Between the elvish and draconem was a hatred all could see,
A love between their people was a love that could not be,
The ignorance between them, broke 'it' beyond recognition.
To save 'it' from what he had wrought, the dragon had a mission
The years went by, the time did fly, and bitterness it grew,
The cast-out prince of elven lands with dragons now was through
He was sick and angry; banished, roaming over countrysides,
And when he met his mate again, he wanted back his pride.
. 3 .~ Forest fortuna adiuvat ~. 3 .
Four years had passed since he'd killed his sweet little mate, and here he was, on his own, roaming through the woods and the outlands between their old mountain and the elven-realm, making his way into unknown territory. He'd left his tribe two years ago, going rogue and slowly traveling back to where the elves lived, not even caring if they would organize a manhunt to kill him while he was alone and helpless.
It was sort of nostalgic, roaming through the thick forest and mountain terrain. He slowly crept towards the edge of the wilderness, coming into the next country. He had stopped along the rocky, boulder-covered field he'd just climbed up, entering some more woods, following along the side of a cliff.
He wondered what happened to elven souls when they died. Renji had said that watching one of elvenkind die is the most heartbreaking thing, like seeing wings picked off of a butterfly. Ikkaku wondered how it would look. Perhaps they slowly fade away, or become part of the forest, getting carried away on the wind.
Surely the beautiful things didn't go straight back to hell like he would, as a child of fire. Maybe Yumichika had become a star, or a tree, or come back as a dryad or a nymph or a flower.
Ikkaku had found a nice cave a few miles off and had scoped out a territory around it, marking trees, clawing them up and knocking them over to tell anything else big and nasty in the area to leave or suffer consequences. He wasn't going to have bears or mountain lions roaming around stealing his kill.
"Stop it, you heathen!" Ikkaku turned around in confusion, wondering what had just brushed up against him.
"Get out of here! Go, and stop wrecking my trees!" shouted a strong voice, and there came another swat. Ikkaku looked around, suddenly seeing a person at the edge of the clearing in the woods, holding a large tree branch and beating him with it, "Shoo! Get awa-" the voice trailed off as the person looked up at him, probably scared that they'd come across a draconem far away from where one should be.
Ikkaku looked into the face, noticing the pointed ears and the dark hair and the gleaming eyes with that unknown color. Suddenly the elf dropped the branch, turned heel, and started running away at top speed, leaving Ikkaku stunned in the dust.
That had been… No, it couldn't be. Even with the short pieces of hair along with the long, and the same eyes and the same… It just couldn't. Could it?
Ikkaku started running after it, overtaking it pretty quickly, cornering it – It didn't skip a beat and climbed up a tree, jumping out of it onto the side of the cliff, clinging there and scrambling upwards.
Ikkaku walked around underneath it a few times, looking up, knowing full well he could climb it easily and nab his mate, who was somehow alive.
"Leave me be," it hissed at him, crouching low on a ledge, spidery hands sparking with blue mist. "I want nothing to do with you, you wretched hellion."
"What are you doing out here?" Ikkaku asked in dismay, "I thought you had died,"
"Nearly, thanks to you," Yumichika glared down at him, "You've set ruin to my life, I'll never forgive you. You stay away from me, or I'll hurt you," he threatened, energy growing tight and focused in his hands, hissing menacingly.
Ikkaku stared up at the little thing incredulously, wondering how it could even take itself seriously when it was so much smaller than him. Its magic probably wouldn't even phase him, just like that huge branch whacking him earlier.
"You… You foolish, silly elf," he growled, starting to climb up to get him. Yumichika's face flashed panic for a second, before turning into a glare again, as he bared his teeth at Ikkaku, hissing, hair bristling as the energy built in his hands. "As if you could even be considered equal to me in a fair fight without your sleight of hand. Your people are cowards who know nothing of battle." Rocks fell where he planted his clawed feet, scaling the mountain wall with ease, getting closer to the forest spirit.
"I have lived longer than you could count backwards on your family tree, dragon's filth!" That insult pissed Ikkaku off, and he swiped at Yumichika's legs with his claws. Yumichika scrambled away from him, sliding down the rock wall without fear, scraping up his legs and back, before grabbing a tree branch to slow his fall.
He landed deftly and began running again, "I have seen the ruin your people cause, the greed!" he shouted at Ikkaku, who was by this point, extremely angry, slits in his face going molten as he readied to fry the little twerp.
Ikkaku chased him and grabbed him by the arm, squeezing tight enough to make it clear to Yumichika that he could crack his fragile bones like twigs. Yumichika grit his teeth, but did not give him the satisfaction of having him beat just yet, "The brutality-" he gasped out in pain as Ikkaku twisted his arm as he tried to pull free, "You are as barbaric as orcs, and about as smart as them as well-"
"Hush up, If it wasn't for your stupid magic cheating, we'd have wiped you out ages ago."
Ikkaku was suddenly shocked as his head turned to one side, shocked enough that he let go of Yumichika's arm. Yumichika had hit him. Him. In the face.
Yumichika stuck out his tongue without fear, daring him to do something. Ikkaku knew his face looked shocked and lost – How on earth could this elf be so brave as to stand up to him? What audacity… and fight.
"Blackhearted fiends," Yumichika whispered, staggering, suddenly going pale, magic glow leaving him completely as he fell to his knees. He looked more frail than before, even thinner, with a gray tint to his skin. He was panting in exhaustion, dragging himself to the roots of a tree, not seeming to care enough about his presence to run away any longer.
"How… How are you," Ikkaku hesitantly sat down near him, not knowing why he'd suddenly stopped being so hostile to his presence. "How are you alive, why-"
Yumichika struggled to sit up with his back straight still with pride, glaring at him with a bit of intrigue, but Ikkaku could still tell that he was dangerously weakened, and that that short chase had taken nearly all of his energy, "I am heir to the throne. I am not allowed to die, no matter what travesty or pain I come upon. I have duty."
Yumichika's skin became grayer as he cast a glamor over his body by spreading his palms and tensing his chest. Ikkaku suddenly realized that he was showing all of his inner pain, past wounds, mental strain and the cost of his anguish. There were scars, so many scars and wounds that he was carrying around and living with. Black craggy crusts were growing out of his heart, sucking the light from Yumichika's eyes. He was dying of grief.
"What? You're not the king – I thought the elven king's name was Byakuya Kuchiki?" He'd only heard Renji hiss the name in ire and spite and piqué a hundred thousand times. "What, are you a bastard prince, then?"
Yumichika hissed, going back to his beautiful outer appearance. "You're one to talk about bastards, coming from an entire race of them," Ikkaku only let that slide because he still felt bad about what he'd done years ago. "… I'm the son of the former king and queen- I am the crown prince," Yumichika said in frustration that Ikkaku hadn't known that and hadn't believed him.
"Well if Byakuya's not your sibling then, why-"
"The reason Byakuya is king is that…" Yumichika sighed, going limp, even more distraught and grey than before. "Do you see my hair?"
"Yeah, why is it short up here, but…" Ikkaku reached out a hand hesitantly, not knowing if Yumichika would allow him to touch him. Yumichika had bangs framing his face, as short as his hair had been when Ikkaku had last seen him, but he'd grown the rest out again.
From what Renji had told him, short hair on an elf is the ultimate mark of shame.
Yumichika's face broke suddenly, and his eyes grew wet as he brought a hand up to them. "I have shamed myself by allowing myself to be captured by the enemy. Don't you see, I have come into disgrace. You have ruined me," he whispered, gritting his teeth in anger as his hands shook where they were over his eyes, "I am not suited to be king, because I have lain down with an infidel. Don't you see what you've done? I've been banished, cast out. Look, look at my shame," he said in anger, taking handfuls of his hair, pointing to where it had been cut.
"I have to always cut it like this so that when my people look at me they know that what I have done is unforgivable. I am spoiled, I am ruined because of you, look at my shame," Yumichika put his face in his hands, trying to compose himself, "I can never be recognized by my family again, I must be erased from history, I have been ostracized. I'll never see my friends again, I am not allowed in my homelands, and I can never be king. I am exiled."
"They did it… didn't they," Ikkaku said softly, referencing the time Yumichika had told him he'd fallen down a hill. "They came and… They beat you, and banished you, just so he could take over… You're still the rightful king."
"I know." Yumichika gave him a solemn look, "I know that it's all a conspiracy, but don't you see that isn't the point? I have fallen from grace, I am weak, I am sickly, and I will never be a strong ruler, I will never be reliable. I will never be what I should, I will always have this black mark-"
Ikkaku tried to come close to him. "You, you... I hate you!" Yumichika shrieked, grabbing his arms, and suddenly Ikkaku gasped, because Yumichika's hands glowed white, fingers piercing his armor and making him bleed the molten fluid in his veins.
"Feel it," Yumichika hissed, face wet with angry, embarrassed tears as he forced Ikkaku to feel some of the horrible anguish and despair and shame that he had to live with. "You are no better than those senselessly violent dragons, you have made me this way,"
Yumichika grinned wickedly as Ikkaku staggered, feeling his energy being sucked out from him. For the first moment in his life, Ikkaku felt afraid, he felt like the prey and not the predator, and perhaps that was because he really had turned into a bully like the dragons, maybe he really didn't understand what it was like to be helpless until this moment.
Yumichika's resolve flickered then, and he seemed to lose all energy, flopping over, panting, struggling to get up and get away from Ikkaku, but only succeeding in lifting his head from the ground, hands pushing uselessly.
Yumichika grew angry and frustrated, crying out of irritation and helplessness and ire. "I hate you," he wept, "I hate you,"
Ikkaku picked him up and Yumichika began to cry harder, "Please… Oh, please," he begged, "Please don't take me again, I can't bear it, I can't bear the shame,"
Ikkaku frowned, carrying Yumichika back to the field so he could lay him in the grass, "Oh please, please have mercy," Yumichika pled, no longer having any energy to escape, completely sick and frail. Ikkaku then noticed how bony he was under his dirty silks, like he hadn't been eating hardly at all.
Yumichika began to spiral into depression, trying to leave his body so he could be spared the pain he was anticipating, and Ikkaku really tried hard to be gentle, wondering if Yumichika was dying. He tried to touch him softly, rubbing his chest where the ribs were sticking out. "You need to eat. Yes, you need to eat," he said a little frantically, looking around to see if he could spot a place where he could maybe kill a deer, or get some elf food, whatever it was.
"Please," Yumichika whispered, becoming feverish and extremely sick and weak, as Ikkaku could tell. "Please…" Yumichika breathed slower and slower, trying to give him directions to where his shelter was, begging him to bring him there so he could do something that Ikkaku couldn't hear.
He tried to pick Yumichika up again, and his head and arms flopped lifelessly. Yumichika whispered in a strained rasp that this wasn't a proper way to hold him, and that he needed to carry him with both arms. When Ikkaku adjusted him accordingly, he feverishly begged for him to not hold him so tight, and to turn his face towards the sky.
Ikkaku turned him over, holding him uncertainly; the way Yumichika had requested he be held reminded him of how he'd seen humans carry their young. But this was all wrong: Yumichika's skin was gray and was now flaking off in large papery pieces, he was hardly breathing, and his head was limp and hung back over the crook of Ikkaku's arm. His body was noticeably lighter and was very very frail, and Ikkaku suddenly understood why Renji said watching an elven death was so heart wrenching.
It was as if Yumichika was fading away right in his arms, spiraling into the weak sickness that he'd been trying to hide earlier. He'd expended all his energy trying to get to someplace safe, and had furthered his condition.
He looked frail and weak and much too pale. He looked dead and Ikkaku hated it, he hated it as he gently carried him through the woods, searching for the item Yumichika had whispered for.
Suddenly, there came a picture frame that he could see lying in the distance. When he came upon it, as he looked at the picture, he could see another world, and in it, Yumichika was smiling.
~ Amantes sun Amentes ~
The sickness taking hold in him, it pained him as it grew,
His crystal heart would heal, or he would not make it through
The dragon's desperation and his elven lover's blue,
was only counting down the days, and death would come, he knew.