Title: The Ribbon and the Ring 22?

Author: Seraphim Grace
Archive: if you want it ask, I just like to know where they are. http/seraphim-grace. http/ 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.

Some of you might question this chapter (because it's a bit grim but bear with it, it is important)

Wufei had not minded being left behind when the others had attended what Danev derisively called "the premier brothel in all Aatoria, if not the world". He had made it sound entirely a sarcastic of the exact words that Tobin had used. He was enjoying spending time with the large and bustling Sir Cameron and his quiet words and huge pile of books. As if sensing a kindred spirit when Wufei had shown up at his door that afternoon he had given him a sheaf of papers and told him to put them in date order. What surprised Wufei was how much he enjoyed it.

The books smelt good and there was a fair view over the city from his room. He shared what he had, which wasn't much, but was quite content to leave Wufei to his own reading whilst Danev sat with a book in one of the downstairs parlours with Quatre.

Danev had had a fair few things to say about the chiurgeon in Sidi and his methods of healing a headache. The tea that they had given him was a mixture of very strong medications. He had complained of a migraine so they had given him a powerful opiate as a painkiller, but he had complained of hearing voices so they gave him an anti-psychotic- iocaine to counter those. So from what Wufei could gather Quatre had been drinking crack cocaine – for a headache when willow-bark tea would have cured it. It was because of that that Quatre was ill now, but Danev had his own theories about the voices.

Wufei couldn't have said why but he trusted Danev more with Quatre than he should have a stranger. This world was strange and new to them but the books were fascinating and the people that Heero and Duo had introduced them to were kind.

Heero and Duo were a puzzle in their own right, they said that they had been here before. They were married here, he wondered over the legality of such a union in their own universe, but they seemed different, softer somehow. Duo looked at Heero when he thought he wasn't being watched and his face was so different from the usual mask he wore. Heero, if anything, over coddled Duo. Wufei didn't understand it but as long as it did not interfere with their abilities, which it didn't seem to do, he didn't care.

Sir Cameron was gruff but Wufei had already decided that he needed an assistant and he was more than happy to fill the role. He didn't doubt that Sir Cameron would be happy to have him, although so far the man didn't seem to notice that he wasn't his last assistant.

"You," Cameron said, waving, his hands were like huge slabs of meat, Wufei raised his head, "I need you to bring these to the library." He pointed to a huge stack of books, "and there should be a basket at the gate for me," he gestured in the direction of another empty basket, "swap it for me with that one, and we can eat." Wufei was shocked that the knight was prepared to share his supper with him. He didn't know then that Sir Cameron was given enough food to feed an army and he had always shared it with everyone.

He lifted the heavy stack of books with his arm looped through the basket. The stairs weren't as treacherous as those of his old Sifu's house on L5 and he found the library easily enough. It was exactly how an excited Duo had described it when they had travelled here. It was a bibliophile's dream. It was not so much a library; such as he knew it, but a stockroom of books that were piled haphazardly over the floor, and up the stairs to the cantilevered windows. They were thickly packed unto shelves, in mountains on tables, on chairs. Wufei had never in his life seen so many books. The room was not small but rather than corridors through the books there was small paths worn by years of research. Wufei wondered if the doctors would mind awfully if he spent his lifetime sorting these books.

More than anything he wanted to.

The figure in the window stared over him as the sun set behind it.

For some reason the image moved him more than he knew. It was a knight, in shining white armour with a snapping red cloak, he stood on the belly of a large and sinuous dragon who had one of it's feet at the knight's chest, as if to rip out his heart and the knight had his sword point to the throat of the dragon, who had it's long curving tongue reaching towards a large white horse that had been slain.

The knight had a terrible scar across his face, perhaps from the dragon, but what caught Wufei, just as it had stopped Duo in his tracks when he had seen it six hundred years before, was the look of sorrow on the knight's face. He dropped the basket and the books on one of the heavy wooden tables and walked across the worn rug to the window. It had two side panels of heavy vines laden fruit, but as Wufei looked at them they appeared to be overripe and rotten. The cherry tree had a look of something obscene about it.

It just added to the majesty of the knight and the dragon.

Behind one of the bookcases, as he stepped up to the cantilever he could see a gate. It was designed with the same vines of heavy fruit and he suspected it might have been brass but it was heavily tarnished and well hidden.

If he was Duo he would have abandoned everything to investigate the gate and the passage behind it. The truth was that he wanted to.

Now that he looked at him the sad eyes of the knight looked towards the gate.

He looked back at the empty basket. If Sir Cameron was anything at all like his Sifu dinner could wait, he would have to be disturbed to get him to eat, and he was sure he wouldn't be long, it was probably just more books.

The gate was locked and behind it he could see one of those tight stairwells that Halcyon was riddled with. Duo had taught him how to spring a lock and it wasn't complicated, so taking one of the lamps he climbed the stairs.

He shouldn't have bothered, the rooms at the top of the stairs were still flooded with early evening light. They were beautiful in ways the rest of the palace obviously wasn't, with lush furnishings heavily covered with dust and cobwebs. Mice scurried out of his way, but even in such despair the room was lovely. It was a small sitting room such as the palace was full of and there was another gate, he picked it and went through the small corridor into a room of marvels.

The walls were lined in mirrors in a hexagon so each reflected the others. In the centre of the room was a fountain with an iron tree. The mirrors made it look as if he was in a giant metal forest. The leaves were semi precious stones and metals. In the tree was a golden mechanical bird. Wufei had never seen wonders like it, but nevertheless he walked into the next room.

It was a sort of courtyard with a glass dome bathing the room in soft pinks, there were arches and fretwork surrounding an overgrown indoor garden of grass and fountains. He began to suspect that he had found his way not into the stock room of the library as he had assumed but the harem.

There was a network of beautiful bedrooms and rooms with arts and treasures that he could not have expected, left to wrack and ruin, yet still striking and lovely.

It was in the largest bedroom he found them. Six small children huddled around one larger body, rather than decompose the bodies had desiccated into mummies, and he could see the terrible slash on the woman's wrist where, with nothing else to feed them, she had given them her own blood.

It was obviously children with their nurse.

On finding them he didn't know whether to vomit or cry.