Cloak and Dagger
Chapter 1: Alive
"Are you looking forward to today?"
Relena put down the book she had been reading, holding her page with one finger as she turned her head towards the voice which had interrupted her study of medieval romances. "Today?" she asked quietly, staring down the impetuous girl she assumed was her new handmaiden.
"The coming out ceremony," the other girl exclaimed, taking a seat across from the princess.
"Why would I anticipate something which would bring attention to myself in such a way? I assure you, Miss –"
"Hilde."
"— Miss Hilde, that I am neither excited nor am I pleased that my brother has decided to take me out of hiding and present me to the country as their long-lost little princess."
"But surely-" Hilde turned her bright blue eyes on Relena, and the blond had the urge to fidget beneath the gaze.
"Surely," Relena mocked, "they don't want to see me. I've heard the ballads they sing in my honour, the whispers behind closed doors that if only I would step forward they would fight for my place as Queen. All their hope rests on my shoulders." Relena laughed bitterly. "I'm supposed to support the weight of this country when I can't even support my own weight."
"They love you," Hilde responded, subdued.
"They love a false idol in the image of a fifteen year old child." Her words were harsh, and the intense anger on her face hid an underlying resentment. "My brother knows what he is doing. The name Princess Relena is synonymous with hope and in introducing me to the people, he is taking that away from them. It is something they can't afford to lose."
"To lose!" Hilde exclaimed, her features becoming fierce as she prepared herself for a tirade of opinion.
"Leave me," Relena dismissed, cutting short anything the other woman could say and resuming her book. Shielded by the pages, she watched as Hilde's face contorted from hurt confusion, to anger, and finally ended at mild hate. The satisfaction of turning at least one of her followers against her was short-lived as she was left alone once again.
Hours later found Relena seated in one of the lesser thrones in the Great Hall. She was alone in the room to reflect on what was coming that afternoon. Her pale, thin hand nervously played with the folds in her simple white dress while no one was watching, and she observed servants scurrying about the dais as they prepared seats for the nobility. From without, Relena could already hear the gathering crowd of peasants who would watch the proceedings at a distance.
Slowly, the lords and ladies began to take their seats, sending curious glances at the woman who was seated beside the King's throne. Relena ignored them all, but was unable to draw her attention away from one of the soldiers who walked through the door with a purposeful stride. She was horrified to note that he noticed her attention and moved towards her, and even more dismayed when she recognized the unique frost of his dark blue eyes.
"Princess," he said respectively, bowing on one knee before her. "I am glad to-"
"I recognize you," she said quietly. "You were there."
He nodded once to affirm her accusation, and the motion was sharply executed.
"What is your name?" Relena asked arrogantly. She remembered it; there wasn't much she forgot.
His eyes narrowed on her face, and beneath the civility she could see a finely controlled edge of fury. Relena relished it. "I am Captain Yuy of the Royal Guard."
"Really," she said, tone mocking. "I would have taken you for a Knight."
If possible, his eyes narrowed further, the icy fury evident to even the most untrained observer. "Excuse me." He stood with a polite incline of his head and moved away.
"Mr. Yuy," she called out to stop him, deliberately insulting him by dropping his title. She wasn't sure he would respond, but he turned back to her like a well-trained soldier. "I remember you," she continued, reiterating the observation she had already made, "from the water. You jumped in after me when I… fell. You risked your life to save mine."
He gave her that sharp, concise nod again.
Relena laughed bitterly. "I'm alive because of you. Am I supposed to be grateful?"
When she watched him leave, it wasn't without regret.
A few minutes later, the King entered the room and arranged himself on his throne. It took hours for the session to be underway, and for the court to finish all the important political discussion, but Relena was riveted. She hadn't heard such an intense legal argument since the day her father had died, and she missed it.
"I have one final issue for this session," Milliardo said in a bored tone. "I'd like to reintroduce you to my sister, Relena." He paused dramatically, waiting for the crowd to finish their exclamations of shock. "I know, I know," he said with a long-suffering sigh, playing on the emotions of his audience. "I DID tell you she was dead, and for a long while she was in a coma and the physicians predicted she wouldn't wake up, but here she is."
Relena smiled wanly at the attention directed her way.
"I'd insist she stand and curtsey as propriety calls for; however, she may have been pulled out of the water, but she wasn't whole. Unfortunately, my dear little sister is a cripple."
The gasps of shock were more audible this time, and Relena squared her jaw against the looks of pity and horror directed her way. Her brother shot her the sadistic cruelty that consisted of a fond smile from him, and she had difficulty blinking the humiliated and shameful tears out of her eyes. It wasn't her fault, she reminded herself; she couldn't help what had happened. If anyone should be ashamed it should be him for the heartless way he had dealt with the matter. Relena was reaffirmed in her convictions that Milliardo had only dragged her away from her villa in the country in order to devastate the hopes of her people.
One face in the crowd of people didn't stare at her as though she was a spectacle in a circus, and she focused on it with an intense concentration. Her tears dried and she wrenched her eyes away from his forceful gaze before she became caught in it. With renewed dignity, she faced the room and gave the crowd a smile which hadn't chased the shadows of the eaves in five long years. Collectively, those who noticed caught their breath, and this time the murmur was low, a hush a whispers deliberating on her ability to rule. From his throne, Milliardo frowned at the change in atmosphere one small expression from his sister could create.
"Furthermore," Milliardo exclaimed loudly, drawing attention back to him. "I will be giving her Captain Yuy of my Royal Guard for protection. He saved her life five years ago in an act which could have cost him his own. We hope his luck continues."
Relena's eyes flicked back to the Captain's, but he was no longer looking at her. She thought his shoulders were more tense than they had been before, but she figured it was either a trick of the lighting or discomfort at attention now being drawn to him. It never crossed her mind that her brother's news was as much of a surprise to him as it was to her.
.xXx.
"That poor girl," Duo said, pacing along the wooden floor of his living room.
"Who?" Hilde asked, casually observing him from a chair. "The princess? I had the misfortune of being assigned to her today. She was wretched."
"Of course she was wretched!" Duo exclaimed. "I can't imagine what she's gone through. When I heard that she was returning to us, I was so happy and stupidly self-centered. I thought that since she was back to her rightful position I could finally assuage my guilt."
"Guilt?" the blue-eyed girl asked, finally curious enough to straighten her posture out of an exhausted slouch. "What do you have to be guilty about?"
"Nothing," Duo muttered. "It is unimportant."
"It is not!" Hilde said hotly. "There has to be a reason you're going along with this foolish priest charade. You were never overly moral or pious before."
"I'm not overly moral or pious NOW," Duo said, wriggling his eyebrows lasciviously.
Hilde ignored his innuendo. "What happened? I know enough about your past already, you know. You probably can't surprise me after the story about the King and the sheep."
"That was a joke," Duo muttered, horrified.
Hilde grinned wickedly.
Duo sighed. "There were five of us. The king had hired the younger guards to protect Prince Milliardo, but mostly to keep him company. We had just finished training and believed ourselves to be the best and the brightest warriors in the kingdom, and some of us actually were. The Obsidian Knights. Goddamn stupid nickname, if you ask me. It had to do with those foolish obsidian daggers we were presented upon being sworn into the Royal Guard. We all met the Princess of course. It was an unspoken agreement that we would protect her too, if anything ever happened to put her life on the line, but none of us really worried about her. Everyone loved our Princess. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a subject in the entire kingdom who would have wished her harm back then."
Duo paused his disjointed tale to take a fortifying breath. Hilde wisely remained quiet.
"We never thought she'd be in danger. The day their father died, we were sticking particularly close to the prince. Remember how much controversy there was with the King's death? How some people thought he had been poisoned? Well, we took our job seriously, and since the prince had a decent chance at the throne because he was oldest and Relena was mostly just a child despite her brilliance at politics, we all thought that his life was in danger. None of us were really paying attention to her, but I'll never get the image of her going over the side of that cliff out of my mind. She screamed all the way down, and it was a decent fall, let me tell you. I was in shock. I just stood there staring, and I couldn't do anything. Heero was the only one who pushed past the prince and went in after her. I just did nothing."
"You were in shock," Hilde said comfortingly.
"Yeah," Duo said. "That's why I quit. I couldn't stay after I did nothing to help her." And he hadn't been the only one. Only those who knew the whole story would really understand his motivations. He couldn't serve King or country after an incident like that. After that day, his loyalties had changed and he ardently threw his support into the underground, encouraging rumours that the princess would one day rise for her country. He was one of the seven who knew that she lived, after all.
.xXx.
The next time Relena really looked at him was after she had been carried out of the assembly. Instead of her bedroom, she asked to be placed in the private gardens for a while. She sat in the sun with a foolish wide-brim hat perched on her head and her legs straight in front of her. He found her there, observing her reading with a frown borne from impatience of having to search for her. Once she noticed him, she completely put the book down beside her and watched him back.
"Hello again, Captain," she called, remembering a once upon a time when he had come across her reading in such a manner. It was far before the time of drownings and heroic rescues, when she was practically a child and he was still training for knighthood. "Have you learned to speak French yet?"
He looked as startled as she supposed he ever looked. "Oui," he said, approaching.
"That was the only word you knew then, too." She smiled at him. "So you are here to protect me? Don't worry; I'm not as adept at getting away as I once was."
"I am at your service," he said, kneeling at her feet once more and ignoring her self-depreciative words. He offered her his sword, and she reached a trembling hand out to touch it, drawing back at the last moment. His dark, unruly hair gleamed in the direct sunlight, and she remembered being besotted.
"He's displeased with you," she said quietly, bowing her head towards him so her hat kept his reactions from view. "He hopes you will fail."
"He knows I won't. I will protect you at all costs."
"Exactly," Relena hissed, glancing carefully around the garden. "Heero," she said, grabbing his hand in an act of familiarity she hadn't experienced for years. "He's trying to kill us both."
"Relena," Heero said slowly, "I may be assigned to you, but I am still one of the Royal Guard. Be careful what liberties you take; you can still be accused of treason."
"Either you're here to protect me, or you aren't," she snapped. "You can't have it both ways. We both know who the greatest threat to my life is. We both know that I'm not in danger unless he puts me in danger."
"He's worried one of his supporters may get too enthusiastic in an attempt to secure the throne. Your brother is only looking out for your wellbeing."
"How can you say that," Relena whispered, tears gathering in her eyes. He stared at her and for a moment she found herself drowning again in his eyes. She knew that this time, he would still be the one to pull her out of the water. She continued, her tone afflicted by a betrayal she could barely name, "you were on the cliff with us."
Heero's fingers tightened around her delicate hand.
"You saw him push me in."
©RelenaFanel.Sept21.2007