Tortoise and Fox [BL]

4.14

While Amari had thrown them away, they had been treasured and returned to him.

In darkness, rain poured down relentlessly. A different sort of rain. A rain Amari had no connection to—a powerful rain that Amari had no control over. A rain from another time, another existence–as Elijah.

Pain struck like lightning, flashing across his vision and lighting up the cobblestone alleyway. A sharp spike embedded itself into his upper arm. It was an arrow. Skin around the embedded arrowhead began to dry and brittle before crumbling to dust. His damp hair stuck to his ears. At the corner of his vision was the shrunken figure of Leishan—no, of this world's Leishan.

Aisultan.

His pained screams followed each thunderstrike—it ripped at Elijah's eardrums.

Nausea snaked through him. He had to get to Aisultan—he had to protect him—he had to fulfill his purpose. Protect Eli. Protect Aisultan. Save them, bring them somewhere safe.

In the whipping downpour, a cloaked figure towered above on the rooftop edge, holding a glinting crossbow. Elijah barely managed to roll out of the way of the next flying arrow.

Elijah choked a broken, pathetic laugh, his entire figure shaking like a leaf in a hurricane as he barely got up to one knee. He watched the crossbow load the next arrow with a hard snap. The rain slowed down as the crossbow lifted up, meeting Elijah's line of sight.

In the end...

"I wasn't strong enough."

The arrow flew.

Rain crashed down.

"ELIJAH!"

Ice froze the rain rolling down Elijah–Amari's nape. Frost crystallized in the air, and the arrow pierced a shield of ice, stopping a mere finger length before his shaking, crimson pupil.

Arms swept Elijah up into a carry. The arms holding him weren't strong. They were icy, weak, and shaking. The momentum stifled his breath. Aisultan was hanging on by a thread--on the edge of consciousness itself.

Through blurred vision, he saw the grey, drained color of Aisultan's skin losing warmth.

As Elijah's vision faded to black, he wondered.

Why did you save me?

A dissipating voice floated past Amari's dark vision as his senses returned to him. He was in his bedchambers. He pushed himself up slowly. Icy sweat dampened his body. He massaged his aching temples. Lately, the vague memories of Amari's past lives had begun to coalesce into lucid, flashing experiences. It occurred more and more often.

As a result, Amari had been avoiding sleeping. But after last night with Leishan, it slipped his mind and he fell asleep, only to find himself awakening from a nightmare.

Amari rubbed his face before stopping and sighing into his palms. Then, he pulled himself together to get ready. He ran his fingers through his hair, combing it out and letting the repetitive motions calm him down.

An image bubbled in his mind—of Leishan's warm hands playing with Amari's hair. He could sense the slowing of Leishan's heartbeat and still feel the dense contentment pooling in his own relaxed shoulders.

Amari shook the thought away. He was painfully conscious of the difference between a past recollection and a fantasy. Memories of the past were suffocating and foreign, filled with disorientating emotions related to the figures of Leishan's past incarnations. Yet the person that took up his recent daydreams, leaving his head absent and muddled, was simply...