Series: To Accept Fate's Will||Story: Fire and Water
Characters: O'Brien, Sea God's Priestess, Shou||Pair: O'Brien x Sea God's Priestess
Chapters: 4-4||Words: 2,483||Total: 9,539
Genre: Romance, Drama||Rated: PG
Challenges: Diversity Writing: YGO soulmate AUs: H8: 4 chapters; Valentine's Day to White Day 2016, day #1, write a soulmate!AU; Easter Egg Basket Advent 2016, #11, write from a Duel Spiprit's POV
Timeframe: Season 3, episode 141 and after, set in a soulmate universe
Summary: She searches for two people: a hero who can defeat Haou and the soulmate she fears to find. And she may well find them in the very same person.
"It's them! It's them!" Cries of rejoicing rose up from the guards outside the village. The priestess moved towards the nearest place she could see, wondering just what caused their joy. She hadn't felt anything like that in the last handful of days, not since her mark blurred and darkened.
But when she saw who approached, a tiny flare of something very like hope stirred in her heart. She didn't know the approaching people very well, but she knew that O'Brien did. Or had. They'd gone with him to Haou's castle.
Perhaps they could at least tell her what happened. If he'd fallen in honorable battle or anything else. Had he truly faced Haou or had one of those servants of his struck him down?
"Let them in," she called down, and the sentries obeyed. Another order had food and drink brought; all of them looked like they could use it. Especially the one that she didn't recognize, the boy in red.
She joined them in the small house set aside for them. Just from looking she presumed they wouldn't stay long. Whatever they searched for, it wouldn't be found here. But she would give what help that she could.
"None of us saw the whole duel," Hell Kaiser admitted. His own breathing seemed to be a trifle rough, but he waved off all offers of assistance. "He did defeat Haou, though."
The boy in red said nothing, but his fingers tightened and he turned away, his voice harsh as he tried to speak, though no actual words formed and he stopped after a few moments.
"Could I ask what happened to your other companion?" She wondered. The one who'd worn white, to contrast Hell Kaiser's black.
Hell Kaiser rested his fingers against his wrist for a few moments, a pain that she knew all too well in his eyes. "We were attacked before we came here. Someone searching for too much power. Edo attempted to stop him, but lost."
She murmured words in an attempt to soothe. Hell Kaiser only shook his his head.
"We can only stay overnight. But if you have something that can deal with a fever, we would appreciate it." Hell Kaiser nodded toward the one in red. "He's still not well."
The priestess could see that; not only was his voice pained and weary, there were fever marks on his face, and he looked as if he hadn't eaten in far too long. Even now he only nibbled at the food before him and he never seemed to want to meet anyone's eyes.
I wonder if Haou held him prisoner. Haou hadn't done that to anyone; his methods were kill or enslave only so far as she'd ever heard. But she hardly had full access to all that went on inside that terrifying place.
Her fairy companions went to find one of the local healers, while she struggled to bring up the words she needed to ask about O'Brien.
"Is there anything else that you can tell me about what happened?" She wanted to ask even more, but she wished too much she could learn what she wanted to know from him and not from strangers.
Surprisingly, it was the one in red who answered. "He was right. He was braver than anyone else. He did what was right, even when it cost him his life." He leaned forward, coughing for a few moments, while Hell Kaiser and the other boy – the one who had given her O'Brien's duel disk – watched cautiously. "I… I should have listened to him. To him and Jim..." His voice faltered and he curled up around himself, shivering.
He... What he said teased at her, but she couldn't let herself think of it. This was a time of mourning, not anything that resembled vengeance.
And even if the thought that whispered was true, he wasn't there to hurt them. He was too sick to hurt anyone at the moment. He seemed almost too sick to stand up on his own feet, for that matter.
But she still raised her head and looked towards Hell Kaiser, a wealth of questions in her eyes. His gaze flickered back to the boy, but he said nothing else.
He didn't really need to.
They left the next morning, in the coolest part of the day. Her explorers told of a door in a desert one reached via two days of travel. The pathway hadn't been explored very well, but she made certain they had food and water packed for them. She'd spoken nothing of her concerns, but the boy in red – Juudai – found time to tell her things about O'Brien – how in the world they came from, the two of them dueled once, and he'd always had a feeling that O'Brien could have defeated him then, and of how he'd been helpful and useful when they'd been in many dangerous situations.
"He was a good friend," Juudai said, "and this – this is all my fault. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
The priestess wanted so much to find something soothing that she could say to him, but whenever she tried, the words choked in her throat. She confined herself to bidding them farewell and wishing them the best on their travels, to hope that they found their way to their home.
It took years before she found out what happened to them after that. The one who told her wasn't someone that she'd ever imagined hearing from again after she bid them farewell.
Because the one who told her what happened to them, and how true her suspicions about Juudai were, was O'Brien himself.
He approached the village – now more of a small town – one spring morning, almost five years after she'd last seen him. She hadn't given her mark a moment's thought in well over two years, and tended to wear something so she didn't see it. She'd tried very hard to ignore the occasional flickers of warmth that rose up from it as well. If he'd been reborn somehow, then she wanted nothing to do with a baby.
But here he stood, almost as she remembered him, and without thinking about it, she pulled up the sleeve on her arm. There glowed her numbers, bright green as before, and she started to reach for him, so close, so very close.
Then she pulled her hand back, throat closing in fear, and stared harder at him. There were spirits that could take the form of others, alive or dead, and she would not be deceived.
Yet her mark would know the difference. A soulmate mark, even one that wasn't fully realized, always reacted only to the true soulmate.
His lips twitched. "It's me," he said, voice quiet. He raised one hand to his shoulders and there she could see the scars from the first battle she'd seen him fight all those years before.
"How?" She gripped her trident, knuckles going white with the strength of it. "How could you die and be here? And I know you died!" No one else had ever returned from death, not and look so much like him. If anyone else returned, they were vampires or zombies or ghosts, not solid flesh and bone!
The smallest of smiles, that still held ghosts of pain, moved across his lips. "It wasn't my idea. Though I can't say that I'm ungrateful for it."
"Then what was it?" She didn't shout, though it was only by the thinnest of margins. "What happened?"
He settled himself on a rocky outcropping before he looked back at her. "I died. I fought Haou and I died. But there was someone else involved, a spirit named Yubel, who saved everyone that Juudai cared about."
Her eyes narrowed, recollections of her concerns returning. "Then that boy I met – Juudai – was Haou." Oh, she wanted to know how that came about!
"Yes. He might come through here one day. He's spent the last few years traveling everywhere helping people." O'Brien smiled a small smile. "He won't hurt anyone. He's much different now."
"If you trust him, then I'll trust you," she promised. She would like to meet him again and see what she could learn from him. It seemed there was a great deal more going on than she'd ever thought of before.
O'Brien nodded, glancing up to meet her eyes. "With the help of my friends I was able to come back here." He touched his mark on his arm. "I think – now that the war's over – we … I hoped..." His smile faltered, but she thought it was due more to not knowing what to say than anything else.
"Would you like to know my name?" The priestess murmured. "You do remember what I told you, don't you?"
His smile strengthened ever so lightly. "I remember everything that you told me. I would like to know your name, if you would tell it to me."
She raised her hand, then set it back down. "I think we should get to know each other better first," she offered. "We haven't spent enough time to truly make this decision."
For only when they were bonded could she reveal her name. Doing otherwise went against everything she'd grown up believing and though it had been years since she'd seen the oceans of her home, she saw no reason to change that now.
He nodded. "Of course."
She gestured to the wider town. "We've improved since you were last here. Ever since the war ended, we've had time to locate resources and build more. Would you like me to show you around?"
"I would be honored." O'Brien rose, bending his head in a way to show deep respect. Her heart beat a bit faster at that, and at the thought of having more time to spend with him.
There were some who could move on after the loss of a romantic soulmate. Amazoness Holy Fighter now enjoyed a deep relationship with Heather, the Holy Elf who tended to their needs, satisfied that her soulmate would want her to be happy even without her.
But the priestess had never been able to do that. Part of it had been that she'd never found anyone who intrigued her like O'Brien did. Another part – one that she was convinced held far more weight – was that they'd never had the chance to explore what could have been between them. With such a question hanging over her heart, she couldn't bring herself to move on and find someone else.
And now here he was, wiser and older, stronger and more sure of himself, and as wanting to find out what they could have together as she did.
"It turned out the mountains have several resources in them," she said, gesturing that way. "Precious gems are very useful, not just for trade but for use in magic. And there are many caves where we can find the ingredients for certain potions and tinctures as well. Our healers have some of the finest tools around because of that."
O'Brien nodded, giving the mountains an appraising look before she started to guide him elsewhere. She wasn't the only person who wanted to talk to him, of course. There were still plenty here who knew him from those brief times before the fall of Haou, and all of them wanted to at least greet him. O'Brien returned the greetings, giving only brief explanations on his survival.
"We've heard a lot of rumors about what happened," she said as they moved along. "There are people who claim that it was Hell Kaiser who defeated Haou."
That got a quirk of his lips. "I wouldn't be surprised. If I hadn't managed what I did, I would have asked him to take it up where I left off. I think he could have."
From what little she'd seen of him, Hell Kaiser would have done it very well, too. Yet for all of that, she remained just as proud that O'Brien brought that war to an end. He deserved every bit of self-respect that he'd gained from it, and more.
With each passing day, they spent what time they could together. The priestess observed the planting of the crops, while O'Brien drilled some of the sentries and the duelists. They explored what areas hadn't been fully mapped out and found a few places no one had given much thought to yet. He took up residence a few doors down from her home.
"I have things I have to do back home eventually," he told her, "but I'll stay here as long as I can."
"You're welcome to stay as long as you want."
That got a nod, then a curious look from him. "I would like it if you came back with me. I'd like you to meet my friends – and my parents."
A faint tinge of red crept up her cheeks at that. "I would like that." Perhaps they could also find a way to her own world and he could meet her parents.
"So would I." He glanced at her again and she gazed back at him. By now he'd been here nearly six weeks and she looked forward every day to seeing him. The idea of returning to his world, with so many strange people and creatures and machines and places she'd never seen, thrilled through her.
He hesitated for a few seconds, before he held his hand out to her. He'd never done that in all of this time and she knew what he meant. She swallowed for a few heartbeats before she reached out to take his hand in her own.
Bare skin touched bare skin for the first time. Her breath caught in her throat as the green numbers on their arms faded away, replaced a rich blue swirl of steam surrounded by a circle of golden links. She touched it with the tip of her finger. Their marks. Their soulmate marks that would last forever, and some said into other lives.
She looked up at him, a lump in her throat, still not all the way believing that this happened in the first place. They'd bonded, accepted the bond, and that meant there was something that she could do now. She'd really wanted to do it since realizing he was her soulmate.
"Arethusa," she murmured. "My name is Arethusa."
O'Brien smiled at that. A gentle expression, one she didn't see very often on his face, but it warmed her heart when she did. "That's a beautiful name, Arethusa."
"Family history says an ancestor of ours carried it first, and she was one of the first priestesses to our god." She remembered her parents telling her the tale many times during her childhood. "There's a painting of her at home. I don't look anything like her."
O'Brien's fingers tightened on her own. "I'm just as glad that you're you."
The End
Notes: And they begin their lives together. I always thought it was rather sad that they didn't inform Sea God's Priestess about what happened with O'Brien (soulmates or otherwise) so it's my headcanon that after the mess with Amon, then Shou, Juudai, Ryou, and Ojama Yellow stop back by to let her know.
One more down, twenty-five to go! Keep an eye on my profile for my progress if you're interested.