There were some days it just wasn't worth getting out of bed. For Kaio, on the final day of the Festival, when the bitter acidity that heralded the shedding of holy blood simmered on the breeze, he wanted nothing more than to bury his head beneath a pillow and ignore the most revered of proceedings taking place outside. That not being an option he wrinkled his nose in heretical displeasure, scratched his stomach, and gave in to the fact he should bathe and get to temple proper.
Lighting incense to observe the proper morning ritual, as well as attempt to mask the insidiously caustic scent in the air, Kaio muttered morning devotions as he fumbled water into his washbasin. All thoughts shrieked to a halt as Kaio dunked the better part of his head into impossibly cold water. Sputtering his displeasure, and most definitely completely awake, Kaio managed to finish the last necessary prayer before soundly cursing the enchanted water.
"Kaio! Brother! You're late!"
Just what he needed- someone to remind him he had managed to sleep past second bell. Kaio glared at the door and pulled on an only slightly rumpled pair of silk pants before answering. "Thank you for that stunning bit of information."
The door opened and a man walked in, uninvited. "You're the usual bit of sunshine this morning, aren't you?"
"Tease me later. I need to find my gods be damned sash…"
"Hanging over the back of your chair."
Kaio snatched the scarlet bit of cloth and tied it around his waist; not bothering to make sure it was even and flat.
"Brother, you could at least pretend." The other man sighed and reached to adjust the surly Dancer's clothing. "You wouldn't want to appear sloppy before the Master, would you?"
"Arri, I'm sure the Master has seen worse. Where are my bells? Storms, I don't have the time to get decked out like a whore today…"
"I should get you a cat. You'd never oversleep that way." Arri grinned before wrinkling his nose. "Speaking of whores, it smells like a brothel in here. Who did you bring home last night?"
"That's the incense, as you well know. And no one, as you would know had you not been so busy…entertaining someone yourself last night."
"Cyra is a good girl." Arri beamed, and then set to helping his brother arrange the necessary bells in long red hair. "You could have any of them you wanted, brother." Arri ran a jealous hand through his brother's hair.
"Yes, until they realized there is nothing novel about rutting with the Dancer." Kaio fussed with a particularly rebellious bit of hair, face set in a frown. "And it would be just that; rutting and hoping for a little red haired baby. And thank you, but I would rather not be ritually killed when some wench births my replacement."
"You don't know what you're missing, little brother mine." Arri waggled an eyebrow suggestively, and ducked a punch with practiced ease. "C'mon, I think your head jingles enough. Let me attend to your face and then we can run over to the temple."
Kaio sat still, if not patient, as Arri darkened around his eyes with kohl, applied red to his lips, added a faint blush to his cheeks, and finally brushed a pleased peck of a kiss onto Kaio's temple, grinning with pride. "There's our Dancer. Mother would be proud, as always."
"I should have asked for some sort of mute for an attendant." Kaio huffed, uncomfortable.
"Then who would make sure you get your lazy ass out of bed each morning?"
"Lazy?" Kaio snorted. "Who gets up early every morning…"
"Surely not you…" Arri interjected with a laugh.
"…who gets up every morning and practices the Dances so that the Master will not be displeased?" Kaio struck a haughty pose.
"You could flop about like a beached fish and the Master would applaud the same."
Third bell rang, and the brothers flinched. "Maybe we can sneak in the back?" Arri offered.
"You can. I have to walk up the damn center isle." Kaio flipped his hair over one shoulder and sighed. "How do I look?"
"Presentable. Let's run."
There was something deeply distressing about smelling ones own blood. Dia despised laying out his arms to be bound, to be cut, to be bled into pretty little bowls for the acolytes to spread with pomp and ceremony across and around the city. It would be days before Dia would be able to take a breath of incense-free air without wincing, without retching.
But, most of all, he hated having to sit through the incomprehensibly long rituals the damn clerics had decided were necessary to honor this butchery. He was damn well aware he was bleeding for their safety, and he was pretty secure in the fact at least a few housewives appreciated the gesture. He didn't have to sit through the better part of a day and hear about it.
His stomach roiled a bit as he caught another faint whiff of blood. Less talking, more incense burning. That would make him happy.
Ah…that and Kaio. There was his dancer, late as usual, pleasantly flushed and flustered but not at all meek or apologetic as the Hierarches shot a withering glare his way. The graceful man shrugged minutely as he made his way up the center of the temple, decked out in his ritual finery. Beautiful. Kaio made his way to the dais and settled to his knees at the Master's feet. Dia inhaled deeply, finding the subtle and familiar scent of musk and oil that hovered around the Dancer soothing.
"Honor be to Dia." Zelos bowed his head, finishing the Festival Devotion.
"Honor to Dia." The assembled crowd sighed.
Dia stood, as was expected, and proceeded to feel terribly silly as he brandished his arm so that all would be able to see the healing wounds. "As was sworn years ago, my blood for your safety." Gods, who wrote this insipid drivel…
"Safety in return for honor." All assembled responded.
Duty fulfilled, Dia hauled Kaio to his feet with a firm grip of braided, bell tangled hair, and began an irate retreat.
The sight of the Master with Dancer in tow, quite literally, was a common one, almost a sort of ritual in itself, and thus gathered no second thoughts as the entire city broke into rowdy celebration of another year survived. And while people did their best to get out of Dia's way as fast as possible, they had no such inclination when it came to the man doing his best to stumble along behind. It was with a decided lack of grace that Kaio attempted to dodge past people too intent on celebrating to care whether or not they made his life any easier. Just the Dancer. Just the Masters pet dancer. Kaio tried his best to glare a hole into Dia's back, pretty sure he was inventing new curses with every hip he managed to smack into, new ways to kill Dia with every elbow that hit his ribs.
To say there was drinking in excess would be an understatement. The streets were littered with garishly clad and masked men and women in varying states of inebriation, some of which had been casually, clumsily rolled to the side so as to avoid being trampled by the revelers still standing. Those foolish enough to have coin on them would wake to find their pockets and pouches lighter, adding to the painful frustration of a spectacular hangover.
But then again, that too was almost as much a part of the Festival as the ritual itself.
A myriad of tantalizingly spicy odors wafted through the air as vendors with every manner of ware imaginable set up shop, mingling with and overpowering incense and blood, finally fully replacing the solemnity of ritual with hedonistic joy. It was a contagious atmosphere, and Dia breathed a minuscule sigh of relief, slowing his reckless plunge through the crowds.
It was a time of indulgence, of enthusiastic inhibition, and no one was allowed to escape the almost defiant zeal with which the usual rules were abandoned. Not even the Master. It pulsed through his veins, rolled through the languid nonchalance with which he usually disregarded the world around him.
Kaio felt the shift in Dia's mood as the grip on his hair loosened, and deemed it a perfect time to reclaim his long mane, as well as his dignity. "Storms, Dia, can't you just ask me to come with you like a sane person?!"
It was one of those times Kaio was pretty sure he had managed to overstep tenuous bounds, as Dia rounded on him, eyes blazing.
Kaio allowed himself to be slammed into a wall. That in itself was nothing new, unfortunately. He was almost used to the feel of each little stone of the wall behind him pressing a pattern into his back. He was used to the feel of Dia wrenching hard on his hair. There were some days he wished he could just cut the damn stuff, make Dia have to find more creative ways of tossing him around.
It was then things moved from unfortunate commonality to utterly alien. Kaio had a heartbeat or three to realize he was being kissed by the Master, and then it was over. Dia turned and started walking again, face as blank as it ever was in the company of others. Leaving a rather confused Kaio to pull himself away from the wall, wince at the fact it felt as if his back would be a fantastic sort of bruised when he had Arri look at it later, and try to figure out what the hell had just happened. This was not something he knew how to handle, not something he had a standard reaction to. Hell, Dia usually went out of his way to avoid touching people in any way that wasn't aggressive. Though, the kiss could be seen as an aggressive assault, albeit one not in Dia's usual repertoire.
Aggressive, yes. There had been definite aggression in the lips pushing against, bruising his own, in the hand yanking at his hair, holding him still…
And Dia had the gall to stalk off; offended as a cat caught actually enjoying itself...Dia had the gall to act like the injured party.
Like hell.
"Master! Hey! Hold up!" It probably wasn't his wisest move, demanding the Master wait for him in public. But, hell, he was already pretty much damned. Dia's interest in him had sealed that particular fate for him long ago.
Green eyes glittered in amusement as they observed Kaio's indignant stumbling after Dia. "What a well trained puppy our Phoenix has raised." From behind an elegant mask shaped to resemble a colorful cat, an affectionate smile formed.
Suddenly a delicate nose wrinkled and the mask produced a quiet little sneeze. "Ah. Such a vulgar smell hiding behind all that incense. I can't say it does anything for the atmosphere."
Someone bounced into the cat-masked form, stumbled away with an overly loud laugh, and inquired in a voice that was only a little slurred, "What's your name?"
"Cait." Green eyes were hooded as Cait allowed the intoxicated man paw at her hair.
"So pretty…"
"Thank you." She purred, pulling the man close. "Would you know of a place for a traveler to stay?"
Drunken brown eyes glittered with an almost amusing mix of lust and glee. "I have a bed."
"That's encouraging."
"You can share it with me."
"What a wonderful idea."
There were some days Kaio wanted nothing more than to remind his brother they lived in a temple. Not that it would any good. Every lecture he had subjected Arri to had ended in the same charismatic grin- most likely the one he used to lure so many young women into his lair- and a reminder that the gods hadn't struck him down yet, so he must have been doing something right.
So his brother was incorrigible, was irrepressible; that was all well and good. some things just were, or so the clerics were wont to explain, casting their gazes to the heavens in a clever dodge of direct eye contact with whoever they were addressing.
This didn't explain why the hell Arri had seen fit to make use of Kaio's room for his festivities.
His bed.
There were some things brothers were just not meant to share.
Arri blinked awake as Kaio slammed the door shut, and grinned sheepishly around the woman sleeping with her head on his chest. "Morning, brother mine."
"Out."
"Shhh! Kya's sleeping!"
"Sleep elsewhere." Kaio hauled off the sash he had draped over one shoulder, unwound it from around his waist, and tossed it off to the left. "What happened to Cyra?"
"Kya's her sister."
"You're disgusting. Hurry up and get the hell out of my room."
"She thinks you're cute." Arri stretched, easing his way out from under the sleeping girl.
"You are not leaving her."
"You don't know what you're missing!"
"Arri, I have had a long, infuriating night. Take your woman out of my bed so I can get some damn sleep."
"Someone keep you up all night?" Arri paused in shaking Kya gently away, to leer in his brother's general direction.
Kaio wished he didn't have such fair skin, wished he couldn't feel himself blushing to match the scarlet of his hair.
Arri chuckled as he led a sleepy and naked Kya out of the room, tossing a knowing wink his brother's way as he pulled the door shut behind him.
"It's not as if anything happened…" Kaio muttered at the closed door.
He had not wanted to spend the evening trailing after the Master like some besotted whore, all infuriated blushing and defiant shouting. But when the Master said follow, one followed. The alternative was…less than pleasant. Kaio was familiar enough with Dia's moods to know now was one of those times to do whatever the Master said. He didn't want to spark off that violent temper if he could avoid it, as he didn't think he would get off with just a few hits and a snarled insult.
Tonight…the Master was out for blood.
The Festival was his, after all, even if most of the revelers had conveniently forgotten the fact as soon as the wine started to flow. Blood was on the air, burned in Dia's eyes as he stalked through crowds that parted instinctively to allow his passing. And as Kaio trailed behind, he didn't know if he was there to protect the Master or anyone who managed to get in his way.
There was just something so sensuously dangerous in the way Dia's body swayed as he walked, something aggressively suggestive lurking in his eyes as they raked the crowd, searching and daring. There were drums in the back of Kaio's head, the same drums that guided him through his dancing. It was to be a dance then this evening, a dance with something just as viciously seductive as the flames.
Dancing with Dia as opposed to dancing for him.
The drums beat a frantic pace as a man stumbled into Dia's side, drawing the Masters attention. It was all Dia needed, a target for his fey mood. As the Master moved to close in, to let loose some of the violence seething in his frightening eyes, Kaio swayed his way into Dia's line of sight. Dia's attention shifted to his Dancer, watching, almost enthralled, as Kaio writhed and swayed, following the demands of the rhythm pounding through his body.
A hand held out, beckoning…and the Master was powerless to ignore him. the crowd faded back as Kaio danced around the Master, sometimes so close his body brushed against the Master; teasing a bit, promising more. Other times he was tauntingly out of reach, encouraging the Master to advance, drawing him away from the crowds, skillfully maneuvering him to the gardens where it was as dark and desolate as any part of the city could manage to be on Festival night.
It was a delicious blasphemy, being hauled towards the Master for something as inappropriate as another incensed kiss, to feel nails biting into the flesh of his bare back as Dia held him still.
At some point the drums faded, and were replaced by the awkward and unsteady pounding of his heart, and Kaio gasped a breath as Dia released him, awareness snapping back with the same shocking abruptness as if he had been doused with icy water. Dia regarded Kaio from hooded eyes as he stepped back, reasserting the difference in their station.
Then the Master had blinked once, turned, and left Kaio standing alone in the darkness of the garden, aware of the fact a thorn bush was pressed against his left thigh, and a pebble was situated in the heel of his left sandal.
Kaio ran a hand across the back of his right shoulder, wincing slightly as he brushed the marks Dia's nails had left there. It had happened then. He hadn't dreamed it, hadn't just inhaled a bit too much ritual incense.
"Storms." Kaio hissed.
And then decided to sleep it off. Maybe things would sort themselves out while he was unconscious and he would never have to think of it again.
At least until the next time Dia demanded his presence for tea.
The nightmares were embarrassingly debilitating. Dia snarled at the cheery morning sunlight that was merrily beaming in through the open windows, and hoped no one had heard him howl.
The Master did not cry out in fear.
If anyone had heard it would be in his or her best self-interest to pretend nothing had happened.
There were fires burning in eyes slit with the beginnings of a tension headache. The glaze on a bit of pottery resting near the bedside cracked in protest to a rising heat as Dia escaped from the silks that draped his bed and attempted to gain some solace from the cool breezes drifting in off the ocean.
His nose wrinkled in disgust as the breeze carried in brine with a distinct overtone of incense. Dia's headache gained in intensity and his stomach roiled with nauseous distress, forcing him to stagger back a pace or two. It had never been this bad before…never…Dia clutched at a skull that seemed determined to split like an overripe fruit and collapsed onto the pile of cushions resting in the corner. His vision wavered, pulsing in and out of focus in time with the pain crashing through his head.
Blood and incense and pain and fear…
Dia screamed, lashing out at the ornate pottery decorating the windowsill. Nightmare and waking reality twisted together, each blurring at the edges until Dia could not determine whether or not he was bleeding or remembering the spill of his blood against cold, dark steel, the smell of his blood sizzling in the air.
A pillow too close to his feet caught fire as he stumbled backwards, terrified and angry and needing a target…
They had cut him, had caught him. Trapped, he was trapped…
The door opened and a servant crept in to check on the Master.
Dia's eyes narrowed, mouth opened in a soundless wail of triumph.
"Time to be awake, little prince."
Kaio lunged forward, intent on punching Arri, adding another crook to the bastards nose, and was baffled when he hit nothing. There had been a whisper in his ear, there had to be something to strike, to blame for waking him. Kaio cracked one exhausted bloodshot eye open, and flinched as a rough tongue dragged its way across the sore bruised flesh under his closed eye.
Of all the things…
A large black cat, with a paint splotch of white on her chest purred appreciatively and repeated the painfully affectionate gesture.
"Shoo. I don't even like cats."
The cat managed to look hurt, ears drooping and tail sagging, and Kaio decided it had to be something in the tone of his voice. "Hey now. I didn't mean it like that. I just don't like cats much. Arrogant little bastards. Remind me of a certain ass of a Master." Kaio used that tone usually applied to children and idiots and eased his way out from under his blanket, eyeing the cat carefully, wary of its claws.
"Now, don't you have somewhere you should be? I'm sure a pretty girl like you belongs to someone." The cat arched her back and rubbed against Kaio as he maneuvered into a sitting position, brushing his nose with the tip of her tail.
One hand idly caressing its way down the cat's spine, the other scratching at his bare stomach Kaio yawned, his jaw creaking under the force of the particularly forceful movement. He paused, mouth open wide enough to catch flies, his nostrils flaring slightly as he caught a hint of what smelled like fire.
In the temple proper one did not smell fire without incense.
"Ah. Hell."
"KAIO!" Arri slammed through the ornate door that separated their rooms, the whites of usually cheery eyes vivid with panic. "The Master's chambers are on fire!"
"There are easier ways to have a temper tantrum." Kaio fumbled his way off his bed, swatting at the cat insistently mewling at his feet.
"Are you made of stone? Hurry up!"
"Arri, stop your damn fretting. I'll take care of it."
"But…" Arri paused, obviously taken a bit aback at the thought of his little brother charging headfirst and shirtless into the fray.
"Immune to fire, remember? It's why everyone puts up with my insolence." Tripping over the cat Kaio snarled every word he had promised his mother he would never utter. "Get rid of this damn thing."
And then he was in the hall, leaving his sputtering brother and irritating feline behind. 'This is what I get for spending too many nights in the temple. The fates decided I should make myself useful. Soon as all this is done, I am crawling back to my nice little hut on the edge of town and pretending I don't have to meet the Master for tea tomorrow.'
The Dancer was little more than an elevated servant, and as such, his official chambers were well away from the exalted apartment the Master commanded. This led to Kaio having a long jog, cursing every extra, unnecessary inch of fabric billowing against his legs with each hurried step. His footfalls echoed oddly through empty halls, all the usual guards having rushed to the Master, all the usual servants gone to gawk. The smell of smoke grew stronger as a slight haze dimmed candles and lamps. To Kaio it was a familiar perfume, but he didn't like the sweet edge to it, the taunting hint of seared flesh.
"Dia, if this is because you didn't like how someone smiled at you, I'm going to kill you. Just as soon as I save the rest of these sorry asses who worship you."
"Kaio! Thank the spirits..."
"Save it. What the hell is going on?" Kaio glared at the flustered cleric, blithely ignoring protocol and rank.
"The Master…the Master has taken leave of his senses."
"Well, isn't that a fantastic way to start my afternoon." Kaio peered past the flustered man, trying to make sense of the jerky movements in the thick smoke down the hall. "What's all that?"
"We sent some servants…"
"Well, wasn't that brilliant. Smells like at least one ended up a little singed." Kaio untied the sloppily tied sash holding his pants and let the silk puddle at his feet. "No point in wasting good silk." Kaio explained to the affronted cleric and then stalked towards the source of the smoke.
There was definitely a good fire going somewhere close by. Kaio could feel the heat licking along his skin in a familiar greeting. A young man stumbled by, his senses jumbled by the smoke, and Kaio reached out a steadying hand, grabbing a slender shoulder and turning the youth to face the way he had just come from. "Clear air that way. Get going."
After making sure the kid was fumbling in the right direction, Kaio continued, his own lungs starting to burn from the abrasive contact with the thick smoke. 'Good thing I can find my way to the bastard half asleep. This would be hell otherwise.' There was one door that opened to the Master's suite, and then a maze of elaborate rooms and tiny waiting chambers greeted any visitors. Dia favored the room he took tea in, the room he met Kaio in, often sleeping on the piles of pillows there as opposed to his opulent bed. It was the hardest room to find for a newcomer, and the easiest for Kaio. He bypassed the worst pockets of smoke, stumbled across marble that was cracked and even burned, and walked into an inferno as soon as he came upon his goal.
Kaio had an instant to wish he was as smoke proof as he was fire proof before worry for Dia overwhelmed self preservation. It would have been far more dramatic for the Master to be standing in the center of the room, radiating fire and wrath. The sad reality of the situation had him placed in a corner, crouched, head in his hands.
"Dia…" Kaio whispered, voice barely carrying over the hungry gnawing of flames on Dia's favorite table, on his beloved cushions. Approaching slowly, cautiously, Kaio continued speaking to the distressed avatar. "Hey now. I'm sorry I was late for tea the other day. Not your fault, right? Ok, maybe a little your fault, but that's only because you want tea so early. Honestly, how can you expect me to be awake at that hour? Ah, Dia, you got your own hair this time. Look at that. Your ends are a mess. What are we going to tell all the ladies?"
At a gentle touch to his shoulder, Dia looked up, and Kaio winced. Dia's eyes were pits of embers, but there was no recognition, not even any anger remained. Dia's eyes, devoid of even petty irritation, were a sight so alien it prompted an equally alien reaction. Kaio bent low and pressed a gentle kiss to his friend's forehead. A low whine worked its way out of Dia's throat, and Kaio sighed.
Which filled his lungs with a good amount of smoke, prompting a painful bout of coughing. "I don't mind the heat, my friend, but the smoke is getting to me. C'mon now, up you go…"
Hauling on the Master was obviously a bad idea. The whine transformed into a vicious snarl, and Kaio did his best to ignore the fire that flashed down his arm. "That wasn't necessary."
It must have been Kaio's audacity that pulled Dia out from whatever nightmare was tearing at him. Burning eyes narrowed, then filled with relief as a hand reached to slowly trail through the ends of Kaio's hair.
"Mine." Dia whispered, voice hoarse.
"Eh, we'll discuss that later, alright? Now I just want to get you out of here."
Dia managed a nod, and then slumped against Kaio.
The
slap echoed across polished marble, through the silence left as
clerics attempted to decide whether to kill the child where it stood
or run for cover. The adolescent in question was busy rubbing the
back of his head with the same hand that was responsible for the red
mark blooming across a seated, younger child's left cheek. "That
hurt, stupid."
There was a sound that resembled someone choking
on their own tongue in the background as the redheaded source of
trouble settled back down, frowning sulkily."KAIO!" Someone had
apparently decided the best course of action, and advanced on the
kneeling redhead with a murderous expression.
The adolescent
looked up, unrepentant, unperturbed. "He started it."
That
prodded the seated child out of his stunned silence. "I did
not!"
"Kaio! You do not hit the Master!"
"He pulled
my hair." Kaio frowned, leaning his head against the Master's
knee.
"I was playing with it. I did not pull." The Master
hissed, starting to get angry at his playmate's apparent
pigheadedness. Glowing eyes narrowed, and a hand tightened into a
tangle of Kaio's long red hair. Dia smiled sweetly, and then he
yanked, hard enough to pull Kaio off balance. As Kaio hit the marble
with a satisfyingly solid thud, Dai relaxed, ill temper vanishing as
if it had never been. "That was a pull."
Kaio stared up at
the Master, caught somewhere between stupefied and furious, and then
started to pull himself to his feet. Only to have his hair caught
into another forceful grasp, only this one did not let go. The cleric
shook Kaio by the hair, intent on shaking the severity of Kaio's
transgression into the youth.
"Iereas" Dia called, voice
sharp. "Kaio is mine. What are you doing?"
the cleric ceased
his shaking, but did not relinquish his grip. "He struck at you,
Master. He must be punished."
"I want him near me."
"But
Master…"
"Iereas!"
"Little prick." The cleric
hissed into Kaio's ear before shoving him down. Kaio caught himself
on his knees with a grunt of pain as bone hit marble. There was no
time to sit and sulk though, Dia was waiting, and could decide he was
bored with his redhead just as fast as he had decided to defend him.
Kaio hobbled his way to Dia's feet on bruised knees, desperately
trying to keep a wince from his face. Not in front of the Master. He
must never seem unhappy to be near the Master.
As soon as he
reclaimed his place at Dia's feet he felt a hand settle onto the
top of his head, felt it press for an instant in a rare moment of
empathy. The young Master and his embarrassingly improper dog of a
Dancer. Kaio smirked in spite of himself, and from the disgruntled
snort he heard knew at least one of the Master's attendants had
seen.
"I didn't pull." Dia whispered. "My finger got
caught."
He would be whipped if any of the clerics heard the
Master apologizing to him, and somehow it just made his grin wider.
"I know."
His smirk withered a bit later as Dia pulled
thoughtfully on his hair in the middle of a formal petition. Kaio
hoped Dia's fidgeting with his hair wasn't going to become a
habit…
The dream blended curiously into the fuzzy reality of waking up as Kaio blinked grit from his eyes and leaned into the hand stroking slowly at his hair. A contented sigh broke into gasping coughs as his throat and chest reminded him he had ingested an unfortunate amount of smoke recently. The hand that had been stroking cupped the back of his head, holding him steady as his chest convulsed. Kaio blinked through watering eyes and realized he was not alone, and he was not clothed.
"Storms." He snarled in a voice so rough it sounded alien, lurching away and rounding on his companion.
Dia. Always Dia.
Damn, the man could have at least put on a pair of pants. Maybe a long shirt. Anything really. On the list of things Kaio didn't want to have to deal with first thing upon waking, a naked and unhappy looking Master most definitely held first place. Dia looked smaller without his ritual finery, oddly vulnerable without the obvious signs of his station to fall back on. "They will kill me this time, you bastard."
Dia winced slightly at the harsh grating of Kaio's voice, and had the grace to look at least a little uncomfortable. "Unlikely. You did save them."
"Yes, right before I apparently decided to spend a marvelously sacrilegious evening curled up in your bed, neither of us with a stitch on." Kaio paused to hack up some smoky phlegm before continuing his rant. "Fires, Dia, they get their robes in a knot when you deign to pat me on the head. I am sure they aren't going to ignore my sleeping in your bed!"
"…they don't know."
That stopped Kaio in his tracks. "How the hell do they not know?"
Dia pointed towards a clutter of pillows in the corner. "I had them prepare you a bed."
Kaio entertained a few images of pummeling the Master with the expensive silk cushions. It helped settle his furious pulse, but did nothing for the irritated headache throbbing to life behind his eyes. Pants. If the Master was going to flaunt his divine assets, that was his own business. Kaio, on the other hand, wanted nothing more than to reestablish some sort of natural order, and the natural order of things involved being at least partially clothed when in the presence of the Master. "I don't suppose some poor servant brought my clothing by after everything died down?"
"The silk was smoke damaged."
"We will make a fine pair then, my pants and I."
"I ordered them burned."
There was a limit to what an exhausted, embarrassed, smoke-damaged Dancer could take. Kaio had just about reached it. "I am to walk bare assed back to my room then?"
Dia was apparently just as done with being polite. "You will walk through town naked were I to order it."
"Try it."
In hindsight, challenging Dia hadn't been the brightest of ideas.
Kaio was sure jokes about his manhood would be hovering around the Temple for generations to come. As another guard snickered, Kaio scowled and pretended he was looking at a flower and not trying desperately to face anywhere but towards other people. He needed to learn when to keep his damn mouth shut. Any chance of prying what had happened last night out of Dia had been lost, and every man, woman, child, and eunuch he passed now knew exactly what he kept under his ritual garb.
It was not turning out to be the best of days.
Maybe he shouldn't have lost his temper.
It was an idea discarded almost as soon as it crossed his mind. Kaio had no business getting so demanding. He should have let the little git sleep on the floor…
Dia scowled, and conversation in the garden ceased. The Master was in a bad mood, the Master had burned through half of his wing of the Temple. Everyone was walking softly, intent on paying their daily respects while not attracting the Master's attention.
The tangled bit of flowering vine Dia had been scowling at wilted a bit beneath the literal heat of his gaze and his attendants took a furtive step or three back.
"Well, this is no way to have a party."
It might have been the utterly irreverent tone of voice, it might have been the novelty of a woman being allowed in his presence, but Dia's attention shifted instantly back to his immediate environment. He turned to face a woman his clerics were doing their best to chase off.
"You let her get this close, you might as well let her remain and have her say."
"But, Master…"
"It's a result of your own inattentive stupidity. Stand down and let her approach."
Dia watched the woman strut towards him. She was, in her own way, as graceful as his Kaio, but she was actively trying to sell her elegant curves with every swaying step, every suggestive tilt of her hips. There was something utterly…fascinating about her, a scent in the air, the gleam in her grinning green eyes.
"To be allowed before the Master. What a lucky bairn I am." Her voice was a husky purr that promised all manner of earthly satisfaction as she paused an arms length away. She didn't bow or express any outward sign of respect, merely gazed at the Master and slowly ran her tongue along her upper lip.
All in all, Dia found the situation unsettling in its familiarity. And, as was his wont, when uncomfortable he retreated behind the indifferent mask of the Master. "And who are you?"
"Cait. My name is Cait." She smiled sweetly, revealing canines that had no business being that long in a human mouth. Or that pointed.
A quick glance to either side informed Dia no one else had noticed the anomaly. His damn fool clerics were too busy being offended at the woman's presence to perceive anything odd. "Cait." The name tasted odd in his mouth, foreign. "To what do I owe this visit?"
"Curiosity." Cait flashed a quick, toothy grin, a rather infectiously energetic expression that Dia was hard pressed not to mimic.
"Others would at least pretend to be honoring me." Dia drawled.
"Aye, that they would. But when did the Phoenix need such a silly thing as the forced praise of a human?"
"That is quite enough!"
Dia had begun to wonder what had happened to his chief nursemaid. It wasn't like Zelos to let his charge play unattended for so long. And right on cue the Hierarches entered the garden and stalked forward, an indignant ball of stunted ambition. "I found this conversation utterly fascinating. We shall have to continue it sometime."
Cait nodded amiably. "Yes, that would be fun, wouldn't it?"
"Who let this…thing approach?" Zelos positioned himself between the Master and his irreverent visitor.
"I did." Dia yawned. "She interested me."
"Master, not everyone means you well…"
"Trust me, Hierarches, I am well aware of that fact."
Zelos and Dia shared a moment of perfect understanding as their eyes met, and Zelos was first to look away. The head cleric hid his discomfort by returning his attention to the unwanted visitor before him. "Someone escort this…lady from the Temple."
"Your tea is waiting." A cleric offered, hoping to soothe the Masters obviously unpleasant mood.
Dia allowed an almost pleased smile to ghost across his face. Tea. And his comfortingly familiar Dancer.
"Thus returns the hero of the day…storms man, where are your pants?"
Kaio snarled something heavy with brotherly obscenities and stalked into his room. His back was so stiff his vertebrae seemed to have fused into a stubborn, stressed defense against the catcalls and jeers that had followed him for the past mark or so. The last thing he wanted to deal with was the well-meaning harassment of his older brother.
"You have a room. Why don't you haul some woman into it, rut like amorous goats, and send her home so you can forget her name?"
"Someone call you names or something? I haven't seen you this upset since that time I tied your robes in that knot around…"
"Arri. Get out."
Kaio wasn't a private person. He couldn't be, not as the Dancer, a position that used him as a ceremonial figurehead, a part of the ritual decorations of the city. But he wasn't the sort of exhibitionist that would be comfortable walking around town with a blush that stretched from his waist to hairline. He wanted to be alone, wanted to try to convince every mortified muscle to unclench. And for any manner of relaxation to occur, he needed Arri gone.
"You ok, little brother?"
Kaio shuddered slightly as a hand settled on his shoulder ever so lightly, most likely ready to pull away as the first hint of movement on Kaio's part. Arri was an irreverent, irresponsible lout with an easy smile and a quick wit. He was also fiercely loyal to his little brother. It wasn't often Arri touched him like that anymore, quietly comforting. Kaio was too obstinately independent, too determined to take on the world single-handedly without a care for damages incurred.
It wasn't Dia's mean streak that had him upset. It wasn't the jeers and familiar insults various guards and townsfolk had spat at him. He coped as he always did, by entertaining images of slapping the Master, of lithely, blithely, trouncing the worst offenders. It was the utter confusion of the past few days finally catching up with him, and he didn't like it.
He allowed himself to lean into his brothers hand for a few seconds, to take the sting out the words he was about to utter. "Arri, leave me alone."
"I'll be next door, kid. Scream if you need anything."
"Do me a favor and keep Tia from screaming." Kaio managed a stern expression turning towards his brother.
"Cyra. Tia was last month." Arri's smile flashed white the instant before a bell starting ringing. Kaio glared, and Arri sighed. "Lets get you dressed, little brother. It looks like the Master demands your attention."
Kaio frowned as a word bubbled its way to the front of his mind, and escaped out from between his lips before he could decide it was a bad idea. "No."
It was Arri's turn to frown, and expression usually out of place on his congenial face. "I know you've had a bit of a bad day, Kaio, and I know the Master really is responsible for it, but when that bell rings, you go."
"Not today."
"C'mon. Let me get you dressed. I'll even do your hair up how you liked it that once. You'll feel better then."
Kaio pushed past his rather baffled brother, scrounging for a pair of pants and ignoring Arri's hopeful suggestion.
"Kaio. As your only living relative, and the one they will definitely hang beside you, is there any way I can convince you what a bad idea this is?"
"Nope." Kaio tied his pants on with a sash that belonged with another pair, brushed his hair back with a hand, and reached for the door.
Arri watched his brother leave with a mournful expression. "I am going to hang with that damn fool. And knowing my luck he will piss on me as he chokes."
A tall ship, sails slightly battered from some storm or another, slipped into port, sporting an entourage of barking seals. The captain oversaw the unloading of a plethora of casks and barrels, hardly noticing when his one passenger disembarked.
The short, stocky man removed his long overcoat, a garment rendered unnecessary by the blazing sun, and combed a hand through unruly dark curls in an attempt to reassert some sort of order. He was a tempting target, a stranger standing alone in the middle of the bustling docks, and one young pickpocket decided to try his luck on the situation. A smile twitched the man's full lips as he turned to look directly at the young thief that had been slinking closer.
"I have a better idea. You show me where I can find an honest inn with passable ale, and I will give you coin." The man's voice was thickly accented, slurring along the unfamiliar vowels and cadence of the trade tongue. "Sound fair?"
The would-be thief managed a nod.
"Excellent. Proceed."
There were exactly five inns that offered fine wine in the city. Kaio had sampled them all, and had decided the Jade Turtle had the finest. Unfortunately he was far from staggering drunk when he ran out of reputable businesses to patronize. It was then Kaio had the brilliant idea to turn his attention towards the docks. He was halfway through the cheaper of the dockside taverns; sampling brews with all the appeal of warm piss, when his earlier decision caught up with him.
The Hungry Hydra was not a place one usually ran into Temple Guards. They entered the tavern with the displeasure of those not used to having to step over and around vomit, and scanned the room with enough casual irritation to suggest they had been doing this for quite some time. All in all, Kaio was surprised it had taken them so long. He was well and truly inebriated, and had been since he had gulped down that rather large portion of the Surly Wench's supply of cheap ale. And that had been at least a mark ago. Kaio saluted the Guards with the brazen cheer of the happily drunk.
The Guards smiled the dark smirks of those about to enjoy something they had been long denied. They couldn't very well knock the Master's favored companion around, but a Dancer in disgrace was an entirely different animal.
Part icon, part religious whipping boy, the Dancer was a curious individual. And without the blanket of the Master's interest, he was the bottom of the food chain.
At least he had managed to vomit on at least one Guard. It was the small bit of satisfaction Kaio found amidst the pummeling he was subjected to outside the Hydra. It was a short but brutally efficient expression of displeasure, and Kaio had no question as to his current status as they hefted him up out of his defensively fetal position and proceeded to drag him back through town, making sure he was relieved of any dignity he had managed to retain after his morning walk.
At least he hadn't bothered to wear any clothes he was going to miss, given he lived long enough to miss them.
His head was swimming with a combination of alcohol and concussion, so Kaio hardly noticed when he was dropped into an inelegant pile onto marble. Cool marble. As soon as he realized what he was prone on, Kaio shifted a bit, tried to get at least one temple in contact with the perpetually cool surface, hoping it would soothe the agony in his head.
Only to be disturbed by a familiar sandaled foot nudging his chin none too gently. Kaio rolled his eyes upwards, terrified that if he moved his head he would vomit on the Master's foot, but needing to see what was on Dia's face.
He could have lived never having seen the look in Dia's glowing eyes. A good portion of anger mixed with a guilt-inspiring dose of betrayed hurt. Though, it seemed the hurt was doing a fine job of transmuting itself into a seething loathing.
"Leave us." Dia commanded.
Kaio watched the smirking Guards retreat, and wondered if he would ever get to see their familiarly unpleasant sneers again. Right now his prospects didn't appear to be so good.
"Stand."
On one hand, Kaio was inclined to laugh at the command. His sense of balance had jumped ship long ago, and nausea was threatening to incite a complete abdominal revolt should he even attempt movement. On the other hand…telling the Master no once was bad enough.
Taking a deep breath and gathering every protesting muscle and abused organ, Kaio struggled to his feet.
Dia stalked a tight circle around him, taking note of every twitching muscle, every bruise and smear of blood, growing more obviously agitated with every new observation. Kaio was good at reading the Master's moods; it usually saved him unnecessary pain. He watched Dia struggle, trying to decide whether to be furious or miserable, and becoming more irritable the longer he tried to sort his emotions out.
There was fault in both camps, and each man acknowledged it. Dia was too proud, and too stubborn to admit his wrong, and Kaio was too upset to apologize for his own careless offense. It was a volatile situation, and Kaio did not see it ending well for him.
A second later his trepidation was vindicated as Dia unleashed his displeasure in the form of a very mundane punch to Kaio's elegant cheekbone. The Master packed one hell of a punch. Kaio's neck cracked in protest and his eyes watered. It was one last indignity, a primal defeat, and Kaio was suddenly rather tired of it all.
"Master, I am sorry."
Sorry for all manner of things, his inability to remain standing as ordered being one of them. Kaio felt his leg muscles give one last valiant shuddering attempt at holding him upright before he began a stumbling sag towards the floor.
An arm around his waist allowed him to fall slower, saved his knees further abuse. Dia glared at him from eyes terrifying in their intensity. "Don't do that again."
The implied please, though most likely unintended, was heard by both.
"Yes, Master."
Dia pressed his forehead against Kaio's briefly, and then was gone.
Kaio only hoped the Master had thought to send for a servant or two. Otherwise it was going to be a long, uncomfortable stay in the middle of the foyer for him, seeing as his body was rather interested in avoiding movement for the time being.
The first time Kaio touched Dia, the Master had flinched back with startled horror.
"What?" A puzzled Kaio asked, curious, but utterly unrepentant in regards to his breech of protocol. The Master had stumbled at awkward odds with his growing body, and Kaio had merely offered a steadying hand to the Master's shoulder. A common enough action, and it had saved the Master a set of undignified grazed knees.
It might have been the fact the gods did not strike Kaio down immediately for his transgression, or the fact that the Dancer was currently looking at him with a decidedly friendly concern, but a considering glint twisted through Dia's eyes.
The second time Kaio touched Dia it was on command.
"Come here."
Kaio smiled with an older brothers affectionate indulgence at Dia's imperious tone, much to the continued ire of the attending clerics, and made his way to Dia's side. "Yes, Master?"
"Sit."
Kaio arranged himself on the ground where Dia pointed, folding his legs, and waiting for further instruction.
None came. The young Master clambered from his chair and, with a tentative grace, settled himself on top of Kaio's folded legs. Kaio stared wonderingly at the tiny form in his lap, and wondered when the clerics were going to kill him.
One started forward, obviously intending on hauling Kaio out from his heretical seat, only to be stopped in his tracks by a firm "leave him alone" from the Master.
Kaio blinked, trying to get his adolescent mind to sort through what was going on, and came to a stunning conclusion. Over the Master's head, Kaio stuck his tongue out at the fuming clerics. This was going to be fun.
Dia exhaled, a quiet, content sound and leaned back against Kaio.
It was the happiest sound Kaio had ever heard the Master make.
He had a quiet little smile on his own face as he rested his head most sacrilegiously atop Dia's head. Finally…finally he felt like he was paying the Master back for his kindness so many years ago.
Kaio opened his eyes with a groan. The gods were forging divine weapons inside his skull. It was the only way to explain the pulsing pain. Maybe if he rolled onto his back…if nothing else it would alleviate some of the pressure on the bruised side of his face. The canopy overhead cut the sunlight at least…
Kaio's brain caught up with his vision and his heart did a tragic summersault.
He was not in his bed.
He was not in Arri's bed.
Where the hell was he?
With a groan Kaio gathered abused muscles and pulled himself upright, and immediately glanced about for a bowl as his stomach protested the movement. A servant stepped forward, basin in hand, and Kaio choked the remnants of booze and bile into the offered receptacle. Concussion. Sore chest. Sore muscles. Kaio took stock of his damaged anatomy as the servant moved away to empty his burden.
Servant. Dressed in Red and Gold.
Kaio's realization inspired his stomach to even greater realms of acidic distress. Dia's personal servants meant Dia's inner rooms. He was somewhere in that impossible warren of rooms that was Dia's inner sanctum. He wasn't in Dia's main chambers; the spicy scent that clung to the Master was missing. There were a handful of bedchambers scattered about the Master's quarters, remnants of other incarnations with different tastes. This particular one had been a sight more fond of luxury than the Master Kaio knew. Silk was everywhere, draped above the bed, along the walls. Smirking masks made entirely of exotic feathers peered out from every possible nook; their empty eyes impossibly expressive, slightly mocking.
Under the newer odors of sweat and bile, the room retained a generic, sterile sort of aroma- the kind that lingered in the absence of human intervention. Kaio, feeling anxious in a way that had nothing to do with nausea, suffered a rare and honest moment of feeling like he was intruding.
Kaio wanted the servant back. Wanted a lizard to scrabble up the wall. Hell, he could deal with a bit of cobweb drifting in a lazy breeze, anything was preferable to the almost frozen silence of the room. It looked as if its owner had just stepped out, but smelled as if the same individual had been gone for time past counting. The room was holding its breath, and Kaio didn't want to disturb it. His brain, a bit addled from slamming into his skull one too many times earlier, encouraged his body to attempt a panicked retreat. Protesting muscles screamed into action under the influence of far too much adrenaline and he slipped out of bed, and stumbled to his knees as his vision wavered and his stomach voiced a fierce disagreement to the current plan of action.
"While the gesture is appreciated, and usually appropriate, I don't believe you belong on your knees just now."
In one last epic show of will, Kaio rolled his head to look upwards in dazed amazement. There was an unfamiliar, slightly teasing humor in a familiar voice…
"You look hideous. Back to bed with you."
An arm wrapped around Kaio's waist, hauling him to his feet. "You need to eat more. You're one scrawny rat."
"…Dia?"
There was an instant of nostalgia, where Kaio swore he was being held in the strong arms of a previous Master, the one who had taken the time to comfort a lost child, and then Dia's eyes iced over, regaining their now familiar cautious distance.
"Back in bed. I can't have a sick Dancer for the end of Festival."
Kaio would have given his hair to tease Dia into a wresting match. To tickle the Master in a fit of sacrilegious glee…anything to startle the edge out of the Master's eyes. Instead he had to resort to a weak attempt at humor. "Don't waste good blankets on me. I'll just bleed all over them."
Dia's eyes narrowed, trying to sort out if Kaio was trying to avoid him. His frown loosened a bit as he took in Kaio's genuine discomfort, hidden flippantly as usual beneath humor that worked far better in Arri's hands.
"I have red silk on my bed."
Kaio coughed, having managed to inhale and choke on his own saliva as Dia blithely insinuated that Kaio ought to crawl into his bed. Dia patted him on the back in an ineffectual attempt to alleviate Kaio's respiratory convulsions, using it as an excuse to pull Kaio closer.
"Are we alright?" Kaio rasped into Dia's ear, taking a moment to rest his head on the Master's shoulder.
"As much as we ever are." Dia answered, pressing his cheek against Kaio for a brief second before stepping back and depositing Kaio into the arms of a waiting servant.
After all, it wouldn't do for the Master to carry his Dancer back to his room like some barbarian returning from a raid.
Let Kaio kick at the servant in dismay when he realized just where he was being carried. Dia smiled, for the first time in a good long time, and pretending to ignore the servants quiet sigh of relief at having seen the expression.
First the robe, cold silk winding carefully across bruised flesh, staring at servants, daring them to comment on each cut that marred his chest as they pulled shut and tied his robe. Next the sash, pulled tight in defiance of the sore muscles there, the battered hip, tied at his back with a severe utility and left to hang like waterlogged plumage. Bracelets of gold beaten paper-thin came next, slipping onto and hiding the marks of rough handling that marked his wrists. Jewels and bells were placed through long red hair with the precision of a master craftsman adding the last few details, making sure the final product with please and amaze, as a gold necklace was snapped around his neck.
Kaio flexed sort muscles, tried to ignore the way the pressure in his head surged with each movement, threatening a headache at any moment, and then bowed low before the altar, ignoring the sneer of the cleric that daubed gold to his forehead with mechanical words of blessing. Incense swirled with headache, encasing his thoughts in a whirlwind of distraction as he stood, grasping the staves offered by a youthful acolyte gone all nervous and wide eyed at the honor.
And then to his stage, his heavy stalking steps loosing their edge the closer he came to his platform in the sky, as the drums started in the back of his mind. It was an inescapable rhythm, a heartbeat, sounding in his ears in that hazy between time right before waking, fiercely pounding in anger, in the aftermath of laughter; the surge of the sea against the rocks, the thunder of an approaching storm. Dia's heartbeat. The drumming that urged his blood to boil.
The air crackled with intensity; thunder pounding through the stone with every step Kaio took as he surged across the platform, seeking the single flame at its middle. Ignoring ceremony he lunged forward, plunged his staves into the fire and rolled back, twisting into a dance as soon as the fire began to spread and burn along their oiled surface.
Dia watched, enthralled, as Kaio advanced across the stage and nearly attacked the ritual flame burning at its center.
It was a feral dance, a look that was almost one of pain, twisted Kaio's features as he swayed and spared with the fire in his hands, as he caressed it along every inch of his body. It was a violent seduction as Kaio ignored his audience, his attention firmly on the fire, on something only he could hear, only he could see as he writhed amongst the flames, his ritual robes reduced to ash as he worked his way ever closer, seeking more intimate contact with the fires he celebrated.
Dia tasted blood, and realized he had bitten into, nearly through, his lower lip. A drop of blood made it to the ground and on the platform Kaio's head swung around to face where the Master sat watching. A mirage of wings flailed through the air as Kaio threw his arms to the side, rolled his shoulders and leaned his head forward and down, tossing the staves to the side, before collapsing to the ground.
He lay panting for a long moment, staves sputtering out, before an acolyte hurried forward to help the exhausted Dancer off the stage.
Dia stared, mouth dry of saliva and growing bitter with pooling blood from the cut in his lip. Something twisted in the back of his mind, frantic with fluttering wings and incoherent howling. He never noticed when he stood, ignored the hand placed on his shoulder in a horrifying breach of protocol. His attention was focused inward, projecting outward towards the stage where afterimages of his Dancer lingered. There was something there, in the violence of Kaio's dance; in the way he had attacked a ritual that had been one of almost languid indulgence. There was something he needed to know…
"Dia."
Dia rounded on the intruder with a snarl, eyes blazing.
Zelos stood, projecting calm confidence, a censer hanging from his left hand. "Stand down, Dia."
Dia's nose wrinkled in displeasure, and the thing in the corner of his mind screamed and hissed in thwarted fury as the sweet, heavy scent of the incense curled through the air, distracting him.
"The Festival is over, Master. Time for you to rest."
Dia glared hatred at the man standing before him, mind echoing with ghostly whispers of betrayal. He tried to hang onto the anger, but his stomach started to roil as the scent of incense thickened, his head grew heavy with tension and threatened headache. Dia gathered his simple white robes and stalked off, casually throwing the only cleric that dared follow him into the nearest wall.
Zelos stood a moment longer, trying to convince his hand to release its white knuckled grip on the chain of the censer. Close. That had been too close.
There were things to be appreciated in life; fine wine, good music, and a willing woman between the sheets.
Or on the floor, as enthusiasm would have it.
Arri buried his face in a cascade of almost dappled hair, gasping in bliss so divine it was only appropriate his quarters were within the temple walls. Everyone had their own way of honoring the Powers That Be. Arri was just a bit more hands on than others. Teeth bit into his shoulder, encouraging him even as they broke skin and Arri's entire body tried to shudder, only to be retrained by the legs clamped around his middle, the nails digging into his back. This was no demure city bred woman. This was a northern succubus, hissing encouragement and promises into his ears in a husky, accented voice.
A thud independent of the ones his merry rutting produced, snagged his attention.
A slam followed, and the sound of breaking glass.
"Storms." Arri gasped. Of all the times for his stiff spine, limp-dick little brother to come home in a temper…
In an epic display of brotherly devotion, Arri pulled himself away from the beautiful woman as another thud caused a knot in his stomach that had nothing to do with unsatisfied lust.
He ignored the clawed hands that dug into him in an almost violent displeasure, stumbled to his feet and fumbled his way through the door that separated his room from Kaio's.
A pile of crimson decorated the center of the room, Kaio's hair spread in a surreal parody of the silks that draped across his splayed body. Kaio's body shuddered sporadic convulsions that were part exhaustion part pain as narrowed eyes stared off at something beyond the room he had collapsed into. The washbasin had been pulled from the stand, ruining the silk sheets that had been pulled from the bed by, Arri assumed, Kaio's unorthodox entry. The door was damaged beyond repair and hung limply in the frame, a handprint burned into its center.
"Sweet Lady…"
Arri turned, eyes narrowed, as Cait moved to stand beside him.
"Arri, let me see him."
Arri tried to ignore the goose bumps that surged into existence at the way she rolled his name, and watched in wary awe as Cait moved forward with a fascinating lithe elegance. As soon as she reached to touch Kaio he surged towards his brother, placing himself between the semi-conscious man and naked woman.
"Arri…"
"Pull the ruined sheets away from the bed." Arri ordered quietly.
"I can help him…"
"By getting the bed ready."
Her eyes narrowed, upper lip twitched a bit to reveal long sharp canines.
"I deal with far scarier things than you on a daily basis. Have you see Kaio first thing in the morning?" Arri turned his back to her, ignoring the way the flesh on his back tried to crawl away from the discomfort of her stare. "You are though, the first woman to be more interested in my brother than me."
"He is…important."
"He's my only family. So either help with the bed or get the hell out."
"Ar….ri?"
Arri knelt, and gathered Kaio close, wincing at the heat radiating off of his limp body. "Hey little brother. Overdo it again. didja?"
Kaio worked his tongue around his mouth for a moment, trying to sort out what was going on. His forehead wrinkled in confusion and pain. "Hurts…"
"Heya, I know. Hold tight, gonna heft you up a bit, ok?"
Arri tried not to wince at the little hurt sounds that escaped Kaio's throat as he was lifted. "Storms, kid, you are scorching." He tried a crooked smile. "How is that fair? You are the fireproof one. You should be toting around the one who feels like they are on fire."
"Please. Let me help."
"And what can you do for him, woman?" Arri shifted his burden, feeling the skin on his arms tighten. He was burning. Holding Kaio was burning him.
"Let me touch him."
Arri wanted nothing more than to send the exotic beauty packing…but she reminded him, in some perverse way, of Dia. She had that same fey arrogance, that same tentative majesty... "You hurt him, and you die." Arri snapped, making himself hold still as she approached, gritting his teeth as she leaned forward and ran a tongue across Kaio's forehead.
Kaio howled, every muscle jerking taut, and Arri tried desperately to hold onto him. Kaio screamed shrilly, eyes wild and tearing, and then went limp, sobbing raggedly.
"What did you do to him?" Arri snarled, cradling Kaio close. "You daimon! What did you do to him?"
"Saved his life." Cait snapped, dropping all deferential pretense in favor of angry exhaustion and sagging against the wall. "Too much dancing."
"Explain that in words that make sense while I get him in bed." Arri growled, unwilling to drop his anger.
"Your city and its thrice damned festival." Cait waved a disgusted hand. "What happened to the last Dancer?"
"Sacrificed when Kaio was born." Arri hissed, not wanting to discuss it in front of an already unstable Kaio.
"What a waste. Why?"
Arri stared, his attention pulled from settling Kaio amidst his favorite pillows by the spite in Cait's voice. "That's…there is always only one Dancer."
"Bound and bled." Cait jeered. "Such a sweet expression of gratitude."
"It keeps us safe!"
"Silly boy! Then why am I here?"
There were some things to which there was no graceful answer, no suave response. Arri turned from the large cat that had started grooming itself almost violently across the room and cast a baleful look at his brother. "Things can never be easy with you, can they?"
It was an undignified sort of sneeze, the type that you either had to pretend never happened or find some way to wish well upon the sneezer without drawing more attention to the sneeze itself. An awkward position for those currently filling the Hall, with its astounding acoustics. Dia wiped at his nose, face crinkled in casual discomfort. The smoke of half a dozen censers filled the air with zealous fervor, adding a dusky, ethereal shade to the proceedings as a red robed man shouted entreaties to the elements.
Dia cracked a crooked smile at the young woman at his side, eyes gone almost black with his calm, his resolve. The answering smile was not so secure, not near as bold, quivering along delicate lips as if she were trying desperately to hold onto it, as if it were struggling to be something, somewhere, else. She rested a hand on a stomach grown bulky with child, rubbing with short, nervous movements.
"Dia…"
He leaned over, bending down to nuzzle his face into her hair, breathing deeply of cinnamon, smelling a hint of flour. "You smell divine."
She blushed in a flurry of small nervous movements, acting like the little bird Dia affectionately called her. With a laugh, ignoring the looks the assembled clerics were casting his way, Dia folded his arms around her. "Don't worry, little bird. All will be well. I'll make sure you will be taken care of. All of you."
She shivered as he pulled away, aborting a desperate reach after him, wanting to be engulfed in the soothing heat of him for at least a moment longer…
Dia stalked his way to the center of the large hall, to the space that had been cleared on the marble floor. He sniffed in disdain at the various occult symbols the men had carved there and lowered his head. The humans…they didn't know better, thought those little scratchings could call, could contain a god.
He would show them a god.
Poised on the balls of his feet, head cocked to the side, he raised one arm in a graceful sweep, trailing fire. With a laugh Dia tossed his head back and began to dance, dripping feathers and fire with every graceful movement, until it wasn't a man at all that was shifting and swaying but a bird that seemed to be made of molten fire.
"Lady." She pulled her eyes from Dia, startled at a touch on her arm. A cleric stood beside her, sugary smile plastered on his thin face. "Come with me, Lady."
"I want to stay with him." She gestured at the exultant creature filling the hall with light and heat, turned her face away from the young man at her side.
It was a mistake, and one she would regret for years. An instant of inattention was all it took for the cleric to wrap an arm around her neck, to point a curved knife at her stomach.
"DIA."
The Phoenix screamed in a frenzied anger, mantling his wings and dipping his long neck forward, beak opening in a hiss of breath so warm it melted stone.
"Stand down, Dia." The man holding the Phoenix's mate called out, calm and secure he was safe from attack pressed up against the pregnant woman.
One beat of his wings, an expression of the anger that wanted nothing more than to tear through the insignificant creatures that dared threaten him, dared betray him, and then Dia held still. Eyes of flame regarded the man before him with hatred, but the Phoenix would not risk his mate, would not endanger his beloved, impossible, child.
He held still as the knives cut him, as he bled fire into the symbols carved into the floor. He held still as he died in a blinding immolation, eyes furious with the knowledge he had been cursed, had been chained.
And all he had been doing was trying to protect his mate…
And the people she had come from, the people she had loved…
Dia huffed out pipe smoke with a grimace, not even tasting the herbs he usually enjoyed. Nightmares while awake. Fire and death, betrayal and anger. "Bound and bled." He whispered, not noticing that the past had melted back into the present, that he was curled amongst his cushions, wrapped tightly in his favorite robes. There had been a ghost of it, twisting through Kaio's dancing. Something in the twist to the Dancer's lips, the pain that had gleamed in the back of his eyes.
Bound and bled, and he couldn't see a damn thing he could do about it.
Dia bit down on the stem of his pipe, eyes narrowed, burning. Bound. Betrayed. He was a proud creature. Arrogant and powerful. He had always known he was a tool, albeit and important one, but to have such unpleasant evidence…it rankled, hit a sore spot that had been festering quietly for generations.
Something shifted in the back of his head, a rustle of feathers…
"This is getting old."
Kaio gazed in blurry ire at his surroundings. At least he had the luck to be bedridden in his own bed this time. A dubious honor, filled with all the questionable privileges of being home. A grim sort of smile on his face, Kaio lifted an arm and gave a solid thump onto a portion of abused looking wall beside his pillow.
Arri's bed mirrored the location of Kaio's. Arri's head should be directly on the other side of said bit of worn wall.
And Arri slept with his cheek pressed, rather inelegantly, against the wall.
Kaio allowed his arm to drop, giving in to the insistent complaints of muscles that had had quite enough movement for one lifetime, and listened to the crash that would be Arri rolling out of bed, quite literally, in response to the sudden sound, a reaction developed back when his infant brother had spent many a homesick night bawling and pounding on the wall.
There were many social niceties Arri was prone to ignore; knocking was one of them, especially where his brother was concerned. Disheveled, eyes as red as if he were on the wrong end of a three day drunk, Arri stumbled into Kaio's room, tripped on a scattering of shoes, got tangled in a long bit of sash, and finally collapsed into an almost accidental kneeling position at Kaio's side.
"How are you, little brother?"
"That's a fairly stupid question."
"Ok. Remind me to spirit you off. Dia's attitude is catching."
"Go screw a petitioner."
"I've had them all."
It was as close as they ever came to worrying about each other, at least audibly. Kaio's arrogant sneer melted into a quiet sort of frown as he took stock of each and every quivering muscle that made up his overworked body, and came to the conclusion he had been worse. And having been worse meant he was all right to crawl out of bed, slip into something loose and soft, have Arri apply makeup in all the appropriate places to conceal his exhaustion, and go play nice with the Master. Hell, at least the clerics wouldn't have to worry about catching the two of them tussling.
Well, Dia could tussle. And then have someone come shovel his Dancer off of the floor, seeing as Kaio sure as hell didn't have the energy.
"…Kaio, the look on your face tells me you're about to do something damn stupid."
"Help me up."
"Ah, brotherly intuition. Never fails."
"Stop being an ass and lend a hand."
Arri brushed a hand across Kaio's forehead, ignoring the fussy look the touch inspired, and shook his head. "Nope. You're not going anywhere, lil brother. Not while you feel that warm."
"You're impossible. First you howl because I wont go to tea…"
"My balls were at stake that time! Not to mention the rest of me."
"And now you piss at me for wanting to go to tea."
"Cause you're sick. Which is different that just being stupid." Arri stood with a groan, not used to being the one on his knees for any length of time. "I'll just tell one of the robed wonders, and they will let the Master know you cant…"
"No."
"Kaio, while I admire your sudden and rather misplaced devotion…"
"Please."
Arri winced. He hated it when Kaio pulled out that quiet, defeated sort of voice that made him want to haul Kaio into a hug and then do whatever the kid wanted. It wasn't fair. "That's playing dirty and you know it." Arri huffed, even as he curled an arm under and around Kaio's shoulders. "On three. One. Two…"
Kaio bit his lip to keep a moan of muscular dismay from changing Arri's mind. "What time is it?" he inquired as soon as he was upright, pretending he wasn't actually as breathless from the effort as he sounded.
"Well past fifth bell."
That made Kaio pause, confused. "Has he rung for me?"
"Not that I heard. And no terrified little alter brat has come running either."
"Storms. I hope he isn't sulking." Kaio muttered darkly, tentatively swinging his legs out of bed and towards the floor.
"You're problem, not mine." Arri cheerfully supplied in a sublimely unhelpful sort of way. "Careful now. You've got some fantastic bruises on your legs."
"How the hell did I bruise my legs?" Kaio hissed as his legs informed him just how unhappy they were with his attempt at standing.
"Ran into a table or three. Crashed into the side of the bed. Landed on the floor. Hell, had a moment where I thought you had caught my wine habit but missed the alcohol tolerance." Arri kept a steadying hand on Kaio's back until Kaio gave a short nod and took a few wobbly steps towards the nearest pile of carefully folded clothing.
Carefully folded.
Kaio stopped, eyes narrowed. "Arri. Why are my clothes organized?"
"Ah…about that…"
"Why is there a cat on my favorite shirt…"
"See, she's the one who did your laundry."
"She?" Kaio tried to ignore the fact his voice had jumped to an almost shrill sort of tone. "You're telling me a cat did my laundry. The Master has not rung for me. Storms. What next?!"
Like an ill placed omen, there was a knock on the door.
Being closest, Kaio yanked the door open, ignored muscles screaming in protest, and snarled at the poor individual unlucky enough to have chosen this moment, above all others, to intrude. "What?"
"Shall I come back at a better time?"
Kaio blinked as his heart did its best to explode in a fit of nerves. Dia regarded his Dancer from beneath one raised eyebrow, mouth twisted up in a caustic bit of a smile.
"Fuck." Arri choked, the low class curse slipping out into the tense silence, wondering if Kaio was going to actually faint, and what the merry hell the Master was doing standing there, polite as any altar brat and smiling that serpentine smile that never meant any good.
It was a tableau from a nightmare he never remembered having, but was sure he was going to be dealing with for months to come. And Arri didn't know if there was enough cheap alcohol in the city to soothe his nerves. A predator had descended upon them, with intent, hungry eyes, and was doing its best to intimidate the sense out of an already unsteady Kaio. What was a brother to do?
Ditch self preservation faster than a diseased whore and throw himself into the fray.
Unfortunately his noble effort was disrupted by an angry streak of black that somehow got tangled in his legs as soon as he started to move towards the two men trying to glare each other into submission.
"Storms and ashes, Cait!" Arri hissed as a claw dug its way into his toe. He tried to shake her loose, and only managed in encouraging her to draw more blood as her teeth nipped at his calves. He tangled with the daimon, and Dia regarded his brother like Kaio was something new and interesting to try to eat.
It wasn't a positive situation, not as far as Arri was concerned.
Then Dia leaned forward, trailed one long nail ever so slowly down Kaio's cheek, and his smile softened. "Come."
It was an order, and Kaio didn't have the wits about him to argue. Nothing was happening in the right order, in the right place…
Arri watched as the his brother left, wearing nothing more than a bemused expression, and wondered where the hell all the sense of the universe had gotten off to.
"What's gotten you crabbier than a dock whore, you over-indulged hairball?" Arri snarled at Cait, who calmed down as soon as the two were out of sight, quietly starting to groom her left front paw as if nothing untoward had just happened. "Fuck me sideways. Of course you would choose now, of all times, to be quiet." One incredibly rude gesture that he had definitely not picked up in the temple later and Arri stalked his way back to his room, to have a mental breakdown in the comfort of his own bed.
It was hard to be suitably affronted when one was wearing nothing apart than irritation. Thankfully, naked and stalking through the temple had become an oddly normal sort of occurrence, so as the cobwebs of pain and exhaustion were cleared by indignation, and Dia continued to walk in silence, Kaio's expression darkened. "Where. Are. We. Going?" Kaio gritted out the words for what was, by his count, at least the seventh time. Which was, really, six times too many. His patience was sitting in his room with the pants he would rather be wearing, and he was not in the mood for any of Dia's temperamental malfunctions.
Which is to say he was defiantly unprepared for Dia to turn on him, bully him up against a wall, and kiss him. Once Kaio got over the fact the Master's lips were on his, the Master's tongue trying its best to engage in reconnaissance of the furthest corners of his mouth, he managed an embarrassingly virginal shout of dismay and swatted at Dia in panicked displeasure.
Which only made the Master's eyes glow with a sultry sort of humor.
But at least the bastard gave the awkward, almost affectionate, attempt at hallway seduction a rest, pulling away to lounge against the wall with a nonchalant grace that had Kaio disgruntled in record time.
"By the Phoenix's fiery ass, what was that about?!"
Kaio had the grace to blush as Dia laughed at the misplaced oath. The blush deepened as Dia leaned in again, presumably for round two. "Hey now, I'm your Dancer, not your damn whore."
"I wouldn't presume to think you were my whore." Dia brushed his cheek against Kaio's, an oddly innocent gesture that left Kaio confused. Dia was not a touchy feely sort of person. This, combined with the odd light in Dia's eyes, had Kaio off balance, which was not a feeling he was used to, or liked.
"What is wrong with you?" Kaio whispered, uncertain and unwilling to spark another, less complacent, mood.
"Oh, plenty." Dia replied in a flippant tone utterly belied by the fey light in his uncanny eyes.
"Storms." Kaio shivered. This wasn't Dia…this wasn't the Dia he knew at all.
"Come with me." Dia crooned, walking backwards, beckoning his Dancer along. "Come with me."
Kaio couldn't help but follow.
There were parts of the temple that not even the most skilled, or desperate, of thieves ventured. The Old Temple, sitting with silent, patient, malice below the languid sprawl of the New was not something anyone in their right mind wanted to tangle with. It had a reputation for swallowing the brave, for driving the foolish mad.
Unfortunately, Dia was anything but in his right mind. The Master trailed his robes along tiled floors uncomfortably devoid of dust, through rooms lacking in insects or other vermin, through distressingly opulent door after door, until reaching a section that dropped all pretense at crowd pleasing.
It was impressive in its size, and its lack of ornamentation. And light. Storms it was dark. Kaio stumbled, foot catching on an irregularity in the stone floor, and fell to his knees. "Storms and Ashes!" he hissed as stone bit into bare flesh, slammed up against bone. That was going to leave a mark.
It was going to bleed. He could feel it drip, oozing from the wound and falling to the floor.
And then it wasn't as dark any more.
An incoherent and embarrassing shout squeezed out of Kaio's throat as he scooted backwards, bits of stone scraping and cutting his backside, ignored in his panic. The floor had started to glow, emitting a sullen red light in a series of harsh, deep patterns and scratches upon the floor. "What the…"
A chuckle echoed eerily through the massive hall, snapping Kaio's attention up from the floor. Two burning eyes, narrowed in a cruel amusement, stared at him, and he could make out Dia's tall form where it reclined in what looked to be a large stone throne.
"Dance."
"Dia?"
"Dance this damn city down around them. Dance the traitors to their deaths." Dia leaned forward, eyes glittering with incomprehensible hatred, chest heaving with emotion.
Kaio had never been scared of Dia before, never felt threatened. But there was something so uncanny in what had been a familiar brand of exotic strangeness that now seemed as good a time as any to start.
"Dance for me, my beautiful dancer. Set it right."
The drums. There were drums pounding through his blood, tugging, demanding. They pounded through his head, his skull seemed to small a space to contain them. It hurt, storms it hurt…
"Bound and bled." Dia whispered, the sound carrying effortless through the hall, weaving through Kaio's thin, pain filled keening. "Blood calls to blood."
Kaio curled in on himself, shuddering. "Dia…" He whimpered, confused, hurting, and feeling as if every muscle in his body was going to tear in the face of the tension ripping through him.
"…Kaio?"
They faded, thank whatever spirits were listening; the drums faded back to the quiet background Kaio was used to, comfortable with. Panting, Kaio cracked his eyes open, tried to ignore the fact the floor looked like a giant had finger-painted on it with the blood of a massive glow worm, and met Dia's concerned gaze.
Dia. That was Dia. All uncomfortable concern and stilted arrogance, trying hard to be worried without tumbling off that high horse he clung to. With a crooked, almost honest grin, Kaio mustered himself and fumbled to his knees, then to his feet. No point in making an already distressed Dia worry even more. And Dia, his Dia, would worry, as much as the bastard wanted to deny it. They worried about each other.
Though, to be honest, they really seemed to have worked themselves into a particularly worrisome situation.
"So…any idea what that was all about?"
"Some." It was a defensive tone of voice, the one Kaio had learned over the years meant Dia knew what was going on, and didn't like a damn thing about it. Something was making him feel vulnerable, which made him a bitch to deal with.
Flippancy, the best weapon Kaio had against Dia's reflexive defensiveness. "Well, good. Care to share your ineffable wisdom with the peasants, oh great Dia?"
Anger always did make Dia mouth off.
"This is where they killed me." Dia snapped, vicious and abrupt. "Happy?"
"…Not particularly." Kaio had the urge to be standing anywhere but his current position. The glowing red on the floor gained a personal cast as he connected glowing red patterns with Phoenix blood. The offerings at Festival glowed like that in their little bowls, colored the waves in splotchy red wisps.
He was standing near the center of what was, basically, a divine slaughterhouse.
"I…think I want a bath."
"That sounds like a divine idea."
Kaio winced at Dia's word choice, and tried not to flinch as Dia descended from his throne and placed a hand on Kaio's shoulder.
"What, by all that is holy and quite a few things that aren't, are we going to do now?"
"It's past tea time. Tea, then a bath."
"Spoiled brat."
It was a feeble bid for normalcy, but at least it let each of them politely ignore the fact they were both shaking.
"Ah, Dia?"
"Yes?"
"…Think the floor will stop…doing that?"
Dia grimaced. "I don't plan on standing here long enough to see."
"Arri is going to be furious with you."
"Isn't he usually?"
"Yeah. More or less."
"Then I don't see the problem."
"You're impossible." Kaio leaned, just a little, against Dia as they started their way back.
"I do try."
"I hope you know you're way out of here."
"So do I."
"…storms."
Bells were tolling, calling their dismay as the clerics scrambled all over the temple like a red and gold wave of hysteria. The Master was missing, the Dancer was gone, and a royal guest waited amidst the gardens.
Zelos bared his teeth in a smile neither of them believed as he greeted the Cymraeg in the Master's gardens. The northern barbarian gave the slightest of nods, dismissing the status Zelos' robes and jewelry proclaimed, and returned his attention to a small, bristly bush that was trying hard to flower.
It was distasteful, this distortion of the natural order that had the audacity to seek audience with his phoenix. Everything about the short, square man screamed his unnatural origins. There was an air about him, a miasma of dark magic and unruly violence, and it gleamed in eyes that shone an impossible gold, reflecting light like those of an animal. Unclean, unthinkable…
Those eyes turned toward him, as if knowing, acknowledging, Zelos' distaste, a small smile twisting full lips. The Cymraeg prince stretched, his shadow spreading its wings with a similar lazy tension, and Zelos was hard pressed not to flinch away. "Well then, priest, the day grows old. When will the Master deign to meet with me?"
"Perhaps the Master has other things that need attending to." There were times when it was utterly satisfying to play the simpering lackey.
Something alien and angry crossed the Cymraeg's face. "I don't have the patience to trudge through your posturing and preening, priest. Recover your pet. Bring him to me."
It was a dangerous game, baiting a monster so infamous for its short temper, but Zelos had his trump. He always had his protection against creatures such as the Cymraeg.
"Tchaa." Sion Pendraeg curled his upper lip in disgust as Zelos bowed in apparent apology in a cloud of incense. "Blow your poisons elsewhere, traitor priest. They will do no harm here." Sion huffed like a flustered horse, nostrils flaring, and the exhalation withered the spiny bush, dooming its attempt at blooming. "I will return tomorrow, priest." A few smoldering leaves fluttered to the ground as an acidic tang mixed with the almost putrid scent of Zelos' incense.
Zelos watched the stocky man stalk off with impossible grace, and tried not to frown. The chief Dragon of the North dared enter his lands. The damn barbarians and their mixed, perverted blood…
Daimon and humans were not meant to mingle. Humans were not meant to bed animals.
Zelos kicked the withered bush in a rare visible fit of temper. That damn Kaio. What had that animal done with Dia?
"Dia, are you certain…"
"Silence. Or I will finally give in and let them take your insolent tongue."
Kaio sighed. Embarrassed and petulant, Dia was certainly lost. There were many places the Dancer would rather be rather than trying to navigate this ghost of an empire that hid beneath the temple. And most likely a good portion of the city itself, if how far they had wandered was any indication. That was, of course, if they hadn't managed to wander in circles.
All in all, it was turning out to be one of those days religious folk assumed the gods tossed at them in a fit of divine temper tantrum. Kaio, as opposed to counting how many steps he had taken, decided to think back on what he could have done recently to sent the Powers that Be into such a fit of petulant retribution. Apart from the regular spats with Dia, and maybe a rude thing or seven said to his brother, or that one priest he had tripped…
Ok. His record wasn't spotless, but none of that should merit lost beneath the city with an anxious and upset Dia, bleeding from an uncomfortable gash on his knee and abrasions on his ass. Perhaps there was some sort of cumulative scale…
Dia cleared his throat, and Kaio allowed a small smile to creep through the exhausted introspection on his face. The Master was regretting his command for silence, and couldn't do a thing about it. It wouldn't do for the Master to change his mind, to allow for insubordination.
"Perhaps we could draw markers on the wall with my blood. It's going to waste splattering willnill all over the floor."
"Didn't I tell you to be silent?" Dia didn't even try for the habitual scorn such a complaint would contain. There were no priests to perform for, no one to play Master and unruly servant before. "And I think we have drawn enough with your blood today. I would rather we tried to keep as much as possible inside you at this point."
"Not an option, seeing as we keep walking."
Dia paused, looked back over his shoulder. "Do you need to rest?"
"Touched as I am, I would rather I didn't sleep down here with the ghosts of whatever the hell happened." Kaio raised a hand. "No, I don't want you to tell me a bedtime story about what did happen. I am pleasantly content with my lowborn ignorance."
Dia fidgeted with his robes for a moment, and Kaio was a stunning example of restraint for not making some flip comment about their becoming far too comfortable with a communal sort of nudity, and then blinked as Dia knelt at before him and began wrapping the sash from his robes around the gash on Kaio's knee.
"Dia…"
"Silence."
Neither of them was any good at the vulnerable emotions like affection or concern.
But they were both perceptive.
"Hey…maybe I could rest for a bit."
Dia was shaking slightly as he stood; overwhelmed in his own way by everything that had happened.
"If you are sure. I don't want you to be uncomfortable."
"See, you do care." Kaio drawled.
Dia bared his teeth in a smile that suggested he was entertaining enthusiastic thoughts that involved ruining the structural integrity of a few of Kaio's more important organs, and arranged himself artfully amidst the rubble.
Dia had managed to find a flat bit of fallen pillar to perch upon. Even without the sash to hold his robes closed, Dia struck a regal figure, somehow managing to hold court amidst the dead city.
Kaio settled at Dia's feet, dared to rest his head against Dia's thigh, and closed his eyes. His head hurt, his leg hurt, his ass hurt and complained bitterly against its resumed contact with the floor…
Dia ran his fingers through Kaio's hair, silently offering comfort in the only way his pride would allow.
"We're lost."
Dia's hand paused, tightened around a fistful of hair, pulling slightly.
"I'm hungry."
Dia sighed, temper diffused as quickly as it had risen. "I'm sorry."
It took Kaio a good handful of heartbeats to remember to breathe. Apologies from Dia were a monumental event. "Hey, its not your…"
"Oh, but it is. It all is." A bit of another Dia, a Dia-that-had-been, ghosted through Dia's voice, twisting with a fey sorrow and a bitter anger. "Even you."
Really, there was no way to respond to that. No logic existed that could dissolve a guilty anger that polluted a string of lifetimes. As much as Kaio hated to prove Arri right…
Kaio dared press his lips against Dia's leg in a quick, sympathetically soothing gesture, then held perfectly still and waited divine retribution.
Dia's hand resumed its caress, and the Master might have leaned into his Dancer a bit. But that might have been exhaustion.
They were lost, tired, and Kaio was pretty bad at keeping his mouth shut.
"Hey, Dia…"
At least there was no one around to see Kaio get beat within an inch of his life if his current verbal sortie went horribly awry. The little things in life…
"Hmm?"
"Would you care to shed a bit of insight on our current predicament?"
Dia's hand tightened around a handful of Kaio's hair, and Kaio felt the temperature shift. Yup. He had managed, yet again, to irritate the Master. At least this time he had done it on purpose. And with good reason.
"Why was the floor glowing? Why did they kill you? How many of you are there up in that skull of yours? How screwed are we currently?"
Dia's hand tugged with each question, but Kaio was beyond giving in to placate the sensitive man. There were things that needed to be said, and he knew Dia had the answers. The Master had given it away with every flinch.
"Dia." Kaio took a deep breath, and yanked his head away from Dia's leg, wincing as he peered through tears at the frizzed tangle of hair he had left behind in Dia's white knuckled grip. "Dia. I can't help if I don't know what is going on. Storms, I hate it when you look like that. Get angry."
Dia stared down at his handful of hair, eyes wide, but the fire was banked, his expression too carefully bland.
"I'm alright. You're alright. Storms man, at least look at me when I rant."
Dia looked up.
And Kaio wished he were very small, so as to better scurry away and find a nice dark crack to hide in.
"It's like reading a book where most of the pages are lost. Or written in another language." Dia shook his head sluggishly.
"Hey, I'm sorry. Forget I brought it up. Lets get ourselves un-lost, and then I can grovel a bit, the priests will neglect to kill me again, and we can have our tea."
"I had a mate. They took her away from me."
'Dia.' She smiled up at him, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief as she brandished a box tied shut with a small bit of ribbon. 'I made you lunch!'
"Ah…"
She had such clear blue eyes, like a morning sky after an evening storm. Like the coldest parts of the ocean. They were always smiling at him, even as she clutched him close, as she kissed him on the head, as she turned and left.
Kaio winced, his head pounding. His mother had brown eyes, not blue. The stress must be getting to him.
"I wanted to take care of her. Her family. Her people. I wanted to protect them."
'Dia, I am worried. They say the naga's have started attacking again. And we lost another trade ship to a kraken.'
"Dia…"
'I love you. Always remember that. I love you.'
"They betrayed me, killed me, bound me."
'I'll take care of you. I promise.'
Dia looked vulnerable, eyes wide, face twisted in an obscene juxtaposition of terror and anger, and Kaio hated it. It wasn't right, that expression. There should be a world of arrogance in Dia's exotic eyes, a wealth of assurance. Those fiery eyes narrowed as Kaio unconsciously raised a hand in entreaty.
"They took what I offered, bound my power, wrapped and warped my magic. They took my son, killed my mate…took my son and bred him like a hound." The pillar under Dia crackled, the stone bubbling and burning. "They twisted my magic into my son's blood. Not Daimon, not human...a doll they could afford to taint and tangle."
'Dia…I'm going to have a baby.'
There was someone else in Dia's eyes, someone who didn't necessarily see Kaio as a friend. It was a gooseflesh-raising feeling that Kaio was getting depressingly used to. It was a Dia-that-had-been, staring out of Dia-that-was' eyes with a seething distrust.
And a burning yearning.
Kaio stared back, brain grasping desperately for meaning in Dia's speech as the Master's voice raised in volume. If he could just get all the rambling pieces to fit together correctly…
'Dia, I'm scared…'
"Blood calls to blood." Dia whispered, the change in volume so sudden, the calm so unexpected, that Kaio couldn't help but fixate on the repeated phrase. In the midst of all the disjointed howling, that phrase kept coming back.
Blood calls to blood…
They took my son…
"Storms." Kaio sat back on his heels, stunned as the entire mess came crashing down into place in his mind. The drums started pounding along with the unsteady pulse in his temples. He wanted it to be wrong. Wanted to be laughed at, told he was an idiot. his entire body shivered with an unwelcome epiphany, he tasted blood from where he had bit at his tongue.
"You understand."
"I wish I didn't."
"You understand."
Kaio looked up, meeting Dia's intense gaze. "Yeah. I do." He whispered.
He knew how to set Dia free.
Arri was going to kill him.
Lost in a jumble of drums and fire, Kaio missed the moment Dia stood and held out his hand.
"Follow me."
Kaio blinked, trying to sort out the gentle voice, the stranger looking at him…
"Dia…" he tried to stand, but only managed to fumble around a bit as his legs finally went on strike, too worn and too sore to go anywhere.
And then he was a child again, being hefted up into strong, comforting arms, curling his own arms around the Masters neck, pressing his face against the Masters chest. A hand rubbed soothingly along his back, comforting nonsense was murmured into his ears.
"Dia." Kaio sobbed, burrowing his face into the crook of Dia's neck, irreverently messy with tears and snot and not at all caring. Too much, all at once. Too much to understand, too much to deal with. He was the knot in it all, the puzzle the priests never wanted solved. They hated when he touched Dia, hated when he smiled at Dia…
Feared that what had just happened.
Dia was pressing kisses against the top of his head, holding him close, and in his head the drums we pounding, a rhythmic magic that fought and fussed and tried desperately to tell him what was going on.
The drums beat for Dia.
The drums belonged to Dia.
The Dia who had screamed and died in the room nearby, the Dia that had watched his wife taken away, the Dia had felt his magic torn from him.
"I understand."
"Kaio…" Dia, his Dia, whispered, an eternity of agony in the vocalization.
'Dance. It is what you were born to do. It is your duty.' The priest stared at him from hard, cold eyes, ready to beat understanding into him should words fail.
The drums were beating; talking, explaining. Kaio shuddered as he listened, unable to tune them out, to turn away.
"I love you." Kaio pressed lifted his head, pressed his lips to Dia's, and let the music free.
"Who's there?"
The gulls were silent, the insects were still…She turned, nervous, the herbs she had been gathering clutched in her hands, trying to catch sight of what had sent area into an anxious anticipation. Predators haunted the cliffs, thieves and Daimon stalked the shadows.
"Please, I don't have anything. Leave me alone."
A pebble slid and scraped its way down the cliff, startling her. She jerked back with a yelp, and her herbs scattered as she flailed desperately at the scraggly brush around her.
"Careful."
A hand caught hers, pulled up forward and away from the sharp drop.
"Steady now."
"I'm sorry, I didn't…"
Eyes like smoldering coals smiled at her from an elegant, fine boned face. "Are you alright?"
"I'm sorry…I didn't mean…pardon the intrusion…" She babbled, mortified, terrified. She had disturbed a Daimon. She must have wandered too far, too far off her usual path…
"Hey now, such an anxious little bird." He cupped the side of her face with a large, warm hand, grinning. "Why so frightened?"
"I didn't mean to trouble you, lord."
"Would all my troubles were so pleasant." His grin softened into a quirky smile as he traced her cheekbone with his thumb, watching her blush.
"Come sit with me awhile, little bird. I am Dia."
"I am Seti."
It surpassed any headache he had ever had; he tasted blood from where he had bitten through his tongue. His body felt thick and slow, too confining…
"This is Dia."
He flowed through an elegant bow that was more artistic than formality, his long hair trailing like a lazy wisp of flame. "Your daughter is a treasure."
Her father frowned, but didn't turn the Daimon away. None of them could afford such a powerful enemy.
His jaw ached. His blood burned.
"We lost another one last night. A young girl."
"It's a shame. Cant even walk the main roads at night anymore."
"It's not safe."
"Dia, I'm frightened."
He wept, toes curling with the pain of it. He didn't want to remember, not really. It brought back the anger. It brought back the sorrow. It called to life the hatred.
"Dia…"
He screamed, his body igniting, as two voices whispered in his head.
"I love you."
Seti.
Kaio.
Dia shrieked in fury, wings breaking through ancient masonry as he stretched muscles that hadn't been used in hundreds of years.
Above, the city began to shake.
"Up! You have to get up now."
Arri muttered an awkwardly constructed, sleep infected sentence about how little intention he had of moving from his current nest of pillows and tried to slip back into a contented unconsciousness.
"Up, you overcompensating braggart!"
There were things that could be slept through, slights that could be ignored. This was not one of them. Arri surged upward, intent on defending his honor, only to have his breath knocked out of him by a bundle launched into his torso.
"Dress." Agitated and impatient, Cait paced, worrying at her lower lip with one sharp canine.
"Who pissed in your wine?" Arri grumped, tugging at a rumpled pant leg, head hurting and sullen as a result.
"You will get up, and you will dress. And you will do it now." Cait's voice was a throaty purr, but there was such menace contained in the words Arri had a hard time convincing his bladder that now was an inappropriate time to empty itself. He wanted to roll belly up, pulling his head back to expose his throat, close his eyes, and wait for the end.
Cait's nostrils flared and her pupils dilated, darkening her eyes as she stopped pacing. She stared at Arri for a long moment, mouth open and panting as she scented the sharp musk of fear in the air.
The tension shattered as a rumble shook the floor.
Cait shook herself violently. "I will be outside. Hurry."
Shivering, Arri tried to rebuild his usual casual irreverence as he pulled on a pair of pants. Predator. Daimon. He had been terrified of her, and she…
"Sanity says, leave that thought alone." Arri slipped his feet into a pair of sandals.
He didn't want to consider trying to sort out just why he was taking orders from a creature that had been aroused by his terror.
The ground shook again, more violently this time, as Arri scrambled out of a doorway that was doing its best to remain stable. "Storms! What's going on?"
"Please come with me." Cait looked her poised, sultry self again, as long as Arri didn't look into her eyes.
"Something's happening. Ashes, I need to find Kaio."
Cait snagged Arri's arm, digging her claws into his shoulder. "No. you must come with me. There is no time."
Arri gritted his teeth in pain and frustration. "He has Dia with him. He'll be fine for now…"
"Yes. He has Dia with him. What a lucky bairn. Now, by any and everything you hold sacred, start running."
Sion flicked out a forked tongue, testing the magic and menace in the air.
It was time.
He never did have his sister's tolerance for political maneuvering and social niceties. With a look of feral joy on his face, Sion stretched back, shadowy wings unfurling, and then he strode from the room in the small inn that he had hardly been in long enough to get familiar with.
Outside was chaos. Disbelieving shouts of earthquake, accompanied by pleas to Dia echoed up and down the broad city streets.
Silly children. Their god wouldn't be helping them today.
Sion walked through fleeing, panicking throngs, going in the opposite direction of everyone else. His goal was the palace, the source of the violent shaking and shifting. A section of street caved in front of him, revealing a handful of dilapidated rooftops of the abandoned city below. Sion jumped lightly, a beat of his shadows wings carrying him across the large gap.
Confused panic turned to true fear as fires began to reach up through the holes the quake was tearing open throughout the city. A new, alarmed cry started just as Sion reached the temple proper. Dia had turned against the city.
Dia was free.
A massive form molting liquid fire rose over the temple screaming. Its long neck dipped, lightning fast, and rose in a sharp jerk, tossing a howling, burning cleric. Sion had to resist an almost frantic desire to join in the rampage, to stomp and strike the humans that had dared bind a Daimon, to erase all evidence of the Phoenix's gullibility before it could be used elsewhere.
The Dragon in him wanted a fight.
A cleric stumbled past, and Sion leaned forward, expelling a deep huff of breath in the panicked man's face. The cleric fell to the ground, shrieking as the Dragon's breath ate at his face. It wasn't enough, it was never enough, but Sion pulled his attention from the dying man and continued forward, passing under one of the Phoenix's wings and entering the temple.
Marble was cracked from the heat, tapestries were burned, and the charred corpses of temple attendants and guards littered the halls. It smelled like the scene of some hellish feast, all burned flesh and smoldering wood. Sion paused beside an overturned table, stepping on spilled grapes, and flicked out his tongue once more, serpentine, testing the air. Left. He turned, stopping at each hallway to track his goal, finally descending down a stair that had once been closed off, but appeared to have been battered open from the wrong side as something strong forced its way out into the temple.
In there. Down there.
Sion walked slowly through the ruins, taking in every claw mark that had been burned into the ancient floors, every slash seared into the side of a building, until he found the origination of the current apocalypse.
And the motionless, pale form that lay curled at its center in an almost artful, albeit agonized, spread of long red hair.
"I hate you."
"Seventy-seven."
"I really do."
"Seventy-eight. At least I got us out of there."
Arri glared up at his captor from eyes red from smoke and weeping. "My brother. You made me leave my brother, you cheap, unnatural whore."
"I will count that as seventy-nine."
"This isn't funny. Stop your damn counting."
Cait bared her teeth in a smile that was a lot more threat than mirth. "I will stop as soon as you can think of something else to say."
Arri coughed, throat dry and agitated. He had ash in his hair, ash in his mouth, and he had a bonfires worth of the damn stuff in his eyes. Kaio would fuss at having the stuff dulling brilliant hair, vain bastard that he was.
His brother…
"I hate you."
"Duly noted."
Arri chose to ignore the fact Cait sounded a little choked up herself. His grief. Her fault. He sat and watched it rain ash on the ruins of his home, stared at the fires until his eyes blurred with exhaustion and a new bought of embarrassing weeping.
"I am going to kill him."
Cait had the decency to refrain from the obvious and tactless flip response.
"Isnt it beautiful, Dia?"
Marble crackled and melted in the furrows torn by his talons, mixing with stone and the burning bodies of the dying. Panic, anger, hatred and sorrow…
Why should be feel sorrow? The flesh of his enemies lay burning, filling the air with the sickly sweet stench of victory. He was triumphant. His aerie was secure…
"I am so very lucky..."
It was a nagging mite in his feathers, distracting him from the glory of his victory. It was a small voice, whispering insistently through the howling in his mind. Such a small thing, such a tenacious thing…
"…To live in such a wonderful place."
She had had such a beautiful smile as she showed him her home, as proud of each building as if she had built it herself. His Seti…his beautiful Seti…
Betrayed. Bound. Bled. Murdered.
Seti's home.
Dia screeched, long neck craning out seeking victims; wanting violence as an outlet for unaccustomed confusion. The Phoenix wanted to erase all evidence of his embarrassing defeat, his demeaning captivity. There should be nothing left, no mark to show where the city had been, no survivors left to spread the taint of their existence.
'Storms but you are an ass.'
Snapping his beak in an elemental tantrum, bits of saliva hitting the ground and burning like acid, Dia huddled in on himself. A plethora of voices howled for attention in his head. All him, all different.
'You are one confusing bastard.'
Confusing. Confused.
Where was Seti? He needed to bury his face against her neck, breathe in the sweet smell of her hair. Where was Kaio? He needed to hear the abrupt criticism, needed that solid bit of irreverence to ground himself against.
Him selves.
"Tchaaa, look wha' th' years ha' done to ye." Cait stepped carefully through the destruction, careful to avoid getting ash on her bare feet, soot in her hair. "Look at yerself, Laird. Half convinced ye're th' godling ye remember, an' half thinkin' ye're th' human pet ye've been. Such a troublesome identity crisis."
Fiery eyes tracked her approach with a curious tension, a genuine confusion and a slight relief. So many people stuck in such a small place. "Tha' can't be pleasant for ye, Dia. Such a mess ye have in there." Cait stopped her approach as the Phoenix's beak cracked open in a panting hiss, spitting fire.
"Ye always were a conundrum, Dia. Remember sittin' with th' swan mains and sippin' light, sweet tea. Remember talking philosophy with the old dragon? Ye used ta send th' selkies for shells, lend feathers to th' Vilas. Rusalki found you beautiful, nagas found you vain. You and I taunted mermaids, chased phouka and disciplined the kelpie." Cait advanced a step, keeping her eyes locked on Dia's spinning fantastic tales in her crooning voice, quietly enough to ensure Dia had to lean forward, to hear.
"You are a proud bird. Insufferable and vain. Arrogant is too gentle a word. You lined your nest in artifacts rivaling those decorating the Nightmare's in fascinating beauty. You found a beautiful girl, who lured you closer with a sparking smile. Courted and catered to her gentle whims, unaware of human cruelty. You know all this, Dia. And its all you. Each restrained incarnation, the product of each forced rebirth. They fragmented you, beautiful Phoenix."
So close…Cait felt her skin start to tighten and burn as Dia exhaled a huff of near-panicked frustration. She was going to pay for it later, but…
Cait reached out, brushed a finger along the side of Dia's face, ruffling feather-shaped flames, biting her lower lip to keep from crying out from the pain of it. "Settle down, settle back. You could use a rest, brother."
Soothing, her voice was a soothing purr, a promise of comfort and care. Dia's eyes slid shut; his flames flickered and snuffed, leaving an exhausted and confused man standing with dubious balance in front of Cait. He opened his mouth to speak, a spark of concern flickering through his eyes, and then tumbled forward.
"You're lucky I like you." Cait murmured, catching him. "And I'm lucky you're so light. That took a lot out of me. Isn't every day I have to sweet talk the Phoenix back to his better senses."
Cait wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Next time you decide to break your brain, do it somewhere where I won't get caught in the smoke. My hair is going to smell like human cookout for weeks."
"No."
At least Arri was being predictable. Cait ignored his vicious protests and settled the unconscious Dia down with a sigh of relief. Her shoulders had started contemplating a coup not so long ago. She was glad to finally be relieved of her burden. Dia looked a bit pale, a little rough around the edges, but he was alive, and pleasantly unconscious, allowing her to deal with Arri with her full attention.
Arri had lunged to his feet, and looked for all the world like he was hoping a sword would sprout from the stone and give him something to kill Dia with. Not that it would be very honorable, but Arri didn't currently look like a man who gave a damn about his honor. Cait decided to step in before he gave in and tried to bash Dia's skull in with a stone.
"Settle down."
"Are you insane?" Arri glared at her. "That maniac just destroyed an entire city and killed my brother, and you want me to settle down?!"
"Yes."
Arri's face twisted in disgust. "Should have known you'd side with him. Fucking Daimon…"
"Your breeding is showing." Cait snapped, not at all patient enough to deal with his sulking.
"My breeding is the last thing on my mind. Its his I worry about." Arri jabbed an accusing finger at Dia. "He just leveled a city. Doesn't that bother you?"
"I'm sorry."
So much for small favors. Cait had so looked forward to dealing with one problem male at a time. Dia's eyes were cracked open, his forehead creased with what had to be an epic sort of headache.
"Sorry." Arri stared, his voice gone dull with disbelief. "Sorry? You killed everyone, even your damn precious Dancer, and all you can say is sorry?"
"Kaio…" Dia's forehead gained a deeper furrow as a crowd of voices clamored for attention. Kaio…
'Blood calls to blood.' Dia-that-had-been whispered amidst the mourning, accusations and anger.
Blood called to blood, and a faint, tired voice whispered affectionate insults from the back of the mob shouting for his attention.
It was oddly comforting…
"He's smiling." Arri's voice was thick with disgust.
"Give him time." Cait coaxed, hoping everyone would settle down so she could take a nap.
"He can rot for all I care."
"As long as you both rot quietly."
"I hate you."
"So you've said."
It was a tenuous truce, but at least Arri wasn't growling insults, at least his hands had stopped twitching in a thoughtful, thankfully aborted, lunge towards Dia's throat every time he set eyes on the Phoenix. The petty, demeaning slights had ceased, which allowed Cait to lay down and sleep at night, not having to fear what would go up in flames, both figurative and literal, while her attention was turned.
And all it had taken was one frantic, testosterone-fueled tussle.
Arri had thrown the first punch, his temper run ragged through incessant forced contact with the source of his ire. Dia had a moment of stunned silence, his eyes wide and blank, then he had charged forward, leaving a flurry of sparks in his wake. Cait had winced as Dia's hands clutched at Arri's throat, scalding as soon as they touched, inspiring a truly hideous howl of pain from Arri. And then the fight began in earnest, complete with kicking, biting, hitting and snarling. Thoughts and scattered personalities flickered through Dia's eyes, shifting as he took as many hits as he landed, and Cait had the unsettling impression that he was trying to decide whether or not he should be amused or incinerate the human for its audacity.
Bruised, exhausted, and bleeding from where he had bit his lip, Arri tried to temporary retreat, and was pulled up by a hand in his hair. Dia, tangling his hand through Arri's hair with expert ease, yanked down and back, pulling the surprised man to the ground.
And then Dia surprised them both by breaking into deep, bitter laughter. "Some godling I am, resorting to hair pulling like a fishwife." Dia untangled his hand from Arri's hair, and offered the man a hand up.
Arri glared up at the man, trying hard to be irritated by his amusement, but there was such a familiarly self-deprecating tone, the usual twist to the smile that had always seemed to linger on Dia's face, the Dia that had always regarded his brother with a slightly bemused affection, that all he managed was a bitter depression. He couldn't hate him. Not this Dia.
Arri didn't take the offered hand, but didn't spit at Dia's feet either. He didn't accept the mans unspoken apology, but at least he acknowledged it with a slight nod before fumbling his way back to his feet. "You hit like a girl."
"Says the man with the fat lip."
"Given to him by the bastard with the black eye."
Cait shook her head in exasperation. Men. There had to be an easier way to settle things and keep that elusive male pride intact. But, she had to admit it was effective. The tension was still there, but it no longer made her hair stand on end. Dia nodded at Arri, who huffed and looked away.
But both of them were almost smiling.
"Kaio really hates it when I pull his hair." Dia sighed, attempting to straighten his own unruly mane.
"Which is, of course, why you did it all the time, you contrary idiot."
"It's our thing."
"…keep your foreplay to yourself. That's my little brother you're taking about."
Cait examined her nails, keeping her eyes down lest the men see the contentment in her eyes and remember they were supposed to be feuding. It was good to hear them talk like Kaio was still there, like Dia seemed to be convinced he was.
"And stop strutting around like that. Kaio isn't one of your conquests. He would have told me if you had…with him…"
"Why, Arri, are you blushing?"
"Stop smiling at me like that. Look you, I don't know what sort of arrangement you had with my brother, but I don't bend over like that for anyone. I like to do the bending."
"That can be arranged."
Cait allowed herself to indulge in the little shivers of anticipation the purr in Dia's voice inspired Even knowing the Phoenix was doing it only to get a rise out of their companion it reminded her of better days.
"Get away. I hate you, you twisted bastard."
Dia chortled and settled on a rock to examine his hair for split ends.
Ever the vain, preening bird. Cait smiled. It wasn't perfect, but it was close enough to what the old Dia had been to make her happy.
"Bah! I'm heading down to look for supplies, that is if that damn bird missed anything." Arri paused, face calming from its comedic dismay. "I should kill you, you know."
"Yes." Dia replied, his attention steady on a bit of tangled hair.
"Kaio would kill me if I did." That seemed to end the discussion, as Arri stretched once, wincing at a sore spot along his rib cage where Dia had landed a particularly good hit, then started the long climb down towards the ruined city.
Arri had had some bad ideas in the past. Putting salt in Kaio's tea, that week he had joined the priesthood, eating a small lizard on a dare…
But really, walking through the burning ruins of his home, occasionally stepping over what looked to be charred bits of bone and huddled remnants of smoking flesh, really stood out as the current number one. His stomach roiled in agitation, displeased at the fact his nostrils were filled with the smell of burning meat, burning wood, and melted stone. Arri shivered as he turned to avoid looking at the claw marks that had been burned into the remains of a road. He couldn't reconcile that…thing with the man he had just given a black eye.
Their god. Their avatar. Their captive Daimon.
"Fucking lying priests."
Arri considered himself a down to earth, mundane sort of fellow. With his family, someone had to be. He was religious just as far as it concerned his brother, and just socially involved enough to keep the women interested and readily available. His brain was still trying to wrap itself around the fact the desolation he walked through had been full of people a day ago. Living people. Sure, some of them had deserved their fiery death, but not all.
Not his brother.
Fist fights with Kaio had always soothed and settled things between them. They both had too much temper for their own good, and were both rather physical in their own ways. It was a time honored tradition, a proven medication against ailments moody in origin. His lip still stung from one well placed smack, and his throat ached from its burned handprint. But his temper…
His temper had coiled back to general displeasure, mixed with mourning. But not anger. If half of what Cait had babbled at him through the terrified speed of their flight just before all hell had broke loose was true, than he couldn't…
"Storms, Kaio…"
He couldn't stay mad at Dia.
"You'd better be worth it, you insufferable, arrogant ass." Arri ducked through a blacked doorway, a rather pointless gesture towards the sane regularity of entering a house, unnecessary since the house no longer had walls to boast of.
A bit of ash tickled at his nose as he inhaled a deep introspective sigh, inspiring a truly daunting series of sneezes. Arri frowned, trying to convince his nerves that it was house ash, not ash from the occupants of the house…
"Drown it."
That was it. He wasn't going to camp out and watch the fires burn out. Places to go, people to meet, women to bed. There was an entire world out there, and very little of it was likely to remind him of home.
"I apologize for almost every rude thing I have thought about you the past month." Arri waved graciously in Dia's general direction before replacing his fingers just above the small fire. The seasons couldn't have picked a more inconvenient time to start shifting about.
"I was tired of listening to you creak and whine."
Arri sneered, and then winced as it pulled at cold-tense cheek muscles. Who knew autumn would be so unpleasant? It was definitely a change from the slight windy dip in temperature the seasons deigned to designate their change with on the coast.
"And you haven't even felt snow yet." Cait chuckled.
"…snow?"
From the look of displeasure on Dia's face, Arri decided to add snow to the list of things he wanted to avoid at all cost. Dia's face had been a study in displeasure lately, when he didn't have a weirdly introspective cast to his features. The great Phoenix was obviously unused to traveling long distances without all the comforts of home.
"You've gone all soft, Dia." Cait laughed as Dia fussed over trying to find a comfortable bit of ground to claim as his bed for the evening.
"Some of us are rather used to pampered palace life."
"I'm sure someone in there remembers skulking about the woods and scurrying through the hills."
"If they do, they are keeping wisely silent. I don't want to know how cold and uncomfortable I am going to be in the morning."
It almost made up for every upturned nose and fidgety look of disdain Dia had imparted as they traveled. Sure, Arri was having a hard time adjusting, but Dia had the distinct discomfort of knowing that he had done this before, been good at it, and had no idea how to go about it currently. It had to be driving him mad.
Almost as much as his quiet, sporadic chats with himself were starting to get Cait and Arri on edge. There was nothing like the threat of a powerful entity taking another long dive off a short cliff to make everyone comfortable with each other.
He wanted a cup of tea. And at the same time he wanted nothing more than dark, thick coffee. The tea should have gooey honey stirred in, and it should also be brewed bitter and strong, the leaves left to settle at the bottom. It was a vicious argument in the back of his head, a crowd of opinionated personas all demanding dominance and preference.
It was too much to deal with before the sun had even properly risen. Pinching the bridge of his nose Dia decided on cold, only slightly muddy, water. Struggling to ignore the opinion that muddy water really was only a handful of degrees in temperature from good, drinkable coffee, complete with gritty consistence, Dia dipped his hands into the sluggishly running water and splashed his face and then raised a cupped hand to his mouth and drank.
Succeeding only in making himself feel grimy inside as well as out, he straightened. His scattered bits of pride were uniformly pleased that his companions had slept through his early morning personality mosaic. He wasn't an artist. He didn't have the patience to get all the pieces together, didn't even really remember what the fully assembled picture was supposed to look like. Spitting out a stray bit of stone that had snuck in with his handful of water, Dia stretched, uncurling his body upward like a light-seeking flower.
The sun hadn't quite risen yet, but it was on its way. He could feel it, tingling along his nerves; a twitchy sort of anticipation. He held a post that would make a mystic jealous with its easy coexistence with gravity, its blithe ignorance of muscular strain. As the first few rays of light filtered down through the morning haze, Dia began to sway, eyes slipping closed. The voices in his head were quiet, and his feet began to move. Slow and unhurried, almost lazy, Dia dragged bare toes over stones that smoothed with the heat of his passing. Flowers burst into surprised bloom and then withered, unable to sustain the silent intensity Dia demanded.
Arri watched through cracked eyes, hoping the Dia wouldn't gather enough of his senses to notice he was awake. Somewhere between adoration and the paralysis of a rodent staring down a serpent, Arri watched Dia weave through liquid dips and turns, lithe body swaying to an elegantly languid rhythm. So different than the Dancer, but with just as much of an enthralling pull…
Arri closed his eyes.
There were things he didn't want to admit to feeling, even if something not quite human was responsible.
"Fucking Daimon…"
Not at all human. There was nothing natural in the way Dia moved, in the fire in his eyes…
But there had been something in the arrogant smile the Master had turned towards Kaio, the slight un-clouding of smoldering eyes…
"Fucking Daimon."
At least it was warming up, what with the dancing fire pit a few feet away…
Three days later, Arri was forced to admit that Dia's unnatural charisma had a use besides inspiring supernatural irritation. Mouth full of still-warm bread that had been bestowed upon a particularly soggy looking Dia by a doting farmwife, Arri managed an approving grunt that passed for grudging thanks.
Dia didn't deign to acknowledge his companions appreciation, as he was far too involved in trying to keep a chill rain from dripping from his bangs to his nose. The great Phoenix disgruntled and defeated by a fall shower. Arri must have chuckled a bit, as Dia shot a scathing, snarling glare his way, teeth bare in a feral irritation.
"Poor wee, sodden lordling." Cait smirked before tearing into the crusty end of the loaf she favored.
Dia gathered his old arrogance, seemed to use it to box in a seething insulted fury, and nibbled almost daintily upon his share of the bounty. Prim and proper as any aloof royalty, at least until the uncomfortable drizzle shifted to an unfortunate downpour. Dia shot to his feet like a scaled cat, sputtering insults and anatomical impossibilities that would make a hardened sailor blush.
Arri stared for a moment, mouth hanging open around a bit of bread, and then burst into startled laughter. Dia. Gods be damned Dia was stomping about swearing like a fishwife.
Another skewed bit of personality glittered in Dia's eyes, and he abandoned affront for mirth, joining in with their laughter. It was a bizarre camaraderie, but, as Arri wiped tears from his eyes and clutched at his aching abdomen in a fruitless attempt to soothe laughter strained muscles, he had to admit he had gotten used to it.
And getting used to Dia's sudden and often inexplicable personality shifts was something that really should have, and would have even a week ago, bothered him.
Now it was just as normal as the ball-withering cold of the morning and the lung collapsing damp of the evening. Not something that was necessarily healthy, but dependable. And dependability was a good step towards comfort.
Comfortable in the company of two Daimon.
Arri shook his head, smiling as Dia wildly gesticulated his way through a conversation with Cait. The world had become a remarkable, screwed up place to be.
First the robe, wool teased to stunningly comfortable softness slipped effortlessly to cover a lithe body still damp from bathing, pulling long, red hair free to hang down to well-defined buttocks. Nimble fingers worked at tiny tangles almost absently before reaching to wrap a colorful band of wool around a narrow waist, just above pronounced hipbones, then across an athletic chest, over one shoulder, then back to be secured at the right hip in a simple knot. Worn leather shoes were slipped onto calloused, almost splay-toed feet, laced swiftly and tightly just before standing.
Then he paused, staring into the small mirror, a puzzled look in pale blue eyes. There was something missing, teasing him, tickling at the edge of his mind, but dancing away as soon as he tried to fully consider it. There was something missing from the air, something different with the familiar ritual. If only he could…
"Heya, little brother." Aodh leaned against the doorframe, weather-rough face split in a wide smile.
Kaio narrowed his eyes, sniffing slightly. Aodh smelled of fruit and grease. "Eat my breakfast for me again?"
"You preen, you lose." Aodh offered an exaggerated yawn to show his utter lack of concern. "It's the quick and the hungry, Kaio bach."
Aodh's breath also smelled heavily of onion. Kaio wrinkled his nose in friendly disgust and waved air away from his face. "Breathe elsewhere, foul dragon."
It was a toothy smile, half threat, half amusement. "Jealous, little one?"
"Not even a little." Kaio shook his head, knowing better than to show any nervousness in front of the deceptively easygoing predator. They took some getting used to, and at times it was vary similar to being a minnow amidst sharks, but they had taken him in, nursed him to health, and adopted him into their fold. Sure, Kaio sometimes wondered if he was mascot, sibling, or new toy, but he was comfortable. Was almost happy.
If only he could get his brain in order.
"Headaches still bothering you?" Aodh tilted his head to the side, inhaling deeply through an open mouth like a cat trying to decipher an alien scent.
Kaio frowned. "Now and then. Mostly it's…" he flailed a hand in incoherent frustration.
"Go see Eithne." Aodh suggested, pushing himself off the doorframe.
It wasn't that Kaio didn't like the old woman. She was just…intimidating in an ancient and venerable sort of way. All of Sion's clan were long lived, but Eithne….Eithne looked to be part of the stone she rested on, deep in her cave in the maze-like warren the clan commanded in the mountains.
"Ah. Scared of Eithne." Aodh chuckled, pulling in another mouthful of air colored with Kaio's anxiety and discomfort. Aodh's pupils dilated and his face broke into another of his mildly threatening smiles.
"Go sniff after a hound's ass." Kaio snapped, and then gritted his teeth against the headache that pounded to life, his pulse slamming an irregular counter rhythm against the waves of pain.
"She won't bite unless you ask." Aodh moved forward and brushed up against Kaio, breathing in the scent of pain-inspired cold sweat. "Go see her, little brother. You're hurting."
"Really? I didn't notice."
"I could carry you."
"I think not." Kaio sighed. He didn't need such an attentive horde of siblings. Nothing but trouble, brothers…His headache attacked with a vicious passion, and Kaio decided to give in to the inevitable, before Aodh really did have to carry him. One crone in a cave, no matter how old and draconian, couldn't kill him. At least, not without Sion's permission…
Of all the damn times for that bell to start ringing…
Kaio glared blearily out from under the pillow that had been trying to protect him from the insidious morning sunlight. His hangover started a stunningly uncomfortable counter rhythm to the incessant ringing and any minute now…
"Up and out, little brother. Until you get up and pull that damn cord the ringing is going to keep this entire wing awake." Arri made a rumpled appearance, cautiously poking his head through the doorway separating their rooms.
Kaio launched a pillow, and then groaned as sunlight tried its best to cheer him up and awake, beaming merrily in through a strategically placed window. Strategically placed for sunny torture.
Mornings were not Kaio's favorite time of day. The Master demanded his attention at odd and unpredictable hours, Arri brought home some of the loudest women the city had to offer, and a damn flock of little birds had claimed the garden just outside the room as their territory. Mornings conspired against Kaio's love of sleep, of lounging sore muscles against expensive pillows, curling up in silk that retained enough of the evenings cool to remain comfortable long into the afternoon.
Arri shambled with a groggy lack of grace to the far side of Kaio's room and gave the red braided cord a fierce tug.
And then stared as it broke off into his hand, sending the small, insistent bell tumbling to the floor.
Kaio blinked, and then a slow smile spread across his face, exposing far too many teeth for simple mirth.
"Storms, little brother, sorry about that…"
"Sorry about what?" Kaio rolled over with a content sigh and burrowed back under his pillow.
"Kaio, shouldn't you be getting up?"
"Why? I don't hear the bell ringing." Maybe Arri was good for something apart from slutting about and doing makeup. One moment of early morning stupidity and suddenly Kaio's life was a better place to be.
"I pulled the wrong cord, Kaio. You need to get up."
"No bell, no move."
"Storms. You are going to get killed."
"Not without the Master's permission."
"Need I remind you just who you are ignoring?"
"He'll get over it." Kaio tried to shift to the side, to escape the bit of light he could feel on his back. Damn window…
"Well, it's your hide. Just remember to let them know I tried."
"Sure thing, Arri. Now shut up so I can go back to sleep."
Kaio shook his head, hating the thick, sluggish feeling that made that simple movement so difficult.
"Feeling better?"
A shiver slid its way down his spine, but Kaio smiled, not wanting the ancient Daemor to scent his fear. It would only encourage her. Eithne sighed, and Kaio wrinkled his nose. He hated the smell of her, a musty scent somewhere between wet stone and the thick smoke that came from burning wet wood. Usually loath to move from her favorite rock, Eithne stood, the scales along her back grating and rumbling like the beginning of a landslide. Nudity had never bothered Kaio, but nudity on something that was so obviously a bizarre juxtaposition of stone, reptile, and woman was jarring enough to make him uncomfortable. His eyes just wanted to keep on sliding by her, fixing on something to the side, something directly behind…
"You feel better?"
"Yes, Mother."
A long, viciously curved nail that resembled a talon more than the human counterpart it was trying hard to serve as pushed Kaio's head up, forcing him to face the Mother of Sion's clan. Her reptilian eyes stared into his, looking for something, something she apparently found, for she released him a moment later, nostrils flaring as she drank in his discomfort.
"Your head stopped its hurting?"
He wasn't going to tell the Mother about the odd bits of conversation, names and colors that flickered, fading, in the back of his mind. Whatever it was that plagued him, getting those little fever dreams out of his brain seemed to help. The Mother, with her hallucinogenic breath, was the only solution to his headaches Sion had found so far. Kaio didn't need her any more curious than she already was. It wasn't good to get the full attention of something so old, no matter how well meaning.
"Yes, thank you Mother."
Eithne brushed a dry kiss across his forehead, and Kaio did his best not to shudder at the sensation. He wanted to scurry away, his sanity whimpering, but he bowed his head for a long, respectful moment, before turning and leaving Eithne's cave at an almost casual pace.
Daemor. Half blood Daimon. Words Sion had taken the patience to explain to his befuddled foundling. It was an interesting little society Kaio had found himself adopted into, high up in deceptively desolate mountains. Protected by Sion's good graces, doted upon by Eithne in her incomprehensible way, and tolerated by the herd of offspring Eithne had produced throughout her long lifetime. An almost tensely defined hierarchy, with Sion as firstborn and Head Dragon at its top, and one that had managed to shift to accommodate an outsider at its bottom. Sion's youngest brother had been more than willing to give up that position on the food chain.
The mountain rumbled as Eithne's mate shifted in his sleep, his sigh sending gales of heated air hissing out through every tunnel. Kaio basked in the warm, musky heat for a moment, a grin on his face. Never a dull moment.