Authoress here.
NO!!! THE PRECIOUS!! IT'S LOSTED!! Anyways...I temporarily have misplaced my handy-dandy wrist brace, which I fear will slow me down greatly. Plus school. Plus homework. Plus general laziness. Foo.
So, apologies on this here story, I think it'll take awhile longer to complete than the others.
One more thing about this particular chapter. I just finished King Kelson's Bride, the final novel of King Kelson, written by my hero, Katherine Kurtz. Her style of writing and many things she writes about, for example, courts and wenches, and weddings and the seductions of silly serving maids are still firmly lodged in my brain. There will be a whole lotta temptation for your liddle Hiei in this chappie, and I beg you to go with my flow on it. Kapiesh? Thankies.
But, without further ado, I shall starteth the tale. But damn!- my wrist already hurts!
Yujo Chronicles:
Ankara's Story Chapter four
A cruel wind had picked up over the course of the day, and by the time dusk started to creep onward, it was terribly cold outside the warm confines of fireplace-heated buildings.
That didn't stop the festivities. Music poured from every corner of the village, and lanterns hung gaily from the buildings and wires set up for their use. A large bonfire was burning in the town square, and hot mead and fine damson wine was flowing easily. Steppe sheep, fat, woolly creatures found along the lower cliffs of Ice Word, had been fattened to the slaughter, and the delicious meat was every ware.
The bandits were enjoying the festival greatly, slogging down as much wine and mutton as the villagers. The twelve males that made up the majority of the band, were pinching and flirting with the many young wenches running around. All had fair hair, locks so light they shimmered with a white resonance.
Hiei had a wooden goblet in one hand. The hot, mulled mead inside shimmered with heat, and Hiei held it close to his chin. As he had fire apparition blood running in his veins, he didn't need external heat to sustain him, but the steam rising from the mead felt good all the same.
He took another hearty swig, gulping down the fiery stuff quickly. The drink was rising to his head, nursing his worries, if not making them disappear altogether. The Red Heel ceremony was to take place when the moon was highest in the sky, around eleven o' clock, and Hiei wasn't sure he wanted to be sober for the event.
A particularly lovely wench caught sight of Hiei, alone by the wall of a ramshackle building. With a flirtatious giggle, she batted her lashes and leaned close to him. The damson wine was sweet on her breath, if not a little overpowering. She wore only a thinly laced-up shift and bodice, and her impressive chest was partially visible to Hiei. She leaned even further, making the view even more tempting.
"Not many dark handsomes come through here," she whispered, sotto vocce. Her voice was akin to the treble of a flute, high and keening in a beautiful pattern. "I should like to meet your acquaintance further."
Hiei took another shallow sip of the mead, his eyes never leaving the big blue ones of the lass. She was very pretty, Hiei had to admit, and a flush seared through him as she moved so her chest was being pushed into his. He absentmindedly rubbed his free hand on her long, blonde-white hair, while she giggled and mimicked his movements. Her nimble fingers brushed through his hair, sending electric tingles up and down his spine.
He knew where the night could lead, straight to some secluded corner with this fine piece of flesh beneath him. The thought quickened his loins in anticipation. There were three hours before the ceremony; he and this pretty wench could make good the time.
The ceremony. The moment he though about it, Ankara's dark eyes and the look of despair that lurked in them flashed before his vision. Guilt flooding his heart, he gripped the girl's shoulder and shoved her away sputtering indignantly.
"What's wrong with you?!" She demanded hotly. "Afraid I'll be too rough with you?"
When he didn't answer, averting his face, she giggled again. "No need to worry, stranger. I'll lead you until you can take over." She gripped his chin in a surprisingly tight grip, and placed her lips over his in a slightly drunken embrace. The wench's entire body, made up of softly blown out curves, was pushed up to his, smashing them together, both hard and soft all at once. Her free hand wiggled between them, and he felt her fingers brush his inner thigh suggestively.
He gasped as a carnal surge made his entire being stiffen. Her mouth lifted off of his, and she took his free hand and directed it to her bosom. Unabashedly, she forced his palm under her shift and bodice to cup her chest.
An embarrassed anger pushed away any feelings of lust. He really shoved her away now, sloshing his rapidly cooling mead over the both of them in the effort. She fell to the ground.
"You're hurting me!" She pouted, holding her bruising shoulder. "Why did you do that?!"
"You should of left when I told you the first time." Came Hiei's sullen answer.
The wench's frown deepened. "I thought you liked it."
Hiei scowled fiercely. "You were wrong. Go and whore on someone else."
As her lips parted in indignation, Hiei tossed his goblet away and turned. With a few agile leaps, he was up on the roof of the building
At his vantage point, he could see the golden-haired wench following his suggestion. A male member of Hiei tribe was slurpily embracing her, chastity forgotten. Apparently, the pair was forgetting they were in the middle of public as well. When they did remember, they slipped off into the shadows. Although they were hidden from view, Hiei's sharp ears could detect the further evidence of the activities the two were indulging in.
Hiei brought his eyes up from were they had disappeared like so many other impromptu couples. Eyes scanning the starry sky, he did have to wonder. What was wrong with him? It could of been him down there right now, finding out secrets he had never known before. Before he had thought of Ankara, he had been very eager.
Ankara. The thought of her name snapped his mind in an entirely different direction. How alone and scared she must be. She was basically sentenced to die in less than three hours, and had no one to comfort her.
Hiei stood, and leapt from his rooftop to another. Following the narrow roads beneath him, Hiei made his way to were Ankara's building was. He dropped down to earth silently, and tried to door. Unsurprisingly, it was locked.
Instead, Hiei went around the side of the building, and sat with his back to the wall. He willed Ankara to feel his presence on the other side and be comforted. It was all he could do for her now.
Hiei leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Or was it?
Two hours later
The roar of a crowd jerked Hiei from an uneasy sleep. Acting quickly, he was up on the top of the roof, lying along his stomach to covertly view the activity going on beneath him.
The leader and Fulken were at the head of what looked to be the entire village. The old man pulled out a key from his deep blue cloak, and opening the door, went inside. Six men followed, and moments later they came out. Hiei caught his breath, heartsick at what he saw.
Ankara was being carried on a sort of litter by the six burly fellows. Instead of the simple dark blue shift she had worn earlier, Ankara was clad in a sleeveless white garment that went slightly past her stomach. Around her waist was tied countless ragged strips of cloth, making a sort of skirt. All were varied in length, but none went past her knees.
The thick red paint Hiei had seen on the wall and on the door was painted onto her revealed skin. Strange patterns shone black against the pale white of her arms, curling and writhing around her forearms all the way up her shoulders. Her neck followed the pattern, and it continued to her jaw line.
Her face was painted as well. Across her cheeks was two horizontal lines, and a strange design was painted off-center on her forehead. Her hair was loose, but clearly it had been carefully washed and combed for the event.
But the most horrific part was the red paint trailing haphazardly down her legs. It had been allowed to drip down from her knees, going were it willed. At her ankles the drip-paint stopped, and then her heels were completely coated.
Hiei watched, heart-stricken, as the mob followed the litter. Jumping down to follow at the end of the crowd, Hiei traveled along with the villagers up a steep incline. At the summit was a perfect circle, marked with torches.
It wasn't as big as Hiei had imagined it. The six archers turned out to be the men who had carried the litter, and once they set it down, they took their positions. Placed equally around the circle, they all took off their shirts, exposing their bare torsos to the fridged air. They too had been painted in the red, but the symbol was a footprint impaled on a black-paint arrow.
With horrified fascination, Hiei saw three men go to stand a few yards behind three of the archers. These new arrivals held large drums, and they too were bare to the waist, and intricately painted.
Three more men followed, folding wooden flutes. The flutes had two bells, and only one had the holes bored to make the different notes. As one note held steady, the musician played and changed the second.
On the far side of the circle was a wooden platform, holding more torches that lit up the scene as bright as day. The leader stepped up onto the platform, beaming. He had two painted lines on his face, vertical, right next to one another on the left cheek. He surveyed the crowd huddling close behind the drummers and flute players.
"People loyal to the God of Dance and Movement, this is the finest hour. According to ancient ritual, we now thank the mother."
Hiei watched as a graying woman was raised above the crown, sitting on the shoulders of two men. She had a design on her face as well; a red teardrop under her left eye.
The leader looked at her gravely. "Ariss to dou nash, we thank you for your gift."
The crowd murmured his response, and the woman started rocking back and forth, crying a little. Hiei saw in disgust the look of pride and self-adoration mirrored in her eyes.
The leader continued. "A mother so tenderly raises her child, nurturing it and keeping it safe. Every mother does this, but we honor this mother tonight. She alone has nurtured her child best, to follow the way of the dance that leads on the life we have. Ariss to dou nash."
Now the woman was preening under the attention as the crowd reverently murmured the response again. As the men lowered her gently down, hands were raised to help. Some people around her simply wanted to touch her, get her blessing. Hiei felt dirty just for looking at the woman.
Instead, Hiei glanced at Ankara, still lying flat on her litter. Tears poured silently down her cheeks, and she stared straight upwards. Hiei noticed her fingers clenching and unclenching against the torrent of pain Hiei knew she must be feeling at her mother's betrayal.
"And now;" the leader finished. "Let our Sacrifice present itself to our God, to whom I am not worthy to speak. Let us pray that the Sacrifice will be found pleasing."
Hiei was still getting over the reference to Ankara as "it," figuring it was some sort of custom as well. His attention was quickly divided as the litter was thrust upwards quickly by willing hands of the villagers, and Ankara stumbled into the circle. Her heels were aloft as she stood securely on the ball of her feet.
The drums began to pound. Da-daum, da-daum, da-daum. Ankara looked down, and raised her hands in the air. As she dropped them, the flutes began to keen softly, and the drums quieted down, though still pounding relentlessly.
Hiei forgot everything else as Ankara began to dance. Her movements were not as graceful as those he had seen earlier in the evening, but there was something clearly different. Her hands, arms, torso and legs made impossible contortions one moment and then fluid lines the next, and Ankara seemed to not heed the laws of gravity as she floated jerkily around the circle, a contradiction in and of herself.
And when she started to sing, Hiei almost lost himself.
Her voice wasn't pleasant to listen to at first. She didn't seem to work well with the flutes, and her voice was out of rhythm with the drums. But after a moment, Hiei realized it was the fact she was so acutely different that made the elder's choice a perfect one. Once he got over her voice, the words she started to sing flattened him again.
"Often afraid, always wary and aware of my fate,
I lie still, wondering if what is here is real.
Even though I'm the Sacrifice, You won't notice me as my own,
Even if I were to cry,
Suddenly I know..
Don't try to tell me no one cries inside,
No one,
would trade for me,
slave for me,
grieve for me,
Seethe for me.
Even though I'm the Sacrifice,
you won't cry for me While I die for thee Even though I'm the Sacrifice,
Suddenly I know..."
Her movements started to reflect her voice perfectly, and her voice was intoxicatingly low. The drums kept pounding, and the archers kept their bows trained on her. Hiei could hear the strain of the wood and twisted sinew.
And then it happened. In the middle of her fifth stanza, she stumbled. In a flash, her heel touched the ground and a single bow sang. A dull, sickening thud seemed to echo around the crowd. And arrow protruded from the fleshy part of her calf.
Somehow she kept dancing. Her steps remained sure, only now she favored one leg slightly. As he watched the blood rip down her calf, Hiei suddenly realized why the red paint was allowed to run without pattern on her legs. It was symbolizing the blood that would soon do the same.
She kept singing, an obvious shake to her voice now.
"T-Tossed into fear,
Blinded by tears,
Suddenly I know,
these are the things,
I've c-come to show
For even though I'm the Sacrifice, I can't h-hide,
Amidst the music and the dancing,
A hollow hurt d-deepens, stride by stride Even though I'm the Sacrifice,
Suddenly I know.."
The second falter was the fault of the first. Ankara slipped in the blood her first wound had created, and both of her feet were planted squarely to keep herself from falling. Two archers loosed their arrows, one for each heel. One arrow found home in her right thigh, but the other was poorly shot. It grazed the top of her foot, creating a gash, before clattering harmlessly out of the circle.
Hiei pushed foreword, eliciting some angry exclamations from those he pushed aside. He made his way to the front ring of villagers, and allowed none to move him. He sent his support, and to his wonder, his deep affection to her, willing her to feel it.
Their eyes connected. Ankara, standing motionless except for the quivering the pain induced, took a deep, shaky breath, and held her chin higher. Feeling the emotion Hiei's eyes expressed, she found the drive to keep going. Her feet lifted from the ground onto her toes, and soon she was flying around again in the eerie dance.
But now her song changed. Rising from the low notes she had previously kept to, her voice rose with a scanty shred of hope. The look of fear mingled with determination on her face told Hiei that she might be simply improvising now as she sang.
"Face, in the crowd,
Silent but very strong now,
I can go on,
seeing what I need to know Eye of a stranger, calling for me to fight,
Stand up stronger,
keep on, keep on, for right
Even if I'm the Sacrifice,
I know, you know I'm real Seeing me as I should be seen,
Blessings, dear one, Now, forever and between,
For even if I'm the Sacrifice,
Suddenly I know..."
Ankara raised her arms and dropped them and in the same movement slammed her heels into the ground. The drums stopped abruptly, as did the flutes.
The crowd sat, in muted silence. Ankara's legs were bleeding, her dancing only pumping more blood form the gashes. She stood, heaving, staring straight into Hiei's eyes, boring holes into his soul. Unlike the wild, desperate look of before, her eyes conveyed an unearthly feeling of calm.
A single person clapped once, and the crowd went wild with noise. The archers with remaining arrows shot them into the ground around Ankara's feet, and the old leader started chanting loud and fast in the tongue of his people. Sweeping like a veritable wave, the villagers swept in to carry Ankara away, breaking their gaze and leaving Hiei feeling hopeless.
End Chapter
NO!!! THE PRECIOUS!! IT'S LOSTED!! Anyways...I temporarily have misplaced my handy-dandy wrist brace, which I fear will slow me down greatly. Plus school. Plus homework. Plus general laziness. Foo.
So, apologies on this here story, I think it'll take awhile longer to complete than the others.
One more thing about this particular chapter. I just finished King Kelson's Bride, the final novel of King Kelson, written by my hero, Katherine Kurtz. Her style of writing and many things she writes about, for example, courts and wenches, and weddings and the seductions of silly serving maids are still firmly lodged in my brain. There will be a whole lotta temptation for your liddle Hiei in this chappie, and I beg you to go with my flow on it. Kapiesh? Thankies.
But, without further ado, I shall starteth the tale. But damn!- my wrist already hurts!
Yujo Chronicles:
Ankara's Story Chapter four
A cruel wind had picked up over the course of the day, and by the time dusk started to creep onward, it was terribly cold outside the warm confines of fireplace-heated buildings.
That didn't stop the festivities. Music poured from every corner of the village, and lanterns hung gaily from the buildings and wires set up for their use. A large bonfire was burning in the town square, and hot mead and fine damson wine was flowing easily. Steppe sheep, fat, woolly creatures found along the lower cliffs of Ice Word, had been fattened to the slaughter, and the delicious meat was every ware.
The bandits were enjoying the festival greatly, slogging down as much wine and mutton as the villagers. The twelve males that made up the majority of the band, were pinching and flirting with the many young wenches running around. All had fair hair, locks so light they shimmered with a white resonance.
Hiei had a wooden goblet in one hand. The hot, mulled mead inside shimmered with heat, and Hiei held it close to his chin. As he had fire apparition blood running in his veins, he didn't need external heat to sustain him, but the steam rising from the mead felt good all the same.
He took another hearty swig, gulping down the fiery stuff quickly. The drink was rising to his head, nursing his worries, if not making them disappear altogether. The Red Heel ceremony was to take place when the moon was highest in the sky, around eleven o' clock, and Hiei wasn't sure he wanted to be sober for the event.
A particularly lovely wench caught sight of Hiei, alone by the wall of a ramshackle building. With a flirtatious giggle, she batted her lashes and leaned close to him. The damson wine was sweet on her breath, if not a little overpowering. She wore only a thinly laced-up shift and bodice, and her impressive chest was partially visible to Hiei. She leaned even further, making the view even more tempting.
"Not many dark handsomes come through here," she whispered, sotto vocce. Her voice was akin to the treble of a flute, high and keening in a beautiful pattern. "I should like to meet your acquaintance further."
Hiei took another shallow sip of the mead, his eyes never leaving the big blue ones of the lass. She was very pretty, Hiei had to admit, and a flush seared through him as she moved so her chest was being pushed into his. He absentmindedly rubbed his free hand on her long, blonde-white hair, while she giggled and mimicked his movements. Her nimble fingers brushed through his hair, sending electric tingles up and down his spine.
He knew where the night could lead, straight to some secluded corner with this fine piece of flesh beneath him. The thought quickened his loins in anticipation. There were three hours before the ceremony; he and this pretty wench could make good the time.
The ceremony. The moment he though about it, Ankara's dark eyes and the look of despair that lurked in them flashed before his vision. Guilt flooding his heart, he gripped the girl's shoulder and shoved her away sputtering indignantly.
"What's wrong with you?!" She demanded hotly. "Afraid I'll be too rough with you?"
When he didn't answer, averting his face, she giggled again. "No need to worry, stranger. I'll lead you until you can take over." She gripped his chin in a surprisingly tight grip, and placed her lips over his in a slightly drunken embrace. The wench's entire body, made up of softly blown out curves, was pushed up to his, smashing them together, both hard and soft all at once. Her free hand wiggled between them, and he felt her fingers brush his inner thigh suggestively.
He gasped as a carnal surge made his entire being stiffen. Her mouth lifted off of his, and she took his free hand and directed it to her bosom. Unabashedly, she forced his palm under her shift and bodice to cup her chest.
An embarrassed anger pushed away any feelings of lust. He really shoved her away now, sloshing his rapidly cooling mead over the both of them in the effort. She fell to the ground.
"You're hurting me!" She pouted, holding her bruising shoulder. "Why did you do that?!"
"You should of left when I told you the first time." Came Hiei's sullen answer.
The wench's frown deepened. "I thought you liked it."
Hiei scowled fiercely. "You were wrong. Go and whore on someone else."
As her lips parted in indignation, Hiei tossed his goblet away and turned. With a few agile leaps, he was up on the roof of the building
At his vantage point, he could see the golden-haired wench following his suggestion. A male member of Hiei tribe was slurpily embracing her, chastity forgotten. Apparently, the pair was forgetting they were in the middle of public as well. When they did remember, they slipped off into the shadows. Although they were hidden from view, Hiei's sharp ears could detect the further evidence of the activities the two were indulging in.
Hiei brought his eyes up from were they had disappeared like so many other impromptu couples. Eyes scanning the starry sky, he did have to wonder. What was wrong with him? It could of been him down there right now, finding out secrets he had never known before. Before he had thought of Ankara, he had been very eager.
Ankara. The thought of her name snapped his mind in an entirely different direction. How alone and scared she must be. She was basically sentenced to die in less than three hours, and had no one to comfort her.
Hiei stood, and leapt from his rooftop to another. Following the narrow roads beneath him, Hiei made his way to were Ankara's building was. He dropped down to earth silently, and tried to door. Unsurprisingly, it was locked.
Instead, Hiei went around the side of the building, and sat with his back to the wall. He willed Ankara to feel his presence on the other side and be comforted. It was all he could do for her now.
Hiei leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Or was it?
Two hours later
The roar of a crowd jerked Hiei from an uneasy sleep. Acting quickly, he was up on the top of the roof, lying along his stomach to covertly view the activity going on beneath him.
The leader and Fulken were at the head of what looked to be the entire village. The old man pulled out a key from his deep blue cloak, and opening the door, went inside. Six men followed, and moments later they came out. Hiei caught his breath, heartsick at what he saw.
Ankara was being carried on a sort of litter by the six burly fellows. Instead of the simple dark blue shift she had worn earlier, Ankara was clad in a sleeveless white garment that went slightly past her stomach. Around her waist was tied countless ragged strips of cloth, making a sort of skirt. All were varied in length, but none went past her knees.
The thick red paint Hiei had seen on the wall and on the door was painted onto her revealed skin. Strange patterns shone black against the pale white of her arms, curling and writhing around her forearms all the way up her shoulders. Her neck followed the pattern, and it continued to her jaw line.
Her face was painted as well. Across her cheeks was two horizontal lines, and a strange design was painted off-center on her forehead. Her hair was loose, but clearly it had been carefully washed and combed for the event.
But the most horrific part was the red paint trailing haphazardly down her legs. It had been allowed to drip down from her knees, going were it willed. At her ankles the drip-paint stopped, and then her heels were completely coated.
Hiei watched, heart-stricken, as the mob followed the litter. Jumping down to follow at the end of the crowd, Hiei traveled along with the villagers up a steep incline. At the summit was a perfect circle, marked with torches.
It wasn't as big as Hiei had imagined it. The six archers turned out to be the men who had carried the litter, and once they set it down, they took their positions. Placed equally around the circle, they all took off their shirts, exposing their bare torsos to the fridged air. They too had been painted in the red, but the symbol was a footprint impaled on a black-paint arrow.
With horrified fascination, Hiei saw three men go to stand a few yards behind three of the archers. These new arrivals held large drums, and they too were bare to the waist, and intricately painted.
Three more men followed, folding wooden flutes. The flutes had two bells, and only one had the holes bored to make the different notes. As one note held steady, the musician played and changed the second.
On the far side of the circle was a wooden platform, holding more torches that lit up the scene as bright as day. The leader stepped up onto the platform, beaming. He had two painted lines on his face, vertical, right next to one another on the left cheek. He surveyed the crowd huddling close behind the drummers and flute players.
"People loyal to the God of Dance and Movement, this is the finest hour. According to ancient ritual, we now thank the mother."
Hiei watched as a graying woman was raised above the crown, sitting on the shoulders of two men. She had a design on her face as well; a red teardrop under her left eye.
The leader looked at her gravely. "Ariss to dou nash, we thank you for your gift."
The crowd murmured his response, and the woman started rocking back and forth, crying a little. Hiei saw in disgust the look of pride and self-adoration mirrored in her eyes.
The leader continued. "A mother so tenderly raises her child, nurturing it and keeping it safe. Every mother does this, but we honor this mother tonight. She alone has nurtured her child best, to follow the way of the dance that leads on the life we have. Ariss to dou nash."
Now the woman was preening under the attention as the crowd reverently murmured the response again. As the men lowered her gently down, hands were raised to help. Some people around her simply wanted to touch her, get her blessing. Hiei felt dirty just for looking at the woman.
Instead, Hiei glanced at Ankara, still lying flat on her litter. Tears poured silently down her cheeks, and she stared straight upwards. Hiei noticed her fingers clenching and unclenching against the torrent of pain Hiei knew she must be feeling at her mother's betrayal.
"And now;" the leader finished. "Let our Sacrifice present itself to our God, to whom I am not worthy to speak. Let us pray that the Sacrifice will be found pleasing."
Hiei was still getting over the reference to Ankara as "it," figuring it was some sort of custom as well. His attention was quickly divided as the litter was thrust upwards quickly by willing hands of the villagers, and Ankara stumbled into the circle. Her heels were aloft as she stood securely on the ball of her feet.
The drums began to pound. Da-daum, da-daum, da-daum. Ankara looked down, and raised her hands in the air. As she dropped them, the flutes began to keen softly, and the drums quieted down, though still pounding relentlessly.
Hiei forgot everything else as Ankara began to dance. Her movements were not as graceful as those he had seen earlier in the evening, but there was something clearly different. Her hands, arms, torso and legs made impossible contortions one moment and then fluid lines the next, and Ankara seemed to not heed the laws of gravity as she floated jerkily around the circle, a contradiction in and of herself.
And when she started to sing, Hiei almost lost himself.
Her voice wasn't pleasant to listen to at first. She didn't seem to work well with the flutes, and her voice was out of rhythm with the drums. But after a moment, Hiei realized it was the fact she was so acutely different that made the elder's choice a perfect one. Once he got over her voice, the words she started to sing flattened him again.
"Often afraid, always wary and aware of my fate,
I lie still, wondering if what is here is real.
Even though I'm the Sacrifice, You won't notice me as my own,
Even if I were to cry,
Suddenly I know..
Don't try to tell me no one cries inside,
No one,
would trade for me,
slave for me,
grieve for me,
Seethe for me.
Even though I'm the Sacrifice,
you won't cry for me While I die for thee Even though I'm the Sacrifice,
Suddenly I know..."
Her movements started to reflect her voice perfectly, and her voice was intoxicatingly low. The drums kept pounding, and the archers kept their bows trained on her. Hiei could hear the strain of the wood and twisted sinew.
And then it happened. In the middle of her fifth stanza, she stumbled. In a flash, her heel touched the ground and a single bow sang. A dull, sickening thud seemed to echo around the crowd. And arrow protruded from the fleshy part of her calf.
Somehow she kept dancing. Her steps remained sure, only now she favored one leg slightly. As he watched the blood rip down her calf, Hiei suddenly realized why the red paint was allowed to run without pattern on her legs. It was symbolizing the blood that would soon do the same.
She kept singing, an obvious shake to her voice now.
"T-Tossed into fear,
Blinded by tears,
Suddenly I know,
these are the things,
I've c-come to show
For even though I'm the Sacrifice, I can't h-hide,
Amidst the music and the dancing,
A hollow hurt d-deepens, stride by stride Even though I'm the Sacrifice,
Suddenly I know.."
The second falter was the fault of the first. Ankara slipped in the blood her first wound had created, and both of her feet were planted squarely to keep herself from falling. Two archers loosed their arrows, one for each heel. One arrow found home in her right thigh, but the other was poorly shot. It grazed the top of her foot, creating a gash, before clattering harmlessly out of the circle.
Hiei pushed foreword, eliciting some angry exclamations from those he pushed aside. He made his way to the front ring of villagers, and allowed none to move him. He sent his support, and to his wonder, his deep affection to her, willing her to feel it.
Their eyes connected. Ankara, standing motionless except for the quivering the pain induced, took a deep, shaky breath, and held her chin higher. Feeling the emotion Hiei's eyes expressed, she found the drive to keep going. Her feet lifted from the ground onto her toes, and soon she was flying around again in the eerie dance.
But now her song changed. Rising from the low notes she had previously kept to, her voice rose with a scanty shred of hope. The look of fear mingled with determination on her face told Hiei that she might be simply improvising now as she sang.
"Face, in the crowd,
Silent but very strong now,
I can go on,
seeing what I need to know Eye of a stranger, calling for me to fight,
Stand up stronger,
keep on, keep on, for right
Even if I'm the Sacrifice,
I know, you know I'm real Seeing me as I should be seen,
Blessings, dear one, Now, forever and between,
For even if I'm the Sacrifice,
Suddenly I know..."
Ankara raised her arms and dropped them and in the same movement slammed her heels into the ground. The drums stopped abruptly, as did the flutes.
The crowd sat, in muted silence. Ankara's legs were bleeding, her dancing only pumping more blood form the gashes. She stood, heaving, staring straight into Hiei's eyes, boring holes into his soul. Unlike the wild, desperate look of before, her eyes conveyed an unearthly feeling of calm.
A single person clapped once, and the crowd went wild with noise. The archers with remaining arrows shot them into the ground around Ankara's feet, and the old leader started chanting loud and fast in the tongue of his people. Sweeping like a veritable wave, the villagers swept in to carry Ankara away, breaking their gaze and leaving Hiei feeling hopeless.
End Chapter