Author's Note: Yes!!! Another chapter-- though short, it is still another chapter for my faithful reviewers!!! Hope its not to strange or sappy-- Enjoy!
The hall stood vast and silent, its walls stretching upwards into the darkness. Then footsteps sounded on the stones; a lone figure storming the lonely way. He swept an arm across a low table resting in a shadowed corner, sending priceless metal ringing against the stone floor with surprising force. A curse echoed through the din and the shape moved on down the hall, hard-soled feet sending out angry noise.
A moment later, a set of doors swung inward almost timidly, light spilling out around the small, slender figure of a woman servant gazing after the retreating figure now merely a shadow amongst the shadows in the dusk darkened corridor.
The man glanced back, as if sensing the gaze; for a moment he gazed upon the light bathed figure, a strange look passing over his face. Then his smooth features twisted into a sneer and he whirled, fading into the distance towards some other part of the castle.
And silence returned, once again, to blanket the hall in darkness.
Awareness came suddenly, as it always did, to Hiten. Fighting the instinct to bolt out of the bed, the youkai rolled over, passing a hand over his sand filled eyes. Sweat soaked sheets were pushed down around his feet, twisted and mangled by his claws. It had been another sleepless night; but when wasn't it, Hiten asked himself grimly. When he had not been awake he had been dreaming, no-- having visions. Visions of her, the human whelp; Hiten wondered what the dreams trying to tell him. Something must be done with her, but what? She may yet be the undoing of me… Though I do not see how.
Muscles moving with un human grace, Hiten rose from the tangled mess that was his bed and walked silently across the large room. He caught a glance of himself in the mirrored glass that lined a heavily guilded dragon-shaped frame. Though youkai were impervious to most human conditions, Hiten looked disheveled and chaotic, his innermost kimono creased and stained, hair half freed from its tight braid.
After taking a moment to straighten his appearance, he called his only slave to him, thinking A small test for my loyal servant; to see if that humility and bowing and scraping is all a façade.
Naga hurried down the hall, sliding the last of the dull brass pins into her upswept black hair and smoothing the front of her dark kimono. The youkai lord had summoned her from a dead sleep; she had rubbed the sleep from her eyes in the predawn darkness and leapt to do her master's bidding. I wonder why he has called me so early-- and he has never commanded me to attend him in his innermost chamber… Naga tried not to dwell on the reasons her mind made to answer her thoughts.
She paused at the massive red painted doors; even as she felt her inner self shrinking away, her hands reached out and rapped on the door two times. Naga stepped back and held her breath, waiting for the doors to swing inward, with head slightly bowed in anticipation…
For a handful of heartbeats, silence almost tangible filled the room.
And then the doors swung inward by themselves as they always did; Naga stepped into the room, eyes scanning the large area for her master's shape. He is not here… Is this a tra--
Naga's spine tingled as she sensed eyes upon her, almost boring into the back of her head. Forcing herself to turn slowly, she faced her master. And felt as if her eyeballs would fall onto the floor as she gaped.
A man stood silently there, framed by the two massive doors whose color echoed that of his eyes. Waved blue-black hair curled down past his gold-toned shoulders, reaching to the small of the man's back, far longer than Naga's own hair. A slightly crumpled kimono hung from his frame, showing rather than hiding the amazing musculature beneath. Naga felt her pulse freeze as she stared at the stranger. Who? --how? He couldn't be… Not this… man??
With a start, Naga realized the otherworldly looking man was no man; it was her own master, the youkai lord Hiten.
Naga felt her lips tremble, trying to find words to recover herself with before she remembered she had none. Suddenly ashamed, she bowed her head low, face burning and afraid to look in his eyes.
Author's Note: ^__^ Heh… Yep, I loved the closing scene!! Can't you just picture it? o__O Er… anyways, thanks for all the great reviews!!! Keep them coming as I try to keep cranking the chapters out-- your reviews may make things go even faster-- wow.
--K.A.