For my dear Fyre-seme. Challenge: Yasha-ou/Ashura-ou, "You were beautiful like a flower I was too afraid to touch."
Note that I'm going with the guess that Ashura is a male, like Fai's Ashura. This has not been decided, at all.
It was a ceremonial affair. A meeting on the centre of the battlefield, an acknowlegement of the passing on of the torch.
A momentary lapse in the eternal struggle.
The old leaders had commited the ritual suicides the night before. The age of their death was decided at the date of their birth, as were the successors.
And now, they would meet, making the ritual complete with a vow to continue the fight.
---
Ashura allowed one last pin to be placed in his long, flowing black hair and straightened his kimono one more time before turning and heading out the doorway.
The table was set with the old china that he had admired so in the palace, unable to touch. It had only been half a set, then. He looked across the table, under the shadow of the tent's eves.
The man standing there made his heart shudder and stop. It took the entirity of the low, formal bow for him to collect himself, dropping to his knees by the low table with grace. He kept his eyelids low, demure, seemingly focused on his hands on his lap even as he looked across the old advisor pouring the tea into his opposite's eyes.
The other king-to-be did not waver in his gaze.
---
Yasha thought for one heart-pounding moment that this was a woman. This beautiful, graceful man could not possibly be the heir.
But even as they sat opposite each other, waiting as the tea was poured and the places set, the harp thrumming in the background, he saw the steel holding this flower's back straight, saw the quirk of platnum in vibrant eyes he never could have imagined seeing, so close and so personal.
He watched, mesmerized, as the flower petal lips parted. Even the ritual words of thanks and rebirth were said, he was in awe. This was a god, a god amoung men.
And even as he knew that, felt it in the heat of his flesh, he knew he could never have it.
"Yasha-ou."
His name startled him from his trance, and he almost shook his head to free it from the whisps of dream surrounding him.
"I acknowlege you, and your tribe as my eternal rival for the Palace of the Moon. We will not back down. Do you accept our challenge?"
And it may have been the insense, the fumes from the tea, even the music or the scent of blood that was impossible to mask on this terrain, but he could have sworn to himself in that moment that what he was seeing was reflected in those eyes.
---
Even as the words left his lips, Ashura's mind was elsewhere. Replace the anger, the vengance, the blood, the pain - replace it all with love. Because was that not what he felt now? He had no desire to avenge his father. No need to wreak retrubution for the death of his people. He desired...
But a soverign does not desire.
Was he made of stone, as he looked? Could he keep up with this Yasha in a swordfight? Could they learn to live together? He longed to know these things.
But a King does not desire. He only desires what his people desire, and what his fathers desired.
And that was the Castle of the Moon.
"Ashura-ou."
And for the first time since the meal started, Ashura both lifted his head, met Yasha's eyes, and smiled.
"I acknolege your challenge and the challenge of the Tribe of Ashura. As the leader of the tribe of Yasha, I accept your challenge for the ownership of the Castle of the Moon."
Somewhere, somehow, Ashura could feel his heart breaking in two.
---
The tea tasted bitter, of herbs and ingredients that were never written down. An entire family was devoted to the construction of this ritual, to every last detail. No one knew how long it had gone on, or how long it would go on. Only that it did.
And beneath his father's old armor, Yasha knew that he was shaking, trembling like he had never done before, with the sheer force of his desire.
But a leader did not desire.
He was to be as rock, hard, immovable, only changing as the rest of the lesser rocks changed.
He longed to pull Ashura to his breast and hold him there, to take him away and get rid of the ever-hovering servants and just talk.
But a king does not desire, and he was as a rock, immovable.
He knew he would regret it forever.
---
They stood, facing each other over the table. The final step.
Their father's swords were handed to them, cleaned and polished as new. And slowly, without breaking the shuddering, painful gaze between them, they pulled the razor-sharp blades over the palms of their hands. It happened at the same moment, the flicker of pain passing through them.
Surely greater wounds had been bourne before, but never at such price.
Neither of their hands shook as they reached across the table to touch their fingers to their opponant's wound, the blood dampening their fingertips, the circle of pain tying them together.
"And thus it has been, is, and ever shall be."
---
When Ashura-ou left the tent, his childhood friend immidiately stepped to his side. But Ashura could not hear a word he said as he lifted his bloodstained fingers to his lips and, closing his eyes, tasted the bitter, metallic tang.
"Ashura? Do you need to rest?"
"No, Kumara. I am Ashura-ou now. I must go greet my people."
He gently whiped his fingers off on the piece of plain fabric offered to him, and tucked it into his sleeve, carefully folded. He would preserve it and tuck it into one of his chests, locked tight.
---
Yasha allowed himself to be ushered out of the tent, dazed and heady with the flavor of the tea and the feeling of that soft palm, slick with blood, under his fingers. He imagined he had felt the heartbeat, even, the real live heart of the man he must now set his life to killing.
He shuddered, passing his clean hand over his eyes before calling for a piece of parchment and a place to sit down. He would spell out Ashura's and his name with their blood comingled, would hang the roll over his bed.
They were kings now.
Beautiful, heartbreaking.