Author's note: this is a rewrite of my story Red String. The red string of fate is an eastern belief that when two people are destined to be lovers, there is a red string joining them. I have decided to keep the reviews for the original story to remind myself of what I have learned.
Please let me know what you like/dislike about this story, and what you think can be improved. Spelling is British style, just in case you wonder. Thanks.
Red String
It was on that fateful day, in that dried out woods, when the two young people were finally facing each other. Two people, whom destiny had marked as enemies. They fought among the dying trees, swirling around each other, metals met with sparks and loud clanging noise. Under the harsh sun, the trees hunched sadly, their branches bare, and their shadows clawed at the ground. Hot breeze rustled, raining dead leaves on the two young men. The leaves whirled, before landing on the ground, to be crunched crisply underfoot by the fighting warriors.
The blond boy gripped his pair of twin short blades, standing his ground. His twin blades looked crude; the wooden handle was plain. Ever since the first day, when his aunt pushed the blades into his hands, they had felt, had become, the extension of his limbs. With the blades in his hands, he was unstoppable. Wielding the blades, he was grace and speed. He was born for the blades, his aunt had always told him, and the blades were forged for him.
The silver-haired boy was breathing hard. He dropped his sword, holding his wounded arm. His was an elegant sword, metal gleaming, handle gilded in gold, and dotted with rubies. The jewels were as crimson as his eyes. Although he was a decent fighter, the blond boy had always thought that he didn't look comfortable wielding his sword. His movement was jerky, and wasteful. The blond knew he preferred a brush or a milker.
The crimson eyes flashed. "Just finish it already," he growled.
"It doesn't have to end this way, Vaughn," the blond pleaded. "We don't need to fight anymore". A shower of brown leaves obscured his view for a second. He blinked hard. "I don't want to fight you anymore". He tried to remember a poem he read once. Something about leaves scattered like wandering thoughts, like dying dreams...or was it peach blossom?
Vaughn let out a short, sharp laugh. "You know the drought will never end, Mark. As long as I exist. Isn't that what they say? That it is our destiny: I, am to bring the never-ending drought, and you, are to stop me?"
"No!" Mark said stubbornly. He threw his blades, metal clanking as they hit the ground. In one cowardly moment – and yes, he realized he was being a coward – he decided to turn his back on duty and honour, and took the easy way out. "Screw destiny! I don't want it anymore!"
Vaughn furrowed his brows. "Destiny is not something you want or do not want. It is something you were born into".
"Someone told me once that free man and woman can shape their own destiny," Mark said firmly. "You told me that".
"You remember". There was a hint of amusement in Vaughn's voice. "But not for people like us. Like me. We need to fulfil our destiny to save our town".
"We can run away. Far away from here. You don't have to die today, Vaughn," Mark pleaded. He had never begged before, and at once, he hated the sound of desperation in his voice.
"And what of the rest of the town? Are you going to condemn them? Where is that golden heart you are supposed to have?" Vaughn's lips curved into a smirk. "Are you really that reckless? Don't you care about your people?"
Mark thought Vaughn tried to get a raise out of him. He ignored Vaughn's tactic. "They will be fine. The drought will end. I don't believe it is your doing," Mark said calmly, wanting to believe it himself. Actually no, that was not true. He wanted Vaughn to believe him. He wanted Vaughn to choose himself over their town, just as he had chosen the silver-haired boy over their people. He fought the urge cry. He had never cried, and he wasn't about to start that day. But he found that lately, the more he got to know Vaughn, the stronger the urge to cry bubbling up in his throat.
For a moment, Vaughn's face softened. But quickly, he regained his composure, and donned his stoic mask. Slowly he approached Mark, and pick up one of his short blades. "If I have to die by someone's sword, I would rather it be yours. If I have to die today, I would rather your face be the last thing I see". He held out the blade to Mark, with the blade handle towards the blond, while its sharp metal point resting on his stomach.
"No". Mark refused to touch the blade. "I will not kill you".
"Please..." There was a desperation in Vaughn's eyes. To Mark, suddenly Vaughn looked as vulnerable as eighteen-year old ought to be. "I can't live knowing that I will bring the end to our people, to you. This drought will kill you, too. Please Mark, you must kill me today. You must save yourself and kill me".
"No. I don't believe you cause this drought. I can prove it to you", Mark grasped around. He didn't know how to prove it one way or another, but he needed to buy some time. "We'll find someone, someone wise to the ways of the gods, who can explain the whole thing. We'll find a rain maker, and end this drought, without having to spill your blood".
Vaughn shook his head. "We have tried with many rain makers, remember?"
"We'll find another one," Mark insisted. "A better one. A genuine one, who can really summon a rain".
"I am sorry," Vaughn said. "But the drought will end today". With that he slashed his own throat with Mark's blade.
"No!" The wounded boy swayed, and fell onto the ground.
"No!" Instantly Mark knelt beside Vaughn. He pressed his hand on the bleeding throat, but he knew it was too late. Vaughn had whispered his last breath. His eyes turned cold, still wide opened. His blood bloomed on the bed of brown leaves, mocking Mark with its lurid colour. Mark took Vaughn in his arms, still refused to cry, as he recalled that one day, when he first laid eyes on him.
Vaughn was riding through this very same woods, when his horse was spooked by something. The horse bucked, and threw him off, slamming him to the ground. The impact rendered him unconscious, and cracked one of his ribs. Mark had found him, and took him to the one room farm house that he shared with his aunt, just at the outskirt of the forest.
When they stripped Vaughn's black shirt, to attend to his wounds, they found the mark on his left shoulder, the mark of the Drought. The old woman had staggered backward, and had croaked at Mark to kill the devil right away, but he had refused. Let him heal, and grow strong, he had said. Then he would finish him, he promised the woman who had raised him. There were stirrings in Mark's heart, and he had thought they were the result of the Code of the Sword, that he had been trained in. The honourable Code would not allow him to kill an injured and unconscious man, he told his aunt.
Few hours later, Vaughn's eyelids fluttered opened, and Mark marvelled at his pretty, ruby-red eyes, at his straight nose, at the strong, square jaw. Later Mark found, that although Vaughn's manner was distant and aloof, those crimson eyes had seemed to follow the blond around, gazing at him with an expression that Mark couldn't quite place. He was prickly towards Mark, but gentle towards Mark's farm animals. As soon as Vaughn could stand and walk around, he helped Mark tending his chickens and cows.
Vaughn was not like anyone Mark had met before. He was unlike the jovial, rough warriors he called brothers, or the boisterous islanders he called neighbours. He was sad, quiet and grave. Mark thought that his refined brows were always looking grim, and his worried eyes were always scanning the sky. Watching Vaughn wrinkled his forehead in concentration, as he brushed the cows, prodded Mark's heart into a corner. Watching Vaughn's fingers caressed a newborn chick, Mark had forgotten to breathe.
One day, Vaughn pulled out a couple of ink drawings out of his saddle bag. He gave one to Mark. It was a drawing of a Lotus Flower, rendered with clean strokes of India ink, and washes of delicate pink and pale green.
"It is too pink and pretty. I am not a girl," Mark protested at first with a loud voice, trying to drown the pounding in his ears.
"Fine. If you don't want it..." Vaughn retorted. He was about to put the painting away, when Mark stopped him.
As his face burned, Mark said, "I...I'll take it".
Vaughn's lips curved slightly. "By the way, you idiot. Lotus flower, is not a symbol for girlhood". Mark thought that Vaughn's voice had a hint of amusement...or, maybe affection?
"It is a symbol of faithfulness, and unbreakable devotion. Its stalk may be flexible, but strong, because it is made of many sinuous fibres," Vaughn continued. His eyes did not meet Mark's.
Then Mark caught this word painted with crisp, neat brush strokes, on one side of the drawing: Hope. His heart had skipped. He had wanted to feel hope. He had wanted Vaughn to feel it too. That was the closest a boy had told him that he loved him. "Love" was a dangerous word that people did not use freely. Especially in Mark's world, in his time, with his destiny hung like a death sentence over his head.
"What are you going to do with the other painting?" Mark knew it was not polite to ask, but since Vaughn seemed to find his rudeness amusing, he decided that he wanted to have the other painting too. As a matter of fact, he wanted everything that Vaughn had touched.
Vaughn's face had coloured slightly. "Mandarin ducks symbolize monogamous, life-long couple". He flicked his eyes at Mark "Maybe one day, I will give it to you". He shook his head, as he rolled the painting carefully, and slid it into a wooden cylinder. "But for now, I will hold it for safekeeping". He sealed the ducks, which were floating side by side, heads leaning towards each other, sharing a secret dream between them, inside the cylinder with a wooden and metal cap. Mark had always wanted to ask Vaughn what dream the ducks were having, but he was afraid. Because he had the feeling that the ducks' dream was something far beyond his grasp.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. The rain still had not fallen. The town, the woods and the farm browned under the sun. The river grew thin, and the people grew thirsty. Animals grew weary, and died.
His aunt watched Mark's happiness wearily. "Do not forget who he is," she told Mark. The old woman's furrowed face darkened. "Do not forget who you are". Do not forget your destiny, that was her meaning. "You are our saviour, the one born to stop him," his aunt said.
"I will. When he is stronger," was always Mark's answer. Meanwhile, he prayed to any, and every god, for the drought to end. He lit incense everyday on the small altar set on one corner of the one room farmhouse. But there was still no rain. He skipped meals, so he could throw the food as an offering into the dried up goddess pond. Not a drop fallen.
"Be careful, Mark," the old woman said. Her thin arms reached up to Mark. "Wanting too much, will only bring emptiness. Too much greediness, will only bring stomach ache".
The town hired a string of rainmakers. But one by one, the rainmakers turned their heads in shame, as they failed to wring the tears from the sky. Mark threw ashes on his head, and prostrated on the cracked earth for hours, begging for mercy. He flogged himself until he collapsed, covered in cold sweats and ugly welts; until there was no more strength left in him.
"Nothing good will come from this," his aunt said, wringing her ancient, knobbly hands. "You can't fight your birthright".
Mark wondered why it was called a "right". To him, it was more a burden, a bane, than an entitlement. One can choose not to exercise one's right, but one must always bear one's burden. It ought to be called the bane of his birth, or his "birth bane", instead of his birthright, he thought.
The closer Vaughn to his full recovery, Mark thought that he had started to look at him differently. There was a new light in Vaughn's eyes, that seemed to tell him that he knew what Mark was. Every morning Mark woke with his stomach coiled in dread, running outside to see if he could spot a cloud, and was disappointed. Every morning brought him closer to Vaughn being in his full strength.
Then one morning Vaughn had left without saying goodbye. Only to be back a week after, with a sword in his hand, as he issued Mark a challenge. It was on that fateful day, in that dried out woods, when they finally faced each other, as destiny intended: the Drought and the Saviour, the tormented boy, and the boy who was born to destroy him.
Mark held Vaughn tightly, as the parched forest underneath his lifeless body drank his blood. He wondered why the Drought had taken a form of a boy, who was so grave and sad, who had preferred to nurture animals, than to wield swords. Mark had always thought that the Drought would take a form of a monster: something fearsome, gnarly and scarred, dried up beyond recognition. He could slay monsters. He had trained all his life to slay monsters, not a boy with a beautiful silver hair. Mark heard thunder in the distance, and felt a drop of rain lined his cheek. Strange, he thought, as more drops fallen. He wondered why the rain had tasted like salt.
He didn't know that they had been watched.
They had been watched from a place, unreachable by human senses. A god and a goddess had followed them with interest.
The goddess watched with sadness. She thought her kind was too cruel sometimes, toying with man's heart and life. Of course mankind was nothing compared to the gods, like a grasshopper to a human boy. No human boy would think twice, before he trapped and tormented a grasshopper. She bowed towards the god. "Please forgive me, my Lord, for being so bold. May I suggest, that there are other forces and things eternal, other than the gods. I believe there is a force that had forged an everlasting bonds between these two souls..."
The god gazed at the goddess coolly. "Red String is not forever. Only the gods are everlasting. Nothing else. One day, I will be proven right". He cast his eyes towards the boys in the woods. "We will try again. One hundred years from now. My soul, against yours. And mark my words, this time, only hate will grow in their hearts, and they will destroy each other, willingly". He gestured with his hand, and a shimmering wisp of smoke rose from Mark's chest. The blond boy dropped on top of the silver-haired boy, as his life left his body. The smoke condensed into a small, glowing sphere, and rocketed towards the god's open palm. He examined the sphere for a moment, before finally placing it into a small, glass box.
There was a faint, shimmering red string that connected the two souls that only the gods could see. Where the string came from, or who decided which souls were meant to be bound together, no one knew, not even the gods. But from time to time, the rare Red String appeared and bound two souls, marking them as eternal lovers.
The goddess gestured with her hand as well, willing for the silver-haired boy's soul to come to her.
"One hundred years from now. Our souls will meet again. This time yours would be the saviour. And mine would be..." the god paused as he considered. "...the never-ending winter". He had sounded pleased. As soon as he said that, the wheel of Fate started to turn, to spin the thread of reality. Demigods were dispatched to whisper into the seers' and soothsayers' ears of an incoming never-ending winter that would force their town to its knees, and of a saviour who would be born to save them.
The goddess looked at the god. He hunched forward on his throne; his long, dark fingers folded in front of his nose, hiding half of his face. Up there on his perch, his powerful limbs cast grim shadows on the steps leading to his throne. His hair was wild, flowing around him, and as red as blood. She kept her distance from the throne. She feared that she would be swallowed whole, by the dark shadow, that had seemed to grow longer and darker as time went by, if she dared to get too close.
She looked at her soul box. This was the third time the souls had been pitted against each other. Their Red String was warm, but now it seemed fragile to her. She thought their String had grown dimmer and thinner as time went. She started to wonder how long it would last against a will of a god. She wanted to tell the little soul, not to fight it, to stop clutching at its red string, for there was no hope of winning. It was hopeless, for who had ever heard of humans defied the gods, and won?
She had wanted to tell the god who loomed there alone, above her head, that she no longer wanted to be part of this, but she had no choice. He was after all, the King of the Harvest. She bowed her head, while slowly moving away, melting into the bright warmth of her sun. "As you wish, my Liege".
The End