Title: The Ribbon and the Ring 18?
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.

Heero followed the unhappy line of students on their way to lessons with his head down and his stomach roiling. They walked past the kitchen middens and he made a point of remembering their location in case he had to make a run for it. He rather suspected that he would have to.

Danev was a tall man leaning over a covered table, behind him was a wooden board painted black unto which he could make notes with chalk. He did a head count as they all sat around the table, Jored laid his head on the table and groaned. It seemed he wasn't the only one feeling the after effects of the wine.

Danev did a quick head count, "Quatre," Heero looked across at the blonde, who did look to be the worst off of them all, "back to bed, you're excused from lessons until that tea has finished having it's way with you, Tobin, go with him." Tobin who had stood at the back of the room nodded and led Quatre out.

"Where's Duo?" Trowa whispered across to Heero.

"In the rose garden, apparently he doesn't get lessons." Heero told him.

"Well, that's not fair." Wufei answered.

"No talking." Danev said slapping a wooden measuring stick hard on the desk with an almighty crack. Every one of them winced at the noise. "Now today's lesson plan should be interesting to each and every one of you." He reached behind him and pulled the cloth off the table to reveal a cadaver, "Today, boys, we're having a practical lesson in human anatomy." Heero copied Jored's example and laid his head on the table and groaned.

Duo walked alongside Deakon down to the rose garden, they had gathered certain items from the store, two large buckets, three pairs of secateurs, and a small handsaw. "At least it's a nice day for it." Deakon said brightly, "I hate working in the gardens in the rain."

"Is this what you do most days, when the others are in lessons?" Duo asked, he knew he could trust the boy, like him he could not lie, and they had a lot in common, but he just wasn't sure he wanted to spend all that much time with him. He barely knew him, after all.

"Among other things, if the weather's really foul I clean the paintings or mend the tapestries." Deakon answered a little dryly. "Halcyon's been left to it's own devices for a long time, it's falling apart and the dead really don't like that, I started doing it to calm them down a little, but I've gotten left with the majority of it. Jored will probably be king, and Bunny will be high in his cabinet. Josian and Tobin help, when they can, and Cameron, but mostly it's just me." He shrugged. "someone has to do it, and at least the dead show me how."

"This palace used to have it's own army of servants, what happened to them?" Duo asked, he knew the ones he had known were dead but Halcyon was huge and needed a lot of people to maintain it.

"It's complicated." Deakon answered. Duo realised that was all the answer he was going to get.

"Are you boys ready?" A man said from the shadow of the opening to the wildly overgrown rose garden. The voice was deep and rich, and Duo realised, familiar.

"Mamoru?" He asked, the figure stepped back into the light and Duo knew he was right, "Mamoru, ohmigod, Heero's gonna flip, we thought you were dead with everyone else." Then he realised what he said. "Why aren't you dead?"

"I am," Mamoru answered, "and I am not Mamoru any longer, I am the Cadacus." He bowed his head to Duo, "but it lightens my heart to see you well, Duo, and that the years were kinder to you than to me."

Duo glomped him, wrapping his arms about his waist, "god, you look great, you're a little cold, but never mind that I am the Cadacus stuff, you're…" he fell silent as he realised the chest he had rested his head against had no heart beat. It was then the realisation of all that he had lost occurred to Duo. The previous night the revelation had been drowned in wine, but seeing Mamoru, whom he had known and adored, and feared in equal measure, brought it back home. And Mamoru was so cold, like stone. "But, Mina," Duo protested as he collapsed into sobs.

"I failed her, Duo," the Cadacus said resting his cold hand against Duo's back, "and this is my punishment." He let the weeping boy bring him to his knees as Deakon looked on uncomfortably, "shush," he said, stroking his braid, "it's alright, really, shush, just let it all out." And Duo wept.

Danev was smiling to himself as he gathered the boys around the table. "To begin," he said lifting a scalpel and a small saw, "we'll start with removing the brain." He moved behind the head on the table, "to do this we make an incision around the back of the head from ear to ear, and then from forehead to the incision, this gives us two flaps." He pulled the two flaps up over the corpse's face, "often with this procedure the skin will stick, and needs to be pulled back with a hefty yank."

Heero was sure he heard Jored retch, but he held his ground.

"Then we take the saw and remove the brain pan." The saw was making a terrible squealing sound as it ripped through the bone. It also seemed to last an eternity. "We have to be very careful when removing the brain itself as it is very delicate." It came free with a shlurp sound, Heero thought that might be it for him, but his stomach held firm. "Now to make any incision into the brain itself it first has to be pickled as now it has the consistency of badly made aspic."

That was it for Jored; he bolted from the room with his hand to his mouth. Danev smiled.

Duo accepted the kerchief from the Cadacus as the storm of weeping subsided, he wiped his face and then blew his nose soundly, "all done?" he asked patiently, Duo nodded.

"Boys don't cry." Duo said a little forlornly.

"But the Lords of Meirin do." Deakon said sitting down on a small milking stool.

"It's been a terrible shock," The Cadacus said softly, "and I think that I was the straw that broke the Duo's back."

Duo nodded sitting down on the milking stool that had been set out for him beside the bucket, "how, I mean how, I mean why, I mean, oh god, I…"

"I was punished for my failure, Duo." The Cadacus said softly, as Duo wrung out the cloth between his hands.

"Did you fall at the Tor? Did we leave you behind to die?" He asked, he would not meet the Cadacus' eyes.

"No," The Cadacus said softly, "Josian saw me through that battle and all those that followed as I fought my way to Meirin. I learned there that Minako had fallen. I," he stopped for a moment, something that should have been an exhalation but there was no breath in him, he was cold and had an ashy pallor to his skin, "I took my sword," he stopped again, "the sword she gave me, to the Aegis to finish my duty." There was another brief pause, "I offered myself to the Aegis but it refused me, and I have been like this ever since."

"Don't show him." Deakon snapped, "you'll get maggots again."

The Cadacus offered the boy a smile, "as he is so keen to point out, the wound from my seppuku never healed and outside if I bare it it has a tendency to get infested and I can never tell."

"You feel nothing?" Duo asked. "You always had so much passion."

The Cadacus smiled again, "my body feels nothing, my heart, however, feels protective over Deakon, and now you. I will not fail either of you like I failed her." And Duo knew that was true.

"For the next stage we slit the corpse's throat," Danev said slicing through the skin, "and pull the tongue down and out of the way. Heero, if you could press on the chest cavity for me." Heero swallowed down bile but did as he was told forcing the air from the corpse's lungs in a breathy moan. Someone beside him dry retched. He wasn't sure but it might even have been him. "Now we make the Y incision, we start at the shoulder and cut down to the sternum on both sides and then from the sternum to the navel and pull back the flaps."

Trowa had his hand to his mouth and looked terribly pale, Wufei was looking everywhere but at the cavity, and Bunny was stood behind them, trying with his posture, to get even further away.

"Now we need to remove the ribcage." He lifted a set of what must have been medieval bolt cutters and with a sickening crunch began to snap through the bones. That proved enough for Wufei who ran from the room much like Jored had done. Danev watched him go even as he continued to snap the bones.

"Fine," Deakon said, "now Cadacus, if you can cut the bushes back to about half a foot off the ground, Duo, you remove the leaves from the branches, because Danev wants them, and I'll remove the flower petals and the hips because we can use them for kir." He looked around to make sure everyone agreed with their task.

"You said we were doing this because it was complicated to explain, we have time," Duo said taking the first branch from the Cadacus who snipped it clear with the secateurs and started to strip the leaves into the bucket, "we have time for you to explain."

"I don't know where to begin." Deakon said snapping one of the branches over his knee and throwing the bare wood into a pile.

"On our way here everyone was adamant that there would be a war, perhaps if you explain that." Duo said, "I don't like being in the dark and I can't help if I don't know what's going on."

"It's complicated." Deakon said forlornly. "but I'll try."

Danev lifted the lungs from the chest cavity and laid them on the table, and then started to cut out the heart, "now the heart is a powerful muscle that is formed of four small chambers, each that beats separately. I'm going to put that aside for later so that we can dissect it properly. Now," he lifted out a small fleshy sack and emptied it into a glass jar, it smelt of vomit. "From his stomach content we can assume his last meal was," he rooted around in it with his finger, "chicken."

That was it for Heero, he ran from the room to the kitchen middens.

Danev grinned at the remaining students, Trowa and Bunny "and then, there was two."

Deakon was silent for a moment as he worked out what to say, "Halcyon was built by Imperator, the first emperor for his wife, Setsuna, who was a lady of Meirin, but she was murdered by a rival." He said, "and the imperial capital was moved from here, Halcyon, to the Dairai in Dramathen." He paused, "but out of respect for the memory of Setsuna the empire kept Halcyon beautiful," he stopped again, "and it became the home of the Western Emperor, which was a fancy title for the Dathyl ambassador."

"Like Mina?" Duo asked.

The Cadacus nodded and carried on cutting back the rosebushes.

"This went on until about seven hundred years ago when Christof was emperor, he was married to Morgan the mad." He angrily snapped the flowerhead off the branch he was working on. "And she truly lived up to her name."

Danev looked at the remaining two students, "after the stomach contents we move unto the bowels, as you can see," he said yanking them out, "they are like twisted wet towels and the rather amazing thing," Trowa watched them slip and slide through his hands before he too ran from the room, "is that there is actually two cubits length of them inside the human body."

He looked up, "well, Bunny, it's just you and me."

Bunny grinned at him, not in any way looking distressed or nauseous, "well in that case, can you pull back the skin on the arm so I can have a look at the musculature, I just can't draw hands right and it might be easier if I could see what was going on underneath."

Danev looked at him, as if weighing up the opportunities. "Well, if you're not going to be sick, you can help me get the rest of them into bed."

"You mean you did this on purpose?" Bunny asked, his face was all wide eyed innocence.

"I can't see any more binges in the next few months," Danev told him, "can you?"

"Morgan the mad," the Cadacus said, "was utterly insane, to keep her under control Christof sent her here, to Halcyon first, where she continued her reign of terror." He was sat cross-legged on the damp grass as he talked, his voice mellifluous and even. "The nobles of Dathyl rose up under the leadership of Jhenivere D'Aino and her husband Gawain Baatorin." He licked his thin grey lips, leaving a sheen of moisture behind, Duo hadn't expected that. "They took control of the city and then expanded as far north as Caelum and made a deal with J'dan to secure their southern borders. Jhenivere was grandmother to Aeka's husband." Duo nodded, now he understood the timeline.

"And although Jhenivere was D'Aino because her husband was Baatorin that house held the throne." Deakon explained.

"And the empire has always held the law of Primogeniture." The Cadacus said, "the first born inherits everything, hence Aeka's daughter became queen after her despite that she had a son."

"Was she happy?" Duo asked. The Cadacus nodded and it soothed Duo somewhat.

"About two hundred years ago," Deakon said, "the Dathyl royalty moved out of Halcyon into the new royal palace on the other side of Cinderton. They had no link to Setsuna and one of the queens was a sensitive, she could sense the ghosts and they frightened her." Duo nodded, "but rather than let the palace go to the D'Ittoro house, who rule Dathyl, they made it the crown prince's compound, some place that the boy, or girl, could learn to rule. They were defended by the Garvem and the palace was maintained." He let out a slow deep breath. "Jored's father, King Ford, was second born," he explained, "my mother, Aeris, was due to inherit the throne from her father." He paused again, "but my mother ran off, she never formally abdicated, she just left, to marry my father." He stopped again, "and Ford was crowned king, but before that, to secure relations with the Empire, because a war was brewing, Aatoria accepted jheratay." He stopped, not pausing to explain the alien word, "they took three high ranked maidens from the empire as brides, to bind the countries together, Johanna La Luna, Jored's mother, Saaraphine of Melc, Danev's mother, and Mariya." He stopped again.

"The marriages were doomed to failure from the start," the Cadacus explained, "and the treaties they represented with them. Mariya's husband beat her, so she killed him and then killed herself. Saaraphine was married to Sir Bedivere, the Seraphim Lord, who refused to accept that she was educated, despite her being an incredibly intelligent woman, and when Danev was born took him from her and exiled her to Muchine. He didn't treat his son any better than his wife, and Danev has a half sister, Meglaina, whom Sir Bedivere makes claims with to Saaraphine's own land of Melc." There was another pause, "Johanna La Luna, was an imperial princess, albeit of a side house. Once Jored was born the king exiled her to Aviemore amongst the Garvem, some say even before Jored was born." He stopped for a moment, "Jored was sent here, to Halcyon, with his nurse and an army of Garvem." There was venom in his voice when he said that word. "As the king publicly lived with his mistress Anapola."

Deakon continued the story, "about eleven years ago Anapola had a baby, Caspian, and allied him with the Seraphim. Since then Ford has done everything in his power to take the right of primogeniture from Jored, he claimed he wasn't his son, and slowly removed the servants from Halcyon, in the hope he would die. The Garvem stopped that until about four years ago." He stopped with a slow sigh.

"Devlin's mother, Emithi," the Cadacus said, "wanted no truck with the king, and when she took her sons, she has two, to the south on a pilgrimage she left her daughter in Halcyon, in the care of Danev, who had been looking after Jored since he was about four." He paused again, the silences were unnerving, "perhaps she sought to create an alliance because like Bunny, Taliasen and Jored were of an age. The Garvem raped and murdered her."

The silence was pregnant that time.

"Jored wouldn't have the Garvem anywhere near him or the palace again, since then," Deakon explained, "the Cadacus and Josian took me here not long after, and we have struggled by. We receive no stipend for food, no clothing except the donations from the people. Emithi brings us plenty when she comes, she says its because Devlin lives here, but no one believes her." He stopped. "So there you go, Duo," Deakon said, "I told you it was complicated."

"But." Duo protested, "if your mother was first in line for the throne, then you outrank Caspian." He said working it out, "if he's illegitimate."

"He was legitimised by the council." The Cadacus said, "but you're right, as Aeris' legitimate son Deakon does outrank the prince, but the war when it comes it more to do with allies."

"Jored is allied, even against his will, with the Garvem and Caspian for the Seraphim, and those two have wanted an excuse as long as they've existed to have at each other." Deakon said, "the Seraphim is mostly second sons, and the Garvem is raised from the populace. That's why, even if Caspian or Jored died in their sleep tonight there will be war. We're sitting on a powder keg and shooting out sparks." Deakon ran his hand through his hair.

Duo stood up, brushing leaf fragments from his trousers, "I need to think about this," he said, "excuse me," then he left.

He found Heero on his side in the bed, he was wearing a cotton shirt that he hadn't been, when Duo had left him. He wormed in beside him, curling up against his chest. "Y'okay?" Heero mumbled into his hair.

"I am now." He answered, and just let Heero's presence soothe him.