Chapter 6

Flight at Dawn

With a tear of faith over your skin
I forgot the wound that your love left me
But that Taurus instinct of your being
Forced me to whip you, tenderly
Without pain you are not happy
Without pain you are not happy
Without love you do not suffer anymore
That night you provoked and saw in me
What to no one I have shown in intimacy
But that expression that you have inside of you
Forced me to kill you, slowly
"El Duelo" - La Ley

~0~

Time had stretched wide and had dilated within that smoky room for Sanji; it had curved and warped, bubbled into an entity he did not understand. Thus, when he swept the door shut behind him and trudged off, he had absolutely no notion of how long he had spent inside the room of his master. The only light in the stone hallways of this wing of the castle came from the flickering torches in the brass brackets embedded in the walls. Even the stars had abandoned him.

Sleep was impossible at first, his arousal was disturbing, embarrassing. He did not care to take care of it, but let his body slacken by itself. And still, sleep only came sheepishly. He dozed and woke, dozed and woke; mind working ceaselessly at nothing. Mindlessly running like a rat in an exercise wheel: frantic, desperate, lunges which ended nowhere but where they had first started.

He gave up by the time he had woken up three times and kicked the covers off in frustration. The small window of his room let in black night, nothing more. Three of the clock, perhaps four. But sleep had evaded him this night, it had taken sick leave. Sanji sat up and shrugged into a thick linen robe commonly used in the country for the frigid desert nights. He pulled open a drawer in his dresser and reached in for a small bag of rolled cigarettes that he had managed to buy a few days ago. The smell of smoke was comforting in the chill. He glanced out the window and paced a few circles in his room, just smoking. The red, glowing tip of his home-rolled bobbed up and down slightly as he chewed the other end: a habit he had long since outgrown.

He had lost count of the circles he had completed when he found himself staring intently at the door. It wasn't a conscious decision—all of a sudden he was staring at the door, eyes narrowed harshly, with the feeling that he had been staring at it for a while. He reached out and then drew back, but then, growing fearless he placed a hand on the doorknob but still…hesitated! His muscles tensed, but he gave a small snarl and then twisted and pushed it open, his soul brimming with trepidation and defiance. But a walk in the cold air might refresh him, clear his thoughts and banish the mist in his mind. Perhaps he would even find the Princess, insomniac as well with concerns for her country and people, pacing the corridors or sitting on a stone bench out in the starlight. He had enjoyed her sweet presence; it was a soothing balm which enveloped his sore heart and made him almost happy again.

As he walked the night away, the early morning seemed a dream, an illusion. The stone walls, often covered in ancient hieroglyphics and painted frescos were alien to him—a man born and reared in the swaying walls of a ship. He crossed plazas and walked through narrow hallways framed with curved arches, wanting to disorient himself but he couldn't. He had been here long enough to begin to recognize the halls, the doors, the balconies. The thought was frightening.

Sanji had passed enough people on his path, not many, usually palace courtiers hurrying from one place to another or servants finishing up a task while the palace slept, so that when he heard the voices he was not surprised. He continued walking down the particular hallway he was on, a hallway which eventually opened up into a small, circular room filled with armchairs and sofas and bookcases lining the walls. He had an idea that he might be able to find sleep ensconced within the plush confines of a chair, with the clear light of the stars and moon lighting up the entire room.

It was when he heard the loud, frustrated growl, "Goddamn it Vivi…!" that he froze at the very entrance to the little library, surprised. The large door was propped ajar, enough so that he only needed to nudge it open a little in order to stick his head tentatively in.

The room was small and he saw the two figures immediately, standing near a bookshelf at the far side of the room. It was dark and he could only see that the figure facing the door was wrapped and cloaked and carried a large bundle on its back. As he watched, the cloaked figure made a silencing gesture to the other figure with its back to the door and whispered something furiously.

"Be quiet! You'll wake the entire palace—"

"And I goddamn will if I have to! This is beyond foolish—"

"It is not foolish! You don't understand anything!"

"I might not Princess, but I know a deliberate plunge into outright failure when I see it!"

"No! Failure is if I stay here, like a scared child, unable to do anything to save my country!"

"Don't be ridiculous Vivi!" The man with his back to Sanji snapped out, "There's nothing you can do at this point without military force; you'll end up being captured and killed—worse, held for ransom. You're the princess, the sole daughter of King Cobra, act your age and understand your responsibility! This isn't some child's game—do you really think you'll achieve anything climbing like a bandit out of a library window? Do—"

"Silence!" The other shadowy figure cried out, voice almost wavering before growing strong again. One hand reached up and pulled down the hood that had so far obscured the speaker's face and Sanji saw the moonlight light up the face of the Princess Vivi, beautiful. He saw the fire in her eyes, the strength of her spirit, it was almost enough that he drew back, awed. "You don't know anything about this country. Or anything about me or the rebel army—you wouldn't understand if I told you that I could maybe turn back this tide if I talked to Koh—to the leader of the rebel army! There's nothing I can do here anymore, it's better to leave politics in the hands of those more experienced than I—my father. I can do more outside these palace walls. I know it."

She turned with a whirl of cloak and with both hands threw open the large library window; the rush of cold air rippled Sanji's hair and made him shiver. The Princess stooped and picked up a large bundle off the ground and with a grunt, threw it out the window. Sanji saw it for a split second, unraveling, before gravity overtook it and it plunged down, no doubt unraveling rapidly as it fell; the rope that would provide the Princess a means of escape.

Vivi hooded her face again and turned towards the window and the man beside her reached out his hand, "Vivi…don't do this."

The princess tugged on the end of the rope which was tied to a large, thick cement vase at the edge of the window. It didn't budge. She glanced up once and shook her head, "Don't ask me that Zoro."

Zoro?!

He almost bit the cigar in half. What was that man doing here? Who was he to speak to the Princess in such a way? What the hell was he watching? What kind of scene was this? It was already confusing in of itself, but Zoro had no place in it. It seemed that every day the man who had bought him became more and more of an enigma.

Zoro didn't say anything, his figure was still as Vivi grasped the thick rope in her hands and hefted it. She hesitated, looking at Zoro.

"Zoro, if…I don't see you again—"

"Don't give me that ridiculous heap of camel shit Vivi. If you're courageous enough to sneak out of this palace, leave behind your life as a Princess, and throw yourself eagerly into this idiocy—you're courageous enough to make it back."

Sanji sensed the smile in her words, "Thank you Zoro—does this mean I can trust you won't-?"

Zoro chuckled, his broad shoulders moving in laughter. The hand he had held out to Vivi had long since returned to his sides, "Go. You'll have until that curly-haired guy that's always watching over you finds out you're not sleeping soundly in your bed."

"Thank you Zoro. I will come back alive. I swear it." Vivi said. And though her words were soft, they were adamant, made of iron and steel.

"Go, Princess," Zoro answered, "Before they find out."

Vivi paused, then nodded fiercely, and with a whirl of black cape she had leaped up onto the window shelf. She crouched there, and then, grasping the thick rope she paused again and seemed to be about to say more, but then she leaped nimbly off and vanished. The dark of her cloak was such that it appeared to Sanji that she had leapt off and vanished as soon as her feet had left the ledge.

Zoro made a move as to go to the window, but then stilled. Sanji was conscious of his very breath as Zoro just stood there, staring at the open window with the blowing drapes in the wind fluttering. The full moon could be seen in the frame of the window and the silhouette of his master was dark against the bright orb. He felt as if he had stared forever at the dark outline, would stare forever; Zoro did not move.

Sanji shook his head slightly and began to cautiously step back. One step, two, three—his bare feet on the cool stone floor were noiseless. And then, it must have been a stray breeze which went further than its brothers-the partially open door slammed shut. It surprised Sanji and he jumped, his heart jack-hammering hard. And before he knew it he had knocked into a cast-iron plant stand placed decoratively and unfortunately against the wall. He flailed, as if in slow-motion, to stabilize the thing, but the crash of the large pot was momentous in the stillness of the night.

The door to the library flung open and Sanji shrank back as his overloaded senses were assaulted once again. His foot got caught on the overturned plant stand and he felt his center of gravity shifting so fast he was helpless to control it. His ass hit the ground, but he didn't even notice the pain in his tail bone as he stared up nakedly at the man above him.

"Who's there!?"

It was so dark in the hallway that he could barely make out the features of Zoro's face or discern how he was feeling from the emotions expressed there. He didn't know what to say or do in the moment and loathed it intensely. Loathed the way his knees wanted to shake and how the hair on his arms stood up.

Something seemed to relax in the tight posture of the figure in front of him, "Oh, it's just you." Zoro sighed. He paused, staring at Sanji for a second longer. And then with a speed which startled Sanji, Zoro had reached out and yanked him up with a palpable anger. "You say nothing about what you just saw—breathe a word and I'll kill you! Understand!?"

Sanji, before he could even begin to think, felt his hands fly out and shove Zoro off of him, his words came out, faster and harder than he expected them to, "You don't have to threaten me to keep my mouth shut—any half-assed idiot who saw this, or who knows the princess, they would be able to know that discretion is needed—you don't have to tell me shit. I would drag you down if I could, but I wouldn't touch the Princess with dirty hands."

Zoro brushed his chest, as if brushing Sanji's touch off his body. Sanji's eyes burned as he wanted to cry out 'Not so happy about me touching you now are you?' Zoro stepped back and half-turned towards the library, "You and women," he sneered, "This silly whim of yours annoys the fuck out of me. All you see is their long hair and full breasts and you fall down dead."

Fury leaped through his body and Sanji snapped, "Thank your God I have the chivalrous need to protect women. If I didn't then I wouldn't have begged you to save those slaves the day you bought me...and then you wouldn't have had me!"

"Look at her!" Zoro gestured fiercely at the still-open window, "Does she look like she needs someone striving to protect her and reminding her of how weak she is? She's a damn strong spirit, if not a total warrior! If you kept on bothering her about how she needs a man to keep her strong, she'd never realize how strong she really is!"

"A woman could be ten times stronger than me and I would still strive to save her the injustice of any injury," Sanji growled, staying still there. Now, after the jig was up and he had been discovered and the majority of his shock had faded, he felt his regular obstinacy returning full force, ready to serve Zoro up.

Zoro walked back into the dim-lit library and then half-turned, scoffing, "That might be your intention, but it's not what will come out."

Sanji's eyes narrowed, "So then why did you try to stop the Princess?"

The figure in front of him stilled and Sanji repressed a smirk. Zoro tersely said, "That's different."

"No it's not! I heard you! I heard you say that there wasn't anything she could do! And you have the nerve to tell me that I'm destroying her will and you're there trying to stop whatever she's trying to do!" It wasn't until he said it that he realized the depth of his confusion which had been overshadowed by his preoccupation with Zoro's presence. He really had no clue as to what had just happened, as to why Vivi had decided to jump out a library window in the early hours of the day in which all was still dark and the country slept. Mystery abounded.

"And I told you to never speak of what you saw! Not even to me!" Zoro snarled, "Do you want her courage and spirit to be in vain?! If anyone realizes what happened here, they'd be after her in a heartbeat…If anyone hears what you say!"

"Okay, Okay!" Sanji snapped back, "I don't even know what the hell's happening—I just walked in like a minute ago! I couldn't sleep and I just was walking—I didn't know you two were here!"

"Whatever, it's over, she's gone," Zoro said and stalked to the window and swept it shut. With the panes of glass closed, Sanji felt as if Vivi had disappeared for good and it heightened the tension between him and Zoro. He wanted to move, to turn his back and leave, but something held him there.

"Are you going to stand there 'til the sun comes up?" Zoro asked, amused. He turned back, his figure framed by the moonlit window. "Come here." He gestured. His voice had lost that edge, that cutting edge on which one could lose a limb. But it was deception personified. Sanji was not to be deceived.

He felt his pulse quicken and Sanji stayed, lingering in the dark doorway, "Why?"

"Are you disobeying me?" Zoro asked silkily.

"No, I'm just delaying your order," he retorted.

"Well in that case, come over here right now."

It was dark in the library, moonlight was not enough to make much of a difference. Sanji was struck by the memory of the dark velvet in which Zoro had thrust him into that same night. The darkness which had seduced and conquered him completely and left him exposed to the rough/smooth hands of his self-proclaimed master. He could still trace the reddish lines around his wrists which marked where Zoro had bound him so that he could not protest the exploit of his nakedness.

They were alone together again. Though it seemed near eons that he had stood in the middle of the carpet in Zoro's chambers and trembled inside as Zoro placed his hands on his unprepared body. It had been but mere hours ago.

"Why did you have trouble sleeping?" Zoro asked suddenly, softly.

Sanji nearly jumped at the unexpected question, the unexpected kindness. And then, fury. What stunning, incredible audacity did this man have to ask such an absurdity. There had been a reason that he had tossed and turned in his small bed, a reason why he had paced and paced the small confines of his room and finally fled the cramped confines to wander the endless halls and passageways of the palace. It was the memories of the touches, the kisses, the traces of tongue that he had never experienced with such sensitivity before that night in which he had been robbed of sight and placed in that inscrutable blackness.

"Why were you walking around at this time? You should be sleeping." Zoro continued, "You shouldn't be wandering all over the palace at this time—you'll end up in trouble, like now."

"Am I in trouble…?" Sanji murmured, not really a question.

There was a pause, infinite in its potency. Sanji strained to read anything from the still form by the window, but the darkness reigned there—giving enough to tease with illuminated silhouettes but revealing nothing more than that.

Zoro chuckled. A warm, low, rich laugh. "You've been in trouble since you sold yourself to me, Sanji. Now come here."

Sanji stepped forward a foot, eyeing Zoro, slightly disturbed at the way the words sounded, there in the air, "What do you mean?"

"What do you think?" Zoro laughed, "You come from far away, chained up and bloody. And then right when you're in a position you can get away, you bind yourself here forever of your own volition for the sake of strangers. And you tie yourself to someone like me. Come here."

The way those last words were pronounced. The self-derision which was so apparent in that subtle condemnation and which clashed with the barked order. It was as if Zoro was mocking himself at the same time he mocked Sanji. It was the most self-exposed he had ever seen Zoro. Zoro, who never let go of that polished, unfathomable exterior and never expressed anything deeper than the most basic of emotions. It was one of the things he most despised of the other man—that he managed to retain his cold distance even while he fucked him. It was like he felt nothing—no shame, no guilt, nothing.

Sanji took another step, his pulse quickening slightly, "Why do you say it like that?" He knew he should not be taking the steps into the room so quickly, that he shouldn't be taking them so quickly forward with so little resistance. But that emotional tremor in Zoro's voice—it intrigued him. A crack in the wall which had suddenly opened and might never open again.

"Isn't it obvious?" Zoro leaned casually on the arm of a nearby sofa, "Look at you—you're even afraid to be close to me—"

He took two more steps towards Zoro, his throat feeling dryer than the sand of the desert kingdom, "I don't—I don't understand." He couldn't help noticing that the words that they were trying to say were coming out half-baked, tense, sounding coarse and unrefined.

"That makes two of us," Zoro chuckled, "Take it how you will, I'm done talking." The last bit was predatory in tone, and Sanji's stomach suddenly tightened as he realized how close he was to Zoro. He had wandered right into the lion's den.

Zoro straightened, seeming to uncoil like a snake from its curled position, and sauntered a step towards him. Sanji restrained the urge to take a complementary step backwards, to counterpoint. Zoro circled him hungrily, dangerously slow. Sanji's hackles stood up straight as he lost sight of Zoro and he turned his head to follow the other's progress.

He jumped as a body suddenly slammed into him from behind and his head was thrust forward. Hands slithered across his naked stomach and chest, lingering and pressing and caressing. Sanji instinctively flew up and attempted to pry them off his body, heart trip-hammering at the assault. Dread rose up through his body, seeming to float out of the pores of his heated skin. Suddenly, the feeling that he had been stupid to believe that Zoro would open himself so easily and give away the answers so casually to his slave overwhelmed him and he felt beyond wretched.

The realization sapped the strength from his hands and he dropped them from Zoro's hands to his sides.

"You're learning." The deep, husky voice right behind his ear purred. The exploring hands brushed over his nipples lightly, flicking the nubs until Sanji felt them harden and tingle. A wet tongue brushed up behind his left ear and he shivered as a warm mouth latched onto the sensitive skin and sucked eagerly.

Sanji closed his eyes and muttered, "No, no I'm not." He wanted to drift off and escape to another dimension as Zoro untied the white linen skirt around his hips and let it drop, hands drifting over every inch of exposed skin. He was getting tiredly used to being deprived of his garments around this man, his body has ceased to be his own and now was the property of his master.

The hands on him turned him around and Sanji opened his eyes even though his mind screamed to keep them closed. Zoro's features, stark in the colorless moonlight, were hungry, lustful, unashamed. Brutal in their naked need. But there was a soft edge to that otherwise intent gaze, a wistfulness which was so out of place and so exotic in that hard, piratical face that it stood out. It was the look of a man who watches the show go on through a tinted window, a longing.

It was this expression of quiet longing that wasn't ever going to be sated by the eventual plunder of his body and sex that Sanji remembered and took with him into the depths of heat. Heat as eternal and as cataclysmic as that of the desert.

~0~

The imperial palace was not in an uproar the next morning when Sanji made his daily rounds, as he had expected it would be. He would have thought that the disappearance of the royal Princess would have caused an excitement impossible to hide and a hullabaloo which reached all four corners of the desert kingdom. But perhaps the most telling sign was the deep, deep current of unease which rippled through the palace. It seemed as if colors had been subdued, talk had been hushed, and even the very heat seemed dilapidated.

If he had not been there to see what had happened last night then he might have not seen that subtle unease as strongly as he saw it. But now that he knew, everything even a little off or strange stood out strongly. The way the little groups of royal soldiers hurried to and fro, trying to disguise their anxiety; the way the Captains of the Guard, Pell and Chaka, shut themselves in the royal chamber and emerged every now and then to murmur orders to silent groups of soldiers.

Sanji watched it all from the corners of the palace. He had woken early that day, earlier than he usually did and probably because of the unfamiliar feeling of the couch he had fallen asleep on. The bright rays of sunshine illuminated the small library completely, the bright glare of the sun was inescapable, humbled only slightly by the beige wisps of gossamer curtains. He straightened up slowly, looking confusedly at the small blanket thrown on his form. He lifted it up and recoiled at the nudity underneath.

In the bright, reassuring light of the morning, the black-and-white sensuality of the night was unreal. It felt more like a detailed nightmare than reality. The sweat between their bodies, the grinding of hips and groins, the terror of one-way kisses and the shame.

He put his hands in his head and closed his eyes and let a small groan escape his used lips. Sanji allowed himself just one. Anymore would have led to two, and then three, and on and on until he was breaking down on the mausoleum floor. He close his eyes so tightly that the darkness inside exploded in kaleidoscope neon patterns floating in the deepness. But he couldn't shut his eyes to the memories, the scenes which played relentlessly like the flashes of cards in a shuffling deck.

There was so much writhing in his soul at the moment, so much energy churning in his pit that his outer demeanor was subdued to the point of sorrow. Sanji was struggling to connect the obscure dots and form a complete picture of what had happened in the early hours of dawn. He had an apt mind and a sharp intellect, but he struggled nonetheless because he was still raw from the forced loving. How the intimacy undid him in ways he never thought possible!

But through it all, the strange look in Zoro's eyes, that foreign soft glint that he had never seen before, the alien note of crooning and self-deprivation in Zoro's husky voice-Sanji had never seen nor heard before that strange night. The night Vivi had slipped through a palace window and fled at dawn.

Equally mysterious had been that scene last night. Why had Vivi escaped like a thief in the night? Why had she slipped into the darkness of inevitable danger, with what seemed like the intention to march into the rebel camp-a camp in which the Royals were not fondly thought of in these times? He worried, he worried for that sweet little face and dimpled, soft, round cheeks, he worried for those pale, white, delicate hands. If he had been a free man then he would have been after her in a heartbeat, at her side protecting.

Sanji just wished he knew what the hell was happening. But information was not forthcoming, especially not from Zoro. He would have to accept that he would not solve this mystery soon. But the worry and fear burrowed deep within his heart. The Princess Vivi has disappeared, the county was on the brink of civil war, the rain had not fallen in years, the people were angry and thirsty, the crops were dying, and he was shackled to a man that confused, angered, and who made his nights hot as the inferno this country was in.

~0~