The humour of his situation had not escaped Nephrite. It almost did, though, so while it may have afforded him a good laugh at some other time, all it brought out of him now was a single, curt noise:

"Ha."

He uttered it while lying on his back, his neck jabbed by a sharp rock, his boots full of pebbles. (He still didn't know how the pebbles got in there; the boots went up to his knees after all.) The sitting position had been abandoned when the sheer joylessness of being without a chair had propelled Nephrite onto his back.

Still, the humour remained. How many times had he sat alone in his house, shut in, and not noticed how prisonlike it had been? It had been more spacious than the room he was in now, and it had been equipped with a chair, but still! He had sat there, in his chamber, usually hungry or tired (just as he was now), waiting for the stars to give him a message. And if the stars were asleep, or out for dinner, Nephrite would wait motionless for hours, just as he waited motionless within this dank, black cell.

The humour, though, was that he would think the same thing at home that he found himself thinking now. What am I doing here? He'd ask it to himself when the stars refused to call, or when, instead of the stars, Zoisite dropped by for a chat, or, towards the end of it all, when the image of Osaka Naru's pubescent, skirt-shrouded legs went strutting through his brain.

Only back then, when he had asked himself the question, the emphasis had been on doing. What am I doing here? Now, the question was much more immediate, addressed to his surroundings: the rock beneath his neck, the pebbles in his boots, and the low ceiling of the stone cell, barely visible in the moist, drippy darkness. What am I doing here? How much time had he spent lying unconscious in this place before he had awakened? And (a much more pressing question here) if unconsciousness was what had preceded his introduction to this little cell, then had the skirmish with the youma, the thorn through his arm, and frantic squeaks and squeals of Naru been little more than a dream?

He'd checked his shoulder. There was no wound to be seen, and it didn't hurt. Not even the tiniest ache. Yet he remembered the event, or at least snatches of it, with a vibrancy that begged to be taken seriously. The forest lit up with the youma's little grenades. The way his arm had gone numb when the thorn pierced it, and how he'd thought at first they'd chopped it clean off. Naru talking beside him as he sat there, bleeding on to the ground. Him not listening but thinking, That was fast.

Had he said that to Naru? He couldn't remember. He might have said something else.

Yet all his thought was getting him nowhere, and Nephrite remained on his back, rock digging against his neck, pebbles in his boots, wondering what the hell he was doing there.

The voice, when it spoke, jolted him thoroughly, coming and going so suddenly that after it was gone, Nephrite wondered if he had even heard it at all. But then it came again, a little louder now, and more continuous. It wasn't coming from inside the cell, of that Nephrite could be sure, for it sounded muffled. But muffled or no, it sounded very close.

Nephrite raised himself into a crouch and, keeping his ears strained to the point at which silence seemed to have a sound, crept in the direction of shouts. He didn't creep far, though, for soon his nose (the vanguard at this time) bumped itself against rough, vertical stone. Another wall. Splendid. He turned his head and pressed his ear against it, confident that the voice he had heard was behind the rock, very close, perhaps separated from him by only a foot or two of stone. Less, that that, even, for the sound he had gotten was fairly strident, as far as wall-muffled exclamations go.

Suddenly the voice began again, so seemingly close that Nephrite withdrew his ear from the wall momentarily. It was as though someone had their mouth pressed against the other side and was talking into the stone.

He returned his ear to the wall. The voice wasn't speaking as loudly now, but Nephrite could still hear its low intonations. It irritated Nephrite that he couldn't decipher the words, if there were any, or gender of the speaker, which there most certainly must be. All that came was a voice, bleeding through the wall in little gubs and garbles, no longer shouting, but not discernibly talking either.

"Ah," came the voice through the stone. Then, "Huh."

Useless, thought Nephrite, removing his ear. He considered, for a moment, doing a little talking at his end, in an effort to get some communication going between himself and the subject on the other side. After all, they might have a better answer to his what-am-I-doing-here question. That is, if he could hear an answer. The wall may have been thin enough to send a voice through, but it didn't seem as though it would allow for much of a conversation.

But then, just as Nephrite sat poised a few inches away from the rock surface, the voice started up again. This time, perhaps by a sudden improvement in Nephrite's hearing, or perhaps by his familiarity with the tone of this particular utterance (only one person was known to say it this way), the voice came through clear:

"Kunzaito-sama?"

Zoisite hadn't killed him. He'd hit him hard, under the chin, but only after the blast he had intended to summon didn't come to his hand. Not even a tingle, for often such energy doesn't come readily when the user is emerging from sleep, just as Zoisite had been doing. But even then, he should have at least felt the prickling in his fingers that told him the magic was coming. But he'd felt nothing at all, and out of desperation he had done two things: called out to Kunzite (an automatic, futile action, for he'd known from the start that Kunzite was nowhere near) and then punched the stranger soundly under the chin. Zoisite didn't have much of a fist, but what little he had was solid and lined with pointed knuckles.

And out like a light went the stranger, flopping onto his side in front of Zoisite, before he could even finish his introduction. Zoisite hadn't even waited to hear his name.

The young king sat back on his heels, his heartbeat slowing for the first time since he had awakened. His face was sweaty in all the irritating places: at his temples, around his eyes, along his upper lip. He breathed carefully, in measured time, placing his hands on his knees, and tried to ground his thoughts.

He closed his eyes and opened them again, looking over his head at the low ceiling, the solid, canted walls, and finally, into the dim yellow light that flickered through a little slit in the far wall. A spy-window. This place was part of the Kingdom. It was. It had to be. Adrenaline was soaking Zoisite's nerves again, destroying the hope he'd had when his eyes had focussed: that this all might be a dream, that at any moment he'd awaken to another one of his stumbling-cold-and-miserable-out-of-bed mornings.

No, this wasn't dream. And as the scene before him remained stubbornly concrete, Zoisite attempted to apply his thoughts to his aid. But it was as though someone had taken his wits and, like they were little bits of paper, thrown them into the wind. All he could concentrate on were the things that were missing. He couldn't feel Kunzite's magic. But that was really no cause for alarm; Kunzite's spell signatures faded if they were separated by a teleport. But there was the problem. Zoisite couldn't even use his own most rudimentary abilities, such as the ones he used every time he summoned a teleport. It was as though Metallia had cut him off from her power supply, unplugging him like a lamp, not even leaving him with enough magic to get his own bearings.

Or roast an intruder.

Zoisite's eyes flicked back to the little window, wondering what he would see should he peek through it. But as he gathered himself to crawl towards the glimmering yellow crack, his mind reeled again, and soon he was in the same panic that had crept upon him when he'd lashed out with his fist. That mindless, paper-in-the-wind panic. Soon it was so fierce that Zoisite had to lower his eyes from the window. Later, he promised himself. He'd look later.

Instead, he peered over at the slumped figure before him. The stranger was human, and not much larger than Zoisite himself. No wonder he had toppled without a fight. Zoisite remembered his fleeting impressions, taken before he'd dealt the blow: a figure, all arms and legs and lank, dangling hair, crawling through the shadows and then emerging, talking as he came. Perhaps not the best way to introduce oneself to the likes of Zoisite.

The stranger's straight, dun-coloured hair did not reflect the lamp's beams; rather, it swallowed the yellow light, like muddy water kissed but not penetrated by the sun. The hair itself was long and dull, and it lay across the face of the stranger, strands falling haphazardly when their owner had tumbled onto the ground. But the face of the man was still visible through the strings of hair, a face that seemed not much older than Zoisite's. His skin had a lustre similar to his hair; dull and unresponsive to the glow of the lantern. His cheeks were puffed out in sleep and his mouth was open, a tiny thread of blood trickling from where the impact of Zoisite's fist had pushed his teeth into his lip.

His body was gangly; those long limbs had been good for propelling him about in the shadows, but now that they were out of commission, they jutted expansive and useless like those of a dead insect. His clothing was made of rough, earth-tone fabric and looked well-worn: rutted with creases and stained everywhere, making Zoisite in his still-pristine uniform feel as though he'd rolled right out of the laundry.

All in all, the unnamed man was a pitiful assembly: ungainly, unwashed, and knocked cold by Zoisite's bare fist. And perhaps, if he were another, better person, Zoisite would have felt a tug of pity for this stranger. Instead, Zoisite was glad he'd hit him.

For the nosy ones, the ones who had actually cared why two of the Shitennou shared a home and a bed, there was nothing but puzzlement. It was easy to dismiss the issue in the way it was most often dismissed: lust, plain and simple. Lechy old Kunzite meets the sakura whore. A simple explanation; ripe ground for spinning the perverted tales that were stocked in preparation for such a sensation. But for the others, the truly dedicated muckrakers of the Dark Kingdom, the lust solution was far too easy. After all, the two kings slept together, worked together, ate together, bathed together for all anyone knew-- what kept them glued to one another so? A puzzlement indeed.

But the nosy ones-- the ones who actually cared why-- were they to open up Kunzite's mind and look upon his thoughts as he lay presently on the floor, they would see for themselves one of the reasons.

Kunzite, in a secret better-kept than any other, loved beautiful things. Loved them, praised them, accommodated them with a most un-Kunzitely hospitality. And Zoisite, arguably the most beautiful thing in the Kingdom, never ceased to tap the spring of admiration which, while often so taciturn, welled fast and plentiful in Kunzite's brain.

And now, left alone for a little while (the youma would tire of him now and again), Kunzite let his eyes go glazed as he thought of most cherished and missed possession. He thought with a fierceness and longing even stronger than that which he'd felt when the sakura's eyes had rolled shut and his head dropped to Kunzite's chest, in that mirage of flowers (beautiful they were too, for Kunzite knew about all kinds of beauty). No, even stronger than that.

For Kunzite now knew that Zoisite was alive. Alive somewhere, and in the Kingdom. Somewhere, warm little breaths, the very same as those that had once been puffed out onto the base of Kunzite's throat, were being breathed from delicate nostrils. Ones that had flared when their owner was angry.

The nosy ones-- the ones who actually cared why-- would spin tale after tale if they were able to see how lord Kunzite, lying without clothing upon an unfinished floor, could forget his pride and cold for the thought of green eyes, curled hair, and warm, white thighs. As methodically as a collector would catalogue his stamps, his buttons, his coins, his insects, Kunzite catalogued pieces of Zoisite, still as fresh in his mind as they were the day the sakura died.

The catalyst of their affair had been this collector's love. But that was no-one's nosy business.

They'd put him away for the day, locked up just like all the others, but unlike the others, they never left the entrance his cage. The youma would sit on the other side of the bars and talk constantly, sometimes to Kunzite, sometimes amongst each other. And when he was not daydreaming of Zoisite, Kunzite listened to the youma's talk, for it was only through them that he could gather the information he needed.

First he'd found out the tidbits that the youma wanted him to know: that Metallia was destroyed, along with Beryl, and that the youma were now the declared masters, etc. It was like a dream, like the Kingdom had been turned on its head, but Kunzite had no choice but to believe them. After all, Beryl was gone, and all signs of life emitted by Metallia-- the warmth in the walls, the soft sounds of her breathing, and the magic that Kunzite had previously summoned so easily to his aid-- they were all gone, too.

And his death, an event recollected but scarcely believed by Kunzite, had been reversed. It made perfect sense, though, even to his barely-convinced brain. And just in case he chose not to believe it, the youma would spell it out for him, time and time again. All those who had died while Metallia lived, their souls and bodies had been collected by her, vanishing into thin air to be used as her fuel. And when she was torn apart by the ginzuishou, out fell all whom she had gathered, repaired (they had been of no use to her as dead meat), just as they had been before their deaths. Simple and clean, just as all magic was.

The youma also told him about the other resurrected humans in the Kingdom. A few servants, a few soldiers, found here and there and imprisoned as soon as they were discovered. There weren't many at all, Beryl's hordes had been comprised mainly of the more thriftily-paid youma, and now those thriftily-paid youma, begrudged by the thriftiness with which they had been treated, were running the place. The guards loved the tell Kunzite that bit.

Among that tiny handful of humans, Zoisite and Nephrite had also been recovered. The youma told Kunzite this in an effort to spite him, hoping that a little news about his catamite might get him to talk back once and a while. But Kunzite listened in unbroken silence as the youma regaled him with the story how they'd found the two Tennou, lying unconscious in separate parts of the Kingdom.

Kunzite would listen as they told him what they would do to the others, particularly Zoisite, when they awoke. This usually degenerated into speculation over who would do what to whom, Kunzite included. The top option for the former silver king was currently castration, while in the case of Zoisite's fate, the youma were slightly more undecided. Their leader, the one whom they called "Sir" as though he had no other name (and likely he didn't), had expressed wishes of doing something to Zoisite's face, cutting it in a way that wouldn't heal up. Or perhaps flaying him. Nephrite was not discussed as much; his last-minute treason to Beryl had afforded him an almost sympathetic regard among the youma.

Kunzite would hear this, never speaking, all the while forbidding himself to dwell on the youma's provocations. He was cold, he ached, and his lapses into Zoisite-populated daydreams were becoming more and more frequent, but still he listened, his tactician's mind very aware of his situation. He was alive, and Zoisite was alive, and so long as he remained silent and caused no trouble, he would find a way out. The youma outnumbered him vastly, but they were poorly trained and disorganized; Kunzite knew that even before he'd gotten into this mess. He'd find a way.

Already, simply by listening, he was beginning to discover other, more exclusive pieces of information. Ones that he was not supposed to know. These were discussed in the guard's private conversations, often when Kunzite was mistaken for being asleep. First, he heard about the Dark Kingdom itself. Without Metallia breathing warmth and magic into it, its hidden gates around the world had closed. All that was left of it was its solid structure: the stone tunnels, caverns, and causeways that lay dug beneath a crater in the Earth's upper latitudes. And without any magic for transport, they were trapped there, beneath the D-Point. Isolated.

Kunzite heard the youma mention other things in their hushed conversations. The Kingdom was getting colder. Already some of the border tunnels were frozen up, their stone icy to the touch. Snow and arctic wind from the open crater was infiltrating the upper chambers; soon they would not be habitable. Jadeite was still nowhere to be found. Food supplies would soon have to be replenished, but-- and Kunzite had heard this bit uttered in a pitiful whisper-- "no one knows how."

These little tokens were silently collected by Kunzite, still not quite enough to be of any help, but useful to know, useful to use when the time came. And it would come soon enough, if the youma guard's words were anything to go by. For those who had celebrated the end of Metallia, it was plain to see that the Kingdom was dying without her.

And soon, Kunzite knew, the youma would have more to worry about than whether or not to skin Zoisite.