# / # / #

And, again, Egypt wept.

The sand glowed as gold under the starlit night as, one by one, candles sprung up in every home, illuminating every window. Single solitary candles burned bright in the shadows, its light to ward off nightmares, to protect the people of the desert kingdom who now dwelt in fear and trembled under the lack of protection that the long, cold nights offered.

Word had reached them that the demon had struck again. It had started as whispers – as hushed voices carried by the breeze across the dunes, as if the very grains of sand that made up their world were whispering to each other in low, hissing voices – and their words had ignited like the fire of the candles lit in memory of those great leaders who had been lost.

Prince Ikuto had fallen.

Their young heir had vanished in the dead of night on the very eve of his coronation. There had been no trace of him, no sight of him within the Palace walls… Until they had found the blood. It had been spilt. It had been spilt and spread and dried in secluded corridors and passageways; spattered on the rough rock of the floor where he had fallen, dripping a gruesome trail where he had fled. But there had been no body. No weapons. No clue.

And so the Prince had been the next to succumb to the horrors that lurked in the dark. People quailed and cowered in fear. A murderer at large within the Palace walls – the horror! And no leader to guide them, to comfort them… O, what a fate for the Pharaohs of Egypt. What fate for their people? Ikuto could feel their fear as he surveyed the lives of the ordinary folk. His wound was healing, painfully and slowly so, but still it healed. He did not leave the safety of the Hinamori house, though he greatly valued their hospitality and their leniency. The fewer questions they asked, the better for them. No doubt that, if word reached the Palace that he had been spotted, Kazuomi would be there in a flash, sneaking through the dead of night, silently, swiftly, raising that bloodied dagger above his head…

Ikuto shuddered. His and the blood of the good family who had taken him in would spill too across the sands and all their unwavering kindness will be lost to the world.

No, Ikuto would not let that happen. But, then, as he woke and rose in the safe haven of their home much as he had done every morning since his miraculous rescue… He found himself baffled.

It had only just hit him, now that he could think straight for more than a few hours a day, that none of them had seemed to recognise him.

Ikuto was stood in the doorway of the Hinamori home, watching the early morning sun drag itself out of the sand. The land was bathed in a red light; the distant outline of the river Nile glittering like a flood of rubies; the air was still and fresh and Ikuto finally felt rejuvenated. He finally felt his mind begin to clear - finally felt the fog begin to lift as he watched the rise of a new dawn for the first time in God knew how long. He couldn't even remember how many weeks he'd been confined to his bed, lying useless on the kitchen floor whilst that unspeakable evil still prowled the city streets of Wasat.

But with that clarity, Ikuto found himself realising… None of the Hinamoris had given any indication that they realised him for who he was - Prince Ikuto Tsukiyomi, the next Pharaoh of Egypt! Ikuto didn't understand it. He absently ran his hand through his hair, ignoring the dull ache that groaned from the once-fierce wound in his side, and stared out at the horizon in wonder. Blazing orange on midnight blue was certainly an odd mix of colour. Had it been like that caked in sand and blood, he wondered? But, no, he had at least cleaned up since then. Blue hair should have been the giveaway, he thought. He had rarely seen any other in Egypt with heads quite so blue.

He sighed to himself. In the distance, he saw Amu's mother and little sister waving off Tsumugu as he left, following the little dust trail that eventually led to a nearby village. Ikuto had never been somewhere so isolated before. The Hinamori's home lay beside the floodplains of the mighty river that carved its way through their civilisation. It was an island in a sea of sand and fields. He wasn't even sure how far away it was from the capital, but it felt a world away. It felt as though he had been uprooted to the ends of the earth, cast across seas and continents and dumped spectacularly in some far-off land he knew nothing of. Even the sun seemed different. It seemed brighter here; it seemed nearer. Here he could actually see it touch the sand and at the start of the day and the drawing of the evening he felt as though he could feel its warmth ripple through the sand below his feet, feel the beating heart of the earth respond to it and ground him to this new and unfamiliar place. Ikuto had never felt so disorientated, yet so in touch with this land he was meant to rule.

Behind him, Ikuto could hear the cluttering of pottery and the chinking of glass as the oldest Hinamori daughter gathered up various containers from the kitchen. Every morning she would rise with the sun and leave the family home to gather various plants and other oddities from the surrounding plains. Her mother, Midori, was something of a healer, Ikuto had learned, and she employed Amu to fetch most of the ingredients for her concoctions. And so every morning she would slip away quietly, smiling softly at him as she passed his makeshift bed on the kitchen floor and then disappearing into the haze of the newly risen sun. It must have been what she was doing when she found him, he thought. She must have been out on the plains to forage when she had come across him weak and bloody and delirious on the sand, half-sprawled in the river.

Presently, Ikuto stepped to the side as Amu emerged into the weak daylight, carrying a basket and little clay pots in her arms, and, as usual, she smiled that small smile she always gave him. It would have been the sweetest sight, Ikuto thought, if he hadn't noticed the caution in it - if he hadn't noticed the tentative way she stepped past him, as if she were trying to walk on water, or the way her body eased away from him as she passed through the doorway, like she wanted to just disappear into the shadows before his eyes and creep on unnoticed. Ikuto, though transfixed by her still, was utterly at a loss. She was polite to him and concerned for him… But there was something in Amu's body language that made him think that she was guarding something close behind those glorious, golden eyes.

Amu was disappearing into the desert now, heading away from the home and toward that fiery glitter of the river beyond. The first few waves of heat had started to form on the horizon now and Ikuto watched as her form started to dissipate into the burnt glow; as her hair faded into the sky and her skirts melded into the sand. For a moment, Ikuto felt his heart leap desperately in his chest. Panic unbidden flooded his body. She was fading. She was vanishing. She and whatever she knew - or Ikuto thought she knew - was disappearing into the Egyptian desert…

Ikuto couldn't stand it any longer. Making up his mind, he straightened up from the doorframe and trudged into the dawn after her.

Every second he neared her was a relief as the mirage became clearer. The heathaze faded and she became as clear and solid as any other human being. She had stopped in her tracks, hearing his heavy breathing as he trekked up an incline, stumbling in the sand, his legs weak after a what felt like an age of misuse. Perhaps quite politely of her, she waited for him.

"Are you well enough to wander off into the desert?" Amu raised an eyebrow as he regained his footing and came up to stand beside her. He practically towered over her, stooped though he was, and his breath caught in his throat at the way her eyeshadow gleamed in the early morning light, her eyes shining like gold in candlelight.

Ikuto managed to chuckle lightly at her as he regained his breath. He held out a hand for the assortment of pots and bottle in her arms. When she didn't take the hint, he took the basket from her.

"I'm well enough to give you a hand." he said to her.

"You- You should be resting!" Amu spluttered. She frantically tried to take them back, but Ikuto side-stepped and she stumbled pathetically. "If my mother finds out-"

"She'll be glad I've found the strength to follow you," Ikuto interrupted, balancing everything in his arms. "All thanks to her remedies." He nodded in the general direction she'd been heading and made to carry on. "She'll be needing some more. I've gotten through most of her store cupboard. I should probably make it up to her."

Amu looked as though she was trying not to smile. She bit her lip and stared out over the gentle slopes for a moment. Finally, she sighed, defeated.

"We won't go far." she made up her mind and slowly began to follow him. "She doesn't want you out when the sun gets too hot…"

Ikuto's lips twitched as he fought back a triumphant grin. He looked back as the Hinamori home grew smaller and smaller in the distance, surveying the land around him. Land he'd never seen - land so wild and empty. There couldn't be many large settlements around, he thought, not when in every direction there stretched nothing but the endless, arid dirt; not when the only road of any kind he had seen so far was that tiny, unmarked little track that Tsumugu trekked along on his way to the village each day.

Before them, the still-sparkling river grew nearer. Green patches were becoming thicker and grasses were growing taller. Ikuto heard the whispering of the water as it ran its way over stone and sand, hushed and landing light on his ears. He felt like an outsider. It was that feeling again of being stranger in a foreign land who was not to be trusted with its secrets, unable to understand its language. He wondered if Amu could hear it clearer; wondered whether she could hear those voices speak in her own tongue and whether she was welcomed in their counsel.

But, to him, those voices were becoming more and more sinister the nearer they drew to the water's edge. He had heard them in his darkest dreams. They had filled his ears and drowned all thought as his eyes fell closed, succumbing to the darkness of the night when he sometimes thought he could still feel the cold kiss of metal against his left shoulder or the ripple of water submerging him, pulling him down, down, down to the very bottom of the riverbed.

A chill drew up Ikuto's spine. The déjà vu was overwhelming as he looked out over the floodplains. He stopped in his tracks.

"H-Hey!" A few paces ahead of him, Amu turned and that familiar look of concern flashed across her face. "are you okay?"

Ikuto was silent for a few seconds. Then he swallowed.

"Take me there."

Amu looked at him quizzically.

"Take me back to where you found me." he said again and his tone was so low and earnest that it struck a chord within her heart. "To that stretch of the riverbed, the day I was washed ashore." A pause. "Can you show me? Is it far?"

Amu, a shadow falling across her face, did not reply for some time. The breeze tousled her pastel pink hair, her cheeks glowing in the early morning light.

Then she nodded wordlessly and turned away, dragging her feet across the sand. Ikuto followed and tried to ignore the rush of the water that echoed in his head.

# / # / #

Ikuto couldn't remember all that much of the riverbed where he had first drifted back into consciousness. At the bottom of a sandy slope and stained green against the dust with vegetation, Ikuto could honestly say that he didn't remember any of it. All he remembered were those physical things - the sand on his skin; the water at his toes; that constant, ever-present burning of the sun on his back…

But he did not remember the place itself. It was more like a blur in his mind - a blank space that he could not fill. He followed Amu down to the water's edge, feeling like a complete stranger to this secluded little stretch of earth. Even those physical things felt distant. The sand was not as gritty and scratchy on his face as when he lay bleeding - it was soft and sludgy beneath his toes. There was no scorching heat, rather the cool air from the receding night still lingered like smoke around a candle, and the water… The water was somehow less sinister here. Somehow less malicious. Somehow it rippled at his feet calm and subdued and Ikuto could just feel the malevolent whispers in his ears melt away, carried downstream by the water, cleansing his soul.

Somewhere, a waterbird was cawing. Across the water, insects were rusting in the reeds. Beside him, the woman that had led Ikuto to this oasis sighed beneath her breath. Amu awkwardly folded her arms across her waist.

"Nice place to start the day?" Ikuto offered hopefully. Amu didn't even crack a smile. She took the basket and all the little containers from him and set them on the wet sand at her feet.

"I haven't come back here since…" Amu whispered, perhaps more to herself than to anyone else. She knelt down to ground beside the water. A small clump of weeds that Ikuto didn't recognise grew amongst the reeds at her feet and she gathered them up, stuffing them neatly into an ornate little jar. He looked around. Herbs and weeds of various types grew thick here and he realised that she must be telling the truth. She had allowed them to flourish in her absence, it seemed. Ikuto crouched beside her and uprooted another patch of similar plants, throwing them into the basket.

"You haven't?"

Amu shook her head. Ikuto chuckled lightly, hoping that she would loosen up that tension that had taken ahold of her. He didn't want to see this reserved, cautious Amu, he realised. He wanted her to be as light and free as the mirage that had saved his soul in the midday heat. He wanted to think that she felt as uplifted in her heart as he did whenever she was around.

But, to his dismay, her response was as flat as the floodplain they were crouched on.

"Forgive me if I didn't wish to return to what I thought was a murder scene."

Ikuto looked away guiltily and frowned as he felt some old wound reopen somewhere deep inside his chest.

He hadn't wanted to enter the Pharaoh's chambers after laying eyes on his father's murder scene either. Ikuto almost crushed the tangle of leaves in his grip at the memory. The screams of his mother; the shout of the guards; the pool of blood staining the rug beside his father's bed…

He quickly threw the leaves into the basket and tried to focus his mind on the task before him, rummaging through the vegetation, trying to bury his fingers in the dirt and the grief in his heart; pulling up roots, tearing out creepers… Until, amongst the weeds, Ikuto found that there grew a single white flower - tiny, almost unnoticeable against its neighbours. He stopped, pulling it from the earth as gently and carefully as if its delicate body would disintegrate under his touch. Amu smiled fondly and this time Ikuto could see none of that caution that she seemed to take with him every morning on her way out into the desert. All he saw was the way her eyes gleamed and her spirit shone. He chuckled, holding it out to her.

"Pretty, aren't they?" Amu whispered. But she didn't take it. She didn't reach out like he thought she would. Instead, she dug her hands back into the dirt and emerged back into the sunlight carrying one of her own, freshly-plucked from amongst the dark green weeds. "I don't usually take these back." she said. "They're too nice to be crushed up in mother's mortar."

Ikuto had to agree with her. "I think I've seen them before," he mentioned, twirling it around, twisting the stem between his fingertips; "by the riverside at home. Amongst the lotus flowers…"

For a second, Amu's eyes lit up in awe. Ikuto wondered if she'd ever seen plains of lotus like the ones he knew from the Palace.

"Their seeds must have flowed downriver," she thought aloud, gazing out now across the gentle waters. "They would have travelled far."

At this, Ikuto's interest was piqued. He had forgotten, so caught up in this time alone with this daydream of a woman, to ask her where Wasat lay in relation to this odd little place. But, now that he was faced with it, he wondered what he would do when he found out. Would he just up and leave without any further word? How would he explain that to them? Would he be well enough to travel so far into the sunset?

Would they finally realise who he was?

"They must be gorgeous..." Amu's voice snapped Ikuto out of his reverie. She idly stroked the tiny petals of the little flower in her grasp. "I've never made it very far from here." she admitted in a small voice, slowly looking up at him with big, kohl-rimmed eyes. "I've heard of the lotus gardens in the city - the capital city. In Wasat. They must be gorgeous."

He opened his mouth to answer, but the words died on his tongue. There it was again - that look on her face; in her eyes that screamed that she had something tucked away in her mind - some sort of secret - that only she was privy to. She straightened up, still toying with the little white flower with one hand. Ikuto stood with her and when the two locked eye contact… Well, it was as if something had immediately passed between them.

"They are." said Ikuto and his voice was suddenly deep and serious.

Amu swallowed. Ikuto's stare was piercing, all-knowing.

"How long were you planning on pretending I was a stranger to you, Amu?"

"You are." she said stiffly.

He shook his head, chuckling to himself. "You have been…" he searched for the words. "You have been damn-near impossible to figure out, Amu. Sneaking around me; avoiding me; tip-toeing past my bed each morning when you think I'm not looking." Beside him, Amu flushed. He smirked. "You know, Amu... It's so rude to stare at people in their sleep."

"W-What?" Amu balked, ignoring his amused laughter. "I- I do not stare at you whilst you're sleeping! What kind of girl do you think I am?"

"Well," he breathed, reveling in his amusement; "I certainly didn't take you for the kind of girl who snatches up vulnerable men."

Her cheeks puffed adorably, but Amu couldn't even bring herself to dignify that with a response. Cheeks still red and burning, she fiddled nervously with a strand of grass at her feet. "I can tell you which way to go." she began quietly. "I can tell you which way to go to get to the village, at least. Once you get there, there's a road that will take you straight there. To Wasat…" And then she self-consciously averted her eyes, looking down at the damp sand, a blush on her cheeks. "If-If you think you're strong enough, that is…"

Ikuto's mind should have been reeling by now. He should have been dumbfounded - absolutely and utterly amazed. He should have been stunned to silence, but instead all he could do was smirk. He fought back a laugh and tried not to think about how cute it was to have a blush that clashed with your hair and lightly pushed up her chin until gold and blue met again under the strengthening rays of the morning sun.

"It sounds to me," he began slowly, the mischief twinkling in his eyes and pulling at the corner of his lips; "like someone doesn't want me to go."

It was all he could do not to laugh out loud at the way Amu's cheeks darkened so quickly. She blinked furiously as if it would do anything to help and hesitantly jerked her chin away from his cool fingers.

"Y-You're still injured!" she puffed her chest out stubbornly, neat brows furrowing. "You-You've still got to heal!"

"I'm standing," he teased, stepping closer to the tiny pinkette. "Is that not proof enough?"

Amu huffed. "Please," she started haughtily; "mother still bandages it every morning! You're nowhere near fit to go trampling out into the distance!" And, as if to prove her point, she prodded his shoulder.

Ikuto flinched violently, hissing like a tortured cat. Amu's face paled, panic replacing indignation.

"It still hurts?" she gasped out, leaning in towards him. "Oh God, you should have told me! What if it's getting infected?" She steadied his shoulder with a hand, the other running over the bandages that Midori still wound around his side without argument. "Are you okay?" she asked, looking up at him now and her eyes were so wide, so close - like nothing he had ever seen before. Their noses were almost touching, her fingers dancing over his chest and sending sparks flying beneath his skin in their wake…

Ikuto smirked.

"Gotcha."

The colour returned to Amu's face no sooner than the word had left his lips. She shoved herself away, arms folded, cheeks burning in humiliation as he began to laugh aloud behind her.

"Amu," Ikuto purred, the amusement practically dripping in his tone; "Amu, you wound me!"

She exhaled harshly, grabbing the things they had carried with them, snapping them up from the sand. "Idiot." she growled. "Come on. We'd better get back before the sun gets any higher. Unless you wish me to leave you here."

Ikuto just laughed again, mischief twinkling in his deep, blue eyes. She was already beginning to stalk up the rise away from the river, kicking sand beneath her feet, the basket tucked under her arm. Their work here was done, it seemed. He was about to go after her - to catch up and stow away the last few pieces of leaf and weed and foliage he had left in his fist when he paused. Ikuto lowered his gaze. The little white flower was still resting in his palm. Its petals were glowing bright beneath the rising sun.

Amu's voice was carried over to him on the breeze. She sighed;

"Are you coming back or not?"

"Wait…"

Amu stood up on the slope, perplexed as he turned and jogged back down to the water's edge and knelt there. "Wait, what are you-?"

Ikuto didn't realise she had followed him until she was hunched over at his side, watching curiously as he twirled the little plant between his fingers one last time.

"This one could have come from the capital, you said?"

Amu nodded. "Mm."

"Huh." he held it up to the light, intrigued by the way the light made its petals glow like a firefly in the twilight of an early evening. And then he released it from his grasp, letting it fall lightly down into the water where it was consumed for all of a second before rising again, bobbing back up to the surface and swaying as if on strings. He glanced back at the pink-headed mirage by his side.

"Let's see how far this one gets."

Amu smiled again, all earlier frustration gone, and, for a moment, Ikuto felt a rush of pride. This was the kind of smile he had longed to see. He stared, entranced, as she produced her own flower from one of her little clay pots and lay it too down into the clear water of the river. It landed beside the first and the two encircled each other for a moment, as if locked in a dance to some rhythm they could not hear, and then they were floating, swept downstream by the rush of the Nile. Ikuto and Amu watched wistfully as they were carried away, drifting together as white specks growing fainter and fainter, like leaves on the wind… And into nothingness.

# / # / #

When Ikuto and Amu returned to the Hinamori home shortly before noon, the air was thick and heavy. As Ikuto neared the little house, he felt as though he were stepping into the calm of an oncoming storm. The tension was palpable, the atmosphere electric… And, though Amu didn't seem able to feel it, he was suddenly overcome with dread.

What he found inside was Amu's father, out of breath and weeping at the family table. Midori stood across from him, her face grey and palms clasped together. Tsumugu looked to have run the entire way home from the village, chest bursting as he fought to contain the dreadful news that had sent him sprinting home to his family.

Her Royal Majesty was dead. As was her daughter.

Ikuto was stupidly slow to process it once he had heard, for he was not used to referring to any of his close relatives by their official titles… But when Amu gasped and cast him a fearful look, he suddenly understood.

His mother and Utau. They were both dead.

"Her Highness was unwell…" Tsumugu managed to get out in a strangled sort of voice. "But they suspect…"

He couldn't finish his sentence, but Ikuto thought he knew what was coming.

"How..?" Midori whispered, wringing her hands together fretfully and eyeing her husband timidly, as if he might be suddenly overwrought with grief again.

"There was a private feast in the Palace some nights ago." was all Tsumugu said, but, again, Ikuto understood. He understood perfectly well. Kazuomi had poisoned his mother and sister. And now they were gone.

Ikuto remained silent. To his left, he felt Amu ease closer, felt her hand brush lightly against his arm. But the warmth that her touch had once bestowed upon him was gone. His soul had darkened, grown cold… He stepped away from her.

The rest of that day passed by in a haze much like the one he had found himself in on that first disorientating day in the Hinamori home. Only this haze was different. This haze… Well, 'haze'... He supposed it was more like a fog. It was thicker and darker and it was a curse to him that, this time, his mind was clearer. He knew this time that he wasn't just delirious. He knew that it wasn't all just a dream - that it couldn't have been a hallucination or another illusion. He knew that this nightmare was real. He was grounded in it. And he knew that demons still existed.

Grief - it was a fog that hung in his mind, in his heart, spreading throughout his chest. It clawed at his insides, grasping at his lungs, making it difficult to breathe. He couldn't speak. He couldn't scream. He felt numb - numb and cold like the harsh desert night, like the blade of Kazuomi's knife, like the rushing water of the river that had consumed his body and swept him downstream.

And yet, deep inside, a fire had begun to spark into life. As the day went by and the shock began to loosen its hold, some deep-set sense of ire had risen its fiery head. It was hot like the heat of the sun, yet cold and merciless as the enemy he had faced and Ikuto knew what needed to be done.

"In two months," Tsumugu had choked out that afternoon, rocking fearfully in his seat; "in two months' time the burial shall be complete and His Young Highness will step up to the throne."

Tsumugu words were ringing in his head. They chilled him to the core.

"May the Gods have mercy on us," he had said; "and on the Young Pharaoh Hikaru Tsukiyomi."

Ikuto had left the room shortly after that.

He realised now the urgency of the situation. Two months. That was all he had. Here he had been resting and healing and fooling around with Amu by the riverbed all this time… And now he had two months to march across the desert - perhaps on foot lest he wish to be discovered before he reached the palace - before his adoptive little brother took the throne. That is if Kazuomi didn't get to him first. Ikuto had to return. He had to reach Wasat, he realised as he sat up that evening and watched the sun slip away over the dunes…

He would take his leave early the next morning. He had no bearing and little food and he doubted very much that the Hinamori family had enough money to spare to even purchase a mule to get him there… But it didn't matter. He would trudge his way through the desert all the way to the capital if he had to - all the way to the palace.

And he would have his revenge.

"You know…" her voice fell upon his ears and Ikuto jumped despite himself. "Wounded men shouldn't sit so precariously."

There was a chill bite to the wind that night. Ikuto had sat up on the roof of the Hinamori home and watched the inky blackness of the abyss fall, consuming the light of day, and he had watched in awe as one by one the sky burst into life - illuminated by the glow of a million stars. The moon was high and full and it cast a pale light upon Amu's face as she eased herself up the ladder and onto the rooftop beside him. His breath hitched in his throat. By day, she was a burst of colour. By day, she was how Ikuto would have imagined music in the royal court to look like - flowing and graceful and shining with every colour under the sun. But by night she was gentle and serene - a lulled and tranquil melody. She swept over to him with the rustle of gossamer and linen and her footsteps fell muffled on the flat tiles.

Ikuto raised an eyebrow. "No," he mused, "but, then again, neither should good little farm maidens."

Amu raised a single eyebrow. She shook her head, and perched herself down on the rooftop beside him. "There's just no stopping you, is there?"

He looked at her firmly.

"Come on," she sighed lightly; "at least tell me what your plan is."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, for a start," Amu began, leaning back on her hands and tracing little patterns in the dust; "you could be a little honest with me." she said. And then she laughed drily. "Mother will hit the roof when she wakes up in the morning and finds you gone."

"Huh," Ikuto hummed in thought, almost to himself. He turned back to gaze upon the moonlit country. "So someone's got me all figured out already then? Impressive. If you're right, that is."

Amu scoffed. "Oh, really! You think I'm that foolish!"

"I didn't say-"

"Oh, please!" she folded her arms, her tone turning bitter. "Even after everything this morning you still think you can give us all the slip! Don't act so high and mighty, Ikuto."

Ikuto's heart clenched tight in his chest. Yes, he thought, they had seemed to come to some mutual understanding earlier that day down by the very riverbed where they had met, but this was the first time, he realised - the very first time - that he had heard his name fall from her lips. Only he had imagined it would sound soft and gracious. He hadn't expected it to come out as a venomous hiss.

"You don't even know where you're going!" Amu went on, exasperated. "How do you expect to make it all the way to Wasat by yourself!"

Ikuto opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it again. Words failed him. For all his determination and fire… They still failed him.

Eventually, he swallowed and said slowly, testing the words upon his tongue; "You said… You said that you would tell me which way to go to the village." he said. "If I can make it there…"

"And your wounds?" Amu prodded the bandage lightly, but her tone was softer now and Ikuto saw in her eyes the same concern that flooded his memory during those first few days of treatment. "If these reopen on the road, Ikuto, I dread to think…"

Ikuto said nothing. The two of them sat in silence for a moment, each avoiding the other's gaze, focusing on the feel of the breeze and the rustle of dry grass; on the glow of the fireflies and the curve the landscape like chalk against the shadows. Above them, the Milky Way was stretched across the velvet night - the Nile in the Sky streaked with blue and purple and the palest of pinks. Ikuto chanced a fleeting glance back at the woman beside him only to find that he could not look away. Pink were the astral clouds and the stars within that heavenly body, but more beautiful was the rose that fell about her shoulders, caressing her cheeks, framing her pale face. Amu's eyes sparkled. A tranquil look overcame her and she smiled faintly up at the sky.

"The flood will come soon…" she said softly. Her eyes followed the trail of the river of stars - that great waterway that the Gods sailed upon each night and every morning. "The yearly flood will bless us soon and these plains will be rich and green again before the end of the season." And she suddenly looked back at him and Ikuto's eyes were locked in place - drowning in honey gold, transfixed by elegant kohl and long lashes and shimmering eyeshadow. "It would not take two months." Amu said tentatively. "It would be enough so that you could build your strength and have enough food to set out before your brother takes the throne… Ikuto…"

But Ikuto couldn't even bring himself to be frustrated. He smiled softly - a gentle, pure smile that Amu had never seen before - and looked at her sadly. "It won't be enough time,"

She looked disheartened, but accepting. He wondered if she was truly that desperate.

"Well," she mumbled after a while; "if you're going to be so stubborn about it, then I can't let you go alone." Amu frowned. That same determination that Ikuto felt within his own heart burned behind those golden eyes. Her knuckles whitened, gripping the hem of her skirt. "I'll show you the way. I'll take you there - all the way to Wasat!"

A cold chill overcame him. "Amu." Ikuto said, his voice as hard as he'd ever heard it - as cold as the blade of a knife. "I can't."

"Ikuto!"

"I cannot bring you into this, Amu." Ikuto tried not to let his voice falter. "That man is dangerous - the man who killed them…"

Amu straightened, her pretty little eyebrows furrowed. "And you are already wounded!" she exclaimed, her fingers lightly trailing down the bandage over his chest. A delightful shiver sprang beneath her touch and Ikuto smirked. It was perhaps the first he'd felt since this latest tragedy had struck his soul.

"Oh," he hummed, his eyes twinkling; "You want to be my nurse, Amu?"

She blushed profusely, but folded her arms, her head high with whatever dignity she could muster, and uttered stubbornly;

"Someone has to, Ikuto."

Ah, his name sounded so right on her lips now, he thought. Oh, everything felt right and well here and now as they sat together beneath the stars… For the first time in a long time, Ikuto felt at peace - such a peace that all the anger left him; all the frustration and the worry and the guilt that curled around in his stomach at the very thought of her following him into such peril… It all vanished. She was his mirage; his oasis in a sea of despair; his refuge.

Beside him, Amu laughed lightly and his heart skipped a beat. "To think that Ikuto Tsukiyomi was sent down the river to me." Amu thought aloud and brought her gaze back to the stars above. "A gift from Hapi, perhaps?"

"But perhaps it was meant to be so."

She looked like she agreed.

'A farm girl,' Ikuto thought to himself; 'who would've known?'

Who would have ever known it? Who would have thought that such light could present itself in the darkest of times? Who would've guessed that there were some places still untouched by the demons that ravaged the desert - that shone and stood out as a beacon in the shadows, willing the dark away, guiding lost souls such as his through their perils and unto safety? Who would have ever thought that, so close to death, Ikuto should be blessed by the touch of silky skin and pink hair and such kindness - the kind of compassion that makes the beasts that lurk in the dead of night cower and shrink back into the holes from whence they came?

They had made him fear the night. They had made him wake in cold sweats and plagued his dreams and sapped the strength from his weakened body… But here, Ikuto felt as though this place was an entirely different world from the one he'd thought he'd known. This truly was a whole different kind of night. This was not the night Ikuto had grown to fear - the kind of night that sees men leave their sleep, never to wake again; the kind of night that harbours nameless, formless horrors; that conceals creatures with souls blacker than the void of the empty abyss.

But this was not one of those nights. This was the kind that seemed to slow down the pace of time; that reminded the earth of ancient days from countless years ago when the stars were still new and the light of the moon still fresh in its memory. This was the kind of night that set Ikuto's mind free of the weight of the world. The stars twinkled innocently, the river still stretching and twisting across the deep sky as the sun shines on water by day amidst a green oasis. This was a night of peace and warmth, he thought, and, as he felt Amu shift beside him, he was comforted.

Ikuto decided to test the waters. Now shoulder-to-shoulder, calm and peaceful in the glow of the moonlight, he found her hand beside him. To his surprise, she intertwined her fingers with his and sighed almost contently. He shook his head, his lips twitching.

"I can't stop you… Can I?"

"No," Amu said. "You really can't."

And that was all he needed to hear. A moment of silence passed. The world seemed to fade away around them. Ikuto felt her pulse thumping through her palms and he almost grinned, for he knew his heart was hammering just the same.

"Amu,"

His eyes met hers and now the world had vanished. Their fingers interlocked, their hearts beating in time; Ikuto leant in and Amu's eyes fluttered closed.

Her lips upon his were sweet like fruit and soft like the sand. He felt like a man parched with thirst, drinking finally from the purest spring…

Like a man who had stumbled upon an oasis in the desert.

His saviour. His mirage.

When Ikuto finally pulled away, Amu only drew him back in and they sat there, bathed in starlight, savouring the taste of the others lips, until the sun rose red in the sky beyond.

It was a night that Ikuto would never let go of.

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