AN: Sorry this is so late. And so short. And to add to that it's a shameful chapter because I think it might be one of those dreadful fillers that everyone hates, but it has some very necessary bits that needed to be put in and provides the little pause-thingy that also needed to happen for Yami to recollect his thoughts.

Firefly In Ice

Chapter Eight

"Cousin."

"What Seth?!"

"Normally I wouldn't care even if you threw yourself off the highest balcony, but if you pace past me one more time I swear I will throttle you."

"I'd like to see you try!"

"You are distracted if you think such a pathetic comeback is going to get a challenge out of me."

"What if I bribed the… no that wouldn't work. Think, Atemu, think!"

"I suggest you don't, I refuse to clean up another one of your messes."

"Argh! I won't stand for this! Father cannot expect me to comply to his every whim and whish!"

"Yes, he can. Or have you by any chance missed the crown on his head?"

"I am this kingdom's golden child, he treats me as if I'm three!"

"Have you ever thought that's because you act like a three year old?"

"How about that brunette maid… if I could persuade her to – "

"Didn't I just say I refuse to clean up another mess?! I've had it with you and your infatuation with this little imp! And I have had it with covering up for you while you sneak out at night with that little guard trailing after you just so you can go fuck a demon!"

-

Jounouchi flinched as yet another one of his painstakingly positioned targets shattered into pieces. Clattering to the polished stone floor in splinters of wood that he just knew he was going to have to clean up later.

Another curse sounded, a whooshing of air, and another round of dull thwacks and thumps filled his ears.

Yami's meeting with the King this morning hadn't gone well.

Jounouchi hated being around the Prince when he was in this mood. Granted he was always rude and brooding, so one would think Jounouchi, being his bodyguard, would be used to it by now. But brooding was one thing, smashing apart the training rooms was another.

Yami was so worked up he wasn't even practicing with the bow, instead choosing to summon up daggers of blue ice and hurl them at everything he could. Magic training and aim practice all in one.

Jounouchi sighed, things were so much easier when Yami was still engrossed in archery. That way at least his targets survived relatively intact rather than exploding violently on contact. But that had been nearly a year ago now; Yami had been interested in seemingly nothing since then.

And secretly, that worried Jounouchi.

The Prince's moods had been getting progressively worse since his loss of interest in archery. He was becoming more unpredictable and liable to explode in a fit of rage over the smallest thing.

Last nights excursion proved that all too well.

Because Jounouchi could just tell that Yami wouldn't have gone storming out and into the goblin city if his family hadn't disagreed with his plan. He was constantly at a loose end, constantly lost without direction, always searching for the next big attention grabber and always on the look out for the smallest thing to lash out at with his unreasonable temper.

Slowly, one by one, Yami had lost his interests. Swordsmanship he had mastered at the age of seventy, horse ridding he could do with his eyes closed before his fortieth birthday, archery he perfected a good fifty years ago but had been an ongoing hobby until recently when Yami had suddenly, in a fit of unpredictable rage, snapped his bow. And even his academic studies, the ones like history and geography that he hated with a passion, he excelled in for no other reason then it was something to do. Add to that the fact that he was the kingdom's prodigy at all things elfin magic and you had one well-rounded brat on your hands.

Jounouchi wished their Prince would go back to the hard working little trickster he was until his twenty-seventh. At least then he wasn't liable to cut your head off for not greeting him correctly in the hallway. But all of the various other hobbies he had taken up throughout the seven hundred years of his life had faded into the background, even hunting, which had gone hand in hand with his love of archery for a good couple of centuries, now only received the smallest amount of attention from Yami.

Even the war only roused a controlled amount of excitement in him. As if he was only participating because he had nothing else to do.

A snarl, and Jounouchi flinched again as this time a blue dagger disturbed his hair as it shot by him with enough power to freeze the moisture in the air as it flew. Perhaps it was time to put his neck on the line and interfere before he was impaled.

"Sire?" He ventured hesitantly.

"What?" The reply was venomous, Jounouchi was keenly aware of the next dagger the Prince was materialising in his palm.

"Perhaps… err," Damn, what in the Realms had he planned on saying again? "Perhaps if –"

"Perhaps you should hold your tongue."

Jounouchi was cleaver enough to recognise a threat when he heard one. He controlled his expression so it hid his disappointment and stayed wisely silent as the Prince began hurling missiles again.

But thankfully, Jounouchi's rescue came in the form of Malik entering the vast training room. The ornate wooden door echoing in the cavernous pale stone hall set with frosted stars resonating soft silver light the closest to natural sunlight elfin magic could be.

Finally, with a sour look, Yami let go of his magic and rose out of an attack crouch, standing straight and turning to the doorway.

Malik bowed correctly, avoiding the Prince's immediate wrath, and spoke solemnly, "Sire, forgive my interruption, but His Highness the King wishes for a private audience with you in the throne room."

At the mention of his father Yami's aura momentarily flared in a way that promised danger, and the two soldiers braced for whatever was about to be thrown their way, but the hot anger was withdrawn almost as soon as it had come, receding into a cold rage. The Prince appeared capable, at least, in controlling himself until he faced the source of his current temper.

"Why would he send you instead of one of the servants?" Yami's tone was lightly accusing, as if he were claiming that Malik was attempting to sink lower on the social scale just to further irritate him.

"I have just left from a meeting with the King myself, he felt you were more likely to listen to me than a servant."

Yami made a displeasured sound at the back of his throat, "So Father thinks I am not willing to face him again? We'll see."

Jounouchi followed the Prince up to where Malik was stood, who bowed again as Yami passed, but stopped, knowing he would not be welcome in a private meeting between the King and his only son.

"And Sire?" Malik called after him after a moments pause, he waited until Yami turned back to look at him before continuing, "There has been no word of the boy."

Yami flared up again, glaring at Malik he hissed, "Did I ask for news?" And spun sharply on his heel, disappearing round a corner without a backwards glance.

There was a pleasant pause between Jounouchi and Malik, both simply enjoying the absence that was the oppressive presence of Yami's moods.

Malik ran a hand through his thick hair, sighing, "He's been like this all day then?"

"Since he got back from last night. Hasn't slept a moment, I'm sure."

"The King doesn't help things. You'd think that by now they would be able to tolerate each other better."

Jounouchi stretched the kinks out of his shoulders and back, the cause of being stood so still for so long, "Yami's not free from the blame you know, this can't just be passed off as adolescent rebelling anymore."

Malik 'hummed' an affirmative. Then noticed Jounouchi was looking at him slyly from a corner of his eye, "What?"

"So, who's this boy you mentioned? Seemed to get one hell of a rise of Mr. High and Mighty."

Malik shook his head, "Just another innocent goblin victim, but probably another reason Yami's so pissed. I don't think it's just the argument with the King that set him so on edge."

Jounouchi raised a questioning eyebrow, but Malik refused to elaborate more than that.

-

To say that Yami hated his Father right now would be a spectacular understatement. To say that Malik was so far out of line by mentioning the human boy that he deserved to be hung upside down by his little toe and left to the wolves… no the rats, so it would take longer and be twice as excruciating! Was also an understatement.

Yami had never felt his blood boil quite as acutely as he had this dawn, at being lectured by his Father about how he risked everything for a reckless act that had no possible useful outcome. Yami had been outraged, he had discovered vital information! Where the goblins had built their great city, how the underground was organised, what they did with prisoners. Not to even mention the captured elves he had rescued and the goblins he had slaughtered in the ensuing battle. And kept them all alive to escape without a scratch!

Yami winced and clutched his side as it gave him a painful reminder that 'without a scratch' was going a little too far.

And yet, despite all of this, his Father remained devoutly ignorant of his son's accomplishments. Chose instead to penalise him for these successes.

"What will we do with this information?" He had asked, "We cannot send an army into a bottle neck like those tunnels, their own territory, we would be slaughtered one by one."

His Mother's sobbing had only made it worse, listening to her grief over how she could have lost him made him feel guilt he knew he didn't deserve.

And guilt was already plaguing his thoughts with the pretty face of that human boy, images of him flitting in and out of Yami's mind with an insistency bordering on obsession. Just the thought of what those goblins must have done to him by now… it made him want to break things.

Yami had tried to sleep, he honestly had, but every time he closed his eyes flashes of that boy disturbed him, something about him unnerved him, something about the boy made him feel something that confused him.

And even when he wasn't thinking of the boy and the argument with his Father there was another thing that plagued him. The golden fire from the Grey Mountain.

The flaming creature that had burned his hand and vanished into the sky.

Yami was at a complete loss as to what it could have been, but he wasn't one for giving up either.

He would find that creature. Although he wasn't sure why he wanted to. Boredom most likely, a mystery to explore and further prove to his Father how deserving he was of the throne.

But right now, Yami was more interested in exactly who this elder elf was that stood next to his Father's throne. A tall elf with long silver hair that fell over and obscured his right eye, dressed in clothing that revealed he was from the western tip of their Kingdom, the small isolated city he forgot the name of that rested in the far reaches of the Tundra's edge.

"Son, this is Pegasus. He is my new advisor, treat him with more respect than you do the rest of the council, will you?"

Yami wasn't sure how or why, but he knew this was going to be a bad thing.

-

"Don't talk about him like that!"

"I have half a mind to tell Uncle myself about – "

"You tell anyone and I will expose to the entire kingdom exactly what you and that blond palace guard are doing every night!"

"W-what!"

"You and Jou are doing something for the hours you go missing, and you sure as hell aren't playing chess!"

"… fine. But if our family ever discovers that you've fallen for a member of the Ice Clan then don't expect me to come to either of your rescues. You know they won't let the blood feud between the elves and the Clan die out just because you happen to frequently have… relations with one of them!"

"Yuugi isn't a member of the Ice Clan. He's one of the Fire Clan."

"… What."

"Heh, don't give me that look. Just because you're having 'relations' with a palace guard doesn't mean I can't let my standard lower. I'm well aware that Yuugi's one of the 'big fish' in the sea."

"Have you learnt nothing from our lectures!?"

"There's no need to hiss at me. And you know I never bothered in those things."

"He's a fire demon!"

"Thanks for the heads up, Seth, I never would have guessed."

"You're insane! Atemu, you can never see him again! If you do I promise you I will tell Uncle, even if it means exposing Jou and I! You can't go to him again. Ever!"

----------------------------------------------------------

AN: Agh! Shortness! It gets better in the next one trust me, and the romance is on its way, just give it a couple of chapters and then it pretty much jumps right in there... you'll see what I mean.

And on the plus side I've met a crazy person who likes to quote the crazy cat lady from The Simpsons and Eddie Izzard. She's awesome. And lives opposite me in the halls! And reads fanfiction, and pretty much figured me out in the first few days so now I think I have myself both a beta reader and someone who can poke me for faster updates!

In fact she's here right now poking me for the next chapter, but I dunu when it'll be up. I have a load of deadlines.

Review Please!

Becuase you just know that you want to read the puzzleshipping before Christmas don't you?

So Review!