Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ To Freedom ❯ The Enchantment ( Chapter 2 )

Wings

A/N: This chapter would have come sooner, but for various ff.net problems, and my laziness. It's a hard story to write! I don't end the chapters where I do out of any deliberate meaness, I promise.
Digimon belongs not to me, and neither, really does this storyline. But the writing is still mine :)

Chapter 2 - The Enchantment.

Daisuke froze. There was his arrow, imbedded, not in the feathered flesh of the swan he had shot, but in the arm of a boy, probably the same age as Daisuke. The boy was pale, his blue eyes wide and horrified. He was naked and alone, unless you counted the many swans that had gathered by the lake shore.
The boy groaned, tried to sit up. Daisuke took a step back. This was bad. This wasn't supposed to happen. He'd shot one of the swan children, who Daisuke felt quite sure wasn't supposed to exist. They were a fairy tale, just a story.
"Daisuke, you idiot!" Takeru pushed past Daisuke, moved towards the swan boy.
The boy looked up, but he wasn't looking at Takeru, he was looking at Daisuke. And Daisuke looked straight back, until Takeru blocked his view.
Daisuke staggered back a few steps, where he felt a hand on his shoulder. He tensed up.
"Daisuke, it's okay," a voice said, Taichi said. Daisuke shook his head numbly. It wasn't okay, it wasn't. He should've known better, he shouldn't've done it. And, and, the boy...
Takeru stepped back from his patient, muttered something Daisuke couldn't hear. The boy nodded, the boy... he knew the boy from somewhere!
Then something hit him. After a few dazed moments, Daisuke realised that something had been Takeru's fist, and that the blond was glaring at him.
"Wha...at was..." Daisuke stammered out, before being interupted by Takeru's clear, icy voice. "You know very well what that was for, Prince," Takeru said, and Daisuke felt that everyone was looking at him, everyone, even the birds, even the boy who was a swan and that Daisuke knew from somewhere.
"It was a mistake," Daisuke whispered, staring very carefully at the mud beneath him.
"Some mistake," Takeru muttered, and stalked off. Daisuke watched him go, before protesting lightly to himself,
"It was."
"We know it was, Daisuke."
Daisuke nodded blearily at Taichi's reassurance, and walked over to where the swan boy was sitting, staring at his arm which had, only minute before, speared through with an arrow. My arrow, Daisuke reminded himself.
"It was you?" the boy asked, without looking up, and his voice was beautiful. Daisuke nodded, and choked out an apology. The boy looked up at him. Then he knew it, knew the voice he had heard so often in his sleep, but never in waking, a voice always scared and pained. It wasn't scared now, it was quiet and curious, dazed and slightly hurt. Daisuke knew the voice, and he knew the boy.
"My dream," Daisuke whispered, "You're the one from my dream." The boy's eyes widened, and Daisuke fell to his knees. It was his fault. All his fault. He should go, run away, he would only hurt the boy more, until he killed him.
Daisuke whimpered.
"Daisuke?" the swan boy asked. Daisuke looked up, startled.
"You know my name?" he said, his brown eyes wide. The boy blinked at him, and laughed, and Daisuke felt he would die for that laugh.
"Isn't that what they were calling you?"
Daisuke blushed. Of course. The boy smiled.
"I am Ken," he said. Daisuke nodded, feeling a little silly.
"Are you really the prince?" Ken laughed.
"Yes. Are you really a swan?" Ken stopped laughing, and Daisuke felt horrible. Ken should not stop laughing.
"No," Ken said, a little sulkily, "I am really me. I was turned into a swan."
"Who by?" Daisuke's voice was quiet. Ken sighed, and pulled up into a ball.
"Oikawa. It was he who turned me and the others into swans, until some human should swear their eternal love for one of us. Until then, we are human only at night, or when..." Ken stopped.
"Or when what?" Daisuke asked, shocked at Ken's obvious fear.
"Go," Ken hissed, " he will be here soon. Go, or he will kill you."
"But..."
"Go!"
Daisuke stared at Ken. And then he grabbed Taichi and Iori, and he ran.