Laughter chorused in the room, escaping the lips of two little misfits. Children running around in the room, being chased by a certain redhead.
"Try and catch us, Big Brother!" Aoi mocked, laughing.
"Yeah, just try and catch us!" the other twin said, grinning..
Arata stopped running, sighing as he tried to catch his breath. His younger brothers running around him like children - well, they were children but that wasn't the point here.
Why do kids have to have so much energy? He whined to himself.
Normally, he wouldn't be stuck with babysitting his own brothers, but the maids had been given a day-off so he was stuck doing the job he didn't particularly like. Another sigh escaping his lips, he started running after his younger siblings once more and silently hoping that the game would soon come to an end.
The twins screamed as the redhead nearly caught them, nearly screeching their heads off and having a burst of energy in which, led to them running just a bit further away to dodge his attempts to catch them. Hearing the screams, the guards had barged inside to see what was wrong but they were disappointed to only see that they were 'playing' a game of tag and resumed to their posts.
After wasting all of his energy, he gave up and sat on the couch. Ignoring the protests of his brothers, he drifted off in his own thoughts and mind, thinking about the recent events that had occurred. His life had become more exciting ever since he learned about the Military Force, fighting, talking, he learned so much more than sitting in etiquette classes.
He heard the click of the door opening, snapping him out of his thoughts. He glanced over to see the Commanders, all four of them present.
Noriko said, "Well, isn't this a predicament you got yourself in? I heard that you were babysitting, but I didn't think that it was true."
"Ooh," the twins cooed.
Their eyes lit up with joy and amazement, looking purely at the commanders and no where else - at least they had stopped running around.
"It's the Commanders of the Military Force," the red-eyed twin said calmly, looking at them in awe.
Aoi said excitedly, "It is! And all of 'em!"
Takehiko laughs, enjoying the happiness radiating in the twins eyes.
"I see you two haven't changed one bit."
"I don't even know their names..." Mika mumbles.
Rumon laughs at Mika words, but he too was curiously wondering what their names were. It would be very helpful, considering the only difference between the twins were the eyes.
"This is Prince Red," Takehiko said.
The Commander of the Guard Unit pointed at one of the redheaded twins, he had blazing red eyes that practically sparked with life.
"And Prince Aoi."
He gestured to the other twin, he had glowing blue eyes that radiated kindness.
"I'm never going to remember..."
The black-haired female bent down to their level, deciding that she should introduce herself to the twins. It wouldn't be much of a problem anyway.
"It's nice to meet you, Prince Red, Prince Aoi. I'm Noriko, Commander of the Knight Unit."
"Knight Unit?"
Their eyes lit up, seemingly to becoming brighter and brighter as seconds passed on. They seemed particularly interested in the Knight Unit.
"You're a Knight? That means you can fight really well!" Aoi cooed. "Hey, fight Big Brother! I wanna see who's better!"
She blinked while Arata had a look of fear on his face. Knowing how skilled she was, he would be thrashed in no more than a second. Noticing the look on his face, she quickly changed the subject.
"Do you want to go see the Tamer Beasts?" she asks, smoothly diverting their attention from their original plans. "I'm sure Rumon doesn't mind if we go visit."
"Rumon?"
She nodded, pointing to the white-haired man behind her.
"Rumon of the Medical Unit, he takes care of the Tamer Beasts."
Red declared, "I want to see the Tamer Beasts! I heard the Commander's beasts are the best of the best!"
"Me too! I wanna see too!" Aoi agreed.
Smooth, very smooth, Mika thought to herself.
She glanced over to Arata, seeing him sigh in relief. It was clear to anyone that he didn't want to fight anyone, especially someone of Noriko's caliber. Noriko glanced over to him, not at all missing his breath of happiness.
"It would be a good chance for Prince Arata to see the Commander's Tamer Beast too."
So in the end, all of them ended up going to the barn.
---
"Wow, they are awesome!" the twins exclaimed.
Their eyes landed on the six Tamer Beasts in front of them, not at all disturbed by their ridiculous huge sizes or the intimidation that seemed to radiated off of them.
Two of them belonged to Noriko, being Winter; the white griffin, and Drake; the red dragon. Another two belonged to Takehiko, a pair of three-headed creatures - HoJiRo a black cerberus and LoPaKa, a earth hydra. A white yeti, whose name was Jin he was Mika's. Lastly, Bleu, a blue leviathan that belongs to Rumon.
The twins spent the day running around the Tamer Beasts, riding on their backs and potentially annoying them. Arata and the four commanders just watched them for emergency, in case the Tamer Beasts try to do anything that might hurt them.
The prince asks, "So, what were you guys doing in the Castle?"
"The King asked for us to meet him," Noriko replied, her eyes glued to the twins. "He wanted to talk to us about something. Afterwards, we decided to give you a visit and learned from your father that you were babysitting. We were curious if he was telling the truth, so we had to go and check it out."
"You still would've visited even if he didn't say that, right?"
She shrugged, deciding not to give him a straight answer. She believed that it wouldn't have mattered if she did or didn't come to the prince.
"Probably."
Mika shook her head, clearly seeing through the facade.
"Liar. You would've gone anyway. Look here, Prince, but don't believe everything you hear coming from this liar's mouth, kay?"
Arata blinked, not understanding the situation.
"O... K?"
Rumon added, "Listen to Mika, prince. Noriko may seem honest, but sometimes she lies - or at least, bends the truth."
"I do not."
"You do too," Rumon said, grinning. "You made up so many excuses to 'check' up on the Prince. I didn't realise you two had gotten so close."
The Prince crimsoned, hearing the words that escaped the Commander's mouth. He didn't realise how many people actually knew that she would come and visit from time to time. He figured it was for work, but now he was having seconds thought about that.
He denied, "We're not that close... We're just friends... Though..."
Noriko sighs, scratching the nape of her neck in exhaustion. She looked like she really could care less about their words, and wished to go somewhere else that was less noisy.
"You're not making things any better, Prince."
"Uh, sorry..."
Takehiko just stared at them. A random thought coming to mind.
Could those two possibly be...
He shook his head.
No, that's impossible. The last pair was hundred years ago. They wouldn't come back now.
He turned back to the twins, watching them once more as Rumon and Mika started to tease the pair. Arata kept blushing at their words and trying to deny their implying tone, while Noriko just ignored them who was clearly uninterested by their teasing and seemed to be distracted by something else entirely.
"Hey Commander Noriko," Red began.
He walked over to the Commander calmly, stopping a few metres away from her and staring into her pitch black eyes.
"Hmm?"
He said, "You and Big Brother remind me of a story I once read."
She raised an eyebrow, curious about what story they could be talking about.
"Is that so?"
"Uh huh!" Aoi jumped in. "It's called the 'Story Of The Two Halves'!"
"Never heard of it," Noriko said, looking at them confused. "Do you know it, Prince Arata?"
"No... I've heard of the title though," he said, "but I don't know what's it about."
The black-haired female sighs, looking like she knew that the prince would not know of such a tale.
"Of course."
"Hey!"
Takehiko stepped forward, deciding to stop their silly bickering.
"Do you mind telling us the story?"
The twins nodded, glancing at each other as if they could read each other's mind, or at least, talking telepathically to each other.
Aoi said, "But after we get back to the Castle. We can show you the book and read it yourselves!"
"And now it's story time," Mika said. "This is not what I had in mind when I decided to visit."
"Now now Mika," Rumon said, fanning himself happily. "This is a good chance to have a break. At least we're on a small probation right now."
"Probation?" Arata squealed, not liking the word.
Noriko clarified, "He meant procrastination. The King's making us have a break from everything, our lieutenants are doing the job for us until the week's over."
"O-Oh..."
Red shrugged, before saying, "Let's just get back. I'm hungry."
"Me too!"
They agree on everything together, don't they? Noriko thought to herself, shaking her head.
"Let's go then."
"Yay!"
---
The black-haired female sat at the table, staring at the book lying before her. The other commanders and the princes standing behind her, hovering over her head to see the picture book on the desk.
Mika said, "Noriko, you read it."
"Why do I?"
"Because you're the one seated close to it, and I can't be bothered to do it myself."
Noriko sighs, finding that her reason was absolute rubbish but she couldn't bring herself to start a pointless conversation with the blond. She opened the book, and began to read the first couple of lines.
"Long long ago, in a land far far away..."
"Do they have to say the words twice?" Mika interrupted. "We get that it's a long long time ago and it's far far away,"
"...There lived a King and queen," Noriko continued, "and they had a son."
Rumon said, "Oh, that definitely sounds like Arata."
A vein popped on Noriko's head, clearly starting to get pissed off by their continuous interruptions. She couldn't even get a grasp on the story, and she had only read the first two sentences.
"Would you guys stop interrupting? I'm trying to read."
"Sorry..." they apologised.
Sighing at their insolence, she decided to continue.
"He lived within the castle, being taught the rules of being King for when he became old enough."
She turned a page, a picture of a castle coming into their sights.
"In the Capital of this kingdom, a girl was born in the same year. She was taught to work in the fields. She became a defender of the weak as years past."
"That sounds like Noriko," Takehiko interrupted.
"Takehiko," she hissed.
"Sorry."
"One day..."
"Seriously? They start with that?" Mika complains.
Her brow twitched, but she decided to ignore it for she wanted to actually get to what the story was actually about. Noriko continues once more.
"One day, the Prince traveled to the Capital and bumped into the girl. They introduced themselves to each other. The Prince's name was Andreas and the girl's name was Lily."
"Such creative names..."
"They talked and talked and talked about their homes," Noriko continued. "The Prince learning more about his Kingdom while the girl learned more about the Royal's life."
She turned the page. "After that day, Prince Andreas would sneak out of the castle to speak with Lily everyday. Day by day, they felt like they were becoming connected. It wasn't long before they became the best of friends."
"This story is starting to sound sad."
"However, Prince Andreas didn't come visit Lily one day, this caused her to worry so she set out to the Castle," Noriko read. "She traveled half way there to the castle, only to stop when she saw explosions to the west."
"Let me guess, she went there, didn't she?"
The black-haired female only nodded.
"Deciding to check it out, she rode on her horse..."
"Where did the horse come from?"
"... And arrived to see a battlefield," she carried on. "Men fighting and corpses on the ground. All of them armed with deadly weapons, some stained with blood but alive, others weren't so lucky."
Arata asks, "What kind of kids book is this?"
"I don't think this is for kids to read..." Takehiko commented.
"Lily searched the battlefield for the Prince, avoiding all of the attacks coming her way with subtle ease. After some time, she found him."
She paused, pondering the moral of this story. She couldn't really consider it a story, it seemed more of a legend.
"On the ground in a lying heap, only just breathing and on the edge of death's bed."
"Oh no!"
"Not wanting for him to die, Lily pulled out desperate measures. A secret that she never revealed to anyone."
"This story is not the best to read - it's not even flowing together."
"Just let me read already!" Noriko snapped.
She turned her attention back to the book once more, swearing to snap someone's head if someone interrupted her again.
"She summoned a dragon, a golden magical creature that thought to be myths."
She turned the page.
"Using her last resort, she gave him dragon blood to drink. Since a dragon blood has special, regenerative capabilities, he was saved. However, the war still waged on. With who? Lily didn't know, but she knew that the war needed to stop, and it needed to stop now before anymore people could be lost."
She turned the page.
"The Prince agreeing with her, they combined their powers together. The Prince's new dragon-fused blood, linked with Lily's ability to communicate with the golden dragon. In one foul demand, all of the men were brought down to their knees by the Prince's command - forced from the magic that radiated off of the pair."
She turned the page.
"In the process of using this spell, their right arms became bonded together. Identical, black, swirling marks had appeared on their arms, forever linking them as partners; allowing them to know when one of them died or using their new found powers."
Noriko stared at the picture, a boy and girl holding hands and having what seemed to be teki surrounding them viciously. She turned the page.
"Defeated, the Prince's enemy became their allies. The Prince found a wife of his own, with Lily being his right-hand woman; the person he trusted most in the world. It was peaceful for many years while everyone was under the Former Prince's reign. Lily became known across the land and the first person to go through when problems ever needed to be fixed. After that fateful day, the pair was known as The Bonded. The end."
The Prince murmurs, "That was the worst story I've ever heard and read in my life."
"Agreed."
Noriko mumbled, "Makes me wonder why Prince Red and Prince Aoi said that it reminded of you and me. Seriously, it's like a kindergartener wrote it."
I have a feeling that the Princes weren't lying. Those two really are like the story goes, Takehiko thought. Just different circumstances, but they are definitely the same.
"Well, you have to admit you two are kinda similar to the story," Mika commented.
"Oh, so you say."
"I'm being serious here!"
"Like I care."
The black-haired male sighs as he watches the women banter. Arata stared at the closed book, wondering what the story could mean. A question looming in the air that everyone thought about subconsciously.
Could they be... The Bonded?