Title: The Ribbon and the Ring 7?
Author: Seraphim Grace
Archive: http/ if you want it ask, I'll probably say yes. http/ http/ Always appreciated and replied to.
Rating: 18 (This is an open rating so I don't have to worry).
Pairings: 1x2
Warnings: Angst. Some gore.
Notes: AU, and features necromancy
Where Sir Gereint had been basically trusting, his researcher, Sir Kail, was not. Where Gereint looked every inch a knight, even if he was a scholar, Kail looked every inch the scholar. He had the most disconcerting habit of removing his spectacles and rubbing the bridge of his nose as if he was exasperated by the world in general. His clothes looked as if they had seen better years and his hair was wild and unkempt. He also always had at least two charcoal pencils about his person and books shoved into every pocket. He talked to himself as well.
He had, on Gereint's orders, arranged for them a series of rooms, that were interlocked, featuring three bedrooms and one large sitting room. Then he had locked them in with nothing to do.
On the first day the boredom had set in. Duo had spent an hour examining the strange stick and blade that was labelled I Deathscythe /I to discover that the handle twisted open and telescoped, and Trowa had realised that the leather loop at the top was to secure the blade. It had turned into several weapons, a pike, a staff and a scythe. That had amused them for several hours.
Despite being locked into the suite they knew perfectly well that Kail had hideously underestimated them. There was only one lock that could easily be picked and there was one of the skyway ropes practically outside their window. Nor had he taken the weapons that they had found in the tomb off them. Heero had supposed that Gereint had told him to, but it became obvious after several hours that he just didn't care.
On the third day when they were lying in the room making the best of the comfortable beds and the games that Eluneth had shown Duo involving several of the statues on the mantle of the sitting room when the servants had brought them food Wufei had demanded to speak to Kail.
He had arrived near dark looking for all the world as if the weight of the world was upon his shoulders, and his washed out eyes were red rimmed. "I hope this is important that you have pulled me away from my studies."
"Yes," Wufei said, crossing his arms, the rest of them were staring at him intently. "We can appreciate that you want to keep us prisoner here but nonetheless this is ridiculous." He gestured to include the rest of us. "We have waited patiently for Sir Gereint to return, but we can no longer amuse ourselves, if no provision for us is made then we will be forced to amuse ourselves in another way." It was a carefully worded threat. It was made all the powerful by Trowa happily polishing one of the wicked looking knives he had found.
Kail started to splutter than calmed himself, "can you read?" He asked, "if I bring you books will you make notes for me?"
Wufei nodded, "and something entertaining," he said, "we'll make all the notes you want if you entertain us, otherwise we'll sack this place." Under his bang Trowa smiled in a slow and sinuous manner, as if they had rehearsed this. In truth Trowa was that bored he was willing to attack Kail just for the amusement value. They had promised Gereint that there would be no mischief thinking it would give them the run of the city, it might have been Gereint's intention but it certainly wasn't Kail's.
Kail scoffed. Duo looked up from where he had been napping on Heero's lap with Heero's hand softly stroking his hair. "We will sack this place in a way that will make the battle of Witchead look naive, and that was done by five boys." Kail went quiet from his spluttering. "I'll send you some books and a shoji board." He closed and locked the door behind him.
"How did you know to say that?" Trowa asked. "How did you know about that battle?"
"The lady told him." Quatre answered from where he say beside the window, "the one with the crown." Heero blanched, he could not see the ghost of Eluneth that haunted Duo but it seemed Quatre could. He didn't know if it made him feel uncomfortable or just jealous. "When we were in the catacombs, she told him lots of stories." His voice was distant and he didn't turn away from the window. "I heard her."
"You can see her?" Duo asked, sitting up.
"No," Quatre answered softly, thoughtfully. The tea that they had given him for his ever present headache had made his voice soft and dreamy, "but you can. It's strange."
"Draima," Eluneth hissed in Duo's ear. Duo didn't know the word and assumed it was a curse.
Quatre had fallen silent watching the boats bob on the lake from their window. Open plains of water held a fascination for him as he was desert born, and the lake that Sidi was built on was no exception. With his silence Duo became introspective, leaning back unto Heero's lap and the calming stroking of his hair. Trowa and Wufei chose, wisely perhaps, to keep their own counsel.
Kail returned with an armful of books. He set them down on the table and handed each of them, bar Quatre, a sheet and paper. "I want you to find every reference to these," he said referring to the list on the paper, "and to mark it down with a page number so I can cross reference it later with Gereint."
Wufei picked up the largest book, "thank you." He said opening I Sir Cameron's History of Aatoria. /I He lifted one of the pens that Kail had brought them. "We'll be fine now." He said dismissing Kail peremptorily. "Thank you." He added turning away from him. Kail looked slightly shocked then as if he had been stung but shook his head and left the room locking the door behind him.
"Hey, Tro," Duo said sitting up with a smirk, "fancy doing some reconnaissance?"
"What do you mean?" Trowa asked.
"I'm bored, he's an ass, let's go raid the library. I mean I can't get over the cheek of it expecting us to do his work for him, aint that right, Wuffers." Wufei just grunted in agreement reading his book. "Let's go get something worth reading."
Trowa looked over at Heero, "wouldn't you prefer to go with him, as his husband, I mean?" It sounded as if Trowa would burst out laughing at that.
"You are better suited to stealth." Heero answered calmly. "And I know that you will protect him as carefully as I will." His smile was cold and treacherous.
"I can protect myself you know." Duo answered with his hands on his hips.
"It is my mission to protect you." Heero replied, shocked that Duo would even question his reasons.
"Is that all I am to you?" Duo was seething, "a mission." Then before Heero could answer he was away out of the window. Trowa looked between them and then followed Duo, he decided that the rickety looking skyways looked much safer than Heero at the moment.
"No," Heero said to himself, "you are my husband."
"Better you than me." Wufei said from the pages of his book where Quatre stared out over the water, "cursed to spend your life as the shadow of Maxwell."
"Yes," Heero answered crisply, "better me than you."
The castle of Sidi was a maze built around a spiral. "I guess," Trowa said, "this was what Sir Cameron meant by calling it Spiral castle."
Duo made a long slow clapping noise, "well aren't you brilliant?" he said dryly, "look world Trowa Barton made a revelation for the ages."
"Don't take your temper out on me, I'm not Heero." Trowa answered. "I didn't piss you off."
Duo's face fell as they walked along the corridor, "I thought he knew how I felt." He sounded sad but Trowa didn't look back at him, "I mean he's opening up to me, slowly, maybe, but he's doing it, and he doesn't mind doing it in public, and he sits, when I'm not watching, playing with his ring, and then he tells me I'm his mission."
Trowa sighed, "I'm a clown, Duo, not a marriage guidance counsellor." He looked at the bereft look on his face though, "maybe a mission is Heero's way of saying that he likes you."
"Leney says that when he calls me baka he's really telling me how much his care." Duo was staring at the floor.
"Well he certainly says it a lot." Trowa said, "but since the explosion he has said it differently, maybe this Leney is right." The words felt strange in his mouth and he knew that he was saying these things for Duo's benefit.
"Yeah," Duo muttered, "maybe she is."
"You do know that it's his destiny." Achren said from behind him, "and the library's to your left, down those stairs."
Talking with Eluneth meant that Duo had almost mastered the art of talking to those that he knew were dead without arousing suspicion from the living, it was those he couldn't recognise as dead he talked out loud to. "What do you mean?" He asked her with what he suspected was a form of telepathy. He was more comfortable speaking to them out loud.
"He was born to be your Senshisha." She answered calmly, "it's not like either of you had a choice in the matter. You are drawn to each other by the threads of fate."
"You're wrong." Duo answered automatically but the seed of doubt had already been sown.
"Even if it's predestined." Eluneth said from his right, "it doesn't make it any less. It's still love."
"Of course," Achren answered Eluneth's remark was surprising calm, "you tried to marry for love." Then in a moment of laughter she was gone, vanishing into a red mist like she had never been there.
"It's this way." Duo said out loud for Trowa's benefit as he walked down the stairs. "The library's this way."
Duo half expected to meet Kail in the library, instead he found a bustling young soldier complaining about the state of the books. A quick glance at Trowa reassured him that the soldier was dead.
It was completely unlike the library at Halcyon, where that had been a wonder of high piled books and works of art carelessly stacked because of a lack of space on the shelves this was immaculately arranged although dusty. Where the Halcyon library was haphazard but thorough this library was much smaller but each subject was grouped together. He moved to the romances, as Achren called them, and was assured by Eluneth that just because they were called romances didn't mean that they were all about love. He recognised the title of one of them, the Akheniad, as being the story that featured Menelaus, the figure that had dominated the Halcyon library from his vantage point in the stained glass window.
Nevertheless as he and Trowa selected books almost completely at random Duo was mulling over what Achren had said, that yes, Heero loved him, but that Heero had no choice in the matter. He thought of the three women that he had met in the forest, that Gereint had called the Kindly Ones, and wondered why they had cursed the Senshisha and Tennosha to love each other.
"Hey, Tro," Duo said, "do you mind if I get a book on the Kindly Ones?" He asked.
Trowa just shrugged. "If you want to read it and carry it, you get it."
"This way," Achren said appearing beside one of the bookcases on the far side of the room, "the books on mythology are over here."
Duo didn't answer her as he went to the shelf. Unlike the others it was almost bare. But sitting on it's own was a book that caught his eye. It was simply bound, in heavy linen, with none of the embossing that other books had. It was a rather unobtrusive black book, covered with dust. He wondered why it had attracted his attention until he lifted it and opened it to the frontispiece. "Cahier de la Morte." It said, and underneath it in another language, although sketched out in a different hand on the heavy vellum, "Hon no Sha." He was familiar enough with both languages to understand it. It was a Book of the Dead. It was also small enough to fit into a pocket or fold of his jacket, he smirked to himself, of all the things he had expected to find in the library, he hadn't expected a pocket sized Necronomicon.
Author's note
The Necronomicon is not just an example of my linguistic skills (or my multitude of foreign dictionaries.) Nowhere in Dathyl are there any Greek names and Necronomicon is a Greek word, but Japanese, French and Latin all appear so I needed to change the name. Besides Duo can speak both languages so it doesn't matter to him what language it's in, and it's easier to read French than Latin (Latin's incredibly subjective and most translations are guess work where French isn't) the book is important, but I just wanted to explain why I chose the name for it I did.
To the Aatorian's the book is like the Voynich manuscript, as in they have it, they know it's important but it's written in gobbledy-gook with notes around the side. But Duo does need it.
And I also apologise for Achren being a total bitch but I needed to sow that seed for something else to make sense.
