What kind of people would be servants to a dragon? What kind of people would be servants to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon? I imagine, given that she's chosen Seto as her paragon, so to speak, it can't be that far out of line to say that she would choose among her own monsters who echo some of his traits, if not all of them.

When I created Sieglinde and Anri, it was only partly to make a reference to the Dark Souls trilogy. It was also in an attempt to work out the answer to the two questions which open this note. I'll admit they aren't the most rounded people I've ever put into a story.

But I like them, all the same.


.


When she opened her eyes, Yuki Yagami had no idea where she was. It would have made perfect sense to her if she'd found herself in her own bedroom, staring up at her own ceiling fan. She was only partway surprised to find herself staring, instead, at the roof of an unfamiliar cave; she did not have the wherewithal to question it.

She watched the cracks and crevices, and little droplets of water trickling down; the most emotion she could conjure, for a good few minutes, was anticipation of that water hitting her face. When it finally did, she blinked several times and rediscovered her consciousness.

A moment, an eternity, later. She turned her head just a touch, and surveyed what she could see of her surroundings. She found her son and husband close enough to touch; she did.

Her boys were still there. Still real.

Still alive.

With great effort, Yuki turned the other way.

Yugi was curled up against a far wall, wholly unconscious; he snored lightly, innocently, absently petting Kuriboh's fur like he hadn't just called down the hammer of God.

The knights, shed of their armor, were nursing a fire some distance away, nearer the cave-mouth. Sieglinde glanced over, saw Yuki watching her, and offered a smile. "And lo, she doth wake. How fare you, my lady?"

"I feel like death."

Sieglinde laughed, then caught herself. She covered her mouth and coughed. "My apologies. I do not make light of you. Am I correct to assume that this was your first glimpse at a creature of deep darkness?"

"I . . . I think so." Yuki sat up, rubbed her head, and ran a hesitant hand through her hair. It seemed the knights had shed her of some of her layers, that they might dry by the fire. Nonetheless, she was wrapped in multiple blankets. "What . . . happened out there? It was like our own shadows were fighting us."

Anri spoke up: "Such is their nature, the deep darkness. They are elusive and patient." He drew in a breath and looked outside, surveying the mists that choked the mountain at this height. "Whomever warned you about the threat to your lives was prudent and correct to do so."

"Deep darkness," Yuki repeated.

"The old stories would have you believe that creatures in control of shadows, as you have now seen, are harbingers of death." Anri's face twisted in something like disgust. He had the look of a scholar about him, with high cheekbones and a sharp nose, searching eyes that sparked with curiosity. But the scars that Yuki could spy even from this distance told her that he had seen much more than books and murals in his life. He didn't just study old stories; he lived them.

"They are ill omens," Sieglinde said, "and to see them is to know that your death will come shortly." She offered a look that seemed apologetic. "The old stories often tell of hapless fools who thought to run, who tried to fight, but they always fall in the end. There is no outstripping the natural order. You will lose. Fate's design is unknowable, and 'tis not for mortal-kind to question it. That is the moral of these stories."

"You both sound . . . skeptical," Yuki said, frowning.

"Living shadows were supposedly present at our births," Sieglinde said, with a glance at her brother. "An oracle pressed upon our lady mother and lord father that the only proper course of action, given such an ill omen, was to abandon us."

"We yet live," said Anri, and it sounded like he was grinding the words between his teeth. "I do not believe in omens. I believe such things can only impress upon us that the lives we lead now, in this era, are more precious than they have ever been. Our forebears had not the power nor the knowledge to protect themselves. We can. We honor them by fighting for our survival."

Yuki found a smile. She nodded. "I understand," she said.

Anri offered a slight smile of his own. "Yes. I am certain you do."

"We do not know what such living shadows are, precisely," Sieglinde said. "We know only that they are . . . scouts, after a fashion. They are the first harbingers of a threat to the Barrier. They present a warning that we rarely have the good fortune to properly utilize. Thanks to you and yours, we remain standing strong after an encounter with them. For that, we are grateful."

Sieglinde and Anri both bowed their heads.

"If not for you, we'd be dead," Yuki said, half in protest.

"If not for you," Anri countered, "so would we." He gestured outside. "They waited, purposefully I do not doubt, until we were far enough from the foot of the mountain that a fall would be fatal."

"'Tis true that we spirits reform, and are reborn, here in the Barrier," Sieglinde said. "But never should that mean that Death has no power."

"Years," Anri said, "if not decades, would pass before our souls would reconstitute properly. We would ill be able to warn our allies, that they might prepare for the threat to their safety, if our stolen shadows had done away with us."

The knights left unsaid what would have happened to their charges.

Yuki didn't feel the need to ask.

She turned her attention, instead, to Yugi. "What did he do?"

"That," said Sieglinde, "is what it means, to call upon the aid of the High Court. The spell-work you witnessed, and helped in unleashing, is the hallmark of the Dark Magician."

"What about that voice?" Yuki frowned. "We've met Mahad. He didn't sound like that."

The knights glanced at each other. "I must confess, my lady," Anri said, "that I remember no voice. If a voice you heard, which guided you in that moment, 'twas a being which did not extend grace to my sister or myself. Perhaps a sovereign from the Sacred Fields. I would not hazard a guess."

"Our Lady may know," Sieglinde said. "She must be warned of the darkness upon her mountain. We will ask for her guidance, after you petition her aid."

Yuki nodded. "That sounds like a good plan."

Sieglinde smiled as she spared a glance at little Sotaro. Yuki followed the knight's gaze. "Your son bears the mark of a warrior," she said. "My brother and I are not strangers to the fortitude afforded to the young. It is no truth, half or otherwise, that children are cowardly or weak. Often, they are braver and stronger than we. But few indeed would have stood as solidly as he, in the face of such a threat as we did behold."

Yuki smiled; it didn't feel like a pleasant one. "I don't know if I'm happy about that."

Anri looked thoughtful. "I would not presume to call you wrong, that you would not be," he said, "but take relief if you can, in whatever measure you may: know that he has learned well from his guardians."

"Were he a denizen of these lands," Sieglinde said, "any one of us would be proud to take him on as a 'prentice."

Anri nodded. "My sister speaks true."

"I'm proud," Yuki said, reaching out to brush her son's hair from his forehead. "Prouder than I know how to express. It hurts, sometimes." She put her free hand to her breast. "But I can't help but wish, more often lately than before, that he could just be a little boy. A little boy like any other, living a mundane life with mundane worries. He's so young. So small. He should be playing with his toys, and reading books too advanced for him, and asking us questions we aren't prepared to answer. He's not supposed to call lightning and smite monsters."

The knights shared another, somber, look.

They turned back to Yuki.

"Sometimes," said Sieglinde, "Fate has a way of lifting one's feet and tossing one bodily into a path that could ne'er be prepared for. It is a sorry thing, sometimes, to look upon the life one might have had."

"To wonder wistfully about what might have been, if only," said Anri. "But we all have only the life we have been given. It is a precious, and irreplaceable, thing."

"Precious," said Yuki, still with her hand on Sotaro's brow, "and irreplaceable."