Title: The Ribbon and the Ring 13?
Author: Seraphim Grace
Archive: if you want it ask, I just like to know where they are. Always appreciated and replied to.
Rating: 18 (This is an open rating so I don't have to worry).
Pairings: 1x2
Warnings: Angst. Some gore. Some incredibly bad French.

Notes: AU, and features necromancy. The boys arrive in Halcyon to meet some old friends and some new.

The palace of Halcyon stood overlooking the city of Dathyl like a sentinel or a zealous aunt. It cast an imposing shadow over the city where it reared at the top of the cliff with the city spread out like a napkin below it. Nevertheless as frightening as the castle could look, for it had taken on a blackness that he did not remember, Heero was fond of the palace with its labyrinthine passages and skyways. It was in that palace that he had first realised that he had loved Duo. It was among those labyrinthine passages and skyways that he had known Mina who had guided him into accepting what his heart had already known.

There were two places in this world that he cherished, almost against his will, Halcyon where he had admitted that he loved Duo, and the Dairai of Dramathen where Duo admitted that he loved him.

The other places they had been, the manor of E'berta, the house in the shadow of the Dramathen Tor, Samrath and Meirin he remembered with a darkness that did not suit them, and nor was their fault.

Things would be solved at Halcyon, he resolved, for good or for ill.

Danan D'Karioni waited in Halcyon, and once he was dead, Duo would truly begin to live again.

He had been quiet since they had left the shadow of Gwen Ystrat two days previous. He had refused any more of the tea, which when questioned by Wufei Gereint had explained contained iocaine, to stop the voices, and poppies, to help him sleep. Heero realised it was no wonder that Quatre was behaving so strangely on such a concoction. Duo had simply said that it had given him bad dreams.

Whatever Duo had fallen afoul of in Gwen Ystrat he had not suffered from again, but nor would he talk about it.

Heero understood that sometimes things were best forgotten and did not press the subject, but he resolved, that if he got Gereint alone, he would ask him the meaning of the name that Duo had given before his fit, Verdande.

The guilt of letting Mina die, as they had watched, was eating away at Duo. They would kill her murderer, they would chop off his head and cut out his heart as he had done to her, and then Duo would let her ghost rest.

When they had returned to the Peacemillion Heero had looked up the unfamiliar word Halcyon to discover it meant a golden time, or a place of peace and prosperity, and in his mind, as he plotted over and over the murder of Danan D'Karioni it had taken on that quality.

It would be bloody and it would be slow. Duo had sworn to eat the still beating heart of the man, and Heero knew that that was an exaggeration, but he wanted him dead, and he wanted him to suffer, and if it lessened just one iota of the pain in Duo's eyes Heero would do it a thousand times over.

"Is that the palace?" Trowa asked from beside him.

"That is Halcyon." Heero answered adroitly. He didn't want Trowa to understand what was going through his head; they teased Duo enough for being with Heero, but more in a friendly fraternal way that just seemed cruel. He just didn't want to give him any more ammunition, even if it was only teasing.

"It looks more like the wicked fairy's castle." He commented. "Hey, Wufei, you never said you went into exterior decorating." He called back over his shoulder, Wufei just scowled at him, "anybody would think they'd designed it for Lady Colonel Une." Then he smiled under his bang, "I can half see her leaving by the tower window on her broomstick any minute now."

"It was built for a witch." Gereint said quietly. "Setsuna, the third and last wife of Imperator, was a witch. She was a lady of Meirin."

Heero punched him. Hard.

Gereint blinked in shock. "The Ladies of Meirin were not witches." Heero told him and then reining in his horse and pushed it to the city gates.

Wufei just looked between him and Gereint and blinked in shock, it was not like Heero to act out like that. Trowa just sniggered. "Word to the wise," he said, "don't piss off Heero."

"Never get between Heero and a mission." Wufei said quietly. "He is Senshisha now, which means he protects the ladies of Meirin."

"But I meant no harm by it." Gereint said as he rubbed his jaw and watched the retreating back of Heero as he rode into the city.

"Nevertheless," Trowa said, "You just called Duo a witch."

Dathyl was a port city separated by the outside world by a long narrow bridge paved with cobbles. "I think I'm going to be sick." Duo told Aia as they rocked and rolled in the wagon towards the city.

"Head out of the wagon then, mister." She answered calmly, "I don't care if it's only another half hour up to the palace. I am not riding in a wagon that stinks of Duo vomit."

Fenrir raised his head to look at her.

"I don't care," she told him as if she was answering something he said, "besides Trowa will protect me from the nasty Duo vomit monsters, like he protected me from the demon slayers in the woods." She raised her chin but Duo could see the small smile playing on the corners of her mouth as she struggled not to laugh.

"The demon slayers who interrupted his peeing." Duo corrected, "and nothing annoys a man more than when he's exposed himself to armed men, what was it you told me he said, you've seen me, now I must kill you.'"

"He wasn't peeing." Aia protested. "He'd come to rescue me."

"Straight after emptying his bladder, he wasn't to know that you were hanging by your ankle from a tree." Duo told her.

"It's not funny." She argued. "They were going to take me to the system lords, and if I couldn't transform I would have been sold as a slave."

"But you're my slave." Duo said crossing his arms across his chest in mock outrage, "I would have had to go to the system lords and explain that carefully." Not that Duo knew what the system lords were, but the conversation distracted him from the roiling of the carriage on the cobbles of the bridge.

Gereint rode up to the two guards who stood at the imposing gate of the palace, Heero noticed, with a comfortable air. He named them both before waving them all in. Before it had been incredibly difficult to get into the palace, the walls were swarming with guards, "hey," one of them called out to Trowa, "you promise not to kill the prince." It must have been a joke because they both laughed.

Heero raised himself up on his saddle. "I am the Senshisha," he said in a crisp clear tone, "and I do not care that my associates be talked to in such a manner. Trowa, flog him, fifty lashes." It was all the more terrible because his tone was even and cold without fluctuation.

Trowa blinked for a moment and then reached down to unhook the whip on his saddle.

"My apologies, my lord." The guard had gone from cocky to terrified in moments, "I meant no disrespect, I," he lowered his head.

"Report to your senior officer." Gereint said, "tell him that you have offended one of the higher blood, tell him what you said and the punishment that was prescribed." It was a soldier's bark. "And that I want more than two guards on the palace, do you understand me, soldier?"

"Sir, yes, sir." The soldier answered with a quick salute before he ran off down the hill.

"That was unexpected." Wufei said, adjusting himself on his horse as they moved into the central courtyard of the palace.

"Not really," Heero said, "they are soldiers. There is a chain of command. I outrank them. I did not care for their tone and knew that Gereint would send the man to his commanding officer. I wanted him to fear me, if they fear me they will not cross me." He swung down from his horse.

"Well, Yuy," Wufei said as he followed his lead, "I wouldn't have crossed you before."

"And I sure as hell wouldn't now." Trowa finished. "Would you really have me whip him?"

"If Gereint hadn't stepped in," Heero said meeting the other pilot's gaze, "yes."

Since they had left Halcyon it had seemed to enter a state of disrepair, Heero noticed as he walked hand in hand with Duo through the halls. It seemed strange to Heero because Dieina had always kept the place immaculate, nor had he seen servants scurrying out of the way as he had used to. The yellow sitting room that had once been the chatelaine's pride and joy now looked like no one had been in it in a hundred years. He understood now why Gereint had looked at him strangely when he had asked that Danan D'Karioni meet them here.

"Wow, old Dee Dee has really let this place go." Duo said spinning around to take in the ruined tapestries and torn upholstery. He ran his fingers through what must have been an inch deep layer of dust on one of the previously finely polished tabletops. "I can honestly say that I never expected this place to be in this state."

"Maybe she is planning a redecoration, it is obvious that some time has elapsed since we left here if her majesty has had a son."

"Yeah," Duo said and then with an impish grin leaned forward and kissed Heero on the lips. It was a flash thing, something completely unplanned but still it took Heero's knees out from under him. "Thank you for this," he murmured against his ear.

"Excuse me," the boy said interrupting them as he pushed open the door. He wore a badly fitting jerkin and his shoes looked like they were almost completely worn through. His hair was outgrown and there was a smudge of dark blue paint on his cheek, "I'm Danan D'Karioni, I was told you wanted to see me."

Author's Note:

Dairai - is the Japanese word for imperial palace.