What if: Myth
By Prinder
Rating: PG 13- R
Disclaimer: I do not own gundam wing or any of its characters. I also do not own Felina or Jasmine they were so gratefully lent to me by my dear role-playing friend Ashley.
Claimer: I DO own Fiora and JinChi, so please don't use them unless you ask me first, thank you.
"…" Denotes Speech
'…' Denotes Thought
(Notes from me)
Chapter 17
"I can't believe they won't let us in. Are your soldiers that protective of you?" Jasmine asked as she made herself comfortable on a nearby stump.
"Only Rashid and his men, the others don't know me well enough to care, I think." came Quatre's reply as he paced back and forth in front of the castle gates impatiently.
"Quatre?"
"Yes, Princess Jasmine?"
Jasmine frowned at him playfully, "Really, I thought that we agreed not to use titles." she scolded him.
Quatre chuckled despite of the seriousness of the situation. "Yes, you're quite right. You wanted to ask me something?" he replied, changing the subject.
"Yes…I did, didn't I? Quatre, my mother lied to me didn't she?" Jasmine asked, tugging on the hem of her sleeve nervously. She was trying to avoid eye contact.
"…Well, that depends, what do you think she lied about?" he said with a sigh as he sat down next to her. She shifted over to make more room.
"About--about how you just wanted to meet me, and how we wouldn't have to get married." she stammered softly.
"Somehow I just knew that was what you were going to ask. Yes, she did; but it wasn't her fault! I asked her to. I didn't want you to think that you had to try to be anybody that you're not in front of me, I wanted to see who you really were without having to worry about trying to see through any of the deceptions that you might have used had the situation been different." he explained.
"So you knew then, you knew all along that, in the end, we still would have had to get married. Quatre, what would have happened if we didn't like each other like we do? What if we hated each other? I couldn't bear to live in a loveless marriage! And, with you being a King, it would also go without saying that you would need a son, someone to inherit the crown, I don't think that I could… So is the way with those born of royal blood, but it doesn't seem right though, to have to give up on the thought of love and being wed to a perfect stranger, so young, it isn't right." She said, tears teardrops rolling down her cheeks, her dark green eyes met his light blue, as if speaking without saying a thing.
Somewhere in the backs of their minds they noted how the birds chirped, how the sun beat his rays down on them, and how the waves crashed upon the seashore; for one fleeting moment all in the world seemed so right, like none of the things that had come to pass in these few months never happened.
"Prince Quatre! I came as soon as I heard the news!" a large, broad-shouldered, man with black hair and brown eyes dressed in the typical Knight's garb said as he walked through the gate and over to the tree stump.
"Rashid! You're a sight for sore eyes." Quatre replied as he stood up and embraced the man in a friendly hug.
"You must be Rashid, I take it." Jasmine said with a warm smile as she stood up before taking his hand for him to kiss, as was the custom for gentlemen to treat a lady.
"Yes, I am. And you would be--"
"Oh! My manners, Rashid, this is Princess Jasmine." Quatre said, blushing from embarrassment.
"Princess! I'm honored to meet you!" Rashid said, dropping to his knee, bowing.
"Please, stand, I do not wish to be treated any different by you then you would treat Quatre, Sir Rashid." she said, taking the heavily-built man's hands, motioning him up.
"You are far more kindly then your people have said, Princess," he replied.
"I thank you, you flatter me, but time is of the essence, I'm afraid." Jasmine said sorrowfully.
"Yes, Rashid they are." Quatre said, looking up at his most trusted Knight, his voice firm and gaze commending.
"Your orders Your Majesty?" Rashid said, dropping his almost non-existent smile, going deathly serious.
"Rally the troops."
*****
"No."
"Heero, will you stop being so stubborn!"
"I said; No."
"Quit being such a big baby and hurry up! We haven't the time for this!"
Heero fought the urge to groan aloud. 'Why does it seem like nothing is going the way I planed?' he thought as he grudgingly climbed onto Steadfast's back behind her and removed the reigns from her grasp. "Fine. But you still need to sleep." he said, glaring down at her.
"I can't sleep while I'm riding! What if I fall off?" Relena cried.
"I'll be careful and, if you start to slip, I'll stop Milady." Steadfast hummed.
"I won't let you fall." Heero added, shooting a glare at the back Unicorn's head as he placed his arms to that they were on either side of the princess so as to grip the reigns better; or so he told himself.
"…I'll try…" was all Relena said, knowing that she lost that battle.
"To Cinq?" Steadfast hummed, craning her neck to look at them, noting Relena's drooping sky colored eyes and Heero's cloudy blue ones.
Heero nodded as they galloped off, the pouch around his neck swaying in time with Steadfast's hoof pounds.
Relena sat as upright as possible, watching the scenery flow by like a river, being mindful of the man-- 'No, Dryad.' she corrected herself-- behind her. A slight blush tinged her cheeks at the thought of lying back against his well-toned chest and tensed up.
"Milady needs to relax." Steadfast hummed, she hadn't even broken a sweat yet even though she was traveling at her fastest pace.
"I'm really not sleepy. You don't have to worry, I'll be just fine." Relena insisted, feeling like she was being treated like a little child. Heero said nothing.
Upon nearing the ruined Kingdom, Relena glanced around the forest, silently admiring the few snatches of the view that she could, the wind howling in her ears and the heat from her companion behind her slowly lulling her to sleep. She didn't even realize when she leaned into him, her head resting just on the edge of his shoulder.
"There is a cave not far from here where we might find the King, it's somewhere along the coast." Heero's voice rumbled.
Idly Relena's eyes opened. 'I must have fallen asleep.' she thought, noting the barren wasteland that she had become to recognize as, her poor kingdom, Cinq. "Here already? Steadfast you are a marvel." Relena murmured as she fought with her body, sore from riding and sleeping in such an awkward position, to slightly more upright. Failing to notice the slight scowl Heero reserved for Steadfast once again.
"Thank you Milady, but it was little trouble." the unicorn hummed, with a strangely smug sound in her voice.
'What on earth did I sleep through?' Relena thought in mild shock when she looked up at Heero and saw how his glare only deepened at Steadfast's tone.
"We can walk from here." Heero said suddenly, distracting her from the direction her thoughts were headed, as he dismounted, trying his best not to brush against her any more then necessary. Relena had to fight with her nerves just to keep from shivering as leaned over so close to her neck that she could feel his hot breathe.
"R-r-right." she stammered once he had himself set firmly on the blood-stained ground and was shocked when he held out his arms to her, so as to help her get down. "T-thank you." she whispered as he wrapped his hands around her tiny waist and set her down.
If he heard her he gave no indication other then the cool, unsettling gaze, of his dark Persian blue eyes before turning away and leading them down into the ruined city.
"This is your Kingdom Milady?" Steadfast hummed as she lagged behind, trying to avoid sharp and painfully pointed rocks.
"Was. It was Cinq, now it is just a grave yard for the forsaken." Relena replied sadly, stepping over a body of a general, stopping to close his vacant eyes while Heero looked on.
*****
"I can't believe you ACTUALLY LET them put these things ON you! Jeez!" Fiora griped as she kneeled in front of Wufei in a clearing and began trying to pick the locks.
"Are you sure you know what you are doing?" Wong questioned as Fiora's fingers nearly dropped one of the thin, delicate-looking, picks.
"Sure I'm sure! I'm just not as good at this stuff as I could be, picking locks ain't exactly one of those things that a Pirate needs to master, ya know!"
"No, I don't know, I'm not a Pirate."
"Yeah, I kinda noticed!" Fiora laughed. "What I mean is, we don't usually waste our time trying to pick locks… most of the time we just smashed them and be done with it!"
"That's fine, but for now you are going to just pick them if you don't mind." Wufei said with a smirk, he couldn't help but not notice the humor of the situation.
"Sure, sure!"
"This wouldn't have happened if you didn't open your big mouth in the first place, Fiora." Wong stated.
"I wouldn't have HAD to open my big fat mouth if YOU hadn't bumped into that table!"
"I didn't 'bump' into anything. You hit that table with your hand while you were ranting and raving about your 'skills' in stealth." Wong snapped.
"I wasn't ranting! I was telling! And, I'll have you know, I do NOT move my hands when I TALK!" Fiora yelled, failing her arms in the air.
"Yes you do." was all that Wong could say without bursting with laughter. Fiora's personality was really starting to rub off on them.
"No, no I don't, only when I'm yelling!" Fiora replied with a laugh as she twisted her pick and the lock on the first of the shackles came open.
"I'm more interested in how we didn't run into Treize. Why wasn't he at his castle?" Wufei questioned once the other shackle was removed and he rubbed his wrists to ease the burning chafe that they made.
"Good question! Why would there be a counsel meeting without the King? That's what I want to know!" Fiora said as she stood up, knocked the dust off of her knees with her hat and returned her picks to a small pouch sewn into the inside side of her vest.
"I don't know. But he wasn't in the castle that much is for certain." Wong said, her arms crossed over her chest and her head bowed in deep thought.
"You know what? Something's been egging me for the LONGEST time; why in the hell would he wage war with an ally? And what's more! He downright murdered them all with the way that he went about it!" Fiora said, scratching her head.
"Well, either way, we best are getting a move on so we can tell the others what we've found out." Wufei said as he climbed onto Shou's back as the two made their way for their steeds as well.
"You are right about one thing Fiora." Wong said as they rose up into the air.
"Oh, and what's that?" Fiora asked as she and Vertigo matched speed with the dragons and their riders.
"Something isn't adding up. We're missing something to this riddle and I am willing to bet that Trowa, Duo, and Felina know what that something is." Wong replied.
"I don't know about that, Wong, but they just might be able to tell us something anyway." Wufei said as the watched as the moon came out from behind the clouds, lighting their way.
"Eh… I'll just take you guys' words for it… It's a just a tad bit too heavy for me to figure, personally." Fiora laughed, not fully understanding what the two scholars meant and turning her attention to the ocean in the distance. 'Just can't help but wonder if my kinfolks are all right while all this is happening. Wonder if there ever will come a time when we pirates are forgotten like most of the other mythical critters on earth… will we be lost too? What happens when Magic dies anyways?' Fiora thought, her face strangely more serious then it at ever been for moment before she shook her thoughts away and forced a laugh past her lips and turned to look at the Chinese pair and said, "RACE YA!" as she and Vertigo sped up with Shou and Chwun trilling behind her.
*****
"Ugh! Where ARE they? I thought that they wouldda been back by now! So why aren't they here yet?" Duo grumbled as he scuffed the toes of his boots into the hard-packed dirt trail.
"Take it easy, their roads were much longer then ours was, it is only natural for them to take longer." Trowa replied for the fifth time that morning, Duo was starting to wear in the acrobat's nerves.
"So you claim. But we've been sitting here for hours and we still haven't seen a sign of any of them!"
"Pwa, do you think they were captured?" Felina chirped.
"Relena and Heero, maybe. Wufei, Wong, and Fiora? Possibly. But Quatre and Jasmine? I doubt it."
"But if they aren't back by now, then what's taking--"
"Sorry we're a bit late!" Quatre's voice called out, effectively cutting Duo's off.
"We got rather tied up. Quatre's many sisters all wanted to give us each a hug and a kiss farewell. All twenty-nine of them." Jasmine added jokingly.
"At least you didn't have to put up with the five different versions of 'I will kill you if something happens to my sister' from your brothers. They apparently got worried when they hadn't heard from Jasmine in quite some time and decided to see if she was okay." Quatre explained with a smile.
"Eeep! No wonder you took so long!" Felina exclaimed.
"Yes. But we were also delayed because we had to wait for Quatre's army to get ready." Jasmine said.
"No kidding? Wow! You got those guys moving? So where are those slugs?" Duo asked bitterly, he was never fond of the King's men.
"Slugs, Duo?" Quatre asked, haven't never really known about much about Duo's real past.
"You didn't take your law-enforcers along, did you?" Duo questioned in his cryptic way.
"No. Why do you ask?"
"Oh just that I've seen what they do to your people in order to 'uphold the law'." Duo replied with a shrug of his shoulders as he turned to walk away.
"Duo, what do they do? I honestly don't know, please, my friend, wont you tell me? I promise I'll do everything in my power to put a stop to it." Quatre asked.
"No. It's okay; we can always deal with that later. It's not they are going anywhere. Well, now all we have to do is wait for Wufei and this group to get back and then we can try to meet up with Heero and Relena." Duo said, changing the subject.
"But- but I--"
"Hey, don't sweat it! Like I said before, we can deal with it later."
"Oh, alright." Quatre said, giving up.
"I STILL SAY THAT IT AIN'T MY FAULT!"
"SAY WHAT YOU WILL, IT STILL WAS!"
"SAYS WHO?"
"ME."
"HA! YOU AND WHAT ARMY?"
"WILL YOU TWO WOMEN JUST BE QUIET?"
"Well, sounds like Wufei and the girls are back." Duo snickered loudly as Wong and Fiora came tramping through the brush with an extremely annoyed Wufei right behind them.
"Hello, Wufei. Hello Wong. Hello Fiora. Did you have a good trip?" Felina asked as she pranced up to them, her feet almost not touching the ground.
"SHUT UP!" all three of them replied at the same time, although Fiora was the only one that was laughing.
"…I'll take that as a 'no'." Felina said as she slowly turned around and walked away from them. They were obviously still very high-strung from the whole experience.
"No! YA THINK?" Fiora asked the female dryad, sarcasm practically dripping from her lips.
"Your majesty. We are ready to move out at anytime, what are your orders, sir?" a dark haired knight dressed in fully body armor asked, bowing to Quatre.
Fiora jabbed Wong in the ribs with her elbow. "Pissst! Check it, I bet when that guy sits down he can't get up again!" she laughed.
"You make far to many assumptions, Fiora." Wong replied in the same hushed whisper.
"We make way to Cinq."
______________________________________________________________________________ I know, I know! This is beyond late! And I know it's shorter then Fiora standing in three-foot-deep pit (she's not even five feet tall, after all people! Think about!) But I tried, honest I did! You know the drill, review on FF.net or just e-mail me. Oh! And please, do me a HUGE favor and check out my FF.net profile, in it is a list of Fan fiction ideas that I want to try out but I want you guys to decide for me on which one I should do AFTER I finish What if: Myth which is, by the way, almost done! Whooohoo! Lol