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seikilosI've decided to post all my themes in one big post for each, so it's easier to keep track. With ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
30_hugs, this has the added bonus of me being able to post things in chronological order, which isn't at all the same as theme order.
I also really need to make a comprehensive list of what fanon I borrowed from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rallalon and yume_no_hikari and where, because I took a lot.
For those who don't know, Rall and Stacey played Botta and Yuan respectively onomg_symphonia and in the process, created a fair number of original Renegades. I ended up borrowing some and creating others on my own to populate the Renegade bases, and occasionally I forgot to credit them. I'm hoping to fix that there.
With that being said, here I go:
1) hazel eyes
2) rainbows and butterflies
3) snap snap!; photograph
4) teddy bear
5) collide
6) oxygen
7) tangled up
8) fairytales
9) footprints
10) just a memory
11) ice
12) run away
13) euthanasia
14) somei yoshino; a type of sakura - Its flowers are nearly pure white, tinged with the palest pink, especially near the stem. The flowers bloom, and usually fall (or "scatter," 散る, in Japanese) within a week, before the leaves come out. Therefore, the trees look nearly white from top to bottom.
15) fait des beaux reves; sweet dreams
16) think of me and I'll be there
17) orange; color
18) the wrong words
19) aurora borealis; northern lights
20) broken dreams
21) sois un ange; be an angel
22) 一期一会; ichi-go ichi-e - A Japanese term that describes a cultural concept often linked with famed tea master Sen no Rikyu. The term is often translated as "for this time only," "never again," or "one chance in a lifetime."
23) candlelight
24) love and hate
25) the curtain falls
26) "I never say the truth."
27) splash
28) dust
29) silhouette
30) hug!
7) tangled up: Botta's backstory
11) ice: morale-boosters, Melka
12) run away: the majority of Botta's backstory
14) somei yoshino; a type of sakura: Darvis
17) orange; color: Casual Day suggested byrallalon
20) broken dreams: Inspired byrallalon's "Blink."
22) 一期一会; ichi-go ichi-e: Heig
28) dust: Melka and Miehlam
And now the fics, in chronological order.
1 - the curtain falls - 25
“Lord Botta! Lord Yuan! Thank you for meeting with us!” the Renegade said with a sharp salute.
Yuan looked around the storage room that had recently been converted into a combination rehearsal and props room by the Renegades’ brand-new Amateur Theatrics Society.
“I believe you had said something about your first play?” Yuan folded his arms.
“Yes, sir. We would like to offer you and Lord Botta the lead roles.” The soldier looked pleased with himself.
Yuan and Botta coughed almost simultaneously to cover their reactions.
“And which play is this?” Yuan asked once he had regained his neutral expression.
“It’s called Cassandrina, Lord Yuan, and we’ve already got the costumes prepared. Lolina, bring them out,” he called.
A Renegade who had been standing at attention next to him scurried away, returning with two folded costumes in her arms. “Here you are, sirs. We weren’t certain of your measurements, so we had to guess.”
The first Renegade took the top outfit from Lolina and shook it out. It seemed to be fairly standard hero wear.
“All right,” Yuan said as he took in the costume, not committing to anything. The second garment caught his eye. It was purple and seemed to be silky in nature. “What’s that?”
“That’s the other lead’s costume.” The first Renegade looked proud. “We spent a long time on it and we had to use lots of fabric, but it came out really well.” He flourished a beautifully-made dress. “What do you think, Lord Botta?”
Centuries of concealing his emotions dissolved at the genuinely proud looks on the faces of the two Renegades. Yuan burst out laughing. He started laughing harder at the expression on Botta’s face.
“. . . I think that’s a no, Josep,” Lolina said with a sigh.
* * *
A number of weeks later, Yuan settled himself into a folding chair in one of the large main rooms of the base. After rapidly scouting out two replacement leads for their play, the Amateur Theatrics Society had put together Cassandrina and was now ready to present it, with Yuan and Botta in front-row seats of honour. Getting comfortable was impossible in the hard metal chairs, so Yuan resigned himself to tolerable instead.
Botta sat down next to him a few moments later.
“Are you ready to see what our roles would have been, Botta?” Yuan asked, smiling faintly at the memory of the giant purple dress.
Botta’s expression was at its most blank. “Yes, sir.”
Yuan’s smile widened, although all he said was, “Looks like the show is about to start.”
The lights, already dimming as Yuan spoke, finished growing fainter so that there was only a slight glow emanating from them. A few darkly-clad Renegades walked out carrying bits of scenery created from various odds and ends, set them down, and then departed. The lights became a bit brighter, and then a young female Renegade walked onstage wearing the infamous purple dress.
Yuan’s smile, having faded, came back in full force, this time in the incarnation of a smirk. The dress must have been a third of its original size, as the actor in the role once intended for Botta was positively tiny. Glancing over, Yuan noted that Botta’s face, as always, revealed nothing. This only increased Yuan’s amusement.
The play began with the lead, Cassandrina, lamenting over a marriage her parents had arranged for her. After spending a suitable amount of time angsting, she then moved on to sighing over the man she truly loved, whom she had been forbidden to marry. With amazing timing, a voice came from off-stage—her lover had sneaked onto her parents’ property and was about to give her an impassioned speech from outside.
At this point, Yuan was rolling his eyes and wondering if his Renegades had gone out of their way to pick a terribly-plotted story. Then he caught sight of the outfit Cassandrina’s lover was wearing and nearly choked. Beside him, Botta went into a coughing fit.
“Isn’t that—?” Botta began once he could speak.
“Yes.”
“But that would mean they would have expected us to—”
“Yes.”
As the scene came to a close, Yuan began to calculate the appropriate pay docking that would have to take place, trying very hard to keep his personal opinion out of things. It was becoming increasingly difficult as the play went on. While he had to admit his initial reaction to the gigantic purple dress had been one of amusement, he knew he couldn’t let something such as this pass by. It was far too close to insubordination.
Returning his attention to the play, Yuan found Cassandrina’s lover, destined to be played by Yuan, had, after speaking appropriately soppy lines, come up with a plan to save Cassandrina from her marriage to her fiancé. This involved Cassandrina’s lover dressing up as the fiancé and marrying Cassandrina in his place.
At this point, having settled upon an appropriate deduction, Yuan was beginning to wonder if his eyes would roll right out of his head from the dreadful plotting. Yet the worst was yet to come.
The play limped on, with many supposedly hilarious mishaps, misunderstandings, and impossible cases of mistaken identity. The climax of the play was the wedding scene where Cassandrina’s lover was very nearly successful in carrying out his plan when at the last minute someone exposed him as a fraud. However, instead of the sensible ending of the lover getting booted out and the wedding continuing as it was supposed to, the priest stepped in and married the young couple anyway.
As the pair embraced onstage, Yuan turned to Botta. “I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Did they make the play this bad on purpose? Surely no one could manage this by accident.”
“It’s hard to say, sir,” Botta said, not committing to anything.
Yuan glanced back at the stage area. “I’d personally say—gods above! What were they thinking?”
The new husband had just swept Cassandrina into his arms and was striding manfully offstage. Yuan looked from the pair to his six-and-a-half foot subordinate. Up went one eyebrow. “They expected me to carry you like that?”
“That . . . seems to be the case, sir.” Botta seemed somewhat disturbed.
“Obviously with angelic strength, then.” Yuan simply shook his head.
The play ended a few moments later. Had there been a curtain, it would have fallen. However, due to the low budget of the Amateur Theatrics Society, all that happened was the lights brightened and the stage crew came out to disassemble the set. The attending Renegades got to their feet ands stretched, discussing what they had just seen. Yuan, however, headed “backstage” to confront those who had been responsible for the casting. Botta followed to act as a stabilising influence.
“So, Lord Yuan, Lord Botta,” Josep greeted them, a proud smile on his face, “what did you think? Wasn’t it a great play?”
Yuan was completely unmoved. “I’m docking you and everyone else involved in casting a month’s pay for insubordination.”
The smile, and those of the surrounding theatre society members, disappeared instantly, to be replaced by one of intense hurt.
“You didn’t like it?” Josep’s voice was filled with disappointment.
“You cast those roles with the express purpose of making a mockery of your superiors.” Yuan folded his arms and glared. “While the Renegades may be a more tolerant group than the Desians from which you were recruited, Private Josep, there are limits. Respect must be given to your superiors. I don’t believe attempting to make Lord Botta crossdress would be an appropriate expression of respect, would you?”
Botta’s face remained carefully neutral as Josep replied, “But, Lord Yuan, we only wanted to give you and Lord Botta a chance at the starring roles. Besides, it’s theatre—people crossdress all the time in theatre!”
“That may be the case, but the Renegades are a military organisation first and an acting troupe . . . at least forty-fifth.” Yuan’s expression had yet to lighten one whit. “Do you understand, Private Josep?”
Josep saluted, disappointment still evident in every line of his body. “Yes, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.”
“Good. See that it doesn’t.” Yuan turned on his heel and walked briskly out the door, Botta following.
Once the two leaders had left the room, Josep exhaled loudly. “I don’t know what it is about Lord Yuan, but for a man his size, he certainly can make someone feel even smaller.”
“Remind me never to listen to you again, Josep,” Lolina said with a glare if not as impressive as Lord Yuan’s—which had been perfected over the millennia—still fearsome all the same. “That’s an entire month’s pay you lost me! And half the Amateur Theatrics Society, for that matter!”
“Well, we’re paid peanuts, anyway, and we have free room and board, so I don’t see why you’re complaining.” He smiled widely. “Think of it as making a charitable donation to this fine organisation.”
“All of our wages for a month?”
Josep spread his arms wide. “Just think about how much credit you’ll earn with the Goddess Martel for such charity—if she existed, that is.”
Lolina didn’t even bother to dignify that with a reply. Conveniently forgetting she had been just as gung-ho about the whole ploy to get Lord Botta into a dress as Josep had been, she vowed the next time something like this happened, it would be curtains for her friend.
2 - dust - 28
The sound of sneezing filled the air at Sylvarant Base. It was spring in Triet, and that meant something out of the ordinary was about to occur: the base was going to be cleaned from top to bottom.
Being situated in the middle of a desert meant the accumulation of a considerable amount of dust, were it allowed to build up—which it wasn’t, since too much desert sand would jam the machinery. Still, when Lord Yuan made the announcement that the base was to be thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom and that everyone in non-essential positions was going to participate without exception, no one could accuse him of giving a make-work project.
Botta was in the middle of mopping the floor of his room when there was a brisk knock at the door. Setting the mop back in its bucket of murky water, he went to answer the door.
“Ah, good,” Yuan said as the door opened upon him. “Botta, I need you to help clean my room.”
Botta blinked. “Weren’t Melka and Miehlam assigned to help you, sir?”
“Yes, they were, but between their bickering and the fact that I have some sensitive documents that I don’t want just anyone seeing, I told them to go clean the hall outside my rooms instead,” Yuan explained. “So I want you to come and help with the cleaning instead.”
“What about those documents?” Botta asked, glancing behind him at his own cleaning that remained undone.
“The day I have papers too secret for my second-in-command to see is the day you have my permission to haul me off to a mental hospital for paranoiacs.” Yuan shook his head. “Now come on. We’re wasting time.”
“All right, sir,” Botta said, resigned. “If you would allow me to get some cleaning supplies . . . ?”
“No need.” Yuan started walking down the hall. “There are the supplies Melka and Miehlam left behind. I told them to get other things for cleaning the hall.”
Botta followed, somewhat reluctantly leaving his work to finish later. However, he knew where his duty rested, and so he was forced to obey.
As the pair walked through the halls, avoiding wet patches on the floor from recent scrubbings, they saw the sights and heard the sounds of a large number of half-elves in the midst of spring cleaning madness. Botta was fairly certain he saw someone walk by with a basket full of bootlaces in the direction of the laundry rooms, but thought it best not to ask.
Arriving at Yuan’s quarters, it was obvious the previous pair of Renegades had left immediately after being thrown out. There was a ladder open by one wall with a bucket of brownish water on a built-in platform, but the rag was lying on the floor near the door. A bottle of furniture polish sat in the middle of the floor; its accompanying rag looked as though it had been hurled across the room to land against the wall.
Botta didn’t comment on the silent illustration of exactly how well Melka and Miehlam had got along. Instead, he found the mop and bucket in the corner and started cleaning the floor. Yuan, meanwhile, started clearing off his desk in order to polish it, piling papers on the floor. Botta merely mopped around them.
After a short period of comfortable silence, Yuan commented, “I should have asked you to help me from the start. You’re a lot easier on my head.”
“Sir?” Botta dipped his mop back in the bucket.
“Those two were giving me a headache from their babbling. I’m in no danger of that with you.”
Botta smiled slightly and continued his work.
“. . . Although if you don’t start talking, you may well tempt me into bringing back Melka and Miehlam.” Yuan slopped the polish on his desk.
“You’re using too much furniture polish, sir,” was all Botta said.
“Fascinating subject choice.”
Botta bent over his work, hiding the expression on his face. “I’m glad you think so, sir.”
Yuan snorted at Botta’s tactful agreement. After he finished cleaning his desk and dumped his work back on it—without paying much attention to the way it was organised—he walked out the door.
While he was gone, Botta continued to clean the floor of Yuan’s office, refusing to think of his own partially cleaned floor back in his room. His duty was to look after Lord Yuan, no matter what that meant.
“Even if it means mopping his floor,” Botta murmured aloud.
“What was that?” Yuan asked, coming back in after a rather prolonged absence.
“Nothing, sir.” Finished, Botta surveyed his work for a moment, before retrieving a cleaning rag and climbing the rickety ladder standing by the wall in order to wipe down the walls.
Seeing the ladder creak under Botta’s weight, Yuan decided not to sort through the papers on his desk right away. Instead, he walked across the room to where Botta was cleaning.
“I’d better hold onto that ladder for you, Botta, or you’ll wind up breaking something—and not just the ladder,” he said, wrapping his arms around the ladder and hugging it to keep it steady.
“Thank you, sir.” Botta wiped down the walls at a slightly greater speed, now that he knew the ladder wasn’t going to suddenly collapse on him.
After a while, Botta wrung out his rag. “Sir?”
“Yes, Botta?” Yuan asked, looking up. Then he quickly looked off to one side to keep himself from staring up Botta’s robe.
“Would you mind moving the ladder?” Botta asked. He set down the rag and prepared to descend.
“Of course.”
On his way down, Botta, grabbing for a rung, missed and accidentally dislodged the bucket of dirty water. As the bucket dropped, Botta made a frantic one-handed grab and missed. “Look out, sir!”
Yuan glanced up and immediately jumped backwards. The bucket missed landing on him, but it spilled filthy water all over the floor in front of Yuan—as well as everything from his waist down.
Botta winced as Yuan let out a few strong curse words. “Sir, are you all right?”
Yuan examined his pants, which were now patterned with brown. “Yes. Although I can’t really say the same for my pants. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he added and walked into his personal quarters.
After Yuan changed his clothes and returned, the two worked hard at cleaning the room, without any further accidents. It was late in the day by the time the two finished.
Botta, returning to his room, tried not to be too irritated by the fact that he still had plenty of cleaning left to do. However, to his surprise, he found the floors, walls, and ceiling of his room clean. His desk remained untouched, but that was something he didn’t mind; Yuan wasn’t the only one with sensitive documents.
Surveying the room, Botta was pleased. It looked as though Lord Yuan hadn’t forgotten about him after all. Yuan must have used his absence earlier that day to supervise the cleaning of Botta’s room.
Almost smiling, Botta sat down to finish the brief task of cleaning his desk.
3 - hazel eyes - 1
Waiting for Botta to arrive for their meeting to discuss the current state of the Renegades’ finances, Yuan idly doodled on the stack of reports in front of him. For some reason, he was having trouble focusing on, well, everything. He wasn’t precisely sure why—he wasn’t overtired and the work was no more boring than usual. Regardless, Yuan simply couldn’t seem to pay attention to his work.
He was a little worried about that. After all, the task of fighting Yggdrasill grew more important by the day. Every Chosen that was sent off on the Journey of Regeneration meant Yggdrasill was one step closer to success. Yuan simply could not allow that, and therefore he could not afford to lose focus for even a day.
Rubbing his face with his hands, Yuan tried to recall the last time he had taken a day off. Was it last month? No, he had been planning on having a vacation day, but then there was that business with the Desian spy discovered within their ranks and the resulting fallout had taken a full week to sort out, even when he had delegated like mad.
Catching himself sketching out not the latest automated sentry design, but a close-up of—yes, that was a daisy, Yuan shoved the papers aside in disgust. After this meeting, he was either going to have to do something mindless but needful, like reorganising his files, or he was going to have to take the day off altogether.
While he was contemplating his decision, a knock came at the door. Yuan checked the clock on his desk. Two o’clock on the dot; Botta was nothing if not punctual.
“Come in, Botta,” he called.
Botta entered, walked to the front of Yuan’s desk, and saluted.
Yuan nodded. “At ease. In fact,” he added as Botta relaxed his position slightly, “pull up that chair and sit down.”
Botta looked for and noticed the armless chair in the corner that Yuan had indicated. He carried it in front of the desk, then sat, posture erect.
“Why don’t you begin by giving your report?” Yuan suggested.
“Very well, sir.”
Botta began to speak. Yuan did his best to focus on what his subordinate was saying, but inevitably his attention began to wander. Despite his efforts to pay attention, he found himself taking a good look at Botta, something he rarely, if ever, did. Telling himself it was a good exercise in which to partake on the off chance someone attempted to impersonate Botta and conveniently ignoring the fact that it would be awfully hard to impersonate someone as unusually large as his second-in-command, he took a good look.
Starting with Botta’s beard, Yuan subjected his subordinate to a thorough analysis, all the while listening to the report with half an ear. After suitably memorising the shape and colour of Botta’s beard, Yuan moved his gaze up to his lips, teeth, and tongue, then to his nose, before letting his gaze come to a rest on Botta’s dark hazel eyes.
Hmm. Botta has nice eyes, Yuan decided. I’d think it was odd I’d never noticed before if it weren’t for the fact that I hardly recruit people based on whether I like the colour of their eyes or not. He snorted gently at that.
“Sir?” Yuan heard Botta ask.
Yuan raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Botta?”
Botta, seeming as though he realised Yuan was not paying particular attention to his report, was giving his superior a slightly questioning look.
“Carry on,” Yuan said, shuffling a few papers at random.
“Yes, sir.”
Botta continued his report. Yuan continued his observations.
As nice and clear of eyes as Botta had, Yuan found he couldn’t discern what Botta was thinking by looking into them. Not that Yuan could often tell anything at all from people’s eyes, of course. He didn’t believe in that old misconception that one could read a person’s inner thoughts from their eyes alone and thought those who tried were rather stupid. It was the selection of words a person used, what they avoided saying, and the actions performed when there were no obvious observers upon which Yuan preferred to rely.
“Sir?” This time Botta had relaxed his discipline enough to give his superior an odd look.
“Botta, before you continue your report, I think you would benefit from reading these,” Yuan said abruptly, to save face.
He picked up the stack of papers that was lying on his desk and shoved them into Botta’s arms.
Botta raised his eyebrows but took the stack and hugged them to his chest.
“Is there anything else, sir?” he asked, standing.
“No, that’s everything. Dismissed, Botta.”
Botta gave a slightly awkward salute, being restricted by the papers he carried. Then he left to look after his suddenly augmented workload.
As soon as the door slid shut behind Botta, Yuan rubbed at his temples. He had managed to come out of that situation with his dignity relatively intact, but as for the rest of the day. . . .
He got up from his desk and walked into his private chambers, where he undressed somewhat and climbed into bed to take a nap. He was just settling back against the pillows when he realised something that made him groan aloud: He had sent the report covered in daisy doodles with Botta. Yuan could only imagine Botta’s reaction to the various sketches.
Too late now, Yuan thought, closing his eyes. I’m not moving. Botta will just have to be entertained by my dubious art skills.
Which, to a complete lack of surprise on Yuan’s part, Botta was.
4 - fairytales - 8
5 - rainbows and butterflies - 2
Botta had just stopped in the Renegade common room to talk to someone when a young woman hugging a dripping helmet to her chest burst in.
“Hey, everyone, guess what?” She grinned. “It’s raining!”
“You must be joking,” someone said from the corner chair. “It never rains here. We’re in the middle of a desert.”
“No, really! Come and look!”
A number of Renegades followed their excited comrade to the entrance of the base, including the soldier Botta had come to see. With the mental equivalent of a shrug, Botta followed in the wake of the soldiers.
Sure enough, when the great doors to the base were opened, revealed were overcast skies and the steady hiss of rain. The light sand was already dark brown and slightly pockmarked from the exceedingly rare downpour. The two Renegades on duty were looking rather damp but not overly displeased. The warm rain was a pleasant change from the sandstorms that often marked Renegade guard duty at Sylvarant Base.
The fresh scent of damp earth came to Botta’s nose and he inhaled it appreciatively. Rain was a rare experience for the half-elf, who divided almost all of his time between the sunny wasteland of Triet Desert and the snowy one near Flanoir.
Someone had walked up to stand right behind him; Botta turned to see Yuan.
“I haven’t seen a desert rain for almost a century.” The other man watched the falling droplets, a thoughtful look on his face. Then he looked up at Botta with a small smile. “We should go out in it. We won’t get another opportunity like this for quite some time.”
“Sir, we both have too much work for that,” Botta reminded him.
Yuan frowned for a moment. Then his expression lightened somewhat. “That’s all right. You and I can train. Fighters need to be prepared for all sorts of battle conditions, after all. Let’s go get our weapons and we can meet back here.”
“You want to train with me, sir?” Botta couldn’t quite hide all his surprise. Yuan trained alone, for the simple reason that no one could ever keep up with him.
He nodded. “I do. I know you’re one of the best fighters we have, but I’d like to check on your progress.”
“Understood.” Botta waited for Yuan to leave first before heading back to his room to retrieve his larger curved sword.
For normal base business, Botta found it more convenient to carry a short sword, rather than the large scimitar he preferred if he knew there was a chance he would be in a fight. However, his short sword would be useless against Yuan’s weapon of choice.
Arriving at his office, Botta picked up the scimitar and returned to the entrance of the base. There he found Yuan without his cape and already leaning on his huge butterfly sword. The weapon was six and a half feet long with two blades, one on each end. Running through the middle of the blades was a long pole, which Yuan was currently gripping on the short gap between the blades.
“Ready?” Yuan asked.
Botta nodded and the two stepped out into the warm desert rain. They walked for a few minutes until they were out of sight of the base, stopping when Yuan found a reasonably flat area in which to fight. He walked a few feet until he was standing across from Botta, then balanced the butterfly sword on his right hand.
Botta couldn’t quite refrain from staring. It was an odd thing indeed to see a short, quite slender man casually holding such a monstrous sword in a single hand.
It was a commonly-held viewpoint by those who didn’t work with the weapons that most swords were heavy objects. In reality, the majority were surprisingly light, Botta’s scimitar included. Yuan’s sword, however, was the exception to prove the rule. The only person to which the butterfly sword was light was Yuan.
It was with these thoughts in mind Botta prepared for what would undoubtedly be the hardest fight of his life.
Yuan waited for his sparring partner to be ready, then, after receiving a nod, immediately launched into the practice battle. He had already taken Botta’s measure as the other man had warmed up.
Botta was startled by the suddenness with which Yuan began the exercise, but he recovered quickly and soon the two were sparring fiercely. Excluding the odd moment or two, Botta found himself on the defensive for the entire fight. Yuan moved with an incredible speed and agility, performing manoeuvres that, had the circumstances been somewhat more favourable, would have left Botta shaking his head in admiration.
Midway through, the rain began to slack off; both men were concentrating too hard to take notice. Botta was beginning to breathe heavily at the almost unbelievably fast pace his superior had set for the battle when Yuan did a backward handspring, bringing himself out of Botta’s range.
“That’s enough,” Yuan said. His breathing was slightly faster than usual, but that was the only sign of his exertion. Still, Botta felt proud that he was able to tire his leader even to that slight degree. Looking closer, he saw Yuan was smiling.
“That was the best fight anyone has given me since, oh, it’d be since before my previous second-in-command died.” Yuan walked up to Botta and clapped him on the back, letting his hand rest on Botta’s shoulder. “Excellent job.”
“Thank you, sir.” Botta smiled back.
“We should do this more often. In fact, provided you wouldn’t mind devoting some of your time to it, I was thinking we could practice fighting as a team.” Yuan looked up at Botta, his wet hair straggling down his back and sticking to his face. “What do you think?”
Botta became conscious that he was sopping wet from sweat and rainwater. It seemed as though a shower was in order.
“I’d be honoured, sir,” he said, meaning it.
“Good.” Yuan removed his hand from Botta’s shoulder and glanced at the clearing skies. “Hmm, a rainbow. Those are even rarer than desert rains.”
Botta looked in the same direction as Yuan, appreciating the sight for a few moments. “We should get back to the base.”
“Mm.” Yuan shouldered his sword, being careful not to take Botta’s head off in the process, and started the short walk back.
Botta followed, unable to keep from smiling slightly. His training had paid off in the best possible way. He would have to work even harder to keep up with Yuan now, but the extra work was worth it.
Above them, the rainbow slowly faded, taking with it the last traces of the rain.
6 - collide - 5
">“Be careful, Lord Yuan,” a Renegade called out, voice cheerful, as she walked in the opposite direction as him. “They’ve just finished waxing the floors in the entire southern quarter of the base.”
“Right.” Yuan nodded once and kept walking. “Thanks for the warning.”
As he walked on the newly waxed floors, Yuan noticed that they were considerably slipperier than before the waxing, something he resolved to bring up with the janitorial staff. After all, if everyone had to keep tiptoeing around so they wouldn’t fall, it would lower productivity and raise the potential for accidents. The soldiers had enough trouble with Desian-inflicted injuries; there certainly was no need for them to be in danger in their very own bases.
He stopped walking and frowned at the shiny floor for a few moments. Doubtless the Renegades in charge of handing out cleaning duty would have an idea of something they could use to clean the floors without rendering them a hazard to the general health of the entire base.
“Lord Yuan?” a voice asked from directly behind him.
Yuan turned to address the speaker and found his feet slipping out from underneath him. He crashed into the person behind him and felt two strong arms circle his upper body in a hug of sorts. Then the person behind him also lost his purchase on the slick floor and the two of them found themselves on the ground in a heap.
Yuan lay back and groaned.
“Lord Yuan, are you all right?” Botta asked him from his position beneath his superior.
“This is exactly why I need to speak with the janitorial staff,” Yuan said instead of answering, surprisingly comfortable where he was lying with his head on Botta’s chest.
Deciding not to think about that for the moment, he sat up and asked, “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“Not much, sir.” Botta winced as his bruised elbow bumped against the floor when he made an attempt to sit up as well.
“Twice in a week you’ve collided with me, Botta. You’re getting clumsy.”
“Sorry, sir.”
Yuan regarded Botta with an amused look. “Of course you aren’t going to say it’s my fault as well, no matter how truthful that is.”
“No, sir.” Botta tried to stand but couldn’t manage to get a grip on the floor with his boots.
Yuan snorted again, at both Botta’s answer and his problems with standing. He didn’t find it quite so funny, however, when he tried to stand himself and couldn’t quite manage it.
“What in the world do they put in this floor wax—banana peels?” he grumbled under his breath.
“Here, sir.”
Having finally been able to stand himself, Botta held out a hand. Yuan took it with slight ill grace, directed at himself, of course, rather than at Botta. When Botta tried to pull him to his feet, Yuan lost his balance again, and the whole process started anew.
Hearing stifled sniggers, Yuan looked around and saw a pair of Renegades openly enjoying the sight of the two most senior members of the organisation in what could easily have been a scripted slapstick play.
“I suppose you’ll find it amusing when I dock your pay for insubordination, won’t you?” Yuan snapped at them while Botta slid his way over to a wall and used it for support in his attempts to stand.
“No, Lord Yuan,” the two chorused, roughly at the same time.
“Hmph.” Yuan ignored them and instead dedicated his full attention to standing.
“If you use the wall, it should make it easier,” Botta said from where he was now on his feet.
“Right.” He glared at the observing Renegades until they remembered duties that needed to be carried out. Then he half swam over to the wall and finally managed to stand.
“That’s it. I don’t care how good this wax makes the floors look—the damned stuff has to go.” Yuan slowly and carefully started for the janitorial office.
A yell and a loud thud in the direction the two observing Renegades had gone made him pause.
“On second thought,” he said, clearly amused, “I think I’ll go make certain our two fine soldiers are unhurt first.”
Botta simply shook his head and watched Yuan go.
7 - somei yoshino; a type of sakura - 14
8 - ice - 11
9 - euthanasia - 13
10 - sois un ange; be an angel - 21
11 - think of me and I'll be there - 16
12 - fait des beaux reves; sweet dreams - 15
13 - the wrong words - 18
14 - run away - 12
15 - 一期一会; ichi-go ichi-e - 22
16 - teddy bear - 4
17 - love and hate - 24
18 - hug! - 30
19 - snap snap!; photograph - 3
20 - aurora borealis; northern lights - 19
21 - broken dreams - 20
22 - tangled up - 7
23 - "I never say the truth." - 26
24 - footprints - 9
25 - orange; color - 17
26 - candlelight - 23
27 - splash - 27
28 - silhouette - 29
Botta slowly awoke in the middle of the night, sensing something was not quite right. It took him a few moments to realise what it was: Yuan was gone. Reaching over to Yuan’s side of the bed, he felt the cool sheets; apparently, Yuan had left some time ago.
He opened his eyes and looked around the darkened bedroom. Dim light spilled through the gap between the slightly open door and its frame. Silhouetted against the wall was Yuan’s shape. His long, unbound hair fell over his shoulder, and the shadow seemed to be resting its hand against its forehead. In the other hand was held something that might be a sheaf of paper.
Silently, Botta pulled back the covers and stepped out of bed. Picking up his undergarments and a pair of pants from the back of a chair, he dressed and then crept to the door, using infiltration training to mask his already soft footsteps.
Looking into the barely lit room, Botta saw Yuan, dressed in a rumpled shirt and pants. His leader seemed to be studying something written on several pages. Occasionally, Yuan would rub at his eyes or stifle a yawn.
Botta coughed softly, alerting Yuan to his presence.
Yuan turned around in his chair, his movements slow and weary. “Botta. I thought I was quiet enough not to wake you.”
“I woke up after a dream.” Botta crossed the room to where Yuan sat. “What are you doing?”
Yuan looked up at Botta, then down at his papers. “Cruxis has developed a new kind of automated sentry. They’re calling it a ‘Perfect Murder.’ I’m looking for a flaw in its design or, barring that, a relatively safe way for our soldiers to take it down.”
Botta, seeing another chair at the table at which Yuan was studying, pulled it up and sat. He glanced at the pages of diagrams and technical explanations. “But you usually are on the design team for Cruxis’ magitechnology.”
“I try to be, but this time I wasn’t.” Yuan set the pages on the table and, propping his elbows on the table, rested his forehead against the palms of his hands. “I was gone from Derris-Kharlan for almost a month while Kratos and the others were designing it. I’m hoping that’s the reason why I missed being a part of the project.”
He didn’t need to add what the other potential reason for his exclusion could be. Botta studied the design for a moment longer before leaning forward and wrapping his arms around Yuan in a hug.
“This can wait for morning, Yuan, and you are well aware we have dozens of Renegades perfectly capable of doing this for you,” he said. “There is no need for you to do everything.”
Yuan returned the hug, moving his chair closer so he could lean against Botta’s shoulder. “I know. I couldn’t sleep. I suppose I was feeling useless again, since we’ve had yet another failure.”
“You are far from useless, Yuan. For having such limited resources and for who you are fighting against, you are doing remarkably well.” Botta knew Yuan was hard to comfort when he was in a mood like this, but he felt the need to try.
Yuan didn’t say anything in reply, simply leaning against his lover. After a moment, he sat up, removed his arms from Botta, and stood.
“You’re right. I’m only tiring myself doing this. I’ll leave the plans for the morning.”
Botta stood as well. He waited until Yuan had walked into their bedroom, watching his silhouette on the wall. Yuan’s posture seemed worn, as though the man was feeling the weight of his four thousand years. Botta frowned slightly at that.
Then he turned out the light and followed Yuan to bed.
29 - oxygen - 6
30 - just a memory - 10
30_hugs, this has the added bonus of me being able to post things in chronological order, which isn't at all the same as theme order.I also really need to make a comprehensive list of what fanon I borrowed from
rallalon and yume_no_hikari and where, because I took a lot. For those who don't know, Rall and Stacey played Botta and Yuan respectively on
omg_symphonia and in the process, created a fair number of original Renegades. I ended up borrowing some and creating others on my own to populate the Renegade bases, and occasionally I forgot to credit them. I'm hoping to fix that there.With that being said, here I go:
1) hazel eyes
2) rainbows and butterflies
3) snap snap!; photograph
4) teddy bear
5) collide
6) oxygen
7) tangled up
8) fairytales
9) footprints
10) just a memory
11) ice
12) run away
13) euthanasia
14) somei yoshino; a type of sakura - Its flowers are nearly pure white, tinged with the palest pink, especially near the stem. The flowers bloom, and usually fall (or "scatter," 散る, in Japanese) within a week, before the leaves come out. Therefore, the trees look nearly white from top to bottom.
15) fait des beaux reves; sweet dreams
16) think of me and I'll be there
17) orange; color
18) the wrong words
19) aurora borealis; northern lights
20) broken dreams
21) sois un ange; be an angel
22) 一期一会; ichi-go ichi-e - A Japanese term that describes a cultural concept often linked with famed tea master Sen no Rikyu. The term is often translated as "for this time only," "never again," or "one chance in a lifetime."
23) candlelight
24) love and hate
25) the curtain falls
26) "I never say the truth."
27) splash
28) dust
29) silhouette
30) hug!
7) tangled up: Botta's backstory
11) ice: morale-boosters, Melka
12) run away: the majority of Botta's backstory
14) somei yoshino; a type of sakura: Darvis
17) orange; color: Casual Day suggested by
rallalon20) broken dreams: Inspired by
rallalon's "Blink."22) 一期一会; ichi-go ichi-e: Heig
28) dust: Melka and Miehlam
And now the fics, in chronological order.
“Lord Botta! Lord Yuan! Thank you for meeting with us!” the Renegade said with a sharp salute.
Yuan looked around the storage room that had recently been converted into a combination rehearsal and props room by the Renegades’ brand-new Amateur Theatrics Society.
“I believe you had said something about your first play?” Yuan folded his arms.
“Yes, sir. We would like to offer you and Lord Botta the lead roles.” The soldier looked pleased with himself.
Yuan and Botta coughed almost simultaneously to cover their reactions.
“And which play is this?” Yuan asked once he had regained his neutral expression.
“It’s called Cassandrina, Lord Yuan, and we’ve already got the costumes prepared. Lolina, bring them out,” he called.
A Renegade who had been standing at attention next to him scurried away, returning with two folded costumes in her arms. “Here you are, sirs. We weren’t certain of your measurements, so we had to guess.”
The first Renegade took the top outfit from Lolina and shook it out. It seemed to be fairly standard hero wear.
“All right,” Yuan said as he took in the costume, not committing to anything. The second garment caught his eye. It was purple and seemed to be silky in nature. “What’s that?”
“That’s the other lead’s costume.” The first Renegade looked proud. “We spent a long time on it and we had to use lots of fabric, but it came out really well.” He flourished a beautifully-made dress. “What do you think, Lord Botta?”
Centuries of concealing his emotions dissolved at the genuinely proud looks on the faces of the two Renegades. Yuan burst out laughing. He started laughing harder at the expression on Botta’s face.
“. . . I think that’s a no, Josep,” Lolina said with a sigh.
A number of weeks later, Yuan settled himself into a folding chair in one of the large main rooms of the base. After rapidly scouting out two replacement leads for their play, the Amateur Theatrics Society had put together Cassandrina and was now ready to present it, with Yuan and Botta in front-row seats of honour. Getting comfortable was impossible in the hard metal chairs, so Yuan resigned himself to tolerable instead.
Botta sat down next to him a few moments later.
“Are you ready to see what our roles would have been, Botta?” Yuan asked, smiling faintly at the memory of the giant purple dress.
Botta’s expression was at its most blank. “Yes, sir.”
Yuan’s smile widened, although all he said was, “Looks like the show is about to start.”
The lights, already dimming as Yuan spoke, finished growing fainter so that there was only a slight glow emanating from them. A few darkly-clad Renegades walked out carrying bits of scenery created from various odds and ends, set them down, and then departed. The lights became a bit brighter, and then a young female Renegade walked onstage wearing the infamous purple dress.
Yuan’s smile, having faded, came back in full force, this time in the incarnation of a smirk. The dress must have been a third of its original size, as the actor in the role once intended for Botta was positively tiny. Glancing over, Yuan noted that Botta’s face, as always, revealed nothing. This only increased Yuan’s amusement.
The play began with the lead, Cassandrina, lamenting over a marriage her parents had arranged for her. After spending a suitable amount of time angsting, she then moved on to sighing over the man she truly loved, whom she had been forbidden to marry. With amazing timing, a voice came from off-stage—her lover had sneaked onto her parents’ property and was about to give her an impassioned speech from outside.
At this point, Yuan was rolling his eyes and wondering if his Renegades had gone out of their way to pick a terribly-plotted story. Then he caught sight of the outfit Cassandrina’s lover was wearing and nearly choked. Beside him, Botta went into a coughing fit.
“Isn’t that—?” Botta began once he could speak.
“Yes.”
“But that would mean they would have expected us to—”
“Yes.”
As the scene came to a close, Yuan began to calculate the appropriate pay docking that would have to take place, trying very hard to keep his personal opinion out of things. It was becoming increasingly difficult as the play went on. While he had to admit his initial reaction to the gigantic purple dress had been one of amusement, he knew he couldn’t let something such as this pass by. It was far too close to insubordination.
Returning his attention to the play, Yuan found Cassandrina’s lover, destined to be played by Yuan, had, after speaking appropriately soppy lines, come up with a plan to save Cassandrina from her marriage to her fiancé. This involved Cassandrina’s lover dressing up as the fiancé and marrying Cassandrina in his place.
At this point, having settled upon an appropriate deduction, Yuan was beginning to wonder if his eyes would roll right out of his head from the dreadful plotting. Yet the worst was yet to come.
The play limped on, with many supposedly hilarious mishaps, misunderstandings, and impossible cases of mistaken identity. The climax of the play was the wedding scene where Cassandrina’s lover was very nearly successful in carrying out his plan when at the last minute someone exposed him as a fraud. However, instead of the sensible ending of the lover getting booted out and the wedding continuing as it was supposed to, the priest stepped in and married the young couple anyway.
As the pair embraced onstage, Yuan turned to Botta. “I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Did they make the play this bad on purpose? Surely no one could manage this by accident.”
“It’s hard to say, sir,” Botta said, not committing to anything.
Yuan glanced back at the stage area. “I’d personally say—gods above! What were they thinking?”
The new husband had just swept Cassandrina into his arms and was striding manfully offstage. Yuan looked from the pair to his six-and-a-half foot subordinate. Up went one eyebrow. “They expected me to carry you like that?”
“That . . . seems to be the case, sir.” Botta seemed somewhat disturbed.
“Obviously with angelic strength, then.” Yuan simply shook his head.
The play ended a few moments later. Had there been a curtain, it would have fallen. However, due to the low budget of the Amateur Theatrics Society, all that happened was the lights brightened and the stage crew came out to disassemble the set. The attending Renegades got to their feet ands stretched, discussing what they had just seen. Yuan, however, headed “backstage” to confront those who had been responsible for the casting. Botta followed to act as a stabilising influence.
“So, Lord Yuan, Lord Botta,” Josep greeted them, a proud smile on his face, “what did you think? Wasn’t it a great play?”
Yuan was completely unmoved. “I’m docking you and everyone else involved in casting a month’s pay for insubordination.”
The smile, and those of the surrounding theatre society members, disappeared instantly, to be replaced by one of intense hurt.
“You didn’t like it?” Josep’s voice was filled with disappointment.
“You cast those roles with the express purpose of making a mockery of your superiors.” Yuan folded his arms and glared. “While the Renegades may be a more tolerant group than the Desians from which you were recruited, Private Josep, there are limits. Respect must be given to your superiors. I don’t believe attempting to make Lord Botta crossdress would be an appropriate expression of respect, would you?”
Botta’s face remained carefully neutral as Josep replied, “But, Lord Yuan, we only wanted to give you and Lord Botta a chance at the starring roles. Besides, it’s theatre—people crossdress all the time in theatre!”
“That may be the case, but the Renegades are a military organisation first and an acting troupe . . . at least forty-fifth.” Yuan’s expression had yet to lighten one whit. “Do you understand, Private Josep?”
Josep saluted, disappointment still evident in every line of his body. “Yes, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.”
“Good. See that it doesn’t.” Yuan turned on his heel and walked briskly out the door, Botta following.
Once the two leaders had left the room, Josep exhaled loudly. “I don’t know what it is about Lord Yuan, but for a man his size, he certainly can make someone feel even smaller.”
“Remind me never to listen to you again, Josep,” Lolina said with a glare if not as impressive as Lord Yuan’s—which had been perfected over the millennia—still fearsome all the same. “That’s an entire month’s pay you lost me! And half the Amateur Theatrics Society, for that matter!”
“Well, we’re paid peanuts, anyway, and we have free room and board, so I don’t see why you’re complaining.” He smiled widely. “Think of it as making a charitable donation to this fine organisation.”
“All of our wages for a month?”
Josep spread his arms wide. “Just think about how much credit you’ll earn with the Goddess Martel for such charity—if she existed, that is.”
Lolina didn’t even bother to dignify that with a reply. Conveniently forgetting she had been just as gung-ho about the whole ploy to get Lord Botta into a dress as Josep had been, she vowed the next time something like this happened, it would be curtains for her friend.
The sound of sneezing filled the air at Sylvarant Base. It was spring in Triet, and that meant something out of the ordinary was about to occur: the base was going to be cleaned from top to bottom.
Being situated in the middle of a desert meant the accumulation of a considerable amount of dust, were it allowed to build up—which it wasn’t, since too much desert sand would jam the machinery. Still, when Lord Yuan made the announcement that the base was to be thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom and that everyone in non-essential positions was going to participate without exception, no one could accuse him of giving a make-work project.
Botta was in the middle of mopping the floor of his room when there was a brisk knock at the door. Setting the mop back in its bucket of murky water, he went to answer the door.
“Ah, good,” Yuan said as the door opened upon him. “Botta, I need you to help clean my room.”
Botta blinked. “Weren’t Melka and Miehlam assigned to help you, sir?”
“Yes, they were, but between their bickering and the fact that I have some sensitive documents that I don’t want just anyone seeing, I told them to go clean the hall outside my rooms instead,” Yuan explained. “So I want you to come and help with the cleaning instead.”
“What about those documents?” Botta asked, glancing behind him at his own cleaning that remained undone.
“The day I have papers too secret for my second-in-command to see is the day you have my permission to haul me off to a mental hospital for paranoiacs.” Yuan shook his head. “Now come on. We’re wasting time.”
“All right, sir,” Botta said, resigned. “If you would allow me to get some cleaning supplies . . . ?”
“No need.” Yuan started walking down the hall. “There are the supplies Melka and Miehlam left behind. I told them to get other things for cleaning the hall.”
Botta followed, somewhat reluctantly leaving his work to finish later. However, he knew where his duty rested, and so he was forced to obey.
As the pair walked through the halls, avoiding wet patches on the floor from recent scrubbings, they saw the sights and heard the sounds of a large number of half-elves in the midst of spring cleaning madness. Botta was fairly certain he saw someone walk by with a basket full of bootlaces in the direction of the laundry rooms, but thought it best not to ask.
Arriving at Yuan’s quarters, it was obvious the previous pair of Renegades had left immediately after being thrown out. There was a ladder open by one wall with a bucket of brownish water on a built-in platform, but the rag was lying on the floor near the door. A bottle of furniture polish sat in the middle of the floor; its accompanying rag looked as though it had been hurled across the room to land against the wall.
Botta didn’t comment on the silent illustration of exactly how well Melka and Miehlam had got along. Instead, he found the mop and bucket in the corner and started cleaning the floor. Yuan, meanwhile, started clearing off his desk in order to polish it, piling papers on the floor. Botta merely mopped around them.
After a short period of comfortable silence, Yuan commented, “I should have asked you to help me from the start. You’re a lot easier on my head.”
“Sir?” Botta dipped his mop back in the bucket.
“Those two were giving me a headache from their babbling. I’m in no danger of that with you.”
Botta smiled slightly and continued his work.
“. . . Although if you don’t start talking, you may well tempt me into bringing back Melka and Miehlam.” Yuan slopped the polish on his desk.
“You’re using too much furniture polish, sir,” was all Botta said.
“Fascinating subject choice.”
Botta bent over his work, hiding the expression on his face. “I’m glad you think so, sir.”
Yuan snorted at Botta’s tactful agreement. After he finished cleaning his desk and dumped his work back on it—without paying much attention to the way it was organised—he walked out the door.
While he was gone, Botta continued to clean the floor of Yuan’s office, refusing to think of his own partially cleaned floor back in his room. His duty was to look after Lord Yuan, no matter what that meant.
“Even if it means mopping his floor,” Botta murmured aloud.
“What was that?” Yuan asked, coming back in after a rather prolonged absence.
“Nothing, sir.” Finished, Botta surveyed his work for a moment, before retrieving a cleaning rag and climbing the rickety ladder standing by the wall in order to wipe down the walls.
Seeing the ladder creak under Botta’s weight, Yuan decided not to sort through the papers on his desk right away. Instead, he walked across the room to where Botta was cleaning.
“I’d better hold onto that ladder for you, Botta, or you’ll wind up breaking something—and not just the ladder,” he said, wrapping his arms around the ladder and hugging it to keep it steady.
“Thank you, sir.” Botta wiped down the walls at a slightly greater speed, now that he knew the ladder wasn’t going to suddenly collapse on him.
After a while, Botta wrung out his rag. “Sir?”
“Yes, Botta?” Yuan asked, looking up. Then he quickly looked off to one side to keep himself from staring up Botta’s robe.
“Would you mind moving the ladder?” Botta asked. He set down the rag and prepared to descend.
“Of course.”
On his way down, Botta, grabbing for a rung, missed and accidentally dislodged the bucket of dirty water. As the bucket dropped, Botta made a frantic one-handed grab and missed. “Look out, sir!”
Yuan glanced up and immediately jumped backwards. The bucket missed landing on him, but it spilled filthy water all over the floor in front of Yuan—as well as everything from his waist down.
Botta winced as Yuan let out a few strong curse words. “Sir, are you all right?”
Yuan examined his pants, which were now patterned with brown. “Yes. Although I can’t really say the same for my pants. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he added and walked into his personal quarters.
After Yuan changed his clothes and returned, the two worked hard at cleaning the room, without any further accidents. It was late in the day by the time the two finished.
Botta, returning to his room, tried not to be too irritated by the fact that he still had plenty of cleaning left to do. However, to his surprise, he found the floors, walls, and ceiling of his room clean. His desk remained untouched, but that was something he didn’t mind; Yuan wasn’t the only one with sensitive documents.
Surveying the room, Botta was pleased. It looked as though Lord Yuan hadn’t forgotten about him after all. Yuan must have used his absence earlier that day to supervise the cleaning of Botta’s room.
Almost smiling, Botta sat down to finish the brief task of cleaning his desk.
Waiting for Botta to arrive for their meeting to discuss the current state of the Renegades’ finances, Yuan idly doodled on the stack of reports in front of him. For some reason, he was having trouble focusing on, well, everything. He wasn’t precisely sure why—he wasn’t overtired and the work was no more boring than usual. Regardless, Yuan simply couldn’t seem to pay attention to his work.
He was a little worried about that. After all, the task of fighting Yggdrasill grew more important by the day. Every Chosen that was sent off on the Journey of Regeneration meant Yggdrasill was one step closer to success. Yuan simply could not allow that, and therefore he could not afford to lose focus for even a day.
Rubbing his face with his hands, Yuan tried to recall the last time he had taken a day off. Was it last month? No, he had been planning on having a vacation day, but then there was that business with the Desian spy discovered within their ranks and the resulting fallout had taken a full week to sort out, even when he had delegated like mad.
Catching himself sketching out not the latest automated sentry design, but a close-up of—yes, that was a daisy, Yuan shoved the papers aside in disgust. After this meeting, he was either going to have to do something mindless but needful, like reorganising his files, or he was going to have to take the day off altogether.
While he was contemplating his decision, a knock came at the door. Yuan checked the clock on his desk. Two o’clock on the dot; Botta was nothing if not punctual.
“Come in, Botta,” he called.
Botta entered, walked to the front of Yuan’s desk, and saluted.
Yuan nodded. “At ease. In fact,” he added as Botta relaxed his position slightly, “pull up that chair and sit down.”
Botta looked for and noticed the armless chair in the corner that Yuan had indicated. He carried it in front of the desk, then sat, posture erect.
“Why don’t you begin by giving your report?” Yuan suggested.
“Very well, sir.”
Botta began to speak. Yuan did his best to focus on what his subordinate was saying, but inevitably his attention began to wander. Despite his efforts to pay attention, he found himself taking a good look at Botta, something he rarely, if ever, did. Telling himself it was a good exercise in which to partake on the off chance someone attempted to impersonate Botta and conveniently ignoring the fact that it would be awfully hard to impersonate someone as unusually large as his second-in-command, he took a good look.
Starting with Botta’s beard, Yuan subjected his subordinate to a thorough analysis, all the while listening to the report with half an ear. After suitably memorising the shape and colour of Botta’s beard, Yuan moved his gaze up to his lips, teeth, and tongue, then to his nose, before letting his gaze come to a rest on Botta’s dark hazel eyes.
Hmm. Botta has nice eyes, Yuan decided. I’d think it was odd I’d never noticed before if it weren’t for the fact that I hardly recruit people based on whether I like the colour of their eyes or not. He snorted gently at that.
“Sir?” Yuan heard Botta ask.
Yuan raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Botta?”
Botta, seeming as though he realised Yuan was not paying particular attention to his report, was giving his superior a slightly questioning look.
“Carry on,” Yuan said, shuffling a few papers at random.
“Yes, sir.”
Botta continued his report. Yuan continued his observations.
As nice and clear of eyes as Botta had, Yuan found he couldn’t discern what Botta was thinking by looking into them. Not that Yuan could often tell anything at all from people’s eyes, of course. He didn’t believe in that old misconception that one could read a person’s inner thoughts from their eyes alone and thought those who tried were rather stupid. It was the selection of words a person used, what they avoided saying, and the actions performed when there were no obvious observers upon which Yuan preferred to rely.
“Sir?” This time Botta had relaxed his discipline enough to give his superior an odd look.
“Botta, before you continue your report, I think you would benefit from reading these,” Yuan said abruptly, to save face.
He picked up the stack of papers that was lying on his desk and shoved them into Botta’s arms.
Botta raised his eyebrows but took the stack and hugged them to his chest.
“Is there anything else, sir?” he asked, standing.
“No, that’s everything. Dismissed, Botta.”
Botta gave a slightly awkward salute, being restricted by the papers he carried. Then he left to look after his suddenly augmented workload.
As soon as the door slid shut behind Botta, Yuan rubbed at his temples. He had managed to come out of that situation with his dignity relatively intact, but as for the rest of the day. . . .
He got up from his desk and walked into his private chambers, where he undressed somewhat and climbed into bed to take a nap. He was just settling back against the pillows when he realised something that made him groan aloud: He had sent the report covered in daisy doodles with Botta. Yuan could only imagine Botta’s reaction to the various sketches.
Too late now, Yuan thought, closing his eyes. I’m not moving. Botta will just have to be entertained by my dubious art skills.
Which, to a complete lack of surprise on Yuan’s part, Botta was.
Botta had just stopped in the Renegade common room to talk to someone when a young woman hugging a dripping helmet to her chest burst in.
“Hey, everyone, guess what?” She grinned. “It’s raining!”
“You must be joking,” someone said from the corner chair. “It never rains here. We’re in the middle of a desert.”
“No, really! Come and look!”
A number of Renegades followed their excited comrade to the entrance of the base, including the soldier Botta had come to see. With the mental equivalent of a shrug, Botta followed in the wake of the soldiers.
Sure enough, when the great doors to the base were opened, revealed were overcast skies and the steady hiss of rain. The light sand was already dark brown and slightly pockmarked from the exceedingly rare downpour. The two Renegades on duty were looking rather damp but not overly displeased. The warm rain was a pleasant change from the sandstorms that often marked Renegade guard duty at Sylvarant Base.
The fresh scent of damp earth came to Botta’s nose and he inhaled it appreciatively. Rain was a rare experience for the half-elf, who divided almost all of his time between the sunny wasteland of Triet Desert and the snowy one near Flanoir.
Someone had walked up to stand right behind him; Botta turned to see Yuan.
“I haven’t seen a desert rain for almost a century.” The other man watched the falling droplets, a thoughtful look on his face. Then he looked up at Botta with a small smile. “We should go out in it. We won’t get another opportunity like this for quite some time.”
“Sir, we both have too much work for that,” Botta reminded him.
Yuan frowned for a moment. Then his expression lightened somewhat. “That’s all right. You and I can train. Fighters need to be prepared for all sorts of battle conditions, after all. Let’s go get our weapons and we can meet back here.”
“You want to train with me, sir?” Botta couldn’t quite hide all his surprise. Yuan trained alone, for the simple reason that no one could ever keep up with him.
He nodded. “I do. I know you’re one of the best fighters we have, but I’d like to check on your progress.”
“Understood.” Botta waited for Yuan to leave first before heading back to his room to retrieve his larger curved sword.
For normal base business, Botta found it more convenient to carry a short sword, rather than the large scimitar he preferred if he knew there was a chance he would be in a fight. However, his short sword would be useless against Yuan’s weapon of choice.
Arriving at his office, Botta picked up the scimitar and returned to the entrance of the base. There he found Yuan without his cape and already leaning on his huge butterfly sword. The weapon was six and a half feet long with two blades, one on each end. Running through the middle of the blades was a long pole, which Yuan was currently gripping on the short gap between the blades.
“Ready?” Yuan asked.
Botta nodded and the two stepped out into the warm desert rain. They walked for a few minutes until they were out of sight of the base, stopping when Yuan found a reasonably flat area in which to fight. He walked a few feet until he was standing across from Botta, then balanced the butterfly sword on his right hand.
Botta couldn’t quite refrain from staring. It was an odd thing indeed to see a short, quite slender man casually holding such a monstrous sword in a single hand.
It was a commonly-held viewpoint by those who didn’t work with the weapons that most swords were heavy objects. In reality, the majority were surprisingly light, Botta’s scimitar included. Yuan’s sword, however, was the exception to prove the rule. The only person to which the butterfly sword was light was Yuan.
It was with these thoughts in mind Botta prepared for what would undoubtedly be the hardest fight of his life.
Yuan waited for his sparring partner to be ready, then, after receiving a nod, immediately launched into the practice battle. He had already taken Botta’s measure as the other man had warmed up.
Botta was startled by the suddenness with which Yuan began the exercise, but he recovered quickly and soon the two were sparring fiercely. Excluding the odd moment or two, Botta found himself on the defensive for the entire fight. Yuan moved with an incredible speed and agility, performing manoeuvres that, had the circumstances been somewhat more favourable, would have left Botta shaking his head in admiration.
Midway through, the rain began to slack off; both men were concentrating too hard to take notice. Botta was beginning to breathe heavily at the almost unbelievably fast pace his superior had set for the battle when Yuan did a backward handspring, bringing himself out of Botta’s range.
“That’s enough,” Yuan said. His breathing was slightly faster than usual, but that was the only sign of his exertion. Still, Botta felt proud that he was able to tire his leader even to that slight degree. Looking closer, he saw Yuan was smiling.
“That was the best fight anyone has given me since, oh, it’d be since before my previous second-in-command died.” Yuan walked up to Botta and clapped him on the back, letting his hand rest on Botta’s shoulder. “Excellent job.”
“Thank you, sir.” Botta smiled back.
“We should do this more often. In fact, provided you wouldn’t mind devoting some of your time to it, I was thinking we could practice fighting as a team.” Yuan looked up at Botta, his wet hair straggling down his back and sticking to his face. “What do you think?”
Botta became conscious that he was sopping wet from sweat and rainwater. It seemed as though a shower was in order.
“I’d be honoured, sir,” he said, meaning it.
“Good.” Yuan removed his hand from Botta’s shoulder and glanced at the clearing skies. “Hmm, a rainbow. Those are even rarer than desert rains.”
Botta looked in the same direction as Yuan, appreciating the sight for a few moments. “We should get back to the base.”
“Mm.” Yuan shouldered his sword, being careful not to take Botta’s head off in the process, and started the short walk back.
Botta followed, unable to keep from smiling slightly. His training had paid off in the best possible way. He would have to work even harder to keep up with Yuan now, but the extra work was worth it.
Above them, the rainbow slowly faded, taking with it the last traces of the rain.
">“Be careful, Lord Yuan,” a Renegade called out, voice cheerful, as she walked in the opposite direction as him. “They’ve just finished waxing the floors in the entire southern quarter of the base.”
“Right.” Yuan nodded once and kept walking. “Thanks for the warning.”
As he walked on the newly waxed floors, Yuan noticed that they were considerably slipperier than before the waxing, something he resolved to bring up with the janitorial staff. After all, if everyone had to keep tiptoeing around so they wouldn’t fall, it would lower productivity and raise the potential for accidents. The soldiers had enough trouble with Desian-inflicted injuries; there certainly was no need for them to be in danger in their very own bases.
He stopped walking and frowned at the shiny floor for a few moments. Doubtless the Renegades in charge of handing out cleaning duty would have an idea of something they could use to clean the floors without rendering them a hazard to the general health of the entire base.
“Lord Yuan?” a voice asked from directly behind him.
Yuan turned to address the speaker and found his feet slipping out from underneath him. He crashed into the person behind him and felt two strong arms circle his upper body in a hug of sorts. Then the person behind him also lost his purchase on the slick floor and the two of them found themselves on the ground in a heap.
Yuan lay back and groaned.
“Lord Yuan, are you all right?” Botta asked him from his position beneath his superior.
“This is exactly why I need to speak with the janitorial staff,” Yuan said instead of answering, surprisingly comfortable where he was lying with his head on Botta’s chest.
Deciding not to think about that for the moment, he sat up and asked, “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“Not much, sir.” Botta winced as his bruised elbow bumped against the floor when he made an attempt to sit up as well.
“Twice in a week you’ve collided with me, Botta. You’re getting clumsy.”
“Sorry, sir.”
Yuan regarded Botta with an amused look. “Of course you aren’t going to say it’s my fault as well, no matter how truthful that is.”
“No, sir.” Botta tried to stand but couldn’t manage to get a grip on the floor with his boots.
Yuan snorted again, at both Botta’s answer and his problems with standing. He didn’t find it quite so funny, however, when he tried to stand himself and couldn’t quite manage it.
“What in the world do they put in this floor wax—banana peels?” he grumbled under his breath.
“Here, sir.”
Having finally been able to stand himself, Botta held out a hand. Yuan took it with slight ill grace, directed at himself, of course, rather than at Botta. When Botta tried to pull him to his feet, Yuan lost his balance again, and the whole process started anew.
Hearing stifled sniggers, Yuan looked around and saw a pair of Renegades openly enjoying the sight of the two most senior members of the organisation in what could easily have been a scripted slapstick play.
“I suppose you’ll find it amusing when I dock your pay for insubordination, won’t you?” Yuan snapped at them while Botta slid his way over to a wall and used it for support in his attempts to stand.
“No, Lord Yuan,” the two chorused, roughly at the same time.
“Hmph.” Yuan ignored them and instead dedicated his full attention to standing.
“If you use the wall, it should make it easier,” Botta said from where he was now on his feet.
“Right.” He glared at the observing Renegades until they remembered duties that needed to be carried out. Then he half swam over to the wall and finally managed to stand.
“That’s it. I don’t care how good this wax makes the floors look—the damned stuff has to go.” Yuan slowly and carefully started for the janitorial office.
A yell and a loud thud in the direction the two observing Renegades had gone made him pause.
“On second thought,” he said, clearly amused, “I think I’ll go make certain our two fine soldiers are unhurt first.”
Botta simply shook his head and watched Yuan go.
Botta slowly awoke in the middle of the night, sensing something was not quite right. It took him a few moments to realise what it was: Yuan was gone. Reaching over to Yuan’s side of the bed, he felt the cool sheets; apparently, Yuan had left some time ago.
He opened his eyes and looked around the darkened bedroom. Dim light spilled through the gap between the slightly open door and its frame. Silhouetted against the wall was Yuan’s shape. His long, unbound hair fell over his shoulder, and the shadow seemed to be resting its hand against its forehead. In the other hand was held something that might be a sheaf of paper.
Silently, Botta pulled back the covers and stepped out of bed. Picking up his undergarments and a pair of pants from the back of a chair, he dressed and then crept to the door, using infiltration training to mask his already soft footsteps.
Looking into the barely lit room, Botta saw Yuan, dressed in a rumpled shirt and pants. His leader seemed to be studying something written on several pages. Occasionally, Yuan would rub at his eyes or stifle a yawn.
Botta coughed softly, alerting Yuan to his presence.
Yuan turned around in his chair, his movements slow and weary. “Botta. I thought I was quiet enough not to wake you.”
“I woke up after a dream.” Botta crossed the room to where Yuan sat. “What are you doing?”
Yuan looked up at Botta, then down at his papers. “Cruxis has developed a new kind of automated sentry. They’re calling it a ‘Perfect Murder.’ I’m looking for a flaw in its design or, barring that, a relatively safe way for our soldiers to take it down.”
Botta, seeing another chair at the table at which Yuan was studying, pulled it up and sat. He glanced at the pages of diagrams and technical explanations. “But you usually are on the design team for Cruxis’ magitechnology.”
“I try to be, but this time I wasn’t.” Yuan set the pages on the table and, propping his elbows on the table, rested his forehead against the palms of his hands. “I was gone from Derris-Kharlan for almost a month while Kratos and the others were designing it. I’m hoping that’s the reason why I missed being a part of the project.”
He didn’t need to add what the other potential reason for his exclusion could be. Botta studied the design for a moment longer before leaning forward and wrapping his arms around Yuan in a hug.
“This can wait for morning, Yuan, and you are well aware we have dozens of Renegades perfectly capable of doing this for you,” he said. “There is no need for you to do everything.”
Yuan returned the hug, moving his chair closer so he could lean against Botta’s shoulder. “I know. I couldn’t sleep. I suppose I was feeling useless again, since we’ve had yet another failure.”
“You are far from useless, Yuan. For having such limited resources and for who you are fighting against, you are doing remarkably well.” Botta knew Yuan was hard to comfort when he was in a mood like this, but he felt the need to try.
Yuan didn’t say anything in reply, simply leaning against his lover. After a moment, he sat up, removed his arms from Botta, and stood.
“You’re right. I’m only tiring myself doing this. I’ll leave the plans for the morning.”
Botta stood as well. He waited until Yuan had walked into their bedroom, watching his silhouette on the wall. Yuan’s posture seemed worn, as though the man was feeling the weight of his four thousand years. Botta frowned slightly at that.
Then he turned out the light and followed Yuan to bed.
