For bloodyredpancakes

They meet on a rooftop, their special place, the beginning of all wars. Little, local wars: big, intergalactic wars: agonising, personal wars; they have all started on a grubby rooftop under the stars. Their swords are drawn before the first word is spoken. Sometimes the ring of steel against steel is their only conversation.

They circle and clash, draw apart, come together in the same old dance. The death of her father; the death of his, and still they are on opposite sides.

He doesn't even realise it's a conscious decision, to lose. He's giving it his all. He always does. And then he is on his shell, and she is on his chest, and her blade is at his throat.

And in that moment between thought and action, he relaxes. An end. That's all he's thinking. An end.

She tenses and his reflexes kick in and he's rolling aside, her blade sliding down his arm.

She rolls to her feet in one perfect motion. "What was that?" she says, hand on hip, one corner of her lips turned up in a perfect curl.

"What?" He picks up his fallen sword, slides it into its sheath. "We fought.

"You gave up."

His shoulders twitch, unwilling to accept the incoming lie. "I'm standing here, aren't it? And you're over there." Out of reach. Like she always has been. Like she always will be.

The darkness wraps him like a shroud. "Goodnight, Karai." He turns his back, leaps across to the next building, drops into a stinking alleyway.

Some people get houses, when their parents die. Some people get money. Precious things. Beloved things.

His father left him with a tiny house, simple and honest and furnished with impossible demands. Walls of honour. A roof of courage. A room for himself and each of his brothers.

Her father left her a castle, echoing corridors drowning with the weight of spite and anger, resentment and lies. They both of them carry the weight of filial obligation.

He doesn't hear her feet until she is behind him, she's that good. He swings around, but it's late, too late for defense.

Her body is a weapon, sprung steel and bone, the impact slamming him against the wall. Her lips meet his; rough, strong, scented with sweat and blade oil and leather.

Softer than petals. Warmer than flame.

He can't think; he can't breathe. In the blink of an eye she is gone. She's halfway up the wall. She hangs from the fire escape.

"Don't give up, hero."

He stares at the space where she was, a moment, two moments, longer, perhaps. The pressure in his chest threatens to choke him. It is despair, and anger, and desire, and hope, all mixed in together so the colours are no longer pure, just mud and dark, eddying currents.

She called him hero.

The shadows don't change. In the distance a siren wails. A rat rustles through the debris in the gutter, searching hopefully for scraps. The moon sharpens its light on the edge of a skyscraper.

She called him hero. It's not a word he likes, anymore. It has too many other meanings, too many dark undercurrents that threaten to drag him down.

But from her scarlet lips the word is born anew. He has dreamed-in the secret spaces so deep in his head that even he can't see them-he has dreamed of her kiss. He touches his mouth with fingers enquiring, astonished. The world has tilted on its axis. Up is down. Here is there.

Something blooms, in the mud and dark in his chest.

He turns toward home, hunched over, an unconscious hand curled protectively above the new thing growing in his heart. Too fragile yet to put a name to. Too fragile for the weight of expectation. As gossamer-fine as a spider's thread.

Only time will tell if it is as strong.