"What about this dress, my angel?" Queen Minha asked Nanashi.
Nanashi looked at the newest white gown laid on her bed along with the dozen of other ones lay there. "It's beautiful, your grace," she answered sullenly.
"That's what you've said about the last few," Queen Minha grumbled at her. For such a short woman, she was not afraid of being intimidating.
Nanashi sighed, shifting her feet. "My apologies, your grace," she said looking down at the newest dress that was laid out. "The feather patterns are intricately woven- or beaded." She was unsure how the feathery pattern was made exactly. She looked over at her two maids, Sayuri and Midori. Both still held at least three or four more garment bags with dresses in there arms. "I just need a dress that fits my wings," she pointed out. "An open upper back for them."
"Each one of those has that, angel," Queen Minha responded. She went over to Sayuri, taking yet another dress out of its garment bag. "Oh, what about this one?" Queen Minha asked. She laid yet another almost identical dress down on the bed over top other similar dresses. "So many dress makers throughout the city, even a few as far as Gandara and Alaric have sent dresses they've made for you to chose from."
Nanashi looked the dresses while she would rather go back out to the yard to train. None of those dresses look practical enough for her to fight in. She gave the queen a side long glance. She needed to just pick one and get it over with. She had already told the queen she could plan her wedding to Jiro for her, every single aspects. The queen had been elated at that permission, but insisted Nanashi picked the dress herself. She even had the wedding rushed and planned for seven days from now. A week. A rush. All she had to do was pick one of the dresses and then not think about that wedding for a week.
She stepped over to the dresses on the bed, pretending to look over each of the dresses there carefully. She dug under the the dresses and pulled one out at random. "I like this one best," she answered.
'You like all of them and none of them,' the wind serpent glowered to her.
She ignored them as Queen Minha was now elated with her. "I was hoping you would pick that one!" She clapped her hands in excitement.
Only then did Nanashi really study the dress in hand. Open upper back, no straps around her neck, free flowing skirt decorated with feathers and flowers intermixed. The loveliest thing she could ever imagine wearing, yet she was felt her stomach bubble with a lack of excitement and full of dread about what was to come.
After that relieving decision, Queen Minha was quick to instruct Sayuri and Midori to clean up the rest of the dresses and put them back into their proper garment bags. Nanashi helped them even though the queen told her to leave it to them and come take a walk with her in the garden for some fresh air. Nanashi knew if she went with the queen, all she would talk about is wedding planning.
Yet Nanashi went with her, leaving Midori and Sayuri to reshuffle the dresses when she would rather stay with them than the queen. Still, the queen managed to to get her to go with her. Nanashi pretended to listen to Queen Minha prattle on about the dress she chose, the flowers for the wedding, the food for the reception, etc.
Nanashi tuned her out, only paying attention enough to hum and say something placating and agreeable. Her mind kept wandering to Hiei and the last night she was with him, if she call that a night with him.
He had come to room the same night that she had accepted Jiro's proposal. He slipped in the room quietly, not waking her until he was bending over her, kissing her. His hand had already been roaming into her pants. She awoke in shock, quivering and gasping.
"Hiei," she whispered his name. He hummed under his breath at her, two fingers sliding inside her without delay. She closed her eyes, half wanting to give into him and half feeling called morally to stop him. She was engaged now. She should not allow him this anymore. She reached her hand down and grabbed his wrist, staying his hand. "Stop," she forced herself to say.
Hiei went suddenly cold with her. He pulled his hand away from her and he stood upright over her. "I thought we were going to continue your training until your wedding night?" he was clearly trying to keep his tone from having bite with her.
She frowned up at him, and sat up. She wanted him, in more ways than one. She pulled him over by the hand, kissing him affectionately, but chastely. "I want to stop tonight," she said loyally.
He scowled down at her, clearly outraged with her response. He shook his hand off of hers, scowl deepening. He left the room with out a word. He had left a chill behind in his wake that still lingered with her, even a few days later.
A few days later where she only got to see him at a distance in training and meal times. Even the one time she tried to engage with him during training, he stalked away from her wordlessly. Yasha had witnessed it, telling her not to think too much on it.
The queen kept rambling, and Nanashi kept dwelling. Both of them were almost startled when king's guard's men Touya came to fetch them on orders of the king. He told them the king was holding court and allowing those outside of the castle grounds to come and meet with him and let him judge any of their cases. He wanted Queen Minha with him and he wanted the angel to be seen by those outside of the castle's walls.
Nanashi went with them, but once they reached the throne room, Queen Minha sat on her throne next King Hayate while Nanashi stood below and nearby the thrones with both Kurama and Yasha. She had to work her way through the crowd to get there though. So many people were congested in the room. It felt like all of them where staring at her upper back and her wings tucked and pressed tightly against her back and shoulders. Once she got to Kurama, Yasha, Haruto, and her uncle, she felt relieved to stand with them and face most of the people in the room front on. Yasha even had the grace and wherewithal to stand behind her and block the view of her wings from the few people behind them.
"Why is the king doing this?" she asked Kurama quietly as the king began to introduce himself to those in the room, as if no one in the room did not know who he was.
"He likes to open his court at least one month so the people can come to him with their pleas, for justice, and for other issues they can bring to the king," Kurama answered. "By the way, the king almost decided to put you out front and introduce you to all the people here. To show you off, so to speak," he added with a disgruntled tone.
She gasped, looking up at him shocked. She looked back up at the king as he continued to drone on. "I talked him out of it," Yasha whispered behind her in her ear. "Your engagement will be announced, but you can still avoid being put on stage so to speak. He's agreed if you shake your head when he makes the announcement, he won't have you come up to the throne to him."
She breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you," she whispered back to him.
"Yes, my angel. If it please, my angel. You are far too shy, my angel," Yasha teased back at her, making laugh quietly to herself.
The king droned on. Some people Nanashi had never seen came up to the king, with one plight or question or another. Nanashi half listened without any true interest in what was being said. She looking around the room. She saw Asa standing up in the balcony with her two maids, Midori and Sayuri. It was less crowded up there. She had not had to look long to find Hiei. He stood as a king's guardsman next to the king as Ayane stood on the other side by the queen. He was clothed in black, sword at his side, looking dark and fierce. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was studying the room, looking for any potential threats to the king or the queen. He looked like a wild wolf playing house dog. He was made for fighting and war, not protecting a king who could easily protect himself.
The court had gone on so long that Nanashi's knees and feet felt tired and numb. She shifted her feet, trying to wake them up. The petitions were a dull affair. The need for more builders to help a stone mason, the need for more men to keep back the wild demons in the north that were harassing the the folk who lived up there.
Nanashi thought likely as any that the meeting was going to draw to a close now and her engagement to Jiro was about to be announced when the main doors to the throne room were thrown open and in walked none other than Sakyo and Younger Toguro. She sucked in a breath, reaching for her wind serpent. Her hatred of him boiled within her. She did not need the cape's evil presence within her to desire to kill him. He was so close. If it were not too crowded... Maybe when he left she could pick him off from a distance without anyone knowing it was her. Nick a bow and arrow set off someone so it could not be traced back to her. She stared at him in full hatred as he approached the king with his own petition. What was worse, the king gave him permission to speak.
"Your grace, I come to you with own petition," Sakyo began smoothly. "I know I haven't the best track record, even when compared to some of your new king's guard," he nodded up at Hiei standing next to the king. "His record is still blacker than mine, yet you pardoned him for his murder and stood him next to you."
King Hayate kept his face neutral when he replied, "I heard his petition and saw in his mind that the murder Hiei committed that you speak of was done in his own self defense. While he did run after the murder, he did not deserve the kidnapping and imprisonment you put him through. Something I'm sure you could not endure as long as he did," the king pointed out in a vague threat. "As for the crime of running off to evade justice, he has been conscripted to stand as a member of the king's guard for the next two years at least in servitude to the crown. My queen and my council have found that sufficient punishment for that minor crime."
Sakyo sighed, taking on an air of humility. Nanashi did not buy it for a second. She doubted very much that the king would by it either.
"What did the king mean by he saw into Hiei's mind?" Haruto whispered quietly over to Kurama.
Kurama thought carefully before speaking in a quiet voice, "the king can read a person's mind, shift through all their memories and see a person's life. He did it to Nanashi right after she saved the prince. He did it to Hiei after he recovered from his bone infection."
Haruto gave a gasp of excitement. "I will need to speak with this king privately as soon as possible," he said to himself.
Nanashi had no time or energy to spare listening to Haruto's side commentary. She kept focused on the king and Sakyo. If only the king would carry out his threat and starve and imprison Sakyo in the same way he had to Hiei.
Sakyo gave him a low bow. "Then your grace, what about a murder done with the intention of killing someone? Someone that was not trying to harm, but only subdue their murderer when their murderer snuck up on them in the middle of the night?"
Nanashi frowned at Sakyo's vague words. "What's is he talking about?" Nanashi asked Yasha.
"Fuck," Yasha said in reply.
Next to her, Kurama went rigid. "Get her out of here. Quickly and quietly," he said to Yasha.
"What are you talking about?" Nanashi asked them both.
Yasha had her by the arm, trying to tug her back through the crowd. She wretched her arm away and dug in her heels. "Trust me," Yasha insisted.
Yasha took her by the hand firmly and pulling her towards the back wall and then towards the main doors at a brisk pace. "Yasha, let me go," she hissed out.
King Hayate meanwhile had kept talking. "What do you mean? Speak plainly," he insisted.
Sakyo said, "at once your grace. When I held your king's guard hostage, our camp was attacked in the middle of the night. One of my men, Elder Toguro had his fingers buried in the ground around out camp. He had the ability to stretch and contort his body in impossible ways. Our camp was attacked, so he went after the assailant, to subdue them only. They killed him for it. So now I have come to you to plea to you for that assailant's death in payment for my colleague's brother's death here," he nodded over at the silent Younger Toguro. "Will you give us that one small piece of solace at least?"
Yasha kept pulling her towards the door, but Nanashi kept her eyes trained on King Hayate and Sakyo. She wanted to hear the king deny him. "You can have their life, so long you promise to never harm my king's guard Hiei, the angel, or anyone else in connection with Nanashi."
Nanashi saw from the distance and barely through the crowd that Sakyo shook her head. Yasha had tugged her over to the main doors, but was now arguing with Touya about letting them out, even though no one was allowed to leave the room until the king had.
Sakyo kept talking. "Your grace, that agreement won't quite work."
"Why not, sir?" King Hayate asked.
"The assailant I am talking about was the angel, Nanashi," Sakyo revealed. "I want her death for the death of the man she murdered. She killed him intentionally after he tried to defend our camp."
"What?" Nanashi gasped, eyes going wide. She felt like her blood froze in the pit of her stomach. She slipped away Yasha, successfully this time. "I did not!" she shouted in rage. She shoved her way through the crowd as fast as she could. She felt all eyes on her, but she ignored them. She had only one target in mind.
"You did indeed," Sakyo said, now addressing her. "You ordered your wind serpent to kill him. It filled his blood stream with air bubbles. One managed to reach his heart and destroy it."
"I never!" she shouted, raging. She was half way to them now. She would kill him, here and now, where he stood.
At least she tried to before Kurama was on her. He came through the crowd after her, wrapping his arms around her and dragging her backwards even as she kicked and struggled against him.
"Stop this, right now," he hissed in her ear. "You'll only make this worse."
"Kurama, get the angel out here!" King Hayate shouted over them and the now murmuring crowd. "Take her to her rooms and keep her there under guard."
"I didn't kill him!" Nanashi shouted as Kurama dragged her out of the room and into the hallway. This time around, Touya let them leave the room with Yasha at their side.
The door shut with a heavy, silencing slam behind them. Nanashi still fought and kicked at Kurama, trying to get away from him. "I didn't kill Elder Toguro!" she spat, "but I will kill Sakyo for this. For everything!" she insisted.
"Yasha, calm her down," Kurama insisted. "Just calmer for a few minutes, nothing else."
Yasha stepped over to her struggling in Kurama's arms, pulling off his gloves. His bare hands touched her face with a cooling touch. "Stay calm for the next five minutes," he whispered in her ear.
In spite of herself, she panted and calmed down in Kurama's hands, unsure why though. She watched Yasha put his gloves back on. Kurama did not let her go, but she quit fighting him. "What did you just do to me?" she asked him in a somber voice.
"I can be quite influential, when I want to be," Yasha told her vaguely.
She wanted to shout at him in irritation for being so vague, but she found the thought to be undesirable. All she could manage was to shake her head in her frustration.
Yasha continued to speak to her. "While I've got you calm, you should know you actually did kill Elder Toguro."
Her eyes went wide. "I didn't," she replied. She thought back to that night, calmly and focused. "I told my wind serpent to get him off of me, that was all. Elder Toguro was still alive when Sakyo threw the cape of no return over top of me. There's no way I could have killed him."
"It put air in his blood stream and caused him to die. Likely his heart exploded," Yasha explained to her. "It took awhile. It happened after you were disappeared. His last words were about how he couldn't move his heart away from them all."
Her jaw dropped. She wanted to panic anew, but found she could not. "I didn't... I didn't mean to..." she mumbled. "The king will have no choice but to give me over to Sakyo, won't he?" she added forlornly.
"He did put his foot in his mouth about that, that's for sure," Yasha commented. "He let Sakyo goad him into that almost agreement, but I can't imagine he'll let it happen. He may exile you or punish you for the murder though. He can't let it drop, not after all those people in their witnessed it."
"Sakyo likely bidded his time after the king's men rescued us to come after you like this," Kurama added. "Sakyo has wanted you dead for a while, and has failed to kill you twice. This is just another way he is trying get you."
She felt an overwhelming desire to break down, but found she could not. Just a hollow feeling sat inside her. It felt wrong, perverse that she could not react how she naturally wanted to. "I will kill him before he gets the chance," she said coldly.
The main doors opened before them, making Kurama and Yasha jump, but only making Nanashi look up. Out walked King Hayate and Queen Minha. Ayane stood next to the queen protectively. Both looked livid, with the king looking sickened. "She's supposed to be up in her rooms right now," he roared at the sight of the three of them. "Take her there, right now," he insisted thickly.
Kurama dropped his arms around her and slipped one arm into one of hers, pulling her along the hallway ahead of the king and queen. Yasha walked in step with her on her other side.
When Nanashi heard the doors open again, she turned back to look. She saw from behind the shorter Queen Minha Sakyo walking a few paces behind the monarchs with Younger Toguro at his side, leading Hiei in between the two of them with his hands bound in front of him. She knew the ropes around his hands, had seen their like before. The kind that were infused with draining wards.
She felt all her hollow calmness drain out of her and be replaced by a fury that came rushing back. She dug in her heels and tried to turn around. Kurama had his arms wrapped around her before she could even think to evade him. "Why does he have Hiei!?" she yelled.
"Should have said ten minutes," she heard Yasha say next to her. She saw at a glance he was pulling off his gloves again.
"Not in the open," Kurama growled at Yasha. Yasha grumbled, but kept his hands in his gloves this time around.
Kurama had given up trying to drag her down the hallway and now seemed to have settled on getting her against the wall with him to the let the other two trios pass them by. Yasha stood beside them. Kurama was breathing deeply, she could feel it. He was tiring from having to hold her back.
The king, queen, and Ayane walked passed them with averted eyes. "Her rooms, Kurama. I will speak to her there within an hour."
When Sakyo, Elder Toguro, and Hiei passed, only Sakyo spoke. "Once again, he's willing to sacrifice himself for you. He's volunteered to die in your place. And the king agreed publicly to that compromise. So long as I leave you and yours in peace after this." The three of them continued to walk past, two heads held high and one hung low.
The main doors opened again, cutting off the echo Sakyo's words were reverberating over the walls. Nanashi gaped open mouth at him and smug, smiling face. Her face darkened. She saw, but barely cared as Haruto went running past all of them, shouting for the king. Sakyo was getting farther and farther down the hall the now, yet she could not shake Kurama loose. She would lose him if he got too much farther. She summoned up her wind serpent around her neck, having it get between her and Kurama so she could get away from him. She ran after Sakyo, using her wings to go faster than Yasha and Kurama could to catch up to them.
"Yes, your grace, please, right now!" she heard Haruto's voice echo off the wall of the hallway. "Before she can do anything else foolish. I can't explain, but it may stop her from doing anything else foolish."
Nanashi kept running, running pass the left turn of the hallway where the monarchs stood with Haruto and Ayane. "Ayane, stop her," the queen ordered.
Nanashi kept running, wishing the hallway was wider so she could fly instead of run. She felt a sharp pain engulf her middle, but she would not stop, could not stop. It slowed her down, but she could still see Sakyo, Younger Toguro, and Hiei walking briskly, practically jogging in front of her. She was so close.
That was when pain felt like it exploded inside of her, forcing her to stop and collapse to the ground. Her vision went black, no matter how much she tried to blink the darkness away. Her ears felt muted, all sounds she should have heard receding into silence. The ground she lay on felt less hard with every passing, trudging heartbeat. She forced herself to crawl, or at least what felt like crawling in this blackened, muted, softened world she had suddenly been rendered to.
She heard the sounds of buffeting wind behind her, but not behind her. Like it was in her head, but also behind her. 'My servant, do not turn around,' a voice echoed inside her mind and behind her. 'Escape the blood bond curse upon you. The king has broken it.'
She shook her head, at least in her mind. 'I have to reach him,' she insisted. She crawled forward, at least in her mind. Once she reached him, she knew exactly what she would do.