right. I don't even know what I was thinking about." He shrugged, a grin teasing at the corners of his mouth. "Maybe I wasn't thinking about anything."
"I wouldn't be surprised." Yubel grinned back at him, rolling over some so that she was on top of him now. This was also not the first time that she had done this to him. This time felt a little different, though she couldn't have said how. It just …was different. Maybe it had something to do with growing up, like she kept wondering if they would be more than friends one day.
She looked down into his eyes, struck as she was so often by how deep and beautiful they were. They were truly the eyes of a prince, warm and caring, and when he was preparing to fight for his kingdom or for those he cared about, strong and ready to defend that which was his. She hadn't seen that side of him very often, but when she had, it had been a glorious sight indeed. She would do anything in order to be able to protect him, while he protected others.
Juudai was just grinning up at her, and she shivered briefly at the feel of his hands as he brought them up to rest on her shoulders. She wasn't entirely sure of what she was doing, only that it felt right, as if she had to take this chance now before it was lost to her forever. So, she leaned forward and brushed her lips across his, breathing in the soft scent of his breath as she did, reveling in the feel of his lips against hers.
The prince himself only stayed where he was, confusion darkening his eyes at first, before understanding dawned, and he slowly began to kiss back. Neither of them needed to ask any questions. It was as simple as could be what was going on: that first, rare, and most sweet of kisses was being shared between the two of them. No one else in the entire kingdom would have dared to kiss Prince Juudai but her. Juudai would never have wanted to kiss anyone else but her. If someone had asked him on the day that they'd met if he'd ever dreamed he would share this with her, he might not have said yes, but he also would never have said no. There are events that do not need to be dreamed to know that they would happen regardless.
It could not have lasted long enough, nor did it last very long at all. Time did not exist in this perfect moment. Yubel's kisses rained down on Juudai's lips and neck and what part of his chest she could reach. Juudai returned the favor, his fingers dropping from her shoulders farther down for the briefest of moments before he pulled away.
"I don't think we should rush," he managed to gasp out, his voice reflecting the giddiness that filled Yubel to the brim as well. She didn't want to stop any more than he did, but if they went too far, then certainly some of his guards would appear to break them apart. It wouldn't be by violence. She was the prince's closest companion and trusted and truest friend, and they would no more harm her than they would him. But the stern look in their eyes would be all that was necessary, and perhaps they would even bring word to the king. Yubel had no intentions of being punished in any way for her actions with Juudai.
"Right." She rolled off of him and breathed in deeply, returning her gaze to the twinkling stars above. The taste of his lips was still on hers and she shivered. Perhaps she could talk to her parents. Or to his. There was a chance that they could have a chance for more someday. She wanted more, more than she could put into words. She wanted Juudai. She wanted to be with Juudai, and to have no other be with him, for as long as time itself should last. There was no price to pay that would be too great for that.
She was about to lean over and possibly try for another kiss, something a little more chaste, just to see if there was a difference, when there was a familiar throat cleared nearby. She groaned briefly, a sound echoed by Juudai, and they both looked up to see Burst Lady and Featherman nearby. The two soldiers, part of Juudai's royal bodyguard, looked more than a little amused at the sight, but all that Featherman said was, "It's getting late, your Highness. The two of you should really get some rest. Lady Yubel, His Majesty wishes to speak to you tomorrow. He did not say about what, only that it is quite urgent."
Yubel had no idea of why the king would want to talk to her, but it didn't matter. As long as she could stay by Juudai, she was fine. That was all she had wanted since she'd first seen him. She slowly pushed herself to her feet, then held out a hand to him. "Come on. I am tired."
Hand in hand, the two of them headed back to the palace, the bodyguards keeping an eye on them as they always did. Yubel envied them at times, but tonight she had no time for that. Not with the way Juudai's kiss still tingled on her lips, and not with the small question of just what the king wanted to talk to her about in her mind.
Assassins were something that anyone and everyone above a certain rank had to worry about. There was always going to be someone who wanted what you had, and thought the best way to get it was to kill you or someone that you cared about. After all, it was best to strike at the enemy's weakest point, wasn't it?
Which meant there was always work to be had for bodyguards of every type, human and otherwise. Which further meant that assassins grew more and more skilled at evading those bodyguards. What good was being paid to kill someone if you couldn't get past their defenses?
That was part of what was going through one particular assassin's mind as he crept through the gardens of the royal palace. His goal was somewhere ahead of him, protected by soldiers of human and monster types alike. He had no worries about reaching it, however. He was the very best of his profession. He could get anywhere, kill anyone. In ten years, he hadn't failed any kind of assignment. That was why he'd been hired for this. He looked forward to seeing that last bit of life fade out of the pampered prince's eyes as his blood splashed.
He paused in the shade of a tree, watching as two guards went by. He wasn't close enough to hear them, but if he'd kept moving, there was at least a chance that he might have been seen. That was why he was the best: he took no chances.
There was something of a mocking twist to his lips as he watched the guards. From his research, they were two of those assigned to protect his target, which confirmed he was in the right area. He wondered if they'd all be executed after his mission was accomplished. Not that he cared. If they couldn't protect their charge, then it simply made everything so much easier for him.
These two happened to be the ones known as Sparkman and Clayman, he believed, of the monster people. He'd never concerned himself too much with those types, though he had trained with some of them before. He had also heard that the prince's bosom companion had been transformed into one recently, for reasons unknown. He suspected that either had something to do with why he'd been hired, or it was some kind of baseless rumor. He didn't have the time to waste his time thinking about it any further. They had moved on, which meant it was his time to do the same.
As he kept moving, the thought of if the prince's companion was a monster lingered in his mind, just a little. If she was, he would still get past her. He'd done it before, with others who had monster bodyguards. If she wasn't, then it was nothing that he had to stress himself over. Regardless, he would take the life he was being paid to take.
The closer he drew to the prince's quarters, the quieter and more intense he became. He wanted to make certain the body wouldn't be found for some time, and that it was recognizable when it was. His employer had made certain he understood that. A simple cut throat would handle the death itself nicely, and perhaps he could conceal the corpse in the gardens somewhere. That would buy time for his escape as well.
There were guards outside of the prince's door, of course, but since he had no intentions of going in through the door, he ignored them. Squirming his way past the other guards as they walked their beats was much more convenient. He wondered if any of them had any idea of how many gaps there were in their defenses. It would make everything so much easier for his employer in the end.
Inch by inch he made his way into the prince's room, and now he could hear voices. One was male; that had to be the prince. The other sounded somewhat more feminine, so that had to be his other bodyguard, the one who may or may not have been turned into a monster. He would wait for her to be out of the way.
"Yubel, I'm bored." Yes, that was absolutely a spoiled brat of a prince. "Why can't I go down to the city?"
"You know why." He presumed this was 'Yubel'. She sounded a bit tired, and he couldn't blame her. Having to deal with someone like that could be very exhausting. He was doing her a favor by getting rid of this little pest.
He was just outside of a large window now, and could hear them as clearly as if he stood inside the room. Yubel did not appear to be inclined to leave, so he would just have to take them both out. She could probably use eternal rest herself anyway, and he could charge extra for getting rid of her. He checked his disguise, that of a normal servant, and began to walk past the window, checking to see where they were. He moved at a normal pace, not as if he were doing anything unusual, and did not stop for so much as a breath. Yes. He knew where they were now, and he didn't think that they would move too much.
He waited on the far side a few minutes, waiting until their conversation was normal again, then started back across. It was the kind of movement that a gardner or a servant would do, not an assassin. Which was yet another reason he was the best.
He did this several times, to assure himself that they would ignore him. Then, on one of his crossings, he stopped, pulled his sharp-bladed dagger out, and threw it first at the dragon-winged creature in the room. That was most likely Yubel, and he had another dagger already out a heartbeat later, dismissing her from his thoughts. He had never missed at that range, after all.
The prince, oddly enough, didn't seem to be concerned that his bodyguard had just died. Perhaps he hadn't noticed yet? No matter. It was time to finish him off.
"So you're the reason I can't go outside." The assassin hated pouting. He reached for his second knife…then didn't need it, as the first one came back to him.
Right through his stomach.
A set of sharp claws settled itself on his shoulder and he was whipped around, to find himself staring into a pair of mismatched eyes that were full of hate and a twisted sort of glory and pleasure as well. "Juudai, once I've finished with this, we'll go down to the city."
The prince's joyous agreement were the last words that the assassin heard, though not at all the last sounds that he himself made. What was left of him was discovered in a ditch later that evening, most of his face destroyed by claws harder than diamond and his stomach torn open by his own knife.
It should also be noted that Yubel and Juudai quite enjoyed their evening in the city.
"Our princess is most accomplished and quite lovely to look upon." Those words, or ones similar to them, were getting far too familiar for Juudai's taste. Wasn't there any one of them that could do something that wasn't sit there and look attractive? Even if he hadn't pledged himself to Yubel, none of them were doing anything that would have caught his attention.
This one wasn't that much different, from what he'd heard. She was pretty enough, though it was hard for him to be sure. No ambassador would say otherwise, even if the princess of their kingdom was uglier than a dozen mountain trolls put together and had all the brains of a piece of spoiled grapefruit.
He couldn't even remember what her name was, honestly. It wasn't Yubel, he knew that much. They never were. And yet he had to sit there and listen to strangers babble on about strangers that they thought he might want to spend the rest of his life with. Sure, he knew that royalty couldn't always marry to suit itself. But it wasn't so bad that he had to marry someone he scarcely knew, just to prevent a war or get a trade route going or whatever.
Juudai smiled and nodded a little as the ambassador droned onward about lovely and accomplished Princess whatever her name was, though it wasn't Yubel. His thoughts kept circling around Yubel herself. She had given up everything for him, even being human. How could anyone ever compare to that? How could anyone think that anything they or anyone else could ever do would be good enough?
How could he love someone else, when Yubel had done that? How could he even want to? The single thought was repulsive. He would go to war before he'd dishonor that pledge.
He already knew that he wasn't going to marry this person, whoever she was. But he listened anyway, and kept most of his thoughts on Yubel, where they pleasantly lingered the majority of the time anyway. She had been pretty when she was a human, but now…there was a glorious kind of fierce beauty to her that he would never have traded for anything. She had always been implacable in his defense, and her transformation had only made that more intense. That attempted assassin had found that out the hard way. Juudai couldn't help the smile that dawned on his features at the memory of that. Three years, and there had been nothing any ambassador or princess could say that would measure up to what she'd done then. They likely enough never would. What could?
"She will be here in three days to meet your Highness." That finally worked its way into his mind and he mentally sighed. This was not how he wanted to spend his time. But it was one of the duties of a prince to at least associate with visiting royalty, whether or not he was going to even think about marrying them.
"Very well." He nodded slightly in acknowledgement, then excused himself from the audience as quickly as he could. Yubel was beside him as he left the chamber, and as soon as the door closed behind himself, he let out a deep, heartfelt sigh that had her wrapping her arms and wings about him.
"I'm not going to marry any of them," he murmured as they walked along. Being in her protective embrace made everything else seem so much less important. "You're the only one that I love, Yubel. I haven't forgotten that."
She ran her clawed hand through his hair softly. "We'll always be together," she promised. "Nothing can tear us apart, my Juudai." Since the transformation, they had only grown closer, even though there were those who would have been aghast at the very thought of a human and a monster being together. Let them be aghast if they wanted to be. Juudai didn't care, and neither did Yubel. She was part of him in a way that they could never be. He did feel, at times, as if there was still something missing in their bond, but until he knew what it was, he would be satisified with what they had.
As happened so often, they found themselves by the ocean, where the waves crashed against the beach and the first arc of a full moon had begun to peek over the horizon. Juudai leaned back into Yubel's arms and sighed a deep and happy sigh. Even with the prospect of a royal visit that he didn't want to bother with looming, being here made everything all right again. Yubel was so warm, as if a fire burned deep within her at all times.
Well, she is suppose to be part dragon now. I guess it only makes sense. He'd never actually seen a dragon up close and personal, though a wandering knight had had a partner who was a dragon once. Juudai himself still hadn't actually met the dragon, only heard about it. He preferred his dragon, his Yubel, to anyone else's, though, no matter what.
He let all thoughts of everything and everyone else slip away as the two of them sat there. As much as he would have wanted to, kissing her wasn't really to be done between them anymore. But he was fine with that. Staying like this was bliss in and of itself, in a way that only Yubel could understand.
"We can't stay out here all night," she murmured in his ear. "You'd catch cold." She, of course, wouldn't. Nothing could hurt her anymore. He sighed a little; he knew she was right, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Going in would mean going to bed, going to bed meant sleep, sleep meant the next day would come, and more days, and that visit, and all the rest of his life that he would have to live without anyone but Yubel understanding him.
Not that he needed anyone else other than Yubel. But if they did understand him, then they would also understand that he didn't need anyone who wasn't Yubel. Having other people around was all right, but she filled parts of him that he hadn't even known existed until he had met her. From that first moment until right now, she was everything that was any good about him.
He didn't want to move just yet. So they stayed there, as the moon rose higher, painting them both with silver light that made him shiver even as he enjoyed it, and he stared into the darkness that was him and was not him and relaxed into Yubel's arms, and the moment of now was all that mattered.
The End