(dream sequence)
"What will her name be, father?" The boy
tugged on his father's sleeve. "Father?"
The one he called 'father' was holding
a baby. He looked down on the boy that was now younger than he was before.
His father mouthed out a name. His father's face could not be seen because
of the setting sun behind him.
"Father," the boy tugged on his father's
sleeve again. "can I hold the her?"
His father's features softened from an
originally stern look. He mouthed a 'yes' and handed the child over. The
boy held the sleeping form and looked up at his mother.
"Smile." His mother said silently. She
took a picture of the two siblings.
The opaque floor under him fell apart,
but he was still standing. It kept falling apart until it made a circle
around him. At the circumference, a wall of fire blazed up with his parents
on the outer side of the circle. The child still slept.
"NOO! Mother! Father!" He reached out his
hand towards them, but he could not move his feet. He looked down at his
hands, stained in blood. At his side was his sister, but she was standing
and grown up by maybe another year or so. He had also grown older by a
year. When he looked up, everything around him was black and in front of
him was a mirror. When he looked at his reflection, it was blurry but he
could tell how it looked like.
The imagine looked like him, but with longer
hair and a colder stare. The reflection looked older. The boy raised his
hand to his face and in the mirror, the hand was covered in blood. He grew
angry of the imagine before him and punched it, causing it to shatter.
Simultaneously, everything around him shattered and his sister fell away.
He stood at the pile of rubble he was at
before. He looked at a shadow that was cast in front of him. Maybe it was
the sun that caused such a large shadow. He turned around to see a man,
taller than he and the face was hidden. The sun was behind the man, but
it gradually climbed higher, slowly revealing the face that seemed familiar.
The man stretched out a hand.
"Milliardo. Come. Come to me." The man
silently spoke. He kept saying the boy's name, but each time the voice
became louder until it seemed like he was talking normally. "Milliardo.
Milliardo…"
(end dream sequence)
"Milliardo!"
The boy awoke to face the man calling out
his name. "What?" His eyes hurt when he blinked and his clothes were covered
in blood because of the curtain.
"We have come to take you with us. A prince
should not sleep out here for the night. We will find you an adequate home
but for now, we will shelter you." Milliardo had seen the man before. He
was one of his father's friends that worked for the government.
Milliardo hesitated for a moment but got up.
"All right." It was getting dark and stars could be seen in the eastern
sky. "Um, where is my sister?" Milliardo was being lead by the hand.
"She's been taken care of. Someone adopted
her already."
"Who? Who adopted her?" He was anxious to
find out.
"We're not liable to tell you that." The man
said coldly.
"But, she's my sister. I have the right to
know." The boy argued.
The man stopped walking. "Please don't be
difficult at a time like this." The boy looked behind him to see what was
once he called home. There were still people there, pulling up dead bodies
and such, but most were retiring back home. "Come along now." The man pulled
him to move.
Milliardo stayed at the man's home. After
about a week, he received a call from a friend.
"Milliardo, I just heard about what happened.
I'm terribly sorry."
"It's okay, it's not your fault." Milliardo
shook his head.
"Yes, quite true. I'm sure you're sick of
hearing about all this, but it can't be helped, can it?"
"I guess not. Especially if the media is involved."
He looked out the window for a moment to make sure they weren't there.
"So anyway Trieze, I heard you joined the Academy."
"Yeah, I did. It's only been one semester
so far." Trieze was on one of the few breaks he had from the Academy.
"Why are you going there? That's a pretty
prestigious military school."
"Well, I wanted to go. I want to be in the
military and maybe one day, I'll even be a general and command my own troops.
That would be pretty nice, but its probably not gonna happen." Trieze's
language loosened a bit to be more casual sounding and more his age.
Milliardo let out a chuckle. "Knowing you,
that will probably happen."
"Hm, maybe, maybe not. You should join, too.
Not like you have anywhere in particular to go now. Besides, they're always
looking for more people to train. Especially with this war ready to break
out any moment."
"I guess I could, but that wouldn't really
follow my father's ways, would it? The military and pacifism doesn't really
mix together well." Milliardo wanted to say 'yes', but he still has his
father's ideals in his mind.
"Yes yes, pacifism. Well, pacifism isn't going
to be attained if there aren't any soldiers to fight for it. Otherwise
there're just gonna be wars and nothing else." There was a silence. "How
about you think about it?"
"All right, I'll think about it. When I have
a definite answer, I'll call you. Bye." He hung up and loosened his back
so it wasn't so tense. "I'll…think about it."
Later that day
"I'm thinking about joining the Academy."
Milliardo was speaking with the man that was taking care of him.
"The Academy? Whatever possessed you to think
about going there?" The man remarked snidely.
Milliardo rolled his eyes at the question.
"Well, I was just thinking about it, that's all. Is it so bad to think?"
Milliardo was going to continue, but the man cut him off.
"No, it's not but you come from a pacifist
family and country. Going to the Academy will give your family a bad name."
The man started to talk in way mothers talked to babies.
"My family's dead. You can't give a bad name
to dead people." Milliardo retorted cynically. "Besides, nobody ever said
I had to carry out my father's way after his death."
The man was appalled and slapped him across
the face. "You know very well that is the duty of an heir! If your father
was to hear such a thing, I'm sure he would do the same thing as I!"
"But I thought my father was a pacifist."
Milliardo mocked the man but made sure he couldn't hear it.
"You also know that you're family isn't dead.
Your sister is alive and well."
"But how do I know that? Won't even let me
see her or know where she is." He mumbled under his breath.
"Now go get these silly ideas out of your
head and go head upstairs and wash up. We have guests coming over tonight
for dinner and I don't want them to see a prince filthy." The man turned
him around and gave him a little push out the door.
The boy headed upstairs and slammed the room
door. "Doesn't a prince have more rights then this?!" He picked up the
phone and dialed the number written on a piece of paper.
"Hello?"
"Hello? Trieze? I'll be taking you up on that
offer."
Evening came and so did guests. Most were
renowned leaders in Europe while others were military leaders. Milliardo
was washed and dressed and ready to leave any moment. Everything went like
clockwork and Milliardo was polite to everyone that bothered to talk to
him. The man gave him a few glances here and there but as the evening went,
he stopped looking. When the time came, Milliardo went back into his room
and gathered his few belongings. He went to the open window and started
to climb down. There was an intricate carving under all the windows,
so he used them as foot holdings. By the time he was at the bottom of the
carving, he jumped down and landed hard on the grass. There was a dull
thud but it couldn't be heard above the talking inside.
"Milliardo-sama. Over here." A voice whispered
from the shadows. The boy turned towards the shadows and ran towards the
voice.
"Thank you for meeting me here." Milliardo
bowed.
"Do not mention it. Come along now before
they start noticing." The boy nodded and followed. They got into a car
and drove away. "I made the preparations that you had asked for. You'll
be flying the 9:15 plane in first class.
"Thank you." Milliardo made sure he had everything
and then adjusted his rumpled clothes. "Sorry to bother you at such a short
notice."
"Not a problem at all, sir. Even though the
Cavally's chauffeur was telling quite a story about one of the maids, a
pantry and one of the kitchen servants, but I heard my share before." The
driver let out a soft laughter ending with a smile hidden under his mustache.
"That seems like quite a story." The boy started
to drift off until finally he gave in and fell asleep.
(dream sequence)
Two children are playing in a mansion with
the light coming in from a window that went from the ceiling to the floor.
The two are playing with toys and blocks.
"Lets make a city. I'll be the one that
rules over the people and you can be my helper. You'll be second in command."
The older boy spoke. "From there, we can slowly build a bigger city."
"Then we'll end up building a city big
enough to cover the entire world!" The younger one responded but he seemed
like he was complaining more then agreeing.
"You'll help me, won't you?" The boy stopped
building.
The other stared at him as if forgetting
who the other boy was. He lightened up and started to build the city. "Sure
I will! And no one will stop us." A third child appeared out of nowhere
and was younger than both boys. The third child was a girl and she watched
the other two build. Eventually, she started to crawl away and then towards
the younger boy and try to stop him from building.
"Hm..what is she doing?" the older one
commented. "Milliardo. Wake up." The boy's voice changed from a soprano
to a tenor. "Wake up."
(end dream sequence)
"Milliardo-sama, wake up. We arrived at the
airport." The driver was turned in his seat to look at Milliardo.
Milliardo looked out the window and rubbed
his eyes. "Oh yeah." He unbuckled himself and gathered his jacket and duffel
bag. "Thank you for the ride."
"My pleasure, Milliardo-sama. I hope to see
you again." He bowed his head.
Milliardo was halfway out of the car. "Yes,
hopefully. And when we do, we should fence again, Pargan." He closed the
door, waved goodbye and walked into the airport.
While on the plane, he kept his duffel bag
with him. He pulled out some money and a note. The note was from Pargan,
telling him which hotel to check into and other needed information. From
the hotel, he would call Trieze and figure out a way to reach the Academy.
The city he arrived at wasn't as large as
the one he just came from, but the area was still lively around the hotel.
The Academy was at least ten miles away from the city which is the closet
city to the military school. Milliardo called Trieze but no one picked
up. An hour later, he tried again.
"Trieze, I'm at that city you were telling
me about."
"You are?" Trieze sounded shocked and surprised.
"Why? How?"
"What do you mean why? To go to the Academy.
There was a dinner at that house tonight, so I escaped while everyone was
talking. Pargan gave me a lift to the airport and made all the necessary
preparations." Milliardo was sitting on the bed with his feet dangling
a few inches off the ground. "So how do I get there?"
"Well, I guess you could take a cab or something,
but that's gonna cost you." They both fell silent. "Oh, in two days, some
of the students are coming into the city, sorta like a class trip. I'm
going to be one of them. We're doing some observations so it'll be pretty
boring, but you can meet up with me and then when we head back, you can
come with us. We'll be leaving the city after we eat lunch, so you'll be
back by nightfall at the very least."
Milliardo hesitated to agree. This decision
meant whether or not he would become a soldier or stay a prince. He shrugged
and agreed. In two days, they would meet for lunch at some fancy and expensive
restaurant.
Two days passed with a hitch (whatever that
means) and Milliardo was waiting for the group of soldiers at the door
of the restaurant.
"Milliardo! Hey! Over here!" Milliardo turned
to see a group of teenagers running towards him. After everyone introduced
themselves, ate lunch and headed back to campus, Milliardo prepared himself
for the interview that was given to everyone that applied to the school.
"You know, Mil, the police are looking for
you, but the search is dying down. You sure you wanna apply with your name
like that?" Trieze was sitting next to "Mil" in the back of the jeep.
"Hm.. I'll give that some thought later. I'll
keep this name for now." Trieze gave Milliardo a rundown of the kind of
questions they would be asking him. When they arrived, it was already 2
o'clock. Trieze brought Milliardo to the admissions office and gave him
an application. The person in charge of the admissions department wasn't
very busy that day, so the interview was only a few hours later.
"Milliardo Peacecraft, huh? Well, I'm surprised
your here and I'm sure you know why already. No one objected to this?"
the head of admissions asked.
"One person objected. I only asked one person,
but that person doesn't know I'm here and I would like to keep it
like that, if you don't mind." Milliardo tried to keep his posture, but
the chair he sat in made him want to just lean back and enjoy the interview.
The man mumbled something incomprehensible
and reviewed the rest of his application. "You are a bit young to be starting
now. You do know that, don't you?"
"Yes, but I was hoping you could make an exception."
Milliardo negotiated with him.
"Well, considering the situation, I suppose
I could pull a few strings here and there. I doubt anyone would really
mind. We're right in the middle of a semester, so you'll have to wait until
it's over." He was looking at a small calendar beside his arm. "Yes, it's
only about two more months until it's over. You could attend the summer
sessions if you'd like."
Milliardo found the interview utterly boring
and almost nothing like what an interview was supposed to be. "I'll think
about the summer sessions. I'll be dorming here, right?"
"You don't have any where else to go, correct?
So yes, you will be. Until we find you a permanent dorm, you'll be staying
in the guest houses. I'm sure that is perfectly all right with you."
"Yes, that will do just fine."
"Then welcome to your new home."
***
yeah, the title doesn't really go with the
story but i didn't know how to end it really. i didn't want to keep going
cuz the story was already this long so i hope you enjoyed it, you could
tell i was running out of ideas along the way. review? onegai? ¿por
favor? ok then, ja ne. *whispers* please?
