Ryouga blinked and sat up from the warm stone floor. What he first noticed about his surroundings were magenta-rimmed clouds in a molten sky. Panes of glass stretched at his feet to a peak and then were met by grey marble. On the other side of the windows, the furniture was arranged in good taste; the wooden floor, varnished and gleaming...
Immaculate, it looked as if it was unlived in, as if perhaps all of its contents were there because the owner had seen them in other houses, but did not truly understand what the imitations were for. It was empty, unused. Who lived in a place like that? The moon girl?
He looked up. The moon girl was a black silhouette against the sun, sitting there at the edge of the roof. She didn't seem to notice as he quietly approached her back, not wanting to startle her. She appeared riveted by a skyscraper not too far in the distance. He had spent some time wandering about Singapore, where, because of the island's small size, the people had to build up instead of out; and so he was not as impressed with its height. Nevertheless...
He peeked over the edge, stepped back, and immediately dropped to his haunches. The alleys below were too far down to be as reckless as that girl.
A warm breeze carried the sounds of cars to his ears, and he cleared his throat awkwardly. Perhaps for the thousandth time in his life, he asked of his whereabouts, but the noun seemed alien on his tongue. "Where are we?"
Her gaze did not waver once from the dark building. "The First City," she said. He had been about to ask what country, what continent, was that in when he realized her voice had sounded choked and heavy. Was she crying?
Quickly, Ryouga glanced at her profile. Her face was dry, but her eyes seemed lost in some inner sadness...
She was a bittersweet dream in that warm, golden light. He reached unconsciously to touch her cheek and suddenly was afraid that this girl, who vaguely reminded him of his beautiful Tendou Akane, would vanish at the touch. He did not know why a stranger should mean that much to him, but still he restrained himself, folded his arms tightly across his chest and was quiet.
He waited as the sun slipped down until only its shadow of violets and pinks blanketed the city, and then he spoke, softly so as not to break the calm. "What do you want me to do?" His voice finally brought her at last from her musing, and the moon child only smiled.
~~~~~*~~~~~
Ranma ran too long with the girl in her arms. It was at least twenty minutes after the hospital had disappeared beneath the skyline, when the stars had begun to appear one by one in the darkening sky, that it occurred to her that she could rest, she could hide amidst the stalks of thick bamboo beside the road.
She sat where the wooden stalks dwarfed her, gasping for breath. Cars passed shortly after, and the air, forced into motion by these metal beasts, teased the dewy bamboo leaves to tears. Sirens keened, hungry, and Ranma only pulled Akane's listless body closer to her.
The air became still, but for one girl's soft cursing.
~~~~~*~~~~~
Rain murmured on Corelli's bamboo umbrella as she walked down the glistening streets. Well after midnight, the automobiles had long since disappeared into their subterranean burrows while the city above them slept, and so there was almost no one to gape at the palely glowing woman under the flickering light of the streetlamps. Those who did only shook their heads and swore off alcohol.
At last stopping before a large bronze plaque on a building wall, Corelli peered out from beneath the crimson-lacquered cover and let her eyes wander over an engraved name and title. The young woman went on to a locked door where she paused, and then, skin shimmering with a subdued light, she slipped through the pane of glass into the dimness. Silently, the umbrella was taken down and tucked beneath an arm.
Her bare feet whispering on the tiles, she passed a drowsy guard and only crooned several brief notes when he leapt to his feet with a startled cry. The man collapsed into his chair again, and some object clattered noisily to the floor beneath his desk. She heard buzzing, concerned voices from that corner till the steel-plated elevator doors slid shut on her.
It shuddered and began to rise, carrying her along in its small belly. It invited her to accompany its one-toned hum, and so she did, lilting quietly the same song she had sung into Good Fang's ear as he curled in her bed; until the moonlight she had collected in her blood that evening was all but exhausted, and sleep magic no longer laced her words.
Primly, she stepped over the slumped bodies that lay about a certain gold-trimmed door on the ninty-secondth floor. The entrance was locked, of course. She searched each of the guards' pockets for perhaps a keycard, but there was no such thing to be found, and so almost regretfully, she used the last of the moon's gifts to enter the bedroom of the rulers of Xier Che.
Corelli did not care to see the ivory fountain in the corner. Years ago, it seemed, she had mercilessly swatted its water into a young prince's face. She ignored the many assorted plants and statues among which she had played many games of hide and seek, but went instead directly out between the carved marble columns.
The dark clouds had moved on, though the thunder continued to echo hollowly from some distant land. The moon child looked out onto the roofs beneath her, painted in varying shades of silvers and greys, and sighed softly as magic gradually seeped into her veins again. When she had enough to last her the night, she went back inside to a grand canopied bed. There would be some woman in it, and lying beside her would also be a black-haired, pale-skinned angel.
The bed moaned when she sat at the side of the slumbering form of Xier Che's king. Corelli looked down upon the man's peaceful face and skimmed her fingertip lightly along the bridge of his nose. Giving in at last, she put her hand to the familiar curve of his cheek.
He woke and firmly caught her wrist. She was surprised at this, that he had woken at all... that as much as she hated him, he still excited those same feelings in her, and that she could adore and despise a person so fiercely at the same time. She carefully kept her face expressionless, however, as he brought his fingers to this cold mask, whispering almost fearfully, "Corelli? Is it you?"
She allowed herself a slight smile and a nod, and began to hum shakily beneath her breath. Ice slowly formed in the hand that was not burning with his touch, that his beautiful dark eyes did not sear.
"Why? Why are you here?" He released her arm as he sat up to glance at his fair wife. Her chest slowly rose and fell, rose and fell. "You made her sleep, did you?" he murmured impassively, more a statement than a question. He noticed at last the pike of ice laid so openly in Corelli's small hands. His gaze moved up and searched her empty face, not quite understanding and finding still no satisfactory answer.
There was not a sound but for the bubbling fountain of the ever-indifferent cherub, and... softly, gently... the wind's breath blowing upon the tower of the king.
Corelli smiled and said then: "I am here to kill you."
~~~~~*~~~~~
He set the kettle aside on the thin grass, then folded his hands into his lap as he peered curiously at the girl lying on the other side of the bonfire. Minutes, or perhaps hours, later, Akane stirred and pushed herself into a sitting position to stare disorientedly down at her clothes, and then back up at him. There was no need for her to voice her question--it was already in her narrowing eyes:
You dressed me?
Ranma had stripped herself down to the tank top and boxers, neatly tossing the shorts onto a clump of bamboo, before she pulled on a pair of pants as dark as the night. Fumbling with buttons and zippers, she had then pinkly clothed a pale female body in a blood-red Chinese shirt and jean shorts.
He chuckled dryly. "Nah, the redhead did." This did not seem to convince her at all, and so, embarrassed, he looked down at his lap instead. "So, uh, you really don't remember me?" he murmured softly, trying to sound casual, as if he didn't care either way, before he realized that his voice had sounded too hopeful.
She glanced at him with an arched eyebrow and said, as she made her way around the dancing flames and gingerly sat down near him, "I remember you from this morning, but I suppose that doesn't count to you, does it?"
Ranma gazed down at her face, his eyes roaming from her large brown eyes to the tip of her cute nose, to pink lips he'd tasted once or twice and whose memories he could never cherish; every mesmerizing feature enhanced by the firelight. The bamboo whispered around them, and a stray breeze chose to toss a strand of ebony hair onto her cheek. Smiling absent-mindedly, he reached to tuck it behind her ear, but he was snapped out of his reverie as Akane impatiently repeated herself for the third time.
An uncomfortable silence grew. Akane kept her eyes on her knees, her feet pulled up beneath her, while feeling awkward, Ranma lay back on his hands and stared at the night sky, flecked carelessly with silver and white. The question lay thick in the air, and briefly, he wondered if he should explain to her how they had come to be engaged--that it was their parents' idea--but that thought vanished when Akane stretched out and nestled her head to his chest.
The silence became easy, and soon only their slumbering breaths drifted upon the wind. Embers glowed and faded gracefully into the darkness as the horizon slowly became a pale pink.
