Here it is...finally. Minor spoilers. I hope the revelation isn't disappointing. Actually, it's only half of a revelation...one that Fai does his best to gloss over. I thought of revealing everything in its messed up glory but then that wouldn't be fun, would it? Well, anyway, please enjoy.
I capture the castle
Chapter Five
XX
"Well?" Kurogane shook the offensive piece of cloth. "What the hell is this?" he growled. He had to know. It could be no coincidence that the very same symbol had been in the weapons on soldiers in both his and the kid's past. Now it was here, now the symbol lay in his hands, triggering a flood of memories that he would rather forget.
"What does is look like? It is a piece of cloth." Ashura regarded the ninja coldly.
"I know that but what about the symbol on it?" Kurogane waved it in front of the king's face impatiently. "Whose symbol is it? What does it mean?" he demanded.
Forgive. He would never forgive. He could never forgive. Curse or no, he would find the person responsible for his mother's death and slice him into a thousand pieces. Anger made his blood boil, made his voice rise and his fists curl.
"Kurogane-san!" Syaoran caught up with the ninja, his princess running breathlessly behind him. "We couldn't find the feather."
Kurogane regarded the children for a moment before turning back to the king and his wizard. "Speak, dammit!" he growled. A name, a place, that was all he needed.
"Kuro-chan, you should calm down. His majesty still needs to get used to what has happened," Fai came between the two only to be pushed back by Kurogane's glare. It was unlike anything he had seen before. It was not a simple 'I'm annoyed, leave me alone' glare. It was angry and murderous.
"Why was this is in your treasury room?" he asked slowly.
"Yes, I would also like some answers if possible," Syaoran stepped forward, into the light shining through the open ceiling.
Ashura's eyes drifted to the cloth. "That is Reed's symbol," he spoke grudgingly.
Both Syaoran and Sakura's eyes widened. "Clow Reed?" Syaoran gasped incredulously.
Ashura's cold gaze drifted across the children "Fei Wong Reed," he corrected, as if they were idiots for not knowing better.
"I've never heard of the guy," Kurogane tossed the cloth to a side. It was too filthy too touch, held too many bad memories within its black and red lines. If the scars opened now he did not think that he would be able to stop them. He did not think that he could fight the rising memories that would wash over and drown him. "Where is he? Who is he? What's his connection with you?"
"One question at a time, Kuro-pun," Fai resumed his role of easing the tension in the chamber, which was currently thick enough to club a whale to death. "We're all exhausted. Let's leave it for now and come back when we've all calmed down," he suggested.
"No!" Kurogane yelled.
"Okay, I see Kuro-chi won't move until he has answers and Ashura-ou…Ashura-ou probably wants to spend some quality catch-up time with me,"Fai pulled out his extra-special emergency smile.
He could feel events slipping from his fingers. Things were going down a dangerous path, one that he would not be able to control.His best hope now was to end this quickly. Be vague, be obscure, hide the truth until you can run again.
"Fei Wong Reed is…" he faltered. "Fei Wong Reed is…a sort of sorcerer if you will"
"Is that all?"
"Patience, Kuro-pin, patience," Fai soothed. "Celes is a cold country. As you've seen from our treasury, it's rich in minerals and precious stones but not much else. People can't eat rock and the land is too cold to grow much food. Our nation is…was dependant on our neighbours for food."
"But that dependence is a weakness. We suffer greatly during war-time, when the other nations close their roads to us, or when they experience a bad harvest," Ashura spoke tersely, glowering at his wizard for using the past tense.
"It was particularly bad when Fei Wong Reed came. We were suffering from bad harvest and war and he was like a saviour. We thought that if only we had a way of growing our own crops, if only the sun would shine on our nation, things would be okay," Fai smiled, though it never reached his eyes. His blue eyes stared at something invisible, at a past that had disappeared over a hundred years ago.
The idea of a true, blue sky. Fai, wouldn't that be great? To have a true blue sky and a gentle sun that shines just as warmly as your smile. I want to see it; I want to share that sky with you.
A blue sky, Ashura-ou? Is that possible?
Of course it is. Dreams are simply a premature reality.
A blue sky?
Yes. A blue sky.
"Fei Wong Reed was from another world. We had been aware of other worlds before but have never communicated with them before.He told us that he had the means of granting our wishes but his services were not for free," Fai explained, shaking away the cobwebs of the past.
Kurogane's eyes narrowed. "What did you give him?" He took a deep breath to calm himself. Now was not the time to loose himself. If he wanted revenge, he would not be able to get it bulling through everything and anything in his way.
"Like I said, our land is rich in precious stones. We gave him a few orbs, a few magical crystals in exchange for a little warmth and that's all. Nothing suspicious here, Kuro-chin, just a clean deal between two sides."
"And that was it?" Kurogane asked dubiously.
There was a flicker of hesitation, expertly masked by a smile. "That was it," Fai nodded. "In order for constant warmth, we constantly gave him what we mined, which damaged our economy somewhat but at least we had something to eat during tough times."
Kurogane stared at him sceptically. It was obvious that the ninja trusted walking on the air more than he trusted the wizard's story.
"It seems I remember things better than you do, Fai," Ashura smiled coldly, "you forgot about our services."
"Ah, I must be getting old," Fai waved a dismissive hand through the cold air, "but if I talked about that it would lead into all sorts of smaller stories and explanations. It's getting late. Let's leave that one for another time, hmm?" he suggested, half amused, half scared and hoping that the former was the only side the others could see.
"What is it?" Kurogane remained contended with Ashura.
"We should go. Kaede and the others will be suspicious if we don't return soon," Fai insisted but as he spoke to his companions, his eyes locked with his king's.
Ashura met Fai's gaze head on. Something was exchanged. A thought, a single wish. Ashura smiled. He was in control now.
"You're right. Let's leave it for another day," he said and turned towards the further recesses of the castle.
XX
"Ah, you're back! We've managed to get you separate rooms!" Kaede greeted them as they returned to the tavern. The snow was falling softly as the light was beginning to wane. Sheushered them inside where the warmth hit their faces and the candles waved friendly hands in greeting.
"Thank you for your hospitality," Syaoran bowed politely as the townsfolk brought them all a hot meal.
Kaede smiled and placed her head in her hands. Syaoran fidgeted and fiddled with his spoon under her careful observation, causing her smile to widen. "So where have you been? No one's seen any of you all day," she asked.
"We were looking around," Syaoran lied and they left it at that, moving on to other areas of conversation such as the epidemic and the best recipe for stuffed dingo nuts.
After a quick meal, Fai quickly excused himself, claiming that the day's excitement had gotten to him and hurried off to his room. As Kaede had said, they had got them separate rooms but her definition of separate still meant sharing with another person and, as always, he and Kurogane had been lumped together.
The room was no different from the last. It was still as cold and empty save for the blankets and duvets laid on the floor to fight of the night's chill. A single window let in what was the last of the day's dying light onto a cold floor every bit as frozen as the snow.
Fai rolled out his blankets, preparing his bed for the night as he heard the soft footsteps of his roommate approach.
"So, do you want to tell me the truth?"
"I did, Kuro-chi," Fai replied.
"The whole truth," Kurogane pinned him with crimson eyes that seemed to see everything. Fai shifted uncomfortably and returned his attention to the bedrolls. "It will come out eventually so you might as well tell me now," Kurogane said softly, dangerously, like a beast giving a warning growl before it leapt.
Fai's eyes darted about the room, looking everywhere except at the man demanding answers. Why was it that he seemed to be hounded by big, scary men with equally big, scary weapons/powers who wanted things explained to them? Fai stretched and faked a yawn. "I'm sure that Ashura-ou will oblige you tomorrow," he feigned fatigue.
"You like running away, don't you?" Kurogane stared at him accusingly. "Whenever things get a little tough, you run away and hide."
Fai smiled. "I'm not running now," he said softly, hoping that his pensiveness would annoy his companion enough to let him drop the subject.
However, Kurogane was not going to let him off so lightly. "You are," he insisted, pinning him down with unnerving Kurogane astuteness. "You've been trying desperately to run away ever since we got here."
Fai turned to the window, glancing outside where the children were still playing. Vaguely, he wondered how anyone could laugh and play in such a cold, desolate place. The children ran after each other, yelling things muffled by the glass between them. In the growing darkness, their running forms flitted like ghosts from another time, leaving marks of the past on freshly fallen snow.
"Capture the castle," he murmured, staring at the playful children.
Kurogane blinked. "What?"
"It was a game," Fai smiled, turning back to his disgruntle companion.
"I don't care about some stupid game," Kurogane grunted, irritated that he had allowed the wizard an opening by which to escape from their current topic of conversation.
"Ah, but don't you want to know about my stunning childhood?" Fai teased, going into melodramatic mode.
"Are you willing to tell me?" Kurogane countered.
For a moment Fai's smile almost disappeared. For a moment, caught by surprise, his face lay tragically unguarded but that moment passed too quickly for anything to have been read and soon the protective smile was back in place.
"You have two teams," despite wearing his 'everything's made of rainbows' smile, his voice was soft and oddly strained. "On both sides there is a person who is dubbed the 'castle.' You split your own team into two: those who will defend your 'castle' and those who will try and capture the other team's 'castle.' When you catch the other team's castle you have to shout 'Goal!' to win," he explained. "It was a rough game. The children always ended up with scrapes and cuts and sometimes even broken bones. I suppose that when you're caught up in something it's hard to stop."
"So?"
Fai shrugged. "I feel a lot like the 'castle' right now, except there's no one on my side to protect me."
There was no way Kurogane could have disguised the wordless grunt of disgust that so distastefully parted from his lips. Even though he believed that he had a considerable amount of restraint, he had always been a very forthright person, particularly when he was pissed off.
Right now, he was particularly annoyed.
No, he was more than annoyed. Peeved maybe. Perhaps a coupling of the two, perhaps a combination of every kind of irritation there was added to the fact that he was tired and had already been pissed off for most of the day.
Kurogane's fist slammed against the floor besides him. It was either the floor or someone's face. Unfortunately for the floor, it was today's hapless victim.
"Can't you say anything that isn't pointless crap?" Kurogane hit the floor with his fist again. "You always try to avoid what you don't like."
Kurogane glared openly at the wizard. Truth be told, he did not dislike the blond, mostly he was simply thrown off by the wizard's openness to everything, but at the same time he felt as if he was being constantly presented with half of a whole.
Good old smiles and sunshine Fai, he never got angry because he was simply Fai. He would never cry or hate or kill anyone because that would be a very un-Fai thing to do. That was the image the wizard wanted his companions to believe, what he probably desperately wanted to believe too. Quite frankly, not only did it go against Kurogane's own way of living but also it was downright insulting to his intelligence that the blond could possibly hope of fooling him.
"Kuro-chi?" Fai turned, surprised and feeling the utmost sympathy for the floorboards.
"Do you want me to save you, is that it?" Kurogane remained glaring across the span of their small, cold room.
"Of course not, I - "
"The stop playing the damsel in distress!" Kurogane cut across Fai's words with his own harsh tone. He wanted it to end. The lies and the deceit, the manipulating and the running, if not he thought that he would go crazy watching the wizard run in circles of the past with no outlet to the future. "Stop being such a coward. You're not that weak."
Fai felt too stunned to say anything. Once again, just like in Shurano, just as it had been in Piffle, Kurogane had displayed his unnerving perception and his ability to completely dominate the conversation.
The ninja turned away, wrapping himself in his blankets, ready for sleep. Fai supposed that he had been lucky today. Kurogane had let the questions about Fei Wong Reed and his past drop but there was no halting tomorrow. Tomorrow everything would be laid bare. Like an ugly, open wound, Ashura was about to pour salt onto Fai's injuries.
He did not know how long he stood, silently thinking. What could he do? What was there to do? He had screwed things up a long time ago and now everything had become impossibly tangled. Perhaps there was only one thing that he could do.
Sighing, he silently drifted out of the room, casting a fleeting glance at the ninja he hoped was fast asleep.
He did not want to do this. He had hoped to avoid this but things had once again spiralled out of his control, just as they had then, before he had run. He had hoped to have never returned, to never have to face what he left behind. Kurogane was right. He did run whenever he could. He ran from the people he feared and loved alike, from the words he did not want to hear, from everything and anything that could possibly hurt him.
Run and run and run. Run as fast as the wind. Don't stop. Never stop.
Fai softly padded down the empty hallway, moving, almost floating, quietly, unseen. It seemed every footstep took an eternity and the hallway stretched out before him into eternity.
Light seeped under the door of Sakura's room. Through the wood, he could hear hushed voices, warm and thick with oncoming sleep. He smiled. It was regrettable that he would have to interrupt that moment.
Run and run and run. Run as fast as the wind, never stopping, never looking back.
Lifting his fist to the hard wood, he rapped his knuckles against the door.
The voices ceased all together and then the door opened. Fai smiled at a weary looking Syaoran, gracing the young boy with a typical, cheery grin.
Run and run and run, because if you ever stop, if you ever stop running, all the doubts and fear you kept pent up inside will catch up to you. They will consume you. You will drown.
"Sorry to bother you," he slapped his hands together in an act of asking for forgiveness. "Syaoran-kun, can I have a minute, please?"
Ah, melodrama. Of course, we all know that Fai's only been telling half the story about Fei Wong Reed. Let's see you wriggle your way out of this one, Fai!