Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz and its characters sadly do not belong to me.

Warnings: AU, eventual yaoi (it might take a while for me to get there), some violence

Pairings: Eventual Ran/Ken, Youji/Omi

Author's Note: A while back, I sat down and diagrammed the story out, assigning plot points to chapters. What I found out is that I've still got a very long way to go on this...

Blood Summons

By Rapunzel

Chapter 10

For all Ran's grumbling, he knew that there was nothing for it but to settle in and wait until Omi's uncle came back, and he resigned himself accordingly. The first day of the week, Omi gathered them all together and made Ran recount the story of his sister's abduction in painstaking detail. Ran didn't like remembering the incident, and he couldn't help wondering if Omi really needed to ask him about it, since he could just as easily gotten the whole story from Youji. Nevertheless, he described the incident as he remembered it, even though a malicious part of his mind whispered that Omi only wanted to hear about it so it would look as though he was getting something done. Recognizing the thought for what it was – his own attempt at retaliation for the pain of remembering – Ran dismissed it.

After that meeting, however, Ran saw very little of Omi except at meal times. Apparently the boy had his own extensive preparations to make for leaving. Omi apologized for being a bad host and regretfully explained that since he helped his uncle run the estate even when his guardian was present, he had a lot to do to make sure things would run smoothly in his absence. Left to his own devices, Ran decided that he might as well make himself comfortable until their departure, and so he sought and found the library.

He was sitting there reading quietly on the afternoon of the third day when Ken came and found him.

Ran knew Ken was there before he actually saw him. Despite being in a library, the young man made no attempt to be quiet, which was normal for him. He simply stomped over to Ran and threw himself down in a nearby chair. He didn't say anything at first, but glared hard at the cover of the book Ran was reading until Ran finally lowered it with a sigh and asked, "Was there something you wanted?"

"I'm bored," Ken stated matter-of-factly.

Ran raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment.

"There's nothing to do in the house," Ken complained.

"What about exploring?" Ran suggested.

"Done that already. What'd you think I've been doing the last two days?" Ken slumped lower in the chair gloomily. "I think I've already found most of the interesting stuff. Did you know there's a passage behind the wall to my room that connects to yours and a whole lot of other rooms?"

Ran hadn't known. "No," he said. "How did you come to find such a thing?"

Ken shrugged. "I was just checking some things. I was a thief, remember, even if it was just for a little while. It pays to pay attention to these things."

Ran could see how it might, and he nodded slightly before trying to go back to his book. He knew that reading was probably a hopeless endeavor with a bored Ken in the room, but he figured there was no harm in trying.

Ken, however, would not be deterred. "I asked Omi," he said.

"About what?" Ran asked disinterestedly.

"About what there was to do around here," Ken said.

"And?" Ran prompted, sensing that Ken was going to share the answer with him one way or another anyway.

"And he started apologizing about being a bad host," Ken said, smiling slightly at the memory. "And once I got him to stop that, he suggested some stuff to do outdoors. He said there's a foresty-type area over in the hills on the west end of the property, and we could take some horses from the stable and go exploring if we liked."

'We,' Ran thought. 'Now we're getting to it. I knew it had to be something.' Aloud, he said, "And I suppose you want me to go with you?"

"Well, you can't exactly say you've got anything better to do," Ken said, eyeing the book in his hand. "The books'll still be here when we get back."

Ran had to admit that he was right, and actually, the prospect of going out riding with Ken was not such an unappealing one. Without comment, he set aside his book and rose to his feet. Ken, grinning in delight at Ran's tacit acceptance of the suggestion, jumped up from his chair and grabbed Ran's wrist, towing him enthusiastically outside and to the stables. Ran, although slightly surprised by the gesture, allowed himself to be towed.

Once they had reached the stables and were waiting for the grooms to saddle up the horses, Ran thought to ask, "Did you invite Youji along on this outing?"

"Huh?" Ken, who had been fidgeting next to him, seemed a little surprised by the question. "Oh, no. He seemed like he was having fun keeping Omi company, so I left him alone. Besides, you were the one who was so worried the last time I was on a horse, so I thought you might want to come along to make sure I don't kill myself or something."

Ran wasn't quite sure what to say to that until he looked over and caught sight of Ken's grin. Ken was teasing him, he realized.

"That's nice," he remarked. "But did you bring me along to keep me from worrying or to really make sure you don't get yourself killed?"

"Hmph," Ken said, giving him a disgruntled look, and Ran couldn't help smirking a bit.

/-/-/-/

As it turned out, Ran's outings with Ken became something of a daily occurrence during the week they stayed with Omi. It got Ken out of the house and kept him from becoming too restless, and it gave him a chance to exercise without straining himself too much. It was always just the two of them on these trips, as Omi was far too busy to accompany them, and the one time Ken asked Youji, he'd been informed that the older man was already fairly familiar with the grounds and had no need to go exploring. The arrangement seemed to suit them just fine, however. As much as Ken liked Youji and Omi, Ran wasn't sorry to leave them behind each day. And Ran was more relaxed on these outings, something he wasn't sure would be possible with Youji around. They had a way of riling each other up sometimes.

So each day Ken headed into the forest with Ran riding next to him. He'd make his way to a stream he'd found on the first day, and follow it until he came to a tributary he hadn't explored yet. If left to his own devices, Ken would probably have left the stream altogether and gone off his own way into the forest, but Ran insisted that they stick close to the stream, both so that they wouldn't get lost, and because the path there was less steep, a little more open, and generally easier for the horses to pick through.

As they rode, Ken would talk. He talked about his home, his former job, his students and how much they'd learned. He talked about his childhood and how his father had taught him to use weapons at a very early age. He even spoke a little about his parents, although not much, as the subject was still slightly painful to him. For the first day or two, Ran simply listened and nodded or grunted at appropriate intervals. However, as time went on, he gradually began to talk more himself. He talked a little about his estate, which Ken was to see soon, his life there, and even his sister.

"What was she like?" Ken asked as they were riding along on the seventh day.

Ran took a minute to answer, as he had to first dissuade his horse from walking under a tree with low hanging branches that would have knocked him off. "Aya, you mean?"

"Yeah," Ken said, pausing to wait for him.

Ran finally got his horse to cooperate and came trotting up along side Ken. "She was... lively," he said. "She seemed to have fun doing the simplest things. She could be willful though, sometimes. She didn't like things to get in the way of what she wanted to do. I probably let her get away with more than I should have."

"But that's what older brothers are for," Ken said. "Being strict is the parents' job."

Ran smiled ruefully. "Yes, but after my parents died, it became my job," he said. "I didn't do it as well as I should have. I should never have let her go out that day, especially after our guardian had already told us no."

Ran sounded so melancholy that Ken found himself unconsciously leaning closer, as if trying to comfort him with his mere presence. However, Ken's horse, following her rider's subtle directions, moved a little too close to Ran's horse, who promptly leaned over and bit her. The mare squealed and danced to the side, and there was a confused moment during which both of the riders tried to regain control of their respective mounts.

"Damn animal," Ran cursed his horse as he finally managed to rein the ill mannered creature in.

"That's what you get for letting them give you a new one all the time," Ken said, patting his horse soothingly on the neck. "It was only a matter of time before you got one that hates you."

Ran snorted but said nothing. While he knew that each horse had a slightly different temperament, he had yet to come across one that he couldn't handle, and so he wasn't picky when it came to riding other people's animals. The stable hands seemed to like this, as they looked upon Ken and Ran's outings as a chance to get the horses some exercise. Each day, they would politely ask if the gentleman had a preference for a particular horse, and each day, when Ran answered no, they would give him a different mount. Ken, who had developed a preference after the second day of riding, had a rather sedate and easy-going mare that he asked for each day.

Ran was beginning to wish he had followed Ken's example. He supposed Ken was right; with his strategy, it was only a matter of time before he got a horse he didn't like. Today's seemed to be that horse. The colt he was riding was young, inexperienced, easily startled, and generally badly behaved. The creature had already spooked several times, tried to brush Ran off against a tree, and nearly bitten him.

As if to further prove his point, a bird suddenly erupted from the branches of a tree next to Ran, disturbed, no doubt, by his horse's constant movement. The colt spooked and reared, throwing Ran, who had been unprepared for the sudden movement, clean out of the saddle. He hit the ground with a whump and all the breath was knocked out of him. As he lay trying to recover it, he heard his horse cantering off through the forest. He wanted to get up and chase the animal, but he couldn't seem to get enough air in his lungs to move just then. After a moment, a hand materialized, reaching down to touch his shoulder, and Ran realized that Ken had dismounted and come over to help him.

"You okay?" Ken asked, looking concerned.

In answer, Ran sat up and swore violently. Not only had he just been thrown off, something which rarely happened, but he had been thrown off in front of Ken. Ken, who, even injured, could keep his seat in the saddle. What a way to make himself look like an idiot.

"Did you get the horse?" Ran asked, even though he already knew the answer.

"No," Ken said. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Ran said, rising to his feet. "I suppose it's too late to go after him."

"I wouldn't worry too much about your horse," Ken said, watching his movements carefully for any sign on injury. "He looked like he was heading back towards the stable. He'll probably get there before we do."

"Probably, since it looks like I'll be walking now," Ran muttered sourly.

"Walking?" Ken repeated, bewildered. "Don't be stupid. You'll just have to ride behind me now."

Ran just stared at him.

"C'mon," Ken said, "It wouldn't be that bad, would it? And it's the fastest way to get back. Unless you'd rather ride in front."

Ran just snorted. "I haven't ridden double with anyone since I was seven," he said.

Ken shrugged. "If you really want to walk..."

Ran didn't especially want to walk, and so a few minutes later he found himself nursing his pride as he sat behind Ken in the saddle, arms draped loosely around Ken's waist. He half expected Ken to tease him the entire way back for falling off like that, but Ken seemed rather preoccupied. Once or twice, Ran thought he saw a faint hint of red in his cheeks, but dismissed it as his imagination.

"So tell me more about your family," Ken said, trying to strike up a conversation after riding several minutes in silence.

Ran just shrugged. "There's not much more to tell."

"I can't believe that," Ken said. "You've hardly told me anything about your parents, really. Mostly you just talk about Aya."

Ken was right, Ran realized. Most of his conversation had centered directly or indirectly around his sister. After six years of hunting for her, he supposed that he had grown used to her dominating his thoughts, or at least sitting in the back of them. "My parents? Where should I start?"

"Well, where did they come from? What were they like? That kind of thing," Ken prompted.

"Well, my father was from the estate. It went from his father to him, and then to me. That land has been with the Fujimiya family for at least five generations, and possibly longer. As for my mother..." Ran trailed off into silence.

"Your mother?" Ken asked, carefully guiding the horse along a place where the bank above the stream grew narrow.

"Actually, I'm not exactly sure where my mother came from before she married my father," Ran said, frowning at the thought. "I think she was from somewhere to the southeast, but she never really mentioned exactly where. She didn't like to talk much about her life before she married my father. Aya and I used to imagine all sorts of silly things when we were children. Aya's favorite was that our mother was a princess hiding from an arranged marriage." Ran snorted, but there was a note of affection in the sound. "That's silly, of course. Now, I think that there must have been some sort of accident that killed her family, and she simply didn't like to think about it."

Ken just nodded, since he seemed to need to concentrate on where they were going. Ran realized that while he'd been talking, Ken had gradually steered the horse away from the stream and they were now cutting downhill through the forest.

"Why are we going this way?" he asked. "We should stick to the stream."

"Don't worry so much about getting lost," Ken said confidently. "I know where we're going. This way's faster. It'll get us back soon enough to look for your horse before dark, just in case he didn't go straight back."

"Yes, but it's steeper," Ran said, eyeing the narrow path that ran down the hill before them.

"Steep didn't bother you before," Ken pointed out.

"Yes, but before I had my own saddle and stirrups," Ran said. "Now I keep sliding forward into you."

"It's okay," Ken said, and Ran thought he saw that hint of red across Ken's cheeks again. "I don't mind."

Ran shrugged, but found that he didn't much mind either. Ken's back was broad and firm, and not unpleasant to lean into, and as long as Ken didn't mind supporting the extra weight, Ran saw no reason to move. He wrapped his arms a little more firmly around Ken's waist and settled in for the ride back. Ken shifted a bit in front of him, probably to readjust the weight so it was more comfortable, and then seemed to settle. For a few minutes, they both rode on in silence.

It was Ken who finally broke it. "You didn't finish telling me about your parents," he said.

Now that he had started on the subject, Ran realized, Ken was going to prod him until he finished it properly, so he started up his narrative again. He talked about his father, a stern man who had been firm with his children while never leaving them in any doubt about how much he loved them. He talked about his mother, a cheery if slightly high-strung woman who had doted on her children. And of course, he talked about Aya, whose memory had driven him for the last six years.

He didn't realize how long he had been rambling on until they came out of the trees at the foot of the hill near the stables. Some of the stable hands were visible, and Ran was mildly relieved to see that one of them was holding the bridle of his horse. Apparently the animal had run straight back home, just as Ken had said it would.

Upon catching sight of the two of them, a groom ran up to take the bridle of the horse. "There you are," he said. "The young master was out here looking for you earlier. He said to inform you when you returned that his uncle has come home."

Tbc...

Author's Note: Another chapter down, another ten or so to go. Just as a warning, the rating may go up in the near future, simply because I'm paranoid and like to error on the side of caution when it comes to rating things.