If any of you are looking for major mush fluff in this story, try not to feel too disappointed—all we have here for this chapter are the musings of an enraged Sora about the Duke. You'll have to wait a little longer for me to get to the actual culmination of my story. I like to dawdle—or have you noticed?
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Love?
I looked at him closely, wondering what had made him say that. Perhaps the sun had baked his brains too thoroughly up here in the mountains, although the weather here was generally foggy. But then again, the man was probably too thick to know the difference.
…………
Okay, he probably could, but still, haven't you noticed by now that I always make claims to Yamato's stupidity, when in fact, the man's a bloody genius? Bear with me, or turn around and leave me alone. So it's my way of spitefully stabbing out at Yamato just to boost my morale.
Big deal.
Anyway, what on earth brought him to bring love up? I knew for a fact that Yamato didn't believe in love and actually thought it a hindrance to society.
Perhaps it was because we were at the Willow Tree. Many strange things happened in the shady glade the drooping tree branches created. Resolves were always weakened here and many couples who originated here found themselves deliriously in love.
A reason why I did not want to go here. Especially with that fool of a Duke.
I also wondered why I continued to hold his gaze in such unease. We've had many staring contests before, usually to see who had the stronger will (For some reason, none of us ever won any match, since our level of tolerance for drying eyes always seemed to run out at the same time).
I could feel my cheeks burn slightly as he looked at me, a speculating glance in his clear blue eyes. Furious at my reddening cheeks, I looked back at him. Glaring might have come closer actually, since my eyes pretty much narrowed to glowing red slits of hellish irritation.
I hope.
His beautifully damning eyes looked back. No hellishness. Otherwise, he'd have been burnt into a blonde crisp. He didn't glare so I think he wasn't trying to be insulting, but then again Duke Yamato Ishida could offend a person with a single glance.
Perhaps I was out of practice, having been away from the Duke's presence for a well-loved period of time. Lord knows how many times I had wanted to slice out his liver whenever he looked at me with those mocking indigo eyes. I was unnerved by his critical look—was he sizing me up? Comparing me to something? Or could it be someone?
Then it hit me.
Actually, I believe that it has been hitting me on the head for the past several minutes without much success. Only now had it managed to penetrated bone and make its point—I am often told by my mother that my skull was thicker than a redwood trunk. Let me explain what I am discussing before plunging into my utterly brilliant perception—revelation maybe.
I didn't really know what the Duke's reasons were for fighting against our marriage—I knew mine well enough (Gods only knew how well—and probably didn't quite cherish the information) and merely assumed that he didn't want to marry me for the same reasons.
To be frank, I hated his guts. I would be perfectly delighted watching him plummet off a cliff. My animosity for him was so tangible that you could almost lean your entire weight on it and rest for several hours.
But maybe I was wrong. There was a first time for everything, after all, and perhaps I wasn't as different as everything else as I thought.
In spite of everything, I noticed that the Duke didn't seem as contemptible toward me as before. In fact, I could almost believe that he was simply following the comfortable role of enemy versus enemy in our little diatribes. He didn't seem to hate me as much as I hated him—he even seemed human on occasion—so the idea of his opposing our betrothal because he loathed the sight of me, as I with him was pretty much out of the question.
Besides, how could one loathe the sight of me? Certainly, he did not shrink away from my countenance with contempt—resignation maybe, but never disgust. The very thought was impossible! A man who has spent all his life in darkness longing for light wouldn't shrink away from the rays of my splendor unless he was blind.
And indeed Yamato was blind. Perhaps...perhaps the Duke was in love! They say that love is blind, don't they?
The very idea of it astounded me and at the same time nonplussed me. Yamato, as I had said earlier, thought love a hindrance to society; he scorned the idea of marriage.
But that was before. Possibly, the years have eroded his citadel-like pride brought him in shackles to Love's throne room. I immediately discarded the idea that he was in love with me—although many men had fallen to my charms and beauty before and still continue to profess their undying love for me in horridly composed sonnets, having the Duke in love with me was ridiculousness in its prime form.
If the Duke Yamato Ishida was in love at all, it would have to be with another girl—someone who hadn't a thought in her head, for Yamato probably wouldn't settle for a girl whose wits were sharper than his: another reason why he couldn't love me.
That was why he had spoken so glowingly of Jyou and Mimi's marriage. He himself understood what they felt because the selfsame emotion surged through his blood and sang songs in his heart. (A/N: Poetic. I hereby sprain my hand in patting myself on the back)
For reasons unfathomable, I felt a hole in myself upon coming to my stunning revelation. Perhaps it was because it was difficult for me to believe that the Duke could harbor affection for anyone but himself and his family, perchance his mirror. He thought scathingly of the opposite gender and loved what he saw in his mirror.
The mysterious girl he was in love with must have captured his heart completely. And that was why he wanted to stop this marriage. To go back home in the lowlands to his dream lover and to marry her.
I frowned inwardly. Why didn't he marry her before the hunters of a house alliance sniffed out our single tracks? It could have saved me the trouble off adding extra firewood to the already blazing bonfire of my hatred for him. Firewood is quite the rare commodity nowadays and wasting a perfectly good log on that foul Ishida would be depriving, unless it somehow burned him up.
Literally.
I smiled slightly at the thought.
"Yes?" he suddenly asked of me. "What is it?"
I glanced at him one last time then turned away disinterestedly. "What is what, your Grace?"
"You were smiling, my Lady," he told me.
I kept my face trained straight toward the gently blowing branches of the tree. "You own nothing in this land, sir. You have no power to forbid me to smile. And for this, I grin." I flashed him a becoming smile.
He laughed suddenly. "You are a surprisingly droll lady, Sora," he remarked, dropping all propriety. "Not many ladies speak their minds so."
I smirked. "Not many ladies have any minds to speak of, Yamato," I remarked. "And you mean court ladies, for the peasants here have pleasant, though deprived lifestyles, with much to laugh and remark about while the nobility's lives are filled with comportment and tediousness, which appear of the same cloth. When you think about it, they're far richer than the nobility in that aspect."
"Of course," he murmured, surprisingly agreeing with me.
I stopped.
The last time I remember his ever concurring with me was when I had told him that I would've liked it very much if the earth would be so kind as to open its mouth and swallow him up.
Wait. I am in error, surprisingly enough. His wishing on the same event—for me—is not the same as agreeing with me.
So as a conclusion to my idle mind's idle wanderings, I have to say that I can remember no moments when we have voiced our agreement out loud, therefore we have never come to the same conformity. But he had agreed with me now, therefore I commemorate this moment as our first step towards insanity.
While I was busy breaking out the wine in my head to celebrate my upcoming lunacy, the Duke was watching me with in his eyes amusement. I stopped and almost heard a tangible pop of the wine bottle's cork. I did not like being laughed at whether silently or uproariously. My spark of anger rose some number of degrees.
Three thousand and forty-one degrees, to be a little more precise.
My own gaze met his challengingly. "Yes?" I asked him defiantly.
He laughed—and I envisioned him, honey, binding ropes, and fire ants. "Countess, you have very nearly raised my regard for your gender with your volcanic attitudes. I commend you for surmounting such an arduous task."
I drew myself up when he had compared me to a large mound of dirt which would explode hordes of stinking material when provoked, and pointedly ignored the fact that there were overtones of admiration in his voice. Since I was unable to understand why he had complimented me, which was no easy task for me, with my incredible intelligence, I deemed that he was insulting me yet again.
(A/N: I don't get the connection ^__^ I think she's just grabbing for a reason to chew him out)
Did he just call me a big pile of dirt and rocks that spewed death out of its mouth without warning or provocation? I give him ample warning—he gave me plenty of provocation!
My blood boiled as I looked at him coolly and remarked, "What you suggest, your Grace, is quite an impossibility, for, as extraordinarily eloquent as I may be, I cannot heighten things that do not exist in the first place."
His perfect face frowned. "Your Excellency, are you implying that I harbor no respect for the female portion of our species? That I look upon women the way I would look upon a mere fly?"
"I received the impression that, yes, you do," I replied haughtily. "Although the fly seems to have the upper hand on us. I seem to recall a great number of diatribes we both undertook concerning this very issue."
"I was much younger then," he stated blandly, though I saw a strange spark of curious emotion I cannot put a name to. "And the young are quite easily influenced. Impressions come from nearly everything, most of them bad. Perhaps I had received the wrong ones from your manor?"
My eyes narrowed and I bristled with fury as I stood up suddenly from my seat of the grass. I angrily brushed myself off. I could have chewed rocks and spit out the fine particles of dirt at him.
That'd volcano him.
I could have been taken on him in a physical battle like I did when I was young and completely throw away the marriage contract, leaving him too dead to return to his lover, unless he returned home in a coffin which contained his mangled body.
I was, as you may have detected, very incensed.
Was he portending the fact that the impressions he had received from my home years ago were ones which lowered his outlook on women to mere insects which fly around looking for animal waste?
I couldn't trust myself to say anything to the ass, however. Whenever I was this angry, all sorts of things could spew out of my mouth, enforcing the Volcano Sora image.
It's a good thing I kept my mouth firmly shut, for if I opened it, I could have very well bitten his head off.
Normally, I wouldn't have restrained myself from the joy of doing so, but he unfortunately would need his head to help me scheme my way out of our stupid marriage. For that matter, I couldn't do anything to harm him or impair his brains until we hit the perfect plan or until...until we were married.
Life. Reeks.
I irately turned toward the willow branches, fully intending to leave him and the stupid grocery basket and everything behind when he called out after me: "Sora, what I said earlier was meant as a compliment, though I fear that I may have let it out the wrong way." I heard him stand. In a quieter voice laden with sincerity, he added, "Forgive me for my ineloquence."
I fought an inner battle with myself at this point.
It would have been overly easy to simply storm away—there was a little cave nearby which I knew by heart and which he could never find. I could have gone down there and come out back in the wild lands higher north. From there, it would be a simple trek to either Takenouchi manor or one of the little villages wherein I had many friends. From there, I could make my way down the mountain and to the village at the foot of the mountain.
It would be running away from my village and becoming the social pariah, but at least it wouldn't be marrying the ass.
But what had stalled my footsteps and flight was the authenticity of his voice, the plaintive tone of his apology.
I closed my eyes and attempted to put a lid on my anger, which had pretty much spilled over, so there would be no real use in stopping it up. Too much had already escaped the pot and was festering upon the floor, making a dreadful mess.
(A/N: I can't help it. Terribly sorry. -__-)
He had insulted my home and the people living within the Takenouchi manor. Countless times had he insulted me, but this time, I felt it real. Had he really received the influence that women were no better than flies from my home? Or had he been telling the truth, blaming it all upon his ineloquence?
I needed to know.
I turned around and looked at him steadily and carefully. He had stood up as well, I noted, following court manners even in the glade of a heart-softening willow tree. There was nothing but sincerity shining in his eyes. No trace of the insufferable pride that had so marred his character. No trace of the rude and disdainful scorn he clearly displayed toward me. Just sincerity and an apology.
And that's when it finally hit me, after long attempts to alter my thinking.
He really had changed. There were so many signs. He hadn't done any of the things that would give me cause to believe that he was the Devil's reincarnate sent to torture me. He had complimented me a while ago, I remembered. Just now he admitted that he could be ineloquent and for the first time ever in our long and volatile history as sparring partners, he had asked for my forgiveness.
And humility was never a part of Yamato Ishida's makeup. Pride was. Scorn was. But never humility.
The change must have been brought about by the girl he was in love with back down in the lowlands. Only something as mind-bending (or erasing) as love could expunge his ozymandian (A/N: I think it's a real word ^__^—check your dictionaries if you want to make sure. Either way, it sounds nice. Ozymandian. Ozymandian. Hehe.) prejudices against the fashion-loving half of his species.
And strangely, I felt a faint flicker of jealousy flash through my normally well-regimented thoughts.
That is, normally regimented whenever I wasn't provoked to froth at the mouth with indignance and mindless fury. But I digress.
The Duke had found love, true love perhaps, since it brought about such a colossal change to his personality. If we succeeded in breaking the lunacy of the marriage, he would parade down the mountain to the open arms of his sweetheart while I most probably would remain a spinster for the remaining portion of my life.
Does it sound like I've contemplated my future in great detail? Because, in truth, I had no intention of ever marrying. No man I had ever known was worth looking pretty for.
Most of my suitors believed that all I had was an attractive face and a great deal of land and money to squander off on meaningless hair accessories, like most of the ladies of the nobility, and that, thus being so, I would be as the noblewomen in their faraway courts: sweet, demure and submissive.
Not to mention a mindless automaton driven on by decorum and fashion trends.
A short conversation would usually change their minds about that very quickly. They would leave my mountain to go court malleable and compliant women either in depression that a beauty such as me would slip through their hands because of my temperament or in blind panic and the frantic urge to get away from the dangerously sharp woman.
The Duke Yamato never fled from my presence or my temper, though, perhaps because his was as bad as mine. I never understood why, while he and his family continued to visit my mountain, he never bothered to remain with the more agreeable disposition of my cousin who lived with us, the young Count of Ichijouji. (A/N: So I like making them relatives. AND?)
Instead, he would favor himself more with my company, on pain of his ears and mine, though.
Both of us, I recall, had very large sets of lungs.
The point of my ramblings and useless reminiscing is that he was the only one who could stand my company without fleeing my company in mindless terror. Perhaps that was why my father had chosen him as my shackle partner. There truly was no one else who could stand me.
Should I have been further depressed at that?
He was the only one who could answer me back and equal my wit. I was the only woman who could withstand his sardonic remarks without buckling down and crying at the first sign of his irritation.
He and I weren't close as friends, but we were very good enemies.
And though it may have been one of the sins frowned upon by my religion tutor, I envied the happiness he would have and wished that he didn't have it. That I would be happier than him.
Scaring suitors away is fun and all, but it eventually gets tiring to be rejected all the time, even if one brings the refutation upon oneself. We all wish for true love and happiness—well, most of us present only wish unending pain upon our enemies—and if we succeeded, Yamato would have both. What would I have?
...Nothing.
For a brief moment, I actually considered forgetting the plan to destroy the marriage contract. Doing that would ensure the Duke's marital misery, shackled down with me, and would let down the hopes of the blissful lover down the mountain. Sadistic, I know, but I was drowning in bitterness.
Or hadn't you noticed?
Of course, canceling all plans to back out of the marriage would also damn my life to being Yamato's lovely wife, all beauty and charm and little else upstairs. Something I could not possibly be.
Angry at the mutinous turn my mind had taken, I took a mental review of all the oaths I probably wasn't supposed to know the meaning of and applied them to myself, hitting myself over and over again with the image of a docile Countess of Takenouchi.
Disgusting.
Rebellion resurrected itself and reclaimed its lawful seat next to my conscience which sat on a wobbly stool. Easy to push over in case submissiveness showed its ugly meek face.
Aside from the irrational jealousy I blamed my bitterness on, I was also irritated. The lovelorn Duke was completely enigmatic to me now. He was a puzzle for me back then as well, but more so now that he was in a state which appeared to me as invalid. Love, as I've noticed, tends to leak out all of a person's gray matter.
Years ago, when he and I would have to be watched continuously so as to prevent any possible assassinations we could possibly inflict upon each other, he was still a mystery to me, but at least I could depend on his equal animosity toward me. That he and I knew very well I could deal with.
Damn. I knew there was a side effect to having a backbone. You get unpredictable bratty blonde backaches who think they're funny. Just when you think you get them figured out, they turn on you and become something you so do not want to deal with.
And now here he was, so captured by his love for some girl that he actually gave me, the so-called Broomstick Queen of the Wild Mountain, a compliment!
But wait. Was his falling hard in love the reason why I was able to triumph over him in a battle of words? Because love broke through the portcullis of his defenses and infiltrated every thought that crossed his mind?
I sighed inwardly. So that was why I was able to trounce him. Not because my wit had sharpened over the years of hatred and pierced straight through his guard but because he had degenerated into a gibbering puddle of lovelorn goo.
Because that damned Cupid had chosen him for target practice.
If God isn't said to love all of us unconditionally, I would have to say that He has a strange sense of how things are supposed to be. What's the word? Ah, yes. Fate. God's idea of Fate for every mortal being was supposed to end happy and go smoothly. That didn't seem to apply to me.
Unless my life was created merely to provide entertainment for all the angels and celestial beings sprawled all over the clouds in the sky. Maybe God arranged things so that they were supposed to be funny. He'd probably pass around angel cookies or something while they'd all point and laugh.
Great. My life was one big cosmic joke.
While I was busy mentally whining about how God seemed to always twist things so that they always kept me completely unbalanced for the fun of it, the Duke Yamato had been staring at me, a pensive look in his eyes.
I broke through the surface of the pool of self-pity I was drowning in and glanced at him morosely. "Staring could be considered bad form, you know," I informed him, hastily gathering all my hauteur. "I don't particularly enjoy being stared at all the time. Just in small measured admiring intervals by people who actually like me."
Was it just me or did spots of pink appear on his slender cheekbones? "I wasn't staring at you this whole time," he objected. "And what are you talking about?"
I glared at him. "You should be updated, Duke. I do not live in total isolation of all the social graces that you believe only ornament the manors and palaces of the lowlands. I've had a very gratifying number of suitors, all begging for my hand in marriage."
I pointedly forgot, at the moment, how hastily they all ordered their carriages to take them back down the mountain in mindless fear once they realized what a phenomenal creature I was—a beautiful woman who was unfortunate enough to be diagnosed with actual thought.
Oh God, my mind wasn't pure anymore! The footprints of original and intelligent thought were littered all over! Ye Gads!
There was a flash of irritation in his eyes. "So why haven't you been happily married off to some pitiful fellow yet?" he inquired in a tone that seemed more of a challenge. The expression in his eyes was hard and slightly bitter. Was that—no, ludicrous. He couldn't possibly be jealous.
Although there was that scene with the butter vendor...
No. I could have asked the same of him. He was angry with me as well for being available. His sweetheart frequently lay heavy on his mind. Well, it was his fault as well as mine! If he had married that girl of his before all of the insanity took place, I wouldn't have to reconsider my resolution to limit potential murder to illegal hunters only.
Yes, I can handle a sword. I can make good use of a crossbow and a longbow, ride a horse bareback and I also know all the dirty tricks of hand-to-hand grappling. Yes, I am a horrible example of the perfectly mannered and simpering dunce of a noblewoman people expect me to be.
And?
I turned my nose upward and replied tartly, "None of the men pleased me, although many of them had pleasing faces and perfect manners."
Not to mention that most of them suddenly desired to be in a lower altitude the minute I opened my mouth in scrutiny.
Yamato shrugged as he moved to part the willow leaves for me.
Such a gentleman. Mindless lumps of flesh and fluff. I always knew he would reveal his true colors eventually.
"Much of today's court dignitaries are all decorum and magnificence with little thought, if any at all. It is rare that there is a man with all three," he added, sounding slightly pleased with himself.
Yamato's sweetheart, I noticed, still hasn't managed to beat his overbearing pride into a more manageable ego. I wished her luck. It was a task as difficult as getting court officials to do anything useful. I decided that it would be easier to level mountains to the ground with my bare hands.
I nodded, carefully keeping my face neutral as I stepped into the full sunlight, away from that cursed Willow Tree.
"I would like to meet a man with all of the aforementioned qualities. I am certain it would be something of a marvel, wouldn't it be, my Duke Yamato?"
"You may have not noticed it, my lady, but you already have met such a man." Yamato was obviously pertaining to himself.
I couldn't help it. The notion was completely absurd. Him? A man with all the required manners to survive and thrive in court? A man with more than enough wit to fill a thimble? A man with a pleasant exterior?
Lord, his ego was so large that it had its own kingdom decree. He believed himself to be all three—the perfect man. Preposterous! I couldn't imagine him being the man girls the world over dreamed to marry. The handsome knight in shining armor who would elevate every girl's happiness to surpass the stars.
So I burst out laughing.
I mean, if you think about it, it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do, under the circumstances. It was perfectly understandable that I would split my sides laughing, regardless of the fact that I probably didn't make a very noble picture and that Yamato and I were in plain view of the marketplace.
Well, wouldn't you?
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Well, that's it…for now. I doubt that I'd be able to update much, but I'll try my best, if I feel encouraged…
…
Is that a subtle enough hint for you? I mean this: review. Thank you, and have a nice day/night/evening/afternoon/sandwich.
