/screams at dying battery
Story: Black cat, white mage - Part 4
Pairings: Kurogane/Fai, Sakura/Syaoran, Yukito/Touya, the usual suspects.
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Swearing. Execessive alcohol consumption (Yuuko, that is.)
Summary: A lost princess. A mage running away from his past. A crippled warrior doing his best to forget the man he used to be. And a young man carrying a terrible curse. All of them are inevitably drawn into an adventure where love might save them... or doom them.
Note: Ah, back at McDonalds. I'll ignore my lukewarm hamburger if it's all the same to you, and focus on posting instead. Hopefully I'll manage before my battery dies. In this chapter, Sakura is the teenageriest teenager who ever teenagered, Syaoran is a derp, and Watanuki attempts patience. Also, the last member of our little team is woken up from a pretty long nap. Cut quote from "The Witch" by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge.
***
They were in a tavern, although this fact had not been advertised in any way on the outside. The outside had looked like any shabby, run-down building, and Kurogane had been wary when Big Cat slipped through the door and motioned for them to follow. Even more so when he’d realized what this place was. If it didn’t advertize itself, that meant it was only open to those who’d been told where to find it. Illegal, in other words.
But at least they appeared to be safe. The room they’d been shown to already had a fire going in the hearth, and the furniture was comfortable. Food had been brought there on the request of Little Cat, and if the money that paid for it technically was ill-gotten gains… well, Kurogane didn’t really give a fuck. He was hungry.
“Well now,” Big Cat said, acting as if there had already been a conversation going for quite some time. He was playing with his long braid - which had a velvet bow attached at the end, the fucking dandy - and watching Kurogane and Syaoran with rapt interest, his eyes twinkling with unexplained amusement. “Not that I mind being gallantly saved by so dashing and daring a duo, but I’m afraid to say that I’m quite at a loss as to why. After all, you must’ve figured out we were outlaws. So why bother with a couple of total strangers, especially if you know that they’re criminals?”
Kurogane scowled at him. In truth, he didn’t know why. Maybe it was simply that it had felt so good to be in a battle again, a real battle; maybe he’d just jumped in because this was what he’d longed for, when the nights grew too long and a ghost lay next to him in bed and he had to go have a look at Syaoran sleeping to remind himself why he even bothered staying alive. If that was the case, he’d dragged a young man with his whole life in front of him into this mess just for the sake of his own boredom. That didn’t make him feel too good about himself.
But there had been something else, too. He knew just too well the way noblemen had of assuming that everyone around them was a tool at their disposal. It seemed programmed into them; the way Kurogane saw it, there wasn’t even any malice behind it. Just a firm conviction that they were, to put it simply, more important than other human beings. They had a right to use the people around them to fulfill their own needs, because that was what common people were for.
So maybe that was why?
“You said you weren’t killers,” he said curtly, because he didn’t know what else to say. “Bastard should’ve listened. That’s all.”
The girl called Little Cat looked up from where she sat cross-legged on the floor. “That was very sweet of you,” she declared. “Thank you!” She smiled brightly at him, looking surprisingly girlish now that she wasn’t whirling around and dealing out oblivion of the possibly terminal kind. He was about to say something noncommittal about it being nothing - except openly helping outlaws really wasn’t nothing, and he didn’t want to sound like an idiot. So he frowned and said nothing at all, as the girl went back to polishing one of her daggers.
She’d removed what Kurogane had thought was a ridiculously short skirt, but which on a closer look revealed itself to be two toughened leather semi-circles molded in the shape of her hips and thighs, with several slots on for her multitude of knives. These were attached like a sort of very broad belt by a complicated array of leather straps, hoops and buckles, which presumably gave her the mobility she needed for those anatomy-defying stunts.
Except for the strange leather monstrosity, she wore simple black linen pants, a high-necked shirt in the same material, and a bodice made from leather that looked very soft and pliant. She’d also fashioned herself a pair of cat ears out of some mink fur, and under her black leather shoes and on the inside of her gloves, there were pink pads sewn, making them look like paws. Hells, the silly girl even had a tail sewn onto the back of her trousers.
And Syaoran didn’t seem to be able to take his eyes off her. Huh. He could swear he’d never been that young.
“But where are my manners?” the blond nutcase suddenly exclaimed and clapped his hands together, breaking the awkward silence. “Gentlemen, I am Fai, often referred to as Big Cat. The charming girl here is my daughter.”
“Your daughter? Really?” Kurogane scoffed and gave him a steely look. “Begging you pardon, sir, but unless you fathered her when you were ten…”
“How sweet,” the idiot thrilled. “He actually thinks I’m twenty-five! What a darling.” Before Kurogane could manage a suitable retort, the outlaw barreled right on. “Little Cat here is my adopted daughter. And before you ask, that is indeed her actual name.” He winked at the girl, who giggled softly. “And may we ask the names of our rescuers?”
“Stop it with the rescue crap,” Kurogane said bluntly. “We only helped you out. You did just as much as we.” After glaring at Fai, something that only made him smile even wider, he reluctantly added: “I’m Kurogane.” When Syaoran didn’t immediately venture his own name, he rolled his eyes and nudged the boy fairly brusquely with his foot. “Your name, kid, if you think you can spare the attention for it.”
Syaoran blinked, and then went a truly spectacular shade of red. “S-Syaoran,” he offered in an explosive burst, looking anywhere but at Little Cat. Kurogane saw her give the young man a look of shy curiosity, and almost snorted out loud. Kids.
Fai was watching them too, and he winked at Kurogane with a mischievous grin. He didn’t know what he thought of such a familiar gesture from a total stranger, so he just shrugged and grimaced dismissively in reply.
“Still, perhaps it would be a good idea to discuss the situation at hand,” Fai said, crossing his arms behind his head and stretching out his long, leather-clad legs. “After all, I’m afraid to say that things don’t look too good for you. You’re a rather distinctive-looking pair, and there were a lot of people there who saw you help us out, not to mention the soldiers.” He smiled cheerfully. “Honestly, returning home might be a bit of a problem for you.”
Syaoran and Kurogane glanced at each other. ‘Home’ was at the moment two small rooms squeezed into a draughty attic; it wasn’t exactly that big of a loss. But it was beginning to dawn on them that they’d have to leave the city too, their friends and acquaintances. Kurogane mostly kept to himself, and he didn’t know many people all that well, but he knew Syaoran had gotten pretty close to some of the people he usually worked with. The young man shrugged awkwardly in response to Kurogane’s questioning look, shaking his head as if to say there wasn’t much to do about it now.
It was really strange, now that he was actually thinking about it. He hadn’t even thought twice before charging in and helping the two outlaws. Of course, no one should be forced to become some stuck-up lord’s assassin, especially not a fifteen-year-old girl. But had he really thought about that at the time? Or had he simply rushed forward without a second thought because he’d somehow known that this was… right?
What a load of horseshit. He shook his head in disgust. It was probably nothing stranger than him and the boy itching for a fight.
“Well the way I see it,” Fai said, studying their silent interactions with invasive interest, “you helped us out in a fairly tricky situation. You didn’t need to. You did it out of the kindness of your noble hearts.” He really seemed to enjoy this, the bastard. “So I’d say we owe you.” He sent Little Cat a pointed sideways glance, and her whole face lit up.
“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed enthusiastically. “You could come with us! We’re used to travelling around, we could help you. And if that Lord Rondart tries to come after us, you could help us out again.” She smiled brilliantly at Syaoran, who once more went magenta, and the glance he sent Kurogane was downright pleading.
The gods damn the kid.
“Sure,” he said curtly. “Ain’t like we’ve got nowhere better to be.”
Little Cat gave a delighted squeak, jumped to her feet and positively assaulted him with a hug. Kurogane cleared his throat, embarrassed by this unabashed show of affection, and patted her a bit awkwardly on the back. Then she spun around and gave Syaoran a hug too, something that had the both of them blushing, and finally she pounced on her travel companion, who laughed hugely and ruffled her hair, dislodging her cat ears and making her squeak indignantly.
So, they were a team. A crippled soldier, a teenage boy who still stuttered when he talked to girls, a teenage girl who dressed like a cat, and a blond madman in leather. Wow. Lord Rondart had better watch out, whoever he was.
~ * ~
Later that night, Kurogane woke up to the sound of hushed voices.
“…still don’t see why you didn’t just tell me about it,” Little Cat was hissing, a definitely note of petulance in her voice. “I’m not a baby, and I think I have the right to know what kind of offers we receive.”
“I’m sorry, kitty,” Fai replied soothingly. “I didn’t think it mattered since we were going to turn it down in any case.”
“Don’t do that, Fai,” Little Cat replied pleadingly. “Don’t lie. If you hadn’t thought it mattered, you would’ve told me.” To this there was no answer. Little Cat sighed quietly. “I know you want to protect me. But we were attacked, damn it, and I didn’t even know what it was about. You had to tell me in battle that you’d been keeping things from me. I felt like such a child.”
Kurogane snorted and pulled his pillow over his head. This was going to be the death of him.
~ * ~
Yuuko smiled, lifting her empty crystal goblet. “More wine, boy. You don’t want me to die of thirst, do you?”
“What about my brother?” Watanuki demanded, hanging onto the pitcher of wine as his only means of negotiation and valiantly resisting the Head Magician’s pout. “You said there was news about my brother. Do you know where he is?”
“Of course I know where the boy is,” Yuuko replied, smiling slyly.
Watanuki glared flatly at her. “But you’re not going to tell me where, are you?”
“Can’t. You know that,” Yuuko said, with what Watanuki thought was downright inconsiderate cheerfulness. “You’d only rush off and try to find him, and this really isn’t the time.”
“But he’s alive?” Watanuki demanded desperately. “He’s well?”
“Yes on both your questions,” Yuuko said. “Now may I have some wine?”
Watanuki pressed his lips together, attempting to count to ten slowly while he filled her glass. He managed to get to four before he exploded. “You can’t seriously have called me here in the middle of the night if you weren’t going to tell me more than that!” This was accompanied by a potted plant behind him exploding. Watanuki often lost control of his magic when he lost his temper - that was to say, incidents like that were frequently occurring, and had a tendency to happen more often whenever the royal attaché was in the same room.
“Patience, Watanuki,” Yuuko chided, sipping her wine with an amused smirk, probably because she knew that if there was one thing her talented apprentice did not excel in, it was patience.
“Patience? My little brother-”
“Is in a spot of trouble right now,” Yuuko finished calmly, downing the rest of the wine in one gulp and holding the glass out for more. “One of his lackeys will be looking for him now.”
Watanuki went even paler than usual, slopping some wine over her hand, which she carelessly licked away. “No! Does he know…?”
Yuuko scoffed. “Of course he doesn’t know. You really need to have more faith in me. Honestly, what kind of apprentice are you?”
“One who’s being held hostage,” Watanuki said between gritted teeth. “In exchange for information about his little brother, if you remember?”
“A price had to be paid,” Yuuko replied, shrugging. Watanuki muttered a long string of very bad words, and Yuuko raised a thin black eyebrow. “Excuse me, what was that?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I just said… Well, you keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true,” Yuuko replied, smiling darkly. “At least I didn’t force you to pay the price, now did I?”
“Well, it wouldn’t work then,” Watanuki replied, bemused.
“Wrong,” Yuuko shot back. “Unfortunately, that’s wrong, Watanuki. Although, of course, there’s a price to pay for that kind of action as well. A heavy price. Regrettably, there’ll always be people who are prepared to pay it.” She stared straight ahead for a short moment, her eyes hard, and her fingers drummed an angry staccato rhythm against the armrest of her chair. Then she shrugged and once more sucked down a full glass of wine as if it was water. “Now, did you want to hear about your brother or not? I can’t sit here chatting all night.”
For a moment, it looked as if Watanuki was going to explode again, but then he - amazingly - managed to pull himself together. A fire that had started in the corner of the carpet he stood on went out. “Please tell me,” he requested as politely as he could, and he even filled up her glass without complaining.
“Good boy,” Yuuko all but purred, smiling smugly. The fire started up again as Watanuki glared, and she put it out with an offhand wave of her naked foot. “He’s met up with the rest of them now,” she then informed him in her usual casual way, as if this wasn’t the most important event in more than a thousand years, which could either save the whole world or plunge it into hundreds of years of holy war.
Watanuki blinked, anger momentarily forgotten. “What, all three of them?”
“Well actually,” Yuuko said cheerfully, “he’s been with one of them these past six years.”
“He… what? You knew about this? You knew he wasn’t alone?” A small porcelain bird on the mantelpiece came alive with an undignified squeak. Yuuko gestured at it, and it came obediently to her, landing on her finger.
“Nicely done,” she commented, admiring it. “A shame you can’t do that on purpose yet. And no, as a matter of fact I didn’t. My access has been closed up until now, you should know that. All I knew was that he had to be alive, because his meeting up with the others was inevitable.”
“But… now you can see him? Actually see him?” Watanuki said, his voice weak with relief. Yuuko leveled a stern look at him.
“Yes. But that also means that others will be free to meddle. He’s no longer safe.” Watanuki deflated, and the hand holding the wine pitcher shook. The bird once more turned to porcelain. Yuuko’s voice softened; she wasn’t completely heartless. “Then again, that means I can lend them some assistance too. Although, of course, not directly.”
“What do you mean?” he wondered, the hope in his eyes heartbreakingly obvious.
Yuuko smiled and held up one hand, which immediately started to glow with magic. The white light brightened until Watanuki had to close his eyes, but just before he did, he thought he saw it surging forward, swirling and dancing around a point in midair. It all happened in complete silence, but after a few seconds there was a small thud and Yuuko said, “You can open your eyes now.”
On the carpet, a small white creature was blinking its eyes sleepily. “Mmm? What is it? What’s the time? Mokona was having such a nice nap…
“That’s a-” Watanuki exclaimed, his eyes wide.
“Yes,” Yuuko agreed. “I never told you that his familiar was the same kind as mine, did I? Although their powers are different, of course. Still, they do share a very strong bond…”
“What is it doing here?” Watanuki exclaimed, horrified, as if Yuuko had just presented him with a human head. His own familiar, hiding under his clothes as was its habit, tightened around his neck in dismay at the very idea of separation.
“The Circle had it confiscated when he ran away,” she replied calmly. “On my orders, I might add. I was afraid that they would try to find him via mine if it was allowed to come with him. It was safer for him if it stayed here and slept. But now… now I’m afraid he just might need all the help he can get. Hmm, but how to go about it?” She held up her glass and stared at it thoughtfully. “I’ll send it out to their next destination, and it can wait for them there,” she decided, taking a rather small sip, for being her. It was only a quarter of the glass.
“And… and the price?” Watanuki managed, a bit numbly, trying to calm his upset familiar by stroking its ears.
“Has already been paid by the creature itself, of course. All these years asleep is enough to pay for its assistance now.” She gave him her patented ‘I’m so clever I sometimes shock myself’-smile.
The white familiar seemed to be fully awake now, and it was looking around with increasing panic. “Where’s Yuui?” it demanded anxiously, bouncing sideways so it could look behind Yuuko’s chair. “Why can’t Mokona feel him?” And then, as understanding started to dawn, it asked in a very small voice: “How long did Mokona sleep?”
“You’ll soon be back with your master,” Yuuko assured it. “Don’t worry, he’ll tell you everything you need to now. Now,” she added, her voice dropping to a low-pitched murmur, laden with magic, “here is what I want you to remember…”
Pairings: Kurogane/Fai, Sakura/Syaoran, Yukito/Touya, the usual suspects.
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Swearing. Execessive alcohol consumption (Yuuko, that is.)
Summary: A lost princess. A mage running away from his past. A crippled warrior doing his best to forget the man he used to be. And a young man carrying a terrible curse. All of them are inevitably drawn into an adventure where love might save them... or doom them.
Note: Ah, back at McDonalds. I'll ignore my lukewarm hamburger if it's all the same to you, and focus on posting instead. Hopefully I'll manage before my battery dies. In this chapter, Sakura is the teenageriest teenager who ever teenagered, Syaoran is a derp, and Watanuki attempts patience. Also, the last member of our little team is woken up from a pretty long nap. Cut quote from "The Witch" by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge.
***
They were in a tavern, although this fact had not been advertised in any way on the outside. The outside had looked like any shabby, run-down building, and Kurogane had been wary when Big Cat slipped through the door and motioned for them to follow. Even more so when he’d realized what this place was. If it didn’t advertize itself, that meant it was only open to those who’d been told where to find it. Illegal, in other words.
But at least they appeared to be safe. The room they’d been shown to already had a fire going in the hearth, and the furniture was comfortable. Food had been brought there on the request of Little Cat, and if the money that paid for it technically was ill-gotten gains… well, Kurogane didn’t really give a fuck. He was hungry.
“Well now,” Big Cat said, acting as if there had already been a conversation going for quite some time. He was playing with his long braid - which had a velvet bow attached at the end, the fucking dandy - and watching Kurogane and Syaoran with rapt interest, his eyes twinkling with unexplained amusement. “Not that I mind being gallantly saved by so dashing and daring a duo, but I’m afraid to say that I’m quite at a loss as to why. After all, you must’ve figured out we were outlaws. So why bother with a couple of total strangers, especially if you know that they’re criminals?”
Kurogane scowled at him. In truth, he didn’t know why. Maybe it was simply that it had felt so good to be in a battle again, a real battle; maybe he’d just jumped in because this was what he’d longed for, when the nights grew too long and a ghost lay next to him in bed and he had to go have a look at Syaoran sleeping to remind himself why he even bothered staying alive. If that was the case, he’d dragged a young man with his whole life in front of him into this mess just for the sake of his own boredom. That didn’t make him feel too good about himself.
But there had been something else, too. He knew just too well the way noblemen had of assuming that everyone around them was a tool at their disposal. It seemed programmed into them; the way Kurogane saw it, there wasn’t even any malice behind it. Just a firm conviction that they were, to put it simply, more important than other human beings. They had a right to use the people around them to fulfill their own needs, because that was what common people were for.
So maybe that was why?
“You said you weren’t killers,” he said curtly, because he didn’t know what else to say. “Bastard should’ve listened. That’s all.”
The girl called Little Cat looked up from where she sat cross-legged on the floor. “That was very sweet of you,” she declared. “Thank you!” She smiled brightly at him, looking surprisingly girlish now that she wasn’t whirling around and dealing out oblivion of the possibly terminal kind. He was about to say something noncommittal about it being nothing - except openly helping outlaws really wasn’t nothing, and he didn’t want to sound like an idiot. So he frowned and said nothing at all, as the girl went back to polishing one of her daggers.
She’d removed what Kurogane had thought was a ridiculously short skirt, but which on a closer look revealed itself to be two toughened leather semi-circles molded in the shape of her hips and thighs, with several slots on for her multitude of knives. These were attached like a sort of very broad belt by a complicated array of leather straps, hoops and buckles, which presumably gave her the mobility she needed for those anatomy-defying stunts.
Except for the strange leather monstrosity, she wore simple black linen pants, a high-necked shirt in the same material, and a bodice made from leather that looked very soft and pliant. She’d also fashioned herself a pair of cat ears out of some mink fur, and under her black leather shoes and on the inside of her gloves, there were pink pads sewn, making them look like paws. Hells, the silly girl even had a tail sewn onto the back of her trousers.
And Syaoran didn’t seem to be able to take his eyes off her. Huh. He could swear he’d never been that young.
“But where are my manners?” the blond nutcase suddenly exclaimed and clapped his hands together, breaking the awkward silence. “Gentlemen, I am Fai, often referred to as Big Cat. The charming girl here is my daughter.”
“Your daughter? Really?” Kurogane scoffed and gave him a steely look. “Begging you pardon, sir, but unless you fathered her when you were ten…”
“How sweet,” the idiot thrilled. “He actually thinks I’m twenty-five! What a darling.” Before Kurogane could manage a suitable retort, the outlaw barreled right on. “Little Cat here is my adopted daughter. And before you ask, that is indeed her actual name.” He winked at the girl, who giggled softly. “And may we ask the names of our rescuers?”
“Stop it with the rescue crap,” Kurogane said bluntly. “We only helped you out. You did just as much as we.” After glaring at Fai, something that only made him smile even wider, he reluctantly added: “I’m Kurogane.” When Syaoran didn’t immediately venture his own name, he rolled his eyes and nudged the boy fairly brusquely with his foot. “Your name, kid, if you think you can spare the attention for it.”
Syaoran blinked, and then went a truly spectacular shade of red. “S-Syaoran,” he offered in an explosive burst, looking anywhere but at Little Cat. Kurogane saw her give the young man a look of shy curiosity, and almost snorted out loud. Kids.
Fai was watching them too, and he winked at Kurogane with a mischievous grin. He didn’t know what he thought of such a familiar gesture from a total stranger, so he just shrugged and grimaced dismissively in reply.
“Still, perhaps it would be a good idea to discuss the situation at hand,” Fai said, crossing his arms behind his head and stretching out his long, leather-clad legs. “After all, I’m afraid to say that things don’t look too good for you. You’re a rather distinctive-looking pair, and there were a lot of people there who saw you help us out, not to mention the soldiers.” He smiled cheerfully. “Honestly, returning home might be a bit of a problem for you.”
Syaoran and Kurogane glanced at each other. ‘Home’ was at the moment two small rooms squeezed into a draughty attic; it wasn’t exactly that big of a loss. But it was beginning to dawn on them that they’d have to leave the city too, their friends and acquaintances. Kurogane mostly kept to himself, and he didn’t know many people all that well, but he knew Syaoran had gotten pretty close to some of the people he usually worked with. The young man shrugged awkwardly in response to Kurogane’s questioning look, shaking his head as if to say there wasn’t much to do about it now.
It was really strange, now that he was actually thinking about it. He hadn’t even thought twice before charging in and helping the two outlaws. Of course, no one should be forced to become some stuck-up lord’s assassin, especially not a fifteen-year-old girl. But had he really thought about that at the time? Or had he simply rushed forward without a second thought because he’d somehow known that this was… right?
What a load of horseshit. He shook his head in disgust. It was probably nothing stranger than him and the boy itching for a fight.
“Well the way I see it,” Fai said, studying their silent interactions with invasive interest, “you helped us out in a fairly tricky situation. You didn’t need to. You did it out of the kindness of your noble hearts.” He really seemed to enjoy this, the bastard. “So I’d say we owe you.” He sent Little Cat a pointed sideways glance, and her whole face lit up.
“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed enthusiastically. “You could come with us! We’re used to travelling around, we could help you. And if that Lord Rondart tries to come after us, you could help us out again.” She smiled brilliantly at Syaoran, who once more went magenta, and the glance he sent Kurogane was downright pleading.
The gods damn the kid.
“Sure,” he said curtly. “Ain’t like we’ve got nowhere better to be.”
Little Cat gave a delighted squeak, jumped to her feet and positively assaulted him with a hug. Kurogane cleared his throat, embarrassed by this unabashed show of affection, and patted her a bit awkwardly on the back. Then she spun around and gave Syaoran a hug too, something that had the both of them blushing, and finally she pounced on her travel companion, who laughed hugely and ruffled her hair, dislodging her cat ears and making her squeak indignantly.
So, they were a team. A crippled soldier, a teenage boy who still stuttered when he talked to girls, a teenage girl who dressed like a cat, and a blond madman in leather. Wow. Lord Rondart had better watch out, whoever he was.
~ * ~
Later that night, Kurogane woke up to the sound of hushed voices.
“…still don’t see why you didn’t just tell me about it,” Little Cat was hissing, a definitely note of petulance in her voice. “I’m not a baby, and I think I have the right to know what kind of offers we receive.”
“I’m sorry, kitty,” Fai replied soothingly. “I didn’t think it mattered since we were going to turn it down in any case.”
“Don’t do that, Fai,” Little Cat replied pleadingly. “Don’t lie. If you hadn’t thought it mattered, you would’ve told me.” To this there was no answer. Little Cat sighed quietly. “I know you want to protect me. But we were attacked, damn it, and I didn’t even know what it was about. You had to tell me in battle that you’d been keeping things from me. I felt like such a child.”
Kurogane snorted and pulled his pillow over his head. This was going to be the death of him.
~ * ~
Yuuko smiled, lifting her empty crystal goblet. “More wine, boy. You don’t want me to die of thirst, do you?”
“What about my brother?” Watanuki demanded, hanging onto the pitcher of wine as his only means of negotiation and valiantly resisting the Head Magician’s pout. “You said there was news about my brother. Do you know where he is?”
“Of course I know where the boy is,” Yuuko replied, smiling slyly.
Watanuki glared flatly at her. “But you’re not going to tell me where, are you?”
“Can’t. You know that,” Yuuko said, with what Watanuki thought was downright inconsiderate cheerfulness. “You’d only rush off and try to find him, and this really isn’t the time.”
“But he’s alive?” Watanuki demanded desperately. “He’s well?”
“Yes on both your questions,” Yuuko said. “Now may I have some wine?”
Watanuki pressed his lips together, attempting to count to ten slowly while he filled her glass. He managed to get to four before he exploded. “You can’t seriously have called me here in the middle of the night if you weren’t going to tell me more than that!” This was accompanied by a potted plant behind him exploding. Watanuki often lost control of his magic when he lost his temper - that was to say, incidents like that were frequently occurring, and had a tendency to happen more often whenever the royal attaché was in the same room.
“Patience, Watanuki,” Yuuko chided, sipping her wine with an amused smirk, probably because she knew that if there was one thing her talented apprentice did not excel in, it was patience.
“Patience? My little brother-”
“Is in a spot of trouble right now,” Yuuko finished calmly, downing the rest of the wine in one gulp and holding the glass out for more. “One of his lackeys will be looking for him now.”
Watanuki went even paler than usual, slopping some wine over her hand, which she carelessly licked away. “No! Does he know…?”
Yuuko scoffed. “Of course he doesn’t know. You really need to have more faith in me. Honestly, what kind of apprentice are you?”
“One who’s being held hostage,” Watanuki said between gritted teeth. “In exchange for information about his little brother, if you remember?”
“A price had to be paid,” Yuuko replied, shrugging. Watanuki muttered a long string of very bad words, and Yuuko raised a thin black eyebrow. “Excuse me, what was that?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I just said… Well, you keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true,” Yuuko replied, smiling darkly. “At least I didn’t force you to pay the price, now did I?”
“Well, it wouldn’t work then,” Watanuki replied, bemused.
“Wrong,” Yuuko shot back. “Unfortunately, that’s wrong, Watanuki. Although, of course, there’s a price to pay for that kind of action as well. A heavy price. Regrettably, there’ll always be people who are prepared to pay it.” She stared straight ahead for a short moment, her eyes hard, and her fingers drummed an angry staccato rhythm against the armrest of her chair. Then she shrugged and once more sucked down a full glass of wine as if it was water. “Now, did you want to hear about your brother or not? I can’t sit here chatting all night.”
For a moment, it looked as if Watanuki was going to explode again, but then he - amazingly - managed to pull himself together. A fire that had started in the corner of the carpet he stood on went out. “Please tell me,” he requested as politely as he could, and he even filled up her glass without complaining.
“Good boy,” Yuuko all but purred, smiling smugly. The fire started up again as Watanuki glared, and she put it out with an offhand wave of her naked foot. “He’s met up with the rest of them now,” she then informed him in her usual casual way, as if this wasn’t the most important event in more than a thousand years, which could either save the whole world or plunge it into hundreds of years of holy war.
Watanuki blinked, anger momentarily forgotten. “What, all three of them?”
“Well actually,” Yuuko said cheerfully, “he’s been with one of them these past six years.”
“He… what? You knew about this? You knew he wasn’t alone?” A small porcelain bird on the mantelpiece came alive with an undignified squeak. Yuuko gestured at it, and it came obediently to her, landing on her finger.
“Nicely done,” she commented, admiring it. “A shame you can’t do that on purpose yet. And no, as a matter of fact I didn’t. My access has been closed up until now, you should know that. All I knew was that he had to be alive, because his meeting up with the others was inevitable.”
“But… now you can see him? Actually see him?” Watanuki said, his voice weak with relief. Yuuko leveled a stern look at him.
“Yes. But that also means that others will be free to meddle. He’s no longer safe.” Watanuki deflated, and the hand holding the wine pitcher shook. The bird once more turned to porcelain. Yuuko’s voice softened; she wasn’t completely heartless. “Then again, that means I can lend them some assistance too. Although, of course, not directly.”
“What do you mean?” he wondered, the hope in his eyes heartbreakingly obvious.
Yuuko smiled and held up one hand, which immediately started to glow with magic. The white light brightened until Watanuki had to close his eyes, but just before he did, he thought he saw it surging forward, swirling and dancing around a point in midair. It all happened in complete silence, but after a few seconds there was a small thud and Yuuko said, “You can open your eyes now.”
On the carpet, a small white creature was blinking its eyes sleepily. “Mmm? What is it? What’s the time? Mokona was having such a nice nap…
“That’s a-” Watanuki exclaimed, his eyes wide.
“Yes,” Yuuko agreed. “I never told you that his familiar was the same kind as mine, did I? Although their powers are different, of course. Still, they do share a very strong bond…”
“What is it doing here?” Watanuki exclaimed, horrified, as if Yuuko had just presented him with a human head. His own familiar, hiding under his clothes as was its habit, tightened around his neck in dismay at the very idea of separation.
“The Circle had it confiscated when he ran away,” she replied calmly. “On my orders, I might add. I was afraid that they would try to find him via mine if it was allowed to come with him. It was safer for him if it stayed here and slept. But now… now I’m afraid he just might need all the help he can get. Hmm, but how to go about it?” She held up her glass and stared at it thoughtfully. “I’ll send it out to their next destination, and it can wait for them there,” she decided, taking a rather small sip, for being her. It was only a quarter of the glass.
“And… and the price?” Watanuki managed, a bit numbly, trying to calm his upset familiar by stroking its ears.
“Has already been paid by the creature itself, of course. All these years asleep is enough to pay for its assistance now.” She gave him her patented ‘I’m so clever I sometimes shock myself’-smile.
The white familiar seemed to be fully awake now, and it was looking around with increasing panic. “Where’s Yuui?” it demanded anxiously, bouncing sideways so it could look behind Yuuko’s chair. “Why can’t Mokona feel him?” And then, as understanding started to dawn, it asked in a very small voice: “How long did Mokona sleep?”
“You’ll soon be back with your master,” Yuuko assured it. “Don’t worry, he’ll tell you everything you need to now. Now,” she added, her voice dropping to a low-pitched murmur, laden with magic, “here is what I want you to remember…”