Mid-S: Peace out my faithful reviewers! ^__^ I have a new chapter here just for you! Sorry it took so long but now I only have a half an hour on the computer each day. T_T Not nearly enough. Here's some review answers!

JADE.J: Well, we're just gonna have to see won't we? Thanks for reviewing! *gives her a Seto plushie*

ESCACHICK: You tell him Chel-Chan! This chapter is all for you babe! ^_~ *glomps her and gives her a 'get out of school free' card* For all your escaping needs! ^_^ lol.

HIDDEN LIGHT: Wow, what a sweet review! ^O^ Thanks so much for saying that hun! You're so nice. *gives her a box of candy* Enjoy!

LADY GUENA: Thanks for the review!

SILVER DRAGON SOVEREGIN I: You're welcome. ^_^ Thanks for the review darlin'! *gives her a $50 Candy Store gift certificate*

RU-CHAN: Ah, another sweet reviewer. *hands her Bakura* Have fun you two! ^_~

RANMA HIGURASHI: Thanks for the review darlin'! *glomps her*

LILDEVILDRAGON: Glad you like it! Thanks for the review!

QUEEN OF ETERNAL DARKNESS: Thanks for always reviewing my stories hun! *hugs her*

THIS WHOLE CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO *ESCACHICK*! HAVE A WONDERFUL WEDDING HUN AND I HOPE ALASTOR TREATS YOU LIKE YOU DESERVE! Because if he doesn't. *grins evilly* I know allot of girls who won't hesitate to hurt him. But I'm sure he's a great guy if you picked him so best of luck to you both! I know this isn't much of a gift Chel-Chel, but I hope you like it anyway.

XOXO!

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If you find a four-leaf clover, (1)

It will bring happiness;

But

Don't tell anyone

Where it's white flower Blooms.

Or how many leaf-lets from its stem extend.

The four-leafed clover.

I only want your happiness, knowing

I can never be yours to share it...

I want happiness

I seek happiness

To cause your happiness

To be your happiness

So take me

Someplace far away

To a true Elsewhere

Please take me there

Magic that lasts

Never-ending kiss

Revere without break

Un-perishable bliss

Take me

I want happiness...

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The rain that had been falling when they left Naigai had turned even harder. It stung at Jou's eyes and skin. The riders became little more then dark, huddled shapes in the gloom as water soaked through layers of heavy chain mail armor and thick leather underpadding. The horses' heads hung low with misery.

They where forced to slow their pace as the old road became treacherous underfoot, the horses slipping dangerously in the thick brown mud.

Seto Kaiba's captive sat before him, his chin up high and spine rigged, trying to sit as far away from him as possible in something more then stubborn Saxon defiance. The blonde was not what he had expected to find at the tower.

He knew that healers where usually wrinkled old crones or stout peasant midwives who had acquired some knowledge of the healing ways.

But the boy who sat before Seto was neither.

Beneath his worn garments he was strong and slim. In spite of the bruises he had suffered from Otogi, his skin was pale and smooth like the finest silk. His hair was like the sun, golden and bright. Seto found himself wanting to feel it through his fingers again. And finally, his eyes.

The beautiful orbs that he had found himself staring into, getting lost in. He remembered how angry they had been when the blonde fought with him, and then reflected the sadness of leaving behind those he loved. Now they where fixed ahead, cool and calm, but alert. His eyes were so honest and pure, showing every emotion, unlike Seto's own. They were both so different from each other.

The boy was a surprising combination of vulnerability and strength, innocence and beguiling beauty, like a fine, rare flame that drew a hand to it's fiery heat. How had such a stunning creature wound up in that tower? Seto wondered.

Jou's thin clothing had become soaked and lay plastered against his skin. To add to his misery, the leather saddle had become slippery and he was practically sliding off his seat. He shivered from the cold. Suddenly, he felt Seto's hand wrap around his waist, holding him steady.

He wasn't used to having another person touch him like that, so he tried to pull away. But the grip held him in place.

"Be still," Seto told him, still not letting go, "or you'll unseat us both. I have no desire to end up in the mud." Jou quit squirming but didn't stop shivering.

"You are cold."

"I've been cold before," Jou informed him, trying to make distance between them. Seto settled him more firmly against himself, the weight of his chain mail-clad arm intimate possession that made the blonde go still in the saddle. A wild new fear had settled and grew inside Jou at this sudden closeness. It made him feel trapped and vulnerable in ways he'd never experienced before.

He longed to fight his way away from the brunette, longed not to feel their body heat and these strange feelings inside him.

Seto discovered there were dangers far more hazardous then finding himself suddenly unseated from his horse. Danger in the slim figure before him.

Desire knifed through him and he curse softly. He couldn't remember feeling this way since he had seen a maid (2) when he was fourteen. But this was very different. He had never had feelings for someone who was his enemy and didn't want him anywhere near.

He'd had lovers before, but only if they where willing and asked nothing of him but a few coins. He preferred the battlefield, for only there might he conquer the demons that raged as strong as physical pleasure.

Still, this simple Saxon healer, with eyes like honey and hair like spun gold, had made him feel what all those others had not.

Were it not for those layers of chain mail and leather, his reaction to her would have made itself known. He put a mantle over the blonde, for the boy still shuddered from the cold.

"It's not necessary to share your mantle with me, milord," he said, spitting out the word milord like it was poison. He pushed at the cloak around himself.

"You are wet and cold," Seto answered gruffly, refusing still to loosen his grip around the blonde's waist.

"I have been wet and cold before," he persisted, uncomfortable at the closeness between them. "I do not mind it."

"Lo mente esso (3)." Seto told him.

His breath tingled at Jou's ear and down the side of his neck, causing him to shiver with a far different sensation. What was wrong with him?

"And if you persist puerulus," Seto warned, his voice still harsh, "then I shall have you bound and trussed before me," he assured the blonde. "And you will be wrapped in this mantle. The choice is yours."

Jou didn't struggled again, but there was no surrender in his tense body.

As the hours passed, Seto felt him sway as fatigue overcame him. The blonde stiffened and stubbornly held himself rigid in the saddle before him. Eventually exhaustion won out. His chin dropped. Jou eased himself against the brunette and did not pull away. Night began to fall and even their slow pace became impossible in the darkness that closed around them. At the edge of a forest, Seto ordered his men to make camp for the night.

His Saxon captive jerked awake with that sudden alarm that is a mixture of bone-aching weariness and uncertainty of one's surroundings. Kaiba had experienced it many times in the aftermath of battle in countless lands.

Jou's hands clutched at his arm. Seto's arms wrapped around him protectively and he allowed himself to smell the soft hair he had before. He jerked himself away quickly after realizing what he was doing.

Jou had suddenly become stiff again, most likely from what Seto had just done. He pushed away from him, his eyes wary and bright in the fading light.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"We'll make camp here for the night and continue in the morning."

Seto removed the mantle from the blonde and dismounted. Relieved of his weight the large war-horse stood trembling, its glossy black coat caked with mud, sweat and lather. Steam rose from the animal's back, misting the night air. Long powerful legs that had borne two riders over many miles quivered, the large head sagging with exhaustion.

Jou shivered at the sudden loss of Kaiba's heat. His back ached and his legs cramped from sitting in the saddle for so many hours. He slipped to the ground and would have sprawled in the mud had Seto not caught him.

He pulled the blonde against him supporting his weight on his arm as the feeling slowly returned to the boy's legs. Jou quickly pushed away from him.

No squire appeared to relieve Seto of his armor or tend his horse. Instead, he unsaddled the stallion himself.

He glanced toward the forest.

"If we are to eat and keep from freezing tonight, we will need wood for a fire."

Jou looked at him with more then a little surprise. He had fully expected to be bound. It intrigued him that the brunette did not intend it.

"Aren't you afraid that I might escape?" he asked in amazement.

"You're afoot and it's a very long walk back to the abbey," he pointed out. "You don't seem *that* foolish."

"I might choose to hide out in the woods," he suggested tartly. "You would not know, then, which way I had gone."

"Yes, but eventually you would be found. However, I could not guarantee that it would be my men who would find you first."

That intriguing combination of vulnerability and strength, which Seto had seen at the abbey, flashed in the blonde's eyes. His chin came up.

"I am not afraid of Otogi."

"No, but the villagers of Naigai have reason to fear him and it is the first place Otogi will send his men if you should disappear." Kaiba assured him, "If you are found, he will burn the village. If you are not found, he will *still* burn the village." (4)

"Otogi is like an animal," he warned, continuing. "And like an animal, he is best at hunting. When not hunting he should be chained, but his master rarely keeps him chained."

More death and destruction, thought Jou shivering. This time it wasn't from the cold, but from the memory of his vision in the stone. Of a creature born in fire and blood that would sweep across the land, and a growing sense that he was being drawn toward something he could not yet understand, nor prevent.

"I will not try to escape," He said softly but the anger was clearly in his voice, as he turned towards the trees. "You have my promise."

"Do not go far." Seto warned.

Jou found no answers in the solitude of the forest, only a vague awareness that slipped across his senses, like the warning whisper of the wind as it moved through the trees.

When he returned, he discovered that Seto had made their camp near the horses. His mantle was laid across the trunk of a massive fallen oak. An area had been cleared away in front of the tree trunk. Rolls of thick furs lay at the edge of the clearing.

The campfires of his men rimmed the clearing. Otogi's men made their camp under the canopy of trees. They laid fires, striking metal against stone while others went into the woods to hunt.

Jou layered dray leaves and pieces of bark with small twigs that she found in the shelter of the fallen oak. Heat spiraled in smoky circles on the chill night air. Then a small flame burst to life.

It fed hungrily at the pieces of bark and twigs, quickly consuming them. He added more pieces, building the fire until it flared and danced about think logs that would burn long into the night.

Seized by a sudden chill, he extended his hands towards the fire. But not even the heat could drive away the cold ache that settled low inside him as he sensed danger.

Jou stood abruptly and whirled around, knowing whom he would find. So quietly had Otogi come upon him and he hadn't heard him, but instead sensed his presence.

Surprise leapt into Otogi's dark eyes, no doubt losing the advantage of surprise. Firelight played across his broad, flat features. Otogi had removed the cumbersome battle armor, his compact barreled body moving easily as he crossed the clearing to the fire as though to warm himself. He had thought to take the boy by surprise, but that hope was now gone.

"You are indeed skilled Adonis (5). You have a warm fire while others still struggle to strike the first spark."

His watchful eyes gleamed in the flat planes of his face, reminding Jou of a weasel. He remembered Seto's warning.

"It requires on great skill," he answered carefully. "I was fortunate to find dry wood." Saying that, he put more wood on the fire.

Otogi crouched before the fire with an agile movement. A blade gleamed in his hand - one that had not been there before. He probed the tip of it into the embers that had begun to form at the fire.

He turned to look up at Jou, his lips pulling back into an evil smirk. He passed a hand over the slash that Seto had made back at Oaken Arvin. But Jou's gaze was fixed on the blade in Otogi's hand. He was playing with him, much like the way an animal plays with its prey before striking.

Jou sensed his dangerous mood and thoughts, as clearly as if he had told the blonde and he also sensed the humiliation that seethed within him, like a festering wound. Jou had disgraced him before his men and then slashed him with the knife. It mattered little that he had been protecting those he loved. Otogi had come for revenge.

"He leaves you unbound and unguarded. Seto Kaiba is a fool."

The raven-haired man sprang at him like an animal; a blunt hand seizing his hair as the blade came up in the other.

"This blade is hot. It will burn as well as cut." His hand twisted in Jou's hair, pulling him closer until it was impossible for the blonde to move.

"Before I am through with you Adonis, you will cry mercy." His breath made Katsuya's skin crawl as if he'd been touched by something foul. Bile rose in his throat. Pain throbbed where his hand knotted in his hair, but he refused to cry out. Like an animal, he knew the fear would only make Otogi bolder.

"I will tame you," he vowed as he brought the blade up beside his face. "And then I will force that stubborn Saxon pride from you as you lie beneath me."

"Never."

Seto heard the painful yelp, like that of a wounded animal and swore an oath as he crossed the camp. He shouldn't have left the blonde alone.

In the light of the campfire, he saw Otogi at the clearing, standing a few feet away from the healer, who lay sprawled on the ground. Firelight gleamed from the blade of a knife that lay on the ground between them.

Seto's hand closed over the handle of the short blade at his belt as he reached the clearing. Several of his men and Otogi's followed close behind, their hands at their weapons. His hand went still at his own blade as he realized it was not the healer who had cried out.

Otogi screamed an agony of pain as he clutched one hand in the other. The flesh of one had been reddened with raised welts as if he had laid it to the fire.

"The Saxon whore attacked me!" He swung around for all to see. "Look at what he's done." And then on a snarl, "He burned me! I'll have the bastards head on a pike!"

"Cease Otogi!" Kaiba ordered.

"I will have justice for this," Otogi sputtered. "Either that or he will be subject to Yami's wrath for attacking on of his knights!"

"I see two people before me," Seto said, his gaze traveling from Otogi to where Jou knelt in the dirt before the fire.

"You doubt what I say?" Otogi demanded.

"I do not doubt that you have suffered some injury," Seto told him, "but I will also hear the cause of it from the boy."

Jou slowly lifted his head and gazed at the circle of Norman knights that had gathered. On the faces of Otogi's men she saw an animal lust for blood. Seto's men seemed less certain. He saw Malik watching him with an unsettling intensity.

Norman justice, he thought. Is it the same justice with which Yami had seized the crown of England?

"He burned himself with a blade at the fire," he answered, telling simple truth.

"He speaks lies!" Otogi accused. "He burned me with a stick! He has it in his hand."

Seto extended his hand to Jou. The blonde placed his empty hand in his.

"Your other hand as well puerulus." Kaiba said in a firm tone.

Jou looked up at him with honey-eyes. If Seto thought to discover either malice or deception there, he saw neither.

"You do not believe me."

"I do not disbelieve you."

An angry fire leapt into Jou's eyes. He extended his other hand and opened it.

A vibrant strength coursed beneath the warm satiny skin, pulsing strong and sure at the slender curve of his wrist. That same hand had calmed Seto's war-horse and brought ease of suffering to the sick and wounded of Naigai. He could almost feel energy, like that of the sun, in the flesh, muscle and bone cradled in the blonde's hand. With something very near reluctance he released her hand.

He turned to Otogi. "There is no weapon."

Fury twisted in the features as Otogi stalked past him to his own men.

"The boy attacked me," he insisted, knowing they would believe whatever he told them. "He has hidden the weapon to keep blame from himself. The Saxon is dangerous and should be punished." His men muttered agreement; they seemed to be of a similar mind. ((Mid-S: Great, just what we need. -_-))

***

"Perhaps this is the weapon you speak of," Malik suggested as he rose from where he had crouched before the fire. He held a knife in his hand. He gave it to Seto.

Seto turned it over in his hands, a distinctive blade with a boar's head handle. "I believe this belongs to you, Otogi," he suggested holding the weapon out to him.

Otogi's gaze narrowed as he stared at the blade. "It must have fallen when he attacked me."

As he reached for the knife to take it back, Kaiba seized him by the arm. With a powerful grip, he dug his fingers in between tendon and muscle at Otogi's wrist.

"You claimed she burned you with a stick from the fire."

"I have said it is so! It is there for anyone to see." Otogi flung back at him. He swore an oath and struggled, but could not free himself.

What was there for all to see in the light from the campfire was the long, slender, burn make like a brand across Otogi's palm, much as he would hold a blade, and identical in shape to the blade he claimed to have lost.

"Anyone can see," Seto growled, shoving Otogi away from him. To Otogi's men, he suggested, "Return to your campfires. The night will be long and cold."

They slowly turned and retreated, until only Otogi remained. With a barely controlled violence, he resheathed the knife at his belt, then turned and stalked away, slipping into the darkness beyond the ring of the campfire. He reappeared briefly near the campfire of one of his men. Something was said, the blade flashed in the firelight. Otogi was like a wounded hound that turned on the pack. Then the blade was resheathed and he disappeared from camp.

As he watched him, Jou was seized again by the foreboding of something that lay in the future, something that seemed to have followed them from Naigai, but which he could not see, because it lay shrouded in darkness like a pervasive, malevolent force. He shivered as if taken with a sudden chill in spite of the warmth of the fire. It was Malik Ishtar who spoke Jou's thoughts aloud as if he had read them.

"It will end in blood."

"If he so chooses," Seto answered as he too watched Otogi.

The saw no more of Otogi that night, but it made Jou feel no easier. He knew he was out there, like the darkness, waiting just beyond the edge of the campfire.

Malik had hunted and brought back from the forest two partridges, which were roasting over the fire. Across the clearing other cook fires burned, the aroma of cooking meat mingling with thick wood smoke. At others, men murmured amongst themselves as they sat bundled in thick furs against the freezing cold that hovered at the edges of the campfires and already frosted the ground in between.

Jou hadn't realized how hungry he was, his stomach grumbling noisily as the violet-eyed warrior nimbly carved a wing and leg portion from the roast partridge and handed it to him. Jou shivered again at the precise, slicing strokes as he imagined that other curved blade in his hands.

Each movement was perfectly executed with no waste, accomplishing precisely what he chose, which was to sever limbs from carcass. Jou imagined that skillful blade in battle and wondered with another shudder how many Saxons this exotic, intriguing warrior might have killed.

Still, he felt no fear of Malik. Quite the contrary. He sensed the here was someone he could trust - someone very much like himself. Although he was not a captive as he was, Malik was not Norman. Seto's men accepted him. Otogi's men did not.

After they had eaten, Seto laid several more pieces of wood on the fire, then retrieved several rolled furs from the edge of the clearing.

"It's late and we leave first light." He untied a thick roll of fur, spreading it on the ground. "You will sleep here." He told Jou.

Malik sheathed his blade and sprang nimbly to his feet. He laid out his fur at the other side of the fire, between them and the rest of the encampment. He drew a thick mantle over him, his hand resting on the handle of the blade.

Across the camp, conversations died as the other knights made their pallets before the fires.

Jou huddled before the fire. "I cannot take your blanket," he told Seto, his chin lifting slightly as he stood even closer to the fire.

Kaiba looked up from the broadsword that he carefully drew from its leather sheath. Like the others, he had removed his armor, leaving on only the undertunic and breeches. He laid the broadsword on the fur as Malik Ishtar had, and beside it the smaller blade as well.

"It was not my intention that you should puerulus," he said matter-of- factly. "We will share it."

Jou's startled gaze met his across the clearing that suddenly seemed to narrow to the width of the heavy fur that lay between them.

"We cannot," he protested with sudden alarm. "There is barely enough room for one. I'm quite used to the cold anyway."

"*I'm* not used to the cold puerulus," he said bluntly, giving the distinct impression that the matter had ended. He retrieved his mantle from the fallen oak and approached the fire.

"The night is long and will grow much colder. If my men have no objection to sharing their warmth with one another, surely you cannot."

Jou glanced to where Malik was, seemingly already asleep.

"He is a very restless sleeper," Seto commented. "It can be dangerous to sleep too close."

Then Jou glanced at his sword.

"I'm not a restless sleeper," he assured him, the added as if to convince the blonde, "You are fully clothed and I'm not given to ravishing boys as they sleep."

With the bitter cold already seeping around the edges of his clothes, Jou reluctantly accepted the fact that if they were to survive the night, it must be together. He slowly approached the fur pallet, taking only a narrow space at the edge for himself and leaving the larger portion for Seto.

He did not immediately join him, but instead spread the mantle over him. Then, Jou heard the rhythmic sound of a stone being drawn repeatedly across metal as he sharpened the blade of the broadsword.

The brunette seemed to be giving him time to adjust to their unusual sleeping arrangements, or perhaps lingering as if he too, was waiting for something. But what?

Was it possible that he expected Otogi to return during the night? By the blade beneath the violet-eyed warrior's hand, it seemed more then one anticipated it.

He felt no alarm at the possibility, only an acceptance of what he knew to be true. It would come. Otogi would strike again, for such was the nature of animals. But it would not be tonight.

The fire warmed across his face, the heavy mantle and thick fur warmed the rest of him. His eyes grew heavy.

Exhaustion ached through him, creeping into his bones with a sort of liquid feeling. Then there was only the darkness of sleep.

Much later, Seto joined him at the fur pallet, drawing the mantle over both of them. The blonde lay on his side, knees drawn up. He shivered slightly at the sudden intrusion of cold air, but didn't waken. Instead, he curled more tightly within himself.

The fur was meant for only one person and Seto had no intention of waking in the morning with frostbitten hands, feet or back. And he was certain the closeness of the blonde's body on the pallet couldn't be any more disconcerting then sitting with him in the saddle.

Exhaustion and sleep had eased the rigid tension from his slender body. He lay pliant and completely relaxed in the deep fur, one slender hand pillowing his cheek, the other falling over the edge of the fur.

Seto reached to tuck his hand beneath the thick mantle. His hand was icy cold as he put it under the warm mantle.

That's when he discovered precisely what was worse then sitting astride a saddle with the boys body nestled against his mail-clad chest - his lips way too close for comfort.

"Aw crap!" he swore softly. It was going to be a very long night.

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(1): This is a piece of a poem from the anime 'Clover'. It's only a little bit of it, so I'll be adding the next part of it in the next chapter!

(2): He doesn't mean a maid, maid he means a maid like a girl.

(3): It means 'I mind it' in Italian. I just love this language! ^_^

(4): Hm, nice guy isn't he? -_-

(5): Adonis means 'a beautiful young man, beloved of Venus (the goddess)'. Otogi is using this mockingly, just to mess with Jou's mind.

Mid-S: Oooh, it's getting hot in here! ^O^ Hope you all liked it! R&R please! Oh, could you all tell me what you think of the poem so far in your reviews? Thanks so much! Love you all and I'll get the next chapter out soon!