Fic - Deanon: harem guard fic
Sep. 4th, 2011 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bottanTitle: Blood That Dries on Sand
Chapter: 1/?
Pairing: Kurogane/Fai
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: porn (sometime in the far future), mentions of violence and war, wonky politics
Summary: All that Fai Flowright wanted to do after the war was to go home. His king had other plans for him, however, and suddenly, the first mage of Ceres found himself burdened not only with more politics than he ever wished for, but also with a rather obstinate “wife.”
a/n: Written for this clampkink prompt. This is a WIP!
Fai, first mage of Ceres, was grumbling under his breath. Even faced with the beauty of the seraglio’s halls and passages – it was a small wonder it had not been reduced to blackened ruins, like most other of Creta’s desert castles – he couldn’t quite concentrate on the grandeur of the place. He was listening to the small talk King Ashura and the Second Vizier conducted with only half his mind, and the lesser ministers that swarmed them had given up on trying to talk to him a few minutes prior. Fai couldn’t find that he minded the peace and quiet that he was rewarded with when trailing behind the group of the most important men of the kingdom.
He let his gaze wander as their guide delved deeper into the history of the place. Softened sunlight filtering through white curtains hallway and pretty white and golden mosaic tiles coated the wall. And after one year of war with this country, Fai could think of nothing but of the thick blanket of snow that would coat Ceres this time of the year. He felt strange in the airy, wide Cretan pants and the blazing-hot wind that floated in through the open windows and carried the smell of dust and sand reminded him of nothing but the war and of blooming magic that had painted the dunes with green and blue fire.
A conquered nation needed someone to lead it. The thing that Fai didn’t understand was that it couldn’t have been someone else, one of the higher-ranking nobles or maybe even one of the Generals. Reestablishing a government in Creta would be difficult, but it was also an honor and promised a stand that had more influence with the King than any other post within the kingdom.
In the end, it was a task Fai had never asked for. When his King had arrived this morning, Fai had tried to argue.
Ceres was left weakened from its ambitious agenda of the expanding its borderlines. Umi, the apprentice whom he had left to guard the Towers along Ceres’s border, was still far from skilled enough to fend off attacks from either Haumea or Eris, both of whom conducted at best strained relations with Ceres. He needed to be back home. He had sworn to protect his country, and he felt useless, here.
Most of all, he needed to smell the snow, again, feel the chill on his face and the fur of the heavy coat on his cheeks. He needed to gaze into faces that didn’t reflect fear and scorn, that didn’t know him as the war mage that spilled the blood of their fathers and husbands and sons-
He shook his head to clear the thoughts out forcefully. He was, very simply, homesick. And who could really blame him? Yesterday night he had been packing his things, this morning he had been told to unpack and spend another year around, this time to deal with paperwork and reluctant locals.
Fai let out another, long-suffering sigh and let his gaze linger on the guard that walked right beside him. To be honest, Fai at least partly trailed behind the tittering group of the viziers to have a better view of him – tall and grim, with a handsome face, for all that the crease between his eyes seemed to chiseled out of stone. All of the guards in the inner palace grounds had been in extraordinary shape and taller than any ordinary man. Also, they wore nothing under their dark, embroidered vests, couldn’t bring himself to mind, right now. He just had to remind himself from time to time not to stare at well-formed abs and that glistened with the slight sheen of sweat that easily formed in the heat that even was palpable within the thick walls of the palace. The guards eyes shifted just a little bit, returning his gaze with unafraid, red eyes.
What are you looking at? Fai couldn’t help a small smile creeping over his features.
He didn’t even notice that they had reached the gardens until the sunlight hit his face. A flock of colorful birds took flight as they were passing, rising between the lush green of the bushes and rainbows that were painted into the cloudless sky by the high fountains. As the ministers stopped for a moment, taking their time to praise the grandeur of the gardens, Fai left them to their politicking and ventured out to take a closer look at the fountains. They were sustained by magic and twice as high as Fai himself, shifting in their play and sending sprinkles of water across the wide-spread pond.
And the guard that had caught his attention earlier had taken to following him, now. Fai grinned over his shoulder at him, lifting his eyebrows in a silent, mocking greeting. The guard pretended to stare right past him. He wasn’t very good at it.
Fai hadn’t thought of taking anyone to bed in quite some time – for one the camps of war didn’t provide much privacy and for two he wasn’t keen on sharing his nightmares with anyone. He didn’t think it would matter, and then he had been busy preparing things for the arrival of his King, recently. But now, he felt that he was searching for someone, anyone, maybe, to lighten the dreams that would come unbidden. Even as he wasn’t sure that anyone ever could. He was aware that a Cretan guard of the seraglio surely would have been a poor choice for that, though, and tried to put his mind to other things.
Fai watched the fountain spill into the wide pond, sending ripples across its surface. Its waters were surprisingly clean, though water lilies plated the deeper parts. Close to the path, the water was shallow and the sand underneath was smooth and white. He took a quick glance at Ashura and the people surrounding them, making sure that he wouldn’t be missed, then slipped out of his sandals, the soles of his feet drinking in the heat of the white stone underneath, and lifted the flapping pants just a bit.
“Stop, what the- what are you doing?” Plash. Fai sighed in relief as his feet soaked in cool water.
“Come out of there, immediately!” the guard barked. Fai grinned broadly and started jumping around the pond just to annoy the man.
“But it’s hot, and I’ve been walking all day,” he insisted and kicked up a leg to spray water into the air and watch it come down in a glittering shower on the flabbergasted guard. Fai snickered.
“Come out! The waters are holy and there are turtles in there, don’t blame me if you lose a fuc… a toe!”
“Dangerous turtles? What a strange country this is,” Fai let the cloth of his pants fall, not caring that the hems got soaked. He splashed closer to the fountain and stirred up mud in his wake, holding his hands out to catch the droplets spraying down, closing his eyes to let his face be cooled by the drizzle.
“Fuck-“ the next moment, Fai felt himself lifted up by his lapels of his vest and hurled out of the water. He stumbled onto the tiles next to a scowling guard, whose fingers were still curled into the expensive cloth.
“How bold of you,” Fai laughed at him, “disgracing the holy waters like that…”
“Turtles,” the guard deadpanned, and pointed at the place where Fai had stood only a moment ago. Turning around, Fai noticed one of the large, brown stones had grown a head – a quite ugly head with a vicious beak. It made a sound that was almost a snarl, head bobbing up and down, before it retracted its long neck and swam away. A colony of similar ‘stones’ sprouted legs and followed it with bored, slow movements.
“Aw, you saved me!” Fai clapped his hands and smiled at the guard. “Thank you, you are my hero!”
“Don’t joke about this, Ceresian,” the man ground out. “Be glad I’m not one of those guards that’d like to see you lose limbs, most of them think you’ve earned it.”
The words hit Fai harder than they should have. He let the slightest bit of magic sizzle through his body and the guard’s hand twitched away from his vest as though burned.
“I don’t think you realize who I am, do you?” Fai asked lightly, brows raised in his best imitation of harmless.
“I do well enough,” the guard grunted, shaking his hand staring past him, features unreadable. “I don’t think anyone here wouldn’t. By Allah, all I’m telling you is that you better watch out for yourself, cause no one else is going to do it.”
“You do know that it is really not your place to tell me these things,” Fai inquired with a cool smile.
That made the guard look at him, again, bristling slightly. “I realize, yeah, but you seem like a moron, so I’ll tell you anyway. Watch whom you offend, we don’t need another war anymore than you.” Fai couldn’t quite help but laugh at that.
“They really do pick the guards by looks rather than manners, don’t they?” Fai mused, poking a finger into naked abs, and sending the man twitching with annoyance. The guards lips pressed together in a thin line and his expression grew thunderous. “My, you’re so intimidating when you pout like that – do they teach you that when you start working here?”
“They don’t,” the guard grumped and his jaw silently worked for a moment before he added, “and I don’t pout.”
“I offer my apologizes for mistaking fighting spirit for petulance,” Fai offered, not even bothering to try and sound sincere.
“Fai, what are you doing?” Fai felt his face compose and back straighten as he turned around to face Ashura. There was a frown on his King’s face that didn’t bode good.
“Nothing of importance, Your Majesty,” Fai answered lightly and slipped his dirtied toes back into the light blue cloth sandals, the water leaving wet spots at the tips. His pants already had started drying in the heat of the day. He stepped back towards the group of men that looked at him with something akin to doubt, but Fai couldn’t be brought to care. They knew who he was, and if they thought, today, that along with the fearsome mage he also was a spoilt Prince, so let them.
Ashura securely put a hand to his shoulders as they resumed walking and eyed him with a reprimanding air. Fai smiled apologetically up at his King and let himself be guided through the hallways.
“You understand that I want you to make an impression on these people,” Ashura pointed out in a voice low enough to not be overheard. “Not to embarrass the country of Ceres when we need these people’s cooperation.”
Fai understood the kind of impression he needed to make very well. He realized his features had grown stony as he met Ashura’s eyes.
“Do not worry, my King,” he said in a quiet, almost sad voice that wouldn’t reach the men around them. “The name of Ceres is spoken with hatred and fear among the Cretans.”
Ashura looked for a moment at him, before he gave a single nod, seemingly satisfied with what he found in Fai’s face. They reached a tall, wide building at the back of the gardens, and heavily ornamented doors opened before them. A squeeze to his shoulder and Ashura pushed him the last bit towards the high portal.
“So, Fai, my Son, I led you all the way here to award you the final of my gifts to make your stay in this foreign country a pleasurable one,” Ashura’s voice rang out warmly. They stepped into a grand hall, furnished as an expensive living room, complete with long, flowing drapery, ornamented pillars and a fountain amidst an ocean of soft carpets. And a wide semi-circle of women. Fai felt his smile twitch.
“You might take your pick from the Sultan’s favorites,” Ashura proclaimed with an air of complacency.
The harem. While Fai realized that this might very well be a matter of political interest, he could usually trust Ashura to be completely naïve about certain things. Like his sexual orientation of his surrogate son. A quick glance at the satisfied-looking, though tight-lipped, second vizier told him that this offer was, indeed, one of peace of a country that had just lost a war and watched most of the royal family be beheaded.
Fai cleared his throat carefully and then, wearing a smile for everyone who was looking, leaned close to Ashura and very softly asked him, “Does this mean you expect me to marry?”
Ashura smiled back, telling him in a still low voice, though it was loud enough to be overheard, “Marriage will do you good. You’re working too hard, you need someone to look after you.”
“This is very generous of you, my King,” Fai tried to sound like he meant it, “but I really think I will be fine with another chest of that jewelry-”
“Don’t be shy about this,” Ashura interrupted him, and though his face still bore a smile his tone had the underlying steel that didn’t allow any protest. “This is hardly the kind of marriage I envision for you, it is merely a matter of soothing the locals. I don’t expect you to pick someone to spend your life with, only someone to ease your mind. If she bores you, you can always take another one or two. Whether you take them back to Ceres, once you return, is a completely different matter.”
Fai would have preferred to keep his count of wives at a comfortable zero, and to not view these women like cattle.
“Thank you, your Majesty,” Fai pressed out and was silently exasperated with the whole situation. Someone entertaining you won’t get too attached to. He turned back and met the gaze of the women, feeling deeply incapable of choosing any of them. Tension hung over the room – there were the viziers at his back, Ashura beside him, the women across, all waiting for him to make a move.
So Fai moved, and cursed himself as he almost stumbled over his own feet as he stepped towards the girls.
“These women come from all over the world, I have been told,” Ashura stated in a melodic tone of voice and fell in step with him in a way that almost hid the stumble of the powerful mage. “No matter what your taste, I am sure one of them will make do. You want one that looks like the girl you crafted before? The one with the blonde hair?”
Fai laughed nervously and answered in a very quiet voice, “My King, I told you before I made that one to resemble my mother.”
“Oh, well, that would be quite awkward,” Ashura’s voice trailed off. Fai scanned faces and met the defiant and anxious eyes of the women. He tried – and almost succeeded – to face them like he would face a row of new recruits. It was only when it came to the kind of orders they were to fulfill that Fai felt his reluctance mounting. He also should have known that the silence from Ashura would last for about thirty seconds, before he commented, “I hope you realize we don’t have all day for this.”
Fai suppressed a sigh. There were days when Fai just would love to be King, if only to for once be the one to tell Ashura how fast he wanted to have what done.
“I’m not sure this should be a decision to make in haste,” he said with a forced smile, turning his back to the women to look at his king.
“Of course,” Ashura answered. “Take your time,” he said. And waited.
Fai let his gaze briefly wander, trying to bring his thoughts into some kind of order. He didn’t want to make this choice, he knew, but he felt that not choosing wasn’t an option, either. He met the eyes of the guard that had pulled him out of the pond. The man looked bored and annoyed, and like he really would like to be somewhere else. And Fai thought that he really would mind his company less than any of that of the girls. If I had to choose someone, he thought, I’d take him.
“I think looking the women’s way would make this easier,” Ashura told him with apparent impatience to his voice.
“I take him,” Fai responded almost automatically, not even thinking.
Ashura blinked and turned around to follow his gaze to rest on the group of viziers. The men shuffled their feet nervously, looking from one to the other and back at Fai.
“You can’t chose a minister, son,” Ashura said sharply.
“What?” Fai replied in confusion, and then scanned the group of mostly short, fat politicians. “No, no, no. I mean, I take him,” he repeated and this time he pointed at the guard and stepped forward and through the group of viziers that parted before him. All eyes coming to rest on the man that straightened visibly and tried to glide away, before Fai let his hand fall in place on top of his upper arm and shot him an apologetic smile. Something flashed across the guard’s face before him, in that moment as confusion shifted towards a careful, emotionless mask. Something soft that looked almost like a mix of betrayal and slight panic, and Fai let his smile broaden into the familiar, harmless mask.
“Oh,” Ashura breathed in mild surprise, and Fai could hear in his voice that his eyebrows were creeping towards his hairline. “Oh, I see. I take this is no problem?”
There was a moment of whispering around Fai, before the second vizier’s heavily accented voice answered, “No, we have plenty like him. Your First Mage, Fai Flowright, can have him.”
“Well, if you feel he is appropriate to see to your needs, you may pick him,” the king sounded like he was still slightly stunned. Fai had yet to look away from the face of the guard that was now turning an attractive shade of crimson.
“I’m sure he’ll make a fine wife,” Fai said in his most cheerful voice. The guard’s face was absolutely priceless. As the man was oozing the promise of thunder and swift death, Fai patted his arm in a mockery of a soothing motion, “I’m sure one of these gentlemen will be able to point you directions to my mansion – you may wait there.”
And with that, he left the sputtering man standing in the harem and hoped he hadn’t done more damage than he had prevented.
* * *
By the time Fai returned home in the middle of the night, he had all but forgotten about the gift-giving procedure and about the new addition to his household. His head was pounding after stressful dinner conversation over and he had drunken more alcohol than he knew he should have. It was hard to make him truly drunk – he was far too used to the thick, amber honey wine for that – but the presence of his king and the hopeless prospect of staying in this blood-stained country had been enough to make him careless, at least. He knew his tongue was farther loosened than it should have been and that his hand-to-eye coordination when pulling off his overcoat to hand to the maid could have been better.
His room was tinted in dark blue shadows, lit by the faint light of the waning moon through high windows and a small oil-lamp next to the four-poster bed. He halted in the doorway as he realized that he wasn’t alone. Carefully he stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. Out of the shadows opposite the bed melted the figure of a man.
“How rude of me,” Fai breathed into the distance between them that seemed to stretch endlessly into the darkness and over wooden floor. “Didn’t the servants make sure to prepare a room for you?”
The guard just loomed there, expression sour as always. Fai felt the headache pulsing behind his temples and sighed into the silence. He just wanted to go to sleep and be done with this damned day, already.
“How about you pull that string behind you to send for the maid, and we see what we can do about sleeping arrangements.”
The man just stared at him for another minute before doing as he had been told and sending a the bells downstairs chiming. Fai pulled off his vest and sandals, wiggling his toes. Sand trickled to the ground in a low whisper. Fai grimaced and thought about calling for a basin with hot water to wash it off.
“What’s your name, anyway?”
“Kurogane,” the guard answered in a low, angry rumble.
“…that’s not Cretan, is it?” Fai wondered absent mindedly, pulling his shirt off and rubbing one feet clean of sand against the back of his thigh. A grunt answered him. Fai dropped his shirt to the floor with a snort of laughter, plucking on the silken belt of his pants. He flashed the guard a exasperated smile.
“You’re not very talkative, are you, Mr. Turtle?”
“The fuck, what do you want with me, anyway?” the other man grumbled, arms crossed over his chest. Fai hesitated loosening his belt and took a moment to take in the man’s appearance. The guard turned his face to the side under the intense scrutiny, and his profile shone in the light of the moon and the flickering oil-lamp. Was that… was the guard blushing? Fai blinked, taking a moment to realize what the man must have been wondering about all evening. The moment he did, he couldn’t help the grin spreading over his features. His naked feet padded over wooden floorboards and closing the distance between them, the long shawl that had kept his pants up around his waist whispering forgotten to the floor, cloth of his pants sliding down to ride low around his hips.
“I thought,” he murmured, leaning into the other’s personal space, looking at him from under his lashes. “that would have been clear, as I picked you instead of a woman…”
The guard’s eyes were sparking with humiliated anger. He was close enough to feel the other’s irate breath stirring his hair, and the heat of the other body was crossing the inches between them, mixing with the cool night air and wafting over the naked skin of Fai’s chest. And, yes, he was definitely blushing now, though it seemed to be as much irritation as embarrassment that was staining his cheeks.
“Or maybe I’m just messing with you and I didn’t want a wife,” Fai laughed at him, slapping a hand playfully against his abs, and turned around to flop down on his bed with all the grace of a sack of straw. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of your well-being,” he murmured into his luxuriously soft sheets. “Tomorrow.”
There was an exasperated sigh from behind him and something that sounded like a small curse.
“Why me?” he heard Kurogane growl. “Any of those girls would have been happy to idly sit in this manor and not bother you.”
Fai wondered if it was really as simple as the guard made it out to be. No matter what people around him seemed to think, women, even women prepared for a life of wasting away in some nobles manor, weren’t any less likely to grow frustrated with life than men were. He didn’t want to responsible for imprisoning one of them, tying her to him, most probably alienate her from her family and friends. Maybe he could have learned to care for one of them, but it didn’t feel right to choose her like a piece of furniture. So, why the guard? It had been a whim, a fleeting fancy. The memory of reprimanding anger flashing at him and the feel of hands fisting in the cloth of his vest. The sharp words when the man had spoken his mind. He would have felt bad ripping any of the girls out of their homes, and maybe it was simply that much harder to imagine this bulky man crying over homesickness.
“Who will safe me from the Cretan Monster Turtle if you’re not around?” he hummed.
“Would serve you right if that thing had bitten off your fucking foot,” the guard snapped and Fai laughed into the covers. The door opened and a maid curtsied her way in.
“Yasmine, sorry to ask for you so late,” Fai propped himself up on his arms to smile at her. “Could you guide Black and Grumpy, here, into a free bedroom and see to his needs? He will stay with us, from now on.”
“Yes, Sir, I prepared a room earlier, Sir,” she said, casting a worried look into Kurogane’s direction, seemingly hesitant to speak to him directly.
“Don’t worry, he might look scary like that but I promise he’s not going bite your head off,” Fai murmured. “Right, Kuro-turtle, you’re a good pet, aren’t you?”
“Fuck you,” Kurogane responded eloquently and stomped out of the room, leaving the maid to scramble out of the way.
“Good night to you, too!” Fai called after him as the door slammed shut. He let his face fall back into the duvet and exhaled in a loud, exasperated sigh. He’d have to see to give his wife some kind of task, on the long run. He felt a bit sorry for him, maybe he was right saying that any of the women would have had an easier time adapting to the task of being a useless addition to his mansion.
He suddenly shivered in the cool night breeze. With a groan he dragged himself out of bed to shut the high windows to the balcony, hesitating a moment to look out over the desert. Just for a moment, he had the feeling that something was happening, some kind of magic that was brushing across his skin, a trick of the light that made the horizon flicker with brightness – and then he blinked and the feeling was gone. Maybe some kind of foreshadowing, he wondered, closing the window with a frown. But his feet were freezing against the cold floor as he had forgotten to ask for the hot water, and it soon slipped from his mind. He slipped out of his remaining clothing and under the sheets, not bothering with his nightgown or the sigh of desert sand on his sheets.
~tbc
Chapter: 1/?
Pairing: Kurogane/Fai
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: porn (sometime in the far future), mentions of violence and war, wonky politics
Summary: All that Fai Flowright wanted to do after the war was to go home. His king had other plans for him, however, and suddenly, the first mage of Ceres found himself burdened not only with more politics than he ever wished for, but also with a rather obstinate “wife.”
a/n: Written for this clampkink prompt. This is a WIP!
Fai, first mage of Ceres, was grumbling under his breath. Even faced with the beauty of the seraglio’s halls and passages – it was a small wonder it had not been reduced to blackened ruins, like most other of Creta’s desert castles – he couldn’t quite concentrate on the grandeur of the place. He was listening to the small talk King Ashura and the Second Vizier conducted with only half his mind, and the lesser ministers that swarmed them had given up on trying to talk to him a few minutes prior. Fai couldn’t find that he minded the peace and quiet that he was rewarded with when trailing behind the group of the most important men of the kingdom.
He let his gaze wander as their guide delved deeper into the history of the place. Softened sunlight filtering through white curtains hallway and pretty white and golden mosaic tiles coated the wall. And after one year of war with this country, Fai could think of nothing but of the thick blanket of snow that would coat Ceres this time of the year. He felt strange in the airy, wide Cretan pants and the blazing-hot wind that floated in through the open windows and carried the smell of dust and sand reminded him of nothing but the war and of blooming magic that had painted the dunes with green and blue fire.
A conquered nation needed someone to lead it. The thing that Fai didn’t understand was that it couldn’t have been someone else, one of the higher-ranking nobles or maybe even one of the Generals. Reestablishing a government in Creta would be difficult, but it was also an honor and promised a stand that had more influence with the King than any other post within the kingdom.
In the end, it was a task Fai had never asked for. When his King had arrived this morning, Fai had tried to argue.
Ceres was left weakened from its ambitious agenda of the expanding its borderlines. Umi, the apprentice whom he had left to guard the Towers along Ceres’s border, was still far from skilled enough to fend off attacks from either Haumea or Eris, both of whom conducted at best strained relations with Ceres. He needed to be back home. He had sworn to protect his country, and he felt useless, here.
Most of all, he needed to smell the snow, again, feel the chill on his face and the fur of the heavy coat on his cheeks. He needed to gaze into faces that didn’t reflect fear and scorn, that didn’t know him as the war mage that spilled the blood of their fathers and husbands and sons-
He shook his head to clear the thoughts out forcefully. He was, very simply, homesick. And who could really blame him? Yesterday night he had been packing his things, this morning he had been told to unpack and spend another year around, this time to deal with paperwork and reluctant locals.
Fai let out another, long-suffering sigh and let his gaze linger on the guard that walked right beside him. To be honest, Fai at least partly trailed behind the tittering group of the viziers to have a better view of him – tall and grim, with a handsome face, for all that the crease between his eyes seemed to chiseled out of stone. All of the guards in the inner palace grounds had been in extraordinary shape and taller than any ordinary man. Also, they wore nothing under their dark, embroidered vests, couldn’t bring himself to mind, right now. He just had to remind himself from time to time not to stare at well-formed abs and that glistened with the slight sheen of sweat that easily formed in the heat that even was palpable within the thick walls of the palace. The guards eyes shifted just a little bit, returning his gaze with unafraid, red eyes.
What are you looking at? Fai couldn’t help a small smile creeping over his features.
He didn’t even notice that they had reached the gardens until the sunlight hit his face. A flock of colorful birds took flight as they were passing, rising between the lush green of the bushes and rainbows that were painted into the cloudless sky by the high fountains. As the ministers stopped for a moment, taking their time to praise the grandeur of the gardens, Fai left them to their politicking and ventured out to take a closer look at the fountains. They were sustained by magic and twice as high as Fai himself, shifting in their play and sending sprinkles of water across the wide-spread pond.
And the guard that had caught his attention earlier had taken to following him, now. Fai grinned over his shoulder at him, lifting his eyebrows in a silent, mocking greeting. The guard pretended to stare right past him. He wasn’t very good at it.
Fai hadn’t thought of taking anyone to bed in quite some time – for one the camps of war didn’t provide much privacy and for two he wasn’t keen on sharing his nightmares with anyone. He didn’t think it would matter, and then he had been busy preparing things for the arrival of his King, recently. But now, he felt that he was searching for someone, anyone, maybe, to lighten the dreams that would come unbidden. Even as he wasn’t sure that anyone ever could. He was aware that a Cretan guard of the seraglio surely would have been a poor choice for that, though, and tried to put his mind to other things.
Fai watched the fountain spill into the wide pond, sending ripples across its surface. Its waters were surprisingly clean, though water lilies plated the deeper parts. Close to the path, the water was shallow and the sand underneath was smooth and white. He took a quick glance at Ashura and the people surrounding them, making sure that he wouldn’t be missed, then slipped out of his sandals, the soles of his feet drinking in the heat of the white stone underneath, and lifted the flapping pants just a bit.
“Stop, what the- what are you doing?” Plash. Fai sighed in relief as his feet soaked in cool water.
“Come out of there, immediately!” the guard barked. Fai grinned broadly and started jumping around the pond just to annoy the man.
“But it’s hot, and I’ve been walking all day,” he insisted and kicked up a leg to spray water into the air and watch it come down in a glittering shower on the flabbergasted guard. Fai snickered.
“Come out! The waters are holy and there are turtles in there, don’t blame me if you lose a fuc… a toe!”
“Dangerous turtles? What a strange country this is,” Fai let the cloth of his pants fall, not caring that the hems got soaked. He splashed closer to the fountain and stirred up mud in his wake, holding his hands out to catch the droplets spraying down, closing his eyes to let his face be cooled by the drizzle.
“Fuck-“ the next moment, Fai felt himself lifted up by his lapels of his vest and hurled out of the water. He stumbled onto the tiles next to a scowling guard, whose fingers were still curled into the expensive cloth.
“How bold of you,” Fai laughed at him, “disgracing the holy waters like that…”
“Turtles,” the guard deadpanned, and pointed at the place where Fai had stood only a moment ago. Turning around, Fai noticed one of the large, brown stones had grown a head – a quite ugly head with a vicious beak. It made a sound that was almost a snarl, head bobbing up and down, before it retracted its long neck and swam away. A colony of similar ‘stones’ sprouted legs and followed it with bored, slow movements.
“Aw, you saved me!” Fai clapped his hands and smiled at the guard. “Thank you, you are my hero!”
“Don’t joke about this, Ceresian,” the man ground out. “Be glad I’m not one of those guards that’d like to see you lose limbs, most of them think you’ve earned it.”
The words hit Fai harder than they should have. He let the slightest bit of magic sizzle through his body and the guard’s hand twitched away from his vest as though burned.
“I don’t think you realize who I am, do you?” Fai asked lightly, brows raised in his best imitation of harmless.
“I do well enough,” the guard grunted, shaking his hand staring past him, features unreadable. “I don’t think anyone here wouldn’t. By Allah, all I’m telling you is that you better watch out for yourself, cause no one else is going to do it.”
“You do know that it is really not your place to tell me these things,” Fai inquired with a cool smile.
That made the guard look at him, again, bristling slightly. “I realize, yeah, but you seem like a moron, so I’ll tell you anyway. Watch whom you offend, we don’t need another war anymore than you.” Fai couldn’t quite help but laugh at that.
“They really do pick the guards by looks rather than manners, don’t they?” Fai mused, poking a finger into naked abs, and sending the man twitching with annoyance. The guards lips pressed together in a thin line and his expression grew thunderous. “My, you’re so intimidating when you pout like that – do they teach you that when you start working here?”
“They don’t,” the guard grumped and his jaw silently worked for a moment before he added, “and I don’t pout.”
“I offer my apologizes for mistaking fighting spirit for petulance,” Fai offered, not even bothering to try and sound sincere.
“Fai, what are you doing?” Fai felt his face compose and back straighten as he turned around to face Ashura. There was a frown on his King’s face that didn’t bode good.
“Nothing of importance, Your Majesty,” Fai answered lightly and slipped his dirtied toes back into the light blue cloth sandals, the water leaving wet spots at the tips. His pants already had started drying in the heat of the day. He stepped back towards the group of men that looked at him with something akin to doubt, but Fai couldn’t be brought to care. They knew who he was, and if they thought, today, that along with the fearsome mage he also was a spoilt Prince, so let them.
Ashura securely put a hand to his shoulders as they resumed walking and eyed him with a reprimanding air. Fai smiled apologetically up at his King and let himself be guided through the hallways.
“You understand that I want you to make an impression on these people,” Ashura pointed out in a voice low enough to not be overheard. “Not to embarrass the country of Ceres when we need these people’s cooperation.”
Fai understood the kind of impression he needed to make very well. He realized his features had grown stony as he met Ashura’s eyes.
“Do not worry, my King,” he said in a quiet, almost sad voice that wouldn’t reach the men around them. “The name of Ceres is spoken with hatred and fear among the Cretans.”
Ashura looked for a moment at him, before he gave a single nod, seemingly satisfied with what he found in Fai’s face. They reached a tall, wide building at the back of the gardens, and heavily ornamented doors opened before them. A squeeze to his shoulder and Ashura pushed him the last bit towards the high portal.
“So, Fai, my Son, I led you all the way here to award you the final of my gifts to make your stay in this foreign country a pleasurable one,” Ashura’s voice rang out warmly. They stepped into a grand hall, furnished as an expensive living room, complete with long, flowing drapery, ornamented pillars and a fountain amidst an ocean of soft carpets. And a wide semi-circle of women. Fai felt his smile twitch.
“You might take your pick from the Sultan’s favorites,” Ashura proclaimed with an air of complacency.
The harem. While Fai realized that this might very well be a matter of political interest, he could usually trust Ashura to be completely naïve about certain things. Like his sexual orientation of his surrogate son. A quick glance at the satisfied-looking, though tight-lipped, second vizier told him that this offer was, indeed, one of peace of a country that had just lost a war and watched most of the royal family be beheaded.
Fai cleared his throat carefully and then, wearing a smile for everyone who was looking, leaned close to Ashura and very softly asked him, “Does this mean you expect me to marry?”
Ashura smiled back, telling him in a still low voice, though it was loud enough to be overheard, “Marriage will do you good. You’re working too hard, you need someone to look after you.”
“This is very generous of you, my King,” Fai tried to sound like he meant it, “but I really think I will be fine with another chest of that jewelry-”
“Don’t be shy about this,” Ashura interrupted him, and though his face still bore a smile his tone had the underlying steel that didn’t allow any protest. “This is hardly the kind of marriage I envision for you, it is merely a matter of soothing the locals. I don’t expect you to pick someone to spend your life with, only someone to ease your mind. If she bores you, you can always take another one or two. Whether you take them back to Ceres, once you return, is a completely different matter.”
Fai would have preferred to keep his count of wives at a comfortable zero, and to not view these women like cattle.
“Thank you, your Majesty,” Fai pressed out and was silently exasperated with the whole situation. Someone entertaining you won’t get too attached to. He turned back and met the gaze of the women, feeling deeply incapable of choosing any of them. Tension hung over the room – there were the viziers at his back, Ashura beside him, the women across, all waiting for him to make a move.
So Fai moved, and cursed himself as he almost stumbled over his own feet as he stepped towards the girls.
“These women come from all over the world, I have been told,” Ashura stated in a melodic tone of voice and fell in step with him in a way that almost hid the stumble of the powerful mage. “No matter what your taste, I am sure one of them will make do. You want one that looks like the girl you crafted before? The one with the blonde hair?”
Fai laughed nervously and answered in a very quiet voice, “My King, I told you before I made that one to resemble my mother.”
“Oh, well, that would be quite awkward,” Ashura’s voice trailed off. Fai scanned faces and met the defiant and anxious eyes of the women. He tried – and almost succeeded – to face them like he would face a row of new recruits. It was only when it came to the kind of orders they were to fulfill that Fai felt his reluctance mounting. He also should have known that the silence from Ashura would last for about thirty seconds, before he commented, “I hope you realize we don’t have all day for this.”
Fai suppressed a sigh. There were days when Fai just would love to be King, if only to for once be the one to tell Ashura how fast he wanted to have what done.
“I’m not sure this should be a decision to make in haste,” he said with a forced smile, turning his back to the women to look at his king.
“Of course,” Ashura answered. “Take your time,” he said. And waited.
Fai let his gaze briefly wander, trying to bring his thoughts into some kind of order. He didn’t want to make this choice, he knew, but he felt that not choosing wasn’t an option, either. He met the eyes of the guard that had pulled him out of the pond. The man looked bored and annoyed, and like he really would like to be somewhere else. And Fai thought that he really would mind his company less than any of that of the girls. If I had to choose someone, he thought, I’d take him.
“I think looking the women’s way would make this easier,” Ashura told him with apparent impatience to his voice.
“I take him,” Fai responded almost automatically, not even thinking.
Ashura blinked and turned around to follow his gaze to rest on the group of viziers. The men shuffled their feet nervously, looking from one to the other and back at Fai.
“You can’t chose a minister, son,” Ashura said sharply.
“What?” Fai replied in confusion, and then scanned the group of mostly short, fat politicians. “No, no, no. I mean, I take him,” he repeated and this time he pointed at the guard and stepped forward and through the group of viziers that parted before him. All eyes coming to rest on the man that straightened visibly and tried to glide away, before Fai let his hand fall in place on top of his upper arm and shot him an apologetic smile. Something flashed across the guard’s face before him, in that moment as confusion shifted towards a careful, emotionless mask. Something soft that looked almost like a mix of betrayal and slight panic, and Fai let his smile broaden into the familiar, harmless mask.
“Oh,” Ashura breathed in mild surprise, and Fai could hear in his voice that his eyebrows were creeping towards his hairline. “Oh, I see. I take this is no problem?”
There was a moment of whispering around Fai, before the second vizier’s heavily accented voice answered, “No, we have plenty like him. Your First Mage, Fai Flowright, can have him.”
“Well, if you feel he is appropriate to see to your needs, you may pick him,” the king sounded like he was still slightly stunned. Fai had yet to look away from the face of the guard that was now turning an attractive shade of crimson.
“I’m sure he’ll make a fine wife,” Fai said in his most cheerful voice. The guard’s face was absolutely priceless. As the man was oozing the promise of thunder and swift death, Fai patted his arm in a mockery of a soothing motion, “I’m sure one of these gentlemen will be able to point you directions to my mansion – you may wait there.”
And with that, he left the sputtering man standing in the harem and hoped he hadn’t done more damage than he had prevented.
* * *
By the time Fai returned home in the middle of the night, he had all but forgotten about the gift-giving procedure and about the new addition to his household. His head was pounding after stressful dinner conversation over and he had drunken more alcohol than he knew he should have. It was hard to make him truly drunk – he was far too used to the thick, amber honey wine for that – but the presence of his king and the hopeless prospect of staying in this blood-stained country had been enough to make him careless, at least. He knew his tongue was farther loosened than it should have been and that his hand-to-eye coordination when pulling off his overcoat to hand to the maid could have been better.
His room was tinted in dark blue shadows, lit by the faint light of the waning moon through high windows and a small oil-lamp next to the four-poster bed. He halted in the doorway as he realized that he wasn’t alone. Carefully he stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. Out of the shadows opposite the bed melted the figure of a man.
“How rude of me,” Fai breathed into the distance between them that seemed to stretch endlessly into the darkness and over wooden floor. “Didn’t the servants make sure to prepare a room for you?”
The guard just loomed there, expression sour as always. Fai felt the headache pulsing behind his temples and sighed into the silence. He just wanted to go to sleep and be done with this damned day, already.
“How about you pull that string behind you to send for the maid, and we see what we can do about sleeping arrangements.”
The man just stared at him for another minute before doing as he had been told and sending a the bells downstairs chiming. Fai pulled off his vest and sandals, wiggling his toes. Sand trickled to the ground in a low whisper. Fai grimaced and thought about calling for a basin with hot water to wash it off.
“What’s your name, anyway?”
“Kurogane,” the guard answered in a low, angry rumble.
“…that’s not Cretan, is it?” Fai wondered absent mindedly, pulling his shirt off and rubbing one feet clean of sand against the back of his thigh. A grunt answered him. Fai dropped his shirt to the floor with a snort of laughter, plucking on the silken belt of his pants. He flashed the guard a exasperated smile.
“You’re not very talkative, are you, Mr. Turtle?”
“The fuck, what do you want with me, anyway?” the other man grumbled, arms crossed over his chest. Fai hesitated loosening his belt and took a moment to take in the man’s appearance. The guard turned his face to the side under the intense scrutiny, and his profile shone in the light of the moon and the flickering oil-lamp. Was that… was the guard blushing? Fai blinked, taking a moment to realize what the man must have been wondering about all evening. The moment he did, he couldn’t help the grin spreading over his features. His naked feet padded over wooden floorboards and closing the distance between them, the long shawl that had kept his pants up around his waist whispering forgotten to the floor, cloth of his pants sliding down to ride low around his hips.
“I thought,” he murmured, leaning into the other’s personal space, looking at him from under his lashes. “that would have been clear, as I picked you instead of a woman…”
The guard’s eyes were sparking with humiliated anger. He was close enough to feel the other’s irate breath stirring his hair, and the heat of the other body was crossing the inches between them, mixing with the cool night air and wafting over the naked skin of Fai’s chest. And, yes, he was definitely blushing now, though it seemed to be as much irritation as embarrassment that was staining his cheeks.
“Or maybe I’m just messing with you and I didn’t want a wife,” Fai laughed at him, slapping a hand playfully against his abs, and turned around to flop down on his bed with all the grace of a sack of straw. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of your well-being,” he murmured into his luxuriously soft sheets. “Tomorrow.”
There was an exasperated sigh from behind him and something that sounded like a small curse.
“Why me?” he heard Kurogane growl. “Any of those girls would have been happy to idly sit in this manor and not bother you.”
Fai wondered if it was really as simple as the guard made it out to be. No matter what people around him seemed to think, women, even women prepared for a life of wasting away in some nobles manor, weren’t any less likely to grow frustrated with life than men were. He didn’t want to responsible for imprisoning one of them, tying her to him, most probably alienate her from her family and friends. Maybe he could have learned to care for one of them, but it didn’t feel right to choose her like a piece of furniture. So, why the guard? It had been a whim, a fleeting fancy. The memory of reprimanding anger flashing at him and the feel of hands fisting in the cloth of his vest. The sharp words when the man had spoken his mind. He would have felt bad ripping any of the girls out of their homes, and maybe it was simply that much harder to imagine this bulky man crying over homesickness.
“Who will safe me from the Cretan Monster Turtle if you’re not around?” he hummed.
“Would serve you right if that thing had bitten off your fucking foot,” the guard snapped and Fai laughed into the covers. The door opened and a maid curtsied her way in.
“Yasmine, sorry to ask for you so late,” Fai propped himself up on his arms to smile at her. “Could you guide Black and Grumpy, here, into a free bedroom and see to his needs? He will stay with us, from now on.”
“Yes, Sir, I prepared a room earlier, Sir,” she said, casting a worried look into Kurogane’s direction, seemingly hesitant to speak to him directly.
“Don’t worry, he might look scary like that but I promise he’s not going bite your head off,” Fai murmured. “Right, Kuro-turtle, you’re a good pet, aren’t you?”
“Fuck you,” Kurogane responded eloquently and stomped out of the room, leaving the maid to scramble out of the way.
“Good night to you, too!” Fai called after him as the door slammed shut. He let his face fall back into the duvet and exhaled in a loud, exasperated sigh. He’d have to see to give his wife some kind of task, on the long run. He felt a bit sorry for him, maybe he was right saying that any of the women would have had an easier time adapting to the task of being a useless addition to his mansion.
He suddenly shivered in the cool night breeze. With a groan he dragged himself out of bed to shut the high windows to the balcony, hesitating a moment to look out over the desert. Just for a moment, he had the feeling that something was happening, some kind of magic that was brushing across his skin, a trick of the light that made the horizon flicker with brightness – and then he blinked and the feeling was gone. Maybe some kind of foreshadowing, he wondered, closing the window with a frown. But his feet were freezing against the cold floor as he had forgotten to ask for the hot water, and it soon slipped from his mind. He slipped out of his remaining clothing and under the sheets, not bothering with his nightgown or the sigh of desert sand on his sheets.
~tbc
