Disclaimer: Well, I don't own anything from Gundam Wing, but in this case the rest of the A Universe is mine, and I don't have to disclaim it at all...
A.N.: Well, we'll she how this story goes, won't we. I hope you peopleses like it, 'cause I'm trying something new here. I'm really bad at summaries too, so I'm hoping that someone will actually be interested in reading it. Oh well, we'll just say I have an inferiority complex with my story and leave it at that, shall we? So, on with it. Hope ya all like it, and constructive criticism is welcome.
Woodcutter
Kasi-kun.
Do you realize that the most inane things go through your mind right when there are other more important things to worry about? I'd always heard that to be true, but never quite believed to until the moment when I hauled myself back into consciousness from a cavern of darkness (please excuse the cliché, but that is what it seemed to me to be at the time) and the first though I had was, 'If Marcalle wet the bed again tonight, I'll kill him'. I groaned at the thought of moving an inch and finding myself in a spot where bed covers were rather damp with an extremely unpleasant liquid, forever again. That's what you get for being your father's least favorite!
"Don't move. Don't make any noise, maybe they won't notice your awake."
My brain thrashed with surprise, and my body started in amazement. I didn't know that voice, not at all. But that information got ignored in the rock slide of agony that crashed into me like falling timber at my movement. I choked, heaved, and howled into someone's hand. Whoever had muffled my scream had to be fast, desperate or both, but my continued motion caused more liquid fire to pour along my skin, intelligent though vanished with the world, and a furious hiss.
"What part of no noise donya understand, Timber-ape?"
I had to be setting some sort of record. Two returns to this world from oblivion, and both starting with stupid thoughts. This time it was 'I should have bitten him.' The term Timber-ape rang in my head. I hated that phrase. I really did. I kept myself still this time. No jerking, thought I have to say that no surprises helped the effort. But the pain came anyway, though this time it seeped in, slowly gaining strength, but I found that if I was careful, I could handle it, not that I had much choice, I can't heal myself. This time my mouth was already covered. With a cloth. Forever smart! Whoever it was that had covered my mouth, if they had used a hand, I would have bloodied it.
"No, master. He hasn't woken up."
The words were spoken right next to me. I was glad I didn't startle. That would have caused another repeat of before. A more distant, and deeper response, and then the boy's voice was right beside me.
"I'll take it off right now, master, but he's been hallucinating, sir, and he was bothering other travelers, sir. So..."
A growl cut him off. The cloth wasn't removed from my mouth, so bothering other travelers wasn't a good thing, 'master' had changed his mind. Well, I sure didn't have to worry about a little brother wetting the bed here. But what had happened? What had brought me here? Where was here?
I mean, last thing I remember is eating supper with my family, the normal loud scuffling whining mass of little brats all around. I had ached with the pleasant ache of a hard job well done. The needed stock pile for wood for the winter had been cut and stacked and the barn roof patched without one of us boys breaking any bones. At least so I had thought, maybe I had fallen off. That must be it, I hadn't actually gotten as far as supper, I was confusing another supper with today, and thinking something had happened when it didn't. I was just imagining the voice by my elbow, and really I was at home in the sick-bed Mama forever used when we got banged up. That was all.
"I know you can hear me." The boy's voice was soft, but it didn't really exist, I just had to get my eyes open to prove it. I would see Reela, or Grasyt, or Frelak at my elbow gloating that they would get to go with Papa hunting on the morrow. it was strange, opening my eyes was a monumental struggle, like lifting a full, unsectioned tree trunk off of a squirrel by yourself. I thought it was impossible forever. Then a tiny quiver of light showed through my eyelashes, and I redoubled my efforts, and ended staring straight into a pair of violet eyes.
I jerked in surprise, and the gag muffled my whimper, and my hair soaked away the few tears of pain that escaped, the brats would laugh if they had seen that. But how could I think that I was at home? Mama never would gag one of us kids to keep us quiet. Not even me. Forever she wouldn't.
"I can't believe you're even alive, Timber-ape." I frowned slightly not a full scowl since moving my face that much hurt, marking in my head to beat him up but good once I was back on my feet. "I've always heard that you tree-boys're tough, but I never thought that you'd be this tough. Look, when you get better, I say we should make a run for it. I'd like you at my back any day!"
Run for it? At his back? My frown of anger turned to confusion. Where was I? This grasslander could have been speaking a foreign language for all I could figure out what he was talking about. I couldn't be dreaming this, I'd never heard a grasslander talk before. Violet-Eyes was yammering again. He talked as much as my sisters, well not really, but it just seemed that way cause he never waited for me to respond. Though, I would have thought him touched in the head if he did wait for me to answer, since I was tied up.
It was a testament to how leaf-brained I was then that it had taken me that long to wonder what my actual wounds were. I attempted to move my head to see, but I seemed heavier than a mountain, and wouldn't budge. I rolled my eyes downward to try to see, but all that came into view was my nose, and more of my brown bangs. Of course I'm too skinny to see anything else without tilting my head down. Violet-Eyes, the grasslander Dirt-bunny, seemed to realize what I was trying to do, and he tapped my nose to focus me back on him. He was still talking, and I realized that he might be telling me about my condition. Maybe he had already.
"...the whole stack came down on you. All the other brats got way into the forest, up the trees, they're probably still running but you and the woman took out about 3 before you went down. I didn't know trees could be that big, and I sure didn't think that your old man would drop one on you at the same time that he dropped it on the slavers..."
He kept talking, but my whole being focused on that one word. Slavers. Slavers. Forever! It had to be slavers didn't it? I'd heard the stories going around, how they had come up into the mountains looking for children to snatch, but Mama had said it was all lies, and Papa had just laughed and crowed to the evening shadows that he'd kill any who'd try and snatch his strapping strong boys. Mama had glanced at me, all whipcord muscle and bone, nothing else, and glanced away fast. I was oldest, but I wasn't worth the extra time of day. Never mind. Never mind I could out hunt, fight and work any two of the others. Slavers. Papa had dropped our name tree. Forever! He'd dropped it on me. All the kids were safe. All but me. Mama would be a little sorry, but Papa wouldn't care, the neighbors would stop sending speculative glances at our family now. The sport, the throw back, the one who looked nothing like the others was gone. No more wondering if Mama had been unfaithful right off the beginning.
"Hello?"
I focused on those eyes again.
"I promise you, everyone but you got away. Even the woman, though she's the one that moved the tree from you. I've never seen anyone so upset. Or amazingly strong. Never. But what do they say about Mothers and their cubs? She was screaming that trees can't hurt you, but there you were half crushed, and the master wanted to bring you along just in case you lived, he needed something to show for the raid."
The cloth was removed from my mouth. I blinked slowly.
"Timber-ape?"
"She got away?" My voice grated. Normally it would be higher than this Dirt-bunny's but not right now, it sounded like I hadn't had water in weeks. She had saved me. Instead of running with the girls like she should have, after all the doubt I'd had in her, she had risked everything for me. What was that about trees not hurting me? That was non-sense.
"Ya. At the last second before we got there, she jumped for the shadows. Night fell right then, and master wouldn't risk us in the gloom. You got a real name? I can't keep calling ya Timber-ape, sha?" I just looked at those eyes, I'd never seen eyes like that. Most were brown that I'd seen, though when I looked into the big copper platter of Mama's it seemed to have lighter eyes. Maybe one day I would find a pond when no one else was around and see what the water's reflection said.
"I didn't want to help him. Sha, I didn't. I'm Duo. Tell me your name?"
"Maybe I don't remember it. Just like I don't..." I wasn't sure I wanted to say that I didn't remember anything past finishing supper and, and had we gone out to do the last chores? Why would be all be outside at once? The girls should have been getting the house tidied, while we did the chore, forever it was like that.
"Don't what? Maybe the tree shook your brain loose. Sha, but the master would be mad if it did. No good returns at all, and the broken one he's got be touched in the head?" Dirt-bunny, he must be a slave, laughed at that, it was a kind of empty laugh, like he was hoping desperately it wasn't true.
"Hurts." I commented, annoyed. Did he expect me to talk as much as he did? everything hurt. Even my jaw.
"No! Sha, but I think you are touched in the head. You've got broken ribs, oh, what haven't you got broken? Ribs, both arms at least once, right leg, left ankle, your head."
I broke in "My head isn't broken! Forever, do you never be silent?"
The eyes vanished from my field of vision.
I didn't want to him to go. I was sorry I had been so rude, he had told me what had happened. "Trowa."
The eyes were back, wider, amazed, my brain supplied after a breath of time. "You're Trowa? Trowa Timber-ape?" He sniggered.
I held on to my temper carefully, I'd flatten him when I could stand up. "Duo Dirt-bunny" My voice still creaked horribly and I was contemplating the stupidity of our name calling when suddenly water flowed in through my open lips and I swallowed, choked, coughed and vanished into a darkness that raged with pain from my middle.
