Heero
We were in the field again. There he stood, back turned to me again, and even more beautiful, if that were somehow possible. He turned to me, glaring shivs into my spine.
"You're going the wrong way. Did you decide to go sightseeing instead of rescuing me? Or did you presume yourself so fantastic that you could do both in the same timeframe?"
He had the same air of haughty superiority that Quatre did, and it irked me.
"I don't presume anything. Kindly tell me where you are and I'll come get you now, so you can insult me later."
"And spoil all your fun? Ruin your great quest? l think not. "
"What part of this do you think is fun? Because I can't find any."
He stood quietly for a moment, watching me, giving me a moment to watch the sun glinting through his hair. There had to be metal in his braids somewhere, because it reflected into my eyes.
"Perhaps I don't want you to find me. P'raps l like it here."
He said "P'raps". I catalogued that to ask Relena. It might have been a clue.
"You told me you were going to die," I said, trying to keep things civil. "Surely you don't mean to tell me you would rather die than live in the lap of luxury with me."
There, my unnamed Seerbound. Cold hard logic. Luxury equals to greater than death.
"Maybe I don't want to live in your lap," he spat.
"You never have to come anywhere near my lap!" I said in disgust. "There is a line, and it is drawn long before I would force you into my lap."
He raised one of his thin, Amraki eyebrows at me, and I filed their perfectly plucked form into my memory.
"So you expect me to live in the lap of luxury, but not in your lap, and never in anyone else's lap, and I may certainly never have someone else in my lap. If I weren't to die here, I would be running fast and far away from the man who seeks to imprison me in a gilded cage."
"It was a cage for me too," I said, trying to salvage the conversation. "I wanted freedom as well, and they dragged me into it kicking and screaming. But it's not bad. We are there for a good cause. My visions have saved lives. Without you in that cage with me, I can't save anyone."
His perfect little eyebrow did not budge from its position, arched high. Then he smirked and folded his arms over his chest. "I owe noone anything. For all you know, given my freedom, I could be the savior of thousands of lives. But we shall never know. I will die here, or I will die in your gilded cage. I will die alone and I will die wishing for any other death but one of these."
I hung my head and sighed heavily. He was determined to be smug, defiant and morbid all at the same time. Then I raised my head, unable to keep myself from looking at his beautiful visage.
"Just tell me where you are. Please."
"I am in the depths of the ocean," he began, grinning openly. "And yet I am quite precisely in the grave. I am in the floor and in the ceiling. I am sleeping with angels and I am waking with demons."
I stared, just about ready to strangle him now. I began to understand what Trowa said about love and hate being two sides of the same emotion.
"Riddles," I ground out angrily. "You want to give me riddles?"
He laughed, and it was beautiful and aggravating. "Mayhaps you deserve my riddles. You are going the wrong way, after all."
I woke up in a cold sweat.
Heero
After writing my whole useless dream down for Wufei, we set about plotting a new course, seeing as our current course was apparently "Going sightseeing".
My Seerbound had been completely useless with regards to what was the right direction, however.
We had been going southwest, as the clues from the first dream had pointed south and west. All we now knew was that southwest was incorrect, or he was lying to me in order to keep me from him.
Wufei pointed out to me that it was entirely possible that my Seerbound's "dying" could be a ploy to keep us off his trail and give him time to make a run for it. If he got far enough away, he may be able to beg asylum from another kingdom - and they would give it to him. We would either have to pay a ransom, or they would simply keep him, making us have to attempt to steal him back, all the while with only one functioning Seer.
If we couldn't get him back, we all knew what would happen. I even agreed to it, and would likely do the honors myself.
I would have to die in order for a new Seer to be born. It would be ten long years, at least, before the talent manifested, ten long years with only Trowa to guard the King.
But my Seerbound was likely to walk away from this horrid situation with a pat on the back and a hefty purse. If we didn't find him.
We decided to go west from where we were. It meant we wouldn't stop in any towns for supplies, and that we would be encumbered by horrible terrain, but there was one deciding factor.
Relena thought he was actually Amrakien/Torren. Torren was a province to the north, where there were Amrakien influences, but it had been overtaken by the Cathol faith. Why did Relena think he was Torren? One word.
P'raps.
One little five letter word had her completely convinced of it.
So rather than completely change direction and head north, we went west. If we were wrong, we would at least be heading in one of the possible right directions.
I slept two nights consecutively, probably through exhaustion, but to clarify, sleeping the night means "I slept for roughly fifteen minutes every two hours, being woken every time I heard anything louder than wind". I did not dream of him on those nights, which meant he was likely sleeping during the day, and avoiding the likelihood of us seeing one another. Either he just hated me or he did not want the dreams to give up his position.
On the third night, I drank another vial, and slept for four consecutive hours. I did not see him.
On the fourth night, everyone began to get upset about having no clarification as to the correctness of our direction. So I opted instead to have the vial in the early morning, to see if I might catch him just as he fell asleep.
No such luck.
The fifth night passed with still no dreams, and when the sixth night came, Wufei gruffly told everyone to ride through the night and morning, and hopefully exhaust me into sleeping the next day at midday. I did, for two hours straight, and dreamt nothing.
Then I had another vial at mid-afternoon, and dreamt nothing again.
At dusk, Wufei and I agreed that we couldn't move if we didn't know we were going in the right direction. We had gone too far blindly. And so, shortly before the sun set, I took another vial and prayed.
Heero
"You're supposed to love me," he said to me, when I opened my eyes. I wondered how exactly he was always aware before I was, as it was usually the other way around, Wufei had told me. I was used to premonitions, I should be able to gather my wits faster than him.
He was in my face, mere inches apart, but there was no heat in it, no romance. It was a challenge, a defiance, and the air between us was as cold as ice.
"And yet here we are. You don't even like me. You make all this fuss about finding me, and yet still you ride off in the wrong direction. You're even further away than you were before! You must actually hate me."
"No!" I said forcefully. "I do not! You wouldn't even tell me where to go!"
"Like you should need it, mister fortune-teller! Go back to your tower and leave me to die in peace."
"I won't. I'm coming for you, and nothing you can say will stop it."
He eyed me carefully, leaning back out of his challenge.
"Fine," he said. "Then maybe I shouldn't say a thing."
"No!" I protested. If anything could make this worse, it was that.
He turned his face away from me carefully, glaring at me out of the corner of one eye. "Alright then," he said, smug. "Lord knows I couldn't hold my tongue if I tried. But I'm certain there's something I could say to stop you."
"Nothing," I said.
He narrowed his eyes, turned back to me and returned to his challenging position, right up close.
"I. Hate. You."
The words stung, but not as much as they could have. I was well prepared for them, I knew they would come. Quatre said it all the time to Trowa. But when I heard them given to me, I couldn't help but feel a bitter pang of anger toward Quatre. How could he do that to Trowa so flippantly? It hurt.
When I woke up, I had to question how he had the power to begin and end the dreams and I didn't.