obiyuki bingo 2023, yeehaw! this is my first time participating, and I’m really excited to see all of the entries and post my own! this particular fic is based on the finale of cowboy bebop (with some changes, obviously) because apparently I like sadness. it was hilarious to see the similarities between the two shows: namely the existentialism and tendency towards poetic monologues, except it’s hopeful in AnS and sad in CBB. go figure. enjoy!
Read on AO3
________
Zen’s eyes were dead before the rest of him was, and he was pointing a gun at her.
“You didn’t come because of the rain?” Her hands were in her pockets in a deliberate act of nonchalance. They were also the only part of her that was shaking.
“I was supposed to kill you,” Zen said, steady in his aim. “That day, if I had killed you, I would have been free.”
“So why didn’t you?” Shirayuki could feel her composure slipping. Zen’s eyes were so dark, devoid of anything human. Once they’d been brighter than the summer skies. She’d lain under their gaze and flown. “Why did you choose to be chased, Zen, it doesn’t make sense.”
“Why did you love me?”
“What?”
The gun was rattling. “Why did you love me?”
Shirayuki couldn’t breathe. She’d waited for him that day, waited and let herself cry, letting the thunder mingle with her sobs, and she’d wondered then if there had ever been any love in his eyes, or if it was just the thrill of illegality. She’d been poisoned by him. She’d fallen in love with an illusion, and now she was terrified of waking up.
Zen had put down his gun. His hands were on her shoulders. He was embracing her, fingers in her hair, breath on her neck. She couldn’t move a muscle.
“Let’s just run away somewhere,” Zen said in her ear, and his voice was warm on her skin. “Just the two of us. Escape this world—go where no one else is. Fly away with me, Shirayuki. Please. It’ll be like a dream.”
Something deep in Shirayuki’s chest snapped. She could feel her feet on the ground, solid on the wet gravel. She could feel how his hands were clenched behind her back, not touching her despite his loving embrace. He was almost falling into her, heavy, trapping her in place.
And yet, if she opened her mouth, she knew she’d say yes.
___
There was a time when the smoke would have bothered her lungs, when she would have hated the acrid taste on her tongue, when she would have stolen the smokes from her friends’ fingers and crushed them under her boots. Shirayuki had been a healer, and she’d believed in the sanctity of the body.
But now she breathed in the nicotine with a straight face, reveling in the calm it brought her thudding heart.
The year was 2071, and it was always raining.
Someone poked her arm.
“Thinking too much, cowgirl?”
“Not thinking at all.” White hair in an arc of blood. Birds like reapers carrying his soul away in their wake. Blue eyes turning to glass.
“Then what’s that frown for?”
“Obi, stop.” Shirayuki dodged his prodding finger, almost stepping out from under the wing of the ship into the pouring rain.
It was raining then, too. Hazy like a nightmare.
In response, Obi slung a blanket over her shoulders. His hands were warm even through the fabric. He never could seem to lash back out at her.
“You’ll catch a cold like that,” he said, grinning as Shirayuki fumbled with the blanket and draped it over her arms like a cape. “Mitsuhide’s making breakfast.”
“Eggs again?”
“It’s all we’ve got, so don’t complain,” Mitsuhide yelled from somewhere inside the ship. How he’d heard Shirayuki from that far was a mystery. Maybe he was running on autopilot.
Obi’s skin had the same greyish shadow as Shirayuki’s did in the overcast light, but there was still a rosy undertone to his face that hadn’t been there in a long time. She’d never admit it did her good to see some color in his cheeks. Obi had been fresh out of snark and sarcasm lately since his last impromptu trip, and it had bothered her more than she’d like to admit to see him looking so serious.
“I’m not going to leave again,” Obi said quietly.
“Huh?” Shirayuki turned, finally looking him in the eye. Gold was so different than blue.
“My memory came back.”
Shirayuki blinked. “I thought it wasn’t going to. Obi, you hit your head so hard.”
Blood on the pavement, blood on her hands. She’d screamed his name when he wouldn’t wake up. That day he’d promised to tell her where he was going every time he left—and for someone so secretive, he’d never broken that promise.
“Nothing good came of it,” Obi laughed, bitterness on his tongue. “There was nowhere for me to return to. Torou’s long gone. I can never be Nanaki again. This—you were the only thing I could return to.”
“Obi, wait—”
“Let me finish, please.” Obi, usually so deferent to her, was facing her with thunder in his eyes. Shirayuki closed her mouth.
“You’re leaving. I can see it in your eyes. That mess with Zen and with Izana is getting to you, and you’re going to leave, and knowing you, you’re going to do it when I can’t go after you.”
Shirayuki dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under her boot to avoid looking at him.
“You’re going to do something hopelessly noble and horrifically stupid and I—Shirayuki, I can’t lose you.”
“You wouldn’t be losing me, Obi, I’m not going there to die.”
“Zen’s gone,” Obi said quietly. “Isn’t he?”
He was falling like a trapeze artist without a net, boots sliding on the rain-slick rooftop. She’d felt something tear in her throat when she screamed and she scraped her hands and knees when she fell beside him, cradling his body in her arms, hoping there was still light in his eyes, shaking him, praying. Why couldn’t she stop crying?
“Izana’s men killed him,” Shirayuki was able to say, wondering vaguely why her cheeks were wet. “I have to go after him. He can’t keep doing this to people, it’s not right. He killed his own brother because of me.”
“This is…a dream?”
Zen pulled her close, blood-spattered hands clutching her lapels. He was so heavy in her arms.
She hated herself for lying to Obi. There was nothing noble about what she planned to do. Izana had killed Zen, and there was a hole in her heart that needed fixing.
His gaze was far away, and he was smiling, looking through her.
“Yeah,” she’d choked. “Just a dream.”
There was one other thing she couldn’t tell Obi. She prayed he couldn’t see it in her face.
“Food’s getting cold,” Mitsuhide shouted from inside, and Shirayuki got caught up in racing Obi for breakfast, glad she didn’t have to keep fielding his questions. There would be time enough to answer all of his questions if she was right. And if she wasn’t, well…he could find the answers on his own.
____
It was quiet on the ship when Shirayuki left her room. They were drifting gently through space, sleeping with the stars, and she took advantage of the silence, sneaking to the dock. The tiny exploration ship sagged a bit, but it would do.
She heard the click before Obi stepped out of the darkness, pointing his pistol at her.
“Where are you going?”
Shirayuki lifted her hands, pivoting to face him. She hadn’t noticed him in the shadows.
“Where are you going?” Obi repeated. He was close to her now, gun lowered to her belly. She knew it was just a way to get her to talk. He’d told her the day he boarded the Bebop that hurting her was never something he planned to do. She’d taken it as a joke then, but he’d kept his promise. Obi never seemed to break his word. Unlike her.
“You told me once,” Obi said, resting the gun gently against Shirayuki’s stomach, flicking the safety on, “that the past didn’t matter.”
“I don’t care what your real name is,” Shirayuki had grumbled, the softness of her hands contrasting with her sharp tone. “I don’t care what you did before. Can you just stop letting your past rule you? It doesn’t matter. In the end it’s just a stepping stone. And no one dwells on those.”
Obi looked at the girl bandaging his arm, feeling her warm fingers on his skin, and wondered why there were tears standing in her eyes.
Shirayuki nodded.
“Then why are you so tied to yours?” Obi had lowered the gun now, and was almost leaning into her space, nose inches from hers.
“I’m not,” she protested. “I have to go, Obi, please—”
Obi grabbed her arms, not hurting her, but keeping her in place.
“I never thought I’d see the day you went for revenge, Shirayuki. If I know you, that’s not what this is, despite what you want me to think. Please don’t lie to me.”
Why had she loved Zen so much?
“You’re right, it’s not for revenge.” Shirayuki was desperate now. She could feel her heart beating, her pulse picking up, and it was getting harder to tamp down. “I have to go, Obi, I have to see if-if he really loved me and if I loved him and if it was worth it.” She broke his gaze and looked at her feet. “I have to see if he’s worth dying for.” Her voice was too shaky and quiet for her liking. “He decided I was and I want to return the favor.”
Obi felt cold. “You—that’s not something you repay, Shirayuki. Death doesn’t have to be life for life, especially when the person who died for you didn’t really love you in the first place.”
That’s what Obi wanted to say. He wanted to shake Shirayuki, wanted to tell her that she shouldn’t throw her life away. That Zen had loved the game of her hatred for Izana more than he’d loved her. That he’d loved defying Izana by being with her. That Zen died because Izana didn’t forgive betrayal, and his revenge was vicious. Obi knew enough after talking to Mitsuhide, and everything else he’d figured out on his own.
But he didn’t.
Obi instead put his hands on Shirayuki’s shoulders and pulled her into his arms.
Weightless on his feet, sunlight in his eyes. Obi was light in every sense of the word.
Shirayuki snaked her fingers around Obi’s waist, burying her face in his neck. It was all she could do. It hurt to hold him but she wasn’t letting go.
When he put his hands on her shoulders, she didn’t feel like she was being weighed down, only filled up.
“This isn’t something you solve by dying,” Obi said in her ear. “You’re gonna carry that weight of feeling like you don’t understand and don’t deserve someone’s sacrifice, and that’s okay. He wanted you to live, Shirayuki—I want you to live.” Obi held her tighter. “And if that means carrying the weight with you, say the word. But please don’t go down this path. Don’t die for someone who doesn’t deserve you.”
Shirayuki stiffened and Obi was terrified she’d been offended.
“I’m not going there to die, Obi,” she said, almost too quietly for him to hear. She slid her hands up his back, over the planes of his shoulders. Obi shivered, just a little. “I’m going there to find out if I’m really alive.”
Obi leaned back and looked her in the eyes.
“Well, now, if that isn’t the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said, laughing a little, raising an eyebrow, and then Shirayuki was pulling him forward with her hands in his hair, and Obi couldn’t remember anything else he’d planned to say because Shirayuki’s mouth was the softest thing he’d ever tasted. She kissed him long and sweet, letting him hold her waist and press into her, and Obi tried his hardest not to think about how much this felt like a goodbye.
Shirayuki pulled back first, hands gentle on the back of Obi’s neck, a little dazed. She hadn’t really thought before kissing Obi and now she couldn’t think at all.
Why had she loved Zen?
Obi was leaning down, chasing her mouth, and she tilted up into him, closing her eyes. She felt tears on her cheeks and realized they weren’t hers, and her hands went to Obi’s face, cupped his jaw, wiped his tears with her thumbs.
Zen kissed her like a guilty man and held her like a dragon.
Obi was oh-so-gently stroking her sides with his thumbs, and through his tears was able to smile into her mouth when it made her gasp.
Obi made her feel like she was flying, and like she’d have somewhere to land.
Obi said her name and ran a hand into her hair.
It was so hard to figure out why she’d loved Zen.
Resting her head on his shoulder, reveling in his warmth, Shirayuki felt safe and contented.
It was so easy to love Obi.
“I’ve never carried anything, Obi,” Shirayuki said, under her breath, half-hoping he couldn’t hear. “Not really. Not with you around.”
She hadn’t loved Zen. She couldn’t. Not really.
She was never meant to.
“Then don’t. Live with me.”
Shirayuki pressed her lips to his cheeks, one after the other, kissing away the still-present tears.
“I still have to fight Izana,” she told him, and Obi nodded once.
“Don’t you dare do it without me.”
____
The elevator door opened and Shirayuki charged out, red hair and a spray of bullets, and Izana’s men dropped like dolls onto the slick linoleum. The main doors opened when she slammed into them, driving her shoulder into the curving floral dragons that embossed the wood. The roof exploded. Shirayuki flung up her arms and dove for the ground, debris raining down on her from above. She could hear Izana’s footsteps on the great stairs at the front of the room. She stood and shook herself, ears ringing, as Izana descended under the newly revealed night sky.
“I told you before, Shirayuki,” Izana said, pulling two silver katanas from a sheath on his back, “Zen’s death meant yours was next.”
“And if I return the favor?”
Clack-clack-clack went her pistol as she reloaded it. Izana quirked a brow.
“Either way, Zen doomed you to die. This was your destiny from the beginning.”
“Zen’s death has nothing to do with me anymore.” Shirayuki took aim, closed an eye. “Let’s end it all.”
“As you wish.”
She moved before he did, boots clattering halfway up the stairwell, bullets clashing with Izana’s blades. Shirayuki swooped under, shooting a katana out of Izana’s hand as he swiped at her, slicing her thigh, her side. Izana’s hand came down on her gun as hers grasped the handle of his sword, and they were locked, arms shuddering as they fought for control.
“You don’t control me,” Shirayuki growled. “You never did.”
Izana stepped back suddenly, reclaiming his sword, pushing her gun back into her hands.
“Then show me.”
Izana’s sword was a silver arc spinning towards her gut, and Shirayuki fired, knowing she wouldn’t be able to get out of the way, watching the bullet gleam, dreamlike, watching it find the mark.
Izana fell.
His sword stopped inches from her stomach.
Obi was holding the blade of the katana in a gloved hand, turning it in the air, flinging it far. His fingers were cut and bleeding and they were both alive.
Izana coughed, once, and quit breathing.
Then Obi was wrapped around her and Shirayuki went limp in his arms.
____
The first rays of dawn made the courtyard blindingly bright. Izana’s men watched the figure stagger out from the wreckage, raising guns and swords.
Obi set Shirayuki down and kissed her cheek, lowering his stance, prepared to run. He was holding Izana’s swords.
Shirayuki raised her arm, pointing at Izana’s men, fingers in the shape of a gun. The smile came easily to her face now. It was so easy to smile when there was nothing weighing you down.
A Hunger Games AU Playlist for Obiyuki Bingo 2023 by @snowwhite-andtheknight
After a few songs with general Hunger Games vibes, I chose songs with coal mine and childhood crush references that are mostly from Gale’s point of view (with some Katniss trauma in there too). Similarly to how I like both Zenyuki and Obiyuki, I also like both Hunger Games ships for different reasons, but Gale fits better for Obi feels!
Mockingjay and the Miner
Dead Air- Chvrches
Deny It All- The Dear Hunter
The Gold- Manchester Orchestra
Diamonds and Coal- Incubus
The Silence- Manchester Orchestra
Safe and Sound (Taylor’s Version)- Taylor Swift
You’ve Haunted Me All My Life- Death Cab for Cutie
Rear View- Manchester Orchestra
Summary lyrics are cited after the cut:
Dead Air- Chvrches
I will never believe what they say
There is a strength in enduring
You will be all that I seek in a twisted light
We hold up to an idea
And we'll fight it, what we can't see
Deny It All- The Dear Hunter
The hollow stick to arrogance that binds
But good faith and fortune rarely reward our cries
While we wait carefully and see
Denied and borrowed tonight
Deny, deny it all
And it all will go away
Close your eyes and deny it all
The Gold- Manchester Orchestra
Couldn't really love you anymore
You've become my ceiling
I don't think I love you anymore
That gold mine changed you
You don't have to hold me anymore
Our cave's collapsing
I don't wanna be me anymore
"You don't open your eyes for a while
You just breathe that moment down."
I believed you were crazy
You believe that you love me
You and me, we're a daydrink
So lose your faith in me
Wasn't really dangerous for us
We'd just catch you coughing
What the hell are we gonna do?
A black mile to the surface
Well, I don't wanna be here anymore
It all tastes like poison
Can't open your eyes for a while
You just beat that moment down
You can't open your eyes for a while
You just breathe
Diamonds and Coal- Incubus
If it’s good to complicate then both of us are doing fine
Just keep your eyes on your part and leave me alone to mine
Come on, in spite of this we’re doing just fine
Even diamonds start as coal
Give us time to shine
Even diamonds start as coal
We’re both aligned in frame of mind, but circumstance has got us good
And now you’re seeing a side of me I wished no one ever would
The sweetest things
They burn before they shine
We think way too much
Look at us losing touch
A promise is a promise until
The Silence- Manchester Orchestra
Why do I deserve the science
To feel better about you?
At a loss, I lost my cool
I denied that I found you
I tried to be a basket case
I did not surprise you
I'm trying to find a signal fire
Let me know when I should move
But you, amplified in the silence
Justified in the way you make me bruise
I don't want to waste away
It was all I gave to you
Take me back and take my place
I will rise right up for you
Nobody's gonna tear you down now
"You can go anywhere but you are where you came from"
Let me watch you as close as a memory
Let me hold you above all the misery
Let me open my eyes and be glad that I got here
Safe and Sound (Taylor’s Version)- Taylor Swift
I remember tears streaming down your face when I said, "I'll never let you go"
When all those shadows almost killed your light
I remember you said, "Don't leave me here alone"
But all that's dead and gone and passed tonight
Just close your eyes
The sun is going down
You'll be alright
No one can hurt you now
Come morning light
You and I'll be safe and sound
You’ve Haunted Me All My Life- Death Cab for Cutie
You've haunted me all my life
Through endless days and countless nights
You're always out of reach when I'm in pursuit
Long-winded then suddenly mute
And there's a flaw in my heart's design
For I keep trying to make you mine
And so I wait, but I never seem to learn
How to capture your diminishing returns
I still see you through the eyes of a child
Not even thinking we could tame the wild
Rear View- Manchester Orchestra
You were born in a bathtub on Deer Lake and the cradle collapsed
And I promised I'd give you a mansion, I'm afraid this is it
Still, you're the reason I'm breathing, the soul in my step
I've been running out of excuses, but nobody checks
Scream when you need me, in fact, you can scream when you don't
I'd rather sit here with you screaming than sit here alone
The fire in the rear view is smaller, the further we get
All That Remains, Chapter 11: The Prince and the Princess [Part 1]
[Read on AO3]
Written for both Obiyuki Bingo and also a very, very overdue birthday gift for @lusakina, who has nearly waited a year for me to be able to sit down and write this. It’s a slightly shorter chapter than these typically are, but this one needed to be more of an interlude between parts...
With a flourish of the pen, the girl escapes.
That is how a story would tell of this, wouldn’t it? A grand climax racing into the gentle arms of a denouement. An exultant cry of victory followed by a blank page.
Our fingers straddle the border between two words; one in which there is the possibility of failure, and the other which brings us the relief of success. It is so easy for us to turn the page, to shift from those dire hours to the moment of safety. A girl escapes, and in the space of a breath, she is far away, only pale echo of that danger buried beneath the next step of her journey.
There is no time to dwell on the between; on the sleepless hours wondering whether you will awake to the sounds of stomps and shouts, of whether you can afford to stop to catch a breath or must chance a push onward, hoping your own legs won’t give out beneath you. On the page there is only room for failure or flight, and anything in between...
That is where the story abandons you. Escape is only a small sliver of survival, and the the rest, the rest--
Is living. And oh, that is by far the hardest part.
Lata taught her how to ride on one of the sparse spring days in Lilias; Shirayuki had been the one to ask, only a day or so before, and he had huffed, at least it might make you more useful. A tepid response, one she thought had been as polite a refusal as a man like him could come, until she bumped into him in the courtyard, mouth wrapped halfway around a good morning, before he hauled her off to the stable.
Unlike most of her studies, riding did not come easy. No, instead it came in fits and starts; months of taking two steps forward and ten steps back until one day her amiable little mare broke out into a canter, and Shirayuki kept her seat. Good, the professor had grunted, hunching his furs up around his ears. I thought I might just wash my hands of this and let that poor excuse for a knight cart you around like luggage.
Please, my lord, Obi had called from his perch on the fence, a gloved hand pressed courteously to his chest. She would be my precious cargo.
Whatever he chose to call it, it was baggage, and if there was one thing Shirayuki refused to be, it was a burden. Riding might not come easy, but she had kept with it until not even Zen could find a flaw with her seat, and yet--
And yet, beside Kiki she sits a graceful as a rock in a bucket; unlikely to tumble out but by no means proficient. At least, not the way she thought she was. That’s the difference between learning a good seat and being born to it, she supposes, which wouldn’t matter at all if the moment Kiki slowed them to a trot, she didn’t feel as if her own backside would fall off.
“Catch your breath,” Kiki tells her, voice raised no louder than the susurrus of leaves around them. “We’ll need to keep moving.”
A protest hones itself to a point at the tip of her tongue-- there’s no need to stop, it wants to say, I won’t slow you down-- but Kiki only stares at her, kindness leaving her no quarter. The fight sloughs off her like a skin-- no, like a gown, ill-fitting and heavy, made for someone else. Another Shirayuki, one more used to saddles and stirrups, who spent her days toiling in the gardens and summers riding across the North, who hadn’t been afraid to throw a blanket over dewy grass to stare up at the stars.
Not the one who had wasted two seasons trying to slip into a smile that pinched at the seams. Who hadn’t let her friend simply disappear while she chose which spoon to stir her tea.
Nails bite into the flesh of her palms, sharper than she ever kept them in Wirant. She’d needed them short, then; longer ones were liable to break, for dirt to get caked deep within the bed, but in the palace...
Ornamental, Haki had called them, hanging polished nails over the divan. The same as Shirayuki had been, when all the flounces settled. Nothing more but another face to decorate its halls.
Her breath steams in the air, a gasping specter that dissolves as soon as it appears, never quite solid enough to grasp. Glancing over her shoulder, the lights of Wistal still shimmering past the dark ribbon of the river, she feels much the same. Insubstantial. Hardly real. That if she just reached out she could touch those glittering lamps as if they were no more than shards of wunderocks, meant to settle in the palm of her hands and never burn.
The city’s so tame from so far away.
“We should go back.”
It’s barely more than a whisper, a toneless sigh into the night, but Kiki’s stare cuts to her, sharp as the blade at her waist. “Shirayuki. You have just fled the palace and its protections.” The night blurs the details of her expression into shadow, but the angle of her brows says sharp, skeptical. “Are you really so eager to return?”
“I-I didn’t say we should go back t-there.” She skips over her words like a stone on a still pond, hands clenched tight around her reins. “I just meant...the market. Or maybe one of the pubs. Somewhere...”
Somewhere there’s something left of him, she doesn’t say. There’s no point when Kiki is already shaking her head, gold shimmering silver in the moonlight. “You do understand, don’t you? We cannot go back. Not to the palace, not to the market...not to Wistal at all.”
“But that was the last place Obi was seen,” she insists, stomach as knotted as the leather strap in her hands. “If we’re going to find anything, it will be there. If we leave now--”
“Obi has made some...questionable decisions in the past” --the wrinkle between Kiki’s brows discourages further inquiry-- “but if he was trying to slip out of Wistal under the Watch’s nose, he wouldn’t stop for a drink.”
Her mouth works-- wasn’t he supposed to be a slither-outer? a man who abandoned his post to make a fool of himself in every tavern before he’d crawl back into our good graces?-- but that venom stings even her own lips, a set of lies too raw a wound in her to even scrape out a single sound. To pretend she could believe that of him for a moment, even just to win her way--
You do know that house plants don’t drink champagne, she informs him, poking her head around the improbable girth of this fiddle leaf fig. Even if it does reside in a manor house.
Gold flashes up from where he crouches, startled, flute hanging limply from his fingers. It’s only a moment before it smooths into an easy confidence, into a grin that’s right at home with all these silver platters and crystal glass. It’s either this or off one of these fancy little balconies, and I got to say, there aren’t ladies walking out from beneath these leaves. Well, except you, Miss.
His playfulness is contagious. You could just drink it, if you need to. I doubt this would give you anything more serious than a case of the hiccups. She leans in, conspiratorial. In my professional opinion.
You may be the granddaughter of a bar, Miss, but never on the streets I’ve visited. A corner of his mouth twists as he levers himself to his feet. Then you’d know that the only knife you carry with you is a sharp one.
--It would be a betrayal. Another way for her to turn her back on him, to forget the man he’d become over these past six years, the one who-- who--
So, it was worth having? Just asking makes her stomach lurch, like holding her foot over a precipice, trying to judge the distance down. It’s just a necklace, just Obi, and yet she’s tangled up in anticipation, breathless for that tilt of his head, that soft flicker of a smile.
Of course. Both fondness and confusion add an airiness to his laugh, as if his answer were as certain as the ground beneath their feet, or as necessary as the air between them. It would have been just for the fact that you lent it to me.
--It’s impossible.
Not that he loved her; of course he did, but in the way a key loved its lock, or a hand might miss its pair. The way she felt when she walked the streets in front of her grandparents’ old pub and heard laughing through the glass. She was a best-worn glove, a favorite meal, a half-remembered chorus to a lullaby.
She was home, the same way he was for her. And to think of it as the same as the knights in the palace tapestries, kneeling at the feet of their mistresses and longing, to think of it as desire...
They’re mistaken, is all. Of anyone, she knew him best. If his feelings had changed, then surely she would have noticed, she would have known--
You don’t know anything about me, Miss.
Her breath catches, painful in her chest. “But we don’t know where to look. If there’s a lead, then--”
“There’s nothing left to find of him there.” Each word hits her like a whip crack, a lash she’s not braced to take. “They will be looking for you, Shirayuki. Not now, but in the morning...”
In the morning, one of Haki’s maids would bustle into her chambers, throwing curtains wide and informing her of the gowns the consort had set out for her perusal. But today her hands would sink into the covers and find no flesh beneath it, no young lady to dress as her mistress pleased. No, there would only be a haphazard bundle of silk and velvet and down, and then, then--
Kiki’s eyes narrow as she gazes back, a hunter gauging the distance between her and her target. “It will take them time to search the grounds, to realize...”
That she was gone. No, that she, of her own volition, had left.
Kiki’s mare nickers as she leads her head around, back to the road ahead. “We should use what time we have wisely.”
It is simple to have purpose when there is trouble at your back, when there is the promise of menace nipping at your heels. One step yields to the next with such ease that it becomes nothing more than an instinct, heedless of fear and of good sense. Forward is so much more tenable as a directive than a decision.
Second thoughts are the luxury of those whose stories have an after.
Night passes into day, and what once seemed a steady, sustainable pace turns relentless. Kiki turns them off the main road at first light-- we can cover your hair, but two women riding hard is a rare enough sight still-- leading them first through fields of tall grass and wildflowers, so many Shirayuki is tempted to ask for a rest, if only to replenish her stocks--
But the grimness of Kiki’s jaw stills the words on her tongue.
It’s not long until fields give way to scrublands, and scrub gives way to the first stirrings of a forest, its canopy blotting out the sun’s heat as it climbs to its zenith. To her eyes, it seems untouched, a primordial kingdom of leaf and bramble and vine, but Kiki quickly picks out a hunter’s trail in the brush, leading them deep into its cool embrace.
It’s only then that Kiki lets their pace slow, that she lets her mare come to a panting halt. “We’ll stop here. The horses need to rest.”
There’s no block for her to dismount to, but Kiki provide a knee-- and then a net of arms in short measure, once Shirayuki’s leg fails to swing over and becomes a slow, terrifying slide.
“Sorry,” she gasps, clutching hard to her shoulders. “I didn’t realize that my, er, I mean...everything’s numb...?”
Her only consolation is that Kiki’s huff is at least amused when she finds her feet. “No need to apologize. We rode for a long time. Longer than we should have.”
Obi used to complain that too much time in the saddle made him bow-legged-- like some sort of hedge knight, Miss-- but it’s not until she hobbles across the clearing, too much space between her thighs, that she understands it.
“Oh, did we? That’s good. I mean--” there’s no comfortable way to rest; to stand means suffering her trembling legs, to sit only worsens the numbness “--I thought so, but if we were really riding for so long, then we would stop to switch out the horses...”
Kiki shakes her head, expert hands never slowing as she rubs down their mounts. “They’ll check the roads first, the post stations where it’s likely we’d need to stop. And any groom worth his pay will know these are from the royal stables, which means he’ll be the first to tell them what he knows.” Her mouth gives a wry twist. “Horse thieves always pay well.”
“But we’re not...” Kiki spares her a long, dubious look. They certainly hadn’t asked to borrow a pair of His Majesty’s finest mounts. “Are you so sure there will be anyone coming after us? Izana said that if I left, that I would be-- I’d--”
It should go without saying-- even now, the burden of his gaze weighs on her-- if you break this agreement, there will not be another offer.
She clears her throat. “I don’t think he’d be sending anyone for me.”
“Not Izana.” Kiki stretches out the words with care, the kind that warns of a ‘but’ before it can round the corner. “But Zen will turn over the whole city to find you.”
“Ah...” She hadn’t accounted for that, no. Not for Zen, who so often complained of tied hands, of how his brother’s wants ran roughshod over his own, using what little power he could bring to bear. “But Izana would never let him. Not when he was so clear...”
“Which is why this will all happen so quickly.” Kiki turns to her, as grim and serious as she had been in the stables. “Before Izana can hear of it.”
Her fingers tremble against the trunk, bark biting into flesh to keep her upright. “N-no. He can’t do that. When Obi disappeared it took him weeks to even get a single search party...”
Beneath the black of her jacket, Kiki’s shoulders tense. She does not speak but brace, and that is enough to draw Shirayuki up short, to remember--
A knife strapped to a belt. A seed pressed into her hand. Ah, she’d forgotten how easily a healed wound can run fresh, if she only pulls off the scab. “But he never sent anyone. Not for Obi.”
“Shirayuki...” A sigh soughs through her teeth. “We should go.”
But it cannot last forever. There always comes a time where fear banks, when tempers have cooled and the ceaseless war drum of the heart fades. And all that is left...
Is you.
Day fades into night again before Kiki allows them to truly rest, not just pause to catch a breath or let the horses drink. Their pace had been slow through the forest, careful as they picked their way along the knotted trails, but their mounts are exhausted, pulling at their leads as they plod into the clearing. Shirayuki can hardly blame them; she nearly balks until Kiki reaches for her, more falling from the saddle than dismounting it.
No matter how she might insist that she bore the mark of Tanbarun in her strong shoulders, or that heaving bags of soil from the cart to the greenhouse made her as capable as any of the male scholars, Shirayuki is hardly heavy. A girl her size might make Suzu stagger-- I can’t leave him on the walls by himself, Obi had confided once, grin peeking over his scarf, he’s got more in common with a sail than stone-- but even with the brunt of her weight slumping over her like a sack, Kiki is only driven back a step, solid when she plants her on the ground.
“You’ll have to forgive the accommodations,” she huffs, one half of her mouth hooking into a smirk. “I’m afraid it falls just short of royal.”
There’s no silk sheets or pillows of down, that’s for certain. But Kiki lays out her cloak to cover the soft sponge of the forest’s undergrowth, plumping her pack to make a kissing cousin to a pillow, and oh, what Shirayuki would have given for such luxuries during that breathless flight across the border, all those years ago. She stumbled upon that forgotten manor after a half dozen nights of only rocks and roots to lay her head on, with just that little hood to keep her warm.
“Ah, don’t worry about me,” she murmurs, unclasping her own cloak from around her neck. “I’ve slept on worse.”
Kiki’s smile stretches tight over her teeth. “Of course.”
Never one to need to fill the air with noise when silence would do, Kiki gathers their leads, nickering quietly at their mares as they tamp at the ground, impatient. Lata had taught her how to care for tack-- as any good horseman should, he sniffed, turning up his nose at the university’s groom-- but there’s a practiced efficiency to Kiki’s movements, almost meditative, that suggest any of her fumbling might only get in the way.
Still, Shirayuki isn’t about to stand idle. Not anymore.
“If you’re going to take care of the horses...” Her slippers shuffle, uncertain, beneath the hem of her skirt. “Should I gather some wood for--?”
“No fire.”
Shirayuki blinks. Wistal may be warm, even into its winters, but its nights still grow cold late in the season, enough that some mornings leave a lick of frost on the windowpanes. “But it will get cold soon. The sun’s already--”
Kiki shakes her head, sharp. “We can’t risk the smoke.”
She doesn’t so much snap as rasp, a dire note scraping her voice raw. Kiki has stood tall before kings and traitors both, and yet her whisper is nothing more than a live nerve that her desperation skins open. And it-- it seems so silly. They aren’t running from some first’s prince’s wounded pride, from four dozen of the kingdom’s most loyal knights and a half dozen dogs, but...
“But it’s only Zen.” It’s strange that she’s the one to say it, that in this twilight of her escape, she’s the one to speak sense. “He won’t hurt us. He’ll just...”
“Convince you.”
Her mouth falls slack. “I...?”
“Zen loves you.” It’s stunning how easily Kiki can say such a thing when Zen never had, when it had always been something hidden in the wrinkles of his smile or the longing in his eyes. “The fear has never been that he would hurt you. It is that you will listen.”
Shirayuki wants to protest, to say there would be nothing he could say to convince her to abandon Obi now that she’s set herself on his trail--
But even now her heart leaps to her throat not in dread but anticipation as she imagines Zen stepping into the light of their fire. Hope sears as he kneels before her, the fire casting his pale hair golden as he tells her, it’s all been a mistake. The anguish would turn itself to earnest apology in his eyes, and he would say that they can do this together, if only she would come back with him, if only she would stand by his side.
A breath shudders from her lungs, so full of wanting it burns.
It is so easy to say that she would not turn her back on Obi again, but three months ago, she would have sworn no one could get her to forsake him the first time.
“Right,” she rasps, chest tender beneath the hand she presses to it. “No fire.”
Oh, how easy it is for the doubts to set in, when it is only your tender heart to stand against them.
These are not Lilias’ nights, so cold that even a warm pan beneath the pallet and a heap of furs can’t keep the chill out, but they do have to press close beneath the weight of her cloak, tucking it tight around their shoulders and back, scrunching to keep their feet beneath it. It’s hardly the first time she’s had to huddle for warmth under the blankets, tucking deep into open arms to keep out the elements, but she’s used to a warmer body beside her, a furnace wrapped in flesh. And Kiki, well--
What do you expect? Obi lilts into her ear, as soft as he always spoke beneath the stars. Miss Kiki’s got a reputation to keep.
Her body is weary, bruised and battered from the ride, but even still-- her heart leaps when Kiki lays next to her, the sweet scent of lilac wafting from where her hair knots at the back of her neck. For a moment, it feels like that night so long ago, when snow had pressed at the inn’s windows, and her heart had raced from how close she had come to-- to something in that room. Not with Kiki, but with Zen, the pillows collapsing in among them and the urgency to see, to know had pressed her in for that next kiss. Her lips stung from it, tingled, and she had wanting nothing more than to say something, to ask if it was right that she felt so torn between her head and her heart.
But instead she had stared at the nape of Kiki’s neck, where her hair parts around skin like waves around a breaker, and worried. The same as she does tonight, as she does the next, and the night after. She is a font of concerns, an endless well of anxiety that burbles through the early morning hours, ceaseless until the sun rises.
You understand, don’t you? Even now, she feels Kiki’s fingers at her ankle, a single thoughtful tap on her boot. What all this might cost when it’s over?
If you break this agreement, Izana warns her, his tone implying fine print, there will not be another offer.
Think about what you might lose, the silence urges her, sounding more like Kiki than any words ever have. Think about what you might not get back.
Her fingers clench tight in the wool of Kiki’s tunic. But what about you? she wants to ask into the soft skin of her nape. What do you lose, coming with me?
Kiki is a royal knight, an aide to the second prince, the heir to Seiran. Soon to be married, too, after her father’s summit. One so important that it even peeled Zen’s aides from him, one Kiki herself is supposed to be handling the arrangements for.
And yet here she is, with her. Because a princess needs her knight. Except Shirayuki has never wanted to be a princess, and Kiki...
Must have her reasons. Good ones. The kind Shirayuki wants to know, to understand--
But instead her body betrays her one last time, and all its anxiety abandons her for sleep.
Oh, how stories never speak of this part, of that space between the wanting and the knowing. A woman wakes from her thousand year slumber in the arms of her true love. Children outsmart a witch and find their way home without a single wrong turn.
A girl escapes the garden of a sorceress, and stumbles straight onto the trail of her boy. No doubts, no second thoughts, no leads that have gone cold over the long months she spent, a prisoner in paradise.
How much easier it must be to suffer knowing that there is purpose to it in the end. How much easier it is to go forward, when every step will lead you true.
It’s impossible for her to say how many days it take for them to travel through the forest, or how many more there are before Kiki leads her back to a road. Obi had always been the one with the map in his head, unerringly leading them through hill and dale and drift; Shirayuki had only followed, putting her boot prints beside his own, a matched set.
It’s only the hangings above the inn’s door that give her pause when they pass it, that remind her that they’ve been here before. They’d run across this very courtyard with rain dogging their heels, standing in front of the desk soaked entirely to the skin. The five of them, traveling back from Tanbarun, breaths caught up in laughter as they skidded to a stop in the tile. It’s impossible, she thinks, that they could have been so young only such a short time ago.
“How about it then?” Kiki grunts, voice rough from disuse. “Would you like a bed tonight?”
Her back would certainly appreciate it. “They had baths here, too, didn’t they?”
For the first time in days, Kiki’s mouth curls toward a smirk. “You know, I think they did. Good ones, too.”
Strange, is it not, how we never know the precise moment the story finds us again?
Steam curls thick in the air, a palpable curtain between her and the bath. A welcome one; it’s been so long since Shirayuki last removed her dress that the cuffs stick to her wrists. It’s a miracle of the humidity-- and her own ingenuity-- that it peels away, leaving pink skin in its wake.
“Oh.” The warmth of the bath clings to her as thick as any cloak, coaxing out a sigh. “Where...?”
“Leave it,” Kiki urges her from farther in. “The maids will look after it. If there’s anything that can save those things.”
She hums, uncertain, letting the fabric hang from her fingers. This is her own sweat, her own mess; it hardly seems right to expect someone to clean it...
But she wants to deal with it even less. “All right.” The gown drops into the fog, lost. “I’m coming.”
When it is not just our own will that moves us forward, but the narrative, pushing us inexorably to the next turn of the page.
It’s a good, solid scrubbing that Shirayuki gives herself; she’s no stranger to the sort of dirt that a body can gather over a day’s work, but this, this is a week’s accumulation of grime and filth. It doesn’t wash away so much as flake, chipped off by the application of horsehair and grit until the only think left is pink, scoured skin beneath.
“We’re alone,” Kiki assures her through the partition, one pale foot sliding a sudsy bucket beneath. “If you want.”
Shirayuki blinks for a moment, staring down at the bubbles uncomprehending--
“Oh.” She reaches up, unwinding the towel from her head. It’d be generous to call what’s under it brown, let alone red, but with a good wash, well... “Thank you.”
Kiki hesitates. “I’ll meet you in the bath.”
Even in the most mundane of moments, the times in which we feel the most off the trodden path, lost and left with only our hopes to guide us, we can be so close that only a step would traverse the space between. That only a breath could speak it into being.
How many times must we come close to relief, and then never know it? How many doors must close while we hope for a mere window, all unknowing?
If Shirayuki had thought the steam thick before, it is nothing to how it rises from the actual bath. It might well be a curtain for how well it shields the edge from her; she risks a few toes at first to feel for it, and with a steeling breath, sinks a whole foot right down to the knee.
It’s hot, enough that the fresh skin these prickles with pain before the heat soothes it away. Her other leg follows, then the rest of her, sinking down into its warm embrace.
As much as it stings, it’s pleasant as well. As if she’s been made new again, the Shirayuki of the palace washed away, and leaving behind only her.
And then, when we least expect it--
“Caw, caw,” the crow says, swooping down to the little girl, “Good day, good day, little one, what brings you here?”
“Well, well, well.” A lithe body slides into the pool, tawny trailing after her like a comet’s tail. “Didn’t think I’d find a fine young miss like you here.”
After six weeks, Obiyuki Au Bingo has CLOSED! Although all our challenges at the comm are not competitive, we like to have a few fun stats to close out the end of bingo:
Most Spaces Filled (outside blackouts): @onedivinemisfit (9 squares)
Number of Players with Bingos: 8 out of a possible 14
Total Number of Works: 55
Total Fics Written: 31
Art Pieces Completed: 20
Playlists Made: 5
Total Words Written: 81,789 words
[Works By Creator, under the cut]
@batgirlsay
Falling Through Time
Mockingjay and the Miner
@claudeng80
Caught
Changeling, Chapter 7
How the cookie crumbles
Sands Through the Hourglass, Chapter 1
Sands Through the Hourglass, Chapter 2
Sands Through the Hourglass, Chapter 3
Sands Through the Hourglass, Chapter 4
@h0rizn
Anything Can Happen Out There
The Best Blaze Burns the Brightest
drift compatible
Some Elbow Room, Please
Someone’s Got to Be the Genre Savvy One Around Here
@kpslp
2nd (Usually) Sucks
After All is Said and Done
Anthithesis
If Only I Could
Invincible
@leewritingrecs
Luck Be a Lady
Mystery at Laxdo
Olin Maris
@onedivinemisfit
Confession of a foolish bruxa
got a doctorate in giving himself problems
he just wants them to get their vaccinations
Here at Camp Grenada
never running from a real fight
Our little one~
Reminiscing…
Speak. Speak and Let Me Save You
would you look at me like I’m not looking
@ruleofexception
Desperate Measures, Chapter 2
I’m Not Here to Hurt You
A Moment Apart
No good deed
A thorn in the sky, Chapter 5 (excerpt)
@sabraeal
All That Remains, Chapter 11: The Prince and the Princess [Part 1]
Brewed With Intent
Get Up Eight, Chapter 10
Greatest Little Show on Earth
Sic Semper Monstrum, Chapter 8
The Strong Pack Thrives, Part 1
@social-mockingbird
in the name of the moon…something something…whatever
So This Dame Walked In
Stop Throwing Tomatoes
sunlight eyes
Won’t you come down from your tower?
@starlightsmoon
The Mark Makes the Man
@writing-my-mind-ink
Always by Your Side, Chapter 1
Cutting Edge
I swim pretty boy
Love on the Silver Screen
Never Gone My Way
Renovate my Heart
Say My Name
Sweet as Belladonna, Chapter 1
List of poor souls he’s gonna suck some money out of? Check. Excuses of being from some relative of the Toghrul that hit it off with their bird rearing business? Check, he’ll be able to recite the lines in his sleep. Clothes? Simple black shirt that took half of his savings - Oh how he sacrificed for the minimalistic rich aesthetic - He looks like those guys who’d get those mova globes as a toy when he was five. (He had sticks, pieces of glass he called crystal and a pet rock.)
He didn't have it in him to feel bitter about that anymore though. He slurped on way too many pumpkin spice lattes for that.
The birdbrain he’s gonna be swiping from might never have had it before. Gotta pity them for never having a sugar bomb corporate cash grab.
Oh he almost forgot, hair? Looks fancy enough to him. Giving the bristles another swipe in front of the hand mirror dangling from his apartment door and swiping the keys from his beloved plant soldier, Nuggets.
-
His mark looks as tired and anxious as always, swirling - well, trying to. Obi still can’t believe the guy has a gold bar as a door stopper - the vodka in his hand and though it kinda turns into more of a disturbance to the liquid relief in the cup.
“Hey there.” What was his name again? Oh well, it’ll slide off his tongue eventually.
The man had been a loser who was probably a bit more into feet than he should be, and had been dabbling in drugs that Obi doubts the guy can actually live after intaking. He’s drank quite a couple of drinks with him for the past months. Hell, the man has made Tuesday be labeled as ‘drinking for the money’ day in his calendar - He kinda admits, even with his totally admirable work ethics, that he loathes Tuesdays now - to his dismay, Torou said she’d love to take it over from him if he didn’t want it. And though he really doesn’t wanna hear any more mommy issues and glorification of drug addiction, he’ll get through it.
“Oh hello Nanaki.”
He was surprised when Mr. Foot Stuff actually was sober enough to remember his name, but today was special so he’ll give him some props, he normally dialed him when he was down to half a brain and third of manners and a non-existent filter about how much chipped toenails have a charm.
Obi gets seated in the stool next to him - lets the man order fucking champagne for him without his input - and puts his honey filter on. He normally gets lazy with this guy but he’ll have to be on high alert, can’t let him get any second thoughts after all.
“So regarding what we talked about-”
-
-God he’s got the sweetest deal of the century, he’s gonna be ordering those fancy ass kaleidoscopes just you wait.
-
If he survives this, he’s gonna buy Torou a ticket that shitty boy band concert and he’ll make it so that she cries for it. Hell, he’ll even buy Haruka one of those tacky you’re the best dad mugs too. Of course unless he gives him a lecture and attitude then that is gonna be replaced with a your the best dad mug instead.
Not that he doesn’t deserve the attitude though.
But can you blame him? The guy seemed like the best catch he was gonna get there, and cherry on top being that he was gonna get it by just sipping booze. He wasn’t wrong either, just that conning his dad’s company while he was at it didn’t seem like a bad idea.
Who knew that old fuck was running a human trafficking business.
He didn’t at the least. But now Obi finally got the biggest con of his life, with a boatload of money that he’s shipping to Wistal for it to be Haruka’s problem and taking the railways to wherever his heart takes him cause he has no fucking clue what he paid for at the ticket stand.
But the redhead that’s his roommate seems nice, though it’d be nicer if he could stop looking at her,
-
She’s got a lotta luggage, and she’s so careful with it.
It makes his one duffle bag packed with some clothes and a toothbrush look quite sad in comparison. He regrets selling off the suitcase. It’d make a statement and he would be able to disguise himself as a rich conglomerate, even if he doesn’t have his extra shiny shoes and rocking a plain button-up and jeans, he’d be able to make it work- he’s done it in worse before. Wait, did he pack any shoes at all?
“Hello.” a meek voice breaks his thoughts, and he can worry about being shoeless later.
“Uhm, is there any issue if I put some of these,” she gestures to her four suitcases and plus one tote bag he can see peeking out from the one plastered with stickers of flowers and beach umbrellas ”On your space?” She points to the tray above him that’s a bit too close to his head for comfort, he’s nearly smacked his head on the damn thing four times already. Thankfully his lightning quick reflexes and prowess triumphs the future bump on his head he’s definitely gonna be dealing with.
She’s already attacking her bottom lip and clutching at her sweater. He’d be a monster if he said no.
“Sure but you gotta tell me one thing,“ he really doesn’t need the space, his luggage was acting as his foot rest just until she arrived. It really didn’t need his permission anyways.
Unluckily for her, he may not have been a monster but he sure is something close to it.
“Do you think a hotdog is a sandwich?”
And judging by the way she tilts her head, furrows her brows and stops her abuse on her lips; He’s gonna be having a fun time.
-
He has confirmed she’s not a psychopath, and surprisingly seems to not want to murder him and throw him out the window for more room to put her suitcases in. Yet.
And it seems like his ticket and the place she’s headed to have the same spelling, which means he can actually thank himself for once, a pretty lady on his trip to become a nobody doesn’t seem so bad.
“So, my name is Shirayuki, I’m a botanist, and I really appreciated the help.” he’s sure that lugging around some suitcases was not worth the smile bestowed upon him, - It’s way too trustful for somebody like him - but he’ll have a cute face smile at him anyday.
“Well Miss, you can call me Obi, I’m a guy with many secrets,” Obi earns a giggle that he’s sure that’ll haunt his dreams.
“And no problem, though I admit I mourn the sight of you struggling to hop around with suitcases.” and before he knows it, his hand reaches out for a shake. He should probably get rid of that-
She clasps his hand, “Nice to meet you Obi.” and suddenly, all words die in his throat.
Her hands are soft.
He struggles not to whimper as the words leave with his tongue without permission, “Nice to meet you too, Miss.”
