Disclaimer: :Landscape view of a clear, blue sky dotted with fluffy clouds. Birds fly lazilly in the distance as dots, and the ground below is just a dream. Suddenly, a cloud bursts apart as Forgetful smashes through it, a big grin on her face. On her back is a parachute, and goggles cover the evil glint in her eyes.: "I have scoured the skies, and no ownership papers here! I'll just keep looking! I DON'T OWN IT! but one day I will, so tune in next time to see if I find them in 'Forgetful and the lost treasure of the Gundam Wing ownership papers.'
Warnings: In the first chapter darling. This is a font test. Just to see if I can use different fonts in my fanfiction.
AN: I decided to do another one...I hope you're all enjoying it!
The Ages of Sin
As written by Roderick Monpolo in 'Travels and Treasures'
I first found out about the ages of sin from an old man. He lived in Skittzburgue, dressed in rags, smelling like excrement and shunned by the general populace. Through his scraggly, lengthy beard that brushed his protruding old bones, he told me of lust, greed, gluttony, wrath, sloth, pride and envy. According to him we are now in the 4th Age; that of pride. Of course, none take note of his rants, only I listened to his theory about the Ages and The End.
" All will be under the influence of a sin when it comes, no discrimination between stable boy or king. And they come in order." He spoke. " And of course this includes the Four. Although they will escape most of each sin's wrath, one of them will take the brunt for all four, and this has been the way for centuries." And he tottered off after his tale, leaving me with little understanding. There are four warriors and seven sins, who will shield us from the three sins unaccounted for?
The three of them made their way through trees and rubble, having left the old road behind long before. Now greenery surrounded them, the air supporting a chill that settled on the toppled pillars of the once proud temple. Heero caught Quatre for the third time, the blond being weak and wounded and unable to stop himself when the tree roots wound around his feet.
" I suggest we stop." Heero voiced, settling Quatre down on a stump where a pillar had once been. The boy flashed him an appreciative smile as he began digging through the horse's saddlebags, returning triumphant with food. " How far are we from your home Trowa?" Trowa's head snapped up, having once again been lost in his thoughts. The whole journey thus far had been shrouded by silence or difficult questions. Trowa now knew a minimum about the Four and his role, and Heero had forced out of Trowa where he came from, what family he had and where he lived. Of course, being on the run meant Trowa had to get back to said place fairly quickly, and so there they were headed.
" It should take about ten minutes to reach it, but I'm afraid we're going the difficult way round. Four or not I can't afford to be caught by Arrowsmith's Special Guard Devision." Heero nodded curtly and handed Trowa a bread roll. "And...There's something that I need to ask. Will I have to travel with you, and leave my sister behind?"
" Yes. She may go to temple where I have traveled from, it's guarded against many dangers that could confront family members of The Four, and she will be fed and looked after there, if you wish assurance of her safety." Offered Heero. Trowa's eyes remained focused on the ground as he mulled over his options.
" Are your family there, Heero?"
" I have none. But my guardian is Temple Master, and I have confidence in his abilities." Heero replied with such confidence that Trowa was struck to believe him, and yet...
" What if I refuse?" A deathly silence like fog crept around them at his words. He found himself unable to look away from Heero's level glare, and heard the quiet words all too clearly.
" If you refuse, I assure you that I have orders that The Four must be together for The End," Something took over then, clouding Heero's eyes and yet making them clearer at the same time. His face suddenly seemed millenia older, full of wisdom and experiance, housing eyes that flashed through all the colours of the rainbow. His voice reached a new low too, gravelly and hoarse. "And I will carry them out. Whether you want to or not, I will drag you to the last stand if I must."
And just like that the spell was broken, the silence was gone and the noises of the forest returned. Heero wavered and fell, catching himself on a tree before gravity could take hold and gripping his head in an attempt to stop the pounding pain that vibrated through his skull.
" Heero?" Quatre's quiet voice spoke up, hesitant and concerned. "Are you alright Heero?' Heero waved away his worry with a hand and sat heavily on a toppled pillar. He wiped the tears from his eyes before the others had time to notice. There was nothing in his memory to indicate he was sad, it may just have been the pain, but something was just under the surface that thrummed with tears. Once the vibrations subsided, he stood again.
" We should keep moving. I have a feeling that we've been here too long."
" The guards don't know of this way. I'm sure. We have more time than you might think." Heero shot Trowa a look that the uni-banged thief took as a warning, and looked into the gloomy trees.
" It's not the guards I'm worried about, they have no quarrel with us." He explained crypticly. Quatre and Trowa exchanged glances, but followed his lead when he ploughed onwards into the trees.
The tree roots immediatly pulled and tore at Quatre's legs as soon as they were underway. His legs were long and slender, they were his pride as a dancer, but still they weren't as long as his two companions' and he constantly found himself tripping and getting caught. Triwa knew the route well, and the greenery seemed to part sensibly in front of Heero's glare, but if anything it simply clogged up more when it came to his turn to jump a fallen log or rabbit hole.
Since he was the one most focussed on his feet, it was no surprise Quatre noticed the movements first.
Vines and straggly leaves slithered away as they passed, pulling themselves into the cover of larger ferns and denser grasses. At first he considered the fact it could be animals, taking the vegitation for nests or whatever it was they used it for, but as more and more pulled back into the forest darkness, a suspicion knawed irritably at his brain.
" Heero?" He called out to the two in front of him, just loud enough to be heard at the distance they were ahead. " Heero, I..-" But he was cut off, as just when the two boys turned, a death-grip was felt around his ankle, pulling his feet from under him and dragging him through the foliage and forest floor debris.
" Quatre!" Heero and Trowa threw themselves forward in unison, Heero drawing a plain sword from his belt and Trowa producing small knives from nowhere. Throwing one, it struck the vine and embedded itself. With incredible aim, Trowa threw again and hit the same spot, this time forcing the knife through the vine's flesh and into the ground so it was stuck. Quatre, now at a stop, wriggled in an attempt to free his abused foot. Heero hacked with his swrod and broke it off.
They watched in fascinated horror as the end detached itself from Quatre and the rest sped backwards into the trees. The cut-off segment writhed and stretched, before curling up and slowly turning a sickly brown colour. Trowa offered a hand to Quatre who, although having scooted away from the evil - now decomposing - plant life, was still on the floor.
" Are you alright?"Quatre brushed shaky hands down the front of his ruined tunic, trying in vain to removed the dirt and leaves. He was a sorry state.
" Bruised and shaken, but I think I'll live."
" It'll be back." Heero interjected, a firm look of resolve etched into his sharp features. "We need to keep moving." Trowa nodded. And so they moved, with more haste, through the forest once more. This time, Quatre found there were less roots and vines to get caught on, but for some reason this wasn't an idea that comforted him.
" You know what that thing was, don't you Heero?" Trowa suddenly asked, using his knife to clear a quicker pathway for them. Reluctantly, Heero nodded. And then he decided witholding information would be of little help.
" It was a Sweeper, a lesser sending that is made with the sole purpose of retrieval. Some can be sent with an idea of violence, but that one wouldn't have retreated if it had that intent."
" So, this Sweeper, it's been sent to 'retrieve' Quatre?" Trowa glanced at the blond a little behind him, and found him with arms wrapped around himself and eyes on the floor.
" It would appear that way. Although...As far as I can tell Quatre has nothing to do with The Four or The End. He must be part of something else." They both looked expectantly at the smallest among them, and he looked back with wide eyes.
" I don't know, nothing like this has ever happened to me before." He said in a trembling voice.
" As I thought." Heero commented offhandedly. They reached Trowa's home with little difficulty and much wariness. Trowa ran forward as soon as something was visable through the dense treetrunks. Bursting through the door of a caravan, he began a conversation with someone within. The caravan wasn't big, but a tent came off it to shelter a table for eating, a rocking chair with some unfinished knitting discarded atop it, and other bits and pieces used in everyday life. The caravan itself was wooden and painted in firey reds and golds, with dashes of purple and fantastic carvings down the sides. An old horse grazed peacefully beside them.
" Heero, Quatre, this is my sister; Cathy Bloom." Trowa jumped from the slightly raised doorway to reveal a beaming redhead with a motherly nature about her.
" I don't mean to be rude, Trowa, but we need to get out of the forest as soon as possible." Heero began, however the sister, Cathy, laughed lightly.
" Don't worry yourself, this clearing was blessed by a hedgewitch less than a week ago. Nothing of the lesser realms can get in." She explained. " Sally's very powerful, she learned in the Capital, at the palace, I trust her skills."Heero 'hn'ed, but seemed to think such protection sufficed. "Come on in, I'm sure you're all hungry after trecking the long way round.
They all filed into the camp, and Cathy pulled out some comfortable multi-coloured rigs and giant patchwork cushions for them all to sit on. They were each handed a cup of warm tea, which tasted faintly of apples, and sipped it gratefully as Trowa pulled his sister aside and spoke to her in low tones.
" Heero?" Quatre asked cautiously.
" Hm?"
" Why do you think that...that Sweeper thing is after me?" Heero considered the question for a while, and then shook his head.
" It makes little sense to me. Perhaps you unknowingly mixed with a circle of people you shouldn't, or crossed the land of someone dabbling in dark magicks. Even if you were something to do with the quest I have undertaken...There is nothing that would warrant such action this early in the situation." Quatre nodded slowly. So, no-one knew anything and he was being chased by an invisibly enemy for a crime he couldn't name. Cathy and Trowa came out from behind the caravan a few minutes following, Cathy with a face a little paler than when they'd first met her, and Trowa with an air of recluse about him.
" From what Trowa's told me you're in quite a pickle. I'll send a bird out to Sally, she'll help you get out of the forest without that sending going for you. However, I tell you now, my Trowa is not being dragged into some dangerous supernatural war." She stated defiantly.
" Cathy..." Trowa began in a warning tone.
" I'm not letting you Trowa. As your sister I have a responsibility to keep you out of trouble and harm's way, sending you off to war wouldn't be doing that, now would it?"
" I'm going Cathy. Please don't make it difficult, and I want you to go to Heero's temple. Take the caravan, and don't be a burden." Trowa sighed." Please." He repeated. Cathy followed his sigh with one of her own.
" You've really got your heart set on ths haven't you?" They were obviously continuing the conversation which had been going on behind the caravan before, out of earshot of the two guests. "Alright." She consented. "But I want to know you're alright."
" We're sending a written report from every town." Heero chipped in.
" Good." Cathy nodded. "I want at least a sentence on there from you Trowa. These are going to the temple?" She directed the last bit to Heero.
" Yes, all the letters will. Master Doji will be pleased to have company. If you wish for money, there are positions that need filling at the temple. That or he could set you up with a job in the town." Having prepared for the Four not knowing of their destinies, Doji and Heero had made space for families. So far though, the two found had only one blood relative between them.
" Thank you, that would help." Cathy accepted. " Now though, food. And I'll have to find places for you all to sleep." Cathy started up an old stove and cooking pot, and put the remainders of the meal the day before into it from a sealed pot.
The rabbit stew filled them up after the adrenalin from escaping the Sweeper had drained their energy. The conversed comfortably around the warmth of the stove on their rugs. Cathy was interested in herbs and plants apparently, and the forest was known for the best medicinal herbs and magical leaves used in hedgewitch spells. They learnt of some of the funnier escapedes of the Arrowsmith Rogue Trowa, him getting flustered at some of the more embarassing tales that his sister found no end of amusement in, and Quatre told some of the stories passed down by his people. Of mermaids and shipwrecks, and of heros and dragons. This all continued until twilight, when sleep suddenly became necessary and, with it, beds. After rootling around the caravan, the Blooms managed to produce cushions and yet more rugs and blankets. Arranging them into a comfy nest big enough for four, they also provided several sheets for the top. Once they were settled, Cathy wished them goodnight and shut herself in the caravan, leaving the boys outside to sort themselves out.
" Don't you sleep indoors Trowa?" Quatre asked.
" Usually, I think this is Cathy's way of saying she hasn't completely forgiven me yet." He smiled slightly, an expression which changed his face entirely. "She forgets how much I love the stars." Quatre smiled back.
The last rays of the sun were disappearing behind the trees as they clambered in between the sheets to sleep. They arranged themselves in a circle, with Trowa closest to the caravan and Quatre nearest the forest. You could have put a fire in the middle and called it summer camp.
However, as the others drifted off into the land of dreams, Quatre was left behind without the content, homely feeling they built up in the short time they'd been at Trowa's caravan. Instead, the darkness closed in and every forest noise made him wince and flinch. He just couldn't get the feeling of vines encircling him, crushing him, out of his head. He tossed, he turned, the sheets tangled round him as when he finally slept, he woke fitfully but minutes later covered in sweat.
" Quatre?" He jumped at the voice, his freyed nerves feeling tired and worn.
" Yes?"
" I'm guessing you can't sleep." Quatre looked over to Trowa's form and sighed.
" Accurate guess." Wrapping the warmest fur rug around himself, Quatre shuffled over to where Trowa lay and all but fell onto the ground between the from sheer exhaustion.
" Sleep doesn't seem to want to visit me either tonight. The stars are out though." Torwa was on his back, watching the sky with shining eyes. Quatre copied his position and soon found his world and vision filled with the velvet blue of night and the twinkling silver of stars. "That one right above you is Damian the warrior. (1) See, his sword is made up of the four brightest stars in a row, and his cape comes out on the left of that."
" Oh, there it is. I see it." Quatre traced the dots with his eyes. "And the plough!"
" Most people know the plough, but can you see the farm mouse next to its wheel? Three stars make up its ear below it on the left side." Trowa pointed up, and Quatre followed his finger to the sky.
" And the lioness with her cub."
" Yes." Quatre studied the night sky, stars blurring and mixing. "Shouldn't there be something over there?"
" There is." Trowa was smiling slightly again. The stars had been with him all his life, he loved them as much as his sister. The night sky was his canvas and the stars were droplets of silver paint cast up by his dreams, that was what his mother had once told him so long ago, before he and Cathy were left alone. "Ella the Blind Prophet (2) wanders that area of the night. Have you ever heard her story?"
" No." Quatre turned to him, enraptured. "Please tell me."
" Ella was born, blind, in a little village, and as she grew up she was shunned, considered a burden and a bother. She found she couldn't do anything right, and seemed to curse all she touched. The crops would fail should she plough the fields, the milk would turn sour if she milked the cow. Cupboards would fall apart at her touch, and her own bed fell into such disrepair that she was sleeping on the floor from age eight onwards.
She had dreams too, dreams of the disasters before they happened. She dreamed of a boy in the dark, and the next day Farmer Croyden's son was lost. They found him drowned in a well. She dreamed of flames dancing around a heart in a cooking pot, and that week Tom Badgerpan found his girl cheating on him and set fire to her house. It burned down the whole row and killed seven people; he was hanged.
The people blamed her for their misfortune, even her betrothed, and cast her out into the woods. On the first day, she lay by a brook and dreamed of a magnificent army. Shining silver, gold and pearl.
In the village, robbers attacked and pilliaged. They were wearing stolen armour.
On the second day, visions of mountains came to her under an apple tree.
The village suffered a landslide, and avalanche of rocks tumbling from the mountain above them, thanks to the rain.
On the third day, she dreamed of her betrothed, John. And he found her sleeping on a flat rock.
He had searched for her having realised she couldn't be to blame for the terrible accidents. He woke her, and they kissed, and Ella in her joy told him of a vision she'd had. The land of the Gods would open on the night of the full moon, and the villagers could go into a land of wonders forever. Finally, she'd blessed her people with something beautiful and good rather than a curse. They ran back to the village and told everyone the news. The week was spent preparing, people packed and gathered and waited.
On the night of the full moon, they waited with bated breath. The doors of the sky opened, and a mighty cheer went round, and the carts and people went, in lines, into the sky. Ella could see none of this, and John skipped up to her and kissed her cheek, telling her it was beautiful before running into the doorway himself. Ella was knocked and bashed and tossed about, and in the end the doors closed. Ella was left behind.
She died of a broken heart thay say, and her last words were none at all, as she had no-one to speak to. She simply wandered. Alone in the abandoned, empty village, she carved words into a rock despite her blind state. Those words were a song, a song of prophesy, though she couldn't have known that." Trowa's clear voice began a haunting tune, one sung to children.
"I'll sing you Nine-O. Heark, how the cold winds blow!
Nine for the End and warriors Four and eight for the notes of singing.
Seven for the Skylord in the sky and six for gamblers' flinging.
Five for the rings on my love's hand and four for the seasons winging.
Three, three the Ages. Nine-O. Nine-O
Two, two the lover's hearts, joined so close together,
One is one and all alone and shall be so forever." (3)
He looked down from the sky to the blond's face. Quatre was sleeping peacefully, his breath even and hair rustled slightly by the breeze.
" Seems sleep wasn't so reluctant, in the end."
(1) Yes, these are made up constallations. If you find one in the sky that looks a bit like one, then well done! You may just have discovered something great! Although some are based on my limited knowledge of astronomy, so there may be some truth.
(2) Ella and her story are mine, thought I'd give mythology a go. :)
(3) Adapted folk song by Cecilia Dart-Thornton. Not mine. ADAPTED.
Thanks for reading, leave a review! MANY THANKS TO FOOLISHMORTAL! Thanks a lot. Lots of thanks. --;
