Darkness within
Chapter 3
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Duo carefully let the lolling head fall backward and slowly rose to his feet. He could have told them the plan wouldn't work, that the Ring of Obedience could be fine-tuned sufficiently to alert its owner to an inner drawing of strength and purpose. He could have told them the malignant tendrils that kept them enslaved had spread too far, and it would take a sweeter savagery than a man was capable of to free them. He could have told them there were crueler weapons than the Ring to keep a man obedient, the only way to escape, for even a little while, was to care for no one, to be alone.
He could have told them.
And yet, when they had approached him, timidly, cautiously, eager to ask a man who had broken free again and again over the centuries but was still enslaved, all he had said was, Sacrifice everything." They had gone away, disappointed, unable to understand he had meant what he'd said. Sacrifice everything. And there was one thing he couldn't - wouldn't - sacrifice.
How many times after he'd surrendered and been tethered again by that cruel ring of gold around his organ had Heero found him and pinned him against a wall, snarling with rage, calling him a fool and a coward to give in?
Liar, silky, court-trained liar.
Once, Dorothea Catalona had searched desperately for Heero Yuy after he'd vanished from a court without a trace. It had taken a hundred years to find him, and two thousand Warlords had died trying to recapture him. He could have used that small, savage Territory he had held and conquered half the Realm of Terreille, could have became a tangible threat to Hayll's encroachment and absorption of every people it touched. Instead, he had read a letter Dorothea sent through a messenger. Read it and surrendered.
The letter had simply said: "Surrender by the new moon. Every day you are gone thereafter, I will take a piece of your brother's body in payment for your arrogance."
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I wasn't going to post this until Monday but then I thought I might as well do it now. I think this chapter will give people more of a idea what I meant by the length driving them crazy.
And deathwraith there are other attempts to do this!!! I didn't know! Think you can tell me where they are so that way I can figure out what not to do in mine!