If Digimon belonged to me, Takeru would never have been jogress partners with Iori. That was an abomination before the gods. Who ‘ship Takari, of course.

Thanks to Wolfie and Arylwren for their beta’ing. They suffered through the unreadable stuff, so that you didn’t have to do so. They should get medals for bravery.

For those who don’t wish to reread previous chapters, here’s a brief summary:

Dagomon has managed to lure Hikari into his underwater kingdom and cause her to lose her memory. She believes that she is a girl named Umi who is betrothed to him and who is destined to become future queen of his land. To add to the confusion, she further believes him to be Takeru, although he is nothing like Takaishi Takeru in appearance or personality. This deception was necessitated by the fact that his realm was dying along with his old queen and he needed her to be his new bride. Now read on . . . .

A STORM OVER BLOSSOMS

CHAPTER 12

A LOVE SONG

"Welcome to the Great Hall of Y'ha-nthlei," Takeru said as he pushed open the huge double-doors that led into the room. Umi felt her breath still in her throat when she saw what lay behind them. The Great Hall more than justified its descriptions. The walls were richly red and broken by high, white arches that looked almost like rib-bones. Here and there, translucent banners hung from the ceiling in shades of crimson, and created private alcoves in which lovers could meet. The polished floor glimmered like mother-of-pearl, and the air seemed to glow with phosphorescence. Even in her expensive, silken kimono, she felt very plain and small.

"It's amazing," she breathed, walking into the room and looking around herself. From the inside, it seemed even larger and grander. Takeru followed her, his long robes whispering against the ground.

"I am glad you like it, Umi."

She turned to smile at him, but her expression changed to one of concern when she saw the trail of blood, bright against the pearl-white floor. It led out of the room and into the corridor, following the exact path they had taken from her room to the Great Hall. Despite being slightly smudged by his robes, each mark was still easily recognisable as a footprint - Takeru's footprint.

"Your feet are bleeding," she exclaimed, hurrying towards him and bending down to take a closer look at them.

"I cut them on the rocks yesterday, but my physician said I should keep on them to prevent them from stiffening too much," he replied, "There is nothing about which to be worried."

"Still, let me take a look," she insisted.

As she lifted the edge of his robes, however, the grey mists over her memory seemed to part. . . .

. . . . She is kneeling on the rough tarmac to inspect Takeru's left ankle. Above his trainer, his blue sock is soaked purple with blood. She peels it away and winces to see a nasty scrape from where he had fallen.

"I'll get a bandage from home."

"You're worse than my mom, Hikari," he grumbles. He's bouncing a basketball next to him, obviously bored. She doesn't know why he's so desperate to get back to their game. He's only beating her by about twenty points. Boys, she thinks, they're all the same.

"Poor Takeru-chan. Do you want me to kiss it better?" she teases in her best imitation of Natsuko's voice, and looks up to see . . . .

. . . . She thumped the floor in frustration with her hand, as the mists closed and hid his face from her.

"What's wrong, Umi?" Takeru knelt down beside her, a concerned look in his grey eyes. She frowned back at him. She couldn't see this cool, elegant boy dressed in trainers and beating her in games of one-on-one, but there was something about what he had said that worried her more than those incongruities.

"Umi," she repeated, "Why did you used to call me 'Hikari', if my name is Umi?"

An odd, fearful look passed across his face before he smiled smoothly at her, "Because your radiant beauty outshines even the light itself, Umi."

He stretched out a hand to help her to her feet, but she hesitated to take it. As plausible as the explanation sounded, she was not entirely convinced by it. Perhaps it was the momentary expression of fear that had been on Takeru's face; perhaps it was the fact that she had seen herself in the water-mirror and she knew she wasn't beautiful; perhaps it was that Hikari sounded right in a way that Umi did not.

However, beyond that, she had no proof for her suspicions. Takeru had treated her with nothing but kindness, respect and love. He had ordered his servants to fetch beautiful kimono for her, and to cook her exquisite suppers. He had given her a queen's trousseau in strings of black pearls and strange, golden jewellry that managed to fascinate and repulse her at the same time. And he had been endlessly patient with all her questions about who she was and how she had come to lose her memory.

Apparently, he had told her, they had been swimming together in the ocean that surrounded Y'ha-nthlei when she had swallowed a kind of seaweed that induced both amnesia and sleep in the person who ate it. He had pulled her unconscious body out of the sea before she had drowned, and had nursed her for the weeks it had taken her to wake. He had been so worried about her, and so glad when she had regained consciousness. In time, he had added, her memory would return, but she should not try and force it. It all made sense on the surface, yet . . . .

She pushed the thoughts away from herself. She was Umi, Y'ha-nthlei was her home, and the man looking down at her with worry in his eyes was going to be her husband. There was nothing sinister about her situation, except what her overactive imagination kept on conjuring up for her.

"Umi?" Takeru prompted.

"I'm sorry," she smiled up at him, placing her hand in his and allowing herself to be pulled to her feet, "I was feeling a bit disorientated, but I'm okay now."

"Are you feeling well enough to dance?" he asked.

"But there's no music."

"I can arrange that," he said, then lifted his hand and spoke a few rapid words in the liquid language of the kingdom. They had barely left his mouth when the great hall was filled with the wild, sweet music of the sea. Its notes were the trill of whale-song and the high, lonely cry of the seabirds. There were other sounds that she could not identify, but that sounded so ancient that she thought they must have dated from a time before life had crawled out of the oceans. Beneath it all, she could hear the shushing of waves against the shore.

Delighted, her doubts forgotten for a moment, Umi looked around herself. She could not see any musicians, and she doubted this place was wired for sound. Then she realised that the ocean song was coming from the walls themselves, which were thrumming like the strings of a harp. The long, redly transparent banners hanging from them quivered. Suddenly, she understood the reason behind the oddly organic nature of her surroundings. More than a kingdom, Y'ha-nthlei was a living creature, and it was singing.

"It's alive!" she turned to Takeru in surprise. He had a smile on his own face, evidently pleased to see her happy.

"Yes, it is," he cupped her cheek with a cool hand, "And it sings my love song to you, Umi-chan."

Looking up at him, Hikari knew that he was going to kiss her. He bent to her, and she could feel his breath warm against her face. This close, he smelt of salt and sea. She wanted to lift her face to him and meet his lips with her own, but some instinct made her turn away from him at the last moment. His lips grazed her hair, like an ocean breeze.

"I'm sorry . . . ." she stared at the floor, unable to look at him, "It's too soon . . . . Can I just go back to my room?"

"Of course," Takeru's voice was gentle, and she felt him put an arm around her shoulder, "It will take time, my Umi, but you will remember your love for me. I can promise you that."

And, if it sounded as if there were a sinister tone in his last words, she put it down to her imagination.

*

Sitting on his throne, Dagomon turned the clamshell that contained her memories over and over in his hand. Disturbingly, there was a hairline crack on one side of it. It had not been there that morning, which meant it must have been formed during his tryst with his future queen. She had remembered her real name, so had she found a way of breaking the shell and counteracting his spell? Was it only a matter of time before she remembered she was the Shining One and destroyed him as only she had the power to do? Doubt was not a familiar emotion to him, nor was it a pleasant one. His hand clenched around the fragile shell. He had been so sure that this plan would work.

He knew his first attempt at possessing the Shining One had been clumsy. Sensing she was vulnerable, he had sent his Deep Ones to bring her to him. In return for her hand in marriage, he would offer her power and immortality. He knew now he would have failed, even if the Child of the Starlight and their Digimon had not intervened on her behalf. Her spirit was too pure to be corrupted by such offers. She would have rejected him along with them, and she had to accept him as her lord and love of her own free will. Submission could be compelled, but love could not.

Nonetheless, clumsy though his initial plan had been, it had inspired this more elegant scheme. No one should have been able to come to his realm uninvited, but the Child of the Starlight had managed to do so. He had managed to reach across both time and space to come to come to the aid of the Shining One. It had taken Dagomon a long time and much thought to unravel that mystery. At first, he had thought that it was because they were both beneath the protection of Seiryuu, and that it had been that god's intervention that had made it possible. However, if Seiryuu had known about his plans for one of his special children, the Blue Dragon of the East would have done a great deal more than simply send the Child of the Starlight to save her. It had to be something else. It had to be a bond that was stronger than space or distance that had connected them across the worlds. The answer had come to Dagomon in all its simplicity and clarity: they loved each other. He could use that love against them.

Now, he was beginning to see that her love for the Child of Starlight was too great for even his magicks or powers to repress or corrupt. It was only a matter of time before it freed her from his enchantment.

"I must finish this quickly," he told Demon who was kneeling silently beside his throne, "But how can I compel her to love me? It cannot be forced any more than the sea can be forced to change its tides."

"And are you a god of love that you need to be loved?" there was a nasty note in Demon's voice, "Or are you a god of something different yet the same?"

Looking at his servant with an emotion that was almost hope, "Of course!"

*

To be continued . . . .