Soulei - A short story.
Small A/N:
My newest shounen ai characters. The person that was supposed to have been helping me has... umm.. fled, so I am sorta on my own. So, really good detailed critiques are certainly welcome. Thanks.
Contains: Shounen ai, close to yaoi, but not quite there.
Warning: PG-13. Ya know the type. A little fluff. (In my opinion) Bad Humor. o_O;
Pairings: My two newest characters! Audrien and Vincent.
Audrien: Pirate dude person.
Vincent: Elven Prince person.
The sky was a radiant blue, uplifting youthful hearts in it's baby-blue delicacy. The clouds were puffy pussy-willow flowers, passing slowly across said sky in parades of silly animals, marshmellows, and other similarly delectable shapes.
The earth below was similarly pleasing on such a day as this in June. A gentle breeze tickled the landscape, sending shivers across the meadow. Yet still he did not notice this.
Instead, it seemed like the elf was waiting for something else. Or, rather, someone. He collapsed into the grass, onto his back.
None kept the crown prince waiting. None.
His brow furrowed.
What could he possibly be doing at a time such as this one?? Surely that darn human was toying with him. But of course. He would show, yes, he must. No, no, not so much as 'must'...
"Because if you aren't showing, I'm leaving!" he shouted indignantly to the air around him.
He would turn out to be just behind him, with that annoyingly cute smirk on his face, raising his eyebrow, saying nothing, yet leaving him feeling like an idiot because of these simple gestures.
"Damn you!"
Making him come all the way out here. And for what? He had said something about... questing. Of course, that was always fun, whether it be a small task or large... did he just say...?
"Cute??"
He growled, and thrust his sword deeply into a nearby tree, blushing furiously.
"HEY!"
Just in time, the nymph lifted her skirts, as to allow her no harm.
"Your Highness! Such... I Beg Your Pardon!"
He wasn't too interested. "Hmm? Yes, right right, sorry...." he said, waving his hand in dismissal.
"I take it there is something on your mind again..." she snorted.
"Eh..."
She bent down close to his face. He attempted to turn away; it was no use, she already had her thin, whip-like branches around his chin, pinching it. She stared into his eyes deeply, and gave him a sudden whip to the toosh.
"Why, your Highness!" she gasped in delight, "I do believe you are... [giggles], In Love!"
"Gah!"
He clutched his wounded bottom, and scowled at her.
"I thought I'd never see the day, I tell ya! Ever since you were littler than my shortest branch, I'da never thought it! So, who's the lucky lady?"
Damn her for jumping to conclusions. She just couldn't spare him the embarrassment, could she?
"Ah, love, a wonderous thing, looking into a lover's eyes, blushing all the time, your heart racing, tongue tying... (though in many cases, it was my roots)... anybody I would know?"
His expression soured once again. He turned from her.
"Ah, don't want to tell? Well, whoever she is, she's coming right now!"
"Huh?"
Indeed this person was. This person had come from a patch of trees, quite suddenly indeed. Almost as if they had hidden themselves. It was the same smile... that seemed to mock him. The prince couldn't help but give a small smirk back, before utterly stifling it. The nymph was no longer taunting him-- she had changed to her tree form. To snoop some more, no doubt.
"You are late."
He shrugged almost lazily, and leaned against an opposite tree to the nymph's. "Eh. Just some things you can't rush, ya know?" He grinned at the prince.
They all lived to make him embarrassed and miserable. They truly did.
"Hurry up. What is this trip you proposed?"
"Oi, always getting straight to business! Fine fine. Its nothing really, just a small trip to a certain cave and all..."
"What cave?"
"So demanding," he murmured. "Why, A secret one, of course!"
"Why must you constantly be so damn annoying?"
"Why must you constantly act like a stiff?"
Their eyes met-- the prince's icy ones; the pirate's honey colored ones. Neither would look away. In the end, it was in fact the pirate that had won. The prince turned his back on him, making sure he couldn't see him blush once more.
"Well, Vincent."
The prince scowled.
"It isn't that much farther from here. Allow me to lead the way..."
And with that, he turned his back on the prince, and trotted off in the opposite direction he had came.
"Oh my... I didn't know you swung that way! Well, who could blame you... I mean, come on, look at that tight a--"
"NYMPH!"
The Pirate turned around. "What was that?" he inquired, with a quite curious look on his face.
The prince-- Or rather Vincent's cheeks flushed red again. He grumbled and caught up with his companion.
Many times along the trail, the prince stopped to check behind him. He hoped she wasn't following them... it was embarrasing as it was already. Oh, but of course, that was too much to ask. Even roots couldn't stop the tree woman.
But of course! There she was, just behind that larger tree! Of course! He narrowed his eyes, trying to define the factual shape from a fictional creation of his mind.
Yet another tree moved before him. He looked up. Not a tree, but his companion. Audrien.
This Audrien person looked down at him, crossing his arms.
"You know, I was four minutes down the trail, talking before I realized that you weren't following."
Another thing that annoyed him. Audrien was taller than him, by one eye height. Just slightly.
"It's not like I want to listen to you jabber on."
"Awww... I'm hurt. What has gotten you so interested anyway?"
Audrien walked past him, peering between the slender branches of a young tree, green tree, full of tender blossoms. Seeing nothing, he looked at the prince queerly, before trotting off down the trail once again.
"Damn you... there you are! Leave us ALONE! Rather-- leave my soul alone!"
"Stop talking to trees and hurry up! This is a limited time thing, ya know!"
The nymph raised a mossy eyebrow.
"Leave me alone. We are simply going to see some cave."
"Ah yes, but why are you going?"
Oi... why was he going again? "Just leave me alone."
"With his strong composure and serious facade in battle and princehood, why should someone like he be frolicking down the sunny paths of youth?"
"SHUT UP!"
He turned on his heel in a huff and followed Audrien.
"Audrien?"
Strangely, he said nothing. Vincent continued.
"What was that limited time thing that you were talking about before?"
Audrien stopped before a brownish gray outcropping, without the slightest warning. This was the magnificent cave he was talking about? Why, it was barely distinguishable from the rest of the rocky bottom of the large hill.
"Yes, this is it," Audrien said, reading the look on his face. He smiled, and walked inside.
It wasn't cave-like, he noted. Well, not really in that sense. The smooth, eroded walls were blue, whenever they peeked from behind the layers of granite on top of them.
He had sat down, and taken off his pointed brown boots. His feet swirled the water round, again and again in little ripples. Audrien was staring up... up at a statue of a woman. A woman, bathed in the thin light from a hole in the cave's roof; her body made the walls shimmer. She seemed to be encased in the same translucent material on the walls. Despite that, and the fact that all the color once on her was gone, the beauty of her praying pose went unchanged. Her fiery red hair seemed to spill gently over her shoulders like a waterfall.
"The goddess of love, beauty, and trees. Toriko of the Starlit Heavens."
Vincent nodded. "Yes, from the texts, she is goddess of long ago, though, what does this have to do with questing?"
"We must release her," Audrien said smiling slightly. "She came to me in a dream, and told me that you and I must release her."
A simple task really, with his sword of dwarven metals, he could slash pretty much anything.
He freed his sword from it's scabbard at his side with a quick movement of his thumb, and as if the statue would suddenly up and run away, swiftly slashed it, in such a manner that would be expected to slice inches deep into the solid layer of rock.
Metal met rock. It deflected, with a pale green light, in almost the time that it took to make the attack. He lay back in the shallow water surrounding the shrine, dazed and confused, at the moment, not even angry.
Audrien knelt beside him. "Not like that, you fool," he said softly, taking his sword away from him. "More like... this."
The pirate bent down further, hand placed securely at the small of his back. He raised his prince out of the water, carefully, his tongue slid into Vincent's partially parted lips. It wasn't as if he even really cared if he resisted.
Vincent pushed him back, angry and surprised. He wiped his mouth.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Are you mad?" He stood up in the shallow water, wringing out his cape.
"Why do you deny it?"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"She told me all about it."
She...? Damn that Nymph!
Audrien's voice quieted. "I just wanted to find some way... some way to show you... the feeling's mutual, you know. Since you have a hard enough time showing your feelings."
"Stop it. Stop it now. I'm a prince, by the Gods! An elven prince! With--"
"Responsibilities and duties," Audrien finished. "I know, I know. And who's against the prince having a little fun, eh?" He placed his arms seductively around the prince's lean waist, resting his chin on his shoulder.
Vincent didn't answer.
"Unless..." Audrien continued, "Unless you don't feel that way." He removed his cold fingers from his pockets, and withdrew completely from him. "Unless I am just wasting my time. Unless... you really think I am an annoying moron, as you so blandly put it before."
Vincent remained silent.
"Fine."
He briskly exited the pool in a mood unknown to Vincent before.
"No...You're not a complete moron."
In the darkness of the tunnel, Audrien stopped, annoyed. Vincent continued.
"I didn't mean to react so... I mean, because that was..."
"Nice?"
Audrien's face had returned to the light of the small cavern. His face was passive; he was waiting for the prince to continue.
Vincent scratched the back of his neck a little. "Ummm... yeah."
The prince looked down at his feet, and bit his lip.
"I do l-er... I mean, I feel the same way, er... Too."
The pirate weighted his apology carefully.
"Well, that's a start..."
He returned from the shadows surrounding the pool; returned his arms to where his highness liked them.
"Hmmm... that's good enough for now."
Their lips met once again; this time, the prince decided to do a little exploring.
"Aww... they look so cute together! Now wasn't that fun?"
A beautiful woman with a bright halo of unruly red hair stared over her shoulder mischievously.
A trio of three tree nymphs nodded enthusiastically at their Lady. A fourth one spoke up, somewhat skeptically, the one that the prince had spoken with since the beginning. "But... how long will it last do you think, Milady?" she questioned.
The redheaded goddess looked back at her crystal orb, back at the two figures kissing passionately within. "I don't know... this one could go either way... it seems to me." Her large tan cat ears drooped in the realization.
"Which means... we must watch them a liiitle while longer. Just to be sure, you understand..."
"Milady, you're hopeless." The forth nymph shook her head, but wasn't complaining. Frankly, she also was quite curious as well, as to where would they go from here.
End
2004, +*+Murasaki no Ryuu+*+