#obiyukimadness19

[tinelifa]

Mutual Pining

"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more." —Emma, Jane Austen

~*~

Edit by myself. Free to reblog/post or use but credit me and not edit.

[longagoitwastuesday]

obiyuki: mutual pining

"How lush the world is, 

how full of things that don't belong to me". 

[ruleofexception]

“It didn’t mean anything...”

[nalufever]

The Night Shift

AnS fandom, Snow White with the Red Hair

Obi x Shirayuki  Rated teen(at the moment) for swears

Mutual Pining, Hospital AU, almost 3100 words

The Night Shift: There’s nothing more perfect than a match made in heaven - unless it’s a match made from mutual attraction and pining. Paramedic Obi has been under ER doctor Shirayuki’s spell for as long as he can remember - and now he’s going to do something about it. Written by @nalufever & @hidetheremote

Shirayuki bit her thumbnail to the quick, teeth gnawing the soft flesh. Ugh, what an ugly habit. She would never admit nervousness, especially in her line of work; but ever since the promotion to lead ER doctor, she'd been unable to restrain the urge. Sigh. Another manicure ruined.

The major source of her anxiety was Izana. Damn him! He ran Wistal Hospital like a kingdom and he was the absolute monarch - high, mighty and ruthless. It was his idea--separating her from Dr. Zen, keeping them apart like night and day. Her only saving grace was working with her friends, nurse Yuzuri and…

The back doors opened, a patient rushed in by the paramedics.

“We got a gooey one coming in! Hope you like your burrito with red sauce!” Obi sure loved making an entrance.

Shirayuki ran to the hallway, her green eyes sharp enough to catch Obi’s small smile.

“Status, Obi?” Shirayuki grabbed the patient’s bloody hand, checking for a pulse.

“Car accident. Totaled. What a shame. It was a sweet ride…”

“Obi! Status of the patient!”

“Sorry! Patient had a high blood alcohol level. Broken collarbone. Possible concussion.”

Nurses surrounded the patient, hooking up intravenous lines and attaching sensors - working in unison to transfer the young male to a proper gurney. Shirayuki aided each step of the process, directing the junior nurses with a soft but firm voice. “Run a blood type and we need x-rays taken. There could be more broken than a collarbone.”

Obi checked his watch and stepped into the background even further as his crush showed the hospital why she was on the fast-track to becoming one of the best ER doctors in the county, let alone Wistal Hospital. Shirayuki had no idea how adorable she looked, taking charge and being masterful with her obvious skills. It wouldn’t do to be seen oohing and awwing over Shirayuki, so Obi decided to slink away before he betrayed his interest.

Nurse Vanya stepped into his path and fluttered her heavily mascaraed lashes. “Are you off shift soon? Want to grab a drink?”

“That sounds nice, but…” Obi did his best to keep a neutral expression. “...I promised someone else I’d be there for them to talk about a personal matter.”

“I’ll give you a rain-check.” Nurse Vanya threw back her shoulders and not-so-accidentally made her bosoms shake. “Anytime you like, we could discuss our own personal matters.”

“Yeah.” Obi gave a tight smile and nod to the persistent young nurse. “My schedule is busy right now, I’ve got to get back to my ride, right?”

“Of course.”

Another shimmy showcasing cleavage from Nurse Vanya and Obi turned tail to escape. Muttering under his breath, Obi wished his luck ran more towards attracting red-heads. Especially the smart ones with piercing green eyes and an angel’s bedside manner.

><><><><><

Once the patient had stabilized, he was sent off for X-rays, and Shirayuki came out of the room, her bright white lab coat stained with patches of red… sauce. She caught the back side of Obi, his perky and toned butt (Why were her eyes drifting to that part of his body? And how the hell did she even know it was his butt?) rushing out of the hospital.

“Obi!” she shouted, taking off her dirty coat.

Obi turned halfway around, one side of him outside holding the door open. “Yo, Dave! Turn the car off. I gotta take a leak.” He closed the door behind him, then jogged his way back to Shirayuki.

“I, uh…” Shirayuki wasn’t even sure why she had called for him. She had rounds to do, and a bloody patient was making his way into her operating room soon. “I… uh, never mind. It’s been a busy night and…”

“Miss…” Obi scrubbed a hand into his black hair, his gaze flicking down from her eyes to her cleavage.

Noticing his nervous demeanor, Shirayuki looked down at her clothes and she realized she was wearing her low-cut purple blouse. Sometimes she forgot what she wore underneath her coat. She ought to stick to wearing scrubs, but dressing up once in a while wasn’t a bad idea.

Shirayuki crossed her arms against her chest, and Obi lifted his head up immediately, a bright blush forming on his cheeks.

“Can we grab a drink at the end of our shift?” Obi was prepared to act like it was a general friendly, run-of-the-mill offer - but if Shirayuki didn’t run screaming away, he’d consider it the best move of his life.

“Um, that’s…” Shirayuki stopped playing with adjusting her clothes and read the honest intent in Obi’s eyes. “...I’d love to.”

“It’s a date. I’ve gotta go ride herd on Dave, see ya at shift end?”

“It’s a date.” Shirayuki echoed Obi. Crazy. She had to be crazy - but such a wonderful crazy. “Is there anywhere open then?”

“I know a place.”

One of the senior nurses not so subtly gestured to Shirayuki. “Our patient would like your attention.”

Chagrin first and foremost on Shirayuki’s expression, she turned back to her job. “Sorry, Yuzuri. Let’s fix our customer.”

“Looking a bit tired, huh, Yuzuri?” Obi closed the distance between them, a smirk plastered on his face. “Some wrinkles around the eyes there, sweetie.”

“Boy, the day I need your attention is my last day on this Earth. Bye!” she clapped back, giving the paramedic a hard shove.

><><><><><

Hours passed frightfully fast - another car accident after the drunken broken collar bone; this one had been a young inexperienced driver. A female suffering from heavy bleeding cuts from a shattered windshield. It hadn’t been her fault - but she’d needed copious amounts of stitching nonetheless.

The major and minor stresses of the ER ran endlessly - and at shift change, Shirayuki was only too happy to toss her latest bloodied lab coat into the laundry and head to her locker.

“You gonna waste time with Obi?” Nurse Yuzuri needled Shirayuki. “He’s easy on the eyes but he needs a good smack.”

“We’re just friends, Yuzuri.”

“Please. Let me check your pulse right now.” Yuzuri reached for Shirayuki’s wrist. “Bitch, I know you’re lying.” The two played a quick cat-and-mouse chase in the hallway.

Shirayuki couldn’t hide the smile on her face. She glanced at the doors, waiting for Obi to pop in any minute now.

“Shirayuki!” A familiar voice called out. Just before she turned around, the emergency doors opened. Obi walked in, his delicious muscles on display under a tight white cotton t-shirt and illegally tight jeans, his amber eyes focused behind her. His smile faded and he stood frozen at the doorway.

“Shirayuki.” The voice was closer, and she felt a hand on her waist, turning her around.

“Zen. Wh-What the hell are you doing here?” Shirayuki’s breath hitched like she was caught red-handed.

Zen pulled her in, giving her a tight hug. “I wanted to surprise you. Maybe grab breakfast before my shift?”

Shirayuki pulled away, turning her head back to watch the doors shut; Obi, on the other side of the glass doors, hunched and fighting against the cold March wind. “Didn’t we decide to part ways? I can’t handle you, me and your brother in a relationship. I won’t. I refuse.”

“I can’t stop caring about you so easily.” Zen reached out, wanting to tuck the fly-away strand of glistening red hair behind Shirayuki’s ear - but having to pull back as the capable doctor grimaced in warning.

“I get that, but we’re over.” Shirayuki shoved her hand into her pocket and pulled out an elastic, smoothing her hair into a manageable clump, fastening the elastic around and around until her ponytail was tight. “And one day I hope you find someone who fits into your weird family dynamic.”

“Some people actually want to play nice.” Zen shook his head and rolled his eyes - albeit slowly and with the softest of disdain. “My family isn’t very weird and you’d know that if you’d honestly tried to fit in.”

“Zen. Having to try to fit in means something.”

“Shirayuki. Wanting to fit in means something.”

“I don’t have time for this, nor do I want to keep our failed relationship on life support.” Shirayuki held up her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Let’s just agree to disagree. I’m going home - ALONE. Please respect my decision.”

“I respect you.” Zen frowned, tightening his lips and refused to speak further, only giving a half-hearted wave good-bye to his former girlfriend as she stomped out of the emergency doors. Once Shirayuki was out of earshot, Zen sighed and rubbed his forehead. Her and him in a relationship made sense - but - once they’d gone further than just friends, it had crumbled.

Nurse Vanya sidled over to Zen and gave him her best smile. “I’ve got lots of time.”

><><><><

Shirayuki expected to find Obi lurking around her car and when she didn’t see him there she pulled out her phone to send him a text. Immediately she heard a distinctive snippet of music, ‘Notorious B.I.G.’s Big Poppa’ - but moving away, getting harder to hear. “Hey! Did you forget about me?” Shirayuki abandoned her car and jogged down the alleyway to Obi. “Hey!” This time her voice held real ire. “You promised me a drink!”

Obi stopped like he’d been shot, spine ramrod stiff and then slumping in defeat. He let his head hang low and shrugged, glancing at Shirayuki as she lightly touched his shoulder. “I figured you might have gone with the better offer.”

“Hmmf! Better? Hah! A promise is a promise, isn’t it? I don’t take them lightly - I agreed to grab a drink with you.” Shirayuki moved in front of her friend, crossing her arms and frowning. “What’s your problem?”

Obi opened his car door, he turned to Shirayuki, his lips in a thin straight line. “No problem here,” he said, eyes flicking down like he was hiding something. “I’m a bit too tired. Raincheck?”

Shirayuki fought the exasperated sigh coming out. He was lying to her, and she wanted to desperately wring out the truth from him, but the damn cold wind was getting the best of her. She blew into her uncovered hands.

“You should get into your car,” Obi said, getting inside his. He raised his voice. “And go home.” The car engine roared and Shirayuki took the hint. The wheels spun and smoked, leaving skid marks and then his car zoomed down the road.

She ran back to her car, almost slipping on the black ice in the parking lot. Yanking open the door she flopped inside, banging her head against the steering wheel, making it honk. “Fuck.” Closing her eyes for a bit, Shirayuki let her sour mood and tiredness take over her body. Although the warmth and comfort of her bed were tempting, Obi’s rejection ate away at her. Taking out her phone she googled ‘bars’ into her maps app. The first selection was open at 4:00 AM. “Fuckit. I don’t need Obi’s company. I’m gonna grab a drink anyway.”

The Greenhouse was a cute name and it sounded like the perfect antidote to chase away the winter blahs. The alleyway had more than a few unfortunate homeless people taking cover so she parked under a streetlight, though the sun was close to rising.

As she walked into the bar, the bell jingled and a few patrons turned their heads to look at the fresh meat. It was quite filled for such an early time (or late?). She headed over to the bartender who was wiping down the counter.

“Are you serving breakfast right now?” She wasn’t particularly hungry, but she didn’t want to drink on an empty stomach. A mimosa would be nice.

The bartender looked annoyed like Shirayuki was a simpleton. He turned his head slightly, lifting a thumb at his back. She flushed red with embarrassment. She couldn’t believe she’d missed the large chalkboard behind him: BREAKFAST SERVED ALL DAY.

“One mimosa, please.”

Nodding, he wiped the counter once more, then moved to the other side to make her cocktail.

Shirayuki spun around in her stool, then stopped abruptly at the familiar amber eyes sitting in a corner booth…with a brunette across from him. The back of the woman’s head was all Shirayuki could see, but she could only imagine that the mystery woman was gorgeous and definitely lively, considering that Obi seemed to be doting on her every word.

Mouth dry and stomach churning, she rummaged in her purse, pulling out her wallet, not noticing her work badge escape. Slamming a ten dollar bill on the counter, Shirayuki rushed out of the bar. The last thing she heard was the bartender shouting, “Hey! You forgot your…”

Whatever the hell she’d forgotten, she knew for damn sure - pieces of her heart were left shattered all over the pristine counter. Obi had canceled on her to go on another date.

><><><><><><

Next shift found Shirayuki dragging herself to the hospital’s employee entrance after scant sleep. After leaving the bar, she’d occupied her mind with baking cookies. Yuzuri had better appreciate her burnt chocolate chip cookies, she said to herself. She reached inside her purse, fingers searching for her badge.

She raised her eyebrows in dismay. Not trusting her hand, Shirayuki looked with her eyes. She took out her wallet, digging deeper into the black hole she called a ‘handbag,’ still unable to find her missing item.

She took out her phone and texted Yuzuri.

Shirayuki: Outside. Can u open, please?

Yuzuri: What?! Again?!!!

Shirayuki: Sorry! She included a kissy-face emoji.

Yuzuri: Almost done doing my rounds. Give me a few.

Shirayuki stared at the three dots beneath the latest text.

Yuzuri: Bitch, you owe me.

Rolling her eyes, Shirayuki couldn’t help but smile at her friend’s text. She owed her a bunch of favors already, one more couldn’t hurt. While waiting for the door to open, Shirayuki wondered where she left her damn badge. She thought about going back to her car--maybe it dropped inside? But Yuzuri would kill her - in the most violent fashion if she wasn’t there waiting.

The black box next to the door suddenly beeped, and her attention snapped to it, to see which employee was behind her.

The picture on the badge was a redhead with a goofy-looking smile. She remembered taking that picture. The security guard had pressed the button on ‘three’ when it was common knowledge that you press after ‘three.’ And the man wouldn’t let her take it again!

It took Shirayuki a few seconds to realize that’d she'd been reunited with her missing badge.

“You better clock in before Izana calls you out for being late again.”

Shirayuki spun around, nearly bumping into Obi’s chest. God, he was close. Damn tasty muscles! So close she could smell the musk from his deodorant. Why did he smell so good? She was angry at him - and him smelling delicious was ticking her off more!

“Why the heck do you have my badge?” She took a step back, pulling the door open. Obi followed her in, keeping close.

Obi waved the badge in front of him, a smirk plastered on his face. “I didn’t take you for a mimosa type of girl.”

Shirayuki reached out to grab her badge, but Obi pulled away before she could get it. She practically growled, “I didn’t take you for the lying type of guy.”

Obi froze at her words. “Lying?”

Snatching the badge away, Shirayuki leaned closer, her face tilting up to look him dead in the eyes. “You said you were tired, but…”

“I was tired,” he said softly. He averted his eyes, and Shirayuki poked him in the chest.

“Liar.” She paused for a moment, her breaths labored like she was going to hyperventilate. “If you had other plans, you didn’t have to lie to get out of our date.” She turned around, and before she could walk away, Obi grabbed her hand to stop her.

“It’s not what you think.” He squeezed her fingers, and Shirayuki clung back. “When I saw you talking to Zen, I…” He pulled her in and Shirayuki wrapped her arms around his waist, telling herself she was just sharing his glorious warmth.

“I figured you’re still not over him, and honestly, I want you to be happy, and…”

“So you got over me quickly and went on another date?” Shirayuki knew she sounded bitter and accusing, but dammit, she was hurt!

Pulling back but keeping his arms around her shoulders, Obi gave her a puzzled look. “Date?”

“Yes, date! I saw you at the bar with that pretty woman.”

He was still baffled, and it took him a long minute to realize what the hell she was talking about.

“You mean, Torou?” His voice pitched like he was disgusted. “First of all, you should have said hi and joined me at the table.” He chuckled and pulled her in again. “Second, on my way home, Torou texted me out of nowhere and decided to meet at the Greenhouse.” He took a deep sigh of relief. “She’s just a friend.”

“A pretty friend who makes you smile like you haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Exactly!” Obi’s smirk fell at the sight of her expression.

Shirayuki frowned, eyes welling with tears.

“Not the pretty part!” he blurted. “I mean, yes, I haven’t seen her for many years.”

There was a silence between them, but their hard expressions had softened, and Shirayuki felt her heart flutter with excitement.

Obi licked his lips and pouted. “C’mon Shirayuki, why don’t you give me another chance?”

Shirayuki leaned closer and swooned into his arms. “Take me! Take me and do what you will!”

Obi ruthlessly squelched his daydream of a compliant Shirayuki. There was no way in hell she felt the same for him as he felt for her… He smiled, more honestly and tried again. “C’mon, give me another chance.”

Was it sweet anticipation that made Shirayuki's stomach flutter? The alluring promise of potential? Or the sure fact that she'd been wanting to spend more time with Obi? "Yes."

[claudeng80]

Almost a Princess

“Shirayuki, come sit down. Your tea is getting cold and I'm weary just looking at you.” Raj Shenezard fanned himself with a hand, kicking his feet up on a velvet hassock. “It’s not like staring out the window is going to make him arrive any faster.”

Shirayuki’s braid swung wide as she jumped. The guilt spreading across her face lasted only a second, painted over with her usual innocent cheer. It might fool the random courtier or knight who didn’t know her well, but shame on her for even trying to use it on Raj.

“Are you really in that much of a hurry to leave?” Raj sipped his tea, watching the bottom of his cup to keep her from seeing the look on his face. The very thought of losing her made his insides swirl like the the scattering of leaves in the dregs. She'd been his best friend and companion since they were babies, a constant steady star in his life.

And now, because two kings decided a knight's daughter and dear friend of the royal family made an acceptable substitution for a too-young princess, he was losing her. To Zen Wisteria, of all people, with his floppy hair and blue eyes and dashing sword skills.

He'd have objected more had Shirayuki given any sign she wasn’t enthusiastic about the match. But maybe girls liked that sort of thing. She certainly spent hours in the gardens with the prince and his knight when they visited to settle the deal.

Really, he’d have rather they’d taken Rona.

Shirayuki had drifted back to the window while he was thinking, fingers resting on a piece of paper peeping out of her pocket. It looked like a letter, one that had been folded and unfolded more than once. “Really?”

“Sir Obi wrote that they'd be here today.” Her eyes never wavered from the road, but paper crinkled under her fingers.

“The knight is writing you letters now? How irregular.” Maybe the irreproachable Zen Wisteria had a flaw after all. Poor handwriting?

Shirayuki didn't answer, and maybe the pink on her face was just the light from outside. “Ah! Someone’s coming!”

That got Raj out of his chair, leaning over the windowsill to see. A cloud of dust on the mountain approach indicated riders incoming. Ugh, they’d be such a mess when they arrived. “Could be messengers.”

“No, it’s him,” Shirayuki whispered, as though Raj weren’t there at all. He expected her to watch the riders all the way to the gate, enjoy her first secret view of her husband-to-be, but instead she whirled on him, panic in her eyes. “Do I look all right?”

All those years he’d tried and tried to make the knight’s daughter dress like she belonged in the castle, like the de facto member of the royal family she was. Fruitless, every single argument and every gift, for all these years. And now, now with no more than twenty minutes to prepare, she wanted to impress someone. Raj could cry, if it wouldn’t make him all blotchy.

But never let it said that Raj turned away a friend in her hour of need. He would endure. “The green gown with the yellow accents. And take your hair down, out of the braid.” With her wealth of scarlet hair loose, nobody would even notice her cosmetics were so minimal. It was a sign of how worried she was that she didn’t even argue, just nodded and ran for the door. But there was one more thing he had to say before she went, one more thing she needed to know. “Shirayuki-”

Her hand was already on the doorknob, but she paused to hear. “He’s lucky, you know.” Saying things like that stuck in his throat, but he wasn’t going to be a coward this time. Not for her. “The luckiest man out there. You should remember that.”

And there, before she ran, was the smile he needed from her, her uncertainty and worry wrapped back up within the armor of confidence. He believed in her, and he’d seen the look on Prince Zen of Clarines’ face when the promises were signed. She had nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

***

Forest green fabric, matched exactly to the shade of her eyes, swished around Shirayuki’s ankles as she formally welcomed the party that had arrived for her. The solo, singular party. Raj frowned at the insult, that her escort would be so scanty.

“My master is devastated that he couldn’t be here,” the knight, with dust on his face from having apparently ridden all the way from the capital of Clarines without a carriage, made pretty excuses, but it was far from enough to settle Raj’s suspicion.

“How long have you come for, Sir Obi?” Shirayuki covered her disappointment well, and at least she remembered the knight’s name. It rankled a bit that the one time he got her to take an interest in her appearance, the target of her concern didn’t even show up. Another black mark in Prince Zen’s book, so far as Raj was concerned, but Shirayuki was nothing but smiles and kindness with the knight.

“I am to stay here until I accompany you back to Clarines. ‘Don't come back without her,’ my master said when I left Wistal.” He flourished another showy bow, rising with a charming grin in place. With some attention to his dress and the prolonged application of a hairbrush, he could likely be quite presentable. Shirayuki dipped in an answering curtsey, the smile on her face and the set of her shoulders playful.

“There’s an ambassador here so the king’s busy- It’ll probably take a few days for him to process your letters.” She tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear, and Sir Obi’s eyes tracked the motion of her hand. “Last time you were here you mentioned an interest in my flowers- they’re in a very interesting phase at this time of year. Would you like to see them?”

“It will be my pleasure.” He swept another deep bow, so deep that Raj frowned at the possibility he was mocking her. It was true that nobody actually volunteered to hear about Shirayuki’s plants save the castle herbalists and gardeners, and she had them all twined about her little finger, but still! He would not have people disrespecting her.

“I could show you now!” Shirayuki’s braid bumped against her back with the vehemence of her answer. She’d only taken half his advice, but it was more than nothing.

Sir Obi would have every right to demur, every reason to deliver letters and treat with the king’s gatekeepers before being dragged through the mud and branches by his master’s fiancee, but you’d never know it by his response and the look in his eyes. “Lead the way,” he answered, and if Raj were half the judge of character that he knew himself to be, this man was actually telling the truth. “Your Highness,” he acknowledged the prince in the room, at last, bowing himself out in Shirayuki’s wake.

They were long gone when Raj realized she was taking her best dress into the garden. That skirt was flawless silk. Or at least it used to be.

***

Shirayuki wasn't alone in the breakfast room when Raj arrived. It was unreasonably early, only a few hours since sunrise, but plates already sat empty on the sideboard, used silverware stacked in a wall before Sir Obi. “The entire fort was sick in bed, with a foot of snow all around and bandits in the area, but master-”

Raj cleared his throat a second time, and this time Shirayuki actually looked up. It was all well and good that she enjoyed hearing about her future husband, but really, that was no reason to be so distracted. “Good morning, Raj!”

“I see you got an early start.” Raj sounded waspish even to himself, so he took a deep breath and busied himself at the serving plates. Surely a good serving of bacon and a bit of Shirayuki’s attention would repair his mood. “Big plans for the day?”

There was no call for Sir Obi to look so sheepish, surely his master made him get up and do sword exercises or whatever it is that knights do so early in the morning. Shirayuki shuffled in her seat, surely about to list off whatever plant had her attention at the moment, but the answer didn’t come from her.

Obi jumped at the sound of Sakaki's voice. Shirayuki, accustomed to expect the man lurking in corners, just smiled at him. “Sir Obi and I will be sparring in the south garden after breakfast. You, Highness, are at leisure until noon.”

“Sparring?” Raj looked from Sakaki to Obi, but neither face offered an obvious explanation.

“I'm to accompany Miss Shirayuki back to Clarines,” Obi explained at last. “I think he wants to make sure I'm qualified.”

“Sir Mukaze would have done no less, were he still with us.” A year later, Raj could still feel the man's cheerful backslaps right down to his teeth. Much like his daughter, Mukaze had an idiosyncratic idea of the deference and respect owed to his social superiors. Shirayuki got away with it by being unfailingly charming. Mukaze had been the king's aide and confidante, far less charming and more . . . terrifying. Surely his interrogation of the man taking away his daughter would have been legendary. Good for Sakaki for stepping up in his place.

Raj was less convinced of the wisdom of Sakaki’s actions when he joined them at the training-grounds. He’d only had to be redirected by the guards once, definitely not lost and not late at all, but Shirayuki was already there, frowning at the two combatants.

Sakaki’s sword seemed a fragile shield, hardly enough to protect such a tall man, but it whipped through the air like lightning as he warmed up. Even his exercises looked exhausting.

Sir Obi, on the other hand, carried no sword. Training weapons rattled as he picked through the racks, landing at last on the least bent of the practice swords. Raj had the sinking suspicion it was the same one he’d been forced to use the last time his father got a bee in his turban about the appropriate exercises for a prince. Fortunately Raj was stubborn enough to outlast anyone who tried to make him exercise.

“I’m not much of a swordsman,” Sir Obi said, swinging his practice sword in lazy loops. It seemed not to have made any difference to his confidence.

“Nevertheless,” said Sakaki, and he charged. His sword swept through Obi’s space in a diagonal slash that Raj thought for sure would end in apologies to Clarines, but his opponent simply wasn’t there when the attack arrived. Again, Sakaki pressed him, circling and testing, and yet not a single one of his attacks landed. The battle was silent, not even the ring of sword on sword punctuating it as Sir Obi neglected to even raise his weapon. He just- made Sakaki miss. A lot.

“I see you spoke truth,” grunted Sakaki, pulling back to watch Obi warily. It wasn’t much of a spar with only one weapon engaged. “Do you care to show me how you actually fight?”

“Maybe if you care to actually attack me.” The taunt, delivered with a flash of teeth and a hand jauntily stuck in a pocket, drew no verbal response from Sakaki, but he stepped back, peeled off his coat, and threw it to Shirayuki. Obi’s eyes followed the arc, satisfaction radiating from his grin, and as Shirayuki clasped the fabric close, he winked at her. Winked! Then he tossed his sword away, standing relaxed as it jangled noisily into the corner of the ring.

Sakaki quirked an eyebrow. Obi beckoned, empty-handed. And the next thing Raj knew, Sakaki’s sword was ringing against the floor, metal flashing in Obi’s hands like stars. Sakaki shook out his fingers, bending down for his sword without taking his eyes off Obi for a second. Obi flicked his wrists and the knives were gone. “Another? Or have you seen what you wanted to see?”

Sakaki looked to Shirayuki for a moment, as if considering asking her opinion. “No,” he said at last. “But if Miss Shirayuki is satisfied, I’m satisfied.”

“She’ll come to no harm under my protection,” Obi answered, solemn voice a contrast to his flippancy of a minute ago. “I’ve sworn it to my master and to her.”

And that, along with whatever he saw in Shirayuki’s face, was enough for Sakaki. He bowed, precise and rigid, and stalked out of the ring. “Don’t forget the king is expecting you at noon, Prince Raj,” he fired back from the doorway.

“Fine, fine.” Raj waved his acknowledgement. Now that that little thing was over, maybe they could all find a better way to spend their time. Something indoors, that didn’t require physical exertion or the threat of bodily harm.

But when he turned back, Shirayuki was already distracted, pulling at Sir Obi’s sleeves. “Where do you keep them all?”

He laughed, fending her off playfully. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yes, yes I would!” She followed him step after step, curiosity overwhelming her sense of decorum. Like it always did. Raj gathered himself to stop her, to keep her from causing an incident, but Sir Obi seemed anything but offended.

“All right, all right! Stop trying to take my clothes off, and I’ll show you my knives.” His eyes twinkled as he smiled down at Shirayuki, and again Raj might as well not have been there for the amount of attention anyone was paying to him. Shirayuki was cooing over weaponry as Raj turned on his heel and left.

***

Of course his father wanted to see him about Shirayuki. “Negotiations with the Quervan ambassadors are at a delicate point right now. As I am occupied, I am leaving it to you to make the final agreements with Clarines.”

Raj looked behind him. Surely he’d missed something. “Me?”

If the king of Tanbarun were capable of such an undignified gesture as rolling his eyes, he would have done it. “Yes, Raj. See that they do not undervalue Shirayuki. I owe Mukaze more than you will ever know, and I do not want his daughter to be taken lightly. She deserves the best, and we will see that she gets it.”

That was as close to an emotion as Raj had ever seen his father express, and he was absolutely on board with the sentiment. “I won’t disappoint you,” he answered, bowed, and his father dismissed him.

So he did nothing about it for two days. Raj was just not meant for that kind of pressure. In a moment of quiet he looked up his mother’s marriage settlements, just for suggestions, but two paragraphs in he shut the folio and threw it back on the table like it was going to bite.

So many words, so many ways to get this wrong.

Normally he’d go to Shirayuki to talk about things like this. She didn’t let him shirk his duties or tell himself he wasn’t capable, and she had a skill with the library that was just short of magic.

But now she slipped through his fingers every time he went looking. There were two empty plates when he went down to breakfast, two missing horses when he checked the stable, two pairs of fresh footprints at the entrance to the garden. She was a dedicated hostess, but this? This was excessive, even for her.

In the end, Raj had to lower himself to asking the staff. “I heard they were going to the archery range,” said the indistinguishable guard in the hallway outside the morning room. It seemed like the most unlikely of places to find Shirayuki, and in fact Raj had to ask a second indistinguishable guard to direct him to the correct path, but the area was certainly in use when he arrived.

“Don’t close your eyes,” Sir Obi murmured over Shirayuki’s shoulder as she pulled back the string. “Don’t look at the arrow, look at the target.” She quivered with the effort of holding it taut, the golden tassel on her hairpin swaying against her ear, then the arrow launched with a whir as she released it.

“I hit the edge!” Shirayuki almost dropped the bow in her excitement, then whacked Sir Obi in the ribs with it as she turned. “Did you see?”

“I did, miss.” He smiled down at her, and oh- Raj was never a man of deep feeling or prone to romantic tendencies, but even he couldn’t misinterpret that light in Sir Obi’s face. That was pure adoration in his eyes as he took back the bow to save himself further beatings, as his hand reached for Shirayuki’s arm and then retreated. “You’ll be better than the master in no time, and he’ll have to practice hard to keep up with you.”

The sound that escaped Shirayuki’s mouth could have been a laugh coming from anyone else, but it wasn’t her. Shirayuki laughed with her whole body, and hearing it always made Raj smile. This laugh made him feel like tears instead. He didn’t stay, backing out of the archery area to pause in the courtyard.

He had a lot to think about.

He was no closer to a conclusion that night when Shirayuki took her candle and excused herself to go to bed. He followed soon after; with a slight hope of finding her willing to talk over the day as they’d done so many times over the years, he slowed his steps outside her door. But again his hopes were thwarted, this time by his own little sister.

“You should tell him,” Rona demanded with all the assurance of the thoroughly spoiled. “Who cares what everyone else wants, you should just explain that you’ve made a mistake.”

“I can’t do that!” Shirayuki sounded appropriately appalled. “I agreed to this arrangement, and Prince Zen is perfectly lovely, and-”

“But he’s not the one you want,” finished Rona.

“But it’s for Tanbarun. I can’t say no now.” Raj wanted to call through the door, to beg her to tell the truth, but he bit his tongue as her voice got even quieter. “Besides, I don’t think he feels the same way. He’s always talking about his master.”

That sounded like a ruse to Raj, like how Sakaki always left the dessert course off when talking about the dinner menu. The Clarinese knight had fallen for his master’s betrothed, just as she’d fallen for him. All of Shirayuki’s nerves and her letters suddenly made more sense. They just needed to figure out what to do about it.

Shirayuki had told Rona she wasn’t going to. She didn’t believe it could happen.

But Raj did. And he had the power of her marriage agreements in his hands.

***

“I'm not comfortable with Shirayuki making that long journey unmarried. There are bandits in the mountains- anything could happen to her?” Shirayuki looked confused, Sir Obi slightly offended. They stood side by side before Raj in the red receiving room, looking more like a couple than either one would admit. “We will perform the wedding by proxy here, Sir Obi standing in for the prince, before you leave.”

The hopelessness on Shirayuki’s face almost made him spill the plan. Perhaps she’d been hoping to convince Prince Zen to call it off once she arrived in Clarines. And that might have worked, if the prince were an idiot. But that was a lot to count on, and even if the prince of Clarines were stupid enough to let Shirayuki go, the king wouldn’t be. Raj had only met him once, briefly, on a state visit, but that was more than enough. Once she was in his grasp, that man would never let her go.

No, nobody but Raj could save Shirayuki's happiness now. “Tonight,” he added, punctuating the proclamation. It wouldn’t be a state wedding with waterfalls of flowers and a gown trailing halfway across the chapel, but she’d never wanted that. Yet another way he was doing her a favor. Their eyes met as Raj dismissed them, mirror images of hidden despair.

Raj had briefly toyed with the idea of performing the wedding ceremony himself, just to be sure. Nobody would gainsay the prince, and certainly he’d keep it short, but in the end he decided that keeping everything right and proper by getting the customary authorities involved would be the best course of action. That, incidentally, freed him up to sob in the front row as Sakaki passed Shirayuki’s hand to Sir Obi. Obi cradled her fingers like a bird made of gold, something fragile and valuable all at once. Shirayuki, having none of that, squeezed so hard Raj could see the white of Obi’s finger bones as they recited vows.

Promises exchanged, the magistrate indicated that they should signal the completion of the marriage with a kiss, and Sir Obi found his limit. He found Raj in the first row, appealing to the authority in the room. “Surely we don’t-”

“It’s not final without a kiss,” Raj answered. Shirayuki’s frown promised dire retribution, but Raj was unmoved. “Go on.”

The kiss, when Obi leaned down, was simply a brush, a breath, and yet Raj could feel the longing in his bones. The magistrate placed her final signature on the contract, and it was done. Now Raj just needed to clarify an important point of law, and everything would be perfect.

He stood, commanding the attention of the room. “I have an announcement to make,” he said, cringing at his own words. Of course he had something to say, he was standing up talking. His voice only shook a little. “Per the decree signed by, um, my grandfather, in um, a long time ago, all proxy marriages are forbidden in the kingdom of Tanbarun! And Clarines has full recognition of marriages performed here. All the paperwork you signed is binding, but for the two of you. Congratulations, Sir Obi and Lady Shirayuki of Clarines. You’re married!”

He dropped back into his seat, wishing for curtains or a small dark room to hide his blush in. He’d studied that decree forwards and backwards to make sure there was no loophole, cheered at the reciprocity agreements that had been set up for a state wedding two generations ago. It was a fitting gift for Shirayuki after so many years of her encouraging him to study, keeping him company in the library until they fell asleep over their respective tomes.

Shirayuki caught on first, a blazing smile taking over from her fixed court face. So she was ready and waiting when Obi got the picture, yet he found his voice first. “Can I get a do-over on that kiss?” Shirayuki was already stretching up to meet him as he bent down.

It’s hard to have a proper wedding recessional when the bride and groom are wrapped up in each other halfway down the chapel aisle. Raj stared for a moment, stymied and embarrassed all at once. Best they get it out of their systems before the ball.

Sakaki nudged his arm, and Raj tore his gaze away from the sight. She certainly seemed pleased. Still blocking the way out, though. “We shall exit through the side door,” Raj declared. “Lead on, Sakaki.”

[thecatwhogrins]

Childhood Friends (Undefeated Part 1)

Shirayuki was out of breath.

This sometimes happened, mostly when she did too much physical exertion. She was more of a scholar than the physical type. Yuzuri always called her soft, but Yuzuri was the epitome of “a healthy mind dwells in a healthy body”, in other words, a fitness maniac. Now, this isn’t to say that Shirayuki is unhealthy, she had in fact just started to swim to remedy this and to help with her fear of the water.

She wasn’t out of breath because she was running, no. She was out of breath because she was drowning.

Shirayuki could almost see the embarrassing headlines: “Local biology student hits head and drowns in pool”. She had only meant to quickly recuperate her bookbag full of research papers that she had forgotten, rushing into the building much to the guard who was about to close the doors for the night’s annoyance. He had let her in with much begging and pleading, a look of exasperation on his ruddy face. Those research papers were her life.

Not that it would matter, since she’d be dead.

She had tried struggling against the weight of the water, but her limbs had felt heavy, her brain fuzzy and the pain at the back of her head sparked stars behind her closed lids. She knew that if she didn’t try, she’d soon be inhaling water.

She tried to open her eyes, peering through the water, peering through the pain. The chlorine burned her eyes but high above, a shadow cut itself against the watery lights of the swimming pool. Was it the guard coming back to find her?

The peaceful water was suddenly disturbed by movement, and even though Shirayuki had felt weightless moments before, her body became corporeal again as she felt someone hold her and drag her upwards toward the light, too bright, making her eyes close once more.

*

Shirayuki had always been slightly afraid of the water, she had almost drowned once before.

The car accident had been so fast, so jarring, like being inside a roller coaster but untethered, no sign of it ever ending. Shirayuki had heard both of her parents’ screams of terror as they mingled with her cries. She remembered locking her eyes with her mother’s in the rearview mirror. There was lightlessness as they flew over the guardrail, for only a moment and then bone crushing impact as the water opened like a maw and the car was engulfed in the icy depths.

The front window broke with the impact, water engulfing the tight space as their screams were cut off. Shirayuki could see her father struggling against his seatbelt, the weight of the water crushing, dragging them down. Her mother had hit her head and was bleeding, her eyes closed, her face almost serene. Her father finally broke free and tried to pry Shirayuki away from her seatbelt as well, but air was starting to become sparse and her vision was darkening.

The last thing she saw was her father’s eyes, green and so bright against the gloom of the lake floor.

*  

During a hot summer day, Shirayuki moved into her grandparents’ house after her parents’ sudden deaths. Grief still permeated the air in the old tavern, both of her new caretakers didn’t know what to do to help relieve Shirayuki’s mind, still a child but in the wake of such a tragedy, she no longer smiled as brightly or laughed as loudly. She was the shadow of herself.

They’d often let her walk in the forest behind the tavern, so she’d get some air and have time to herself. There, Shirayuki pretended she was an adventurer, a fearless discoverer of hidden treasures. She’d let herself forget, just for one moment, who she was and where she was. Escape from the mundane and the sadness and the heaviness of it all.

It was during one of these escapades that she met Obi.

*

Waking up in a hospital was not something Shirayuki was used to.

The antiseptic smell hit her nose first, the bright walls and lights burning her eyes. Tubes and monitors beeped softly at steady intervals. Her head lanced with doziness. The last time she had woken up in a hospital was after the accident.

She was eight years old again, alone and afraid.

The heart monitor beeped in alarm as her pulse raced. Next to her, Shirayuki registered sign of movement and instinctually cowered in fear, trying to get away from whoever it was sitting next to her bed.

A pair of amber eyes caught hers and a sense of calm took over her body. Those eyes were poking at her brain, trying to remind her that she knew them. The face that accompanied them, the scar above his left eye, the slightly crooked nose and dimples in his cheeks, the strong frame, the tanned skin…

“Obi?” Shirayuki rasped.

For a moment, he seemed startled, as though he was shocked she remembered him, that she even recalled his name. It’s true that with time, he had grown much taller, and the tattoos she could see peeking through his shirt were certainly new, but everything about him was ingrained in her, she could never forget him.

“Ah miss! It’s been a while hasn’t it?” he smiled a toothy grin, all warmth.

Shirayuki could have cried. In fact, she did.

Loudly.

*

It was the end of summer, the cicadas were ringing loud and clear, the heat was overbearing but Shirayuki was exploring the forest, which stayed cool and sheltered her from the sun. The high canopy drew shadows across the forest floor, shadows Shirayuki likened to holes in the ground that she must avoid. She walked this way and that, avoiding the holes, when suddenly she found herself in a clearing she had never encountered before. At its center, a vast body of water, not small enough to be a pond but not great enough to be a lake.

Shirayuki instinctively recoiled at the sight of the shining surface, her memories bringing her back to the accident, to the unescapable maw of the water, the coldness that had left her almost dizzy and the all-encompassing fear that had taken hold of her.

Just as she was about to turn around and leave, she heard some splashing noises. It was not small, whatever it was. She swiveled, undecided, when swiftly, before she could even blink, the once calm surface of water erupted.

Before Shirayuki’s astonished eyes, a boy emerged from the water. As the water cascaded down his skin, glistening, Shirayuki found herself mesmerized, unable to take her eyes away from the sight. The boy had golden skin and golden eyes and dark hair that contrasted against the terribly blue sky. Everything was so bright, shining, Shirayuki forgot for a moment her fear.

He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

[obsidiancorner]

Mutual Pining

[puffdragongirl]

In Name Only - Team Really Royalty Reveal

Set several weeks after the events of Catch

After another endless day of squinting at notebooks, Ryuu closes the door to the pharmacy and turns blindly towards his quarters. He had been expecting a challenge ��� even looking forward to it – when he was granted the position of Wilant’s Head Pharmacist. He had imagined most of the difficulty would come from dealing with staffing the largely empty roster or interacting with the members of the frosty Northern court. What he hadn’t been expecting was the entire wing to be a disorganized mess of cabinets full of questionable contents, drawers crammed with mysterious vials, and spotty, near-illegible notes. Many days the sheer chaos of the pharmacy he’d inherited made him want to throw the poorly-kept logbooks out the window and retreat under his desk to scream into his pillow, but somehow Obi’s supportive humor and Shirayuki’s unflagging determination had managed to keep him sane long enough to get most of the supplies identified, labeled, and properly catalogued in the imminently sensible Lyrias style.

Speaking of Obi and Shirayuki, the only thing keeping Ryuu going tonight is anticipation for their weekly shared dinner. Although Obi still spends a good part of his time helping out in the pharmacy, his conscription to helping out with the paperwork surrounding Prince Zen’s permanent relocation meant he often took meals in the Prince’s office rather than the pharmacy. Not to say meals with Shirayuki alone aren’t enjoyable – they are. He just always feels that something is missing. He didn’t realize the missing piece was Obi until the fiasco with the sprained wrist a few weeks back had kept him away from paperwork (“Pens are different than knives, Miss Kiki!” he had exclaimed when Kiki had inquired about his apparent ambidextrousness, which did not extend towards writing with his left hand, “I had more pressing things to worry about at the time than writing legibly.”). Despite frequent whining about not being allowed to climb things occurring every day of those two weeks, the knight’s presence back at their lunch table those two weeks made everything feel right again. Ryuu tries not to think too hard about what the warm and fuzzy feeling being with Shirayuki and Obi means (They are not his parents. They aren’t.), but he does make a point to never miss their weekly meals.

As he approaches his rooms, the scent of roasting meats and savory spices grows stronger. Getting to eat delicious food is another benefit of sharing a meal with Obi. Pushing open his door, he follows his nose directly to the kitchen, where Shirayuki is setting places at his table while Obi stirs a steaming stirfry at the range. They are deep in conversation, although he only catches the tail end of it.

“And Master wants what, from us, exactly?” Obi asks, flipping the contents of his wok in the air to keep them moving.

“He asked if we heard anything about it in our travels,” she replies, setting a pitcher of water on the table before settling in her chair, “Apparently, one of the rumors was that the heir went North.”

“Hmmm…” Obi hums, face contemplative as he adds some last-minute seasonings to the dish, “I can’t recall hearing anything of the sort.” He thinks for a few minutes more, then shoots a sly grin across the counter, “Then again, I didn’t spend as much time with the gossips as you did, Miss.”

Shirayuki sputters, color blooming in her cheeks as she protests, “Look here, I don’t believe for a second that guards don’t gossip just as much as-”

“Gossip about what?” Ryuu interrupts, resisting the urge to smile fondly. Months on the road with the two of them taught him they would bicker and tease each other endlessly given the chance.

“Little Ryuu!” Obi calls, raising his spatula in greeting, “Dinner is almost ready!”

“Oh, Ryuu!” Shirayuki echoes, sending an unrepentant Obi a look but dropping the argument for now, “You’re just in time; we could use your help with this.”

As Shirayuki explains the situation, he wanders over to the counter, grabbing a mug from the table and filling it with water. He leans against the counter as Shirayuki speaks. It sounds like any other story of greedy nobles at first – a “missing” heir, with younger half-siblings looking to take their place – but something about the story sets him on edge.

“…So essentially, it is rumored that there is a son from his first marriage that would have the claim on the title, but no one has seen him for many years or is sure that he ever really existed.” Shirayuki frowns as she recaps the background, “I’m not sure why they didn’t try to figure this out sooner, especially since it sounds like the child would have been young when he went missing…” She shakes her head, and gets back on track, “Anyway, now that the previous title holder has passed, they need to figure things out as quickly as possible. The widow sent a petition for her child to be declared the official heir, but Zen wants to look into the claim of the older child first, to make sure the widow’s claim is valid.”

“What was the last name again?”  Obi asks when she finishes, shuffling the pan absently to keep the stir fry from burning, “Ga-something, right?” He turns off the heat and starts piling the steaming dish on a serving platter, “Galirat? Galiro? Gabirin?”

He makes several more attempts at the name, and a chill runs down Ryuu’s spine, but he pushes his worries down. It had been years, nearly a decade, and it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be…

“Gaboriault,” Shirayuki corrects, and somehow, what he feared is true, and it feels like his whole world has dropped out from under him.

His mug drops from suddenly nerveless fingers, but he barely registers the clatter of porcelain breaking against the floor. The room spins and his ears ring as panic threatens to consume him. There are gasps, voices asking if he is okay, wondering what is wrong, but he doesn’t hear anything over the pleas racing through his mind. No, no. Please no. Please don’t make me go back, not when I’m finally happy, finally me.

Overwhelmed, he flees, leaving the broken pottery and the alarmed calls of Obi and Shirayuki behind.

It shouldn’t surprise him that it doesn’t take them long to find him. He is curled up under his desk, leaning against the back wall with his knees pulled tight to his chest. After several years of growth spurts, he is perhaps too tall now for it to be a perfect fit, but he is comforted by the familiarity of the small space all the same. Barely ten minutes have passed before he hears the pharmacy door open, and although their words are too quiet to make out, he would recognize their voices anywhere.

Even colored with distress, he finds their familiar back-and-forth comforting. Shirayuki first, her concern evident in the wavering tone and rapid pace of her words. Obi next, voice deep and steady as he soothes her, but touched with the slightest hint of strain. Their voices separate, and he hears the quiet sound of footsteps echo through the room. One set, still somewhat unfamiliar given he has only heard them a handful of times despite their long acquaintance, draws close to his desk, and the fabric separating his nook from the world parts to reveal Obi’s face peering in at him. His mouth is set in that way that means he is worried, and Ryuu can’t quite meet his gaze, upset with himself for worrying them.

“Over here, Miss,” Obi summons Shirayuki to the desk and before he knows it, somehow all three of them are wedged in the space, with Ryuu pressed securely in the middle. Although he can feel their concern, they don’t speak, content for now to have found him. He soaks in the comfort to their presence, and eventually unbends enough to explain.

“You probably guessed this,” he begins, staring hard at his clenched hands, “I am the ‘missing’ son they are looking for.” He can’t help the bitter laugh that spills from his lips, “Or maybe it’s better to say, the one they are hoping not to find.”

“They told me my mom… died right after I was born,” he continues, and now that the words have started, the story just tumbles out, “I’m not sure if my father really cared about her, but I know he didn’t wait long to remarry.” Ryuu didn’t have any memories without his father’s second wife, and his half-brother was only a year or so younger than him, so his father couldn’t have waited more than a couple of months to remarry. “She was…ambitious, to say the least, and resented that her children couldn’t inherit because the orphan a dead woman was still hanging around.”

“My father was always very busy, and more often than not was in Wilant or Wistal on some kind of business,” Ryuu could probably count on one hand the number of times he had spoken with the man, “He never really had time for any of his children, so the housekeeper and maids looked after me.” He pauses for a moment, then admits quietly, “I’m not sure I even remember what my father looked like.”

“Oh, Ryuu…” Shirayuki breathes, and her hand reaches out to wrap around his tightly-clasped fists. Obi says nothing, but his arm does settle across the stiff line of Ryuu’s shoulders. Neither of them miss the implication that, even if Ryuu wasn’t neglected, precisely, he was never really cared for either.

“It wasn’t so bad,” he offers, weakly, “I spent most of my time with the gardener, and that’s how I found out about plants and herbs.” He will always remember her patient explanations of which plants were used for food, and which for medicine, and the best times to harvest them both. He tells them how, once his questions had outpaced her knowledge, she started to bring him books from the library. “And one benefit of growing up…where I did… was the size of the library. There were books in the collection I didn’t see again until the library at Lyrias.”

“One day, she brought me the old gardener’s notebook,” he can still see the notebook, carefully kept despite the decade or so since the man’s departure from the property, “I found an old advertisement looking for apprentice pharmacists in Wistal Palace inside.” The yellowed paper had slipped from its place tucked between two pages detailing a particularly grueling insect extermination. It had seemed like a salvation, a way to escape the indifference of his father, and the resentment of the woman who could have been his mother. “I knew it was crazy, but it seemed like the only way out.”

He finishes his story, describing how he packed a bag with his clothes, the pocket and gift monies he had gathered over the years, and the notes he had compiled from the gardener and the library books; the way he researched the roads to and from Wistal from some maps his father stored in his office; and finally, the way he left in the dead of the night.

“I would call it running away, but that place was never really a home to me.” Drained by the telling, he leans back into the arm still around his shoulder, and fiddles his fingers against the grasp still warm against his hands. They sit in silence for a moment, then he asks, “Are you…going to tell Prince Zen?”

The pharmacy is dark, but he sees them turn to each other anyway, communicating in that silent way of theirs. What must be only a few minutes, but feels like hours, passes, before Obi moves to face him.

“Let’s start with this,” Obi proposes, “What is it that you want to do, Little Ryuu?”

“I don’t want to go back there,” he admits, the words leaving him in a rush, “I like it here. I like the pharmacy, even if it’s a mess right now. I like having dinner together, and traveling to get plants, and complaining together about how terrible fancy parties are…” He scrambles away from them, or at least as far as the cramped space allows, and bows his head, “My home is here, with you. With the both of you, wherever you are. Please…please let me stay with you.”

There is a beat of silence, then a slender hand is reaching for his chin, tilting his head to meet watery green eyes and a wobbly smile.

“Of course you can stay,” Shirayuki assures, her eyes taking on that familiar glint of determination, “If I have anything to do with it, I hope we can stay together always.” Her gaze drifts to Obi’s, and she admits, “All of us; no matter where we go, it feels like home because we are together.”

“You heard her, Little Ryuu,” Obi grins, and reaches a hand out to ruffle his hair, “And you know wherever the Miss goes, I follow.” His grin softens to a soft smile, “I guess you’re stuck with us both for the long haul.”

If the three of them spend the next quarter hour hugging, at least two of them crying at any given moment, at least no one outside the family would ever know.

The next day, Obi reports to Zen that none of them heard anything about the missing Gaboriault heir during their travels through the North. Indeed, given the ways of the North, where rumors were just as often born of boredom than grains of truth, they suspected the heir, if there had ever really been one, was long gone by now, and wanted nothing to do with the title. However, if you were to listen carefully to conversations on quiet days in the pharmacy, when only the three of them were around, you might hear the occasional reference to Ryuu, Lord and Master of the Pharmacy. And that was one title that Ryuu was happy to bear, as long as it stayed between the three of them.

[snowwhite-andtheknight]

Obiyuki Trope Madness Semi-Finals: Match 1 Round-Up

WINNER: Mutual Pining

Mutual Pining - 11 votes

Fanfiction

Mutual Pining by @akai-vampire Almost a Princess by @claudeng80 The Night Shift by @danceswithseatbelts and @hidetheremote The Effects of Red Clover by @nineredroses Rooted in Red Moonlight by @ruleofexception The Place Where Hearts Divide, Part 3 by @sabraeal The Hour of Separation by @superhappybubbleslove

Fanart/Edits/Playlists

I start here... (Fanart) by @fade-touched-obsidian The one I love doesn’t love me (Edit) by @longagoitwastuesday Sneak Peek at Ch 2 of The Effects of Red Clover (Fanart) by @nineredroses A Leap Not Yet Taken (Playlist) by @ruleofexception

Childhood Friends - 2 votes

ashes in the mouth, char the tongue by @infinitelystrangemachinex Undefeated, Part 1 by @thacatwhogrins

[akaivampire]

Trope Madness - Mutual Pining.

His brain almost resets as images of the past rush through his head, urging him to put an estimated time on them, memories both vivid and bland, heartwarming and terrifying. His eyes drift to the pestle and how his fingers now wrap comfortably around its stony body, his joints no longer aching at the wide angle he’s forced to hold the cylinder at.

The mixture of dried leaves and seeds in the bowl feels oddly fragile when he knows for a fact that the harsh winter couldn’t have affected those particular plants.

Ryuu presses down with an expert rotation of the wrist and the bowl’s contents become a powder as smooth as dust.

Perhaps it’s the material of the mortar bowl and pestle, something the northerners must have mastered over to time to spare their joints the additional suffering alongside the cold air and freezing waters. Regardless, Ryuu finishes grinding today’s medicine, dumbing the resulting powder onto a piece of paper then carefully sliding it off into a glass container and securing the top. Just like he did for many years. Not a single change.

Ryuu feels at ease eating lunch, comfortable in his seat without any nagging thoughts at the back of his head to bother this sweet moment, after all, it’s always been the same light chatter and content smiles with Obi and Shirayuki at the table. He might not still be in the castle with his usual plants, the ones he’d seen grow from tiny seeds and reach the ends of their lives, only to plant their own seeds, an endless cycle of life and death while he barely grew.

His eyes follow the way they smile at each other at the simple gesture of handing over a cup of steaming tea, Shirayuki patiently waiting for Obi to securely wrap his fingers around the cup, the heat certainly stinging at her fingertips but she shows no sign of discomfort.

Barely noticing his own cup, his eyes start following Obi as he fills his bowl with stew from the pot at the center of the table, his calm smile providing him with a sense of peace, that maybe things are still the same and just because he changed locations by days-worth of travel as long as the people around him are still the same, the rest will remain so.

When Obi hands him the bowl Ryuu mutters a quick thanks and notices that it’s filled to the brim and the chunk of bread Shirayuki gave him was just as big as Obi’s and for a moment he worries that he won’t be able to finish all of this, or that he’ll end up with a stomach too full for comfort, but he starts eating regardless, the hot stew warming its way into his body.

Shirayuki always has her focus where it’s supposed to be, never missing a beat in her work, never missing a single leaf in her inspection for illnesses or abnormalities, never leaving a seed half crushed or a jar not neatly put back into its place, and even then, when her surroundings seem to blur, she never loses the feel of them.

Although many people describe Shirayuki’s notes as one of her strongest points, as they are neat and organized, never neglecting a detail, Ryuu would have to go with her sensing feelings. She always notices when he’s feeling down or anxious or happy or tired without the shortest glance his way, her reaction is immediate to accommodate his every need.

But then, why?

It doesn’t make sense to him how she always misses the gentle way Obi looks at her, even he managed to notice it while deeply enamored in his work, Obi doesn’t exactly hide the pride on his face whenever Shirayuki achieves one of her goals no matter how small, he doesn’t hide how his entire body relaxes when he gets a glimpse of her after a long day.

It doesn’t make sense for Shirayuki not to notice any of it, and if she already knows, it also doesn’t make sense why she wouldn’t react, Ryuu never took Shirayuki to be the type who avoids confronting feeling, it’s one of her traits he’s slightly envious of.

Ryuu pours his focus on regulating his breathing, taking deep inhales and long exhales. Reminding himself that he’s worrying over nothing.

The research for the Olin Maris is coming to an end, his workload would soon be getting smaller, or returning to its usual amount.

He finds himself absently reaching into the correct herb drawers and jars without the need to read the labels or even look where his hand is going. It’s the same level of familiarity he had back at the castle, and although it’s been a little over two years can he actually call this place home when he’s leaving it soon?

He’s appointed to leave to Wilant in a matter of weeks, will he grow used to calling that home as well? Is this it for home, just a period of home-sickness before the comforting feeling of belonging even when he’s leaving everyone behind?

After all, reading a loved one’s letter is not the same as sharing a hot drink with them sitting by the fire, it’s not the same as hearing their giggles and laughter and seeing their smiles. He’d missed Garack greatly since leaving, but not as much as he thought he would, maybe Shirayuki and Obi coming along is part of the reason so, or maybe they’re the reason itself. But what about when he leaves? what about when they leave, for the journey to spread the Olin Maris throughout the northern lands? Will they come back as different people? Will they have changed? It worries him because he did change.

It’s not just his limbs that feel longer and heavier, it’s also his chest, holding the weight of a deep relationship, holding the feelings and love of a whole family that if it were to leave him he’d feel crushingly empty.

Change that isn't accounted for is unexpected and can only bring disaster, no matter big or small.

Ryuu finishes tidying up the pharmacy before leaving, making sure all the windows are locked and throwing his cape over his shoulders, securing it tightly around his neck before heading outside.

His steps are wider, crossing the distance quicker with less effort, but he tries to ignore it.

Ryuu stops in his tracks when he sees Obi and Shirayuki walking in the small yard, where they aren’t meant to be, neither of them had any business here.

The smooth surface of the freshly packed snow is ruffled with their footsteps in every direction, a mixture of emotions fill his chest at the realization that they’ve been here for a while. In the cold. Waiting. For him?

Just as he’s about to collect himself and call out to them Shirayuki takes a calculated step and leans closer to Obi, the length of her arm from shoulder to wrist bumping gently against his and Ryuu almost misses Obi’s inhumanly fast reflex when he turns and steadies Shirayuki by her shoulders, his expression clearly that of concern and worry even from a distance.

“Miss, are you okay?” his hands gradually leave her shoulders when she shows stability in her stance, “are you feeling unwell?”

Ryuu can hear the worry in Obi’s voice, similar to how Grack used to be whenever he overworked himself and ended up mostly passed out under his desk, until one day he found a small  pillow and two blankets, one working as a makeshift mattress and his heart seizes at the thought of losing those two as he did with Garack.

After all, time and distance are unforgiving.

“No, Obi I’m…” her shoulders slump and her eyes carry an expression of sadness but her lips adorn a soft smile as fight drains from her body.

“It’s been a long day, I guess I’m a little tired,” Shirayuki says, the hand out of Obi’s sight clenches into a painful fist before taking on a more relaxed pose and moves up and towards him “c-can I hold you hand?...” her hand lingers and a hint of fear crosses her features “for steadiness?”

Her shoulders remain tense until Obi finally reaches out to hold her hand, their fingers intertwining even with the gloves on both of their hands. They continue walking away from him for a few more steps before turning towards him.

“Ah, little Ryuu!” Obi calls, waving with his free hand, catching Shirayuki’s attention, who proceeds to drag Obi towards him.

“Where you two waiting for me?”

“Of course we were,” Shirayuki says, fixing her cape as it swept back over her shoulder when they almost ran towards him.

“Miss plans on dragging us both to a taste test for a new tea recipe of her creation. Though she wouldn’t spill the any of the ingredients”

As they walk back, Ryuu feels light, he expected some disappointment earlier as he intervened on a private moment, but instead, they looked to be even happier and their hands remained joined.

This isn’t close to what Obi and Shirayuki used to be, but then again, he’s not the same person from a couple of years ago, either.

Maybe change isn’t so bad after all, expected or not.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

ashes in the mouth, char the tongue (1/1)

Warnings: Violence and gore, scary/sad themes, implied family death

In the shadowiest corner of the Hare & the Hound, nestled cold and gray and creaking at the base of the great spine of Tanbarun’s mountain range, Obi takes a swig from his tankard and pulls a spectacular face.

“Oh stop,” Shirayuki says before he can utter a word, a smile tugging at her mouth. “You like it.”

Obi gives the tankard a look like it’s just robbed him blind, insulted his grandmother, and killed his dog. “Plums are dessert, Miss.”

“It’s alcohol. You like it.”

“You should know by now my standards are high.” The rim rises to his lips and obscures the lower half of his face, and in a hit of nostalgia, Shirayuki wonders which aromatic she’s caught him out at plucking too early this time. His golden eyes glitter at her from the dimness. “And next time we need to clear a room, we’ll just have you order drinks.”

She flushes prickling and irritated from hairline to chest because he had been the one who wanted to sample Tanbarun’s sumptuous culture, like they were lounging on the faraway shores and under the hot sun of Yuris and not finishing out the winter high in the mountains, and he is therefore a liar and a cheat. “I’m paying, then.”

Obi, halfway through a tight-throated swallow, makes a warning noise into the tankard, gulps hastily. “Ah-ah. My treat, you promised.”

“But you don’t –“

“You promised.” He can’t pout and smile at the same time, not like he can grind herbs with one hand and flip a knife with the other, but for just a moment, his face really does try.

“I said you could escort me to Tanbarun, not – not –“

And then his grin wins out and stretches wide. “Wine and dine you all the way to Tanbarun?”

She fidgets with the edge of her glove. The pub is quite empty even for noon, no jeers rising from any murky tables, so it’s not like there’s anyone around to hear them. Certainly no one who would understand who they are, what they’ve just done. “It feels excessive,” she admits at last, and even she can concede to the sheer ridiculousness of that notion, considering all that’s packed into their trunks – trunks very plural – at their inn. “And we’ve already kept Ryuu waiting.”

“Ryuu will wait for you for a few days, goodness gracious.”

Shirayuki arches a brow. Over the last year or so on the road, she’d picked up the habit from someone.

Obi shrugs. “Okay, maybe three days. But he’ll wait. As for excessive...” He lifts his tankard to her, eyes crinkling at the edges and catching the candlelight in a way that always makes her chest go tight with fondness. “...you deserve it. Master Herbalist.”

She lifts her tankard and touches it to his, laughing because she can’t help it, watches him throw his head back and drink. If Obi, frugal and iron-trap-memory Obi, thinks he can spare the pennies, then she’ll trust that. All those lords’ houses, those castles, clever words they’d fought to answer to cleverly enough, those fragile petals and sharp-cut stones glittering on the paths between towns, snows and blizzards and Ryuu and Obi silently longing for home even if they’d never admit as much to her – the letter from Izana not a week past made it all worth it, more than worth it. More valuable than all the riches in the world.

“Fine,” she laughs. Izana’s reward for phostyrias will come in before the month is done anyway; the score, as it always does between them, will settle itself eventually. Still, she thinks of a hair ornament from long ago and excitement skips between her ribs, making her latch on to the idea with gusto. “But when we get to the market, no promises. You have to let me spoil you sometime.”

“Miss, you’re always spoiling me,” he purrs, but even in the low light, he darkens at the cheekbones. He sets his plum brandy down pointedly. “Too bad for you, I’m a picky eater.”

 She opens the pantry looking for mushrooms. There’s a boy there instead.

An upside-down boy. Holding moldy mushrooms and a rock-hard loaf of bread in his hands.

Now, she’s still little, so little that balancing on the water pail and reaching up to grasp the handle to the pantry door is nothing less than an event of heartstopping proportions. But the town of Kovacha, on its belly peering down the mountainside at the sharp spires of Schenezarde castle, has already learned enough of her to know to expect the opposite of a typical small girl’s response. To anything.

She locks eyes with two dark, misshapen holes. And then she throws the pantry door wide.

“Yeeeeeeeek!” Her broom slashes through the air bristles-up like a knight’s sword at a tourney. The boy takes the clout squarely across the face.

Or what passes for his face. What was his face.

He yells – maybe arrgghhh or noooo – but he’s still there, flailing elbows knocking turnips to the floor, so Shirayuki shrieks again and swings.

He vanishes 

Her broom bristles sweep all their squash off the shelf to join the turnips and then hit the wall. Shirayuki staggers, gaping in shock.

“Shirayuki?” Baba’s voice, echoing from the front room, probably from the herbs in the windowsill. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Baba!” she shrills. “I got him!”

“Wha – got who?”

“No.”

It’s just a whisper. But Shirayuki, following the harsh little voice, slowly looks straight up, up and up until her neck cricks.

The boy is on the ceiling.

The note of Shirayuki’s shriek hits incredible heights this time. “Go away! Give me my mushrooms! GO AWAY!” But not heights lofty enough to let her broom quite reach. She manages to brush his shoulder, but the boy – is it a boy? Brown-dusty hair with tufts missing, baggy and holey brown potato-sack clothes, and his face, there is no face, it could all belong to anybody – just snarls at her, like a cat cornered at the end of an alley.

“No,” he spits. “No!”

No – not going away? No to her screams? She’s so flummoxed she finally falls still enough to see the narrow hole in the ceiling of the pantry, leading up and out to the steep slope of their roof, and she sees where his knees are hooked around its edge, and where his hands grip the rafters with what she can only think of as staggering strength for someone almost as small as she is, and smaller around the middle if not for his too-big clothes. The mushrooms and bread are stuffed down the front of his shirt, poking out of his ragged collar.

“I don’t get it,” she tells him, cocking her head. “No what?”

Footsteps come storming across the floor. The boy stiffens.

Shirayuki looks directly into those two dark holes once again. “Hurry up,” she harshes in a whisper. “You’re hungry? Hurry up and get away!”

- right before the pantry door bangs against the outer wall behind her. “Shirayuki, dragica!” Baba cries, her voice ringing with terrible recognition. “Come here! Get back!”

But the boy has already disappeared. One hand stuck up through the hole, and he’s gone, rotted mushrooms, stale bread, no-face and all.

She wonders – not for the first time, hardly for the first time – what it might have been like to know Obi before. Maybe it comes with adulthood, maybe it comes with living her life with actual, real purpose, but a handful of years already feels like a lifetime of Obi as a given at her side. She almost fools herself sometimes, it feels so real. Obi warm and asleep in the grass while she holds a book in her lap, and if she closes her eyes she can see ten or twelve years into the past, Baba and Deda grumbling good-naturedly at each other in the kitchen. She’s in the garden, skirts tied up neatly to keep them free of mud, Obi lithe and grinning and tugging her braid the moment her head is turned, making eyes at both older girls and the goods in the butcher’s window alike when they venture into town.

Shirayuki shakes her head. It’s silly, though it stokes the warm hearth of fondness in her chest whenever she dwells on it, almost enough to simmer and flare into outright longing. The Kovacha in her memories is as bright and beautiful as it was lonely. But that youthful, vivid picture in her mind is so different from the Obi she had first met – scraggly, sneering, and hungry in ways foreign to her, perched in the white stone windowsill back at Wistal.

The two of them now look nothing like the fantasy or the realities of the past. Living in the North for so many years, where tastes were creative and colorful in spite of the harsh and long winters, she had let them dress in their usual way to explore Kovacha, and they must look a sight, wearing capes and boots and furs and her styled hair suited more for exotic nobility than for the muted preferences of the mountain townspeople.

Obi heaves a sigh of sighs at her elbow.

“I’m not ignoring you,” she says immediately, fighting a losing battle with her smile. “You’d like this, wouldn’t you? Yours is getting kind of threadbare.”

The cowl in her hands is vivid, woven in patterns of red and cream and cerulean, very Tanbarun, and the number-one sign that the blacksmith’s is no longer the blacksmith’s, or else his arthritic wife had miraculously taken up weaving while Shirayuki was away. Obi tends toward gray and black when necessity can’t sway him toward something brighter and fitting for his personality, but his everyday cowls are always different, something colorful and friendly-looking to hide his face with. He tucks his green one up over his nose now and peers down at her. “It doesn’t look that bad,” he muffles through the fabric. “I’m jobless, not destitute, Miss.”

“You’re not jobless, I’ve told you! And no. It doesn’t look bad,” she concedes wearily. He’s refused everything from every stall they’ve visited so far. “This would look good on you, though.”

Something in her voice must have given her away. There’s a shift in Obi’s eyes, and he goes unnaturally still. Then the cowl is out of her hands and back on the display, and he’s in front of the stallkeeper before Shirayuki can take another breath.

In his gloved hands is a woven cord, done in the same colors as the cowl.

“Now, miss – I’m so sorry, could you tell me your name?”

The poor woman behind the stall can’t seem to decide whether to grin or to gawk. “Akane. Um... just Akane.”

“Akane.” Obi grins, all teeth, and Shirayuki feels terrible for the poor woman, the peek of sun through the clouds overhead tinting Obi’s skin a deep gold. If he looked strikingly out of place in Clarines, he’s stepped directly out of the pages of a little girl’s storybook in tiny Kovacha, Tanbarun. “You have to understand. I’ve recently found myself cast aside, tragically unemployed –“

Shirayuki, drawing up to his side with one hand already rooting under her cape for her purse, scrunches up her face and tries to kick his shin. His leg hooks around hers from the knee down and traps it hard against the wood of the stall, the nerve, and Shirayuki catches herself on his shoulder with a grunt, balance shot.

“– and I am so in love with your fine work.“ He twines the cord around his hand with a turn of his wrist, and at least Shirayuki isn’t alone in her attention drawn directly to the size and angles of that hand, and not to the admittedly lovely colors of the weaving. It’s the sweet brandy, she surmises, going straight to her brain, and how close she is, still squashed against his shoulder with her leg pinned to the stall. “So could a poor, jobless soldier with only ten dill in his pocket...”

Akane bursts out laughing, the apples of her cheeks a brilliant red. “Just take it!”

Obi vanishes the chord into his coat as they walk away. “My my, that’s usually much harder in Clarines.”

“You made her smile, that usually does the trick around here. I knew you’d fit right in.” Then Shirayuki stows her purse away with a groan. “I was going to buy that for you! I told you, you have to let me spoil –“ 

She looks up at him, and it – the warmth in his honeyed gaze kills her voice dead on her tongue. The warmth seems to enter her in turn, prickling through her cheeks, trickling down through her bones.

“I’m gonna miss that, you know,” he says softly.

She frowns, steps faltering. “Miss what? When?”

“Nothing.” He winks, slips a hand into his collar, and draws a stone, glowing familiarly like sunlight striking ice, out of his coat by its string. “I thought it’d go okay with this. The string was getting kind of old, so.”

The woven chord. Yes. But... “Obi, you’re not still going on about the job, right?”

His sideways smile deflates like rolls taken out into the cold. He tucks the glowing stone away. “The job is over, Miss. And you’re going home.” He nudges her in the ribs with his elbow. “I can’t live off of some scientists’ good will forever.”

Something curiously similar to panic flutters in her stomach. She turns, steering him into the nearest tiered wall, and it sparks real satisfaction in her when Obi’s eyes go wide at the touch of stone at his back. “You’re with me, no matter what. No matter where. Remember?”

“Yes, Miss. Master Herbalist.” A weak smile. “I remember.”

She pokes him in the belly, because she can, and it’s like poking the rocky ribs of the mountain itself. Unflinching, unmoving. She hopes not. “We didn’t cross all of Clarines and all of Tanbarun, twice, just to be separated. Understand?”

“Understood, Miss.”

“If I have to walk into Izana’s office myself, I will. You believe me, right?”

“Oh, I believe you, Miss.”

She sighs. Her hand flattens against his belly, the fur of his coat thick and soft under her glove. It’s like touching a great, hotblooded, furry beast, breathing under her hand.

He’d dressed lightly for travel, though they’re spending another full day in Tanbarun after this one. The coat that he claims is easiest to move in, the cape that gets the least in his way, the boots that are easiest for him to run and climb in.

It means nothing, surely. Nothing at all.

“It really feels like I’ve known you forever,” she says, hating the edge of desperation that creeps into her voice at the words. She’s said them to him before, after all. “Is that weird?”

A black gloved hand closes around her wrist, pushing it back. Then. Then it turns, fabric palm meeting palm. And fingers work their way gently into the grooves of hers, a long, slow slide that’s echoed in the wild and static heat that glows inside her like her hearth has suddenly popped with pinecones, growing from nowhere, thudding her heart so loud in her ears.

“Funny,” Obi says quietly. “I’ve always felt the same way about you.”

Twice is no mistake.

The boy with no face is in her garden, her patch of the garden specifically, rooting for the carrots that have grown a bit too old to taste any good. She takes a step closer and he snaps around like she’s clanged a pair of cooking pans together an inch from his head.

“What do you want?” she asks him, watching the moonlight curve strangely into the brown folds of the no-face. “You want food? Some real food?”

What she expects is another harsh, guttural no. He utters no such thing. Instead, he drops into a crouch like he’s an animal caught on the wrong end of a hunt, ready to bolt.

“It’s okay!” she says quickly. “I’m not mad at you, even though you took my mushrooms! They’d gone bad, anyway. Why would you want to eat something like that?”

The boy with no face jams dirt-crusted carrots into his pants pockets. It strikes her, oddly, that he wouldn’t mind eating the dirt right along with the vegetable. The leafy tops poke out of the potato sack holes, and Shirayuki squints into the lopsided dark eye-shapes in the face.

“Wait here.” She points firmly at the ground at her feet, twice. “Wait. Here. Understand?”

When she returns, her arms are full of fabric. Old gardening pants. An even older sleep shirt of Deda’s. But there are no holes to be found in any of the clothes. The boy is crouched in the garden like he’s trying to blend in with the dirt, still as stone.

He snatches the clothes from her arms. “You can say thank you,” she grumps, but he doesn’t answer. She catches a whiff of earth, of must, of anxiety and horses. He struggles into the fabric, pulling it all on right over his old shirt and pants, and she realizes for the first time that he’s been shivering in the night mountain air.

“I’m sorry, but you can’t stay,” Shirayuki whispers to him. “It would be fun. I promise. But Baba and Deda don’t want you staying. I’m really, really sorry.”

“Who are you?” creaks the little voice.

Everything, every other apology, that had been waiting on the tip of Shirayuki’s tongue falls away. She gives a delighted gasp. “You can talk!”

“Who are you?” the boy demands again, oddly strained grunts through the mouth that she can’t see, though when she tries to get closer, he prances back two great steps, toward the shadows of the trees on the mountain slope. “Your name.”

“You want to know my name? What’s your name?”

“They want to know. Your name. They told me.”

Her frown bites into her forehead, her brows knitting together. “Shirayuki.”

“Shirayuki.” He pauses, bony fingers plucking at his new clothes. “Thank...”

She’s already blushing, knowing what he’s about to say – but then the front door creaks somewhere behind her. He vanishes in a puff of churned garden earth. A wraith, a ghost with no face, who’s left Shirayuki flushed and grinning in the dark beside her disturbed garden.

When she turns to head back into the house, Baba is standing in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest.

Obi drops her hand like it’s burned him. Or, perhaps, like he fears that he’s burned her.

The same hand flashes to the back of his neck, and he forces a grin. “Ah well. Town square next, right? Before four o’clock?”

Shirayuki blinks, disoriented. “Ah, right. Before the Sunday music starts.”

Obi slips back onto the cobbled street like a fish wriggling from a fisherman’s grasp and Shirayuki has to jog a few steps to catch up. She hadn’t noticed how nervous he was until now, but it’s all making sense, the darting gaze, the quick answers to everything, the fast walking pace he usually curbs so he can stride easily at her side.

“So, Akane,” he says loudly. “You recognize her?”

“Recognize her?” It’s so hard to think with the heat still churning restlessly just underneath her skin. Over and over again, she sees those fingers sliding firm and purposeful between hers. Feeling like – like eventually turning into finally, only to be snatched away again like a guilty thing. “Oh! Um, no. Someone else used to live in that house. But anyway, I don’t have a lot of memories from before, you know, Baba and Deda.”

“No?” Obi’s voice is so strained, like their downhill walk is nothing less than a barehanded climb up a sheer rockface. “It seems an odd thing for you to forget, Miss.”

“You mean Kovacha? The people?”

“Both. Anything.”

Shirayuki shrugs. He’s still walking too fast, keeping just enough ahead of her that she feels that if she falters at all in her step, she’ll lose him over the edge of the winding tiered road. “I guess I don’t think about it much.”

She turns left, a slower grade downward between squished-together rows of shopfronts and homes, without thinking. And Obi skitters to a halt.

“Miss?” he asks, and there’s no mistaking it now. The anxiety in his voice. “The town square. Right?”

“I was thinking,” she says quietly, “if the blacksmith isn’t there anymore. Someone else is living here now. Right?”

“Someone else?”

She looks at him. He’s almost straining to go right, like a hound pulling at its lead, and her heart patters in her chest like she’s taken ill. Then he says, “You mean your house? You wanted to visit it tomorrow.”

“Yes.” She swallows. “But I’d like to get it over with. I’d rather be late to the music than – than be thinking about it all night.”

Obi laughs thickly. “It’s your home, Miss. You shouldn’t dread it so much.”

She shouldn’t. And neither should you, she thinks, her blood quickening even more, leaving her floating and lightheaded, like she’s on some terrible high. “Obi, what’s wrong?” she whispers.

“Nothing.” He bounds to her side, but he can’t fool her, he hasn’t been able to fool her for many years now. His arm brushes hers, comforting. Familiar. “I just thought we’d have some time, is all. I had something I wanted to –“ He catches himself. “Before the house.” He grins, strained. “I’m guessing there’ll be memories there.”

“I suppose?” She’s as addled as him now, trying to draw him with her, bring back the warmth and steadiness that so easily accompanies his presence. “Let’s hurry. Whoever’s there is probably already making supper.”

“Why can’t I talk to him?” Shirayuki complains. “He talks to me.” Baba and Deda, after all, had raised anything but a rude child.

Deda is shaking his head. “Children like that are no strangers to this place. What they bring with them speaks ill, girl.” He turns to Baba, a frown in place, wincing at the sound of bells outside. They’re tied to a tree somewhere, ringing in the wind. It means, of course, that someone has passed on, that someone has covered all the mirrors in a house somewhere with sheets. “Have you already...?”

“I’ve sent a message to the Lions,” Baba says crisply. “Gods know that they’ll actually listen. Three marks on three aspen trees, it all looks like all the other aspens to me.” Then she takes Shirayuki into the front room with her, sits her down in the cool dawn light with a book in her lap. One of Shirayuki’s dearest from her girlhood. “You remember these stories, Shirayuki?”

She has to fight the urge to roll her eyes. “They’re my favorites, Baba. I don’t forget. I don’t forget anything I like.”

“Which did you like best?” she asks in her worn-wood old woman’s voice. “The stories about the princesses, yes?”

Shirayuki shrugs. “The ones where the heroes win.”

“Stories like these?” Baba opens the book, and brilliant illuminated pages flash by like memories from dreams as her wrinkled thumb moves through them. A princess and a bear, a bold young girl with a house walking on chickens’ legs, a young woman with a man kneeling in the grass at her feet. “Any of these?”

“Yes! I like those.”

“That boy,” she says harshly, “is like these stories. But not those.” She turns a page. “Like these.”

The pages, both of them, are painted almost completely black. So black they seem to suck the light right into them. And painted right over the crease between the two pages, the words of the story the black belongs to etched into pale negative space in a halo at the center of the book, is – a monster.

Shirayuki bites her lip.

“They don’t look so terrible at first,” Baba says softly. “But then you let yourself get close. And they reveal themselves to you eventually.”

Shirayuki is so busy not thinking about what Obi had wanted to do before the house – what he hadn’t been able to say, what he couldn’t tell her, with his tongue as silver as the sky is blue apparently turned to lead – is dashed utterly from her mind when they turn the last corner.

She’d done a good job of keeping it at bay on the way here, how much she’d missed this place, how their horses curving around the base of the mountain to reveal the valley and the trees inch by glorious inch had killed her slowly with indescribable joy. But now they’ve reached the lowermost parts of the winding town of Kovacha, and at the place where the cobblestones in the road end, the town opens up like arms reaching out to embrace her. Vines left over from before winter, trailing from balconies and rooftops to the ground. Garden patches at every house, bare and waiting for the touch of spring. The mountain climbing upward into oblivion in the background.

An old, familiar house, crouched between two others, with a pair of children playing on the front step.

Shirayuki covers her mouth. She can feel Obi behind her, which is more than enough to keep her from flying apart completely.

“I’m glad,” she says suddenly, her voice thick. “I’m glad it’s not been left empty.” She had left it in such a hurry, after all. She’d only bothered to go back the one time for her things, and then it had been Clarines forever in front of her, forevermore.

“Yes, thats.” Obi clears his throat. “That’s good. I’m glad too. The gladdest.”

It’s so strange having him here, now. She’d just been imagining him growing up side-by-side with her – and maybe their road would have led to Zen and everyone eventually, maybe not – but now she can imagine him scrambling up trees, swinging boldly from the branches she had never dared to climb herself, and she smiles.

It fades when she catches sight of the front door.

“What’s that?” But she has already started forward, drawn there by some invisible force, like she’s being swallowed down the slope.

“What’s what?” says Obi from behind her, his voice so high-pitched he might have de-aged by about a decade.

Closer – so close the children have stopped playing, their forest-green Tanbarun eyes watching her nervously from the winter-chilled grass, getting up and running to the woman who comes for them from the path beyond the house – and she sees it so much clearly. A piece of parchment nailed to the door.

The boy without a face doesn’t stop visiting, and there isn’t much, in the end, that Baba and Deda can do about it.

He comes at night, usually. And when Baba catches him somersaulting down the hill with Shirayuki, their shirts ridden up over their dirt-smudged faces, but does nothing about it except groan in defeat, he foregoes all pretense and comes to the house during the day. And this is how Shirayuki learns several things.

Firstly, that his hair isn’t brown, but pitch black. Not from Tanbarun then, which explains his voice. She’s used to the cityfolk gawping at her when she opens her mouth to speak in her small-town dialect, but the boy without a face speaks as though he’d taught himself what words were, so strange is his tongue.

Secondly, that he doesn’t seem to want anything after all. Not food anymore, not clothes, which fit him much better now. “I got a job,” he tells her, speaking better as well. She’s so jealous, she demands what kind of job it is, as she wants one too. “A good one,” is all he says.

He plays in the garden, scrawny and hungry and strange. He teaches her to climb trees, to swing from the branches like the acrobats that prance through the city streets on festival days, hauling her to her feet when she skins her knees and snivels in frustration. His hands are golden-brown and rough as stone, used to hard labor, but he is as gentle with her as though she’ll fly apart at the slightest touch.

Thirdly, his face is not a no-face. It’s a mask. When he visits near the dawning of her twelfth summer, it has changed from a shapeless brown thing with holes poked for eyes to a black wrap of fabric binding his face, leaving slits for his eyes and nose.

He speaks precious little, if at all. “I’m not allowed,” is all he tells her, the shadows of his eyes crinkling through the slits in the mask, and she knows he’s grinning at her. “I’m not allowed a lot of things. But not as many things as you.”

“What do you think that boy is?” Baba demands in frustration one night, when they’re scrubbing the kitchen together. “One of the princes in your storybook? I promise you, he is not.”

“You don’t have any proof,” she says heatedly. She’s almost thirteen, nearly a woman grown. Even though the boy only visits her every few moons, she feels as though she’s right in thinking that she’s known him her entire life. Who else comes and plays in the dirt with her, winds grasses and flowers into her braid when she’s not looking? “Baba, sometimes the hero meets a frog, or a hedgehog, or an old wolf in the woods. But then she kisses him and becomes a prince.” She shrugs. “Maybe he’s just my frog.”

Baba levels a sponge at her, her bonnet askew with rage. “If you kiss that boy,” she hisses, “you aren’t leaving this house until your coming-of-age, I swear it on my bones!”

Upon the parchment is scribbled a thick paragraph in a tight, dark hand after the Tanbarun script, so unfamiliar to her now her eyes cross trying to read it all. But she can read the large letters scribbled clearly beneath it just fine.

PROPERTY OF: SHIRAYUKI, HERBALIST OF CLARINES, FRIEND OF THE CROWN

Obi hasn’t followed her to the front step. So she breathes to absolutely nobody, “I don’t...  I don’t understand.”

As though in answer, a throat clears primly to her left, startling her. “Excuse me,” says a strident voice. “Who are you?”

Shirayuki turns. A woman in a homespun is grasping her children to her legs, her eyes narrow with suspicion.

She starts backward off the step, horrified. “I – I’m so sorry! This is your home! I didn’t mean anything by it, I swear. I used to live here, is all.”

“Here?” The woman stares at her, incredulous. “No one’s lived in that house for nearly a year.”

She blinks, dazed. “No one?”

“No one. Completely empty. It’s changed hands over the last few years more often than I’ve changed my clothes,” the woman huffs. “Sorry to break it to you, if it used to be yours. Though you’re rather young, aren’t you?”

“It used to belong to my grandparents. But they’ve long since passed on.”

“Grandparents?” A shadow falls over the woman’s face, and a knot curdles together tight in Shirayuki’s gut. “You’ll forgive me for asking, but even though I haven’t lived here many months, I’ve heard stories enough. How did they pass on?”

“Ah – quietly,” she insists. “In their sleep. They were – they were holding hands.”

The woman’s face closes up again, then goes soft as dough. “I’m so sorry, child. Pardon my prying.”

“Not at all.”

 “It’s just that this house is likely cursed.” She sighs heavily, as though she’s just read a particularly boring passage out of a cookbook. “But you can’t blame the man who bought it. It has its charm, just look at it. You know that from living here, but this place ages better than me.” She chuckles. “He probably thought his lady would be quite enamored with it.”

Shirayuki’s mouth is so dry, it’s amazing, she thinks, that she can speak at all. “His – his lady?”

“Shirayuki.” The woman nods at the parchment, nailed firmly to the door like an oath. “It caused quite a stir among the older folks around here. Apparently that’s a name heard about the castle now and again.”

“Excuse me,” she says weakly, feeling herself growing faint. She can only think of Raj for goodness’ sake, but he wouldn’t, not without telling her, warning her, not without something. “But you wouldn’t happen to know who bought it. Would you?”

“It’s been the talk of this old place for weeks.” The woman shakes her head. “Some poor sod called Nanaki. Let’s hope for his sake that all four walls hold up until his lady gets here.”

There comes a night when the boy isn’t alone.

He had said he’d come today. He’d said. She’d teased him once about the name he still refuses to tell her, and he had snapped back with all the uncontrolled vehemence of a parentless boy, “I don’t lie. I swear I don’t lie, never!” And she had believed him, name or no name.

When she goes looking for him, she shocks herself nearly silly by finding him. And he isn’t alone.

She can barely see him by the faint moonlight, though she can pick out the blackness of his silhouette. She’s so used to straining her eyes in the darkness, longing for the smallest sight of him, that by now it’s as though he carries a light around his neck that isn’t really there, that only she can see. He’s crouched between the blacksmith’s place and the road leading down to the main square, so dark in the shadows it’s as though he sucks in the very moonlight out of the sky.

He’s flanked by two tall men. Who prove themselves terribly nimble by springing barehanded up onto the blacksmith’s roof.

The boy reaches up to follow. But he hesitates, like something has tickled his spine, and he turns his head to look over his shoulder.

Shirayuki imagines that they lock eyes.

A moment later, he’s on the roof. He’s tugging at the two tall men’s clothes, pulling them away from their destination which is – which is back the way Shirayuki had come, as though, as if they –

They sprint across the blacksmith’s roof and leap onto the apothecary, before leaping clear across the street like horses over a stream, silhouetting themselves briefly at the tops of their arcs against the moon. Then all three shapes are gone, headed hard south, toward the city.

That’s the night the first village burns.

The woman and her children must be busy, Shirayuki thinks as though from a great distance off. They leave in short order. But she can’t be sure; she feels like she’s been rooted to this spot for as long as the trees, as though she’s stood here since forever and never actually left, living only through the roots she’s dug deep into the earth.

Funny. If she’s a tree, she shouldn’t be able to fall this easily.

And she’s going to fall, she’s swaying. There’s no air in her lungs, there’s only brightness and fire, licking up through her chest to her face, trying to take the weight off her failing legs and carry her aloft. She reaches out with one hand for – for something. Anything.

Obi catches her, as he always does.

One hand clasps her outstretched forearm. The other arm seizes her around the waist from behind. She hadn’t sensed him coming up behind her but she immediately falls back against him anyway, not strong enough to stand on her own.

She can feel his lips warm against her temple, somewhere between her and the cold gray sky overhead, where snow has been locked tight into the clouds, refusing to fall. “Miss. Are you okay? You have to talk to me.”

Probably she isn’t crying, she’s in too much shock for that. Whatever plant life she’s become likely can’t weep anyway, but it can fall against the face of the mountain, let it buoy it up until the storm passes. Her voice comes out all wobbly all the same. “But – but why?”

Obi presses the hard line of his jaw more firmly into her temple, his arm digging securely into her stomach, crushing her to him. “You should be the one who gets to decide what happens to it, after all you’ve been through. That’s what I thought.”

She laughs, and it’s all gross and slobbery, but it’ll have to do. It’s all she can do. “But what do I do with it?”

“It’s yours. Live in it, sell it, burn it to the ground if that’s what you want.”

Shirayuki never sees him again after that. But the towns keep burning. And she can’t even properly remember what they’d done when she’d seen him last. She misses him like an ache, like a part of herself had simply leapt out of her chest and disappeared into the night. The fires feel far away by comparison, unimportant.

She doesn’t even know his name.

“It’s good riddance,” Baba mutters to herself while Deda frowns hard out the window at the smoke that won’t clear from the air, trapped deep in the confines of the valley. “Good riddance.”

The Lions Baba had once called for never come. But it isn’t long before something else does.

Shirayuki jolts awake the night before her coming-of-age, and finds herself in a small, dark cage.

Obi had been joking about being poor, but a soldier’s or even a knight’s salary like his is nothing incredible to write home about. If he had bought this place, out of pocket, if it really was hers –

If that’s what he’d done, then it would have taken just about – very close to – everything he has.

She nearly bursts out laughing. All the tension in her body unravels faster than she can keep up with. Of course he’d been nervous, flighty, skittish. Of course he’d wanted to wait until tomorrow for her to see the – her house. Of course he’d teased about leaving.

Why else would he get her this place, bleed himself dry into the dust for her, if he didn’t – if he didn’t want –

Strength returns to her limbs, and she turns in his arms. Obi looks caught between a smile and the look a man gets after he’s been clubbed over the head, but all Shirayuki sees is Obi, all she sees is warmth.

She sees home.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you.”

He either sinks into her arms or she drags him into them, going soft and malleable in her embrace like he can finally put something down. Either way she sees the flash of his grin right before she buries her face in his shoulder. He nuzzles into the side of her neck, sucks in a long, deep breath that makes her shudder despite the close warmth of her furs. She can feel his fingers spreading wide across her back, touching as much of her as possible.

“You’re welcome,” he says into the patch of skin below her ear. “It was no trouble anyway.”

She doesn’t think. She doesn’t need to. She just pulls back, turns her head, and presses her lips to the sharp line of his jaw.

All the pounding and kicking in the world doesn’t do her any good. Nor all the shouting. But she does knock a splinter of wood free, and she grips it in her sweaty hand while she yells and screams, half furious and half terrified beyond her grasp of reality, which has shrunk to about a meter square of dark, dank space with bars in the wall high above her head. She can hear a horse snorting impatiently somewhere outside, low voices talking.

The voices, eventually, cut off with great abruptness.

Footsteps approach her little cell, and she grips her scarlet braid in her hand and presses the splinter of wood to it, just as the door buckles under some great, focused impact. On the second blow, it shatters, bashing in completely, so she has to flatten herself to the back of the cage, but –

A tall wiry shape stands silhouetted in the shattered doorway, the lower half of his face covered by a dark mask.

“Let my town go!” she half-sobs. She pulls on her own braid like it’s another prisoner’s neck, the splinter of wood a dagger to an exposed throat, already lodged into one of the plaits. “Let it go, and I’ll come with you, I – I –“

The wiry silhouette holds out an equally wiry, long-fingered hand. “Hurry up.”

The voice is guttural, raspy like he doesn’t practice talking nearly enough, and so familiar.

She drops the piece of wood and seizes his hand.

Obi is hot like a fever under her lips, but he isn’t breathing, holding as still as a corpse against her. But when she pulls back and he turns his head, eyes fire-bright in the gray afternoon, her mind races.

It isn’t like she hadn’t thought about it. And, anyway, after all, if he – if he wants to stick with her, if he wants it that badly, and she wants it that badly, then – it doesn’t have to mean anything, if they don’t want it to. Does it?

Her arms are still circled around his neck, him hunched close. Her eyelids shiver closed, and she brushes her lips against his.

It feels good. Too good, so good, his lips chapped and pliant and so warm it feels like a crime to settle back onto her heels on the ground, her face flushed hotter than a sunset. But her eyes haven’t even fluttered all the way open before Obi’s hands at her back tighten, pulling her back in, and – oh.

Oh. That is. That is something.

His kiss is uncertain where his hands are not, twisting desperately in the fabric of her coat at the small of her back, holding her firm in the knot of their embrace. She wants him closer, she’s wanting more before he’s barely begun, her mouth opening just slightly under his. Eager to taste, to draw him closer, into her body and into her lungs if that’s where he wants to be, feeling his hips roll gently forward while his hands press hers snugly against him and his – his tongue press inside to –

His hands release her, then shove her firmly back. They come apart with twin gasps, and he’s flushed, hair mussed where she’d dragged her hands hungrily through the short bristles.

“I can’t,” Obi chokes.

“Run,” he barks at her harshly. “Run!” But she can’t, not for as long as he can, not nearly as fast as he can. He keeps having to reach back and seize her hand again, drag her along faster than her feet can actually manage, so it feels like she’s flying across the charred and burning ground she had once called home.

But he can’t hold her hand forever. Kovacha and the road leading down toward the castle are all smoldering, are flooding with people fleeing and people chasing. Only her friend seems to be able to tell who is who, for when they come charging toward her, teeth bared and hands flashing full of steel –

She’s seen injuries before. Blood. But her friend’s hands slash blindingly fast into the nearest man’s belly, jerk sideways and out. The man chokes, gurgles, clutches at himself, blood and viscera gushing into the street as he falls to his knees.

Her friend doesn’t stop. He just ducks, rolls, comes up slashing. Knees and wrists, throats and stomachs, he kicks and throws his knees and bones break. Shirayuki flags again, mind and extremeties both completely numb. He reaches back for her again and takes her hand.

They keep running.

At the tiered wall, he jumps down to the road below without so much as flinching. She can only stand there frozen under the moonlight, until he opens his arms up to her with a wordless growl that might have been her name. In any case, she still jumps, and he still catches her, holding her firm against his chest.

She can see her house over his shoulder.

There are two arms slung over the front step, one slightly smaller and one slightly larger, wearing familiar sleeves. She’d darned and patched those sleeves herself several times, over the years. They could almost be holding hands.

She screams, but he just keeps pulling her along behind him anyway.

 ---

“Why not?” Shirayuki whispers, as breathless as Obi looks suddenly maddened, his eyes wide and half frightened, refusing to meet hers.

He shakes his head. “I didn’t think you really didn’t remember,” he bites out. “I didn’t think you’d actually forgotten as much as you had.”

“Obi –“

“I never lie, Miss,” he says, grabbing her hands in both of his. “Remember? I never lie.” He licks his lips. “And I have debts to pay.”

She had imagined, just that afternoon, the two of them growing up, side by side, laughing in the sunlight.

She feels, at the corner of her heart, a horror flash through her, faster than a flicker. Then again.

He holds her hand around the side of a house that isn’t on fire. She knows he’s leaning against the wall, trying to look casual, but either she’s just that terrified or he’s sweated clean through his glove.

There’s a whole group of them, cornering him. But they’re laughing, speaking strangely, not like smallfolk or the cityfolk that she knows. And they tell him, “You got us this far, kid. And we definitely couldn’t’ve found the redhair without you. It took us a while, but –“

Shirayuki tears her hand from his, and runs like she never has before.

Shirayuki rips her hands from his.

She steps back. It allows her a perfect view of the moment Obi’s golden eyes go muted, nearly gray. The way his face falls into an expression she hasn’t seen him wear in a very, very long time. His shoulders sag, graceful frame crumbling before her eyes.

She’s already trying to speak even as her feet move her away of their own accord, her lips still burning from their kiss. “Obi, wait,” she says, knowing, just knowing what’s coming, though he hasn’t moved. “I didn’t mean it like that.  Let’s – let’s talk.”

She turns around in time to see the moment a blade catches him across the chest. The blow is so strong it lifts him off his feet, and she finds that she can’t move, can barely even cough as the smoke starts to filter into her lungs, and she doesn’t move until all of his people have fallen under his own blades, and he catches himself against the house, wheezing. Bleeding.

When she goes to him, he is covered in wounds. A slash in the forehead, bleeding down his face. The whole front of his clothes, crusted with fresh and shining gore.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes, so weak. “I’m sorry, Shira –“

“Don’t say my name,” she whispers. “Don’t say my name, ever.”

He tucks his lips into his teeth. That’s when she realizes that his mask, at last, has fallen away.

“Just run,” he wheezes. “Run, and keep running, until you find your Lions.”

“But I –“

“The mountain. Just go!”

She finds it in her to not look back. And she finds it in her, not too much later, to not remember, either.

Obi’s eyes squeeze shut. “I’m... gonna go, now.”

She couldn’t have stopped it, could she, no matter what she did, but still she has to say something. “You were just a boy. Just a child. You were so hungry, and I understand, I get it, so just. Come here.” She reaches out. “Come back to me. We can talk about this, I swear.”

Something rustles in the bushes near the house. It makes every last fiber of her jump, memories slashing through her sense like a knife through old cloth.

When she turns back around, Obi is already gone.

[bubblesthemonsterartist]

Fortunes Gained and Lost Playlist (Team Really Royalty Reveal)

The Angry River - The Hat / The River -  Blues Saraceno / Raise Hell - Dorothy / Marco Polo -  Loreena McKennitt / Yellow Flicker Beat - Lorde / Ghost of a King - The Gray Havens / Holy Water - Laurel / Deep Water - American Authors / Cold - Jorge Mendez

[longagoitwastuesday]

obiyuki: mutual pining

    “A strange thing happened”, she said softly. “When I left you I thought you followed me. I was so sure of it I did not even look around to verify it. You were there behind me. And when I came to my own door, I said good night to you, so certain I was that you were there”.

     He could see her outline in the dark and smell the scent which was herself. “My lady”, he said, “when you left the room, I saw myself follow you as though I were another person looking on”.

[ruleofexception]

A Leap Not Yet Taken

Good To You - Mariana’s Trench  //  Waking Up Slow - Gabrielle Aplin  //  Weak Heart - Ed Prosek  //  Tourist - Yuna  //  Can I Be Him - James Arthur   //  Human - dodie  //  Falling For U - peachy!  //  If It Kills Me - Jason Mraz  //  The Fear You Won’t Fall - Joshua Radin  //  Would You Be So Kind - dodie  //  Please Notice - Christian Akridge  //  All You Never Say - Birdy  //  Say Something - A Great Big World  //  She Is The Sunlight - Trading Yesterday  //  Can’t Help Falling In Love - Ingrid Michaelson  //  I’m Falling For You - Chester See  //  Say It First - Sam Smith  //  I Don’t Know How To Tell You This - Faith Ling  // Two - Sleeping At Last  //  Over You - Ingrid Michaelson 

[sabraeal]

Lies Save a Man Once (and Truth Saves Him Twice)

Obiyuki Trope Madness Semi-Final Really Royalty Reveal

There had been nights when she first arrived in Lyrias -- frigid ones that had seeped even through the flannel of her sheets and wool of her nightgown, ones that had left horses dead in their stalls -- where Shirayuki had lain wide awake, wondering if she would survive her studies. In the darkness, chill pressing in around her, she’d wondered if she had not been sent north to be forgotten, if she had simply been an inconvenient snag in the tapestry of Wistal, snipped out before it could ruin the rest of the weaving. She’d shivered under the covers, fingers stiff from cold, and struggled to make the best of what she’d been given.

A spot at Lyrias was an honor, even if it was exile too; better yet, it was an opportunity. Luck like that had been thin of the ground those last few years.

Shirayuki knew better than to spurn a hand up, no matter what it looked like. If there had been one thing she’d learned before coming to Clarines, there was always a way to turn a hardship into a success.

She’d done more than succeed; a few good fur blankets and better company had turned Lyrias into home. Endless hours studying had turned a talent into a career. There had been nights, towards the end, where she’d forgotten Wistal entirely.

Wistal, however, had not forgotten her.

If there’s one thing Shirayuki has missed about the South, it’s the open windows.

She nearly forgets that she can open them -- in Lyrias she never dared, save for the few tepid weeks of summer where the snow melted and the sun shone, or if the air became far too stale in her rooms -- but when a maid bustles in with a tray for lunch, mentioning the beautiful weather, she hardly hesitates. The catches spring open under her fingers like a breath held too long, and the warm winds of Wistal envelop her.

It’s Izana’s household that nests in the south wing, its windows overlooking the expansive pharmacy gardens, but Shirayuki’s view in the west isn’t without its charms as well. Though the aromatic gardens don’t spread their scent this far, a smaller, ornamental garden sits beneath her balcony, and when the wind blows she can smell every bloom.

Rose and honeysuckle hit her first, followed by the subtler scents of camellia and marigold. Warmth spreads through her that has nothing to do with the heat of the afternoon. She’s missed this; as astounding as the hothouses are, they can’t compete with the subtle pleasure of summer wafting through a window.

The breeze catches just right, and salt stings her nose. It’s faint, the sea miles away from the capital, but it’s enough, so welcome after only the sharp bite of winter.

Shirayuki sighs, content, and turns back to her trunk. The maid had offered to do this too, but she’s never been in the habit of letting others do what she can do for herself. The only clothes she relinquished were those dirtied by the road, and only because she knew from experience that the laundresses did not take kindly to interlopers.

She also doesn’t quite know how long their stay will be, and she would rather not be repacking this trunk in a day’s time, only having used a single set of clothes. But admitting that to someone in Izana’s employ is an amateur mistake, something that will only lead to him dragging the visit out longer than he already has, greeting them days from now with a smile curving into a smirk and a wry, I hope you weren’t in a hurry.

She lets out a huff, shaking her head. There are some things in Wistal she has missed, but that is not one of them.

A shadow falls across her floor, and she ducks her head, hiding a smile. It’s not only the scent of flowers that comes in through her balcony, here.

“You’ve finished?” She turns her head just slightly, catching his long limbs in the corner of her eyes. “Everything is to your satisfaction?”

“No,” he sniffs, perched precariously on the balustrade like a particularly put-upon gargoyle. “But that’s not surprising, since Sir Zakura won’t take any of my suggestions.”

She bites her lip, fending back a laugh. “To be fair, the last time you were here, you were more skilled at breaking security than making it.”

“That’s not true, Miss.” He’s trying to debate the point, but it comes out more like a whine. “Lord Makiri called me indispensable before I left for Sereg!”

She favors him with a long look. “I didn’t mean for a visit, Obi.”

“Oh.” He hops off the rail with a thoughtful cant to his chin. “Well, that may be true, but I am a loyal knight of the Royal Circle now, Miss.” He presses a hand to his chest, insincerely sincere. “I’m utterly trustworthy.”

Her look turns flat. “If that’s the line you used on Zakura, I can see why he threw you out of his office.”

“He didn’t throw me out, Miss!” he protests, sauntering toward her door. “I gracefully retreated --”

He halts at her threshold as if he’s hit a wall. His lips peel away from his teeth in a grimace that makes her heart stutter in her chest.

“Obi?”

It’s impossible to keep the fear from her voice; Obi’s a body in perpetual motion, but he’s frozen now, eyes darting about her room with enough suspicion to make her shiver.

“Something isn’t right.” The words come out so low they’re practically a growl, her skin pimpling with goosebumps. His foot crosses the threshold, taking a cautious step, and --

And he sniffs. “Is that...lilac?”

She stares. Lilac? “Is that--?”

He’s at ease now, his little game over, and Shirayuki fantasizes about closing the distance between them, laying her hands on his shoulders, and shaking the life out of him.

She breathes. The moment passes.

“Yes. From the sheets.” She lifts a sprig from the stack she’s left by her bed; whoever made this one had gone slightly overboard in their desire to scent them.

Obi shuffles over, wary, his fingers wrapping around her wrist to steady it as he takes a deep, curious inhale. “They’ve switched from lavender.”

He jerks back, nose wrinkled and mouth pulled just short of a grimace. “If His Majesty wanted us gone so badly, he could have just summoned us sooner.”

Shirayuki huffs out a laugh, shaking her head. “I don’t think that’s the reason they switched the herbs, Obi.”

“Could have fooled me.” He takes a step toward her bedside table, and with one quick swipe of his hand, sweeps the rest of the sprigs into the trash. “Besides, the whole staff knows that you prefer...”

His teeth snap down on the rest of his thought, but -- but Shirayuki has not learned nothing from her tour of the North. The implication, now that he’s said it, is...unmistakable. And distinctly uncomfortable.

When Shirayuki had first moved from the pharmacy dorms to the west wing, the scent had been the sharp sweetness of verbena, a favorite of Haruto’s when she still lived in the castle. She’d only inquired the once if they could lay hers with lavender -- she knew that they had plenty from her hours in the gardens -- but by the next week the whole wing smelled of it.

Of course, Kiki had laughed, the domestics always follow the tastes of their mistress.

And now it had been changed again.

“Don’t be silly,” she huffs out, ignoring the way her stomach lurches. “If something like -- like that had happened, Zen would have told us.”

Obi’s silence is damning.

“He would have written, at least,” she insists, though it does nothing to settle the flutter in her chest or the wrench in her gut.

“If he knew,” Obi agrees, too late. She wants to protest -- there is no way he couldn’t know, that such a decision could be made without him, but --

But it isn’t so hard to imagine Izana’s subtle hand in this, switching out small things at first, removing the traces of where she touched, exorcising the memory of her from the west wing’s very stone...

And then leaving someone else in her place. Someone who preferred lilac scented sheets.

She doesn’t even realize her hands are clenched until Obi taps them, each fist releasing under his barest touch.

“We have been gone for a while,” he opines, sauntering past her. “Sir could have developed a terrible lavender allergy while we weren’t looking. Breaks out in nasty hives. He was just too embarrassed to tell us when they visited.”

Shirayuki ducks her head, smothering a laugh. “Or Kiki.”

“Nah.” Obi waves off the thought. “Miss Kiki is made of marble and fire. Little things like allergies can’t touch her.”

“I don’t think that’s how biology works,” she says, casting a sly glance at him, and --

And it’s been so long since they’ve both been here, alone in her room. Or maybe he never has been; all her memories of him are in the the window of the dormitory, clothes hanging off him even when they’d been made new, just for him. He’d been sinew and sharp angles; a chin digging into her shoulder, or elbows spurring her in the gardens. But now --

Now he stands taller in this room, wider, taking up so much space she feels...cramped, even though it’s twice as large as her quarters in Wilant. She’d known he’d grown since they’d gone to Lyrias; she had watched him fill out his uniform more and more, until the fur of his coat no longer hung off his shoulders but clung to them --

But that doesn’t prepare her for this, for the realization that it’s all turned to -- to confidence. To muscle.

A dress is in her hands, but they itch to hold something; it feels entirely too dangerous to leave them empty, to leave them with no excuse not to –

A knock saves her.

“Hello?” A familiar form hovers at the open door.

She spins, grateful for the distraction. “Shikito! It’s been far too long!”

“Lady Shirayuki, Sir Obi. It has been.” He steps into the room with a warm smile, giving them a polite, if informal bow. “I’m sorry to admit I’m only here on business. I’ve been asked to relay that His Majesty requests your presence in his study.”

She blinks, fingers bonelessly dropping her dress to the bed in a heap. Izana had certainly wasted no time putting these wheels in motion, now that they were here.

Of course, Obi feels differently. “Took him long enough.”

Shikito’s smile stills on his face, as if he’s unsure whether he’s supposed to answer or not.

“Of course, Shikito,” she says, throwing Obi a quelling look as she heads to the door. “We’d be happy to come.”

“I understand congratulations are in order,” Shikito says as they walk down the palace corridors, mouth parting wide in a smile. “The guard isn’t privy to most of the gossip at court, but the word is that your work with the knights’ circles was an unprecedented success.”

It’s not quite a laugh that escapes Obi, but something like amusement’s more bitter cousin. “Nice to know how low the bar was set, wouldn’t you say, Miss?”

She knows better than to glare; giving him attention only encourages outrageous behavior. “The knights were much more accommodating than reports had led us to believe.”

“Especially when Miss was the first woman most of them had seen in --”

Annoyance and embarrassment make heady kindling for the heat that licks at her collar. “That wasn’t why.”

She doesn’t need to be looking at him to see his teeth flash in a knife’s edge of a smirk, to hear the bark of his laugh. “Notice how she doesn’t say it isn’t true.”

“Most of the circles were...remote,” she admits, feeling the heat work its way to her cheeks, her ears. “But I wasn’t the only woman to visit. The circles host many travelers over the year, and I’m sure more than a fair share are women.”

Obi weaves in close, too close.  “But none so pretty as Miss.”

It’s a lost cause to try to bank her blush now, not when he says things like -- like that.

“Now that i can believe,” Shikito admits. “I’m sure they found you entirely agreeable, my lady.”

Obi coughs; it’s a poor cover for his laugh. “I’m not sure agreeable is the word they’d use...”

“In any case,” Shirayuki manages. “I’m glad Izana has made time to see us.”

“Finally.”

It would be too much to expect Obi to not pluck that low-hanging fruit. She should have known better than to tempt him.

Shikito blinks, surprised. “Have you been waiting long?”

“No,” Shirayuki says, at the same time as Obi says, “Yes.”

“Three days,” she admits grudgingly, shooting Obi another quelling look. “Though we’ve only just been invited to the castle today. We spent the other two in the city.”

“I am sure His Majesty got to you as soon as he could,” Shikito manages, striving for sincere. It’s undermined completely by Obi’s snort. “I know he was eager to see you before His Highness’s arrival.”

“Zen?” Shirayuki blinks, dumbly watching as Shikito opens the door to the royal study. “Zen is coming?”

Obi shrugs, eyes just as wide as hers as they are lead out to the terrace. “Master never said anything to me.”

“His Highness --”

Shikito never manages to finish the thought.

A sea of white cloaks crests on the terrace, drawn blades glinting in the radiant light of the afternoon sun. This by itself would be enough to set her heart galloping, but she trips at the open door, boot scuffing on stone, and as one, every head swivel towards them.

The term post-mortem has never seemed more threateningly apt than now.

Obi’s hands hover at his back, just over where he keeps his knives, every line of his body tense and coiled.

“Well now, Mistress,” he drawls, voice tight. “Are we sure we didn’t commit any treason while we were in the north?”

“No.” Shirayuki stares at the grim faces of the guard, stomach twisting. “At least...not on purpose?”

Obi doesn’t dare turn his attention from the swords in front of them, but she can read the annoyance stiffening his jaw. “Miss, I really need more conviction than that right now.”

“What’s going on?” Shikito calls out, confused. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“Ah, it seems my expected guests have arrived.”

The blinding wave of white shifts, and in the ebb stands Izana, like some goddess from one of Wistal’s frescoes, only with impeccable tailoring. At first glance, his expression is bored, as if he were merely offended that they had kept him waiting, but Shirayuki knows him better to believe the mask, to take anything the king does at face value. She ignores the obvious and looks at his body; the stiff line of his shoulders and the firm set to his jaw.

The king of Clarines is tense.

“Lady Shirayuki,” he drawls, not quite meeting her eyes. “It seems you and your knight have arrived at a most…exciting time.”

She blinks. “Exciting…?”

Izana’s eyes roll pointed southward, and it’s only then that she sees the guards at his feet.

“Oh!” she gasps. They’re alive, up on hands and knees or prostrate on their backs, all with minor injuries – it’s hard to tell from where she stands, but one has a broken nose, another a dislocated arm, and the third clutching at his knee.

Obi’s outstretched arm bumps against her front, and it’s only then that she realizes she’s taken a step toward them.

“I...” She tilts her head, confused. “Did they fall?”

That surprises a laugh out of him. “Fall?”

Biting back a surge of annoyance, she asks, “What happened?”

Izana’s mouth pulls tight. “A misunderstanding.”

“My apologies…”

Shirayuki is poor with faces and names – Suzu had teased her often enough about only squeaking by with her cheery attitude – but she never forgets a voice, and this one – this one is both utterly strange and comfortingly familiar, like a well-loved bedtime book read by her grandmother instead of her grandfather. The words are the same, but the way they are read is disconcertingly different. It sets her on edge, even though the voice, deep and resonant, soothes.

Obi must agree as well; he’s stiff as a board beside her.

“I should make my entrance using more…polite channels, next time.”

Izana’s smile pulls as tight as a noose. “Please.”

A man emerges from the crest of white, sauntering through a sea of hostile faces as if this were merely another part of his day, something he slipped between lunch and a turn around the gardens. He’s even more familiar now, though she’s certain they’ve never met – she’d remember a man like him, tall and lean as whip, with a smile more like a threat than a greeting.

He reminds her of Izana, in a way; their build is similar, and his charming smiles just as deadly, but while Izana hides his training beneath waistcoats and cravats, this man displays it like a trophy. Even standing still she feels movement in him, anticipation, like a cat coiled to pounce. His smile is stark against the bronze of his skin, and the way it crooks at one corner is so strikingly familiar she feels nearly dizzy from it, as if she should know where she’s seen it before.

His face falls when his gaze lands on Obi, lips wrapping around a word --

She doesn’t even see the knife in the air; she only knows it’s been thrown by the way one sits perched in Obi’s grip, by the way his hand trembles as he lowers it.

“Nanaki!” The man flings himself across the stones, long arms tangling around Obi’s shoulders as he hits him like a wall.

It’s...a hug.

Obi is stock still, motionless, little more than a wide-eyed statue. “Brother?”

Shirayuki blinks. “Brother?”

Izana gives a thoughtful hum and he strolls closer, hovering just behind Shirayuki’s shoulder. “Ah, so this would be the cause of your...abrupt entry.”

The man -- Obi’s brother -- pulls back, smile broad and genuine. It looks...strange, on a face so similar.

“Oh yes,” he breathes, his eyes -- just as gold as his brother’s -- drink in his features like a man who hasn’t seen water in years. “My Eyes said that my brother was detained here, in the capital.” His large hand squeezes Obi’s shoulder, fond. “But I see these reports have been...exaggerated.”

Obi’s expression shifts instantly from shocked to annoyed. “I can’t be detained if I don’t want to be.”

“Of course not!” his brother says, entirely insincere. “I of all people know your sk --”

His voice skips, brow furrowing as he takes a step closer. His hand raises, thumb tracing over the scar that sits over Obi’s eye. “This didn’t heal well.”

Obi rolls his eyes, but doesn’t brush him away. “It’s old.”

He -- he leans in, just a bit, before his brother shakes his head, stepping back to arm’s length.

Shirayuki’s gaze darts between them. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“Our esteemed guest is a....person of interest in Clarines,” Izana explains. “He manages a great many ventures in Port City, though he specializes in the ones that often...bring him to the attention of my men.”

She stares, lost.

With a sigh, he clarifies, “He is known, colloquially, as the King of Thieves.”

“Inaccurate,” the man says absently, gaze never staying from Obi. “But it does have a certain...dramatic flair to it that I can appreciate.”

Izana’s smile turns sharp. “You’re too modest.”

The man’s grin is just as dangerous. “I’m merely a man with a great many friends. Surely you would have more proof if I were otherwise, Your Majesty.”

Izana looks as if he would be all too-happy to answer that challenge, but Shirayuki asks, “And he’s your brother, Obi?”

“Yes,” Obi grits out, just as his brother says, “Yes?”

The man’s eyes turns owlish eyes to her, swivels back to Obi. “Obi?”

He rubs his neck, right where it was starting to flush a startling red. “It’s, ah, a long story.”

His brother stares at him, measuring, and with deliberate slowness says, “I’m sure.”

He turns to her then, charming smile in full force as he takes her hand. “And who is this enchanting creature?”

Obi makes a strangled noise as the man bends over her hand, pressing his lips to its back.

“I-I’m Shirayuki,” she squeaks.

If anything his smile widens. “And you know my brother...?”

“Obi has been my guard for the last few years. And,” she adds, with some amount of steel in her voice, “my friend.”

“I see,” he drawls, mouth quirking. “What a pleasure it is to make your acquaintance, Lady Shirayuki.”

“You too, Mister, uh….”

His teeth flash behind his lips. “Why, you must call me Nanaki.”

“What?” Obi snaps, eyes glinting.

“Come now, Obi,” Nanaki drawls. “It’s only fair.”

Obi’s mouth pulls thin. “Well, you’ve found me now. I guess you can just…turn back around and go right home.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” his brother says, still holding onto her hand with a grin. “I just found you again. And besides, I want to get to know your…friends.”

Obi’s gaze snaps to Izana. “Shouldn’t you be arresting him, or something?”

For once, Izana seems…uncomfortable. “Ah yes, well, the thing is…”

“Brother, come now.” Nanaki’s smile sharpens in amusement. “I’m merely a man with connections! I can’t help what people do with them.”

Obi, for one, looks even less amused than Izana.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” she says, trying to smooth over the awkwardness. “You must have great stories about Obi!”

“Oh,” Nanaki enthuses as Obi moans. “How did you know? That is simply my favorite topic.”

The checkpoint’s report arrives late in the morning: three young men riding at a relaxed pace, the prince among them. Shirayuki is informed not long after they finish lunch, the news brought to her by none other than Izana himself.

“May I suggest,” he says, “that you might wish to explain the…current situation to my brother yourself?”

It doesn’t sound like much of a suggestion, but she takes the point. By the time her and Obi reach the stables, he’s already ridden in, Mitsuhide and Hisame already dismounted at his side.

“Shirayuki! Obi!” he calls out with a wave, his smile fading as his gaze settles just behind them. “…Brother?”

Izana’s smile spreads entirely too wide. “I think there’s something your knight wishes to tell you.”

Zen nearly falls off his horse.

“Who is your brother?” he snaps, brushing the dirt from his trousers.

Obi rubs at the back of his neck. “It’s not that big of a deal…”

“Don’t be so humble, Sir Obi,” Izana drawls with a smirk that makes Shirayuki’s skin crawl. “If we extend the metaphor, why, that would make you the prince of thieves.”

Obi grimaces. “That’s not --”

“And to think,” Izana sighs. “I despaired of you ever making friends with your peers.”

[claudeng80]

Letters

Regency AU, After A Much-Anticipated Wedding

To Yuzuri L-----

----- College, Lyrias

Zen’s wedding was this morning. Or, I should say, it almost was? I’m sure you’ll be seeing it in the papers soon enough, but his bride left him at the altar to run off with his companion. Both of his best friends, gone at once. I’m confused, because I knew this was what Kiki wanted at first and Mitsuhide had turned her down, but he sure looked enthusiastic enough as they ran out the back door of the chapel.

I stayed in my seat, stunned. People were streaming past me chattering about what had just happened, and Zen’s brother was so angry you could almost see his ponytail crackle, but Zen just looked over his shoulder and met my eye, and the look on his face-

I can’t help but feel that he blames me, that I could have prevented his heartache. If I’d understood sooner that he was courting me, if I’d said the right things to make him understand. . .

Maybe I could have avoided hurting him.

But I’m maudlin, probably because I have nobody to talk to. Everything’s awkward with Zen, Kiki is well on her way to Scotland, and Obi-

I haven’t seen him in a week.

Shirayuki L-----

***

Zen Wisteria

Wistal, -----ford

No matter how many times Kiki assures me that you approved all the plans and that you’re not angry, I can’t help feeling like apologies are necessary. While I can't say I regret my actions, I’m so sorry that your wedding was ruined, that all those terrible things have been printed in the papers-

And I have deserted my post. This letter must serve as my resignation, and I can only hope that we may still be friends when the furore has died down (and Kiki has been convinced to return from our honeymoon, because so far I have been unable to get her to set a return date).

Get yourself a valet, now. Don’t make me write your brother to remind him you need one. And no, you may not hire Obi for that purpose.

Mitsuhide Lowen

***

To Obi R-----

Wistal, ---ford

Do you know what Yuzuri has gone and done now? You will never guess, because it is the end of all things, the most insupportable choice she could have made. She’s abandoned her potato project. Six rows of potato plants all gone to seed, and after I fought tooth and nail to get her the greenhouse space. I am beyond betrayed. We are no longer on speaking terms.

Yuzuri tells me that Shirayuki is causing trouble in ---ford and you haven’t informed me of a word of it. So she won’t tell me anything either. Write back at once with all the gossip, I demand it.

I am languishing here, simply languishing without you. Come back to Lyrias and save me from Yuzuri and her antics. The others are nothing to me. You are my one and only true friend.

In fact, that puts me in mind to tell you, I’m strongly considering moving out of university housing and into the village. If you were to come join me, a household of two bachelors would be ever so much more jolly than just the one, and economical too. Three bachelors, if we count Thunderbolt as well, who would appreciate the removal from his current premises even more than I.

Do write and tell me when I can expect you.

The Hon. Suzu Maindale (see, I signed with full honors for you, so you have to come now.)

***

To Yuzuri L-----

----- College, Lyrias

I hope this letter finds you well and that all your potato plants are thriving just as you predicted in your last letter.

It’s been ten days now since Obi disappeared. I know he’s here somewhere, because I hear his name in passing. He’s spent time with Zen, talked with people around the village-

But he’s hiding from me. I know,  it look me far too long to understand my own heart but at last I understand that I want Obi to stay in my life, I don’t want to picture a future without him in it- and I realize what that means.

Of course I tried to tell Obi that, and he wouldn’t let me say it. He ran out into the rain to keep from hearing it, pretended I’d never spoken at all. I didn’t think I was this repulsive to him. I’d hoped I was seeing some sign that he cared for me. But why would he disappear so thoroughly if he cared?

I was wrong and I’ve lost him and I just don’t know what to do now.

I miss Lyrias. I miss you. Please tell me your potatoes are well, because I need some inkling of good news in my life.

Shirayuki L-----

***

To The Honorable Suzu Maindale and so on and so forth

----- College, Lyrias

I will come.

She looked me in the eyes and told me things- I can’t be so close and not want her, can’t keep myself from reaching out to her when she asks me so clearly. It makes me forget what I am, and she won’t believe me when I explain it to her.

I can’t even face her without giving myself away.

So I will come be bachelors with you in Lyrias. Take the house, whatever, and this letter will precede me by no more than a day.

Obi

***

To Shirayuki L-----

Wistal

Please don’t fear that this letter will contain any harsh words - your choice is your own, and I respect you too much to ever ignore that fact.

I just wish there were something I could do to change your mind. Is it my flaws? I will mend them. My brother’s displeasure? I’ll defy it. To any who say there is a social divide, I will educate them. Your father was no less a gentleman than mine, a fact no loss of fortune can change. And if it’s a question of money, I would love nothing more than to spoil you but you are far too responsible to let me.

We could be perfect, if only you would change your mind. You would make me the happiest of men.

Lord Zen Wisteria

***

To Miss Shirayuki L-----

Wistal

Thank you for your kindness to me, and all the patience you’ve shown me all this time. I couldn’t leave without letting you know how much I’ve appreciated the time I have spent in your presence, and yet I must. By the time you see this letter I will be gone.

I will not be returning to Wistal. Make the world a better place, miss, the way you do every day, and be happy.

Obi