Chapter Three: Two Propositions, One Approved
Ryou left the bookstore at the end of his shift and headed back home, thinking of Amane to try and distract himself from the chilly weather.
'I'm sure she's having fun at the Arts Fair,' the albino thought to himself. 'It's south of here, so it's probably not as cold and snowy…maybe this time, she'll actually be recognized for her talent.'
Ryou pulled the door open, rushed inside the house and closed the door once more, taking off his coat and scarf before heading over to the fireplace and starting a fire. As the wood began to burn and the house started to warm up, the young man sat down near the fire, picked up "Tales of Kings" and started to read.
Unbeknownst to Ryou, a platinum-blond-haired friend of his had walked up to the door of his home, smirking slightly. Behind him was a tall man with a tattoo on one side of his face, shivering because of his lack of warm clothes.
Ryou only looked up from his book when he heard a knock at the door. Laying a glove on the page he was at to save his place, he got up from the floor and headed over to open the door. When he did, he blinked at the sight of…
"Marik?"
Marik gave a smile as cold as it was outside. "Ryou-pretty…could I come in?"
"Certainly," Ryou answered politely, before looking at Odeon and smiling at him. "Both of you can."
But as Marik entered, he slammed the door behind him, leaving Odeon outside like he had at the bookstore the previous day.
"I'd…prefer to keep this private," he murmured icily.
The albino felt a flash of anger that Marik could be so cruel to Odeon after how loyal he'd been to him, but he was careful not to show it on his face.
Marik's eyes wandered around the house disdainfully. "Is this really where you live, Ryou-pretty?"
"Why, yes," Ryou stated calmly, inwardly thinking that he thought the house was very nice and didn't deserve such disapproval.
'Sure, it's a little small…but I don't mind small. It's probably a lot warmer and cozier than Marik's huge mansion…'
Marik, though, didn't seem to agree with Ryou's thoughts. "It's so…tiny. You deserve better, Ryou-pretty. Surely you've dreamed of better than this?"
'I dream about what I can learn and see, not what house I live in,' Ryou thought to himself, wishing he could roll his eyes without Marik seeing.
"I don't mind my house," he decided to say instead. "After all, it's just Amane and me, Marik, we don't need much room."
Marik shook his head. "I'm not questioning whether or not you can tolerate it, Ryou-pretty…I'm merely stating that you deserve better."
"And what exactly do I deserve, Marik?" Ryou inquired expressionlessly.
"A lot of things," responded Marik. "A large mansion filled to the top with precious treasures and comprised of large, elegant rooms...servants to attend to your every whim…a husband to spoil you mercilessly…"
Ryou tried not to grimace, but he personally thought wanting a big house, groveling servants and a husband who did nothing but give you presents was quite selfish and very unlike what he wanted.
"And do you know who will be more than happy to make that dream come true for you?" asked Marik coolly.
"I can't imagine," whispered Ryou, trying not to sound sarcastic.
"Me, Ryou-pretty," Marik replied, moving their faces closer together.
"Marik, I'm…speechless," Ryou said awkwardly as he moved back from him, disliking the lack of space between them. "I-I really don't know what to say…"
Marik's smirk broadened, lessening the space between them even more and making their noses touch. Ryou felt colder just looking into his heartless eyes.
"Say you'll marry me," the tanned man said as a manipulative hiss.
"I-I'm very sorry, Marik," Ryou stammered, "but…I just don't deserve you!"
Marik grabbed Ryou by the arm, his eyes glinting dangerously even though his mouth was still turned upward in smirk. "Nonsense, Ryou-pretty…I want you…and what I want, I get, no matter what."
Ryou was trapped between a wall and Marik, and his fearful heart was almost slamming into his ribs. He really didn't like Marik's possessive grip on his arm. He was about to respond, but, to his tremendous relief, he heard a scratching noise at the door and took it quickly as an excuse to pull away from Marik.
He opened the door to find Ivory covered in snow and meowing loudly as if trying to tell Ryou something.
"Ivory?" Ryou realized. "What are you doing here? You should be with Amane at the Arts Fair…"
His eyes widened in horror.
"Amane! Where is she? Ivory, where is she?"
Ivory meowed even more desperately. Without a second thought, Ryou seized his coat and ran outside to climb on the White Tiger's back.
"Ryou-pretty!" said Marik, rushing over to him. "Where are you going?"
"To find Amane," Ryou answered determinedly.
"I'll come with you," Marik offered immediately.
"No," Ryou stated, more firmly than he had been before. "I'm sorry our conversation was cut short, Marik, but right now, my sister is more important."
The albino wasn't really sorry at all, but he didn't want to think about anything besides finding Amane, so he grabbed hold of Ivory's neck and the two ran into the Dark Forest, leaving Marik to stare after them with his cold lavender eyes narrowed in impatience and aggravation.
Ivory approached the place where she had last heard her mistress's voice, and Ryou shivered as he looked up at the slightly eerie marble palace.
"This place," he thought out loud. "I've seen this place…where have I seen it?"
Ivory kept looking around fearfully, as if worried the Flower Wolves would return at any moment.
"It's okay, Ivory," Ryou assured, stroking her neck. "Stay here…I'll check it out."
The albino climbed off the Duel Monster's back and started hesitantly toward the castle. He stopped, however, when he stepped onto something that made a squishing sound; when he looked down, his eyes widened at the sight of a soaked piece of colorful paper that still barely contained the image of an angel.
"Amane," he murmured.
He looked at the water-ruined painting, then at the palace, before making up his mind and running up to the castle door. Seeing it wasn't fastened properly, he uncertainly pushed the door open to look inside.
"Hello?" he called, walking in slowly. "Is anyone there? Amane?"
"Awesome job, mutt," scorned a blue book with a brown-haired, blue-eyed man on the front cover scowling in the Golden Retriever's direction. "First person to enter the castle since the curse had to be a girl, and you just had to be nice to her…now Bakura's being even more temperamental with us than usual."
"Shut it, Kaiba," retorted Joey. "I was only trying to help her…she needed help, and she still does…if I had hands instead of paws, I'd bust the girl out myself."
A white King chess-piece with spiky tricolor hair, wide violet eyes and the name "Yugi" incrusted in gold on his white stand nodded.
"Bakura is being ridiculous," he stated, his innocent voice upset. "That poor girl, locked up in that horrible dungeon without a blanket or a coat…"
A black King chess-piece with even wilder tricolor hair, sharp-angled crimson eyes and the name "Atem" incrusted in silver on his black stand wrapped a porcelain arm around Yugi and gently kissed the top of his forehead.
"We can only hope that 'Ryou' person she kept screaming for will come and her out of here," he assented in a deep, rich voice that could rival any king's.
"Guess so," stated a feather duster with purple eyes and gently curled gold hair with a slight sigh. "There's no other way that girl would ever escape from here, since Bakura sure as hell isn't going to be nice to her."
She tried to give Joey a hug, but her feathers tickled his nose and the dog went into a sneezing fit.
"Oh…sorry, Joseph," the feather duster apologized, looking very guilty.
When he finally stopped sneezing, Joey tried to give her a dog's version of a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about it, Mai…it's not your fault."
Mai sighed again sadly. "Oh, of all things for me to turn into, it had to be a feather duster! If the spell isn't taken off soon…I'll never be able to touch that handsome face of yours again."
"Amane? Are you there? Amane!"
All of the enchanted servants froze at the sound of a voice calling out a name. Joey stood up abruptly from his seat on the floor, his ears up.
'A boy?' he realized.
The yellow-furred dog abruptly ran over down the stairs and looked around the corner to see a young man with long white hair, chocolate brown eyes and a delicate pale figure looking around as if searching for someone.
"It's a boy," said Tristan, who had been standing by the edge of the stairs.
"Of course it is," scorned Kaiba as he and the others came up behind Joey to look around the corner at the stranger. "Did you think it was a cat?"
Joey didn't pay attention to Tristan or Kaiba, however.
"Don't you see?" he barked elatedly. "He's the one! Bakura says no women are allowed in the castle…so Kisara must've sent this boy here instead!"
"Joey, I don't think Kisara-" Yugi started, but Joey had already run down the stairs and up to Ryou, barking eagerly.
The albino stared at the excited dog, very confused. "Where did you come from?"
Joey grabbed Ryou's shirt in his teeth and pulled on it earnestly.
"Do you…want me to follow you?" Ryou asked tentatively.
Joey responded with a positive bark.
'Great,' Ryou thought sarcastically. 'I've met Lassie's twin brother…well, if I have to talk to a dog, at least no one's here to tease me!'
"Do you know where my sister is?" he asked. "I think she got lost around here."
Joey blinked in surprise, before thinking of the girl Bakura had locked up in the palace dungeon and barking again.
"Well, lead on!" Ryou told him, gesturing around.
Joey headed up a circular staircase hidden in the far back corner of the entrance hall and the albino hurried after him, pleading that the dog did know where Amane was and that she was alright.
At last the dog and the human following him reached the door of the prison; squinting in the poor light made by the few small torches on the stone walls, Ryou looked through the bars on the window at the top of the door.
"Is anyone there?" he called.
"Ryou?" a familiar voice whispered weakly, as if disbelieving.
"Amane!" Ryou realized.
He tried pulling the door open, to find it locked. A bark sounded behind him, and he turned to see Joey holding a ring of keys in his mouth. The albino grabbed the ring of keys and unlocked the door with the largest key, before pulling the door open and rushing inside over to his sister.
Amane was chained to the wall in the far corner near the barred window, her face deathly white and her figure shivering in the wintry cold.
"How…how did you find me?" she asked, her voice very frail.
"Ivory came and got me," Ryou answered concernedly, struggling to find the key to unlock her shackles. "Amane, what happened?"
"Flower Wolves…cornered us," Amane responded, before coughing violently.
"Shh," Ryou hushed her gently, feeling her forehead. "Oh, you're as cold as ice…I've got to get you out of here."
"Ryou," Amane murmured, "it's…dangerous here…we have to hurry before-"
"No!" shouted a voice Ryou didn't recognize as Joey's.
Amane screamed as Ryou felt himself being thrust away from her. All the candles went out, thrusting him into darkness. Ryou tried to find his sister again, but before he could, he found his back collide with a wall as someone grabbed him by the collar.
"What are you doing here?" a dark voice demanded fiercely.
Ryou forced fear from his face. "I've come for my sister…please, free her, she's terribly sick!"
"So be it," scorned the voice. "That's her punishment for trespassing here!"
"She didn't know she was trespassing!" Ryou argued. "I didn't even know who lived here! You can't kill her for a crime she didn't know she was committing!"
Amane's voice cried out from the darkness. "Ryou, don't argue with him! You'll only earn the same fate as me!"
"Maybe you should listen to her," sneered the voice, "before you make me mad."
Ryou's eyes narrowed. "If you think I'm going to be quiet when my sister's life is in danger, you're wrong!"
A short silence took over the room. Then the dark voice murmured, "There's nothing you can do…she's my prisoner."
Ryou's forehead scrunched up in thought. 'There has to be something I can do…wait, there is!'
"Fine, then," he stated. "Then let's make a trade…take me in her place."
"Ryou, no!" shouted Amane. "You don't know what you're doing! You don't know what he looks like-"
"SHUT UP!" snarled the voice dangerously. It paused, and then whispered in an oddly incredulous tone, "You would…take her place?"
"If I did…would you let her go?" Ryou asked.
"Yes," the voice responded, "but…you must promise to stay here forever."
Ryou's eyes widened. 'Forever…?'
"Let me see you," he said abruptly.
The hand holding onto him flinched as if he'd said something he shouldn't have.
"I-I want to know you're being sincere!" Ryou added, worried he might have convinced the owner of the voice to kill him.
There was a pregnant pause, before there was a sound of someone lighting a match and the owner of the voice used the match to light one of the candles on the wall near where he was holding Ryou.
The albino's eyes widened, not of fear, but of recognition.
His sister's captor had short white hair that had obviously not been taken care of in years, skin tanned so that it clashed with his light hair, claw-like hands, a double-X scar on his left cheek and two sharp-lidded eyes as red as blood. The man watched Ryou's reaction impatiently as if waiting for some sort of response, but it was like this impatience was covering another emotion…was it fear?
'Red eyes…' Ryou thought, 'asking me to stay in his castle forever…a large white marble palace that looks like it's abandoned…'
And finally Ryou realized where he'd seen this palace before…as an illustration in his favorite book, "Tales of Kings."
"You…have my word…Bakura of Kaitou," Ryou said faintly.
"Done," Bakura growled, dropping Ryou on the floor, grabbing the ring of keys and unlocking Amane's shackles.
When released, she rushed to him, looking fearful. "Brother, you can't do this-"
Bakura, as if disliking the display of affection between the siblings, grabbed the collar of Amane's shirt and pulled her away from her brother and out the door.
"Ryou!" Amane cried, attempting to pull free of the cursed King's claw-like grip.
"Wait!" Ryou implored, trying to stop him from taking her away. "Wait, please!"
He was stopped from following them further when Bakura slammed the prison door closed and locked it, his red eyes looking pitilessly through the barred window down at Ryou.
"You need to learn your place, pretty boy," Bakura hissed. "I'm the King in this castle, and I don't follow orders from anyone."
And so Ryou could nothing but watch helplessly from behind the prison door as Bakura practically dragged his crying and pleading sister down the hallway. He could only pray that Bakura would honor his promise and not harm Amane anymore than he had, as he would probably never see anything outside this castle prison again.