Balancing the Halves
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of the characters from the show, nor am I making any money from this sad attempt to entertain myself and hopefully some others.
Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, others may develop
Author: Monts
Category: AU, fantasy/historical
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Yaoi, bit of angst, OOC, OC (only minor), violence, language, lemon/lime (later)
Summary: Heero finds himself unhappy with his position as heir to one of the most important duchies in the defense of the realm of Sanq. He is befriended by the castle jester, who he finds to be not quite the fool he originally appears.
Author's Notes: OK, so this is my first real attempt at GW fanfiction after several years of lurking. Please please please give me some feedback (criticism, anomalies, anything), as I need to know I haven't messed anything up really badly/noticeably and also so my ego is not completely shattered :P
Part One
Duo began his days before the sun even appeared on the horizon, making his way to the castle kitchen to collect his master's morning meal. His routine differed little year round, and the task was often quite daunting in the dead of winter, when frost or snow lay heavily on the ground, and the sun was nowhere to be seen. Once inside the bustling warmth of the kitchens, however, he was able to shake the chill from his bones and waken properly whilst breaking his own fast.
The highlight of Duo's day came not when he took that first bite of warm bread in the morning, nor when he passed by the quiet and serene courtyard in which he liked to sit and play his lute, not even when he was greeted by his master and given occasional compliments on his playing. Instead, what Duo looked forward to most every day was the brief glimpse of the squires on their morning run around the castle grounds. In particular, he looked for the chocolate-brown head of hair belonging to the Duke's son, Heero.
Heero, though not the first-born son of the Duke, had become his heir after the duke's eldest son was killed in a hunting accident when Heero was only a small child. The large age difference between Heero and his brother (a gap of 15 years) meant that he had not been largely affected emotionally by the death. The two boys had even had different mothers, after the duke's first wife had died giving birth to the elder son, Alfred. Heero's own mother had married the duke more than 10 years after his first wife's death, and part of her own exotic looks that came from being the granddaughter of a visiting noble from the far east, had been passed on to Heero. Heero's own life had become very different after it became obvious he would be the one inheriting the duchy so important to the country's defense.
The Duchy of Lowe was located just within the border of the country of Sanq, and was considered an important link in the nation's defense against neighbouring war-like Romefeller. As a result, Heero was raised from a young age with the expected responsibility of successfully holding an area highly important to the king. He had been trained in various academic pursuits including strategy, science and logic, as well as all manner of physical disciplines so he would be better able to lead his men and defend Sanq when the time came. Currently, at the age of 19, Heero was in the final stages of squiredom and firmly on the path to becoming a fully-fledged knight.
And so it was that the highlight of Duo's day came just before sun-up, as he made his way to the kitchen to begin his own day's work, watching the small group of squires including Heero make their daily leisurely sprint around the castle grounds.
"Duo, what are you doin' with your head in the clouds this mornin'? You know it's an important day for his lordship, and if you ain't payin' attention you're gonna cop a hidin' for it!"
"Aww Cook, I'm sorry. I'll pay attention. It's just such a beautiful day today. It's been so cold lately, it's nice to have a day with no snow or sleet or hail."
"Yes, well young Maxwell, you know how the duke gets if his breakfast ain't on time."
"I'll take it right up to him now."
With that, Duo took the heavy tray containing the duke's breakfast and made his way up the serving stairs to the duke's chambers. As he came to the door, Duo waited quietly outside for a moment to be sure there was no one inside whom he would be disturbing. Hearing nothing, he pushed the door open with his shoulder and backed into the room. Upon turning around however, Duo almost dropped the tray in surprise: there, sitting stiffly in one of the duke's chairs, was Heero.
Even after more than 9 months at the castle, Duo had yet to speak to the duke's son. His role as jester and manservant to the duke meant that he saw Heero quite frequently, mostly when entertaining the duke and his guests at the evening meal. Despite this, Duo had never been with Heero alone and as a result had never actually spoken to the other boy.
"Lord Yuy," Duo started, "excuse me, my lord, I didn't realise anyone was here."
Heero looked at him for a moment, before motioning that he continue with his task.
Duo made his way over to the smaller table where the duke liked to take his meals and began setting the plates. He felt quite self-conscious as he could sense the young lord's eyes on him.
Turning to Heero he said, "Excuse me Lord Yuy, were you intending on breakfasting with the duke this morning?"
"No, I'm merely here to discuss a slight problem we have in the village with the duke. He won't want it to interfere with the royal party arriving today. I plan to leave as soon as he has indicated how he wishes it dealt with."
Duo nodded and began to make his way back to the servants' entrance. Before he could get there, however, Heero stopped him.
"Jester, what is your name?"
"Duo, my lord," he replied after a moment, quite shocked at the attention the other was paying him. "Duo Maxwell."
"Of the Maxwell church?"
"Yes, that is where I was raised before your father the lord duke took me into his service."
"You are 18? And educated by the church?"
Duo nodded silently.
"Very good. You may carry on."
Duo bowed before turning and exiting the room. After closing the door behind him, he leaned against it briefly, still quite shocked from his encounter with the usually taciturn young lord. Shaking his head, Duo made his way back down the dark passages to the kitchen.
Quatre sat in his carriage and fumed. 'I can't believe we're going to this ridiculous excuse for a castle for a whole month. I should be in the capital enjoying myself before father makes me marry that harpy from Romefeller'.
Quatre was part of the royal entourage currently makings its way to the Duchy of Lowe. It was here that the final negotiations for the marriage between Princess Dorothy of Romefeller and Prince Quatre (the king's nephew) would be taking place. The party would be arriving at the duchy in the early afternoon, for a stay of a full moon cycle. After this visit, most of the Romefeller party would return to their own country, whilst Princess Dorothy and her remaining ladies-in-waiting and escorts would make their way to the capital of Sanq for the royal wedding.
It was intended that this marriage heal many of the diplomatic rifts between Sanq and Romefeller. Quatre happened to be the young man called upon to fulfill Sanq's part of the agreement. He had met Dorothy only once before, and from that single meeting he had gathered that she was incredibly beautiful, in an icy, haughty way, but also insufferably arrogant and cruel.
Quatre had known from a young age that he was destined to be part of a planned and most-probably loveless marriage, and he had accepted that, but what really bothered him was that Dorothy thought the king was snubbing her by giving her as a husband his nephew, rather than his eldest son, Milliardo. She had made this abundantly clear when she and Quatre were introduced in Romefeller the previous year, to meet their prospective partners.
Thinking of his oldest cousin made Quatre even angrier. The prince was the golden child, apple of his parents' eyes, and had been treated as such since he was born. Now, about to reach his 21st birthday, Milliardo did not want to assume the duties usually assigned to the crown prince upon reaching his majority, but Milliardo seemed determined to keep to his carefree, pleasurable way of life. The king and queen had already made concessions by allowing Milliardo to remain single for as long as he had, rather than marrying him to a princess to create or cement political ties to one of the neighbouring countries. Milliardo's idealism in regard to marrying for love rather than politics seemed to endear him even more to the king, and it was because of this that it was Quatre sitting in the uncomfortably jolting carriage on his way to meet the ice-princess, rather than Milliardo.
"Your highness, we are approaching the border of the duchy," came a voice through the carriage window. Quatre pushed back the small curtain and looked out to the soldier on his horse riding next to the carriage. Looking around he saw that the small unit of soldiers given to him by the king for protection were huddled together as they walked.
"Very well then. Make sure that the men are looking snappy as we arrive, I won't have my soldiers looking like a bunch of untrained louts. We are representatives of the king, of Sanq itself, and you are meant to be protecting a prince of the realm. Shape up."
The soldier snapped a sharp salute to Quatre, before urging his horse into a trot and riding towards the other soldiers to berate them for their sloppiness. Quatre pulled the small curtain closed again in a hopeless attempt to keep the cold out of the carriage, before returning to dwell further on his current predicament.
As the royal entourage was about to make its way into the castle courtyard, Trowa found himself cornered by the stable master, who was again reiterating the procedure for collecting the party's mounts and stabling them.
"'ave you got that boy?" the man asked for the third time in the last 10 minutes.
"Yes sir," Trowa reassured the stable master, understanding somewhat the level of stress he was under, and unwilling to burden him further with more questions or backchat. Still, Trowa resented being treated like an idiot: people seemed to assume that just because he didn't talk a lot, it meant he was dumb, which was by no means the case. Beneath the quiet and composed exterior, a very sharp and observant mind lay, taking in and processing all the different things happening around him.
Hearing trumpeters announce the arrival of the carriages, Trowa made his way over to begin collecting horses as the riders dismounted. Once he held two sets of reins in each hand, he led them back to the stable and deposited each in a different stall, trusting that the younger stable boys would begin to remove the tack and feed the beasts.
On returning to the courtyard, Trowa was stopped in his tracks when he saw who could only be the king's nephew descend from the carriage he had been travelling in. He was a blond boy, and Trowa knew him to be nearly 19, but was still quite slim and lightly built. The pale skin and hair (a characteristic shared by several members of the royal family) meant he stood out from the dull brown surroundings. The expression on his face was what Trowa could only call sneer, as he looked around the castle that was designed and built to be primarily a military and defensive keep, and clearly found it to be lacking. The cool blue eyes fell upon Trowa for a split second, before travelling on to the duke who had just descended the stairs to greet his guests.
"Prince Quatre, welcome. We hope you had an enjoyable journey." The duke came forward and shook the blonde's hand warmly. Quatre put a courteous smile on his face.
"My lord. My entourage and I are deeply gratified by your reception. The king sends his greetings, and is regretful that he could not join us here. He also says to tell you he misses your counsel even after all these years."
The duke smiled and shook his head gently. He had been one of the king's closest friends when they were young men, and upon the early death of the old king when Darlian ascended the throne, Odin had provided much support and advice to his young liege. When he married however, Odin left the capital to return to his home duchy and assume some responsibilities from his then elderly father.
"Do come inside highness, there is a light meal planned for after you have refreshed yourself." The duke turned and the two of them started towards the main entrance. "I apologise that my son could not be here to greet you as well. He brought news of an issue we are having in the closest village and has gone to deal with that, but he shall be here tonight for the ball as planned."
"I look forward to it. It has been quite some time since Heero and I have seen each other. I'm sure we have much to catch up on."
Trowa was unable to hear any more as the two of them disappeared into the depths of the castle foyer, and several more horses were thrust into his care. He was intrigued by the king's nephew, who was so polite on the outside, yet clearly unhappy to be here. Trowa knew that Quatre had spent several summers here when he was younger, and had been good friends with Heero, but it seemed that they had grown distant. What had happened to change his opinion?
Trowa was prevented from thinking about it any more as the stable master began yelling for his assistance, so he put the young prince out of his mind and got back to work.
At that very moment, Heero was trying to sort out a disagreement between a group of villagers who lived in the small settlement close to the castle. It appeared that the town scribe was being accused of refusing to pay for a bow and set of arrows the fletcher had made for him.
"This is ridiculous!" Chang Wufei, the scribe's son interjected. "My father would never do anything so dishonourable! That fat, lazy old leech is lying! We bought and paid for everything we got from him, not that the workmanship is any good anyway."
Heero had come across Wufei only briefly in the past, but he had always struck Heero as a very righteous, but honest person. The fletcher on the other hand was known to scrimp on his work, as well as overcharge. The problem here was that tempers were already inflamed because they scribe and his son, who had only just moved to the village, were foreigners. The villagers, many of whom had never even travelled to the next duchy, were highly suspicious of foreigners, a prejudice they managed to largely keep in hand around Heero (due to his position). It would take a delicate handling of the situation to keep things from spiralling out of control.
"Would you bring your case before the duke?" Heero put to the fletcher, who was now angrily muttering to his fellow accusers. "He will be happy to listen to any issue you have, and will be sure that punishments be passed out to fit any crimes committed here."
This seemed to stump the fletcher, who had clearly not expected there to be much challenge to his accusation.
"I…well…no, my lord. I wouldn't want to bring such a small matter to the duke, t'would be a waste of his important time."
"That's what I thought. So we shall let the matter be? All is forgiven?"
The fletcher grudgingly nodded his head, but Wufei looked ready to interject again, no doubt to try and force the fletcher to completely withdraw his accusations. With well-disguised relief, Heero saw the scribe put a hand in his son's shoulder and shake his head slightly. Wufei merely nodded and looked at the ground.
"Very well then," Heero continued. "Moving on to other matters, as you are all aware, the king's nephew and his party are arriving today, and tonight there will be a ball at the castle. Tomorrow night, the duke has decided to host a bonfire at the castle, where all the village people and visiting servants and soldiers are invited to attend. It will begin at sundown, and a meal and a number of casks of ale will be provided to all."
A cheer went up, and Heero knew that any hard feelings about the outcome of the disagreement were forgotten. And now, all he had to worry about was what he was going to say to Quatre…
End Part 1
Monts: So that's it for now, I've introduced our boys, and a few of the other characters will enter the story when their time comes. Please let me know if you like it, think I should continue or not bother, or if there are any big contradictions I've missed. Even only a couple of words will totally make my day :P
Cheers, Monts