Every Pairing Under the Sun
Author's Note: Ahaha. I found my list! –waves it around triumphantly in the mess that is her room- And I also finished writing the AnnaLyserg. Okay, I definitely enjoyed this. –edgy look- I didn't think I would, as I only support Asakura/Anna pairings. (YOUNG Asakura Pairings, not stuff like Kino/Anna and Yohmei/Anna. –twitchlaugh-) But this was strangely fun and… yeah. I like it. X3 I hope that you do too. List is here: MarcoxLyserg, KororoxManta (Queenstheif Draconess Herselve, you ROCK for reminding me about this one!), HaoxSquirrel (Not /you/ as a squirrel, hopefully? Because I have a fixed idea of how the squirrel's going to end up, and it's not pretty.) YohxRen, YohxOC, YohxHoro, HaoxAnna, YohxTamao, Yoh/Anna. With bouts in between, perhaps, as I go off on random tangents for the ignored minor characters. xP
Disclaimer: Be VERY glad I don't own Shaman King, as one of my future projects has Hao paired with a squirrel. –edgy look-
Drabble Five: Midnight…
It is midnight.
She steps outside, feeling the easy chill of the evening dance across her skin, an elaborate waltz that beats in time to the ticking clock. Her footsteps are quick and solid, and do not reflect her regret in leaving behind the boorish crowd that plays at video games still, even at such an early (late?) hour of the morning.
Yoh, too, she has left behind; he did not ask to accompany her, and she did not demand that he come. It is a place where they will always be separated; he upon the brink of understanding her, she on the edge of frustration with him. A chasm they can never cross.
The crunch of gravel underfoot and she whirls angrily upon the intruder, only to suddenly sober into solemnity and a barely controlled hatred. Hao she loathes as a matter of fact, another obstacle that would prevent Yoh from attaining his position as Shaman King. (And even in the loss, he had won; the Fight was delayed and Yoh was... himself? Not Shaman King, at any rate, which cut at Anna ferociously.) But she, who has always been faithful and dedicated to a single cause, could not abide by a traitor.
It is all she can do to prevent the accusation from spilling out of her mouth every time she meets his gaze – those innocuous eyes of green fragile-glass. And it seems that he knows this, for in seeing her, he greets her with a ghostly-wan smile.
"Anna-sama."
"Lyserg."
She insults him by leaving off the honorific suffix, but it seems that he does not notice, striding past her to lean wearily upon the pond bridge's thin railing, aged beyond what his years should bestow.
They stand in silence, but only for a little while.
"Do you hate me?" He asks eventually, his voice a little quiet.
Carelessly, languidly, her shoulders move; up, down, quick and slow. "Hate? No." The lie flashes like quickfire through her teeth, gentled but still dangerous.
"But you still have not forgiven me?" He pursues the subject relentlessly, determined fire flashing through a gaze as legible as writing.
"Did you expect me to?"
"I—" He begins helplessly, but changes tactics when he sees the frown begin to dig through her brows. "No, I didn't."
"Then what is the use of asking?"
He is silent a little while longer, then says quietly, "You must understand what it was like. To want something so badly that you cannot be thrown off track by minor things-"
"Minor things?" She is a little offended, but in this sudden drunken midnight, cannot summon more, not even the ice-cold rage that quenches her enemies in a moment. Briefly, she ponders this, then decides that never again is she staying up this late.
"Things, then," he retorts, but is unperturbed by her interruption, flowing smoothly around it like a river about a boulder. "The X-Laws went against Hao, while Yoh's team seemed on the verge of an alliance with them at times. I could not afford that; not an alliance."
"Then you never knew Yoh at all." She says coldly, firm like the ice that crackles from the trees as she stands beneath them to peer into the lake. "He is not on anybody's side; they are on his. And he never pledges his loyalties; the best he does is to align his own side adjacently to another's, and even that can be only temporary."
He shrugs, accepts the insults, and smiles a little. "I couldn't trust him." Lyserg says softly. "Not if I didn't want to lose myself. You saw how it was with Ren, with Horo-horo. They can live without him now no more than they could live without air or sun."
"They would heal without him." She says carelessly, and does not know whether the words come from solemnity or a cavalier flippancy.
"Let us speak of you, then, since you do not care for them; would you heal without him?" His eyes bore into hers, and suddenly there are tears, lightly so as to skim the surface, but ingrained so deeply that she fears letting him go without his reply.
She wonders now why and when she ever started caring that the green-haired boy could cry.
"No, but that's different."
"Different," He says, leaning back, "and in many ways the same. You know how it is, then. And you know that it'd be best if I didn't lose myself." He sucks in a breath before expelling another one, smiling faintly as the mist from his lungs skims the air, twisting and curling upon itself before vanishing.
"Best." She is scornful of the word, as she is of many things, having heard Ryu boast of his 'best place', of Ren and HoroHoro each determined to 'be the best', those arrogant boys with hearts full of pride and empty minds. "Better to lose yourself to Yoh than to a cause that will have drained you of all that is useful and leave you with nothing when it is gone."
Seeing that the tears have no effect upon her, he puts his shoulders back, straightens, and shakes away the drops as though they are only rainwater.
She says, angrily, "Have you any plans for your life now that he is gone?" Even in his demise, she does not grant Hao the privilege of having his name spoken.
He shrugs, his eyes distant, though his elbows slip from the water-slick railing, causing him to stumble. She watches this impassively, and does not offer to help him – nor does he ask it. "I think I shall finish school." He says calmly, and turns his green-glass eyes to the ivory outfit that he wears still, though it has long ago been sullied by things more sinister than dirt. "And then I shall go onto university, and start up my own detective agency as—" He catches his breath so that it streams out in an angry, thin hiss rather than a muffled sob, "As my father would have wanted."
"The dead never want anything except to be alive again." The itako snaps, and the thin line of her mouth wavers only a little as he turns to glance at her.
His eyes are dead things. "I," the diviner said softly, "would like to think otherwise. Is it so much to ask?"
"If you want to deceive yourself, it's no matter to me." She says coldly. Shaking her hair back, she turns away, to tip her head up and stare a little at the full moon. "Go back to the house." It is not a suggestion, but a command.
Tremulously, he wavers, and breaks into a smile. "I think," Lyserg says gently, "that I have had enough of being commanded for one lifetime. The X-Laws were quite enough."
"I am not the X-Laws." Her lips curl back from her teeth, a growl that is more animalistic than human. Her gaze, though she does not turn it away from the moon, is both sweepingly contemptuous and not a little angry – she is not certain why he gets her like this, but he does.
"Hai," he agrees amiably, "You're not. But you are admirable all the same, for your strength."
Strength. He is so obsessed with it that he would have killed for it, if he could have gotten it on his side to defeat Hao. She wonders, a little idly, whether he still wants that strength with the wholeheartedness he had exposed before, or whether he is calmer now, more likenable to the boys inside who are drooling over their video games and controllers.
Out loud, she says, "Considering your previous tastes, I don't think that's much of a compliment."
"Take it as you will," he replies, and sounds a little more tired now. "Only know that I wish that I still had something like that strength to depend on."
She grits her teeth, clenching them together so that the words that years with Yoh have taught her must be said will not be said. "Any- friend- of- Yoh's- can- depend- on- whatever- Yoh- can- offer- them." Including my aid, she means, but does not say it; it would be adding insult to injury, that the words have escaped her and that she would be pleasant about them.
He glances at her; she can feel that innocent agate burrowing into the back of her skull, as though attempting to divine her thoughts that way. A soft puff of air is indrawn into his lungs as he shudders a moment in the brittle cold of the early morning, and speaks: "Yoh cannot offer me anything that I want."
"You want strength, he has it." She says it in a deadpanning voice, and cannot help but suppress a thin-lipped smile at her own lack of enthusiasm.
"You know as well as I do that to accept his alliance is to fall subservient to him, to be unable to live without him." Lyserg says quietly. "And if that happens, well, you're so absorbed that you can't help but notice that he gives the same amount of himself to everyone. You are nothing special to him unless you make yourself stand out, and everybody's so occupied in doing that that you can't do it." A crooked smile lifts the corners of his lips in a moue that is anything but amused. "You're lucky; you're his fiancé. He has to notice you."
For a minute, a split-cold-second, she stands shocked, before understanding filters through her thoughts.
"Yoh's mine." She says immediately, whirling upon him, eyes icy. Glancing up in surprise at her vehemence, Lyserg smiles.
"I know." The dowser says, with a little grin that she does not understand. "Didn't I say that I didn't want him?"
"Did you?" She counters.
"I thought that I did. If I did not, let me say it now: I have no interest in taking your fiancé from you. His strength is a powerful thing, but its price is more than I can afford."
"More than you are willing to give, at any rate." The blonde retorts, and caught off-guard, he laughs.
She ponders him for a little while, then asks, "Then what do you want?"
He shrugs his shoulders carelessly. "What everyone wants." He says in reply. "Strength. Success. Happiness."
"In that order?"
"I know what I am most likely to get in this life." He counters. "My wishes are in the order that they are likely to happen."
"How very pragmatic." She says dryly.
"Like you are." He retorts, brushing back the strands of green that have fallen into his face again. For a moment, he looks very young, a child with unkempt hair and an outfit that is sullied by the day's work. And as always, Anna acts by instinct; reaching out with fingers that are resolute and firm, tucking a missed strand behind his ear with casual certainty that she's doing exactly what is necessary.
She brushes against the hollow area where the curve of his bone meets his throat in the process, and the contact is electric; a jump of static from his skin to hers so that her breath quickens, stops for a moment, before the world begins to revolve again. She does not see how his eyes, too, have widened into startled circlets, that he is staring at her with a renewed intensity and curiosity that has nothing to do with the fact that they are both bound resolutely to Yoh.
"There." The blonde says, suppressing the faint tremor in her voice.
"You have my gratitude." The young dowser replies.
"Is that so?" Anna says coolly, and he gives a quick, brief nod.
"In that case," The itako resumes her words, "you may walk me back to the house. It's cold, and I should be getting back in." With the arrogance of certainty, she offers her hand to him. After only the pause of a moment, he puts a hand on his hip, so that she might have an arm to place her hand upon. And in that stiff position of gallantry, they begin the short walk back up to the house.
-end-
Author's Note: I know, I know, terrible. –baps head madly- It's just that Anna and Lyserg are so hard to get together! Anna loves Yoh so much that her devotion is hard to get around without getting her completely OOC.
What'd you think?
InuLover4Eva: Hopefully you liked your request… at least as much as I did, which would be difficult considering I enjoyed it a wee bit too much. x3
Queenstheif Draconess Herselve: I absolutely will! I kept meaning to do this a while back, and forgetting. Now it's a sticky on the board, so I'll remember. :) Thanks! And what's FAMR stand for? –has forgotten-
soccer-cutie67: There – an update. MarcoxLyserg next, and I have only the vaguest ideas of what to do for that one… It's looking violent so far. -.-; Yeah, trust me to be violent.
Jojo-Kyoyama: If you want to read a YohAnna, you can read my chapterfic You're Mine, or the short one-shot that I wrote for Valentine's Day. As it is at the moment, however, YohAnna is far too easy, and I'm going to push it to the back of my list. –sweatdrop-
