The Faerie Chronicles of Kenshin & Kaoru: The Sleeping Prince, a Rurouni Kenshin fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 10 - In which terrible things are learned and done.
"And pleasant is the fairy land,
But, an eerie tale to tell,
Ay at the end of seven years,
We pay a tithe to hell,
I am so fair and full of flesh,
I'm afraid it will be myself."
Tam Lin
o.o.o
She had awakened to the sight of men being slaughtered by a monster with a sword. She could still see them, even though her eyes were closed now, closed as tight as she could make them. When she screamed, she couldn't hear the horrible noises anymore, so she kept screaming and screaming as loud as she could. Every once in a while, a deep, masculine bellow would penetrate the wall of sound; once, something hot and wet splashed over her - she meant to cry out then, but she was already screaming so loudly that her voice choked into silence instead.
In the sudden hush, she heard another gargling death-cry, and the barely-recognizable voice of her mother; so she clamped her hands harder over her ears and started screaming again, desperately trying to create a refuge out of her terror. Her throat hurt, her voice wasn't loud enough anymore, but now it was quiet, so quiet.
She felt a touch on her shoulder and jerked away like an animal; her eyes were startled open for one second. She instinctively shied away from the terrifying face above her and fixated instead on the face of her mother - twisted, hideous; the room awash in blood. Her horror poured out of her mouth in a sudden torrent of hot liquid, then she went limp and sobbed, eyes squeezed shut again.
Her hands went up to claw at the lingering face in her vision, but then a harsh, broken voice began to sing, and it all went away into the darkness.
o.o.o.o.o
The vomit was neither sparkly nor pleasant-smelling this time. The Unseelie shrieked in disgusted delight and skipped out of the way. Kenshin had not been eating much recently, and his throat felt burned raw from the bile he could now taste. Slumped on the ground, he lifted a shaking hand to wipe his mouth, then forgot what he was doing and sat there for a long time with the back of his hand pressed against his lips. His eyes were wide, staring at a patch of dry grass without seeing it. He had never in his life been more conscious of Kaoru's presence than now, as she lay unconscious behind him.
"What's wrong, Battousai?" Enishi was laughing. "The great hitokiri, squeamish at the sight of blood?" He and his people were howling with laughter, but Kenshin didn't move. He felt like he had been poisoned, his limbs tingling and heavy. He knew that dead face, all those faces, of a queen who had died long ago and of the men who had given their lives trying to protect her. Those faces still haunted him, along with all the others whose lives had ended at his hands. But the little girl...he remembered her with shame, but he had not known her then; he knew her so well now...
He suddenly bowed over, heaving again, though there was nothing else to bring up. How could this have happened? How could this...?
The fae had gotten tired of waiting for him to recover; they seized him and hauled him to his feet, dragging him away with whoops and cheers as if for a hero. He resisted only long enough to look around for Kaoru. When he saw Sôjirô carrying her, he closed his eyes and let them bear him away.
Once back in the throne room, they lost interest and dumped him against a wall, then milled around excitedly for a bit before starting a game. He curled his knees to his chest, the sakabatô folded in the crook of one arm. For a little while, Enishi leaned against the wall beside him, mockingly keeping him company.
Enishi feigned interest in the game, which was getting bloody only five minutes in, but his real interest was in the dazed swordsman at his feet. The king could not help glancing down every so often to silently gloat over his enemy - he could not believe what a perfect twist this was. He had had no clue that Battousai had been so involved in the death of his own mother-in-law. Not that Enishi would have cared, had their places been switched, but Battousai's peculiar sensibilities made this the icing on a sweet cake of revenge.
Speaking of which, perhaps it was time to get on with that. "Battousai. Surely you didn't come all this way to throw up at my gates and then sulk in here like a kid."
Battousai did not answer at first, but then suddenly raised his head. "Where is Kaoru-dono?" he asked hoarsely.
Enishi shrugged. Typical. "Seta took her to one of the bedrooms. Probably ravishing her even as we speak."
Battousai's only response was to drop his head again.
Enishi rolled his eyes. Did they honestly think he didn't know where Seta Sôjirô's allegiance lay? That Enishi wouldn't recognize one of the men who had killed his brother?
"Enishi. I'm off to execute a traitor - it ought to be an amusing battle; you want to come watch?"
"Can I? Can I really?! Of course! It's Battousai, isn't it! You're gonna kill him at last! Let me help, please!"
"Don't be stupid, you're only a spectator. Got that?"
"Got it, got it! I swear I'll keep out of sight, no one will see me!"
No one had seen him. No one had heard his cry as he watched his brother being swallowed by the flames; it had been drowned in Shishio's last burst of laughter. He had kept his promise. And now Himura Battousai and Seta Sôjirô were both at his mercy.
He laughed softly. I didn't matter if Seta had come here as a spy from the beginning. He was much easier to understand than Battousai, and had been quite helpful in bringing Battousai straight into Enishi's palm. Besides, after Battousai's fate was sealed, casting vengeance on Seta would be boringly anti-climatic. "Well," he spoke up, "now that you're so completely disgusted by your wife, does this mean you've lost interest in this quest of yours? That's something I won't put up with, you know." He had his own reasons for wanting Kenji freed, and he needed Battousai to remain functional for that.
Kenshin lifted his head again. Kenji... He didn't have time for this. He couldn't let this stop him. Besides, soon it wouldn't matter whose mother that queen had been, at least to him. His eyes went hard, and he slipped back to his feet, clenching the sword in one fist.
Enishi grinned. "When they finish the game. We'll go at it then. Best of luck, Battousai!"
o.o.o.o.o
She was finally dragged out of the nightmares when her body jerked, flinging her back into consciousness. "Kenshin!" she screamed out - but it was Sôjirô who was sitting beside her bed, looking at her with wide eyes.
"Kaoru-Jooh?"
She stared at him, breathing hard. "Where's Kenshin?"
"He's a bit upset. I thought it would be best to get you out of sight while everyone's attention was on him."
"Why would he be upset?" Kaoru said in confusion.
"That vision you had, as you were coming out of the Fog," he said quietly. "Only Enishi had strong enough magic to see it in your minds, but from the way he laughed, we knew it was something terrible. He described some of it to us..."
Kaoru shuddered and put her face in her hands. "It was so horrible..." She hadn't thought about her mother's death in a long time. She had been there in the very room where it had happened, but she had never remembered a thing; she had always felt somewhat guilty at the thought that she must have slept right through it. She had had nightmares as a child for a long time afterwards, but never the same ones twice, and never of what had actually happened.
Thinking again of the sight of her mother lying dead in that blood-soaked room, of Kenshin's face, monstrous almost beyond all recognition and yet undoubtedly still him... But no, she had known that face once - it was Battousai's. Kenshin had been a hitokiri in the past...perhaps it wasn't so strange that one of her worst nightmares would be of such a thing.
"I'm sorry, Kaoru-Jooh," Sôjirô said softly. "I can't imagine what it must be like to discover such a thing."
"What are you talking about? Where's Kenshin?"
Sôjirô's eyes widened. She didn't realize...? Uneasily, he answered, "He would want me to take you away now, while there's still opportunity. No one will notice if we slip away, and Chou might still be at the Seelie court if we hurry."
Kaoru determinedly swung her feet out of bed and stood. The room was dark except for the moonlight shining through the uncovered window. "I haven't come this far just to give up now."
Sôjirô bowed his head, and followed her out of the room with no further protest.
They could hear the great roar of cheering long before they were even close to the throne room and it was deafening when they entered. Kenshin, widely ringed by a crowd of excited fae, was battling Enishi. The Faerie King seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself, but Kenshin fought grimly. As Kaoru was coming in, he said in a brief lull, "Why are you drawing this out? Only a 'clash of arms' is needed."
"True," Enishi drawled, surveying the admantine-poisoned wounds leaking down Kenshin's body. "But I do so love to see you bleed." He raised his eyes and smiled to see Kaoru. "Ah well. I suppose I've had enough fun for now." He wiped his sword clean and sheathed it, to a loud chorus of disappointed "Boo!"s, which quieted only at his menacing glare.
Kenshin also returned the sakabatô to its sheath, then noticed Kaoru. He looked away at once, but then faced her squarely. "Kaoru-dono." His face was completely closed. "You shouldn't be here." He looked accusingly at Sôjirô, who smiled and shrugged. She insisted. You know her.
This was going to be a problem - unless Kenshin took her back himself. Yes, he would do that, now that he was finally about to receive what he had come for.
He looked back at Enishi, who was brandishing a sheathed knife at him. Unlike Titania's, there was no glamour on it to make it pretty. The sheath was worn, unadorned leather, the handle smooth with no ornamentation. Yet both this knife and Titania's blazed with opposing magics, so strongly that the fae winced away from the heat of it.
"Battousai," Enishi said solemnly, "I present to you as a token of my surrender-" He suddenly broke off to giggle hysterically. Kenshin waited in cold silence. "Sorry," Enishi gasped, his eyes bright with malicious mirth. "Sorry. I present to you the knife of the Faerie King, passed down to me from my father, Oberon of the Unseelie."
Kenshin reached out to receive it, and for a moment, the knife was grasped by their two hands. Enishi could hardly get out the last words, so choked was he by amusement. "Use it...use it well, Battousai!" Then he took his hand away so that he could brace it on his knee and howl with laughter.
Through the resulting laughter of the court, Kaoru urgently asked Kenshin, as he tucked the prize away, "Kenshin, what's that knife for?"
"To break the spell," he answered mechanically. It had suddenly occurred to him that his death might not be swift, or even immediate. Neither Enishi nor Titania had been very specific.
His imaginings were brought up short when Kaoru grabbed his wrists. "Kenshin, what's the knife for?" Her intuition, simmering from the moment Kenshin had emerged from that council with Sôjirô, was suddenly flaring up into horrified certainty.
Keep hold of him, don't let go, he's leaving you, go after him, go after him...!
"What do you want this one to say, Kaoru-dono?" he asked wearily. "It was the truth."
Her hands tightened on his furiously. "What kind of sick spell needs a knife like that to break it?"
He put his arm around her. "Let's go home, Kaoru-dono."
She shoved away and turned to face him, breathing hard. "Kenshin. You're planning to die, aren't you."
The dark fae were in hysterics.
Kenshin looked at her, thought how beautiful she was, supposed it was no wonder she would find out sooner or later, what with the way she refused to let him be. He couldn't help smiling; he knew he shouldn't, but her persistence was so amazing, so precious.
"It's not funny!" she shouted, and he got himself under control again.
"You can't have us both," he told her gently. "This one, or Kenji."
She stared at him, aghast. "I can't choose between my husband and my son! What are you talking about?! You said- You said that everything would be all right!"
He looked at her. His eyes couldn't get enough of her. But he had to stop getting distracted - he saw now that she was never going to let go of him, and Kenji would be lost. He gave her another smile, this time deliberately. "You seem so upset, Kaoru-dono."
She stared at him, speechless at the gross understatement.
"You shouldn't yell so much, that you shouldn't. It's not good for your looks."
"What are you talking about? You're telling me you're going to die, and all of a sudden you're worried about how I look?"
He shrugged. "It seems like you ought to care, that it does."
"Baka! I care about Kenji, and about you!"
'Yes, my love, and that's exactly the problem.' He gave her a surprised look. "Oh, really?"
"Don't 'oh really' me! Why wouldn't I?!"
He scratched his head. "It just seems like you wouldn't like this one much, now that you know the truth."
"What truth?" she said through gritted teeth.
He gave her another wide-eyed look of surprise, though his heart was pounding. "Why, that I slew your mother, of course."
For a moment, horror engulfed her, though she quickly shook her head. "No. Idiot. No. That was only a dream."
He was shocked to feel a slow, crafty smile spread his lips. He had never given in to his fey nature before...it was a little disquieting. "A dream? Is that what you think, silly girl?" He giggled. "Guess it's my fault, for singing to you back then. You forgot." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Or did you make yourself forget? I've heard that humans sometimes do that, too. Especially if they're little."
Kaoru was shaking. His carelessness frightened and hurt her as much as the words he spoke. "It was a dream," she whispered. "A nightmare, from coming through that fog-stuff."
"But the Fog only shows you truth," he said in mock-puzzlement. "Your true self, your true past... Oh!" He snapped his fingers happily. "I know how I can prove to you that it was real! I'll fill in the blanks. You weren't really looking, after all."
"Shut up!" she screamed.
He forced himself to go on; the words spilled eagerly out of his mouth. He felt like he was splitting into two people. "No, really! I didn't know who the queen was, Shishio just said 'Go kill her,' so I went. He was mean to me," he added in a whine. "He always made me do such icky stuff. I don't like killing women; they cry such a lot, it's sad. She threw stuff at me, too," he said indignantly. "Salt! Right in my face!" He patted his unmarred cheek proudly. "I still have such a pretty face, you know - despite the fact that everyone keeps trying to ruin it, mind you."
Kaoru stood, hands clenched. "I want to - to kill you," she whispered.
He blathered on as if oblivious. "So she tried to stop me, but I got her in the end; and then there was this little girl crying, and..." He grinned. "You were so cute when you were little, Kaoru-chan! I was soooo tempted to steal you right then and there, but luckily I ended up having you anyway!"
She screamed, seized with rage and horror and betrayal. Charging forward, she plowed into him and shoved until his back hit the wall; for a moment, she was hitting him- Then she was gone, gasping with sobs.
'Farewell, dear one...'
Kenshin didn't move. His hair had fallen thickly over his face.
The fae were chattering excitedly, quite a few of their expressions uneasy. Tomoe and Akira had slipped away; Sôjirô was nowhere in sight. Kaoru would be safe. Kenshin had nothing left to accomplish here - only one thing remained.
A sound echoed through the sudden silence of the court - a rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh; Enishi, applauding, his eyes alight. "Well done, Battousai," he said, almost admiringly.
Kenshin slowly advanced. The fae drew back in fear, all except their king, who fiddled with the hilt of his sword. Kenshin's voice was low and deadly. "Enishi. You shouldn't take delight in your vengeance - you will come to regret it."
"We'll see about that," Enishi answered coolly. "Or rather, I'll see, since soon your opinions aren't going to matter very much."
Kenshin turned to leave, but then suddenly paused. "They're connected somehow, aren't they. Kenji's imprisonment, and your sister's."
Enishi stiffened. "I don't think I'm quite sure what you're talking about."
"Don't keep her waiting for such a foolish reason, Enishi. She's waited long enough." He walked away, and the fae parted silently before him.
The hallways re-arranged themselves just like at the Seelie court, but this time, it was to mislead her. Kaoru, barely able to see through her tears, finally slumped against a wall, then shrieked when she felt a hand grasp her arm. "Get off me! Get away from me!"
"Calm down," said an unhappy young voice. "The Unseelie palace isn't friendly to enemies. At this rate, you'll find yourself in the torture chambers." Kaoru shied away from the young man who had hold of her. Behind him was...
"You," she snarled.
Tomoe did not flinch from her gaze. "You are in danger here, Kaoru-san-"
"You're the one in danger - from me!" she screamed, but Sôjirô caught her and she was crying uncontrollably. Her hands flew up as if to crush her eyes, as if to crush the sight from her brain: Battousai's horrifying face in the nightmare that had become real; Kenshin's familiar face, suddenly only a mask with a stranger laughing through it. "He killed my mother...he killed my mother..."
Memory was assaulting her: a red-haired monster, blood flowing from everyone he touched; the sounds of struggle, her mother's desperate pleading... "I want to go home," she croaked. "I want to go home, I can't stand this place anymore!"
Sôjirô looked at her sadly. She should have let Kenshin go at the beginning, or she should have held on to the end. This weakness was understandable, she had done so well to last even this long...it was just that Sôjirô hated seeing his queen suffer, when he could do nothing.
Tomoe's eyes were shadowed. She felt that all this was wrong, wrong, but she would not sabotage the work that had been done. "Kaoru-san...I can take you and your guard back, if you wish."
At the thought that the only other alternative was Kenshin, Kaoru shuddered. She felt like she never wanted to see him again. When she didn't move, Tomoe moved forward and touched her softly. Sôjirô kept hold of her as well, and Akira determinedly grasped his lover's free hand.
When they were all gone, safely crossed to the human realm, Kenshin sighed from where he stood concealed in the shadows. It should have been an easy task to obtain the knife of Oberon, use it to cut away the enchantment on Kenji, and then experience the result. Yet it had been more difficult than he could have ever anticipated.
He had not taken into account the strength of the bonds that had formed between himself and so many people. Certainly with his own family, especially with Kaoru; with the mortals who were loyal to him; with Titania and her handmaids and the other fae of the Seelie court; with Tomoe, and even with Unseelie like Yutarô and Chou and Enishi himself. What should have been a simple path had been revealed as an uncertain labyrinth, sensitive as a spider's web, and he had the ominous feeling that each step he took tangled the strands even more.
He touched his hand to his cheek - Titania had told him once that the mark on his grandfather had covered the entire face, had left him disfigured even at his death. Kenshin still remembered his father's face, graced with the family's good looks and often crinkled with laughter. The cross-shaped mark had almost always been pale and hard to see; only at the end, cut down in the flames of his dying castle, had he shown a face snarling with fury and grief, striped red with blood and with that blazing mark.
Well, Kenshin, too, would now die with the mark full strength upon his face, just like his fathers. It would be up to Kenji to break the tradition.
Kenshin steeled himself and moved to return home.
Perhaps it was unwise for him to have materialized in the midst of a group of armed men. Saitô happened to have been holding a conference in the council room at the moment of the king's return, and at the sight of the ragged, scowling, wild-haired figure suddenly stepping out of thin air, the men sprang into action at once.
"Kenshin!" Sanosuke gasped, the first to check his reaction. Then, uncertainly, "Kenshin?" He swiped a hank of red hair out of the face, only to meet an amber-eyed glare. He hastily let the curtain of hair flop back into place. "Pardon the language, Most Excellent Majesty, but you look like hell."
"Where's Kenji?"
"Single-minded, aren't you," Saitô commented, re-sheathing his sword. "We moved him to the northwest tower."
"Kinda creeped us out, having him lying there like that in the throne room," Yahiko mumbled.
Kenshin turned to the doors, but Sanosuke caught him by the shoulder. "Hold on a sec! You're a wreck, when was the last time you ate?"
"Or bathed," Yahiko put in. "You look like you came straight from a battle."
Kenshin shook them off. "There's no time. Kenji needs to be awake before Kaoru-dono returns."
"So she's back, too," Sanosuke realized. "I wondered."
"Where is she?" Yahiko wanted to know.
"Tomoe probably brought them back a short distance from the castle, to buy this one some time." He swallowed. "Go and meet them, if you like." He did not want to think about their reactions, though by then it would probably be too late for them to do anything.
"You go, Yahiko," Sanosuke said. "I'm going to the kitchens. Saitô, don't let this guy out of your sight 'til we've gotten him fixed up a little."
"I don't take orders from you," Saitô said coolly.
Sanosuke shot him the finger and left, Yahiko just behind.
The captain of the guard, who had been waiting quietly through all this, now spoke up, an eyebrow raised. "Just out of curiosity, am I ever going to be permitted to give my report?"
Kenshin sighed. "Go ahead, Katsura."
Katsura smiled a little and shook his head. "It's nothing that can't wait. Do what you have to do, Himura-Ô." He bowed and left.
For a minute, it was very quiet. "Saitô," Kenshin finally said in a low voice, "will you accompany this one?"
"Hmph. Looks like I don't have anything else to do at the moment," he grunted in reply, glancing meaningfully around the now-empty council room.
As they moved up to the northwest tower, Saitô said casually, "By the way, there's been an old woman hanging around. Showed up a few hours ago, wanting to see the prince; got very upset, refused to leave. The vixen's been keeping an eye on her."
"Is that so," Kenshin murmured. They did not speak again, all the way up the tower.
When Kenshin opened the door, he found Kenji lying in a glass case in the middle of the room, unchanged from when Kenshin had last seen him. Megumi sat on one side, sorting clean bandages and casting dark glances at the shriveled crone on the other side, who was huddled silently in her ragged shawls. She did not stir when the door opened, but Megumi leaped up in surprise. "Ken-Ô! You're back!"
"Yes, Megumi-dono. Thank you."
She nodded and moved aside as he entered, approaching the crone. He stared down at her for a long while, and she did not move. "Grandmother," he finally murmured, his tone a warning. "What is your business here?"
The worn, craggy face slowly turned up to his. "Enishi lied to you," she said dully, "and I was wrong." It was the first time those words had ever passed her lips. As she spoke, her aged looks melted into long, supple limbs, a sensuous body, a cascade of golden hair. Megumi gasped at the sight of the Faerie Queen.
Kenshin was finding it difficult to breathe. "What...do you mean?"
She spread her hand out flat over the silent boy, desperately sensing, but of course nothing had changed since the last time she had done so. "When you left," she whispered, "I knew I had lost you forever. I came to claim the boy as my own, to release him from the enchantments." She turned wretched eyes to him. "Kenshin. The curse of the enchantress was sated the moment Kenji touched the blade of your sword. As for the other...half of the terms have been fulfilled as well."
"What other?" Kenshin said harshly, but he knew; he knew. Kenji was trapped under two enchantments, not one, and he had not fully understood until it was too late.
"Enishi lied," she said again. "The terms were for my spell, not Tomoe's, but the breaking of her contract and its consequences should have happened at the same time, not separately like this."
He was shaking his head mechanically, side to side, back and forth. "Kenji will awaken when Tomoe's spell is broken. The price is my death-"
"Didn't you just hear me?" she snapped, hiding her anguish with anger. "Enishi lied. Kenji was never supposed to awaken. Your death was meant to bring Tomoe's release, not Kenji's. But..." She closed her eyes and began to recite. "Hair red as blood, eyes blue as deep waters, the mark of a curse from birth- Kenshin, you are not the only one who fits that description."
"No!" he screamed, "No!" He wrenched off the glass cover so violently that it crashed to the floor, cracking into three huge shards; Kenshin's hand found the Unseelie knife, plunged it downward, intending to slice through the spell and tear it away from his son.
Titania's iron grip caught his wrist. "Stop," she hissed. "Kenshin, he's already dead. It's too late. Tomoe's heart is all that keeps this boy tied to the land of the living - would you destroy even the last shred of hope you have left?"
When Kaoru came surging up the tower, frantic to see Kenji, trailed by her companions, she found Kenshin slumped against the glass casket in despair. Kenji remained hopelessly cold and still.
The Faerie Queen looked up in irritation at the disturbance. "Well, I'm not going to tell the whole story again," she said coldly to the two women who had stolen Kenshin from her long ago. "He can explain it to you." She turned away and disappeared.
To be continued...
Author's Notes: The word "lover" doesn't necessarily mean that the couple is having sex. Tomoe is still a handmaid.