Big Eyes, Small Mouth (BESM): Nexus Earth - [Fic] Whispered Pasts [Complete]

[z-Skye the Fallen]

... continued from Desolate Litany

Those thoughts were quickly erased by the room they were taken to. It was a simple barracks room – lockers, bed and a communal shower at the end of the room. As the soldiers began to strip off their helmets, their leader – who Skye was having a hard time calling Kelly because she didn’t look like a Kelly – opened a locker and pulled out a robe. As she carried it over to Skye, the priestess realized it was a kimono. “Here, this should fit you.”

Like hell, Skye thought, eying the width of the garment. Kimonos were made for beanpole women, not women favored with an abundance of chest. And while Skye was no Dolly Parton, she also wasn’t a beanpole. “Thank you,” she said graciously. “I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” Kelly replied, giving her a little smile.

“Now, about the shower…”

Kelly pointed. “All you have access to is our shower. You can wait, if you want.”

Skye looked at the shower, back at her hostess, then at the shower again. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, Priestess.”

Skye sighed. “Right then. But then an entire battle field saw me naked when a dragon caught me in a flame jet, so what’s a small squad?” Without hesitation, she stripped off the robe, tossed it over the end of the bed and took the towel and toiletries bucket in Kelly’s other hand. “Thanks.” She turned and gave Kazuo a bemused look. “I’ll be right back.” She stripped down and looped the bra and thong over a hook next to the kimono without a hint of modesty, then turned on the water.

The shower was heaven. Skye groaned with pleasure as hot water cascaded over her body. Her hands took a moment to run through her hair, her head tipped back, before sliding down her body. While steam quickly filled the small room, her moonlight glow betrayed her location, highlighting her form in silver and strange shadows. She wanted to linger far longer, but she had business to conclude and an entire universe to catch up on. She needed to know who was the enemy and who was the ally, and who to trust.

As the last of the soap washed away, she shut off the valve and dried. The fog cleared slowly, but not so fast that anyone got to see anything fun before Skye walked out of the mist. True to her predictions, the kimono wasn’t a perfect fit, but she didn’t care. It was more than she had had before.

She walked over to Kazuo and gently pulled him to one side. They claimed a bunk for a seat so they could have a modicum of privacy. As Skye pulled her legs up under her body, she leaned close and murmured, “So where die holle have you been? Clearly not in Bazaroth!” And after I spent all that time looking for you, arschloch!

The German just flowed out - she hadn't cursed like this since her last fight with her husband. It was like some kind of disease; something about arguing with a man, especially this one, brought out the worst in her vocabulary.

Click to reveal..

I got these off the internet, corrections by German speakers are welcome!

die holle – Hell

arschloch – asshole

[Kazuo]

Damn, thought Kazuo as he tried (unsuccessfully) not to stare as Skye stripped naked and made for the showers, girl's changed.

Kazuo's confusion had only been mounting as the minutes passed, but by now he was used to being dropped into situations with next to no info to work with, so he tried not to think about it too much. Once they arrived in the dorm room that the soldiers escorted them to and the soldiers began removing their helmets, he was surprised to see that they were all just kids, and looked to be about the same age that he and Skye had been when they'd first begun their own long, strange odyssey. And the way these teenaged boys were totally failing to react to Skye's almost unbelievable level of hotness was disturbing...

Speaking of disturbing! When did Skye get so fucking hot?! She was... he couldn't think of any other word for it but divine - and he hated using cheesy adjectives like that to describe things. It still pissed him off when people called him an 'angel'. It wasn't his fault he'd randomly sprouted wings, of all the goddammed things a guy could get stuck with. Still, they'd turned out to be damned useful weapons, once he'd learned the use of the Imperfect Guillotine - the mystical artifact that made possible the transformation of his wings into some of the deadliest weapons in existence - and even more so, once he'd mastered its Perfected form.

But whatever - enough about the damned wings, back to Skye and her insane degree of righteous hotness! Why did the damn shower room have to go and steam up like that? And when did Skye get pointy ears? Or start glowing? These were the important questions that dominated Kazuo's mind as he failed utterly to not watch Skye while she showered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat from time to time and trying not to be too obvious about it when he had to adjust the crotch of his pants.

Originally Posted By: Skye the Fallen

As the last of the soap washed away, she shut off the valve and dried. The fog cleared slowly, but not so fast that anyone got to see anything fun before Skye walked out of the mist. True to her predictions, the kimono wasn’t a perfect fit, but she didn’t care. It was more than she had had before.

She walked over to Kazuo and gently pulled him to one side. They claimed a bunk for a seat so they could have a modicum of privacy. As Skye pulled her legs up under her body, she leaned close and murmured, “So where die holle have you been? Clearly not in Bazaroth!” And after I spent all that time looking for you, arschloch!

Hey! She was back to swearing at him in German again. Much better. Kazuo felt himself relax just a bit for the first time since arriving in the middle of this strange situation.

"Nah", Kazuo said with a smirk and a shake of his head, still unaware of the ordeal Skye had gone through there, "I ditched that joint years ago, after they got wise to my act."

Seeing the look she gave him, Kazuo elaborated for Skye. "I masqueraded as a tengu demon fer a while an' joined their Infernal Legions. I figured, since you get promoted by killing off your superiors and competitors there, I could slaughter a whole buncha demons and maybe get high enough up the food chain t'take a crack at that Demon Lord guy everyone talks about, but no one's ever seen. Get some revenge for all that shit they put us through back home, ya know?"

He shrugged, a touch self-consciously, and his half-sized angel wings mimed the gesture behind his shoulders. "Anyway", he continued, "it didn't work out that way. I managed ta work my way up to th'rank a spadan (which is like a lieutenant, ok?), in charge'va battalion, but they eventually figured out I wasn't one o' them. Those guys were so pissed off when they realized who I was, lemme tellya!"

Kazuo actually grinned as he remembered just how much it'd burned those demonic bastards to know that one of their battalion commanders wasn't even a half-demon!

He chuckled briefly at the memory and then, almost off-handedly, he added, "So yeah, they cursed me n'shit; turned me into a literal 'Celestial Dog' or whatever, so now I'm, like, a 'Harbinger o' Doom' n'stuff." He shrugged again, though Skye could tell the story bothered him more than he was letting on. "An' then impaled me an left me to die on the thorn of on one o' those big ol' Blood Trees that grow on Bazaroth's Dayside. Obviously, it didn't work."

Kazuo paused and took a breath, reaching up to rub his scar with one hand, and then finished his quick and dirty version of the past. "So yeah, I got away, tried to hide out in the corpse a one o' those creepy Beyonder guys that're scattered all over that 'Plain of Despair' place - and what's with all the depressing names they come up with there, anyway? it's not bad enough they live in hell, they gotta give everything shitty names too? - but anyway, I tried to hide out in the corpse of one of those giant creepy alien things, but instead I wound up in this whole other universe, right? 'Cept I was up in space, over this planet I later found out was called Cathedral."

At that point he paused again and half-threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender, saying, "And that whole situation was crazy too, but it'd take forever to go over alla the stuff I did there. Basically though - it was like Star Wars there - with space ships and laser swords and blaster guns and all of it! Totally awesome. So I gotta a job working for this super-secret group o' spooks, 'keeping the universe safe' and stuff, while I tried to figure out where Earth was - like an idiot, I'd figured I'd managed to get back to our universe, just to some other planet and all I had ta do was find my way back home. Took me a few years to figure out it was just another 'other universe' I'd found my to. That really depressed me fer a awhile..."

Kazuo gave Skye an uncharacteristically thoughtful and sad smile, then he said, "And then one day that Old Man found me, or decided to talk to me, or whatever, and decided to come annoy the hell outta me again, and he sent me here."

There were about a million things that Kazuo wanted to ask Skye, but all he said was, "You?"

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye listened to Kazuo’s story, feeling a little depressed over how ficken far off she’d been the whole damned time. It sounded like she’d been close to him once and then she’d been in no position to help. And the way he’d changed, grown – it was too much. She wanted the old Kazuo back, who’d leered and been a grumpy, silently-protective pervert. Even if she liked some things about the new Kazuo, it was still painful to see the way he’d been changed by trials as onerous as hers.

“That’s an… awesome story, Kaz,” she said. “Kazuo… sorry.” Why’d she have to use that nickname? She’d never called him that. Getting soft in your old age. She tucked a strand of near-white and black hair behind her ear, shivering as she touched the sensitive arch. At his single word prompt, she tensed. She hadn’t considered that she’d have to tell this story to him. Quickly, she mentally pulled her thoughts together, preparing to hit the high points.

“Well, after landing in Bazaroth myself not long after you,” Skye begin, glossing past the part of why and how she’d gotten there, “I was pretty quickly captured. I wasn’t ready.” She stopped, her fists clenching. “I’m not gonna detail it. They were demons, I was a young mortal with a touch of the divine – you do the math. It was good, in a tiny way – my connection to Luna increased during that trial. I mean, it sucked, but She protected me, kept me strong when they were trying to break me.” There was pride in her blue eyes, though it had been torturous too; had she broken, it might have been something of a relief. Instead, it had been a challenge. “I never took a deal to make it easier on me, though I learned I could play them against one another so that certain ones… took an interest, ones that weren’t as… bad. Later, they figured out that they could eat pieces of my… I guess my soul or aura – whatever. They kept me as a meal after that.

“Then one day, they got careless, and one of them brought out my fans to taunt me,” Skye continued, her voice becoming fierce. “I took them back and killed him, and fought my way out of there. I was running, just running when I found a portal.” She laughed, a touch bitter. “I took it blindly – I figured it couldn’t be worse than Bazaroth.”

She brought up both hands to run her fingers through her hair, trying to induce it to dry faster. The gesture altered the dimensions of her flesh-to-robe visibility as physics demonstrated merciless action-reaction. Skye didn’t notice; she was more concerned that the shoulders of her pale blue kimono were getting soaked, and if she didn’t let them dry a bit, she’d soon be showing almost as much as if she were naked. “It wasn’t, though landing naked in a camp of goblins was kinda a pain inder arsch. But after a bunch of demons, they were like kicking toothless puppies, and I freed some elves in the process.” She saw his eyes flicker to the ears and some understanding crossed his face.

“So like… fantasy an’ magic an’ shit?” Kazuo interrupted.

“Pretty much.” Skye smiled as the memories came back – the way that the green, thriving world had felt like heaven after Bazaroth and the easy gratitude of the elves. She’d forgotten, in Bazaroth, about the kinder emotions, and what it felt like to receive them. “I traveled with the elves – they’re kinda like gypsies, there, treated poorly, but they can be a kind, giving people. Then I found this cute little lizard, that these orcs were getting ready to eat. No one liked Felidae, though she was the cutest little thing. Eventually, I left the elves because they didn’t want her around and found work protecting caravans, killing demons when they showed up. Then I found out that my ‘lizard’ pet was a baby dragon.”

It seemed like so much detail to give him, but it was all connected, and so much happier to talk about than Bazaroth. Though she was coming to the hard part. “I went to find her family. About then, I met my husband-to-be on the road. We agreed to travel together and complete my quest.” She smiled with bittersweet memory. “Which we did, high up in the Dragonspine Mountains.

“After that, we stuck together, going where we wanted, doing what we wanted, just two friends on the road. We had lots of adventures, saw the world, sought out and fought demons wherever we found them,” she continued. A hundred memories crowded in on her, and she was saddened by even the happy ones. They were all tainted for her.

“Then we were at a place called BoneGate Stronghold,” she added, still with that sad smile. “A rival with a clan of dragons at his back attacked, and we snuck out and found our ‘Felidae’s’ family. They agreed to help us and we rescued BoneGate with their help. I nearly died, and it was then that… we realized… how we felt.” There was no smile anymore, and Skye began at a loose thread on her kimono. After a second, she picked up the whip and pulled it to her, her fingers brushing over the silver inlays in the handle. The five phases of the moon were depicted on the grip, stark against the black leather handle. “The dragons gave me this, as a gift for our wedding, because I’d seen one of the dragon-kin using it and thought it was cool. And the elves… they gave both of us the Blessing of True Love.” She said something in a lilting, musical language before translating, “They who Love true, who break not their Love’s Heart, will know only Joy and Peace, all their Lives.”

She paused again; where talking about Bazaroth hadn’t been hard, this was. Not impossibly so, but not pleasant. “It was a lie. He wasn’t… wasn’t even human. He was a monster called a doppelganger. He read my mind and gave me exactly what I wanted – the perfect man, the fake man. And he was eating my soul, just like der schwanzlutscher demons. So… I killed him.”

There was much left unsaid in that moment. Skye didn’t want to tell Kazuo; he didn’t want to hear it, she hoped. She just pushed on. “Unfortunately, I truly loved him. Turns out Elven Blessings turn into curses when you break them – hence the hair and ears. Marks of the cursed, to an Ikaris elf. Oh, and this annoyance.” She glanced down at her left hand; the ring finger bore a band, but the gold had somehow tarnished, turning a ghastly, rotten-green and the three stones set in it were jet black. “It doesn’t come off, either.

,,

“After that, I didn’t want to stay in Ikaris anymore. I only knew of one portal, and I took it. I knew there was a way home, in Bazaroth. This time, I had a plan – I pretended to be a succubus. I took up residence in one of their cities, and played them off one another. I think I was about to learn the location of what I was looking for when the Old Man pulled me out.”

She took a deep breath and said, “So! That’s six years. Pretty cool, huh?” She shifted suddenly, putting her legs under her so that she sat on her heels. She grinned at him excitedly, eager to get away from her own story. “Tell me more about Cathedral! You said like Star Wars… Did they have Jedi? Did you get a lichtschwert… um, a lightsaber?”

[Kazuo]

Kazuo's fists and jaws clenched as Skye recounted her experience on Bazaroth, and his eyes grew hard and distant. Though Skye was glossing over the details, he knew more than he wanted to about what the demons did to their mortal captives, and when she mentioned that they'd fed on her...

Kazuo's gaze fell away from Skye's as he turned to the side, apparently so that he could bore a hole in the nearest wall with his glare. For an instant, Skye could have sworn that Kazuo's good eye was glistening a little too, but when he'd turned away from her he'd turned in the direction of his good eye, meaning it wound up being the one furthest away from her and out of sight. When he turned to face her again a few seconds later and his good eye swung back into view it was still filled with cold rage, but there was no hint of any mistiness, let alone tears. Must have been her imagination, she thought.

At first Kazuo thought that Skye's fortune had reversed when she'd escaped to Ikaris and that she'd spent many happy years there, and the tension and cold rage had begun to drain from him a bit. But then she'd gotten to the part about her husband being a doppleganger. Damn, he thought, the poor girl's really had it rough.

Kazuo had never been good at personal relationships. Forming close, emotional bonds with others was probably the one thing he was the worst at. His experience had always been that people fail you and emotions betray you, so he'd made it a personal habit to simply avoid both. But now that he found himself face to face with Skye Fell again - a face from his own past that he never thought he'd see again - he'd found himself struggling with a whole range of emotions that he really didn't know how to handle or what to do with.

When they'd faced that horde of invading demons back in Tokyo everything had been so tense and busy and dark that it had been easy to ignore his emotions, push such things to the side and simply leave them unsaid. Now, it was slowly dawning on him that Skye, at this particular point in his life, was his oldest, closest and best friend. And not just because she thought of him that way, but because that was how he thought about her. Most shocking of all for poor Kazuo, was the realization of just how much this tiny gaijin girl meant to him.

When they'd first met, they couldn't stand each other. What the hell happened?! When did he get so fuckin' soft?

Needless to say, all of this meant that Kazuo was deeply disturbed by what Skye was revealing had happened to her over the years, but he had no idea what to do about it. The thought never even occurred to him that an appropriate response in this kind of situation might be to embrace his friend, or console her with kind words, or at least place a comforting hand on her shoulder, so he was left with no idea of what to do with the painful sensation that had settled in his gut while listening to her story.

Shit, he thought ruefully, this is why I avoided all this sappy crap all these years. This sucks!

Originally Posted By: Skye the Fallen

She took a deep breath and said, “So! That’s six years. Pretty cool, huh?” She shifted suddenly, putting her legs under her so that she sat on her heels. She grinned at him excitedly, eager to get away from her own story. “Tell me more about Cathedral! You said like Star Wars… Did they have Jedi? Did you get a lichtschwert… um, a lightsaber?”

Hey! Something to distract him from all this shit. Awesome!

Kazuo waved a hand dismissively at Skye's suggestion that he might've use a 'lightsaber'. "Nah", he said, "turns out, even though they look awesome, lightsabers totally suck.

"I prefer to use the Guillotine", he said, referring to his weaponized wings, "but if I gotta use somethin' else I'd take a blaster or some bombs over one o' those stupid things any day."

Kazuo smirked and tried to look smug and knowledgeable. The truth? He'd been practically ecstatic when he'd finally been able to purchase one of the glowing energy blades for himself back in the Cathedral universe. But after managing to nearly emasculate himself less than ten seconds after he first turned the sucker on, Kazuo had been forced to admit that maybe he wasn't Jedi material after all. It was a heavy blow to his ego, and a touchy subject even now.

"There weren't any Jedi, neither", he added. "But they had pretty much everythin' else. At first, like I say, I thought I was in our universe, just in some other part o' the galaxy or somethin'. So when I first got there I got myself a job on a merc ship, and spent a while tryin' to track down Earth. But a'course it wasn't there, so I never found nothin..."

Kazuo shrugged, as if to say what can you do?, then said, "An' wherever I went, that damned curse followed me around, so I was always findin' myself at the center of whatever crazy shit was goin' down in that universe at the time, which didn't make things any easier. But after I'd been there fer... I dunno, maybe two years? I got offered a job by this group called the Galactic Sanitation Department. Which makes it sound like they handle the galaxy's trash er somethin, but they're actually a buncha spooks. Like the CIA or the, uh, M-A? M-U? Whatever. That British agency that James Bond worked for in all those movies."

He grinned, his expression part cockiness and part genuine pride. "So that's what I was doin' up until I came here. I was a superspy, 'cept I worked all over the galaxy! Not just on one planet!"

Kazuo grinned again, and Skye smiled back, and for a moment they just faced each other that way.

"So...", Kazuo began after the moment had passed, growing both serious and awkward again as he spoke, "how'd you end up on Bazaroth too? I coulda sworn I was the only one who got sucked through that last portal."

His last statement was actually more of a question. He wasn't even sure he wanted to know the answer. He'd already realized that she'd been a captive on Bazaroth the entire time that he'd been busy with his stupid revenge plot. If Skye had been sucked through the same portal as he had, and he'd missed it somehow and had left her to be captured... then everything that had happened to her was... Shit.

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye listened to his further description of Cathedral, and all the wonders there. She could see him kicking it out in the stars, a Japanese Han Solo in his own Millennium Falcon. It sounded fantastic, and she wished she’d found her way there – maybe they could have met up and she could have been a superspy, too. No Bond Girl for her!

But she’d gotten to become the Defender of BoneGate, the Flame-Charger. It had all been good and wonderful, with one notable exception. Her own adventures had been fulfilling and worthwhile, but she found herself wishing she could see this universe he’d explored. And even if he was dismissive of a lightsaber, she totally wanted one! Even if she never learned to use it, she wanted to have it. Who didn’t? She was a little disappointed that Kazuo didn’t have one, just to have his own.

Regardless of their parted ways and separate missions, she was still glad to see him. It felt better with him here, though she knew that was probably just her being silly. But she didn’t feel so alone anymore. Unlike Kazuo, Skye was a lot more comfortable with things like this, having displayed at least enough emotional empathy to connect to another person long enough to get married – even if that was a questionable union. But she knew one thing: her friend was here, and so was she, and that was what was important. Even the smiling that had gotten awkward for him hadn’t been nearly as off-putting to her, but she’d seen that it was for him. So she let him break the awkward moment.

She instantly regretted letting his awkwardness lapse, because it brought on a whole new type of awkward for her. How was she supposed to tell him that she’d not only got caught skipping off into hell but that she did it looking for him? Some part of her just rolled her eyes at herself and demanded that she be a grown up and just tell him, but the part of her that remembered their social struggles as kids won out. Admitting that she’d gone after him would be admitting… something. And worse, that she’d gone after him and then abandoned him at the first chance she’d gotten to save herself would be admitting something worse. All of that was without considering her marriage or the fact that she’d gone back for him again. The only saving grace of that stunt was that she hadn’t been caught a second time.

Clearing her throat, she reached up and rubbed her neck with a small hand, caressing the skin before trailing her fingers over the edge of her kimono. Her blue eyes darted across the room, latching onto a spot not far from where Kazuo had attempted to drill though with his good eye. She felt a blush crawl up her face even as she fumbled for a good reason for going to Hell other than “to rescue you.” As the silence dragged on, her mind scrambling, Kazuo’s eyebrow rose. She didn’t realize the hell she was putting him through with the long pause, as he worried that he’d been indirectly responsible for her being captured by the demons. Realizing she had to say something, she finally said, “It wasn’t the same portal, there was another one later… I was stupid.” Oh yeah, keep it general, keep it vague, let him think that it was just another random portal instead of one summoned by the Old Cuss at her request. That was smooth, Skye, real smooth.

“Speaking of demons, I’m sorry that I called you one,” Skye added quickly, keeping her voice low. She scrunched her face cutely as she continued, “After the doppelganger… it made me trust it, you know? It gets in your head and becomes what you want it to be. And then I sensed your demonic taint… I thought a demon was trying to trick me.” Her expression became more serious and she added, “Kazuo, is being demonically tainted going to hurt… Gott, that sounds stupid, but you’re an Asrai! How can being demonically tainted be a good thing to an Asrai?” Her big blue eyes had widened; she looked really worried as she gazed at him.

[Kazuo]

Kazuo breathed a mental sigh of relief when Skye told him she hadn't fallen through the same portal he had. So it wasn't entirely his fault that she'd gone through all that shit. Just partially his fault, for being so focused on his stupid revenge plot that he'd failed to realize the significance of all those rumors he'd heard about the tasty mortal 'snack' that the demons had captured. He'd be kicking himself over that one for a while to come.

He would have been more curious (and suspicious) of her long awkward pause before she even answered the question, but then she completely confused him with a string of what sounded like total gibberish.

"Huh?", asked Kazuo, his utter befuddlement written all over his face. "What the hell're you talkin' about? What's an 'asrai'? And why d'you keep sayin' I'm tainted? I got cursed, sure, but it's no big deal."

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye laughed; she couldn’t help it. It was so Kazuo of him to insist that a curse was no big deal. She still had a hint of a laugh in her voice when she said, “What do you mean, ‘what is an Asrai?’ You-”

She cut herself off in mid-word. Kazuo had never told her anything about the Asrai; she remembered that when she remembered who had told her that. “Oh,” she said, trying to mentally regroup. “See, Asrai are members of the world of Aradia. They look like humans, but they have small wings which they can expand. It sounds like a nice place – a paradise, a lot like Earth or Ikaris but safer with unicorns and winged snakes and probably fairies that can shoot rainbows out den arsch. We’d… I’d planned on visiting, if we could find a gate. They’re… really, they’re a lot like angels and…” As she trailed off, she reached out and gestured to Kazuo’s wings like Vanna getting ready to reveal the ‘Z’.

“When I heard about them,” she continued, “I thought that maybe that was what you were. After a while, I guess I just started to assume that’s exactly what you were.” Her hand had remained near his shoulder, feeling both his warmth of his body and the vile taint that corrupted him; now she pulled her hand back. “But I do know one thing. You are marked as demonic, Kazuo. The reason I keep saying it is because I keep feeling it. I could feel it when we first met; I can feel it now. I can sense these things; I know demonic. I also know it doesn’t worry you, so just relax and let me be the girl and do the worrying for both of us.” She gave him a crooked grin, trying to joke despite how much it concerned her.

Actually, if she was being honest with herself - not a practice she indulged often - she'd have to admit that it scared her. She'd just found him! It would be so typical of her life to find him and then immediately lose to him demon-cancer or something.

“At the least, when we get done with whatever trifling thing that the Old Man sent us to do, we should get you to Aradia, just to disprove my assumptions if nothing else,” Skye concluded. “If you are basically an angel, then being tainted by a demon is probably worse than normal. They might be able to help. Holle, they might be able to help even if you're not Asrai.” She studied the expression he was giving her before leaning forward and putting her hand on his arm. Without consciously meaning to, she applied the right amount of pressure to communicate that she was a hot woman who wanted something from him and that it was in his penis' best interest to give it to her. “Kazuo, please, for my peace of mind even if it doesn’t bother you.”

[Kazuo]

Kazuo gave Skye the classic, girl, you crazy! look at her explanation. "Where did you hear all this shit?", he exclaimed.

"I ain't no fuckin' angel, Skye, I'm just me! And anyway, all that heaven and hell bullshit is just that. I'd a thought if there was anyone who'd a figured that out by now it'd be you! 'Demons' are just a bunch a aliens from another planet, girl, an' if there are any 'angels' out there - and I ain't sayin there are", he hastily added, "they're just aliens too, same as those fuckers on Bazaroth. It ain't like any of 'em got any power over my soul er nothin!"

He stopped suddenly though as Skye reached out placed her hand on his arm. The touch, combined with the look in her eyes and the tone of her voice, stopped him cold. “Kazuo, please, for my peace of mind even if it doesn’t bother you", she said with exactly the right lilt in her voice. He swallowed once while he stared at her and tried to kick-start his brain again.

"Yeah, alright", he muttered after a minute, glancing away and trying not to look too addle-pated. "Like I say, it's no big deal, but if it'll make ya feel better, sure."

And the truth was, the Curse did bother him. Not because of what it meant for him - he could handle being a 'Celestial Dog', the Harbinger of War and Calamity - if there was something he was good at, it probably had something to do with violence. So he really didn't care that the Curse had meant his life was really little more than one battle or fight for survival after another. That's all his life had ever really been anyway it seemed like. No, what bothered him was what it meant for everyone around him. He was one of the most dangerous things in the Multiverse now - but he was just as dangerous to his friends as he was to his enemies.

If he traveled to a place where war was already happening, his curse could actually act as more of a benefit than a detriment, turning him into either a kind of focus for the worst of the fighting or as the calm Eye of a violent Storm, as the case might be. Either way, he was made for war and his abilities meant that he functioned well in such an environment. But if he showed up in a time of peace, it was inevitable that some form of violence or disaster was not far behind. That was why he'd long since given up trying to find his way back to his own world; if they'd actually succeeded at staving off that invasion from Bazaroth and had truly made it a safe and peaceful place to live, then the last thing he wanted to do was return and bring War with him.

It only took a brief moment for Kazuo's natural, cocky self-assurance to return, and then he looked back to Skye, the bisected eyebrow over his ruined eye quirked upwards in curiosity. "How come you know so much 'bout all this, anyway?"

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Kazuo's acceptance of her request washed away some of Skye's worry. The knot of fear - not that she admitted that's what it was - eased; if there was something about the curse that was harming him, she wanted it gone. Of course, if his curse was just causing him to be the focus of war and strife and wasn't directly responsible for hurting him, she could probably live with that. It wasn't safe, but if she trusted one thing about Kazuo, it was his ability to kick Death in the nads and drag himself home to fight another day. If it was like her curse - never to know requited love again - and largely harmless, she'd stop worrying. Her curse didn't hurt anyone, technically not even her. It wasn't even as bad as Kazuo's, really. She'd just keep telling herself that until she believed it. She had a trusted friend and her connection to Luna - what did she need love for?

His question put her back on the spot. Getting a little irritated that Kazuo was honing in right on the area that she didn't want him poking at too much, Skye shrugged. "I asked questions," she told him honestly. "The leader of BoneGate was from another dimension, and he'd been collecting data on all that stuff. I learned a lot from him." She smiled a little sheepishly. "I asked about it because I always thought it was unfair that you got to have wings and all I got was to glow." She held up a hand, the silver glow almost obscured in the hard lighting overhead. "I mean, you get be an ang- an alien or something like that and I get to be a nightlight."

Not that glowing in the dark hadn't had it's advantages after her wedding. She was still a little bemused that despite her wild youth, she'd had a real wedding night. Once they'd confessed their feelings - or she'd confessed hers and he had said whatever would get him dinner - things had moved so fast. She'd been injured from the fight and he'd been helping mop up in the wake of the dragons leaving but neither had wanted to wait. All the preparations had left little time for them to sneak in some pre-martial nookie, though. Everything before the wedding was a blur for her; the wedding night was the first thing that she remembered well. Too bad that it, like most of her time with her husband, had been fake.

She could have told Kazuo a little more about her information source, but she wanted to wait until they could really talk freely. From what she'd been told in Ikaris, she and Kazuo were not among friends. It was time to smile and nod a lot and lay low. She'd fill Kazuo in as soon as she could. Wish I had telepathy... sorta. Don't know that I want to be inside of everyone's heads. But it'd be nice to be able to tell him something without others hearing. "But the description of an Asrai matches you, so I did some research on them," she added, getting back to the subject. "Just mostly where they lived and how to find them.

"And you know, even if you are one of these aliens, you're still you, and still meine narben ritter," she added with a teasing grin.

Kazuo peered at her, his good eye expressing yet more confusion. "Wha?"

"My scarred knight," Skye translated, enjoying throwing him off balance a little. "Meine narben ritter und freund." Gott, how she'd missed this.

[Kazuo]

Kazuo chuckled at Skye's translation. "Guess that makes you the pointy-eared princess in the story then, huh?"

He reached over one shoulder absentmindedly to scratch a wing while shaking his head incredulously. "You an' Keiko always did seem to know more 'bout all this shit than the rest've us; dunno why it surprises me now. Ya wanna know somethin' funny? All that time we spent fightin' those Demon Lords back in Tokyo? I never did learn the names o' half of 'em."

Kazuo gave Skye that razor sharp grin of his while he watched her with his one good eye. He could tell there was a lot she wasn't telling him, and while he didn't know what it was or why she wasn't telling him, one thing he'd figured out about Skye Fell a long time ago; it was a whole lot easier to work with her when you just gave her the space she wanted. So he'd leave it alone for now. She'd tell him when she was ready, and if she didn't? Then it either wasn't any of his business anyway - or it was, and he'd deal with that when and if it became necessary.

Fortunately for Kazuo, he'd never been burdened with an overly curious nature, so it was easy for him to just let stuff drop, if it seemed like that's what the other person wanted. To his way of thinking, he always got along perfectly fine before he found out that someone knew something he didn't, so there wasn't any reason why he could just keep right on getting along fine after learning that someone knew something he didn't. No skin off his nose, right?

Still, just because he was giving someone their space, that didn't mean he couldn't ask them anything at all.

"So, what's with the ears? You an actual elf now, or are those things just for show?"

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye didn't answer Kazuo's jibe about her being a princess; she was too busy blushing and trying to not to grin like a moron. He was more right than he knew; she was nobility on Ikaris, though it was a granted title - another wedding gift. She didn't have any land to go with it, though had her life there proceeded apace, she and her "lord-husband" likely would have been landed in time. The home they'd bought had been enough for her, honestly.

His “revelation” about not knowing the names of the Heads just brought a wry grin to her face. She was feeling too generous toward him to let him know that she knew that already. His lack of interest in the personalities of the Heads had been obvious and while it had irritated the Hölle out of her at the time, she just found it to be one of his quirks, now. So she just tried to look surprised at his confidence. “It’s not like you really needed to know that,” Skye admitted. “Keiko and I were the ones responsible for sealing them, all you had to do was kill them.”

She could keep going on like this forever. It was good to just sit with the object of her long search and knew that they were both somewhat happy. And Skye was, despite all her trials, happy. Even before she’d found Kazuo, she’s been a little happy, in a way. She had a purpose in life, as a priestess, and though life had been rough, she’d enjoyed most of the last few years. She’d seen things she’d never imagined possible, lived fantastic adventures and come to understand truths about herself. She wouldn’t change any of it, even the time in Bazaroth. She just didn’t want to do some of it again.

Then Kazuo asked another question, one to which Skye didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know,” she admitted, self-consciously reaching up and touching an ear. As always, the touch was a delight and she lowered her hand. She still was surprised to find them there, and was a little embarrassed by them. They were meant to be a mark of shame, like the hair, and they were. It hadn't effected her the way the elves had thought it would, though. She was embarrassed because she’d been fooled enough to completely give her heart away. She’d been hoodwinked by a fake person.

She had a deeper fear, too, one she'd barely admitted to herself. The doppelganger hadn’t just made a man for her to fall in love with; he’d known exactly what she wanted from a man. She’d fallen in love with her ideal, an ideal that couldn’t exist in the real world. She was afraid to no real man could match that. Maybe that’s what the curse meant.

“I didn’t stick around to ask questions,” Skye said softly, her expression becoming pensive. “I saw one elf after I destroyed the cottage, and she immediately called me cursed. Spit on me too and told me to stay away from her. I couldn’t get answers out of her. I saw two other people, and they didn’t know either. Then I left for Bazaroth.” She looked up and smiled at him, her expression becoming bemused as she added, “All I know is that I have a slight increase in my hearing because the size of my exterior ear has increased and they’re incredibly sensitive. I’m convinced that if you box an elf in the ears, it’ll put him down faster than kicking him in der hoden.” Her smile became a grin, her blue eyes twinkling with sudden mischievousness. “Wanna touch them? You seem curious, and I won’t mind so long as you don’t pull on them.” She’d had to sneak a feel of his wings; the white feathers had been such a draw to her. They still were, in a way; she'd been secretly jealous of them as a teenager but now she had a different regard for them. Without waiting for an answer, she tucked her hair behind her ear and presented the bared organ to him. The movement also exposed the soft curve of her neck and her smooth cheek to his gaze. The kimono abetted the unconscious sexiness by sliding down her shoulder, just enough to send thoughts spiraling downward.

[Kazuo]

"Sure!", answered Kazuo, grinning. He still felt a little awkward about the way things were between them right now, but this was more like the kind of physical proximity he was used to and could deal with.

Kazuo had to admit one thing to himself; however much Skye had suffered during the years since they'd last seen each other, the change that'd been wrought in her during that time was definitely both pleasing and appealing. He wondered if she thought the same about him, or different? He wondered if he'd even changed all that much, really. His life, since being sucked through that hell-gate, had seemed to consist of little more than one battle after another with sporadic periods of relative peace scattered in between them. He really hadn't had the time (or the desire) to think about things like his personal development in a long, long time, and now that he was thinking about it he had to wonder: just how many good personality traits could he have developed after years of little else but violence?

Kazuo reached out and, with surprising gentleness, ran two fingers over and down the point of Skye's left ear. Yep, he thought as he felt the skin of her ear beneath his fingers, they're real. His good eye glanced to Skye's face with surprisingly little self-consciousness now, watching to see how she was reacting.

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye held herself very still as Kazuo’s fingers traced a line of fire on her ear. A tremor, barely suppressed, ran through her and her lips parted in silent shock. She’d known that they were sensitive, but someone else touching them was divine – especially when the fingers touching them acted with such tenderness. She thought she’d been ready, but she heard her breath catch and knew Kazuo had to have heard it too. The realization that he knew brought a blush to her face, then up her ears, as if her blood was chasing after his fingers.

“There,” she said, leaning back and wondering what she was going to say now. She shivered one more time in the aftermath of delight as she locked eyes with him. He was watching her closely and that only inflamed the blush more. She suddenly wished that she hadn’t offered to let him touch because she didn’t have a clue what to do now.

“See,” she said dumbly, trying to cover her sudden fumble, “real ears.” Oh, that was dumb. A safe topic came to her suddenly. “You know, this place has no chocolate or orange sodas. I bet they don’t have decent sake either. This place is going to be a drag, off the battlefield.” She grinned at him, that eager smile he’d become so familiar with when Skye had become a party animal. “I wonder what we’ll have to do to procure some. We’ll have to remember to ask about that, if we get a chance.” She frowned suddenly. “You know more about life in the space-faring gig than I do – parties on Ikaris were remarkably like parties at home. Booze, loud music and lots of scrumping in the corners. How did people in your part of space party? Please, Kazuo, give me hope.”

[Kazuo]

Kazuo chuckled deep in his throat at Skye's reaction - and attempted coverup of said reaction - to his touching her ear. "Looks like 'sensitive' is a bit of an understatement, hey?" Personally, he was just glad to see that she hadn't turned 'goddess' all the way through - it meant he might not be completely out of his league with her as he'd been afraid of.

When Skye brought the distinct lack of booze and smokes on this ship (what they'd seen of it so far) Kazuo grunted. "Don't remind me", he muttered, "I been jonesing for a cigarette since I got here, an' I don't got any on me, neither."

He shrugged. "But I think parties are like that everywhere", he said, apparently in regards to Skye's comments about parties on Ikaris, "Everyplace has got its own particular ideas 'bout what makes a good party - an' some o' those ideas suck - but I'm pretty sure it's, like, a cosmic law er somethin' - no party is really a party until someone shows up with somethin' bad fer ya an' a whole buncha loud-ass music for people ta move to. Ya know? It's pretty much universal, in my experience."

Kazuo looked like he was about to say more, but just then the strange girl, Kelly, came in and walked up to the bed they'd been sitting on. "It's time to go", was all she said before turning to her comrades and addressing them.

Kazuo quirked an eyebrow at Skye and shrugged his shoulders. "Apparently, it's time to go", he said, and they both stood up and prepared to do exactly that.

Continued in Desolate Litany...