AN: Here's the chapter I promised!
Something is not quiet right…
Chapter 3: Nothing is as It Seems (part 3)
Queen Valia sat on her throne with a sigh. It had been a long day. She had had audience after audience and was now running on her energy reserves. Being the Queen was a very demanding job. Valia had some disease that prevented her from barring children. And now that same disease seemed to be causing her pain and suffering beyond words. She was losing heart, knowing that there was no cure for her problem and that things were only going to get worse.
And having a high-stress job was not helping matters. Valia ran her hand through her red hair as her mind pondered her last audience. There was a good chance it was one of the envoys that had shown up earlier. Duer, one of her personal bodyguards[1], had gone to the door to formally introduce whoever it was. This audience had been arranged during the last audience and Valia had been spared the details.
Duer was build like a sturdy farm-boy with lots of muscles. And that was because he was a sturdy farm-boy. He had brown hair and his eyes were a bit more orangey than most Galen's. He looked like a simpleton, but he was well-educated and had some interesting views of the world.
Duer cracked one of the massive doors open and looked at the person on the other side. He nodded and smiled. Valia cocked her head, wondering what the strange behavior meant. Duer pulled the door further open and stood out of the way. Valia was still unable to see who it was but she knew in the next moment.
Hiei had flitted into the room.
"Good day, my lady." He had kneeled before her, as was properly required of him. Valia found the strength to get off the throne and close the distance between herself and Hiei. He stood up and caught her as she stumbled.
"You're strong, that will show in later generations." Valia told him with a smile as she looked up at him. He blushed.
"You really think so?" He continued to blush. Duer loudly shut the door, himself on the other side.
"Duer's a smart lad." Valia observed. Hiei smiled and carried Valia back to the throne and set her down on it.
"Yes, but you know better than to strain yourself." Hiei's eyes filled with worry. "You're in pain."
"I know. Etric-" Hiei interrupted her.
"You know I hate being called that." He reminded her.
"Oh humor me! I'm your mother and I get to call you by the name I gave you!" She pinched his cheek.
"Ow! You women are out to get my cheeks today!" He put a hand on his new 'wound'. "I know that I am your son, but my true parents gave me a name, and I'd rather be called by that to respect them…." He looked away. Hiei remembered the odd circumstances that lend to him getting adopted by the Queen and wed to Kairos. It wasn't bad, he actually loved Valia to a degree, but he was just too old to be her son. Though, they both liked to dream.
"I can't say it." She pointed out.
"You could try." At that request Valia took a breath. She tried to make an 'H' sound three times and gave up. "Why don't you do as Luna does? She just replaces the 'H' with an 'L'." Hiei pointed out.
"Liei? That sounds a bit odd…." Valia chuckled. "What brings you here anyways?" Hiei put his hand into his pocket and produced a sheet of paper. He handed it to her.
Valia opened it up to see two drawings. One was a scene in the country with herself dancing blissfully with Hiei and his family. The other was a picture of a few fairies dancing, which had been drawn by Hiei's son, Suichi. The latter had been drawn by Hiei's daughter Keiko. In the middle there was a small collection of words with a picture of a orange rose beneath it. Kairos had drawn the rose and Hiei had written the words (Hiei's handwriting was very distinct because he was foreign and took a different stance on making the letters than a Galen would).
These were the words he wrote: Laughing, Singing, Crying- Playing, Feeling, Hurting- Running, Loving, Dieing- these are the little things in life. Be strong and live life to it's fullest for these little things.
And those words eased the pain a little bit.
"Thank you." Valia was about to cry. Hiei gave her a hug.
"I'll try and see if I can assume a few more of your duties." Valia went wide-eyed when Hiei told her his plan.
"Absolutely not! You've taken enough of them already! Besides you've got those classes! You don't have the time!" She used the Mother 'don't even think about that again!' tone. Hiei held up his hands in surrender. "It was kind of you to think of me." She smiled and kissed his forehead.
Valia's pupils turned yellow, to match her eyes. Hiei blinked and they were black again. "Please bring your guests to meet me, okay?"
"Sure thing?" Hiei wondered what she meant.
"Its good to Know you will.[2]" She smiled. Hiei bowed and took his leave. Duer came back in, his pupils yellow.
"Don't worry, my lady, our people with accept him soon enough." He told her before his pupils returned to normal. She nodded.
"I hope that time will be soon."
Kurama held the map that Botan had sketched for them as a secretary. It was crude, but it did get them from point A to point B without too much trouble. The boys had been unable to sleep in their beds, having found them too cold. When they found themselves in the little lobby of their rooms, Kurama suggested that they have a look around and study the paths they would be taking the next day.
It was really an excuse to look for Hiei.
Kurama was now holding the clipboard and adding to the map. Kairos had only showed them one floor and said nothing about going to the other floors. As foreigners, the boys could use ignorance as an excuse for wandering into areas where they probably weren't supposed to be.
"Huff…huff…." Hiei breathed, once again waking from a nightmare. He looked at his wife, who simply looked back at him with sad eyes. Hiei got out of bed and dressed himself. He had decided to put on the clothes he had been wearing when the day he came to Crystila. These clothes were the warmest things he had and Hiei refused to get rid of them.
"Where are you going?" Kairos asked quietly.
"I'm going to the music chamber."
"Why?" She looked confused rather than worried.
"I'm going into one of the amplifying Crystals to sleep." He began to wrap his old scarf around his neck. Being a member of royalty, Hiei was taught how to take himself in inside the Crystals. Normally Galen only knew how to put others in and out. Of course the inside of Crystals were cold to a Galen and freezing to Hiei, thus making him wear his warmest clothes.
"I see. If you can't sleep there, I want you back here okay?" Kairos got out of bed and grabbed his hand. She set it on her face.
"Be warm…." She wished him. He smiled and kissed her.
"Of course." Hiei left his room. He remembered coming here.
I walked down 5th avenue, which was the busiest street in the city. People milled about completely oblivious to my presence. There was a crowd gathered across the street. And my curiosity got the best of me and I was soon moving though the crowd to see what there was to see.
Most peculiar woman was standing there, waiting for something. She had hair that glittered and glistened. It was apple red and ended in white tips. Her eyes where an orangey yellow. And her skin was an off-white aiming towards…green? Her features were sharp and pointy. She continued to inspect the crowd until her eyes fell on me.
Her glare turned my blood to ice.
She walked over to me and began to look me up and down not saying a word. After a few rotations she reached into her pocket and took out a crystal. It was white and slightly see-though. I could see that there it was hollow inside. She pointed up at something without looking at it and the crowd dispersed. I continued to look her, in the eye, trying to read her next move.
Without warning she lunged and placed the little crystal against my chest. She waved her free arm and I found myself being shrunk and pulled into the crystal. Once I was inside she nodded and pocketed me.
When she took me out, she set me on a pedestal of some sort and left me there.
"Humph!" Hiei didn't like the six years that followed that day. He spent every moment of those years inside that crystal, trapped. He was never able to forgive Tarra for what she did to him. It wasn't as if she liked him ether, she down right hated Hiei.
The weird thing about sleeping in Crystals of any size was that you always had the same, peaceful dream. This wasn't the first time Hiei had retreated to a Crystal for sleep, it was the first time that Kairos was aware of it.
As for the Crystal Hiei had in mind, he only wanted to hear the music, which would help pull him asleep. He walked up to the backside of his choice Crystal.
'Change your Yoki wavelength to match its Reiki's. Let your Yoki and its Reiki circulate between yourself and it. Step up and merge your bodies, then pass through.' The Queen Valia had told him.
'I should probably think of her as my Mother, since I am her adopted son….' Hiei thought absently. He was too old to have a mother and she was too old to have a son. If ether had time for a relationship, it would have been a teacher-student relationship at best.
He followed her instructions to the letter every time he went inside a Crystal. Hiei wasn't fond of the sensations he got merging into a Crystal, but he didn't mind the inside (other than that it was freezing). He walked over and sat down watching the last band play their last number. This Crystal distorted sound on the inside which somehow amplified it. The music he heard sounded soft and calming. The tune made Hiei's eyelids heavy and reminded him of his purpose here.
Hiei laid down along the bottom of the Crystal and set his head comfortably on his arm. At last the sleep he'd been wanting for the past few months came to him.
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[1]- All of the Queen's body guards are farmers. Because of homesickness and the needing of hands on farms, Valia rotates through a set of twelve trustworthy bodyguards, one for every month. Hiei had demanded that she get some.
[2]- The 'K' is supposed to be capitalized.
AN: I hoped this explains Hiei's 'job'. And aren't I cruel from keeping you from the first confrontation between Hiei and the others? The real confrontation isn't 'til later, but its on the way! R&R!!