Title: Black Dove
Author: Aerith Queen of Cetra
Chapters: 1/1
Summary: The soldier and the heathen. The two opposing forces. God forbid they should ever meet in anything apart from battle…
Genre: Romance/Tragedy
Beta'd: Nu-uh!
Warnings: Torture, horrifying images, death, shonen ai, implications of sexual encounters. Definitely NOT for the faint hearted!
Disclaimer: Me and YGO have a love hate relationship. I'd love to own it and YGO would hate itself forever if I did! T.T
Author's Comments: Based on the poem 'Punishment' by Seamus Heaney (We did this poem last week in English Literature and something about it is just stuck in my mind) Anyway, please excuse the subject matter as I felt the need to get in touch with my angsty, Irish roots!
Excuse the collision of two fics into one here, ha ha! (sweatdrop)
Black Dove
Out of Ireland we have come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
- William Butler Yeats -
He was made into a scapegoat, the youth of this small and isolated village. His frail, naked limbs were tied with lashings upon lashings of rope.
There were too many, a man in the crowd pondered as the men surrounding the little scapegoat harshly tightened the bonds upon his skin.
The man in the crowd watched underneath the plain drabbles of brown sheets, almost masquerading as a mad beggar as he watched the spectacle before him, knowing full well there was nothing he could do to stop it.
The men on stage lapsed into the stage of slapping the poor, exposed man that they once called their own 'brother', each blow getting harsher with the encouraging cheers of the crowd.
The 'mad beggar' pondered upon this 'vengeance' as he considered the young man on stage through the smallest creek of his makeshift hood.
It was a routine drill to scope the primitive land and assess its worth. He would be there in that little town of Ballybeg for a few weeks, a month at most, before moving on to the next town, Ballymore.
Parading up and down the street, glaring at the gawking locals was a usual pastime for the soldier but after a few days he usually found that it grew wearisome. This time was no exception.
Searching for moments of elevation, he came into contact with a local who was estranged from the rest of the village, sitting alone in the beginnings of a forest-esque patch of land.
As the mental image of himself approached the youth, all accuracy of detail fled his mind, replaced instead with thrilling memories of ecstasy that filled his senses, the feel of molten skin against skin, the taste of salty sweat and tears mixed with the musty scent of sex.
Hands roamed the expanses of naked skin and tongues brawled in nimble struggles for supremacy.
The two men, the Irish heathen and British turncoat, took zero moments to consider the ramifications of their actions, lost in the heat of a new battle.
It was only after the sheets were worn, clothes were lost and virtue was forgone, that the two considered their positions and, without looking at one another, made the decision neither to speak nor to meet again for further dealings.
They had offered him a blindfold in the beginning. The poor, stubborn young man simply stared forward into the unending abyss in a bid to recapture some of the dignity lost at his naked composure. He looked neither at the outstretched cloth nor at the crowd to which his grieving, once-lover was a part of.
This bore some degree of irritation in the eyes of the reaper who stood beside him and instead he tightened the long, soiled cloth around the youth's throat, a treacherous noose.
The man in the crowd's teeth went towards his lip at the barbaric parade of his lover's death. Horrendous beasts, his mind sneered as the reaper swung scythe-like arms again towards the youth's pale face.
However, it was the addiction to that feeling that led them back into close quarters again, hours after a brief meeting along the cobbled streets and under the thatched rooftops of Ballybeg.
They met in the heat of passion and glory, their touches attaining a slightly more delicate sensation than in their previous encounter.
They were no longer strangers, there was no need for such unfamiliar distance in this act they were about to commit and they found themselves moved to look into each others eyes, noticing for the first time the distinctive colourings of their opposing irises.
The Irish heathen's, a strange purplish colour that reminded one of a fresh and plump blackberry and the British turncoat's, a momentous red like that in the proud and valiant flag his regiment paraded around.
They were lost in the vast pools of knowledge reflected in each of their eyes, pools that begged to be delved into to experience the joy of its unique culture.
Their lips met again in a less than needy stance, a slow, provocative dance of strawberry pink skin.
So different from their rushed gorges of yesterday, the two men found themselves tenderly fondling each other with the same care as lovers in their ruby years would do.
They didn't make love that night, settling to settle into a kinder approach of bodies. Their clothes still on but their insides exuding the same warmth and affection, the two men fell asleep, wrapped in the layers of each others arms.
The man in the crowd mourned as the second man on stage, the reaper's accomplice, pulled out a knife and cut off the first, sacrificial lock of his beloved's rich, dark hair. The crowd roared around him and in response the demonic barber raised the lock to the sky and flung it into the mass of people.
They scrambled to grab the red tipped bundle of hair and the one who claimed it, grasped it victoriously to his head and mimicked the crying of a boy, a boy far from the young man who stood upon the stage, unflinching and stern.
The barber stared at him with a common expression before switching blades and snatching off the remains of the tri-colored strands. By the time he had finished and finally revealed the boy to a new string of mocking applause, the face of the British soldier who stood concealed in the crowd fell into a grieving frown as the black dust shrouded a bare forest, dust that barely masked where was once proud stalks of dark hair.
Yet the youth remained unflinching as he was consumed by the torrent of black, blonde and red waves. A bubble of pride welled up in the soldier's chest as he stared at the young man who stood before a condemning crowd; a naked, overgrown child still facing the world with the same, apparent, lack of shame.
The young man inhaled a shaky breath with both nostrils and left that as his only response.
It was their third encounter, days later during a habitual scouting of the village, that they finally exchanged names.
Yami was the name of the British turncoat. The youth laughed hypocritically at such a name, saying it didn't sound very 'British' at all. Yami replied that the Irish heathen was 'one to talk', referring simply to the strangely compelling language that so swept the tiny island. A language that proclaimed strange words like 'misneach', 'cuibhreach' and 'aontaigh'.
Strange concepts to the British soldier.
They didn't engage in any overly sensual activities this time. The heathen, now known as Yugi, led him around the village that he now viewed with a whole new perspective. They reached the long, rickety looking bridge that stretched across the beginnings of a lengthy river.
Yugi told him that it was called the 'River of Cricknee'. Yami shook his head and simply said that it was a 'strange name'.
The berry-eyed boy paused for a moment, looked all around him and then quickly placed a meaningful kiss onto the soldier's cheek.
The soldier, in turn, looked around him and seeing that they were alone, he stretched downwards and placed a rougher, yet equally significant, kiss on the forest-child's soft cheek.
Yugi told Yami that 'he liked him, for a soldier'. Yami told him that 'he liked him too, for a barbarian'.
With a sad smile the younger man placed a soft hand atop the coarse hand of the flag eyed, and hearted, man, and laid his head upon the green clad shoulder, allowing the harsh rumbles of water against stones and other unknown things to talk for them.
The tar fell across the young boy's head, a brief reminiscence of his once long hair, before it dripped in a disgusting waterfall of empty hope and promised pain.
The teeth marks on his lips proved an attempt at restraint as the agony and the burning treachery scored his skull. It triggered a scream; a terrible, tormented scream that left Yami's soul shivering in distress.
But Yami remained still out of necessity rather than shock. An army of autonomists enveloped him and he found himself unable to do anything but will his support to his dying lover.
The scalds, the burns and the boils that consumed the screaming young man were felt on the soldier and he held his head with a gloved hand in sympathetic pain.
Each meeting after this was a mixed plot of past regalings, cultural shocks and the occasional dive into sensual dangers.
Their meetings were getting more and more hazardous; the danger of a British scout stumbling upon their private rendezvous became more and more likely.
It was on their last night together that they finally discussed this matter. They talked and talked like it would be their last night alive. Yugi had told the soldier that he was in love with him and, despite how wrong his structured and educated thoughts told him it was, Yami had replied with the exact same words.
They had made love that night. The same inferno of intensity combined with the same sensitive approach. Heavens opened and cascaded their blessings upon the erroneous couple as they held hands until the end.
Yami watched through the window of his hostel as Yugi snuck out with the same slyness as he had done so many nights before. It tore his heart open when he spotted his lover being suddenly ambushed by a pack of night-devoted fiends, even more so when he found that the faces revealed in the moonlight were anything but familiar to Yami.
It was in blind panic and adrenaline that he rushed from his room, the word 'consequence' bearing little meaning to him other than the dire ones that these abductors would soon face.
But he was too slow. The streets were now empty. The only thing left to remind him of his lover was the whipping cold of the night slicing at his bear chest and the imprints of a lost encounter hitting his mind.
Yami felt ill-conceived tears spring to his eyes as he stared at the youth's shuddering form on the stage; naked bar the sleek, black rippled coat his body now bore.
The traces of a face were barely visible through the tar torn form and thus, they deemed it was enough.
The reaper walked forwards leading the drained boy by a stray crook of rope, the barber holding another one from behind them.
Yami allowed the vicious sway of the crowd to pull him in the direction of the three main players in this game and they made it to the river.
A choked gasp escaped Yami's lips as he stared into the distance, following the river's track to a tiny, lonely bridge.
The tears finally fell when he turned back and spotted that the two strands of rope were now securely fastened around two hefty rocks.
A speech was made about traitors to the cause; conspirators to the way of a united Ireland and the rocks were flung towards the impossible depths of the water.
The tar-black face turned towards the ugly crowd and, for a moment, Yami felt as if the face turned solely towards him.
He lifted his gloved hand and held it over the soil brown cloak where his heart would have been and mouthed the words 'I'm sorry' to the condemned man.
The slow plunge of the rocks into the water beat against Yami's chest as the body of his beloved berry-eyed youth was dragged into the icy depths with an everlasting shatter of glass.
The whisper of a smile was not lost on Yami and he closed his eyes to the outstretched arms and closed his ears to the jovial chorus of the crowd around him.
It took almost a full hour, after the speeches were done and the delight of the occasion was lost, for the crowd to finally die out.
Yami stood alone, his cloak away from his shoulders and his army attire revealed to the world. He slipped into the water with an elite dive and sunk to its farthest reaches.
His red eyes encircled the dingy world around him as the greatest outline of a body reached his thoughts. He swiftly cut the opposing ropes with an ever-ready knife from his pocket and brought the obscured body to the surface.
Laying him down on to the trodden grass, the nub of a blackened scalp bore past Yami's laced hands and straight into his fingertips. The impression of a face, joint eyes, ashen cheeks and glued lips, mocked him and condemned his silence.
The tears from the soldier flowed as everlasting as the echo of the youth's descent into oblivion, falling onto the hardened skin and willing it to break open and reveal the butterfly under its cocoon.
Shaking his head, he leant forward and kissed the rocky surface of the Irish heathen's forehead, wincing at the horrendous taste to enter his mouth. In his heart, he didn't mind it. Yami accepted it as his punishment and heaved the body into his arms, moving towards the forest area of their very first meeting.
His fellow soldiers asked him, hours later, where he had gone to, why he looked so glum and why his clothes were soggy and dirty, completely missing the blood-covered knuckles that Yami had concealed behind his back.
With a forced smile, he had steadily stated that he was ordered to scout the outskirts of the area before moving towards his empty quarters to clean up.
In a moment of clarity, Yami pulled the musty sheets from his bed and flung his clothing off and moved to the wash hand basin in the corner, scrubbing the decay of death and the stench of tar from his skin. He paused once it came to fully cleaning his chipped knuckles.
Staring at them with broken resolve, he accepted the thought that once they were clean, the last link to his beloved Yugi would be gone, the last trace of Yugi's body clung to these horrible hands that so reeked of the ground Yami had upturned, the ground that now held his beloved so tightly.
Pausing in thought and turning towards the bare bed, he stared at the sheets just beside it.
Another moment of clarity came to him.
Those were the true memories of his beloved berry-eyed boy, not these hands which had just returned a tortured creature, so unlike his love, to the welcoming arms of Mother Earth, no, to Mother Ireland.
These hands were simply fulfilling a civil duty.
Without delay, the soil was gone from his fingers, leaving only scalded knuckles that promised to bleed once freed from the watery prison.
Yami soon fell back onto his empty bed and resolved to leave all memories of Yugi behind him once he left this town.
Blowing out the lamp beside him, he fell into complete silence and he thought of Yugi no more.
"Yami?"
"Yes, Yugi?"
"You will have to go away soon won't you? Go away with the rest of your group. I've seen it happen with your armies before."
"…Yes…you're right. Our regiment is being sent out to the next town soon, it should happen in the next few weeks."
"…I'll miss you…you know?"
"I know… I'll miss you too…"
Horrible, horrible ending… I know! Ugh! I feel horrible for writing this, but you know, this is exactly what Nationalists used to do! If they seen any Irish person fraternizing with the enemy, the British, they'd be considered a traitor and would be killed for it! Which is the same story behind the poem 'Punishment' by Seamus Heaney.
I dunno why, but I thought of Yami and Yugi when I read that poem…
Oh and the words used in this story are roughly translated below,
'Misneach' means courage
'Cuibhreach' means bond
'Aontaigh' means unite, as in unity.
(These three have obvious implications in the story)
'Ballybeg' corruption of the term 'Baile beag' meaning small town
'Ballymore' corruption of the term 'Baile mor' meaning big town
'Cricknee' corruption of the term 'Criochnaigh' meaning the end (River of the End)
(These were used as metaphors for the corruption of Ireland since the arrival of British colonizers)
Also the 'mad beggar' thing was kinda referring to 'Mad Tom' in 'King Lear' lol! I love that play!
I'm sorry if I depressed you, and if I've offended anyone in anyway, and I'm also sorry if the story was a little… icky… subject-wise and writing-wise… I felt like trying something new! But I do hope you'll still review! (sweatdrops)