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A Castle of Silence and Bones

update: will finish by December 31, 2010 - my late christmas gift for your continued loyalty

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016.
and eatdrinkbreath this fear.
(will you ever understand another person in entirety?)

The workers clean up the second body with relative ease, and the splotch of mottled brown at the base of the castle soon fades away with time and sunlight. Kiku does not - for the first time - feel anger at being outsmarted, though for why he cannot say. The almost-graceful leap she, the Empress, had taken - it still burns at the back of his eyelids.

(With unsettling clarity, he can see Yao in her place - Yao crumpled in a heap on the ground. And because of the clearness of this vision, he is all the more determined to best the future.)

And through it all, Kiku thinks that he has never been the fool; that it is not in his nature to tempt - much less compete with - fate.

So he orders the guards to move Yao from the outer room to the deeper chambers. While there are still windows, they are far too high to reach, as the price of sunlight (and the sky) is that of an expansive ceiling and carpetted floor.

When Yao refuses to leave the bed, Kiku does not even bat an eye; he simply has the guards move the bed.

Inconsolable is the perfect word to describe him. His shoulders shake, but he cannot cry anymore, because he has no more tears left to give; simply all the sorrow in the world.

Kiku will not admit it, regardless of the truth in the statement, that it is an act of desperation (of cold, calculated desperation - but desperation all the same) that makes him bring the still-unnamed child of their two empires to Yao. He has to restrain himself, restrain the twitch in his fingers, as Yao takes the child without question, without word.

And like that, Kiku watches as the two of them erupt in identical smiles; the child gives some cross between a gurgle and an outright-laugh, while Yao's lips merely quirk upwards - pleased. But all the same, and only because Kiku has studied - over and over and over again - every single line and wrinkle in Yao's face; memorized it for the sake of remembering, it is the same exact smile.

'Whose child is this?', Yao does not ask.

"Asahiko," is what Yao murmurs instead, wrapping his arms ever tighter around the child; nurturing, doting. The rising sun, Kiku notes, and would have felt a surge of pride, for Yao was speaking his tongue. Except - except - he recognizes, even better than the smile, the gentle touch of Yao's fingers, over matted black hair. The graceful sweeping-back of said hair, to place an ever-so-light kiss on the child's forehead.

"Asahiko," Yao repeats, as the child, with none of the innocence Kiku would expect of a two month old enfant, fixes his gaze upon Kiku, and then blinks back towards Yao.

"The Empire of Japan is... happy" - and Kiku almost (almost) has to choke out the words - "that the Empire of China has found the new Emperor to be pleasing," Kiku stiffly says, as he reminds himself that it is as-close-as-possible to genetics, to biological programming, for representatives of nations to whole-heartedly love their leaders.

All the same, he forces himself to turn away, when Yao hums a lullaby, in his own tongue, without his own words, and the enfant's eyelids grow heavy. The scene is reminiscent; painfully familiar, and it is - as Kiku is in the process of convincing himself - everything that he has ever wanted.

So when Yao tucks the child into his own bed, getting out of the layers upon layers of silk and down for the first time in months, thinner than ever, but still able to walk, Kiku offers his hand, and Yao takes it. A swift motion, and yet, measured and slow - Kiku closes his eyes, brushes their lips, and Yao, once more, presses softly back, clasping their hands, intertwining their kimono-covered arms.

And Kiku feels - amidst the waves of relief and affection when Yao whispers a Japanese blessing and kisses the new emperor's forehead once more - a spark of something that he can only deem to be 'hate'.

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