Title: The Heralds of the White God epilogue - After the Flood
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst.
Summary: In which a year has passed and many things have changed - most, but not all, for the better.
Kurogane rode up the valley towards Ruval Castle, reveling in the fine warm air that moved and swirled about him the higher he went. It was late summer, and what was a enervating greenhouse down on the plains below was up here only pleasantly warm.
A year had passed since the fall of Fei Wong Reed and the dissolution of his foul magics that had wreaked so much harm upon the world. Since then, Kurogane had many occasions to ride between his homeland and the high reaches of Ceres, but he never got tired of the view.
His horse dropped to a walk as it crested a particularly steep hill; as they reached the peak, Kurogane let it stop for a few minutes to rest as he surveyed the vista ahead of him. The road turned sharply away, winding in switchbacks down the steep slope as it dipped into the bowl that had once held the bustling castle town of Ruval - the road was still there, but now it dead-ended abruptly into the water.
The unnatural glaciers conjured by Fei Wong Reed's malice had reshaped the mountain valleys, gouging canyons and gorges here and pushing up ridges there. Sakura, in those brief moments of godlike power, had melted the glaciers - but she had not put adequate thought into where the water would go, and the valley of Ruval now sat submerged under a shimmering icy lake.
The castle still remained, though; the spur of rock on which it sat breached the lake's waters, and the pale marble stone of the castle sat as serenely as it ever had. Now, of course, it was reachable only by long, delicate bridges of white stone, unnervingly slender as they arched out from the shore to the island. They had to be held up by magic; Kurogane was sure; there was no other way that such attenuated structures could hold. The lake's surface shimmered brilliantly under the bright summer sun, flashing bright arcs of light against the pale white undersides of the bridge and against the castle's walls. The castle itself cast a bright white mirror of itself in the lake, which otherwise reflected only the endless blue of the sky above. As the wind gently moved the surface of the water, that reflection shifted and bent like clouds before the wind, and the castle was left by itself as though floating in the sky.
As Kurogane stood there, surveying the valley before him, his reverie was interrupted by the piercing cry of a hunting falcon. Kurogane squinted as he looked up, shading his eyes against the bright sunlight; he spotted a dark blurry outline in the sky, hovering on wide wing-tips and then diving towards him. There was no reason for a falcon to linger in these parts, there being no prey for it to eat - and so Kurogane's lips turned up in a smile as he held out his arm in invitation and welcome.
The white bird dived upon him, slowing its descent at the last moment with a great buffet of wings that made his horse sidle and snort; but its talons were unnaturally gentle as they closed about Kurogane's forearm. The bird shifted, mantling its weight, as Kurogane brought his arm carefully back towards the shelter of his body - and then the bird's form blurred and shifted, its outlines twisting into something else entirely.
Suddenly Kurogane held in his arms not a bird at all, but a man - and the sudden impact, followed by the imbalance of weight, was enough to pull him off the side of his saddle and topple to the grassy verge. The other man landed on top of him, forcing the air out of Kurogane's lungs with a grunt.
He opened his eyes to see the silhouette above him, blocking out the light but haloed with the light that shone through flying wisps of his pale, fine hair. His eye - his one blue eye - sparkled down at Kurogane, and he was beaming as brightly as the sun dazzling off the lake.
"Hi," Fai said softly, as inane and obvious as ever. "Miss me?"
Kurogane didn't bother to return the empty words, still never much one for saying what he could instead show. He reached up and threaded his hand through Fai's fine, silk-spun hair, and pulled his head down to meet Kurogane's in a kiss.
Since the night of Fei Wong Reed's death and the reshaping of the world, Fai had returned to the state he'd been when Kurogane had first met him - free of any magical geas or demonic tampering, a human flush with vigor and magic. Gone was the unnatural hunger that had driven him to feed on human blood. Gone too was the inhuman strength and stamina that had accompanied that bloodthirst, and so was the unspoken bond of clarity and connection that had stretched between them.
Kurogane mourned that loss, a little bit, as he remembered the searing moments of intimacy when soul and soul had touched. But on the whole, he and Fai both agreed that they were happier to be as they were - warrior and mage, instead of demon and hunter. Fai had always hated the necessity of hurting Kurogane so that he could live, and keenly felt the imbalance of debt and gratitude between them. Kurogane, for his own part, was unspeakably relieved to think that even in his absence, even should they be parted for long periods of time with no hope of seeing each other again - even without him, Fai would be all right.
Still, the rocky verge of a mountain pass was no comfortable place for a cuddle. Fai didn't mind, but of course Kurogane was the one with stones digging into his spine. He gave Fai a warning nudge. "Off," he grunted.
Fai complied, though not without an exaggerated pout. "Kuro-pon is no fun today," he said tragically. "But at least he's kind and generous enough to offer me a ride up to the castle!"
"Who said I would?" Kurogane countered, as he went to recapture his horse. The beast had been startled by Fai's abrupt appearance, but he was a trained horse who had been through much more uncanny things than a man materializing suddenly on his back. Still, the horse snorted and eyed Fai warily as he approached, still associating him with the sudden fright.
Fai's eye filled with large, sparkling, utterly fake tears. "Kuro-wan is so mean," he wailed. "I don't even have a horse, but Kuro-greedy won't share his! He would just leave me here, all alone to starve and die of thirst and cold, stranded. He's so cruel, callous, heartless -"
Kurogane thought that he hadn't seen Fai in such a good mood in quite some time; his outrageous dramatics came out of a happy effusiveness that bubbled up and over around him. It made him feel good to see such happiness, even if Fai's little pantomime was annoying the crap out of him. "The castle is just over there," he pointed out. "You can fly there in less than an hour."
"But I just flew in all the way from Clow, and my arms are tired," Fai sniffled.
"Shapeshift yourself into something else, then," Kurogane suggested practically. "Or magic yourself up a horse. In fact, why not just cut out the middleman and turn yourself into a horse?"
Fai's tears vanished as a wide grin spread across his face. "Ooh, that's the best idea yet," he purred. "Then Kuro-tan could ride me the rest of the way." He waggled his eyebrows outrageously.
Kurogane couldn't help it; he barked a short chuckle, escaping from behind his poker-face of indifference. Fai's lecherous leer turned into a triumphant smirk, and Kurogane shook his head as he remounted his horse, conceding the defeat. He turned in the saddle, holding out a hand to Fai.
"Well?" he said, and watched Fai's face light up.
It was a nominal point in their little games to Fai; but since the end result was Fai riding close behind him on horseback, nestled against Kurogane in the saddle, he rather felt as though he'd won.
"How is life in Nihon?" Fai asked.
"Good," Kurogane said, and wished for a brief moment that he and Fai still had the old bond between them, so that he could just show Fai the images and feelings that swirled up in him: the court at Shinkyo, the new capital rebuilt after Edo had been destroyed in the storms. Of the buildings and pavilions, new-cut wood and fresh paint shining in the sun. Of all the people that Kurogane had sworn to protect: Kendappa and Tomoyo, who had lost her visions of the future in the great magical assault against Fei Wong Reed but who was as wise and gentle as ever. Of Prince Touya and his constant pale companion, Yukito, who served as the permanent ambassador to Nihon much as Kurogane served as Nihon's ambassador to Ceres. Of Syaoran, newly minted with a noble title for his great deeds that sat nervously on his still-skinny shoulders (although he was just beginning to hit a growth spurt when Kurogane last departed, so who knew how tall the kid would be by the time he got back.) Kendappa had even gone so far as granting him a lot of his own land (carved off of Suwa province, now that it had been re-opened for settlement. Kurogane hadn't minded.)
And of course Sakura, who had come to join the court of Nihon after all - not as a bride, but as a sister. The royal family had adopted her, and what the aristocrats had not been willing to accept in a future queen they would happily embrace in a junior princess. It helped in no small part that the rumors and legends of her great magic had filtered back to Nihon, though distorted in the telling - whatever resentments the people of Nihon might have felt against Ceresians was completely overwhelmed by gratitude for saving their country from the evils of Fei Wong Reed. As a princess-mage of sorts, the priesthood of Nihon was more than willing to accept her into their own ranks - and where their gods led, the people would follow.
Kurogane thought that it didn't hurt either that Sakura was cute as a button - her auburn hair and grass-green eyes were the subject of unending fascination amongst the dark-skinned, dark-eyed people of Nihon. Combined with her shy earnestness and shining sincerity, Sakura had quickly won over the hearts of her new people. Kurogane had been right to guess that Tomoyo and Sakura would get along well, but he hadn't anticipated just how close a friendship they would form; despite the age difference, the two were all but inseparable. Touya treated Sakura as though he'd had her as a little sister all his life, and Sakura clung to him in return with a yearning that brought echoes of Fai's memory to mind. Even Kendappa and Sakura had developed a strange, insult-and-teasing-laden bond that hid a deep, protective affection on the part of the Empress.
Kurogane knew that Sakura still missed her home, and that Fai missed his little sister. But it had been widely agreed amongst the survivors of Ceres that Sakura would be safer, and happier, staying away from Ceres for a few years while the country was rebuilt. Sakura had assented, especially once it was pointed out to her that the best way she could serve her people - both peoples - was to act as a bridge between the mountains and the plains, strengthening a love and acceptance between both kingdoms that would last for an age. Not as a pawn, but as a queen.
And how lucky for Syaoran, Kurogane thought dryly, that Kendappa had granted him a place among the nobility - there was no possibility that an orphan, even the ward of one as infamous of Kurogane, would have leave to court a royal princess. It had been a treat, the past year, to watch their friendship shyly unfolding - at the pace of a snail, it seemed sometimes, when both parties were too busy blushing and stammering to ever get any forwarder in their courtship. It had become a small game, among the castle's inhabitants, to try to trick the two young lovers into embarrassing situations or loaded conversations where they would be forced to confess to one another (although so far, their natural obliviousness had provided plenty of challenge for the players.)
As for Kurogane himself, he was willing enough to let them be at their own pace. They had all the time in the world, now.
"It's been good," he said again, and Fai gave him a knowing look that told him - blood bond or no blood bond - that he knew everything that Kurogane was thinking. "She misses you, though." Unspoken, but no less the real for it, was: I miss you.
Fai smiled sadly. "I miss her, too," he said. "I miss all of you. But the world doesn't stop turning just because you save it, Kuro-venture!" He perked up again visibly, making an effort to inject cheer into his voice but not without some truth to it. Fai loved the traveling, loved meeting new people and gathering new information. "There's so much out there to see!"
"So did you find anything interesting?" Kurogane asked as they rode.
Fai hummed thoughtfully, the sound transmitting between them where Fai pressed against his back. "Well, I've developed a catalogue of up to thirty-two diseases or parasites that have disappeared from the world completely since Sakura-chan's ascension," he said. "But I'm sure Kuro-sama isn't interested in that. What he might find interesting is that I've been in four different countries and have seen no trace of Seishirou's demonic signature, either."
Kurogane nodded. That lined up with everything they'd heard in Nihon, as well. Sightings of demons had gone down to almost nothing in the past year - and those that had been reported, when traced, inevitably turned out to be no more than superstitious villagers who'd mistaken ordinary (if large) animals for demons.
The demon-hunting corps - or at least, those who had survived the battle at the south wall two years ago - were out searching for any trace of a den where they might have gone to ground, but by this point they would have expected to find their quarry if they were going to. Most of Nihon was mystified, but grateful for the respite; it was that same relaxation that had freed Kurogane from his patrolling duties to become Nihon's first full-time ambassador to Ceres.
"You said you flew from Clow?" Kurogane asked, when the flow of Fai's chatter slowed a bit.
"Mm-hmm," Fai said, and his head moved against Kurogane's shoulder as he nodded. He let out a sigh. "It keeps on drying out, I'm afraid. The grass has already died. The trees are toughing it out so far, but if they go another season without rain I don't think most of them will make it. Those animals that can are already moving south and east, but I don't know..."
He trailed off, and Kurogane thought back to the fertile land that they'd ridden through, the four of them, on their way back from killing Fei Wong Reed. The cursed ocean of sand, the high plains of dry barren rock, all had been replaced with a veritable garden of trees and flowers - a legacy of Sakura's power. When asked about it, a drowsy Sakura had said only that she "returned the land to what it used to be -" before falling back to the deep slumber that had gripped her for most of that journey.
But whatever that land had once been, it was now a drylands. Sakura had brought a bloom of life into that dead place, but she couldn't (or hadn't thought to) alter the weather patterns of the wind and the rain to sustain it. Over the following weeks, the sun had slowly dried out the verdant plants, until by the time their party had reached the mountains the flowers had already begun to wither and droop.
"It's a shame," he muttered quietly. "Did you see those guys again?"
"Those guys, Kuro-tan, so specific," Fai admonished him with a little laugh.
"You know who I meant," Kurogane replied. "I'll call them by their proper name when you call me by mine."
"Yes, I did meet with the dragons of the desert," Fai stressed their title. " - that young man, Kamui, is very interesting company really. If you like grumpy puppies. Anyway, I told them what was happening, and honestly I think they were relieved. They've lived for hundreds of years in that desert, you know, all their way of life is adapted to it. A fertile farmland - they didn't know what to do in such a landscape, really."
"That's true," Kurogane conceded. He supposed if he'd grown up in a desert, it wouldn't look so horrible to him, either - but the emerald fields of Nihon would always feel like home to him.
"And besides," Fai added, with less humor, "this way, there's less chance of any of the nearby kingdoms - Autozam or Nihon - deciding to move into that territory. It would be too tempting to overlook, the way it was."
"Mm," Kurogane grunted. "-Speaking of Autozam..."
Fai sighed. The playful note had gone out of his voice entirely. "Yes, I visited there, as well," he said quietly. "It's still going on."
On the day of Sakura's ascension, the hour that her wave of power passed over the world, something happened in Autozam that could only be classified as a miracle. Every metal chain used to bind slaves in that country crumbled simultaneously into dust.
The slaves (with some justification, in Kurogane's view) took this as a sign from the heavens that their period of bondage was over. Their masters, naturally, tended to disagree.
The result was a bloody uprising that had thrown the entire country into a heaving maelstrom of chaos. The slave-owners had more weapons, constables and soldiers, and centuries of practice keeping their slaves in line - but what the slaves lacked in numbers they made up for in presence, and a burning fire in their spirits that would not be put down. It was not only a simple matter of masters against slaves: there had been abolitionists in Autozam even before the miracle, who enthusiastically threw their lot in with the rebels; then again, many of the slaves who had been with slave-owning families for decades had formed close bonds with them, and wanted no part of a general rebellion.
All voices calling for peace and moderation, however, had quickly been pushed to the margins as the bloody conflict escalated. By now the rebel slaves had wrested a corner of the country under their control and defended it fiercely against incursions; yet there were many slaves still trapped in the rest of Autozam, unable or unwilling to join their fellows in the stronghold, and much of the former slave-owners' population were caught in the borders of the self-declared Free Kingdom. Hostages were taken on both sides, and the sentiment on both sides grew uglier each day as the casualties mounted.
"Just before I got there," Fai said with a sigh, "the Duke of Autozam staged a mass execution in the capital square. Dozens of slaves tortured to death, left hanging there as a warning to the others. The Free Kingdomers declared that they would kill one Autozam man, woman and child for every slave who died. It's all so senseless, so..." He trailed off, shaking his head in helpless frustration. "I wish I could do something."
"I don't see how it's our business to interfere," Kurogane said. "They're going to have to fight it out until they settle a peace between them. Seems to me those slavers are getting what's coming to them."
Fai shifted around to shoot him a flat glower. "There are children dying for this mess who never chose this," he said.
"Well, what can we do?" Kurogane shot back, ever pragmatic. "Gather an army of our own and march in there, and do - what? Force them back into slavery? Kill every one of the slave owners? Cast a big spell to make them all forget what they're angry about, or make them all be friends? It was just that sort of thing, using magic to try to redraw the world into our idea of justice, that started this whole mess in the first place." Magic solutions were all well and good when the problem was simple (if insurmountable by normal means.) To move a mountain or defeat an evil wizard or bring the rain - magic could help you with any of those things. But when it came to the messy edges between one person's needs and another's, even magic had no easy answers.
"Don't blame this on Sakura," Fai snapped. "She was only trying to do a good thing. She only wanted to help."
"I know that," Kurogane said. "There's a saying that good intentions are like milk; they go sour when left in the heat. She might even get what she meant to happen, in the end; the end of slavery in Autozam. But it's going to be a hard and bloody road to get there, and we can't make it go any faster by pushing."
Fai sighed again, and seemed to deflate in the saddle. "I know," he murmured.
"Have you told her?" Kurogane prodded him. Lacking such conveniences as wings or telepathy, news of what was going on in Autozam was slow to leak back to Nihon. News of the outside world often came to them first from Fai, either during his unpredictable visits to the court there or through Kurogane. But not a word of the bloody uprising in Autozam had crossed his lips in Sakura's hearing.
"Why ever would I?" Fai said. "It would break her heart, Kuro-chan."
"News may travel slower without magic, but it still leaks out, you know," Kurogane said, "She'll find out about it someday, whether you tell her yourself or not, and her heart will break all the more to know that you lied to her. It's her doing, both the good and the ill. Let her take some responsibility for it."
Fai sighed quietly, his shoulders slumping in acquiescence. "I'll tell her," he said, his voice resigned. "The next chance I have."
Kurogane had been through this particular dance with Fai enough times by now not to trust in that. Fai wasn't exactly lying, but 'next chance' was a definition that could be bent and stretched near indefinitely. "If you don't, I will," Kurogane cautioned him. "She's your sister, but she's my Princess now too."
Fai cracked a half-smile for him, wry but sincere. "Yes, you're quite right," he said. "I'm sure she'll do as well as Princess of Nihon as she always did in Ceres - there's a lot to learn, but I know she'll do her best."
"She always does," Kurogane responded. "And she's not the only one."
They reached the shoreline of the shimmering lake, and it took some coaxing from Kurogane to convince his horse - still a bit nervous from the shapeshifting earlier, and unhappy to be carrying a double load on its back - to step onto the slender span of the bridge. It took a murmur from Fai, in some language that Kurogane didn't recognize, before the animal settled down.
The trip across the bridge was eerily silent, the only sound the clop of iron-shod hooves against the paved surface of the bridge, and the soft lap of the water against the stone; not even birds sang. They made no attempt to resume the conversation, only enjoying each other's company in the bright and almost holy silence.
At last, though, they drew near to the end of the bridge and the great castle doors came in sight. Here, at least, it seemed that nothing had change; the doors were pulled wide by servants as they approached, and a stable boy appeared to take the reins of Kurogane's horse as the two of them dismounted. He half expected to see Yukito appear, still in his office as second-in-command; instead, he was greeted by another man with dark and wavy hair in the blue-and-white robes of the Wizards of Ceres.
Kurogane was spared having to try to remember the man's name after only a brief and passing introduction almost two years ago when the man placed a hand over his heart and bowed. "Welcome to Ruval Castle, Ambassador Kurogane," he said in formal, hardly accented Nihongo. "I am Kujaku, second in command of the Council of Magi. I will show you the way."
"I suppose I should pay my respects to King Ashura," Kurogane said, resigned. He was pleased enough to take the post of permanent ambassador from Nihon to Ceres, even if Fai no longer depended on him for blood - after seeing how much of a muck of things the two countries could make, he'd eventually come to the conclusion that if you wanted a job right you'd have to do it yourself. And there was a certain appeal to be found in spending winters in Nihon (away from the icy, frozen hell that was the Windhome mountains in winter) and summers in Ceres, high up and away from the heat.
But even with all that considered, he was not looking forward to meeting Ashura again. They had hardly ever been in a room together without clashing, and even when on his most civil behavior Ashura had a way of making Kurogane feel like a rustic fool. Still and all, there were some duties that could not be avoided. "Wanna come and run interference for me?" he asked
Fai tensed up behind him, his grip circling Kurogane's waist going brittle. "Is this the first time you've been back up here since the glaciers melted?" he said, his voice strained.
"No..." Kurogane said, tilting his head back with a frown to try to capture a view of Fai's face. "I was here in the fall, when Yukito was still here up at the base camp at the top of the pass. They couldn't move everyone back into the palace until they did some repair work and got the bridges up, and that wasn't until spring."
"But you didn't see King Ashura when you were here last fall?"
"No. Yukito told me he was still too ill for visitors then," Kurogane answered, perplexed by the questions. Surely Fai should know all this? The lines of invisible communication between mages surpassed any courier that Nihon could field. "But the last missive I got before I started said that Hisoka and Kakei had managed to banish the last of the effects of the curse and that and Ashura was up and about."
Fai was silent for a moment, then heaved a sigh. "I'd rather not go in with you, this time," he said. "Maybe some other time."
"All right," Kurogane acquiesced, a little puzzled by Fai's behavior but not wanting to push him when he was obviously uncomfortable. The dark-haired wizard made a gesture that commanded his attention, and the two of them set off down half-remembered castle corridors.
As they walked, Kurogane's sharp eyes picked out some new decoration on the shoulder and sleeve of Kujaku's robes. He didn't recognize their meaning, but there was an awful lot of gold embroidery on them compared to last time. "So you're second in command now?" he asked. "The messengers I caught up with on my way up here were signed by some guy named Guru Clef."
"Clef heads the council thanks to his seniority, although none of us have strict hierarchy over one another," Kujaku answered. "Yukito and Wizard Fai are still part of our brotherhood, but they are not technically members of the regent council - their duties require them to be gone for Ceres too long to oversee its daily management."
"Regent?" Kurogane frowned uneasily. "Why would you need a regent, if Ashura is still king?"
Kujaku didn't answer, and the two of them fetched up before a large and heavily gilded door at the end of the corridor. Several guards were stationed outside it, and Kujaku returned nods for salutes from them as he introduced Kurogane in a few rapid-voiced words of Ceresian.
"King Ashura, my lord ambassador," Kujaku announced as the doors swung open, and Kujaku turned and vanished.
The room behind the opened door - suite, Kurogane immediately corrected himself - was fronted by a series of large windows filled with hundreds of tiny diamond panes of glass that caught and shimmered in the light. The lead casing between each pane was so thin and fine, it almost gave the impression of one broad sweeping pane of glass overlooking the mountains and valley below.
The view was spectacular, with the white crowns of the mountain catching the sunlight like a flame and the dark bulk of the mountains below describing sharp dramatic peaks against the sky. From this angle one could hardly see the lake that filled the valley, only the distant descending line of mountains into the green glimmering reaches that made of the kingdom of Ceres.
All the furniture in this suite was simple, though luxuriously appointed, and the desk and drawers and bed all had curiously soft, rounded edges. The fire flickered low behind a reinforced metal grate, padlocked shut. At a large low desk set sideways to the beautiful view sat King Ashura, clad in a simple set of beautiful white-and-blue robes and a circlet on his brow. A sheet of paper and a set of water-based paints sat before him, and he wore an expression of total absorption as he drew his brush over the paper.
Kurogane stood for a moment, feeling increasingly awkward as he waited for Ashura to notice him. When the king did not seem likely to look up on his own, Kurogane faked a cough, then cleared his throat loudly. That did it; Ashura looked up, and a sunny smile broke out on his face. "Hello!" he cried out. "A visitor!"
"Uh, hello," Kurogane said, somewhat thrown off his guard. He glanced around, and more of the details of the beautifully-lit room began to penetrate: apart from the finished paintings and crisp sheets of parchments awaiting paint, there were almost no papers in the room of any kind. A few thin books were scattered around the room, along with a variety of puzzles and games more suited to a child than a monarch.
"Who are you?" Ashura asked, all innocent curiosity. "Have we met?"
"Yes, I was a guest here for months," Kurogane said. "The months I stayed at Ruval Palace as your guest, the winter before the war. We fought in a duel. Don't you remember?"
It was clear from Ashura's face that he did not. Kurogane sighed, and gave up trying to stir that memory. "I'm... friends with your son. Fai."
"Oh, Fai," Ashura said, and gave Kurogane a wide, bright smile. "That's all right then. Any friend of Fai's is a friend of mine!"
"...Yeah," Kurogane said, not really sure how to respond to that.
Ashura clasped his hands together, beaming up at Kurogane. "Do you have a present for me?" he asked.
"...I do, actually," Kurogane said after a moment's hesitation. He reached into his valise and drew out the small package, wrapped in rice paper and oiled cloth to protect it from the journey. "My mistress the Tsukiyomi, Princess Tomoyo of Nihon, bade me to give this to you as a small token of our country's friendship."
He'd rehearsed the formal phrasing carefully, but it seemed like he needn't have bothered. Ashura accepted the gift and tore off the wrapping paper, gasping as the gorgeously-worked wooden bird within was revealed. Carved of a piece with a segment of a plum branch just beginning to blossom, the bird seemed poised to take into flight, wings half-furled. It was a masterpiece of art, one of the finest works by Edo's premier woodcrafter, yet Kurogane had thought it an odd little trinket when Tomoyo had given it to him as a personal gift for the King of Ceres. The King Ashura that Kurogane remembered would have cared nothing for such a trifle, yet now Ashura's face was lit with amazement as he turned it over in his hands.
He wondered how Tomoyo had known, when her vision had been stripped from her: then he remembered Yukito, the pale-eyed mage who was so deep in the royal siblings' counsels. He had to have known of Ashura's condition, and yet not a word of it had passed from his lips to anyone else: Kurogane couldn't really blame him for that.
"Thank you," Ashura said, beaming. But then his face fell. "I don't have a present to give to you."
"That's all right, Your Majesty," Kurogane assured him. "It's not necessary."
"But it is. One must always pay one's debts. Wait!" Ashura cried, and his hands dove back to the stacks of paper on the desk. He carefully extracted one of the paintings from the small stack of finished ones, and rolled it loosely before presenting it to Kurogane with a carefully modulated bow of the head that spoke of years of habit not yet erased by his new personality. "There you are. Now we're even."
"We are indeed, Your Majesty," Kurogane said, a curious lump in his throat. He glanced down at the paper in his hands. Despite Ashura's childish demeanor, the painting he held was not in the least juvenile; it was a beautifully detailed work of art, depicting the landscape outside the King's window in flawless perspective and exquisite detail. The degree of realism was startling, in fact, hardly stylized at all, but for one detail: in the painting, the lake surrounding the palace did not exist. Instead, the old town of Ruval clustered thickly about the palace walls, populated thickly by shadowy indistinct figures moving about in the now-drowned city.
After that it wasn't long before Kurogane ran out of polite nothings to say; he was not skilled at small talk at the best of times, and any but the most innocuous of topics drew only blank incomprehension from Ashura. The conversation grew limping, then still, and a bored Ashura turned back to his paints. Kurogane watched him for a few minutes, then said a quiet farewell and let himself out.
In the corridor he stopped and took deep breaths, trying to dispel the feelings of claustrophobia and nausea that welled up in his chest. He understood now why Fai spent so much time away from the castle; he understood now why they had thought it wisest to send Sakura to live in Nihon. Hard enough for Kurogane to look at Ashura without being choked by sorrow at the thought of what he once had been; how much harder for those who had loved him the most?
Movement caught the corner of his eye, and he saw the dark-skinned wizard from before appear down the corridor. Kujaku, he remembered, one of the Wizards of Ceres who made up the regent council.
"How long will you keep him like this?" Kurogane said, gesturing blindly towards the room behind him. Locked up like a pet, he meant. Pacified like a child, he meant. A shell of his former self, he meant, but he didn't say.
"As long as he lives," Kujaku said simply.
"And how long will that be?" Kurogane asked.
"Even if he can no longer remember how to use it, he is still a sorcerer. Magic flows in his veins," Kujaku said. "Without the strains and pressures of leading, without the danger of intrigue or war, his magic will keep him young for a century or more. Sakura and Syaoran's children's children will be of age before the throne becomes empty once more."
Kurogane turned away and bowed his head, not wanting the wizard to see the rage and grief that battled on his features.
"You must understand, Kurogane-san," Kujaku said. "To you, he might have been a rival, or even an enemy. To us - to me - he was far more.
"When I first came into my powers, the man who was my father beat me and my mother nearly to death," he said. His face was distant, serene in the possession of years and miles between him and the source of his pain. "He called me a witch-child and cursed me, blamed my mother for tainting my blood. He kept me locked in a cage like an animal, until King Ashura arrived to take me away. It was King Ashura who showed me what a father ought to be, what a man ought to be, and he trained me to use my power to defend my new home, and protect all its people from evil men like the one that bore me."
He used you, Kurogane thought, although he didn't think it was his place to say so aloud. Children suffer every day, in every kingdom, but he picked the ones with the most power and took them from their homes, made them adore him so he could turn them into weapons.
"The others have their own stories to tell, and it is not my place to tell them," Kujaku said calmly. "For many of us, he saved our lives; for all of us, he rescued us from whatever wretched conditions we'd been found in, and gave us a new life, and all the prestige and power we now command. Although we might have disagreed with him about the purposes to which he bent that power, we will not forsake him now.
"And we will never allow the country that Ashura dragged from barbarism to disintegrate into a civil war, nor to be swallowed up by hungry neighbors. The council of magi will continue to rule in Ashura's name. We will make Ceres beautiful, healthy and strong, a kingdom whose name others speak in reverence in awe, a country where kings and nobles send their children to learn and be cultured. We will see that the children of Ceres are protected and cared for, and do not go hungry, and we will teach them to revere the Father of Ceres until the end of his days."
Kurogane stepped out into the courtyard, blinking in the scintillating sunlight as it wavered and reflected off the marble paving stones. It was a little nook on one side of the castle, a crumbled tower which had been built up into a small walled garden. Fai was waiting there, seated at a bench in front of a small table. A servant was just clearing away the remains of what looked like breakfast - some sticky, crumbly pastry.
Fai's face lit up when Kurogane came out, and he rose from the bench and came over to meet halfway. They swirled in each other's embrace and kissed as though it had been days, not hours, since they'd seen each other last; Kurogane could taste the glaze of Fai's breakfast still on his lips. Despite the scene he'd just left, it was enough to bring a smile to Kurogane's face - partly because such a sweet confection was just like Fai, and partly because it warmed his heart to see Fai eating on his own, without needing to be forced by anyone.
"So you had a good morning, I take it," Kurogane said, before Fai could ask him how his meeting with Ashura went.
"Yes, just fine," Fai said. "There's interesting food everywhere I go in this world, but nothing quite beats home cooking."
Kurogane agreed. "So now that the formalities are out of the way," he said, "do you have any plans for the rest of the day?" If not, he could suggest a few of his own - he didn't have too many good memories of Ruval Castle, but the ones involving the gorgeous quilted covers of Fai's bedchambers definitely counted.
"Actually, I do," Fai said, his voice a little too affectedly casual. He smiled, and Kurogane found himself growing serious in response; his tone was airy and his expression nonchalant, but his body language was tense and miserable. "If you're feeling up for it, Kuro-chi, I thought we could take a little walk."
"Of course," Kurogane said quietly. "Where to?"
In ages past the mountain kingdoms - Ceresian and Valerian alike - honored their dead by placing them on high mountain peaks, leaving them for the birds to carry away. Over the years, the practice of sky-burial fell into disuse as its people moved to cairns and burial tombs instead. Yet it was still preferred for the graveyards to be as high among the peaks as possible, so that those buried there could be as close as possible to heaven (and also, more practically, to reserve the lower and more hospitable slopes and valleys for the living.)
And so, when Fei Wong Reed's glaciers came pouring down from the mountaintops to destroy Ceres, the dead had been spared what the living had not.
The burial ground of the Fluorite clan was a peaceful place, a little hollow high in the mountains surrounded on three sides by walls of stone. The soil here was not rich enough to be fruitful, but it was enough to grow soft green grass and beautiful flowers, the air damp and chill even in this midsummer. Fai and Kurogane walked together between the rows of Ashura's ancestors and it was almost a timeline of that clan's rise to power: worn and humble headstones at one end, and then a series of increasingly elaborate monuments and cairns as the years scrolled on. At the end of the row, the greatest and grandest tomb of all stood open and empty: awaiting the day that it would receive the current King of Ceres.
On the far side of Ashura's patiently waiting tomb was a small plot of grass, beneath the swaying branches of a weeping willow tree. One plot was as empty as Ashura's, and Kurogane prayed it would remain so for centuries to come. Fai could live that long, as long as he didn't do anything else idiotic. The second plot, though adorned with a beautifully carved and ornamented marble capstone, was heartbreakingly small. Here, far from the land that had borne him and thrown him away, rested Fai's brother.
And yet a third grave, on the far side of the child-size one, was new - a season's growth had covered it over with grass and flowers, yet the crisp outlines of the grave and the sharp incisions of the headstone made clear that it was a recent edition. The headstone was not quite so fancy as the child's, and yet in its simple elegance it had its own beauty.
Kurogane couldn't read the runes carved into the headstone - they were neither his familiar Nihongo nor the twisty cyrillic runes of the Ceresian language - but he didn't think he needed to. "Is this hers?" he asked quietly. "Your mother?"
Fai nodded, words coming hard to him for once in his life. Or maybe he only feared what would pour out, if he let a crack show in his mask of serenity.
Kurogane said nothing, either, but put his arm around Fai's shoulders, and the shorter man leaned in close.
"You decided to move her here, from Valeria?" he said after a long time had passed. No sounds penetrated this little dell save for the soft chirping of a few birds nested in the willow tree.
"She had a much bigger tomb in the royal cemetery of course," Fai said, and his cheer was only a little hoarse and rusty. "But somehow, I thought she would like this better."
Kurogane thought so too - but then, he'd never been to Valeria, so he couldn't really compare. He kept silent, knowing that Fai needed him to listen more than he needed him to speak.
"Sakura told me she tried to save us," Fai said, and now his voice wavered. "All these years - all these years, I never knew."
"But now you know," Kurogane said.
Fai dropped to a half-crouch in front of the grave, hugging his arm around his knees. Kurogane stayed close at his side.
"You know, I always thought I would never want to have children for myself," he said abruptly. "It seemed - too risky."
"Too risky how?" Kurogane asked.
"At first I was just scared." Fai gave a little laugh. "Scared of ending up like him. Mad and vicious and cruel."
Fai's father, the mad king of Valeria - cursed, insane, who drank the blood of his people and died choking on his own. Kurogane hadn't realized that the late king weighed so heavily on Fai's mind, but maybe he should have. Shall I too become a parasite prince? Fai had asked once, when he faced the choice of hurting another to survive or letting himself die.
"But now," Fai said, and he drew an unstable breath. "Now I think it would be worse to end up like her. I don't think I can think of anything worse than wanting to save your children, and... and not being able to. And then having your child grow up - hating you."
His voice choked off on those last two words, and Kurogane gave him a supportive squeeze. He thought about his own parents, and how they'd died - his father, his mother trying to protect Suwa even as their own blood choked them and they were ripped apart by dark magic. They hadn't been able to protect him, either - but through all the dark years that followed, Kurogane had never hated them. He'd only, on some nights, hated himself.
"It was hard enough to think of creating more children like me," Fai whispered, his voice thick and scratchy with suppressed tears. "But even worse to think that I'd end up just making more orphans."
Kurogane thought of all the people he knew who, thought one turn of fate or another, had been orphaned. Syaoran, whose father died in his place; Fai, his parents cursed and betrayed and murdered and suicided. Tomoyo and Kendappa's parents, who had been lost to civil strife years ago and left them to forge a bloody path to the throne by themselves. Kurogane's own parents, torn apart by dark magics. Even Sakura, whose father still lived, would never be a father to her again; without the mother she had never known, she might as well be an orphan in truth.
"Seems to me," Kurogane said, "that with enough time and trouble, everyone in this world becomes an orphan. The only question is whether you're able to find another family, in the meantime, to help you in their place."
He reached down and with gentle but firm movements pulled Fai back to his feet, pulling him around to look him seriously in the eye. "You're not alone, Fai," he said, using his name in an effort to get through to him. "You've got me, and that white-rabbit mage Yukito, and all those other crazy wizards for a family. And look at that, even if you don't have kids of your own you can't avoid taking care of children: you've got Syaoran and Sakura. They look up to you, you know, like they would to a father."
Fai smiled, though it was wobbly. "If I do, then you do too, Kuro-papa," he said. "You're twice as much their father as me!"
Kurogane thought he could live with that. Fai leaned into him, resting his forehead on Kurogane's shoulder, and Kurogane pulled Fai into his embrace and thought, as he had thought many times before, how very lucky they were to have come this far. How blessed they were, to be here today.
"All we can do is try to make the world a better place for those who come after us," Kurogane said. "That's all any parent can ever do."
Fai nodded, slowly, against Kurogane's shoulder. He took a deep breath that filled his chest, then pushed back far enough to look Kurogane in the eye. His own eye glowed blue with a gleam that looked almost dangerous. "Well, then," he said. "I guess we'd better get started."
As they walked out of the windless graveyard, Fai slipped his hand into Kurogane's, who gave it a surreptitious squeeze. He didn't look back.
~end of The Heralds of the White God.