loredump o4 — Kaoru (FFXIV)

[paintedfoothills]

08.23.2019

Kaoru throws his sword over his shoulder victoriously, the setting sun gleaming off his brilliant auburn hair. A few stray smears of blood are left on his cheek, but he clearly couldn`t be bothered with such a trivial thing.

Fray pretends to stare at the sky beyond Kaoru’s shoulder, engrossed in the sunset rather than the brilliant light of the boy before him. His lips can`t help but curl into a smile, and he feels a stirring in his heart as Kaoru smiles back at him. For a moment, everything is rose colored.
Until Kaoru stumbles ever so slightly, quickly righting himself once more as though nothing was wrong.

Fray is lucky his mask hides the look of concern, as his pointed tone makes him sound more angry than sad. “You didn`t get enough sleep last night, did you.” He says this as though he wasn`t there, checking on him from the shadows.

Kaoru`s lips immediately form into a pout. “I went to bed early.”

A very armored finger pokes precariously close to his eyeball. “Yes, your undereye circles are sufficient proof of a very well rested warrior of light. What do you take me for?”

“The kindest, most docile and understanding person I know?” Kaoru taunts, laughing as Fray shoves him gently.

“Come now, lets get some food in you and off to bed.”

“But what about being a dark knight? And harnessing the abyss, and— ”

“You can`t properly harness the darkness within on an empty stomach.” Fray prods Kaoru right in the ribs, causing him to double over with laughter. Fray feels a tightening in his chest. It feels like it`s been so long since he`s seen that smile. He clears his throat and ushers Kaoru, trying to move him on his merry way. They would eat, or rather, Kaoru would eat, and Fray would insist he had already taken care of himself.

Being in the company of his beloved was nourishment enough.

At long last, Kaoru walks through the doors of the Fortemps Manor. He had warned Auguste his training might take him away for days at a time, but he didn`t offer the Elezen much else by way of information. Which is why a very tall pink haired figure loomed over him almost instantly.

“I`m so glad you`re home.” He exhales, pulling Kaoru into the kitchen where he waited with piping hot cups of tea. He quickly offers one to Kaoru before sizing him up, pleased at the sight of all limbs still in tact

“Have you eaten today, Kaoru?” Auguste asks gently, worried that if he pushes the subject too much, Kaoru would pull away again. But this time, he perks up and nods.
“Actually, yes.” His cheeks flush with color as he recalls the company he kept in his inn room at the Forgotten Knight. “I told you about my mentor I`ve been training with, right? He`s been making sure I take care of myself.”

Auguste sighs in relief. Kaoru hadn`t been listening to Auguste`s nagging since they arrived, but at least he was listening to someone and Auguste would take what he could get.

For once, Auguste was content to leave it at that, but the question broke a dam in Kaoru and he was suddenly overflowing with information. About his companion`s skills in the dark arts, but likewise in conjury. Auguste might learn a thing or two from him. And the way he lifted his sword over his shoulder—

“Why, if I didn`t know any better, I would think you to be in love, Kaoru.”

He promptly chokes on his tea, covering it up with a very convincing attempt at a sneeze. Allergies, he claims. In the dead of winter. Auguste pretends to believe him.

“Love? Of course not.” Kaoru laughs, half from embarrassment, half in incredulity - there’s no way. And even less probable that it would even be returned...but since it’s not the case! There’s nothing to worry about...unless of course—

Kaoru continues to talk to himself in circles as Auguste watches his gears turn. He can`t help the slight laugh that escapes his lips. He opens his mouth to ask another question, but Kaoru can`t hear. In fact, he`s growing quite drowsy all the sudden...

✽✽✽

I see you in every dream that I have. So much so, I can no longer tell what`s a dream, what`s reality anymore.

We always start at the same place. A single door. The color is different almost every time.

What I see beyond makes little sense. Some nights, we are nothing but crashing waves. Other nights I see you mangled - crushed bone, muddied blood, emptied viscera. How could I let this happen to you?

My need for you is bigger than the stars, but an ocean of blood is swallowing you whole. I reach out to you, parting the waves, but I sink through in transparency.

It`s like I was never here.

Like I never belonged here.

Don`t I belong with you?

I want to make you realize. I am a writer. Your author.

I put pen to paper, ink to cloth, I weave your dreams. It’s what I do. We exist in tandem, you and I. What you think, I say. Because without me, you wouldn’t have a voice.

Without me, you

…

...without me, you…?

“He’s doing just fine,” Sid makes a pathetic attempt to argue as Rielle fusses over a soundly sleeping Kaoru. Soundly, if only in appearance and unwillingness to wake up even when shaken. But his brow is knit in a faint sensation of pain.

“I said he’s just tired so quit prodding him already! He needs his rest.”

A soft groan emanates from the dark blob of armor laying on the table. Kaoru raises his head, blinking several times, as if he didn`t recognize where he was.

The Forgotten Knight. Not Fortemps Manor.

No, that scene played out a month ago...or was it two months? Or a year?

He couldn`t tell anymore.

Rielle continues to prod Kaoru’s arm, gentle but insistent.

“You haven`t eaten since yesterday…”

Her voice is so soft and paper thin, it almost blends into the background noise of the rowdy bar patrons. But Kaoru hears her crystal clear, with the voice of someone else.

The insides of his head were stained red with all the evidence. He was once here, and now he`s not. A simple fact.

If Fray was here, Kaoru would have nodded eagerly and insisted they go get a hearty meal. But as it was, he felt no hunger in his stomach, only the vacant pain of an empty belly that craved nothing.

But if Fray were here...this isn`t what he would have wanted for Kaoru at all.

“You`re right.” Kaoru finally sighs, and Rielle seems to perk up ever so slightly that neither he nor Sid noticed. But the faintest hint of a smile was there.

“You heard him Sid.” Rielle says simply.

“Oi, and what am I, his wet nurse?”

“Yes.” Her voice is without bite as she sits beside Kaoru, rubbing his back. “Please, get him something warm.”

09.02.2019

“You`ve always got your nose in a book.”

The blank look that Sid receives over the spine of a dusty tome revives one too many memories of the same visage against different backdrops. Of pale yellow eyes that could see right through him, disarming his senses until the tiniest of smiles cracked across that stoic mask.

But in the present, the pale simulacrum is replaced with vivid colour. Eyes like a polished amber stone with hair thin cracks running through it, the only shimmer being that of the flame threatening to flicker over the low wick of the candle.

Kaoru didn`t have time to waste. Precious moments that could be spent better himself, making muscles taught and tear, flesh to rend and bleed.

It helped distract him from the ghosts that threatened to creep under his skin.

And after all, he wanted to become more like his late mentor. The one he was being silently compared to this whole time, even if everyone liked to pretend otherwise.

Kaoru Lightheart.

A useless Dark Knight.

Even his own birth name tried to mock him for even attempting to harness the abyss. On top of that, attempting to emulate Fray Myste, the brave warrior who died fighting for what he believed in?

A laughable endeavour. Somehow, the more hopeless it was, the more he felt the itch under his skin, the mania to drive himself right into the trap he was laying out for himself.

Kaorus sighs, a gasp catching in his throat, forming a stitch in his side from how shallow his breathing had been until Sid decided to come knocking.

Another turn of the page. Another piece of information devoured.

Another step closer to being anyone but himself.

Sid can only shake his head. Another thing he can`t help but notice they have - had - in common. When something was wrong, just pretend it didn`t exist but forcing your way through over something you actually had control over.

On occasion, if his vision blurs, Sid sees a reflection, and has to remind himself that Kaoru was simply a boy. There are many things it wouldn`t be fair for him to do, least of all force him to pretend he was someone else.

Sid wishes he could do something more. Just as he wished he could do something more back then.

What holds him back is a simple thought: what gives him the gall to think he deserves to even take up such a space? What role does he play in this boy`s life?

Was he a replacement for a mentor, as Kaoru was a replacement for a companion?

He shakes his head before these thoughts could devour him even further. He leaves Kaoru to it, knocking twice against the wood of the door of the Cloud Nine Innroom, letting him know he would be back. It was part of their little unspoken code that had developed over the scant few weeks they had known one another. Once was goodnight, and ten times was for the love of Halone, do you plan to sleep in until the Eighth Umbral Calamity, Kaoru?!

He passes by well after Rielle had gone to sleep only to see another book in Kaoru’s hands, his previous tome and yet another stacked haphazardly on the nightstand. The words catch in his throat as he thinks to say something, anything.

But instead he offers the single knock as his missive of goodnight.

✽✽✽

“I told you we would be training today.” Sid scowls, watching Kaoru`s knees buckle as he trudges through the snow. His chainmail was skewed across the hip and his hair was tousled. “You stayed up to all hours again, didn’t you?”

Kaoru had been avoiding getting any proper sleep, and the gods only knew for what reason; at any pressing, Kaoru would simply scowl like your organs were his next meal.

“I have an insatiable appetite for reading.” Kaoru deadpans, a quiet nip at the heels that challenges Sid to bite back if he dared

“More like you`re a glutton for punishment.” Sid grunts. Kaoru looks at him with that same steady gaze he`d been wearing since they met on that snow covered hill. A hyur boy who`s diminutive size betrayed how he was covered in blood, fixing Sid with a cold gaze. A scene he had seen many times before, but of a man with a slightly different face.

The worst difference of all were the eyes. Despite being the cooler, calmer one of the two, Fray`s eyes always had a deeper fire burning within. Kaoru`s were so devoid of light, of anything even remotely resembling happiness. It stirs something within the knight, an emotion he thought has been long since buried.

Sometimes I wonder, am I a dark knight, or a babysitter?

Kaoru quirks an eyebrow as Sid remains still for an uncomfortably long beat. It`s when he strolls over that Kaoru flinches instinctively, raising his arms to cover his face in fear. All the better for Sid, who loops an arm through and right around him, hoisting the hyur over his shoulder like a sack of popotos.

“Wha– hey! Put me down right now!” For the first time in a week does he hear a sense of urgency, a sense of any emotion in Kaoru`s voice. He feels the spark rumbling in Kaoru`s throat, and imagines what it looks like in his eyes.

He hopes to see it firsthand very soon.

“I`m throwing you back in bed and chaining you to the bedpost if you so much as get up.” Sid proclaims matter of factly as he makes his way back up the steps to the Forgotten Knight.

“I`d like to see you try.” Kaoru growls, weakly attempting to fight back. But with no sleep, he can barely budge a hair on the Xaela`s head. It`s clear that he`s fighting a losing battle, and with a huff, Kaoru gives up the ghost before letting his weary body droop against the broad shoulders of his new mentor.

He`s far too tired to feel awkward about being tucked in for the first time in his life. It`s a strange, alien notion, but none too unwelcome as Sid fluffs the pillow behind him once before covering Kaoru with a blanket right up to his chin.

“I`ll ask the innkeep for a glass of warm milk.” Sid scoffs as Kaoru`s eyes flutter closed. He waits for a few minutes, the five longest minutes of his whole life, before testing the waters.

Kaoru opens one eye, surprised to see that Sid is still there despite all of the protests and scowls he`d delivered since they`d met.

He`s lucky he didn`t blink, else he would have missed Kaoru`s lips forming the most inaudible “thank you” that Sid has ever heard in his life.

09.05.2019

“You have something on your face again.” Fray muses, gently pressing a finger into the constellation of freckles mapped on Kaoru`s cheek.

The first time Fray had moved to gently caress him, Kaoru flinched. His muscles remembered far too often that when he disobeyed (a word that, to Kaoru, meant “whenever his mother was unsatisfied”) he would be struck across the cheek.
Proper young men didn`t have food all over their face. Proper young men didn`t slouch. Proper men didn`t use their left hand. A dutiful son would learn how to carry the weight of the family name properly.

Memories, feelings, begin to fade the more one learns how to pick up the pieces.Kaoru and Fray slouched over their chosen bench of a worn down fence, picked at the splinters with their left hands as Kaoru smeared his afternoon snack across his cheek.

Fray`s touch was gentle, despite being coated with pieste organs barely an hour before.

Kaoru smiled and covered Fray`s palm with his own, feeling the warmth of a hand that was covered in the blood of many, yet touched him so sweetly.

He can feel the weight of Fray leaning towards him, whispering something he can barely make out.

And then he opened his eyes, staring at the empty space across from him. The same old empty table at the Forgotten Knight. In the space between dream and reality, he wavers for a second, and can see that familiar shade sitting across from him. He shakes his head in a desperate attempt to rouse himself back to reality. He notes the spot of drool on stained wood beneath him, having obviously passed out from sheer exhaustion.

With each dream, a memory would come back.

One by one in solemn procession.

It was becoming so severe that he tried to avoid all attempts to sleep, evading the fragmented dreams of a paradise lost. His blissfully unaware memories of happiness as Fray tried to make him see.

But one memory, one dream, was the worst of them all. The blood on his hands at Whitebrim, holding off the knights who clamored and shouted his name, but all fell on deaf ears. Instead, he fell to his knees, holding the man who had slaughtered the temple knights one by one.

He held Fray`s - his - crumbling body in his arms, trying to hold him upright.

“You don`t have to fight like this anymore…” Kaoru whispered in a broken voice. He knows his aether is fading fast, and pleaded for Fray to take a step back inside where he belonged.

“Then…let`s go on an adventure again…together.” He saw Fray whisper with his own face, his own voice.They could be one again, and everything would fall back into place. Nothing could go wrong, nothing could ever hurt them again.

But this is not how the story goes.

Has the hero ever had it easy? Was he ever the hero to begin with?

He searches and searches, letting his feet guide him through the gates of Whitebrim and into the frozen lands of Coerthas. Wandering came naturally to him, having left his home far behind him years ago. But with no true place to call home, he would always be adrift, forever lost to the abyssal sky threatening to swallow him with shining stars.

“Are you sleepwalking now?” Sid observes, standing vigil as Rielle lay fast asleep beside him. He doesn`t remember having fallen asleep.

“…I`m awake.” I think.
Kaoru shakes his head, realizing he had made his way to the edge of their makeshift camp without realizing he was no longer in his dream. He throws his hood over his head and offers a short missive. “I`m going for a walk.”

Even if Sid protested, Kaoru wasn`t listening. He slipped into the brilliant hills that had been painted in night.

“Why do you keep showing me my…our memories?” Kaoru asked, the starry sky blurring into a beautiful shattered mess, marred by his tears. “If you`re even still there.”

The twinkling stars offer him no answer, no reprieve.

He pulls his soul crystal from his pocket, the last piece of evidence that all of this even happened, swearing that he could see the faintest glimmer of red shine in the pale moonlight. Or perhaps it was just a trick of the light, another faded memory, another shattered dream.

“I wish you could tell me…I wish you could make me see.”

His heart grows cold, but his palm glows with the faintest flicker of warmth.

09.09.2019

A heart bleeds

“Fray used to tell me stories of the Fane.
…Sid said he would`ve won if they let him keep his staff.”

A man weeps

“Ever since you`ve joined us, we`ve visited so many new places
I`m sure Fray would`ve enjoyed it to…”

A soul burns

Kaoru`s fist slams into the solid wood table with a frightening crack. Be it bone or stone, no one could even move to tell the difference as he raised his voice. To them, the ones that didn`t know the real Kaoru, they had no idea he could scream this loud.

No one did.

Not even Auguste.

Kaoru hadn`t shouted in years, ever since his mother had beat the habit out of him until he tried to shut his mouth for good.

Thence comes darkness.

“The only time you open your damn mouth is to talk about Fray!” The words pour out like the wine glass thrown off the table, spilling deep red onto the floor with reckless abandon.

Sid opens his mouth to object, especially given the company they were surrounded by, but Kaoru shoots him such a fiery look that even he is caught off guard for just a moment.

“You`ve beaten it into me, both of you, how you wish he was here. More`s the pity that you got stuck with some paltry replacement instead.” Hands that destroyed just a moment earlier now shake like the lost child he once was, grasping for something, anything that felt like solid ground.

“Well I`m not dealing with it anymore.” Kaoru curses, baring his fangs. “I`m tired of this charade!”

He throws his sword to the ground, cursing the weight it bore onto his hands, feeling so much lighter, if only physically. His heart felt like sludge as he wandered below the bridge, and off towars the Brume.

“He`s just having another tantrum,” Sid sighs, unaware he was echoing Kaoru`s mother`s sentiments. Although Rielle had only met Kaoru several weeks ago, knew nothing about him aside from a name and a face, it was enough. A momentary glimpse at the pain in his eyes when he gave her that horrible glare told her everything she needed to know.

“Well then, I suppose it`s back to square one for us, Rielle.”

A pause.

“Rielle?”

Thankfully for a girl that couldn`t risk to be seen, he hadn`t wandered too far.

It doesn`t take much for one who had trained in the arts of a rogue as a child to notice her clumsy steps crunch through the snow.
“You`re not going to get what you`re looking for, you know.” Kaoru`s vain attempt at sounding rude only comes off as wistful. Clearly the tone of someone who was cowed to the fact no one would ever come looking for him, unless it was something they required.

“I came looking for you.” She replies tacitly as always, something that unnerved a liar like him.

“Even after I yelled at you?” Kaoru can`t help but laugh in spite of himself.

She nods. “You didn`t mean it. Sid does the same thing sometimes. You two are more alike than you realize.”

Kaoru genuinely laughs at that. The two of them, similar? He places them side by side in his mental canvas, laughing at the disparity between his lithe hyuran frame and the towering auri male who had, on several occasions, picked him up like a plaything.

“He rarely even talked to me, you know. Sid. Or to anyone really, after Fray…” She trailed off, not wanting to provoke Kaoru back into his grief. “But ever since you came along, he talks, and even smiles sometimes when you`re not looking…”

Kaoru makes a funny face as he tries to picture Sid wearing anything other than a stoic or grumpy expression. He made him smile? Despite being a thorn in his side, a painful reminder of what was gone? Or could it mean that, he thought of Kaoru

...as Kaoru?

“That`s all because of you. No one else.” Rielle worries the hem of her sweater, gaining more courage as she sees Kaoru`s walls slightly faltering in her presence.

“I didn`t ask for Sid or Fray to save me.” Kaoru`s heart catches in his throat, opening his mouth to speak before Rielle`s quiet voice cuts him off.
“I`m not asking you to replace him. You don`t have to.”

He remains silent, the wispy snow caught in the wind melting against his freckled cheeks.
Two children who`s mothers had forsaken them, awkward in speech, tried their best to dance around each other. They both fidget, worry their bottom lips, and try to think of something that just might endear their company to them.

After all, the only company they had was each other.

“When no one`s around,” Rielle pipes up suddenly, “I see you humming songs… Do you like music?”

It`s Kaoru`s turn to be stunned into silence, taking a moment to actually think about himself. No one usually asked these questions.

“…Yeah.” Tiny slivers of memories dance through his mind, so rarely free of agony and pain. Of his hands plucking his shamisen, of the ivory keys of the strange foreign contraption in their foyer.
“I do.”

“Tell me more.” Rielle implores quietly, reaching to hold Kaoru`s shaking hand. “About you.”

Yet even in the depths, the flame endures.

09.21.2019

“Not that it`s our business to pry, but...we don`t really know anything about you, Kaoru.”

He tries to make himself smaller on the bed, curling himself inward and pressing his forehead to his knees.

“Nothing. My family loved me. I`m normal.”

The last part is such a bold faced lie that it almost comes out with a starry kind of laugh.

Sid shakes his head and suddenly reaches a hand out in the direction of Kaoru`s face and, just as Sid predicted, he immediately flinches.

“Loved children don`t do that, now do they?”

Kaoru looks away at the wall.

“That`s how she loved me.”

An awkward beat follows, as Sid knows all too well he could try to protest, but it would hardly do much to undermine over a decade of repressed memories. Words were just that after all.
He waits, the silence follows, but he at least sits down on the edge of the bed to show Kaoru he has no intention of going anywhere.

“You told me in detail of how your parents died. I should be grateful for what I have,” he mutters hollowly, trying to hold back the tears. He feels guilty thinking of how many times he`d wanted to wrap his hands around that pale throat, in contrast to how badly Sid wanted his parents to live. “I`m just a bad person.”

Wordlessly, a hand touches his back. Kaoru continues regardless.

“I don`t deserve your pity. I wasn`t an orphan, I was,” his throat feels like he’s trying to swallow a ball of cotton, like another voice is desperate to come out. He feels something he hasn`t felt in such a long time, and he gasps, wondering if perhaps it was—

“I was just their object, something to be sold off to the highest bidder!” Kaoru`s voice cracks, half an attempt at yelling, the other half swallowed up by grief in a pitiable sob. “A pretty little bauble, their perfect tool to link families and line their pockets. I get it, alright? I get it.
My only purpose is to be used.”

He`s been trying so hard to hold back the sobs that he can`t help but hiccup like a child, hugging his knees to his chest.

“I`ve made my peace with it.” He feels a burning in his chest, like something is resisting. “This is who I am. A tool for others, a tool for the scions, and I can help you save Rielle just like you asked,” the tear stains quickly bleed away into the black fabric of his leggings, as though they never existed, as Kaoru would insist they never existed.

“If I at least have some use to you, then that`s all I could want…” He can easily envision Fray`s smiling face, and the way he looked before he closed his eyes for the last time in his arms.
“...So that you won`t leave.”

Like a knife to the chest, a gaping cavity where a heart should have been. One filled with love, and light, was now left completely empty.

Or maybe it was this way all along.

Kaoru lets out a gentle “oof” sound as his ribs are promptly crushed between two strong arms. This tiny little ball he`d curled in was suddenly encircled in warmth.

“W-what are you doing?” Kaoru`s voice can barely be heard over the crackle in the fireplace, all his tears and yelling have wreaked havoc on the semblance of health he had left.

“If you were just a bloody thing, you stupid boy, we would have thrown you right on your arse ages ago.”

“I just figured you were being stubborn.” Kaoru can`t help the raspy laughter that manages to escape his throat. “Like you always are.”

“You know, if Fray knew this was how you felt, he wouldn`t let you hear the end of it.”

Tufts of ginger shift as a pair of curious amber eyes turn to the much larger Xaela holding this black-armored ball of sniffles. “...How do you know that?”

He asks incredulously, knowing the both of them could potentially have an entirely different “Fray” in mind.

He pulled back just enough to give Kaoru some space to unfurl from his protective position, settling comfortably with his back to Sid`s middle.

“The Fray I used to know, and the Fray you know now....they certainly aren`t one and the same. But from what I`ve heard straight from you, they hold all the same values. And he would never think that sort of thing about another person.” Kaoru nods, partially to acknowledge, and partially to settle his cheek against Sid`s arm, inhaling the metallic scent.
“After all, a fellow dark knight hardly sees his peers as a tool, a means to an end. We`re all each other has in this world.”

Kaoru manages to crack the slightest of smiles. “I`m finally a dark knight...for real?” He remembers how often Fray chided him that he would never truly be a dark knight if he kept up this charade.

“I can`t speak for anyone else,” Sid scoffs, “but as for me, I never doubted it.”

“Is that so…” Kaoru would normally have tried to make some sort of joke to show everyone See? I`m okay. Like I always am.
But instead, he feels his eyes grow heavy, with a heart so full he wonders if he can carry it any longer. He doesn`t want to surrender to his dreams, to be steeped in so many memories that he can`t bear it another second if he has to wake up and see a world without Fray in it once more.

The next instant he's awake, it's merely half conscious, barely registering the roaring fireplace and the dark of the curtains.

And more importantly that, true to his word, Sid hadn`t left.

In fact he barely moved a single inch, if only to fall back against the pillows so they could both rest comfortably.

Part of his mind wonders if this is okay, to rest for just one moment and ease the burden. It`s the same part that is quickly silenced by the sensation of a tail curling around his ankle.

Kaoru sees the tiniest hint of a smirk on Sid`s face and has to resist his smile, lest he break into laughter.

Instead, Kaoru curls back into the crook of his arm, a comfortable space where even someone like him is allowed to belong, letting the sound of Sid`s heartbeat to lull him back to a dreamless sleep.

10.10.2019

“And your name was...Fray, was it?”

“That`s right,” He replied, although it sounded more like a murmur, still enthralled with tucking stray pieces of Kaoru`s hair behind his ear.

Why did that name sound familiar, Alphinaud wondered. He searched his impeccable memory, only for his face to freeze into a rictus of horror as he recalled…

The strange sound he heard two nights ago that sounded a little something like cats fighting. Or was it werewolves yowling? It was some strange, rhythmic sound that ended in whimpering, wailing, and moaning. Certainly someone was fighting near their tents.

But Alphinaud was sure he heard weak mewls of the name 'Fray.' Come to think of it, the voice that sounded suspiciously like—

“Oh. Oh... Y-yes, I will certainly remember your name now.” Alphinaud`s cheeks flush with embarrassment as he stuffs his face into his grimoire. “Actually, I just remembered another stratagem I should memorize, so I`ll be going now."

11.03.2019 (KaoSid 'a few years later in the Steppe' AU)

Kaoru felt more like a decoration on the wall at this point, but he knew this was not his battle to fight.

“You’re more than welcome to the Buduga, you know.” His smile is more like a sneer, however. Perhaps it was inherited from the preening habits of the Oronir, or their pride as the only all male tribe. “Of course, it means surrendering.” A flash of white teeth indicates a clear challenge.’

Had this whole scene taken place three years ago, Sid would have had deathbringer at Daidukul’s neck in a second. But several years and several brushes with death making him all the wiser, he levels a steely gaze instead.

“I have no intentions of fighting you.” Their muscles were always on display, a proud showing of exactly how they’d earned their name for keeping their tribe for striking down others. But Sid waves his hand in the air as if he could bat away the warrior like a fly.

“Then you surrender.”

“No, I said—”

“It doesn’t work like that. You’ve been challenged.”

Sid looks over at Magnai whose gaze hasn’t shifted a moment. He looks back at Kaoru, who is the true Khagan now rather than Magnai - but the problem is, he doesn’t know a thing about the true culture of the Xaela. He can’t say whether or not this is fair. And what’s more than that, Kaoru knew that Sid would be crushed if he just stepped in to save him. Time has cooled his temper (a scant bit) but he still had his pride as a man.

And unfortunately, Sid cannot vouch for anything either. They are both outsiders, even if Sid is one of them by birth. He grits his teeth at the reminder they manage to sneak whenever they can, like a thorn right under his skin.

“He’s right,” Cirina steps in, the most objective of them all. “A challenge from the Buduga tribe cannot be forfeit. But if you win, Sidurgu, he is forced to back down.” She adds, nodding with assurance that he could certainly take him.

“Then if it’s a fight you want, a fight you shall have,” Sid spits at Daidukul who makes no effort to hide the sheer amount of glee at the prospect of fighting such a specimen. So much so, his glare is almost lascivious, but one sour look from Kaoru causes him to back down just a little.

That’s what I thought, Kaoru mouths at Daidukul’s retreating back. He would have given him a piece of his mind if Sid’s large palm hadn’t ruffled his ginger hair playfully.

“Now now, no need to go after anyone for my sake.”

“That’s not why, Sid…” Kaoru pouts. He was like a brick wall sometimes (all the time).

Kaoru was certain Sid didn’t even realize that Daidukul was interested in far more than just fighting him. It was some miracle from Halone herself that Sid was the one who realized Kaoru was in love with him a few years back. Granted, it took a spot of murder and more than a week of Kaoru being fast asleep for such an idea to properly smack him in the face.

12.14.2019 (from 07.12.2019) (nsfw)

“What are you doing?” Fray eyes the jars of creams and powders littering the mahogany table. Kaoru is already covered from head to toe in elegant silks as black as the night skies with ornately drawn cranes reaching their wings across spider lilies.

“I`m getting dressed,” he replies, daintily dabbing the paintbrush in one of the pots. “They expect us to look nice, after all.” He sighs, going through the motions like he used to, dragging the second layer of skin over his cheeks. There, he looked a little better now.

A hand reaches across his vision and knocks the brush from his hand. Fray rubs his sleeve against Kaoru`s cheek, clearly unconcerned with messing up his own clothes.

“Hey, you`re ruining it!” Kaoru whines childishly. "We have to go soon.”

“Why are you covering them up?” Is all Fray replies.

“...” Kaoru goes quiet like a petulant child. “Well, we`re expected to look really nice for this—”

“You already look just fine. Don`t cover them up.” Fray insists, and Kaoru continues to wilt like a shrinking flower.

Despite half hearted protests, he can hardly form a coherent sentence before Fray`s lips are on his cheeks.

“I like your freckles.” He murmurs softly, pressing a kiss to each one. They criss cross like stars, a constellation against milky skin. Kaoru wrinkles his nose, and Fray moves to kiss the furrow on his brow next.

Kaoru mumbles a very half hearted complaint once more about running late, which is the last straw for Fray. He topples Kaoru over, pinning him to the rough tatami mats covering the ground.

“So what if we run a little late? I’m sure a sliver of time can be afforded to the man who saved all of Eorzea at least ten dozen times.” He tilts his head knowingly, the sort of look he offers when he knows Kaoru can`t argue with his perfect logic.

Kaoru smiles and reaches up to stroke Fray's head, and his ego.
“You`re right, as always. Why don`t you show me a better use of our time?”

Fray seems to pause, which Kaoru knows is fake, earning a needy whine. Fray preferred when Kaoru begged, after all.

“Please? Oh, please, Fray,-“
He’s muffled by a kiss before he can continue this parade of nonsense, humming pleasantly unto the kiss and threading his fingers through dark hair.

✽✽✽

“Spread your legs,” Fray licks his lips, “more.”

Kaoru obeys and is rewarded in a warm, wet tongue playing at his entrance. He tries to bite into his knuckle until a hand pulls his wrist away. Fray hasn’t even bothered to look up, relentlessly licking at the ring of muscle.

Don’t look away. Don’t cover your mouth.

He can hear it without Fray even saying it, and the flash of golden eyes up at him renders Kaoru powerless.

“Good boy,” Fray murmurs against his thigh. Good boys are rewarded, so Fray loops his arms under Kaoru’s hips and lifts him up, causing a frenzied keen. His bottom half is completely exposed, luxurious silks bundled at his ribs as Kaoru’s hair is fanned out against the tatami, moaning as Fray mouths at his erection.

12.15.2019 (POV change to Kaoru's father)

“Forgive me for intruding …”

A pair of downcast silver eyes capture the officer in place, rooting him to the ground. The room was balmy a mere moment ago, wafts of incense and candles swirling around his ankles, yet he’s suddenly chilled to the bone.

“It’s urgent. You should know straight away, your son has been in town for, well, kami knows how long!”

A puff of smoke emits from the end of his pipe. The official expects a reply, but is met with nothing - not even the sound of breathing.

“...”

“Sir? I thought you would be, er, happy? Maybe not happy, but—“

“Why are you wasting my time telling what I already know?”

The man’s voice is calm, disturbingly so, but there’s an undertone or utter disappointment that can’t be ignored. He feels paranoid now, like he’s been seen through to the insides of his squirming guts. The red of his hakama looks more like blood against the white of his knuckles.

“...Please, forgive my impudence. I just— does your wife know? Certainly she’d be whipped into a dreadful row.”

“Is it my turn to answer stupid questions now?”

If it were possible for a grown man to shrink any further, he would have simply turned to dust.

“I need not the whispers of some sellsword running about the streets chasing gossip.” He waves his fan with such a deft flick of his wrist the fluid motion shows he feels no need to give the Sekiseigumi official more energy than humanly possible. A sigh is heard, as though it were fanning some sort of flame. For a moment, his silver eyes turn gold.

“Out with you. I have more important things to attend to.”

The official flounders out the room like a fish out of water. A soft tsk tsk is heard as though someone is shaking their head, yet Utsuro seems to be the only man in the room.

"And what are you going to do now, my little fox?"

"...I will wait for the rain."

12.19.2019 (from 11.04.2019)

I remember your screams as you reached for the hand that left you for dead.

A world of kill or be killed. Sink, or swim.

You wouldn`t have made it out alive if that kind auri child hadn`t dragged you out of the water.

I was screaming for you, shouting your name. But I could do nothing. So painfully aware that every day that followed, all that I could do to console you was to be that still, small voice in your heart. But I could not hold your hand in mine, keep you close to me, warm your body with mine and remind you

I was terrified the moment you fell off the drydocks because I know that fear in your eyes all too well. The dread that forces you, body and soul, back to those dark days, when you - when we - were all alone. 

But I was glad. 

Because this time, I could pull you out from the sinking abyss. I held your body to mine, I gave you my breath, and held you in my arms. 

Perhaps I forgot to mention this part of the story. It`s the end, actually.

Our end.

You can turn this all around
You have the power that you keep looking for, it’s already there

I am always here. 

Not longer confined to your dreams, but inside your heart.