http://clampfix.fanworks.net/ss-fix/crimson00.txt </head><body><pre>Title: Crimson Stars Author: Nemesis Rating: PG-13 (Will most likely escalate later) Series: Tokyo Babylon Pairings: Subaru X Seishirou Warnings: Um...somewhat crappy writing and a smattering of Shounen- Ai. I don't know if I'll venture into the land of smut and NC-17 ratings. ^^; I get all red and blushy. Anyway, this is an AU-ish fic. Wait, no, it is AU, not AU-ish. Prologue She was almost seventy-six now. Old age had not been benevolent to her. Her face was worn and haggard, creased with the wrinkles and worries of a long life. Her hair, though neatly held up in a bun, was a wiry nest of gray and white. The only things about her that remained sharp and untouched by the decaying caress of time were her eyes and her mind. Nothing escaped her piercing gaze. She saw every little gesture, every little movement, and registered each action into her mind. No matter how powerful a foe it might be, age could not dull the wisdom and knowledge she had spent most of her life gleaning. And yet still, even though she had this sense of being, there was something missing in her. It was there when she woke up. It gnawed at her every waking hour. It haunted her dreams, her nightmares, and her fantasies. She was lonely. Fate had stolen away her children, and even robbed her of her only grandson. Fate had left her cold and alone in this empty manor that would never again hear the laughter of children or the charity of youth. How she missed the boy. Even if his smile never quite reached his emerald eyes, or if he never uttered much more than a grunt of acknowledgment, his presence in her household had been enough. He had been such a poor child. Her heart still ached at the memories. She had been there when his mother had died in labor with his twin sister who would never take her first breath. She had been there when the doctors had cut open the womb to find him there, a tiny child, crying as it was removed from the comfort it had known for the past nine months. And she had helped raise him, helped train him, helped him grow. He had never been a normal child. Normal children smiled and played without a care in the world. He had always been reserved, quiet, and brooding. She should have been disturbed by this, but she had, in bursts of motherly affection, dismissed it as a stage of shyness. Then his father had died at the hands of that assassin. She cursed her own foolishness. Something should have clicked then, when she watched the boy look at his dead father, lying in a pool of blood, and do nothing more than walk over and close the eyes which were starting to film over. That was not shyness. Her nails bit into her palms as she thought about the way she had treated him, showering him with affection and love, instead of questioning the child's behavior. Even when he had started training, he had never shown the awe or wonder most did. He simply acknowledged events as things that happened. Then he had disappeared. He had gone off on his first job, at the tender age of eleven and not come back. They had told her that he was dead. After four months of searching and finding nothing, they assumed that he had been killed and stashed away. Voices murmured of those assassins again. But she would not believe it. Had he died, she would have felt something. The feeling of his soul being released. The glimmer of pain, of hopelessness as his life slipped away. Instead, he had simply vanished. The ghost of his presence she had always been able to feel was just cut off. And for the past three years, she had used that information as hope that he was still alive somewhere, being kept against his will. Her head turned towards the door as it creaked open, admitting a sharply dressed servant. She looked at him a moment, though she could not seem to remember his name. "Lady Sumeragi, do you need anything?" He asked, the words sliding smoothly off his tongue, a phrase that had been said a thousand times. For a minute, she envied him. He had no problems, no fears. All he had to do was watch over this crippled old hag. And what an easy task that must be; watching an old lady who never left the shelter of her room. "Yes." She said, noting the glimmer of surprise on his face. "Take me outside." "Of course," he said, after only a moment's hesitation. He walked stiffly across the room, not used to going farther than a stride from the door. He pushed the wheelchair slowly out of her room, taking her out into the neatly maintained courtyard. Flowers of every color and shape bloomed beautifully, all immaculately arranged. Her eyes squinted at the sunlight, trying to reject this strange, natural illumination. "Leave me," she said, waving her hand dismissively. The man bowed and left, glancing over his shoulder only briefly in confusion. Leaning back, she stared into the sky at the puffy white clouds floating in a sea of blue. How long had it been? How long would it continue to be? Letting out a heavy sigh, the twelfth head of the Sumeragi clan closed her eyes and prayed for him to come back. Tears slipped down her cheeks, and she bit back a sob. The truth that had whispered itself into her ear for the past three years, finally burst forth. He had not been swept away by some mysterious force. He had left her because he had hated her. Subaru would not be coming back. Subaru would never come back. /"I don't hate you because you're smothering, or overprotective, or even because you force me along a path I don't want to walk. I simply hate you, because you are you." / Children, she remember once hearing, are cruel because they don't know suffering. She would have laughed, had her body not been wracked with sobs. Children were not cruel because they didn't know suffering. Children were cruel because they were more human than anyone else. Burying her face in her hands, she sobbed and prayed that old age would finally bestow upon her the blessing of peace. Peace and silence in a world that would never shatter. </pre><p><a href="./">Back</a></p><p><a href=http://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=216><img border=0 alt="Donate towards our web hosting bill!" src=https://secure.newdream.net/donate1.gif></a></p></body></html>