Title: White Butterfly 20
Author: Seraphim Grace
Archive: http://www.geocities.com/taliasen1256.html, http://www.mediaminer.org, http://www.Seraphim-grace.livejournal.com. If you want it ask.
Feedback: Always appreciated and replied to.
Rating: 18.
Pairings: Crawford x Ran others to be notified later.
Warnings: Het, yaoi, vast cast.

Crawford arranged for Fuji to visit the Taira with as little fuss as he could manage, a cadre of guards were decided upon and it was decided that they would leave within the next seven days. Aya seemed petulant about this important task and so Crawford did his best to avoid him, there was little in his world enticing about a sulking teenage boy, even one as lovely as Aya.

Aya feeling that he was being sent away, and not doing an important task for his master which it was, had returned to dressing in the elaborate robes of a courtesan, something he only did when he wanted to reassure Crawford that he knew his place.

Truthfully Crawford found it boring, but Aya was young, he thought to himself, he’d learn, if Crawford didn’t lose his temper and kill him outright first.

Baba was in a foul temper that she said was the weather taking its toll on her old joints but no one believed her. Tezuka had suggested that perhaps it was in reaction to the way that Naoe’s chest had started to rattle when he coughed. Crawford knew what that meant, and he was sorry for he genuinely cared for the boy. Tezuka had received a summons to Eto which had made Fuji cranky and he had taken it out on his sister who had in turn taken it out on him, which made him angry. The Takatori had bunkered in for the winter and it looked like the head of the Fuji household would call on them whilst Fuji was away with Aya.

He trusted Fuji with Aya because he knew that his brother by marriage had eyes for no one but his beloved, and if there were issues about it that he would kill him before touching him in love. He also knew that Fuji would make sure that no one else touched Aya in lust, especially the Sano boy with his hungry eyes. Aya belonged to him alone, and Crawford would brand it into the boy if he ever tried to stray. Beauty was best closeted away to be enjoyed in small doses by a select few.

He considered the value of Aya’s heavily embellished robes and whether it was worth burning them to force him into men’s clothes. He waved over Maya and leaning close instructed her to take the robes when Aya was visiting the Taira and to hide them away, possibly send them to Kyoto where he couldn’t put them on. He smiled as he pulled her closer, "in fact," he said, "make a gift of them to the Fujimiya princess, from one Aya to another, say that they are from her brother as a show of how well I am treating him. Go with Kudoh to the capital," he thought for a moment, "bring more of the buttery cream Aya does like but also clothes more suiting to a man of my station for him to wear. I would like to see him in navy and black with white tones, and hints of gold, those are the colours that suit him best." He blinked as a vision struck him, catching him quite unawares. He saw a fine house in Kyoto that he did not recognise, with lacquer work on the walls and furniture, he saw a fabulous feast laid out for one man, the Qin ambassador, and he saw Aya dressed as a Qin princess with two Qin children on attendance and Hikarin skulking away to a death in the shadows. He smiled

"And I have an idea for our little lordling, something that will amuse me, find a Qin seamstress and arrange gowns for him, in bright colours with jewellery to match."

"A vision, master?" Maya asked. She had known him for more than long enough to recognise the signs of one in him.

"An interesting one indeed, go, take Kudoh to the capital." The smile crept along his face and he thought again of Aya wooing this man with a strange restraint, the Qin ambassador was a handsome man but this was flirting, and when the ambassador suggested that he might like the pleasures of the two young servants waiting upon Aya Aya told him that it was their choice, that he had been given out against his will and that none in his household would share the same fate. He had said it in perfect Qin.

Crawford felt the fire in his belly and the hardening of his member and wondered if it was rage, that Aya would confide the details of their first coupling so to a stranger, or the image of Aya in that much gossamer and silk, with a wig upon his head held high with ornaments and dangling jewels.

He stood up and straightened out the lines of his hakama along his legs, "Master," Saya said from the side, "would you like me to accompany you?" She was sat by the fire with Naoe’s head resting against her breast, the boy was drowsy, swaddled up in blankets against the cold.

Crawford took pity on him, "no, Saya, it is fine, I only aim to take a stroll about the lake."

Rukia met him at the atrium, chasing him down with one of her infernal gowns on, possibly as a ward against the cold. It was a crest of black velvet against her bosoms and shoulders and tight against her stomach. Crawford felt the familiar fire of lust and was a little baffled himself as to who it was for. "Crawford," she called him back, "I would speak to you, husband."

When she moved it was with the heavy rustle of velvet she had lifted high about her white ankles, she wore velvet slippers against the heavy frost. Crawford could taste the desire and rage in his mouth, like the aftertaste of some heavy meal or spices. "What?" He asked, turning, and for a moment he saw Rukia as something else, with long black hair and laughter in a stone room decorated with patterned wool, among ladies with not a touch of her petite beauty, painted beauties in which Rukia was queen, laughing with them in a room that stank of sex and perfume. He saw in that moment, in that gown, in the way she canted her head, Rukia as she must have been in Europe, among the courtesans of the realm.

He took a step towards her, and then a second, his hands reaching out to take her jaw between his palms, and kissed her. A few steps and they were up against the steps of the moon shrine, a few more stumbling and they were in the moon shrine and her skirt was around her waist revealing the dark vee of pubic hair and her hands fumbling at his hakama.

Rukia had always loved to be kissed, and kissed like this, endlessly, with hands pulling her closer to his mouth, even as it’s mate fumbled at her skirts, at her bodice, always returning to her mouth.

She turned him, throwing her head back before returning to his kiss as she welcomed him inside her roughly, without care if he hurt her. Crawford didn’t care that he never really wanted this from Rukia, that she was no longer the ingénue he had married, only that she kissed him back as needily as he kissed her.

Her orgasm caught him by surprise, because normally Rukia needed a lot of foreplay and there had been none and as she moved over him, her skirts rustling and her mouth gasping against his, he had another vision, of her in a similar position with a high ranking Italian lord, of her sprawled and sated in the arms of another man, and Crawford, who had never felt jealous of her before suddenly was, and thrust up into her hard, coming with a small ngh noise.

After a few long minutes Rukia composed herself, pulling herself away from his mouth with a terrible longing to return, then she licked her kiss swollen lips and rose to her feet, unsteady as her skirts returned to her feet.

She sat heavily on the wooden bench by the fretwork screen. "Although I must say that was nice, it wasn’t what I wanted you for."

Crawford lifted his lips and did up his hakama as best he could. "Then you can excuse me a moment’s distraction, my concubine has been out of sorts and my twins are entranced with Nagi."

Rukia rolled her shoulders, "I am not complaining," she said and adjusted the thin line of her plait back over her shoulder and down her back, "even if it was a short lived amusement, no, I was going to tell you that I wish to make plans to return to Kyoto after my father’s visit, your maidservant," she drawled the word out and it was clear that she meant Baba, "refuses to let me go without your permission, and I have things to do for the emperor that I simply cannot do here."

Crawford sat up, leaning over his knees. "Go," he said, "I have never restricted your movements and you can tell Baba as much."

She crouched down over him and gave him another kiss, "I am fond of you, you know."

He kissed her back, but there was no sadness in him when he answered, "and I of you, perhaps we were too alike to be happy."

Rukia laughed, "or perhaps, husband, you prefer the way light falls upon a boy." Crawford laughed with her then because after all it was the best joke he had heard all day.

Rukia’s elf was shadowing him, Aya noticed, he was silent but his shock of white hair and motley meant that he stood out among the other servants and it was not as if Aya was doing anything he needed to hide. He was only barely aware of the man, because he kept close to Rukia and sometimes played with Sena or Naoe but for the most part their paths did not cross in the house. He was simply fetching something with his manservant, Ken, so why was the elf following him.

"Is he still with us?" Ken asked.

"Yes," Aya answered calmly, "we cannot tend to the mandala if he follows us this way, one of us will have to distract him."

Ken bowed his head although the elf scared him, but he was from the area, he knew the importance of the Fujimiya and their mandala and it was possible that having been sent to wait on the Taira that there would be no one to tend it in their absence so they were making sure, if the elf would leave them alone long enough to slip into the secret parts of the house. Ken knew why his lord kept his secrets close, and the secrets of this house were entrusted to Ken simply because he knew the legends of the Fujimiya and he worshipped the old ways as diligently as his master. Many of the families in these parts did, the mountains loomed and the forests were close, things lurked in the woods and in the shadow of the mountains, things the Fujimiya had always kept at bay.

Now the Fujimiya were a boy and the old princess who lived in the House of Sleep somewhere on the mountain.

"Master Elf," Aya said turning, because it was his duty to protect those in his care, it was his duty to die with them, "is there a reason you are following me?"

"I don’t follow you, lad," the elf said tilting his head to better appraise Ken, "that one has a strong back, perhaps you would lend him to me for a while, I need a hand with something."

"Do you promise not to hurt him, because there are rumours about you around the house."

The elf’s laughter was dark and dry. "I will hurt him," he said.

Aya touched Ken’s shoulder as he nodded, "do nothing, you do not want to do, if any speaks out about it send them to me, I may not have much power in this house now, but that I do have."

And Ken nodded, although he felt like he was being sent to his doom with the white haired elf who watched him so closely.

He helped the elf move the heavy boxes from the observatory into the storage room through the back stairs and then when he turned he found the elf pressed almost obscenely close against his front, his breath, rank with meat, washing over his face. "You’re a comely lad," the elf said, he moved his face so that his cheek was pressed against Ken’s and whispered in his ear, "but you should know to beware the wild wood, that fauns lie, don’t trust elves," he pressed his thigh between Ken’s legs and rubbed up, "and run like fuck from fairies." The elf bit him on the ear.

Ken pushed him hard managing to get free. "I belong to Lord Aya-sama," he said, though his voice was thick with fear, "ask him if you wish to spend time with me, sir," he closed the door behind him and when he was sure that he wasn’t being followed, except by the elf’s creepy laughter, he ran.

Glossary

Ameratsu/ Amaterasu – The Sun goddess of Shinto.
Aneki – older sister.
Bikiko - Hel
Dairai – imperial court
Daimyo – a landowner or lord.
Danna – a patron
Doitsujin - German person
Ecchi – pervert (a very mild form of the word, lit H as in Hentai.)
Fundoshi – a wrapped loincloth worn by men.
Gaiden – legend.
Gaijin – Foreigner
Gei - art
Genkan – small area in front of the door where shoes are kept.
Genki – there is no English equivalent of this rather than chipper which is weak in comparison. Hyper, very happy and cheery.
Hakama – split culottes
Hanzubon – shorts
Hikarin – Schoen
Horimono – Japanese tattooing
Iki – sense of style.
Juni Hitoe – Lit twelve layers but the many layered kimono of the Heian period before the sumptuary laws, this could be over forty layers of fabric.
Kaasan – Mother

Kawaii – an exclamation of something’s cuteness.
Kimi – she who is without equal.
Kimono – a decorated robe
Konketsu – half-breed.
Kyu – the lowest ranking in Go
Mizuage – a deflowering ceremony
Moku – two corresponding lines in go – marks one area.
Monogatori – lit: story of a person; romances or stories.
Nagajubon – a light white kimono worn under the more ornate robes.
Natto - fermented soybeans
Nigiri – a pressed rice ball
Nihonjin – Japanese person
Obi – the wide belt used to fasten a kimono
Okaasan - mother
Omemie - Neu
Omusubi – wrapped rice balls
Onmyoji – sorcerer
Ouji-sama – your highness.

Qin - China
Seppuku – ritual suicide by disembowelling.
Seppun – the act of pressing mouths together- the worst of all perversions.
Shibari - the art of rope tying.
Sumimasen – the most formal way of apologising, I used this because there is no English equivalent.
Tabi – split toed socks
Takoyaki – fried balls of octopus and flour.
Tansu – a Japanese chest. This is a distinct style.
Tanto – a short bladed sword, usually used by women, part of a set.
Tatami – a mat, rooms are measured by tatami.
Tayu – a very high-class courtesan, also called an Oiran
Usagi - Todt
Yukuta – a light cotton kimono worn for sleeping or festivals.