Temper the Soul

Chapter 5

By Zapenstap




Damion went to bed with a profound sense of stillness after his father's funeral. The world seemed slow and languid. It was too quiet. Tomorrow night was the last of the weekend's festivities, hosted for a smaller number of guests, and still a highly insensitive affair. He wanted nothing more than to shut himself down, to wall himself up in his room and be morbid for awhile in solitude, but he hadn't that luxury. Things were improving otherwise. His mother seemed easier after the funeral, silent and reflective, but not the wreck that so unnerved him those first long and painful days. It was disturbing to see one's parents helpless and unhappy, to feel the obligation to lighten their worries. He wondered if parents lived in that sort of constant state of anxiety for their children. He decided not to think about that.

His thoughts roamed to Audrey, as they must of late. She would be his wife after all. In six months or a year he would marry her. He was barely twenty-one, but he was Prince Regent. In six months to a year he would be a king, if a king under another title. It had seemed so frightening, so entirely overwhelming, but somehow the knowledge of the wedding eased his mind. He would not be alone. Audrey had more than the qualifications necessary to be an asset to him. He knew it ought to feel strange to think first of how he could use her, but knowing he loved her dismissed the insensitivity of that. She would be useful to him as his wife, but he would love her regardless. And she would love him in return he hoped, hoped it with every breath in his body, but even if she didn't he would still be true to her. Anything else was unthinkable.

Could it be possible that he already loved her? He could see her in his thoughts, the turn of her head, the form of her body, the glance of her eye, the sense of her in the way she moved and spoke. She was beautiful, quiet and reflective, with the discerning intelligence and self-possession that confused and fascinated him. What a Queen she would make! He smiled in anticipation, and wondered at his own eagerness.

How strange that she would occupy his mind so quickly and so completely. Was it this that Heero felt Relena after the war had ended, this soft sense of airy wonder and contentment? If he dwelt too long upon it his stomach would tremble, his heart constrict. He knew it was mostly psychological. He could control his thoughts of her, and to a degree his reactions, but he didn't want to control them. He wanted to feel like this, to float out of the sorrow and sadness that would otherwise occupy his thoughts. He wanted to fall in love with her, to know her in all her faculties, to build a life with her of lasting warmth and tenderness. Perhaps it was a pipe dream, the idle wishful thinking of a young man thrust into a destiny not of his own choosing and trying to make the best of it, but why not?

Tomorrow night he would dance with her. It could be awkward or it could be wonderful. Perhaps he would get a better idea of her feelings for him. Perhaps they could talk honestly about their expectations for one another. He hadn't officially proposed to her yet, and there was much that went with a prince's proposition to marry. There was much that went with everything he did now. But he didn't want to talk business with her tomorrow night. No, tomorrow night he just wanted to romance her if he could, to feel her out, expecting nothing but hoping for the best.

What he didn't want to think of right now was his father's death, or the disquiet rising in the west and the requests he had received upon the matter.

*****

Audrey knelt over a tallow candle burning singley in her darkened room, shielding the flickering flame with the cupped palm of her hand. She caught a glance at herself in the mirror, her black dress and dark hair emphasizing the pale tones of her skin. The light from the candle made her face glow eerily, her eyes light up. If not for the tears in them, she might have looked supernatural, even ghostly.

There was no reason to turn off all of the lights and light a candle except that it reflected her mood. Why she would cry at a stranger's funeral she did not know, but her heart was heavy and she wanted nothing more than to be alone... if she could not be Damion.

Curse the thought! She wasn't falling in love with him. She merely sympathized. She had watched him throughout the proceedings, watched his face as his father's coffin was lowered into a grave. Damion face was so pale and so stiffened he might have been the one dead. He could not cry, not in front of so many thousands of people, and to keep his composer he had assumed a coldness to his countenance. The wintery chill permeating his expression and cold gray eyes was fit to freeze the summer flowers until their petals petrified and cracked off. He was also the sole remaining support for his mother, who, escorted by him, wept unceasingly throughout the entire procedure. He said nothing, looked at no one, and refused all offers of assisstance. Even his friend Manny had done nothing but stand by him, but Manny had known Damion's father since childhood, and he let more emotion show for his benefactor than did the King's own son.

Audrey had watched, feeling her own sense of sorrow and bleakness, and the cold anger that always accompanied thoughts of her mother's death...and her father's absence from it. She wanted to comfort her fiance--how strange and foreign was that idea!--but she knew she was not the best role model in situations as these. She would either have advocated cynicism or fallen into her own emotional grief, in which she would undoubtedly seek his comfort when he needed hers.

So now, when everything was done, she sat alone in her rooms with a single candle, praying to a God she believed in in theory if not always in feeling. She wasn't even clearly certain what she prayed for, there were so many things to be worried about, but at length she felt even her emotions were incomprehensible, much less her words, retired to bed with the sort of heavy emotional exhaustion she hoped could only bring peace.

But her dreams were interlaced with the nightmare of memory. She saw herself as a child, standing on a dock by the sea, smiling up at her father as he kissed her mother and headed to his ship. He lifted her in his arms and kissed her forehead. She laughed and wrapped her little arms around his neck, chattering in his ear about nothing, telling him how she hoped he would soon come home soon, that she was sad he would miss her birthday that year. And then she had seen her mother behind him, the grave expression on her face, the unhappy glow in her eyes, and little Audrey's enthusiasm had faltered in confusion. Abruptly she was being set down again, though she clung to her father's hand. But he disengaged her grip, turned, and was gone.

He did miss her birthday that year, and all the birthdays after that, without explanation or communication, until her mother died, ten years later. When he finally came home, he did not get a welcome reception from his daughter, who had lived without him long enough, who in the intervening years had grown up on the bitter lamentations of her mother, the constant warnings against men and marriage until she could no longer frequent male society without unbidden apprehension. And none of that even touched on the horrors of her reaction to her mother's death, without any parent or mentor to guide her, hating and missing men so much. It was her own fault, and an additional burden to her concerns, but she did not want to think about, especially knowing that she would soon have to.

And now she was getting married to a prince. She was told how he was wonderful, but her father had been wonderful too, until his work and play became too important to him and he stoppd coming home. As much as she was growing to like Damion, she could not think of those beautiful gray eyes without a hidden sense of revulsion and fear. She was crippled, horribly and unfairly crippled. If only Damion did not want so much from her. If only she could enter her obligation without expectation. She felt she was the worst first choice in the world. Why, oh why, did he want to fall in love with her? That he had she was sure, and the clarity of it only made the knowledge more painful.

The candle burned to nothing as she slept restlessly, and in the morning all she could allow herself to think about was the preparations for the ball tonight. She hoped her eyes were not too shadowed. But she imagined his would be too.

*****

A few hours before the ball the day after the funeral, Heero rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. Perched on a stool in one of the many formal rooms of the Taravren palace, he felt out of place, even in a tuxedo, perhaps because he was in a tuxedo. He felt unrefined, like an actor in a play or a puppet on a stage.

He was alone in the room except for the servants preparing for the arrival of the guests within a few hours. He had sought solace downstairs, away from anything personal to him. In this beautiful setting, all that he could think about was the Wing Zero of all things, of past battles and victories and losses, of sorrows and sufferings where, though he was unhappy, at least he had felt useful.

The ticking of the clock was not helping.

"Hey, there you are!" Duo said from the doorway, strolling in. He was followed by Terese and Hilde, giggling together like old friends. It was strange how quickly they had taken to each other, but Heero wasn't really paying them any attention. Duo stopped in front of him. "Why are you already dressed?" Duo asked. "Party doesn't start for another few hours, Heero."

"I know," he replied. "I need to think about some things." He did, and he didn't want to be in his room.

Relena had been so cheerful today, and last night. They had not fought once, nor was any suggestion of sleeping together made. It had lifted his heart at first, but now he was wondering why she was suddenly so complacent. He had meant to talk to her, he'd been slowly building up the courage, but he couldn't find the right moment, and his thoughts died on his lips when he looked at her. She told him she intended to get ready with Audrey and the other girls tonight, that she would see him at the party, and then had left him alone in the room. He couldn't stand to be in there long, with her or by himself. Everything he looked at reminded him of her, especially reminded him of sex with her and it drove him crazy with desire and self-loathing. He knew he ought to just sleep with her and talk afterwards, but he couldn't. He had decided he wouldn't, and backing off from that now felt too much like failure. He had set himself a ridiculous mission and now he had to see it through.

Duo shrugged and pulled up a stool beside him. Hilde and Terese kept walking, heading toward Audrey's apartments with swift steps. They were carrying their dresses in plastic bags and Terese seemed to have a kit filled with what looked to be hair products. Heero didn't pay them much notice.

Duo sat beside him in silence for a moment. "What's up with you lately, Heero?" he asked at last.

Heero shurgged. "Nothing. Don't worry about it."

"Something with Relena?" the other gundam pilot pressed. "Are you guys fighting? Because that really upsets me."

Heero just looked at him. "I said don't worry about it." He stood up and slung his coat over his shoulder. "It doesn't concern you."

He felt Duo's eyes on his back as he walked away, but he refused to turn around, and he certainly wasn't going to "talk." Not right now. If he still couldn't talk to Relena about what he wanted, he certainly wasn't going to mention it to anyone else, not anyone who knew him well enough to judge him anyway. But who really knew him...? Was there anything to know? Sometimes he felt like the ghost of a person, going through the motions of living, a mere imitation of who he was supposed to be, what he could have been if that old had not been not killed so long ago. But trying to complete the process had been futile, and after all, it seemed even ghosts could love. As long as there was that, there was reason to live, even reason to want to live happily.

He walked into the next room and found a couch against a window. He leaned his head back on the headrest and lost all sense of time in his thoughts. Most of them were about Relena, manifesting in various ways. He tried to think of all the things he knew about her, all the things she had been before she became a sexual object for his use. He remembered her unwavering spirit, her bravery, her determination and strength, her unconditional love and compassion for strangers and enemies alike. To such a spirited and caring, but innocent girl had fallen enormous tragedy and responsibility. But she had thrown her own happiness away for the peace of the world. She carried a burden on her slender shoulders that was restricting and defining to her personality, that caused her endless grief and frustration, but that she bore with pride and conviction. She would always fight her battles as he had always fought his. And she would always love him, always care for him.

But did she do it because she loved his soul or because her innate compassion drew her to him in pity and her need for his love? Without him, she lived a lonely life admist the glitz and bustle of her office. Without her, his life was lonelier. But was loneliness a good reason for love?

Abruptly he realized there was music, talking, the clinking of glasses and the constant click of many heeled shoes on wooden floors. He stood up and followed the sounds to the main ballroom. He stood a moment in the doorway, tranfixed by the sight before him. Waitors roamed the room with trays of food and champagne. Women in floor-length formals floated across the polished wooden floors like angels or visions out of artwork. They were accompanied by men dressed smartly in expensives tuxedos with gold cufflinks, some with diamonds, striding by their sides with confidence, escorting them with one an offered arm or a hand held just away from the lower back. Heero watched them move about, watched the silent social rules of their manners in their greetings and talk. He saw how their jewelry caught the glitter of gold in the picture frames on the walls and the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. His eyes drifted to the food, to the service, to the tapestries hanging from the walls, the antique vases on the tables, the glitter of the silverware, the people, the clothes, the finery and the way in which everyone before him seemed to meld together as a part of the luxurious scene rather than as participants in it.

It came to him that Damion was wealthy. Very, very wealthy. Of course, he was a prince, a king, but Heero had not really taken it into account before. Damion was wealthy, refined, nobly born and privleged to power and importance. He was everything Heero was not. Heero caught sight of the prince just in front of the door, greeting a woman in a glittering silver dress. Damion bowed to kissed her hand, tilting her wrist at a precise angle with his own hand, gloved in white. She laughed and pleasantries were exchanged between them before she continued on inside, escorted by another man a good many years her senior, the tips of her fingers resting lightly on his arm.

"Hey, Heero!" Duo said from behind him, clapping him on the shoulder. "Can you believe this? I totally don't belong here."

Heero kept his expression neutral. "Yeah," he agreed, and tried to think of any excuse for leaving. Thoughts of the Wing Zero came again into his head. Battles. Battles were his scene, not this. The only reason he would ever be in a place like this was on a mission, like he had attended some functions to watch Relena before. It was easier then, when he knew his presence in such a place was illegitimate, that he was faking it, that he had a secret. Secrets were psychological advantages. But now he felt stripped to nothing, reminded of who and what he really was. It was not this. It could never be this.

"Damion's coming our way," Duo said cheerily. "Way to make a poor pilot feel important. I'm loving this!"

Heero tried not to look at him, tried not to feel embarrassed. Duo would be the sort to pretend to be something he was not, to socialize with these people as if he were on their level, but all they would do was humor him and then laugh as soon as he was gone. He had already caught a few curious glances in their direction. People such as they could never merge into this society. Even Quatre would have difficulties with it. His money was the business sort, earned by hard work, not the sort that filtered through his hands by generations of habit. His company would be tolerated, even humored, but in the end dismissed. Was that how Damion thought of them? Was he polite in their presence, but amused and dismissive as soon as they were gone? Heero couldn't be sure. Damion was more Relena's friend than his. It was her company he sought, her life style, her love all those years ago. The thought was unsettling. What did Relena think of him?

Abruptly Damion was upon them, a waitor following on his heels with champagne glasses balanced on a tray. Damion took one and handed it to Heero and then to Duo before taking one for himself. The waitor bowed and left them at a gesture.

Damion sipped on the champagne lightly. "I'm glad to see you both here," he said with a small smile. "I was afraid you might feel intimidated by all the formality."

Formality? A polite word for money and high society in Damion's vocabulary. Heero took a swallow of his champagne and tried to stop thinking. Why was he feeling this way? His thoughts were downright belligerent, and unfair to such a benevolent host. He decided to let Duo talk if talking was necessary. He wasn't dissapointed.

"It's fun so far," Duo said cheerily. "Still waiting on the ladies, though."

"They'll no doubt be fashionably late," Damion said dryly.

Heero swallowed and looked down at his champagne glass. He took a swallow and tried not to look anyone in the eye. He suddenly had more of a loathing to see Relena than ever before. It was strange, and sudden. Was it really her he did not want to see, or her in this atmosphere? Why did things have to be so complicated? He knew he loved her. He knew it. Even now emotion stirred gently in his heart, beneath his disquiet and unexplained anger. He had no reason to be angry, but he could not help wondering, wondering if she really loved him. If so, whatever did she love him for? He was a soldier, her protector, and yes, her lover. But should he be that last? Was it really allowed? He wanted sex with her, even now he wanted that, but was it really her, or would just any girl who cared for him as she cared do? The thought made him sick.

Where could this relationship possibly lead? There seemed to be only two destinations, and both were unthinkable.

"Heero, are you okay?" Damion asked him abrubtly, concern showing from his grey eyes beneath the dark hair.

Noble Prince Damion. Friendly Prince Damion. Romantic Prince Damion. Heero had stabbed this man once. He had stabbed him over a girl. Could it really be said that they were friends, even now, or was he faking it, just as he faked so many relationships?

You only want to sleep with her.

Yes, Damion had said that, exhausted in the rain and mud, physically defeated, but not destroyed. Heero had denied the accusation. He had claimed he loved her, but was his jealousy then spurned of love, or lust? How was he ever to know the difference?

Perhaps he merely mimicked what was expected of him while his true self glowered ever powerful from the dark shadows of his heart. How much could he really change in a few years? Was he really friends with Damion, Prince Damion, and did he really love Relena, Vice Foreign Minister Relena, Relena Peacecraft, the Queen of the World Relena? Or did he merely cling to her because he was desperate, desperate for love, for understanding, for unconditional compassion and trust? He was like a little lost child, foolishly in love with a girl who should have nothing to do with him. That she loved him back, or claimed she did, did not affect the matter. He was a fool, a lovesick fool, but still a fool.

But God help him, he wanted her. He wanted her to be with him forever, in love or lust or neither, he just wanted her to be there. He wanted to marry her.

The crystalized thought was so clear and so shocking he almost dropped his glass, but caught himself at the last second.

"I'm fine," he said a little breathlessly, but the worried expression on Damion's face indicated frank disbelief.




Yeah, I know I suck for being slow with this chapter. I'm sorry. I had to cut my original intention in half because it was going to take too long. THANK YOU for being patient. I love my readers so much and read everything they write. PLEASE write a review and come back to read and review as I update for the next chapter. Believe me, the next chapter will be WORTH it!