Author's note: Thank you to everyone who sent reviews! Once again, apologies for the un-betaed quality.

I'm trying very hard to get chapters out faster even if it doesn't look like it. For those of you who are worried about some of my other fics lack of updates fear not! I have never abandoned a story yet and I don't intend to start. It may take longer than I like, but I will get done. I will!

For fun the next few chapters will include excerpts from Wufei's notes and observations of The Fey.

Mind Body and Spirit – Chapter 7

-- The Fey have many subspecies that they use to identify their position in the larger social structure. The largest and most obvious difference is the 'Day' and 'Night' Fey or 'Sprites' and 'Imps' as they are more commonly known as.

Sprites are renowned for their beauty and although recent hunting by humans has made them more shy and reclusive, they are still the more sociable of the two groups. Imps on the other hand are known for their mischievous even antisocial behavior and appear very decidedly non-human and in many cases frightening.

In between these two major groups there is also very rare subspecies of imp that shares the characteristics of both species. For this reason we will call them Twilight Fey.

The Twilight Fey are born to Imps and share their mischievous nature, but unlike imps the Twilight Fey has the beauty and sociability of a Sprite. The most significant characteristic of the Twilight Fey is the curse of death they carry. They can kill instantly using touch, sight or sound. Because of this, they are often shunned or even killed by their own kind… --

An excerpt of Father Wufei's Studies of the Fey


"Duo, where is Trowa?" Wufei asked the imp yet again.

Over the past three days since appearing at his door, the priest had asked this same question in a variety of ways and was still unable to get a decent answer.

Indeed as if the imp was loosing patience with him, Duo rolled his eyes and gave him a hard 'not this again' look. "Sleeping." He answered laying heavy emphasis on the word.

Sleeping. That was what he said each time before too. The first day after the imp had arrived Wufei spent on eggshells waiting for a grumpy feral to come barging in claws and fangs at the ready. When he didn't show at all during the day the priest spent a very exhausting night jumping awake at every sound.

By the end of the following day when the feral still failed to show he was starting to worry. What if he'd been caught in one of those snares? He may not be particularly fond of the sprite, but he didn't want him dead.

Knowing the constant questioning was starting to irritate his guest; he had to get more details. "I know you said he was sleeping Duo, but sooner or later he has to wake up and he's going to come here looking for you."

Duo leveled him another look that clearly showed how irritating it was to interrupt his exploration of the abbey for the same question. "Not wake. Not spring." He explained as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

Wufei paused to digest this new bit of information. He was getting better at communicating with Duo, but sometimes things still did not translate well. "Not spring? Duo, are you saying he's hibernating?" he asked suddenly thinking of a perfectly good reason he could be sleeping for three days straight. Strange that to Duo hadn't mentioned that little detail earlier. Surely he could see there was a significant difference between sleeping for the night and sleeping for months. But then again maybe only humans felt the need to differentiate and name everything.

The imp rolled his eyes emphatically his whole appearance screamed 'finally!' "Yes. Sleeping." He concurred and this time Wufei caught the slightly bitter undertone that he'd missed all the previous times. The priest could have been mistaken, but there seemed to be a disgusted edge to his response and it didn't take long to figure out why.

Ever since his arrival, the imp had been enthusiastically exploring everything he saw. It was like caring for a dozen children at once. He got into everything and his curiosity rivaled Wufei's. Duo found even the smallest things fascinating. Wufei's books, his quill, his candles and flint, everything in his room met with Duo's intense examination and sometimes destruction. When he wasn't exercising his curiosity, the imp found entertainment in being an imp. This naturally meant terrorizing Wufei.

If there was something the priest needed it would not be unusual to eventually find it hiding in the rafters. And there were more than a few ink blots on his notes caused when Duo chose an inopportune moment to jump on him and scare a few years off his life. He had learned quickly not to leave Duo in his room unsupervised for more than a few minutes. He shuddered when he remembered the state he'd found his room in and vowed never to keep the imp in a confined location again. Not if he wanted it intact.

Over the past three days most of the priest's awe of the imp (and none of the attraction) had faded and been replaced with cautious amusement and his guests antics. From what he'd seen so far it wouldn't be too hard to guess the imp's feelings about being cooped up in a fox den and asked to sleep for months.

"Duo you didn't just leave him there sleeping did you?" he asked then not waiting for the answer he continued "You can't just leave him there, he cares about you. How do you think he is going feel when he wakes to find you missing? He's probably going to come charging in here again thinking he has to rescue you from me."

Wufei watched the long haired fey as he processed this new information. He didn't want to lecture his new friend and watching that beautiful face twist into a frown of uncertainty caused him to pause for a moment before continuing.

"It will probably upset him greatly when he finds out you left him on purpose. Did you even tell him you were leaving?"

At that some the uncertainty went out of Duo and he gave a stubborn look. "I tried but he's sleeping! He always sleeping." He finished in a miserable look filling in the last of Wufei's questions.

Now the priest could easily piece together what happened. Duo probably had tried to put an effort into hibernating.

A few weeks worth he thought to himself but it was just too far from his nature. He might have even waited around a day or two to see if Trowa would wake to join him again and when the other wouldn't wake, he left.

Trowa is going to kill me. Wufei resigned himself that sooner or later he was going to find those claws again at his throat someday soon. Well this time he would be more prepared. He hadn't given up the exercises the body priests had taught him; maybe he could just intensify his studies. Heero would certainly be willing to help him, but then he might give him the impression of acceptance. Maybe Rashid, or Zechs would help.

"Alright Duo, time to change. I have some people I need to talk to." And they left the room. Padding beside him Duo kept meowing "Cake?"


Not at all to his surprise, but sooner than he expected the feral sprite showed up. Five sevenday after Duo arrived.

He was busy recording some of the observations on the fey when he caught sight of Duo perking up to sniff the air. Just as the imp's face started to break into a smile a mouse crawled under Wufei's door and instantly transformed into a very grouchy looking Trowa.

"Where is he?" he growled his voice sounded raspy from lack of use over the past several weeks.

Wufei, who this time had enough warning, had got up to stand in the centre of the room so he would be ready to handle any attack. The attack came, but it was surprisingly clumsy and awkward. Not the least bit like the graceful and strong movements he'd seen before. With rapidly growing concern, the priest dodged the attack and did a quick survey of the feral and compared it to what he remembered. His movements were definitely not steady, and his eyes had a vacant unfocused look. He looked like a man that had been heavy into a wine barrel.

"Duo is right there." He pointed to the imp who was staying out of the way of the other two.

Bleary eyed, the feral tried to re-focus on the third occupant of the room, but was clearly surprised to find him there. He'd have been comical if Wufei didn't know how deadly he was.

Duo smiled brilliantly and glomped Trowa. "Trowa! You wake up!" he chittered excitedly. "I'm okay, see? Wufei stay with me while you sleep. And he show me words! See?" the imp bounced over to the bed to pick up a small slate that he'd been working on. "It says cat!"

"Cat." The feral repeated hollowly as if he had no idea what word meant and the priest noted that he was swaying slightly. Giving his head a shake to clear the stupor, Trowa managed to collect enough thoughts together. "You're okay? You're reading?" but no sooner were the words out than his visible eye went unfocused again.

Wufei moved closer to the sprite "Yes, I needed to find something to distract him while I was working or I would never get any thing done. I had also hoped that it would help our communic- Trowa!"

The sprite had started to nod his head in agreement on the need to find something to distract Duo. On the upswing of his nod though his eyes rolled back into his head and he started to crumple to the floor. Wufei caught him before he hit and Duo was beside him a fraction of a second later.

"Is he hurt?" he asked Duo, looking for any visible injuries. The imp was looking deeply upset until they both heard the faint sound of a snore.

"Sleeping." Duo said disgustedly although there was a healthy dose of fond amusement as well. Apparently the feral hadn't managed to completely pull himself out of his hibernation. The two of them carefully laid the sprite on the bed while Wufei tried to work through this new complication.

Everyone had readily accepted Duo as 'Wufei's cat' or 'the cat Wufei rescued' but if he suddenly acquired a new pet he'd probably get into trouble. As it was the current problem was that he wasn't even an animal. How were they going to hide him?

"Duo, we need to get him to change forms. Can you do it for him?" he asked and was not relived when Duo shook his head at him. "Is there any way to wake him up?"

They proceeded to spend a good part of the afternoon trying to rouse the sprite. They tried everything from shaking, to talking, to splashing him with water. At one point Wufei got fed up and slapped him but the sprite only frowned a little.

"Any more ideas?" Wufei asked disheartened.

"Food?"

The priest smiled at that. "Is that all you think about?" he teased.

"He wake up a little bit with water." Duo said defensively.

That's right he did Wufei remembered. He even licked the water off his lips.

That evening in the dinning hall he set aside some extra food. He'd been getting pretty good at it since he had to feed Duo, but it was getting awkward to hide his extra food stores.

At least he was getting help feeding Duo. Everyone had noticed that Wufei never went anywhere without the cat and it had become almost a new form of competition for Wufei's attention by trying to attract the attention of his cat.

Quatre spent half his dinner trying to entice Duo with a piece of dried fish still perplexed at the cat's lack of affection for him when all other animals loved him. Wufei could have easily told him how to make Duo his best friend, but it would have ruined Duo's disguise if anyone saw him eating sweet cakes. I quiet word from the mind priest, and Duo daintily accepted the strip of fish between his teeth. Quatre was delighted, while Duo gave Wufei a dirty look.

Back in their room Wufei was faced with yet another problem. How to feed a sleeping sprite?

He tried waving it under Trowa's nose but got no response. He tried breaking off small pieces and putting them into his mouth only to have them fall out. He did have another idea, but there was no way he was going to do it.

"Duo, I need you to put this in your mouth and then using your mouth, put it into his." At Duo's confused look he tried to explain better. "Like a mother bird does with her chicks." He explained.

Misunderstanding, Duo changed himself into a bird. Now his whole body was smaller than Trowa's mouth. Completely unhelpful. "No, what I mean is… oh damnation… here!"

Taking a small sip of tea into his mouth he leaned over the sleeping sprite using one hand to slightly pry open his bottom jaw. He moved close enough that he was brushing the tip of his nose on the other's cheek.

Like Duo, Trowa didn't smell at all like he should. Sleeping for months should have made him smell like sweat and bad breath, but instead he had a cool vegetal smell. Like moss and fresh cut herbs. The priest gave into the small urge to sniff at the prone figure. This close he could see the feral was easily as beautiful as his imp mate. Catching his wayward and very inappropriate thoughts, the priest steeled himself for what he was about to do.

Pressing their mouths together Wufei let the tea trickle into Trowa's mouth. On reflex the fey swallowed the dribble and the motion forced his lips to move against Wufei's. The action sent a tidal wave of need rushing over him so quick and hard that it left his body shaking. He had to fist his hand tightly so his fingernails dug into his palms in order to bring himself back to his senses. What was wrong with him? Trowa had certainly done nothing that would spark an attraction to him but it was obviously there.

Gasping for breath, he pulled away and took another sip of tea ignoring the significant tremor in his hand. This time Trowa not only moved his lips against Wufei's, he arched into the contact trying to catch all of the tea. This time Wufei couldn't help but groan with longing and pulled away reluctantly.

On his next attempt he soaked a piece of bread with gravy from the stew that was served with dinner. Placing it gingerly between his teeth, he pressed their lips together then used his tongue to push the bread into Trowa's mouth.

The meat scent of the gravy must have roused something in Trowa because this time not only did his mouth move to accept the morsel, his tongue pushed out to snatch it from Wufei's.

Oh by the creator, it feels better than Heero's kiss. And it's not even a kiss! His mind reeled. He was moving so he could get his arms around the sprite when he suddenly found himself staring up at the rafters in his room with sharp pain in his sternum where Trowa hit him. Sitting up, he found Duo hunched over Trowa who looked semi awake and it looked like he was going to fall back asleep.

Shaking off the residuals of his unexpected lust, he focused on what was needed. "Duo! We need him to change into a different form. Something small. Like a mouse!"

He heard a quiet urgent set of warbles that were joined by a few incoherent groans from Trowa. By the time he got up and joined them, there was a tiny mouse sleeping in the middle of his bed.