Author's Notes

glad everybody's in character... well, gold's not really there much, but the other two...

what's the pairing? you'll just have to read the clues, or wait until there's a kiss, but that will be quite awhile, let me warn you.

Taken

Chapter 4: Shut Up (Bambi's Perspective)

I woke up earlier than Kaguya as always, but as always Gold had not slept. I didn't know what he must do during the night; he did usually have rabbits by the time I arose, so maybe he hunted all night. He was always there when I opened my eyes, ready with rabbits. I would normally have set to work skinning them, but thought I'd wait a bit, since Kaguya wasn't up yet and I wasn't quite hungry enough to drag myself out of my comfortable blanket. Maybe I was getting lazy out here, feeling like a child again, but I felt I could afford it.

I had never ceased doing all the chores of the house during all my time shut up in the castle, feeling it was my duty to keep the place up, as well as simply liking to live in a clean space. I had forced myself out of bed to feed the horses as one by one they escaped or were stolen or died of old age. I hadn't bought more or bred them because I didn't need any more and because if I had let them breed, labor might have killed the mother since I didn't know how to help a horse give birth.

I didn't really need any, but couldn't bring myself to sell them. I kept the ones I had as long as I could and faithfully fed them, exercised them, and cleaned their stables daily. Life had gotten kind of empty without them to keep me busy, and I had set the very last one free when we escaped from the search party at the castle. I couldn't have brought him with me since he would require more food than any of us and couldn't help us go any faster. He could only carry one of us, and he'd have to go slowly enough for the two who walked to keep up. At least he could live as he wished now, and his tracks might throw off our pursuers for awhile, since they thought I was the only one they were pursuing and might have ridden away.

It seemed we, too, could live as we wished, on the run from Kura's forces. It was oddly liberating to be fugitives. Even though we had to keep moving or risk capture and even though it was harder out here gathering our own food and walking all day, there was no law that could bind us. Our existences depended on eluding the Emperor, so as long as we were unnoticed, we were in a world apart, where he and his rule could not touch us. It was a solitary serenity, even more so than the castle had been for me. The castle had been safe, but a stagnated kind of safe. I had not really been living at all.

I lay there so absorbed in my musings that I didn't notice Kaguya being awake until I saw her fiddling with the food bag. She probably wondered why the rabbits weren't cooking yet and thought they were in the bag.

"Just a second, I'll get breakfast started," I offered, letting her know she didn't have to mess with it.

"I feel so useless, Bambi-chan. All I do every day is eat the rabbit that Gold catches and you skin and cook. Can't I do something?"

I saw promise in this. I guessed I really was feeling like a child again, because I would not have done this just before we left the castle. An evil grin began its trek across my face as I asked, "Do you want to skin the rabbit today?" and relinquished the bag. She edged up to it, keeping her face back away from the smell, or the sight of blood, or whatever scared her. She tentatively reached her right hand out and knocked the bag open with two fingertips only to see roots and raw vegetables spill out over the table. "I didn't say the rabbits were in there," I finished, holding in my laughter, savoring her silly, frightened poke at a bag of vegetables.

I walked outside to get a fire going for the real rabbits, which I had yet to get from Gold. I had only time to see Kaguya's confused look and her astonishment that I, the great Shina mol Bamviverie, had played a joke, and on her at that. She would have to learn, I supposed, that I wasn't the block of ice she must think me to be, simply reserved. After all, I had spent over ten years alone in my castle. It was taking some getting used to just being with other people again, especially someone who insisted on taking up my every moment when I was accustomed to doing what I wished.

The rabbits were giving off the delightful smell of cooking now that I'd skinned them and begun to cook. This drew Kaguya out of the little building, and one never knew where Gold might be. She settled into her usual mealtime conversation routine, talking about everything from the position of the leaves behind me that I really ought to look at to the fact that she hated bathing without soap. We bathed together regularly, and it was easily the highlight of my day and hers. It was the one time she would allow companionable silence, and when I could think we would really turn out friends. Maybe it was only that being clean put me in a better mood, or maybe something subtle changed in her when we were gliding through the water. Maybe something changed in me.

She strayed from that topic soon, and went on to other things concerning our life on the run. I would have been more interested if she had ever talked about her life in Eden, since I didn't know anything about it, but she avoided that subject carefully. Had she been unhappy there? Perhaps she didn't wish to be rescued and taken home, or perhaps she did so much it hurt to talk about it. I never asked her about it the same way I never asked her about anything. She talked enough without me prodding things from her. I also didn't want to step unwittingly into a subject that would leave her in tears if she were forced to think too much about it. Perhaps I could bring it up during our bath, but then maybe she'd start wanting to talk all the time in the bath. I couldn't ruin the bath time for anything; it was too wonderful.

She was still yammering on when we finished eating our rabbits, and by then I was only listening to be polite. To my surprise, though, she continued speaking after the dishes were cleaned, the fire put out, and every trace of obligatory activity gone. She would often talk to me while I completed these tasks, perhaps imagining she was entertaining me, but usually stopped once my chores were done because that was when we would begin walking for the day. There was no walking to be done now that we had reached my hideout, but it was only temporary. We probably would be leaving tomorrow. We had just needed this one day's rest.

Especially if she's going to talk all day now that we're not walking, I added mentally. I sat, imprisoned by her chatter, listening to her every word so as not to upset her by showing my boredom. I wanted her to stop, but knew she'd be offended if I asked her to do so without a concrete reason like chores. As much as I was annoyed by her, she did have her moments, and I didn't want to alienate her. I guessed maybe we were becoming friends.

I walked over to a nearby tree, still close enough that Kaguya could speak to me without needing to shout, so Kaguya didn't immediately follow me. I climbed a little way up so that I was half sitting, half lying three or four feet above the ground, where Kaguya still sat chattering away. I could almost have fallen asleep there in the mottled sunlight if it weren't for Kaguya's bizarre penchant for talking. I was now only listening with half an ear, trying to eek just a tiny bit of enjoyment out of the morning atmosphere, but feeling obliged to pay attention in case she were to ask me a question.

Before long, Kaguya had risen from her seated position and come to lean against the tree as she talked. She faced away from me at first, my legs dangling near her shoulder and her upper body leaning against a different side of the same branch my own leant against. I happened to look down at her bobbing head that moved as she talked just as she looked up at me, which was a strain with the tree behind her head and my face almost directly above her. I tried not to look at the region a little south of her head, though there was an amazing view of it. This was a moment which might have been quite sweet if only that delightful thing called silence could have lived in it.

Girl, I wished she would shut up. I paused a moment to think about that sentence, or more specifically, the first word. It was used there as a sort of swearword, much like someone who believed in a supreme being might think God, I wished she'd shut up. The funny thing was that the Girl to whom that swearword referred was the very same I wanted to shut up. The Girl of Annanai stood right under me, and I had been hoping she would shut up. I just had to laugh inwardly, thinking of the religious zealots of the eighth world who would kill to be in my position, who would fall down and worship this talkative princess I had come to know. Life did turn out strangely.

"What's so funny, Bambi-chan?" She asked, now straining even more to get a good view of my face, having apparently seen a little of my laughter at the eighth worlders' expense.

I looked down to answer her, not bothering to hide a smile now that she knew I found something funny. "You wouldn't understand," I answered, looking down into her face and seeing her disappointment at not being let in on the joke. Her face began to change in expression to suspicion and then embarrassment. Maybe she thought she'd figured out why I was laughing, and thought it was at her.

She hunched down and hurriedly pulled the top folds of her robe together, apparently thinking I'd been looking down it. I didn't want her to be embarrassed or think badly of me, so I tried to explain. "I wasn't looking at that, Kaguya, I was only laughing at someone you don't know; I was just reminded of them."

"Well, it's… it's not like you haven't seen that before, anyway, right? You see that every day when we bathe, so what's the difference?"

I could tell she was still embarrassed, but I couldn't think of anything to say that might help her, since it was as she'd said. I saw both mine and her naked bodies every day when we bathed, and so did she. She seemed comfortable enough with her body not to mind if someone saw. She must have thought I was thinking less than honorable thoughts about her, and that was why she was embarrassed, but my completely true explanation had not convinced her. I just allowed the silence that, for once, wasn't comfortable for me.

We were both then too embarrassed to speak for awhile, but neither of us left, either. We just stayed there, silent, each wanting things back to normal but each afraid to take the step to make it so. I had never been a talker anyway, and Kaguya was possibly the most embarrassed I had ever seen her, so it stayed silent awhile. After quite some time, I decided there was no use dwelling on it when neither of us knew what to say to fix things, and let my thoughts drift as though I had been sitting here alone all along.

I got to enjoy the silence and even saw Kaguya relaxing more into her usual state, though still not speaking. Maybe this was all it took for things to be normal again. Maybe the silence spoke to her as it did to me, and maybe she was enjoying it as I was. I hoped so, that is until she broke it. "You and your endless chatter," I said. "Do you ever stay quiet for anything?" I knew I was going to upset her, but I had already spoken in haste and was too proud just to stop and apologize. "Just… shut up."