Author: Keiran

Title: A World in a Grain of Sand 3/?

Pairings: 1+2, minor 4x5x4 and 3xD (don't ask .)

Rating: It probably doesn't deserve an R, but let it be so. Just to be safe and all.

Genre: There'll be romance, mild angst, now it's just historical sort of fantasy.

Warnings: Shounen-ai. Mild bastardisation of the pilots minus Duo.

Archive: my site: the URL is on my profile page. If you want it, drop me a line. ^_^

This fic has been betaed by Sundaire. ^_^ beams

*****

Duo sat on a windowsill, watching a garden pond below. His knees were drawn to his chest so that his chin could rest on them. There was no smile on his face when the master healer found him. However, the first question Duo had expected to be asked didn't come.

"Do you hate him?"

Bright eyes went wide.

"Ex… excuse me?" the youth stuttered.

"Do you hate that man? The general?" the old man inquired gently.

"I should." Duo closed his eyes. "I know it's wrong, but I know I should despise him. He had me enslaved, he had used me, he was disrespectful… but I can't. I don't know why. I tried to."

"Do you like him?"

"No! I mean… I know why I don't hate him. He had always been physically good to me. I mean he never beat me, made sure I had plenty of food, even when he was…" a dark blush colored his cheeks. His lips moved, but no sound escaped them. The priest seemed to understand what it meant for the young man and nodded his understanding. "He had been almost gentle. It's enough not to hate him for forcing me, but it's not enough for me to like him."

"You never actually told me how you ended up as anybody's slave."

"I…" Duo hung his head. "I'm an orphan. My parents were Lord and Lady Maxwell, of Albion [1] – hence the accent when I speak Sanq – but they died when I was four. My brother, who was eighteen then, took me to the East, to one of my family's friends. Since Solo was groomed to be the Lord, I figured I could do whatever I wanted. I didn't want to be scholar or anything, but I was reading and learning a lot. In between fun, of course. My caretaker was a master healer himself, and I followed him a lot as a child.

"But then he died, six years ago. So I went back to Albion, to Solo. He had married in the meantime, had a child. His wife wasn't overly fond of me… she said I made Solo sad, that I reminded him of our parents. So I left. I went traveling, and I can't even remember were I was when I learned that Solo had been killed. I went back to his funeral, but I didn't stay.

"Then… quite typically, there was a gale, and the ship I was traveling on was destroyed. Some of the crew had survived… and they decided that they might make enough money for a new ship if they sold me. I was wounded, but not gravely, and I only learned about their plans after lord Winner had come to take me away.

"I didn't say anything before we left those men, but as soon as we were alone I told Winner that I was no slave, and that I would give him back the money he spent on me if he helped me to get to Albion. I was the official Lord after Solo's death. Of course, there was also his child, but as I said, his wife was really a good woman… She just didn't want to see Solo sad." Duo paused taking a deep breath.

"He didn't listen. He told me I was a present for his friend." Duo's voice shook. "He brought me to Sanq, had me bathed and dressed up and… gave me to the general, as if I was an object to be given. I spent a year there," he added in the softest of whispers.

"I understand. Do not worry. You didn't do anything wrong. There's one thing that bothers me though. You said you are a noble, right?" At the youth's reluctant nod, the priest continued. "Most of the nobles I heard of in such a situation would choose to kill themselves. And you said you were raised in the East…"

Duo gazed at the floor.

"I had promised my father I wouldn't ever kill myself. Both my brother and I promised, but of course I was too young too understand it back then. See, my mother had committed suicide, after she was… hurt." Large expressive eyes watched the priest willing him to understand. "After she died, my father was devastated. He died only two weeks later. Some accident during a hunt. Before he did, he made us both promise that we wouldn't kill ourselves over things that cannot be helped."

The master healer rose a brow.

"I've been thinking about it, the whole time. That's exactly what he had said then, 'over things that cannot be helped.' I suppose he meant things that had already happened. But… the truth is that I was afraid. And I didn't want to die." There was shame in his young voice. The old man regarded him fondly before he walked over and sat next to his charge, putting his arm around the young one's shoulders.

"That's what a healer should say, child. You did the right thing. There is no shame in wanting to live." The long-haired man shivered slightly.

"I know that… and then I don't. I wanted to… Goddess, I wanted it to end. It was so humiliating… But I couldn't do it. Same as I couldn't kill the general. I mean, I know how to fight, I've been raised a noble after all. But I cannot kill. It just…scares me. I thought about it. I imagined how could I kill him, but... I knew what I was going to see. And it scared me.

"And of course as nice to slaves as the Sanq people are, I doubted they would've let one go after killing their great general. Does that make me a coward?"

"I don't know. Nobody can answer it now. But you are here now, and you are alive. That matters. As you said, 'no use killing yourself over something that cannot be helped.'"

Duo was silent for a while.

"He started to drag me with him to all of his journeys. One would think there was a serious slave shortage in Sanq, he barely let me out of his sight. I love the sea, have I ever told you that? Solo's palace was near the sea, I could see it from my window. I could spend hours watching it.

"I was doing that every morning when they set camp near the sea. I would get up early, sit and watch. One day I was sitting at the edge of a cliff – it was a morning after a particularly strong storm. Well… the bit I was sitting on broke off and fell… I thought that it was some sort of a sign, that I should have killed myself.

"I was really lucky, it turned out. There weren't any rocks, and the water was pretty deep, that one spot only. Everywhere else, there were sharp rocks and a shallow bottom. I suppose that's why no one ever searched for me. I can't remember what happened exactly, but I suppose some fisherman had managed to pull me out of the water. I woke up a couple of days later in some village. By some miracle, they didn't think they could make a mint by selling me or opening a brothel with me as a main attraction. I stayed with them for a while, then I left. They were kind enough to direct me here."

"I'm glad they did."

"The general has left, hasn't he?" Duo asked, his voice trembling slightly.

"Yes. Either that, or he's leaving now." The priest didn't tell Duo about the promise he was asked to make. Nor did he mention the fact that the general might have left, but the look in his eyes said that there was something precious he left in the temple. Something he will miss.

Something he will want to come back for, soon.

[1] Albion is an ancient name for Britain. The closest thing I could do to make Duo an American. Or at least give him a foreign accent, since I think that Sanq is somewhere south, like Spain or France.

***TBC***