-What Proof is Given-
He was awoken early the next morning by someone pounding on his door. Rolling himself out of bed turned out to be one of the hardest tasks he thought he'd faced in a while. He vaguely remembered stumbling out of the bath after falling asleep in there for the third time and dropping onto the bed in a sopping wet pile of skin and hair, but now with the cheery morning light streaming in even that could be questioned in his mind. The prophet looked like something the cat had dragged in, then out to mangle some more, then back in as he opened the door and looked out at Wufei with bleary eyes. "Wha iz it?"
Dark doe-like eyes studied his rumbled hair and then the shadowy circles under his eyes for a second, then Wufei pushed him right back into the room and followed to close the door behind himself. "You look like hell. What happened to you? You're supposed to be in the king's chambers within the hour, and you can't go looking like that."
"I had a bad night sleeping, okay? Back off and let me wake up on my own." Pride still ran rampant despite the fact that Duo was aware he probably looked as good as he felt. He stood up more straightly and ran a hand through his knotted locks, scowling at Wufei as he headed over to the bed and grabbed a blanket to cover himself. "I'll make the king's schedule." And he said this around a sleepy yawn.
Wufei rolled his eyes then looked around the chambers. Clothes were tossed at Duo quickly and soon the ebony haired guard was standing in front of him with a brush, thwapping his palm and shaking his head. "No, you won't. If I leave now you'll just roll right back over and be fired before lunch. Get those on then turn around, we've only got about a half an hour, you'll want to be early."
As it was, through much complaining, whining, and Wufei's persistence, the pair had just entered the waiting room when the large doors opened and Heero stuck his head out. "The king is ready to see you now, Duo. Please come in."
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He walked into the chambers trying to keep his face neutral from when he saw the king, and for the most part he managed… Although now his disgust for that man went past just his sagging skin and rotting orifice he called a mouth. Duo was staring at the crumpled form draped in the elaborate chair and doing his best not to run up and start beating the living hell out of him. This was the man that had caused some poor innocent girl to kill herself and the man that had wrongfully accused someone for his own selfish whims… And this was the man that currently had the boy that was haunting him locked up somewhere. He even accomplished giving the old man a bow and a smile, and had never been more proud of his acting abilities in his life.
"Thank you for calling me down to see me, Milord. How may I be of some service to you today?"
A wheeze was his first response, and Duo flinched back as the king erupted into a long stream of coughs less then a two feet from his face. He could probably count the little globs of spit and mucus that went flying if he really wanted too, this guy was just that charming. The prophet took a discreet step backwards and waited as the king gathered himself enough to speak.
"Ahhh, boy." Keen fellow, wasn't he? The king leaned over one arm of his throne like a serpent and grinned widely at him as he continued, "I wished to have a demonstration of the services you offer today. If you are what you say you are, surely you can provide me with some useful tidbit of information on the spot, right?"
Suppressing his gag reflex as that foul breath washed over his face like a wave of sewage, Duo nodded, "Aye, Sire. It isn't something I must wait for… Mostly it is knowing how to call it and then focusing the energy towards something productive."
"I see… Then will you be needing anything to begin? Will it be… Messy or anything like that, boy?" The way the king licked his lips at that made Duo pretty convinced the old guy would be thrilled if he said yes, that there'd be blood and gut splashing all over the walls and him screaming in agony as the vision came through.
He frowned slightly and shook his head, "No, Majesty. Nothing. There will be no startling lights or flashes, and at the very worst I may just lose my balance and have to sit down. It is slightly draining to call on, but it is not painful or a threat to my existence."
How tragic that the king seemed disappointed by that. He settled back in his chair with a breathless grunt and nodded his head to the guards behind the prophet that the doors could be shut now. Duo listened to the click of the latches and then louder sounds as locks were turned. Just precautions, he knew this, but knowing he was locked in with the king and just two other people wasn't helping his frame of mind. I wonder if they'd back me up if I just leapt across this pretty carpet, grabbed that yonder candlestick and drove it through this prick's stomach. I have a feeling it would go much like a knife through butter in his state… But such thoughts were best squashed before they started to really make sense and sound good.
"What in particular would you like me to try and see for you, Sire? Obviously something that will happen and serve as good enough proof. Is there any area you want me to watch for, or just something random?"
"Something in random, boy, but something I'll needn't wait 'round long to see. I don't want to be all day trying to look for some little thing to happen only to miss it and then have to send you off packing, now would I?"
Again, by the grin on the corpse king's face, Duo wasn't sure he'd really mind doing exactly that at all. He sighed softly and nodded, "As you wish. I'll try my best."
The prophet lowered his head and closed his eyes, drawing his hands up in front of himself and holding them palm to palm with about an inch in between them. As a low murmur started from him, jumbled sounds that were more like humming then actual words, Heero leaned against the wall and tipped his head slightly to watch. And across the room, he could see Wufei doing the same thing and mirroring him. Both of them thought they saw a small spark of something deep purple and like living mist within that little gap, but both of them would convince themselves it was just their imaginations and expectations. The king with his failing eyes never saw anything.
But they all -felt- something. The air in the chambers drastically cooled several degrees, and a slight wind swept unexplainably through the closed rooms and sent several of the wayward wisps of Duo's hair swaying about his pale face. ... And that aura intensified. For Heero and Wufei since they'd met the braided youth, it had been just a minor annoyance and chill, like one would feel walking through a dark swamp at night in which ill tempered creatures lived, but for the king it had been like smelling something nearby decompose, knowing death was close, something that offended the senses and made one squirm uncomfortably no matter who they were..
The two guards stepped back, pressing against the walls and gawking at Duo without ever being aware they'd reacted at all. And their esteemed ruler made a choked gagging sound and curled up in his chair like a little child who'd just come face to face with the boogey creature in it's closet.
Duo's sensations of the events were quite different. He saw or heard nothing of the people around him, or even of the building. He was no longer standing, no longer tired from the night before, and no longer aware of the breath coming in and out of his body in that self animated way. It was a completely unanchored feeling. He floated up into a sea of haze, colors shifting around his other realm eyes like fog… And when the fog started to spin and whirl, then finally dissipating like a drop of blood would eventually fade and come to be less in a glass of water, his vision came.
-The world was on fire where he stood. Around him the flames crashed and tumbled over and through one another in an effort to devour the wooden structure that had stood as home to the creatures now darting about. Horses stamped their feet as the heat sindged their glossy white coats and sent their manes curling and burning. The dark leather saddles on the walls crackled and turned hard as he watched, eventually falling to the hay covered floor and further feeding the blaze. Above in the rafter where the fire hadn't reached yet, birds that had nested now flew in frenzied circles, squawking and striking each other as they searched for an escape. In the corner lay the passed out stable man, a mostly empty bottle of some amber liquid inches from his stretched out hand, and the lantern he'd undoubtedly been carrying a few feet beyond his head, only the metal still intact as served as the source. A crash came from one of those horses as it kicked through it's stall door in fear and went darting toward the mostly closed barn doors. As it crammed it's nose into the crack of daylight and nudged the door open, the sign that hung crookedly from an old wooden beam swayed and for a second Duo could read the word 'Matherly's'. Then just as swiftly as the scene had emerged to him, he was thrust back into the foggy haze.-
-When the rainbow spectrum of mist cleared again, he was in the woods. The mostly dead and leafless trees around him were the very ones he'd walked through on his way towards this kingdom. The silence around him felt thick and stifling, that kind of absence of noise a forest suffered only when something that wasn't it's normal dwellers passed by. As Duo watched in his ethereal state, a group of ragged looking men came walking around one of the clusters of foliage. They held daggers at their belts, and their filthy faces had that hard edge that only came from a life time of struggle. Thieves, and fresh from an encounter judging by the sweat sparkling in their beards and on their brows… Not to mention the sacks hanging over one or two of the large shoulders. He heard the noise at the same time the bandits did, and followed their line of sight as the two little girls came over the top of the hill just barely visible through the lines of trees, the flower basket swinging in one's hand as she laughed. A flash of white over took the day, and what he saw next was the straw basket laying on it's side and rocking slightly, it's handle splashed with red. And then it was gone.-
For what felt like hours to him, this type of knowledge flooded in. They weren't always bad, in fact, he preferred that they weren't when he could help it. But when giving a king like this reason to believe in him… It was those gruesome kind of events he tried to find and remember.
The colorful abyss of things yet to happen or currently happening finally started to lessen for him, and he could feel his weight reconnecting with his body, trendles of self and soul joining back with the steady fibers of his earthly form. But right before he settled in completely, another vision grabbed his mind and jerked it back into the fields of foresight. It wasn't something he was unacquainted with, it just didn't happen too often. And when this one struck, the scene was so familiar that at first he thought he had just ignored that insistent pull and opened his own eyes.
-The throne room stood before him, and other then the smallest of details, it was exactly the same as the one he was standing in right now as he witnessed this. Only there was someone with him now, beside him and pressing lightly against his arms. He couldn't look down, he was staring at the horrified face of the king… A once regal being that was now cringing back in his throne and letting out piercing shrieks as he stared past Duo's shoulder. That sound, like a creature bound for hell finally making it's flight, made Duo's skin crawl. From the side he saw a motion and glanced towards that just in time to see a small hand reach out and topple one of the beautiful silver candleholders. The king went up in flames like a torch, and although his screams now reached a ear splitting level, it looked like his attention was still focused on the invisible presence to Duo's left and not on his own crackling skin.-
In the reality of the throne room, Wufei was looking mildly concerned as the braided youth started to shake in place and murmur. Later that night he'd sit up suddenly in bed with the words 'He was saying that the tears on his cheeks were smoking, and oh gods why wouldn't he stop screaming' tumbling from his lips before he knew they were there. His lover would try to calm him and get him to lay back down, but it would be hours before Wufei could shake his feeling of unease. Heero sat up with him during this time and watched him pace, his own nerves a little rattled by that strange comment.
-And in Duo's vision, the king continued to burn. He turned away after a minute, feeling that weight pressing against his chest now, and feeling arms that were numb and disconnected to himself in this state wrap around that burden as he started towards the large open doors. The screams, so many things to say now that he could see his end, flowed through the air and into Duo's dreams for years to come, but he was leaving now. He walked out of the room with the flames following behind him…-
When he came back to himself it was with a thud that sent him crashing to his knees. Duo was panting in air desperately as he braced himself on unsteady hands and so certain he could still taste the acidic tang of smoke in the back of his lungs. Heero started forward to help the collapsed prophet up only to have the king shoot him a look that made him straighten right back into place.
A few minutes later Duo got himself under control by himself while the king watched with great interest. He pulled himself up to his feet with obvious effort, his face displaying a sickly pallor and eyes feverishly bright as he let out another retching cough. When this fit at last passed, the king drew forward and asked anxiously- "You saw something, I believe that. Tell me what you saw, boy. I want details."
Cool violet eyes glared at the king hard enough that the withered old male self-consciously sat back in his seat. He deserves it. Whatever happens that brings that on, he has earned it for years… And I won't be the person to stop his fate from coming to him. Duo's furious expression chilled to something like an apologetic smile, and he bowed his head to the creature on the throne. "Of course, Highness. As you wish."
And then he started to regale the king with what he had seen. He spared him none of the gory scenes and only drew more attention for each mention of violence, further items that fueled his dislike of the foul old man. He explained it would all happen today sometime, and could be intervened with if his Highness so chose. From the fire at Matherly's, (which turned out to be a stable on the eat of town, right next to a house which used to be owned by an lonely farmer and his childless wife before they'd found the money to move) to the little girls who would encounter a band of bold thieves and loose their lives for a simple mistake in direction… Duo would never have recognized one of those bearded men (how could he?) but many in the town would have been horrified to see the now ragged and broken face of a man named Jason, a formally good natured blacksmith who'd lost his only son some fifteen years ago.
He told of the little things, minor items like a woman losing her necklace in a gutter when her horse bucked in the square and a boy who'd been missing really only being hiding up in his own home's attic, and the king listened attentively. But he never whispered a word of his last vision. Heero and Wufei also listened, doubtful and surprised at first, but then more accepting and interested. It was two hours before the king finally dismissed him for the day and set about doing what he wanted with the information. By that time Duo's head was throbbing painfully and he felt like he could sleep for a week straight, it'd been a long time since he'd had such a draining experience with his talent.
Duo made it up to his bedroom without remembering much of the trip there, and fell on the bed once he was safely in and had closed the door behind him. Sleep hit him hard and fast, and all manner of dreams came and went as they saw fit. But Quatre's pleading cerulean eyes were in all of them…
It was seven hours before a knock at last waked him from his coma, the sound followed by a gruff voice that could only be Heero's. Duo got up and let him in, then groggily went about preparing himself for dinner while the serious brunette told him about the day he'd had running around town playing messenger for the king. Hearing how Heero had tried to explain to people things he shouldn't know was enough to make him burst into laughter, and they went down to dinner together on that light note.