Notes: I've actually been doing a fair bit of DK writing lately, just not a whole lot of posting (other than on my LJ). My main project at the moment is a DK cop AU which is eating up most of my time, and which – at 18 chapters – is about 3/5ths done. This is a challenge fic I wrote on a 'break' from my main story, and will possibly be extended into a series that deals with Kai-stern meeting each Officer after my main project is done. I've posted some links to Livejournal communities that I talk about occasionally in my FFNet profile, as well, just in case anyone ever wants to check them out!
Beginnings Found in Bars.
The bar was practically empty on the day Lykouleon first stepped through its doors, allowing the mid afternoon light to streak in across a stained carpet that Kai-stern had long since given up trying to get clean. Few came to the bar so early in the day; there were fields to be worked in and shops to be maintained, and the bar was situated too far out of the way to really serve as a proper stop off for lunch or early dinner.
But even if a hundred men instead of simply sunlight had accompanied Lykouleon, Kai-stern would have still been instantly drawn to him. Spells could change the form of a dragon to a human, but they could not force upon them the heaviness of small town life and the daily fear of demons that was instilled in humans from a very young age. Lykouleon had been different right from the start, and Kai-stern liked to think that he would have known that even if the other man hadn't been smiling. Smiles were rare here, at least sober ones were. Kai-stern wasn't particularly fond of the ones that found their birth in alcohol, as they never tended to stay simply smiles. Instead, hands would creep into the equation, and then a dark corner or a bathroom stall door, and Kai-stern would smile and smile himself once it was all over, while trying to remember in vain why people ever truly smiled in the first place.
When Lykouleon smiled warmly even as he shook the snow from his coat and stomped his boots on the horrid carpet, Kai-stern instantly smiled back. He always did, of course – he didn't tend bars as a living because he wasn't good with people, even if his choice of career did belie his generally private nature. It wasn't, however, the type of smile that slipped naturally to Kai-stern's lips when someone entered; a smile which - while unforced - was also not entirely real. Instead, the smile that was drawn from him was a response that he held no control over.
Lykouleon ordered his drink in three different the languages, the first two horribly mangled and the third completely unrecognizable. And Kai-stern had established the moment that Lykouleon had entered that he was a foreigner simply by the way he carried himself. In the span of a few seconds of spoken gibberish Lykouleon ensured that if Kai-stern had been completely blind – as opposed to simply being part way there – that he would now know that as well.
Instead of answering in either of the two identifiable languages, Kai-stern's response was in Daconian, the language spoken amongst most of the cities and states that considered themselves part of the elite. Lykouleon had been at first surprised, and then amused, and then something that would have possibly have worried Kai-stern if he'd been able to identify it, but while he was good at reading people, it was an art he had yet to perfect.
He was, after all, only sixteen. Some things took time.
Lykouleon spoke Daconian perfectly, and inquired warmly if Kai-stern was familiar with other languages. No strange, wary look, no raised eyebrows expressing disbelief that someone such as himself could speak any language. Normally, Kai-stern would have shrugged the question off, or made up some excuse or lie. But Lykouleon asked because he wanted to know and not because there was something to be gained from that knowledge, and there was something so unique about it that Kai-stern found himself answering, leaning partly against the bar as he dried the glass in his hand.
It was simple, really. No, he'd never lived to the west where the language was spoken on a more frequent balance, although he'd love to travel there some day. No, he'd never worked for someone who spoke Daconian. Kai-stern had smiled a more familiar smile then; bitter and with a touch of dark humour that belonged to someone much older. Kai-stern had learnt the language – and at least a dozen other ones – as a child. Children picked up languages easily, and as Kai-stern had grown up in one of the largest known human refugee camps, he'd ended up mixing with 'displaced' humans from many different cultures and walks of life. He'd learnt other dialects since then; this bar was hardly his first and would most definitely not be his last, but it was the core ones that he had learnt as a child that made him a uniquely versatile barman.
Lykouleon confessed then what had already been starkly clear, that he had never really mastered all that many languages himself, and in fact often had enough problems just with his native one. It was said with an unguarded honesty and humour that almost stunned Kai-stern, and as Lykouleon talked about his own wanderings up until that point, his low, gentle tone and amusing tales lent themselves to an effect that was almost hypnotic.
Lykouleon left when the first men from the fields arrived, not saying a word as he quietly observed the way Kai-stern pulled his bandana down so it covered more of his offensive hair and adjusted his glasses that served as both an aid and a shield. Kai-stern had never felt self-conscious about hiding his 'deformities' in the past; especially as exposing them led only to ridicule and anger, but with merely a gaze Lykouleon seemed to say that Kai-stern had nothing that should be hidden away.
Kai-stern wondered if the reason for that was because Lykouleon could already see right through him. That alone was something Kai-stern was far from used to, his guards usually working perfectly against any attempt to see beyond the artificial façade. Of course, no one before had ever really looked; so perhaps his façade had never been all that perfect, after all.
Lykouleon returned the next day at the same time, and then the next. On the fourth day Kai-stern learnt that Lykouleon's 'name' was Kouru, on the sixth Kai-stern mentioned how this was his twelfth bar in three years, and that he planned on heading north and finding a new one in the next couple of months or so. It was, he'd then added with a wry grin, the cheapskate's way of seeing the world. Lykouleon smiled and said it was a good way, which was nicer than saying it was the only way, which happened to be the truth.
A week after Lykouleon first entered Kai-stern's life he threatened then to leave it, Kai-stern's bar never having meant to be more than a brief bump along the way. And Kai-stern had known all along that Lykouleon planned on leaving at some stage, but what he hadn't known was that Lykouleon had never planned to leave him behind. When Lykouleon made the offer over his last drink – on the house, although Kai-stern's boss would hopefully never know – Kai-stern hadn't known exactly what to say. It made sense, of course: Lykouleon wished to travel yet his lack of linguistics skills often made it difficult, and he hated traveling on his own as it was. Kai-stern was fluent in a variety of languages and had his own desire to travel, and of course Lykouleon would pay him for his services and they would make sure to visit any of the places Kai-stern was interested in along the way …
And what could he have said, really? 'Yes' seemed inadequate, but it appeared to work well enough in the end, and barely twenty minutes later Kai-stern had packed up his meager belongings and was ready to go. There was no one to say goodbye to, and he simply left the keys to the bar out back, knowing the owner would find them eventually.
This time he met Lykouleon at the door, and Kai-stern smiled first. Somewhat hesitantly, and not without the slightest hint of doubt, it wasn't the most convincing smile in the world, but it was a start. What Kai-stern wouldn't find out for several more years was that it was a beginning, as well.