Author's Note: This story originally came into my mind as a one shot. But as it turns out, the story has a life of its own, and it had other plans. I'm not positive where it's leading me, all I can do now is wait for it to reveal itself, I guess. I hope you enjoy.

Princes of the Blood

There was a moment of pure sensation and perfect awareness, so acute, almost frightening in its clarity. The sound of his breath filling his nose, throat and lungs before reversing its passage. The feel of his arterial pulse against the warm linen of the pillow case. The pure blackness of his closed eyes. The relaxed heaviness of his still sleeping body. The slightly chilled air, electric with silence that indicated the lateness of the hour.

And then the slight catch in the perfect rhythm, the surprise and subtle startle response in realizing with that unqualifiable sense all humans possess that another person was near, and watching him. He noticed the increase in his pulse, the shallowing of his breath, and the sluicing of adrenalin into his muscles.

Then he reached out, turning over slightly, to pull back the covers on the other side of the bed, an unspoken invitation. "What time is it?" Kai asked, his voice, while whispered, sounded jarringly loud in his ears.

"Late," Saya replied, also in a whisper. She stood beside his bed in her cotton shorts and tank top, shoulders slightly hunched from the chill in the air. From the chill, and of words and emotions that pushed against her will to restrain them. Kai pushed the covers further back and patted the mattress, then looked to his visitor. Saya seemed so young, so bruised, almost ashamed. Could she see the concern in his eyes, even in the darkness of the bedroom?

"I'm sorry," she breathed, bowing her head to let her black hair shield her face.

The apology sent a stinging down Kai's throat. "Don't be," he said, sitting up further and ducking his head, trying to catch her eye. "Please. Saya." At the name her eyes lifted, revealing glittering moistness and a world of sorrow. The gaze held for a moment longer before Kai opened his arms and beckoned slightly with a nod of his head. At this Saya seemed to collapse into his waiting embrace.

She burrowed in close to him as though to absorb the heat of his body through her skin. He felt her hair brush under his nose and her breath as she nuzzled her cheek in near the soft, vulnerable hollow of his throat. The swallow was involuntary as his memory replayed a scene from a time not so long passed, of teeth and blood. Not that he feared her intentions. The gentle tremors shivering her body against his did not come from a sense of cold. The tears that fell against his chest were scalding. Still, some comforting instinct inside him encouraged his arms to wrap her more completely, to press her to him as though to squeeze the tremors into submission. The release of tears seemed to fall forever into her, descending to the deepest, blackest place before she drew breath in a rasping gulp, giving volume to her misery as the sobs came more freely. Kai feared that one could die of empathy, sheltering this tender bird in his bed as one would hold a chick in the palm of the hand, delicately, with infinite tenderness and concern.

He would not rush her to explain what had prompted the late night visit. Very likely it was the same as every other night since they had returned to Okinawa. Like a child afraid of her nightmares, afraid of the dark, Saya had come to him for comfort, for a way to keep from drowning in the darkness of her own memories. In the daylight she could pretend to be the innocent, naïve, optimistic Saya who played at being a high-school girl and untroubled teenager. She could convince anyone of her ability to move on and endure the uncertain future, as she had done countless time in the span of her unnaturally long life. But that power faded with the sun. And sure enough, when the city was quiet and the dark was at its zenith, she would run to Kai's bed and waiting arms.

It was a primal response, innocent, a simple desire to be comforted. And his instinct was to provide that comfort, even if he was only a substitute for her. She cried for everyone who was gone, and for one in particular, whose absence was, to her, like losing all links to her history and identity. Kai knew this, and to his surprise, there was no resentment. She cried his tears for him, mourning those whom he too would have leaned on at times like these.

After such an exhausting release of emotion, Saya began to sniffle more than sob, and her limbs lost their rigidity. The close contact of Kai seemed to melt her, and her breath slowly began to mirror his – slow, deep, and warm. And soon her fists unfurled and became unconscious explorers, slowly tracing his arms, outlining his face, creeping into his hair.

He felt her sigh, heard it, and answered with his own. How could it be that his arms enfolded her so perfectly? The lightest, most innocent caress made his skin burn with longing and shame. She sighed again, and he felt her fingers following the thin vertical ribbing of his tank top up to his throat, across his jaw and to his face where they fluttered moth-like over his features. As she passed them ever so lightly across his mouth he bit back the urge to press his lips to them. Instead, he remained motionless, a victim to her unknowing seduction. He was sure that she didn't intend to enflame him this way, and his mind flinched from the thought of what she would think of him if she knew what he was imagining right this moment.

Every night it was this way, and every time his mind became foggy, obscuring why he shouldn't feel what he was feeling for the girl he was told to call sister, his only remaining family. This sister with whom there was no blood bond. No, there were no ties of blood…

Before he could contemplate this any further, however, Saya spoke. And when she did it was to voice a fear that he too had been mulling over repeatedly in the past days. "Kai, what will happen after I'm gone?"

The finality of it sent chills up Kai's arms, prickling like fingers around his scalp. "Who says you're going anywhere?" he replied with false light heartedness.

Saya sighed. "You know what I mean, Kai. When I sleep." She pulled away from his embrace slightly to better see his face in the dark. "It will be soon," she whispered darkly, her mahogany eyes imparting the seriousness of her intention, "I can feel it."

He couldn't look away for a moment, paralyzed by the idea of her no longer with him, perhaps even as soon as tomorrow. What if they fell asleep tonight and in the morning it was only he who woke? "I don't know, Saya, I don't want to talk about it right now," he pleaded, the horror of his imaginings overcoming him for a moment.

"I know," she replied, sinking down beside him once again, wrapping her thin arms around him even tighter than before. He reflexively did the same, as though memorizing this moment in preparation for the future absence. "I don't want to talk about it either," she continued, "but I think I'm more afraid of going to sleep with things left undone and unsaid."

Again a shudder snaked up Kai's spine. "You talk about it like it's death," he choked out.

"I guess it feels that way," Saya agreed. "At any moment now I could fall into a dreamless sleep and not wake for thirty years or more – a lifetime to some people – and when –" she paused and swallowed, "If I wake, it will be to a completely different world, where all my loved ones are changed or gone."

"You will wake," Kai burst out, starting back and taking her arm firmly. "What makes you think you won't?"

"What proof do I have?" she answered thinly. "Why did my mother die? Where are the rest of those like me? Are there any?" She looked down, and the moonlight hollowed her eyes and cheeks. "The point is we don't really know anything. I don't even know why I sleep."

"I don't think that it's abnormal for you," Kai reasoned slowly. "Didn't Solomon tell you that Di-… that your…. That she did the same?"

The voicing of these names brought a heavy quietness to the room, deep as the grave. 'She' referred to Saya's sister Diva, a name that Kai was unwilling to wield. Too much pain had entered their lives on her account. But he knew Saya understood. Adopted brother and sister looked at each other after a long moment.

"Yes," Saya agreed, "she did. But why do I sleep for thirty years at a time when a chevalier never sleeps at all?"

Saya tried to save herself, tried to hide her face from him, but Kai saw the light go out of her eyes, the slight withdrawing into herself that even the slightest reference produced. The absence of her own chevalier was as a bleeding wound to her. Another silence stretched out across the bed.

She untangled herself gently from the bedclothes, stood stiffly and walked to the window, looking out onto a sleeping Okinawa and Kai's eyes followed her. She didn't want to talk about Haji. And to be honest, neither did Kai. He could never be sure how he felt about Saya's loyal follower and companion, the man who had been with her since her beginning. Kai had come to respect his loyalty to Saya, had even been thankful when time and again Kai had seen her chevalier step between her and danger. But to think of him as a man, as the man closest to Saya… that was dangerous ground.

"There's so much still that I don't remember," Saya contemplated quietly to the window. He could see her face in the reflection, eyes looking out but seeing nothing but her thoughts. "Little things. But they mean so much."

"Maybe they will come back to you," Kai offered. He knew it sounded weak, but what could he say to her?

"Maybe." She leaned her head against the glass and closed her eyes. She was lost in her own world, and Kai could do nothing but watch and wonder what memory her mind was caressing.

Abruptly, she opened her eyes. "What if I wake up next time and I don't remember anything? Just like last time." She opened her eyes and found his reflection in the window. "What if I don't remember you?"

The idea made Kai feel cold. "Why do you think that would happen again?"

She shrugged, but could feel the tension rising in her. "I talked with Julia about it. About the possibility. And she said…" Saya broke off. "There's so much we don't know," she continued, and Kai couldn't tell whether she was irritated or afraid. "This time I woke and couldn't remember a single thing. For over a year I was like that. A year!" she exclaimed, casting a look over her shoulder at Kai, who was, by now, sitting restlessly on the side of the bed. "It wasn't until he kissed…" Saya actually flinched, and Kai felt he had as well. "…until Haji gave me his blood that I began to remember things. And Julia thinks that's the key. I don't truly awaken until I receive chevalier's blood."

Kai felt the wheels of his mind come to a screeching halt. God, if that was true… if that was true, then this coming sleep – now seeming to come at a frightening pace – may be a death in truth, a death to the Saya he knew and loved. When she woke he would be a middle aged man and she would have no recollection of him at all. All this would be lost but for the seeming imagining of the old man Kai would become.

His Saya, the one who was standing before him, confiding in him, relying on him, loving him, would be gone forever.

Fear drove him from the bed and before he could think or she react he had embraced her, pressing her small body to his in a fierce hold. "No," he pleaded, whispering into her hair. "I can't let that happen. I won't let that happen."

"I'm afraid," she admitted. "I don't want that either. If you only knew, Kai, only knew how much it scares me. But I think I'm out of time."

"What do you mean?"

"Red Shield has been looking for him, Kai, looking for Haji." Kai started back. This was news to him. All accounts he had read reported the chevalier as dead. Her beautiful face looked up at his. "But they can't find him."

"What makes them think he survived?" The possibility had to be the slimmest odds in history.

"Hope, I guess."

Kai was startled by the force of the anger that suddenly flashed through him. "That's not good enough," he exclaimed, taking Saya by the arms, looking with desperate pleading into her eyes. "That's not near good enough. We can't let you sleep without knowing you'll be okay when you wake up." He let go and turned, taking several barely contained strides across the room before turning back. "There has to be something else we can do. Some other way."

When he looked back to her, Saya had an expression on her face unlike any other he'd seen. With all she'd been through, with all she'd done, never had Kai seen fear like this on her face.

His confusion only lasted a moment. The answer, after all, was obvious. And his choice was clear.

Kai took a step toward Saya, and she backed away. "No." It was meant to sound authoritative and final, but the fear bled through.

He closed the distance, backing her into the window. The two stood facing each other, inches apart. "Saya."

"No." This time it was a plea, and a tear streamed down her flushed cheek. "Kai. Please. No."

Kai watched the tear light its way downward, following the plane of her face to drizzle over her quivering lips and off the tip of her chin. Then he looked to her haunted eyes. He felt remorse, and he felt fear, but he pushed them down.

"Saya," he repeated, firmly and quietly. "Make me your chevalier."

A/N: Another chapter is coming, though as I said, I'm not entirely sure where it's going just yet. I hope you can be patient with me. Any thoughts? Please feel free to review. And thank you for reading!