Another -17 dec'11
Disclaimer: G-boys are not saru's... and saru already forgotten the details of the anime too.
chapter 7
"...We were riding our horses at ease, while the master offhandedly commented about the plants here and there..." the fifth soldier explained, grimacing when the ground medicine leaves smeared onto the wounds on his hand.
"And who is this master you're supposed to be in charge of?" Odin asked while chewing a juicy root between his lips and sometime spit the bluish liquid of the root to the wounds he was treating; the root looked almost carrot-like only with stem resembling two 'hands' with opened 'fingers'.
"Uhmmm... Commander, Sir, do you have to do it like this...?" the soldier's face was a little pale because of Odin's face looked somehow like he was enjoying the action.
"What? Your parents never treated your wounds like this?" Odin gave an offended stare.
"Well, no, Sir... that's not what I meant...!" the soldier cowered; though Odin's words were true enough.
"Hmph! You've never gone to war, young man?" Odin spit again after asking that.
"uhhh... No, Sir." the soldier answered half distractedly staring at the now off-colored wounded hand still in Odin's hands.
"Good; then this could be useful for your experience...!" Odin plucked the 'hand' of the root and shoved it to the soldier's mouth; "In war, you should be grateful if your comrade would chew your roots for your wounds...!"
"GWAAAAAACKK...-!" the fifth soldier yelled as soon as the juice from the root stem touched his tongue, and he reflexively spat the thing out his mouth. Mothers used to say 'if it's weird looking and never been served on the dining table, don't put it in your mouth'. (1)
Odin chuckled impishly, "Good-root doesn't actually taste that good, huh?"
The soldier coughed and stared Odin with disheartened eyes. Odin patted the young soldier's back quite heavily, "So, who was it you're supposed to be in charge of again?"
The soldier turned significantly pale immediately.
"...how's outside?"
The demon glanced inside the cave and turned his eyes outside again; "It's getting less noisy."
The master chuckled, "I told you my amulets work...!"
The demon ignored the winning tone, and answered unexcitedly. "Right; the fact that you're being ambushed at all made them failures." He got a pouty 'che' in return. "The rain washed our scents off to some extent."
"Ahhh...you called that 'rain'?" the master asked flatly, hiding his amusement. That would be an understating comment that would've been offended the weather itself if only the weather could understand their language; it was a storm, alright, with hail and all too; eventhough it was lasted only for an hour or less; like a passerby dragon which forgotten how long its tail was and flew at its top speed while coughing ice and sneezing lightning continuously. The master sighed and shivered a little. "Aren't you cold?" he asked while rubbing his upper arms.
"I don't appreciate temperatures as you do." was a hazy reply. The master frowned in objection to the fact that he didn't really understand what the demon meant, but he knew they couldn't light any fire to warm themselves up because the beasts could smell the smoke and would find them. He sighed deeply.
"Where were you going...?"
The master blinked at the flat adequately half-sentenced question, and didn't know whether to find it amusing or to complain. "umm... I was going back to the Palace; I was just taking a look around some places for-..."
"Do you want to meet your guardians again?"
The master paused at the next question he got, the fact that the demon deliberately showing apathy towards his story disheartened him a bit. "You mean... whether we planned a rendezvous point if by chance we got separated in the way?"
"No. I'm sorry, I didn't think that the journey was that dangerous or-..." the wide eyes staring the demon looked hesitant for a moment and looked away to somewhere else.
"You're dangerous." the demon stated flatly.
The master laughed in acceptance, "...it seems it was me that was the problem, not the journey." he agreed.
The demon looked at him and eyed him oddly for some time, it made the master nervous a little.
"...you're still the problem." the demon pointed out; and the master realized he'd used past tense when admitting about himself, and gave an embarrassed flush on his face.
"Ummm... you're right. I'm sorry." he looked down as he felt the demon's stare was still directed at him, and fidgeted uncomfortably.
The master had his cloak hood down to his shoulders, exposing his fine face and lively large eyes. If he was someone from the Palace, then he should've met this human at least once; but he didn't even recognize the human's scent. Looking at his decent modest attire, he must not be from a flashy family like the dignitaries'... but being escorted by soldiers meant something. Judging from his experience with the Palace men, this master was probably some important dignitary's new paramour being transported from his home on the suburb to the Palace. Or just some distant relative of someone from the Palace... a long lost grandchild whose father or mother didn't accepted by the noble family, or some orphaned distant nephew...
"Uhmm..." the master cleared his throat while fidgeting, "...please stop staring at me like that... If you want to know, you could just ask outright; I'll answer any question you're possibly wondering about..."
The demon blinked but still looked unimpressed. "Not really..."
"Sorry." he added silently when turning away from the cave entrance; he knew it was rude to stare, but he forgot doing it sometimes, being too used by the fact that the humans around him tried to ignore him out of fright or prejudice.
The master laughed his nervousness away and stood up; "I'm Duo, by the way...!" he said good-naturedly and extended his right hand; he knew it was a very late introduction but he couldn't have any opening to bring that up before, noting that the demon was satisfied enough calling him only 'master' and the demon might be called only 'demon' like how others used to call him with.
The demon stared at the offered hand and at the grinning face in front of him. "Demon." he said, he wanted to point out that mostly humans wouldn't want to touch him because he's a demon, but he got a little lazy using the full sentence.
"Yes, I know you are. Surely you have a name to call you with, right?" the master's eyes shone a bit; a little too hopeful to the demon's preference.
The demon stared at the open face, somehow he felt bothered. Some youngsters sometime had high curiosity towards things their parents deemed dangerous, he had brushes of those experiences before.
". . . Heero." he answered almost sounded reluctant.
The master must have caught it too for he pulled his offered hand back and rubbed it to his chest with an "Oh..." and chuckled mischievously.
"Umm... I think it's best that I don't meet up with my guardians again... They're wounded and I'd still be chased by the beasts, and all that..." the master tried to hide his nervousness again, though the effort only showed it more. Sitting back on the big stone he'd used before, he added, "Umm... so, I think I should just head back to the Palace without them... I wonder if they're alright, though..."
The demon stared at the worried face; "My owner should have found them by now."
"So if that's your decision then I'll escort you to the Palace, Master." he added when those large eyes stared back at him hopefully.
"Uhh... no. Please just call me Duo...!" the master tried a nervous smile.
"Master Duo." the demon corrected himself obediently.
"No...please; the soldiers called me like that and it just makes me nervous..."
"You should get used to it." the demon said neutrally it made the master paused his fidgeting instantly and really stared at the demon.
They stared at each other for some time and the master eventually gave in with a smile. "Actually... my cousin lives in the Palace, and all of a sudden he wanted me to visit him. I'm not of a noble family or something, so when someone called me with titles I feel like being alienated..." he said softly. "And I am sure that I want a demon to call me by my name...!" and added with enough certainty without sounding to be rude.
The demon stared at the gentle face for a long pause and decided it didn't worth an argument too.
"Duo." he called softly, almost like whispering it out, noticing a shudder ran up the human's body without the human himself realizing it when he said his name.
Duo brightened, and grinned. "That's more like it. Thank-you, Heero...!" but then he caught himself and looked nervous again. "Ummm... you don't mind, do you?"
Rather than minded his name called by some stranger, he was more minding that the boy used an 'ummm' or an 'uhhh' almost in front of his every speech. It grated on his patience; Odin teased him sometimes with that kind of annoying speech, knowing his endurance to such thing was thin. "...fine." he answered unexcitedly.
"The General's COUSIN...?" Odin asked with incredulity.
"You mean The-annoying General's cousin he used to speak of so proudly since he was young...?" Odin asked again with fake surprise.
"Umm, Commander..." the soldier drooped his eyes with a twitching uneven smile. "Please don't make us the eyewitnesses when you want to call The General in good-natured humor and emphasize certain things about him that didn't need to be emphasized at all..." he complained in fear; his comrades pretended that they weren't there to be those so called eyewitnesses at all. Well, The General was still young compared to Odin, like about halve the man's age...
"I know what you're thinking about my age, it's written all over your face...!" Odin growled loud and grabbed the soldier's face from under his chin.
"...-'um suwryyy...!" the poor soldier said tearfully; his comrades looked elsewhere with sweat-drops.
Odin tsk-ed; "So what do you want now?" he asked to the circle around the fire, the soldiers gave him large uncertain eyes. "And you shouldn't be walking around when the beasts are not closing this way...!" Odin growled at the Lieutenant who had just gotten there from his (stubbornly) night patrol around the camping area.
"...!" Cail stopped when he got the glare from Odin, and frowned back when he realized he was being treated like a kid. "I believe I can defend myself and careful enough not to attract any beast this way, Sir...!" he complained openly. They made a frown-contest out of each other for awhile, the soldiers tried to ignore them.
"That's why the Lesard is guarding there...!" Odin pointed at the lizard lounging on its belly with flat neck sprawled on the ground which sometimes gave out a yearning-whining rumble.
"The lizard didn't look like it's in fit condition, Sir...!" Cail reasoned with an opposing stare.
"The beasts won't come near here for the fact that the lesard is here! And don't counter me when you have wounds all over you and I have none, boy!" Odin argued with finality.
The Lieutenant squeaked his objection and he knew he just had to shut it because his reasoning was already lost. He sat down by the fire with a dignified humph and ignored his surroundings altogether. The soldiers thought that perhaps the Commander should just say it outright that he was worried about the Lieutenant, but no one dared to voice it.
The horses neighed, and Odin stood up. "I'll check the horses." he threw off-handedly and left.
They had retrieved most of the fleeing horses; or should be said, they found their horses back except the master's. Odin hoped that horse somehow found its master by itself, knowing it's still a long way from the Palace. Lix had helped herded most of the horses back to them, at Odin's order, and now the lizard was looking quite sorrowful for not being able to find its rider. The man had been blackmailing the lizard too using the words 'what's your rider's last order?' to keep the lizard stayed with them, he felt a little sympathy for the lizard but knew that right now they needed it more than the demon did.
Odin humph-ed to himself; the demon should be needing him right now... but he couldn't leave the soldiers on their own too.
Duo tilted his head up to see the sky from the shelter of the cave entrance that formed like a tunnel; he sighed and felt the demon's eyes opened and stared at his back from behind the shadow.
"...it's morning..." he provided. The demon didn't react.
"Ummm... the beasts will trace us here soon enough, now that the rain smell is gone..." Duo added; he knew his amulets wouldn't do anything good carried in the open.
"What do you plan?" the demon asked softly.
Duo looked uncertain for a moment but knew that he didn't have much choice; ". . . run?"
But the demon had the choice to leave him behind; ...although Duo didn't really want to say like it was an option.
A flash of swirling heat could be seen in the demon's eyes, Duo was somewhat nervous seeing it, knowing the demon could read what his mind was thinking and he felt self-conscious for not wanting to be alone. So he averted his wide eyes and tried to hide his stare behind his cloak hood, although he still stole glances at the demon.
"They're waiting for us to come out." the demon said flatly. Duo nodded, knowing that too. "How far do you think you could run from them?"
Duo fidgeted; "Humm... I might have something under my sleeves to defend myself with...", though his tone was full of uncertainty to the demon's ears. "...if in case... we had to play more than hide-and-seek with them...?"
"Are you really capable?"
The demon asked without judgment, for that Duo seemed grateful; he nodded firmer but his wide eyes gave the demon a puppy's stare.
"It's a long way to run." the demon stood up from the corner.
"I know...!" Duo frowned with a serious pout.
The demon snorted softly; "...might as well take the way back..." he said to himself with acceptance and grabbed Duo's hand.
"Hah...?" Duo flustered; "Eh... wait!" he managed to squeak out as the demon pulled him out of the cave. He didn't expect the demon to be kind of touchy-feely (though NOT that much), but his mind didn't want to admit that perhaps the demon thought of him as a kind of luggage-in-humanoid-form either.
A pair of golden round eyes on a giant sleek muzzle.
A pair of frightened teary eyes with paling face.
Some drops of clear water from between the lining sharp teeth.
"What are you doing trying to back away?" Odin grumbled.
The wounded soldier, eventhough he seemed like he couldn't even crawl on four to run away, still looked like he tried to drag his body to get away from the drooling lizard and was scared enough that he couldn't voice his objection.
"Sir, are you sure...?" the fifth soldier asked in place of his comrade, feeling sorry for him for being the one most wounded and poisoned of them all.
Odin gave him a sour look, and he cowered and scooted to behind the man's line of sight.
"Sauria's drool has enough anti-poison in it, that's why the demons used them to go to wars; especially because lizards could create different anti-poisons once they tasted the poison itself as needed. Before you judge something based on prejudice or fear, you should know the up and down of it first." the Commander provided flatly. "Medicine plants are not pretty, they usually taste ugly too..." he added.
The eighth soldier looked like contemplating the lengthy reason and his aching wounds won.
"So if you still want to have a stomach to digest your food in, just let the Lesard gave a lick on that wound!" Odin urged impatiently.
The eighth soldier swallowed nervously but eventually nodded his consent albeit with full uncertainty.
Lix blinked and lowered his muzzle a little more above the lying soldier. The human cowered and trembled in fear a little as it sniffed the man from the face down to the chest.
"...you know it actually a little useless using a lizard to decide whether a prey's meat is poisonous or safe enough to be eaten by humans, since they're basically had whatever anti-poison for every poison they consume..." Odin commented half-caringly; ignoring the nervous soldiers feeling sorry for their bed-ridden comrade. "Hmh!" Odin nodded once with certainty, as if only thinking to himself loudly; "Definitely effective drool! Especially when they're hungry...!"
The lying soldier suddenly jerked in panic and his comrades paled at Odin with accusing stares.
Lix pulled its head up again as the wounded human thrashed and trying to slither away again. It snapped its long neck at Odin with an objecting quack with a deep lizard-frown.
"Just puke on that man already, Lesard!" Odin protested with irritation.
"Commander...!" Cail's even voice broke the wailing soldiers' protest; Odin ignored the panicking soldiers and turned to the Lieutenant rounding his way from behind him to his side. Cail knew better than to approach Odin from behind.
Odin stared at the ever serious man and asked without voicing it.
Cail didn't answer; instead he pulled the rein he had in his right hand closer to Odin to show the horse.
Odin's left brow arched in uncaring incomprehension.
"This was the master's horse, Sir." Cail answered flatly. "She came back to where we were attacked yesterday; perhaps thinking that she'd find the master there...!"
The hushing soldiers stared at the two men with the master's horse and ignoring the eighth soldier flailing his arms while the lizard (true to the order it got) was barfing enough saliva on his lying body to fill five buckets... or more.
Odin didn't react for some long seconds; the other soldiers were fidgeting in different levels of anxiety and looked at each other.
"So?" Odin tested.
"I'll try to catch up with the master, while you all go back to the Palace-..."
"You order me around now, Lieutenant?" Odin asked with a grimace; Cail shut his mouth instantly.
"...always the hasty kid, aren't you?" Odin commented and rounded the man to see the horse's condition; there were small scrapes on its left thigh and a bleeding cut on its neck, but all in all they were nothing alarming.
"How's your rider when you two parted; safe enough?" Odin asked the horse while patting its strong neck; the horse snorted and jerked its head up several times, the opposite of nodding.
"Oh, you're worrying about that, too?" Odin smirked; the horse kicked the dirt a couple times and shook its head.
"Something's bothering her, and I'm not talking about the beasts." Odin summed up and stared at the soldiers' eyes in turn. "Somebody's going to elaborate now why that boy needed this many men to escort him sight-seeing or should I make you cough it out by force?"
The other soldiers shrunk on their feet while in the background the eighth soldier whined tearfully in fright as the lizard started to barf out something more solid than just saliva on him, "...Commandeeeerr...!", but his comrades were too busy to mind him at the moment.
Cail pulled his chin up a little and Odin's eyes instantly landed on him. "Lieutenant?" Odin started, "We know your men wouldn't say anything unless you give them permission to..."
"And I'd like a satisfactory answer to be delivered to my demon later about why he had to be hand-in-hand with a human-stranger out there playing hide-and-seek with the beasts and going to the Palace on foot while his ride was left here guarding some soldiers he shouldn't be concerned of in the first place?" Odin showed enough teeth at the end of his speech, showing them he really meant it that he'd prefer to be with his demon than being with them; so if he could endure this as part of his duty, than they too should do their part.
The Lieutenant pulled the ends of his lips downward in an almost pout, but frowned seriously; he hadn't realized it that he was baiting Odin's sadistic side that way. "I'm sorry, Commander. But that's why I tried to tell you that I should go and find the master and transfer him safely to the Palace back without burdening you and your man."
"That's not satisfactory enough of an answer, Lieutenant...!" Odin used an irritating cocky tone now.
Cail's pout and serious frown were becoming more visible, and he glanced at his men and decided that they had their brush with deaths too so they had the right to know the reason for it. He sighed and lowered his guard.
"...the General thought that... the master might be in danger in his residence in the countryside and had him transferred to the Palace for better protection, Sir." Cail said in small enough voice for them to hear.
"Protection from what?" Odin urged.
"Assassination."
The soldiers widened their eyes at that.
"Assassination?" Odin repeated flatly; "...and the beasts?" one of his folded hands on his chest pointed generally to the open land.
The Lieutenant cleared his throat once. "The General warned us- ...me, about something like the beasts too before he had me to escort the master out of the Palace, but I didn't think he was serious since we never heard of anyone who'd use beasts to assassinate someone..." he trailed off, already blaming himself for that flaw now that he put it into words. He swallowed hard.
Odin silenced staring at the young man now frowning at the ground.
"Humph!" Odin turned around in a rigid pose; "So that's why we had those black-eyes tailing us since half way to here...!" That's probably part of what had made his demon restless yesterday.
"...black-eyes?" Cail looked up. All the eyes that were not busied with a puking sauria turned to the direction Odin pointed with a finger without he himself looking at it. The strange black-bird cocked its head to the sides from between the shelter of the green leaves as the humans' eyes stared back at it.
"What? You didn't realize something spied on you the whole time?" Odin growled noticing that black-bird was the one tailing him and his demon from before; so anything spying on the master wasn't there, it's more likely still tailing that boy, then...-and his demon too.
"Bu...but it's only a bird, Commander, Sir..." a soldier tried to reason; and squeaked when Odin grabbed his neck from behind and pulled him to his side.
"Look here...!" Odin whispered silkily, and the soldier squirmed at the closeness; "...black-eyes could see even through the darkest night; yellow-eyes could see through the shields of fire; and white-eyes could see through even the thickest fog. That's what you should be able to recognize of the familiar-beasts people used to substitute their senses with...!"
"-...and red-eyes?" a somewhat distracted voice of another soldier asked, "What about red-eyes?"
Odin frowned and slowly let the soldier go; he turned around calmly with a pissed off glare and a hand already pulled his sword from its scabbard a little.
Lix was growling low at the trees behind them, tail high in the air in an intimidating pose.
The men who were fit enough to fight immediately pulled out their weapons mimicking their Commander.
"Red-eyes are hungry vultures...!" Cail commented as he pulled his twin swords out too.
Up on the trees were large birds, easily the size of an adult human, and having three long lizard-tails each, staring intently at them on the ground; the birds' frowning-like looks made it even imposing to the humans. The soldiers gawped at the number of those birds in the sky too; it was like the scene of scavengers circling around rotten cadaver in the desert.
"So they failed with the ground beasts; now the sky-army closing in...!" Odin leered with manic excitement that made the soldiers even more nervous.
"So, ummm... Whipping-vultures have three whip-like tails each, but Scorpion-eagles have venomous stings that are more of a threat, right...? So if you ask me, I'd rather have a flock of Whipping-vultures above me instead of Scorpion-eagles, I think... Umm, but... on second thought, I think I rather not have any of those chasing me, you know-...?"
The demon tried to not sigh out loud, but then again...
"Get down." he grabbed Duo and pulled him behind the thicket, a hand on his mouth rather too tight muffling his voice. Duo widened his eyes and tried to pry the hand away, he bit his tongue a little and eventhough it's not bleeding yet but it still hurt.
"Shh. Those are not birds." the demon's whisper were rather apathetic that Duo failed to feel the emergency, he flailed his hands and when the demon grabbed his wrists to stop him he started to object verbally through his muffled lips, shaking his head intensely.
The demon caught himself and pulled down his encircling hand that was covering Duo's mouth; "Sorry." he muttered flatly, staring at how flustered Duo's face was.
"I bit my th-...!" Duo reflexively argued but the next happening made him widened his eyes in disbelief and he flustered more that he felt like his heart instantly stop beating. The demon was embracing him! His mind gravely screamed in his head; feeling the demon's hand encircled his upper body and pushed his head to his own shoulder, although it seemed to be an effort to muffle his mouth in a less violent way, while his wrists were still in the demon's other grip, flatten on their chests between their bodies. Duo was aware of their bent legs tangled as their fronts fit each other like a matching pair of puzzle pieces. The demon's scent filled his nostrils; there was a wisp of unearthly softness teasing his loose lock of hair just beside his ear, with shock he realized that it was the demon's wing... albeit the demon didn't seem to feel it. His heart decided to explode in his chest with that realization, beating painfully as something inside his core stirred.
Behind him, swimming in the light calm air, were Shadow-fishes with their transparent flickering bodies, coursing through the trees and stones that were in their ways. Their whiskers and thin tails swayed gracefully in their fluid slow motions. They moved without sound, so Duo couldn't -or too busy by the time- to realize them passing by.
The demon frowned. Shadow-fishes were not supposed to be inhabiting such place; they're much too far, far away from their hunting grounds; there was no way that they encountered those creatures by chance.
Duo was about to lose his right-mind, he knew he could do something irrational any moment now, so with his last rational thought he pushed the demon's body with his hands; blowing his held breath and wheezed in some rationality into his brain along with much needed air. He was about to tell off the demon for his sudden action, but a flicker of rainbow-shining fin behind the demon's body made him gaped in incredulity. A wispy swaying whisker passed through the leaves. A large thin head with grotesque-looking line of teeth, and a round dead-looking eye passed by close enough that he could see the reflection of his face in that black glazed eye. He knew he saw death's eye by then. Shadow-fishes devoured souls of living beings. He only had seen them in pictures, and knew them only by stories; because they were only part of those myth-and-legend tales and not of the real world, even if he'd wanted to see them when he was still a curious tale-induce-minded kid.
But why now? Why there...? His brain stopped functioning.
Crackled noises of dried branches and tumbling dead trees heard all around them. Duo saw with his own eyes how the tree behind the demon shriveled and dried and turned ashen, its leaves wilted and soon dispersed into the air, while the bough cracked and fell in blackened pieces. It was instantaneous death to every living thing of which soul devoured by the creatures. His was of no exception. Knowing that, he couldn't contain his fear and trembled in the demon's arms; he didn't realize when, but he was clawing at the demon's shoulders, while the demon had flattened their bodies together again in a tight embrace.
. . . so close! His every cell on his body screamed.
Not the demon, but the fishes. His instinct banged itself onto the wall of his rational mind trying to break free answering the need to defend himself.
"Relax. It's alright." the demon whispered ever so softly.
And Duo stilled.
saru's note:
1. uhmmmm... suddenly, right after typing this sentence and re-read it; saru had a flash of 'picture' from the usual Y-manga and laughed it out loud (having fujyoushi-mind in mode:ON). REALLY, saru didn't think of it like that when typing it down ...so, sorry if it's bothering anyone (still laughing fujyoushi-ishly) ...
Somehow, today (jan 10th) saru agreed to take more work while some other works are in pause; but the money is good... so what else you'd argue with, right? (mom's hamsters are missing one by one from their boxes, she's crying over the loss now; and this part of the note has got nothing to do with the fic nor work but saru typed it anyway) Going to go to the publisher's office tomorrow for the new job... err, work... umm, project... whatever (already stressed by the not yet-happening but happy thinking about the payment) -slap-
Yesterday, the 2nd and 3rd books of the novel series that we illustrated were given to us in english (the original script instead of the translated script like the 1st) and we're amazed at how much the ambience of the novel was lost in the translation (suddenly felt that the illustrations we made for the 1st book were too childish for it...OMG! But on second thought, why bother when the editor said they're good, right? So, this's just self-thinking but between the positive-pan and the negative-pan inside saru's head, the scale-pole in the middle was called 'money' instead of 'logics' or 'rationality'... gyaaa, sucks to be poor!)
oh, and the last part of the fic there was a very irritating cut of a cliffhanger (Lol)... right, know that too; just bash saru in the review if you want to, but saru's going to read some Y-manga to clear mind before facing the new editor tomorrow. hahahaha... (Y-manga instead of praying, isn't the world coming to an end or what?)
Thanx for reading