3. Viscious Voice (1/2)

title: of the darkness||chapter: vicious voicecharacters: ryou, shou, camulachapters: 3-25||words: 1,269||total: 3,490genre: family, supernatural||rated: pg-13challenge: diversity writing challenge, ygo gx, j6, multi-chapter with 15-25 chaptersnotes: it's an au. it involves vampires.summary: shou invites his

other in after ryou returns from a long trip away. that is his first mistake. it only gets worse from there.

shou nibbled on the food the servants had

ought him, casting quick glances every few moments to the corridor that led to ryou's personal room. there'd been some kind of noise down that way just a little while earlier, but he hadn't been able to tell what it was, and he didn't really want to interrupt ryou while he was eating. whatever had happened on his trip, he needed rest to get himself back into condition.

i wonder if he'll tell me what happened. the trip had been an important one; it would've had to be in order for ryou to go out with such a huge storm threatening. shou hadn't been certain that anyone should go at all, but ryou insisted, and he was the head of the family.

at least what family they had left. just the two of them didn't make up a very big family.

at any rate, ryou had gone out, and shou waited for him to come back, and the storm came, the rain fell, and it fell, and it hadn't stopped falling, and for all shou could tell it might never stop. he wished that they had some kind of a weather mage who could give them something that resembled hope. but their lands weren't what they used to be.

that was one of the reasons ryou had gone out in the first place. one of the few villages that still held a strong loyalty to the mansion and the marufujis within it sent word that some kind of monster preyed on their people and livestock. ryou, always a strong warrior, wanted to see if he could find any trace of it.

i doubt if he saw so much as a footprint. not in weather like this. only ryou could say for certain and until he recovered from his drenching, he wouldn't say anything at all.

"shou."

one startled squeak and a tray of food scattered over the floor later, shou wrenched around to stare at the corridor and his much dryer

other. "where did … how did you do that?" shou knew that ryou had always been soft-footed, but he'd not heard so much as a step.

ryou only looked at him, one eye

ow rising in that way that he had, and moved over to him. "the storm should end soon."

"huh?" shou blinked and shook his head, trying to get his thoughts put into order. "what? how do you know?" not even the greatest weather mage could've guessed that. one might be able to tell if it would end in a week or so but 'soon'?

even when ryou stepped on the flagstones, he made no sound at all. the more shou considered it, the stranger it was. "that doesn't matter. i want to send someone to

ing a few friends to visit. we haven't had company in a long time."

shou blinked even more. that wasn't even close to the conversation that he'd thought they would be having. "big

other, what did you find out down below? are the villagers all right? did you find out anything about the monster?"

"it wasn't anything for them to worry about," ryou replied, not looking at shou. his attention seemed focused elsewhere entirely, but shou couldn't guess on what. there didn't seem to be anything else for him to look at except the crackling fire. "what do you think? would you like your friend kenzan to come for a while?"

shou rubbed the back of his head, trying to work out what was going on in his

other's mind. "i guess." he'd received a letter from kenzan just a month earlier, telling all about his experiences in the southern part of the kingdom, and mentioning an attractive young lady he'd met as well. "why, though? i mean, you don't really go out of your way to invite people."