The Faerie Chronicles of Kenshin & Kaoru, a Rurouni Kenshin fanfic series by Raberba girl
Part 3: The Princess and the Assassin
Summary: What was it like for Kenshin as young Hitokiri Battousai, forced to carry out assassinations for Shishio Makoto? How did he meet the enchantress Tomoe, and what happened between them long ago? Prequel to The Useless Sword and the Enchanted Rose.
Prologue - from "The Ballad of Tam Lin"
Out then spoke the Queen of Fairies,
Out of a bush of broom,
"Them that has gotten young Tam Lin
Has gotten a stately groom."
Out then spoke the Queen of Fairies,
And an angry woman was she,
"Shame betide her ill-fared face,
And an ill death may she die,
For she's taken away the bonniest knight
In all my company.
"But had I known, Tam Lin," said she,
"What now this night I see,
I would have taken out thy two grey eyes,
And put in two eyes of wood."
Chapter 1 - "No woman belongs in a life like mine."
The dimly-lit chaos of the Unseelie hall surged and parted as a gang of soldiers burst in. They were dragging a prisoner with them, a scrawny youth with long red hair.
King Oberon's laugh boomed through the room. "Ha ha ha! And what have you brought me tonight, men?"
"Seelie scum," one of them announced, flinging the boy to his knees and maliciously driving a boot into his back.
"Found 'im wandering in our territory," another laughed, aiming a glob of spit at the boy's now-empty hand. "He was carrying these." The fell knight pulled free a pair of swords and brandished them before the laughter of the court.
The princess, sitting demurely beside her father's throne as usual, watched the proceedings with cloaked eyes, while her younger brother leaned forward with a gleeful smile.
"So, this little redhead thinks himself a warrior, does he?" the king smirked. He rose and approached the boy, who knelt quietly with his head hanging, making no move to resist the abuse of his captors. The king placed the tip of his own sword under the prisoner's chin and raised it, but the boy's face was obscured by trailing bangs. Oberon clicked his tongue and let the kid's head drop again. "You have nothing to say?" There was no answer, and Oberon shrugged. "Very well. What shall we do with him?"
A chorus of shouting swelled, gleeful suggestions for this or that. "Roast him for tomorrow night's feast!"
"Make 'im dance his feet to tatters!"
"Give him to me, my lord, my latest love-toy is almost worn out."
"We could hack off that hair of his and strangle him with it-"
"No, string him up with it and make a puppet out of him!"
The dark fae shrieked with laughter and grew more and more excited at each suggestion. Finally, a lean, muscular fae stepped forward, his eyes glowing red over a crazily-grinning mouth. The court quieted at his physical assertion, for he was of high rank and had proven himself in battle, and was soon to become the king's son-in-law.
"Grant the Seelie brat to me, Your Majesty," the man suggested. "I, Shigekura, will make good use of him before my comrades may dispose of him as they will."
A wave of chuckling swept through the room, chilling in its wicked anticipation. The fae were startled, however, when the captive spoke up at last.
"Shigekura...is it?" The boy raised his head, revealing narrowed eyes that glinted with enough icy steel to rival the toughest creature in that hall. "So it was you who raped Junko-san."
Shigekura tilted his head in mock puzzlement. "Who?" The fae were chuckling and murmuring again, as they began to grasp what the situation may be about, but they kept it quiet, eager to see how the boy would respond.
He rose slowly to his feet, those eyes sending chills down the spines of his audience, though they would never have dared to admit it. "She was a handmaid of the Faerie Queen. She died because of what was done to her."
Shigekura shrugged with deliberate carelessness, watching the boy keenly as he did so. "What of it?"
The boy was silent for a long time. "No remorse, then."
Shigekura spread his hands and grinned. "None whatsoever. What are you going to do about it?"
Again, the boy was silent, and the fae found themselves holding their breaths. Then he flashed into action, so suddenly that many of them missed it. In an instant his weapons were back in his hands and he had flown at Shigekura, who was ready for him. Steel clanged on admantine, the precious metal of the dark fae, whose touch was fatal to a Seelie.
Again and again the sound rang out, the combatants flashing here and there almost too quickly to follow with the eye. The fae hurriedly scrambled for the edges of the room; the most cowardly escaped the scene of battle altogether. A roaring rose, raucous encouragement to Shigekura and vicious slights to his small opponent. It reached a fever pitch when one of Shigekura's strikes literally missed by a hair, so that a few long red strands drifted to the ground as the boy dodged.
"Slice him in half, Shigekura!" the Unseelie prince howled, now on his feet and riveted by every detail. "Cut him to pieces!"
"Please sit down, Enishi," his sister told him calmly. "You will get hurt if you are too close." The combatants were in fact quite near the dais at this point.
"Shut up," he shot back distractedly, then cursed. "He almost had him there! I could have sworn- FIRST BLOOD! FIRST BLOOD!" The crowd was bellowing along with him as Shigekura stumbled, blood spurting from a wound on his arm. The Seelie kid waited, hard-faced and sword at the ready, for his enemy to recover and continue the fight.
Shigekura, head hanging and sword dangling near the ground, suddenly swiped outward; the boy jumped - and not just to avoid the blade swinging toward his legs. He leapt high into the air, impossibly high by mortal standards, almost as if he was flying. "Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryuu: Dragon Hammer Strike!" The sword came crashing back down, and Shigekura was split from shoulder to hip.
The boy landed in the midst of deathly silence, his feet tapping the ground as lightly as if he had wings to slow his fall. In deathly silence he slowly wiped the blade and watched his motionless enemy. In deathly silence Shigekura suddenly seemed to explode with blood, which spattered the side of the boy's face and came raining down on the nearby prince and princess. Shigekura crashed to his knees and went sprawling at the boy's feet, who whispered, "Junko-san, please rest now. This man will never commit such a crime again."
The petrified court finally roared into action once again. Some of them howled in shock and outrage, a few raced for Shigekura's corpse, but most of them surged toward the Seelie warrior in a furious wave. The boy, however, had no intention of returning to the passive persona he had adopted during his entrance. He leaped again into the air to elude them, twisting and turning to fend off their attacks. His swords glittered like diamond whips, carving a circle of protection around him and spattering the ground with non-fatal blood. "Get back," he warned coldly. "Anyone who wishes to keep his life, retreat."
No one listened, of course. Screaming, they charged at him with no heed to strategy or order; limbs went flying and blood sheeted into the air. A skilled warrior pitted against an enraged rabble, the boy flitted here and there beneath the very noses of his attackers, eluding all their blades and clubs and fists, yet never missing with his own weapons.
The princess watched impassively, her eyes fixed on his lithe figure dancing amidst the chaos. 'He is trying to escape,' she realized. 'And he is trying to do so by causing as little harm as possible.' She sighed, then rose to her feet. 'He won't get very far by trying to accomplish both at once.'
The prince looked over at her in surprise. "Neechan?"
The seething crowd parted for her almost magically. Sweating, bleeding, cursing fae sensed her and backed away in haste, until she had approached the Seelie warrior where he stood within a ring of enemies. Movement slowed and then stopped, all eyes fixed on her.
The red-haired boy said warily, his sword at the ready, "Please leave, before you get hurt." The thought of a female, even an Unseelie, getting caught in a battle was sickening.
She rested her eyes on him, and noted with mild interest that he did not flinch at her gaze. It was concern for her that showed on his face, mixed with tension as he kept alert to the enemies that surrounded him.
"It was my fiancé whom you just killed," she finally said. His eyes snapped fully to her for a moment, and she indicated Shigekura's lifeless body on the floor. "I am Tomoe, daughter of King Oberon. I was pledged in marriage to this man, now slain by your hand."
The fae watched closely, eyes darting between her and the boy.
He finally said, his tone grim, "I cannot apologize."
"I do not expect you to." She stepped closer and added, very quietly, "Nor do I wish you to." She looked at him, and he nodded in understanding.
The fae began to chuckle again, their mood shifting capriciously as their battle-fury cooled. Half-heard whispers were thrown back and forth, and the boy looked around uneasily, gripping his weapons.
Oberon rose from where he had been watching from his throne. "Well, now," he called out, grinning mischievously. "It seems my daughter is now short a fiancé. We will have to find her a replacement."
The court's murmuring burst into shouts, as they playfully suggested this or that name. Their eyes, however, glinted in anticipation, for they knew what the king was going to say next.
"It seems fitting, don't you think, that the one who slew her betrothed has now won the right of her hand?"
The Seelie boy frowned, as gleeful shouts rose up around him. "What are you suggesting, King Oberon? My purpose here is accomplished, I have no interest in a marriage alliance."
"Sorry, lad, but it seems you're a bit too late to stay uninvolved." The king laughed heartily as he held up his hands - it took the boy a moment to see a glint of light and realize that the king was holding something like long thread. He was puzzled to hear the Unseelie girl suck in a breath beside him. "Congratulations! May you live long and happily together!" The king made a flinging motion, and the boy felt a brief sting on his wrist, but the sensation soon faded. The fae around him were howling with mirth, some making obscene gestures and others calling out dirty jokes.
"Enough of this." Sheathing his swords, the boy made a shallow bow to the king and turned to leave; no one seemed like they were going to stop him now.
There was a sudden stinging sensation on his wrist, and he heard a gasp and the clatter of shoes behind him. He looked over his shoulder to find the Unseelie girl, Tomoe, straightening up as if she had just stumbled. "Please don't walk so quickly," she told him in a flat voice. "I will not be able to keep up with your usual pace."
He frowned. "Why should you?"
She looked at him for a moment, as if he had said something unintelligent. Then she raised her arm and tugged sharply. He was amazed to find his own hand leap toward her of its own accord, his wrist stinging. The watching fae burst into renewed laughter, and the boy finally understood. It was a fairly common spell - a strand of his hair and a strand of hers, entwined around their wrists in order to bind them together.
He sighed. "I do not have time for your Unseelie games." Drawing his sword, he slashed it into the air between them, then turned to leave again.
His wrist stung, and there was a hurried step behind him, as if the girl was trying to keep up. He frowned and looked back again.
Oberon chortled, "Now, I'm the Faerie King, boy! You didn't think you'd be able to break one of my spells as easily as that, did you?"
The boy stared at him, then at Tomoe, who returned his look with her own quiet gaze. "Irritating, I know," she said calmly. "You can imagine it is for me, too. If I am to be stuck with you for an indeterminate length of time, it would be convenient to know what I may call you." She ignored the court's rude suggestions for this.
He ignored them as well, musing silently on this new predicament. Then he finally said, "The name I go by now is Battousai. That will do until I find a way out of this."
Tomoe looked at him. Then she stepped very close and said in a voice heard by his ears alone, "That may be longer than you think. Perhaps you will be telling me another name before the end."
"I hope it will not come to that. No woman belongs in a life like mine."
She looked at him and thought, even then, that he was wrong.
To be continued...
Author's Notes: I borrowed the names Oberon and Titania from the fairy king and queen in Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream. However, the resemblance ends there; I based Titania's personality on the Faerie Queen in stories like "Tam Lin," and Oberon will simply behave in whatever way is convenient to the story. The two of them are not married in this fic.
Uh...don't ask me why Tomoe's first fiancée ended up with Shigekura's name and Jin-e's looks. *sweatdrop*