First of all, allow me to formally apologise for Heero's thoughts during this chapter. I had such a hard time making him think about doing what he thought about doing. (because I'm SUCH a sucker for the braid)

To Hikishi - I want that wall and I want it bad. I've never been on a wall before :D

Reminders to all, if you want to see where the story is headed, Chapters 1 through 17 are on gundam -wing -fanfiction .net

MoonChild

Chapter Two – The MoonChild

Long, limp hair swept across a man's royal chest, which rose and fell in almost unnerving regularity. The owner of said chest, the Crown Prince Heero Yuy, fiddled with the broken strands of hair, munching on his bottom lip in a most odd display.

For Heero Yuy was not one to clench his eyes shut this way, not one to bite his own lip as he concentrated on the thin, long hair. His brows furrowed in a most odd way, as though he didn't truly know how to push them together. In truth he didn't. He rarely made a decision in this way. Rarely was he affected by this much emotion in a decision.

He'd had a dream the last night. A beautiful dream. A dream where long, flowing, shining hair caressed his skin with every movement. He'd woken rather uncomfortably. Heero knew the dream had been brought on due to sleeping beside the long haired being he had now claimed as his slave. Foolish, he knew, such a foolish thing to do. A sorcorer. Disgusting. The worst possible being on this earth, and Heero had taken one for himself.

Hower, this was not what he was contemplating, despite how he knew he should be contemplating his actions. No, no, he was thinking of the hair.

The hair was a bad problem. A long, troubling problem. Heero knew another who kept his hair long ... and he knew that one Chang Wu Fei would not take kindly to losing his hair. However he also knew that Chang Wu Fei would rather his hair lopped off than for it to be in the state this sorcorer's hair was.

It was no longer knotted, Heero had personally tended to that the night before, but the brushing had broken alot of it. By the time Heero was done, he had looked at the hair covering his floor mournfully. It seemed as though the brushing alone had taken half of it already.

So the hair should go. It wasn't healthy enough to stay. It would all just fall out with brushing and washing if it stayed.

Heero promptly bit his lip, drawing pain. Logic decreed the hair had to go. Who in their right mind would wear their hair this long anyway? Chang only kept his just past his shoulders. This great big long mess was much, much more trouble than Chang ever complained about.

So Heero resolved, the hair must go. He would talk to Irea about it immediately. He slowly rolled over, holding his new, precious posession tightly, then let go, easing his arm out from under the boy's head, watching it fall almost lifelessly onto the pillow Heero placed under it.

Heero sighed as he looked at his arm. He could handle the boy's head laying on it. What bothered him was the strands of tattered hair left behind. He brushed them off and went to the chest at the foot of the bed.

As he opened it, he saw his own trusty blade lying, glinting in the soft morning light, atop his clothing. The blade suddenly sent a shiver up his spine.

The blade was warded. It was made from ancient metals and silvers, given to him upon his tenth birthday, the anniversary of his mother's death. The blade would pass through any magic, even the strongest shields. He had cherished it all his life.

However, he was not thinking along the train of thought he knew he should be. He should have been thinking that this blade could help him deal with the new slave's sorcery, the sorcery he had so foolishly brought into his life.

But Heero was not thinking that. He was looking mournfully at the blade and thinking of the hair again.

Yes, the hair was definitely a very, very large problem. And Heero Yuy dealt with problems quickly and efficiently, cutting them off from the source.

But Heero Yuy was acting very different from his normal self. And he had the bite marks on his lower lip to prove it.

By that afternoon, he had not brought up the subject with Irea. Nor had he cut the hair himself. And he was very, very agitated. Heero Yuy was not used to changing his mind, and he'd done it at least seven times that day.

All about the hair. It was all he could think about. He saw the captain and saw hair. He saw his own hand, and adorning his wrist was not the gold bracer he wore that day, but a thin plait of glossy, beautiful hair. He saw the ship's parrot sporting a long mass of dark brown hair, glinting red in the light.

He got annoyed every time he saw this beautiful hair, because he knew it didn't exist. When he went back to his quarters, he would see the boy, and his ridiculous length of positively dead hair. Yes, it was dead, so it had to go.

So why was there all this chestnut hair all over the backs of his eyelids every time he blinked? Worse still, why was he even contemplating cutting off that boy's hair? What a ridiculous notion.

Heero growled, and not a few deckhands caught it. He'd changed his mind again.

Duo opened his eyes slowly, and he noticed a deep, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had enough energy to realize that he was acting odd. Duo Maxwell did not open his eyes slowly, he woke up and bounded around, bundling energy in his very being, and yet somehow, that energy was missing.

And then he remembered. The leech. He let out a groan, and was not surprised when he felt his throat vibrate but no sound came out. Yes, the leech was still there, and it was doing its job. Duo couldn't talk. He also couldn't summon the energy to keep his eyes open.

One thought reigned in his mind as he dropped his eyelids. He was going to make Quatre Winner pay him back royally for this.

The next time he woke he stared, with hazy eyes, at his most odd surroundings. He was tucked neatly into a bed, he was clean, his hair was loose, and for some reason everything was rocking around. The covers were of some fabric he had never felt before, but he knew he liked it. He felt like he was sleeping in a nobleman's bed, little did he know. His mind rationed that he couldn't be in a nobleman's bed - he was in Yarani but a short time ago. One doesnt go from chains in a small, stone cot to whatever this wonderful fabric on his skin was.

He suddenly knew with absolute certainty, that he had died and his Moon Mother had taken him into her arms. He had the energy to put a great big lazy smile on his face. He'd died! Finally! He could now recover in the Moon's light and be reborn again, with no memory of his utterly horrific life. No more Duo, no more Maxwell, and no more Yarani prison bands.

Yarani prison bands. His mind seemed to stop on the thought, and slowly, agonizingly slowly, repeat the thought over and over.

The bands were on his forearm still. He could feel them jutting into his skin. If the Mother had taken him from his prison hell, there was no way She would have left these abominations on him. His absolute certainty of death was slowly crushed, then abruptly shattered into a billion painful little pieces.

But that didn't explain the bed he was in. Let alone the room he could see through very unfocused eyes. He could see spots of purple everywhere. Hazy, but he did recognise the color. Purple, the color of royalty.

That meant he was in someplace where royalty could be, or where royalty had business. Of course, the Kyumakie, the incredibly large royal ship. That explained the way the room was moving.

It also explained that he had been taken from Yarani. His mind barely, barely had the strength to swear at him, Shit, slavery!, before it was worn out completely. Too much thinking. He drifted off, slowly, and remembered his first time aboard the Kyumakie. Chained to a post below decks, where there were no windows, and the place was filled with some very, very crazy mages. His body shuddered suddenly, remembering a certain one who had been foaming at the mouth. Most of the rest had been wild, leering, and completely evil. Yes, Duo Maxwell understood perfectly why normal humans hated and feared sorcerors. Sorcerors were a force of nature, and were capable of so many things. Yet the balance had been upset. Too many were dying, Yarani was killing them, leaving them only to be reborn again, while all the other sorcerors were still in Yarani. Which left untrained youngsters able to play with power. And power corrupts.

He'd seen it very well below the decks. Very, very loud, animalistic groans, big and small men and women alike, trying to use their magic to free themselves, then bleeding profusely from the wounds the Yarani bands caused them. So much blood, so much screaming ...

"He's having a nightmare."

Irea rushed in, seeing the small, malnourished figure sweating profusely and trying to thrash, but unable to move far from lack of muscle. "It's fair enough. Yarani isn't the most pleasant of places," she said, moving to the boy. She slowly pulled up the silk covers around him, trying to soothe. "He'll tire himself out eventually," she said, looking pitifully at the boy. "But a nightmare is a bad sign. If he has them often, he won't get the rest needed to heal, and then ..."

Heero knew where that was going. Even something so little as night terrors could seriously damage the boy's chances of survival. "Tell me you have herbs with you," he said, unable to restrain the slight growl in his voice.

"What kind of a friend would I be if I couldn't supply a few dreamless sleep roots?"

It was only as she left the room that Heero realized that she had said friend, not Healer.

By the time she returned, she was balancing a tray filled with several odd looking roots. Roots that Heero knew well. The roots that his sister slipped under her tongue every night so that she would sleep despite her pain. Heero's mind flashed to Relena, all alone in the castle right now ... with only that hideous slave she kept for company. Heero wanted to beat him within an inch of his life, then help him recover only to beat him to death after.

But that was something he could not do. And it was an unwise path of thought to follow, with a dear, fragile being nearby.

Irea gave him the root. He knew what to do. He'd done it enough times the last year, when Relena had had those odd fevers every night and couldn't use it herself. Then that slave of hers came along and started caring for her instead of him.

He stopped his train of thought very forcefully, and stared at the slightly chapped lips of his slave. He then moved his hand to the boy's chin, holding it softly, and gently as he could, pushed the boy's mouth open.

The root fit easily under his tongue. Heero felt a little dizzy just from handling the thing. That root should put the boy in such a deep sleep he could not dream.

It took but moments and the boy quietened. Heero gave Irea a weak smile, something ever so rare. It was not for this event that she recieved such a gift, no, but from the many events before it, where she had given all sorts of strange things to Heero's precious, ill sister.

Irea was the reason Relena lived, and she knew it. She accepted the Prince's praise wordlessly, giving him a smile of her own.

Heero somehow found himself still in his rooms with his slave, still completely awake and alert, at what he guessed was the middle of the night. He was glad Irea had taken it upon herself to feed the boy until he was at least able to wake up each time and stay awake long enough to finish the meal.

Until then Irea would give the slave the potion that she made for Relena when she had a bad stomach, the one that had everything you needed and no bother for having to chew. She would spoon tiny amounts into his sleeping mouth, sitting with the slave for at least a good hour before the small amount she gave him was finished.

She had fed him that afternoon, before the nightmare, and there was no need to bother the boy with it again, and for that Heero was grateful.

It was then, with only the moon filtering in through the cabin window, illuminating the boy's face brightly, that Heero saw his slave open his eyes again. They were bright and unglazed. They looked not at all ill. Heero wondered if he were dreaming, as those eyes were not the glazed over ones he had seen before. No, they were a deep, violet-blue, gleaming at him with something he couldn't quite read.

The odd colored eyes travelled up, slowly resting on the diadem he still wore. Heero realized he hadn't taken it off only then. The eyes of the slave stayed on the diadem, staring at it's diamond in obvious wonder, then something seemed to snap in the boy's head.

His eyes blinked, once, twice, thrice, and when it became apparent that no amount of blinking would change who was lying next to him, he stopped and stared with open confusion straight into Heero's eyes.

Heero now knew it was a dream. The slave seemed coherent, and it was far too soon for him to be coherent, considering how bad he had been before. Heero could read those eyes, and they were unsure of what exactly their owner was doing lying in a bed with royalty.

Heero wanted the boy to cast his eyes down. It was not his place to be staring so openly at him, trying to read him, trying to understand. And yet Heero excused it, trying to reason that the boy was still sick. His mind promptly told him that no, the boy was not sick, because he was a dream.

Heero could see the ratty hair though, dull even in the moon's bright light. But was that a slight glow around it? No, he dismissed the thought. The hair was still ratty. Dead. And Heero knew his dreams. He didn't get nightmares. No, he only got good dreams that left him with a constricted feeling in his sleeping pants when he woke. His dreams never tormented him with ratty, dead hair, so he was awake.

If he was awake, then why was the slave so coherent? Had the sleep root refreshed him, had the potion given him strength? Or was it that odd ... odd ... aura wherever the moonlight fell upon his skin?

"He looks much better this morning," Irea said, wondering what exactly had her Prince still abed. He was behaving very oddly lately.

Heero lay upon his back, staring up at the wooden planks above him. He had the slave curled against him, covered well with blankets. So well Irea could not see beneath his nose. No, for what graced the boy's lips was something Heero selfishly kept to himself. Although he couldnt see it, he could feel against his chest the soft curve of his slave's lips. Softly smiling in his sleep, even though he was ill, even though he was wounded. No, Heero knew, he would not let Irea have that.

"He woke last night," he said.

Irea looked at him, furrowing her brow. "And?"

"It was odd. He was aware. He didn't try to talk or move, but I think he knew who I was, possibly even where he was. I wasn't expecting him to be this aware this early," Heero said.

Irea released her furrowed brows and raised them. "You're right, that is odd. Try not to encourage him to think about it, or anything at all for that matter. He needs rest still. He can come to terms with who has taken him in when he's more stable."

Heero's gaze hadn't left the wooden planks. He wouldn't tell Irea. Not about the beautiful, lazy smile he'd gotten once the slave realized that Heero wasn't about to say anything, or even move. The boy had then presumed himself safe, closed his eyes and fell straight back to sleep.

No, Irea would not know of that smile. That was his.

"I do need to talk to you though, Prince Heero," Irea said. "If he's more coherent now then this is increasingly important."

Heero slowly moved his gaze from the planks above and met her eyes. But he would not get up. His slave was still smiling into his chest. He wasn't moving an inch.

Irea looked at him very seriously, not moving from her position, standing over him while he and his sleeping slave lay on his bed. "What exactly do you want the boy for, Heero?" she asked softly.

Heero looked at her, then glanced at all he could see of the slave, some thin and broken hair on his head. "I would think that would obvious," he said, raising an eyebrow to let Irea know he wasn't quite sure of her question.

Irea sighed and knelt by the bed, close to Heero's face. "Do you want a lover or ... a slave?"

Heero didn't lower his eyebrow, but thought of the question. A slave was something to be used and given orders ... and slaves didn't smile the way the boy against him was. So no, not a slave. However a lover was even worse. Smiles he may be able to do without, but lovers were treated as equals. There was no chance that a sorceror would be treated as an equal by Heero Yuy.

"Somewhere between the two," Heero said. "I want the love of a lover, and the obedience of a slave."

Irea thought that was what Heero would want and she grimaced. "The boy will gain a mind of his own. I can't stop that, and I wouldn't if I could. If he doesn't want to fit your mould, there will be problems."

"Figure it out for me," Heero said immediately. "You know better than I what to do."

Irea nodded. "I'll try to think something up," she said. "But there are so many chances with this. First off, the boy could still die. Second, there's rarely anything that can be done to tame a wild sorceror. They don't understand giving up. And third ... Sometimes people just don't like being treated as lesser than you. I'm not saying that they aren't lesser than you, just that some people just can't bow. My brother was like that."

Heero knew that was a bad, bad topic. Never had he discussed the Winner boy with his elder sister, and he had no desire to start. He knew, everyone knew, that the woman still loved her brother, despite his sorceror charges. And she knew that he hated her brother because of them.

"Just steel yourself for the worst," Irea said. "I don't want to see you get hurt."

It was only afterward that Heero let out a smug smile. That Irea may still love her brother, but she loved Heero more. With the feeling of a competition won, he finally tore away from his slave to ready for the day.