Disclaimer: They're not mine, but it's my birthday soon…?

I have made a grave mistake. I switched tenses. I went back and changed it and checked it like 4 times, but it still doesn't flow the same as the first couple of chapters. Meh.

Warnings: small amounts of sh­onen-ai, nothing to lose any sleep over. Overall, PG-13.

--ooOoo--

Chapter 4

A small, dark shop. The smell of a damp fire, and new leather. All around are tools and blocks of stone, gold ingots and huge skins, tanning in tanks. In front of me, a small, wiry Indian man is sitting, a pencil and piece of paper in his hand. On the paper is a picture of an elephant. No, THE elephant. My elephant. All its little details are there, noted down around the edges. Materials: smoked Acacia wood, ivory, gold, assorted crushed gems, 1 amethyst and 1 sapphire round cut, dia. 1cm. The Raja wanders to the paper and lifts up the two sheets underneath. In one hand he holds a full body sketch page of himself, and in the other one of my ancestor. They're shown from various angles, to help the man carve them, I somehow know. Then the Raja removes his ring and points somewhere on the picture, handing it over.

'So you can make the amendments tomorrow?' He asks.

'Yes, sir, for you I can get it finished by tomorrow afternoon, they are only minor adjustments sir.'

The raja nods, apparently pleased with this old man, and left.

Everything goes black.

--ooOoo--

When I come to I'm walking through the same forest I walked through today. All around me is pitch blackness, and I'm constantly tripping and falling, my pockets jangling with every misstep.

Clasped in my arms is the elephant, bigger and heavier than I remember it, its dead weight slipping with the sweat on my hands, sending spasms of cramp up to my elbows. A sudden burst of moonlight shining on the gold reflects back my image, confirming that I am the Raja. Every few steps I look over my shoulder; the Raja seems to sense he's being followed. We're a long way out of the village, very near to the place we camped before. There's a loud CRACK and a flash lights the area. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was a gun.

'Who's there? Who is it?' The fear in the normally expressionless voice scares me.

'The father of the poor girl you were going to marry! You were seen you know, you freak, down at the lake with that good for nothing English boy. How dare you think you can get away with marrying my daughter with that on your conscience? You won't you know! You make me sick, the both of you.' There's another flash, and this time I'm not so lucky. What happened to the law that you can't feel in dreams? I had felt the sun on my skin, felt love unimaginable, and now I was feeling the most terrible agony, as the bullet from the elephant gun ripped through the raja's abdomen. That gorgeous stomach, toned and perfect, would now be a bloody mess, but I'm in too much torture to care, already it's so cold, but for my stomach which burns all the way through; I can trace the route the bullet took with my mind. The raja staggers, the strength needed to keep a person upright having left him.

We're at the clearing. I cry out hoarsely '…Duo, Duo!' and even then the peculiarity of using my last breaths to cry my own name strikes me. I stagger into the cave, to hide from the men, I couldn't say why though; by this point all rational thought has left my conscious, I am left to feel, no more or less than the agony ricocheting around my body, like a pinball bouncing around the table, twisting once or twice for bonus points.

A thought catches in my head, on a rock in the rapids, that rock we had lain on as the raja had first kissed him…it's him that I was thinking of, I hope he's ok, I hope he doesn't think badly of me, that in the morning he will go back home and live out the rest of his life as he would have if the Raja had been anyone else in the world. The raja opens his eyes for a second, and I can we're sitting crouched against the wall of the cave, a little way in. He's squatting with his knees right up to his chest, his arms wrapped around, to brace his now weak neck. The elephant is nestled in the centre, thankfully missed by the bullet.

So this is how it ends then, for my pretty raja. Shot and murdered in the forest by a man supposed to become his father. His eyes waver, opening and closing, the vision swimming so I can barely make out the perfect oval of moonlight at the cave mouth, stained with the blood which was now pooling around him, protecting him like a moat. As the eyes slide out of hazy focus for the last time,

Duo woke up.

It was dark outside still, perhaps about 4am. He lay there very still, listening to the outside, the whirring of moths and mosquitoes, thinking on the dream, the final climax of the lovers' drama. He knew he wasn't going to sleep again, and he got up, sorted his belongings together in an attempt to focus his mind on something else. It failed. In the end he got up and out of his tent completely. He tiptoed through camp, pausing only to check on Quatre, sleeping soundly, breathing softly, before he made his way to the cave. It sounded different now. The quiet was muffled, but didn't echo. Despite the fact that he had removed its only human occupant, it felt more atmospheric now. Like something had been awakened…

Maybe it was just the lake outside, or the pressure, but he was certain he heard a gentle sshhhhhing, through a smiling mouth, as a mother shushes the child who is afraid of the bogeyman, that universally calming, soothing sound. Duo knelt, and then sat down where he had found the raja. He closed his eyes, to be greeted by another pair, cobalt blue in colour, and intense in tone. There he slept, deeply, dreamless, until the sounds of morning awoke him.

--ooOoo--

I'm not happy with it. it took so long this time, considering how much there isn't there… it's because I'm forced to write essays at the moment. Give it a week and it will all clear up nicely

Thankyou to my reviewers so far, support is good. If you're not a reviewer yet, then why not? Ah well, I don't mind, but I'd really, really like it if you did?

LaVerne x