Written for the "sea" challenge on tempsmort, and proof that I can't write Fye without pushing the limits of melodrama. Contains Kurogane/Fye and implied Fye/Ashura, as well as an overabundance of commas. All backstory is speculative and most probably inaccurate.
Shore Behind
Wet sand the colour of khaki under his feet; the sea a dull and angry grey, leaden beneath fast-moving clouds. Standing on a strange beach in a strange world, and Fye suddenly feels like a child again, like he's five years old and staring out at the great northern ocean, at the brooding expanse of water that seemed to him to stretch on forever.
He lived where cliffs snatched a curve of ocean into a bay, soothed restless waters and gave haven to teeming shoals of fish and the small, swift whales that swam in to chase them; huffing and steaming in the dark water; rolling creamy bellies to the sky. And the gulls that nested on the cliffs would descend like bits of falling paper, like autumn leaves, darting in to snatch scraps from the water before rising in triumph, circling lazily above the bay.
In winter, the bay would be loud with the creak and grind of ice, the lapping of water. The whales and the fish were gone then, out to open, unfrozen waters, but the gulls remained, gliding mournfully overhead with their strange, sad cries. They only went out to the open sea to die, Fye's father told him once, and Fye believed it might be true (where could they go? the ocean was so big) but secretly hoped it wasn't, hoped the gulls had somewhere to go, a place only they knew how to reach.
Much later he found where the ocean ended, north, farthest north where he went to serve his king, and there Ashura's eyes reflected the sea's shifting colours, blue and grey and green, and his hands were white and graceful as seabirds, bones delicate as birds' bones. The first time they met, Fye knelt, and Ashura placed a white hand on his head, and his eyes were deep as oceans. Deep as the pool that Fye pushed him beneath, at the end, but Ashura's eyes were closed then and Fye felt pale skin under his pale hands and thought this is the last time, and afterwards his face was wet, water dripping out of his hair, and he couldn't tell if he was crying.
That is the last thing he can call a memory of his home, and standing on this strange beach in this strange world it is the last thing he wants to remember, and where all remembering inevitably leads. Somewhere the sun has risen, but the clouds are gathering heavily now, the light grey and sickly.
"It's going to rain later," Fye remarks and is, surprisingly, not surprised by the grunted affirmation from behind him; he realises he's been aware of the other person for some time without being conscious of it. This bothers him a little, that Kurogane's presence has become so familiar to him it's part of the background noise of his existence. He often worries that he's becoming too used to this - to him; to all of them - that he's becoming attached and dependant as a self-exiled vagrant can't be. He can't afford this, he thinks, as hands rest lightly on his shoulders, graze over his arms, grasp briefly at the smooth fabric of his coat; he can't let this become ordinary.
Kurogane thinks the same, he knows, and such casual touch is strange between them, nearly awkward, but he can't deny he wants it right now. The ninja's hands are strong and brown, calloused from gripping a sword; Fye likes those hands, likes the odd mix of care and certainty they always use, touching him like something both dangerous and wonderful. He shivers, because it's cold and because Kurogane is warm against his back, and because this sea is so exactly like the sea in his world, yet not quite right; nothing is ever quite right, and this is as much a relief as it is an aching reminder.
A mouth presses suddenly, urgently to his throat and he wonders if Kurogane can taste the salt there, tang of sea and skin and blood pulsing beneath. He wonders if this is futile, and wishes the answer didn't already matter so much; he wonders if it would be worth it to tell the truth, if he could even remember what that is anymore; he wonders what the ocean is like in Kurogane's world.
"Come on." Kurogane steps away, fingers brushing the nape of Fye's neck. "Time to go back, the kids'll be wondering."
There's a gull winging its way out to sea, an uncertain, windblown speck against the darkening sky. If it know where it's going it doesn't show, but Fye watches it anyway for a moment, and hopes. Then he turns his back and follows Kurogane up the beach.