Though the night is heavy, it is not as dark here as it was in that abandoned city. There is a kind of warmth to this darkness, summer evening burnt at the edges, soft and raw to the touch. In the city there were muddy streetlights and bright, empty windows-- and a darkness I will never be able to shake from my dreams.

But now, in this house nestled among these mountains, I am not the one dreaming.

I touch him, just a brush of knuckles against his sleeping face. It is good to know the wound is not serious, better to see him sleeping soundly. Oh but he is beautiful, and I am fascinated, fingers getting bolder, sweeping back the fall of dark, fursoft bangs. There is something terrifying about the coolness of him, uneasily normal.

I know there is fire buried inside him. I have felt that heat-- we all have. Scalding memory of the kikoutei leaves my mind numb, my body tingling. We cannot protect him from ourselves, our hearts' blood collides and drowns us all as one.

And so he sleeps, the mysterious crucible rush of his armor-- our armor-- too much for him.

Though it may be all that will save us.

He stirs, just a little, eyelashes fluttering, lips parted in the summerhot air. Maybe he is dreaming-- dreaming in questions, as we yet awake surround him with ourselves and seek the answers.

He is not weak, we cannot let ourselves believe that he is weak. We are ringed around him, gauntlet to gauntlet, armor-plated shoulder to shoulder, holding the pieces until they knit back together. We do it because-- because he needs time to dream.

For an instant I wish only to lift him close to me, clutch him against my chest to find that heat hidden inside him. But I cannot. My daimyo wounded and asleep, and vassal me seeking to--

I shudder. These are days when dreaming is like war.

I am only one of four, of myself not enough. And so I do all that I know how to do, offering him the forgetfulness of history, blindness like a gift. Easy enough to lose myself in samurai ritual, it is what I have learned. His yoroi is surprisingly fine beneath my touch, thrumming thoughtfully in its lifelessness.

--and oh I could imagine it a lover, opening to me to swallow me whole, hollow, singing my soul with its own voiceless song--

I bow my head to it, to him. Burning incense in the helmet, as my grandfather taught me. Though I doubt Grandfather ever knew that I would be here, like this, on the eve of battle.

Without moving, the yoroi embraces the offering, the high clear scent of cherryblooms and destiny seeping through. It is to mark him, anoint his head for battle, that he might not be mistaken for a lesser warrior than he is.

The war is not ended yet.

Before earlier battles, I would do this for myself, alone in the subways. Maybe it was a sort of masochism, seeking meditation in the heart of that city-darkness that haunted me. But that was when we were still new to each other, and it had not yet occurred to me that the others would miss me.

Before I realized I was missing them.

The flame is dying, the scent evaporating into the thirsty summer night. My gift is spent; I turn to go.

A hand on my shoulder, and my heart is beating in my throat. His touch is both familiar and desperately new, hot against my skin. He looks at me, not pretending to understand, eyes naked like the luminous twilight. He cannot know how fragile his sudden smile appears, beating its wings against the darkness.

This moment has taken seed under my heart, and it aches. Beyond now, further than I can see-- this is the rest of our lives. Will you always hold that look in your eyes for me?

So softly spoken, his voice like a curtainwhisper, the first cool breeze in a still summer night. "Wait." And through the touch of his outstretched palm I feel five pairs of hands clasped at the end of victorious struggle, in his gaze, five pairs of eyes defiant. I want only to hold him but I forget how to ask, because there is more than permission in his vulnerable grin--

There is invitation.

Our arms wind round each other as if the world were falling down. Perhaps it is. And though, fresh from sleep, he hasn't even touched his armor, there is a warm, heady scent already in his hair, like the promise of fire and my gift of cherryblossoms.