The Mandred Chronicles:

Resolution

by zapenstap





Immilie's pronouncment hung like certain doom over Heero's head. Relena, still looking so new and lovely, turned to him for answers with shining, troubled eyes. He couldn't reply.

"But why?" Duo sputtered for him. "Aren't you two... together? Why would you betray him?"

Immile's eyes sparkled and she crossed the room like a swan. She did not touch Mandred, but she stood before him like a herald, a slender blade of a woman bearing a profound message of doom. "Mandred has broken a rule and this time he will confess it," she said simply. "That's accountability, even if the cause was just." She smiled then at Relena. "I am glad you are better," she said. "I have enjoyed our conversations and it was not my wish that you be caught up in this. I, too, will have something to say to the Council."

Heero swallowed, gaze swinging between Immilie and Mandred, feeling distraught. "Mandred..." he began.

"Who came?" Falora asked. "I felt..."

"Soronith," Mandred told her.

"Ah," Coran said. "That explains it."

"Soronith witnessed no verifiable breach in covenant," Immilie said dismissively. "I will hold you accountable."

Heero swallowed. "Mandred...?" he asked again. "What's going to happen to you?"

Mandred smiled at him mysteriously.

"Nothing," Kyra said curtly and suddenly, startling all of them with the abrupt candidness of her tone. "I hold you accountable too, Mandred," she added briskly, almost with a flippant air. "I'm employed under the Throne after all, not you."

Immilie blinked. "Of course," she said thoughtfully.

Kyra stood, helping Falora to her feet. "You all right?" she asked her friends, who minutes ago had not been able to lift her head.

Falora bounded to her feet like a deer, stamping her feet and waving her arms as if checking to make sure everything worked properly. She smiled broadly. Heero thought she was the strangest person he had ever met, hysterically happy one moment, intensely focused the next. Any moment he somehow felt that she might burst into song or tears, an even chance either way. She took direction without the flicker of an eyelash, absorbed pain like a soldier and rebounded with a sort of dismissive casualty that surprised even him. He wondered about these people, normal human beings seemingly so ingrained in Mandred's Alfarian world.

Kyra ignored Falora's antics as if overly used to them, shaking her head at Immilie. "Yeah, well, I do the Masters a lot of favors, but my duties lie with Shine and Soronith and the Council." She looked over at Heero with strength in her gaze, a presence of assurity about her person. "Don't worry about it and don't listen to them," she told him. "The Council won't do anything to Mandred. I know them all, more personally than I need to. They wouldn't dare even if they had cause to be angry about something. Incarcerate a Master? Kiayne will probably congratulate him. Half the Council won't even show up to the proceedings."

"Can you imagine Elayse coming?" Coran said thoughtfully. "Or God forbid, Ramdula?"

"Elayse? Sure," Kyra said dryly. "Maybe to interrogate him about lost lore, but that's the only reason she'd step out of the University in Sileen, same as everybody else. Well, Ramdula would never come." She shook her head and turned back to Heero. "Of all the Masters, Mandred has the most scruples, except maybe Quenden, but that's different. Master Wushair appears before Council all the time for judgment. Ranlath is sometimes requested, but it's a forty per cent chance that he'll show up to a mandatory review. Wushair's there almost every month for some rule or another and they rarely even rebuke her, not that is would do any good if they did, and you should hear about some of the rules Wushair breaks! Mandred's the only one who hasn't officially broken the rules yet, or at least been caught doing it. Look at Immilie. That's glee in her face. She wants to bring him down just to bring him down. Look at her!"

And Immilie laughed, hiding her face with her hand and hair, face flushed even as she smiled. "He's too good," she said defensively. "He needs to fall down with the rest of us once in a while. I need to get him to come back to Elneira and reaquaint himself with normal people before I can marry him."

"Normal?" Coran muttered. "No one is normal in Elneira."

"That's all it takes?" Mandred laughed at Immilie. "And here I uphold you as a model for society and all you want is for me to make mistakes and live with common folk? My dear Immilie, I will become a criminal and live a house with a white picket fence in Cherian for you."

"Except than Cherian's not there anymore," Kyra reminded him. "It was destroyed."

Mandred waved her away. "That's right. I had fogotten."

"But you see, that's what I mean," Immilie told him, losing some of her formality. "You're out of it. I have been traveling for a long time with the Movement, but I do not wish to sever my connection with home eternally. Come back with me and show me that you are not so strange, that we are not so strange together."

"You want me to reintegrate myself in society, is that it?" Mandred asked her.

"It's what you want me to do," Heero said quietly, and everyone stopped to look at him.

Mandred chuckled. "Very clever," he said to Heero. "And the point well taken, but I already told you I would, Immilie. Wherever you want to go we will go. I've been everywhere else anyway. I think I am ready to settle down for a while, wherever you want, whatever you want."

"I think it would do you good," Immilie said, "to be recognized for who and what you are where you are living, and not be strange. I want to go home."

"God forbid if I live another ten thousand years and never understand the minds of women," Mandred said in exasperation. "You have the possibility of galaxies open before you and all you want to do is go home."

"I want a family," she said defiantly.

Mandred stared at her in absolute confounded shock.

Heero almost laughed at his mentor's reaction. He had never seen Mandred so surprised, so absoultely bewildered by anything anyone had said before. The thought of Mandred having a family, having his own children was bewildering to Heero; how it must seem to Mandred was incomprehensible. But his mentor nodded thoughtfully, smiled and bowed to Immilie. "As you say, my lady," he said. "It seems I have a trial to attend."

"What about Teleb?" Duo asked. "What did you do with him?"

"Oh, I defeated him," Mandred said brightly with his usual sort of confident matter-of-factness. "Don't you think I had forgotten him. Soronith is the Head General of Elneira, my home country. He came to me and took Teleb with him. He will expect me in Elneira soon, but I had to repair the damage Teleb had done here, and I needed to retrieve the diamond."

Falora moaned. "I thought you were going to let me keep it!" she wailed.

"Oh no, I think not," Mandred said. "Doubtless there is some great project underway through which it will be of some assistance. I did not ask Ranlath what he made them for. Why do you need it?"

"Maybe he's making it for you, Falora," Kyra suggested with overstated generality. "You are Ranlath's pet project."

Falora seemed to muse on that thoughtfully, completely unoffended.

There was so much here that Heero did not understand, names and places that were not familar, yet suddenly a sort of background formed behind Mandred, a home, a people, a place to which he belonged. There were people, friends, connections, relationships...

"Then you're really leaving," Heero said quietly.

Mandred turned to him and his eyes glowed warmly. "Yes, I really am. I warned you the time would come, and though this is not precisely how I envisioned it, I can not stay."

"You never really belonged here, I guess," Heero said, but there was dullness in his heart. "I suppose there's little use in saying good-bye."

Perhaps in this Elneira of his Mandred would be normal, an extraordinary normal from what he could gather about him, but normal all the same. Perhaps Heero too could learn to make a home, in this world, without Mandred, who did not really belong here at all. But Heero had been loved for awhile, shown what having a home was like, and he had that box back with all his papers and family and... Perhaps he could be an extraordinary normal too. An ex-gundam pilot who was also a human being. Would there be a girl like Immilie to take him back? He looked at Relena and wondered suddenly why he had never considered it before. She must have caught his gaze because she looked up at him suddenly and flushed. Maybe.

"Oh, I'll be back," Mandred said suddenly and Heero raised his head in surprise. Mandred smiled. "Did you think I would vanish forever? I have been here decades longer than most places, and I will continue to haunt it for some time, I think. I just won't take up residence. It's important to know where your roots are, and what are you vacation places. Besides," he said fondly, "I don't form a connection with youth and then drop them when they turn eighteen. You should know better than that. You've become like a son to me and there's still much we haven't discussed. I want to know your mind more, so you will see much of me," he continued. "And you are certainly invited to my wedding. And I will be around for all the important events in your life as well. I wouldn't miss them."

So Mandred would not go away forever. He was merely going home. Heero smiled.

"And if I ever have the need, I'll call on you," Kyra said. "No, really. You may not believe me, but I will. Now that you know this much, why not? I use all my friends like that."

"She does," Falora affirmed.

"That's enough, Kyra," Mandred warned. "What I want to know is what Heero is going to do when I am gone so I may find him later."

"I'm going to Earth," Heero said. "Lady Une and Noin may have a use for me as a Preventor, but I can do anything I want." Relena turned to him in surprise, emotion dancing in her eyes. He smiled at her, but then looked back at Mandred. "And visit my Great Aunt Ruth," he added.

"What?" Duo said in puzzlement at this last. Relena's expression changed to confusion.

"Heero will share his box with you later," Mandred told them briskly. "I wish you the best, Heero. I'm glad you've settled that in you own mind. Something will have to be done about the house. I do not know if I will be permitted to handle it."

"I can do it," Heere said.

Mandred nodded. "Then you can buy your own place on the Earth and do whatever you like."

"I'd like that," Heero said.

"Good. Remember to take care of the puppy."

"Of course," Heero said.

"You have a puppy?" Relena asked. "Can I see him?"

Heero nodded.

"Can we get out of here?" Duo whined. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I really hate this building. Besides, I'm hungry. I want to get something to eat."

Kyra gasped. "I forgot all about the shortcake!"

"Did you turn the oven off?" Mandred demanded. "It would be a shame if my house burned down."

"Yeah, I think so," Kyra said. "Oh, but it's going to be all cold now."

"We'll heat it up," Falora said reassuringly, her optimism so bold it ought to have been reserved for a serious crisis. "It'll be all right. We'll go back to Mandred's and eat shortcake before he and Immilie go."

"And us too," Coran said. "I want to go home too."

"You don't live here?" Relena asked. She didn't seem particularly bewildered by the fact that Mandred and Immilie were from somewhere else. Teleb must have communicated something, if what she had seen of them had not convinced her.

"No," Kyra said, folding her hands. "We're not from Mandred's world," she looked at Coran, "Well, I'm not anyway, but we'll go back with Mandred this time, I think. I want to sit in at his trial."

Mandred's eyebrows rose. Immilie shook her head and muttered something unintelligible.

"What about Teleb?" Duo asked.

"I could care less what happens to Teleb," Kyra said, staring at nothing as she thought. "Standard Renegade proceedings. I'd much rather see Mandred get yelled at."

Immilie shook her head. "I am afraid others will share your interest."

"Like who...?" Coran asked, taking Kyra by the arm and leading the way out. Immile and Mandred followed behind them, ngaged in conversation about unfamiliar people and places. Heero followed with Relena just beside him. Falora fell back beside Duo, chatting with him about what sounded like a flight of stairs and something about a trapped door. Duo blinked at her for a moment in confusion and then suddenly seemed to catch her line her thinking, laughing suddenly. Heero just shook his head, tuning them out. Relena was smiling at him, flowing by his side in silence.

They passed out a separate exit from the one they had entered, stepping out a side door into the sudden daylight. They had only been inside for a few hours, though it felt like weeks. Heero's gaze swept across the colony in amazement. Shockingly, there were cracks in the roads, including a huge gaping one in the middle of the street. A few cars in the parking lot had been toppled. Heero looked back at the building and was surprised to see a large part of the southern wall missing, though debris lay cluttered about outside and in. Across the street from the gaping hole, the wall of a building was burnt and blackened.

"What happened here?" Relena asked.

"Mandred and Teleb," Falora said from behind them. "I could sense Teleb laying waste to everything in this area. It was quite distracting. I'm surprised there's not more damage."

"There was," Mandred said. "I fixed it as we went along."

Heero blinked. He fixed it as he fought Teleb?

"Heero!"

Heero turned to see Wufei Chang and Sally Po running down the street toward them. Relena stepped out from behind him.

"Oh, she's all right," Sally said breathlessly. "I knew you could do it, Heero."

Heero opened his mouth the forestall any such notion, but Kyra shook her head at him. He understood. How would he explain it? So he said nothing.

Wufei turned toward Mandred and Immilie with an accusatory stare. "He's wanted for questioning," he said darkly and suspiciously. "Where is Teleb?"

"In a place of darkness," Mandred replied ominously, and then more lightly, "I am taking him to trial."

"Mandred and I are returning home," Immilie said to Wufei, "where Mandred awaits trial. Justice will be dealt when the finer matters of these proceedings are analyzed."

Kyra's face was a peculiar color and expression, as if she were trying hard not to laugh.

"Come to my house and have some shortcake," Heero said blankly to the Preventors in the awkward silence that followed. Relena smiled at him.

"Heero cut the strawberries," Kyra added, as if that was somehow going to entice company.

For some reason Duo found what she had said funny and laughed uproariously. Nothing anybody said or did could keep him quiet.

"I'd love to," Sally replied, relaxing. "Come on, Wufei."

Wufei crossed his arms, eyeing them all with an aloof air. "I suppose I might as well."

Everyone except Wufei, Sally, Mandred and Immilie piled into Kyra's car, which was simply waiting for them in the parking lot, completely untouched by the chaos. Heero was forced to squeeze in the back with Duo, Falora and Relena, but since it was Relena who ended up pressed close to him, he didn't mind so much. Something about her was very soothing and he didn't feel pressed to say anything on the way home. When they arrived at his house, Heero let Duo met up with Wufei and Sally and Heero let Duo make up a story about what had "really" happened, though he suspected neither Sally nor Wufei bought it. But, of course, that's why he had Duo say it. Lies from Heero would have made the issue seem greater than it really was, but Duo was capable of covering up things that didn't really need it. At any rate, the Preventors did not ask questions, and from their expressions, Heero surmised that they must had seen something and now simply preferred not to know. All the better for everybody, as far as he was concerned.

"Well, Heero," Mandred said suddenly, standing by his shoulder. "How do you feel coming home?"

"It will strange without you here, until I get my own place."

"Are you all right with that?" Heero nodded and felt Mandred's hand on his shoulder. "Take care of yourself," his mentor said quietly. "It's a big world. Don't get lost in it."

Heero turned to look at him. "Thank you," he said quietly, gratefully. "I think I'll be okay."

"I know," Mandred replied with solid confidence.

Once indoors, Heero set the example by removing his shoes, but let Mandred play the host when he agreed to Relena's hesitant request to show her around. Relena took great delight in exploring his house, her eyes lingering on the things in his room that he had accumlated. Heero followed along behind her fondly, not minding that someone was taking an interest in what he found interesting. He had never had things to show off before. Relena also made over Ted fit to spoil him, but Ted was so excited by the presence of so many new people entering the house that he could not sit still long enough for Relena to hold him. In his room, Relena discovered Heero's identity box, but before she could open it, Heero shut the lid lightly on her fingers and promised with a smile to share it with her another time. To this she agreed heartily as if he had handed her a fortune and they went back downstairs.

Kyra and Immilie served the shortcake as everyone gathered around the dining room table, around which Heero and Mandred had to pull in chairs from other rooms to accommadate eveyone. Heero sat on one side of the table between Relena and Duo, listening quietly to everyone as they talked about everything and nothing for an hour or more. He didn't feel the need to talk, though he responded to anything put his way, and was comfortable merely being present and engaged. It was perhaps the greatest night Heero had ever spent at Mandred's, but he knew the end was coming. In the midst of the social hour, Mandred and Immilie excused themselves from the table and went into the hallway. After a moment, Kyra, Falora and Coran followed them, leaving the others to talk about the things of their lives that most interested them. Heero did not leave the table, but he turned his head and caught Mandred's eyes as he rounded the corner. Mandred smiled and mouthed "I'm proud of you," before he could no longer be seen. Heero felt strange as the words registered to him, but he smiled as he turned back, ignoring the flash of blue light that rose for an instant behind his head.

"What was that?" Wufei asked suddenly, interrupting Duo.

"Nothing," Heero said, realizing that now he was suddenly the host, and this was his social gathering. "The others had to leave is all. Please continue."

So the conversation picked up again and Heero sat back thoughtfully in his chair, watching and listening as his friends recounted old stories. Relena smiled at him from the chair to his right, her chin resting on her hands and her hair pulled back behind her. He smiled back at her, settled deeper into his chair, folded his arms, and sighed contentedly.

The end.