A/N: This chapter's a bit more violent and a bit more mature (I think) than the previous one but nothing too explicit. I'd rate it a hard T but if anyone thinks I should bump it up to M, just shoot me a pm :)
Also trying out if titling the chapter after the character it focuses on would be good. Feedback (yay or nay?) would be super welcome.
I against my brothers, my brothers and I against my cousins, then my cousins and I against strangers.
Every member of the Faris people, from the oldest Sheikh to the youngest child, abides by this hierarchy of familal loyalty. It is what helped them survive for as long as they have, sequestered away into the southern oases past the huge mountain range seperating them from the rest of Hanifa. Every family takes care of their own first and foremost, and Rin had believed that that would be enough to keep them safe.
But this widespread belief among the Faris breeds mistrust towards outsiders, and this ultimately had become their downfall. The isolated Faris grew ignorant of the outside world and its ever-growing arsenal of weapons, content in living as they always had—men and women alike honing their bodies through hunting and riding, children tending to horses that grew almost as wild and untamed as their masters. It is hubris of the elders, Rin thinks, and too much trust in their own admittedly great physical strength, that spurred them to ignore the signs, to say that the young ones that disappear in the night had merely fallen prey to wild animals or had gotten lost in the valley cutting through the mountain range.
Unfortunate accidents, they had said, but accidents all the same. Even as more children disappeared, all the adults had done was keep a slightly tighter leash on them. None questioned why no trace of them have ever found, or why the ones that disappeared are children deemed to be weak, those that had difficulties keeping up with the frantic pace of everyday Faris life.
This quiet acceptance of the loss of children stems from yet another Faris saying that immediately follows the one about loyalty to one's family.
The weak die out, and only the strong will survive.
Rin had always been one of the strongest Faris among others his age, so he supposes that's why he never really listens to the whispers of men stealing unsuitable children and fading away into the night. He scoffs at them, and turns up his nose whenever he heard it mentioned.
But then Gou starts trailing after him, her stubby little legs working furiously to keep up with him. Gou is smaller than most Farisa, but Rin convinces himself she's just a late bloomer, because after all, she's still their father's daughter, and their father is the strongest man among the Faris.
By the time she's ten, the adults start looking at their parents with pity whenever the topic of children comes up. At least there's Rin, they murmur, and Rin begins to despise them for it. Who are they to look down on Gou anyway? Why does everyone think physical strength is the most important trait in the world?
He'd never really questioned the Faris way of thinking before, but accepting that only the strong are worthy of survival would mean Gou, with her shining red eyes and her short, slender limbs, would be left behind. It doesn't make sense, Rin thinks, because he can't reconcile the two most prominent philosophies of the Faris when it comes to Gou. One dictates his brotherly duty to her, while the other all but states that she, due to her weakness, is to be discarded like a tattered horse blanket.
As if I'd let that happen.
Rin takes it upon himself to make Gou stronger. But despite his best efforts—pushing her to run with him as they take the horses to their watering-hole, urging her to try swimming for fish in the river meandering along the foot of the smallest mountain—she remains the same as ever. Her muscles don't develop, not like Rin's or even Aki's, and she loses her breath far too easily.
For months, a shadow looms over Rin, and his heart starts beating rapidly in his chest whenever he can't see Gou. His father must have noticed, because he takes him aside one fine summer morning after they break their fast.
"Rin," he says, his large hand a comforting weight on Rin's head. "Do you like your sister?"
"Of course," Rin mumbles, his cheeks heating up. It's a weird question, in hindsight, but he had been too embarrassed at the time to look further into it. Besides, it's his father, and he feels like maybe the whispers of the other Faris is taking its toll him.
Whether it is an omen or absurdly bad luck, Rin isn't sure, but the bright morning sun darkens for a moment as a cloud passes over it. He thinks he imagines a similar shadow crossing his father's face, but the moment he looks closer, all traces of it, if it had ever been there at all, are gone.
Two weeks later, Rin wakes up and finds Gou's bed empty.
Everyone else mourns Gou, but Rin stands apart from them, his mind steadfastly rejecting the idea that she's gone. It can't have been wild animals, Rin argues to himself, because he would have heard or smelled them otherwise. It can't have been an accident either, because Gou would never be foolish enough to attempt anything without telling Rin first; Rin had personally made sure of that.
That leaves the theory of thieving men taking children away. But even that makes no sense, because it is impossible for ordinary non-Faris people to sneak into a Faris village without alerting any one of the guards patrolling the tents every night.
The night after the ashes of Gou's belongings are scattered to the four winds, Rin lies quietly in his bed and thinks. He thinks and thinks, but he can't come up with any explanation. He even considers the supernatural, but none of the folktales mention anything resembling this.
"Talk to him, please," his mother's voice sounds muffled through the thick fabric seperating him from where his parents sleep. "I'm worried about him."
"Rin is smart," his father replies. "I think we should leave him be for now."
"It's because he's smart that I worry!" his mother's tone rises, and Rin flinches at its vehemence. "What if he starts poking around? What then?"
Rin listens with wide eyes as his father tries to comfort his mother.
"I don't want to lose another child!"
What?
His mother's panicked voice haunts him for days. He continues his duties in distracted silence, trying to look past the confusion clouding his mind. The way his parents had spoken had made it seem as if they knew what had happened to Gou, but if that's the case, then why hadn't they said anything when Rin asked them about it?
What secrets are they keeping from me?
He becomes taciturn during mealtimes, nodding once in a while to appease his increasingly worried mother. He stares into their faces, looking for answers. He finds that they can no longer hold his gaze for more than a few seconds, and Rin thinks it's guilt that makes his father avoid his eyes.
A chance encounter on the way to the watering-hole is what begins Rin's realisation of the true nature of the children's disappearances. Aki walks along with her head hanging low, two buckets full of oasis water swinging freely from her hands.
"Aki!" Rin calls out, remembering that she has a sister named Yuki who had disappeared a few months before Gou. He also recalls Aki telling everyone that would listen—which hadn't included a lot of people other than curious children looking for excitement—that she had seen a shadow take her sister from their bed.
Aki looks up at him with dead eyes.
"Rin..." she murmurs. They stare at each other, kindred spirits who have both lost someone important to them. Something snaps, and the buckets spill water on the ground as Aki throws herself into his arms.
Rin stiffens; displays like these are frowned upon in their community. Tears are a sign of weakness, everyone says. But here, away from everyone else, Rin finds the strength to cry, to let himself feel the full brunt of his grief over losing his precious little sister.
He eventually asks her about the circumstances of Yuki's disappearance, and although Aki is reluctant to share, he pieces together the bits she does let slip enough that his suspicions become startlingly real.
He doesn't share his realisations, not with Aki because knowing might be a burden too heavy for her to bear. He pats her awkwardly on the back as they part ways, an unspoken pact to never speak of this again passing between them.
The darkness becomes Rin's world; he sneaks out in the wee hours of the night and keeps an eye on the tents, paying close attention to those housing children near Gou's age when she disappeared. His nighttime wanderings yield little other than constant fatigue during the day that his father asks about with concern and a little fear. Fear for what, Rin isn't sure, but he can't help but think back on that conversation he had unwittingly eavesdropped on.
He plows on, determined to find answers. Rin knows this obsession of his is unhealthy, but if there is even the slightest chance that Gou is still alive somewhere, then all this would have been worth it if it means he could track her down.
One cold winter night, his patience finally bears fruit. A figure lurking in the shadows catches his eye, and his keen eyesight reveals a man with a little boy tucked under his arm. The boy's unusual silver hair glints in the moonlight; it's Ai, the half Faris whose mother had run off with an outsider and left her son with her sister.
Rin follows them without regard for his own safety; looking back on it, it had been a foolish move, not alerting anyone to his plans. But he had been reckless, eager to see if the man would lead him to Gou at last.
His eagerness costs him his vigilance, and when three men jump him from behind, he struggles but it's no use. They bind him before he can even fight back, and then they throw him into the back of a wagon filled with scared little Faris children a few years younger than him.
He rests his head against the grimy wooden floor and decides to sleep to regain his strength. He is a Faris, and these chains won't hold him for long.
In the end, it isn't manacles that restrict him but his own emotions. His actions indeed lead him to Gou, but he only succeeds in landing himself in the same sticky trap she had gotten caught up in.
She had been sold as a slave to a man who dreams of making an army of Faris to conquer the entirety of Hanifa. He had been disappointed in the slim pickings that had been brought to him, but the moment he sets his eyes on Rin, his greedy smirk widens.
"He's perfect!" the man squeals. Rin would have slammed a fist into that oily face if not for the fact that Gou is cowering behind the man, flanked by two Faris in their late teens.
The other captive children tell him about Soushi, a quiet Faris who lives alone in the outskirts of Rin's community, and how they've seen him pocket gold coins handed to him by the men who took them. Rin's mind flashes back to the recent influx of luxurious items in the tents of the parents who've lost children, and realises the lows to which the once-proud Faris have sunk.
He remembers the Sheikh's new wagon, and his father's face whenever Rin asks where all the food has come from, and disgust leaves him dry-heaving and sick to his stomach.
With Gou as leverage, Rin becomes their master's right-hand man, tasked to do his dirty work for him. Rin is no stranger to violence, having gone on a few hunts with his father, but nothing prepares him for the reality of his first human kill. He doesn't even remember why he had been ordered to kill that merchant, but the putrid smell of the intenstines torn wide open, the slickness of the blood dripping from his hands, and the taste of bile in his mouth become a staple of his nightmares.
Sometimes he dreams it's Gou lying in pieces in front of him, but most of the time, he sees himself in a spreading pool of blood, his limbs at horrifying angles and his eyes bulging out. If he doesn't manage to shake himself awake in time, the maggots appear and start devouring his flesh.
After only a few months in servitude, Rin can hardly recognize himself anymore, but he reminds himself of his duty to Gou and he somehow manages to keep a tiny bit of his humanity intact. He will never abandon her, not the way their parents had, because he is a true Faris, not like the weak-willed people who sell their children into slavery for a few gold coins.
At least, he thinks, Gou is safe. As long as Master keeps his word and keeps Gou out of the Faris breeding houses, Rin would gladly kill for him.
On the summer of the year he turns twelve, Master sends him out on a different mission. This time, he has to bring someone back to Master alive instead of simply presenting their heads to him.
They give him directions to a distant corner of the northern desert, and he is told that his target is a brown-haired blind boy his age hidden away in the innermost rooms of the outpost he would find once he reaches his destination.
Stealth is not his forte, but Rin is confident that he can fight his way out of any situation he would find himself in.
It takes him two days of hard traveling—on foot because Master thinks the exercise would make him even stronger and because good horses are scarce enough that only a handful of Master's men are allowed to ride them—with minimal breaks to reach the outpost. Once there, he does what he does best.
Too easy.
He leaves the remains of the guards where they have fallen; he can hardly be expected to clean up after himself when he has much more important things to do. He stalks his way along the corridors, listening intently for any breathing within the walls.
The first two occupied rooms are no good, their occupants aren't what he is looking for. He silences their screams with fingers thrust into their throat. The blood sprays high into the air, but Rin spares no thought for the dying gurgles or the wide, terrified eyes.
Third time's the charm, and it is in the third room that Rin finds his blind target. He tries to make as little noise as possible so as to avoid waking the boy; taking him would be a lot easier if he is asleep.
No suck luck though, because the moment he enters the room, the boy's eyes are already open.
Might have to make this quick, then.
"Sorry about this," he mutters, and knocks him back to sleep.
Rin gathers the boy's prone form into his arms, then races through the rapidly wakening household. If he had been anything other than a Faris, he would have been worried about the blades and clubs aimed at him, but in his veins flows the blood of the fabled beastslayers of the south, and this calibre of weapons is no match for him.
His legs quickly carry him out of reach of any weapon, and when Rin hears someone calling for horsemen to pursue him, he laughs loud and clear because no one, not even a horse, can catch a Faris in full flight.
The humid air brushes past his cheeks as he leaps across the rolling sands, the boy's weight in his arms reminding him of days spent by the oasis playing with Gou beside the cool blue water. The feel of the gritty sand against his naked soles as he pushes off, the exhilaration of jumping so high he imagines he is touching the sky, whispers to him that this is what being a Faris is truly meant to be.
Once he's miles away from the outpost, he starts looking for a place to spend the rest of the night in. If he had been alone, he would have kept going all night, but traveling with someone he is holding against his will would be a bit more tiring than traveling by himself.
He finds a small cave that satisfies him, and sets up camp the way his father taught him. He sneaks glances at the boy he had bound and propped up against a cave wall, wondering what is it about him that made Master want to acquire him.
Well, it's really none of my business.
He shrugs, but for some reason, his curiosity—which he had long believed had quieted down in the face of everything he had seen and done—is piqued.
Once the fire is going nice and hot, he sits back and studies the boy's features, his eyelids fluttering fitfully in his sleep, his lips twitching ever so slightly. His body is lean, with practically no defined muscle anywhere, but there's a quiet strength in him that Rin's never seen in anyone before. He has a strong jaw, Rin idly notes, and the makings of broad shoulders, traits that are considered attractive among the Faris. His brown hair is a novelty as well, or at least it is to Rin who had gotten used to the red hair of the Faris and Master's greasy blond head. He wonders if it would be as silky as a horse's mane or if it would be more like the texture of freshly-cut hay.
His treacherous eyes wander down the boy's wool-clad body, lingering over the hints of pale flesh peeking out from underneath his tunic then raking back up to his sleeping face, and he wonders if maybe he had eaten a bad batch of dried meat sometime before because he finds himself wanting to see what colour the boy's eyes are. He hadn't had a chance to look before, but he thinks it may be a dark shade of green or blue.
He stares at the boy until he starts to rouse. Rin hurriedly digs into the meat he had prepared, somehow embarrassed even if he knows that there is no chance of him getting caught ogling the other boy. The heat rushing to his cheeks is unfamiliar, and the slight tingling in his stomach even more so.
Stupid, he berates himself. What are you getting so worked up for, Rin?
It's not like the boy looks exceptionally beautiful; he's seen better-looking people in Master's room as they danced with fluttering cloths and jingling bangles. But none of them had ever elicited this kind of reaction from him, and Rin doesn't like that at all. He knows about sex and arousal—he's not an idiot, and at his age he's no stranger to erections—but he's never really thought that it would apply to him. Master had tried to use him as a stallion in the breeding houses, but his body never cooperated no matter how pretty the girl Master presents to him is.
Now, at the most inopportune time and with the most inappropriate person, his body decides to come alive. Rin fills his mind with thoughts of Master's grotesque rolls of fat, and that manages to take the edge off his arousal enough that he sounds relatively normal when he speaks.
"You hungry?
The boy's eyes snap up to him.
Ah, they're green after all.
Rin watches the way the boy reacts to his voice; he'd taken care of a blind horse before, and this boy is not acting the way a blind creature would. His head is turned perfectly in his direction, which would have been impossible if he hadn't been able to see. He should only have been able to gauge his general direction, especially since he hadn't really spoken enough to let the boy get a better reading of his location.
He gets up and approaches the boy, willing his face to stop blushing so damn much. He succeeds, he thinks, but just a little. Rin grips the broken bone in his hand, its familiar texture like a tether that helps him withstand the onslaught of curiosity, desire, loneliness, and longing.
"Please don't kill me."
The raw fear in the boy's voice is like a bucketful of cold water poured over his head. Rin freezes dead in his tracks, and his mouth feels too full, too crowded with sharp, pointed teeth. One nicks his bottom lip, and the vengeful side of him that hates the world, the side that is becoming more and more dominant lately, whispers snidely.
See, this is why you can't trust outsiders. They're all the same, every last one.
The lingering taste of his previous arousal turns bitter in his mouth, and Rin scolds himself for forgetting that to outsiders, all Faris are monsters, inhuman. He had thought the boy, without sight to judge him, would be different, and that makes the disappointment that settles in his stomach all the more heavy and unbearable.
"Relax, if I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead by now."
Rin deals with this the way he always does; he faces it head-on with a defiant grin, daring it to try and get the best of him. He always, always, wins, and this is no exception. Even when something inside him breaks a little, he shoves past it and doesn't look back.
When Rin comments on the boy's strange sight that seems to come and go without warning, he suddenly remembers an old folktale that had been popular during dinners around a roaring fire.
It tells of a man who looked upon the sacred goddess in her true form and was blinded, for the divine is too much for mortal eyes to perceive. The goddess, in her infinite wisdom and mercy, granted him mindsight so that he may see the world the way it truly is, without the confines of physical eyes.
Rin had loved that tale as a child, because the idea that someone could see—truly see—the nature of things had been romantic to him. He'd had impossible notions of meeting someone outside his clan who could look at him and see Rin for what he really is.
He should have known better than to hope; every time the boy flinches away from him is another stab into the heart of his foolish childhood fantasy. But that's fine in its own way, he thinks, because he needs to grow up quickly anyway and this is a perfect start for him.
Rin tells himself it's not resentment that makes him roughly shove meat into the boy's mouth, and that it's not satisfaction that lights him up when he sees the boy choke helplessly, sees him at his mercy.
Still, he needs the boy alive so Rin eases up on him, and forces himself to be gentle. It's hard simply because he's just not used to it at all, but once his initial anger had subsided and the boy had calmed down somewhat, Rin finds that it's not that difficult after all. Something about this boy is begging for someone to take care of him, and even if Rin normally hates that kind of thing, it reminds him a bit of Gou so he doesn't mind all that much.
Rin lets it slip about being sent after him, and he wouldn't have made a fuss over it if the boy hadn't mentioned him 'working for them'.
He warns the boy to never speak of that again, white-hot anger making his whole body tremble. Rin both hates and desires the look on the boy's face as he nods fearfully, both despises and longs for the way his voice sounds so meek and submissive.
"Get some sleep. We're leaving at dawn."
Maybe a few hours of sleep would wipe away the tumult of emotions roiling in his gut.
The first half of their journey is uneventful, but Rin can feel the tension between them stretching to an uneasy truce. It's a waiting game, waiting to see who would snap first. Waiting to see if the boy had the guts to attempt an escape, or if Rin had been wrong about the strength he had seen that first night in the cave.
Every night, Rin keeps watch over his captive with keen red eyes, letting himself rest only when he's absolutely certain that the boy is asleep. It is on one of those nights, when they are but a day's travel from the mountain where Master waits and it's deep enough into summer that they can sleep under the stars without freezing to death, that Rin first hears it.
"Haru..." the boy murmurs in his sleep. His face is scrunched up, with tears clinging to his sugar brown lashes, and Rin feels a jolt of annoyance at the way the boy seems to hold that name close to him. He speaks it with such reverence and tenderness that it makes Rin want to crush something in his fist.
The boy's breathing shallows, his voice rising as he thrashes around, calling Haru, Haru, I'm here, don't leave me over and over again until Rin is sick and tired of hearing it.
He crawls over to the boy to shake him awake, but the boy seems to have other ideas. His dark, lightless eyes fly open at Rin's touch and he launches himself at Rin with such force it almost topples him. Rin's arms instinctively wrap around the trembling body pressed against him.
"Haru," the boy sobs, his hands roaming all over Rin's surprised face. His index finger drags across a sharp incisor, and before Rin can even react, the boy is scrambling backward as fast as he can, cradling his bleeding finger against his chest.
Rin watches the light come into the boy's eyes, signalling that he's using his weird sight again.
"You're not Haru."
Rin rolls his eyes. "Of course not. As if I want to be called something as stupid-sounding as Haru anyway."
"I'm Rin," he continues, deciding that now would be as good a time as any for a late introduction. "And don't you forget it."
"Um, nice to meet you, R-Rin." The boy looks bewildered, as if he can't believe that he's talking this way with someone who is currently delivering him to some unknown fate.
Rin doesn't know what has come over him either, but maybe he's a bit jealous of the person this boy had been calling for so earnestly. Since that first night, he had managed to keep his attraction to the boy to manageable levels, but it rears up and strains at the tight reins he put on it every once in a while. Tonight the pull is exceptionally strong, and it's all Rin could do to hold it back.
Had it been any other person but the one Master had tasked him to obtain, he wouldn't have hesitated to act, but Rin knows he can't bear to form attachments to someone he is sure would be easily used against him. He can't handle worrying for another on top of worrying for himself and Gou.
"And you?" he prompts. Knowing his name wouldn't hurt, he supposes. It's just a name, it wouldn't mean anything, it's just to make it easier since calling him 'boy' is getting to be annoying.
"Eh?" the boy tilts his head to the side, even more confusion marring his expression.
"Your name," Rin enunciates clearly as if he's talking to a toddler.
The boy's weak reply is lost in the whistling desert winds. Rin leans in closer, his face inches away from the boy's. "What was that?"
"Makoto," the word floats between them like a leaf falling from a date palm. His gaze wanders down to thin, cracked lips pressed tightly together. Rin gulps audibly; this is bad.
Damn it, I want to know what he tastes like.
With his pulse pounding erratically, he grabs Makoto's brown hair—ah it feels a bit like hay, but softer—and pushes his face closer. The shock he sees glittering in Makoto's strange eyes makes him all the more desirable to Rin. He inches closer, breathing in Makoto's fear until it fills him up, until he can think of nothing other than the boy he holds in his hands.
Just then, the howling of a chimera pierces through the sound of the wind. In a flash, Rin is back to his feet.
"Stay here," he orders, his nose twitching as he scents the wind. The smell of wet hound and blood is thick, and it's coming from downwind. That usually means it's a whole pack out hunting, and that makes even Rin nervous since he has Makoto to worry about as well.
He looks back at Makoto who is staring at him with pupils dilated in fear. "Don't worry. Just do as I say and nothing bad will happen."
With that, he leaps high into the air for a better vantage point. The sooner he can take care of the chimera pack, the better. The wind slashes at his exposed cheeks, whipping his red hair into his eyes, and something dark bubbles up in the back of his mind.
The thrill of the hunt hums in his blood. Rin licks his lips in anticipation, his mouth widening into a toothy grin.
Let the massacre begin.
A/N: Don't worry HaruMako shippers, my OTP remains the same. Rin was just practically screaming to be given at least a chapter for his past and considering my plans for his involvement with Makoto and Haru, he needed to be fleshed out a bit more. Also, wanted to try writing a bit of RinMako as an experiment. Surprisingly, I kinda liked it...
But yeah, still going for HaruMako endgame XD
