Stolen
Disclaimer: Let's see, none of the characters from the anime belong to me, but everyone else in the story does. I really don't like writing these things.
Kristin: I had such a busy week! I had four choir concerts (I'm in three different choirs: school, church, and community) this week and two Christmas parties to go to. And what is it about the week before exams that make teachers want to bury you under a mountain of homework and tests? *sighs and shoves unstudied science notes under the bed* Oh well, it's over now. I took the two exams I didn't exempt from and now I get to lay around the house with nothing more important to do than work on my writing.
In this chapter I'm going to do something that I always swore I would never do. I'm doing a flashback scene. *hides her face in shame* I'm sorry! I've tried to be strong but it's just so hard! Please forgive me.
Oh! One more thing. I LOVE President Bush! (not romantically of course) When I heard that Saddam had been captured I was so happy I started dancing. I am very much a Republican and proud of it. Don't care if you disagree with me, just don't flame if you're a Liberal or Democrat.
Chapter Five
***
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak.
-William Shakespeare
***
The soothing melody of Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3 drifted lightly through the room. Adora leaned back in an overstuffed armchair, her eyes closed in blissful rapture as the music lulled her into a state of quiet contentment. She languidly took a sip of water from a wineglass and fingered the dog-eared pages of the thick volume in her lap. Across the room Yukio hummed along with the orchestra as he studied the book of philosophy on the desk before him. Growing up, days like these had been her favorite. Days when she could almost believe that the relationship she shared with Yukio normal, and if she waited long enough the door would open and Toritsuki would glide into the room and tell her a story. Adora glanced up at Yukio from beneath long eyelashes. He hadn't always been this way. She didn't remember a lot from before Toritsuki's death, but she remembered that much.
Any other day of the year she hated him. Any other day she would dream of his death and her freedom. Any other day but this one. In a few hours things would go back to the way that they should be, with Yukio in solitude and Adora surrounded by the other girls, but for now all of that didn't matter. For now she would love and pity him and remember the way he was before it happened. And in exactly a year she would find herself back in the same room with the same glass in her hand, the same book of fairytales in her lap, and the same music playing in the background. She continued to stare up at him, but remained silent, acknowledging and understanding the unspoken agreement between them. Yukio seemed to feel her gaze and looked up with a gentle smile, an expression that looked tremendously out of place on his face. He glanced from the clock on the mantel to the door with a pointed look on his face. Adora shook her head, her hair let down from its usual clip swinging freely, and settled back into the chair more securely. Yukio nodded and turned back to his reading.
Dong! Adora started slightly as the clock began to toll midnight. Dong! She rose fluidly from her chair, tossing the book down onto the seat and setting the wineglass on a side table, and crossed the room to Yukio's side. Dong! She sank down to the floor and rested her cheek against his knee. Dong! Yukio looked down at her and threaded his fingers in her hair.
Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong!
Adora tensed against Yukio's leg and squeezed her eyes close. Dong! Yukio's fingers, now tangled in Adora's hair, tightened their grip around Adora's scalp. Dong! Midnight.
For a long moment the air hung thick and heavy with anticipation before a piercing scream ripped through the silence and an icy, damp wind whipped through the room. Then all was quiet once more.
Adora relaxed against Yukio for a brief instant, then stood. Yukio's hand fell limply by his side as the woman stood and he stonily studied the grain of the desk's wooden top. Adora rested the tips of her fingers against the crown of his head for a minute, noting the slight trembling of his shoulders and the single drop of liquid on the desk's surface. With a nod to the crying man in front of her, Adora turned and left the room, her own eyes filling with tears as she walked. With a hushed sob she closed the door behind her and slid down the smooth surface and tucked her knees up under her chin.
Two hundred and thirty-one years was a long time to be separated from a person you were close with, but it was even longer when the only other person who understood your loss was the one who caused it, however inadvertently they might have done it.
"Adora-hime! Adora-hime!" Adora slowly lifted her head as Ayoka's younger sister ran toward her. Her eyes narrowed slightly as the harried girl approached her. Didn't she remember what today, or rather night, was? How dare she encroach upon this sacred time!
"What do you want, Tiombe," Adora asked, a slight chill entering her normally warm voice. The girl seemed unaware of the near hostility that boiled beneath the usually even-tempered woman's suddenly calm demeanor, and reached out to tug on her arm.
"You must come immediately, Adora-hime! Ayoka sent me to get you. Miss Lina woke up and is behaving uncontrollably," the ten-year-old exclaimed as she pulled on Adora's arm more forcefully. Adora frown, still not pleased with being disturbed during one of the few times she considered purely her own, but rose to her feet and followed the child down the hallway.
*
Yukio could remember it like it was yesterday instead of over two hundred years ago as. He slumped over the desk with a pained scowl. He should have seen it coming, had seen it coming. Accusations flew through his mind as it brought up memories of that night so many years ago.
It had been a night much like the current one, dreary and pelting rain in a torrent of divine fury. The wind howled and screeched with pain and anger as biting raindrops tore through it and muffled its scream. In a sharp contrast to the bleak storm outside, Yukio's study was snug and cozy with a large fire crackling merrily in the fireplace, diffusing its hospitable warm throughout the room. Yukio himself was perched before his desk, a leather-bound book of philosophy opened before unseeing, contemplative eyes. In one corner, barely illuminated in a halo of flickering candlelight, six-year-old Adora sat in a large armchair that completely engulfed her slight form. A huge book nearly as large as her was tucked beside her and one of Yukio's best wineglasses filled with water was being used by the young child, who still found merely being allowed to touch such a goblet a delight in itself.
Yukio glanced at Adora and then at the clock. With a small twinge of regret he cleared his throat to gain the girl's attention. He waited until she looked up at him with large, trusting eyes before speaking. "It's getting close to midnight, Adora. You should be in bed now." The little girl shook her head vehemently, a look of dismay flashing across her round face as bright and striking as the lightening that exploded outside the window.
"I couldn't! She promised to read me a story before bed," the girl said, her voice's pitch rising with each word. "She would never break a promise!" Yukio sighed, but conceded to Adora's whim even as a small voice in the back of his mind informed him that he shouldn't spoil her as he did. A louder part, the part that didn't mind spoiling the little girl rotten, wondered fitfully what was keeping Toritsuki.
"Of course she would never break a promise, my dear. I'm sure she has merely lost track of time and will be along shortly. I apologize for ever insinuating that she would be untruthful." Adora smiled brilliantly in response to his apology and tumbled out of the bulky chair, tripping over the edge of her oversized nightdress. The book fell over onto the seat cushion that its owner had just vacated, the dog-eared pages rustling with the alluring promise of stories that were sure to delight a young mind. With extreme care Adora placed the wineglass down beside the gilded candelabra that sat beside the chair on a small table. With an inborn grace that came from generations of high breeding, Adora crossed the room and sat at Yukio's feet as the first of twelve 'dongs' began to call from the clock that decorated the mantel.
"You're forgiven," she said with a large smile as Yukio reached down to brush her loose hair from her eyes. "But only if you tell me what in- insinuating means," she added, stumbling over the unfamiliar word. Yukio opened his mouth with a laugh to answer Adora when the last 'dong' rang out from the clock and a scream sounded in the sudden silence. A few brief seconds later the window exploded inward in a burst of shattered glass and pouring rain. The glass littered the floor, shining like precious gems as beads of rainwater collected on their slick surfaces as the curtains were rustled by the sharp wind.
Lightening flashed, illuminating the room and drawing Yukio and Adora's attention to the figure that dangled before the window, a thin cord around her elegant neck. Long, light brown hair was matted to her slender body by the rain and the flickering lightening was reflected by her lifeless black eyes. Yukio stood slowly as Adora pressed her face into his calf in horror.
"Toritsuki."
*
Adora flung open the bedroom door and entered with the ominous presence of a dark thundercloud, the timid Tiombe cowering behind her. Her mind was filled with bad memories and the last thing she felt like doing was dealing with a temperamental sorceress who thought that her life was so much worse than that of everyone else in the palace. "Where is she," she ground out, not trusting herself not to scream if she did anything more than hiss. Ayoka, who had seen her in a similar mood before, wisely remained silent and simply pointed at the bathroom door. With a curt nod she passed through that door as well, barely refraining from slamming it as she did so.
Lina was scrubbing brutally at her already red skin when she entered. Adora took one look at the younger girl, kneeling naked in a the steaming water, her skin rubbed raw by its harsh treatment and scalded by the scorching water, and all her anger melted away. She suddenly felt very old and tired. "Lina," she asked softly, "What are you doing?"
The fiery sorceress looked up in surprise and stilled. Her eyes gleamed with a maniacal light and her lips parted to form a small 'o'. "I'm covered with filth," she said in an oddly calm voice. "I'm trying to clean myself, but the stains won't come off." Lina looked up at Adora in confusion and lifted her raw but spotless arms for the older girl's inspection. "Why won't it go away," she asked with childlike wonder. Adora plucked a towel from a rack and helped Lina out of the water, wrapping the large length of terrycloth around her battered body as she did so to cover her nudity. Lina trembled from the sudden shock of the comparatively cold air and offered Adora a shaky smile. After a moment the smile widened and the girl laughed, slipping out of Adora's grasp and down onto the floor. She rocked back and forth, her arms wrapped tightly around her waist as she doubled over in hysterical laughter. Adora knelt before her, fighting back panic, and clutched her shoulders tightly.
"Lina, why are you laughing," she asked, her own voice quivering a bit as Lina pitched forward and buried her face in her shoulder. Adora instinctively wrapped her arms around the smaller girl and slowly slowed her movements until the violent rocking became a soothing sway.
"If I don't laugh," Lina breathed fitfully between chortles, "then I'll start to cry and I won't be able to stop. I'm supposed to be too strong to cry."
Adora tightened her embrace on Lina. "It's alright to cry, child. No one would deny you that much at this point," she whispered, her eyes fixed on the far wall. The laughter slowly died to be replaced by body racking sobs. Adora held the crying girl until she drifted to sleep and called Ayoka in to help her carry Lina back to bed.
***
Kristin: I know! It was short and really bad and confusing. I meant to answer some lingering questions this time, like exactly how Lina was kidnapped, but instead all I managed to do was create more! I swear it's like I don't even have control over this story anymore. It is completely writing itself. If anyone is to be blamed it's the characters, not me. Unless you liked it. Then it was all me.
* Tiombe- Tiombe is an African name that means shy.
Tiombe hasn't really had a big part yet, and to be truthful probably won't have a very big part at all. Therefore I didn't feel a huge urge to do anything remarkably meaningful when it came to naming her. However, you will be able to tell that she's one of those painfully shy people who never even look other people in the eye. You know the ones I'm talking about; the ones that most people assume are snobs.
Special Thanks:
Irusta- I looked Adora's name up again. It's Latin, and French and Spanish are two of the languages that sort of sprouted from Latin, so you were pretty close in your guesses.
Ivan Inverse- I swear that the instant I saw the words 'MURDEROUS WRATH' I thought that you hated the story and wanted to kill me! Took me a second to finish the sentence and see you meant Yukio.
Slayers Otaku-Girl- I love sticking meanings on things. That and listening to my English teacher have started what I'm afraid is becoming a bit of a complex. Oh well. As for the thing with the bunny and dust mop and carrot, I swear that I just sat down at the computer and it came out. I meant for that scene to be completely different then it was but when I tried to write it the way that I wanted I just couldn't.
paintedstars- If you were confused because of the stuff the Lina was seeing, then the answer is that she was filled with a bunch of drugs that made her hallucinate.
Dan Inverse
nightcrawler no miko
deep sea dolphin- *pulls the meshit off of deep sea dolphin and hug it* Aren't they just so cute? I'm really working on trying to make the chapters longer, but it isn't going exactly the way I had hoped.
Unearthly Emperor
Disclaimer: Let's see, none of the characters from the anime belong to me, but everyone else in the story does. I really don't like writing these things.
Kristin: I had such a busy week! I had four choir concerts (I'm in three different choirs: school, church, and community) this week and two Christmas parties to go to. And what is it about the week before exams that make teachers want to bury you under a mountain of homework and tests? *sighs and shoves unstudied science notes under the bed* Oh well, it's over now. I took the two exams I didn't exempt from and now I get to lay around the house with nothing more important to do than work on my writing.
In this chapter I'm going to do something that I always swore I would never do. I'm doing a flashback scene. *hides her face in shame* I'm sorry! I've tried to be strong but it's just so hard! Please forgive me.
Oh! One more thing. I LOVE President Bush! (not romantically of course) When I heard that Saddam had been captured I was so happy I started dancing. I am very much a Republican and proud of it. Don't care if you disagree with me, just don't flame if you're a Liberal or Democrat.
Chapter Five
***
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak.
-William Shakespeare
***
The soothing melody of Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3 drifted lightly through the room. Adora leaned back in an overstuffed armchair, her eyes closed in blissful rapture as the music lulled her into a state of quiet contentment. She languidly took a sip of water from a wineglass and fingered the dog-eared pages of the thick volume in her lap. Across the room Yukio hummed along with the orchestra as he studied the book of philosophy on the desk before him. Growing up, days like these had been her favorite. Days when she could almost believe that the relationship she shared with Yukio normal, and if she waited long enough the door would open and Toritsuki would glide into the room and tell her a story. Adora glanced up at Yukio from beneath long eyelashes. He hadn't always been this way. She didn't remember a lot from before Toritsuki's death, but she remembered that much.
Any other day of the year she hated him. Any other day she would dream of his death and her freedom. Any other day but this one. In a few hours things would go back to the way that they should be, with Yukio in solitude and Adora surrounded by the other girls, but for now all of that didn't matter. For now she would love and pity him and remember the way he was before it happened. And in exactly a year she would find herself back in the same room with the same glass in her hand, the same book of fairytales in her lap, and the same music playing in the background. She continued to stare up at him, but remained silent, acknowledging and understanding the unspoken agreement between them. Yukio seemed to feel her gaze and looked up with a gentle smile, an expression that looked tremendously out of place on his face. He glanced from the clock on the mantel to the door with a pointed look on his face. Adora shook her head, her hair let down from its usual clip swinging freely, and settled back into the chair more securely. Yukio nodded and turned back to his reading.
Dong! Adora started slightly as the clock began to toll midnight. Dong! She rose fluidly from her chair, tossing the book down onto the seat and setting the wineglass on a side table, and crossed the room to Yukio's side. Dong! She sank down to the floor and rested her cheek against his knee. Dong! Yukio looked down at her and threaded his fingers in her hair.
Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong!
Adora tensed against Yukio's leg and squeezed her eyes close. Dong! Yukio's fingers, now tangled in Adora's hair, tightened their grip around Adora's scalp. Dong! Midnight.
For a long moment the air hung thick and heavy with anticipation before a piercing scream ripped through the silence and an icy, damp wind whipped through the room. Then all was quiet once more.
Adora relaxed against Yukio for a brief instant, then stood. Yukio's hand fell limply by his side as the woman stood and he stonily studied the grain of the desk's wooden top. Adora rested the tips of her fingers against the crown of his head for a minute, noting the slight trembling of his shoulders and the single drop of liquid on the desk's surface. With a nod to the crying man in front of her, Adora turned and left the room, her own eyes filling with tears as she walked. With a hushed sob she closed the door behind her and slid down the smooth surface and tucked her knees up under her chin.
Two hundred and thirty-one years was a long time to be separated from a person you were close with, but it was even longer when the only other person who understood your loss was the one who caused it, however inadvertently they might have done it.
"Adora-hime! Adora-hime!" Adora slowly lifted her head as Ayoka's younger sister ran toward her. Her eyes narrowed slightly as the harried girl approached her. Didn't she remember what today, or rather night, was? How dare she encroach upon this sacred time!
"What do you want, Tiombe," Adora asked, a slight chill entering her normally warm voice. The girl seemed unaware of the near hostility that boiled beneath the usually even-tempered woman's suddenly calm demeanor, and reached out to tug on her arm.
"You must come immediately, Adora-hime! Ayoka sent me to get you. Miss Lina woke up and is behaving uncontrollably," the ten-year-old exclaimed as she pulled on Adora's arm more forcefully. Adora frown, still not pleased with being disturbed during one of the few times she considered purely her own, but rose to her feet and followed the child down the hallway.
*
Yukio could remember it like it was yesterday instead of over two hundred years ago as. He slumped over the desk with a pained scowl. He should have seen it coming, had seen it coming. Accusations flew through his mind as it brought up memories of that night so many years ago.
It had been a night much like the current one, dreary and pelting rain in a torrent of divine fury. The wind howled and screeched with pain and anger as biting raindrops tore through it and muffled its scream. In a sharp contrast to the bleak storm outside, Yukio's study was snug and cozy with a large fire crackling merrily in the fireplace, diffusing its hospitable warm throughout the room. Yukio himself was perched before his desk, a leather-bound book of philosophy opened before unseeing, contemplative eyes. In one corner, barely illuminated in a halo of flickering candlelight, six-year-old Adora sat in a large armchair that completely engulfed her slight form. A huge book nearly as large as her was tucked beside her and one of Yukio's best wineglasses filled with water was being used by the young child, who still found merely being allowed to touch such a goblet a delight in itself.
Yukio glanced at Adora and then at the clock. With a small twinge of regret he cleared his throat to gain the girl's attention. He waited until she looked up at him with large, trusting eyes before speaking. "It's getting close to midnight, Adora. You should be in bed now." The little girl shook her head vehemently, a look of dismay flashing across her round face as bright and striking as the lightening that exploded outside the window.
"I couldn't! She promised to read me a story before bed," the girl said, her voice's pitch rising with each word. "She would never break a promise!" Yukio sighed, but conceded to Adora's whim even as a small voice in the back of his mind informed him that he shouldn't spoil her as he did. A louder part, the part that didn't mind spoiling the little girl rotten, wondered fitfully what was keeping Toritsuki.
"Of course she would never break a promise, my dear. I'm sure she has merely lost track of time and will be along shortly. I apologize for ever insinuating that she would be untruthful." Adora smiled brilliantly in response to his apology and tumbled out of the bulky chair, tripping over the edge of her oversized nightdress. The book fell over onto the seat cushion that its owner had just vacated, the dog-eared pages rustling with the alluring promise of stories that were sure to delight a young mind. With extreme care Adora placed the wineglass down beside the gilded candelabra that sat beside the chair on a small table. With an inborn grace that came from generations of high breeding, Adora crossed the room and sat at Yukio's feet as the first of twelve 'dongs' began to call from the clock that decorated the mantel.
"You're forgiven," she said with a large smile as Yukio reached down to brush her loose hair from her eyes. "But only if you tell me what in- insinuating means," she added, stumbling over the unfamiliar word. Yukio opened his mouth with a laugh to answer Adora when the last 'dong' rang out from the clock and a scream sounded in the sudden silence. A few brief seconds later the window exploded inward in a burst of shattered glass and pouring rain. The glass littered the floor, shining like precious gems as beads of rainwater collected on their slick surfaces as the curtains were rustled by the sharp wind.
Lightening flashed, illuminating the room and drawing Yukio and Adora's attention to the figure that dangled before the window, a thin cord around her elegant neck. Long, light brown hair was matted to her slender body by the rain and the flickering lightening was reflected by her lifeless black eyes. Yukio stood slowly as Adora pressed her face into his calf in horror.
"Toritsuki."
*
Adora flung open the bedroom door and entered with the ominous presence of a dark thundercloud, the timid Tiombe cowering behind her. Her mind was filled with bad memories and the last thing she felt like doing was dealing with a temperamental sorceress who thought that her life was so much worse than that of everyone else in the palace. "Where is she," she ground out, not trusting herself not to scream if she did anything more than hiss. Ayoka, who had seen her in a similar mood before, wisely remained silent and simply pointed at the bathroom door. With a curt nod she passed through that door as well, barely refraining from slamming it as she did so.
Lina was scrubbing brutally at her already red skin when she entered. Adora took one look at the younger girl, kneeling naked in a the steaming water, her skin rubbed raw by its harsh treatment and scalded by the scorching water, and all her anger melted away. She suddenly felt very old and tired. "Lina," she asked softly, "What are you doing?"
The fiery sorceress looked up in surprise and stilled. Her eyes gleamed with a maniacal light and her lips parted to form a small 'o'. "I'm covered with filth," she said in an oddly calm voice. "I'm trying to clean myself, but the stains won't come off." Lina looked up at Adora in confusion and lifted her raw but spotless arms for the older girl's inspection. "Why won't it go away," she asked with childlike wonder. Adora plucked a towel from a rack and helped Lina out of the water, wrapping the large length of terrycloth around her battered body as she did so to cover her nudity. Lina trembled from the sudden shock of the comparatively cold air and offered Adora a shaky smile. After a moment the smile widened and the girl laughed, slipping out of Adora's grasp and down onto the floor. She rocked back and forth, her arms wrapped tightly around her waist as she doubled over in hysterical laughter. Adora knelt before her, fighting back panic, and clutched her shoulders tightly.
"Lina, why are you laughing," she asked, her own voice quivering a bit as Lina pitched forward and buried her face in her shoulder. Adora instinctively wrapped her arms around the smaller girl and slowly slowed her movements until the violent rocking became a soothing sway.
"If I don't laugh," Lina breathed fitfully between chortles, "then I'll start to cry and I won't be able to stop. I'm supposed to be too strong to cry."
Adora tightened her embrace on Lina. "It's alright to cry, child. No one would deny you that much at this point," she whispered, her eyes fixed on the far wall. The laughter slowly died to be replaced by body racking sobs. Adora held the crying girl until she drifted to sleep and called Ayoka in to help her carry Lina back to bed.
***
Kristin: I know! It was short and really bad and confusing. I meant to answer some lingering questions this time, like exactly how Lina was kidnapped, but instead all I managed to do was create more! I swear it's like I don't even have control over this story anymore. It is completely writing itself. If anyone is to be blamed it's the characters, not me. Unless you liked it. Then it was all me.
* Tiombe- Tiombe is an African name that means shy.
Tiombe hasn't really had a big part yet, and to be truthful probably won't have a very big part at all. Therefore I didn't feel a huge urge to do anything remarkably meaningful when it came to naming her. However, you will be able to tell that she's one of those painfully shy people who never even look other people in the eye. You know the ones I'm talking about; the ones that most people assume are snobs.
Special Thanks:
Irusta- I looked Adora's name up again. It's Latin, and French and Spanish are two of the languages that sort of sprouted from Latin, so you were pretty close in your guesses.
Ivan Inverse- I swear that the instant I saw the words 'MURDEROUS WRATH' I thought that you hated the story and wanted to kill me! Took me a second to finish the sentence and see you meant Yukio.
Slayers Otaku-Girl- I love sticking meanings on things. That and listening to my English teacher have started what I'm afraid is becoming a bit of a complex. Oh well. As for the thing with the bunny and dust mop and carrot, I swear that I just sat down at the computer and it came out. I meant for that scene to be completely different then it was but when I tried to write it the way that I wanted I just couldn't.
paintedstars- If you were confused because of the stuff the Lina was seeing, then the answer is that she was filled with a bunch of drugs that made her hallucinate.
Dan Inverse
nightcrawler no miko
deep sea dolphin- *pulls the meshit off of deep sea dolphin and hug it* Aren't they just so cute? I'm really working on trying to make the chapters longer, but it isn't going exactly the way I had hoped.
Unearthly Emperor