{Spark My Soul} Chapter 1: Tag, You're It!
/Communication Key:/
"Text." - Oral/Normal Speech
"Text." - Thoughts
In every fairy tale, there is always the story of a princess and her valiant knight. But this was no fairy tale, so it's safe to say that the roles are… even?
Well, Ling likes to be treated like a princess anyway, but he never imagined stalking was one of the perks of being royalty.
At least he thought she was stalking him. It was safe to proclaim so. Casting a glance over his shoulder every now and again wherever he was, he could catch a glimpse of her snowy hair, or her wild orchid cheongsam {1}, or hopefully her skin, that would stick out the most with her, especially in Amestris.
Who squints all the time like that, anyway?
Ling, who was currently seated at a food shack, irritably stared straight ahead at the shelves of food displayed by the proprietor. He was irritated because he could bet twenty turkey legs that that weird girl was following him again. She was probably seated at a different food shack, holding a newspaper so that it shielded her face, but he and she both knew she would be peeking at him in some alternate way.
He had tried to get Lan Fan and Fu to sic her, but they explained to him she remain elusive or buried within the public eye so they would be unable to kidnap or interrogate her.
Ling had high expectations for a wild or tragic tale behind that smiling face she always bore.
"Excuse me, Sir. Can I help you?" A voice dragged the Prince from his thoughts.
The thoughts of his stalker receded, and Ling enthusiastically greeted the shopkeeper, "Hey there! Got any Amestrian delights you'd want to share with a traveler from Xing?"
The old man chuckled heartily, "I'll see what we've got in stock," he crouched down, probably rummaging through the lower shelves that were a part of the main counter.
Ling watched him curiously until something hard hit him on the back of his head. He grunted in slight pain before rubbing the sore spot, and in his hand he found it was a zen {2} that was tossed at him. The Xingese Prince, vexed, flipped his torso around, displaying a pissed off visage as his squinty eyes darted around for the person he knew threw the currency at him.
All of his questions were answered once he saw a newspaper at a different food shack giggle—oh someone totally owes him twenty turkey legs now. Ling glared at her, as if she could actually receive his gesture, but then he saw this as an opportunity. Forgetting about his order with the old shopkeeper, Ling stealthily slunk into the back of the two adjacent food shacks.
Pinching her eyes shut in uncontainable laughter, the Xingese-Ishvalan girl giggled from behind the large newspaper, her arms shaking in the ecstasy. In her mind she was chortling at the assumed idea that the Xingese boy didn't know that she had been stalking him for quite a while now, in fact, ever since they visited Xerxes, she had been following the party of three.
She didn't have a lot of Amestrian money at hand, but she found it appropriate to mess with the Xingese Prince a little more. To have caught the irritable and dumbfounded look on his face like she had was apparently laughable to her.
Aliya Liu's fingers clenched the newspaper tightly, until the object had been wrenched out of her hands. The Xingese girl jumped up in alarm, bright yellow eyes desperately searching for a solution to the missing newspaper. When she turned around to have her face almost buried within the toned chest of the stalk-ee, her nerves tensed up.
"A little birdie threw a zen at me a while ago. Was the little birdie you?" The Xingese teen raised an eyebrow over at her, and she stared back grudgingly.
Her suspicions were deemed true.
Ling leered high above her seated figure, holding the newspaper behind him.
Aliya kept her stance bold and defiant, looking back at Ling with a fire in her eyes, "…So the rumors are true…" she muttered, then emotionless.
Ling's risen eyebrow rose even higher as he inquired, peeking his left eye open. "What rumors?"
"You really do keep your eyes shut like that all the time." She responded stifling a laugh.
Ling couldn't stop the smirk from creeping on his face before it faded. "Wait. Wait. This girl is crazy! She's been stalking me for the past month! I can even summarize the schedule of our daily lives!"
In the morning, Ling would wake up on a random rooftop, and when he opened his eyes he could see that on another roof, there she was.
In the afternoon, Ling would pass out on the street due to hunger, and when someone woke him up he could see that passed out on the other side of the street, there she was.
In the evening, Ling would mooch food off of a random victim or circumstance, and when he surveyed his surroundings he could see the bi-racial girl getting quite touchy for the same motives.
Now that she was in front of him, subject to all of his questions, Ling thought he'd take it calm and gentle since the only harm she'd ever done was mentally scar him and toss a zen in his general direction.
Aliya swallowed a knot in her throat as her crimson eyes looked up at the Xingese man—no, boy, he couldn't have been too much older than her, right?
Yeah, she stalked him, but she didn't know how old he was. She knew what she needed to, that he was Ling Yao, seventeenth Prince of Xing, Son to the Emperor of Xing, and the half-brother to her half-brother. That was the reason she had been his shadow for the past month.
"…So. Why have you been following me? You're obviously not from Xing." Ling folded the newspaper within his hands, looking down at the girl almost like a parent would when chastising their child.
She stared back at his stern gaze for a few seconds before her flat expression contorted into a grin. She looked away from Ling, burying her head into her arms on the table as she bubbled away with laughter.
Ling failed to see the humor she did. Maybe she was just naturally cheerful, even more so than he was.
"I-I just can't take you seriously if you really do look like that!" Aliya chortled with laughter, her slouched figure shivering with each squeak. Eventually, the girl calmed down, and spoke. "And I'll have you know, I am from Xing." She held her nose and chin up, perfectly, as she'd been trained to for years.
Ling looked over her, unsure if this girl had her head on right. Brown skin, white hair, and red eyes are all traits of an Ishvalan, not a Xingese countryman… woman
Bringing himself to the other side of the table, and taking a seat opposite from her, "Let's make this easy, then. My name is Ling Yao, first, and only birthright heir {3} of the Yao clan. If you're from Xing, then you must have heard of me. What's your name?"
Aliya felt her mouth fall slightly agape as the information was given to her. She unfolded her arms from under her and set them on her lap, positioning herself more appropriately, "My name is Aliya. Aliya Liu, second bloodright heiress {4} of the Liu clan. But you must know my older brother better, Gen Liu, first birthright heir of the Liu clan."
She had shut her own eyes; speaking in such a formality her fondness of her own prince was evident. "So you're that Interbreed Princess I've heard about?" Ling sighed. Everyone has heard of her, she's notorious for being the girl whose mother gave her virtue to an Ishvalan refugee.
"Birthright or not, it would probably be best to get rid of a rival clan's heiress now, eliminate one obstacle now, and deal with her brother later." Ling thought
Aliya, smiling to herself, finally opened her eyes once the sounds of rustling emanated from behind her person. Hidden in her garter under the slit in her cheongsam, a kunai was revealed, and its form conflicted against another kunai {5} that was threatening to strike her.
A new face made itself known on her current expression, a face of passion, strength, and will to live. The suddenly appearing Lan Fan's kunai and Aliya's kunai shook against one another, unable to overpower the other.
Ling watched the two females intently. He had to expect that other clans would pursue the same ambitions he did. He just wasn't expecting a single retainer to stalk him as vigorously as this one had.
She was interesting, nonetheless.
"You are making things difficult in following the Young Lord like this." Lan Fan muttered, sounding as composed and intimidating as she could.
Aliya's hand began to feel sore as she and Lan Fan still bore knives against one another, but she kept up a stubborn smirk, "Oh, it's you again. You know, you really should do a better job guarding your Prince's body. Stalking him was a piece of cake!" A mocking giggle escaped her strained smile.
Lan Fan's black eyes rose to that of saucers, before she clenched her teeth and growled. Finding a new rush of adrenaline, she forced Aliya away from her, her black flats skidding against the concrete ground of Rush Valley. People around took notice of their actions, and watched as Aliya and Lan Fan stood on opposite ends of one another, both breathing heavily.
"You don't think I'll simply allow you to leech off of our struggles just so you can just reap the reward from us in the end." Lan Fan shouted.
Aliya crossed her arms over her chest, the hand containing her kunai pressed against her shoulder vertically, "Oh, so you already know why I'm following you? I'm surprised how sharp you are!" The Princess girl pursed her lips and dropped her brows.
In the background, accompanied by another shady figure, Ling clapped enthusiastically. "At first I thought you were brave in pursuing us...but now I see you are just a fool." Lan Fan pressed her palm to her masked face while shaking her head disappointedly.
She hadn't responded at first. Instead, she smiled a wry smile, pressing her index finger to her lip as she leapt expertly from the ground. The growing crowd's eyes struggled to find the girl, but quickly found her on an elevated rooftop; leaning forward to watch them. There was a certain look in her eyes, sharp and fierce as a hawk's, yet somehow playful. "Tell you what: because I've been found out, if you're able to catch me in a game of tag, I'll oblige to one request. But death is not a liable choice. I cannot die here, that would be bad."
As Lan Fan uttered a 'what', Fu, from beside Ling, stepped forward in answering her challenge. Though a bandaged hand was firmly placed before him.
"Young lord?" The old man, also disguised behind a mask, looked at the Xingese prince in question.
With a sinister smirk rivaling the younger girl's, Ling pronounced, "Don't worry old man, I'll handle this. I can't have you two doing all of the work, now can I?"
Fu and Lan Fan tried to retort and persuade Ling from dabbling in trivial business, but he seemed to have his mind made up.
His feet firmly square on the dusty ground, and with all eyes on him, Ling gripped the handle of his dao sword.
Noticing his gestures Aliya laughed, "No weapons. I did say I'd rather keep my life, didn't I?"
One of Ling's brows rose, "Oh, you did? I'm sorry, I have trouble listening to people sometimes." He smiled at her, allowing his arms to rest idly by his sides.
Aliya granted him a playful smile, studying him for a few moments. Reaching for her garter, Aliya pulled out a cylindrical object, bringing it to her teeth and making an odd, biting gesture before thrusting said object at Ling, "Catch this, pretty boy!"
The crowd, his bodyguards, and Ling himself watched the grayish object launch towards him, and he only stared at it dumbfoundedly and emotionless as his hands instinctively rose to capture it. His squinted eyes slowly watched the small fuse on the mechanism grow shorter with a meaningless and strained smile.
"T-TEAR GAS!"
"Everybody scatter!"
Creating a canopy over her red eyes, she cooed at the scene. Welcomed by the sudden outburst of smoke and screams containing words such as, 'my eyes' or 'I'm blind', she whistled as the girl propelled through the air farther away. She was gaining distance from them, and Aliya thought she was moving pretty fast too.
Her feet planted firmly on a final rooftop before she decided it was safe and Ling was nowhere to be found. If she was lucky, he was rolling on the ground, whining childishly about his eyes (not that they were much to look at anyway) and how he couldn't see. That was the type of person Aliya perceived the young prince to be after the time she spent stalking him and his persistent lackeys.
Aliya lingered over the edge of the building, crouching low as her predatory ninja skills kicked in.
Okay, so it had been almost two minutes already. The tear gas should have worn off long ago. Aliya pursed her lips, rather disappointed by the lack of challenge. Even if Lan Fan and Fu were able to evade the effects of the gas, the game required Ling to tag her, and not them. The girl quietly huffed, tapping her foot impatiently, "Hmmm..."
A sudden change in the wind caused her eyes to widen. Aliya jerked her head behind her, recoiling her bent knees and pushing herself off the roof before Ling could touch her. "Not today, you idiot prince!" Aliya chuckled, flipping over, mid-air, throwing a Kunai where the prince once stood, standing on the ledge of a roof, three buildings over. "He's gone?!" Frantically searching for the fool.
"Hey!" A voice called from behind her. "I thought you said no weapons?!" Ling whined childishly.
Aliya whipped around with a grin on her face. "Yeah… I lied." She smiled.
"I expected as much from an Ishvalan." Ling said with a smirk, lounging at the girl with a huff.
Aliya evaded him, triple flipping above him, before speaking. "Hey now, that's just rude." She toyed, smiling at his attempts to catch her.
When Aliya jumped over the boy, she turned, trying to prepare for his next attack, but he was gone. "The hell?" She questioned, looking around once more.
"Behind you!" Ling shouted.
Aliya whipped around to swing a kunai at him, but he'd caught her arm mid move, the Xingese girl wasn't surprised to see a certain squinty-eyed boy smirking coyly at her.
Blowing a strand of her white hair out of her stubbornly defeated eyes, she pouted, "Well crap."
"Tag, you're it! So does this mean you have to do whatever I want?" Ling asked, a smirk taking over his features.
"As long as you don't kill me, a deal's always a deal, and while I wanna slap that smug smile off your face, Ishvalans always keep their promises." Aliya sighed, folding her arms over her chest.
"Work for me." Ling said, extending a hand for her to take. It was less of a question than a demand, taking Aliya by surprise.
Aliya took time to think. Coming to the conclusion that this could be incredibly helpful to her on this mission. "Okay." She answered, accepting the hand her rival had extended.
This was going to be very interesting…
Hey guys! My name is Jasmine, and I really love writing. Its a passion of mine. I hope you love this first chapter, and I'd really appreciate it if you gave me some feedback! Much Love from the Omega Wolf Girl! 0_o 3
{1} Cheongsam: A traditional Xingese dress, typically worn short, but there are several different styles as well as lengths.
{2} Zen: A Xingese Currency
{3} Birthright Heir: A person, in this case a man, who earned their claim to a monarch's throne by birth. Typically being the child of the King and Queen, but being their niece or nephew, or even grandchild, would qualify you.
{4} Bloodright Heiress: A person, in this case a woman, who earned their claim to a monarch's throne by being of blood, but in some cases, not direct relation to a monarch. Typically being the bastard child of the King or Queen. A Bloodright Heiress must have their claim legitimized by both monarchs, however, and will have to be claimed by both as well.
{5} Kunai: A kunai is a Xingese dagger, possibly derived from the masonry trowel. The two widely recognized variations of the kunai are short, and the big kunai. Although a basic tool, in the hands of a martial arts expert, the, could be used as a multi-functional weapon. It is commonly associated with the ninja, who used it to gouge holes in walls. Kunai were originally made to be farming tools but soon evolved into the weaponry they have become today. Many popular manga and ninjutsu characters use kunai as both their primary and secondary weapons.