Prescience (noun)
Knowledge of events before they take place; foreknowledge - Collins English Dictionary
Foreknowledge of events: a) divine omniscience b) human anticipation of the course of events - Merriam-Webster Dictionary
And oddly enough, the most apt:
Knowing before everyone-else, i.e. being a smart-ass - the kind of word utilised by someone who spends a considerable amount of time perusing large dictionaries in the hope of coming across obscure and rarely spoken words that they can try and integrate into their everyday conversation in order to impress his/her colleagues/friends - The Urban Dictionary
I will warn you - this does start out as one of those "Rescue poor little abused Duo" fictions. If that appeals to you, you'll like this. If you don't like that, you'll still like this, because this poor little abused Duo is going to confuse, startle, and amuse you at every turn.
Prepare to be confused. This is one of those stories where you're not going to have any idea what's going on until about halfway through/nearly the end. (Neither is poor Heero, btw) It's going to be shorter than MoonChild, though. Don't worry about that.
Also a quick note - due to so many reviewers commenting on it - the mission monologue will continue along the story, but way, waaaaay more tame than in the prologue. Think of it like chapters. Every mission is a new chapter in Heero's life. We go through a whole heap in this prologue because Heero's life has already had a fair few chapters :P
Prologue - Prescience
Primary mission: Survive life as an orphan living on the streets.
Mission accepted.
Secondary mission: Get a good night's sleep, for once.
Secondary mission failed.
Primary mission interrupted.
Excerpt: I remember being captured at eleven years old. At the time, I thought the men chasing me were doing so because I'd stolen a jar of honey.
As it turns out, they were chasing me because I was a Seer, thus, property of the King.
Primary mission addendum: Escape captivity, go back to living on the streets.
Primary mission addendum failed.
Excerpt: I had been tracked by the other Seer - there must always be two, I was told - who had volunteered his services to the King. He was ten years older than me, with hair over one side of his face, and a haunted, lonely look. He explained to me why I could always see one step ahead, why I never lived in the present, only ever one second in the future. I am a Seer, blessed with visions of the future and the prescience to see things before they happened.
Primary mission addendum: Use this Seer to learn to be a better Seer so as to use my abilities as a Seer to escape captivity and return to the original mission.
Secondary mission: Get a good night's sleep, for once. There's a comfortable bed here that could fit ten of me. Surely I can get a good night's sleep on this.
Secondary mission failed.
Primary mission addendum redacted.
Primary mission redacted.
Excerpt: As it turned out, being property of the King included the title of Lord and the ability to order people around. That sounded like it could be interesting.
New primary mission: Survive life as Lord Heero Yuy, Second Seer to King Peacecraft.
Mission accepted.
Secondary mission: Get a good night's sleep.
Secondary mission failed.
Secondary mission: Get a good night's sleep.
Secondary mission failed.
Secondary mission: Take over First Seer Trowa Barton's duties temporarily while he searches for his "Seerbound".
Secondary mission addendum: Find out what a "Seerbound" is.
Excerpt: It took Trowa only two days to find his Seerbound, a young noble boy by the name of Quatre, who was dragged to the Seer's tower kicking and screaming. He continued this behaviour for three days straight. No one got any sleep.
Quatre, as a Seerbound, is also property of the King. He didn't take it as well as I did, and he certainly didn't volunteer for it like Trowa. Quatre's purpose, as Seerbound, is not to foretell the future, like us, but to submit to Trowa so that he might sustain his ability to See.
It has something to do with magic liking dominance and/or submission. One should never assume that a force they do not know or understand is not a kinky bastard.
Trowa had reached the peak of his Seeing ability, and the magic had given him a dream of his Seerbound. He did not give me details of the dream, only that he was in love with the boy he dreamed. He instantly was. That's how it works. Seers don't get to choose who they love, the magic does, and it shows them to us in a dream.
Then it halts all our Seeing ability, funnels it into dreams of our Seerbound, and won't stop until we find them. This was confusing and somewhat disappointing to learn. I didn't like the idea that my magic could dictate who my soul mate would be.
Secondary mission and addendum complete.
Secondary mission: Get a good night's sleep, for once.
Secondary mission failed.
Secondary mission: Make Quatre stop yelling in the middle of the night so that I can get a good night's sleep.
Secondary mission failed.
Secondary mission: Never let Quatre throw a vase at me again.
Secondary mission in progress.
Secondary mission: Take over Trowa's duties. Due to the reluctance of his Seerbound, his ability to See has been quite drastically reduced.
Secondary mission addendum: Mediate between Trowa and Quatre. There is a reason there are two Seers. It's too much work for me alone.
Secondary mission addendum failed.
New secondary mission addendum: Never yell at Quatre again. It's not his fault he was dragged here against his will.
Secondary mission addendum in progress.
Continue secondary mission.
Tertiary mission: Get a good night's sleep, for once.
Tertiary mission failed.
Secondary mission addendum: Try harder. The King nearly got knifed today.
Secondary mission addendum failed.
Secondary mission addendum: The King has a scar because I can't do this all on my own. I need to make Quatre grow a pair and fall in love with Trowa already.
Secondary mission addendum failed.
Secondary mission addendum: Never let Quatre punch me in the face again. Find out why he is always one second ahead of the one second ahead of time that I am.
Secondary mission addendum in progress.
Tertiary mission: Get a good night's sleep. How can I not sleep when I'm so exhausted?
Tertiary mission failed.
Tertiary mission: Get a good night's sleep.
Tertiary mission failed.
Tertiary mission: Please let me sleep tonight.
Tertiary mission failed.
Tertiary mission: Please?
Tertiary mission in progress.
Excerpt: I woke up to green grass, and a hazy feeling, as if I were not truly where I thought I was. I reasoned that I wasn't, as I was very prone to out of body experiences and prophetic dreams. I hoped this one would be simple. I just want to help the King out of whatever mess is headed our way, and go back to sleep.
As I sat up in the grass, I realised it was a different kind of grass to the ones near the castle. Lighter green, and softer.
Then I noticed I was not alone.
Then I noticed that I was in love. There was a squeezing in my heart muscle and an undeniable desire just to stare at the creature of pure magnificence in front of me.
He was pure perfection, with beautiful toned skin and thick, long chestnut hair. The bulk of it was tied back in a single long, thick plait, but the sides were tied in myriads of tiny little thin braids, flapping in the wind, in a style I knew was common for an Amraki priest.
I was to go west to find him.
He was standing, away from me, staring out across the plains, with his thin arms crossed about his chest, his pose displaying tenseness and sullenness.
I knew what that meant. He already hated me. He hadn't even looked at me and he already hated me.
Quatre is not the only one. For as long as anyone can remember, and as long as the history books will tell, no Seerbound has ever loved, submitted to, or accepted their Seer.
He seemed to notice my presence, and he turned to face me, his arms still about his chest. His face only made me love him more, angry and tense as it was.
His eyes were purple. That only happens in the south.
I had to go southwest to find him.
"You're beautiful," I said.
He huffed, and stuck his chin in the air. "I am," he admitted tersely. "But I won't be for long."
"Why not?" I asked, slowly picking myself up off the grass, trying to keep him talking. His voice was like music to my ears.
He huffed again. "It's none of your business," he said snippily. "But in my experiences, corpses are never beautiful for too long."
"You're dying?" I asked, feeling a sudden rush of urgency I hadn't felt before. I knew that it was urgent whether he was dying or not. The King needed a Seer, always, preferably two. With me out of the picture, looking for my Seerbound, he would have to rely on Trowa's now meagre capabilities.
I didn't care about that anymore. This person, this man that I loved, needed me before he became a corpse.
The beauty in front of me sighed. "You've got two weeks to save me, else I'll die on you. Your deadline is three hours past midnight in precisely fifteen days. Hurry the fuck up."
The dream promptly ended and I woke.
All tertiary missions and tertiary addendums redacted.
All secondary missions and secondary addendums redacted.
Primary mission redacted.
New primary mission: Get to my Seerbound before Death does.
Secondary mission: If I get there quick enough, he might perceive it as a rescue instead of a capture. And if that happens, he might love me back.
Mission accepted.