Fan Fiction ❯ Blue Ice ❯ Innocent Smile ( Chapter 13 )

A Smile of Innocent

Suo woke up in a bolt as pain racked his body.

“W-where am I?” he asked aloud, before looking around franticly.

“You're awake!” exclaimed someone behind him.

He turned to look.

“Ren?”

“You have been sleeping for three days. I was worried,” Ren smiled as he lifted Suo up gently, a bowl of medicine in hand.

“What happened?” Suo asked.

“Apparently, one of your friends, still cares enough to knock us unconscious,” Ren explained, although his tone carried venom as he mentioned one of the Red Dragon.

Suo eyes soften a little, “Lu was always reluctant to kill.”

Ren shrugged, not wanting to talk about the Red Dragons. “Why did you choose to protect Qian?” he changed the topic.

A silent followed before a pair of green eyes slid close, and a smile tugged at Suo's lips.

“Have you ever been granted an innocent smile? Have you ever been given a chance that a stolen childhood?”

“…No,” Ren muttered to the rhetorical questions.

“When you have, you would do anything to keep it.”

“I met Qian in a field eleven years ago. She had just escaped from the watchful eyes of her guards.”

A snort was heard from Ren.

“I remember how she and I just stood there in the field, staring at each other. It was my secret place, one which I go when I wanted to muse or watch the clouds. I have no parents…they were killed by the pure…I live with the Red Dragons, Red for the blood and suffering; Dragon for our heritage.” Suo stopped for a brief second as he recalls his first family.

Ren hold onto him as support.

“I was surprise to find a girl there…a royal girl. I was about to tell her off, when she came up to me and said: `Hello! I'm Qian, want to be my friend?' The smile she gave me, a pure innocent smile that of a child who had never seen the ugliness of the world. I didn't know what possessed me so, but at the moment, I wanted to protect her innocence.”

Suo opened his eyes. “I wanted to protect her,” he said.

Ren nodded.

“I met her after the assassination attempt,” he started. “I was only 12, but was the disciple of the greatest swordsmen of all China. However, that doesn't convince the courts. Everyone doubted me. But Qian grabbed my hands; she told the courts that she believes in me. She said: `Ren was taught be the best, and he is going to be the best! I believe in him!' She had believed in me, when they have not…”

Both Suo and Ren smirked at the tales.

“It's just like her,” Ren said, “somehow; she enters the heart of her subject like a true princess.”

Suo acquiesced at Ren's statement. “Then we the subject should find this loveable princess and protect her!” he grinned at the fair Asian next to him, “Shall we go?”

Ren growled, “Not until you heal,” he ordered.

Suo pouted.