shiegra (shiegra) wrote in no_true_pair, @ 2008-06-21 19:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 2008 twelve characters challenge, author: shiegra, crossover: immortal regis/yu yu hakusho, pairing: serin/youko |
Immortal Regis/Yu Yu Hakusho
Title: A Secret Garden
Author/Artist: shiegra
Fandom: Yu Yu Hakusho/Immortal Regis
Pairing/characters: Serin, Youko Kurama
Rating: PG13/R
Prompt/challenge you're answering: * Serin and Youko Kurama, hurt/comfort of any sort
A/N: A really...wierd definition of comfort, I suppose, but that is the end result. And it was what felt fitting to the two characters.
She was barely more than a child when they met, curled in the corner of a garden and gasping out half-strangled sobs of fury and grief. Her hair curled over her shoulders in thick, slick-black waves and she had crushed plants beneath her knees. Their scent filled the air.
Serin realized he was standing under the tree too long after her had arrived, and she jumped to her feet and reached for a weapon even that young, swallowing sobs into a heady and easily-accessible rage.
“Who is it?” Her voice was uneven and accusing, and her bare feet slid on dew wet grass as she took a step back.
“Careless.” He said, voice low and velvet-soft. “You’ve trampled the flowers.”
Serin turned and saw them, thick clusters of purple-red petals and thick stems so dark a green they were almost black. She had, indeed, crushed them beneath her feet. “I apologize.” She said after a moment, and when another minute passed in silence and he remained ensconced in heavy shadow, she added in wavering defiance, “they won’t kill me, if that’s what you’re waiting for.” The spots where sap had spilled on grass smoked, but her skin remained untouched, a subtle strength being habitually magic-sheathed granted her.
His eyebrows rose, but she couldn’t discern any other emotion—least of all disappointment—on his face. “How very convenient.”
Serin wiped at her cheeks. “I think you’re trespassing.” She added after a moment. Pride in her family, or rather in her father’s possessions, was harder to come by than the automatic jolt that kept her spine straight and anger icing her features with composure. She was, after all, quite familiar with how happy her father’s possessions were in his possession.
“Am I?” He gave her a slow, unfathomable smile that made her skin prickle with a hissing premonition of danger, and she backed up quickly and reached for magic, the hot sparkle pressing against the back of her tongue and thickening the air.
His eyes gleamed sharp rich gold and the plants around her stirred from their normal heavy rhythms of life, whispering to an almost eager response. Serin gasped as she felt that response pulling up from the soles of her feet, the very trees and blossoms she’d previously considered her sanctuary writhing in soft and deadly interest; answering to him.
The message was clear; you’re the one trespassing here.
Flame tickled at her fingertips and she stared at him, black fire pulsing deep under her skin, and licked her lips, mind rushing with adrenaline. Surrender wasn’t an option, was never an option, show them your belly and they tore it out--if she moved fast enough—
Pain lanced through her, sharp and clear. If she moved fast enough she’d burn the garden. It froze her, choked her with a primitive and immature horror that reached bone deep. She would burn her sister’s garden, the place where she’d always come for her.
And above everything--beyond everything, her father's commands and Urvis's demands and Caesar's slavering loyalty and the spiderweb-sticky politics she was beginning to have to grasp--she would protect her sister's memory.
It was the first time Serin fled from a fight, but she was never ashamed of it.