/ / Chapter Nine: Insubstantial Recollection / /
An Important Note: (Of rambling apologies for my own stupidity.) Gack, I'm hugely sorry. If you ended up reading something that made no sense at all, it's probably because I accidentally uploaded the parts I had of the next chapter, which are fragmented and unedited and absolutely terrifingly unfinished. I realized this mistake pretty quickly, thank goodness, and screamed like a girl (which I am) and deleted and reuploaded the chapter. I apologize if you saw the incompleted horror that is the next chapter. I can be really stupid sometimes. I deleted and reuploaded the chapter because if I'd just exported it, the site may have taken up to an hour to show the correct chapter. Unfortunately, this also means that some people might have gotten two alerts. I'm very sorry. I owe you guys my firstborn. Seriously.
Disclaimer/Notes: So I'll admit it; the primary purpose of this chapter is to be a little bit insane. After so much dreary drama and drudgery in previous chapters, it really seemed like it was time for a brief break. Though I swear that this chapter actually has a purpose. In absolute honesty, it does. I think. But for the most part, I just had to write Zero dealing with children. More Cross this chapter, too. I will try to bring some more characters into the story in upcoming chapters. Shiki and Rima, definitely! And probably more of the Night Class characters—who I guess aren't actually Night Class characters in this story.
After they had stared at him for almost an entire minute, it dawned on Zero that perhaps he should...say something.
"Umm...hi."
A child, one of the smallest, tugged at his pant leg. "I need to pee." Her eyes were huge and milk-chocolate brown. They reminded him of Yuuki's.
He wondered why the girl was telling him this. It wasn't as if he could help her. "That's good," he said lamely.
"I need to peeee," the girl repeated, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
Yuuki had waited enough at Zero's expense, and stepped forward. "Come on, little one, let's find you a bathroom," she said, offering the tiny child a smile.
"Okay!" The girl immediately warmed up to Yuuki. Trotting into the sweets shop behind Yuuki, she immediately jumped into animated conversation. This, of course, left Zero with the remaining seven. All of them, except for one, were boys. Though he had undoubtedly been one at some point in his life, Zero could not think for the life of him how he was supposed to deal with kids. What did they like?
The single remaining girl poked Zero's leg. It seemed to be the only place they could safely reach. She looked remarkably like the girl Yuuki had just walked off with, but seemed to be a couple years older. The two were probably siblings. "You look funny," she said matter-of-factly. "Kind of like my baby brother Mike—he's two—when he's trying to poop. My mom says that if you frown too much, your face will freeze like that. Like...forever."
Zero was going to kill Yuuki for this.
"Hey!" said one of the boys. "Do you live here?"
This was something Zero could answer. "No. I used to."
This prompted a whole bunch of new questions, though they all got mixed together since they were spoken at the same time. He was able to make out Where do you live, then? and Was your mommy sad when you moved out, 'cause my mommy was sad when my brother moved out... and also something like, Can I have more candy, please?
He chose to answer the first. "I live in the city." He pointed to the towering mass of gray stone in the distance.
"Oooh..."
The boys seemed to find this interesting, but the remaining girl said, "My mom said the city is a dirty and scary place."
"Your mom would be right, then," Zero said.
The boys found this even cooler.
"But how'd you get here," one of them asked. "It's like...a billion miles."
Zero had a feeling that their sense of distance was very skewed. Of course, as a child, everything seemed far.
"It wasn't very long. I rode on a horse."
The girl giggled. "I love horsies! I wanna see it, is it here?"
Zero opened his mouth, but quickly closed it. Their mothers would not be happy if Lily bit a chunk out of their hands. But he was also extremely bad at saying no to those big chocolate eyes that looked way too much like Yuuki's.
"Pleeeeeease? Oh please please please?" The girl said. Zero was sure that the pint-sized amalgam of everything that was adorable was completely aware of her charm.
No, his mind said reasonably. Not in a million years would I want to bear the wrath of a gang of angry moms. But his lips said, "Okay, then."
Yuuki came out almost at that same moment. She took one look at Zero's face. "Is something wrong?"
Zero gritted his teeth and cursed her cute little eyes. "The kids want to see Lily," he said.
"And you're taking them?" Yuuki asked.
Zero scowled, which Yuuki obviously took to mean yes. She bent down until she was eye-level with the smallest girl. "Would you like to go see a pretty horsie?"
The girl nodded vigorously, and scampered along behind the group of children. Zero pulled the hood of his cloak down, as Rika had recommended. They walked off to the edge of town again. "Stay here," Zero urged them once they had arrived. "I have to make sure she's ready..." to be overtaken by a herd of stampeding children.
He stepped forward, and was sure that she scowled at him. His eyes apologized to her, and she huffed air up her nose, as if to say, What is it now?
"You can come on," Zero said grudgingly. Then he turned to Lily. "If I see your teeth or hooves inching toward any one of them, I will personally make the rest of your equine life a living hell."
The children staggered through the damp foliage to find the post that Lily had been tied to.
"Don't get close," Zero warned. He didn't dare to say why, since he was certain that some of the boys would take it as a challenge.
The girls fell all over themselves. "She's so... white!" The older, brown-eyed one said.
"Nice choice of words," Zero said dryly.
But the girl was too busy overflowing with enthusiasm. Lily, sensing the envious, adoring glances, raised her head a little bit pridefully.
"Can... can I pet her?" the smallest girl—the one who had needed to pee—asked.
Zero glanced at the horse. "Um ... she's a little moody," he said. "It might be best not to."
"I'm not afraid," the tiny girl said serenely. "Here, horsie."
Zero couldn't help smiling a little at the girl's reckless fearlessness.
"What's her name?"
"She's White Lily," Zero replied. "Shall we see if she'll let you pet her?" He was too soft. He really was.
"Yes!" The girl said. "Oh, yes please!"
He picked the girl up under the arms of her frilly white dress, and she extended a baby-like hand to Lily's head. She patted between the horse's eyes, running her tiny fingers down until they touched the velvety nose. The girl giggled. Zero sighed, and straightened his mouth so as not to show how pleased he was that the girl liked Lily, and vice versa. Or, at the very least, Lily was tolerating the girl.
He let the girl down after a few moments, setting her small feet gently onto the trodden leaves. He looked around just in time to see one of the older boys reaching out to pull on Lily's flicking white tail. Immediately stepping in front of the child, who looked to be about six, Zero fixed him with a glare to melt steel. After trying and failing to muster a return glare, the boy blinked and ran back. Yuuki, who seemed to be a magnet to the younger ones, was busy with three boys who seemed overly interested in the sticks and rocks on the ground. Yuuki was assisting them in their hunt for oddly-shaped stones.
A few of the boys wanted to ride on Lily, but Zero wasn't sure he could take the stress.
If he had learned anything worthwhile out of this whole messed-up encounter, it would have to be that he was never having kids when he got married.
After a moment, he caught his mistake, forcing the thoughts away from himself with bitterness. Could he actually have been entertaining the idea that he could live long enough to do things like that? And even if he did live long enough... the thought was laughable.
"Let's go back to the sweets shop," Yuuki proposed, and no one disagreed, though the boy tried to get a parting shot at White Lily's tail. She flicked it in the boy's face and sent him running. Zero was surprised that she hadn't kicked the kid, and respected the self-control she had displayed. Lily was extremely odd, sometimes, for a horse.
But he supposed that it was fitting, since Zero wasn't exactly a walking advertisement for normalcy himself. He walked along behind Yuuki, taking up the rear and watching out for the little girl, who had glued herself to his leg and was talking animatedly about a huge doggie she had at home and how it was much fluffier than a horse. Zero half-listened, letting his mind wander.
"My God, there you are!"
Zero looked up abruptly to see the face of Rika, the simple features of her face tight with worry.
Shocked at the terror in her voice, Zero rushed to apologize. "I'm really sorry. They wanted to see my horse, and..."
It really had been a horrible idea.
"No!" Rika said. "That's fine. It's just—follow me. Follow me."
Zero, Yuuki and the children all followed in a straight line until they were standing in between two of the small shops. The space was filled with impenetrable shadow and the smells of baking bread. Rika looked back and forth between Zero and Yuuki's silhouetted faces. "My husband was in the capital, and was supposed to get home tonight, but he came early. Apparently there's a search going on. My husband was questioned before leaving." She paused, as if questioning the soundness of her choice to tell them these things. "They're looking for you," she whispered, "and they're going to search the towns closest to the capital in order to find you. I guess I might be really stupid to tell you this, but I can't just let you be found. You should get away from here."
Zero felt a rush of dread at her words, but also a dry sort of resignation. They were coming. He'd always known they would. "Thank you," he said softly.
Rika bit her lip and gestured for the children to come back to her side. "I really have to get going. So much to do." She offered a fleeting smile. "Good luck. And thanks for watching the children."
One of said children spoke up. It was the smallest girl, and she had been listening intently. "You in twubble?" she spoke curiously around the thumb wedged into her mouth, and stared up up at Zero expectantly.
"Umm..." How, exactly, was he supposed to answer this?
He didn't need to, though. After a moment of thought, the girl rearranged the thumb in her mouth in order to speak properly, and said, "I promise I won't tell anyone anything. Promise."
Zero gave her a small smile. "Thank you," he said again.
"You're not a bad person," the girl said slowly. "So I won't tell."
Zero nodded to Yuuki and directed her around the back of the shop, heading to the one they'd been at when Rika had approached. If Cross wasn't there, he surely wouldn't be far. The girl popped the thumb out of her mouth in time to wave with both hands, and that was the last Zero saw of them as he turned quickly around a corner. He and Yuuki wandered in the damp darkness behind the shops until a familiar back entrance caught his eye. Pausing, he gestured for Yuuki to follow, and turned into the alley between the two small shops. Luckily, Cross was still inside, and as soon as he saw their faces, he rushed to pay and asked if he could please borrow the storeroom for a moment. The store owner graciously agreed, and Cross ushered them inside.
"Explain," he said simply.
And Zero did, speaking quietly and quickly into the dim silence.
"Oh, dear..." Cross said once there was silence again. Solemnly, he removed the small spectacles over his eyes, polishing the glass. "I was hoping that it would take them longer." His eyes moved to Zero's, suddenly solemn. "Zero..."
He saw the worry in Cross' gaze, but didn't bother to address it. "Don't worry. They won't harm Yuuki."
Cross smiled, but it wasn't one of the bright ones he had displayed for Yuuki on her arrival. It was tinged with a sad sort of hopelessness. "Good luck, then. I know you'll keep her safe, Zero. I feared that this would happen, so I did some shopping while you were gone. I'm afraid I'm sad that this is all I can do, but take this with you. And be safe," Cross said. He passed a small canvas string-tied sack into Zero's hands. "Take care of yourself."
Zero seemed to think that was vaguely amusing. "I always do, don't I?" he asked dryly. "But... thank you."
Cross turned his attention to Yuuki. "Oh, my dear girl..." Without warning, he wrapped his arms around her in a gentle embrace. "It was wonderful to see you. You've grown so big and so kind and beautiful."
Yuuki gave him a look of gentle doubt. "It sounds like you know me," she said lightly.
"Didn't you know, dear?" Cross smiled. "I was a knight to the royal family a very long time ago. I retired before your birth, but... I had the fortunate opportunity to meet you again. You may not remember."
Yuuki smiled. "I'm sorry," she said. Wasting a moment on contemplation, she then leaned forward and gave the chairman a brief embrace. It felt somehow familiar. "We'll see you again, right?"
Cross smiled. "I hope so, Yuuki. I really do hope so."
A word snaked through her defenses and lingered uncertainly on the verge between blackness and consciousness. "You... remind me of someone," she said.
Cross smiled. "Really? May I ask who?"
Yuuki sighed, feeling that it was closer than ever before, but still too far to grasp. "I don't remember."
Zero took Yuuki's hand and led her to the loading entrance in the back. "Goodbye, Cross." he said cursorily.
Cross waved a little sadly. "Keep out of trouble, you two."
Yuuki was surprised at how Zero reacted to the words. His expression turned from shock to a complacent contentment. "Don't worry," he said softly, in a voice that sounded like it had said the same words to the very same warning hundreds of times before. "We won't."
He opened the door, pulling her through, and the last thing she saw of Kaien Cross, one-time guard to the Royal Family and temporary teacher, was a sad smile that seemed to speak mutely into the silence.
Zero released her hand once they were outside, but she continued to follow him.
"We have to get Lily, then we can cross the brook outside of this town and go Northwest from there, through the woods. It'll lower our chances of being found."
They followed the dark back-street behind the small row of shops until they arrived at the end of it, where Lily was tied to a post near the path that led into the town. Zero solemnly untied her, and the pure white horse seemed to understand his mood in an almost telepathic way. She allowed both Zero and Yuuki to mount without fuss, and Zero pet her neck for a few moments before urging her onward.
Lily refused to move once they entered the clearing. The brook that Zero had spoken of wove through it. "Probably thirsty," Zero said. He and Yuuki got off of Lily's back and allowed her to move to the water. She held her nose above it for a few moments before deciding that it was safe to drink.
For the first time, Yuuki looked around. Like so many things in this town, the brook invoked feelings of familiarity. Earlier, with the children, Yuuki had watched as the older girl settled down next to one of the boys and bickered about which rocks and fallen leaves were prettier, and Yuuki had felt a warm sense of déjà vu envelop her. She hated and loved how this town had cried out to her senses. Sighing, she readjusted her attention on the scenery. It was a beautiful place—an opening in the foliage where long green grass grew thick until the very edge of a small creek, where clear water moved in a crystal blanket over time-smoothed stones. The smell of wildflowers teased at her senses. Yuuki walked to the edge of the water without thinking about it, and slipped her shoes off, dipping her toes into the clear running water.
"Yuuki..."
The words echoed clearly to her, and she turned even though she somehow knew that they had not been spoken in this time. In this place, yes, but not this time.
Yuuki's memories teased her with the slow words that had been spoken somewhere in an indeterminate past. "Yuuki... if you keep it up like that..."
Zero moved from behind, walking closer. "If you keep it up like that, Yuuki, you'll fall in."
Yuuki's fingers twisted into the grass, and suddenly she saw tiny bare feet dipping into the water, then walking in it, following its flow until it went up to her waist, following...following. "I know this place," she whispered.
"Follow me, Yuuki." A pale, slender hand twining into hers; a dry sigh that tried to hide his gentle happiness. A snatch of silver hair in sunlight—of unnaturally vivid lavender eyes filled with mischievous intent.
Sunlight, vivid sunlight, and a breeze that sent ruffling tree-leaf shadows dancing over his face.
Zero.
Zero.
Zero...
"You were here," she said, but the words only passed her lips in a reverent whisper. As if from floodgates long cracked but broken only now, the memories poured through, falling in fragments of remembrace, returning vividly with smells and sounds and sights she had smelled and heard and seen a very long time ago. The aroma of baking bread, the sound of laughter—his, hers... someone else's—and the sight of faces. Too many faces.
"Yuuki," he said.
How had she never heard it before? How had she never recognized that the way he said it now was just like he'd said it back then? Yuuki couldn't bring herself to reply. It was too hard to comprehend. "How...?" she said. "The castle. I was... in the castle. I couldn't have... My family..."
Zero sat on the bank, far enough away from her that she had to concentrate to hear his voice. "You'll remember. I'm sorry, Yuuki, but you'll remember it all. You... for a time... lived here, once. In this place. And I knew you."
Yuuki closed her eyes and let tears slip silently from them. It was as if a fragment of her life had been returned to her, but it was still gapingly incomplete. Dark memories paced around the edges of her consciousness, threatening to break through. Too much. It was far too much to comprehend at once. She looked at Zero, shocked to realize that the face in front of her was the same one she had seen in that indeterminate past. Her mind layered memories over the present landscape, and all she could think was that he had changed so much. He'd grown. It tore at her heart to compare his expression back then to his expression now. Time had cruelly worn at his features, adding too many years to his sad violet eyes. He smiled when he caught her looking at his face.
"I'm sorry, Yuuki. Perhaps it would've been better for you not to remember. There's a lot...before...and after...that I wish you didn't have to remember."
"Zero," she said. And it was the sound of a voice ten years old, asking him to teach her how to hold a sword, begging him to keep a secret, or to hold her hand while she balanced on the edge of an old log.
It was a voice he had never been able to say no to. Zero got up and sat closer to her. "Yuuki," he said softly. He seemed ready to say more, but his mouth closed when Yuuki leaned tiredly against his shoulder, closing her eyes and welcoming the blackness and the familiarity. "It's all right, Yuuki," he said, voice soft, barely audible, but somehow completely clear. Tentatively, haltingly, he put an arm around her, stilling the trembling of her body.
It was enough. It was enough for her.
Notes: I'm going to be eighteen tomorrow. Help! I don't wanna! Tomorrow I'll officially be older than Zero. It feels odd. Though I know I can't complain. Lol, but in other news... Wow... I had trouble with this chapter. It was a deadly challenge to my writing capabilities. The easiest part to write was the bit with Cross. He's such a cool character, tweaky and bipolar and just so wonderfully fun to portray. The more I try to understand him, the more I like him. Writing Yuuki and Zero near the end was the hardest for me, but also the most satisfying. How could a person react to the sudden remembrance of a life they didn't realize they'd ever had? How would that affect their interaction with the people they used to know? I think I killed my brain, but in the absolute best way possible. I hope this was all right! Any thoughts would be hugely appreciated.