a&n
Dedicated to wanderingmusician for giving me some of the long-lost inspiration that I needed to continue this story. Christ, I hadn't even thought a continuation was possible. Thanks, mate!
Also, this is no longer a collaboration... it's just me. We had a very big plot, but then we decided to break off the collaboration... and now that I look at our old plot I know I won't have the patience to develop so many secondary characters. I'm simplifying things, making it shorter and focusing more on the original Sephiroth/Aeris/Zack triangle.
This chapter was already half-written so I was a little reluctant to change things... let me know if there are any unnecessary chunks that I might lop off to give you readers some more breathing space. For now I'm just chucking this out to see if anyone's still biting - there'll probably be some modifications later on. :)
• 6 •
"And afterwards?"
"They didn't talk much, sir. I could hardly pick up what they were saying."
Tseng sighed, knocking the butt of his pen against the file. "Are you still monitoring the Wutain's movements?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where is he now?"
"I've got my eye on him, sir. I'll notify you when he takes part in any particular event or interaction. For now he's in a Sector 6 hotel."
"Good. And the girl?" An intake of breath, as if he hadn't meant to let that slip out.
"Sir?"
"No, forget that."
"If you'd like to change your mind about tracking her- "
"I said, forget it. Dismiss for now."
"Thank you, sir. Have a good night."
• •
The red fur drew a jagged line along her powdered cheekbone, and she threw a glance over her shoulder as her slender white fingers slid over the rough wood of the double-doors, preparing to close the church for the night. Heels snapping over the floorboards, she pulled the doors closed and turned the key in the lock with a rusty cough.
Pocketing the key, she turned to the dreary custard-coloured hue of the evening air. The lamps in this area always had a feeble, flickering moment before they fizzed out of the life for the night, and there was an electric buzz in the air as they emitted their dirty light, refusing to give their territory up to the nocturnal darkness.
There was a figure in the shadows.
She knew those square shoulders; knew that slick outline of long black hair. Sighing, she wondered abstractedly if this time he would have made up his mind- it almost frightened her to realize how indifferent she'd become to his visits, but, they were so frequent, and he always seemed to be stuck in a whorl of indecision, so that there was never really a reason to be afraid. He'd never given her away. She knew him; he didn't really need to give her reasons, after all this time. But he was faithful to his indecision; and so she was faithful to her trusting indifference.
"Here again?"
She tucked her chestnut curls into the ostentatious crimson that hugged her shoulders before walking straight up to him. Not that she was intent on greeting him up close; he was in the middle of the road.
"You should be more careful, Aeris."
"And you should be less patronizing," she huffed in response.
Silently, he let himself slip into step beside her, lacquered shoes misted over by the dust that he stirred with every footfall. He risked a sidelong glance at her pale profile, the discreet dip of her brow, the long inky lashes lowered over the darkened green. Her lips had disappeared behind the red fur, though with every step her shoulder would drop a little and he'd catch a glimmer of humidity, a sensual curve of dark pink.
He sighed. "Are you ever going to take my advice into consideration?"
Lashes lifted; dilated pupils met his own as her cheek plumped in a cheeky smile.
"Not until you tell me whose side you're really on."
"You say that like it's a game, Aeris. I'm only being charitable, and you know it."
She smiled again, though her eyes were hard as they turned back to the road ahead. "If you're trying to threaten me, please don't waste your breath. You know just as well as I do that your own curiosity won't allow you to hurt me."
Tseng let her walk ahead a little, observing how the dress clung to her slim waist as her leg came forwards, tugging the material over her thigh, hem coiling around the top of her calves as supply as water; she always chose jackets cut just above the waist, the precise place that mesmerized him in women. Especially when they walked like that. "Sometimes I forget just how…" Womanly? "… toughened you've become."
"You forget a lot of things, Tseng," Aeris said in the same blunt tone, "Things like, the actual point in coming to see me. Or the point in talking to me. Or, why you're involved in my case in the first place; something about catching the last Ancient, wasn't it? Tch." She gave a little wave of the head. "I can't seem to recall what that was about. Can you?"
"Stop playing with me," Tseng said, hands in his pockets as he forced himself to maintain the slight distance between them. "I'm here to ask you something."
"Ask away," she said almost exasperatedly, "before you decide to finally pull your Turks out of your pocket."
"I know you've been approached by a very important man."
She actually stopped in her tracks, looking up at him with confused eyes; she almost looked hurt to know that he'd glimpsed into her privacy after he'd told her that he would do no such thing. Of course, he couldn't know what she thought he'd meant; she thought he'd meant her meeting with the General, though she wasn't entirely sure how anyone could've found that out. Anyway, she'd covered up her expression with haughty disdain in the millisecond that followed, throwing her nylon-clad legs back into their usual brisk march.
"Nice to see you're finally taking initiatives. I knew you'd come to intrude on my privacy sometime."
"Well you weren't exactly hiding away in a cabinet," Tseng smirked, "Your church is supposed to be a public place; observing you there doesn't even require any particular skill, so don't start jumping down my throat."
She swallowed imperceptibly, relief washing over her – he'd meant that man. Right.
"So? What's all the fuss about?"
"We believe he's a Wutain spy. He's been stirring unrest into the minds of the slum-dwellers and we believe a revolution is at hand."
She'd guessed as much, from the look of him. "What do you want me to do about it?"
"We think he's got his hands on too much confidential ShinRa information. We're very concerned for your safety, as it's pretty widely known that you're a wanted woman. ShinRa's weakness."
"We are very concerned?" Aeris slowed down, allowing them to be shoulder-to-shoulder as she threw him a dangerous glance. "Whose weakness am I, really?"
He grabbed her wrist and wrenched it up against her back- she yelped in surprise, flinching away from the pain and stumbling against his chest.
"How many times must I remind you," he growled into the glistening chestnut crown of her head, her short outbursts of breath tickling his throat. "Don't play games with me."
"Or what?" she gasped out, trying to sound threatening though the pain was distorting her voice slightly. "You'll finally make up your mind? Believe me, if playing games with you is all it takes to make you decide what to do with me, I'll play till you decide. What will it be? Will you rip up my cards, or play along?"
"Define the rules. Then we'll see."
"We'll see, we'll see," she parroted him as he loosened his grip on her wrist. "Undecided little man. You're not the only one with an ace up his sleeve, you know. I could betray you to ShinRa just as readily as you could betray me."
"We've been over this so many times, Aeris."
"Yes. And let me just add, for the hundredth time – let go of me."
"That's my cue – as long as you don't run."
"Hmph."
He let her go, and she rubbed her wrists, painted nails glinting in the dim light. "So what were we talking about?"
"We want you to get close to the Wutain spy for us. We'll have you covered if he tries anything."
She looked at him, brow creasing in doubt. "What do you mean… tries anything? That sounds like the sort of thing I don't want to be involved in."
"I don't think you're going to have a choice. He's gaining popularity in the slums and we want you to tell us what he's planning. Rebellion is in the air and this is not the right time."
She fidgeted, still holding her wrist as she stood before him, slim little fur-clad figure shifting from foot to foot. "Why me?"
"We want to protect you from him anyway, so it would be killing two birds with one stone."
He beheld her, heart pounding as frustration gnawed at the borders of the tangled emotion that he was submitted to whenever he set eyes on her – the girl he'd been observing since forever, selfishly keeping the glory of such an acquaintance to himself. It had been awe, before. Now… it was very different, she was very different; much more aware of their strange situation. And he couldn't keep avoiding the ultimatum that loomed ahead of their precarious relationship.
"So in exchange for your protection," she summarized slowly, "I play the double-agent in order to help you put a stop to the slum rebellion. Right. So… you really think I'm on your side? That I can't possibly agree with the idea of the slum-dwellers rising up against you Midgarian tyrants?"
"It depends what you mean by 'my side'."
She sighed. "Tseng, I'm talking about ShinRa's side, not your personal side."
"I know. But you know very well it's an offer you can't refuse."
"I can take care of myself if they take me hostage or whatever it is you're afraid of. I'm not that helpless."
"I know you aren't."
"Unless…" She gave him a queer look. "Unless what you're really afraid of is the fact that I'm free to choose which cause I want to fight for."
"I'm not afraid of that particular freedom. You can choose to fight for whomever you like. You can side with the Wutain spy and work against me. You can do anything you want."
"But, if I do choose to do what I want…" Aeris gave a black-humoured smile.
"Come on," Tseng returned the smile, "You don't really want me to openly threaten you, do you? I'd really rather not."
"Well I could do with a little frightening."
He almost laughed aloud at that. "I definitely agree. Ok, if you help with the rebellion…" He was trying to summon his imagination, but he just could not get that face out of his mind for a long enough time-span to focus on anything else. He could look away, it would make no difference; those wide green eyes seemed to be etched in the darkness around them, materializing everywhere he looked. He was so tired of the frustration, the indecision, all those insolent little sparks of his personality that surfaced whenever they met… He looked down at her again, took in that heart-shaped face, those sceptical eyes, those slender arms hugging her chest as she awaited the verdict. "If you refuse to cooperate, I will arrange a diner at the topmost floor of the ShinRa Headquarters where roasted specimens will be served to you and your host, Doctor Hojo." She burst out laughing at the utter ridicule of such a situation – it seemed so horrendous that it couldn't be possible. Tseng, on the other hand, looked deadly serious. "Threatening enough?"
"Threatening… hm… it's kind of impossible though, isn't it? Hojo wouldn't waste his time dining with me."
"Pick another pleasant ShinRa head then."
"No – I'm the freak, I'm telling you. No one would bother interacting with me as a human."
He considered her for a moment. "How about interacting with you as a woman?"
Her eyes seemed to stab into his when she next looked up at him; her hand flew to his cheek and he took the blow, a rare smile blooming on his otherwise smooth facial features. He knew he had crossed the line; normally he would never have spoken to her like that unless she'd expressly asked for it. He respected her, maybe too much for his own good. Right now though, he couldn't think of anything else that would sway her as effectively.
"That's disgusting."
"You asked for a proper, credible threat."
"And who would you have in mind?"
"I don't know. Who revolts you the most?"
"Right now, I'd say you."
His eyes sparked. "Then it's agreed." His smile widened as he watched her confusion settle gradually on her face – her lips tightened as she realized what she'd just implied.
"No, hang on, wait a minute - "
"I do hope the Wutain spy will have grown very fond of you in the next few days, for your sake."
"That's unfair, Tseng! We were only talking - "
"Oh? You thought you could have a say in the threat I choose to give you? That's not how black-mailing works, I'm afraid." He flicked a finger at her chin, amusedly observing how she was quaking with rage. "At least I've succeeded in frightening you into obeisance, for once."
"You're right," she hissed, "though in doing so you're not exactly flattering yourself."
"Oh, that's alright. As long as I'm assured you'll cooperate." They were standing in a fork in the road; he stepped away from her, bowing his head a little as a parting gesture. He knew he probably wouldn't live up to his end of the bargain if she actually decided not to cooperate, but she seemed to believe that he was capable of desecrating what he practically saw as the only woman worthy of respect in the whole of Midgar… so their deal seemed to be pretty solid.
"In three days, at this hour, you'll be waiting for us at the church, hopefully to enlighten us."
"Three days!"
"Goodnight, Aeris."
He turned on his heel and advanced down the path that probably led to where his vehicle was stationed; she stared after him, completely appalled at the unfairness of it all, and more than surprised at how abrupt he was. She had hardly even spoken to the Wutain man! How on the Planet was she going to manage to… uuurgh!
"Yeah, pleasure doing business with you," she shouted wildly after him before continuing down her own road, giving in to the pleasure of imagining just what his superiors would say if they found out how many years he'd been successfully hiding her from them. She hadn't thought the man capable of being so… so direct all of a sudden. She pulled her artificial furs closer, shivering in the cold; she knew that his threat went much further than just a simple hour of punitive intimacy. He'd ultimately give her to ShinRa; they both knew that had been the unspoken part of the deal, the part that made it almost laughable to have to tack on other frightening things to make it seem more real. So much time had passed that it didn't seem possible for him to give her away… but it was. Still, there had to be something she could do to turn this to the slum-dwellers' advantage… She knew that the slum protestations always ended up being squished by ShinRa, be it through sneaky double-edged laws or actual armed forces, but still: if they were violent enough, maybe this time they'd succeed in getting the message through to the cold-hearted up above… Mother, what a mess! If only she could eventually manage to organize something with the Wutain; being a double-agent certainly wasn't a profession she knew very well, but maybe she could think up of a plan.
There was a little voice in her ear, soothing her, reminding her that she didn't have to get involved in all this… that she was a child of the Planet… but, she felt compelled to remind it- she also happened to be a child of the slums now.
Gods, did she hate partisanship sometimes.
• •
The force of the explosion knocked him clear off his boots – he felt himself hurtling backward, the back of his head touching the space between his shoulder-blades as he lost all notion of gravity and space – and in the millisecond that followed his flight he was crumpling in the snow, his hands thankfully still gripping onto his rifle out of some lasting survival instinct as the touchdown sent harsh ripples of pain up his limbs.
The soldiers from the city of steel, the ones with the inhuman speed, they were here; it had started, finally. He still couldn't get his head around what had happened between this morning and now. He'd stumbled out of his tent, barely in his military pants, still tugging the suspenders up over his shoulders, mouth full of cartridges and a gun in his free hand as a group of tents burst aflame- there were blood-curdling shrieks as the flame-clad Wutain escaped their tents only to be shot down by arches of bullets that seemed to come from nowhere – they were camped in a sort of alcove in the mountain, no forest nearby, only wretched snow-covered plains and jagged spurts of rock.
The night watchers had been slaughtered in silence, hence the surprise attack. Then the firing had stopped, and there had been a deathly silence, only filled by the crackling of flames and the crumbling of the tents, the other soldiers yelling as they came together, all half-dressed, all with at least one weapon in hand.
Dawn came late in the wretched plains of the Wutain mountains. It was as black as night- they had heard reports the evening before from their superiors back down in the city, that the ShinRa fleet had been sighted, and that the Wutain had at least a day to prepare themselves. But those demons must've known how to deform time, if they had managed to come halfway across the Planet in only a few hours – Leviathan knew that human minds work faster when war is at hand, but this had to be a technological miracle.
The wind seemed to rise. And then there was not only semblance but a cruel reality – it ripped the air from their lungs, filling them with freezing dread, pulling at their clothes and tugging back their hair. The captains had to yell themselves hoarse in order to be heard – but Saigo knew it would not stop there, that any just-hatched strategy stood no chance against these demons of magic and bloodlust.
Three Wutain soldiers strode with difficulty against the wind, holding out their hands, a sphere of preternatural blue light pulsating into existence before their outstretched palms – the materia that was wedged in their shurikens glowed fiercely as the attack grew into a sizzling orb of electricity. The wind tore shreds of white from the luminescent orb – it lit up the area before them, and the rocks loomed up in the artificial lights, the night impossibly dark behind them.
"Lines! Lines!" The captains shrieked, herding the soldiers into their positions around the natural posts of defense.
Shots were fired and immediately swallowed by great white arms of electricity that the three Wutains tore from their ever-growing orb. There were never any shouts or signs of human life from the unseen foe – the whole scene had only happened in a few seconds, and then before anyone could have the time to prepare themselves, the three Wutain soldiers ripped their hands from their electric monstrosity, and the explosion had been fantastic – the entire mountainside had been illuminated, the orb seemingly untangling itself into a thousand tiny, deadly spheres that shot out in all directions. Saigo and the rest of the soldiers found themselves hurtling backward without even understanding what was happening – there had been shouts from the enemy, and then after a heartbeat of silence and obscurity, there had been the answer to the electric storm.
Fire. A rain of flames, arching up into the sky before falling straight for the camp in a heart-stopping spectacle of mute violence, streaking across the darkness, beautiful while it was at a distance.
The captains wasted no time for sensitivity or panic. "SHIELDS!" they yelled, and immediately Saigo wrenched himself from the skybound scene and joined a dozen or so others, painting the air with the metaphysical shield that would protect them from the onslaught – his materia pulsated on his gauntlet, and he tried to think, tried to bring his mind around the situation, but he couldn't, could only think vague thoughts of utter unimportance – she was probably still sleeping, a forearm tucked beneath her cheek, lips slightly parted, the covers creasing at her waist and outlining the perfect curve of her hip – and then suddenly she was there, a face in the shapeless transparency of the shield, eyes agonizing and tears streaming down her cheeks – mouth dropping open, Saigo backed away from what he'd helped to construct, squinting as he thought he saw... was that really her, huddling in the snow, some way away in the darkness? Or was it just his sanity falling to pieces?
"Back to cover! Cover!"
It took all his careful training to be able to discard the illusion and follow his companions to the rocks. Just as another soldier yanked him by his suspenders behind a natural wall, they heard the impact of the beautiful rain of flames they'd stared at just seconds before – the shriek of flame just before it burst onto the tents, the mountainside, the rocks behind which they huddled, the angry hiss of fire consuming whatever it engulfed.
"Out right," came a whisper in Saigo's ear. Not even having the time to think about what he was doing, he followed the soldiers around the wall till they came to the other side, and all noise seemed to die down, their heartbeats filling their ears. Sorely regretting not having taken his shuriken, Saigo fingered the materia on his wrists, following the others out into complete obscurity.
They hadn't picked their position for nothing. There was only one way to access the gap where they had made their encampment, and the passages in the rocks gave the ones hiding under the mountain the chance of an inescapable ambush on the enemy.
If they were to stay hidden from the enemy, they had to stay hidden from each other, too. Saigo gripped his rifle, sending a prayer up to the mountain as he let the silent darkness swallow him.
• •
"Sweetie...? What are you doing awake?"
She was sitting by the window, blue silk wrapped around her svelte physique, one bare leg hanging from the wide ledge she was perched on. Her hair was undone, black lengths pouring down and framing her anxious face. She glanced over at her mother, standing in the doorway in her day clothes – it was her habit to get up before the sun. But it was still far too close to midnight for her to have a reason, except insomnia, for being awake.
What was she doing awake, her mother had asked? Was it reason enough that the mountains were too silent, too dark to be of any comfort to her – she had thought them to be full of majesty, but now they sat there smiling at her with infinite malice, so dark, so cold. Could she help the dread that was spreading in her like a plague; she had tried to diminish it, and like a panicked victim groping at the hands of the one who strangles her, she'd ripped apart his letters, watched the pieces blend with the snow as she let the wind have them...
"I don't know," she whispered. "I can't... I can't sleep."
She imagined the violet ink staining the snow as his words dissolved into winter's icy realm. And she hugged the blue silk to her, staring out the window, her pale profile outlined against the darkness outside.
• •
The mountain rock was gritty and sharp, loose shards dislodging from the cold structures and rolling into the holes in his gloves as he made his way through the pitch black. What kind of insane stratagem was this- they couldn't have shot a wild elk if it stood at bare centimetres from them in this darkness, let alone demons of modernity in camouflage. The absurdity of the situation would've made him laugh, and suddenly it bubbled up inside him, hilarity, delirium – he concentrated hard on the sound of his heart thumping against the freezing nocturnal air like a metronome, ticking the rhythm of his death. And what a glorious death it would be; a half-shaved, half-clothed animal with a gun in its hands, lungs so frozen that its breath didn't even come out as fog before its lips as it let the precious air escape.
What did they look like to the Gods, sitting up in their unreachable thrones in the mountain, scouring the expression of their divine imagination with cat eyes that pierced the darkness? Specks of humans, moving across the snowy plains, their shadows having abandoned them to join in dark feasts – a thundering chorus of fearful hearts, wildly trampling the lungs of their hosts in their struggle for escape – and then as his musing seemed to grow out of his mind and into the darkness around him, Saigo could suddenly hear the hearts all around him, pumping, throbbing in the still mountain air, and the noise was getting louder and louder until the blindness threatened to drive his sanity from him. Where were they? Where were those fucking demons?
Had it been seconds, or minutes, or a good portion of the night that had gone by, he couldn't tell, before a hand closed around his wrist, the soft insistence reassuring him that it was an ally- and then before he knew it there were hands dancing over his arms and back as his comrades grouped together, pulling each other to the ground. His breath suspended, Saigo let himself be filled by the awe of the moment, the haunting heartbeats vanishing as he sank down further into the silence with the others.
Someone put a hand beneath his chin and pulled his head to the left – there was movement, tiny but vital to their stratagem; silver reflections in the darkness. Soles rooted to the soil of their mountain, the Wutains felt their chests swell as the Gods once again gave them reason to trust in their heritage as men of the ancient mountain passes; there was a tap on every one of the soldiers' shoulders, and though there was no way of giving a signal to the soldiers on the other side of the ambush, they went ahead with their plan.
Saigo did not even hear the anticipated hiss of shuriken being thrown behind them in the corridor of rock – the weapons had been expertly crafted. It was only when the cry of pain of an eventual stalker would arise that they would have proof of their ancestral weapon's efficiency – but they did not wait for it as a signal to attack.
It was like an incredible uprising, the feasting shadows leaping out of their treasured void and gaining substance, their bestial cries of battle suddenly audible, their limbs suddenly visible – the materia was aglow like multicoloured pulse points in the soldier's wrists as they leapt at the people from the glass city, casting electricity at the surprised SOLDIER's faces – in their fury they hadn't the time to notice that the look of surprise was fake, that their spells broke and shattered over the blue-clad men spectacularly but, after the last sparks had sizzled out, the men were still very well alive.
Saigo felt his heart clench so hard that the blood in veins seemed to drag across his webs of veins like drops of dew pulled by gravity. They had been expecting the ambush. Of course. They were demons whose luminescent eyes pierced the dark – and for some reason the speed with which the Wutain had played out the ambush that had allowed them to ward off enemies for centuries; the speed hadn't been enough.
Bastard sons of metal and steam. These men were industrialized, each carved out of the Mako block like dolls, each rising to meet the standard. Saigo hadn't had the time to get any other weapon, the rifle too slow to be effective – he stood at the back, casting, letting the flames pour from his palms, throwing crooked branches of electricity – it was chaos, there was red snow flying, fists and blades and boots sailing through the silence that rang with the bitter echo of the battle cry – and Saigo couldn't shake the thought that this enemy squad was far too small, that the others were out there in the dark taking care of a stratagem that was unknown to them for now.
He could hear revolting shrieks and gurgles of pain from their camp, where several men had stayed to ensure the semblance of being trapped under the mountain – the violence, unbearable, it was filling his ears, it was filling his eyes and even his mouth as foul snow splattered across his face.
"Sword! Sword!" he shouted himself hoarse as the melee warriors he was helping were mercilessly hacked down – the faces of the opponents, who wore dark bands over their eyes (surely to hide the luminescence) were painted with stark blue and red lights as spells blazed around them, balls of energy stolen from the Planet's womb dancing in the darkness as the spell-casters went wild. And then a blood soaked hilt was pressed into Saigo's palm, and he threw himself into the dance, slashing through the blue and red as though he was hacking his way through delicate curtains.
It was like music – blades ringing in the bitter cold, eerie noises made by the spell-casters as though they were gracing their enemy's ears with the secret voice crystallized in orbs of the Planet's blood. Saigo could no longer feel the snow in his boots, the stinking humidity that had splattered his face and torso as others fell around him; he was mesmerized by the feel of his muscles stretching, his limbs unfurling with impossible precision, and pretty soon the bloodied snow on the side of the mountain was hosting a ballet honouring the timeless grace of Death.
• •
She was running across the moonlit street, hair shimmering with reflections, blue silk folding inward at the waist as she ran, legs bare as they streaked in and out of the slits in her long robe. Her feet traced the familiar path that they'd trod so many times, her dear holding her to his side with one hand on her hip, him smiling, her watching his face – the pagoda rose up before her like it had done so many times before, cutting a sloping aberration in the night sky, shaped like an artificial pine tree reaching up to scrape the moon. Those times he had been there to help her; she had always been the fragile, clumsy one, like he'd said – 'one of the obliged downsides to any beautiful woman'.
But now she was alone, and the pagoda was slick with ice and so very, very high. Not that she'd let that bother her when she'd set out – and she was swimming in unreality, it seemed, the moon too big and luminous in the night sky, the buildings looming around her, paved roads glittering with cold humidity, slippery beneath her bare feet. It wasn't like anything else mattered, tonight – wasn't like she could choose to behave differently than how her instinct impelled her to.
She came to the red poles that were in a crisscrossed pattern on the outer wall – her fingers and toes seemed to remember the places to grip onto, so that when she lifted her hands and leapt upward she found her footing as easily as anything. And then like a blue-clad spider with ethereal white limbs she was climbing the side of the pagoda, her soft breaths and watery slithers of her palms and feet against wet wood disturbing the perfect silence.
"Little slug," Saigo would affectionately call her, standing on one of the roofs above her, "At this rate the moon will get tired of waiting for you."
She would've looked up, an angered smirk on her face, before getting muddled in her footing, giving an impulsive glance downwards and pressing herself to the carved wooden patterns she was climbing up.
"Lian?" Saigo would call softly, "Come on, don't tell me you're afraid."
"But it's high," she'd wail despite herself – she didn't know it, but Saigo loved to take her up there simply because all of her daily efforts to stay flawlessly feminine and elegant were useless when itcame to climbing the sacred pagoda. He had a preference for women pushed to the edge; forced to be absolutely natural.
"What? It's not high," he'd laugh, "We're hardly half way up."
"Half the pagoda is still something like three times my own house, you demon," she'd say, "Come down and help me."
"Come up and make me."
"Saigo!" she'd groan, before glancing downward again and letting out a quiet gasp. "Saigo. Please."
She knew he melted when she took that tone with him. The silence rang with the absence of his response – and suddenly she was alone again, hanging off of a grid pattern of slippery red wood, the edge of the next roof just above her head, the wind snatching at the folds of her robe, blue silk rippling in the winter air. Dark strands webbed across her face as she paused, looking up to see the ghost of her fiancé's hand waiting to pull her up.
"Nearly there, my love," he'd smile, his face wearing a devilish expression as she hesitated. She'd take his hand grudgingly, letting him help her up – then as her feet found the secure tiles of the roof she'd plough into him with all her weight – which was nothing to him – and he'd flail his arms before catching her by the waist, pulling her against him and continuing to ascend with her stuck to his side.
"Do you realize you're giving me your life to toy with as I please?" she would whisper in the darkness as they ascended to the highest roof, "All I would have to do..." She would let her free hand come to touch his waist – he'd look at her with bewildered eyes, shaking her.
"You do that, and we both fall."
"Well it would be your fault."
"What?" he'd yelp, eyes widening even more.
"You're the one holding your enemy too close."
He'd smirk. "That's what they teach you to do though, isn't it?"
"Yes, but the enemy in their teachings isn't a half-naked woman."
"You're right. A subtitle in the enemy chapter should be dedicated to your bizarre, double-edged species."
"Keep your eyes on the tiles, Saigo."
He'd look at her deliberately intensely. "Who's toying with whose life now?"
"No. Stop it. We're almost there, be serious."
He'd start leaning towards her.
"What can you do, Lian? What can you do?"
"Stop it, come on. "
"What have you got yourself into, Lian? Naughty little girl. Trusting a man like him. Oh, you naughty thing."
"Stop it, Saigo! Please!" She'd turn her head away, heart pounding desperately as the wind whipped around her bare feet, making her shiver as the cold of her skin that was offered to the empty air contrasted with the burning physical contact where Saigo pressed her against him.
"What would you do if I kissed you, Lian?" he'd murmur, still smiling that treacherous smile.
"You're insane," she'd spit at him angrily, "Keep going."
"What would you do?" He was leaning towards her so much that their combined weight would soon unbalance them and pull them down.
"I'd peel you from the ground where you'd fall."
"Cruel woman," he'd laugh. And then he'd snatch a kiss from her, teeth nipping playfully at her lower lip, and she'd glare at him with half-panicked eyes, unable to move as he'd slide over her, pinning her to the pagoda wall with his back to the cold air, feet firmly wedged in the crooks of the carved wood.
"Let's undo gravity," he'd murmur, delirious with the adrenaline of their impossible height, "Let's unravel the threads of reality's laws."
"This is insane," she'd gasp, "You'd be kissing me in Death's face."
"Death is a black thread in the tapestry," he'd say, lips moving against hers, "All we have to do... is pull it out."
And he'd smudge her protest in a kiss, a moment free of gravity and true sense – she'd cling to the wood at her back with her nails, hips and thighs pressing against his for balance, feet between his own on the criss-crossed pillars. And he'd nuzzle her neck, hands busy holding on to the wall, or rather to life itself – and she'd sigh as he let his lips trail up her burning skin, letting herself pretend that no other law could bind her to life except that of his contact.
She opened her eyes – she was at the top of the pagoda, finally. Her bare feet throbbed with cold in their sheaths of dew; she stood there in the bitter wind, a hand on the red central pillar from where the slanted roof fell. And she waited for the dawn to come, for the treacherous mountain to show its face, standing there like a rippling blue flame atop the sacred pagoda's highest roof.
• •
He lay there, wearing scarlet blossoms on his chest and limbs, staring up into the unfathomable darkness. His chest rose and fell unevenly as he tried to recall how he'd fallen; when had they started losing? … he could hear groans and whimpers around him, and then a light seemed to approach him – there was an enemy with a band over his eyes, most probably trying to regroup with his own kin. He had the perfect appearance of a reaper- his back bent over, black leather covering him from head to toe, long folds hanging from his hips. As he stepped nearer to Saigo, the long white strands that fell from his scalp became visible, most of them stuck together with blood and dirt. He began speaking to several other officers in a strange language- the language of the glass city, no doubt.
"The area's clear. We'll be able to get through the mountain pass tomorrow morning, hopefully unhindered."
"Good job. For now, regroup and set up camp here. We'll pile up the corpses and burn them when dawn arrives."
"Sending smoke signals to the Wutain city, sir?"
"Well if the fumes get over the mountain... I suppose so. Grim, but necessary: we can't exactly flag down our transports with our bare hands, can we? We don't really have many other options now that the Weapons department has yet again proved their inefficiency by selling us their faulty communication devices. They didn't even last two fucking days in the cold! I knew this was going to happen..."
"Begging your pardon sir, but, isn't it a bit wrong to do that? I mean, in the morning the Wutains will wake up and see the ashes of their sons rising up from the mountains... "
"Wrong?" Harsh laughter. "Of course it's wrong. It's utterly despicable if you ask me, but, there we are."
"Good to see someone around here still has their head on straight, though."
"Yeah, well, don't you all start sniveling now, because once we get to the city... things are going to get very, very ugly."
"Well if they decide not to dawdle and sign the damn treaty after all this time... "
"I hope you give them some time to think. I've always wanted to come here."
"Yeah, well, tourism isn't exactly the priority here. But you might get lucky. Come on, let's move."
The leather-clad reaper was sinking further into the darkness, taking with him his light, leaving Saigo to the night, the howling wind, and the tears it ripped from his eyes.
• •