Whispers of the Past
Inspired by Akatsuki no Yona (Yona of the Dawn)

Summary: During the light of day, Zeno is able to push them away, to ignore them... but throughout the night, when everyone sleeps and there is nothing to distract him, they creep into his consciousness, and he remembers. The memories.

KAYA'S clear laugh rings through the stillness of the house, and Zeno manages to lean over to the side just as something small and round sails pass his face, brushing against his hair and moving it. He looks over his shoulder, away from the medical texts, to watch the tiny ball bounce around the room, up and down, up and down, up and down...

He looks back at her. "What?" he asks, because he doesn't understand why she just tried to hit him in his head. "Did I forget to do something?"

She shakes her head and walks over to him. He leans back so that she can sit on his lap, which she does easily. Her arms interlock around his neck and his stare focuses on her bright brown eyes and her still present smile. She's always smiling; it amazes him how she can still do that when she's so ill. It makes him forget she's so sick sometimes, but he also wishes he could be more like her. Actually, a lot of things amaze him about her.

"You've been reading all day, so I'm officially declaring you must get your nose out of those books."

"I have?" She pouts, and he smiles slowly. He kisses her nose. "I'm sorry. Zeno'll play with you."

Her eyes sparkle. "Anything?"

He kisses her then, and as he stands, lifting her into the air. She yelps, breaking the kiss and tightening her arms around his neck. "Oops. I was trying to be romantic."

Then she giggles and kisses him again. "No, it was very romantic." She reassures. "You just surprised me, that's all. You're a lot stronger than you look."

That's another thing he loves about her. She's so easily surprised while him, he's not. Or, at least, he's not unless it comes to her. She surprises him in so many ways-her kindness when she healed him, the way she keeps smiling, the way the love he feels for her only grows stronger every day.

"I love you..."

She's glaring at him from where she stands on the ground while he laughs, sitting in the lowest branch of the great sycamore oak. Her stance is as firm as her crossed arms, while his foot hangs down just out of her reach. She doesn't know how to climb, because she's scared of heights. (The confession had taken several hours of brutal interrogation, begging, coercing, and tricking.)

"Zeno, I swear I'm going to kill you when I get my hands on you! I'll wrap my fingers around your scrawny neck and squeeze... or I'll put that pillow on your head when you're sleeping and suffocate you... or maybe..."

He listens to her death threats, wincing each time she describes a particularly graphic one. He knows she can't hurt him (nobody ever can... the unbreakable body... the shield...) but her violent streak is something to behold. He'd bet that she and Abi would have gotten along if they'd known each other.

The only good thing about this curse is that I got to meet you, he thinks. And he wishes that he could stop time and stay in this moment forever.

"Zeno?" Her voice is softer now; worried. It brings him out of his thoughts - which, he can admit now, was going into a steadily dark turn - and back to Earth. "Are you okay?"

He smiles and drops down, landing softly on his feet and hands. Not really, he thinks as he straightens up. But he is getting there, thanks to her. He's inching ever so slowly to being okay, and it's all because of her. He steps up and presses his lips against her forehead, closing his eyes.

"I'm okay." He murmurs, still keeping his eyes closed as he presses their foreheads together. "I just want to stay like this forever."

She stands on her tippy toes and wraps her arms around her neck. "There's an infinite amount of numbers between zero and one. Maybe... we can take this little infinity and make it our forever."

His eyes burn as he pulls her close to him - always closer, closer, closer - and he rests his head against her shoulder. He breathes in deeply, taking in her strange fragrance of flowers and metal and herbs. "Gods, I love you so much." He whispers. She tightens her arms around him, one intertwining into his hair.

"I love you too."

"As long as we both shall live..."

The rain slaps against the roof of the house, sounding more like hail than the gentle throbbing he usually associates with it. The clouds are deep gray and ugly. Lightning light the sky up almost beautifully in blue and yellow and gray, distorting his vision so that the clouds appear blurry instead of sharp. Thunder booms, like war drums banging as soldiers march in tune with them to battle.

"The rain makes me sad," Kaya comments as she sits down on the ledge of the windowsill with him. He moves his legs closer to the window the make room for her, keeping his hand on the page out of the medical text he had found a couple of weeks ago in the university. (She insisted he had to have some contact with the outside world, no matter how much he protested against it. He'd gone to the university and found the textbooks out of the library... he was going to give them back eventually anyway.) "I hate being cooped up inside."

He looks at the sky. Lightning flashes, and thunder claps. "I don't know," he says. "I like the rain sometimes. How else would the grass and flowers and food grow if there wasn't any rain?"

She begins to say something when she begins coughing. At first, he isn't too worried - he's far to use to her coughing - but when it doesn't die down and she folds over, it begins to knaw at his heart. He drops his book and moves - he can't remember if he leapt or if he just flew or walked or what - over to her side, one hand rubbing circles over her back while he tries to help support her with the other. She clutches the front of his jacket as the force of her coughs rattles her tiny, fragile body.

He wishes so much that this was one of those things he could shield her from, but that is where his curse ends. He can shield from external forces, from people who wish to hurt her, but he can't do a single thing when it's her own body fighting her, except to be there for her and hope he can figure out how to find a way to cure her in time.

Eventually, they die down, and she just stays like that, hair hiding her face from his gaze.

"Kaya?" he whispers, and she stirs a little.

"Zeno..." Then, a little stronger, "Thanks."

He closes his eyes, feeling like he should do more but he doesn't know how. "There has to be a cure for this somewhere..."

She shakes her head. "No, don't. Please." She lifts her pale face; it's too pale. It looks almost gray, and her eyes are half closed. "Just... just don't leave me, please. You make me forget how much it hurts... and I'm so scared about dying, but more than that, I just don't you to forget me. I don't want to make you sad."

He's pretty sure he has water in his eyes, even as he smiles a little. Selfishly selfless. Stupid, wonderful woman. "I'm never going to leave you, or forget you. I couldn't even if I wanted to, which I don't. And I'd rather be sad than never know you. You've turned my life upside down and given me a reason to live again."

She leans forward until he practically holds her up. "Okay." She mumbles. "I think I'm going to take a nap now."

He scoops her up into his arms as gently as he can, and she curls into his chest. He walks over to her cot and lays her down in it, brushing some of her hair out of her face as she curls around her pillow. It's true; he can't forget her even if he wants to.

"If only time would just stop."

Zeno is throwing Kaya's chopped vegetables into a pot when she begins coughing again. Worry, it isn't too far away these days, takes hold of him as his hands still. It makes him feel so angry, not really being able to do anything when he knows she is dying, but she already told him to stop, and he doesn't dare to do anything that could upset her.

"Water," she gasps, and relief settles in on him-something to do, something that'll make him feel like he's doing something at least a little useful. He moves without thinking, pulling a cup out of the cupboard, dipping it into the bucket of water he got earlier...

He hands it to her, and she takes it, her hands shaking as she swallows some of it. The coughs subside, and she closes her eyes and breathes in deeply.

"Are you okay?" He asks, because that's the only thing he can think of, incompetent though it is. She opens her eyes and smiles widely.

"I'm fine, Zeno. Don't worry. A bug got into my mouth." She makes a face, and he's not entirely sure if she's telling the truth-if she'd swallowed a bug, wouldn't she have tried to get it out of mouth instead of coughing? But he decides to believe it anyway; anything to let him pretend she's not as sick as she really is.

She pushes herself off the counter, and he watches as she grabs the bowel of fruit. Her short hair sways with her gait as she throws a beaming smile over her shoulder. It's almost disarming, and that makes him wonder if she's trying to convince him everything is all right.

She points her carrot at him. "Finish chopping those vegetables up." She throws the carrot at his face, and he manages to maneuver his hands in front of his face to block it, and his knee to bounce it back up. He stares at the vegetable lying innocently in his hand. How'd I do that? "Chop chop." She says, moving her hand in some gesture he doesn't know. It looks like a floppy hand-wave, except it extends out and upward.

"Yes ma'am," he replies, and he sticks his tongue out at her. He turns his back on her, reaching for the knife. He wasn't going to take any chances; she was scary when she was annoyed.

Crash!

His heart stops and he drops the knife, spinning around in circle. She's coughing again, curled up into a protective ball, her shoulders shaking from the force of her cough.

She's not okay what's going on why do I have such a bad feeling

"Kaya!"

He half runs, half skids through the room and fall onto his knees beside her. She opens her eyes a little, and then she closes them again -

Zeno bolts upright, his heart racing underneath his chest as the blankets falls into his lap. His ears ring as he gasps, trying to catch his breath, trying to slow his heart back into a normal pace. Seiryuu mumbles something while Hakuryuu snores softly. Ao scampers up onto his knee, and he stares at her for a moment before he reaches out to scratch her underneath her chin. His hand shakes though, and he fingers the medallion Hiryuu gave him so long ago.

I'm not alone. Zeno isn't alone. He reminds himself. They're here; maybe their personalities are different and they're not the same Seiryuu or Ryokuryuu or Hakuryuu but they're still here with him in a way. Or, at least, they're here with him until the heavens call them again, and they leave him alone all over again.

Stop it, he scolds himself. He breathes in deeply through his mouth and exhales through his nose. His eyes burn, and he wipes at them. The burning doesn't ease away, and his mind can't stop racing.

Hakuryuu rolls over, cuddling with his leg. Zeno smiles sadly and gently pulls his leg out. No cuddling up tonight; his skin is crawling and it feels clammy. A little itchy too. His mind won't shut up either. He scoops Ao up and places her on his head so that his hands are free to crawl out from the tangle of limbs, fingers and blankets. He glances over at where Ryokuryuu is sleeping, and stifles a chuckle at the expression of contentment on his face. It's so much better than the one he once wore he had been a child. He'd do anything and everything to keep it on his face; he'll do anything for them. They were his (extended) family after all.

Ao chirps and he looks back at her. "Yeah, I know. I'm getting out." He mumbles, and he crawls toward the fold in the tent before Seiryuu can distract him.

The nightmare - memories, his traitorous mind reminds him - still sits unsettling in his consciousness and too close to his heart as he slips out into the moonlight. The moon is full, just like that night so long ago when he begged the dragon gods to save her...

He shakes his head and focuses in on Nii-san. The Thunder Beast looks like he's sleeping, but Zeno knows that is not true. He's too well trained to fall asleep when he's on guard duty, but he probably is tired.

You too, he thinks as Ao paws through his hair. You've suffered so much too. Too much.

He never would have wanted this for them, but it's what they've got and he figures they'll have to make the best of it. Sometimes, he honestly hates the dragon gods for cursing these good men (and girl) into this... existence. He sees the tears in the Miss' eyes when she fingers that clip and the fury in Nii-san's glare. He sees the scars on Hakuryuu's back and Ryokuryuu's leg; and he can easily rail for days on end about Seiryuu. The Blue Dragon isn't meant to hide his eyes.

But... he knows that they wouldn't want him to do that, so he won't. And maybe he would have never met them if things hadn't turn out the way they had... something he's not sure he can give up, even though he knows it's selfish.

"Nii-san." He crouches down in front of him, and he opens his eyelids so that his clear blue eyes interlock with his gaze. "Go get some sleep. Zeno will take watch for a while."

Nii-san frowns, and Zeno sighs. Why can't they just accept his (very generous) offer easily so that he doesn't have to fight tooth and nail with them? He'll win eventually anyway; he always does. He has time on his side, and he's stubborn when he wants to be.

"Don't you need sleep too?"

He shakes his head. "Zeno isn't tired. Besides, he only sleeps out of habit mostly now." He smiles. Nii-san blinks, shakes his head, and sighs. He stands, and Zeno's eyes widen. He didn't expect it would be that easy to convince him. Actually, he thought he would have to half push him into the tent.

He must be more tired than I thought...

"Make sure you make Greenie take the last shift though."

He observes him for a moment. "You just want to torture him, don't you?"

Nii-san smiles, but Zeno can swear there are wickedly sharp fangs growing out of his mouth along with that evil glint in his eyes. He rubs his hands together. "I simply don't want him to miss the beauty of the sunrise."

He blanks out as a bead of sweat rolls down the side of his head. Sometimes, he really scares him. "A-aye sir."

As soon as Nii-san disappears into the tent, Zeno slides to the ground, in the same spot he'd just vacated, and plants his head on top of his knees. Ao scuttles down his arm and then his leg, then she disappears into the tree somewhere. The bark digs between his shoulder blades, but he ignores it as he stares at the ground.

I couldn't move for years... I thought I knew what pain was, but that... it was agony. I was so angry too. I'm surprised I didn't go on a warpath now.

He brushes his hand against his face and leans back so that he can look at the moon. It'd been full the night she died too, and it makes him remember that one day, he'll be alone all over again. That's the way it is for the Ouryuu, the shield, the protector, the immortal.

Look at this. My thoughts are so depressing. It's pathetic. Can't you be happy for what you got?

He's so sick and tired of being so sad all the time whenever he remembers Kaya, and Hiryuu and his brothers in all but blood. And he's so sick and tired of wishing something was different.

But for now... he was going to protect them. The Miss. Nii-san. The other three. Because for as long as the Usurper is alive, then she and Nii-san will be targeted by him, and he chose to follow her to the very end.

"Zeno? Are you all right?"

He jumps, jerking his head back in his surprise. The Miss' violet eyes widen, and he realizes that he must have been crying. He wipes his face for the third time that night.

"Hi. Yeah. I'm okay." He clears his throat. "Zeno's fine."

She stares for a moment, and then accepts it even though it's an obvious lie. She sits down next to him, staring blankly in front of her, obviously seeing something he cannot.

"Why are you awake so late?" He asks softly, trying to figure out if it's something he can solve, or if he should wake up Bozu or Nii-san. She looks up at him slowly.

"Nightmare."

"Oh." He's no stranger to those; that's the reason why he's awake now too. But he still doesn't know how to deal with them really, or even how to relate to other people.

"Does it ever get easier?"

"Huh?" He asks, because he's confused about what she means; does what get easier? She looks up at him, and then away. Her fingers twist together-oh. He realizes.

"Like... everything, I guess. I keep having nightmares of that night and... well, I try to keep quiet about them. I don't want Haku to worry more... or any of the others. And it never seems to go away, no matter how much I step forward. I can't forget father, and I'll never forgive Soo-Won for what he did, but..."

"You just don't want to constantly be reminded of it?" He guesses when her voice trails off. She nods silently, and he looks at the sky. How in the world did he become the go-to for advice? He doesn't know the answer to half of their questions; he's still figuring out a lot of it himself. But he has some words to tell her, even though he doesn't quite know how to string them together into full, coherent sentences with a subject and a predicate and a verb and an adjective. He tries to, anyway.

"I'm not sure if you'll ever stop remembering that night, Miss. Zeno still remembers some of the worst days of his life very clearly." Too clearly. "But I may just be different. Forever is a very long time after all." He fingers Hiryuu's medallion, his mind drifting back to those darker days. Then he physically shakes his head to clear it. No more. "I think, maybe, one day... they get easier to bear. You just have to hope your shoulders are strong enough to hold them until then."

She sighs and hugs him with one arm across his shoulders. "Thanks." She says, and her teeth gleam white in the moonlight. He smiles back. They sit there for a while, staring at the moon.

He hopes that his shoulders will become strong enough to bear it one day. He's been so happy lately, that he almost feels like it's a trap. It seems like every time a ray of light comes into his life, it's taken away from him just as quickly.

"Miss?"

"Yes?"

"Aren't you going back to sleep?"

"Maybe later."

He falls silent again for the rest of the night, even when she dozes off next to him and he swings his coat over her shoulders to keep her warm. The night air is cold after all, and he doesn't want her to get frostbite. That's another answer he's familiar with too, unfortunately.

Author's Note: Happy Halloween! :D (Enjoy, Milli. ;))