Disclaimer: TRC doesn't belong to me.


The Sovereign

Even though they had been working on the castle for almost a week they hadn't seen the famous king. Kurogane was starting to become impatient and annoyed with the rain that didn't seem to stop. He hated the rain, he hated everything about the rain, it's cold gray weather, it's wetness that dammed your body, the fact that it left the earth muddy but the thing that he hated about the rain the most was that it brought childhood memories that he rather forget. He usually said that he hated the rain because a person's movements were slower under the curtains of water, but even so, he hated the rain.

During his break from guarding the gates he walked to the barn were he knew Syoran was at, he found him grooming the horses. He walked to the wall nearest to him and reclined against it. He spend the next five minutes watching Syoran work, they didn't speak because neither men were men of words. Their silence calmed one another's nerves and worries. A teen-age girl carrying food on a tray, a bottle of tea and a white bun on her shoulder interrupted their silence.

"I brought lunch" she said sweetly, her beautiful green eyes consisted sincerity.

"Thank you Hime" Syoran said putting the brush away and stroke the horse's fur; he walked to a barrel and washed his hands and face drying himself with a towel hanging from the wall.

Mokona jumped to Kurogane's shoulder as Kurogane grabbed some of the rice balls on the tray.

Syoran grabbed a small stool and placed it near the princess were she sat and he sat on a large barrel as he ate from a bento box she had brought. She pours some tea in a cup and handed it to Syoran and she did the same for Kurogane.

They ate in silence, as Sakura would pour tea into their cups one in a while and refilled them. She put the bento boxes back into her tray when they were done. She looked up at them when she had finished that task.

"I heard the women talking in the kitchen" she began. "The king is buying something from a woman"

They looked at her as she continued, "I don't know all the details because I was order to sweep the floors. But that's all I heard, I think that woman's name is Scarlet"

"Are you sure you didn't hear anything else?" Syoran asked.

She shook her head slightly.

"Do you know when they are going to go through the negotiation?" Kurogane asked, the lines on his forehead were becoming more defined.

She shook her head again.

They stayed in silence again contemplating over the information. Kurogane broke the silence buy turning his head towards Mokona who rested on his shoulder.

"And where were you when this happened?"

"Mokona was taking a nap" his ears dropped, "Sakura-chan told Mokona after she woke him up"

"It was my fault Kurogane-san" the princess said turning her eyes to meet red ones, "I told Mokona to take a rest because he felt sick after he ate some bad tomatoes"

Kurogane grunted but he didn't say anything. The sheet of silence covered them again for couple of minutes. Syoran knew that normally they wouldn't be able to talk like this in such earshot but he took no worry because there was only two other people working in the barn besides himself. The other two man who worked there were usually out at this time of the day in their break having lunch with their wives.

"So we wait again" Syoran sighed, he hated the idea but so far it was the only thing they could do.

"Mokona hates this!" He gripped Kurogane's hair as he wailed on his ear. Kurogane just grunted but he didn't pull him away.

It had been almost two whole weeks' sense the last time that Fai had seen Kurogane. He felt ashamed with himself as he had more time to reevaluate in his behavior, he hated being weak, and yet he was. He had once promised himself not to ever cry again but now it only seemed that he had broken his own promise.

When Kurogane had left Scarlet had told him that he was going to be sold to the king in a day, but that day came and than another. He had gone up to her and asked her where the king was, and she had told him with an evil grin that the reason why she had told Fai that the king would come that soon was because she wanted to see his reaction and if he would keep to his word. Fai smiled then understanding her; so now he waited like everyone else until the king would come, and when he least expected it he came.

Fai was waiting inside the carriage along with Scarlet, they waited inside unaware of their surroundings in the dark carriage.

"Am I allowed to know his name at least?" Fai had tried asking questions to understand the mysterious king and to hopefully get more of an insight and hopefully find out if he had the princess feather.

"You will not look at him in the eyes, you will speak when he addresses to you," she said the instructions she had been saying for the past two weeks. "I don't want you to mess things up for me."

"Am I allowed to at least know his name?" Fai repeated a bit annoyed.

She rolled her eyes, "King Ashura" she said, "Now, I want you to keep your eyes from…"

She trailed off, but Fai's attention wasn't to her anymore. His heart was raising, pounding hard trying to escape his rib cage hurting his chest. His breathing had completely stopped. He was frightened, by his mere name.

TBC

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