A Gundam Wing Fanfiction: Secrets of Sir Godrick

Part 2 & 3

(Part 1: /d53he7v )

A lot of Part 4 of this story relates into the "Two Brother's Long ago" section...

AFTER I'm done writing this story, over on DA, I'll probably be able to concentrate enough to actually get the next (REAL) chapter of QKBLR... but I feel bad leaving you hanging... so here, Some story:


The pulse of the helicopter's blades chopping through the air made it impossible for any conversation other then the necessities required. Godrick had woken up feeling uncertain as their group had set about the typical morning rush to ready for the next stage of their training.

It wasn't that anything was different, or out of place... rather that nothing was; they treated him no differently. They smiled and joked about the strip club the night before... not one mentioning or complaining about the obvious bruises many of them were also sporting; Plain evidence that Iznick was not a man to be trifled with, even when out numbered.

They were headed to the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine for the final installment in their field training exercises. The reports looked grim the closer they got, what had seemed like typical drifting snow storms were threatening to whip up into full blown blizzards. It was essential that they manage to land and get their base camp established before they found themselves in a white out.

Hence why Godrick thought nothing of it when they began settling down to disembark at aplateau topping a steep slope to a river; they'd all reviewed the relevant terrain maps for the area they would be working in. The original drop zone was a level clearing about four miles from the river that ran close to the camp...obviously they'd altered the original plan to compensate for the sudden turn of events.

"Your up first, Juggernaut!" Sergeant Bower hollered over the machinery. Iznick gave no complaint other then a glance to Godrick before he moved to the open doorway to prepare to propel down the wire.

It was odd the way that the chopper suddenly listed as if hit by a too strong gust; the motion was too exaggerated considering the oodles of technology at work to ensure against such upsets. Godrick automatically lunged to snag hold of the Russian's pack, catching a hand bar on the door frame. He'd expected his load to lighten when Bower moved to lend a hand – but not as much as it did when Iznick was suddenly free falling down into the rapid icy flow now beneath them.

Godrick caught the shine of a blade edge in the Sergeant's hand out of the corner of his eye; his mind didn't tend to think about things, so it was an effortless decision that sent him leaping out into the open snow filled air.

"You perverted _!" is what they might have heard if the helicopter had not been pulling up and away already. He quickly discovered the rocky and uneven ground that was hidden beneath the snow as he tumbled, and painfully bounced, down the incline; clutching the pack hoping it, and the one on his back, would absorb most of the impact.

Coming to a stop not far from the river's edge he had to wait a moment for the shock to wear off before he dared test his battered limbs; he was lucky to find his sidearm still cased and his ever present sword had also managed to accompany him strapped to his back through the hellish ride. His ankle was sprained, if not as broken as some of his ribs felt, and his knee dislocated from first touch down.

Swallowing against the instinctual aversion to pain; he was spurred on by the sudden clutching awareness of cold and the silence of the flurrying snow. He cracked the bones back into their rightful place pushing his own concerns from his mind; The chopper was long gone.

Limping he tried to make his way quickly down the river edge; careful of hidden ice ledges disguised as solid ground while scanning the current for sight of his room mate, calling out his name as he went. Beyond the river was an sheer cliff that would be almost impossible to climb even if one could cross. Godrick tripped in surprise when next to him a dark form lunged out of the water's edge choking and gasping for air; it was Iznick.

"IZNICK! Let me give you a hand!" Godrick scrambled to help heave his soaked form from the frigged water, the deep numbing cold was already severely affecting the burly man's movements. "Come on! We have to get back up the slope, I don't think we're going to find any shelter on the water's edge!"

Iznick just stared at him for a long time, his lips already turning blue and his constricted breaths steamed out into the air, before he nodded and pushed himself up onto his feet. Quickly noticing Godrick's limp, he insisted on taking the bags leaving his friends hands free to use his sheathed sword like a cane as they stumbled up the hillside. Once at the top the two scanned their surroundings for a clue of their next move. A mountain peak rose above the treetops a head of them, and several more could be seen surrounding them, but none held any familiarity.

"Maybe we should have...stayed down by...by the river, follow it." Iznick's teeth were chattering as he pulled open his own pack and fished out a large bottle he'd covered with silver tape. Godrick caught a whiff of the strong aroma when he swigged it: cheap vodka.

"That won't help you for very long. We need to find a dry spot out of the snow, finding a cave down there would be lucky but we can't count on it. Besides we have no idea WHICH river this is anymore. The others could be setting up down stream or up... or even 60+ miles from here. The lords know we aren't going to be able to count on finding civilization out here. Hopefully the predators will have already done their pre-storm foraging..." Godrick looked up to the darkening sky.

"You didn't see w-which way they flew off?" Godrick shook his head in reply.

"We came in from that direction..." He moved to pull at one of the outer pockets on his pack to produce a compass – that had been smashed by his downward tumble.

"Enough of that, we should keep moving. Figure it out when the storm passes." Iznick made to start towards the treeline, but stopped when Godrick wasn't following him. He was staring down at the fractured face of the family heirloom, the oils that had suspended the needle and allowed it to pick up the magnetic influences of the Earth around it for centuries leaked into his fine knit woolen gloves. "Godrick! We MUST move!"

Snapping out of the moment he tucked the item into the breast pocket of the winter over-jacket, determinedly hobbling into the thick wilds ahead as the wind swept the strands that had come loose from his pony tail across his face.

A short ways in, when Iznick went to climb over a particularly thick tree that had been uprooted, the outer shell gave way revealing its hollow rotten interior. Trapped to his waist and cursing he kicked back to free himself, braking the trunk wall open further, but Godrick pulled at his frost encrusted jacket to stop him continuing his destruction.

"Hold!" he was thankful to discover his flashlight unbroken and used it to peer down the hollow space searching for occupants before he slid inside feet first; breaking away the soft, loose, and most importantly dry, wood bits that had not fully disintegrated from the walls to widen the space. "This might do! Widen the opening and try to keep an overhang..." Godrick was slipping back out, "I'll try and get some green branches to build up a barricade against the wind."

Iznick peered down the dark hole,

"Are y-you sure?" his teeth were starting to chatter again, but Godrick was already off hacking down leafy branches to start piling around the opening.

In less time then it would have taken to clear the ground and pitch a tent; they made a breach on the other end and along the elongated chamber to prevent smoke building up and suffocating them; lined the rotted interior with one of the water-tight cloth tarps they carried with them; and surround a makeshift pit with snow to prevent the fire spreading to the rest of the shelter, whilst using rocks to build up the base to keep the fire from drowning, should too much snow melt for the sponge-like wood to absorb.

Done threading the branches together to form a new, wider wall to cup in the heat of the fire that had just been set; Godrick, much to Iznick's flattered surprise, pushed his fumbling stiff hands aside and undid the rest of the buttons on his over-jacket adding it as another inner layer of the wall where it had the best chance to eventually dry,

"I know. It's your dream come true. Get bedding stuffed down there and tuck in." Godrick said blushing as he pulled off Iznick's boots and still sopping wet socks. He tried not to think about it too much as he helped him out of the rest of his water laden garments; then set off at a limp to try and get as much easy burning wood as the nearby snowy world would offer, hoping it would be enough to last the night.

"Godrick... Why are you here?" Iznick asked when Godrick had finally pealed off his own jacket and boots (only) and slid into the tree trunk to lay behind him.

"I don't know, because honor doesn't make exceptions? " he laughed, squirming to try and get comfortable in the confined space, "...just do me a favor...try not to get too bad of a hard on."

Iznick who was already recovering from his short swim as the storm began to settle over the area, let out a deep laugh of his own swigging from his vodka bottle once more,

"Ha, ha, I'll just pretend your a little woman. That should help..."

Godrick couldn't help drifting to sleep quickly with the musty wooded scent mixing with that of sweat... and booze.

"...I'm not a little girl..." he muttered, already lost to the dreamworld...


Part 3: Running From Wolves; Dances With Horses

Godrick was alone when he awoke; Iznick's garments were gone but his pack remained, the heat off the embers from the night before had eaten most of the way through a half-foot thick wood piece lain atop them. The storm had subsided and the sun had already caused the snow to flow into a glittering icy coating of the branches above.

He pushed himself up and started to slide out of the bedroll, making the massive mistake of trying to flex his right leg. Biting back the pain he dragged himself back further and pulled up his pant leg to review the damage; his knee had swollen badly in the night and he could only catch a sample of the color pallet his equally enlarged ankle was sporting unable to reach far enough to pull the top of his sock down.

"F_k..." he slouched against the rotted interior wall, "I should have wrapped that, huh..." gently he squeezed the bulge, it was going to be hard to bind it properly himself. Resigning to have to wait till Iznick returned he pulled his pack closer and dug out his med-kit in search of an anti-inflammatory. The little pill bottle wasn't hard to pick out, but it brought something else to Godrick's attention that had him tearing through the rest of his pack in vain.

His 'other' medication, a strong dose of hormones, had gotten left behind. He drank down the aspirin with a sip from his canteen then tugged the nearly undone bow from his hair to retie it. When Iznick did return he found Godrick still forlornly staring into the slowly regrowing fire.

"Look, I caught us food. They're not too small either." Iznick was indeed sporting a dead pair of wild rabbits. He pulled the clump of branches back to widen the space so he could prepare the large rodents.

"That's a start at least. We should get moving as soon as possible though, the going will be pretty slow." Godrick re-hoisted his pant leg to elaborate.

Iznick tisked and made a face,

"You shouldn't have been using it so much yesterday, today will make it worse."

"Did you get a better look at where we are, or at least an idea of where we should go?"

Iznick was shaking his head,

"The land, yes. I couldn't spot smoke in the distance, or any other sign of people. I think we are best heading north and west, I'd rather end up in Poland then Romania."

"That's true..." Godrick let out a deep sigh. Soon enough Iznick had the meat roasting and turned his attention to getting a bandage around Godrick's swollen joints.

"Hm, can you flex your toes?" Iznick asked after he'd gotten Godrick's sock off. The stubby digits seemed mobile enough considering how inflamed the ankle was, "Just a bad sprain, you might have torn some tissue but more likely it just hit too many rocks on the way down."

Wrapping the ankle just as tightly Iznick helped him onto his feet so he could finally limp away to relieve himself leaning on a tree.

- ...speak not of the devil, lest he may appear... -

The going was slow and they'd barely started to round the mountain side by the time the sun had passed its zenith. Godrick had made himself a better crutch to alleviate the abuse on his sword but even then he found the pace excruciatingly slow, Iznick noticed.

"Really Godrick, I've never heard so much whining from you before! We have no idea where we are headed, I'm sure it wont make a difference if we arrive at 'No Where' tomorrow or the day after!"

"It might..." Godrick grumbled.

"Uh oh." Iznick halted in his tracks staring at the disturbed snow ahead of them.

"It looks like some sort of deer or herd animal passed through... probably not dangerous." Godrick frowned surveying the scene.

"In Siberia we don't have this nonsense about black cats crossing your path being a bad omen... but a herd of sheep?" he moved closer to examine how the path clearly divided the underbrush, "This looks like an established run, Wolves will know of it, they could pick up our scent here."

Godrick looked back over his shoulder to scan through the thick trees,

"Maybe we should head down slope and find more open ground."

"No," Iznick shook his head, "We need higher ground, rockier, steeper... I'd rather deal with big cats then big bears."

"Oh? I thought you would want to take a stroll down by the river? You never know... There might be a real hansom one with nice six-inch claws to give your back a good scratching after your done coupling with it." The Khushrenada flashed a devilish smile that was a centuries old family signature.

Iznick just threw back his head laughing as he adjusted the packs he'd slung over his shoulders, and set off towards where the rise increased and the trees thinned. Godrick made his way after trying to find a regular rhythm to his stilted gait: Not assured in the least by the dark from he caught at the edge of his vision as it darted between trees.

It wasn't long before the silence grew around them and the signs were almost impossible to ignore.

"Iznick... There's a wolf behind us." Godrick kept his voice level.

"There is maybe three more keeping a good ways ahead too, I've been spotting their trails."

Some how it was comforting to hear he wasn't the only one who'd noticed something, even if it was bad news,

"Should we... Trench?" Godrick was mentally counting how many bullets he had on him as he tried to pick up his pace, swallowing against his growing sense of panic.

"No, no, just keep moving. They're trying to spook us... easier to catch a prey that isn't thinking. If we hole up, we'll prove we're something worth besieging and I'm sure the ones around us now are merely scouting for a much larger pack. They'll miss dinner if they stay out playing too late." Iznick pulled out his TT33 Tokerev and checked its magazine.

"Damn it! What the_ are we even doing out here? Where the _ did the rest of them go? I swear I'm going to give 'em_ if we ever make it out of this..." Godrick could feel the panic forming into something else as the lump continued to grow in his throat.

"Stay calm, this isn't like you Godrick. Don't fall apart on me out here..." He threw a glance back over his shoulder at his only ally and wasn't reassured by the glistening streak visible on his cheek like an ice flow leaking from one of his deep blue eyes.

"I'm sorry, I can't help it... I forgot to pack my_ pills... that or they fell out when I dropped." he angrily brushed the moisture off his cheek trying to blink back any further salty embarrassments.

"What do you need them for anyways?" Iznick tried to slow his step to keep in line with Godrick.

"They're just... hormones." Godrick laughed sheepishly, "They say my mother went insane after her first child, my brother Dermail. Refused to bare any more children for years. My father discovered her attempting to 'sabotage' me when she did finally get pregnant again... I uh... had to be moved into.." he looked down in shame, "...an artificial womb."

Iznick just laughed at the pains of his aristocratic pedigree,

"Sabotage you? How did she try to sabotage you?"

"She tried to..." Godrick was blushing terribly, "...turn me into a girl."

"Your kidding right?" Iznick's mirth did not ease, but now came in gales.

"IZNICK!" Godrick halted, tears had started dripping from both eyes now, "There are _wolves hunting us through some god-be-_ land after we've been stranded here by a pack of homophobic _-tards; with no compass! No map! No destination and less provisions then I feel comfortable having on a Sunday ride on my OWN ESTATE! It is NOT THAT FUNNY!"

Iznick's face only reddened deeper at his emotional tantrum,

"Just imagine how much luckier you would have been if you hadn't jumped out like a fool?"

The possibilities, ALL of the possibilities, of how different things could have been weighed upon Godrick... especially if he were camping with that pack of 'homophobic_-tards' right now. Luck might work in strange ways but the emotional storm aggravated by his injured leg and the pressing danger around them couldn't be quelled by such a small piece of solace,

"How do you know I jumped?" Godrick's voice was faded as sobs began to steal his breath; he slumped against his crutch.

"Godrick!" Iznick took him roughly by the shoulders, lifting him up to stare straight into his blue eyes with his own dark pair, "I know you! You are a man of great strength and courage! Let this pass, forget about the wolves! Forget about the others! I will get you back home." he pulled Godrick into a tight hug, "...I promise."

He didn't know why... maybe it was all the fairy tales he'd read growing up... the line had been said;

So...

Godrick's hand slid up over Iznick's shoulder as their lips found each others. It suddenly WAS a lot easier to forget about everything else, but he shied away at the first parting that begged to go deeper, turning his head side.

"I'm sorry..." Iznick's voice growled against his ear, "But if your going to act like a little girl, I guess I'm going to have to treat you like one."

There was a different kind of growl to the side of them... that was soon answered from behind – Both men went for their pistols. The conversation amongst their stalkers was not one of attack however, and a different sound began to grow from behind them as the wolves fled from their posts; The sound of hooves muffled by snow.

As the first forms became clear through the trees, Godrick's jaw dropped to his feet,

"Those are... Khuβhrénir!"

"How can you be sure?" Iznick kept his guard up as more of the horses could be seen moving their way.

"A small herd runs wild on my Estate... I heard they roam these mountains as well; they are unmistakable."

"We are in luck then... I think I can catch one..." Iznick moved to get a length of rope, but Godrick stopped him.

"Catch one! Even fully tamed and trained their more likely to crush your skull then let you ride them! It's said they are my families ancestors, I doubt you will find a more prideful creature."

Iznick looked crestfallen at Godrick's lack of confidence in his abilities,

"Then what are we to do?"

"Try and stay with them I guess... They certainly ran off the wolves... who knows? Maybe they were following us? Just keep away from their mares and calves."

"That shouldn't be a problem for me." Iznick smirked as he took Godrick's crutch, and his arm over his shoulder this time, as they set off once more trying to keep pace with the roaming beasts.

Sooner then they expected they came across... a road... that sported a sign that at one point might have been very informative but the weather had worn away much of it's lettering. It was odd the way that their 'escorts' suddenly picked up their speed and all but vanished from around them; Leaving the two alone to ponder the strange ways of the world they'd found themselves in.

Upon finally deciphering what paint was left on the sign, Godrick began to laugh.

"What is it?" Iznick asked confused looking between his companion and the sign.

"To the Castle 'Noh Vier'." Iznick still didn't get it. "What was it you said earlier? 'it wont make a difference if we arrive at 'No Where' tomorrow or the day after'?" Godrick laughed more, "It seems your right because we've gotten to 'Noh Vier' today!"

Iznick just shook his head, glad that Godrick was back to himself again.