Title: Can't Take the Sky
Setting: AU
Characters: Kaoru, Kenshin
Type: oneshot
Genre: fantasy
Word Count: 1,451
Burn the Land
The war had been going on for far too long. Kaoru knew that. She was not unscarred by the fighting. Her father had fallen a year ago, leaving her the only one to hold the wards. The last of the Blood left in these lands. She knew just what the fighting was costing them.
Her family had protected this kingdom and its people for generations, maintaining the wards, sweeping invaders from the land. But always there had been at least two. Alone, Kaoru was outnumbered. She could not hold the wards and fight. Without the wards, her people would fall to the Greylings. But even as she held those back, her people were killed by the advancing Yamato army. She'd had a decision to make.
She'd chosen the wards. The Yamato, at least, were human, and so wished for land and power. They wouldn't kill those who did not fight back; they could not rule over bones and blood-soaked earth.
The Queen and her councilors saw the inevitable approaching. They sent messengers to the leaders of the Yamato, seeking to treat. Kaoru had known what that would mean. And she had accepted it.
She didn't cry when they came for her wings. She was of the Blood; her spirit lived in wind and storm. She was too proud to cry.
They came in a mob, marching into her shrine with fire and steel. It hurt her heart, seeing her people come before her in violence. She knelt for them, knowing what was coming, knowing what the Yamato had demanded in return for peace. Still, they seized her and threw her down, holding her to the stones of the courtyard bruisingly hard. An edge of rock dug into her cheek as rough hands yanked at her wings, the right first and then the left.
Kaoru did not cry at the ice-and-fire touch of the blade or the crackle of bone and tearing tendons. Blood ran hot and thick down her back, smearing on feathers and stone and hands.
Those of the Blood protected their people, their lands. Close kin to humans and Greylings, they may have stood between the two races, but they did so with a power the humans could not possess and did not understand. Kaoru hadn't known how frightened they were of her strangeness, or how easily that fear could turn to hate.
They left her on the stones cold and bruised, feathers scattered, sticking to the blood slowly drying on her skin.
They left her crippled, her wings torn off at the first joint and her magic bleeding from her.
After long moments, after the sun set and the moon rose on her broken body, she peeled herself off the flagstones… a sticky tearing sound as the dried blood gave… and dragged herself inside the shrine.
Her people may have abandoned her, trading her for peace and trading the safety of her wards for the protections of Yamato human magicks, but there was nowhere else for her to go.
Boil the Sea
The carter shook his head, giving his oxen's reins a sharp flick and leaving Kenshin standing by the side of the dirt track behind. The redhead watched the cart disappear down the road with a slight frown. The shrine was tucked up in a rather out-of-the-way mountain, admittedly, but Kenshin would have thought it would be afforded more respect. The villagers seemed almost afraid of this place, and the road and the path leading up to the shrine proper were poorly cared for.
Not what he'd expect for a shrine that apparently was the seat of the country's defensive magicks.
Shouldering his small pack, he headed up the cracked stone steps to the courtyard around which the shrine's buildings were arrayed. They were worn, but bore evidence of someone having tried to care for and maintain them—there were cracked tiles on the roofs, but there was no sagging or obvious holes to indicate that the damage was more than superficial. The walls were stained with the sort of grit that was typical for forest shrines, but they looked solid.
Kenshin stopped dead halfway across the courtyard, feet nearly touching the blood staining the stones. He stared. From its dull, rusty color, the blood wasn't fresh. It had also formed itself into swirling patterns and symbols that Kenshin didn't understand but that still spoke of power to his eye.
Strange; he hadn't thought the Asurans practiced blood magic. Perhaps this was done by a renegade practitioner? Kneeling, Kenshin touched the tips of his fingers to the outer edge of the stain. His brow furrowed; the spell tasted of protection and blessing. Who would use blood magic to set a defensive ward in this place?
Kenshin saw a flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye, and looked up. "Hello?"
There was no answer. Kenshin waited a moment longer before standing and skirting around the blood spell. It was a mystery he didn't quite have the energy to investigate just yet. He was far more interested in investigating what would be his new home for the foreseeable future.
The shrine smelled faintly of incense and the reason became apparent when he approached the railing that marked off the inner sanctum. A brass bowl with the fresh remains of a couple of sticks of incense within sat beside the railing, the newest of the sticks still smoldering slightly.
There had been someone here, and recently. Kenshin turned around and scanned the courtyard again. "Hello?"
He stepped forward, calling out again. "Hello? No harm to you or yours; I just want to talk."
He chased his words with a touch of power, so that they'd know he was honest. To further reinforce his words, he set his pack down and spread his hands.
After a long, silent pause, there was a tiny movement as someone slid out from behind the shrine's fount. For one startled moment, Kenshin thought she was a Greyling, but then he remembered that Asura had been protected by what they called Wind-kin.
The slender young woman standing hesitantly, warily, before him must be one of those. She had the sclera-less eyes of a Greyling, though hers were a vibrant blue rather than the typical orange or red. She was also obviously not bursting into flame from standing on the shrine's grounds.
Kenshin dragged his gaze away from her pretty, delicate features and realized that what he had first thought was a cloak of some sort were actually the tattered remains of wings rising from her shoulders. She noticed the direction of his gaze, and the half-wings rustled uneasily. Kenshin politely returned his attention to her face.
"Hello," he said, giving her his most gentle smile. "I'm Himura Kenshin. I'm the shaman assigned to this region's defenses."
He watched as she considered him, clearly wondering whether or not to trust him. Finally, she replied: "Kaoru."
"Kaoru," Kenshin repeated. "I am pleased to meet you, Kaoru-dono. Did you place the spell on the courtyard?"
He couldn't feel any magic in her at all, but perhaps he wouldn't—he'd never seen Wind-kin before and didn't know if or how their magic differed from his own. She tensed at the question, her half-wings drawing in to her body tightly as remembered pain flashed across her face. Realization struck Kenshin.
'The treaty demanded the Wind-kin be removed from their position of power,' he recalled. 'The blood is hers. They cut her wings from her and she set a blood spell as a ward to protect them with the last of her magic.'
He'd just met her, but he already liked her. Brave, selfless. She was more honorable than he, who had been a soldier and killer before turning to defense and protection.
He smiled at her, more genuine this time. "Are you hungry?" he asked. "I was going to head to town tomorrow to stock the larder, but I think I have enough rice from my travel-provisions for a filling supper for two."
She looked startled. He met her gaze, and held it. Her all-blue eyes stared into him, read his spirit. Finally, she nodded.
As she drifted closer, Kenshin reflected that his superiors doubtless had not intended for him to befriend the Wind-kin when they sent him here. And he realized that he cared little for their intentions. They should have known better than to send an ex-soldier who had turned to shamanism for atonement to a place haunted by a woman whose life had been shattered by the war his sword had helped wage.
'Protection and safety,' he thought, following as Kaoru led him to the living quarters' kitchen. A shaman's tenets. 'Starting here.'