Both The Devil

Pairs: kinda 4-D

Warning: het, cute kiddie kiss

Note: Takes place before the series, before Op Meteor, before all that nonsense. Well... maybe not before the nonsense but clearly before the series. grin

For the "Before the Beginning" challenge at: http:www. happyfangirl .org/before/index.htm

-

-

-

The blade was an extension of her hand, metal melded into her bones and hardwired into her brain as an organ of death and desecration. She craved this. She needed it. It was the only thing keeping her sane.

She shut her eyes, her fists coiled tight around the handle as she spun and waltzed from side to side, back and forth, around and inside the enemy beheld in her deepest conscience. She was dancing with herself in a way that only a woman could do it, and she reeked of seduction, of wonder and bemusement even at the hardened age of... thirteen.

She grinned despite herself, and tossed a sweat soaked palm into her long platinum locks. She was getting tired, but she wasn't finished yet. She had to master this art, like everything. She wanted to know more about war, the art of her family, the art of life and death and all the things that had been thrown into the middle.

It was something her uncle had told her. Something she needed to know.

"Dorothy darling?"

Devilish baby blue eyes glittered acknowledgement as a stern, but beautiful young woman waited at the doorway with her arms folded across her chest. She gave the young girl a disappointed look. Disappointment. Dorothy hated the disappointment in her mother's eyes.

"Mama?"

The woman nodded slightly, waiting as Dorothy set her fencing coil down and approached her mother in a very bold yet ladylike kind of way. Dorothy never was the kind to follow the rules, even if she did respect them... well... to a point. In the heart of things, she preferred to follow her own rule--listen to no one but your mother, and even then... do it out of convenience.

Some might say she never had a heart.

One would say, years later, that she'd just forgot how to cry.

Maybe he's right.

The older woman's fingers drummed against her forearm as the folded arms tightened across her chest in a display of arrogant authority. Her lips were narrowed to a thin line. "You have disappointed me, child. Why did you attack the boy Renolds at school today?"

Dorothy snorted as she remembered the little snob. He was the redhead with a prim little cut, finely waxed shoes and a father who'd never give a damn for a day in his entire sassy little life. Dorothy hated snobs. They reminded her too much of her father.

She blushed slightly, but then gritted her teeth, her young fists curled at her hips with shaken fury.

"He called me a woman!"

Her mother's expression suddenly melted and she laughed softly. "But Dorothy, you are a--"

Dorothy shook her head, her pale blonde hair whispering at her back. "No, mother. You don't understand. He called me a woman as if it were a curse, as if I should be lower in status to him, as if I should cook and clean for him and do his every little bidding. Yes, I am a woman, mother. I am a woman that will never succumb to playing housewife. I'll be caught dead before I fall to sit under a man--no, a boy--like that." She shuddered with disgust.

Her mother's eyes flashed with anger. "But you hit him--"

The young girl snorted very unladylike. "Several times, yes. He deserved it, mother! He said I was weak and when I warned him, he didn't listen. I beat the living hell out of him--"

"Dorothy!!"

Dorothy had the decency to blush. "Sorry, mother. He just... well, at least now he'll think twice before he damns a girl for being something other than plastic."

"It's not right to hold revenge this way. You know better."

Dorothy nodded but her anger and boldness didn't fade. "And it's not right that a boy should grow to think such things about a girl if only because his father is the type to believe it. I will not let a man rule my life."

The mother's eyes glittered briefly and she sighed. "Dorothy..."

The girl's voice dropped to a whisper. "You're stronger than he is, mama. Don't you know that?"

Her mother didn't answer.

Dorothy sighed. "Someday I'll prove to him and to myself just how strong a woman can be."

And the little girl left the room without waiting for her mother's answer.

----------

Dorothy was still angry when she left the estate. Her footfalls echoed on the sidewalk as she pounded down the streets in a blind and terrifying way, running with the tears welling in her eyes and the cold walls shivering in her chest.

She ran for hours. She wasn't sure where she was going or what she wanted, but she ran and she didn't look back, her huffs of air the only need for miles around. Her mind was clear and carefully blank, her legs untiring and her anger fading to dull roar of mistreatment. She swallowed the dry lump in her throat and turned for the park. There were flowers in the park and flowers had always calmed a lady.

And she was a lady, even if the boys never believed her.

She passed through the unlocked gate and slowed her pace to a walk, admiring the gardens swelling around her. She smiled faintly, her eyes twinkling with things she'd never really known to care about before, as she settled down by a pond and stuck her feet into the water. It was cold, but she liked it, and she closed her eyes, blocking away the disappointing events of the day from her mind. This was peace. That's all she ever wanted.

"Miss?"

She cracked an eye open at the young--boyish--voice and found such a boy standing over her, a very handsome boy no older than herself. She instantly liked him, she did, though she didn't know why. He had the most brilliant aura to his eyes, a breathless sea-foam blue, a blue swirling the depths of utter darkness, his eyes keeping secret lies and truths beheld perhaps by the devil himself. He was a kind and loving devil.

A blonde devil, too.

Dorothy smiled faintly. He had soft golden locks, a pale color, like the color of the sun in the early morning... and he wore a little business suit, casual though dressed firmly to his body. He was looking at her with the purest curiosity twinkling in his eyes. Like a cat that couldn't resist a good chase.

"Yes?" was all she could manage. He was beautiful. She had no doubts for that. She blushed with the thought before she could control herself, because she knew, despite all logic, she'd never liked a boy before.

And he blushed lightly too, watching her turn scarlet before he tore his gaze away to stare fixedly at a violet flower. He smiled shyly. "I... I just want to tell you, you look pretty, sitting there like that." He turned his eyes back to her, the blue brightening slightly. "One of my sisters told me once that I should always tell a girl how pretty she is. Do you know how pretty you are?"

Dorothy laughed softy, a touching sound. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it?"

The boy nodded and grinned. "Does she have a name?"

Dorothy frowned. "Who?"

"Beauty."

Her cheeks colored a furious undying red. "Dorothy," came a quiet voice.

He nodded. "A fitting name, I think."

It was long moment before she could speak. "And what's yours?"

He stared at the sky, then sighed a long slow breath. It was nearly a full minute before he answered her.

"That depends on who you ask, Beauty." His voice had such an aristocratic lilt to it, and his eyes were kind as he spoke, the glow mischievous. "Ask my father and it would be my mother. Ask my sisters and it would be the boy who stole their money. Ask me... and I would tell you that I haven't a name to give. Not one worth damning to a beautiful goddess such as yourself."

"Humor me," she said, a slight amusement at the sad words. Riddles, hm? She could do riddles. "I'd like a name to the boy who knows my own."

He sighed and clawed at the grass between them. "You can call me Cat."

"Cat..." She mumbled it to herself before smiling brightly, almost evilly. "Fits you, Cat." She laughed.

He lifted a pale eyebrow, clearly confused. "Fits me?"

Dorothy giggled softly. "You have eyes of the devil, a cat in hunt." When he gaped at her, she laughed again, this time heartily and very unladylike.

He smirked. "Devil, hm? I can deal with that." His eyes were clearly evil, there was no denying the shadows once you saw them.

And Dorothy just kept on laughing, tears of joy and amusement streaming down her cheeks. "So do you--"

Before she could get any further, she felt a pressure on her lips. Opening her eyes wide, she saw nothing but the furious ocean waves of joy. The boy was kissing her.

And Dorothy, against all rules and logic, didn't punch him.

She kissed him back.

When Cat finally pulled away, he was breathless, but grinning like a maniac... or rather, like the devil. He chuckled softly. "If I'm the devil, you're my wife."

Dorothy snorted. "Hell no, you're my husband."

Cat lifted both brows, his lips quirking as he barely held back a snicker. "Hey, maybe we're both the devil, who says there's only one?"

Dorothy mused on that, and then nodded, her long blonde locks swishing in the gentle breeze. She sniffed. "Both 'the' devil." She grinned half-heartedly. "You can take the upper half, I'll take the bottom. I like to have fun, you know."

"Bottom?" He looked confused.

Dorothy laughed again. "Yeah, you know, like Dante's Inferno? Hell's a cone, dontcha think? Like an ice cream cone." She winked at him and he smiled sweetly. "It's simple, the lower you get, the worse you suffer. Devil's supposedly at the bottom of the cone, but since there's two of us and we're young, we'll just move around wherever we want. You know, have fun an' all that."

Cat smirked and shook his head softly. "You're cute."

But the young girl snorted and folded her arms. "Am not--you're cute."

"We're both cute, then."

Dorothy sighed. "You have to mediate everything, don't you?"

This time, it was Cat who laughed near hysterical. When he recovered, he grinned. "I have a lot of sisters."

"The devil's got sisters?"

"...Sure, you know, those gargoyle things?"

"Ooo, creepy..."

He chuckled and rolled his eyes. "You have no idea..."

----------

They spoke until it got dark, and even then, they kept talking. Dorothy found it funny that no one came for him at the late hour, but she shrugged it off until her Mistress finally found her and dragged her away for dinner. Dorothy protested all the way to Shanghai, but Cat only laughed politely and told her that he needed to be going anyway.

When she asked if they could meet again, he said he'd be leaving the next morning with his father. When she asked if he'd see her again, he said "...when the devil is in need for a wife."

To which Dorothy gracefully replied, "HUSBAND!" and sulked with her arms folded across her chest when her Mistress slapped her with that ruler she always managed to hide in that big blue dress.

She went to bed with a smile on her face. It was gone the next morning.

-

-

A/N: Okay, okay. The mystery boy is--maybe--Quatre. MAYBE. S'not that specific, if you wanna get technical... Bwaha.