Author's note: Please be reading this… T_T I beg of you! I am on my hands and knees! Please read and review! *Sparkly kawaii lil' eyes* I'll be so good! I promise! *Blink* No that doesn't mean sexual favors for a review… Ya sickos… XD I actually spent a LONG time on this fic, and I for one think it paid off! I had time to develop the thought, and it came out exactly the way I wanted it! So read, tell me what you think, and enjoy! ~ Blacke Inke
Satin Sheets and Rose Petals
Everybody always told me, there are times in your life where all you have to rely on is yourself, there are times when it seems everything is completely wrong, or that the gods have cursed me for eternity… They told me there would be times when I felt like everyone had been blessed, charmed, or got just too godsdamned lucky and that the light shone on everyone but me. They all said everyone felt like falling into a bottomless pit with no one to catch you sometimes, not a person escaped life without thinking the entire world is laughing at you behind your back for a while, but no one ever said, not even once, that it would happen to me…
Now there's no one to say it, and no one to feel it with me…
Some advice, huh?
So tell me, my beloved elders, what the hell am I supposed to do now that I have nothing and no one? Now that the light is shining only on me and everyone else is dead and gone? Like shadows… No one ever told me that someday I would be the lucky one, that I alone would survive and live, and certainly no one ever told me what to do. That someday I would be the one the Gods smiled on and everyone else would be left behind, that someone would catch me when I fell and stand me back up to face it all and let everyone else plummet into the abyss below.
Deliciously ironic isn't it?
Well I damn well don't feel lucky…
I now spend my days in a dark, ancient mansion that once must have been absolutely stunningly beautiful, wandering, waiting, and unfortunately, thinking, staring through the faded red curtains out into the bleak gray hills and swearing to myself it will be the last time I cry. I try to find the shards of myself among the pieces of broken glass I occasionally find that glimmer and flash at me even in what little light there is and the shards of silver that reflect my fragmented face blearily and then, just for just a single moment, the scars are gone. My hair is long and beautiful again, the gnarled horn has disappeared, and my eyes are soft and kind, but then the mirror catches the light just right, and I become a Mazoku once more, covered in the telltale slashes of old wounds and red feral markings.
I try not to think about it… My transformation, that is, if that's really what one should call it, so I keep those tiny broken pieces of mirror in my room, to remind me to forget. A small, intricately carved wooden box I chanced upon sufficed to hold them, and sometimes, if I got truly desperately lonely and thinking too hard, I would lay them out on the floor at night, so they all just barely caught the light of a star or the moon. It was my own captive light, under my control, safe within my new darkness… A little neurotic pleasure born out of boredom and pain I know, but it was always so beautiful… Like my own night sky if I had been forbidden to look upon the original.
Stupid little things to pass the time, that's all that was, playing with glass or hiding from the rest of the soulless creatures who prowl these halls anxious to prove themselves the most heartless and ruthless to their master. There is a nagging, intrinsic sense of a hunt that pervades thickly when the sun goes down, when we all either hunker down in our own shabby little rooms covered in faded dust and ragged linens, hoping no one is looking for a fight, and at the same time hoping against hope that someone will get hurt and therefore lose favor with the master, or wandering about, sword drawn or spell ready to destroy the first hapless creature they chance upon. Except me of course, they all know me as "that stupid skinny horned dragon kid" and they all think absolutely nothing of me and therefore don't bother, but I could not even begin to care less. All they care about is winning favor and gaining power with him, or feeling so minutely powerful for a split second as a weaker Mazoku falls and they lick the blood from their claws. All I want, and I ever wanted, is to see the next day and maybe hope for it to be brighter. I hate them all, and the feeling is quite mutual…
For we all have a complicated relationship with our… Beloved master…
For we all serve, in sickeningly varied degrees of loyalty, one of the oldest, oddest, and most misbegotten Mazoku ever to exist. Lord Demon Dragon King Gaav…
An escaped traitor on the run, building loyalties from absolutely nothing, hiding and dodging and ducking who is gone fighting and winning and losing battles with only a handful of servants each time more than any of us would like… A tall imposing figure with long flame red hair that cascades far past his knees, brandishing an impossibly long sword and wearing a perpetual smirk across his battered face with a contemptuous and condescending sneer in his midnight blue eyes… That was the Gaav most of us knew, that was the Gaav he wanted us all to see, the Gaav he wanted the world to see and tremble at, but that was never all there was to him.
I alone saw a different Gaav…
He was always kind to me, if one can use that word to describe a Mazoku, though perhaps he was stern at certain appropriate moments, he was never cruel, especially during my lengthy and painful recovery after being turned. I barely remember the week, or so I was told it was a week, I spent in bed screaming and fighting the change, thinking somehow by sheer will and power I could reverse it and be fully Ryuzoku again, convincing myself that Gaav had merely been a way to gain enough power to save my life and that I would escape and carry out my bloody vengeance alone. I thought for certain that if I cursed and hissed at this hideous creature at my bedside long enough, if I spat and called him vicious names in my native tongue and lashed at him that he would give up and leave me be. If only to be left alone to die quietly with dignity, just to slip away and join my family and race in my proper place in the frozen ground still fighting for our honor I knew I had betrayed…
But Gaav never left my side…
He always came back, he always held me down and calmed me when I would thrash and scream and cry so wildly I had no idea what I was doing, and he never once flinched when I snarled and tried to rip him apart. There was one incident, close to the end of my stint in bed, that I can remember slightly clearer than the rest, a time when I felt stronger and more willful, and waited calculatingly until Gaav came in to check on me, where I would demand for the umpteenth futile time to be let go, but add in some force.
When he invariably came in late that day, he took the ancient and faded red plush velvet chair he always sat in, and smiled at me, like he always did, as he laid the back of his rough hand gingerly across my forehead and remarked fondly that I looked much better and would be out of bed in no time. It almost stopped me… The familiarity, softness, and almost lovingness of the gesture… But I mustered the strength and will to expel it from my mind and seize him savagely by the wrist, digging my claws into the underside if it with a demonic sneer as his expression shifted from kindness, to something twisted that must have mirrored my own.
Gaav never even flinched, even as I felt something warm trickle down my fingers, watching me calmly as I made my demands yet again and bore it all, never saying a word, never moving, until, after I had exhausted myself with yelling at him, then demanding, then begging him to let me go, I finally snapped. I screamed as loud as my soul and ravaged body would allow, and he remained completely still as the claws from my other hand raked savagely across his face. He turned his head with the blow, and I watched a dull shiver of pain course through his body, but the muscles in his jaw rippled as he set it and painfully slowly raised his eyes back to me.
I vaguely remember panicking then under that unwavering determined gaze, my chest heaving and the distinct feeling of it filling with water, and everything fading into a whirling sparkling nothingness… Thinking perhaps I was finally dying… Then, I can recall in a blurry white memory watching the inky black blood drip thickly down Gaav's cheeks from the deep gashes, face hard and emotionless as he suddenly lurched to life and pinned my bare shoulders to the bed with unyielding force. I was easily subdued, crying and whispering softly to, "Please… Just let me die… Please…" but he stared into my eyes for what seemed like hours, and I watched the subtle changes in him flicker softly over his entire body until he finally spoke, and what he said will echo in my mind for the rest of my days…
"Come back, Val…"
I could no longer fight it, and whether it was from exhaustion or something entirely different, I managed a small utterly pitiful moan, and collapsed fully into Gaav, sobbing harder than I ever had let anyone see, and he stayed. I cried for hours into my master's broad chest, clutching at the worn suede trench coat and letting his arms wrap protectively around me, letting his warmth radiate and steep fully into my being as I fell asleep at last. I remember thinking it vastly strange that Gaav would be so warm, that he would bleed dark as night, and ultimately that I dreamt no more of being home again only to watch my friends and family die. I found myself instead immersed in vibrant, colorful images and feelings of lying in a field that shimmered emerald and gold as a deep, strong voice told me not to be afraid anymore and held me tightly in sturdy arms.
When I woke up, completely oblivious as to how long afterward, Gaav was still holding me…
Terrified and forgetting completely what I was and where I was at first, I almost made a move to flee for my life but forced myself to stay still as I watched him, curled close to me on the bed, eyes closed, chest rising and falling slowly and peacefully, and flame red hair gleaming in the dim light as it fell softly across them. The thought had never crossed my mind that Mazoku would need sleep, but it seemed perfectly natural at the time, and all I could think about was having just slept in the same bed as one of the five dark lords, and in his arms no less, and lived to tell the tale.
But Gaav at that moment looked the farthest thing from the hideous demons I was always told and believed all Mazoku were…
I watched him, reposed and uninhibited, raw and powerful in the candor of a stolen moment of indiscreetness, breathless and utterly in awe. It was like being beside a sleeping wild beast and still being able to see the blood on its claws and jowls, but knowing somehow he was stained with the blood of his and your enemies alone, or as if the enigma of the Mazoku race had suddenly been solved.
Understanding and seeing at last that Gaav was free and untamed, a ruthless warrior who fought for the little that mattered, and that I was now a part of that…
A part of him…
My morbid curiosity naturally got the better of me swiftly, so I reached out gingerly and brushed his hair out of his face, which was silky and thick against my fingertips, then continued to his serene face. The dark tanned skin was weathered under my touch, like well-loved suede, and no sign of my vicious attack remained, leaving it smooth and pleasantly warm… I think I actually smiled to myself then, watching such a rough, unrefined and, despite it all, oddly beautiful creature utterly free from any notion or prejudice.
My private little delve into voyeurism ended before I really would have liked, however, when I got a little overly bold and pressed my entire palm tenderly against his cheek. Gaav snapped one eye open deviously, and realizing swiftly what I had been doing, grinned at me as I drew my hand away with a sharp gasp. I tried to apologize, but he would hear nothing of it, put a finger to my trembling lips and told me there was absolutely nothing to apologize for as long as I was alright…
It took me forever to finally let that sink in, that a Mazoku could genuinely care about my well being, and I never thought once I was being naïve for trusting him…
He means more to me than I could possibly ever know...
He means absolutely everything…
He was the one who screamed my name when I fell during a battle we instigated, forgetting in the new and dark passion of it that I could no longer summon my dragon form and ending a twisted mutilated mass of black feathers and claws. Thrashing uselessly and curled about myself tightly and knowing nothing but the searing anguish of the two opposing powers alive and volatile inside of me. Gaav was the one who finished our enemies in one clean blow, though long forgotten now, and rushed to my side, demanding not to leave him yet as he gathered my broken, dying body into his arms, and ignored my screams and tears of anguish and apologies. He carried me all the way back to this dark mansion, put me in the best bed and held my hand as he coaxed me back through the transformation into my Mazoku form. I followed his firm, yet kind words, though my throat burned with screaming and my soul cried out that I had failed him, and when I was too weak to finish myself, put the seal on my dragon power and bound my right arm, the last left black and feathered, with the charm because I had become part of that tiny fraction of things of his world that mattered.
He was the first thing I saw when I awoke, warm, safe, and no longer in pain… The first breathtaking thing I saw after so much anguish were his deep blue eyes and a relieved smile flickering tiredly across his mouth as his hand closed tightly over mine. The bright sun flashed through his loose hair and warmed the bed in which I lay, fell across my eyes through the gently undulating white curtains from the open window and brought everything to life.
I'll always remember that moment…
When he laughed and stroked my cheek so gently and remarked that I was definitely going to have to stop doing that…
When I smiled back, my cheeks burning as I promised it would be the last time for sure…
And when he leaned slowly down, touched my lips so lightly with his, then closed his eyes and kissed me for the first time.
I had never kissed another man before, but Gaav's lips were warm and gentle, and so comforting against mine, I could not help but wrap my good arm around his neck and kiss him back with all I had. I wanted to… I wanted him… We broke away so slowly, and I dared not breathe, for fear of somehow dispelling every beautiful instant of what had just happened between us like fragile ashes in the wind, but when I opened my eyes, it was if I had awoken once more, and Gaav was still smiling…
He took off his coat and tunic and crawled into bed with me, kissed me deeply again and held me even tighter, wanting and needing nothing more than that, and that time, I held onto him for all I could.
He left again, though, just a few days later, but despite all my protestations to let me help him, I was still too weak, and he would hear nothing of it, so he left me behind with a loving kiss, a grin, and a promise to be back as soon as he could.
And such became the traditional whirling, and spinning of our time... Always leaving, never explaining why, or when he would be back, a passionate kiss on the lips in front of most of the servants, and then the endless, breathless waiting for my master to return, haunted by his voice and his touch, and the absence of such fleeting treasures, ignoring the others who laughed and told me I was being used, and never letting myself believe them. Like I said, we all have a complicated relationship with our Lord Gaav, but I don't care, as long as he always comes back, loud and sweeping, laughing, battered, and battle worn through those ancient wooden doors and I can rush into his arms and for a brief moment feel like I'm flying as he twirls me around and tells me in that booming voice that fills the entire mansion how much he missed me, then I will never care.
As long as he carries me to the bedroom, out of the servants' sight, lays me on the bed and looks at me like I am his entire world…
Like the first night we gave ourselves to one another…
Another moment I could not and would not ever hope to ever forget…
The night I discovered how gentle he could be as he touched me as I had never been touched before…
I sit in my room the times when he leaves me behind and just wait for the days and nights like that, the days he comes home, home to me, so we can spend just one night, reunited like we had been apart for years, making love in an ancient bed until dawn and just lying with him the next day when he would sleep, blissfully happy just watching him, or slipping into sleep myself, and when I dared, stroking his cheeks and running my hands through his beautiful hair. I love that day afterward…
I love the groggy, amused little grin that flashes across his face after I kiss him the second I think he's awake…
I love being the first thing he sees after having to shed blood and fight for his own existence…
I love feeling his arms tighten around me, and the feeling of his breath across my ear as he whispers in it…
I love the feeling of his warm, naked body close to mine after being cold for so long…
I love the sheer exhilaration of being one with that body, feeling him inside of me, his lips on mine and looking into his deep, crystalline sapphire eyes until they're all I can see, and he is all I can feel…
And everyone told me I was being so stupid and deluded, but I can't believe that anyone who would make me feel so alive again would do anything like they say! I refuse to believe it… I will not accept even the thought that I'm only his toy, a Mazoku Dark Lord who would save my life, make me his servant… Then take me to his bed and make me his lover and closest companion… It isn't true… Not after he salvaged my soul, let me live, breath, love, and exist again, not after he made so sure to teach me how.
I love him…
I know I do… And somewhere deep within his twisted, complicated soul I think he loves me too… We'll never say it, but perhaps we don't have to… Maybe he doesn't think that coming back to a dingy, dilapidated mansion that has been abandoned for centuries is beautiful, and maybe it isn't… Maybe having to come back covered in blood with a servant or two missing, defeated for the moment, listening to whispers of dissent clearly behind your back isn't his ideal of romantic… I hardly think it would be anyone's. I'm not blind, nor am I stupid, and I can see that we are all outcasts, and I can see that look in Gaav's eyes when he looks at what he has become, what he has to offer me, and I have no doubt if he thought he could, he would present me with the best wine, satin sheets covered in rose petals over the finest most intricate gilded bed and down mattress ever made. That will always be there between us, a sparkling distant dream that we both force each other to believe in to keep fighting and keep screaming back at the night that we exist and it will not black out our presence forever. We are the filth of the Mazoku race, he is trapped in a human body, I'm still half Ryuzoku, both of us hunted and despised by our own race and most of the others that surround us would turn away from us as quickly as they came… They come and go like the tides and phases of the moon…
Some betray, some are killed, some just never come back, some Gaav lets go… But I stay… I'll always stay.
The path we walk is long, narrow and twisted, and I will walk it by his side for as long as I live and breathe, because we are the same. We flirt and dance with darkness and death, and yet, we always seem to find our own light within ourselves. Something unspoken and quiet, something about making love on that old creaky bed under those dusty sheets that turns everything to gold. We live the outcasts' reality, but we waltz defiantly before the heavens, a perfect vagabonds' waltz for us and us alone, and we don't need satin sheets and rose petals…
When we're together, nothing else matters, we can forget everything but the pleasure of sharing our bodies and souls and knowing that no matter what happens, we can always come home to each other. That's all a vagabond, a vagrant, and outcast and an exile really wants though, isn't it? A home to come to when the storm grows too intense to bear, somewhere to sink into a pair of strong arms that will hold and protect you, and a soft voice that tells you, "you are beautiful and I will never leave your side…" and most importantly, that you believe it.
If I can stay with Gaav forever, if he will hold me in his arms, make love to me like we own the entire world and I am the only one he wants, if he can make me feel like I'm lying in that gilded bed covered in satin sheets and blood red rose petals soft as velvet, like he always has, then I don't need anything else at all. I just need him…
And I'll ignore the squeaking of the springs as he rolls over and slings a gentle arm around me from his dreams…
I won't even feel the brittle, flaking wood that splinters and cracks under my feet, creeping back to bed where he's still soundly asleep…
I won't look longingly into an empty frame where a mirror once stood, wishing Gaav would think himself as beautiful as he is…
I'll forget the musty smell off the fraying comforter as he pulls it over us lovingly…
I'll even overlook the torn curtains that flutter sadly and wreak their melancholy ghosts over the floor and dance in fleeting patterns over his peaceful form stretched pleasantly beside me…
But I won't forget my scars, and the ruby flame red marks across my cheeks that he loves nuzzling affectionately and stroking with his calloused thumb…
I can't ignore that sharp horn jutting out of my skull, because it's always the last thing he kisses before I fall asleep in his arms…
The darkness consumed me, and I made it my beauty…
Because I can, because he let me, and because he wanted me to…
Because I don't have to pretend to see only light anymore, now that I know the other side and it keeps me safe and warm…
I have a complicated relationship with my Lord Gaav… No one ever told me he would happen to me, and certainly no one ever told me what to do…
But I think I figured it out…