MoonChild

Chapter Twenty One – My Darling Cripple

He felt guilty the second he woke up. He felt like he'd done something absolutely terrible to a poor, defenceless being. Like he'd kicked a newborn puppy, then raped it. Then the memories made their way in.

He had done something terrible to a poor, defenceless being. Five something terribles. He'd hit Luna. Five times. Where exactly was he?

Irea's room was brighter than he remembered. Extremely bright. And his head hurt, but it was nothing in comparison to his shoulders.

"I knew there was something wrong," someone was saying. Heero couldn't tell who it was, all he knew was that they were yelling and Irea's room seemed to have been relocated to the center of the sun.

Everything was bright.

"I could sense it," the person said. "I just couldn't tell what it was."

Heero moved his head to the side, seeing that the person speaking was Tsu.

Bastard. Heero wanted to hack him up into little pieces.

Heero felt slightly remorseful for thinking that, until he realised what he had just felt. Remorse.

And guilt. Thank the heavens, he could feel guilty again.

And he wasn't mad at Luna anymore. Granted, he'd done enough of that the day before to last a lifetime, but it felt so good to like Luna again.

"Why am I here?" he asked quietly.

Irea was touching his shoulders and he tensed. "Don't do that," she yelled.

"Don't yell at me," Heero said.

The entire room went suddenly, blissfully silent.

"I wasn't yelling," Irea said.

"It sounded like it," Heero said.

"That's the headache."

"How did you know I had a headache?" Heero said, closing his eyes. The room was so bright it seemed impossible.

Irea patted his shoulders. "When someone is this tense, they normally get a headache sooner or later."

Heero grunted as he forced himself to sit up and put a hand over his eyes. "I'm always tense," he muttered.

"Not like this," Irea said. "I managed to work most of it out of you while you were sleeping, but you were more riled up than a donkey with a hot poker up it's arse."

"It was the spell," Tsu said.

"Spell?" Heero snarled.

Tsu shrank back. "Lord Barton said the sorcerer said he put a spell on you, in your head."

Heero grunted. Right. The spell. Tsu seemed pretty convinced it really had been there, and Heero was just a little unnerved by the mere thought that someone had been fiddling around inside his brain.

Heero took a deep breath. There was only one way to tell whether or not there had really been a spell on him. He straightened his back, where Irea was still touching, massaging, he squared his shoulders, took another deep breath, and imagined Luna hanging by his hair in the castle dungeons, his eyes gouged out and his tongue lying on the stone floor.

Heero promptly hurled all over Irea's carpet.

"Be careful," Irea said quietly, stroking his messy hair away from his face. "The really bad headaches can make you sick. Don't move too quickly. Lie down again."

Heero nearly laughed as he shrugged her off. His head throbbed every time he blinked or even breathed, but the only thing on his mind was that he wasn't mad any more.

He didn't even actually mind that much. So Luna had roomed with Winner. WuFei said they'd spent about two weeks conscious together in all their years as cellmates – and Heero had spent longer than that with Luna. Now that he could finally view the situation without his mind going around in circles, he felt so much better, even though just thinking at all made his head feel as though someone had attached a boulder to it and made him run a marathon.

He took a few deep breaths, letting Irea's hands dig into his shoulders and neck and relax him. After a while, when a servant had cleaned yesterday's lunch from the floor, he actually felt better.

As soon as his stomach felt still enough to handle the walk up stairs to his own rooms, Heero stilled Irea's hands. "I'm going to sleep this off in my own rooms," he said.

Irea flinched. "Are you sure?"

Heero could tell that it wasn't him she was worried about. "Yes," he said, standing up.

"Lord Barton's waiting in your rooms for you. He wants to tell you what happened."

"Good," Heero said agreeably, then stared at Tsu, who stood humbly by the wall, head down. Heero smiled at him, and Svelte flinched like he'd been hit. "Give my sister a hug for me," he ordered. Tsu's eyes widened and Heero grinned shamelessly. "I'm all out of anger. There's just none left," he said, smiling, with one hand rubbing his temple, his brows showing how much his head hurt, but the curve of his lips said that he was just ridiculously, deliriously happy that yesterday was over.

When Luna woke, he was on his side, his hands tied very tightly and securely in the prayer position. There were pressure bandages just above his bands, preventing the wounds from leaking much blood, as they couldn't exactly wrap a bandage over the bands or underneath them. He felt week and woozy from loss of blood, and mighty confused as well. He was supposed to be dead, wasn't he?

None of that was what scared him. What scared him was the body at his back.

It curled around him so tightly and perfectly that Luna knew immediately it was Heero. He tensed and tried to curl up further.

"Don't do that," his master said in the voice of the mostly asleep, then moved the hand that had been holding Luna to him to his shoulder, rubbing it softly until Luna relaxed. It was hard, but he managed to make himself do it, slowly forcing his tensed muscles to untense, whereupon they just quivered.

Heero's hand left his shoulder and made its way back around his body, resting on Luna's stomach. Luna wanted to move, to roll over and see if Heero was the way he had been before, whether he was mad, but he stopped himself from moving. If his master was mad, moving would just make him madder.

Luna felt him take in a deep breath of air through his nose, which was buried in his hair, then he released it and Luna felt his master's lips curve in a smile against his head.

Thank the Moon. He wasn't mad anymore. Luna let out a long breath of his own, and gathered up the courage to crane his neck around, trying to see his master behind him.

Heero met his eyes for not even a second before he looked away, biting his lip. When he looked back, he refused to look his slave in the eye, but it wasn't from anger.

He placed his hand on Luna's left cheek, covering up the bruise there that clashed madly with his eyes, then buried his head in the boy's neck. "Trowa spoke to me. I won't punish you for using magic," he said quietly. "Not this time, not under those circumstances." He placed a lingering kiss to Luna's throat, which was also bruised. "And I think I gave you enough punishment yesterday."

Luna let out another long, rattled breath, feeling his body start to relax properly. Heero hadn't actually apologized for it, and hadn't said it was wrong, but Luna honestly didn't care at that stage. He was just glad to be back in his master's good esteem, as he'd been so worried he never would be again.

Smiling, and holding back a sob of relief, he rolled over. Heero pulled back slightly, apprehensive, but Luna just curled up impossibly tight and nuzzled his head into his master's chest, placing a light kiss there before closing his eyes and relaxing again. He made no move with his hands, understanding the need for them to be bound together.

At that point in time, he didn't care if his master never untied them, he was just glad yesterday was over. Then Heero's arms were circling around his shoulders and a hand was stroking his hair, and everything felt so good. He just wanted so much to rest, to go to sleep in his master's arms and and preferably wake up there too.

He woke up only a little bit when Heero untied his hands, but when Heero rubbed something cool and soothing into the rope burns, he just smiled and fell into oblivion once more.

Heero didn't apologize for hitting his slave. Luna didn't really mind. When he had decided to do this, he had been prepared for beatings and hurt. He'd hoped not to get hurt, but he had expected to. While Luna figured that his master didn't apologize because he hadn't actually done anything wrong, beating a slave was perfectly legal and acceptable, he didn't actually know the real reason he didn't receive an apology.

It was because Heero was scared he wouldn't be forgiven.

The clearing was bright and sunny, there were birds singing, and small yellow flowers had popped up from the ground amidst the green grass.

Then two separate teleportation pentagons appeared, and two men stared daggers at each other. The happy atmosphere abruptly burst into flame and shrivelled to ashes.

One of them held a cane in one arm, resting heavily on it. "I woke up this morning and I heard nothing. I was so annoyed I stubbed my toe on my dresser. Do you have any idea how much it hurts to ram a perpetually burnt toe into the corner of a piece of furniture?"

The other mage, the dusty blonde haired one, sighed. "It's not my fault you're clumsy," he drawled.

"I didn't pay you in advance," the raven haired man yelled, "So that you could effectively change nothing!"

The blonde sighed again. "Relax. I'll get the job done. You did pay me already," he said with honor unexpected for a member of the Assassin's Guild. "And it's personal now. Not only did Yuy manage to suffer through my charm without killing a single person, his damned slave had the gall to refuse me! To my face!"

The employer muttered something unintelligible, which the employee suspected was something along the lines of 'I don't blame him', to which he snarled.

"They know me now. They know we're after something. They're not likely to leave the slave unprotected for quite some time. There's also the possibility he removed my binding spell, which could have been what saved himself and Barton. If that happened now, while the brat's weak, and young, then when he gets stronger he might actually be able to defend himself from us. I think we need a change of plan. Forget the slave. Go after the sister."

The employer tapped his cane on the ground. "Not good. The sister keeps a sorcerer too, rumours have it that he's powerful too. And he's not impaired the way Yuy's is."

The blonde laughed. "Powerful under whose scale? Yuy's? Mortal men judge him powerful. All we need to know is that he was weak enough to get caught. And weak enough to stay in slavery, for Deathscythe's sakes. He's easily taken care of."

The employer tapped his cane on the ground again, thinking. "If you're willing to take the risk," he said, nodding.

The assassin laughed. "Risk? What risk? But if you're worried about me," his voice suddenly changed tone, becoming strangely affectionate. "You could come along. I promise I'll keep you safe, my darling cripple."

Ignoring the jibe, the other man shook his head. "I don't want to get personally involved yet," he said.

The employee laughed. "Let me tempt you," he said. "She's unmarried, sick and feeble," he said, feigning pity in his voice, then snapping back with a crude grin. "I can guarantee she's never had a lover in her life, and I promise I'll let you have the first go."

The cane faltered in its now rhythmic tapping on the soft earth, then started up again, faster. "We leave no one alive. I want Yuy to stew in the mystery of not knowing who's responsible."

The blonde raised a brow. "Why, will someone recognize you?"

The dark haired man laughed, a short, barking sound. "Maybe not personally, but if anyone sees my leg, they'll all know who I am."

The blonde furrowed his brow. "It's not like me to particularly care what the grudge is between my employer and my victim, but if you'd care to explain?"

The other man barked again, grabbing his cane and shoving it into the ground. "I killed his mother," he said simply, gesturing at his leg. "And this is what I got for it. Some shmuck sorcerer, fresh out of prison, decides to try to magefire burn my leg off. Only reason I still have the leg is because I hit water immediately."

The blonde nodded slowly, the wheels turning. "I didn't put two and two together," he said, staring at the employer's leg. "I'd thought that was a curse or something, I never expected it to be a magefire burn... You must be in agony." In a rare display, the blonde showed a sign of pity, an expression of humility. "Is that why we're killing them off first, and not just going straight for the item? You want Yuy to see you with that limp, so he knows you?"

The man nodded. "Once Yuy's dead, Karen Miya's practically up for grabs. The Princess ain't going to run it," he said, then paused and added, "Especially not if she's dead. It'll be a quick take, kill Yuy and all heirs – not that there are many – take his crown and set anyone that tries to take it from me on fire. They'll learn pretty quickly."

The blonde stared at him with an odd expression. "You don't strike me as a King," he said carefully.

"And that's supposed to mean what?" the other snarled. "I shouldn't have to remind you who's in charge here."

The dark skinned blonde raised his hands in defence, and then shrugged. "I never said you couldn't be a King. I just didn't think that was your aim."

The black haired mage let his hackles drop and he chuckled. "You're a good reader," he said. "I don't give a shit for Karen Miya. All I want is a few days free reign in the castle."

The blonde smirked. "Ahh, and it all makes sense. You get the castle, you get to find it."

The cane dropped to the ground again, resuming a fast beat. "The only thing that can heal a magefire burn this big is a Child," he said, grinning.

His blonde friend smirked again. "And when you find it, you'll have two."

Trowa slipped into the room, holding his secret very close to his chest in a small jewelled box. Luna was sleeping peacefully, curled up under Heero's covers.

No one had ever been able to figure out why Luna never woke up when people entered, only when he was touched, shook or spoken to. WuFei said that it was to do with magic and trust - the magic sensed who was there, and if there was no trust in that person, then the magic allowed the mage's senses to wake them up. If there was trust, then the magic blocked the senses in favor of rest.

WuFei made alot of observations that made sense, but none of what he said was confirmable. He had hunches on why mages did things or what magic was, and often enough they were correct, but no mage would ever risk burning in Hell for telling him that.

Trowa knelt by the bed, opening up the box, taking a long look at the ring inside. Heero had measured the slave's ring finger while the boy was sleeping, and had found this ring in the treasury himself, so Trowa knew it would fit.

Left hand, left hand, he thought to himself, folding the blankets back and carefully uncurling Luna's left hand from the fist it made in the sheets.

He slid the ring on, nodding to himself. The diamonds did go well with the boy's skin. Trowa wondered how many more presents he would be delivering.

"Luna," he called softly. "Wake up."

Luna stirred and opened his eyes, blinking and shrinking back from Trowa's close proximity. Trowa smiled, reaching out to hold Luna's slim fingers with his own.

The ring sparkled in the light and Luna saw it, gasped, and tried to bring his hand up to study it, but Trowa wouldn't let go.

"Did you know," Trowa began, "That slaves, like yourself, aren't allowed to wear rings?"

Luna blinked, looking at the ring again, as though wondering whether he should try to take it off, but Trowa still had his hand.

"Slaves are never supposed to take the place of a wife or a lover," Trowa said matter of factly. "And those are the ones who are supposed to wear rings, as symbols of marriage or engagement or memories."

Trowa brought Luna's hand to his lips and kissed the ring lightly. "So understand, my good friend, that this gift from your master is extremely special, but also extremely secret. If anyone sees you wearing a ring unattached to a slave bracelet, it will reflect very badly on him."

With that, he released Luna's hand, so that the boy could study his new possession. As he held it up to the light and saw it properly, three small diamonds fitted into a thick silver band, he smiled, brighter than the diamonds.

Trowa smirked. This slave responded extremely well to gifts, which was good, because Heero seemed to have raided the treasury that morning.

Over the next four days, Luna received gifts from his master, which he made sure to be wearing when the master returned for the night.

He was especially grateful for a set of silk ribbons in every color imaginable, which were incredibly long and obviously meant to be cut to size, but Luna ignored the blade given to him and weaved the full length of the black ribbon into his hair in a braid, using the ends to tie it off. He felt unbelievably better when his hair was finally tied back again, despite how much his arms ached from having to be held above his head while he braided. His happiness was noticed even by Heero, who promptly found that he liked his slave's hair in the long plait that reached his thighs.

Heero discovered that although he couldn't run his hands through Luna's hair the way he liked, the braid stopped him from having to brush the hair every single day, and brushing it was a feat in itself. He also found himself highly satisfied by grabbing the base of the plait and winding it around his hand, then closing it in a fist, effectively making his slave leashed to him by his own mass of silky chestnut hair.

Luna received a slave bracelet of an extremely expensive nature, made of silver, with amethysts on every connection. The bracelet, which attached to his middle finger, fit like a second skin. It was different in design to other slave bracelets, which just dipped in a triangle shape to attach to the ring, in that this one covered his entire hand, with small amethysts designed to dangle and rest on each finger, while the ring was long, reaching his second knuckle, where it gave way to drop another amethyst just below his second knuckle. Luna found the thing hypnotic and mesmerising, and he stared at it for hours on end, just watching the craftsmanship and the way the gems on his fingers swayed like beads.

Luna received five pairs of gloves, to which his eyes nearly bulged from his skull. He had never owned five items of clothing at once before, let alone five items of the same type of clothing. He had a pair for horseriding, which he had never done before, a pair for riding in formality, which were the same as the other pair, black and leather, just with silver stitching and Heero's crest on the back, a simple hawk's feather. He had another formal pair, not for riding, made of satin, which reached his elbows and had a silk trim around the wrist. They also had silver stitching and Heero's crest. He also had a pair of winter gloves, made of fluffy black wool. They were trimmed with fur and reached his forearms. Lastly, he had a pair of everyday gloves, made of black satin that reached the elbow.

Heero seemed quite intent on smothering him with things, and while Luna loved each and every one, he was nervous about what exactly Heero might be trying to buy from him.

Trowa, for some strange reason, had a habit of seeing right through his every nervous gesture. Trowa read him like a scribe to a book, and he didn't bother to hide it. Trowa talked to him like no one else could, watching him intently, hearing him with his eyes instead of his ears. Naturally, Trowa picked up on his nerves almost immediately, and for some reason, knew exactly what it was about.

"Don't pay him back," the ex-Hunter said. "You're a sex slave. His sex slave. If he wanted your favors, he would just take them, not try to bribe them from you with things. He's Royalty, remember that. He has never, and will never, have to pay for sex. He can get that for free. If he is trying to buy something from you, it isn't that."

Trowa then, far more obviously than was necessary, raised his hand and rubbed at his left cheek as though it was sore or bruised, then held his hand out, seemingly to inspect his fingernails, each digit held straight up, as though he were signalling the number five. He then smirked and winked.

"Milk it."

Things between Heero and Luna fell back to the way they had been, as though Heero had never laid a hand on him, despite the bruises to the contrary. Luna reverted back to being obedient, affectionate and submissive without being afraid almost immediately. Heero suspected that Luna believed that his actions had all been the work of the spell, and while he didn't say anything to the contrary, he feared that it may not be true.

Heero wasn't angry about Luna rooming with Winner anymore, but he found it hard to be angry about anything at all. He'd been sapped dry of all his anger that day. He wasn't angry about it, but he wasn't happy about it either. He was jealous, wary, annoyed and sad that Winner had blemished his slave's past, but thankfully, he was not angry in the slightest.

Luna slowly built up a ravenous appetite, eating breakfast with Heero every morning and three other smaller meals with Irea through the day. Trowa became actively involved in helping Luna get better, offering to keep him company, bring him meals, make sure he drank his potions. He also became quite an annoyance to Heero, something he had never been before, as he pushed and prodded the King about the slave walking.

Heero wasn't ready to think about that yet, as he had lots on his mind from the sorcerer attack to the arrival of Zechs Merquise, but Trowa was persistant.

Trowa didn't think the way Heero did, staring ahead in thought of the future, trying to think of how he could keep Luna the way he was, obedient, affectionate, and submissive. Heero wanted Luna to stay where he was until he saw that being let out of that room, even on a short leash, was a privilege and a reward, not a right.

Trowa disagreed. He said to Heero that Luna needed to start trying to walk right now, or his feet would become so far gone that when he did try he would be unable to. He said that if Heero wanted him bedridden, it was better and kinder to chain him there, because at least then there would be hope and a desire to earn the privilege and reward of leaving Heero's quarters.

After almost constant pestering, Heero snapped under pressure and gave Irea the go ahead, and they arranged a time for her to survey his feet again, prescribe some proper shoes, and see what they could do.

Luna was nervous, his lips red from being bitten, when Irea showed up and started to stare intently at his ankles. He had gotten rather good at hiding them away, ignoring them, and every other way of keeping them from being touched, but Irea was insistant and Heero stood there, leaning on the wall, staring down at them both with a glare that could have pierced a shield.

So Luna did as he was told, trying to move his foot around like Irea told him to, even as every fibre of his being told him not to. He couldn't bend his ankle as far as he was supposed to be able to, and he simply couldn't move the toes on his left foot. It was blissfully pleasant for him to discover that they didn't hurt at all when Irea touched them and bended them, but then again, they didn't feel anything else either. Everything else just seemed to hurt, and neither person in the room seemed inclined to give him mercy no matter how many pained looks he sent them.

And then Irea took his feet in her hand, one then the other, and started bending them herself, poking and prodding, moving and then pushing on them. She pushed his foot flat onto the floor, which hurt to begin with, then pressed down onto his knee.

Luna let loose every dirty word he knew, and then came up with a few new ones, trying to use creative energy to distract from the pain. It didn't work, of course, but it was the first time since before the Maxwell Church that he had used such foul language and gotten away with it.

Once he had gotten that out of his system, he promptly told Irea that she was a sailor's whore, and watched her bemused stare as she tried to read his lips. That helped him feel a little less angry at her.

Spurred on, he turned to Heero, thinking of all the mean things he should spit at him for hitting him, for treating him like he was some sort of pet, for being semi-responsible for imprisoning him in that cell, that hell of a dungeon.

You bastard, you arse, he thought. You unholy dog's whore. You stupid, cruel, rapist, bastard. You took me into your bed like you had the right, you put me into a room with no moonlight then punished me for trying to get to the window so I wouldn't fucking die! You forced me when I was too weak to resist! You coward, you blue-blooded noble shit! And you seem to take some sick pleasure in that I can't make a sound, can't tell you what a bastard you are! I ought to curse you, I ought to set you aflame, I ought to burn your house down! I ought to bring the wrath of the Moon upon you, you failure, you bad seed, you!

"I love you."

Quatre paused, the brush halfway through his hair, which reached his shoulders after all those years without proper grooming. He frowned, looking into the mirror in Mister Have's personal quarters, which Rashid and the other Maguanacs had generously given him.

His knuckles were white on the brush, and his scalp hurt from where the hair had pulled when he had raked the brush too hard. He took a few deep breaths, staring into the mirror.

He'd felt anger so fierce it had taken over him for a moment. And it had been Duo's anger. Duo was mad, very mad. Quatre kept breathing slowly.

As fast as it had hit him, Duo's emotion had left, leaving nothing at all, as though it had never been there to begin with. What could be happening to Duo? Why couldn't he find Duo through the link in his heart? He tried and tried, but Duo's emotions simply weren't accessible. That had only ever happened when someone died, but Duo was alive, the leech still fed him, even though he didn't need it now. Duo was alive but ... suppressed in some way.

Quatre slowly picked the brush out of his hair, putting his head in his hands. He had to find Duo. But there was no way of finding him without going to the capital and digging up the records of where sorcerers were sent or sold after leaving prison, and he had too many things to do here. He was sorting through every single prisoner, taking the good and putting them in the care and teaching of the more powerful sorcerers, remodelling the entire labyrinth to something that could hopefully one day act as a place of learning for sorcerers, and a place to hold in those that could not be redeemed.

A man deep in the prison, nicknamed Laki by Quatre, would never leave these walls. He drew power from earth, and upon being surrounded by it on all sides in the underground prison, he had gone completely mad. He had lost all comprehension, even that if he used magic, the bands would hurt him. He had tried to shield against whatever hurt him, but the bands continued their piercing and he had lashed out, using magic through his hands to hurt everyone and everything around him. The bands pierced, blood flowed, but he did not weaken as power was fed to him in masses.

Rashid's emotion, when he had told Quatre of the day he had first severed Laki's hands, had forced Quatre to tears. Since then, he had severed them three times. They just kept growing back.