Title: The Ribbon and the Ring 20?

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.

Heero didn't enter the courtyard as much as explode into it with his sword raised. The Cadacus had his back to him but Wufei raised a black eyebrow at his rather ostentatious entry. "Where did you get that sword?" He bellowed.

Wufei looked a little sheepish, "he gave me it." He pointed at the samurai appearing figure that was turned towards the wall.

"You took your time," The Cadacus said, turning, "and judging from your temper I would suggest that perhaps Duo did not explain about my rather unique circumstances." As he turned Heero took a step backwards, bringing his sword between the two of them.

"You know each other?" Wufei said looking back and forth between the two of them.

"You can't be here." Heero protested. "You are…"

"Unique circumstances." The Cadacus' smile was bloodless. "I had hoped that when Duo left me to seek you out that he would have told you about me. Mamoru is no more," he said calmly, sadly, his tone wistful, "I am fallen," he said, "I am the Cadacus. I failed her Heero, she died and I wasn't there to die with her." Wufei looked as if they were speaking in another language for all that he understood.

"Then if I fail him…" he left it open. "If some other sword…" the words had suddenly gotten very hard to say.

"I don't know." The Cadacus told him directly. "But I don't want to find out, you brought your sword, let's spar."

The fight, as Wufei would have argued vehemently that it was, was quick and brutal, they lunged at each other with their swords drawn and collided like mountains. It was a match of questionable skill and an awful lot of rage; they slashed at each other like madmen and only stopped when Heero had the point of his sword at the Cadacus' throat. Then he offered him his hand to help him stand.

"I won't let you fail him." The Cadacus said finally. Heero just nodded.

Wufei watched the whole exchange with a bemused look. "You were holding back when you sparred with me, weren't you?" He asked the Cadacus. The Cadacus simply shrugged. Then turned to Heero, "I see that six hundred years has not dulled your passion." Heero blushed bright red and the Cadacus smiled to himself. "There are things that the others would like from the town, Heero, and it is not that late, perhaps you would like to accompany me and we could talk."

Heero flushed for a moment, "I would like that," he said, "I will just go tell Duo where I'm going. I can not be a good senshisha if he does not know where I am."

The Cadacus smiled, "that you care is enough." He said rather cryptically.

"I'll tell him." Wufei said, standing up, "you two just go on, I'll tell him that you've just gone shopping. I'll stay with him if you like."

"He's not a child," the Cadacus said, "and he is more than capable of looking after himself, after all he beat me in a knife fight." It sounded that at any moment he might burst into either laughter or tears. It was hard to decide which.

Wufei was startled to see Trowa lying in bed next to Duo, he blinked a few times and then smirked, "so, Maxwell, are you just working your way through us in numerical order?"

Duo stuck his tongue out, "and am I sorrowful that 5 comes last in the list," he placed the back of his hand to his forehead, "oh woe is me, that it might take my whole lifetime to know the pleasures of the Wu."

"I only popped my head in to tell you that the Cadacus took Heero to town for supplies, they wanted a private conversation."

"Poor, Wu," Trowa said just as sarcastically as Duo had, "all these people having private conversations and no one wants to talk to you."

Wufei sat at the end of the bed, crossing his legs and arranging one of the furs over his knee, if he took Trowa's words as a dismissal he was ignoring it. "So, Barton, are you just looking to seduce the onna," he looked at Duo, "or was there an alternate motive to be in bed with him."

"He's hiding from Aia," Duo said, "and I take it Heero asked you to keep an eye on me." Wufei nodded. "You see, Aia has teeth."

"Most onna have teeth." Wufei pointed out.

"Not there." Trowa enunciated.

Wufei hid a smirk, "Besides the onna assumes that since you saved her in the woods by Gwen Ystrat that it is your duty to protect her, and she is cleaning the kitchen at the moment." He had perfect posture and looked as if he might at any moment explode from holding in his laughter. "But it is the place of warriors to protect women because they are weak."

Several spectres that had, until that moment, been silent snorted at that, Duo was pleased to note some of them were male. "Ask him why?" Eluneth said with a smile.

"Before we haunt him to his dying day." Achren added, her voice was dangerous and her whispery ethereal hands were about Wufei's throat.

Duo tried not to look at the half rotten face of the spectre that stood behind Wufei, threatening him violence, "why? Why are women weak? Would you say that to Colonel Lady Une, or Sally Po, or Noin?"

"He said it to Noin." Trowa pointed out.

Duo rolled his eyes. "Just why, Wu, I mean Meiran used to kick your ass all the time."

Achren was getting more and more annoyed as the moments went on, the flesh seemed to recede from the left side of her face as she snarled. It was not a pleasant sight.

"Because if men aren't strong for women then they never get the opportunity to be beautiful." Wufei almost snarled it out and Achren's fingers fell back from his throat. "If they become warriors then they never achieve the strength to be mothers, to be aunts, to be lovers. It takes great strength to be strong enough to be a woman rather than a man, men are warriors to protect women, to allow them the time to learn and to love, to raise their children. Relena Peacecraft is a stronger woman than Noin for that reason, Noin is weak because she lacks the strength to be a woman." Achren's fingers ran the length of his forehead before she laid a lipless kiss on his forehead. Neither Duo or Trowa had anything to answer that.

Dathyl had changed little in the six hundred years since Heero had left it. In fact he was hard pressed to see any differences except in the dresses the women wore. "I imagine you must have many questions," The Cadacus said picking up a basket of fruit from a vendor.

Heero accepted the basket of apples without saying a word. "I had questions."

"Did you know the Senshisha before you?" Heero asked.

"No," the Cadacus answered, "he killed Minako's mother and then himself whilst I was training, I thought I was training to be one of the emperor's elite, perhaps in the role that Fiore later served as captain of the Okiya guard like my father, I did not know until after I had given my oath that I was to be Senshisha." He moved to another stall which had bales of cotton laid out, he fingered the material. "I resented Minako for that, but it was not her fault."

"Did you know it was a wedding ceremony?" Heero asked, he had been tricked into marrying Duo by the empress.

"Once it started, yes, I was in love with another woman, and then when she discovered that I was married and the Lady of Meirin no less she treated me like I was stuck to the heel of her shoe, I turned that resentment to Minako, who in turn turned her rage at her parent's death to me as if it had been my fault. As it was neither of us were at fault, but instead the circumstances surrounding Meirin."

"We barely saw Meirin." Heero conceded.

"It is a cold and lonely place, Deakon wanted to stay there when we travelled from Shiro, many things become answered there, the dead hold most secrets close."

"Duo has doubts." Heero blurted out, "he thinks that he is hiding them successfully from me but I see how he sometimes pulls away from my touch." He stopped, "and when we try to get intimate, even something as simple as kiss, this other spirit comes through and I am sure that she would not have such dominion over him if he did not have such doubts."

The Cadacus stopped and looked at him, "did she give a name?" He seemed to glow with some inner anger.

"Verdande, she was explicit that he name was Verdande."

The Cadacus swore. "As lord of Meirin Duo must carry a burden of guilt," he said, "that guilt must be expunged or spirits with such attention will use it against him, there have been those lost of the dead before. We must make plans to take Duo to Amitre, it holds the nearest temple of Atua'a. Duo must ask the god for his help."

"If he doesn't?" Heero asked.

"Slowly Verdande will take over, she uses his confusion over you to take control. I will speak to Duo on your behalf, but we must take him to Amitre, and soon."