Note This is one of my more serious fanfictions. Amiboshi's depressed and
trying to come to grips with the reason. Suboshi can't help but be
frightened - and to try and help his brother to his normal warm, cheery
self. Is the strange depression a product of the awakening of feelings he
doesn't understand? Amiboshi/Honey Rose. No shounen-ai this time. Although
there might be in later chapters. Oh yeah, and this will most definitely go
into chapters, if I can help it. Yes, it is possible to tame a tiger, if
it's gotten early enough.
Wild Honey
Sweetness had led up to the problem, and sadness was now ensuing from it. Amiboshi gazed into the river, his hand trailing into the cold water. His back was pressed against the smooth, worn bark of the tree. Loneliness had become a friend. Amiboshi had learned to luxuriate in the cold touch on his heart, wrapping it around him like the softest of silks, being silent and sad-eyed.
She had even taken a name, and a face. Loneliness was the maple tree that grew beside the river, with her long limbs and her sad sighs. Loneliness was Kaede, the lady of maple, who held him daily as he talked to the river, Kagami, of his sadness.
"Why?" To the untrained ear, it may have sounded like Amiboshi was slowly losing his senses. "Just what am I doing here? This war -- it's tearing me apart inside." His voice trembled as he spoke.
Suboshi watched from up in the branches of a nearby willow whose span warred with that of the maple, mixing light green with darker green like an artist's paints. His breath caught. His twin brother. How should it be Amiboshi, the older brother, who was losing it over a war? It should have been him.
Amiboshi always took care of his little hurts. It stung that Suboshi couldn't care for his brother now, when he most needed it. For now, he was stuck up a tree with no way to get to his brother's pain. And that, he supposed, was not fine with him.
Amiboshi finished his litany, then slowly stood, reluctant to leave his sanctuary. His blue eyes were wide and soft with blurry, clouding tears. "I'll be back tomorrow. As usual." With one last look at the clear water of the stream and the space between the maple's tangled roots that perfectly fit him, he headed across the field at a run. The cold winter's breeze, when run straight into, had a way of restoring Amiboshi's flagging spirits. The stars were out full-force, looking like silver glitter scattered over a sheet. Those same stars could make someone feel so small, so insignificant, that it was almost lonely. His mind reached for his twin's instinctively, but Amiboshi, with a reprimand, wrenched it back under control. It would not do for his younger twin to feel his sadness.
The icy wind cut through his thin tunic. It would soon be time to replace the warm cloak his twin wore. His own was threadbare, but that didn't matter. As long as Shunkaku possessed warm clothing, his own pitiful existence mattered about as much as a dusty-winged moth's.
That thought cut him to the quick. He didn't matter; it was true and plain to all but Shunkaku. His brother would be much better off if he would stop weighting him down with all his sensitive complaints and sadnesses.
Amiboshi slipped into the little cottage the twins shared, sighing wistfully at the amount of laundry Suboshi had allowed to stack in the wicker basket that was their laundry. His own lavender tunics were few, but Suboshi's orange over-tunics and navy-blue undershirts were plentiful. He gave a small half-smile, shaking his head as he gathered the fallen garments from the floor, absently stacking them in the basket. He would have laundry duty again. It seemed he existed to keep house and warm the bed for his brother.
The door opened again, and Suboshi stepped inside, shivering, his lips tinged faintly blue with cold. "Hey, aniki," he said softly, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry about the laundry. I forgot again, didn't I?" His voice was kept low and reassuring. "Don't worry, I'll do it in the morning, okay?"
"No, I've got it." Amiboshi gave a strained smile. "You need to rest. Besides, I haven't mended your cloak yet, and I don't want you getting all wet and cold." All of his smiles were seeming thin and threadbare lately, and he hated it. He placed the last tunic atop the pile, which happened to be one of his own, and noticed that it had been seeming too small lately. The elbows were worn thin and almost white. His wrist cuffs were growing pale with age as well. The castoffs, when they finally became too tattered to wear, were cut into squares for new blankets and quilts.
The twins had eaten dinner hours earlier, when it had been light, and Amiboshi noticed the scent of peaches about his brother. With a small, guilty sigh, he longed after a fresh peach, or even one preserved. But he saved the sweet fruit for Suboshi. Peaches were his favorite.
Putting aside the full basket, Amiboshi gave a monstrous yawn. "I'm going to go on to bed." He gave his brother a small, forced smile. He had nothing against his twin, he just didn't want to talk at all in these troubled days.
"I'll come with you!" Suboshi acted as if he hadn't heard the litany of sadness from earlier, giving a bright smile.
It was a moment later before the twins stood before each other. Once one got past the clothing, they were perfect mirror images. It had become a ritual almost. Amiboshi would raise his right hand, and Suboshi would bring up his left at the same time, and they would flatten them together in midair with the same slow half-smile that made the neighborhood girls swoon and giggle, an almost seductive quirk of twin pairs of full lips. The only thing they would wear to bed was twin medals of brilliantly-polished silver that had been gifts at birth. They dangled brightly against each twin's chest, picturing either a star or a moon. Suboshi's held the star, while Amiboshi's shone softly with the moon.
Amiboshi broke first that night, his eyes and smile sad, and turned to the bed, climbing into place. Suboshi shivered at the look of sadness in those deep, warm, once-bright eyes as he followed his brother.
Closing his eyes against the hurt in his twin's identical azure ones, Amiboshi lay upon his back in a childish position.
Suboshi lay against his brother's side, sheltered beneath one arm, with his head in the hollow of his shoulder. "What's wrong?" he whispered in the dark, breathing the soft, spicy scent that lingered around Amiboshi like a comforting cloud. "You seem so sad."
Amiboshi's eyes widened, shining like eyes painted on the portrait of a prince, as he gasped softly. "Nothing... nothing much." He found it hard to lie to his twin in what had always been the most intimate, close moments of their life, with nothing whatsoever between them. His brother's warm, trusting body laying relaxed and gentle, skin pressed to his own, his thick dark-blonde hair giving off the scent of fresh sunlight and dew and scattered over his shoulders silkily, mingling with his own. Amiboshi turned his face to Suboshi's, and was assaulted mentally by the vision of large, mournful blue eyes.
"I wish you wouldn't lie. I won't be afraid of anything you have to say," Suboshi whispered gently, nuzzling his twin's cheek with his lips.
Amiboshi felt comforted by the presence of his twin, when, only moments before he had wanted nothing more than to bask in his own loneliness and self-pity, alone, to feel loneliness' name on his silent lips. "I'm... lonely, 'tooto. I'm so very lonely. I can't feel my heart anymore, and when I reach out to yours, I stop myself. I feel... I don't know what I feel. So uncertain, now that we're in this together, alone." His lips trembled as he paused to bring in a deep breath. If he were going to do this, he would do it entirely. Amiboshi never did anything by halves. "And -- and there are feelings I never thought I'd feel, growing inside me. I've never felt hate, little brother. Did you know that? I've never loathed anything or anyone so much it hurt me to see them. And I feel that way about Nakago. He pulled us into all of this without so much as a by-your- leave." Sadness was rich and full in his soft blue eyes, a bone-deep, poignant gaze that hinted at tears just below the surface.
Suboshi snuggled against his brother, gentle and lithe, with a sad smile on his face. "I wouldn't think you capable of hate, aniki. Don't worry, you're just coming of age, a little late I must say but it's always been there, right under the surface and waiting to pop up and bite you. It's just part of growing up -- it started for me a long time ago, but you've always been more kind and gentle. It's natural to hate Nakago, as funny as that sounds." Amiboshi actually chuckled softly, closing his eyes in amusement and shaking his head. "He kind of prodded you into it."
Amiboshi gave a soft yawn, feeling a great weight lifted from his heart. "Let's say we get some sleep. We'll talk more in the morning, when we're both awake."
Suboshi, accepting, kneaded his brother's shoulder a moment, then smiled in a catlike way up at him. " 'Night." He lowered his blonde head into the hollow, shifted for a moment, and sighed before falling into a deep sleep.
It took Amiboshi a moment before he joined his brother in a gentle somnolence, his heavy burden noticeably lightened and the hatred blazing in his spirit docked for the moment.
~ * ~
A brilliant morning greeted her, the air crisp and frozen and crystalline. The entire world had frozen overnight, leaving the emerald leaves frosted and as green as they had been the previous day, but thin and stiff. Every few moments, a twig would burst into icy fragments of brown crystal and the silence would be shattered by a sound like a gunshot, deafening in the early-morning world.
Honey Rose had always thought that a completely different world came around on these icy, serene winter mornings. In her arms, she carried a basket of laundry that was not her own, but of the one who owned the fiery mistress.
With hair that flowed wavy and sleek like pure tamed fire, and eyes a strange, brilliant, defiant silver, Honey Rose by all means filled her name. Her cheeks were the only part of her tanned golden, and the one who had purchased her from her parents, her owner and master, enjoyed the fact that she would rebel often. He would beat her into a temporary submission, loving the game that he initiated, and Honey Rose would only rebel again the next day. Her fiery spirit was one to be admired.
The basket fell from her hands, scattering fine silks and soft cottons of the best weave onto the ground, as she suppressed a curse. The river had frozen over with a half-inch film of ice. Honey Rose rushed forward, her fire-red braid flowing behind, and gave the frozen water a sound thump with her slipper. She swore in fury when it did not budge, and rubbed her heel to quiet its throbbing. As far as she could see, the river had frozen quite solidly to both sides. Reike would beat her senseless if she returned with his garments still filthy and food-spattered as they had been. Her own simple, dark robes were clean, if worn almost to shabbiness, and warm. She bent absently to gather the clothing from the bank, mumbling oaths under her breath, then stood helplessly, basket in hand.
"You look like you're in a quandary," came the definitely masculine voice from behind her. Without looking she could tell that the eyes would be soft and sweet and sad, and that the lips that had produced such words would be turned into a poignant smile.
Honey Rose turned to see a boy, who in all actuality was a full half of a foot taller than she, carrying a laundry basket nearly identical to hers. "I am, sir," she replied with a short, shaky laugh. Her voice was a warm, rich laughing tone, that Reike seemed to find provoking. Honey Rose would raise her voice into an angry rasp when she argued with her master, and even then she would be used badly. The thought of Reike's hands on her again made her shiver, although she knew it would happen again and again before the nightmare was over and she could claim her freedom. "I must wash these clothes for my master, and the river's frozen quite deeply overnight." Absently she recalled her bruised heel and laughed warmly.
"I have to wash as well, so if you don't mind my nearness, then I'll break a hole in the ice," Amiboshi responded, his blue eyes twinkling with a strange amusement that he hadn't felt in the longest time, tempered with something he'd never felt before. The name for the emotion wouldn't come to mind, but it had something to do with the slender, sleek curves and freed flame-hair of the pretty maid who stood before him. Her silvery-gray eyes flashed with regretful amusement, and it made Amiboshi's breath quicken. He put his laundry aside, then relieved her of hers. Electricity plunged through him as her scent surrounded him and her fiery braid brushed his hand. Desperately longing to be either very close or far, far away, he strode to the river, where with a deft, well-placed step, he cracked the ice, and slid the blunt, unsharpened blade of his belt-knife into the crack, flipping the covering from the hole neatly. "There -- take that! -- and there you are, miss!" He offered a warm smile.
He carried both baskets of laundry to the water, then placed hers to one side. "Thank you, sir," Honey Rose said, her voice subconsciously seductive and low. "What is your name?" Her eyes trained on him, she dipped the first item in the cold water, gasping softly when the icy liquid touched her hands, then rubbing at the stains with a floating lump of ice.
"Koutoku," he responded, flashing a rushed half-grin. Those silvery eyes blinked up at him, defying him to be untouched by her innocent charms. "Although Amiboshi is the name most people would know me by."
"It's lovely to meet you, Koutoku," she purred, lingering over his name softly. She decided she liked the way it whispered from her lips. "I'm Honey Rose." She shivered as the end of her sash fell into the icy water. "I warn you, I have a temper, Koutoku. And that I can be rather out of the ordinary." The red weals on her slender back proved it.
"That's all right. I'll balance you out, if you're anything like my twin brother," Amiboshi responded, watching her.
Honey Rose, after humming first softly, then more loudly, her eyes always on Amiboshi, for a good long while before she lapsed into singing. Her voice, a seductive, soaring breath of sweet richness, rang out with sadness as its very avatar. She was spellbindingly beautiful in her moment of sadness, the world seeming to focus all its light into the air immediately around her as she sang so very sweetly of a world that had been free, in which she had lived peacefully with her soulmate, a tiger.
Tears gathered in his eyes as Amiboshi gazed at her, with her bewitchingly emotional silver-gray eyes and her red plait, which he knew if he tangled his fingers in, the scarf tying the bottom would scatter to the wind and the full length of such magnificent tresses would fill his hands with silken fire. He hadn't been the violent, instinctive one, that honor belonged to his brother. But this coming-of-age was startling him with its foreign longings, such as the one that foamed up within him now. He feared he would lose all propriety at the sight of her, with her hair falling slowly from its plait, with her soft, worn robes covering an amazingly lithe body. "Blast it all," he murmured to himself, frustrated with the urges. "Perhaps it wouldn't be too much... of a burden... or... if I kissed you, Honey Rose?" Despair seeped through his tone, edging his voice with thick, sweet honey.
Her song stopped, and the siren's mischief showed in her wide, expressive silver-gray eyes. "Of course," she whispered, an inviting smile on her lips.
Shyly Amiboshi approached, taking a moment to gaze into those eyes yearningly before he captured her lips in the most tentative of kisses that quickly turned demanding.
Honey Rose snuggled close, giving a soft moan. Kisses had never been this sweet with Reike, who had come for her so violently that he had often bruised her lips with his furied, gasping ministrations.
This Amiboshi was so very gentle, even when his hands tangled in her braid, catching loops of it over his long, slim fingers. He drew back for breath. "Let me undo your braid," he demanded softly, his great blue eyes shining softly, until Honey Rose acquiesced with a soft sparrow's cry.
She turned her back to him, and he worked on the knot in the swatch of cloth that bound the thick red mass into its thigh-length braid until it came free. This time when he slid his hands into the weave of the plait, it unraveled quickly, leaving free the glory of flowering fire that was her hair. All of the civility was gone from her when he next looked, her face fierce and beautiful, those silvery eyes, the eyes of a tigress and a siren, princess of her element and far from a lady. The soft lines of her lips were pulled upwards into an uninhibited smile. Such things were unfashionable in this day and age. There was nothing demure and lotus-pale about this silver-eyed enchantress. "I... I have to go, Koutoku," she protested, her voice no longer soft, but the wild purr of a tigress.
He nodded reverently. She was no haughty court lady, but a beautiful, half-wild rose. "As you wish."
Honey Rose smiled softly, kissed his cheek, and rushed into the shadows of the woods, her silken hair spiraling out behind. Numbly he realized she had left her basket. The symbols on the side translated to 'Reike'. He knew a man in the village who possessed that name. He would bring them there, after finishing the washing she had abandoned. There was no shame in forgetting work for play.
~ * ~
"Ai," she called softly, her silver eyes wide and warm. "Ai, come out!"
From the shadows came a feline, milk-white shape, that quickly formed into the large body of a white tiger. Faint gray stripes ran the width of his thick fur, beautifully symmetrical. Its mouth opened in a silent roar, and it rubbed against Honey Rose's legs. "Oh, Ai." She bent her red head to the tiger's shoulders, loving the feel of the thick, soft fur against her cheeks, and her fiery hair spilled over the white fur like wine on snowy silk.
"Ai, what am I to do? I think I love him." Honey Rose sat in the shade of a tree, leaning against the tiger's warm side as it gave that curious sound she thought to be his purr. He always comforted her.
~ * ~ ~ * ~
Wild Honey
Sweetness had led up to the problem, and sadness was now ensuing from it. Amiboshi gazed into the river, his hand trailing into the cold water. His back was pressed against the smooth, worn bark of the tree. Loneliness had become a friend. Amiboshi had learned to luxuriate in the cold touch on his heart, wrapping it around him like the softest of silks, being silent and sad-eyed.
She had even taken a name, and a face. Loneliness was the maple tree that grew beside the river, with her long limbs and her sad sighs. Loneliness was Kaede, the lady of maple, who held him daily as he talked to the river, Kagami, of his sadness.
"Why?" To the untrained ear, it may have sounded like Amiboshi was slowly losing his senses. "Just what am I doing here? This war -- it's tearing me apart inside." His voice trembled as he spoke.
Suboshi watched from up in the branches of a nearby willow whose span warred with that of the maple, mixing light green with darker green like an artist's paints. His breath caught. His twin brother. How should it be Amiboshi, the older brother, who was losing it over a war? It should have been him.
Amiboshi always took care of his little hurts. It stung that Suboshi couldn't care for his brother now, when he most needed it. For now, he was stuck up a tree with no way to get to his brother's pain. And that, he supposed, was not fine with him.
Amiboshi finished his litany, then slowly stood, reluctant to leave his sanctuary. His blue eyes were wide and soft with blurry, clouding tears. "I'll be back tomorrow. As usual." With one last look at the clear water of the stream and the space between the maple's tangled roots that perfectly fit him, he headed across the field at a run. The cold winter's breeze, when run straight into, had a way of restoring Amiboshi's flagging spirits. The stars were out full-force, looking like silver glitter scattered over a sheet. Those same stars could make someone feel so small, so insignificant, that it was almost lonely. His mind reached for his twin's instinctively, but Amiboshi, with a reprimand, wrenched it back under control. It would not do for his younger twin to feel his sadness.
The icy wind cut through his thin tunic. It would soon be time to replace the warm cloak his twin wore. His own was threadbare, but that didn't matter. As long as Shunkaku possessed warm clothing, his own pitiful existence mattered about as much as a dusty-winged moth's.
That thought cut him to the quick. He didn't matter; it was true and plain to all but Shunkaku. His brother would be much better off if he would stop weighting him down with all his sensitive complaints and sadnesses.
Amiboshi slipped into the little cottage the twins shared, sighing wistfully at the amount of laundry Suboshi had allowed to stack in the wicker basket that was their laundry. His own lavender tunics were few, but Suboshi's orange over-tunics and navy-blue undershirts were plentiful. He gave a small half-smile, shaking his head as he gathered the fallen garments from the floor, absently stacking them in the basket. He would have laundry duty again. It seemed he existed to keep house and warm the bed for his brother.
The door opened again, and Suboshi stepped inside, shivering, his lips tinged faintly blue with cold. "Hey, aniki," he said softly, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry about the laundry. I forgot again, didn't I?" His voice was kept low and reassuring. "Don't worry, I'll do it in the morning, okay?"
"No, I've got it." Amiboshi gave a strained smile. "You need to rest. Besides, I haven't mended your cloak yet, and I don't want you getting all wet and cold." All of his smiles were seeming thin and threadbare lately, and he hated it. He placed the last tunic atop the pile, which happened to be one of his own, and noticed that it had been seeming too small lately. The elbows were worn thin and almost white. His wrist cuffs were growing pale with age as well. The castoffs, when they finally became too tattered to wear, were cut into squares for new blankets and quilts.
The twins had eaten dinner hours earlier, when it had been light, and Amiboshi noticed the scent of peaches about his brother. With a small, guilty sigh, he longed after a fresh peach, or even one preserved. But he saved the sweet fruit for Suboshi. Peaches were his favorite.
Putting aside the full basket, Amiboshi gave a monstrous yawn. "I'm going to go on to bed." He gave his brother a small, forced smile. He had nothing against his twin, he just didn't want to talk at all in these troubled days.
"I'll come with you!" Suboshi acted as if he hadn't heard the litany of sadness from earlier, giving a bright smile.
It was a moment later before the twins stood before each other. Once one got past the clothing, they were perfect mirror images. It had become a ritual almost. Amiboshi would raise his right hand, and Suboshi would bring up his left at the same time, and they would flatten them together in midair with the same slow half-smile that made the neighborhood girls swoon and giggle, an almost seductive quirk of twin pairs of full lips. The only thing they would wear to bed was twin medals of brilliantly-polished silver that had been gifts at birth. They dangled brightly against each twin's chest, picturing either a star or a moon. Suboshi's held the star, while Amiboshi's shone softly with the moon.
Amiboshi broke first that night, his eyes and smile sad, and turned to the bed, climbing into place. Suboshi shivered at the look of sadness in those deep, warm, once-bright eyes as he followed his brother.
Closing his eyes against the hurt in his twin's identical azure ones, Amiboshi lay upon his back in a childish position.
Suboshi lay against his brother's side, sheltered beneath one arm, with his head in the hollow of his shoulder. "What's wrong?" he whispered in the dark, breathing the soft, spicy scent that lingered around Amiboshi like a comforting cloud. "You seem so sad."
Amiboshi's eyes widened, shining like eyes painted on the portrait of a prince, as he gasped softly. "Nothing... nothing much." He found it hard to lie to his twin in what had always been the most intimate, close moments of their life, with nothing whatsoever between them. His brother's warm, trusting body laying relaxed and gentle, skin pressed to his own, his thick dark-blonde hair giving off the scent of fresh sunlight and dew and scattered over his shoulders silkily, mingling with his own. Amiboshi turned his face to Suboshi's, and was assaulted mentally by the vision of large, mournful blue eyes.
"I wish you wouldn't lie. I won't be afraid of anything you have to say," Suboshi whispered gently, nuzzling his twin's cheek with his lips.
Amiboshi felt comforted by the presence of his twin, when, only moments before he had wanted nothing more than to bask in his own loneliness and self-pity, alone, to feel loneliness' name on his silent lips. "I'm... lonely, 'tooto. I'm so very lonely. I can't feel my heart anymore, and when I reach out to yours, I stop myself. I feel... I don't know what I feel. So uncertain, now that we're in this together, alone." His lips trembled as he paused to bring in a deep breath. If he were going to do this, he would do it entirely. Amiboshi never did anything by halves. "And -- and there are feelings I never thought I'd feel, growing inside me. I've never felt hate, little brother. Did you know that? I've never loathed anything or anyone so much it hurt me to see them. And I feel that way about Nakago. He pulled us into all of this without so much as a by-your- leave." Sadness was rich and full in his soft blue eyes, a bone-deep, poignant gaze that hinted at tears just below the surface.
Suboshi snuggled against his brother, gentle and lithe, with a sad smile on his face. "I wouldn't think you capable of hate, aniki. Don't worry, you're just coming of age, a little late I must say but it's always been there, right under the surface and waiting to pop up and bite you. It's just part of growing up -- it started for me a long time ago, but you've always been more kind and gentle. It's natural to hate Nakago, as funny as that sounds." Amiboshi actually chuckled softly, closing his eyes in amusement and shaking his head. "He kind of prodded you into it."
Amiboshi gave a soft yawn, feeling a great weight lifted from his heart. "Let's say we get some sleep. We'll talk more in the morning, when we're both awake."
Suboshi, accepting, kneaded his brother's shoulder a moment, then smiled in a catlike way up at him. " 'Night." He lowered his blonde head into the hollow, shifted for a moment, and sighed before falling into a deep sleep.
It took Amiboshi a moment before he joined his brother in a gentle somnolence, his heavy burden noticeably lightened and the hatred blazing in his spirit docked for the moment.
~ * ~
A brilliant morning greeted her, the air crisp and frozen and crystalline. The entire world had frozen overnight, leaving the emerald leaves frosted and as green as they had been the previous day, but thin and stiff. Every few moments, a twig would burst into icy fragments of brown crystal and the silence would be shattered by a sound like a gunshot, deafening in the early-morning world.
Honey Rose had always thought that a completely different world came around on these icy, serene winter mornings. In her arms, she carried a basket of laundry that was not her own, but of the one who owned the fiery mistress.
With hair that flowed wavy and sleek like pure tamed fire, and eyes a strange, brilliant, defiant silver, Honey Rose by all means filled her name. Her cheeks were the only part of her tanned golden, and the one who had purchased her from her parents, her owner and master, enjoyed the fact that she would rebel often. He would beat her into a temporary submission, loving the game that he initiated, and Honey Rose would only rebel again the next day. Her fiery spirit was one to be admired.
The basket fell from her hands, scattering fine silks and soft cottons of the best weave onto the ground, as she suppressed a curse. The river had frozen over with a half-inch film of ice. Honey Rose rushed forward, her fire-red braid flowing behind, and gave the frozen water a sound thump with her slipper. She swore in fury when it did not budge, and rubbed her heel to quiet its throbbing. As far as she could see, the river had frozen quite solidly to both sides. Reike would beat her senseless if she returned with his garments still filthy and food-spattered as they had been. Her own simple, dark robes were clean, if worn almost to shabbiness, and warm. She bent absently to gather the clothing from the bank, mumbling oaths under her breath, then stood helplessly, basket in hand.
"You look like you're in a quandary," came the definitely masculine voice from behind her. Without looking she could tell that the eyes would be soft and sweet and sad, and that the lips that had produced such words would be turned into a poignant smile.
Honey Rose turned to see a boy, who in all actuality was a full half of a foot taller than she, carrying a laundry basket nearly identical to hers. "I am, sir," she replied with a short, shaky laugh. Her voice was a warm, rich laughing tone, that Reike seemed to find provoking. Honey Rose would raise her voice into an angry rasp when she argued with her master, and even then she would be used badly. The thought of Reike's hands on her again made her shiver, although she knew it would happen again and again before the nightmare was over and she could claim her freedom. "I must wash these clothes for my master, and the river's frozen quite deeply overnight." Absently she recalled her bruised heel and laughed warmly.
"I have to wash as well, so if you don't mind my nearness, then I'll break a hole in the ice," Amiboshi responded, his blue eyes twinkling with a strange amusement that he hadn't felt in the longest time, tempered with something he'd never felt before. The name for the emotion wouldn't come to mind, but it had something to do with the slender, sleek curves and freed flame-hair of the pretty maid who stood before him. Her silvery-gray eyes flashed with regretful amusement, and it made Amiboshi's breath quicken. He put his laundry aside, then relieved her of hers. Electricity plunged through him as her scent surrounded him and her fiery braid brushed his hand. Desperately longing to be either very close or far, far away, he strode to the river, where with a deft, well-placed step, he cracked the ice, and slid the blunt, unsharpened blade of his belt-knife into the crack, flipping the covering from the hole neatly. "There -- take that! -- and there you are, miss!" He offered a warm smile.
He carried both baskets of laundry to the water, then placed hers to one side. "Thank you, sir," Honey Rose said, her voice subconsciously seductive and low. "What is your name?" Her eyes trained on him, she dipped the first item in the cold water, gasping softly when the icy liquid touched her hands, then rubbing at the stains with a floating lump of ice.
"Koutoku," he responded, flashing a rushed half-grin. Those silvery eyes blinked up at him, defying him to be untouched by her innocent charms. "Although Amiboshi is the name most people would know me by."
"It's lovely to meet you, Koutoku," she purred, lingering over his name softly. She decided she liked the way it whispered from her lips. "I'm Honey Rose." She shivered as the end of her sash fell into the icy water. "I warn you, I have a temper, Koutoku. And that I can be rather out of the ordinary." The red weals on her slender back proved it.
"That's all right. I'll balance you out, if you're anything like my twin brother," Amiboshi responded, watching her.
Honey Rose, after humming first softly, then more loudly, her eyes always on Amiboshi, for a good long while before she lapsed into singing. Her voice, a seductive, soaring breath of sweet richness, rang out with sadness as its very avatar. She was spellbindingly beautiful in her moment of sadness, the world seeming to focus all its light into the air immediately around her as she sang so very sweetly of a world that had been free, in which she had lived peacefully with her soulmate, a tiger.
Tears gathered in his eyes as Amiboshi gazed at her, with her bewitchingly emotional silver-gray eyes and her red plait, which he knew if he tangled his fingers in, the scarf tying the bottom would scatter to the wind and the full length of such magnificent tresses would fill his hands with silken fire. He hadn't been the violent, instinctive one, that honor belonged to his brother. But this coming-of-age was startling him with its foreign longings, such as the one that foamed up within him now. He feared he would lose all propriety at the sight of her, with her hair falling slowly from its plait, with her soft, worn robes covering an amazingly lithe body. "Blast it all," he murmured to himself, frustrated with the urges. "Perhaps it wouldn't be too much... of a burden... or... if I kissed you, Honey Rose?" Despair seeped through his tone, edging his voice with thick, sweet honey.
Her song stopped, and the siren's mischief showed in her wide, expressive silver-gray eyes. "Of course," she whispered, an inviting smile on her lips.
Shyly Amiboshi approached, taking a moment to gaze into those eyes yearningly before he captured her lips in the most tentative of kisses that quickly turned demanding.
Honey Rose snuggled close, giving a soft moan. Kisses had never been this sweet with Reike, who had come for her so violently that he had often bruised her lips with his furied, gasping ministrations.
This Amiboshi was so very gentle, even when his hands tangled in her braid, catching loops of it over his long, slim fingers. He drew back for breath. "Let me undo your braid," he demanded softly, his great blue eyes shining softly, until Honey Rose acquiesced with a soft sparrow's cry.
She turned her back to him, and he worked on the knot in the swatch of cloth that bound the thick red mass into its thigh-length braid until it came free. This time when he slid his hands into the weave of the plait, it unraveled quickly, leaving free the glory of flowering fire that was her hair. All of the civility was gone from her when he next looked, her face fierce and beautiful, those silvery eyes, the eyes of a tigress and a siren, princess of her element and far from a lady. The soft lines of her lips were pulled upwards into an uninhibited smile. Such things were unfashionable in this day and age. There was nothing demure and lotus-pale about this silver-eyed enchantress. "I... I have to go, Koutoku," she protested, her voice no longer soft, but the wild purr of a tigress.
He nodded reverently. She was no haughty court lady, but a beautiful, half-wild rose. "As you wish."
Honey Rose smiled softly, kissed his cheek, and rushed into the shadows of the woods, her silken hair spiraling out behind. Numbly he realized she had left her basket. The symbols on the side translated to 'Reike'. He knew a man in the village who possessed that name. He would bring them there, after finishing the washing she had abandoned. There was no shame in forgetting work for play.
~ * ~
"Ai," she called softly, her silver eyes wide and warm. "Ai, come out!"
From the shadows came a feline, milk-white shape, that quickly formed into the large body of a white tiger. Faint gray stripes ran the width of his thick fur, beautifully symmetrical. Its mouth opened in a silent roar, and it rubbed against Honey Rose's legs. "Oh, Ai." She bent her red head to the tiger's shoulders, loving the feel of the thick, soft fur against her cheeks, and her fiery hair spilled over the white fur like wine on snowy silk.
"Ai, what am I to do? I think I love him." Honey Rose sat in the shade of a tree, leaning against the tiger's warm side as it gave that curious sound she thought to be his purr. He always comforted her.
~ * ~ ~ * ~