[RK] Faerie Chronicles, prequel chapters 3 and 4

The Faerie Chronicles of Kenshin & Kaoru: The Princess and the Assassin, a Rurouni Kenshin fanfic by Raberba girl

Chapter 3 - "Please don't leave me."

Battousai and Tomoe were sitting on a hilltop, watching the sun go down.  They sat apart, and neither of them spoke, yet each felt an unfamiliar but welcome sense of peace and contentment spread over them.  They did not seem to notice the werecat creeping up on them from behind.

"Raagghh!"

Battousai grunted as the Unseelie creature leaped onto his back and hooked an arm around his neck in a chokehold.  "Yield, Battousai!"

He calmly flipped the werecat to the ground and planted a knee in the creature's chest to pin it there.  "Be quiet.  We are trying to watch the sunset."

"Let me up!" the boy howled, struggling in vain to get loose.  "You promised!"

Battousai sighed.  "Promised what?"

"You said you'd teach me Hiten Mitsurugi-ryuu!"

"I promised no such thing."

The boy's eyes narrowed and he managed to roll free at last.  "You think I'm going to let you go, after you beat Raijuuta-sensei like that?  You're a master swordsman!  You have to teach me all you know!"

"I will not teach a child to kill," Battousai answered, settling back again comfortably.

The Unseelie boy dragged his heavy sword free and brandished it menacingly at Battousai.  The effect was rather ruined by the way it wobbled in his hand.  "Teach me Hiten Mitsurugi-ryuu, or I'll cut you!"

"Noisy little creature, isn't he," Battousai remarked to Tomoe.

She smiled a little.  "Yutarô," she pointed out, "is that any way to speak to someone of whom you're trying to ask a favor?"

Yutarô paused.  Then he announced firmly, "I am Unseelie.  Good manners don't become me."

"Good manners become anyone, whether fae or human," Battousai stated.  "But even if you begged me on your knees, I would not teach you how to kill."

"Then teach me something else!" Yutarô cried in exasperation.  "Teach me anything!  I want to learn!  I want to be the best, better than you!"  Then he clapped his hand over his mouth, as if he had just ruined his chances, but Battousai only smiled.

"I do wish you to be strong, young one.  But it will not be through Hiten Mitsurugi-ryuu."

Yutarô looked as if he would have liked to argue this point further, but Battousai winced as he felt a sharp sting on his neck.  He started to clap his hand to the wound, but stopped just in time to keep from crushing the little pixie that was perched on his shoulder.

"Fuka," he said reproachfully, "that hurt."

"Oh, I can make you hurt," the little pixie laughed.  "That was just a little love-bite to say hello."

"You could have just said 'Hello,'" he pointed out.  Then the rest were upon him - little goblins and troll-children and various sprites, laughing as they pounced on his shoulders and nuzzled their faces against his, and argued over who got to sit in his lap.

A young lutin was now crouched on his head; Battousai pushed its tail out of his face and said apologetically to Tomoe, "At this rate, we won't even notice when the sun goes down."

"I don't mind," she answered, watching him with the children.

"Play with us, Niisan!" they begged.  "Please play with us!"

His face darkened.  "No.  You know I don't like your play."

"Aw, pleeeeaaase!" they begged.  "We won't hurt anyone this time!"

"Yeah, no tormenting humans, we swear!"

Battousai pulled the lutin off and got to his feet, sending a couple of kitsune cubs tumbling head over heels.  "I will teach you a human game, then.  It is called Fruits Basket."

"Fruits Basket?" they chorused back at him suspiciously.  "No way, that sounds like a Seelie game!"

"Bug Basket, then," he amended.  "The rules will not change.  Each of you may pick the name of an insect instead of a fruit."

"Spider!  I'm spider!"

"Roach!"

"Lizard!"

"A lizard isn't a bug, you idiot!"

"It is so!"

"Is not!"

"IS SO!!"

Battousai fought the urge to laugh as he watched them argue.  "You can be a lizard if you want."

"Hah!"

"But I wanna be a lizard," the other one whined.

Battousai rolled his eyes.  "You," he pointed at one, "are gecko.  And you will be chameleon."

The boys stuck their tongues out at each other, then turned adoringly to Battousai to hear the rest of the rules.

When he had finished explaining, he turned to Tomoe and raised his eyebrows invitingly.  "You as well, Tomoe?"

The children went hushed and eager, looking to see what she would say.  Sure enough, she rose to her feet.  "I would like to play with you."

"No, you wouldn't!" they shrieked teasingly.  "Look at your face!  Angry girl, angry girl!"

She turned and glared playfully, so that they burst into laughter.  "I am furious.  I am coming to eat you up," she told them.

"Not in those shoes, you won't," Battousai said thoughtfully, looking at the thick geta she wore.

Tomoe hesitated, then carefully stepped out of her shoes.  The children shouted eagerly, tugging at her skirts.  "She really is going to play with us!"

"Come on, Neesan!"

"You can be a beetle!"

"And Niisan is a butterfly, 'cause he's Seelie-pretty!"  Which caused them to dissolve into giggles.

One of them began to chant slyly, "Butterfly, flitting free, said to Beetle, 'Look at me!'"

The rest took up the nursery rhyme at once.  "Beetle said to Butterfly, 'Won't you marry me!'"

"Enough," Battousai said sternly, and they shrieked with laughter again, for they saw that his face, and Tomoe's face, were both more pink than usual.

"It's been months."  Surprised, everyone turned to Yutarô, who sat sulkily on the grass with his arms crossed.  "Why don't you two just admit it?  Everyone already knows."

Battousai frowned in confusion.  "Knows what?"

"Lovers!" the children cried gleefully.  "Battousai and the princess are sleeping together!"

Battousai stared at them in shock.

"I take it Seelie children don't learn of such things so young," Tomoe murmured, then looked at Yutarô.  "You should not help the rumors spread, Yutarô.  They are not true."

"Don't tell me you two aren't sleeping together," Yutarô said matter-of-factly.  "It's obvious."

"We are NOT," Battousai said firmly.

"Why else would a guy like you be coming here so often, then?  No one really cares, you know; it's not like liaisons with the Seelie are unheard of."

"I would not act with such dishonor," Battousai said stiffly.  "If that is the impression I have given, then I will stop coming."

The children cried out at this, and rushed to cling to him so tightly that he nearly fell over.  "Don't go, Niisan!  Don't go!"

"Battousai," Tomoe said, very quietly.  "Such rumors stem merely from your presence in the court for my sake.  There is nothing else you can do."  What she did not say, but what he understood anyway, was, "Please don't leave me."

Battousai stood very still for a long time, as everyone watched him anxiously.  He did not even notice them.  He was realizing that the reason he came as often as he could was to keep Tomoe company, to try to push away the sadness that cloaked her.  He realized that in coming again and again, their friendship had grown until it was too strong to break easily...and he realized that, if he kept coming, he would care for her more and more until he really did fall in love with her.

And just as he thought that, he realized that he already had fallen in love with her.

He raised anguished eyes to hers, and she saw his face and read his thoughts, and drew in a painful breath.

"I cannot stay," he whispered.

The children were staring at him, their faces frightened.

"I didn't realize...Tomoe, I am...."  He couldn't say he was sorry.  It wasn't nearly enough.  "Shishio," he started, and trailed off again.  There were no excuses good enough.  It was true that trying to involve a woman in his life was pure folly - slave as he was, forced to kill over and over again for a cruel master.  The truth was, he should never have let himself care for Tomoe at all.  By the very nature of his position, his love was doomed to end in tragedy, and he had been a fool to toy with Tomoe's feelings like this.

Battousai's eyes hardened.  "I must go.  Forgive me, Tomoe-san," he said coldly, and gave her a little bow.  "I wish you success and happiness."  Then he turned and strode away, with the children wailing as they trailed hopelessly after him.

Yutarô's eyes were wide.  "P-Princess," he stammered, looking at her fearfully.  "I didn't mean to...I never meant...."

Tomoe did not speak for a long time.  Then she looked at Yutarô and said coolly, "Stop stammering, Yutarô, it is not seemly."  She stepped back into her shoes with very deliberate movements, straightened her skirt, and headed back to the palace.

Yutarô clenched his hands into fists.  'What have I done?'

o.o.o.o.o

A week or so later, there was a mad scramble in the Unseelie court, as the fae readied themselves for the entrance of Lord Shishio.  A hush settled over them as he entered, their eyes following him intently.  He walked confidently, his head held high as if he didn't even see the rabble around him.  He was flanked by his best men, including a slender youth with long red hair and frozen eyes.

"Makoto!"  King Oberon rose and swept out his arms, greeting the man warmly.  "How long as it been since you last set foot in my halls?  Come in, come in, sit here by me."  Of course this meant that the princess had to vacate her own seat, which she did silently and with no gesture of protest.  She did not look anywhere near the young assassin, and he in turn kept his gaze steadily straight ahead.

"What brings you to my court, Makoto?"

"Oh, nothing much," Shishio said lazily.  He grinned and kept his eyes on his chief assassin as he continued, "It's only a small favor I have to ask of you, Father."

The flicker of shock on Battousai's face was brief, but it was enough; the court had been watching him as well, and now they burst into laughter.

"Or maybe my little sister would be able to help me better with this particular issue," Shishio mused, indicating Tomoe.  "After all, I am dealing with matters of the heart, so perhaps a woman's touch would be more useful than even that of my honored father."  It was rather difficult to keep his amusement in check as he watched Battousai.  The young man was standing stock-still, his expression completely opaque, and yet his arms were crossed tightly over each other as if to prevent them from trembling.

The dark fae were practically falling over in hysterics by now, but as they looked at Battousai, savoring the joke of these revelations on him, a fearful quiet suddenly fell over them.  For the assassin, though he had not moved at all, was suddenly glowing bright with Seelie magic, which whispered around his body in hot flickers.  The sweet power of it was too much for some of the weaker fae; they fled the hall, squealing.

"Terrible, terrible," Oberon said, as if in deep disapproval, but his eyes sparkled with mirth.  "What lax control you have over your own men, Makoto, to let them flaunt Seelie poison in my hall."

Shishio frowned, as if mildly annoyed.  "Someone shut him up, will you?" he asked, waving his hand at Battousai's magic, which burned as brightly as a silent scream.

Tellingly, the rest of Shishio's own men quickly stepped back; it was a couple of fae from the court who jumped to obey, blades flashing down on the assassin.  In an instant their heads were rolling on the floor; Battousai was suddenly on the other side of the room, his swords drawn and bloody, his breathing harsher than it should have been for such slight effort.

Shishio clicked his tongue.  "Don't you think that was an overreaction, Battousai?  I'm sure there were better ways you could have vented your feelings about dear Tomoe being my half-sister."

The laughter started up again, but it was now muted.  The blank eyes on those detached heads were warning enough.

Very slowly, Battousai wiped the blades clean, and as he did so, the glow surrounding him dimmed and then vanished.  His voice was perfectly calm when he said, "I have no intention of giving my life away when enemies jump at me."

"Oh, really?" Shishio said lazily.  Then he was suddenly a blur, and in a fraction of a second he was standing next to Battousai, his blade held to the assassin's throat.  The young man didn't move or even look at his master, and his hands remained relaxed at his sides.  "So does this mean I am no enemy, or that you knew I was testing you?"

"What do you want?" Battousai murmured.

"I want you to die," Shishio answered conversationally.  He swept his sword up, ready to bring it slashing through Battousai's neck, but there was a sharp clang as it crashed to a halt against the assassin's blade instead.

At last rolling his eyes sideways to look at Shishio past their straining blades, Battousai said in a low, dangerous voice, "Did you come here solely to humiliate me, or do you have actual business in this place?"

Shishio smiled and let up.  Tapping his sword casually on his shoulder, he turned and strolled back to the dais, presenting his unguarded back to the assassin.

Battousai did not even look at him.  He did not look at Tomoe, either, whose face was carefully neutral, but whose eyes never left him the entire time.

"Now," Shishio said, "where were we?  Oh, yes.  A certain lady I have interest in; a queen, in fact...."

To be continued....

The Faerie Chronicles of Kenshin & Kaoru: The Princess and the Assassin, a Rurouni Kenshin fanfic by Raberba girl

Chapter 4 - "I can't run away anymore."

Trapped in her own chambers, the human queen fell back against the wall in horror, her hands pressed over her mouth as she stared at the corpses of her guards littering the floor.  Their killer stood among them, gazing at her as blood dripped from the sword in his hand.  His face was terrifying, with a scarlet cross slashed on one cheek and eyes that glowed a bright, menacing yellow.

"Wh...Why...?" she whimpered.

His voice startled her - it sounded young, but unnaturally deep, and as cold and hard as steel.  "Forgive me."  He took a step toward her, and she let out a little shriek of terror.

"I have no...personal grudge...against you...."  The familiar words were sticking in his throat.  At the very least, she deserved some kind of explanation before she died.  "I am afraid that you angered the son of the Faerie King."

Her face went white as she realized what he referred to.  "I resisted the advances of a stranger, and now I am to die for it?!"

The possibility occurred to him, not for the first time, that Shishio might have had less actual interest in the queen than in setting him up for this moment.  He raised his sword as he approached.

'The Faerie King....'  Then this assassin was a fae.  At once, the queen plunged her hand into a pocket of her skirt, searching for the wards she kept there.

He frowned, but before he could say anything, she had flung a handful of salt in his face.  He gasped in pain and shook the salt out of his eyes, as a rosy rash spread across his cheeks.  The poison had temporarily dimmed his vision, though not enough to prevent him from completing his mission.  He made a move to restrain her, then decided that she had the right to fight for her life, no matter how unsuccessfully.

She had run to her jewelry box, and when she saw him coming for her again, she seized a handful of the thin chains and made a brave charge, pressing the silver to his face.  It made no mark upon his flesh.

"Silver will not harm my kind," he told her quietly, and took her wrist in one hand so he could kill her with the other.

Screaming, she struggled wildly and managed to twist out of his reluctant grip.  She caught sight of the remains of her supper and lunged for it, snatching up the salt shaker and clawing unsuccessfully to get the cap off, her shaking fingers turned useless from terror.

He briefly closed his eyes and swallowed hard, feeling sick.  He couldn't stand this much longer.

A sound finally came to his attention, a wailing that had been going on for quite some time, unnoticed until now.  He opened his eyes again to see a little bed across the room, where a tiny girl was curled into a ball with her eyes tightly shut, crying over and over again for her mother.  Awakened by the noise, the girl's sobs had become increasingly high-pitched until she was practically shrieking.  "Mama!  Mama!  Mama...!"

The queen saw where he was looking, and her heart seemed to stop with horror.  'Kaoru,' she thought wildly.  'He means to use her as a hostage, to get me to comply--'  Already she had flown into action.

As he looked at the little girl, he realized with a sinking certainty that there was no way he could kill this woman.  Whatever the consequences, he simply couldn't do it; he would sooner die himself.

That decision had only just crossed his mind when he gasped, and heard the horrible, wet sound of a blade passing through flesh.  He stared at the queen, who had seized his hand and thrust the sword it was holding deep into her own body.  Their eyes were locked together, horror-filled gold and anguished blue.

"It's done," she gasped with the last of her breath.  "So please...please don't hurt her...please, let her live...."  Blood bubbled up into her throat and she fell backwards, bearing the sword with her, for his hand was suddenly too weak to hold it.

He gazed down at her, watching her die, and when the light left her eyes, his legs could no longer hold him.  He collapsed to the floor, sitting there numbly as the child's cries wailed on and on in his ears.

o.o.o.o.o

Where could he go?  To whom could he possibly turn?  Any of Shishio's people were out of the question; his grandmother and her court would only pretend to sympathize and then lose interest.  There was only....

Tomoe finally became aware of a presence outside her door.  She tensed, but whoever it was did not enter, did not knock, did not call out.  She would not have been able to sense a human, any Unseelie would have barged in by now, and there was only one Seelie who could possibly have any business with her.

It took her two tries to speak through her suddenly dry throat.  "Enter."

As if it was a signal for release, the door burst open at once.  Before it had even banged back against the wall, Battousai had crossed the room, fallen at her feet, and was sobbing into her lap as if his heart had broken.  He kept seeing the queen's face, distorted by the pangs of death as she begged for the life of her child.  He kept feeling her hands gripping his, the sensation of the sword he held driving through her body against his will....

When he desperately pushed those fresh, blood-soaked memories away, older ones rose up like ghosts from the ashes of his childhood.  He saw a world of flames as the palace, his home, was burned during the attack.  He saw his father cut down by the enemy.  He saw his mother and three sisters rushing to protect him, each slashed to death as they screamed for mercy.  He felt the hand of their murderer in his hair, dragging him away....

It was a long time before Battousai was able to escape the past, and when he finally regained awareness of Tomoe's warmth, the silence of her room, he realized that the hands in his hair were now hers.  Her fingers stroked slowly, soothingly, and he knelt there gaining comfort from her touch for quite some time before he realized what he was doing.

"What happened?" she asked quietly when she saw that his weeping had stopped.

He tensed, then suddenly pushed himself to his feet and backed away.  "Tomoe, I'm sorry.  I had no right to come here.  My deepest apologies for disturbing you."  He was just turning to go when she seized his arm and slapped him across the face.

"Don't you dare," she hissed.  "Don't you dare come here to get what you need from me, and then abandon me again like the selfish beast you are!"  Then she burst into tears.

He stared at her in shock for a moment, then slowly put his arms around her.  She was right - it had not even occurred to him that, just as she had been his only solace in this dark hour, she must have seen him as the only spark of light in her otherwise hopeless world.  He held her tighter and admitted to himself that it was too late.  He couldn't leave her now, even to protect her.  "Forgive me," he whispered.  Then, because he couldn't help it, "You would be loath to let these hands touch you, if you knew what they have done."

"The same could be said for my own," she murmured.  "Yet you already knew that, and you hold me anyway...."  She looked up at him.  "Battousai--"

"Kenshin," he corrected firmly.  "Himura Kenshin.  And...."  He took a deep breath.  "There is another name.  Shinta."

She stared at him in open shock, nearly overwhelmed by the gift of trust he had placed in her.  Among the fae, names could be used for spells, and therefore were closely guarded; to know a person's true name....

"Kenshin," she whispered.

"I'm yours," he told her.  "I don't know how I can be with you, but I can't run away anymore."

Tomoe was quiet for a minute.  Then she said, "No.  I think running is an excellent idea."  She smiled at little at his confused look.  "Only this time, you will run away with me."

His eyes widened slightly when he realized what she was suggesting.  Thoughtfully, he asked, "Do you think Shishio would notice a simple man and wife, living as peasants in the human realm?"

"Such a plan is not without hope.  However...I must insist that this married couple be complete with a child as well."

He blushed a little.  "I think it's a bit early for--"

"Enishi," she said quietly, and his expression went serious.  "I am sorry, Kenshin, but...my father and my younger brother are all that I love in this place.  My father does well here, but Enishi...my heart aches to see him growing up among such people."

"We will take him with us," Battousai said gravely.  "Tomorrow night, Tomoe - I will come for you."

To be continued....

Author's Notes:  In folklore, salt is a fae-bane.  I suppose Kenshin's cooks don't serve him anything containing it, though, being over half human, it wouldn't bother him as much as it would a pure-blood fae.

Originally, I meant for Kenshin & Kaoru to never find out the truth of her mother's death, because I knew it was going to make The Sleeping Prince really long and complicated, and I was too lazy to see it through.  However, skenshingumi made an invaluable contribution to the series when she expressed dissatisfaction with this, and due to her suggestion, I found a way to have Kenshin & Kaoru find out the truth after all.  As a result, The Sleeping Prince took a darker turn and, as I knew it would, got really long and complicated.  However, I think that it is a much better story now, and Kenshin & Kaoru's relationship is stronger than ever after what they went through.  (Besides, now we have Immortality to brighten up the bittersweet ending of The Sleeping Prince.)