Title: Lord of Death 28/28

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

Of the ride from Samrath to Meirin Duo never would recall the details. Only Heero slowly shaking him awake and his face feeling sticky from tears. All he could focus on was the terrible image of Minako lying gutted in the mud of the field, with the dead beside her screaming, and the easy violence of the Ningyo. "We're here." Heero said quietly, but made no move to pull away from where Duo clung to him.

"Takeo." Tobin called out swinging from his horse.

"We know." A hooded figure said coming out of one of the stone houses. Meirin was a bundle of small square stone houses that surrounded a silvery tower, behind it was a mountain with strange alcoves that Duo knew were graves, the way he knew that Takeo was keeper of this place, and was about a thousand years dead. "We felt the Ningyo rise." His voice was calm and clear, "welcome, lord of Meirin, I am Takeo, mayor of this place. Lodgings have been made for you."

"Lady Minako has fallen." Tobin yelled, his face pink with anger that he couldn't express any other way.

"We know," Takeo said, "and we will mourn her as we have mourned every lady of Meirin that has ever fallen in the course of her duty, there will be weeping in the streets of Meirin when there is time, but first, our young lord must be taken care of." Heero had managed to climb down from the horse without loosening his grip on Duo, he was now glaring at Takeo who was yet to push back his hood. "Once we know that he is well then we can begin mourning. It is the curse of Meirin that we must remember the living, and mind the dead." He took a long deep sigh, "Lady Minako has fallen, there will be a vigil in her honour and fasting, the women will weep and wail, but Lord Duo is fragile at present, we would not lose him also. Lord Heero, will you follow me, we have laid out a bed for you both, and liquor, or poppy milk if you have need. Lord Tobin, if you would help us with the necessary preparations for the requiem."

"How do you know our names?" Heero asked, eyes wide and for the first time since coming here genuinely afraid.

"We are the caretakers of Meirin." Takeo answered calmly, "The aegis both protects and informs us of what we need to know. Soon, you too, will hear the whispers of it in the wind. Come, the journey has been cruel and fast, you both need rest."

The town that rested under the tower of Meirin was short and squat with small square houses roofed in slate and they were completely unlike anything that Duo had seen. The palace of Halcyon was like something from a history novel of wealth, all luscious fabrics and dark woods. The walls in Meirin were permanent and bare, made of the dark granite with its glass sparkles, and they were icy to the touch. In the centre of the room was a small granite slab stained black from many fires, with the makings of another laid out. Instead of a thin mattress on the floor, as would be expected in such a place, there was a raised bed heaped high with blankets against the mountain chill. Clothes were laid across the bed, much like the ones Tobin and Josian wore, and lying on them was a single gold pendant that Duo had the terrible impression he had seen before, and was meant for him. He also suspected with a terrible clarity that everyone here was dead and had been for a very long time indeed. He couldn't have said where the impression came from, but he knew it to be true. He didn't like this place, as strange as it was; he had never felt more at home.

"Heero," he said looking at the dark haired boy that still held his hand when he sat on the bed. "Tell me it wasn't real."

Heero took a deep breath, "honesty means too much to you for me to lie to you, Duo, I do not understand what happened there but at the same time I know it was true. Lady Minako fell, murdered by the Seraphim and then the creatures came from the forest."

"I called them." Duo couldn't help the way his voice wavered as he said, "they were the Ningyo, and I called them, there was this girl on the field, and she had one wing, and she said to call them and I did, I couldn't see any other way."

"One wing?" Heero asked suddenly, he held Duo's hand and ran the pad of his thumb over the flesh of his palm. "There was a girl there with one wing?"

"Yes," Duo said lowering his eyes to watch the movement of Heero's thumb. Heero took a second deep breath and sat down beside Duo on the bed, putting his arm around him and pulling him into the crook of his neck, the other hand still ran it's thumb over his palm in a conciliatory gesture that Duo seemed to appreciate. "She scared me, she only appeared when Minako was killed and she knew things. She scared me, Heero, I didn't think anything did any more, except when I was scared someone might hurt you, but she terrified me, if you hadn't held me so tight I would have run from the field. I've never run from a fight in my life, Heero, and I wanted to run, then the Ningyo came to the field and I knew that the fear I had of her was nothing."

"There's something I should tell you." Heero said, looking down at where Duo's large eyes were fixed on him, they wavered and shone in the light. "In the chapel of many colours where I saw some of this world's prophecies, they featured a girl with one golden wing, and the boy in the prophecies looked like you. Tobin said that he would be the one to save or damn the world. I do not know what it means."

"Heero," Duo said, his hands clutching Heero's almost spasmodically. "I want to go home, I want to go to sleep and wake up on L2 again, and none of this to be true, I want nothing more than to talk to Quatre and Trowa and even Wufei. I hate this place, I want to go home, Heero, I just want to go home."

"Me too." Heero said quietly, "me too."

"Then kiss me, Heero, kiss me and smile for me and tell me it's going to be okay, tell me that everything's going to be okay and know that I'll believe you because it's you, because you're Heero, not because you are my Senshisha." Heero found no words to answer that, so he kissed him instead.

Tobin knocked on the heavy door before he came in. He looked very pale. Duo had started shivering so he had let Heero help him on with the heavy clothes and swaddle him protectively in the blankets that had been heaped on the bed. The maids had brought him hot cider which he clutched in both hands, but still he shivered. Heero had built the fire up in the grate and now he stared into it lackadaisically, as if it held the answers. "I," Tobin started but the words were lacking.

"Thank you." Heero said. "For taking care of him when I could not. We failed Mina, you and I, but we saved Duo." Heero waited on Duo's protestations that he could look after himself, that he didn't need saving, but it didn't come.

"I," Tobin started again.

"It's not your fault, you know." Duo said from the bed, but he didn't take his eyes off the plume of steam from the cider, "I think she knew, that's why she sent Mamoru away, because she knew, because she didn't want him to see, she didn't want him to die as well, and he would have. I think she loved him, you know, and I know he loved her, and now he has to find out that's she's gone and..." The words were suddenly gone.

"She was like a mother to me." Tobin said quietly, "when I had none, she was mother, sister, friend. I shared everything with her. She showed me my first snowfall, and fed me my first strawberry and…" Like Duo before him his voice trailed off.

"We loved her." Heero said, but did not raise his eyes from the fire. "Because she was kind, because she was selfless, because she was brave, and because she loved us." He had cut to the quick of it.

"Father Maxwell said we shouldn't mourn the dead, we should rejoice that we knew them." Duo said quietly. "But it's easier said than done." He raised the tankard, "to Minako," he said and then drained the cup dry.

"To Minako." The others repeated. Then there was silence.

After a while Duo left them to their small house and their wine. He left Heero asleep beside him and left the house to search out the tower. The air was bitterly chill and made his chest hurt. The temperature had dropped drastically since he had gone in for dinner and it was only twilight. The temperature would be below freezing at midnight.

It was almost impossible not to reach the tower. Every path in the town led to the tower and the mountain behind it. The small black caves were like a thousand eyes looking down at him, but their gaze was not acrimonious. They watched him, but couldn't have guessed the mountain's intention. He saw several of the robed figures, but no one barred his path. When he reached the tower the giant double doors were wide open. The floor was like a sheet of glass over the Soulsease river that thundered thousands of feet below. The tower was completely empty but for a flight of stairs that went both up and down, and hanging from the ceiling a hundred feet above him was a chunk of crystal, and in it, as if sleeping, was a woman of phenomenal beauty. Coiled around the giant shard of crystal was a skeletal beast that was built like a snake around a single ridged backbone, with four huge claws that went through the loops of its own body. The importance of the woman and the beast was lost on Duo.

Inset in the clear crystal floor was a design of a snake coiling in a figure eight before swallowing its own tail. It was the same design as on the pendant they had left out for him, and the ring that the empress had given both him and Heero. It made his mind up and he stepped away from the door as it closed behind him. It didn't surprise him.

The stairs that circled the walls went both up and down. The stairs that led up were marked with a silver bell, but those that led down were marked by the ouroborous. It made his decision for him. He descended.

It was a long thin corridor that got narrower and narrower on its way until it reached a small chamber with a hole in its centre. It was dark and he couldn't see anything. He wondered why someone had gone to such bother to build something so completely useless. He scratched his head and prepared to go back when he spotted a lantern to the right. It was lit and hooded as if someone who shouldn't have been there had left it behind. He picked it up and opened the panel to cast a beam of light around the room and saw the paintings.

The first one showed a figure with a pair of golden wings holding a glass ball in one hand, but on the other side at his feet was a shattered globe.

The second image showed two winged figures battling with matching black swords. They were both aloft and they destroyed each other as behind them a forest burned.

The third picture showed a golden woman holding the glass sphere and a black sword, behind her there was a loom that had been shattered.

The fourth image was the winged figure helping someone out from a grave in a fabulous cathedral.

The fifth showed an image eerily like the fourth but the winged figure had clearly killed the body.

The sixth figure was unambiguous, it was a ship sailing with tattered sails and all aboard it the crew was dead.

The six images were strange but the seventh image chilled Deakon to the bone. The winged figure was strangled by silver threads but the wings weren't his, a second figure was behind him with hair like golden fire and arms about his waist. One hand held aloft the silvery globe, the other globe had fallen almost carelessly, and around his neck was a torque, the mark of a draima gift, but there were three shadowy figures at his feet. Both had the figure holding him wore imperial crowns. It was not that that had disturbed Duo, the man had only one wing, the other had the other wing, but both had yellow eyes. These were the prophecies that Heero had spoken of, but that was the girl he had seen on the field, the girl who told him to call the Ningyo.

"What is this?" Duo asked the silence. The room was surrounded by the pictures.

"This is the Aegis." A female voice said behind him, "and these are the A'setra prophecies of the Draima Rei." The woman behind him was small and fair, her hair was a sprawl of moonlight down her back, she wore the same white robe that Minako had died in, but there was a strip of cloth over her eyes, "well come, Duo, are you ready to choose?"

"Who are you?" Duo asked.

"We have many names." She answered, and her voice was like sunlight falling through water. "We suppose the name you would find easiest is Termigent."

"That is the name of the Forest." Duo said, almost automatically.

"We are the Forest." She said, "We are this world, we are the gods and we are the void. We have come to hear the choice, the Aegis has the power to answer your questions, child, choose."

"What must I choose?" Duo asked.

"To save or damn the world." She answered calmly.

"But I just want to go home." Duo protested, no longer caring if it was childish or petulant to say that. "I,"

"The decision not to choose is also a choice, Duo." She answered. "We can send you back to your world if that is your choice, but you can still choose." Her smile was as ghostly as her appearance, "will you not choose?"

"No," Duo said crossing his arms across his chest.

"Then so be it," the woman said, there was no thunder to echo his decision, "We shall simply wait for the next to come who the prophecy foretold. Return to the house in Meirin, go to your Senshisha and go with our love. We shall return you to your home, but we reserve the right to call you again if the choice remains unmade."

"I don't understand." Duo protested.

"The loom is snarled," she said, "nothing can change, we have eternity to wait for another, the Pariako twisted it and broke the threads, until the threads are mended there can be no change. There will be stasis. Champions will search for he who is to come. You may still choose, Duo, to mend the loom or shatter it outright."

"No," he said, "I just want to go home, I want you to take back this power, I don't want to see the dead anymore. It's not like I'm not grateful but, I don't want it."

"We gave you no such gifts." The woman answered, "go to your Senshisha, and go with our love, know that we believe in you." She reached forward and kissed him on the forehead, and her kiss burned like ice.

Heero was asleep in the bed where Duo had left him. He stripped down to his underwear and climbed in beside him, spooning in behind him, in his sleep Heero turned over and threw his arm over Duo, pulling him close. Heero's skin was so hot after the outside chill it stung. "I love you." Duo murmured, "even if we're stuck here forever, I love you."

Heero awoke and without opening his eyes patted across the bed for Duo. He wasn't there. He cracked open one eye and noticed that he was in a hospital bed, that he was bandaged for many scrapes and bruises and that Duo slept peacefully in the next bed. Without opening both eyes enough to consider himself awake he threw back the blanket and padded across to Duo's bed, and then climbed in beside him, burying his nose in Duo's braid, reassured that he was fine, he went back to sleep.

On looking in on them Quatre nearly dropped his book in shock. He had sat with them in shifts with the other pilots for days and there had been no movement, despite the doctor's reassurance that they were merely sleeping, but now it seemed that Heero had moved, and for the first time his empathy was aware of them lying there, comfortably.

He decided not to disturb them.