DISCLAIMER. Takahashi-sama and co. I am not. A lowly fanfiction authoress I am. Talk like Yoda I do. Seen Star Wars too many times I have. Own Yuugiou and Star Wars I do not.
Hey, how many here have been to the media center at www . yugioh-dungeons . com (spaces excluded)? It has this AWESOME Shadows of the Night music video, and I... just got obsessed. Heh heh... oh yeah, and Shadows of the Night isn't mine. Bug off, Mister Lawyer.
ALSO, when I mention the color of his eyes in here, PLEASE don't flame for it. His eyes are that color on the covers of a few of the mangas, and since this is an AU ficcy, I thought it would be cool to make them that color.
Dusk Dancing
Lafada- Steps in 3/4
"Anzu?"
"Prince Atemu?"
"Oh my gods, I thought you were-"
"You're supposed to be-"
"Someone else."
"Someone else."
The two stared at each other in horrified silence. Suddenly Atemu gasped. "Stay here! We need to figure this out!" He fled the moonlit courtyard and ran out of the palace, throwing up over the rich Eythereau grass.
WHY does everything make me puke? Why?
"Are you all right?" Anzu had followed him.
"Yes. It was just... shock... Anzu, that was a huge mistake. I thought you were-"
"Shizuka. And I thought you were Johnny."
"Why Johnny?"
Anzu blushed slightly, pointing to her ears. Engagement earrings hung from the second holes, softly glittering different colors. Shizuka had a pair just like them.
"Gods... how are we going to get around this?" he asked helplessly.
I don't know. I don't know about you, but... I won't be able to just forget that, to pretend it didn't happen..."
"Nor will I," he agreed.
"What do we do?"
"I don't know... I don't know... Do you realize we just broke the gods' engagement law?"
"Oh no..."
"Oh yes."
DING dong, ding DONG!
"The ritual bells! That's the one-minute toll! How did we miss the other signals?"
"I don't know, but if we don't get there in time, we'll be in a lot more trouble than we already are! Get your mask on and run, and we can sort this out later!" He pulled his own cloth mask down over his face, taking off towards the dawn dancing hall. Anzu followed, pelting after the prince as fast as her body would allow. But even a star dancer's legs have their limits.
Eight seconds... around the corner...
Five... further down the hall...
Four... so tired...
Two... at the doors...
One...
Anzu bolted in the doors just as a guard pushed them shut, and Atemu grabbed her hand to pull her in.
"Are you okay?" he asked, cheeks stained a deep wine scarlet.
"Yes," she replied breathlessly. The two hurriedly joined the circle of people, to offer up the day's final prayers to the gods. The hall's many voices echoed on stone walls:
"MAKA GEH TUKAJI!"
Ironic that no one in all the land knew what the tribute meant, but everyone knew of its importance.
An icy gust of wind swept through the hall, and the ritual was over. But Atemu was barely conscious of it. His eyes never moved from watching a certain leggy dancer, her slim form, her smile...
xdXbx
Anzu ascended a few sets of steps to a tower room and pushed open the door. Six beds framed the outside of the room, creating a circle. Desks and dressers floated about in the circle's middle, and a fellow dancer of Anzu's sat at one, running pale hands through dream-blue hair in an irritated manner.
"Hey 'Sara. No one else up here yet?"
The pretty girl turned in her seat to look up at Anzu. "Oh, I expect it'll be a few minutes before any of them get up here."
"Why?" Anzu asked, changing from her masquerade costume to a pair of silky pink pajamas.
"Amane has to work on the dancing balance tonight, Shizuka's probably busy with Atemu-" Anzu blushed deeply at this comment, thanking the gods that Kisara didn't notice. "-and Miho with Hiroto, and Mai's probably flirting rather heavily with Katsuya," she answered her companion, rattling through the list of the other girls in the Eythereau competition dancing troupe.
"How come you're not down there with Seto, eh?"
"It's quite loud down there, and neither of us really like it that much, so..."
"Ah, see."
"And how's Johnny?" Kisara inquired, reaching for a brush and combing out long aquamarine locks that she had frazzled in her frustration over her work.
Anzu's face froze, and her heart skipped a beat. What was she to say? Kisara had great power contained in her soul, power to read someone else's soul. That just wasn't fair.
"Anzu, what happened? Your spirit is jumbled all over the place."
"I... I broke the law... Oh my gods, I broke the law..."
"What?" Kisara crossed to where her friend stood, crying. "Anzu, what's the matter? Here..." She led Anzu over to her bed and sat down on it next to her.
"Kisara, I broke the gods' engagement law, the one about not showing or expressing romantic feelings for an individual other than the one you're engaged to! I was dancing with Atemu, but I thought it was Johnny, and HE thought I was Shizuka, but then... we realized what we did, but... it's too late... that was the best dance I've ever danced... and... I loved it, even more than dancing with Johnny... What am I going to do?" She broke into harder sobs.
Kisara pursed her lips. Anzu was the best dancer in all of Eythereau, and that had been the best dance of her life? That wasn't good, not good at all. Bloody terrible, in fact.
"Shh... calm down... You'll find a way to fix this... you and Atemu. You'll find a way out."
"But... that's the problem. I don't want a way out."
xdXbx
Atemu lay on his bed in the royal boys' room, motionless, just basking, undisturbed, in the wonderful silence-
"Hey Atemu, are you okay?" his little cousin Mokuba's voice asked.
Atemu's cousin Seto's deeper voice stepped in, saying, "Moki, go brush your teeth." The smaller boy pouted, but left.
Atemu heard rustling sounds as his cousins changed into nightclothes, then a door shut as Mokuba went to brush his teeth in the bathroom connected to their room.
"'Temu?"
"Hmm? Seto...?"
"IS everything seriously all right?"
"Yeah... where's Yuugi?"
He heard a mattress moan a bit as Seto sat down on his bed, next to Atemu's.
"Yuugi's still downstairs. And everything doesn't LOOK seriously all right."
"I'm fine."
Seto quirked an eyebrow, unseen by Atemu. "Shizuka said she didn't see you the whole day."
WHY did Seto have to have soul-reading powers? He always knew how to rub a guy the wrong way. Between him and Kisara, the world was shown no mercy.
"That's because she didn't."
"Then who was that you were making out with, if not Shizuka?"
"YOU SAW THAT?"
"No, I just read your mind. Anzu?"
"I thought she was Shizuka, but... she wasn't..."
"But you loved dancing with her more than you've ever liked dancing with Shizuka, right?"
"Seto, please! Don't tell! It was a mistake!"
"I'm not going to."
Atemu sighed in relief.
"But I am going to ask you how you expect to get out of this."
"I... I don't know."
"That won't do you any good. She's your practice partner this month, or did you not read the board on the dusk dancing hall's door?"
"WHAT?"
Seto nodded, more to himself than to the other teen. "Yes. You're going to have to dance with her every day, so you'd better think of some way to keep yourself in check. You've broken the law, you know."
"I know. But it's not my fault-"
"I know it wasn't. That's not the point."
"Always optimistic, aren't we?"
Seto smirked. "If optimism is absolutely required for survival."
"What a nice, helping cousin."
"Aren't I?"
"Hmph."
Seto's mattress moaned again as he got up. "I'm going to go see what's taking Mokuba so long. He has to be up early tomorrow for magic classes."
"You do that."
"We do too, you know."
"I know. Will you just let a guy sleep?"
"I'll consider it."
xdXbx
Atemu yawned, walking out from illusionism classes the next morning and heading towards the dusk hall.
Why does Mana have to be so clumsy? She's a great illusionist and an awesome friend, but she's too damn clumsy for her own good. I don't know HOW Mahaado can put up with being her boyfriend...
"Yo, 'Temu!" Yuugi's relatively light voice called from down the hall.
"Yuugi? Heading to the dancing?" Atemu asked as Yuugi caught up to him.
"Where else?" he asked playfully, as they entered the dancing hall. Yuugi ran off to greet Jounouchi, leaving Atemu at the door.
"Hey 'Temu!" Ryou greeted the prince, walking up to him.
"Who's your partner this month?"
"I've got Kisara." The boy laughed lightly, confusing Atemu.
"What's so funny?"
"Oh, Seto just made it pretty clear that I wasn't to hurt his beloved girlfriend in any way, shape, or form, the usual speech for whoever gets Kisara."
"Oh. Who'sDorobo with?"
"No clue."
Atemu nodded, turning to read the list on the door.
And Johnny's with Miho? That should get an interesting reaction from Hiroto."
"You just missed it, actually. He pretty much gave Johnny a Seto-speech."
Atemu laughed, but was cut off by the palace dance instructor and Eythereau dance troupe leader's voice.
"Come on now! Get with your partners and get in lines! Honestly, how hard is it for you lot to listen?" asked Cyndia. "Do I have to get my husband in here?"
"NO!" Katsuya shouted, voicing the opinions of all the other teens in the room. Pegasus, Cyndia's husband, was in charge of Eythereau's stable of winged horses, strong and ruthless with his handling.
"That won't be necessary," Hiroto added in hastily, grabbing a random young woman and leading her onto the floor.
"Wrong girl, you idiot," she stated dryly, changing places with Hiroto's partner.
"All right, everyone in places and all that? Okay, it's the lafada today." She smiled at the collective groans. The lafada, the Eythereauian equivalent of an earthly waltz, was Cyndia's torture dance.
"Have you no heart?" Ryuuji asked. "I just slow danced all day yesterday!"
"Oh, really? And would you care to tell us whom with, Ryuuji?"
"Uh... some chick dressed in-"
"That's quite enough information; I can see where this is going."
Ryuuji smirked slyly, as if to say, 'You asked.'
Cyndia looked quite amusingly like a ruffled chicken for a minute, before regaining her composure and carrying on with the lesson at hand.
"Ah, well... that's... okay then, let's move on, shall we?"
More collective groans from her competitive dancers and their partners, and the others in the class.
"I'll take that as a 'yes.'" She walked over to an instrumentalist, saying to him, "Go easy. They DID dance all day yesterday, and I want no accidents, if you know what I mean. The competitions are coming up, and you know how they react..."
He nodded, putting his flute-like wind instrument to his lips, starting the dance out with a slow, steady flow to ¾ time.
Atemu gulped, taking one of Anzu's hands in the standard lafada position.
"Relax," she ordered him, "You'll make yourself sick."
"I already feel sick."
"Honestly?"
He nodded, his stomach doing flips, and closed his eyes in nausea. Anzu drew closer and snaked an arm naturally around his waist, rubbing his back soothingly.
"Slow down, calm down, and believe that you can control your stomach."
He did so. "You're lucky you're so easy to trust."
"Why, thank you."
He chuckled. "Or maybe it's just your stunning looks."
"That prize would have to go to you, Prince." She looked slightly upwards into his face, catching his bright green eyes and dragging them down, drowning his gaze in her wondrous cerulean wishing pools as they twirled a bit too sharply. Her breath caught in her throat as he steadied her from falling with a strong touch on her lower back.
"Oh, I think not."
Anzu couldn't help but giggle softly as he led her into a pretty spin. "Are you trying to flatter me?" she asked as he gently pulled her back towards him.
"Is it working?"
"Maybe."
"It had better be."
"Why?"
"I don't compliment people unless I mean it."
"Gods, that's true."
He smiled. "So? Is it still 'maybe' working?"
"That would depend, wouldn't it?"
"Depend? Depend on what?"
She gasped as he moved his face closer to hers, feeling his warm breath on her cheeks. His eyes ate her alive, a large, monstrous, imposing green.
"A-Atemu..."
She couldn't. He couldn't. They couldn't. It was against the law.
But they could.
She closed her eyes as he drew closer still, their lips a fraction of a centimeter apart, and blushed deeply, feeling him bite down a bit on her lower lip. The dance totally forgotten, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
Kissing him was better than she had remembered it being. His arms were strong around her waist, his lips warm yet polite, and the very way he moved was gentle and soft, yet possessed her at the same time, causing her to cling desperately to him until there wasn't a bit of air left in her lungs.
It was then that she drew back, opened her eyes, and came out of her heavenly daze. It was then that she realized what they had done.
With the entire hall watching.
So's? Likies? Yes? No? Maybe so?
nods- She did see them, Little Atemu. For the sake of drama, and all that schtuff. OMG, thank you so much! The author of one of the best AnzuAtemu fics ever called me an awesome writer... -bows to great authoress extraordinaire- Mes is not worthy.
Lol, QueenofHearts4u. Send her packing, the heck with it! LOL! Don't get me wrong; I love Shizuka. I just love Anzu better! So... we ditch Shizuka, and on with Anzu! Glad you like it! Review on, dudette!
Wow, MahXien... I guess I'd better continue, ne? Or... my email won't be doing very well... and OMG, thanks so much for reviewing! I read and reviewed Caught Metal Handed a while ago, before I got my account on here, and since then I've been trying like crazy to find it again! I HAVE FOUND IT! Ahem...
Offend me, Bradybunch4529? Of course not! I was actually glad that you picked up so much of how Shizuka was pushing Atemu like that! You made me happy! And I'm not easily offended, either. -shakes head- Wow... I'm so glad you liked it that much... I feel loved... thank you. -huggles- (If you don't mind being huggled by an insane fanfic authoress, of course... if you do... I'll take the huggling back.)
DINGDINGDINGDING! You're right, Ksaturn, lol. Anzu it is! Thanks!
Until next update, then!