Chapter Three
Aria
"Duo, wake up." Heero's words broke through the dream state that Duo's mind was in. He opened his eyes slowly, looking around confused for a moment before memories invaded his head. He rubbed his eyes and yawned, still leaning against Heero, Wing was in a steady trot, which caused them to bounce lightly to the beating hooves on the hard packed ground. He looked up to see Heero looking down at him.
"How long have I been asleep?" He asked, not sitting up, he was too comfortable to move, and he liked the feeling of Heero's heart beat near his ear.
"Four hours. We're reaching Aria." Heero said, looking up in the direction of said city. One of the largest in Kelas.
"Really?" Duo sat up, trying to get a better look, but all he could see were the distant lights. He heard a soft laugh and turned to smile at Quatre. "Can we do stuff there?" He asked.
"You'll have to ask, Heero. He's in charge of anything you do, Duo, for your own safety of course." Duo turned to look at Heero, his eyes large, bright, and pleading, with a hint of mischief that was crying to be set free.
"I don't think that's a good idea. You could barely walk earlier." Heero said, then regretted it when Duo's eyes saddened and he looked away.
"Okay." He said. "Hell, I've been locked up this long, I think I can wait until I can at least walk." He said, but that was instantly changed once they were in the town. Duo became so hyper and excited that Heero had a hard time keeping him on Wing's back.
"Look! What's that?" Duo asked pointing at random things, but before Heero could answer him he was off on something else. Duo was jumping from subject to subject, nearly falling off the horse more then a handful of times, but didn't seem to notice it. Then a child walked by licking an ice-cream cone and Duo's attention seemed to be caught permanently know. "Oh Heero, please?" Duo pleaded, turning to Heero. Heero sighed and dismounted the horse handing the reins over to the stable boy. Who in turned looked at the giant horse with nervous eyes.
"He will obey you, though he only eats oats. I'm sure this will cover his expenses." Heero said, handing the stable boy a gold nugget. "If there is one hair out of place on him, I will personally kill you." Heero threatened. Duo, smiled at that. Threatening a human. That was just to good for him. Then he bowed his head ashamed. He shouldn't think thoughts like that, after all it wasn't all humans who had locked him away.
"Don't worry." Quatre said, dismounting his own horse. "It's only natural for you to hate them, just try not to be rude, they have their importance." He said with a smile. Duo smiled at him and nodded.
Heero helped Duo off the horse and helped him to stand as the stable boy lead the giant of a horse away to the stables. Heero started leading Duo into the town away from the inn. Duo's eyes lit up, that is until Wufei opened his mouth.
"Heero, where are you going? We have to get our barring, and we need to see if Trieze has any idea of what has happened, we need to stay two steps ahead of them." He said. Heero looked at her with a glare, and Duo just closed his eyes, waiting to see if Heero would lead him back towards the Inn, after all he couldn't walk on his own yet, and so therefore he had to fallow Heero. Then he smiled when Heero spoke.
"And you can't do that on your own Wufei, you've never needed my help before." Duo looked at Wufei and stuck his tongue out at him. Wufei glared at him and stormed away. Duo smiled up to Heero, who laughed. "Oh, I can tell you're going to cause a lot of problems." He said, he continued to lead Duo into the city.
"So what's up with you and him anyway." Heero just smiled and didn't answer the question, leading Duo up into the line for Ice-cream. "Oh come on you can tell me, I promise I won't tell any one." Duo said.
"I'm not interested in him, and he's pretty interested in me." Heero said. Duo lifted an eye brow in confusion.
"Well I'm interested in you, I mean geez, I've never seen anyone like you." There were giggles behind them, Duo turned and looked at the three girls blushing and giggling. "But I'm interested in Quatre too, he's so nice and he always seems to be happy. Oh and Trowa, why does his hair do that, I asked him and he just started laughing remember? And Wufei, well he's just another-." There was a tap on his shoulder and he looked back to see the girls looking at him.
"I like you're hair, what's your secret?" One of the girls asked, blushing greatly. Duo forced a smile at the little human female.
"Two hundred years of dirt." He said, the girl took it as a joke and laughed lightly. Duo ignored her and turned back to Heero.
"Duo, I meant that he wants to have a personal relationship with me." Heero said.
"OH!!" Duo said.
"What can I get for you two?" It was their turn at the stand.
"So what is this?" Duo asked.
"It's ice-cream, it's a cold treat, full of sugar, the brown is chocolate, pink is strawberry, and white is vanilla." Heero explained quickly.
"Which one is your favorite?" Duo asked. Heero was shocked that he asked and had to think about it.
"I've never tried it before, so just pick one." He said, Duo nodded and turned back to the vendor, who was looking a little shocked that they boy had never had ice-cream before. Neither of them.
"Can I have chocolate please." Duo asked politely, smiling at the man.
"How many scoops?" The vendor asked. Duo looked at Heero, then back at the vendor.
"Two." He said happily. The vendor scooped out the ice cream and handed each of them a cone, Heero looked at the ice-cream with a bit of disgust.
"How much?" He asked, not really looking at the vendor.
"Two." The man said. Heero looked at him. He hated this, they never said which one, they always said just how many.
"Two what, gold?" He asked. The vendors eyes widened.
"No, no, two copper coins will cover it fine." The vendor said. Heero held out two pebble size copper stones.
"Will these work?" He asked.
"This is more then enough, each of these stones can make two coins, you don't have any coins?" The vendor asked. Heero just shook his head and walked away, leading Duo to a bench to sit on and enjoy their ice-creams, as much as he thought he was going to loath it.
"What was that all about?" Duo asked, Heero smiled at him.
"Well we don't use coins in White Fang, we just trade, but humans have this thing about trading for these coins, luckily enough there made from minerals like gold, silver, and copper, I've tried platinum once, but that started a bunch of problems, someone tried to rob us, and another tried to kill us for our money." Heero explained.
"Did they get it?" Duo asked, Heero shook his head and showed his hand to Duo, a gold piece formed there.
"Of course not. I make the stones, as I need them." Heero said, the gold disappeared back into his hand. Duo smiled. Of course, it made since, Heero can control the minerals, metals, and plant life of Kelas.
"Ewww, it's melting." Ravi said and licking the sweet brown liquid from his hand, his eyes immediately lit up. "Oh this is good." He licked more of it. Heero looked down at his own sweet treat and licked it slowly, a small amount, testing it, making sure it wouldn't kill him. He took another, larger lick.
"Yeah, it's not bad." He said.
They walked around the city a little bit longer, Duo was walking on his own after a while, but he was still really clumsy and stumbled a bit, kind of like a drunk man, but he just laughed it off. He would spin around every so often, he would play with the children that were still allowed up at this time of night. After a few hours the streets started to clear of the people, filling instead with drunk people, people who didn't have lives and spent their time wasting away in pubs.
"It's getting late, Duo, let's head back." Heero said, leading Duo towards the Inn. Duo just yawned and nodded, leaning against Heero, trying to keep his eyes open as they walked.
Heero entered the Inn's lobby and found Quatre sitting in the small café just off to the side, next to him sat Trowa. Heero sat Duo down with them, he himself talking the chair next to Quatre.
"Where is Wufei?" Heero asked.
"Sleeping, he said that he was going to get up early tomorrow. He has to go ahead of us and meet with Odin in Byl." Heero didn't say anything, he just smiled at that and looked at Duo, and was surprised to find the boy asleep sitting up.
"Speaking of sleeping." Quatre said with a sly smile to Heero. Trowa smiled also.
"Yeah, I guess I should get him to bed, remind me never to give him ice-cream again. The sugar rush he gets…well, let's just say even Lady Une would have a hard time keeping him in chains, iron or not." Quatre laughed at that and Trowa's smile widened. Heero pulled Duo to his feet, he was disorientated but just fallowed Heero up the stairs to their room.
"That's cute." Quatre said, turning to Trowa.
"What is?" Trowa questioned, looking back at Quatre completely serious.
"Them." Quatre said simply, standing and leaving the Shadow Volaer to himself.
"Is that what you want from me-?" Trowa started with a smirk, but was un able to finish as Quatre cut him off.
"I'll see you in the morning Trowa." He said walking up the stairs, a playful smile hidden from Trowa's view. Trowa laughed a bit, oh he was going to get Quatre if it was the last thing he did.
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"A bed." Duo's voice was full of amazement and relief, though it was well hidden behind the tiredness. He fell face first into the bed, rubbing his face into the soft pillow. "Oh, it's so soft." He said through a yawn.
Heero shut and locked the door , turning around to talk to Duo. "You should…" He stopped and smiled. "Or I could." He said with a slight laugh. He removed all of Duo's extra clothing leaving him only in his loose long sleeve shirt and pants. He set everything on the chair next to Duo's bed. He pulled the covers out from under Duo's limp body and pulled them over him. He undressed himself down to his pants, climbing into his own bed and blowing out the candle in the middle of the two beds.
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"What do you mean they are all dead. Where is the Volaer?" Lady Une asked, grabbing the large mans cloths and pulling him down to look her in the face.
"I…I…don't know, Lady Une, his body was nowhere to be found, the chains are missing too, he just vanished." The man said scared to death of the witch in front of him. "The wizard is gone too, maybe he-."
"No I had Alex kill him as soon as the spell was lifted." Lady Une said in a huffed breath, pushing the man away from her.
"Then I suggest you find him, Lady Une." The lady turned to see King Trieze standing in the door way.
"Sire, I will I promise." She said, bowing lowly to her king.
"I trust you Lady Une." Trieze said, walking away from the room, a smirk on his lips. How he loved it when he was able to sneak up on the witch.
Lady Une turned back on the man, to his distress. "Send Cudra after them, they have to go over the Facic River to get to Gazy." Lady Une said, looking over the map at her desk.
"Ma'am, how do you even know where they are, or whether or not the Volaer just escaped on his own?" The man asked.
"Because who ever has him will be smart enough to leave Oz territory. And if, by a miracle of a chance, that he did escape, it's hard to miss a naked, mud caked boy with odd colored eyes running around the city. If he was on his own he would be confused and lost. For him to just vanish, someone had to have taken him, and I already have my suspicions." Lady Une said angrily, the man stumbled from the room, taking his stupid questions with him.
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Hope you are all enjoying the ride.