Kyou Kara Maou – The Disaster Up North
Summary: Greta's marriage ball brings another round of Maou Wedding Curse, only worse. The family is torn apart by the worst disaster in Shin Makoku history. Will Greta marry after all?
Author's Notes:
This is a continuation of my KKM future saga begun with The Bedding of Wolfram and Epilogue. (Reading it from the beginning helps.) See author's profile homepage link for story summaries, illustrations, OC bios, the story list in order, etc. The saga veered off from the anime around episode 70.
This installment is set a couple years after Well of the Five Kings. Yuuri's twenty-six now, Greta twenty.
This chapter dedicated to Pandawolf, for successfully nagging me to write again. Thank you for caring, Panda!
Disclaimer: Kyou Kara Maou is not mine. Its original creator was Tomo Takabayashi, with character design by Temari Matsumoto. The anime was produced by Studio Deen.
Chapter 1 – The Bell Tolls
May 10th…
The mid-May sunshine dazzled, bees buzzed, colors glistened in the welcome spring warmth, and the fresh scent of riotous flowers wafted into Wolfram's office.
A frazzled Wolfram glowered at the flowers and shut the shutters. He picked up an envelope, lurid with foreign seals, and dropped it back on his desk with a heavy thud. "Günter, I just received this legal tract entitled, 'Royal marriage terms of the Kingdom of Adreshulde'. Since I'm not sure where Adreshulde is, I'm pretty sure I didn't invite its king to Greta's marriage ball. Yet here is an RSVP on behalf of King Ru… - I can't make out the handwriting - and… Well, I guess this isn't really a marriage proposal, is it? More like fair warning. But, why is he coming at all?" he complained.
The hapless protocol officer wrung his wrists in dismay. "It was that Other," Günter complained shrilly. He pronounced 'Other' with that squeak he reserved for his evil twin, from the year the two Günters swapped universes. "My assistants found a list He left lying about, and confused it with my handwriting, and..."
Wolfram rubbed his aching brow. Oh, hells. Yes, I did ask Evil Günter to compile a list of eligible candidates for Greta's hand, to keep him out of trouble. I thought I burned that. "So, has everyone we wanted been invited?"
"Well, the lists overlapped, but we only realized the mistake last week. I sent the missing invitations by fastest possible courier. But the ball is only ten days away now, so I fear they may be offended! And though some of your top choices may be missing, we may still have a few more people than planned..."
And the cost of invitations just quadrupled, and I still don't know whether my father and Aldrich will send the wine and flowers I asked for. And, and, and! The details involved in throwing this ball seemed to multiply like rabbits. And problems he'd thought solved, just kept coming unglued to need solving again. Wolfram rubbed his aching head harder. "Fine, Günter, thank you," he said woodenly.
Günter rose to depart. "And the, um, flowers?" he reminded Wolfram tremulously.
Wolfram slammed his fist down on the desk. "I'll get the damned flowers!" The water in a pitcher on the desk trembled with the blow. "Somehow," he added weakly. Günter fled.
Wolfram slammed open the shutters to glare out at flowers again. Behind him, the water in the pitcher trembled again, then sloshed. The sweetest bell from down in the town rang the hour alone - one toll, though it was nearly eleven. But Wolfram was too busy fuming to notice. "Shinou damn you, Aldrich!" he muttered, at his absent liege lord and stepfather, who should have been throwing this marriage ball instead of Wolfram! "Where else am I going to get enough flowers?"
-oOo-
Aldrich Lord Bielenfeld sneezed, which didn't help him gentle his horse. He'd dismounted to wait out the aftershock, only to find the aftershock build to greater intensity than the original earthquake. The ground pitched his groom off his feet, to land in stinging nettles in the ditch by the side of the road. Aldrich struggled to keep his pack mule Clarence and the groom's mount from bolting, as well as his own horse. A huge flock of kohi screamed overhead, "Bad omen! Bad omen!" as they raced due south. When the animals calmed down, it grew eerily silent. In mid-May, birds should have been singing, insects buzzing. But the wind was still, the sun beat down hot, and unearthly quiet reigned amongst the greening potato and lettuce fields along the lane.
"Maybe we should head for Castletown instead, m'lord," the groom suggested uneasily, brushing nettles from his butt.
Aldrich considered this while he used his fire healer gift to soothe the nettle stings on the man's arm. Ordinarily, in time of trouble, he belonged at his desk in Bielenfeld Castle, coordinating from the center. But, he was on vacation. Instead, his husband Manfred, Wolfram's father, ruled at Castletown this month. Aldrich always took vacation the month of May, for his AvB plantation's annual flower show and seed sale. AvB was bucolic Bielenfeld's agricultural research station. Its flower show was its main business event of the year - more for the crop seed than the flowers, though most visitors also bought the festival's fine hanging planters.
When the first temblor hit shortly past dawn, knocking down flowerpots and making a mess of Aldrich's manor kitchen, they didn't think much of it. But as the morning progressed, attendence was down. Aldrich asked after the earthquake, and it seemed to have been weaker in every direction he asked. But no festival-goers and seed-buyers arrived from the north. But nor did riders fly by on the road southwest to report trouble to Castletown. Aldrich was concerned. He knew the Squires who ruled the small northern hill plantations were away, attending a wedding. By mid-morning, he decided to send a messenger to Castletown. But he himself headed north to investigate, leaving the flower show to his factor and kids. His son Dietrich and foster-son Trenton von Gratz were quite the budding young business magnates, and having a ball.
Aldrich sighed. "Due north. The birds were flying due south. That should be away from the epicenter. But we still haven't seen any messengers. We'll keep going, at least until we get word or reach the next plantation town," he decided.
As they rode on up toward the hills of the Wincott border, they still met no traffic headed their way, except the occasional crazed rabbit or fox fleeing south. The mule Clarence, laden with hanging flowerpots, eyed them in wistful envy.
-oOo-
Three months ago...
"You're sure, sweetheart?" Wolfram asked, eyes misting, hands on Greta's upper arms. He was so proud of her. He was so scared for her. He wasn't ready. She'd grown up so fast. But grown up she had. She was twenty. She was ready.
Greta nodded, big brown eyes also shining with emotion, gazing into Wolfram's great green eyes. "I'm sure, Chichiue Wolfram. I'm ready to look for a husband. A royal match. Will you help me tell Wimpue - er, Yuuri?"
It was a tired joke. But they were so over-keyed that they laughed aloud, and fell into each other's arms. "Of course, sweetling. Anything for you. And I will throw you the most gorgeous ball in living memory! And you shall have the most beautiful dress! And we shall find you the greatest king - not!" Greta pulled away to look at him in question. He continued, "We'll find you a royal husband to love. Like I have."
They were so happy that day, Wolfram and Greta. So optimistic, so certain of the loving support of their family, and of Greta's bright prospects. Despite the demise of those plans, Wolfram would always treasure the shining dreams they spun together that day. The colors and music and swirling dresses of that imagined ball danced like jewels in his memory, as though it had really happened. As Yuuri's political advisor, he'd long honed a list of candidates for Princess Greta's hand in marriage. Lying cozily across her bed for their confidences, he shyly shared the list with her that day. He briefed her on his favorite prospects among them.
Wolfram kept that list as a keepsake all his life, as a mother might save her daughter's engraved wedding invitation.
This was back in February.
-oOo-
"Mm," responded Yuuri. Of course Greta and Wolfram went to him first, with their big announcement. He rose from his desk, kissed Wolfram tenderly, and murmured, "May I have a moment alone with Greta, love?"
Wolfram thought that was so sweet! He smiled encouragement at Greta. He beamed approval at Yuuri. He left.
"Well?" said Greta, unable to contain herself any longer. "Do I have your blessing, Yuuri?"
Yuuri put his hands on her arms much the same way Wolfram had. He gazed into her eyes much the same way Wolfram had.
And he said, "As your father? Greta… We outgrew that years back, didn't we? I'm more like an older brother. If this is what you want, OK. Just know that you don't have to do this. Our alliances among the humans are excellent. There's nothing you need to prove, nothing you need to accomplish. I know Wolfram's serious about duty and honor and stuff. I just want you to be happy. I hope you'll marry someone because you want to spend your life with him."
Greta nodded bravely. But inside, her heart sank. Yuuri not only refused to give his blessing as her father, but he good as told her that he didn't need her help. No wonder he'd sent Wolfram out of the room first.
Later, she smiled, and told Wolfram that Yuuri was a romantic. He wanted her to fall in love and marry like they had. If she told him the truth about what Yuuri had said, the two of them would just fight.
-oOo-
Gwendal twitched. Then he rallied and imperiously held out a hand for Wolfram's list of candidates. He pronounced the list well-considered. He ponderously told Greta that he applauded her resolve to do her duty by Shin Makoku. He reminded her gruffly that she could always rely on her family here. Wherever she might go, he - they would protect her.
As Greta turned to go, Gwendal suddenly rose and drew her back into a hug. She wasn't sure, but she thought he whispered, with a catch in his voice, "I'll miss you!" But then he cleared his throat. He sat back down to his desk and rustled papers.
She glanced back at him on their way out the door. He acted more like my father than Yuuri did, she thought sadly. He is more like a father to me. I wish I'd realized that before...
-oOo-
Conrad stared at her strangely for a few moments. Greta couldn't decipher the expression. But Yozak, Conrad's long-time companion, seemed to read it like a book. He glowered at Conrad.
Conrad glared back at him, then bowed to Greta. "Well, isn't that interesting."
'Interesting'? thought Greta.
Conrad also held out a hand for Wolfram's list of marriage prospects. He skimmed it briefly, then penned in three more candidates at the end.
Wolfram hid them from Greta. "Just political suggestions," he dismissed airily. Later Greta caught a glance.
Conrad Lord Weller
Adelbert von Gratz
Murata Ken
Greta wondered if she'd ever feel comfortable in a room with any of the three men again. And Murata was married to Giesela! Though, they had been estranged for an awfully long time now, ever since Uncle Ken adopted the baby centaur Lucy without consulting his wife first. He'd been living in Trondheim ever since. Giesela refused to join him there, or acknowledge Lucy as her child. Adelbert was still single, with Wolfram and Yuuri helping him raise his half-human daughter Frieda, by the pirate Ethel. And Conrad… apparently never intended to marry Yozak.
Things that make you go, 'Hm!', Greta thought unhappily.
-oOo-
Cecilie was more socially gifted than her elder sons. She said all the right things, even if she meant none of them. Then she drew Greta aside to have a word alone, just as Yuuri had. "Whatever happens," she advised, "be sure to give them a test ride in bed first, before agreeing to a betrothal. That's a smart girl." Which left Greta fighting herself the rest of the day, trying not to imagine whether Gwendal's father had been adequate in bed. Or worse, imagining… giving a test ride in bed… to Uncle Conrad or Adelbert - Chichibert, as the children called him. He's so... big.
Annissina shrugged and said, "Marriage is over-rated." She gradually gathered wind in her sails, and launched into a lecture about how marriage was unnecessary to a strong woman. But if Greta intended to marry, be sure to marry a man whose power, wealth, and social position she could leverage to further the feminist cause. Take Gwendal, for instance - an obedient man of truly useful connections. Greta fled, feeling quite sorry for poor Gwendal.
Giesela said Greta was smart to get an arranged marriage. Let an objective, experienced third party figure out who she'd be happy with in the long run. Greta was lucky - surely Aldrich Lord Bielenfeld himself, the best marriage broker of them all, would decide her future for her. Nobody thought straight during a romance, and she shouldn't trust her own judgment. Especially when considering a match with a foreigner. Greta wondered if Murata Ken knew Giesela felt this way. She sadly suspected that he did know, and no longer cared.
The cook Sanguria and her henchwomen Lasagna and Doria smiled their very best servant smiles, curtseyed brightly, and chorused, "Congratulations, Princess Greta!" They continued beaming happily at her, all in a row, hands clasped properly before them, as Greta walked away down the hall. Before she made it around the corner, they squealed into a huddle to debate the possibilities, and opened the latest betting pool.
Günter carried on as though her marriage were all about Yuuri. But then, he always did that.
When Wolfram went up to Bielenfeld, on his public health and welfare work, Greta chickened out and stayed behind. She'd never been sure what Wolfram's father Manfred thought of her. He was friendly, but discouraged her from calling him 'grandfather'. But more, she hadn't the heart to tell Wolfram's younger half-brother Efram. When they'd met, Efram was the older, wiser kid, showing her the ropes. Then he developed romantic feelings as her body blossomed into a teen, though he tried to hide it. Now, Greta was a grown woman. Demon Efram was still an adolescent at age fifty-five, the equivalent of a human 14-year-old boy. He'd congratulate her, certainly. And he'd smile and crack jokes. But Greta knew he wouldn't really mean it.
-oOo-
"May twentieth," repeated Wolfram's father Lord Manfred von Bielenfeld, in a tone suddenly gone frigid. "Who in hell is Greta's marriage broker?"
"W-well," stammered Wolfram, taken aback at his father's vehemence, "I assumed Aldrich..."
Aldrich, ruling Lord Bielenfeld, was Wolfram's liege lord and stepfather. Aldrich was also the premier Aristocratic marriage broker in Shin Makoku. Of course Wolfram expected Aldrich to broker Princess Greta's marriage!
"Aldrich will not be attending. Nor will I."
"What!"
"The AvB plantation annual flower show is in May. I'll be ruling Bielenfeld while Aldrich's busy."
Wolfram catapulted from astonishment to fury. "Aldrich's flower show is more important than Greta's marriage!? How dare you!"
"Wolfram, the marriage broker sets the date and venue for the ball," Manfred pointed out. He wasn't particularly nice about it, still offended that Wolfram would assume Aldrich's social services were at his beck and call. I don't give a damn who you sleep with. You're Alrich's vassal, not his boss, petty vixen! "Besides," Manfred added, with a dismissive wave of his hand, "all Aldrich's human friends died years ago. Conrad or Adelbert would make a better broker for Greta."
To a Bielenfeld, this was simply stating the obvious. Befriending humans was the sort of youthful adventure most sensible demons outgrew as their human friends died off. Aldrich was approaching his quarter millenium. That phase died over a century ago, and all his human friends along with it. And as a marriage broker, one hired flunkies to handle trivia like procuring the wine and flowers. The broker's role was to understand the needs and desires and personalities of all parties, to harmonize a suitable and successful long term match. Aldrich's contacts made him Shin Makoku's top Aristocratic matchmaker.
None of which Wolfram understood yet. So the conversation caromed rapidly downhill. Wolfram left Bielenfeld in a huff as soon as possible. He'd barely spoken to Manfred and Aldrich since. And he declared himself Greta's marriage broker.
-oOo-
May 11th...
Aldrich was quite enjoying himself. He hadn't ridden this way north to Wincott in a long time, though he used to do it often while his father Friedrich still ruled Bielenfeld. Elliot Lord Wincott Regent was his father-in-law, from his first disastrous marriage to Glynda von Wincott. She liked to ride home this way to visit him when Aldrich could spare the time to take her. He liked the sparsely-settled hill plantations. Less formal than the huge and wealthy plantations of the Bielenfeld lowlands, they reminded him of his years as Regent for his cousin General Adelbert, visiting among the rustic and independent Gratz rangeland towns.
The first plantation they reached late last night. That was simple enough to set right. The factor was away with the Squire's family, leaving his 80-year-old son in charge, who didn't like to make a fool of himself reporting trouble when everything seemed under control. And under control it seemed to be. There was substantial damage to the manor, and more people injured because they were repairing the damage from the first shock when the second hit. Aldrich and the factor's apprentice had an easy chat about what he should and shouldn't attempt construction-wise this week. And since he was there, Aldrich quickly healed some compound fractures that would have taken weeks to heal under the plantation true healer's care. Another horse and messenger were dispatched to report to Castletown, and Aldrich was on the road north again at dawn.
So despite rockfalls on the lanes and downed trees and broken chimneys and porches here and there, he expected much the same when they reached the next plantation, Biergarten. But as he approached the manor, people seemed strangely subdued. A boy ran to fetch Someone in Authority as usual, but he more loped than ran. Strangely many of the farm animals were lying down. Come to think of it, all the cattle had been lying down in the fields as well, and no one out minding them.
"Thank Shinou you're here, m'Lord!" cried the local healer, shuffling out onto the crazy-tilted earthquake-heaved manor verandah. She didn't look well. "We've been wondering whether to send for help, but…" She threw up her hands in tired dismay. To Aldrich's attentive concentration, the worthy woman offered up a seemingly endless litany of odd symptoms. Essentially, everyone was sick and tired all of a sudden, including the animals. She was well trained as a healer – for the remote plantations, Manfred recruited some of Bielenfeld's very best, since they had no backup near at hand. She'd tried and failed to find a particular cause of the general malaise.
They were interrupted by a cry of, "Heya! You fool mule!" from Aldrich's groom. "Ach, sorry, m'Lord. This mule's that picky. Won't touch the water, won't touch the hay they brought him. And now Clarence's eaten your sweet pea flowers we brung for Lord Elliot." He cordially swotted Clarence across the nose.
Clarence looked unrepentent. Aldrich laughed. Then he frowned. Their horses were watered, but hanging their heads, no longer eating the hay laid before them. The groom was right. Clarence was notoriously picky, but if he felt the water or hay was bad, he was usually right. Aldrich looked up at the hills ringing the plantation's central bowl-shaped valley. He considered what everyone here had been exposed to. Food, but everyone ate something different. Water, but from different sources. Air...
"Get out," Aldrich suddenly said. "Everyone out. I want this valley evacuated, as quickly as possible. You'll need to bring food and drink. Bring only supplies sealed before the earthquakes yesterday - beer casks, milk over two days old and sealed for market, canned goods. Other than that, bring as little as possible. You may have to walk to the next plantation."
"What in Shinou's name?" cried the indignant old factor. He'd joined the discussion on the porch while the healer told her tale of woe. "We're in no shape to walk that far!"
"Bad air," explained Aldrich. "There are gases trapped beneath the earth, old and strange, some of them very poisonous. I think the earthquake broke open some poison gas underground, and flooded your valley with it. It's the very air here that's making you ill, and seeping into the water and food. You've got to get out as quickly as possible. The longer you stay here, the sicker you'll get, until you're too weak to escape."
Such was the time-tested authority of the von Bielenfelds, that they believed him. They mobilized quickly to do as he bid. Of course, informing and evacuating the entire plantation was easier said than done. But the healthiest horses and riders were dispatched within minutes, and the column of sickly refugees was moving out within hours.
"What, we're not going with them?" cried Aldrich's amazed groom. "You said they had to flee south because the very air was poison! Surely we're not still going north!"
Not only were they still headed north, but Aldrich recruited a young army veteran to join them, with medic training. "The air should be alright outside this bowl of hills," said Aldrich. "There's only one plantation left before Winvale, and we can heal along the way. With two healers, it should be safer."
-oOo-
May 12th...
After his customary evening bedtime chat with Greta, Yuuri paused outside his and Wolfram's bedroom door, three very formal bound marriage proposals tucked under his arm. He hadn't brought those with him to Greta's room, only mentioned them in passing. Her ticket to stay home... He reconsidered his decision to discuss this with Wolfram at bedtime. Instead of, say, in Yuuri's office, with the door open, to force Wolfram to maintain decorum.
Nah. He'd lose it, anyway, and probably offend Conrad and Gwendal as well. Offend them more... Besides, this is a family affair, not a matter of state. Although, when it came to the hand of the Princess in marriage... It is not a matter of state, Yuuri firmly denied. He took a deep breath and pressed into his bedroom, to confront his political advisor, life partner, and beloved.
The bed was already turned down, glasses of water on the nightstands. Wolfram lay langorously across the middle of the bed, filing his impeccably groomed fingernails, silky pink nightgown fetchingly askew. His hair curled faintly damp from the bath. Satiny skin gleamed with ginger-pineapple bath oil, in the warm light of dozens of candles. As Yuuri entered, Wolfram fairly glowed at him. He palmed the nail file, arched his neck and shoulders back, and stretched a bare leg out further. Let's play tonight, Yuuri... "You had a long talk with Greta," Wolfram invited.
Let's not play tonight, Yuuri sighed. "Well, we had a lot to talk about." Yuuri placed the three bound volumes on the foot of the bed. "Your brother Conrad and I also had a great deal to talk about this afternoon. When he brought me these. Marriage proposals from Adelbert, Murata Ken, and Conrad himself. He believed I was expecting them. He was profoundly offended that it was all news to me. Apparently, Greta also knew. Wolfram. You should have told me."
Wolfram's defensiveness bristled like a porcupine. Head snapped forward, eyebrows jutting in a sharp V of anger. His leg and bared shoulder, however, sketched a more aggressively sensual pose. "Greta can do better. With a marriage to a human head of state. I've considered their requests, and rejected them."
Yuuri yanked off his purple shawl of Maouitude, as he thought of it, tossed it on a bedpost, and proceeded to undress for bed. "You have not considered their requests, Wolfram. Conrad just got back from Trondheim today, and delivered them to me straightaway. These proposals. Which are sincere and carefully developed, and deserve our careful review and consideration in return."
"Hmph!" Wolfram snorted. "I am Greta's marriage broker –"
"Only because you offended Aldrich," Yuuri muttered. "You're Greta's marriage broker by mistake. Wolfram, think. If Aldrich were Greta's broker, wouldn't he offer Greta an option to stay home in Shin Makoku? Granted, he'd probably discourage Adelbert's suit." For the same reason he'd never have approved of our marriage, a human to a full-blood demon, growing old on different timescales. "But only after respectful consideration, and a meeting, to give Adelbert face. Personally, I think Adelbert's daughter would love it, but the rest of his family would be adamantly opposed. Conrad and Murata are good options, though. Marrying one of them would let Greta stay in Shin Makoku with high rank. Especially Murata –"
"'Especially Murata'! How can you say that, Yuuri! He's your age, and he's married to Giesela!"
Yuuri twitched an eyebrow up. "Murata and I are only six years older than Greta. We're the perfect age to marry her." Your denial notwithstanding, Wolfram. Murata and I are aging as humans. While you seem younger and more unreasonable all the time... "I'm a better age to marry Greta, than to pretend to be her father. Giesela and Murata are never going to get back together. That's explained in the proposals that my best friends took great time and care to prepare –"
"And Conrad! It's obscene. He's her uncle, and he's in love with Yozak –"
"Also covered in this thoughtful document. Conrad offers to forsake all others, and handsomely fund his Lady to build a castle, to become the Weller domain seat by Lutenberg. Only a couple hours' ride from here on horseback. Actually, he offers Greta that whether she marries Conrad or Adelbert. Greta's eyes lit up when I told her Conrad offered to let her design and build her own castle –"
"You told Greta!?"
"Of course I told Greta, obviously you weren't thinking straight. They'd allow her to stay here, near her family. You only want to marry her off to a foreigner, in some silly marriage of state. I told her to marry for her happiness. I don't need her to marry for some political alliance." He kicked his pants off and under the bed.
"Sweet Shinou, Yuuri!" Wolfram cried, aghast. His aggressive sex kitten pose vanished, and he leaned forward in honest horror. "Please tell me you didn't say that to Greta!"
"Of course I said that to Greta. I've told her that from the first. I don't need her help with my human allies." The husbands locked eyes, Yuuri glaring and Wolfram stricken. "And I don't. Need her help. With my human allies." At age twenty-six now, Maou Yuuri and normal Yuuri looked the same. And standing there buck naked didn't diminish Yuuri's look of Maou authority one iota.
"But that's - !" Words failed Wolfram, how to express the hurt, the emotional sabotage, of Yuuri's complete inability to comprehend the honor and dignity of a Lady Aristocrat giving her feminine all for Shin Makoku. She's not a Tokyo housewife like your Mom! Wolfram dropped his face into the bedding. "Yuuri, you idiot!"
Yuuri shoved Wolfram over by the shoulder, turned him turtle to lie face up, and straddled him on the bed. "I don't prefer to be called an idiot any more, Wolfram," he said firmly. "My choices are not yours. And Greta understood me." Wolfram perforce gazed up at him, green eyes looking hurt, his fists and legs pinned. "I've already read these proposals, and find them to have great merit. You will read them tomorrow, carefully, and discuss their details with Greta. She will choose among all her suitors, fully informed of their offers. And you will respond to Lord Weller, Lord von Gratz, and the Great Sage Murata Ken, in this as in all matters, with the deference and respect they are due. Understood, pretty vixen?"
Wolfram clenched his eyes shut in a pained grimace. Not even my father dismisses me like that any more, calling me 'pretty vixen', like a... spoiled brat. At least... not as often. "Understood," he muttered in defeat.
"I don't suppose you want to have sex tonight?" Yuuri offered, in an attempt to put this argument behind them.
Wolfram cracked open one baleful green eye to assess Yuuri's sincerity. He's relieved to have an excuse not to have sex tonight. These days, four or five times a week is enough. More than that and he feels like I'm being a... pest. He shut his eye again and turned his head away. "Not tonight, dear. I have a headache."
Yuuri snorted wry appreciation. Never let me be the one to turn you down, eh? Don't ever change, Wolfram. I mean that, my beautiful vengeful sex kitten.
As he rose to his hands and knees, and raised a leg to unstraddle Wolfram, the bed jarred violently underneath him and pitched him forward flat, to land with crotch on Wolfram's face. All the clock bells in the town below rang out alarums.
"Well, I suppose I could change my mind," observed Wolfram dryly, planting a kiss on Yuuri's accidentally offered part.
But Yuuri's mind was elsewhere. "Earthquake. Big one. Far away," he considered slowly. "But probably still within Shin Makoku." He vaguely assumed his youth in earthquake-ridden Japan informed this intuition, though in fact his Maou knowledge was far more direct, if unconscious.
"Shin Makoku doesn't have earthquakes," Wolfram scoffed. His mind wasn't on the earthquake. Earthquakes in his experience involved ripples on water. Or Maou temper tantrums.
Despite Wolfram's encouraging efforts, Yuuri apologetically shifted his pelvis up and away. "Well, I suppose we'll find out in the morning, what damage and where. Better get some sleep."
-oOo-
The bells rang throughout Shin Makoku, as far away as the Khrennikov and Donaghie coasts. For the rest of their long lives, Mazoku remembered where they'd been, the night the bells tolled, much the way Americans remembered what they were doing when they learned that JFK had been shot, or that hijacked planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. Though the Mazoku remembered two different sets of bells. In Bielenfeld and Wincott, people counted time instead from the first earthquake, early on a beautiful carefee May morning, two days before. There, tonight's bells more crashed than rang, as slender clock towers cracked and crumpled.
-oOo-
Aldrich snicked his little blade closed, and ran a finger slowly along the lines he'd carved in the tree, a tender lover's touch. AvB loves MvB, with the date. Our child tree. Manfred's and mine. We made this seed a few years after Efram was born. I gave him space then, thinking maybe he and Dionne would marry after all. They enjoyed caring for the baby together so much. I thought I'd lost Manfred then. But no. The seeds that planted this glade were from the month of our reunion...
There was no shelter for the night. Derringer, the last Bielenfeld plantation, had been deserted except for the dead, the people all fled, probably north to Winvale. From here, even to send for help from Bielenfeld Castletown, they'd head for the Wincott capital. Winvale lay on the great Donza River, an easy glide downstream to Castletown. In an emergency, Elliot Lord Wincott would lend a majutsu-powered launch to speed the trip. Elliot's our only hope, too, now.
They'd pressed on, to rest for the night in this glade on the Wincott border. Aldrich had hoped the glade would be healthy, that the life majutsu from his child-trees would shield them. He seemed to be right. Even picky-picky Clarence approved. The mule hadn't deemed any grass fit to eat since before Biergarten, the first stricken plantation, and refused to drink anything except their casked beer. But here Clarence was happily munching away, and even drank from a little spring. The medic and the groom were already passed out on the ground. They too had guzzled beer all day. They only carried enough distilled water for Aldrich, who couldn't – wouldn't – touch the beer.
Aldrich placed his fingertips in the grooves of Manfred's initials, carved into the great sassafras tree, and lay his hot throbbing forehead against the cool herringbone of gray bark. Will he come this way straightaway? If he knows I'm dead, trying to find me anyway? No, he'd wait. The crisis would be over. A month? No, five or ten years, I should think. At first, suddenly thrust into ruling the domain in such a mess, a single parent with four kids at home, he'd be too busy. Aldrich caressed the fresh scratches of the word 'loved', breathed deeply of the sassafras and green smell, like a soft spring rain, so like the scent of his and Manfred's lovemaking. When he's ready to move on, to say good-bye to me so he can love another. That's when he'll come this way, see this grove, touch these lines. Alone, I think. He wouldn't bring the children along, not for that trip. Not to let their other father go.
Aldrich pressed his forehead into the bark, willing Manfred to feel his love for him across time. He traced the initials as though tracing Manfred's ear, down his neck, feeling his caress in return, treasuring a body, a person, a soul, dearer to him than any other. Tears ran down his cheeks.
I'm so sorry, Manfred. I screwed up. I don't think we're going to make it. I won't give up. With my last breath I'll still be trying to make it back to you. But if you're reading this, if you're touching this tree, thinking of me as I'm thinking of you... I didn't make it. Don't bother looking for bones. This is all you need.
See you on the other side, love.
Outside the sheltered glade, drifting down like snowflakes from the silent starry sky, the ash began to fall.
-oOo-
AN: So, think this story has promise? Please review!!! Reviews fuel further chapters (or another story...)
Oh, and for a while longer, there's a poll on my profile, asking what story you'd like next in my KKMverse. Not too late to vote yet! This story may address several winning topics.
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