nekokoban

This was for

au_bigbang, only then LIFE HAPPENED (there was life outside my apartment!) on the day I was supposed to post it. At the very least, I am posting it here, hooray. :B

WITH MUCH LOVE AND GRATITUDE TO

enough_space and

darknightrain who cheered me on, read it and told me it wasn't terrible, and were generally amazing folks. :(b

The Story of Evil
Tsubasa/Vocaloid fusion -- general spoilers for both all of TRC and the Evil series of Vocaloid songs by mothy (all the way up to Shiro no Musume).
23,678 words
VARIOUS PAIRINGS. The story of a spoiled prince and his lookalike servant.

Part I | Part II | Part III

+++++

War goes from Clow; war comes to Valeria.

Fay sees it in the mirror that hangs in his prince's room: the slow steady march of the army that winds its way through Valeria--it does not attack any of the small villages that lie in its path, and its only destination is the capital and the splendid castle that stands on a hill overlooking its attending city. He hears it in the echo of his footsteps in the empty halls. Everyone else has fled the city at this point: the palace has been practically empty for nearly a week. Fei Wang's body still lies in the hallway where it fell; Fay takes to walking the long way around when he can, to avoid seeing it.

There are more important things to focus on.

He knocks once, for courtesy, then opens the door and enters the royal chambers. "Your Highness," he says softly.

Prince Yuui is curled in his chair, staring at the mirror. The army is at the gates, winding their way through the empty city. There are familiar faces in the mob--servants of the palace, leading the way. The second prince of Clow rides with the woman in red armor at the head, but Yuui doesn't seem to notice him, more focused on the buildings and houses of the lower city.

"Look, Fay," he says softly. "They're here. I used to think I never wanted him to come back--now I'm glad." He turns his head a little and smiles. His eyes are red and bracketed by dark circles; if Sakura had looked tired when she'd come to Fay all those months before, his prince looked beyond exhausted. "That means this'll be over. I'm glad. But I'm a little scared, too." He hugs his knees to his chest. "I don't know what to do."

"You can get dressed, Your Highness," Fay says softly. He holds out the clothes bundled in his arms. "Here."

Yuui reaches out slowly to take them, then frowns as they unfurl out in his hands. "Fay?" he asks slowly. "What--"

"They're mine," Fay says softly. He steps fully into the light, and Yuui's eyes go wide at the sight of Fay's outfit: he is dressed in dark royal blue, embroidered with sweeping silver patterns, with the emblem of the Valeria family embroidered along each sleeve. A silver circlet crowns his pale hair, and in his ears are the pearl earrings from Yuui's birthday, so long ago. He smiles gently at his prince.

"Fay?!" Yuui sits up, his eyes wide and frightened. "Why--"

"I'm giving them to you," Fay says. "Please put them on and escape."

"What? No! No, I won't!" Yuui lurches to his feet and crosses to his servant, grabbing the other boy's sleeves. "I'm not--I won't! I won't run away! What do you think you're trying to do? They'll see you, and they'll think--they'll think--"

"That's the idea," Fay says. He reaches out and first cups Yuui's face in both hands, then sweeps them back, gathering the prince's hair into a small servant's tail. He ties it with the same black twine he has used every day of his working life in the palace. "It's all right, Your Highness. You've always said yourself, we're mirrors, right? No one will notice."

Yuui stares at him mutely. There are fresh tears in his eyes now, and only when Fay picks up the discarded shirt and tries to pull it onto the prince's thin arms does he react, shoving Fay back.

"I won't," he says. "No, not without you! If they find you, they'll kill you--I'm not going to leave you--"

"They're almost here," Fay says, low and urgent. "You have to do this. My duty is to keep you safe, no matter what. Do you think I'd let them have you?"

"Then you have to come too," Yuui says. "Fay! This is an order from your prince!"

"I know," Fay says softly. "And for once, I won't listen." He takes Yuui's face in his hands again and kisses the prince's forehead.

"Fay--"

"I love you, my prince," he whispers. "And I would have followed you anywhere--to Clow, to the ocean, wherever you wanted to go. I'm glad I met you. If I'm ever reborn--" He takes a deep breath and he pulls away, looking at the mirror; the army has entered the palace. They do not rush: they don't need to. "If I'm ever reborn, I'd gladly be your servant again. I hope you'll forgive me, someday."

This time, Fay is the one who shoves Yuui: he does it with all his strength, knocking the other boy back and down, then turns, his back straight, shoulders squared, head high, and he leaves the bedroom at a confident stride. His reflection in the mirror is as noble as a true prince from a fairytale. Yuui stares mutely as the doors of his bedroom swing shut, then looks up at the mirror. He watches Fay walk, as he descends the stairs and is spotted by the party that has entered the palace--distracting them from the inspection of Fei Wang's corpse. Xiao Lang has his blade out in a heartbeat, but the woman in red armor puts a hand on his arm to stay him, and strides up; her eyes are hard as she says something to Fay--obviously a question.

And Fay, Fay, he looks at the whole crowd of them with the arrogance that had taken Yuui a lifetime to cultivate, and sneers. Yuui watches his lips move, and can guess at what he says.

"You insolent fools!"

Yuui buries his face in his hands and weeps.

+++

"They will be satisfied with nothing less than your head," Xiao Lang says. "Do you understand?"

The deposed prince says nothing, his expression stony. Even stripped of his robes and his circlet, even in the plain white robes of a prisoner, the arrogance of him is enough to set Xiao Lang's teeth on edge. He slams his hands down onto the table, hard enough to make it rattle. "Just tell me why! Why did you--what did Sakura ever do--"

"Xiao Ling," Tomoyo says quietly. She has removed her red armor and replaced them with a scarlet cloak and gloves, though the shirt and trousers beneath are the black of mourning. Her sweet face is equally hard, and he bites his tongue before he lets himself snap at her. "Let me talk to him."

"--What?"

"That poor man in the hallway deserves a proper burial," she says. "And given your history, it may be better if you let me handle this."

He wants to protest--it's clearly obvious from his expression--but finally he gets up and leaves the makeshift interrogation room, casting a single hard glance over his shoulder as he goes. Tomoyo waits until she hears his footsteps receding, then goes to sit in front of Valeria's toppled prince.

"Do you know who I am?" she asks softly.

He doesn't answer.

"My name is Tomoyo," she says. "I serve the second prince of Clow, Xiao Lang. You know what that means. We've seen the mirror in the royal chambers--you must have seen us in battle together."

There is no reaction in those icy blue eyes. Tomoyo folds her hands in her lap. "When I was a child, I had a friend--a very beautiful girl, more lovely than anyone I've ever known. She was always kind, always gentle, and always willing to help people in need." She leans forward then, staring at the prince's face. "Her name was Sakura. I was her mother's student for many years. I'm very good."

Slowly, slowly, the prince turns his head and meets her eyes. Tomoyo smiles grimly.

"While Prince Xiao Lang was in Valeria, Sakura-chan wrote me a letter," she says. "She said that there was a boy in the castle, a very nice one, that she'd made friends with. And wasn't it strange, he looked just like the prince. He was very shy, but very sweet--he tried very hard all the time to make people happy."

Finally, there is a flicker of life--just a flash, and nothing more. His thin lips whiten from pressure. Tomoyo gets to her feet and crosses around the table, coming to stand next to the prisoner. She leans down until her lips are a hairsbreadth from his ear.

"I don't know why you're protecting him," she whispers. "They will kill you, you know."

The boy who called himself a prince blinks once--twice--and says nothing. Tomoyo waits long, long moments, then pulls back.

"I won't tell," she says, "if this is really what you choose."

And then, unexpectedly, the boy smiles: sweet and tremulous enough to make her catch her breath. She blinks, and the expression is wiped from his face. She shakes her head, and goes to the door to call Xiao Lang back.

+++

The next day dawns bright and clear and cold--colder than normal for a Valerian summer--and already there is a crowd in the central square of the lower city. The crowd is restless and anxious, and when the time finally comes, and the prisoner in the dirty white robes is led out onto the platform, they raise up a loud excited roar. Tomoyo walks before the prisoner; Xiao Lang walks behind. The boy--the young man--who walks between them only has eyes for the arching sky overhead.

The black-robed executioner guides him the last few steps to the guillotine itself. He kneels without prompting, settling his head into the lunette. He never looks away from the cloudless sky, unflinching as Xiao Lang reads the list of his crimes.

For abuse of your power, for abuse of your people, for the murder of a mage of Clow, for the murder of your own household staff, for crimes against all the five kingdoms of the world--

"Ah," he says, vague, "it's tea-time."

--you shall be sentenced to death.

+++

After the body is carted away, people begin to trickle out of the square--all in groups, in pairs or more, some boisterous, some subdued, but there is a general sense of relief in the air, as if some terrible weight has been lifted from its shoulders. The lady Tomoyo descends from the platform to walk among the people, and they flock to her and her calm serenity, though they simply crowd around her, rather than speak directly to her. Prince Xiao Lang lingers beside the guillotine for a while longer, staring at the bloodstain left behind, then slowly makes his way down the wooden steps and heads away from the square, back up to the castle. No one follows him.

Tomoyo sees the figure through a gap in the crowd that surrounds her: wrapped in a hooded gray robe, curled in a crouch near the ground, shoulders hunched as if in grief. She sees a flash of pale hair tumble free of the hood, and she sees the profile of a face drawn and tight with horror and grief both. It would be an easy thing to point to him, she knows; there is the man who truly killed her beloved and brought disaster to his kingdom and hers.

She draws in a breath.

The boy on the other side of the square bows his head. She watches him wrap his skinny arms around himself and thinks that he hardly looks well-fed or elegant enough to be a prince: he looks as worn as she feels, and from the way he stares at the guillotine, she is certain that she is not the only one who has lost someone best-beloved. He looks nothing like Xiao Lang described him, or powerful, or anything but a sad lost little boy.

Tomoyo turns her face away and pretends not to notice as the boy staggers to his feet and stumbles off, out of the square and away.

+++

For days Yuui walks.

He would call it exaggeration, but the sun rises and sets many times, so he knows it must be days. He rests when he can, fitfully and unhappily, haunted by images of an empty bloodstained guillotine and the distant smile of the condemned man. He chews on handfuls of snow for water and ignores the weakness in his limbs and the hollow feeling in his belly. He thinks it's been a very long time since he has eaten, but he can no longer remember.

One night, he curls up in the roots of an old dead tree, listening to the howling of an oncoming summer snowstorm as he wraps his cloak tightly around himself. The land has been growing sparse and rocky as he has walked; there is less snow, but it is more bitterly cold, as if the land itself is attempting to reject his passage. He closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, it takes him a moment to realize that he is in a proper bed--a good and soft one as well, with pillows beneath his cheek and a heavy blanket pulled up to his chin. He blinks at the wall across from him: a screen painted with a long twining dragon escorted by a flock of black-and-gold butterflies. Yuui blinks again, and realizes there is the silhouette of a person on the other side.

The screen is pushed aside, and a young man is there, standing across from him. He looks young and somehow familiar, with mismatched eyes of blue and brown shielded by steel-rimmed glasses. In his arms, he has a tray with a bowl and a cup, both gently steaming.

"Ah, good, you're awake," he says. He crosses over the room as Yuui sits up, then puts the tray in his lap. "I've brought you soup and tea. Drink them both, but do it slowly."

Yuui looks down, then winces as his stomach gives a rattling growl. He wets his lips as best he can with a nearly-dry tongue, and whispers, "Where?"

"You're in my shop," the young man says. "And right now, you're my guest. Please, drink."

Yuui reaches for the tea, holding the cup in both hands. There is an odd reluctance in him; he doesn't quite want to drink. His host continues to stare at him, though, and finally Yuui sets his cracked lip to the rim, tilting it enough for the hot liquid to brush it. His gaze wanders: the table has a statue of Valeria's snow-birds beside a rock-carving from Nihon; there are tapestries from Clow on the walls, bracketing a plain oval mirror. He looks back at the young man by his bed and squints through the haze of memory.

"... you," he says finally. "You used to be ... Watanuki?"

The young man bows low from the waist, one hand over his heart. "I'm honored you still remember me, Your Highness," he says. "It's been a long time."

Yuui flinches. "No," he says softly. "I'm not--I don't--why did you help me?"

Watanuki smiles gently. "Because you needed it," he says. "I don't blame you for what happened, Your Highness. The banishment was no punishment to me."

Again Yuui flinches; he has to set the cup down before he ends up spilling it. "But I said all those things," he whispers. "I said if you ever came back--that you'd--"

"It couldn't be helped," Watanuki says. "You did your best; I've always known that."

Yuui lets his head fall forward, hunching his shoulders. He wants to cry again, absurdly, but the tears won't come.

"You have a wish, don't you?" Watanuki asks. There is a snick, and when Yuui glances up from the corner of one eye, he sees that Watanuki has lit a long slim-stemmed pipe, and the resulting smoke drapes around him like a veil. "I wouldn't have been able to help you if you didn't."

He swallows hard. "Fay--"

"No," Watanuki cuts him off--gently, but with an air of absolute finality. "Some lines cannot be crossed, even by the Witch of the Wasteland."

Yuui bunches his hands into fists, clutching at the coverlet. "Fay ... wanted me to be happy," he whispers.

"He did."

"He wanted me--to live somewhere peacefully. To live. But everyone knows my--I don't know where to--I don't have anywhere to go!" The last comes out of him in a burst; his chest is heaving and he feels lightheaded from the effort. "Fay wanted that for me, and I don't have any way of doing that for him--I can't--"

Watanuki exhales a long, thin plume of smoke. "There's a price," he says.

"I don't have anything to give," Yuui replies.

"You do, actually." Watanuki leans forward, and with the long white fingers of his free hand, he takes the signet ring from Yuui's finger--something he'd had for so long he'd long forgotten about its presence--and holds it up. "This ring is a symbol of the power you wield, and your identity as Yuui of Valeria. Even now, the prince of Clow and his servant are searching for this; without it, Valeria will have no other king. The spells of the land are tied to this one symbol alone."

Yuui gapes at him, and Watanuki goes on, "With this, you are the First Prince of Valeria, to become King when you reach your majority next year. Without it, you have no ties to this world, and no family that would make you stay. Do you understand? You will not be Prince Yuui Valeria--you will just be Yuui."

"Fay," Yuui says softly.

Watanuki raises an eyebrow.

"I'll be Fay," he says. "Yuui--the prince died. Fay should have lived. I want to do that much."

It isn't quite a smile that softens Watanuki's mouth, but almost. "Fay, then," he says gently. "If you trade this, I will send you to a place where you can live peacefully, away from the turmoil that still plagues this world. In return, you renounce all your ties; this is no longer your world. It will be a stranger to you, and you to it. Understand?"

Yuui nods, turning over the sound of his new name in his head: Fay. Fay. Fay. It will take getting used to. "I do."

"Then finish your soup, and your tea," Watanuki says, and now he does smile, his expression suddenly affectionate. "You'll need your strength, and a meal will do you good. I made it myself."

Fay blinks, then nods again and bows over the soup, picking the bowl up and sipping slowly. It warms him from the belly out, soft on his tongue and down his throat. "It's good," he says, and is surprised to find it true.

Watanuki smiles and turns his pipe, tapping out a few ashes onto the ground; they vanish before they actually land on the dark floor. "Finish that, then," he says. "I have preparations for your journey to make."

He sweeps out of the room, pulling the screen shut behind him. Fay remains curled half-forward, over the tray in his lap. His hand feels light, but some of the emptiness in his chest eases. He lifts his head and looks at his reflection in the mirror: pale and afraid, and tries to sit up a little straighter, to find the confidence that had bloomed in Fay during the last weeks of his life. He tilts his head just so and tries a smile that isn't quite right and thinks: I will have to practice; I'll practice and practice and someday, I'll look, and I'll find you right there, with me.

+++

"Follow the path," Watanuki tells him. The morning is gray and grim around them, and the trees surrounding the shop toss their green heads and bend to the raging storm. Watanuki himself is the one still point of the entire scene: the long sleeves and train of his robe don't move, even as Fay has to lift an arm to shield his face from the wind. "Don't stray, and don't look back."

Fay nods slowly. He squints into the wind, looking down at the spell-circle at his feet, then up at the still dark figure before him. "Thank you," he says. "Even after everything I did, for everything you've done--"

"Live well," Watanuki says, and smiles. Fay takes a deep breath and nods, then steps into the circle.

Light explodes all around him, so bright that he has to shield his face again, and the shrieking of the wind is drowned out by a great atonal hum. With effort, he cracks an eye open and sees a path, slightly darker than his surroundings, stretching out before him. He wants to turn and see if Watanuki is still there, somewhere behind him, but forces himself to remain facing forward.

One step after the other, he advances. If he keeps his eyes focused downward, at his feet, the light is not quite so painful. Unlike before, there is no sun to measure his progress, so he counts his footsteps instead. One thousand. Two thousand. Three ...

Step five thousand comes down on empty air. Fay is too surprised to cry out at first, pitching headfirst into freefall, and before he can gather himself to react, he hits the ground. It is gritty and hard under his cheek and flattened palms. The strange bell-tone humming in his ears is gone, replaced by a rhythmic crash and hush, like waves against the shore; gradually, other sounds filter in: the clop-clop-clop of horse-hooves on pavement, the creak of wood and carts, and when he breathes in, he smells salt.

"--Oi! Oi, you, are you all right?"

His entire body feels too bruised and delicate to properly move, but he forces his eyes open. He sees the dark outline of someone's knees before him, and when he glances up, there is a stern frowning face hovering above him. He wants to say that he is fine, that he'll be able to move in a moment, but the most he manages is a pathetic sort of croak before he has to close his eyes again.

He hears muttering, and then his body is hefted up. It hurts, but he just whimpers as he's slung over a broad shoulder, and then mercifully blacks out.

This time, when he wakes, he is in a bed again, though nowhere near as luxurious as the one in the witch's shop: it's barely more than a straw pallet with a hard pillow and a thin blanket. The ceiling above him is plain and white. He moves a little and hisses at a flare of pain; his body feels like one enormous bruise.

"Finally," says a man's voice to his right. Fay starts, hissing again, then turns his head to look.

It's the same man who found him, he thinks. He has short-cropped spiky black hair and a long lean face and blood-red eyes. He is dressed simply in black and is in the process of peeling an apple in a single long strip of skin. The fruit and small paring knife look awkward in his large long fingers. He scowls a little, though whether at his immediate task or the look on Fay's face, it's difficult to say. "Well? You going to tell me your name?"

Fay blinks again. "Ah," he says softly. "I'm ... Fay. My name's Fay."

"Kurogane," the man says. He makes a quick little twist of his wrist and slices off the last of the apple-skin, which he begins to wind around the base of the paring knife's blade. "I found you on the road. The hell sorta traveler are you, not bringing anything to eat or drink with you? Were you robbed?" There is a certain eager light that sparks in his eyes at the last, and his fingers quirk on the knife, as if imagining it as a much-larger weapon before he catches himself.

"... No," Fay says softly. "Where ... ?"

"The ocean temple of the Goddess of Mercy," Kurogane says. His body relaxes again. "We take care of idiots like you, if you ask for it. So before you do any damnfool thing like setting off without any supplies, the head priest'll make sure you're cared for."

"Mercy?" Fay echoes softly. He closes his eyes. "... it sounds nice."

"It's not bad." Kurogane sighs, and then there is a wet slicing nose: Fay peeks and sees that he is cutting the apple into quarters. "For people who've got nowhere else to go, this is a good final place."

Something in his tone makes Fay open his eyes completely again. Kurogane doesn't look upset or regretful, but he is thoughtful as he cuts away the seeds and core of his apple slices. "Does the temple take anyone who needs a place?" Fay asks softly, timidly.

Kurogane's red eyes cut towards him sharply. "You'd have to ask Ashura," he says finally, evenly. "We've had a lot of refugees lately. Seems like there was quite the war, on the other side of the five kingdoms. Lots of people have been trying to get away from it."

Fay draws in a sharp breath, but before he can say anything, Kurogane puts the plate of cut and cleaned apple pieces on his chest and gets up. "I'll go tell Ashura you're awake," he says, then points the knife at Fay like a warning. "You eat."

"Ah--thank y--" he begins, then cuts himself off as Kurogane stalks from the room. The man walks with an obvious aggressive grace, and Fay thinks of the soldiers on the battlefield: deliberate and precise and still flowing like water (like blood) through the tides and turns of battle. He sits up slowly, carefully, and picks up one of the apple quarters, nibbling at the edge. It is tart enough to make his throat close a little, but he continues, and by the time Kurogane returns with another man behind him, he has nearly finished the one slice.

Fay looks up mutely as the newcomer--Ashura, he thinks, it must be--comes to his bedside and lifts a hand to press against his forehead. Like Kurogane, his clothes are simple and black, though he wears a heavy symbol in bronze around his neck, and his bearing is noble and kind. His long black hair is secured loosely back from his face, and his palms are smooth and cool. There is a sense of such such serenity radiating from him that Fay can't help but lean into his touch, and in spite of himself, he finds his eyes prickling and stinging.

"Kurogane tells me you wish to stay," Ashura says. His voice is low and deep and, like his face, so very kind. "Do you truly have nowhere else to go?"

Mute, sniffling a little, Fay shakes his head.

"If you stay," Ashura says, "you will have to work. We all do our part, here at the temple. Do you understand?" His hand strokes back, smoothing Fay's hair from his face. "You've suffered a great deal, haven't you? Even though you're so young."

Fay doesn't trust himself to answer. Behind Ashura, Kurogane is staring at him, and something about that gaze makes him more nervous than before. He nods again, eyes downcast, and is rewarded by Ashura's gentle hand petting his hair. It feels good, and he leans into it tentatively.

"Then, Fay the traveler," Ashura says gravely, "on behalf of our mistress, the Goddess of Mercy, we welcome you into her temple."

+++

"Are you entirely useless?" Kurogane snaps. "Where did you work, before this?"

Fay scowls a little at the ruined loaves of bread. They are sad and misshapen little lumps, barely darker than their original flour state except for where they're peppered with black burned bits. "I did everything you told me to!" he protests. "I don't know what happened--"

"Obviously you didn't," Kurogane growls. "Or else they wouldn't look like this!" He picks up one loaf and brandishes it like a sword. "Listen next time, you fluffheaded moron!"

"You're so mean," Fay shoots back. "I'm trying! That should count!"

"Trying means you get somewhere!" Kurogane drops the loaf back onto the baking tray and takes it to the bin for the kitchen-scraps, sliding the whole lot in. "How many times have you tried this? Listen, I'm only going to tell you how to do it once more, and after that--"

"That's what you said last time," Fay mutters under his breath. He huffs out, puffing pale hair from his eyes. He'll have to get it cut soon, he thinks, or start pulling it back again. "And the time before that, and the time before that. Kurogane the slave-driver."

"What was that?"

"No, nothing."

This is what his life has become: working in the kitchens with Kurogane to make bread, which the temple gives to the poor and to travelers--but also sells for its livelihood. He wakes with the sunrise and sleeps hours after it sets, and his while dreams are still restless with blood and cracked mirrors, he thinks that the sound of the ocean outside his window every night is what allows him to catch even what he can.

Every week, there is a large gathering before the altar of the Goddess--people who come with hunched shoulders and haunted gazes to kneel before the lovely-faced statue and pray for forgiveness for any number of sins. Fay recognizes the dress of people from Clow and even Valeria; he hides in his own tiny room or the kitchen during these masses, too afraid of being seen and identified.

"Can anyone ask for mercy?" he asks Ashura once, as he follows the head priest around the altar-room, lighting the sticks of incense spaced along the entire area. "No matter what they've done?"

Ashura glances at him and smiles. "Anyone and everyone," he says. "She does not judge people by their past actions, but by their hearts. If someone comes to her and truly regrets their sins, she will not turn them away from her grace."

It is almost enough to make him hope, but he still hides himself when travelers come to the temple. Once, he sees a young woman with long dark hair come to the temple, dressed in the long white robes of the Clow High Priestess over a red frock-shift, and though he recognizes her face, he lurks in the darkest shadows of the altar room as she comes to pray. He cannot hear what she says to the Goddess, but he watches as she remains kneeling for the better part of two hours, and the words she exchanges with Kurogane before she goes. They stand almost as close as lovers, but there is a divide between them that is nearly physical. She reaches for his face and he steps back, turning his head away; she leaves and Kurogane is surly for weeks, snapping and growling until Fay forgets his fear and loses his temper and yells back.

After that, Kurogane is still critical, still the most demanding taskmaster that Fay has ever known, even compared to his past life of stern tutors and drill instructors, but he almost smiles, now and then, and when Ashura smiles benignly at them both and calls them friends, Kurogane doesn't even protest.

Almost without his realizing, a year slips away.

Then, one morning in early summer, Fay starts awake with a scream strangled in his throat, his heart pounding so hard that he wonders, vaguely, how it hasn't torn itself from his chest. He lifts his hands and stares at them in the moonlight--so bright it nearly matches the sun--and is surprised to see that they are clean. Even as he struggles to focus, the memories of his dream are fading into a bloody mist: Fay's head in the basket, that sweet vague smile on his face, and the blood that had pooled on the scaffold, enough to drip through the boards and to the ground beneath--"Oh, it's tea-time"--

Fay throws aside his thin blanket and gets out of bed. The first thing he does is steal a scrap of paper from the record-book and a small glass vial from the kitchen; then he finds himself a pen and he goes to the altar-room.

Most of the lights have gone out: the room for the goddess is open at all hours of day and night, even when no priest is there to officiate. The room is hazy with incense smoke, but the goddess's face rises above that fog, serene and smiling, her long graceful arms held open, as if to embrace the world. Fay walks with slow determination to her altar and kneels, looking up.

"I'm sorry," he says. Though his voice is a whisper, it is loud in the otherwise-silent room. "I almost let myself forget, and if I did, that wouldn't mean anything, would it? I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He pauses long enough to scrub a hand over his eyes, wiping away tears. "I know Father Ashura says that you'll forgive anyone who really really repents, but I don't know if I deserve that. Not now, not yet.

"But I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I'm--" He swallows against a lump in his throat. "I know you asked me to forgive you, Fay, but I don't think that's right. I was no good as a prince, you know. I was selfish. Everything I thought I was doing for the good of my people, I was doing because I wanted it for myself. I don't know why you thought I was worth saving.

"I wish you were here. You should be here. You'd like this place--it's quiet and it's peaceful and everyone's kind. You'd fit right in." Fay takes another deep breath and lets it out slowly.

"I want you to know that I won't forget you. Not ever. I wish I'd called you brother before you left. I wish I had been strong enough to come for you, like you did for me. I hope you're happy, wherever you are."

Fay bows his head and forces himself to breathe long and slow, until tears and the prickling in his eyes fades to just a dull pressure when he blinks. When he can focus, he smooths the scrap of paper and puts the pen to it, shaping each word slowly and carefully; when he is finished, he looks up at the statue of the goddess again.

"I love you," he says, and he gets to his feet.

Still clutching his supplies, Fay walks from the altar-room and out of the church entirely, down the long winding path to the sea itself. In the moonlight, it is dark and glimmering, and the waves are low and gentle. He wades out until he is ankle-deep in the water, then rolls the scrap of paper up and slips it into the glass vial before stoppering it. He stares towards the distant horizon and the long, long stretch of moving water in between. He shifts his posture and braces himself, then flings the vial as hard as he can into the darkness, towards the horizon. He hears a distant splash, and though he cannot see where it landed, he waits for long, long minutes, straining to find some sign of it in the waves.

"My mother always said if you told the ocean your wishes, they'd come true." He hears the words as if they are being whispered directly into his ear; the breeze shifts, tugging at his hair gently. A superstitious man would have said it was playful; Fay knows better.

He turns and freezes at the sight of Kurogane on the beach, watching him.

Unlike Fay, he is fully dressed in the black robes of the temple's servants, and there is something unreadable in his red eyes, the color leeched nearly to black in the moonlight. Fay is surprised to find he is not afraid, though, and he walks forward, through the shallow waters without faltering. He wonders if this is where the other Fay had found the courage to meet the mob, a year ago, unfaltering for once in the face of certain death.

"It's really late, Kuro-rin," he says. "Why aren't you asleep?"

Kurogane eyes him again, then just shrugs. "I could ask you the same," he says. His tone, for once, is absolutely neutral. "You really are an idiot, aren't you? Running around like that without anything more than your shirt on."

"There was something I had to do," Fay says softly. He raises his chin. "I absolutely had to, no matter what."

I saw you with the woman in red armor, he doesn't say; she knew you and you knew her, so there's no way you don't know me.

"Next time," Kurogane says, "put on a coat before you go off on these 'absolutely necessary' things." He shrugs off his overshirt and drops it around Fay's shoulders, fussing over the drape for a moment like a mother might, bundling up her child. "Got that?"

Fay blinks and moves slowly, slipping his arms into the sleeves of the overshirt. It is still very warm from Kurogane's body and close enough that he can smell something dry and musky in the folds, and it is certainly not unpleasant. He realizes, with a distant surprise, that he is nearly the same height as Kurogane, even if much skinnier. He rubs the hem of one sleeve between his fingers and looks at Kurogane. He can see himself in the other man's eyes, and the long, eternal expanse of the ocean behind him.

"Kuro-pon," he says.

"C'mon," Kurogane says, and jerks a thumb over his shoulder, towards the temple. "Let's go home."

+++

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom in which it was always winter. Even during the height of midsummer there was snow on the ground and icicles hung from the eaves of houses and the spread branches of trees. It was called Valeria, and it was the first kingdom of the world, created by the twins Day and Night, who had once been properly named and had that privilege stripped from them by the other gods.

Then, one day, the Goddess of Mercy was traveling with her companion and came to icy Valeria. The twins received their guests with the best honors and graces they could manage, for they had been reduced to living in a quiet little hut, away from the castle and villages of the humans who had inherited their kingdom after their folly. In their place others were rebuilding, but they had their small home and their fire, and they sang together for the amusement of their guests. Day took up the empty branches of ice-trees instead of fans and danced, and Night clapped his hands to set a beat. And when the fire was finally banked, the companion of the Goddess said to their hosts, You sing so merrily, and yet you bear no names. Tell us, how did this come to be?

And so Day and Night spoke, and so the Goddess of Mercy listened to their story, which was told humbly and quietly, and she smoked until all the tobacco in her long pipe was turned into fine powdery ash. This she took and pressed her thumb into, then pressed it to the foreheads of Day and Night in turn. And then she said, You truly regret your actions, but you have found a strength that does not require the trappings of power that you had grown so comfortable with, before.

In this I hear you, and I forgive you. And I name you: Soel the Day, and Larg the Night. You may never return to the greatest heights of the kingdom of the gods, but no longer will you languish nameless, for you have accomplished what few ever do: you have learned happiness in that which is yours alone, and do not covet anything more.

With this, the twins were so pleased that they began to sing again, and it is said that even after the Goddess of Mercy and her companion left their little home, they continued to celebrate; if you know where to find them, you will see that they are at peace and joy still.

Part I | Part II | Part III

--end--

[FIC][Tsubasa/Vocaloid] The Story Of Evil (Part III)

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