"Fubuki no Kaen"
(MarthRoy)
Authors: Xan and Vallen
Rating: R
Warnings: One thing… Or, lot's of things: This is a story with yaoi/shounen
ai/slash, whatever you want to call it. If that sort of stuff isn't your thing,
then don't read it. But, we hope that you do…
Disclaimer: The characters Marth and Roy, plus "Altea", do not belong to us. We
just use them for our pleasure.
Feedback: Yes. (That means we would love to hear from you and what you think!)
Notes: Vallen: *looks at ff.net* It looks like the good old site will be making
a lot of changes, and we are grateful that they do not affect us… Whew. We
apologize for taking so long to get this out- Blame me, it's all my fault- but
we thank you for all the great feedback. And now for a special Adventure
Chapter of… Fubuki no Kaen!
Xan: *does dance* We have over 100 reviews! Go us! Sorry again for the delay!
Thanks to all you wonderful people who took the time to give us feedback! We're sorry we didn't have time to respond to all your reviews this time around, but if you have a specific question, e-mail us at our new e-mail: xan_vallen@cliffhanger.com… Don't you love it?
Biting cold nipped at his chest before he put his shirt back on. The former general went to the side of his mare and buried his face in her mane for a moment, reveling in the warmth. He pulled away reluctantly to mount the unnamed black horse.
"Can we get going?" the teen asked loudly, his voice reaching Marth's ears.
Marth opened his eyes, awakened from his icy spell. The ex-prince nodded and walked over to where the horses were. He pulled on his shirt and slipped the broken collar into his bag, then swung himself up onto Cloud.
"Any ideas on where to go?" He asked Roy.
"No. I have no clue as to where we are, so I have no way to determine a direction that we should head in. Don't ask me," he replied, fingering the reins tensely. With an angry shake of his head, the ex-general's heels pressed into the sides of the black horse, urging her to go as fast as she could in the opposite direction that they had come.
Following the boy-general, Marth kept Cloud a few strides behind Roy's horse. He preferred to let him alone while he was in a mood like this. They galloped for quite a while before finally stopping by a small stream. As the horses drank, Marth turned to Roy.
"Are you better now?"
The teen scowled darkly and knelt down carefully beside the mare. He dipped his hands into the freezing water for a moment, and then ran them through his hair, attempting to tame the wind-blown mop.
"I'm not one to complain, but how would you be if you were freezing cold, your leg hurt like hell, and lost somewhere in the wilderness of Altea?" His voice was all sarcasm. "Oh, I forgot. You don't get cold easily…" he spat.
Marth looked down and started braiding his horse's mane absently.
"No, I never get bothered by the cold, but I can't stand heat. We are both lost here, though no fault of our own."
All of the sudden, Marth stiffened, looking past Roy with his icy gaze. Roy followed his line of sight until he saw what the ex-prince was looking at.
A group of people were standing a ways away from them, five ragged looking men and a woman. All of them had swords and the woman was wearing body armor. Marth's hand rested instinctively on the hilt of his sword.
The woman leered at them. She had long blond hair that had been braided into many small plaits.
"Why hello," she said, eying the two of them. "Jatana the Scarred, leader of the Rosescar band. Who might you two pretty little trespassers be?"
Upon closer inspection, Marth saw that Jatana had a long scar that started on her left cheek and went across the bridge of her nose to end on the other cheek.
Roy drew his sword and held it before him, ready and waiting for anything. His eyes narrowed deeply at the offending woman, analyzing her in his mind.
"Trespassers? I was aware that this wild land belonged to no one but the Kingdom of Altea," he growled. "I believe I've had trouble with your like before."
It was true that the Altea military had always had many problems with the numerous groups of bandits running around the land. The teen recalled an earlier episode with he had been summoned to stop the fighting between a village and a bloodthirsty bandit group. But that hadn't been the first or the last time.
Marth dismounted and slid Falcion out of its sheath. He would never start a fight, but he would not hesitate to defend himself and defeat whoever was foolish enough to challenge him.
Jatana regarded the two of them through analytical black eyes. Outwardly, the two of them didn't look like much, but she had encountered pretty boys who could fight as well as any tough-looking mercenary.
"Oh, but this ain't the Kingdom of Altea anymore, kid. This is my kingdom. We don't take no orders from no pretty-boy traitor prince."
Marth felt icy anger freeze and tighten his insides. So Gaimen had already spread his filthy rumors all the way to the Outlands.
"And if you've dealt with us before, then maybe you were with that pitiful Altea army," she continued. "Although you don't look big enough to hold a sword, much less use one." The bandit chieftainess leered at Roy.
The ex-general uttered a low growl, shaking visibly with anger. He shifted his weight and stepped forward with his good leg, ready to advance.
"That's it…" Roy snarled, tightening his grip on the sword. Nobody insulted him like that and got away with it. "Why don't we find out?"
Jatana's lip curled. "Sure. Let's see how long you two last against me. Han, Kole, back me up in case this gets ugly, which I doubt."
Two of the scruffy-looking men nodded. Jatana drew her sword, a long double-edged weapon.
Marth glanced over at Roy and caught the boy-general's eye. Jatana may be as good a warrior as she claimed to be, cut there was no way she would be able to stand against the both of them together. Even when injured, Roy was a great force on the battlefield, soldiers were trained to keep on fighting despite the pain.
Jatana struck first, hard and fast. Marth whirled gracefully out of the way of the attack.
Roy jumped into the fight and met the bandleader's sword head-on. The two swords made loud metal-wrenching sounds as they fought a battle of strength. The teen gritted his teeth and pressed harder, preparing for the moment when they would break away. He met her eyes carefully, looking for signs of struggle or weakness. He saw none.
'I am stronger!'
They broke away and their swords clashed together once again in a storm of skilled moves. Unknowingly, the two fighters switched offensive and defensive places, in turn, for they both couldn't stay in one position for long.
Suddenly they both struck each other's bodies and stepped back to recover. Jatana looked down to the origin of her pain: A small cut in her side, deep enough to break through her body armor. Blood stained her rugged clothing. She shook it off and concentrated on her opponent.
The ex-general had his hand over a long, superficial gash right below his collarbone. Behind his eyes, a plan was forming and he clenched his frozen fingers over his sword hilt even tighter.
"Highness," he hissed softly, unable to call the ex-prince by his own name once again. He then motioned to the chieftainess, a gesture he was sure that Marth could not misunderstand.
The blue-haired man nodded and stood opposite Jatana, sword raised. His cold blue eyes were fixed on her injured side. Abruptly, he struck.
Unlike Roy's, Marth's fighting style was subtle: He used several maneuvers that made Jatana think that he was going to do one thing, but instead did another. The bandit leader managed to scratch a fairly deep wound in his leg. Marth grimaced, but with one final thrust, he drove his sword deep into Jatana's throat. She made a gagging noise and fell to the ground, blood dribbling from her lips and gushing from her throat.
Marth took a step back and glared at the rest of the group of bandits. The stared at him like frightened deer before turning tail and running as fast as they could.
"Such fragile bonds of loyalty," Marth murmured, sitting heavily on the ground.
There was the sound of a person limping over to him- Roy. The teen shivered, lips slightly tinged blue, and looked up at the sky.
"Damnit. I could care less about those bastards' loyalty now… It's starting to snow, we have to do something now!"
The blue-haired ex-prince looked up as well. Grey clouds full of snow hung in the sky over them. He hadn't noticed them or the growing cold. Standing up, he sheathed his sword after cleaning the blood off and limped over to Cloud. "We've got to find shelter for us and the horses and treat our wounds."
He tried to mount his horse and found that his injured leg was quivering and bleeding badly.
"Shit," he hissed though his teeth. The exiled prince bit his tongue so hard that he tasted blood and heaved himself up into the saddle.
"Wounds? What wounds…?" Roy questioned, and looked down, realizing the slight injury he had suffered. He shook his head and slowly made his way over to the black mare. "I can barely feel my body… I'm so numb and cold."
The ex-general mounted his horse and maneuvered it over to Marth. He pulled his clothes tighter around his body, as if it would help, and looked to his former prince.
"Are you able to function well enough?" In any other words and spoken by someone else, that question would probably be the same as Are you okay? But Roy would never say that, would he?
"My leg is wounded and I can't move it," Marth said softly, taking up the reins. "But the important thing now is finding shelter before this storm breaks."
The royal didn't know how he knew but something told him that unless they found a place to escape from the bitter cold and raging winds that the blizzard would bring, Roy probably would not survive. As tough as the general was, this storm was a killer and his sensitivity to the cold was an added disadvantage.
If Marth had any worries considering his own survival in the cold, he either didn't realize it or acknowledge them. The only things on his mind were his injured leg and finding shelter.
"Suck it up and join the club," Roy retorted. "My leg's been killing me and you don't see me complaining about it." With that, he pulled himself up into the saddle with a grunt.
The black mare pranced around uncomfortably for a few moments, finding her footing in the new snow. She snorted loudly and tossed her head and mane, moving forward.
"I say we move on and try to find this supposed shelter you speak of…" Despite the strength in the teen's voice, he was visibly shaking in reaction to the weather.
Marth didn't heed Roy's hard words… Much. Instead, he turned Cloud and looked the way the bandits had run off.
"They've got to have someplace to go," he mused then turned to Roy. "You've done this before, what do you suggest?"
Big wet flakes started falling slowly from the grey sky. They both looked up at them anxiously.
"Well?"
"I had a map before, so I'll just have to pick and choose the directions…" Roy mused and urged his horse forward into a fast canter, analyzing the paths and searching his memory for something familiar.
They rode like that for a long time, realizing that they were right in the middle of a huge forestland and there was nothing within miles. But still, the prospect of the bandit's place to go home to lead them on further.
Roy's horse drew in deep, fast breaths in an effort to take as much oxygen from the cold, stiff air as possible. Her coat was covered in white snow, some of the black hair showing through. The rider suddenly grew limp, slumping over the black mare's neck. She stopped abruptly, aware of the uncomfortable weight on that area.
Marth noticed Roy's motionless body and felt fear tighten into a lump in his throat.
"Roy!" He shouted, breaking his usual cold silence. When the general didn't answer, Marth jumped from the grey's back into the waist-deep snow. He waded over to the prancing black mare, leading Cloud behind him. Upon finally reaching him, the prince turned him over to find that Roy had gone into shock and that his lips and nostrils were an alarming shade of blue-purple. His breathing was shallow.
Marth's eyes narrowed with worry.
"Icefires!" he swore, yanking off his shirt, not feeling the icy blade of winter cut into him. He pulled it over Roy's own in an attempt to help him stay warm. The exiled royal picked up the auburn-haired boy in his arms and waded back over to Cloud, placing Roy in his saddle and then went back for the mare.
Once he had tied her to his own horse, Marth climbed back into his saddle behind Roy. The young former general was propped up against Marth's body and his head was leaning against the Prince's bare chest. Wrapping his arms around Roy, Marth took up the reins and dug his heels into Cloud's sides. The stallion squealed and jumped forward, floundering a little in the deep snow. Lines of worry creased the ex-prince's brow- if he didn't find shelter and soon, Roy was going to freeze. Oddly enough, despite the fact that he was shirtless in the middle of a snowstorm, Marth felt nothing at all except for Roy's body against his.
They had been moving only for a few minutes when the storm became abruptly worse. The wind turned each snowflake into a tiny blade, stinging and blinding Marth. He couldn't see where he was going. As sheet after sheet of blinding snow was hurled at him, Marth's fear worsened.
"Stop!" He shouted to the storm. "I-I command you to stop!!"
The sheer absurdity of his words almost made Marth want to laugh, but could it be… No, it was impossible, but it seemed that the tempest had actually abated a tiny bit.
"I-command-you-to-stop," He concentrated on each word as he spoke it. Sweat trickled down Marth's bare back from exertion in spite of the cold. And yet impossible as it was, the blizzard's rage lessened and he could see clearly enough to discern… a cave right in front of them? Math blinked. Either he was hallucinating or the gods had decided to bless them with luck.
Not waiting around to see which it was, the ex-prince curled an arm around Roy and urged his horse towards the cavernous entrance. The instant they were safely inside, the blizzard unleashed its full fury on the world outside.
Marth dismounted, holding Roy in his arms, looking around the cave. It was plenty large enough to hold them and the horses. To his mild surprise, there was hay and firewood stacked along one wall- apparently, this was one of the bandits' hideouts. He set Roy gently on the ground, thankful that it was much warmer inside the cave. Then the blue-haired man led the two horses to the back of the cave and hobbled them. He also set out some well-earned hay for them. Then, working rapidly, he made a fire and pulled Roy over to it. He noticed that the boy-general's hands were cold as ice. He used his warm breath and hands to try to her the circulation moving.
Exhaustion crept up on Marth and his eyes drooped from wont of rest. He finally fell asleep curled around Roy to warm him.
TBC…
Vallen: *cheers* Wow, I finally got off my lazy ass to do this for you guys! *bows, while having tomatoes and cabbage thrown at her* Eh… Heh… Well, what did you guys think of that one? It certainly got interesting, don't you think? Oh, and I'll add Xan's end note later since she forgot to do one this time… But you can bet that she says the same as me!