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sabraeal · 4 months

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Age of Reason, Part 4

[Read on AO3]

Written for PurePassion, the other half of @traditional-with-a-twist, who also won the Obiyuki Madness Kitty! I am not often asked for more of this fic, but I am all too happy to oblige!

The thing is, the ambiance— it doesn’t add up.

Country nights run black as pitch, and the shadows here stretch deep in the stuff, dragging across the marble floors like a tiger’s stripes. The sort of inky darkness so thick a mind might trick itself into think it could leave streaks on a man, that it might even be solid enough to reach out and swallow given half the chance. The kind of endless deep that really gets the small animal of the soul shivering, wondering what might be on the other side— or if there is an other side to find. Toss a dir down a well like that, and you might be more surprised to hear it hit bottom.

That alone could have a man jumping at his own footsteps, thinking he sees ghouls and demons and worse around every corner. There’d been more than a few grifts where Obi had the dark do the heavy lifting, letting a moonless night press in around the kind of men who had more pride than sense. The kind that were eager to prove there was no vengeful spirit lurking around the village hall, or no vampires stalking through their forests in the dead of night. Convincing the shepherd went a long way in convincing the sheep, after all.

But tonight is no moonless night— no, he’d picked an evening where the old lady sat fat in her velvet bower, molting moonlight the way birds might their feathers, so bright there’d been no need for candles, even in the deepest bowels of the manor. No need for any casual passerby to know someone had been poking around the old pile, not when a ghostly princess would soon make her debut. Last thing he’d wanted was folk around here wondering if the ethereal princess had a more earthly in origin.

Picked the first night of the full moon too, just in case he needed to move fast— these Clarinese were always so quick to fall back on reason, once the fear had its time to settle, like water sinking below oil in a flask. There were ways to make skin glow and sigils flare if an enterprising person knew the angles the moonlight would slant through the window and the sort of unguent and powders that would use it to its best effect. The real could become surreal in the right man’s hands, and Obi— well, he’d made himself the right man long ago.

But standing here, staring at this apparition’s ghostly pallor, so translucent he can see where her veins run along the length of her forearms and snake up the column of her neck, blood soaked and flaking from the linen of her nightrail, and well—

It just doesn’t lend itself to the word con man. Or the way her hip cocks, unimpressed, as she cradles that bundle in her arms.

“Ah, miss!” He presses a hand to his chest, sketching the barest bow. She’s no sleeping princess, that’s for sure, but it always pays to be polite. “Con man is such an ugly term. I am a helper of man, a hunter of the unknowable, a—”

“A scoundrel, then.” She sets her bundle against her shoulder, the wailing cutting off with a hitch. It turns to a whine, the blankets squirming in strange, jerking movements. “Or perhaps you prefer ne’er-do-well?”

His hand drops, boneless under that dubious stare of hers. “I’ll have you know I do quite a bit of good.”

“I’m sure,” she says, too polite to be sincere. “I am curious though— what’s the grift, here? The house is closed for the season, but you’ll hardly be able to convince the townsfolk that there’s ghosts in the basement, or werewolves in the orchard. And when the guard find out you’ve snuck past them…”

There’s a doleful little warning in the glance she gives him, one that promises a tour of whatever dark corners the royals like to keep their undesirables in. But it’s hard to feel the threat of it when Obi hadn’t seen so much as a single petal of Wisteria blue since he stepped into town, and he doubts he’s about to see more. “Grift? Miss, I was sent here. Asked— no, begged, really— to come investigate the goings on here at the manor. There’s supposed to be a girl here, spurned by her royal lover and left to sleep for—”

“Ah, you’re a monster hunter.” Her smile’s almost fond when she shakes her head, as if he were a child dressed in his father’s maile, declaring himself a dragon slayer. “I haven’t seen one of those since I left Tanbarun. I never thought one would try their luck here.”

He wouldn’t have if sleeping mistress hadn’t seemed like sure money. “Is that so.”

“I thought germ theory sent all of you scampering back over the border.” Hand rubbing in soothing circles over the bundle, she peers down the hall. “So where is your partner?”

“Partner?” This girl knows far too much for those doll-like eyes. “I’m alone. Why would you think I had—?”

“Because someone has to be the monster, don’t they?” She takes a step, glancing through one of the open doors. “What was it supposed to be? Tragic young maiden, wrongfully killed before her time? Scullion who got in the family way and chose to take her own life, rather than suffer the dishonor? Oh, or perhaps a vampire—”

“With all due respect, Miss,” he blurts out, impatient. “I believe it was supposed to be you.”

“Me?” She doesn’t so much speak the word as shape it, mouth rounding as her gaze drops, tracing the eerie trails of blood winding down her gown. “Oh.”

If Obi thought it had been a pain sneaking out, it’s somehow an even bigger pain sneaking back in to Torou’s room. The window’s loud, for one, grunting and groaning as he tries to swing the pane from the sash, nearly slamming back in on his fingers once he does get it open. The company, for the second— and third, since the young lady balks when he offers to hold her blankets and give her a boost, and in the process of strapping it to her back, he discovers it isn’t an it at all.

“That’s a baby,” he hisses, nearly dropping the thing in panic.

“Of course he is.” She turns her head over her shoulder, mouth matching the baby’s disgruntled pout. “What did you think he was?”

Evidence of a mental illness, he doesn’t say, settling instead for, “There, all snug now. Now will you let me boost you up?”

And for the fourth, well…there’s something left to be desired in their reception, too.

“What are you thinking?” Torou squeaks, fingers tights as iron bands where they grip his arm. “You meet a girl covered in blood, and you think we should bring her in on the take?”

“I think we should hear her out at least,” he says, watching the girl linger by the kitchen fire. “Let her warm up a little. Maybe get her a new dress?”

What’s she’s got clings to her in all the wrong places, too stiff and crusted to seem like a second skin, but molded to her in a way that suggest it’ll feel like one when she pulls it off. Torou doesn’t miss it either, a breath huffing out as her arms cross over her chest.

“Fine. One dress.” She casts the girl a long look. “And one night. We can hear what she has to say, but if I don’t like it…”

Her thumb hitches over her shoulder. “That’s all I ask.”

“Oh…” There’s a chair drawn up before the fire— he’d dragged it there himself while he waited, not quite sure why he bothered. At least, not until the girl sinks down into it with a sigh, stretching out her legs until the joints crack. “Feels like I haven’t done that in ages.”

The baby’s still in her arms, sleeping now, small face tucked up against her chest. It— he grunts every breath or so, little frown furrowing deeper with each one, an old man’s face writ in smaller lines. It doesn’t seem possible for someone to be that tiny, to be that new and be out in the world with only a few scraps of cloth to keep him safe.

“Ah, I don’t mean to be rude, but…” Her head tilts back to look at him, hair shining penny-bright in the firelight. “Do you happen to have some…something to eat?”

Torou glances at him, unimpressed, before telling her, “There’s some stew I can warm up. Bit of bread too, if you don’t mind it’s a bit stale.”

“Oh!” Her breath hitches. “That…that would be quite enough, thank you. I don’t have anything to pay you, but I’m sure I could, um…?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Obi tells her, feeling the weight of the purse at his belt. “It’s on the house.”

There’s not a drop of noble blood running through Torou’s veins— neither of them; if he knows one thing, it’s that for sure— but she could give the finest countess a run for her money with the arch on her brow now, a look so loud he practically hears, ‘Oh, is it now?’ echoing in his ears. He gives her a charming smile, his best, and only budges that brow a bit higher.

“On…?” The girl’s cheeks flush, not perched all pretty on the apples of her cheeks, the way a prince’s mistress should, but splotchy like a farmer’s daughter. Not ideal for running this grift, but beggars can’t be choosers. Not like vengeful ghosts were given to be bashful anyway. “The kindness is appreciated, but I couldn’t presume to…” Her head shakes, though he doesn’t miss her glance toward the pot, all hunger. “This is a place of business.”

Between one blink and the next, Torou changes; stubborn giving way to surprise, then gives way to a different sort of stubborn. She’s already reaching for a trencher when he says, “Seems a fair exchange to me, miss…for a name.”

She hesitates now, one arm squeezing tighter on the babe, shoulders hunched as if her slight body could protect him from anything more substantial than a breeze. “…Shirayuki.”

He mouths the name, oddly familiar on his lips. A nice one, even if it doesn’t come with a last name to match. Not all do, where he’s from. He certainly doesn’t have one to give. “And him?”

She’s more eyes than face— probably even was even before that babe of hers pulled every last scrap of life from her it could— and all of it glances down to the bundle in her arms, a pink, wrinkled face pouting out from the swaddle. “I…” Her voice is so soft he hardly hears it over the scrape of the ladle. “I don’t know yet.”

Torou bustles over to her, thrusting the bowl between them. “Not going to name him after the father?”

It’s a cheap ploy, but an effective one. The sort they’ve made their bread and butter on for years, spooling out reason and rumor alike from the townsfolk they fleece, using every last thread of it to weave their grift. Except on this girl— this Shirayuki— there’s no crying or raging, no nothing. Just a tightening of her mouth and a small furrow carving itself between her brows.

“I don’t think,” she says, so carefully, tightening the makeshift swaddle around him, “that would be a good idea.”

Torou’s mouth goes a little pinched too. “You can’t eat and hold that thing. Here,” she says, holding out her arms. “Let me take him. Just for a minute.”

The girl shrinks back, eyes measuring the distance between Torou’s outstretched hands and the door. Whatever number she gets can’t be compelling.

“Listen,” Torou sighs, cocking a hip. “If he’s going to eat, you got to too, right? Can’t do that without both hands.”

Obi’s mouth twitches. “Unless you want me to feed you, Miss. I’d be happy to serve on bended knee, if only you said—”

The girl can’t get the babe into Torou’s arms fast enough. “Thank you.”

Her mouth twitches, meeting the babe’s eyes. “Don’t mention it.”

“Tell me you aren’t thinking what I think you’re thinking,” Torou mutters, jogging the baby boy up on her shoulder. He’s fussing quiet-like, not enough chest to make the full-bodied shrieks a bigger babe could, but he’s grunting— whimpering, really— nosing around Torou’s neck like if he roots hard enough, he might find his mother.

He holds up his hands, the picture of innocence. “I’m not thinking anything.”

“You don’t got to tell me that.” Her gaze darts over to where the girl sits, digging into her stew slowly, methodically even, but still— there’s an intensity to it. An urgency. Probably can’t remember the last time she ate, but she’d rather die than give that away. He’s seen it before— hell, done it before. “But I mean under all that not thinking. Tell me you’re not going to…”

There’s no need to say the words, not when they both know— “She’s perfect.”

“Are you nuts?” she hisses, so close to shrill he nearly shushes her. The baby does it instead, whining into her shoulder, little limbs jerking where he rests. A hand to the back soothes him, but Torou still glares, so tense that mane of hers nearly stands on end. “We don’t know anything about her.”

“Come on.” His charm might be wasted on Torou, but reason wouldn’t be. “This isn’t like our other jobs. These people actually knew the girl. We can’t just stuff you in a nightgown and hope for the best.”

“And what’s to say she’s got the look anymore than I do?” she sniffs, chin taking it most stubborn angle. “Sure, you found her in that creepy old pile. Sure, she was covered in blood. That’s doesn’t make her…her…”

She glances down at the kid, strangely pale— and even more strangely silent.

“Look at her. She’s so thin you can practically see through her. Put her under the moonlight with that bloody dress and even I thought she could be…” He clears his throat. “Red hair too. Not easy to find in these parts.”

Though he could have sworn he saw it recently. Not as apple-bright as this, but still, something close. Kissing-cousins. Family.

“You can dye hair,” Torou mutters, but there’s no heat behind it. No conviction. He’s got her hooked, now he’s just got to reel her in.

“To that color?” His shoulder bumps her, drawing a gurgle from that sleepy baby throat. “Come on, it’s not like we have better plans. What’s the harm?”

Torou stiffens, a palm absently rubbing over the baby’s back. “What if you’re right?”

He blinks. “What?”

“What if…?” She licks her lips. “What if this isn’t a coincidence?”

A scoff escapes him before he can catch it, which means he has to commit. “You can’t really think she’s the mistress, can you? Torou, you—?”

“I know what I saw,” she growls, voice pitched low. “She was cursed, Obi. And no one knows why! What if…what if they find out she’s awake and—”

“Torou.” His hand weighs heavy on her shoulder, trying to ground her, to recognize it’s earth under her feet. “We make up all our grifts! There’s never been a vengeful ghost, or a werewolf, or a…a cursed princess. They’ve all been parts you play!”

She shakes her head, all eyes when she looks up at him. “But the best lie has a grain of truth in it. What if…what if we’ve finally found ours?”

Obi frowns down at her, a strange sense of dread knotting in his gut. “We know what this world can do, don’t we? And if it could do something like that…”

Then maybe it wouldn’t be just the two of them. Or maybe they wouldn’t be here at all. A little bit of magic could change everything, once a body started to believe.

“We’ve made a mint making other people fools,” Torou says finally. “But I’m telling you, Obi. If we get involved with this girl, we’ll be the bigger ones.”

He’d love to get the last word in on that one, to tell her she’s just being as gullible as their marks, but he can’t get a peep out, not when the little man on her should rears back his head and wails.

“Oh!” There’s only the trencher left in the girl’s hands when she turns back, already half-eaten. “He must be hungry.”

It’s Obi that lifts him from Torou’s shoulder, letting a grin tilt his lips. “Hey, Miss,” he starts, patting the little guy on his back. “Tell me if you’ve heard this one before…”

#obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #sleeping beauty au #my fic #age of reason #ans #okay this was supposed to be 4/4 with a potential for more #but it looks like it's more like 4/5 with a potential for more #but we have finally reached the end of the fics I owe for this year #well except the do-si-do stuff #almost onto the ones for next year. OH BOY 🤣#no rest for the wicked

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traditional-with-a-twist · 2 months

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lix. Beauty and Her Beast

<<Previous || first arc || second arc || third arc || AO3

Parallel scene: Lovely, Dark, and Deep from Obiyuki Winter Challenge 2018.

As Kiki set the hunting lodge to order, she assessed the situation.

Truth be told, she had foreseen little good following Obi’s choices from the start, and now there was every reason to declare her fears vindicated.

She found her friend alone and forsaken, stranded somewhere along the road to nowhere and by no means in the best of health.

...

Kiki had not meant to interfere. She had understood in the couple’s sudden and silent departure, vanishing on the eve of their wedding, that they would find their own way now.

She thought of them; she wished them well; she waited.

When Shirayuki’s letters stopped, she had begun watching, listening, looking for signs of something amiss.

Had they simply disappeared again, in quest of a still more distant retreat than the one they had made for themselves in the wilds of the Haruka estate?

The message from Mitsuhide had settled this question.

...

Where Obi had gone now, why he had left — those questions Kiki could not answer, and she doubted whether Shirayuki might, either.

Perhaps Obi himself would be hard-pressed to explain.

Regardless of the case, Kiki considered such details immaterial. He had made his decision; he had broken the promise sworn before her and to his wife.

Now only one question remained: what next?

...

Shirayuki’s feelings wavered from gladness to trepidation when Kiki re-entered, bearing a bowl of something hot.

She felt herself stronger as she sat up to eat, but inwardly her spirit quailed.

Twice now Shirayuki had appealed for assistance with her quest; twice she had been refused — by the very persons she might have expected more interested, most sympathetic to her case.

Now that she faced a third prospect of rejection, Shirayuki debated whether to mount the petition at all.

...

Perhaps Kiki was too busy; perhaps it would not be fair to ask.

Shirayuki would not want to put her in an uncomfortable position…would not want to impose….

She accepted the bowl in silence and began to eat with her eyes lowered.

...

Kiki sat beside her on the bed, a gesture so familiar that Shirayuki looked up in surprise.

She met her friend’s kindest smile, the one she had encountered first in the belly of a pirate’s ship after a long nightmare of fear and isolation.

The same expression of warmth and kind understanding met her now.

...

“Shirayuki,” her friend said gently. “You’ve come a long way.”

The herbalist of Tanbarun turned royal pharmacist then princess-to-be, bereaved and betrothed again, lately a wife and now a sojourner — at this acknowledgement, she felt herself begin to tremble.

Shirayuki gripped the bowl to stop it from splashing.

...

Kiki laid her small hand, strong and sure, on her friend’s shoulder. “You’re not alone,” she said simply.

Shirayuki set the bowl aside and let herself be held as she had not for an interminable number of nights — not since Obi had left her nor Zen before him, not even since her grandparents, but perhaps all the years back to the loss of that unknown mother who had once cradled her close and secure as Kiki did now.

The fear drained away as a restful sense of comfort overtook it.

Shirayuki leaned on her friend and said, “I’m looking for Obi.”

...

Kiki nodded. She had guessed as much, but it meant something that Shirayuki spoke in the present tense. She was yet searching; she had not given up.

Bolstered by this first mark of acceptance, Shirayuki drew herself upright.

She met Kiki’s gaze and confessed, “I don’t know where he is.”

...

There it was – the shame and futility of her search, bundled together in one short phrase.

She had admitted herself completely forsaken, even as she asked an fabulous boon: help me to find a man who does not want to be found.

Help me track a flake of snow in the mountains, a fallen leaf in the forest.

Help me to journey, I know not where, for a man who may refuse me when I arrive.

Help me to do the impossible.

...

She bared the guilt and absurdity of it all before the gaze of Lady Kiki Seiran, the third nobility of her adopted country to whom she had addressed her plea.

The first had scorned both her and his son, lashing out in anger.

The second had turned from her, drawn away along his own road to somewhere she knew not, too bound in his own pain to minister to hers.

...

Now Kiki’s eyes regarded her: the pale clarity of an aristocratic line, hardened like diamonds in the forge of Kiki’s exacting mind and unrelenting spirit.

The eyes of a basilisk when angered, the eyes of a sphinx when calm, they weighed up all who came before them and found most wanting.

Shirayuki met these eyes unflinching, firm in the courage that rarely wavered and never deserted her for long, and awaited her judgment.

...

Kiki rose from the bed and walked to the window, every step precise. She stood gazing out at the forest around them, lately streaked with white.

They were in the depths of cold yet; spring had not thawed the roads.

It would be a difficult journey under the best of circumstances, like and unlike the one she and Shirayuki had undertaken alongside two men now lost to them. Then they had traveled from the border with Tanbarun all the way to the capital of Clarines, and Shirayuki had arrived a fugitive from injustice.

...

Shirayuki was hardy and wise to the natural world, Kiki knew, but her health was flagging; at the very least, she had suffered a shock.

Besides this, the long distance of that first journey had followed known routes.

Shirayuki had stuck to the main roads in her flight from Tanbarun – speedy, but not secretive, as the untimely gift of apples had proved.

The four of them together had preferred the open country, but still along familiar paths, with known supply points.

In this situation, such a method of travel would never serve their purpose.

...

“Obi had made a life of secrecy and flight,” Kiki said. “For his kind, the woods are the nearest they have to a home. He is skilled above all in the art of vanishing without a trace, of leaving false trails, of assuming multiple identities to conceal his passage.

“Beyond this, he will have allies equally if not better skilled, some situated to provide just such a service as preventing discovery — by bolt holes, hidden passages, even arranging stowaways aboard ships.”

She turned to read Shirayuki’s face as she spoke, watching for the emotions that overtook it.

...

“When Obi fell to our supervision, Zen instructed us in the case of his disappearance, that we were not to follow.

“It would be useless, a fruitless waste of our resources. To track him with no idea of his whereabouts or purpose may cost months… even years.

“He may never be found.”

...

“Even if it takes my whole life,” Shirayuki answered, eye blazing, “I won’t stop looking! I won’t give up on him. It doesn’t matter how long.”

“Long,” Kiki repeated. “It will be long.”

The two women stood in silence for a moment. Hard sunlight slanted in through the window and struck the floor in long bright bars.

...

Then Kiki smiled. “So,” she said, “there is no time to waste. Let us start at once.”

#Akagami no Shirayukihime #obiyuki #PurePassion #this is it!!#the last parallel scene!#100% new content from here on out #and one more chapter to finish this arc

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