The wind was wild that night, as were his thoughts. It swirled and swept, dancing a feral waltz atop the valley's expanse, howling as a mournful wolf for its plighted master. The pine trees bent to its might, swaying menacingly, and the bramble below bristled and cowered, huddling to the soggy dirt beneath the crowns of green. Nightly critters scurried briskly across glades and river streams, burying themselves in their hovels, or seeking shelter with untimely allies. The fox snuggled with the hare, and the eagle sat stoically atop a sparrow's nest, ignoring a young flock's distressed chirping. Lumbering shapes, bears, lions and wolf packs, darted for the mountains, moving side by side under common seek of shelter, and the dwellers of the snowy peaks dove to lower grounds in flock, fearing the jagged crags on the high and the wind roared past them.
And amidst a moonlit clearing, framed by the nearly accidental Ionian architecture, wispy homes of polished mahogany and rice straw creaked and whined as the wind barreled through them in its anguished assault, slamming loose windowpanes against hinges and robbing business owners of dangling signs, ripping the wooden boards clean from their iron hangs. Grimy parchments, dust and other filths marched through the beaten streets of this town in whirlwinds, on the prowl for any poor sod unlucky enough to be caught outside in the midst of such madness, and all sorts of folks, guards and journeymen, drunkards and merchants, scrambled for shelter, dodging from alley to alley, from inn to inn, shielding their sight with one hand and leading with the other, cursing in what tongues they spoke, the sudden upheaval of the otherwise calm Ionian breeze.
From his window Yasuo stared, watching the night unfold, burdened by the contempt of being the causative of the valley's unjust misfortune. In the quiet, darkened room he lay awake, rheumy of eye and plaintive of face, gazing outwards in contemplation, and in grieving. Where elsewhere its touch was as a jagged rake, the wind coiled and slithered around his form, placing soft caresses on his skin as if offering a chilling comfort. It entwined in his long mane, combing through its locks as gentle brushstrokes, causing it to gently flutter and sway. Yasuo understood the wind, and the wind understood him, as a pet its master. It was a simple thing, the wind, unburdened by deeper thought. When it acted, it did so on instinct, and without apology. To perish the grief in its master's eyes, it remained at his side, wailing in its stead.
His kinship with gales and breezes was not born of mere happenstance, for he and they were one and the same; unchained, unpredictable, and unforgiven.
That night, Yasuo felt befit to bear his title.
The wind's howling grew more despondent on the high, stirring him from his trance. As his eyes adjusted, he eased his taut expression into something softer, less jarring for his companion to gaze at. The weight of his burdens was solely his to carry; Ionia and its people may have spurned him, but he did not spurn them enough to force his plights onto them.
His conduct was not born of pure selflessness, for he had no desire to subject his name to any further besmirching. If anyone were to find out of his doings, he would be deemed immoral as well as honorless, an oathbreaker of twicefold the order. The First Lands were said to revere any and all paths of the heart, but few offenses were taken as gravely that of taking one's student for consort.
Yes, Yasuo was the Unforgiven, but he too was a Master – a title he felt he had shamed, and deemed himself unworthy to answer to.
'After all we have weathered…was it as wrong as is said to be, to give in?' He asked himself in thought, turning to gaze at the lonesome figure arched atop the yawning bed, his sight inundated by her moon bathed silhouette. She slept, unbothered by the night's blare, precariously tucked under rumpled covers, and in a tangle of limbs. His snide remarks had gleaned from her only glares and resigned exhalations in the past, but she could not deny how fitting it was, that in resting, she was as a rock. His eyes treaded about her shape, down her length to where flesh turned to cotton and where cotton turned to flesh again, in the unabashed sprawl of her legs. She was a lithe, small creature, as a mote on the bed's canvas, built on sinew and muscle. Her skin, taut over bone, was a fine bronze, and her locks were thick, and deep auburn. As she lay, she was at ease, and the softness of her features built no aversion in his chest but a tightness instead, soil for the seed of doubt, or perhaps certainty. '…Or was it right, as the morrow is to come? '.
In his thought, Yasuo stood at a windblown house of cards, clawing at the dirt to unearth the pillars of his grievance. He sought to enact judgement unto himself, but above absolution or ruin, he sought to reflect on the weave of his misdeed or stroke of luck, as his heritage willed it. His purpose, then, was to seek the beginning; the turning point of his downfall.
The question to ask was: When had he surrendered his heart?
Was it, perhaps, when they first met? He remembered the moment, vividly; coming to in strange arms, gazed at by strange eyes. She had been younger then, fearful and desperate, but with good in her heart to unearth a vagabond from an early alabaster grave. Had she looked stouter, then that would have been it – a glint of steel and a then quiet – but she was a kid, and he delirious. If she wished to help, he would not deny her. Later, he would find no ill-intent in her eyes, nor facetiousness. Much like himself, Taliyah, his sparrow, had her own demons to do battle with, but as he would come to realize, none had such a clout on her to tether her hand to its ill whims. The doors of her mind were well closed, as she gowned herself in a mantle of will and worry in parts equal, which she wore for all to see. It made her strong, but it too made her weak. Yasuo stayed to help her shed it off.
In the present, reminiscing led to reflection, and in reflecting he concluded that, perhaps, his decision to remain by her side was, again, not born of pure selflessness. Any other day, he would have perished the thought without granting it but a glace, for it would be ridiculous for a man such as himself to be frivolous in his methods, but for some reason, maybe the uncertainty hanging on his shoulder, this time, he allowed the notion to blossom, that the 'why' of his disposition was hardly pious at all. He would not find the answer to his question in accepting the reality of what truly had transpired, but he had hopes that it would put him in the right path at least, to find the so sought enlightenment. Yasuo stayed, because he wished she were stronger, and because his heart, hardened as it was, had pleaded him to.
It became more evident when he found a different light to her sullen gaze. He had caught her eyes one day by act of chance, and ever since then, he had walked with the knowledge that something in that almond gaze was indeed aloof. She smoldered with ever look they shared in their travels, conveying rather bluntly something beyond respect and admiration. Yasuo was a man prone to vice, so he felt pride at first in being the object of her affection, but that was soon replaced with pressing concern, when he realized that hers was not a mere infatuation, and that what gripped at his chest was not just passing gratification.
It was the small things; how their hands would linger on one another when they came in contact, for a moment longer than was prudent, how her gait changed when in his presence, shifting from a measured tread to a pointed strut, how she inflected her words more airily when in conversation with him and how she held his gaze when doing so, always bringing color to his cheeks. Yasuo was not oblivious to her machinations, for the life of an outlaw had enrichened his knowledge in the subject of amours, but neither did he take steps to dissuade her from laying on her brusque advances. He found himself unwilling to, as he came to grow fond of her sudden boldness, and of being desired in other ways than to be murdered or misjudged – and in favor of dismissing any pretense of modesty, it was very obvious that he too had fallen for her at some point.
When had he surrendered his heart? The timeframe was of little importance with how quickly it had happened.
For him, it had been joyous to feel again for someone. After the death of him brother, Yasuo had thought of his heart as wilted beyond redemption, locked in a haze of ever-seething anger. Such is why his life was a blur of aloofness for some time, as he wound down the roads without aim other than to run, far, far away. But she had proven him otherwise, by way of trampling his preconceptions and burying them in a grave of unearthed bedrock, so he could have no excuse to avert his gaze when matched by hers. He hid his emotions well as it was mandatory for any outlaw worth his or her salt, but little did she know it brought him immense content to feel a tingling in his chest once again.
He never acted on his feelings, of course, for despite being besotted he was a smart man first. Surviving as an outlaw had honed his guile to rival that of an Elder, which in turn had exposed him to vast boils of knowledge regarding the Ionian Law, to use in his quest of redemption. Love was a wonderful thing, a matter of celebration, but it was not worth the risk of punishment – further punishment, that is, as his sentence was already severe enough as it stood. Both her age and vassalage to him were cards to be played against them – against himself – and he could not risk being brought any lower, fearful that he would not know how to climb up when presented with the chance. And besides…he would never forgive himself if he were to hurt her in the midst of it, so he bundled himself in a shawl of righteousness, praying that he would always have the strength to deny her.
But Yasuo was just a man, and a weak-spirited one at that. As with empires, men too were bound to fall, for all it took to break one's will was but the oldest poison in the lands: time.
He sat in contemplation upon that night, clad in shrouds of wind, because he had crossed a bridge hours before which now lay in ashes, impossible to tread back across. A bridge that had allured him for a long time, and that he should have casted well away from remembrance. What was done could not be undone, but every choice had a meaning to it, and Yasuo sat in contemplation to find a meaning, to why he had artificed his downfall as so.
Why, if he knew of the consequences, did he set foot on the ill path he now walked? Above judgement, he sought understanding.
The sake, perhaps, had muddled his thought, or had he been visited by a vile humor? He would even risk to say that it had been his punishment for growing too complacent. Whatever it was that had addled him, something stirred in his chest that night – something he had long thought dormant and forgotten, and that he could not bury in time before it flooded his self.
In a moment of weakness, Yasuo felt forlorn.
The weight of his life had come crashing onto him as high maelstrom tides, taking him through memories he had hardly ever visited since taking Taliyah as a traveling companion. He thought the road had hardened him, and that he could feel no pain in remembering, but he was wrong. The loneliness, the grief, the desolation, they took hold of him as if they were fresh wounds in his mind, reminding him that he had no home to return to, no family, no friends, not even a nation, that he would remain forever spurned for the rest of his days, and that even she would abandon him when he no longer served a purpose in her life. He would remain alone, now and ever. Unwelcome, untrusted, and unforgiven.
He had been in tears, hunched as a man twice his age, sword tossed aside, too bloodied for him to look at. As so she did find him, deep in the fathoms of depression, grasping for air in a roiling black sea of doubt. In desperation he had reached out to her, and she was more than willing to be of aid. He sought companionship, something to help him regain his balance, and in his haze she found something herself – an opportunity, to further her advances. So she made her move, offering what he needed in the sole way she too could benefit from the exchange. And much like the first time she had wished to help, he could not bring himself to deny her.
He said nothing when her arms came around him, pushing him against the warmth of her chest. He said nothing when their embrace blossomed, when she gripped him with intent, when their lips met in between stolen breaths. He said nothing when she ushered him to bed, as if herding a wayward goat back to its pen, when she unrobed and brought him low to breathe her scent, when their cores met and were made one, when she cried his name in howls.
Now, with his mind blessed by clarity, his thoughts shifted in hues of regret, biting at his conscience, clamoring for his repentance and for the punishment he was fitfully due.
…If only he could feel that regret as well.
Yasuo sought to understand, to reflect on his every move, not because he too sought to suffer, but because in his heart something else entirely was welling up: a fulfillment unlike any other, which had wreathed itself around his core and refused to yield to reason.
He knew of the consequences, and he knew that he had acted against morality . He knew he should goad himself to be one with the misdeed of his actions, that he should be thinking of what he would say to her when she woke up, about their bond and their future. He knew he should act on all the knowledge he possessed instead of confining it to his thoughts, and that he should be taking said knowledge for granted, as his heritage demanded. He knew this, and yet the regret eluded him.
And it was so very wrong but there was no helping it.
She was the spring from which he thirstily drank, the sun under which he toiled, and the air he breathed in his lungs. She completed him where he was not whole and strengthened him there where he was. His mind could rationalize his every step, but there was no rhyme to the wiles of his heart, and there was no denying them either. The notion brought conflict to his self, an unbalance to baffle even the most measured of sages, and the duality ailed him, but it also filled him with bliss. It was a cycle, endless in its length, that he could not escape from, not because he lacked the means to, but because he did not want to.
She was worth the struggle, and she was worth the satisfaction. So his mind and heart clashed, so his center spun, so he sought understanding, to quell the ceaseless conflict. But the task had proved itself far more difficult than expected, for no answer appeased both parties, as some leaned heavily on the side of emotions, and some leaned heavily on the side of reason. Cluelessness brought with it frustration, and frustration brought with it a response from the simple wind. Unable to fight this battle for its master, it wailed in its stead, hoping its fury would somehow solve the matter in a deft stroke. But insofar it had not, and had brought great struggle upon the vicinity instead, which filled Yasuo with a morose contempt, further obscuring his mind, further fueling his frustration and further angering the wind, so on and so forth.
In the dark of the night, the swordsman heaved a tired sigh, and it must have been too loud by half, for even it midst of her sleep, it caused her to stir.
The rustling of covers was followed by the sharp intake of a waking breath, and a throaty whine. His heartbeat quickened, as he counted off the moments it would take her to notice his absence beside her. He strained to compose vague answers in brief, that would satisfy her impending curiosity, but her realization came too soon, and too suddenly.
"…Master? Have you left?" A soft voice beckoned him, followed by further rustling of the covers as she raised her eyes.
He said nothing, for he heard her exhale of relief upon catching sight of him, but he brought himself to nod in acknowledgement. A shade was indistinct from another, but an assassin would never interact with their target. He nodded, so she would stray from startling. She yawned loudly, and drew herself to half height, legs now under her woolen blanket. He never turned to admire her lazy awakening, but he knew her nearly as well as he knew himself to tell her moves by sound.
"What keeps you awake, more 'meditation'?" She chortled at her own words as she stretched her arms, heaving a contented sigh. "That trick only worked once, you know? If you had to relieve yourself, there's no need to be coy about it."
There was playfulness in her words, a sense of ease that drove him to near madness. Did she not see the implications of what had transpired? Was she so childish, so stubborn, as to blind herself intentionally? Whatever it was, it bought him time, enough of it to stall their conversation.
"I would ask the same of you, young sparrow. What keeps you at this hour?" He said calmly, as when lecturing her.
With some luck, she would tangle herself in her thoughts trying to glean an eccentric answer that would satisfy him. The wind was not pleased with his deception, and picked up in speed to send his locks scattering. While fond of him to a certain degree, it too had grown fond of her. It did not know what he was trying to do, but it could read his intentions well enough. He stifled a sigh, and collected his hair as best as he could.
His plans would take no flight, however. "You, of course." She said without missing a beat, seeing right through his platitudes. She shed the covers and placed her soles on the cold floorboards, boring a searing hole on his back. "I've never seen you lose your sleep, is everything alright?"
Her question had no hurriedness to itself, but it had a certain foundation. Granted, he did lose sleep every now and again, as no outlaw had ever the luxury of a fitful rest, but he had been cautious to keep his nightly bouts to himself. She needed her respite, and he doubted she would have any if she knew how often he watched over her as she slept.
"You have grown insightful, I see." He began, as naturally as one could. "Moments after waking, no less." In the pit of his tangled stomach, he attempted to laugh, but what came out of him was a feeble, choked sound that, in another life, it could have been a cocky chuckle. He felt his throat knotting. "T-This pleases me, young sparrow."
She would know. She could be naïve as a pigeon sometimes but her cunning was a vicious thing, and this time, he was certain she would know. Silence settled between them as even the wind grew quiet in expectation, but it would linger only for moments, as the rustle of the mattress inundated his hearing, followed by dull footsteps. The patter advanced on him, and soon he was greeted by warmth as she settled against his back, meeting skin with skin. He drew a breath as his heart nearly pounded his chest forwards, and he strained his mind to not focus on how soft her chest felt, or how she could ease the turmoil on his insides merely by act of being.
Pressing herself on him, she murmured something, a word, a name maybe. Something he had told her in distrust, and that he could not take back now. "Is it… is it about tonight?" She asked slowly, and with a string of voice.
It humbled him, how she could soar with confidence at a moment and then lurk unsurely at another. It had not come yet to a matter of all bark and no bite, but she startled with ease. Taliyah was insecure about a great many things, he understood, so he nodded in answer, to not commit himself to speech, to words neither of them would know what to do with. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, peevish if nothing else, and quickened her breathing. It was a subtle thing, but in the dead of quiet it was as loud as a clap of thunder.
"Master, I…" She began, nearly tripping on her own thread. He felt her work her throat, and the mote of concern that hung in his chest grew larger. "I-It's just, I – I know it's selfish, I know, but, but I–"
She withheld her tongue for a moment, clearly at a loss of words. In the midst of this Yasuo turned, and not knowing what else to do, he put his arms around her, pulling her in a tight embrace into which she sank raggedly. Her heart too was pounding, he realized, as he felt it thrum against his chest, and was shuddering as well, breathing arhythmically, due to the cold maybe, or her feelings. He held her there in silence until she her shared with him all her warmth, then he held her tighter until her breathing normalized, and then he held her some more, just because. They fit together so well, as two pieces of a puzzle, soft and solid, tall and small. She smelled amazing, unlike anything specific but intoxicating nonetheless, and he wanted nothing more than to breathe her in. He held her for dear life, like he would never let go of her. But then she raised her eyes to meet him and in the light of the moon he saw the fog of tears in them, and his heart sank. She reached up with a trembling hand and cupped his jaw, tracing lines on his cheek with her thumb. He nuzzled into her touch, but he did not close his eyes, always keeping them on her, hard but gentle. She looked away from him for a moment to heave a sigh, and she looked up again, no more confident than before, but certain at least of what to say.
"I have… I have wanted this for a long time, you know? I really have." She told him quietly, as he entwined his hand in her hair. Her eyes drifted, staring past him to the side, but he said nothing. "It's selfish, it's, it's… wrong, but… but I have wanted you, and…" Her skin, nearly indistinguishable from the near dark, seemed to grow even darker, as she toyed with the words. "And you have been looking, master, and I thought, well, I thought…" What began quietly dropped to a mere murmur, unintelligible from the whistle of wind.
"I know." He said huskily, reeling her eyes back to his. "I know." Her repeated, firmer this time.
And he did know, because she was right. Because it would serve no purpose to deny himself further. Because as he looked well into her eyes he felt the heat, he felt the sun, he felt the wind. Yasuo blinked, and the room brightened and stretched, trading wood for sand and sandstone, and the roof for open sky. The cold night became a sweltering day, as the Shuriman desert greeted him in its immensity. There, he wore strange clothes, and traveled on strange mounts, and he seemed to have misplaced his sword somewhere, for it was not at his waist when he grasped for it. The vision should have startled him, it should have brought his outlaw paranoia to light… but it did not. He felt at ease amongst the dunes, lurching slightly on his saddle, marching onwards to home, as it took shape in the distance. There he would find her, tending to the cattle, practicing her stoneweaving, sleeping perhaps, but she would be there, and that certainty brought with it ease – the ease he long sought.
"Do… do you regret it…?" She asked in a mumble, and he should have, he should have felt a great regret for what he did, for how he had scarred her, for how he had gone against morality and for how he had artificed his own downfall, but as he returned to that desert and dismounted in front of his abode, as he found her standing there by the door, smiling as brilliantly as a stardrop, he felt something stir in him, something click. His heart went quiet as did his mind, and slowly they coalesced, merging into one where his center ceased to spin. A brilliant light bathed him, and there he found the answer, as in the desert they embraced, as he took her hand in the dark confines of their room.
"Never." He said, and it felt right, like a proclamation rather than a secret. Her shoulders dropped and she embraced him, pressing her arms around him with as much strength as she could muster, and it felt right. He shuddered and bent down, meeting her lips at the middle, swearing to have seen sparks sizzle in between them, and it felt right.
And there in the desert, framed by nothingness and by dry gales, hand in hand they strode across the sand, leaving faint imprints in it as they approached the door, and as they walked through it, into their home, their future, their dream, and Yasuo was an outlaw, a man without home or ties, but there in his mind he reveled in the certainty, and he was sure then, that nothing would ever feel as right in his life as being there with her, now, tomorrow, and ever.
He was the Unforgiven and he would never cease to be it, but as long as her smile shone maybe it did not matter so much, for he never would have met her if his life were another.
On that night, Yasuo the Unforgiven felt proud to bear his title. And he felt quite proud to call himself a master too, but he kept quiet on the matter, for at the moment he wished to answer only to a lesser but equally important title. On that night, Yasuo the Master brought himself low, for the mantle in which he bounded himself in was such that only to Partner he would answer, and only to her.