Title: Lord of Death 24?
Author: Seraphim Grace
Archive: if you want it ask.
Feedback: Always appreciated and replied to.
Rating: R.
Pairings: Burgeoning 1x2
Warnings: Angst. Some gore.
Notes: AU, and features necromancy
Duo and Heero are taken to a strange world where Duo is worshipped because he calls himself Shinigami
As said at the end of 23, this is where all hell starts to break loose.
Duo was dreaming.
In his dream the destroyed city's broken walls astounded him and fallen roofs that surrounded the grassy plaza that the sun poured its light into. A fountain spewed water from a woman's head, and there was a triangular symbol half broken off on her forehead. Her jaw was missing but the water still spilled over her perfect hands as if she tried to stop it or catch it. Her breasts and hands were stained green from the constant flood, but her marble head was a spoiled by moss, although there was a reddish stain around her mouth from the iron in the water. It seemed that violence, more than neglect, had smashed in the back of the head and ripped away her jaw. A window of coloured glass looked over the plaza, but here and there the panes had fallen from the putty. The walkways had shed their paving stones in favour of grass and wild herbs, so they stood upright here and there like gravestones.
There was an orchard; it was vastly overgrown. The branches tumbled into each other and clawed into each other's growth, so that one tree seemed to grow both lemons and pears. There was a fig tree half strangled with choke weeks, the fruit was unripe and unfit to eat. All over the grass, underneath it there was fruit, the windfall of many trees left to ruin and rot. The cherry tree stood alone, out of the reach of the other trees. Its roots had lifted the circle of paving stones that surrounded it, and its branches were smothered in its blowsy blossoms that were a bright dark pink.
"It's beautiful." Duo said, amazed, as he watched the slight breeze ruffle the pink blossoms and they danced and swayed as if someone actually shook the tree. He was as alone as one is in dreams, wherever he was in this place there was no difference between what he said and what he thought. "All the ones I've seen were either white or a very pale pink."
"Do you know how they make the blossoms dark?" A woman asked from behind him, she sounded more afraid than knowledgeable. "There's a body, a real human body under the roots, that makes the blossoms dark pink."
"Who are you?" Duo asked.
"I am called Vivika." She answered him. She was a woman come late to middle age and she had been a phenomenal beauty though that was giving way to time. He had heard the name before. She wore a rust coloured dress of an intricately pleated silk held tight by a golden girdle. Her feet were bare and she wore a golden crown. There was no way she had hiked this far into the Termigent. So Duo had a natural response, a sense of cold terror that he couldn't quite rationalise. "You fear me," she said with a smile, and it was then he realised that she had no mud on her feet though it had been raining all day, and that she was wearing heavy cosmetics and her hair had been professionally dressed. There were no leaves in her hair. She was dressed like one of the women in Tobin's illustrated version of the Akheniad. This was not right. He wondered with the part of his brain that was not contemplating the best way to bolt if she was the reason the Termigent was said to be haunted. "I am not to be feared by you, you have just woken me, that is all." She smiled, "Follow." She waved her hand and the close knit trees of the thicket parted and there was a fountain within and that the ground was paved, and when she walked forward he realised her feet didn't touch the ground. "I mean you no harm," She said with a wicked smile. "You have need of calm and so you found your way here, to this place, to me, that I might bring you peace."
"What are you?" Duo asked. She hadn't answered his first question, she told him her name, but that was all.
"I am the Witch of the Forest." She replied with an arch grin. She ran her hand over her grey brown hair, smoothing it down to show a scar on her temple that she had made no attempt to hide from him. Her hands were soft looking. She did not look like a witch at all. He imaged the witch of the forest to be an old crone in a black robe with skulls and bones as jewellery, that's how they had been in the Senshi stories that Tobin had told him.
"Where am I?"
Her laughter was like a road of stars that shone in the not light of this place. "This is the Forest, where else would the Witch of the Forest be?" He couldn't argue with her logic. She reached out to smooth his hair in a strange gesture of mother comfort. "Do you have hunger?"
"I," Duo began, "I don't think I could eat again."
"You have seen terrors well beyond your years." The woman said sitting down on the rim of the fountain, it looked like the woman who spewed the water might have been her. "Come, little one," she opened her arms to him, and though he didn't know why he went to her, and laid his head upon her breast. She stroked his hair. "You have a terrible choice ahead of you, little one," she put a kiss upon the top of his head, stroking his hair gently. He felt he had no choice to but to accede to her comfort. "And so much sorrow already troubles you. We sent you champions to ease your path, and in that we have failed. I am sorry, my little one." He couldn't help it, he was crying. "Such small shoulders to have the weight of the world resting upon them." In her arms, in the ruined city in the Forest, he felt safe and comforted by the beautiful woman who loved him like a mother, who treated him like a beloved son. "Now remember the anchors that have crossed your path, the champions we have sent to protect you." She laid a kiss on his forehead, "and sleep, my little one, sleep. When you awaken it will have eased, I cannot make it better, but I can ease the pain." She kissed him again, stroking his hair and in her arms, stood by the fountain listening to the patter slap of water striking water, he slept.
He awoke to the murmur of raised voices throughout the Dairai, he lifted his head slightly and then lowered it into back into the warm curve of Heero's neck where he was safe.
"You dare," the empress' voice was raised and rang through the palace like a great bell, "to behave so to me in my own court, Seraphim, I will have your head for this." Heero climbed from the futon, clad only in his undershorts and pulled the yukuta about himself as he pulled open the door.
Throughout the Dairai there was shouting and screaming, and people running along the corridors. Senshi who were normally as dormant as dogs were belting on their paired swords.
"My lord Senshisha," Diamond asked grabbing him by the arm, "please go back inside."
"What's happening?" Heero asked, making sure Duo was fine, if now sitting awake and watching to see if he had any answers.
"The Seraphim have brought a full battalion from Coresc, they must have left about the same time that you left Dathyl." Diamond said, pushing Heero inside, "there will be no problem. The empress will not allow it, and even if it is the night of the dead there are enough Senshi in the palace to repel them." She pulled the door closed and vanished without a sound.
"I swore to protect you." Heero said, taking the sword that Mamoru had given him.
"I can protect myself." Duo said, shimmying into his pants.
"I never denied that." Heero said, "we can not stay here, the Seraphim want something, and I will not let them take your heart." He was actually incensed at the very concept. "Get your knives, Duo, we will leave immediately."
"Heero," Duo began, checking that both knives were in their sheathes in his boots.
"Your heart belongs to me," he snarled, "and no one will else will take it from me, Duo, not even you." And simultaneously annoyed and warmed by the declaration Duo began getting ready.
Tobin pushed open the door, Josian was standing slightly behind him. "The Seraphim are demanding me, so I'm sure that both of you," he appraised them carefully, "want out of here as much as I do, follow me, I'll take you to Meirin." He threw them each a bundle of clothes, Heero's was a basic senshi uniform but Duo's was a maid's dress.
"What about Mina?" Duo asked.
"Mamoru is one step ahead of you, she's waiting for us at the Tor, or at least will be by the time we get there. Don't worry about provisions, they'll wait for us at the Tor." Tobin said, "just get ready as quickly as you can."
"Why do the Seraphim want you?" Heero asked, he was working out a risk assessment and if Heero was dangerous he would be disposed of.
"I am the Eyes of Honeybourne." Tobin answered, "I witnessed the slaughter, with my report they could take war to the Garvem in the south. If that happens Dathyl will fall to the Garvem, the Senshi won't allow such a growth of Garvem power, Dathyl and all it stands for will become a battleground, it is much easier to flee and avoid the Seraphim than have to step up and do my duty by house and kingdom serving both interests. So, if you're leaving, come on." Heero looked at him as if he had started speaking in tongues. "I'll explain on the way, come on." Tobin continued. "Out of that window," he said suddenly, "do you see that mountain to the east?" It was hard to miss the mountain, it was vast, imposing and dark, "that is Meirin, if something happens to any of us, Heero, you must make sure Duo and Mina make it to the mountain, nothing can hurt them there, the aegis will protect them, I won't make you swear because I know I don't need to, but you have to get them to the mountain." Heero nodded, understanding. "It's a simple enough route, head due east of the Tor, north of Shiro and then west at the Akamatsu forest. You must skirt the Termigent, you mustn't enter it for any reason, ever." It was obvious Tobin was scared, an emotion they'd never seen him with before, "Duo, the dead will take you home, don't be afraid to call on them if something goes wrong. The Seraphim are relentless, we have to go." He flicked his eyes to the door. "There really isn't time to linger, Duo, put the dress on and we can get moving."
Duo scowled but nonetheless pulled the dress over his head. "Servants are invisible," Josian said, "no one questions them being where they're meant to be, people will just assume you are being escorted by a common senshi, it's hiding in plain sight. We really need to get you out of here, there are more sensible clothes for you at the Tor."
"If you worry so much for us reaching our destination," Heero said as he belted his shirt into place, "should you not tell us where this Tor is?"
"In the kitchens there is a cellar, go through the cellar and behind the well, and there is a series of tunnels, they lead directly to the Tor." Josian answered bluntly, "you really cannot get lost. The way is clear and the dead will guide Duo. Come on, unless you wish for the Seraphim to gut you like a fish."
The tunnel was almost exactly the way that Tobin had described it, it had been carved out of the soil and fixed in place with baked clay bricks. The entrance was a sliver of a doorway between two outcroppings but the tunnel itself was wide and full. Tobin had lifted a jug of oil that worked as a lamp.
They started out at a fast lope when they became aware of the hard slapping of wooden soles against the packed earth. "The Seraphim!" Josian said, "Tobin, take Duo and head out, they only want you two, Heero, you have your sword?" Heero nodded. "Do you fancy your chances?" Heero's smile was slow and sinuous. "Wait for us at the Tor." Josian said, in the light from the lamp he was grinning, it was terrible sight to behold. From his hip he unsheathed an axe, it glinted in the light like Josian's golden eyes. "I can't imagine we'll be long."
Author's Note
This is a weird text because it is set inside another text where all hell is currently breaking loose, they honestly think the world is ending and it has little if anything to do with what's happening between Duo and Heero but is very important regardless, hence the strange chapters and explanations of things that make no sense to either the boys or you I imagine. So here's a brief summary
Achren is a witch, she rules the large state to the south of Dathyl. She maintains her power with an army called the Garvem.
The Seraphim can't stand this and want any excuse to go to war against her because of a massacre that happened about 20 or so years before at the River Ailel.
The senshi, who have maintained a fragile peace with Sidi (Achren's country) would not allow the Garvem to attack Dathyl as it would upset the balance between them and would therefore invade.
The Garvem attacked Honeybourne which was nominally a Dathyl state because Honeybourne brought it on themselves, as the royal observer Tobin could have coerced the late queen to war, but she died and her son is mad, leaving a power vacuum that the Seraphim are using to their best advantage. Despite being primarily based in Dathyl the Seraphim have no allegiance to the country and will see it destroyed to remove Achren. This is why they chase Tobin because if they could get his statement they could force the Dathyl army to war, because the king can't stop them, they'll declare a crisis of the faith, seize the army and go. They can't do this in Dathyl itself because Alister protects him, but there is little reason for Teishi to do this either. Duo and Mina at this point are just added bonuses. There, that should make it make some more sense.