Innate Fire
The Northern King covered his mouth to stifle a hearty yawn.
"Don't tell me you haven't slept again through the night?" His escort scoffed, and Kenshin turned to the effeminate, scythe-wielding man beside him. Kamatari was throwing him a sidelong glare. "Geez, what the heck do you do that would keep you awake? Are Fire Drakes supposed to be nocturnal or something?" He huffed.
Kenshin gave him an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, it seems that my exhaustion is bothering you,"
"Oh yes, it does. Aoshi has been chastising me nonstop since I took post in watching over you. He believes I'm annoying you to death, talking your ears off and doing random things to drain your energy. Now, why the hell would I do that?!" He paused as they continued strolling the grounds. "Maybe I should also start guarding you at night,"
Kenshin cast his head down, "Ah, I apologize for causing you unrest. But there's no need to do that…"
Kamatari eyed at him with suspicion.
"I can't be too complacent with you, my Lord. You're very much like the Ameera too, in terms of unpredictability. Although Kaoru is painfully direct that it drives me crazy, you on the other hand… hide beneath a polite facade. I can never read your next move,"
The Northern King already lost track of the conversation, on the mention of her name. "She does… drive people crazy," he echoed, remembering his third morning in the palace. He woke up with a familiar ugly-ass toad on his chest, and thinking she was playing the same trick on him, he seized the toad in his hands and stroked her rather sensually.
She oozed thick slime, coating his hands with her liquid. "Do you like that, little toad?" He whispered huskily, until something shifted from the doors to his room. He immediately froze, when he recognized the figure.
It was the Ameera, standing by the doorway, stunned and slackjawed at the sight of him, and it was then that he realized he was fondling a real fucking toad.
Her electric blue eyes exploded in mirth, and his lovely tormentor walked away from the room, howling with laughter.
Kamatari's sigh brought him back to the present. "My week is done, once she steps into these doors." He sighed in relief. It would be Kaoru's turn to watch over the Northern King. Although it had been a pleasure accompanying him, he was not used to tailing other people around. Kaoru, on the other hand, was good at trolling. Maybe she would focus her attention on the king and wreak less havoc on her poor friends?
Wishful thinking.
The entrance to the palace doors opened, and in entered the Ameera, clothed in fine womanly silks, a grin plastered on her face. She launched herself towards Kamatari and tackled him on the floor to a hug, her laughter reverberating throughout the hall.
"Calm down, Tanuki. You're acting as if we haven't seen each other for ages." Her lieutenant sighed in feigned annoyance, but a smile escaped his lips. She had only been gone for a whole day,
"Ah, but I missed you!" Kaoru exclaimed, her contagious cheerfulness radiating through. "You were always my companion whenever we make weekly visits to that old General. I had Misao with me today, and I heard nothing but sighs and rhetorics of how great my brother is,"
The Ameera paused when she felt a familiar presence looming behind her. Giving Kamatari a fond kiss on the forehead, she straightened her clothing and stood up, turning towards that presence.
She looked up and smiled, as she nodded her acknowledgment. "My Lord, a pleasure to see you today."
Kenshin looked down at her, his gaze intense on the woman. "The pleasure is all mine," his hand twitched in restraint.
"Oh, before the sun sets, we'll be off to a private treasure party. Han'nya found a trove in the Valley of the Ghouls… It would only be him, me, Misao, Kamatari," Kaoru leaned close into Kenshin. "The others are not invited, but you are. Would you care to join us, My Lord?"
Goosebumps rode under his silks, as her breath tickled his ears. With her so close, his eyes settled on the bite mark on her neck, the one he created five days ago.
His lips quirked upward in a devious smile, seeing that it had never healed.
"Of course."
The quiet was too dominant it left their ears ringing.
Kamatari squinted in difficulty: halfway through the cave it became so dark he worried he'd become blind. And there they were, hiding behind a rock, having no idea what lay in the void before them. "Have you scouted the area?" He turned to an equally cautious Han'nya.
"Why would I? It would take out the fun," he answered, and a chuckle from the Ameera rose from beside the masked warrior.
"You could have at least mapped out our course-" the lieutenant argued.
"Shut up, you two!" Misao whispered seethingly, "The last time you bickered in a place like this it almost cost me my head-"
"Hush," Kaoru's whisper drifted between the bickering, "I'll lend you my sight." Red smoke arose from their feet, and it crept up on their legs like illuminated roots, curling upwards, binding their hands until it reached their face.
Kenshin looked beside him, only to find the others beside him unperturbed.
The roots rushed into his eyes.
He gasped when a suffocating feeling strangled in his throat. "Relax," the Ameera's soothing voice crooned, "I have possessed you with a sliver of my haula, but I did not take control of your free will…"
"Trust her," Misao whispered from beside him, and Kenshin breathed. He opened his eyes, and he had to blink.
"I will not know what you see," Kaoru said, "because I don't know how your energies react to mine. But it will be enough to get you through the darkness."
Kenshin's lavender eyes focused on her, and he held his breath. The Ameera… she looked… ethereal. Sharp fangs pierced the side of her plush lips. Her exposed skin, the one not hidden by the layers and layers of clothing, was illuminated by little tendrils of light, markings of red and blue, alive and rushing underneath her skin.
He then realized: she held two flames.
And she was oozing so much power that the very atmosphere reacted to her movement, the air reverberated its reverence.
It was her haula, and he was only able to see it because it was amplified by his own energy. And he looked down his arms, and he saw a crimson channel, moving much like the Ameera's.
But it did not spark out like hers, it only stayed in him, and he recalled his first meeting with her, when she burned him with her red flame: "Don't tell me your elemental channels are still locked?"
Her blue eyes were a stunning electric in the darkness, as she pointed before him. There was a giant figure, sedentary in the middle of a mesa.
"Karkadann," Han'nya announced, and he turned to Kenshin. "The Ameera's vision has been distributed to the five of us, so it is compromised. My Lord, try to use your Draconian vision. Do you see where it is hiding the treasure?"
Kenshin squinted, and his eyes flashed gold. The moment he released his ancient energy, he felt the heat of the Ameera's haula coursing in his veins, and it awoke a terrible… craving in his blood. He did notice his fangs growing, he had to bite his lips to restrain himself.
Her possession left him floating in an indescribable ecstasy, and he felt so fucking invaded his lips parted in euphoric rapture.
"What's wrong?" Kaoru's voice drifted closer, as she leaned from behind him and her hand rested on his shoulder in concern.
He had realized, the beast inside him stirred like never before. Kenshin reeled, like a drunk struggling to hang on to dear sanity. "I don't like this…" his golden gaze settled helplessly to the djinnya in front of him,"I don't like this at all…"
The Ameera tilted her head sideways in innocent confusion.
Kamatari suddenly cleared his throat, "My Lord, the treasure?"
The hand slid away from him, and her body pulled away. The intoxicated King tried to focus, fighting against her addicting possession. And then he pointed to the most unusual place. "I see it… buried underneath its pile of excrement."
Kamatari chuckled. "Selfish little prick," he turned to Misao. "You lure and subdue it, we tie it down… and then put our marker in."
A period of silence.
"Misao?" Kamatari turned and found the consort unusually quiet. All eyes turned to her, and Misao cast her head down, blushing. "What's wrong?"
"Can you let Kaoru be our bait this time?" She said, drawing lines on the dirt. "You see…" Misao finally followed, albeit shyly, "I'm not qualified anymore."
A longer period of silence, until Kaoru gasped softly. "Since when?"
"Since… last night."
The small woman found herself tackled to the ground in an assault of embraces, Kamatari and Kaoru both squeezing her form, the three wriggling like worms tied to each other on the ground.
"You sneaky little booger!" Kamatari painfully ruffled her hair.
Han'nya cleared his throat, and the three turned towards the man. "Save that for later. Ameera, if you could please,"
Kaoru nodded and pulled away from Misao. "Of course," she said, holding a coy grin. "Everyone… have fun." She winked. Red smoke swirled from her feet, and she slowly dissolved into mist.
She reappeared, rising from red embers and flame… right in the middle of the steppe, smack in front of the towering Karkadann.
And everything was still.
Kenshin watched in awe, spellbound as tendrils of red flame cradled her form, swirling around her like a living fire, caressing her like a fiery lover. The Ameera slowly extended a hand towards the volatile colossus.
"Just what… are the 'qualifications' to subdue such a beast?" He asked offhandedly.
Han'nya shifted, his eyes never leaving the princess. "It's the Eastern counterpart to the Unicorns you have on the North."
Kamatari huffed from beside him. "Virgins." He answered. "Karkadanns can be subdued by virgins."
Her hand touched the gigantic Karkadann and she sighed, and the beast's front legs knelt in submission. The moment it did, Kamatari and Han'nya bolted from their positions. Misao grabbed Kenshin's hand and he was pulled out of his spot, out into the open.
"We have to haste," she exclaimed, "we only have a one-minute window!"
They ran across the rocky steppes, past the Ameera, into the territory of the towering beast. Han'nya disappeared from plain sight and Kamatari brandished his scythe, as five smaller figures charged at them, emerging from the darkness.
Wild panthers, with sabertooth-like projections, growled in warning as they struck in ambush, and bright white projectiles zipped past the running Kenshin's path.
He turned beside him, Misao had infused holy magic into her daggers and she flung it towards the head of a panther, who had just jumped right in front of Kenshin's line of sight.
"Be careful," Misao warned, "They like to hide their energy signatures."
She disappeared from his sight, and Kenshin brandished his own sword and parried. The open jaws of another black beast had almost bit off his face, and he gathered his strength and pushed, knocking the panther's balance off. With one swift strike, he drove his sword into the skull of the beast.
He pulled his blade out and advanced forward, evading another panther that had just tried to maul him from the side.
Kenshin stepped into the hills of excrement and grimaced in vain, when a smiling Kamatari caught up beside him.
"Our minute is over," he said as he sped forward, and Kenshin felt the ground shake beneath his feet. He turned behind him and his eyes widened ever so subtly.
The gigantic Karkadann was charging towards them. For being such a colossal entity it moved so fast, and the next thing he knew, it was right in front of him, screaming at his face.
He drew his sword. But before he could even strike, the world around him significantly dimmed. The Ameera had dropped her possession. Ribbons of scarlet came shooting out of nowhere, seizing the beast's limbs. His line of vision lost focus solely on the Karkadann, as he realized a familiar figure was standing behind the writhing beast.
The Ameera's feet dragged on the ground, her monstrous strength restraining the twenty-foot colossus. "Hurry!" Her teeth clenched from the sheer force she was exhausting, her hands were bruising from the merciless pull.
The binds were fraying and ripping. Kenshin snapped towards the three warriors who were in the middle of the pile of gigantic poop. They were beating their weapons against a protective crystalline seal that held the treasure chest. It refused to break.
The Northern King strode forward and struck., and the crystal barrier shattered.
"The Marker!" The Ameera's muscles bunched as her binding haula started snapping and ripping. "I'm releasing!" She announced, and she let go.
The Karkadann broke free and thundered towards them. Misao took a magic seal, one with the symbol of two crossing scimitars, and slapped it on the open treasure chest.
It illuminated in the dim, and Kenshin realized that this was the Marker they had been talking about. Everything had been a game for the daredevil group. They were not to take the treasure itself;
They were to show that they were the first to conquer the challenge.
The Karkadann screeched, and they felt as if their ears bled. Around him, his companions had been disappearing, one by one, through a burst of blue mist.
And when the monster was a mere inches from the Northern King, he felt soft hands snake around his waist. And a sudden burst of blue mist swallowed him whole, and he realized he was falling.
He landed painfully on his back on opulent marble floors, a significant weight on his body. He looked around and found that he was back in the palace hall. Misao, Kamatari, and Han'nya were scattered around him, equally dazed from the sudden teleport.
Kamatari bellowed in laughter. He raised his palms and Misao, who was beside him, smirked, as she reached out and smacked his hand, giving him a high-five. Han'nya leaned on the wall from relief. The weight on Kenshin's body started to shake.
His gaze drifted to the body on top of him. It was Kaoru, laughing and giddy, her breathing heavy in exhaustion. She lifted herself and braced her arms on the sides, and she leaned down. Her hair fell from her shoulders, enclosing both of them in an unlikely curtain of silky black, isolating them from the world.
"That was delightful," she crooned, "My Lord, you are absolutely… intriguing, " she grinned, and Kenshin's golden eyes zeroed in on her yet again.
"You are equally fascinating," he rasped, unable to help himself from her pull. With her face so close, and her body pressed against his, his hands traveled around her waist- "Kaoru."
Her eyes widened subtly as his hands tightened, and to her confusion, he yanked her hair towards him.
But someone came tumbling towards them, breaking the two apart.
The small cannonball was Misao, tackling Kaoru to the floor. "That was so fun!" The future queen of El Qasr said in between laughs. The Ameera merely blinked, and after a few moments, she laughed. She scooped a dollop of poop on her person and smeared it on Misao's face.
The tall form of Aoshi strode into the hall, the stink hitting him immediately like a ton of bricks. "What the hell is going on?!"
The djinnya stepped out of the balcony and reappeared at the edge of the elevation. It was a full moon, she realized. She scanned the vast blue ocean of Sha'ra, her eyes gravitating towards the abnormal swirls that served as a gateway to another realm. She breathed in, and she closed her eyes.
Elation… Euphoria. Finally, after twenty years of war, the depredations and mass slaughter… the moment was finally before her.
His recognition to the throne.
Her Shishio,
Rightful King of Amberistad, strongest of the Ifrit.
She felt an overflow of tears run down her cheeks… everything they had been through, all the friends they had lost, she did not regret the blood that spilled on her hands as she fought beside him. All to reclaim their honor, all to take back what was rightfully theirs in this dangerous realm.
But as her cries of fulfillment ran unceasing, so did little drops of heavy liquid trickle on her face. She touched her cheek, curious. And as she presented her hand before her eyes, her breath hitched.
Mesmerized, she looked up… from where the little pitter-patters of scarlet was falling, and she watched in a trance, unable to connect, unable to comprehend.
The sky was raining sanguine.
The little trickle evolved into a torrential downpour, and she found herself drenched in blood. A bloodcurdling scream reverberated through the stunned crowd, and the djinniya froze.
The Ameera strode towards the ocean, and she burst into a run. The winds carried her feet as she jumped off the edge, and she plunged into the hundred foot drop, into the crashing ocean below. A familiar chaotic current, drumming in her ears, drowned her very being. A swirl of blue energy wrapped her in a protective embrace, warding off the leviathans of the deep that started to congress towards her, attracted by her flesh, threatened by her power.
She drifted into the dark, abysmal depths, breathing in the suffocating waters, trusting that she will never drown. She opened her eyes, and she found herself floating in a familiar darkness.
She looked like a pinpoint of blue flame, as colossal monsters of the deep circled around her drifting form.
"I promise," she knelt before her Shishio, crying her heart out, "I promise to come back and avenge you-"
He reached out his weakened hand to touch her face, and she felt as if heaven and earth had slammed her in between. He was crumbling into ashes, and she screamed in agonizing heartbreak, but her screams were being drowned by the slaughter around her.
"I forbid you to come back," Shishio rasped, "My fire, the one that has left my body and is now a part of your haula- will make sure you never enter Qaf. Until that third fire courses in your veins, you will not set foot in Djinnistan! Do you understand?!"
She reached out, her soul in a deep, longing prayer, to the gates of the Emerald Mountains. But as she did, her blue haula suddenly cowered. A red flame erupted from her energy channels. Still underwater the red energy swallowed her blue, and it crept like tendrils of flame around her limbs, immobilizing her.
She could not move, she was paralyzed by her own second haula. The red innate flame, her Shishio's flame that was bequeathed to her the day the sky rained blood, pulled her away from the gates of Qaf, away from the realm of Djinnistan. And Kaoru couldn't help but cry in frustration.
She found herself at the shore of Sha'ra, drenched and miserable, unable to hold the frustration back from her eyes. She struggled to get up to all fours, and she gathered the sand underneath her hands.
"Someday, when all of this is over, I will find my greatest love… just like how you found yours with Shishio," Kaoru once said, during happier times.
Yumi smiled as she embraced a sleeping Shishio, her red eyes reflecting the fire's glow before them. "You will," Yumi sighed, and her gaze connected to hers. "He never told you this, because he wants to keep you longer by his side," the Ifrit djinniya chuckled, "But he was given a vision. You were standing in front of three flames: in the form of a blue mirror, a scarlet sword and a crimson shield…
My sweet Kaoru, I do think…the first fire, the mirror, is a direct reflection of your Marid power. The second one is your sword, who will fight for you when your will falters, and the third will be your shield, one to protect you when everything else fails."
"Eh?" Kaoru drew back, "What has that got to do with me finding my greatest love?"
Yumi smiled. "The first fire is your Marid haula, the second fire is Shishio's Ifrit flame, and the third one… might belong to your destined lover,"
The Ameera chuckled at such a ridiculous notion. Yumi was more than credible… she was the one who taught her to read dreams and interpret impossibly complicated visions. But the thought of relying on a lover left a bad taste in her mouth, and that very vision was what was keeping her from returning to Qaf.
She did not need a lover. She was still bound by the chains of grief from what happened in Amberistad, how much more debilitating would it be if she was bound by a love she held greater than her life?
What if she lost that love?
She would crumble into ashes, after being burned alive by her own raging flame… just like what happened with her Shishio, when Yumi dissolved into dust in his arms.
Kaoru roughly wiped her tears at the back of her hand.
She did not need anything like that. And she had to be very careful, because lately, she realized… there was a certain red-haired entity she could not keep her hands off of.
She gathered her strength and transported herself back to her room to retire for the night. What she did not know, that there was a quiet presence that had just settled in her balcony, concealed in the shadows and to stay, such as it did the first night he set foot on El Qasr.
Like a dragon protecting his keep, the Fire Drake was there, standing guard possessively by the Ameera's doors. The clutch to his sword tightened as the scent of her tears drifted in the air, and he restrained himself from entering her room.
"And to think you would be at a woman's feet in a mere few days," Sanosuke said.
The Fire Drake stood still, his palms splayed at her door. He was drowning in confusion, he did not like this feeling of helplessness. He never liked this feeling of having no control.
Kenshin's jaw clenched in frustration. "For the first time in my existence, I have never felt such fear,"
He knew there was no escaping his immense attraction, and his blood called out to her with such intensity it was impossible to ignore.
"I don't like this…" he trailed off, "I don't like this at all,"
He knew better than to fight his dominant blood's call.
And this debilitating fear that would consume him… for her possible rejection,
For her safety when she was not by his side, for everything about her…
"Is that why you marked her?" Sanosuke smirked. "You are aware… that you did that against her knowledge… against her will,"
"I don't care." Kenshin's eyes flashed gold. "She will have to accept me… I am worthy, and she is the only one. No one else will do anymore." His gaze connected to the general's. "She has no choice."
His courting mark… it was supposed to protect her from harm whenever he was not beside her. And a second, deeper mark was what he needed: a permanent mating mark he would have to create during sexual intercourse.
But that would have to wait. He was patient, he knew she would be a hard fight. He will need to take back the Northern Throne, to prove to her that he was more than capable, and he had everything to offer.
But before everything else, he had to find a way to channel and control his innate fire.
