Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson
Summary: Prince Su Keitaro? What's this? Hinata Sou is an embassy because of the Princess living there? Making it foreign soil? Soil in which a certain law states that living under the same roof with a woman for a year means that you're married? Soil in which divorces aren't recognized? Keitaro, welcome to married life.
Disclaimer: Love Hina, Hinata Sou and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were. The story is mine though, all mine. This story deals with some very unpleasant things. If this disturbs you, don't read.
If the layout looks screwy or symbols seems to be missing, you're probably reading the quickedit-mangled version of this fic on ff dot net, if it grates on your nerves too much, read it on hawksgalaxy dot com or something.
Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860, MSN Messenger/E-mail as iamhawk at yahoo dot com, though not very frequently as real life lately interferes with my online existance more then I'd like. More stories are available at my nifty lil' site at hawksgalaxy dot com or by clicking on my handle up above.
"speech"
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers
/thoughts/
-/telepathy/-
-translation-
+soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV+
This is a historic occation you guys, so sit up straight and take notice.
This is the first one of my fics, EVER, that has been seen by eyes other then mine before actually winding up online. Not even the one girlfriend I've had who was actually interested in fanfiction was allowed to glimpse at shit before I deemed that it was fit for public consumption.
The few changes I made due to the comments I got were minor, but those minor changes, made this chapter better then it already was, at least in my eyes. So who knows, I might just keep on letting a select few have a glimpse at my creations before inflicting them upon an unsuspecting public. :) As I on occation find myself receiving requests/demands/offers/whatever for people wanting to preread the fics I vomit forth on a highly irregular basis, I'll point you in the direction of Shinjis Sharing Inc, as that is the only place where you'll ever be able to do that.
Oh, just in case you've got no idea of just where the heck that is, it's over at s8 dot invisionfree dot com slash Shinjis underscore Sharing underscore inc
To the guys'n gals already there who offered comments, mainly sarissa who pointed out a passage I didn't even realize looked seriously weird until I reread it and that the spellchecker would have just glossed over, thanks for the input. It was mucho appriciated.
- The Deviant Overlord trails off, pondering just what the heck prompted him to write a line such as 'He couldn't fault the serious Kaolla's reasoning.' in the first place...
"Haruka! How could you!" Keitaro cried out from within the safety of a protective wall of girls.
"I haven't been properly laid for seven years, three months and fifteen days. Once the opportunity presented itself, I got a bit... Overenthustiastic." she replied around her smoking Cancerstick, a bit of flush to her cheeks as she confessed to her lengthy dry spell.
"Haruka..." Keitaro began, all inclination to ever refer to her as 'Aunt Haruka' again having been conditioned away during the course of the night. She was very good with that bloody whip of hers! "I don't think I'll ever..." he started, but was cut off.
"Bah, save it. I'm not in the mood to listen to any conversation that starts off like that." Haruka spat out and slumped even further into the couch. "Feh, it feels as if a week in bed would do me good." she commented and fisted her eyes, hoping to clear her vision somewhat. "And I mean that as in sleep for a week, not anything at all like you guys envisioned just now." she added once her hands were removed, eyeing a fiercely blushing Keitaro covering in the middle of the pile of red-cheeked females surrounding him and Motoko standing next to it, just as red-cheeked as the others. "Though that would probably do me good as well, if you've finally changed your mind." she finished.
"No!" Keitaro insisted from his shelter.
"I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewellery."
- Rita Rudner
"Kaolla... Why are you reading a book on Molmoleese law?" Keitaro asked suspiciously, having stopped dead in his tracks on the way to the kitchen once he saw just what she was reading. "Is it because of ANYTHING I need to know!" he demanded in a voice that was hovering somewhere between squealing panic and firm determination.
"I was just refreshing my memory a little bit, Keitaro." Kaolla calmly replied, obviously in one of her rare serious moods, lowering the book to her stomach. Of course, since she was currently standing on her head on the arm-rest of the couch, she actually raised the book to her stomach. But for her, it was lowering. Keitaro was just relieved that she was wearing shorts and not a skirt, like last time she decided to read like this. Supposedly, it helped the knowledge to get to her brain and not get lost on the way.
He had felt inclined to laugh at that the first time he heard it, until he recalled that Kaolla was smarter then he was. He'd even tried it himself once, but got nothing much out of it other then a headache and a sore neck.
"I don't know about 'need to know', but there are a few things that you should know about." Kaolla replied. "As well as one or two things you might actually need to know." she amended with a faint smile which looked seriously creepy when she was up-side down.
"Okay." Keitaro sighed and took a deep breath. "Who or what am I marrying this time?" he asked with a morose expression.
"Nobody as far as I know." Kaolla replied. "But since you married into the royal family, there are some things that are expected of you, as well as of both me and your other wives. I was merely brushing up on my legal studies to make sure of how things will work with the current situation in mind."
"What do you mean?" Keitaro asked.
"You have to understand that things aren't usually done like this, Keitaro. I asked Rawan to keep his mouth shut, because otherwise my mothers and father would have had me moved out of here, or have you tossed out of here, the moment they found out that we'd been living together for almost a year. He didn't want to at first, but I managed to convince him that it would be in his best interest to keep his howling yapper shut." Kaolla explained with a feral smirk on her lips and Keitaro instantly resolved to never get on her bad side. He really didn't want to know what sort of hold she had on Rawan that had made him comply with her 'request'.
"Anyways, in Molmol, things like these never happen unknowingly. If a man and a woman live together for a year, it's because they want to get married. Certain places, like hotels, hospitals, school dorms and military barracks, are exempt from this rule to prevent accidental marriages. Anyway, there hasn't been an accidental marriage in Molmol for almost three-hundred years. When they year is nearly up, preparations for the wedding are started and on the final day of the allotted year, the couple are married." she explained and Keitaro listened intently.
Very intently.
That whole deal about certain places being exempt sounded awfully interesting!
"What was that about hotels and exemptions?" Keitaro interjected smugly, but Kaolla sudden smile crushed all his hopes.
"A form has to be filled in order to make a property exempt. One has never been filled for the Hinata Sou." Kaolla replied with a faint chuckle, before she continued.
"We didn't have a ceremony, since I never let you know what was about to happen. None of your other wives has had a marriage ceremony either. That's good, because that means that we don't have to go through the whole mess with the Week of Ceremonies just yet. But it's also bad, because some of the more superstitious subjects will take this to mean that the marriage hasn't been blessed by Xanthosus yet." Kaolla explained.
"'Xanthosus'?" Keitaro repeated and then slapped his own forehead. "Oh, yeah. The three-eyed god. I remember that from the book Rawan gave to me." he added as realization struck. He'd read that book several times by now, ensuring to never again wind up in a mess like this due to ignorance.
"Yes. Xanthosus is the head of the gods, the god of good relations. During the marriage ceremony, the priest bestows the blessing of Xanthosus upon the happy couple, ensuring a happy marriage approved by the gods. Some of the people of Molmol will take the lack of a marriage ceremony to mean that the gods disapprove of this marriage until the blessing has been given. Some of these religious fringe groups can be quite dangerous and if they find out about it, they may attempt to put a curse on us." Kaolla revealed with a faint shudder.
"A 'curse'? Ohhh, I'm scared." Keitaro mock-laughed.
"You should." Kaolla agreed seriously. "Minor groups like The Devoted Servants of Xanthosus don't have any will-workers capable of cursing anyone. But they probably have one or two people who can put a bullet through a hundred-yen coin at two-hundred paces forty-nine times out of fifty. Larger ones, like The Cult of Xanthosus, probably have a handful of will-workers who could actually call down a curse upon us."
"Kaolla... There is no such thing as a curse." Keitaro insisted. He was far more worried about the fact that some sniper might try to empty his skull of brains from two-hundred paces away! "Magic isn't real." he insisted.
"You do remember what happened under the crimson moon, do you not?" Kaolla countered. "That is the result of a Molmoleese will-worker putting a blessing on one of my ancestors more then a thousand years ago. There had been a war and the only member of the royal family that had made it, Princess Naolla, was an infant at the time. The country needed a ruler and none was suitable, so the High Priest of Xanthosus was called in. He blessed Princess Naolla and turned her into an adult. The magic has grown thin over the years since. At first, all Naolla's female descendants could change their age at will. These days, all that remains of the blessing is that we either age or grow younger under a crimson moon. No matter how old or young we are, we always get a seventeen year old body under a crimson moon. Though this too is changing as the blessing fades, my mother and my older sister only changes while in Molmol. When they're abroad, they don't change at all."
"It... It wasn't just a trick of the light then?" Keitaro asked in a strained tone of voice.
"No. Our bodies actually change. You should see what happens to mom, it's really funny and it gets pops all worked up whenever he sees it. Always when there's a crimson moon, pops drags my mommies out to the royal garden to make love under the red moon." Kaolla answered. "It's a well-documented physical change. Well, in Molmol anyway. We try to keep it a secret from the rest of the world."
"Wow..." Keitaro breathed, recalling just how Kaolla had changed while under the crimson moon. He absently wondered how long it was until the moon would turn red again.
"Anyways, magic is real and even those groups who don't have any talented will-workers can cause problems in other ways, so we really should have a marriage ceremony as fast as possible, all of us. But once we go through that, there are other things we have to take care of. Like the Week of Ceremonies, for which we have to go to Molmol and endure all sorts of boring rituals, ceremonies and meetings for a whole week. The High Priest of every god and goddess will want to bless us, the ranking officers of the army, navy, cavalry and air force will want to swear their allegiance to the new members of the royal family, the heads of the various Guilds will want to swear an oath of allegiance and good service as well and there's sharing of bread, salt and wine with all members of the royal bodyguards as well. Daily meetings with those boring old nutters in the Council of Elders. Documents have to be signed, interviews with the press given, my mother will probably try to persuade us to move to Molmol and my stepmother will probably try to have sex with all of you."
"Uh... Okay..." Keitaro mumbled, filtering out all the unpleasant bits from his mind. "Your father is divorced?" he asked, choosing to focus on the fact that Kaolla had mentioned mother and stepmother in the same sentence.
"Nope. Pops and the mommies are in a cluster marriage as well." Kaolla replied. "They've been in it for as long as I can remember. We're also lucky that we're in a cluster marriage, as that makes at least one thing simpler. In a simple two-person marriage in the ruling royal line, the prospective King is expected to become the Commander in Chief, meaning that the groom has to go through the Rite of Ascension, in which a dangerous predator has to be defeated. In a cluster marriage, this responsibility can be taken by any of the participants in the marriage. I've already gone through my Rite of Ascension, so none of you guys have to fight anything. Unless you want to or you get Naru or Motoko angry, of course. But that's not important right now, what we need to focus on, is setting a date for the marriage ceremony and free up a week after that for the Week of Ceremonies. Soon. The sooner, the better."
"What's the rush?" Keitaro asked. "As long as nobody else knows about this, we're safe, aren't we?" Keitaro asked, still holding out some faint hope that he might be able to get out of this whole marriage mess.
"Last night, I checked into www dot royalweb dot com to see if they'd gotten wind of this or not. They have. It's the world's foremost authority on all things royal, with both an extensive website and a monthly magazine with a world-wide distribution. The news will be all over the world before long. Rawan's trips to Japan must have been noticed, or someone at the Hall of Records passed the news along once the marriage was registered or something. But however it happened, the news is out now since three days ago. I've got a few mecha-tama's patrolling the grounds, just in case. But we really should do something about arranging a marriage ceremony." Kaolla replied and Keitaro sighed.
He couldn't fault Kaolla's reasoning. During her few serious moments, like this one, it really showed just how smart she actually was. Seeing how she acted most of the time, it was sometimes hard to recall that the hyperactive banana-eating jump-kicking weird-ass foreigner who asked all those silly questions, also spent her spare time building machines that was years ahead of cutting edge.
It was creepy as hell to see the usually so hyper girl so serious and capable, but whenever she showed the world her serious side, something of importance was afoot. Keitaro knew that she was a whole lot smarter then he was, so despite her age, he always listened to her when she was in her serious-mode.
He just wished that he didn't have to in this particular instance. If it had been just Naru that he'd wound up married to, he might have been able to accept the situation after a while. Heck, he might even have been able to learn to cope with being married to just Kitsune or just Motoko, but all of them? Despite what Kaolla, Haruka and Rawan claimed, he didn't feel like a married man at the moment. But a ceremony...
A ceremony would make it all seem so much more real. He wouldn't very well be able to claim that he wasn't married then, now would he?
Though he had to admit that a ceremony would get a rather large load off his shoulders. If his mother were to be invited to some big impressive royal marriage ceremony, she might just forgive him.
Which meant that both his ear-drums wouldn't be ruptured the next time he saw her in person.
"We can ask the others, I guess." Keitaro responded, scratching the back of his head.
"Oh, I'm in. Sounds like fun." the voice of the resident slacker announced, causing Keitaro to jump in surprise as he hadn't been aware that there was anyone else in the room other then him and Kaolla.
"Kitsune!" Keitaro exclaimed, holding both hands in front of his chest, desperately trying to slow down the rapid beating of his heart. "Don't do that! You nearly scared me half to death. When did you get here?"
"Somewhere around 'Who or what am I marrying this time?', I believe." Kitsune replied with a sultry smile. "That piqued my interest, so I hung around to hear the rest of it." she explained as she sauntered up to Keitaro. "Distracted me from my hunt, it did."
"'Hunt'?" Kaolla inquired with a curious expression.
"Keitaro here has been really good at holding his distance for the last two days, after the incident with Haruka." Kitsune commented as she wrapped her arms around Keitaro, snuggling up against his back, two very prominent attributes rather pointedly reminding Keitaro of the fact that Kitsune was very much a woman. "Sneaking off into the secret tunnels at night, jumping and going off running at unexpected noises, refusing to visit my room... I haven't had my wedding night yet, so I figured that I was going to do something about that."
"Disregarding your marital duties again, Keitaro?" Kaolla asked with a faint smile.
"Oh, very much so!" Kitsune exclaimed and licked her lips hungrily.
"Uh, about the wedding ceremony..." Keitaro hastily interjected, desperately wanting to change the subject. "What's involved in that?"
Not that he was averse to the notion of sleeping with Kitsune like he was with Haruka, quite the opposite as a matter of fact. He'd always found the mischievous girl intriguing, sexy and attractive. She had a body that just wouldn't stop and a way of moving it that never failed to catch his gaze. Her provocative behaviour and suggestive mode of dress only enhanced this, causing him to desire her all the more.
But he knew that if he were to succumb to her sensual ways and do the naked pretzel with Kitsune, he wouldn't live to see the next sunrise. Naru would beat him to a pulp and Motoko would have his head. This was why he'd taken to avoiding the girls as much as he could for the last couple of days. It wasn't much of a plan, but perhaps it would keep him alive until he came up with something better.
"Oh, nothing much. Western-influenced ceremonies are all the rage in Molmol these days. Boring speech, calling down the blessing of the Gods upon the marriage, exchange of rings and whatnot." Kaolla responded. "Other then the fact that we have more then one God and that the boring speech is somewhat different, it's basically your standard western wedding. Unless you guys wanna try the ancient Xanthosian wedding rite?"
"What's that?" Kitsune inquired, momentarily distracted from getting Keitaro so hot'n bothered that he'd accompany her back to her room for a little naked full-contact aerobics.
"Less clothes and the High Priest of Xanthosus needs proof that the wives aren't virgins the morning after. You still get the boring speech, calling down the blessings of the Gods and exchange of rings. Or bracelets, if ones personal taste run that way." Kaolla replied unconcernedly, a statement which caused Keitaro to pale and Kitsune to blush as they heard about the 'needs proof'-bit, putting Kitsunes mind back on track when it came to persuading Keitaro that having wild monkey sex with her was an excellent way to spend the night.
Keitaro paled even further as Kitsune started fondling his private bits, her smile widening as she estimated the size, length and girth of what was hidden beneath his clothes.
"Shinobu had no idea what she was talking about..." Kitsune murmured in a sultry tone of voice, which caused Keitaro to loose consciousness and a trickle of blood to sneak out of his left nostril. Kitsune was actually impressed, the night with Haruka had seriously raised his resistance to these kind of things. A week ago, he'd have started gushing blood the moment she put her chest against his back.
"I'd better make sure that he finds his way to bed. Then I think I'd better turn in myself, as I'm, feeling a bit tired. Have a good night, Kaolla." Kitsune reasoned out loud and yawned in a theatrical manner as she struggled to get Keitaro into a semi-upright position, snuggling in under his left arm so that she could drag him off towards her room and the futon that awaited them in it.
"You do that. Have fun, Ki-chan." Kaolla said with a knowing smile, before she got back to her book.
Naru and Motoko were morons, for accusing him of being a pervert. Though things would be so much easier if he was. She was pretty certain that it'd be years before she could manage to get Keitaro in the sack. At least in her current body. The crimson moon however, might be just the thing to tip the scales over in her favour, as long as she kept Keitaro off balance enough so that he didn't have time to recall the fact that it was only her body that grew older.
She spared Kitsune a resentful thought, before she pushed that issue out of her mind. It appeared as if Kitsune would be the first of them to get Keitaro in the sack, just like she had guessed.
Well, second to get him in the sack actually, seeing as he'd spent a few hours tied up on Harukas bed. But Kitsune seemed likely to be the first to actually succeed in having sex with him!
Kaolla certainly hadn't expected Haruka to be the first to make a move, she'd been relatively certain that Kitsune would be the first to do that. Shinobu was too shy to make the first move and Keitaro never would, at least not until she was older, Kaolla figured. Motoko most certainly wouldn't make any sort of move, other then Martial Arts move to keep Keitaro at a distance. Naru still had quite a ways to go before she'd even admit to liking Keitaro, so sex was right out.
With those two not showing any interest, Keitaro wouldn't approach them either, married or not. He was just too kind a person to push unwanted advances upon anyone like that.
He wouldn't even touch Haruka with a ten-foot-pole and Kaolla herself was too young, so that left Kitsune.
Had Mutsumi already been counted amongst the wives, Kitsune might have had a competitor. But as it was, there really was no other probable sex candidate amongst the wives other then Kitsune.
Kaolla told herself that it was all right and that it was fine with her, while mentally tallying the days left until the next crimson moon...
The End! ( For now... )
