Email: swythangel@hotmail.com
Title: Apeiron
Rating: PG (for shounen ai content)
Spoilers: None on Gundam Wing
Warnings: Strong Language, Slash, Fantasy AU
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is owned by Bandai and a passel of other people I never bothered to find out about. It just depresses me to see all those bishies as someone else's property. Stronger than Time is owned by Patricia Wrede.
Alright, one more part out. Hope you guys like it. Here we find out the tale of the Sleeping Beauty inside the castle.
Apeiron
Part 2
"And what, Your Highness" Trowa asked the Prince, "makes you so sure I will attempt the castle?"
The Prince stared at him with penetrating eyes that had lost their sadness and was replaced with the sharpness of a bird of prey.
If Trowa had any doubts that the stranger was a prince, they were laid to rest with the intensity before him as they glinted a steely blue. They were the eyes of one used to command, penetrating and sharp. They were telling Trowa what they thought of Trowa's words - 'You cannot hide the truth from me' they said, 'I know.'
Trowa shrugged, not showing his intentions as he gazed neutrally at the "Prince" before him, weighing his options.
Like any born of common blood, he mistrusted Royalty. He had long ago learned that those of blue blood thrived on webs of deception. He had been burned before and he could not, WOULD not be so easily fooled again.
The Prince could glare all he wanted. Prince he might be but Trowa was a Bard with an indomitable will and no one, not even royalty, could gainsay him. He would not answer if he did not want to.
As if he sensed Trowa's conviction, azure eyes intensified into a glare. A glare which jade eyes answered with a glare of its own. For long minutes, blue and green locked together in silent battle, neither backing down, until…
Dusky lashes blinked and the fierce electric blue eyes were covered.
"Please."
The word felt like it struggled to come out of the speaker's lips, as if the speaker held on to it so tightly that it felt forced out. That one word was said in a whisper so soft that it would have drowned even in the quiet silence of the night had not Trowa been attentive enough to catch it.
Both of Trowa's eyebrows flew in surprise. What's this, he thought to himself, a noble willing to plead for what he wanted? It wasn't something one heard everyday.
There was a part of the jade-eyed Bard that wanted to spurn the aristocrat, a piece of revenge for all the trials his fellow bards had endured in their hands but something, something about the deep-eyed Royal called to Trowa. It was unsettling and yet at the same time so familiar. Trowa did not know what to make of it.
"Alright." Trowa growled softly under his breath as he relented. "We can talk about the details in my rooms where it is lighted."
The prince held back. "I'd rather talk here."
"My rooms or not at all." Trowa said, glaring. "We cannot talk in the streets like a couple of idiots waiting for brigands to pluck them of what they own."
Trowa could see the prince tense up and twitch a hand in the area near his sword hilt but Trowa stayed adamant. To talk of things not meant for others to hear in such a public place was dangerous, moreso when said place was hostile to their intended topic. He would not budge.
It must have showed in his eyes because once again the prince only nodded.
"Follow me, Prince." Trowa muttered as he strode off into the westward side of town where he had rented rooms, not bothering to check if the other followed.
"It is a title I have long forsaken. Call me by my name. Heero," The soft voice said almost beside him, "My name is Heero, Bard."
"Heero it is then. And I," Trowa said without blinking, "am called Trowa."
***
In the flickering light of an oil lamp, and under the soft fall of bangs, green eyes peered out unto the figure stationed near the window. Heero was staring out in preoccupied silence at the towering castle as still as a statue.
Yet for all his stillness, there was an aura of nervousness about him that spoke of impatience. Trowa could sense a 'need' in Heero so great that it was almost palpable in the small room. A need that bore down on shoulders squared in determination and tired hope; a need that put desperate longing into shuttered eyes; a need that was somehow connected to the castle and its sleeping occupant.
"So," Trowa said, clearing his throat, "tell me your story, Heero."
The almost emotionless eyes suddenly flares up in heat. "It is *not* my story but the castle's."
Trowa shrugged, relenting. "The castle's story then."
Pacified, Heero looked back at the castle as he told his tale. "It is in actuality more the story of the King who lived there than the castle itself.
It was a long time ago, five centuries or so, give or take a few years. The castle's owners have ever been benevolent and kind to their people. They were also wise and more often than not desired peace above all else. They would have been perfect rulers except for the fact that they had more than their share of stubborness and pride. And none more so than the last.
Belike, it takes a stubborn man to insult a sorceress, even if he was unaware of it as many say, and then refuse to apologize for the offense. And the Sorceress Dorothy* was not a very forgiving woman."
Even Trowa, who seldom showed emotion, made a sign against evil at Heero's words. "The King did that? More fool was he. No wonder the castle is cursed!"
Heero shook his head. "You do not pay attention to your own songs, bard! The castle itself is not cursed." A hand came up to the glass pane, caressing the tower with slow strokes that conveyed sadness to Trowa. Strangely enough, he found himself wanting to do the same thing. "It is what is within that is."
"What?" Trowa blurted out, confused. Irritation swept through him and he scratched his head to relieve the tension inside of him. /Trust a nobleman to dither around instead of simply telling a straightforward tale./ "Go on."
"You see, the King's meeting with the sorceress occurred at his heir's christening…after so long, the King finally had his heir. A beautiful boy who looked so much like his mother Quatrine."
Trowa wouldn't have been a creditable bard if he did not notice the slight change in Heero's tone as he talked about the prince, a breathlessness in the voice that had been so neutral before.
"The infant suffered as much if not more than the father ever did from the sorceress' spell of revenge. Before the assembled guests, Dorothy proclaimed that the prince would be the last of the King's line for he would get no more children and that the prince would die of the pricking of a spindle before he turned sixteen. When the King ordered the guards to seize her, Dorothy just laughed at them and vanished before they could lay a hand on her.
Remember your song."
Doomed by pride too great for one,
A stubborn father who would not
bend,
The curse then passed on to the
son,
And doomed the line to its end.
**********
/You must remember…/
An image of a blond girl with forked eyebrows laughing evilly superimposed itself before Trowa's eyes and the green orbs widened imperceptibly as he realized who it was. This was the sorceress, Dorothy.
/Remember…/
*********
He blinked disbelievingly and tried to look again. The image had disappeared and all Trowa saw was Heero still staring out into the growing twilight.
/What was that?!/
It had felt so familiar, like something someone had shown him so many years before, a woman with the kindest voice in creation and blue eyes you could drown in…only Trowa had a photographic memory and he had never known anyone who fit the description.
/Get ahold of yourself, Trowa!!/ He told himself, struggling to concentrate on what Heero was saying. The other was oblivious to Trowa's confusion, too concentrated on telling his story. A fact that Trowa was thankful for as he listened to the rest of the story.
"The king laughed it off at first, thinking it was no more than the rantings of a self-deluded madwoman. Until he found out that at least half of the curse was true. His wife, Quatrine, would not be able to bear anymore children, the doctor said, or she would die. His son would be the only child he would ever have.
"For days, he raged like a man gone mad. But it was an exercise of futility and once he realized that, he became wary of the second part of the curse, surrounding the young prince with as much protection as he could. He did it more to protect his line than for any real love for the boy though.
"One solution would have been to take the boy away to where the sorceress' curse could not reach but stubborness reared its ugly head once again. For more than 10 generations, his father's fathers had lived in the castle, he would not be the one to abandon it nor would he allow his son to be raised anywhere else no matter how much the Queen begged him to do so. He vowed that he would defeat this curse on his own ground. The fool."
The last phrase was whispered angrily, as Heero glared at nothing before subsiding.
"Instead, he ordered every spinning wheel and spindle in his kingdom burned, every weaver and spindlers banished. Then he curtailed his son's freedom, ordered him never to go within 5 miles of the castle's walls. He did not care that his son, who loved his people and who was in turned loved back, would severely miss the company of his people. All he cared about was to secure his line's succession."
******
/Remember…/
He was sitting on the marble bench facing the formal gardens his father, the King had constructed for his sisters, seemingly lost in thought. Yet in actuality he was talking to the one person who mattered more to him than life itself. His love.
Today, his love was miserable and it showed in his voice. A soft voice, light but with a tinge of sadness. "You are the only one left, leika, do not leave me as well. I am scared of what might happen…of what father says might happen."
And in a voice filled with love and promise Trowa answered: "I will never leave you, leika. Do not be afraid. I will always protect you, always. That is a promise."
******
"…that done, he was confident that he had beaten the sorceress' curse. After all, how could his son die of a spindle's prick when there were none?"
Heero's voice slowly penetrated Trowa's consciousness as the image and memory faded from his mind.
Memories…ha! They weren't even his memories but someone else's. After all, it was the memories of a noble, a Royal, and Trowa was a commoner.
Still…something about the memories evoked a familiarity in Trowa that he could not deny.
Leika…beloved. His beloved.
/Gods above and below! I do not have time for this!! I have to listen to Heero./
With an effort, he roused himself to listen to the Prince's tale.
"The Queen though was not as complacent as the King. She loved her son very much and in her veins coursed the blood of magick as well. She set out to unravel the curse the sorceress had woven around her son, pitting her talents and all her love against Dorothy's spite."
"Love against death." Trowa murmured distractedly.
"What was that?" Heero said, seemingly startled that Trowa interrupted him.
"It is just something that we bards sing about, Pri--Heero." Trowa said, shrugging.
"And?" The glare Heero turned Trowa's way was demanding.
Trowa rolled his eyes before he opened his mouth. A moment after, the golden voice of a boy with the potential to be a Master Bard filled the room. He chose to tell Heero in song rather than in words.
"Time and death, intertwined,
Ne'er can be avoided,
Yet be not afraid of what they
bring,
Love can cure their savage sting."
"Aye…" He heard Heero say bitterly as he finished. "But can it help in this situation?"
The former Prince, it seemed, was talking to himself yet again and Trowa wondered just what burden Heero carried.
/It is something best left unasked. I have my own burdens as well no need to complicate my life with another's./
"Then what happened, Heero?"
"Queen Quatrine might have magick in her blood but it proved too weak to break the sorceress' curse. Her love for her son however prevented her from giving up and eventually she found a way to alter the curse. True, her son could still fall under the sorceress curse at the prick of a spindle but instead of death, it would cast her son into an endless sleep. The curse would turn outward, protecting the boy for one hundred years by killing anyone who sought to enter the castle.
"One hundred years to the day of the onset of the spell, a man would come, a Prince or a knight of great nobility who could pass through the barriers without harm. His kiss would break the curse and the Queen's son would wake up as if it had just been a single night instead of a hundred years---"
"One question: why a man? This prince…is a boy. Why a man and not a princess?"
For the first time, Heero's lips quirked up in amusement. "You think there is a woman in all of creation who could handle the challenge set upon her without fainting?"
Trowa laughed. "Point well taken. Although wasn't that a bit cruel of the Queen…" Trowa was thinking of the bones he had seen in the briars.
"That," Heero said, looking away as if he was uncomfortable, "wasn't exactly the Queen's fault."
"Then who's?"
"Let me finish the tale first. T'is near the end as it is and then I will answer your question."
Trowa shrugged and fell back on the chair he had been lounging in.
"Somehow, on the prince's sixteenth birthday he found a spindle and pricked his finger on it. That set the curse into motion. That had been nigh 450 years ago and ever since then men have been dying trying to save him."
"450 YEARS?" Trowa said, bolting upright. "You said the curse was to last a hundred years to the day."
"That…is correct. However, certain…things happened. The sorceress found out about the Queen's plan and reached into time, to the future and did something to the prince who was to rescue the cursed boy."
"What did she do?"
"She…altered something in the Prince, so much that he became impetuous and desperate, he braved the castle a day earlier than what the Queen's magick had foretold. And Quatrine's magick had been too specific."
"Too specific?"
"She tied the breaking of the curse down to a precise day and a particular man. A day too early…so he died in the thorns. And so the curse continues up to this day." Heero said sadly.
Trowa quirked an eyebrow. The prince knew many things about the castle. Too much. Trowa began to be suspicious.
"How do you know all these?"
"He was…a member of my family." Heero replied.
Understanding downed on verdant eyes. "Ah. And you feel you have to put it to right?"
Cobalt blue eyes met his in a steady gaze. Even in the flickering firelight the naked longing on the other's face was almost so tangible that Heero could almost hold it. "I must. No one else can, and if the curse is not broken, more men will die. And Quat…the prince…the prince will be trapped in the castle forever while the castle crumbles around him. Neither sleeping or waking…
So…will you let me come with you?"
"I thought the boy would come into it somewhere." Trowa muttered. There was no mistaken the fervor in Heero's voice when he spoke of the occupant of the cursed castle. And somehow Trowa felt a twinge of something akin to jealousy for such fervor. He had never been felt anything for anyone like what Heero felt.
His life had been one of apathy. Not even in his bardic studies had he really applied himself. It wasn't that he did not want to he just couldn't make himself do it. There was an emptiness inside him that always remained empty. So much that he could not relate to anyone and thus had been condemned to live outside the sphere of ordinary life.
All he had were the memories…
/Leika…/
Memories that surface at the oddest times. Memories that were not even his own. In them he had someone to love and hold. Someone who laughed with him and urged him on.
And in those memories he could *feel*.
The emptiness was not there and he was filled with emotions. Trowa cherished these memories eventhough he knew they weren't his. At least for a time he could forget the emptiness.
This was the reason why Trowa sought this legendary Prince with the power to discern one's heart's desire. Trowa wanted to know why he was plagued by such thoughts…haunted by memories not his own. But most of all he wanted to be able to know whose memories they were…to find out who the voice was. And maybe, just maybe, he could also find the love and make it his own.
There was only one possible answer to Heero's question. What one could not do, two might be able to. "Yes. You can come with me."
TBC ^_~ You guys likey?
*I couldn't resist putting in Dorothy! ^o^ EEEvil Dorothy. And don't you think there's a startling similarity to Dorothy poking Quatre with the foil in the real Gwing and here? I mean it's a spindle but what the hey! Hehehe
Its 1x4 and 3x4 at the same time. Hmnnn…how to resolve it? You'll have to hang on because all will be alright in the end. Any inkling on what will happen? This already has an ending, all I really need to do is write it down. ^__^v