A/N: Here is the second chapter. This is almost a filler, but it introduces Matt, Mello, and Near into the story. I promise that they have their connections to the main plot, but for the time they are pretty much a buffer for what (I hope) will soon become some rather disturbing content while the relationship between L and Light progresses. The vision that I had for Mello was a lot more harsh and cruel than what I gave you here. He needs to be redeemable though, I realize. As for Matt, he's a little...flat, but I think I've succeeded at giving him a pretty decent tragic flaw.

Warnings: some mentions of Light's exploits and wants, L being weird, dying animals, some disturbing imagery, some disturbing thoughts, Kira begins to rear his ugly head in Light

Disclaimer: If I owned it, it would take place pre-industrial revolution and all the characters would be physically clawing each other apart.

Chapter two: What Doesn't Bode Well With Hunters and Lords

That morning, Light had to search high and low, glaringly pushing servants out of the way, hissing at cooks, and bitching about life in general. The room that he had given L was empty that morning. The bed was made, but warm, clearly slept in, but early left.

Frankly, he was actually rather excited to find himself doing something that wasn't reading or besting his servants at chess. It didn't take him long to find the wayward concubine. He was sitting, pretty as you please, on the grass of the courtyard.

L had already found his fondest place. No one really came back to the courtyard, and it was overrun with weeds and contained a massive and disgusting pond that no fish have lived in for some time. The weather was not pretty, but L was painfully careful about not getting dirty. That intrigued Light.

"I don't suppose you'd think it cleaner to be indoors?" he asked, alerting his approach. He wasn't disappointed when he saw L's shoulders tense under his shirt.

"Why, Light, of course not. I find everywhere so evenly unsanitary," he answered, turning to look at him, his huge disturbing eyes giving away nothing.

Light cared to notice for the first time that his eyes were unnaturally large. They were clear in the sense of cloudiness, but they didn't offer any insight. They were disturbingly unnatural in their coldness and emptiness.

"You're enjoying the weather? The smells? It's a sight better than where you came from," Light said, wondering how the young man engaged in light conversation.

His question was answered: clearly not very well. The other man's brows knitted together momentarily, as though he were diligently thinking of a way to answer without sounding snide. He decided not to answer him directly. "Where I came from was satisfactory. Here, at least I think, there is less death, but none of what I know."

There was a sudden and chilly wind. L gripped his thin shoulders and a shiver wracked him. He was so vulnerable to the elements. His skin was so thin, so gorged with blood, so white, it almost seemed like he could be toppled and killed if a leaf were to fall on him from high enough. Light knew that wasn't true though. There was strength in his abnormally large hands.

"Why not eat something?" Light asked, placing a hand on the small of the man's back. His hand was quickly brushed away and L turned to lead the way back inside.

"I apologize. I ate in the kitchen earlier this morning," he said, absently looking over his thin shoulder. His eyes were half lidded. Light narrowed his eyes to match L's and they stared at each other for a long minute.

"Why is your name L? Is that your real name?"

"Of course it isn't, but my name is part of the game. You may call me whatever you want, but L, is just a lot easier to remember than a whole name," he said, stepping across the threshold. When his barefoot hit the cold stone he hissed and lifted it. "Too much stone. It would be far smarter to warm this place more often."

Light shrugged and moved past him. "Perhaps you should wear shoes?"

"I don't suppose you'll provide them for me."

"Not unless I have to. But I can't have you getting sick."

L cocked his head that that oddly. A moment later the disheveled hair was pressed to the stone wall, fingers tracing the nooks in them, chasing the spiders and mites that poured out from between the stones. "You're a killer, you know that? I can't rightfully condone killers."

He left after that, walking off with his strange almost limp, a result of his abysmal posture. Light watched him go, knowing that he was right, but not really caring. Of course he had no direct hand in the deaths of so many people in his lands, but his hands off ruling policy surely didn't help, or even sped along the death rate.

He figured as long as no masked plague entered his home he had little to worry about.

He went to the kitchen to inquire about L's visit. The cooks looked a little confused, but answered that he had, in fact, visited them that morning and finished off three plates of tea cakes and eight earthenware cups full of frothy milk. The dietary clue to L's personality intrigued Light, but he didn't bother to pay it mind at the moment.

When he left the kitchen, he ran into his wife. She was carefully piling her skin with that powder of hers that offered her a pale complexion. "Light, I was looking for you. I missed you this morning," she admitted, carefully winding her hands together, over her shimmering rings.

"I missed you as well, but I had something to attend to."

"That new... thing of yours?" she asked, malice and spite winding through her. "You know that if he comes between out love then I'll kill him myself, don't you? I never once told you that you couldn't have whatever you wanted..." She looked suddenly sad.

"Misa, don't worry. I'm merely keeping him here for amusement."

His words were all sweet poison to her. She knew better, but she wanted so much for him to love her that it didn't matter that she knew he was lying. On those rare nights when he held her, hands trying hard to touch as little of her as possible, she almost had hope for her own happiness. His power and his allure made her happy, but his love would make her euphoric.

"Now, Misa, go do something else, please, I have much to attend before court this morning."

She left him, looking longingly, and walking slowly, hoping to catch his eye. He turned away from her quickly, negating any hope of a shared look.

He went quickly to the stables. He wasn't sure what he could do there, but it was away from Misa. Even that brief exchange had him about ready to pull out his own hair. Just the sound of her voice put him on edge,

He left through the servant's door, pushing a young androgynous boy that was no stranger to his bed out of the way. He paid him no mind as he scrambled to gather all the berries and herbs that his lord had succeeded in knocking out of his arms. The boy came around the garden around the same time everyday. Had he known his master was coming he would have steered clear.

The stables were a short walk away and they were well stocked with large and beautiful equine. They were strong and well taken care of beasts, sometimes even better fed than the people of the tower.

He entered the stable and stepped around a pile of hay. He weaved through the stable boys as they threw hay into the stalls to horses that puffed out steaming breath. He didn't speak to anyone, nor did he intend to until he noticed a stall that was open.

Peering in he saw that there was stable boy sitting in the hay, which reeked with sickness and filth. The boy looked like he had wallowed in mud, but it was clear he had been wrestling with a very sick horse. The thing was a gorgeous young Gypsy Cob that Light knew had been quite hale and healthy the day before they left. It was laying on its side and breathing deeply, very deeply.

The young boy looking after it was bruised and battered, but seemed to have come out of a sudden frenzy quite okay.

"What happened to her?" Light asked, kneeling down, looking the ailing creature in the eyes. For a long time he just watched the glassy sheen on her, watched her blink, one eye and then the other. He looked at the boy. "Well?"

"W-we aren't sure, my lord. She just... she was okay yesterday, but this morning she was very aggressive and wouldn't eat. And then she started to smell like rotting flesh. She's real sick, sir. She attacked me when I tried to walk her out. But she was too weak to hurt me too badly. She fell and hasn't moved since." He sounded worried. The help in the stable got naturally attached to the animals that they looked after.

"What about medicine? I don't suppose that any of you thought to look into that?" he asked, sounding amused. In reality, he was. Nothing like this had happened in a while. That it had to be a horse dying and not one of the stable boys was a shame, but it was something.

Light sat and watched it, taking a morbid sense of joy in the creatures dying breath, the light flicking in and out of its eyes. That's when it occurred to him, that he wanted that. That was what he was missing, the control, the feeling of having a life in the palm of his hand.

One of his hands clenched at the thought. He was itching, he was itching all over. And the itching didn't stop until he saw that the Gypsy Cob was finished breathing and the stable boy was trying to get his attention.

He left quickly, pushing young stable hands out of the way and standing somewhere between the tower's doors and the stable, one hand on his heart, and holding the other in front of his face. He examined the disgusting nails, the callouses, on his fingers and then he went to find L.

He found him promptly, standing innocently enough near the kitchen with a small clay pot, presumably filled with honey.

Light promptly walked up to him and back handed him so hard that the clay pot fell out of his hands and broke and he slumped to the ground. "Light, that was pretty uncalled for." His response was a quick sweep of his leg, sending the lord flying to the floor.

This was the moment that Light became slightly worried about what he may have done. L leaned down to the floor, only a few feet from where Light was pulling himself up. He stuck out his tongue and pressed it to the floor and licked the honey that had fallen there.

Needless to say the floor was revolting. Rats and insects had made way across it for years, bare feet, clothed feet, leather bound feet, and plagued feet had walked on it. Light paused getting up to watch him.

When L was quite finished he stood, albeit shakily, and wiped his mouth. He blinked down at Light and then held out a hand. "I think it's time we talked. This game is going no where with you being so 'busy'."

Light ignored his hand, but not his offer. "After court today, I want to talk to you. I'm losing interest in you very quickly." This was untrue. One look in those hideously empty eyes piqued Light's interest again and again,

He wanted to pick those eyes out, to keep them, hide them away where no one would ever see them. He wanted his own secret like that. He looked at L. And he wanted to hurt him, and he wanted to fuck him. Even though they were his thoughts, they scared Light.

"Fine. I'm sure you'll find me. You seem particularly skilled at that," L said, nodding and taking his leave, crushing the shards of the little honey pot against the hard floor with his bare feet. The man didn't seem to notice, but Light followed his bloody footprints hungrily.

Matt was careful. He sneaked around bushes, and didn't leave tracks. Mello always knew though. He always knew somehow... Matt watched him though the gaps in the trees, carefully calculating his steps. It was like one of his machines, it was precise and calculated.

Unlike his machines, Mello got annoyed. He lowered his bow and he looked at the mess of trees and bushes that Matt was hiding in. He was very clearly annoyed. Matt smiled. That made him happy.

"Get out of here, Matt," he said, coming closer. His hair blew out of his face so that Matt could clearly see the old scar there. It detracted from Mello's beauty so much, but drew Matt in farther. "You're scaring all the game. Please, just go."

He was so close that Matt could hear his breath tickling the leaves of the bushes. He felt his breath hitch, felt his heart flutter. And then one of Mello's arms was around him, around his neck, choking him. And then one of his arrows was pressed to his jugular. "Leave, Matt..." he whispered, his deadly breath ghosting his ear.

The feeling was so overwhelming, being so close to Mello, smelling the sweet scent of his leather. Matt closed his eyes. He didn't care that the arrow was deadly sharp and was drawing a line in his flesh. He didn't care when he bled. He did care when he felt Mello lick it.

"There, you have something to obsess over for a while, now leave me alone." The arrow went away first, and then the arm went. The small bush shook and Matt sank to his ass, one hand pressed against the shallow cut on his throat. Mello leaped off, bow raised and he struck down something. Matt heard the vague thump of it. And for a moment he wanted to be that dying creature, just so that last thing he would see would be Mello. He wanted that arrow in his heart, because Mello was personal with the animals. He bowed down in front of them, he spoke to them, thanked God for their existence. Matt wanted Mello to thank him for existing, wanted to feel that arrow. Because as L always told him, a hunter's arrow is his kiss. And Mello fit that more than most.

Matt was left alone for a long time, feeling the press of thorns on his back. Mello found him hours later and dragged him out of the bush and sat him before him, his leather pack filled with rabbits. "I told you to go home. Watari is going to start getting sick of seeing me."

Matt just smiled and shrugged, leaning his head on his shoulder. "Mello..." Just saying it was all he wanted. Mello knew that, so didn't bother wondering what he wanted. He helped the boy home, through the streets flooded with vermin.

Mello felt the fat rats running over his feet, pulsing with a dinner of diseased human flesh. All the rats in the town were well fed. There were a lot of dead to go around. Mello wanted to shield Matt from this, but the young man would have no part of it if it meant leaving Mello, which Mello honestly wouldn't mind happening.

He lead him to his home. The odd store kept by the odd man. Inside the chipping wood door sat Near. He was setting and resetting things on the shelves, pausing to twirl his hair around his fingers every now and then. Mello smiled softly at him and pushed Matt over the threshold. "Near, I brought back a rat for you," he said playfully as Matt caught his balance.

"Thank you Mello. You can surely show yourself out," Near said, actually turning to look at Mello. He didn't look annoyed, he didn't really look anything. Just like L. The two had so much in common that Mello began to wonder where his attraction for the pale haired boy had come from.

"Surely. Try not to let Matt drive Watari crazy," he said, glowering at them both, needing a reason to be snide to Near. "Who else will keep you stocked with your immature fancies?"

Mello stepped over the stoop and shut the door behind him.

"You were out watching him again," Near stated, looking up from his work, carefully arranging incense. "You know he doesn't like that. I don't like him coming here. We always fight, and he insists on being cruel to me," Near went on, locking his eyes on Matt.

Matt just sighed and looked at his shoes. They were cracking and mud covered. He was hoping he hadn't tracked too badly. Looking back he saw that it wasn't terrible. Since L wasn't there anymore he wouldn't be pushed to clean it up right away. Near was a lot like L, but he didn't share the extent of L's cleanliness.

"I can't help it."

"Well, at least try. I'm tired of him."

They didn't say anything else to each other. Matt retired to the unfurnished room in the back and picked up some delicate little instrument he had been working on and set to working on it, thoughts of Mello dancing in his head.

He knew that the hunter took advantage of him. He knew that he'd always be there for the blonde, and Mello knew it too. He was expendable in so many ways. Matt's friendship could be measured in coppers and bronze. His company couldn't even be counted in gold to Mello. But Mello didn't care.

The filthy world outside ticked away, four more people died in the streets before Matt's eyes, unaffected by tears looked up to stare at an empty wall to wonder what world of torment the young fair lord had unleashed on himself. He remembered what L had done to their home town. It had been a half way decent place before the king cast away the dark eyed abomination.

Matt wondered himself why the king hadn't killed the thing. Watari simply explained it as sick obsession, and told him that L had a charm about him that made him hard to kill. Given time, Matt knew, that young lord that had visited them, would be wound up in a world of disease and blood, and he wouldn't be able to do a thing about it.

A/N: There you have it. Hope I didn't disappoint. Hopefully you're all still wondering about the king and whatever the hell L is.