by Vanilla Tiger
AN: Not your average songfic. Completely AU with no actual
digimon. It includes both slash and het (focusing on the slash), and the rest
you'll have to find out for yourselves (however, there is no *hiss, spit*
sorato). I have nothing against anyone and own nothing.
When I say
indirectly inspired by a Russian fairy tale, it's because I don't know
the original story but Ooberman wrote a beautiful song based on it. I advise you
all to visit http://www.ooberman.com/and
follow the links to the Running Girl mini-site to find out more.
Walking over snow fields
away from all the trouble we had caused,
She held me closer,
Like two stars following the wind.
Something made
me shiver
A whisper in the trees like ancient souls,
She held me
closer
Like a blanket woven from ice.
Moonlight falls like love in the
cold night,
Hold me we'll sleep in the snow.
Whispering to the snow
flakes,
Singing in the voice of ancient souls,
She told the story
Of
two hearts lost in the wind:
"A thousand years ago here,
Stumbling in the
night so in love,
They stopped and fell down
Into a coffin woven from
ice."
Ooberman – "Here Come the Ice Wolves"
Two forbidden lovers clung together desperately. The leader of
these intrepid adventurers shook his head in disgust. "If we were in
civilisation, you two would be hanged."
Eyes flashed in anger and contempt.
Some civilisation indeed, that outlaws true love and honest affection. Still, no
words were spoken. The pair knew that there was nothing they could do that would
make their crime less grievous in the eyes of their compatriots.
The leader
turned away to address the tearful one by his side. "You were going to marry
…that—" He paused and calmly spat into the snow. It froze almost immediately.
"You should decide what should happen to them."
"Give them some provisions
and let them make their own way." The judgement was pronounced in the stony
voice of one who has no more tears left to cry. "If they choose to reject our
ways then they have no place here with us."
At this the youngest gasped. "But
in these conditions they would freeze to death." This concern was
ignored.
Two former best of friends stared at each other in a silent
farewell. Possibly an apology was lurking beneath the surface, but from whom it
sprang it was impossible to tell.
Soon it was done. The two lovers departed
into the snow fields, taking little more with them than they could carry and
their love for each other. They would always have their love.
***
"Miya, where do you think we can go?"
"I don't know, Kari. I
just don't know." The lavender-haired girl tried to surreptitiously wipe a tear
from her eye and stared doggedly at the miles of white stretching out in front
of them. Cast out from all she held dear and with their food supplies running
low, it was hard to maintain hope. But she had to for the sake of the one she
loved.
It had been a tough journey anyway, even when all six of them had been
travelling together towards the settlement. The remote village they had been
heading for had actually been founded by Hikari's older brother, Taichi. How
would he react when he found out what had happened to his little sister?
However, the more pressing problem was to discover for themselves what was going
to become of them. For nearly a week they had been walking now and they had seen
no more signs of life than the occasional bird fluttering far overhead. In all
likelihood the two girls would die out here. Still, Miyako had to stay strong.
She couldn't let Hikari know her fears and doubts.
"Please Miya, if you want
to cry, cry." Miyako looked up in surprise. "We've lost everything else so we
have to be honest with each other. Don't try to protect me. I want to share
everything with you, including your pain."
"I'm sorry. It's just that…that…."
The long-suppressed sobs began to emerge. "I'm so afraid that this will be the
end of us." Hikari tried to calm her lover but ended up crying herself. So they
held each other closer, two hearts lost in the wind.
***
Daisuke was troubled. The whole group was troubled. Ever since
the two girls had been banished he wondered if more than five words had been
spoken. Surely, what he had done had been for the best. Ignoring all the trouble
they had caused, even if they had made it to New Odaiba Hikari and Miyako would
have been sentenced to death. Homosexuality was evil and against all morality.
The punishment may seem harsh but that was life out here in these remote
settlements. Besides any guilt he felt disappeared when he looked around at the
remaining travellers. He may not always get on so well with Takeru (for some
reason the blond thought that he should have been leader) but there was no
denying that he and Hikari were like brother and sister; likewise Miyako and
Iori. And then there was Ken…
When his blue-haired best friend had announced
his engagement, the greatest shock was in finding out that he had actually
proposed to anyone! Ken took a long time to trust someone but when he finally
did he cared for them with all his heart. For someone to betray such love was
the worst crime Daisuke could even think of. Maybe Daisuke would have been
gentler on the two lovers if he hadn't been able to see the pure agony Ken was
going through every time they touched.
It had been Takeru that had come up
with their cover story. Taichi was a good man whom Daisuke respected immensely.
There was no possible way the travellers would allow news of his sister's
disgrace to reach him. The journey was arduous, even dangerous during the harsh
winter months. The very first time it had been made, with Taichi leading a
different group of six settlers, two people had died. One of these had been
Takeru's brother Yamato, Taichi's best friend; the other was Jyou, the group
medic. The survivors' pain at their passing was still so raw that the
circumstances of the deaths were never mentioned. Daisuke only dared to use this
excuse for the disappearance of the female members of their group as it was
Takeru's idea. Besides, thinking of his own sister, Daisuke felt that in such a
case death would be a blessing.
***
The two lovers had trudged on for miles. In the distance they
heard the howl of a wolf and the answering echo of its mate. They convinced each
other that that was a good thing. If there was enough food for a wolf to survive
on then they should cope just fine. Neither of the two women wanted to think of
what exactly it was that the wolves ate.
As it was getting late, Hikari and
Miyako decided that they should find a place to rest for the night. There was no
shelter in sight. The only relief from the endless vistas of virgin snow a heap
of curiously piled stones. At the sight of this, Miyako smiled as much as her
tired muscles would let her. Perhaps some past traveller had left a cairn of
provisions in case of emergency. "We could be saved," whispered the
purple-haired one as she went to investigate.
Hikari, her slight frame
shivering in the cold, slumped to the ground grateful for the chance to rest.
She couldn't share in the other's hope. They were going to die. A sliver of
doubt slipped into her mind: was it worth it? Perhaps she should have denied
everything, continued on to New Odaiba where Miyako and Ken would have married
and she would have probably ended up marrying Takeru. They may not have been
happy, but at least then they would be alive. No. One look at her
lavender-haired love convinced her that any time they didn't spend together was
not worth living. It didn't matter what anyone else thought… A scream distracted
Hikari from her reflections. With strength she hadn't realised she still had she
raced to her koi.
The stones had indeed been a marker, but not for a cairn of
food. It was impossible to tell who had set them there. Lying beneath them,
gently covered by a shroud of snow, where two bodies frozen together. Wrapped
around each other in their icy coffin, their love was obvious to any observer.
It was especially poignant for the two that stumbled across their resting place,
as the two men, both tall and slender, were known to the pair. "Yamato," Hikari
almost sobbed, her hand separated from the blond's cheek by the ice.
"Jyou,"
stated Miyako simply as she caressed her lover's free hand. "So that's where
they went. No wonder Taichi always refused to discuss it. The same thing must
happened to them as to us."
"And the same thing is going to happen to us as
happened to them," Hikari said slowly. Then with feverish energy, she grasped
both hands of the other girl and looked into her eyes as she added, "But I don't
care. I don't care. I don't mind dying. In fact, I'd welcome it as long as I got
to be with you. As long as we're together—"
She winced, more from shock than
in pain, as Miyako slapped her. With a sudden intense fury the other spoke. "No!
We are not going to die and we are most definitely not going to just give up.
Otherwise what's the use of all this, of anything?" Her wide gestures
encompassed the arctic landscape and the two pairs of lovers, male, female, dead
and alive. "If we quit now we're be betraying what Jyou and Yamato died for!"
She pulled the brunette towards her and continued in a softer voice, "Life
without love is pointless. But love without life is futile. We have to live not
just for our sake, but for theirs. We must prove that love can survive, no
matter what."
Hikari nodded silently, frozen tears clinging to her cheeks.
The pair huddled up together and fell asleep, oblivious to the snowy white
wolves padding slowly towards them.
***
Sora looked over to her husband, still sitting on the porch of
their timber frame house. Taichi had not moved from that spot since he had heard
of his sister's fate. He just sat there, gazing over the icy tundra. "Tai," she
called lovingly, "Aren't you going to come in?"
Without turning he replied,
"In a little while." He sounded distant and old, nothing like the vibrant and
warm young man who had won her heart when she had thought it broken beyond
repair. The whole village mourned the loss, thinking the two women had been lost
in a snow drift. The four who made the original journey, however, had quickly
realised the truth. They would never admit it, but each of them recognised the
peculiar mixture of grief, guilt and righteousness in the eyes of the
'survivors'.
She sat beside him, intending to comfort him but he shrugged off
her touch. Although she was desperate to say something, Sora remained silent.
Her words died on her tongue, leaving a bitter taste like ashes.
"Do you
think it has something to do with me?" he asked suddenly. "I mean, am I cursed
or something?"
Sora immediately leapt to her husband's defence. "No Taichi,
you can't think that! No-one blames you."
"I hope so…" His voice trailed off
and he stared at the ground. "It's just that I keep thinking about them lost out
there in the cold. I can see them holding each other, telling each other that
it's going to be just fine. But it isn't and now I'm sure he's dead and it's all
my fault!"
"Listen, you can't blame yourself. I'm sure they found somewhere.
At least this way they had a chance."
His voice was flat as Taichi
interrupted her reassurances. "They never had a chance. We never gave them a
chance. He was my best friend and I left him to die."
Sora blinked in
surprise. "This is about Yamato? But that was years ago and your sister
–"
She was cut off as if she had never begun to speak, almost as if she
wasn't even there. "Was it worth it? How could it be worth it? I did what I had
to, what anyone would have done." In his mind blue eyes glared back accusingly,
filled with anger and betrayal. "I hated him for so long. Then somehow we were
best friends. Nearly all our days were spent together. I couldn't imagine my
life without him." For the first time he turned to his wife and she could see
the tears in his eyes. "I spent so long hating him before I knew him. I couldn't
hate him again. Despite everything I never hated him again."
Then it was Sora
who turned away, trying to ignore the feeling that somehow her husband was
asking for her forgiveness.
***
Miyako lazily stretched out towards her love. Her hand brushed
against soft fur but reached no-one. She was confused. Where was Hikari …and
since when did they have fur blankets? The 'blanket' stirred, and the woman
froze. Hikari was gone and in her place lay a snow-white wolf who turned to look
at her with piercing blue eyes. "Do not fear me," he said calmly, "It was your
words that brought us after all."
This statement only added to her confusion.
"M-m-my words?"
The wolf nodded in reply. What on earth was going on? What
was this creature, and why did Miyako feel as if she knew him?
His keen
animal senses must have alerted him to the newcomers quickly, as the wolf rose
and padded over to distant figures who soon turned out to be Hikari and another
wolf, this one with a faint bluish tinge to his fur. Blue-eyes greeted blue-fur
with affection, ignoring their human companions. "Hikari, what's going
on?"
"You know, Miya. I think I did even before Jyou explained everything to
me."
"Jyou? Then the other one must be--"
"Yamato, yes. They came back to
save us."
"Oh… but how? We saw their bodies. It's unbelievable."
Their
canine rescuers had returned by this time and took this opportunity to speak.
"The flesh is unimportant. What matters is the spirit. That is from where love
arises and through which it lives. Despite anything that happens to the body,
love can and must always find a way to live on." Jyou's onyx eyes glinted in the
cold sunlight. " 'Life without love is pointless. But love without life is
futile.' Weren't those your words, Miyako?"
The taller girl merely nodded in
reply.
Yamato now continued where his mate had left off. "We watched you, all
of you, during the journey for we still cared. After your expulsion the
parallels between our lives and yours were far too great for us to leave you.
But we could do nothing until we heard Miyako's speech. Then we knew that you
understood and so we have came to offer you a choice, a chance. One that long
ago was made to us. Sacrifice your bodies so that your love may live."
"Would
we become like you then? We'd have to live as wolves or die?" Hikari's voice
trembled slightly either in fear, in anticipation or simply due to the
cold.
"I don't know," replied Yamato simply. "No-one can tell what form your
spirits will take. There is even a risk that your spirits will become trapped in
limbo and lost forever. Only if you truly care for each other will you return to
this world."
The human lovers stared into each other's eyes. Concern,
anxiety, dread– all of these could be seen in there, but they were not alone.
Past these transitory emotions deeper, truer feelings lay. Without uttering a
word, the decision was made.
***
Something was most definitely not right. Neither Miyako's
fiancé nor Hikari's brother had turned to their memorial service. Everyone was
told that their grief was too overpowering for them to be able to face society.
A necessary lie. Ken was still fuming over the fact that it was a joint service.
It seemed to him as if they were condoning or even approving of that unnatural
relationship. As for Taichi…
Daisuke did not want to admit it but he had
been avoiding the town's leader ever since their last meeting. Guilt had driven
him to try to admit exactly what had happened. To Daisuke's surprise, Taichi had
waved away the first attempt at a stuttered apology. Fixing the redhead with an
intense stare, he had asked how Daisuke would feel if anything ever happened to
Ken.
Confusion had swept over Daisuke. The blue-haired genius was his best
friend; how was he supposed to feel?
"No," Taichi had continued. "How would
you feel what happened to Y—to Hikari and Miyako happened to Ken?"
Brushing
aside the shock at realising Taichi both knew his sister's fate and was not
angry, there was a rush of differing emotions. The obvious one was bewilderment,
but also anger, disgust and nausea. Daisuke felt strangely unsettled at the
thought of Ken with (another) man. The compassion and apparent understanding in
the other's deep brown eyes repelled him and he had rushed away.
Later on
Taichi slept. He dreamt uneasily, haunted by a pair of blue eyes and a pair of
brown. In the distance he thought he could hear the howling of wolves.
***
Two lovers held each other underneath a blanket of ice. Their
sleep would be eternal. Their peaceful smiles betrayed no knowledge of the
freezing temperatures. Together their bodies would lie there forever.
On the
surface, two wolves bayed at the moon. When finally silence settled over them
they padded away and disappeared into the horizon. Their task was done. Now they
could devote themselves to each other.
No human could have survived the
arctic weather. Yet if one had and was there at that time, they would have seen
a most unusual sight. Two eagles, flying together in harmony at night, caused a
shadow against the moon. They soared into the sky, rejoicing in their new-found
freedom. As they approached a nearby settlement, their cries of pure happiness
disturbed the few inhabitants still awake.
Far below, Taichi wept.
~ fin ~
AN: Well that was …different. To any of you out there still
confused, Sora had been engaged to Jyou. So the first section could be about
either group.
This fic started out as hiyako and taito but then I realised
jyouto would work better as I needed Tai straight for all the parallels to work.
Still, yes that was subtextual taito creeping in there. The daiken, however,
took even me by surprise.
Once more, can I recommend you visit the Ooberman
website (http://www.ooberman.com/).
They're great, they are. If only there were more Ooberfans around, the world
would be a better place.