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[annapeace.livejournal.com]

Title: Mazurka
Summary: Time moves and worlds change but the dancers stay the same.
Turn 10


(step)

“I refuse to run away again! I would die of shame!” Kyllara declares hotly, bright pinpoints of red in her cheeks. Sithru hides a smile, she hasn’t changed that much since they’ve been apart.

“Then you’d be giving him what he wants.” In comparison, Kess is icily calm. “He feeds on death so this won’t be a battle, just a slaughter. The soldiers, your warriors, none of it matters as long as killing is done.”

“But even if we run it’ll never be over.” Kethran speaks conversationally but his eyes are bright and it’s easy to tell he’s sorting through the information he’s been given for a solution. Sithru admires him for staying rational. “You said the Emperor isn’t capable of dying, Captain, he’ll have all the time in the world to hunt us. We’d only be delaying the inevitable, only instead of being driven off as your Council had planned, we’d become sacrifices.”

Sithru leans back on his cushion and sighs. It had seemed so simple when he first returned, to drive away the Western dogs and reclaim his land. Now they are up against some monster who had built an empire simply to help feed him. What kind of man can possibly stand up to that?

He feels Lian slip her soft hand into his own and reconsiders. Perhaps a man with something precious to protect.

“He was stopped once before,” Trilar points out. “Can we do that again?”

“I don’t know,” Kess confesses. “It’ll be a spell to do it, but we can ask Master Shen and his wife.”

“The passes up the mountain are probably blocked by now, it’s been snowing fairly steadily,” Kethran says disappointedly. “If we can make it until spring though – “

“No. That suggests we retreat, and I will not,” Kyllara growls, headstrong as ever.

“If I can make a comment?” Lian interjects, her voice soft and musical. The Firebird princess is a small delicate looking woman, but it’s clear from the way she moves that she can be deadly.

“Go ahead, love,” Sithru nods, squeezing her hand approvingly.

“Among my people we have tales of creatures such as your Emperor. Spells may hold them, but legends also say that removing the heart can confine them, if the heart is hidden where it can never be found. Of course, I’m speculating, but if it’s true and we take his heart, what would happen to the Emperor’s army?”

“He rules them with an iron fist. They’d be disorganized,” Tom says slowly, considering it. “Demoralized, even. Then would come the business of who will take over…”

“And they can fight it out among themselves, back in their own lands,” Sithru muses. “After that, no one can predict, but at the moment it seems our best course of action is to take the Emperor down.”

“It won’t be easy,” Lian tells him. “He may not have supernatural powers other than immortality, but he hasn’t gotten to be emperor by being weak.”

“Leave that to me,” Kyllara says, her lips curling in a feral smile. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been hunting.”

“Kyllara,” Sithru snaps sharply, instincts taking over. No matter what, she is his baby sister. “It’s too dangerous for you. Tomorrow you’ll stay by my side, understand? We’ll assign other men to the Emperor.”

Her eyes flash, but she bows her head. “Yes, my King.”

It was too easy, Sithru frowns, he knows all too well how stubborn his sister is. But before he can press the issue, Kethran speaks.

“Is this wise? We’re making plans based on a speculation.”

“It isn’t wise,” Kess says simply, his gaze on Kyllara. “But we’ve rejected the other workable plan.”

“I freely accept the blame if it fails,” Kyllara says easily, rising to her feet. “You can tell the others they are not required to fight, just because I won’t run doesn’t mean they can’t leave. I won’t force them and I’ll understand.”

She’s forgetting she isn’t still queen, Sithru realizes. Although she no longer leads them, her first priority is still to take care of the tribe, and he thinks he’s never been more proud of her than at that very moment.

“How can they possibly leave with their princess charging towards the fight like some war goddess?” Lian says lightly, making everyone grin as they rise to leave the tent. However, it is Trilar’s sober parting words that stay with them after they leave.

“Tell everyone to cripple instead of kill when it’s possible. There’s no need to help make the Emperor stronger before we get to him.”

(step)

It’s snowing again and it feels like a bad omen. Ravenna can’t shake the feeling off as she dons her wings, this time in the form of a large eagle. After a few warm up flutters, she takes off and glides quietly away from the castle. Shen had asked her to stay put but she’s never been fond of being agreeable. Besides, she can take care of herself and she needs to know what’s going on. The queen, Lady Mina, Maxwell, they all have vested interest in the outcome of this fight and it’s too long to wait until spring for the first messengers.

There’s a good draft coming off the mountain and she rides it down, making good time without having to use her wings much at all. Thus the sun is only barely in the sky when she reaches the battlefield. Ravenna feels her body quiver at the sight of it; she despises violence and blood as much as her husband does. It’s the only reason they can’t bring themselves to help the Wolf tribe because they are truly fond of Kyllara.

It’s snowing here too, though much more lightly. The ground, however, is already white from last night’s snow, and the field looks pristine for a moment. Then the battle erupts and it’s no longer pretty. Ravenna wheels higher, disgusted by it all, but she stays. She needs to know.

Her sharp eyes pick out Kethran stationed well behind the lines, observing the fight as best he can and giving orders that are carried by runners to the tribesmen, telling them the best positions. If she had lips she would have smiled; Kethran is no warrior but he’s born to be a general.

There are unfamiliar fighters on the field, their battlecries like the scream of falcons as they fall upon the Western soldiers. Ravenna gives a scream of encouragement in echo and moves on, unwilling to see the carnage. It’s necessary; she’ll just never like it.

In the thick of it all is Sithru, standing back to back with a young lady, both of them covered with blood and dirt. They fight ferociously and work in tandem, cutting through the soldiers like a spinning blade, and Ravenna can suddenly see why they are moving so fast: Trilar is moments away from being swarmed under. Her heart, already beating fast, beats even faster, but there is no need, Sithru and his lady absorb Trilar into their deadly dance and they move on. Yet despite being saved, Trilar still seems distraught, and he has Sithru looking about wildly, angrily, fretfully. Ravenna, curious, reads his lips.

“Where is Kyllara?”

She dips a little lower, wondering this herself, and flies faster to search. Soaring over the field, she notices a strange thing. Most of the dead are tribal warriors, the Western soldiers lie sliced open or apart but lie alive. Now that she’s lost altitude Ravenna can hear them yelling, moaning in pain. She wishes she could plug up her ears and continues.

She spots Kyllara nearly behind the Western army’s lines, prowling through the blood drenched bodies. For a second Ravenna doesn’t understand, and then she sees the Emperor standing on the hilltop, surveying the slaughter and grinning, and she knows the ill omen she felt when she woke will come to pass.

Ravenna shrieks just as Tom Kess comes galloping across the field. His horse, streaked with mud and gore, moves like a lightning bolt and Tom hurdles off into the Emperor with enough speed to bowl him over. They tumble in a powder of snow and are both back on their feet at the same time with swords drawn. Ravenna wheels around to hover over them, knowing somehow everything has boiled down to this duel.

“Traitorous whelp,” the Emperor snarls, his face distorting into an ugly mask. “I was so worried I’d have to hunt you down and here you are fallen right into my hands.”

Tom says nothing and attacks, his silence only emphasized by the ring of steel.

Ravenna can see immediately how this will end. Tom is a good swordsman, perhaps the best in the Empire, and certainly he is stronger. But the Emperor has centuries of experience to draw from. There is no real contest.

A wind picks up, taking Ravenna with it, and she loses precious moments regaining her position. When she looks back Tom is on one knee, his other twisted in the bloody mud, and the Emperor is preparing for his final stroke.

“Stab, Tom, stab!”

It’s an ear shattering cry from Kyllara and Tom obeys immediately without thinking, driving his sword up. At the same instant Kyllara lands on the Emperor’s back, forcing him onto the sword. Allowing the sword through her.

Ravenna can’t find it in her to utter a sound.

Kyllara shoves herself off the sword and somehow manages to bring the Emperor’s slumping body with her. She drives her hand into the gaping wound Tom made in the Emperor’s chest and tears out a pulsating red object. Her expression is triumphant, even as she drops into a red pool of half melted snow.

Tom shoves the Emperor’s twitching body aside and crawls over to sink next to Kyllara. Ravenna can hear his voice, hoarse though it is, ravaged by pain.

“You were right. It meant everything. I’ve never been so happy.”

Kyllara smiles weakly, blood coming to her lips. She shoves the still beating heart onto Tom’s lap. “Take it. Hide it. Maybe the mages…they can seal it somewhere.”

“Kyllara?” He reaches down and touches her cheek. “You took the heart, you should be the one…oh.”

“’Oh,’ he says.” Kyllara laughs, but it turns into wet, sopping coughs. “I always have to work so hard, it isn’t fair. But you love me now, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Tom whispers. “Too late, but yes.”

“You make it sound like we’ll never see each other again,” Kyllara chides, her voice growing faint. “There are other worlds than these and I shall love you in every one. Even if you never remember me.”

Tom shakes his head, his fingers trailing slowly to close her eyes for her. “I always remember too late.” He gets to his feet awkwardly, the pulsing heart carefully gripped in his hands, and begins the hard task of moving on.

Ravenna, knowing there is no more to see, spirals higher into the icy clouds and heads for home. She has a mournful message to deliver.

(spin)

In the days that followed Fuyumi all but lived in the hospital room. The doctors kept Natsumi on all sorts of painkillers that left her drifting in and out of consciousness. Takeshi was nearly always around, either tucking blankets around his sisters or sipping coffee wearily in the hallway, and Yui was just as always with him. Friends from school dropped by all the time, although they were confined to seeing Natsumi through the window as it was family only inside the room. This seemed to particularly annoy Shizuka until he got around it by having Takeshi sneak him in.

No one noticed the small woman in a blue-gray kimono stopping by each day to peek in on Natsumi. She only ever stayed for a moment.

Despite Yui’s assurances that there would be no more trouble and she had taken care of everything, this time for good (said with a sense of fatal finality), Kino Kazuo was still posted outside the hospital room. At first he had asked to be fired for failing his job, then he had tried to quit, but Yui denied him each time. He had done the best he could, she told him, no one could have prepared for the Yukishiro boy going bat shit insane.

There was a memorable event the day after Natsumi had been admitted, when Yamano Kenji had turned up asking to see her. Apparently hearing that his troubles were over, he had come to reclaim his family. Interestingly enough, it was Fuyumi who drove him out of the hospital and onto the next train out of town. She had neither forgiven nor forgotten.

One afternoon three days after the shooting, Yui and Takeshi were in the cafeteria scrounging for decent food, Fuyumi was sleeping in a chair next to Natsumi’s bed (incidentally dreaming of a cute doctor asking her out), and Natsumi was awake. Kazuo was the first to see this and would have gone to get Takeshi or a doctor, except Natsumi waved him over.

He glanced at Fuyumi’s sleeping form but went into the room anyway.

“Kino-san,” Natsumi said, her voice rusty and raw.

“Kazuo’s fine, ojousan.”

She smiled up at him. “Kazuo-san. I had hoped you stayed.”

“I should get a nurse,” he muttered. He didn’t move an inch. She reached out and took his hand; he let her.

“Do you remember anything at all?” she asked.

“About what?” he responded.

She looked a little disappointed, but when he squeezed her hand she brightened.

“Never mind. We’re moving along just fine anyway.” And, wincing only slightly from the pain, she laughed huskily at his puzzled expression.

Outside the window, the woman in the blue-gray kimono sighed and drifted away. Her husband was waiting for her back at their temple, and things here were exactly as they should be.