It was five months gone since they'd dropped into the middle of Yama's territory at the sky-castle, and Kurogane and Fai were so well immersed in that country's way of life that they began to distance themselves from it. In early days, their concern had been to secure their place so that they could wait for the children without too much trouble. Now, they were comfortable enough that they began to take back some of the little freedoms they'd sacrificed at first.
Instead of confining themselves to their room for all their meals or using that time to establish firmer friendships with the soldiers, they now spent a goodly portion of the morning exploring the forest that surrounded much of the capital. They both of them needed little sleep, Kurogane through long years of training himself to it and Fai because of the gods-only-knew-what. They rose early and made short work of the morning washing-up, dipping small cloths into shallow tubs of steaming water and wiping away the sweat of night, even taking turns scrubbing each other's backs. The hot water and chill of cool air against damp skin woke them well up, and after quickly shrugging their clothes on they turned out into the city.
When solitude was their motive, they stayed off the market streets busy with colorful banners and friendly vendors all wanting them to come over and honor them with their custom or a moment of chat. Instead they took a slightly circuitous route through housing districts, winding their way down alleys and quiet back streets until they came up to the tree-lined path that fed into the clearing where the army massed each evening.
On the other side of the clearing, the forest stretched on for miles, noisy with everything but man as it was crown land and not to be hunted in or cut down for wood without the king's allowing it. Fai, of course, was allowed to roam about as he wished, and in fact they did not even bother asking for permission. It never became a problem, because they were never caught.
Kurogane was a ninja, and Fai naturally light on his feet and able to be quiet when he wanted to be. The sun-dappled forest even allowed the mage to blend in despite his shock of light hair that made him stand out everywhere else, while the ninja was like his shadow. They roamed this way and that, Kurogane mapping more of the place out for his own satisfaction and Fai content to let his companion direct their path.
It was a lush, ancient forest of tall conifers growing in the spaces between mossy boulders and great slabs of dark grey stone. In the early morning the air was cool and sap-spicy, the rocks nosing up out of the thick carpet of pine needles glistening with dew and snail tracks. Faint twitters and cheeps sounded high above while at their feet, countless streams and rivulets spattered and sang as they wound their way between the tree trunks.
It was much warmer now, their arrival having apparently been accomplished in full spring. A series of freshwater pools chained together with little waterfalls became their favorite haunt, or at least Fai's. Now and again when the midday heat reached even the interior of the great castle and made sleep difficult for the mage, they skipped their nap and spent the hottest part of the day dabbling in the water instead. Kurogane contented himself with merely getting his feet wet, but the mage would strip down and wriggle into the cool water with a contented sigh in just the same way as one would snuggle into a cocoon of warm blankets on a cold winter's night.
It made for an interesting picture, and Kurogane had to acknowledge another marker in the passage of time in how attractive a picture it was to him.
He'd admired the other man before, but for qualities such as agility, dexterity and wiles. Things he admired even in an enemy that he meant to strike down. The way he looked at the mage now was far indeed from the way he'd looked at him on the day they'd first met, and even on the day they'd first arrived here. Kurogane had acknowledged him as a companion however unwillingly they might have been thrown together, come to think of him as a person worthy to be relied upon, and now sometimes eyed him as potentially something more.
It was, on the surface, merely the casually treated thought that it wouldn't be unpleasant to make their interactions pleasurable, not just necessary. Being constantly together in a country where bathing was communal and bathrooms little more than thin-walled cubicles meant that there were no real opportunities for sating hunger for things other than food and drink. Kurogane could have probably found a willing partner for casual dalliance fairly easily among the soldiers, but by the time he'd begun to think of it he'd also already come to think of Fai in terms of enough friendship that he felt it not right to meet his own such needs and leave the other man to suffer. Assuming he was suffering. There were still things the ninja was utterly in the dark about.
Fai smiled many more smiles than before; tiny ones, brief warm ones, crooked little grins and sharp wicked ones that shattered into bright laughter. But there were still those careful smiles sometimes, settling over his features like a mask even when they were alone. Especially when they were alone and Kurogane was caught looking at the mage contemplatively.
Making the offer was another problem. They hadn't exactly traded the words for that yet. The mage knew "yes" and "no" well enough however and the question could be asked easily without words; all Kurogane had to do was reach out. And yet again, the way he looked at Fai now, the way he saw him, held him back.
Fai was popular, respected and firmly established among the nobility, civilians and soldiers all alike as a god to be well-treated. He was gaining in fluency and smart enough to keep himself out of trouble even if circumstances changed. And yet with all this, Kurogane still felt that he was in some measure responsible for the both of them. He only had full command of the local language and enough experience of a similar country to understand the subtleties of the culture. With most of the conveniences of their current situation dependent upon Fai's continued charade as a deity, and that charade heavily dependent upon Kurogane running interference, Fai was in a sense, dependent on Kurogane. For the ninja to ask for sex would have been taking advantage.
Five moons ago he wouldn't have let that stop him, but that was five moons ago.
Now, he enjoyed the show that the mage unconsciously - probably - put on but kept himself from outright ogling. When it came time for the evening meal, Fai would reluctantly drag himself from the refreshment of the pools and Kurogane would cast his eyes around as if making sure they would not be attacked by some random predator, only occasionally glancing Fai's way as the mage got redressed. Thin clothes clung at first to wet skin, but the days on which they played in the water were hot enough to steam moisture away as they walked, and they were decent enough for the public eye by the time they returned to the castle.
Layering on clothes and armor now that it was hotter drew some petulant whining from Fai that usually made Kurogane reconsider the level of physical attraction he felt for the man, but it was pretense only on both sides. Even the ninja was grateful for the heavy cloak he still wore - not without some grumbling of his own - that marked him as Fai's man once they arrived at the sky-castle. The temperature on the battlefield stayed constant even as Yama below moved through a stately march of seasons, and the layers helped keep muscles from stiffening up at the sudden drop in temperature as they shifted ground.
Upon their return it was tempting to go straight to the baths to sluice away blood and dirt and sweat, but Kurogane had changed his opinion of more than just Fai. He'd come to appreciate the long-eared creatures they rode as well, finding them fiery and intelligent, and even coming to think of their alien-seeming traits as improvements on the horses he was used to rather than oddities to be mistrusted. Their large, splayed feet were leathery like paws and gripped at the varying terrain much better than steel-shod hooves, and their eyes and ears were keener than he'd expected. Finding them responsive to attention and fruit, he and Fai taught the beasts to respond to certain signals of heel-taps or a sharply spoken word of Celesian, and now could sometimes free their hands from the reins entirely for fighting.
They showed their appreciation for this good partnership in battle by currying the creatures themselves instead of handing them over to the stablehands, never leaving them without some little gesture of fruit or responding to head-butts asking for scratches. After tending to their mounts, they saw to themselves, heading to the baths and then to their rooms to complete their evening routine of the late meal, drinks and some more lessons in communicating.
Kurogane advanced slowly but surely in Celesian, just as Fai did in Nihongo, but they didn't know what they didn't ask. For now, that was fine.
Author's Note: The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me that Kurogane moved from partnership and friendship to desire and love in Yama. By the time they got to Piffle Kurogane was already far enough gone to unbend so far as to tell Fai to his face that he'd changed, and for the better. It didn't seem like enough happened in Piffle for that world to be the one in which Kurogane's feelings advanced from friendship to something more, so I think it makes sense that the love that was proven in Tokyo was first created in Yama.
