Kiku sat, dazed. After all these long years, he had met Arthur Kirkland again. When his caretakers had told him that he couldn't play with the little English boy, he was confused. Why not? Why couldn't he? Arthur had a great imagination. His games were fun. But he wasn't allowed to. Instead, they brought this years younger girl to play with instead. She was only three. He complained for quite a while, but it soon became apparent that he wasn't going to be able to play with Arthur again. The girl didn't talk and obediently did whatever he told her to. She was boring. Kiku was ten, and at that age he didn't want to look at a girl much less spend all his time with one. Eventually though, he got sick of the other children, always jostling him for different honors, different favors, not seeing Kiku for himself. When Arthur left with not one goodbye, Kiku cried quietly by himself. When some children came seeking him, the little girl Yuri came to his rescue telling them that he walked out the other way; she said nothing to him, just drew off people when they came. His tears stopped, and respect grew for this hardy 8 year old. They got close after that, despite their lessons and training. The door banged open and Kiku jumped, startled out of his reverie. Arthur stepped to the desk, leaning against the front of it.
"Who cut you loose?" he asked, his thick eyebrows drawing in with confusion.
"That man, Alfred." Kiku struggled to pronounce his name correctly. Arthur nodded, obviously sensing a lie, but excusing it. "Why have you brought me here? What do you plan to do with us?" Arthur rubbed his chin, though it was free of stubble.
"I thought we went over this. I'm going to ransom you. If they don't pay up, well, you'll die."
"They won't let you do this." Kiku said, "You'll be caught and put to death." Arthur laughed, picking up a leather ball shaped like the world, it was filled with sand to give it shape.
"They can try." He said, utterly unafraid. "Ah, but caught between them and that whore's kid, it might be difficult. She was better than I had expected. Ten of my men . . . that'll be hard to replace. Maybe I should just kill her now." Kiku shot to his feet.
"You kill her and I'll bit off my tongue." He said passionately. Arthur nearly dropped his small globe. When had Kiku been this emotional about anything? The boy he remembered always went along with others, influencing quietly but sternly. He had the coolest head of anyone Arthur knew. But the whore's child could get such a reaction from him . . . He squeezed the leather globe, feeling the sand shift between his fingers. "In fact, I demand to see her every day to make sure she is fine. Otherwise I'll kill myself anyways." Arthur blinked. Then he chuckled.
"Oh, you are a politician aren't you? A rather self-sacrificing one though. What makes this girl," Arthur grit his teeth before spitting out her name, "Yuri, so special?"
"She's important to me." Kiku said simply, sitting back down. Arthur was stunned.
"You can't mean . . ." he said, "You can't mean that you love her?!"
Kiku nodded, "I do love her, thought maybe not in the way you are thinking. The love is . . . hmm, platonic. Like that of very close friends." Kiku played with his fingers, weaving them together then letting go and weaving them together again. Arthur watched, fascinated. Had Kiku's fingers always been so long and white? They were very graceful. He looked down at his own hand. It was rough and calloused, completely different than his old friend's. Suddenly, the gap between them seemed so much larger.
Arthur was a pirate.
Kiku was a nobleman.
While Arthur was killing, stealing and whoring, Kiku had been practicing writing and speech and politics. They're paths were so different. A memory rose, the day Arthur decided to leave Japan. He had decided to write a letter to Kiku. What the contents were, he couldn't remember, but the last line was stark in his memory.
'Though we are apart, we look up at the same stars.'
Hadn't he got that from a poem somewhere? He didn't know.
"Same stars, huh . . ." He muttered, his hand clenching. He looked up at Kiku, whom he found looking at him with deep brown eyes that went flat when they met Arthur's green ones. "You'll be staying in my cabin. My cabin boy, Tino, will look after you." He said abruptly. "First things first, you get a change of clothes." He straightened and stalked over to the door. "TINO!" he hollered. The small man trotted up, breaking off with his conversation with the large Swede Berwald. Each time Arthur saw Berwald, he sent up a prayer to whoever, thanking them for the skilled Swede. He could work wood and fight well. He was a gift from the gods, even if he had a habit of calling Tino his 'wife' more often than comfortable.
"See to Kiku's needs. Get him whatever he needs, including a change of clothes and a meal." Arthur told Tino when he came up. Tino nodded and jogged away again, to grab clothes from the general store and food from the cook, an Italian called Feliciano. Then he stalked to the kitchen, muttering about rum. He needed a drink after all of this.
Alfred lead Yuri to the doctor's quarters, inhabited by a Norwegian man called Lukas. The man made her strip and then clean herself while he sterilized and bandaged her wounds.
"This is very surprising." He told them, as she rebound her breasts with a separate piece of cloth. "You have very little wounds, most were just skin deep. That blood wasn't even yours." Yuri nodded, slipping on a dark blue kimono, just a short as her old one, coming just above her knees. This one was patterned with her namesake: lilies. She tied her sash as she spoke, wrapping it twice around her and fighting to secure it in the back with a bow. Lukas helped her with it.
"I am Honda Yuri, of the famed ninja clan. I am their best kunoichi. To protect Kiku-sama, I had to be their best. Ten enemies are no problem."
"It's the eleventh soldier that gets you." Lukas said dryly. Alfred had to chuckle at that. The girl shrugged, pulling on her strange ankle socks and tied her straw sandals on.
"Leather would probably work better." Alfred suggested. The girl shrugged again, pulling at the long sleeves of her kimono. Lukas came up behind her with a strip of white sheet, and tied her sleeves back with a complicated move that Alfred couldn't follow. When he finished, Yuri turned to face him and bowed deeply.
"Thank you very much." She said in English. Lukas nodded, and motioned with his hands, shooing them away. Alfred tugged her down a hallway and turned left, leading her down to the last door in the set of three of them.
"This is my cabin. I get my own since I'm second in command. You'll be bunking with me." He gave her a moment to look over the small cabin with its one bed and two large chests. "Now you can either take the floor, or sleep in the bed with me." She looked at him and Alfred put his hands up innocently. "I won't do anything naughty, it just gets cold sometimes." She gave a sharp nod. "Great. Now after a raid, we normally speed away then take it easy for the next few hours, so I'm going to sleep for a bit and you . . . just don't do anything loud, okay? And no escaping." Alfred nudged her inside, closing the door behind him and locking it before stripping for bed. He looked over his shoulder as he pulled on a special pair of breeches called 'nightwear'. Yuri was tucked in a corner, with her arms around her legs and her head leaning against the wall. With a chuckle he went over to inspect her. She was pretty, but she gave off a frosty appurtenance while awake. Asleep like this, she was much more innocent and soft. Alfred bit his lip, hesitating. Padding over to a chest, he opened it and grabbed a blanket. Placing it over her, he carefully backed away into his bed. Then he lay down and wrapped himself in blankets before falling asleep. "Good night, Yuri." He muttered, before the darkness claimed him.