Winter Rose, Chapter Six
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She awakens to twilight, her beloved and her soul-brother seated on branches in a tree not too far from the gaping gargoyle mouth that is their target's entrance. Feeling her awareness refocus on him, Yoko glances upwards and puts a finger to his lips for silence. Nodding, she settles lightly on his shoulders like she's done once before, making the fox shiver in response.
Scanning their surroundings, she notices the pendant around Kuronue's neck and flattens her ears, tensing. Shooting a startled glance at her, Kuronue then looks at Yoko in questioning. /Chain,/ she chances, whispering it to Yoko as faintly as she possibly can with the chance of it still being heard. Yoko in turns tugs at a nonexistent necklace chain, and Kuronue blanches, mouthing 'kuso!'
The chain holding his valued pendant is still the one he was wearing when he left, gleaming in places from the newer links she had used to replace the broken ones. Shrugging to say 'oh, well, too late now' the bat demon returns his attention to studying the terrain in front of them, leaving Aislin to screech profanities in her head at them for being all kinds of stupid. She falls silent when the sun finishes setting and the two slip off, she remaining there in order to avoid tripping any alarms set to detect astral forms and endangering them.
The two are here for a very special prize: the Mirror of Truth, a sister to the Mirror of Utter Dark/Forlorn Hope. Their targeted mirror reflects the truth of any situation or appearance, so long as one phrases the correct question to it. Some sorcerer who thought he was also a Bard had created it, and set it so that once must recite the question in a rhyming couplet beginning with 'mirror, mirror'. Tales of it had even spread to the Ningenkai, hidden in children's fairy tales as a wicked Queen's magic mirror.
She jolts at the klaxon of alarms suddenly yammering their warning to the previously silent air, and figuring that the alarms were already awake, Aislin moves closer to watch and wait. The trees turn into a barrier of bamboo canes, but it is with relief that she spots her men racing from the gargoyle mouth into open air.
Smirking, Yoko shows their prize to her--the Mirror, undamaged and gleaming in the moonlight--for just a moment before the two run off ahead of the guards. That feeling of doom rushes down Aislin's insubstantial spine when they get halfway through the bamboo forest, Kuronue crying out in dismay as the chain snaps and his pendant falls with a soft thump to the lush ground.
"Leave it!" Yoko commands pleadingly, but the bat demon turns back.
"I need it!" he calls back, and practically dives on the gem, holding it up in relief and turning to run. Aislin's ghostly scream mingles with Yoko's as spears of bamboo plummet around them and into Kuronue's body, pinning him by the leg to the spot in a shower of bladed leaves. With his last breaths, the bat demon commands his friend to flee, and with many looks back the silver fox reluctantly does so.
Aislin stays behind, stunned, and then streaks to Kuronue's still body and touches his cheek gently with her paw. To her surprise he chuckles, coughs up blood, and opens deep blue eyes to smile. "Sorry, ice-girl. Guess I don't get that wine after all. Sorry to break my promise."
/Baka,/ she cries, tears falling into nothingness as she wraps herself around him. /I told you you should have gotten a new chain./
"Stupid me," the bat demon agrees weakly as the guards surround him, uncertain as to why he's suddenly covered in shimmering silver powder as the severed artery in his leg continues to bleed at an alarming pace. "Goodbye…heart-sister. Tell Yoko…I'm sorry." A few moments later the midnight eyes drift shut and his body slumps to the ground, falling through Aislin while he's at it, leaving her to hang in the air and throw her head back to keen when she can no longer hear his heartbeat.
The guards stagger back in shock at the ear-piercing sound, Aislin pouring all her grief into her subsonic ability and willing for the guards' own hearts to burst in retribution for her loss while she slowly drifts down to sit beside her dear friend and mourn.
First one falls, and then another and another; most of the confused apparitions have fallen before Aislin sees through her grief enough to reach the rage boiling just beneath. Instantly ice coats everything in sight right up to the mansion, except for a small oval around the fallen body of Kuronue. Stepping lightly, footfalls sending up tiny clouds of her signature platinum dust, she walks over to one of the still standing guards and growls in deadly fury.
/You killed him!/ she howls, power sending her fur and tails upwards in a rush of icy wind, the frozen male shattering into hundreds of pieces. Hatred unslaked, she stalks over to the next and does the same thing to him, rejoicing at the sight of his shattered remains. She does this to every single frozen statue, even the ones of the already-dead guards, until there is nothing left but bite-sized chunks scattered all around.
Only then does she slowly walk back to Kuronue's motionless form and gently touches his cheek with her nose. By his hand is his cherished pendant, broken chain coiled like a dead silvery snake half in, half out of the growing puddle of blood. Using more of her nearly-limitless energy she solidifies and delicately picks the pendant and chain up in her teeth before settling cat-like on Kuronue's body and focusing on the easily-detected energy signature of her lodestone. /Home,/ she whispers, and both vanish into the darkness.
===
She comes to herself with a thump and a cry, feeling the solid weight of a cold body sprawled on top of her legs. Bolting upright into a sitting position, she finds to her grief that the images she remembers are not just illusions of the Void as she had hoped, for laid across her blanketed legs is the corpse of her soul-brother Kuronue, a trace of blood still dripping from the fatal leg wound.
Gasping at first, the gasps soon dissolve into wracking sobs as she throws herself across Kuronue and weeps into the back of his shirt, still mindful of the small wings folded limply against his back to never be used again. That thought brings on a torrent of fresh tears and black gems, footsteps reaching her grief-fogged ears and exclamations heard as her thieves run into the room to find out the reason for her crying.
Hands grab her shoulders and pull her only slightly away, shaking her to gain her attention. Gulping, she breaks her attention away from Kuronue to the still-living face of Ikazuchi, the lightning-wolf demon who had given her Koenma's letter and who is now a skilled thief and one of Yoko's captains despite his youth. "Aislin-san! Aislin-san, please! What about Yoko-san??"
"A…live," she chokes out, a fraction of the tension in the room leaking away at the welcome news. "On…his…way." Ikazuchi lets his ears fold back in sorrow and he wraps her in a hug, the koorime breaking down again and sobbing into his shoulder, hands clutching at his rough wool shirt as though clinging for dear life. All around her the news is being spread, both the good and the bad, and various cries of grief are becoming audible throughout the caves as everyone gives into their sorrow at the passing of a comrade.
Someone else comes beside Aislin and reaches across her to the blankets on the other side, hand coming away from the furs with a soft exclamation of surprise. Aislin glances up, spots Kuronue's pendant being held by a hanyou blood demon new to the gang, and snatches it with a hiss out of the clawed hand, blood-shot eyes daring him to protest. Holding his hands up in a peaceful, defensive gesture the demon backs off.
Wiping away her tears and ignoring the black gems that fall to the ground and into the furs, Aislin rises to her feet and grabs a robe, wrapping it around her shivering body and looking once more with sorrow-filled eyes at her slain friend. "Take him to the Death-chamber, Ikazuchi. Yoko will want to say his goodbyes before we send our friend on his way."
"Yes, Aislin-sama. I swear it will be done," the lightning-wolf tells her solemnly, tenderly rolling the body face-up and lifting it in powerful arms as though it weighed nothing. Yes, it, Aislin thinks to herself. I cannot think what that used to be, or else I will collapse into despair. And I cannot do that, the band needs me until Yoko returns. So, 'it' it shall be until I have the luxury of mourning. But she can't help but feel a stab of guilt at the feeling she has somehow betrayed her friend as she follows the captain out of her room and down the corridors to the Death-chamber.
Half a day later as the sun reaches zenith, a half-conscious Yoko staggers into the Lair, Mirror in a strangle-hold in his hands. Quietly he is led to the Death-chamber, where Aislin still kneels numbly on the floor in front of the altar-like slab upon which Kuronue's body is displayed in funeral glory. She hasn't bothered to change into something besides the robe, perfectly comfortable in the stone-chilled room filled with lit candles to illuminate the high ceiling. Her eyes stare ahead unblinkingly, dry of any tears and with none glittering on the floor around her.
The Mirror is rescued by Yoko's guide when it falls from his suddenly-limp fingers as he staggers forward, sobs beginning to shake his entire body at the sight of his friend's still form before him, and not behind in a pauper's grave as he had thought. As he had feared.
"How..?" he gasps out, turning to the unblinking koorime.
"I brought him here. It's the only thing I can do in my astral form, and only when I have the right motivation." A cheerless smile that resembles more of a grimace bares her fangs to gleam in the candle-light. "Obviously the circumstances were right." She turns her head to gaze at him, emotions finally filling her eyes and spilling outwards as more tears, of black and purple and red and blue gems that chime as they fall and roll away. "He bled to death in front of me, Yoko. I couldn't save him…I wanted to! Oh, Inari, I wanted to!" On legs weak from running too far, too fast and hard, Yoko stumbles to her side and drops to his knees, enfolding her into a fierce hug as both of them keen their grief to the silent gods.
===
"Again, she destroys a mansion," Koenma says quietly to the human man standing beside him, the pacifier once again in the child-ruler's mouth and being chewed on pensively. "But why this one? What did they do to her?" It is a week after the disastrous robbery, and the Spirit World Enforcers have arrived to another scene of utter annihilation.
"Koenma-sama!" An ogre waves from farther away from the rubble that once was a gargoyle-mouthed entrance. "Over here! We think we found something!"
Rushing over, Koenma and the human are stopped by an unexpected sight. Standing in a circle of soggy bits of flesh is a glittering statue of ice in the form of a male bat-demon; highly-detailed, life-sized and shining to everyone's Sight with focused rei energy and magic among broken canes of bamboo. In raised, frozen letters made of blood is written: 'In memoriam of Kuronue Skyleaper. The destruction of his killers and their home shall forever stand as a reminder.'
"Reminder?" the human man wonders aloud. "Reminder of what?"
"To never kill someone dear to me," Aislin replies icily from beside the statue. "This is their punishment."
"This amount of destruction isn't like you, Moors-san," Koenma scolds her calmly, never moving an inch though the man jumped about a foot at the sight of someone appearing out of thin air less than three feet away. A cold, deadly smile blooms onto the mask-like face and a humorless laugh rings throughout the clearing.
"You haven't seen me when I'm really angry, Koenma. They destroyed something incredibly precious to me. I simply returned the favor tenfold." She moves away from the statue, one hand lingering briefly on the frozen arm, stepping lightly over the words to stand arrogantly before the child-king. A light gesture freezes the various people attempting to sneak up on her with restraints, and she makes that frozen laugh again, not a trace of subsonics in it; only the sounds of pain and loss. The koorime rakes the human male with an assessing gaze before jerking a thumb at him and looking back at Koenma. "New Spirit Detective?" she inquires indifferently and the toddler nods.
"Indeed. I had hoped you two would meet under different circumstances, but I suppose now will do. Aislin Moors, meet Hatsuharu Aneibara."
"'Shadowrose'? Pretty ambitious name you've got there." The raven-haired man simply stares glacially back at her, arms folded across his black-clad chest.
"I am from a long line of ninjutsu practitioners," he informs her icily. "My ancestors chose our surname in respects to our profession."
"I suppose you've been dead once, too." The statement is bitter, sour.
"Yes."
"Yippee for you, ningen. If some others were so fortunate as you, I wouldn'tve had to do so much damage. You have my warning and reminder, Koenma. I'll see you around. If you're unlucky." As she walks around him and starts passing among his temporarily-frozen employees, she calls back over her shoulder, "And don't bother trying to get a reading of my energy off that statue, Koenma. The preservation spell is linked very thoroughly in with it, and if you actually waste your time in trying it'll just give you a jumbled bunch of nonsense and end up pointing you in the direction of Ningenkai's Alaska. Sayonara." And she leaps into the air and is gone.
Koenma lets out his inheld breath shakily while Hatsuharu relaxes tensed muscles. "Koenma-sama, let me know next time when my opponent is going to be scary as fucking hell," he requests politely.
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Yoko and I, we turned colder after that, like a piece of ourselves died along with Kuronue, a piece that held our happiness and joy. There were moments when you could get us to laugh, and rarer moments when you could get us to crack jokes, but those were few and far between. Hatsuharu turned out to be even more troublesome than Yuuki/Anthony in his way, but he never caught me like his predecessor did. He proved himself to be tougher, as well, lasting a full three decades to the Frenchman's two, but he died in battle just as Yuuki had. His was the third funeral I attended, the others being Yuuki and Kuronue, in that order, and again I received a vow of safe passage to attend it.
That one doesn't stand out as much in my memory as the others, understandably enough, since I did not share a bond with him as I had with Yuuki--after all, Yuuki actually caught me. All Hatsuharu got from me was pneumonia. The century finished passing, and a boy named Sensui Shinobu entered the scene as the next one neared closing, Koenma's latest Spirit Detective--his youngest yet-- and one of those fools who sees the world as black and white with no shades between them.
He was the one I warned Koenma about, the one who would eventually turn and bite the hand that fed him, because of one mission that went sour. The ningen boy had power, oh, yes, he had power, but he did not understand human or demonic nature. In his eyes, all demons were bad, and all humans were good, because his parents, I believe, were slain by youkai. Some humans were better than others, but he held humanity as the highest species above the rest, the most pure. He proved to be the most aggravating, and it took quite a lot of effort to keep to a vow I had made, that no Detective would die because of me. Oh, it was hard! To be called scum and misborn and many other nasty names was bad enough; that he called me names I was particularly sensitive to--especially 'misborn'--earned him several sessions finding out what it was like being a Popsicle. He and I hated each other on sight, and it was one of my few true enjoyments to torment and tease him as my darkest nature wished. He wanted an evil demon? Fine. I was going to give him an evil demon. I also made sure that I was sarcastic, rude, and colder than ice with a tendency to play with my prey--namely, him.
But he was a fool beneath it all, misguided and blind and borderline-obsessive; and one night ruined him for Koenma. I was told this story about a decade after it happened, the reason I shall explain in due course. Sensui's last mission as Spirit Detective was to break up a ring of slavers specializing in demon and apparition 'toys'. The thing was, the slavers were human. And by chance or destiny, he was sent to break it up at the worst possible time: a night of basest revelry. The teenager burst into a ballroom filled with human men drinking blood, mutilating youkai slaves, raping and torturing and thoroughly enjoying themselves throughout the whole thing.
Sensui's mind, being neither flexible nor open, shattered. And once where there was a defender, there was now a destroyer. The last I heard of him through my now-vast network of intelligence, he was planning on ripping open the barrier between the Makai and Ningenkai. If he succeeds, so be it. I no longer particularly care.
Actually, he reminds me somewhat of that once-human demon named Toguro. I fought him once, just after he made his wish to become the strongest demon in the world. Considering he started out ranked at S-class, he wasn't that much of a challenge, and it was only an hour or two before I defeated him. A newbie who did not fully understand his new abilities was not really worth my time, though I do wish I'd gotten to fight him again before he was slain by Yusuke in the Final round of the most recent Tournament. But I am getting off the subject. Yoko.
Yoko was my last salvation, the only thing keeping me from forgetting who I started out as and the last line of defense against my darkest, bloodiest desires. I loved him. So very dearly did I love him, and I was secure in the knowledge that no matter what I was--murderer, thief, or angel of mercy--he loved me. In a world governed by hate and fear, that love became legendary in the way that the human Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet are legendary. Songs and tales were written about us, the new name I had taken 'Winter Rose' suiting my Silver Thief and myself very well indeed, for I was beauty at a price, and he had paid that price in blood when I'd very first bitten him. Only to him did I reveal that softness above the thorns--well, to him and small children, of which I am still fond. Children still have some crumbs of innocence, even here in the Demon World, and I cannot find it in my frozen heart to ruin it any faster than it already is. They also remind me of Hiei, or what he used to be very long ago. I hear he's turned as cold as me, and just as ruthless, but I have not contacted him in any fashion since that last time in the Void. It startles me to admit that I miss him. I can remember starting hundreds of letters, telling him hundreds of insignificant details and every single one ended up in the fireplace. Numerous times I have been on the verge of leaping into the Void and crying his name in a summons, but I have kept my soul locked firmly in my body where it belongs. I am alone now. And this is how it came to pass.
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"You've always been too stubborn, both of you!" Ikazuchi snaps at the two silent figures walking side by side towards the exit of the caves. "This is no time to take a vacation, and you just up and decide to disappear for a whole year?? We're in the middle of a Guild war, toumoku-sama! How will we handle this on our own??"
Aislin stops in her tracks, Yoko stopping a step later, neither of them turning to look at the frantic lightning-wolf demon trailing along behind them. "Ikazuchi, if you truly need either of us after a century of helping to lead this band of thieves, then you do not deserve to lead and everyone can go their separate ways. It has been centuries since either of us has thought about any kind of break, and it is high time we took one." She resumes walking, head down, eyes shadowed, and feet silent on the stone floor. Yoko takes his place beside her, tossing one last comment over his shoulder.
"Consider this a test of the captains' abilities, Ikazuchi, and we'll see you in a year. Try not to destroy everything while we're gone." And the two vanish into the forest beyond the caves, leaving the poor half-blood to blink in shock at his grim leader suddenly cracking a joke with the most deadpan face imaginable.
It is winter now, in the chosen refuge of the King and Queen of Thieves, a light-house tower at the edge of an alien sea. Water elementals sing songs below the high windows, whale demons gambol in the always-warm waters, jagged cliffs keeping tourists at bay. Snow drifts high around the base of the tower but with Aislin's abilities it is no effort to come and go as they please.
Not that they usually do please. For the first time in a very long time, they are simply relaxing. There are no thoughts beyond lazing and what they shall cook next, or disturbances to get in the way of each other. Yoko watches from the small entrance as his beloved dances around in the snow without any clothes to his singing, only to pull him out into the drifts with her and romp with him until they're both exhausted, curling up under furs in front of a roaring fire to sleep until they feel like waking.
They spend days on end not even bothering to eat, merely staying in bed and once more reminding each other of what it feels like to simply lie there and cuddle or groom for as long as they want. The lighthouse tends itself, a particularly lazy light apparition paid to sleep in place of a bulb every night as the beacon, and there is no one else to see what the rest of the tower looks like.
They sing and dance and play to their hearts' content whenever they please, and pesky annoying people that come to use the tower are quickly chased off by Yoko's cold-loving variant of stranglevine and the demonic dogwood. Aislin writes to her old friend Mizu, and receives a reply full of warm and happy news of his family, his promotion to Guild Master, and other things he thought might interest her as well as a parcel full of a new sweet--chocolate. She sends him back a letter with a rather sticky lip-print on it with the words THANK YOU! scrawled above and below from both her and Yoko (who she had to fight the last bit of chocolate for).
Light is beginning to fill their world again, making it the mischief-plenty place they once knew instead of the bleak desert Kuronue's death had left them with, and they even tolerate a social call from Koenma who simply wants to see how they've been doing since he last saw them.
Astonished looks had greeted him on arrival, and he grumpily tells them that despite the fact they're wanted criminals they are likely the only people who would leave him alone about unfinished paperwork and whatnot, and besides, he misses Aislin's constant needlings and Yoko's clever wits and he is bored with Spirit World. Actually laughing, the two invite him in for tea and sweets and news, catching up on what they'd missed while 'exiled' here in the tower. He tells them about Sensui, and it is with extreme satisfaction that she tells Koenma 'I told you so'.
"Yes, I know you told me so, you don't have to keep rubbing it in," Koenma grumbles irritably, rewarded with bright impish smiles from both. He blinks at them, and smiles back himself. "Aislin, do you know how long it's been since I've seen either of you smile like that?" The two look at each other and then back to him, shaking their head in negation. He sits back in his teenaged body and swirls his green tea thoughtfully. "I haven't seen that smile on either of you since you buried Yuuki under that snowdrift, remember?"
"Oh, yes!" Aislin laughs merrily. "That was when he taught me a few new swear words that I hadn't learned yet! It took him forever to unbury himself!"
"His face was priceless," Yoko adds cheerfully beside her, a milky mustache on his upper lip from the whipped cream on a pasty. Licking it off, he mentions, "That was that time we tried to steal that jewel, wasn't it? What was it called…?"
"I think it was called the Summer Stone," Aislin says thoughtfully, tapping her lips with a finger. "Didn't we steal the other three?"
Yoko stops laughing and tilts his head to one side, remembering. "Huh, you know, I can't remember? I guess we'll have to go look in our trove when we go home come spring."
"If you have stolen them," Koenma pleads, "could you kindly consider returning them? My father's been a little grumpy that they're gone."
"We'll think about it, Koenma," Aislin assures him with a chirp, biting into a sugar cookie. Yoko attempts to tug the cookie away from her and she growls playfully, batting at the offending hand.
"Not that much sugar, okay, hon? You on a sugar-high gets scary sometimes." Sighing, she relinquishes the sweet and rolls her eyes back to Koenma when he clears his throat.
"Aislin, I'd like to ask you for a favor." Her eyebrows go up and her pupils nearly disappear into the turquoise out of shock.
"Me? A favor?" Koenma sighs and nods.
"You've been an excellent gauge of people's character, and I was wondering…" Understanding dawns and her pink lips curl upwards into an impish, wicked smile.
"You, Koenma, Prince of the Reikai, want me, the Queen of Thieves, to vet your Detectives, is that it?"
Blushing, Koenma mumbles, "Yeah, pretty much." The two across from him burst into peals of laughter, holding their sides as though they would pop and eventually leaning against each other to stay upright. Koenma sits there patiently until they resume control, wiping away a couple of tears and grinning helplessly. Aislin tosses Koenma a bright emerald tear gem and chuckles to herself before bobbing her head in a sketchy sort of bow.
"Oh, that was wonderful!" Yoko purrs, still sniggering to himself as he props his elbow on the low table. "We haven't had a laugh like that in ages."
"You're welcome," the child-king sighs, admiring the gem. "And thank you for this, Aislin."
"Least I could do, Koenma, that really was nice. And yes, I think I will do that for you. It's something to do besides steal, anyway."
Koenma's face lights up. "Oh, thank you!" he enthuses, practically bouncing in place. "You have no idea how helpful that would be!"
"Hey, if it saves me from another Sensui, I'd be happy to," Aislin points out. "That boy had to be one of the most hard-headed and single-minded individuals I have ever met."
"But he did good work."
"When he wasn't bashing his head against a brick wall? Yes, he did good work." She waves a hand negligently in the air as though to prove her next point. "Just remember, alpha-kit, that though someone might be visible as good, it doesn't mean that they'll stay that way. And just because someone is seen as bad, it doesn't mean that they are all bad, or must stay that way. Myself as a prime example."
Chuckling, Koenma rises to his feet and nods to them both as he walks to the exit. "I'll keep that in mind, Aislin. See you two around."
"Jya ne!" the two chorus to the closing door. Silence falls in the spacious living room, the lovers enjoying their snack. Finally Yoko breaks the silence.
"You know…" he begins, only to have Aislin grin at him with her fox ears tilting to the sides.
"We really should go after that Summer Stone. It'd be a shame not to have the complete set, right?" He grins and kisses her merrily, laughing.
"Right! But should we wait until spring or should we try for it sooner?"
"And should only one of us go or both," she adds.
"Do we know where it is now?"
"And what kind of security system it has?" Practically sparkling with renewed interest in their livelihood, the two put their heads together and begin to plan.
===
A warm breeze circles around the lighthouse tower, the stars glittering brightly overhead and the moon shining down on the two figures standing just outside the main doors. It is the barest beginning of spring, and a full moon gilds the landscape in silver while turning the calm sea into a brilliant mirror.
"Promise me you'll be careful, beloved," Aislin murmurs to her beloved while he runs his hands through her hip-length tresses one last time. "I don't know what'll happen to me if I lose you." He kisses her gently, thumb brushing against her cheek tenderly before he pulls away.
"I have to come back, aisuhana. We haven't had a family yet, remember?"
"Of all the times for you to be thinking about sex, you lecherous fox," the ice demon sighs in exasperation, reaching up and tugging on his ear. "Lend me your earring, beloved."
"Going to follow me in astral form again?" he asks as he complies, folding the gem into her fingers and bestowing her knuckles with another kiss.
"No. This time I'm going to stay here and wear a hole in the rug," she informs him firmly. "I wanted your earring so you'll really have a reason to come back."
"Paranoid," he teases gently.
"'It's not paranoia if someone really is out to kill you'," she retorts calmly, quoting the assassins' cliché. Yoko merely laughs, shaking his head in amusement at his mate before giving a whole-body wriggle to make sure his muscles are properly loose.
"I swear to you that I will be back by morning, beloved. Not even death or Koenma could keep me away. I promise. And," he drawls, "I'll make sure to swipe something extra for our anniversary next week."
"You sly fox, you mean you remember?" Aislin laughs, hugging him tightly before stepping back.
"Of course I remember!" His entire body-set is indignant. "After you nearly gave me frostbite the last time I forgot, I don't intend to repeat the experience."
"Got you to remember, didn't it?" she prods with a grin and he nods, a smile flashing his white teeth. "Now, before you go, if you are spotted, what are you going to do?"
"I drop everything and run like fury," he answers, kissing her on the cheek. "I remember, all right. And I'll see you in the morning, beloved."
"And if the worst should happen?" she asks suddenly, quietly, despite wishing she would just keep her mouth shut. He looks startled at the question, then determined.
"If the worst should happen, I will be back before ten years pass. This I swear on my blood and bones, and all the treasure in the world. Wo ai ni, my white rose."
"Wo ai ni. I love you, too, Yoko." And with one last smile and tug at her hair, he takes off in a ground eating lope eastward to the Summer Stone's vault. "Be safe." She stands there, watching, until the small silver form disappears even to her keen sight. And with a sigh, she settles onto the doorstep to wait through the night.
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In spite of myself, I fell asleep and Dreamed. And I dearly wish I hadn't.
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In her dreams, Aislin watches the moon rise over a fragile-looking pagoda standing beside a mirror-flat lake. She knows she's smiling, although she can't feel it: this is where the treasure called the Summer Stone is kept. No one really knows if it has powers or not, it's just a really, really big and flawless emerald worth a whole lot of money. They normally wouldn't bother with this sort of thing, but a message back to the Lair returned with the information that yes, the other three Season Stones are somewhere among the piles of loot accumulated over the centuries. Well, that, and it'd be a real challenge to get this one: the security on it is phenomenal, even for thieves as skilled as she and Yoko.
Speak of the devil…She watches avidly as her beloved appears at the edge of a thicket quite close to the pagoda-mansion/vault, sizing the place up with excited golden eyes. She floats in the sky and watches as he slips as silent as a shadow across the open space to the lowest overhang of the pagoda's roof, levering himself up and leaping to the next level. The Stone is being kept on the top floor, amidst the heaviest and most sophisticated alarms known in the three worlds.
Her Yoko breezes past them all as if they don't even exist. And it is by chance that a watchman spots him with his kitsune form's head buried in the Stone's treasure-chest. Excitement turns to alarm as the hue and cry is raised throughout the disguised fortress, and with terror Aislin sees her beloved plunge in a controlled fall the hundred-plus feet to the ground beyond the pagoda, Stone clenched in his teeth and a gold necklace hung around his neck. Drop the Stone and run, she begs him, drop the Stone and run.
As though he heard her, Yoko spits out the jewel and performs a complicated body twist that makes him seem like a wraith, the chain dropping away into the lush grass and the silver kitsune fleeing for his life with a hunter close on his heels.
Fear closes Aislin's throat, making it difficult to breathe as she watches her beloved racing through the trees and underbrush as though all the hells and not a single hunter are on his trail--a hunter that reeks of death, blood, and power.
Blinding light blots out the world for the space of a breath, the Dreaming ice apparition blinking away spots to find the bounty hunter standing over the fallen body of her beloved, axe raised for the final blow. With a final defiant growl the thief's body dissolves into a silver ball of light just as the axe falls, leaping upwards and upwards until it passes beyond Aislin's vision.
===
Panting in fear, Aislin awakes on the lighthouse doorstep, fingers clenched so hard that her nails have bitten small crescents into her palms, blood trickling over her skin and the earring held safe within the curl of her left hand. With a savage gesture fueled by panic, she summons an ice imp that materializes with a deep bow in the air before her.
"What does m'lady wish of me?" it chimes, sounding like a mismatched set of glass bells and looking like a tiny elf made of frozen water.
"Go swift and go far, and learn what has happened to my beloved, the Silver Thief Yoko Kurama," she commands harshly. "Come back and tell me what has befallen him this past night."
"As m'lady wishes," the imp says politely, bowing again and vanishing halfway through. Clasping the earring to her lips, a wide-eyed, shaky ice-fox waits with cold dread freezing her blood for news of the worst sort.
And half an hour later, as dawn begins to tint the sky pale rose, she gets it. The imp reappears with its tiny face set into grim lines, and announces in a voice sounding more like death-bells, "The Silver Thief Yoko Kurama perished at the hands of a bounty hunter known as Kendrik of the Axe at one thirty three this morning, m'lady." With full knowledge of the coming explosion, it vanishes as the last words leave its mouth.
The koorime sits there in shock, benumbed by the news she had hoped the most not to hear, before the realization truly hits her. A single, heart-broken wail rips from her throat as she curls over the gem clenched in her hands, power rushing out from her and turning the world to ice.
===
Far away in another world entirely, a very concerned baby sits in an oversized office chair, behind a desk piled high with papers. Beside him stands a blue ogre in a tiger-stripe loincloth, with one tiny horn sticking out the middle of his forehead. In front of the desk stands a brown-haired woman in a black kimono decorated with a spray of lilacs. Beside her stands a blue-haired woman in a pink kimono, and both women look very serious indeed.
"Are you certain, Botan?" the baby asks, the blue binky never falling from his moving lips. The blue-haired woman nods.
"Yes, Koenma-sama. Yoko never entered Spirit World. We believe he may be hiding somewhere in the Ningenkai, but his rei will be too weak to track him for several years, I'm afraid."
"And what about her?" he asks of the brown-haired woman, whose sad eyes seem to get even deeper.
"She's permanently frozen over thirty square miles in a rough circle with that lighthouse at the center. There is no sign of activity or that there will be any soon. She is in mourning, Koenma-sama. Let her be for a little while longer."
"All right," the child-king agrees quietly. "Botan, keep an eye on her for me. If she hasn't moved in a week, let me know."
"Aye, Koenma, sir."
==================================================================================
Kuso: damn
Hatsuharu: first spring
Aneibara: shadow-rose
Ninjutsu: ninja techniques
Ningen: human
Sensui: fountain
Shinobu: to remember/to endure
Toumoko: leader (Japanese doesn't use plurals)
