Title: The Ribbon and the Ring 32/?

Author: Seraphim Grace
Archive: if you want it ask, I just like to know where they are. http://seraphim-grace.
Feedback: Always appreciated and replied to.
Rating: 18

Series: Gundam Wing
Pairings: 1x2
Warnings: Angst. Some gore. Some incredibly bad French.

Notes: AU, and features necromancy. Sequel to Lord of Death

Quatre sat in the carriage staring out of the window as Aatoria rolled past him in dips and curls smattered with trees. Danev sat in the opposite seat, his legs curled up beside him on the wide cushioned bench more interested in his book than his companion. He had brought along several for Quatre but they had failed to pique his interest, so instead he lolled against the window and watched Aatoria roll past him. They had arranged to lodge in several manors along the way of their journey, E'berta, Cadarn, Caelum, Kinmokusei, Hoshi-ji then Duramatsen that the Aatorians called Dramathen. He rolled the names about on his tongue, trying to find the places where they fit in this new world.

"Danev," he said, Danev looked up from his book, "why are we going so far to see this doctor."

"She's not a doctor," Danev answered, "she's a princess, but she can solve your headaches and dreams, she knows more about what it is than I do, she is the world expert on it."

"Is she as old as Emithi?" Quatre asked, he had this image of this portly Darin maid in heavy kimono with long white hair and a cruel hand.

"No," Danev said, "she's as old as you are. The Lady Draima is very young to be so knowledgeable but she is the expert, she might even, when she's older, be a better doctor than the Lady Grace."

"Who is the Lady Grace?" Quatre asked.

Danev smiled to himself as he realised he had made a faux pas, "Your Heero met her, but she was a princess of Caelum who ran away from home to become a doctor, she walked the battlefields of the time and served with the Seraphim Angels to become the best doctor in the world. The man she married had had his throat slit and she sewed it shut, she saved his life when she was no older than you. Tobin knew her."

"Tobin knew all the women in Aatoria." Quatre groused.

Danev laughed. "You're probably right." He said, "but he doesn't know the Lady Draima, although Gereint knows her sister, the Princess Ekeade."

"I don't know these people." Quatre said quietly.

"I know," Danev said a little sadly, "Do you feel up to a small history lesson? The Court of the Winds is obsessed with propriety and who is related to who and who has power that way, you will need to know it before we get there but there is no real hurry."

Quatre thought about it for a moment, "there is no time like the present."

Danev lifted the strip of ribbon he was using as a bookmark and closed his book. "Before I was born, when Emithi was young," he had a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, "back hundreds of years ago," and Quatre laughed because he knew Danev was teasing him, "there was a wizard, an onmyoji, a sorcerer called Taira Nicol."

"Deakon's Taira." Quatre interrupted.

Danev bit his lip, "it's a big clan," he said, "the Darin are superstitious, they suffered badly in the Draima Wars, centuries ago, and so when he rose they thought he might be a witch, but he wasn't, he had powers they had never seen, he could command flesh like water, he could raise storms and fell trees just by willing it. He was apparently very fearsome and he united the clans and brought them against the emperor but did not unseat him. He used the emperor to bring his armies against Aatoria, well more specifically the Seraphim.

"Whilst he was there he forced the Princess Ekeade, the now emperor's older sister, into marriage with a general called Taira Yoshikatsu to maintain his control and brought her with him to the battlefield."

He paused for a moment. "No man is meant to contain the power that Taira Nicol did and he went mad, but not before he had kidnapped the heir to the Aatorian throne, the Princess Aeris, Deakon's mother, and forced her into marriage with his brother, Taira Hatsuharu."

Quatre nodded though he got the impression there was something else to this story than Danev let him know. Danev was hiding something but he didn't know.

"When the Senshi, the Darin army, met the Garvem it was with a reduced force just outside Amitre, most of them were on another field fighting the Seraphim, but the female Senshi, whose name I can't remember offhand, were caught in what's called a hammer and anvil," he stopped looking for a moment like he might explain the manoeuvre, but stopped himself, "it was a slaughter, all but their leaders were hung from the Arches." Quatre knew what that meant. "To try Taira Nicol's trick against him the Senshi leaders were forced into marriage under the law of Jheratay." He stopped for a moment, "one of them was my mother, Saaraphine of Melc, one was Jored's mother, Joanna La Luna, who was a scion of the imperial house, and the third married a primary statesman but was the bravest of the three killing him and herself."

"The Seraphim met the main force of the Senshi just outside Cadarn and there was a terrible battle, it lasted days and during it Gereint, who was just an errant, killed Yoshikatsu and took Lady Ekeade prisoner. He fell in love with her and she will have nothing to do with him because she loved her husband."

"But Taira Nicol turned on the emperor and presented him with a Taira bride, Mitsuki, and upon her he begat the Lady Draima, the youngest of the Emperor, Tayatomi's sisters. Empress Mitsuki died in childbed. With no other choice but surrender Taira Nicol destroyed himself and the next five years were spent mending what he had done. The Lady Ekeade and her sister, Draima, both went into exile in Shiro, the home of Yoshikatsu and Draima's mother, where he had taken Princess Aeris and where Deakon was born."

He paused for another long moment allowing Deakon to take in all the information.

"Taira Nicol was Deakon's father wasn't he?" Quatre said after a long time.

"There are those who suspect as much." He said, "but without the Princess Aeris we will never know and according to Deakon she is quite mad. We'll never really know, but as far as Deakon knows his father was the sword maker Taira Hatsuharu." It was clear that it had not stopped Quatre from deciding that Nicol and not Hatsuharu was Deakon's father and that might be the explanation for his strange powers.

"The Lady Draima is her name, like Nicol she is a witch, a majo, but unlike him, she can only control thoughts. She is one of the draimae that the Seraphim fight so hard to destroy."

"And how can she help these headaches and fainting."

"I think you can do what she does." Deakon said, "so she will test you and if I'm right she can teach you to control it, to use it."

The carriage driver called out that they had reached E'berta and had to make the climb down to the house themselves, as it was built half way down a hill.

"You do know," Danev said, "that the Lady Draima is also the Imperial Princess Celestial Sapphire and she is engaged to be married to Jored when they reach the age of majority at seventeen." Quatre blinked at that information. "It hasn't endeared him to them."

"And where do you stand in this?"

Danev smiled. "I am a doctor, I am neutral." Then the smile became a little vulpine, "I would be if not for my father and mother, they allied me to Jored before I was born."

"What did your mother do?"

"My mother," Danev climbed out of the carriage, "I have never met her, but my father," he stopped for a moment, "my father is the Seraphim Lord Sir Bedivere."

E'berta was exactly as Quatre had imagined it, a small shed like building that was carved into the hill hiding the best part of it's majesty to reveal it not to on comers but the afternoon sun. It was three levels, the top floor, the one that opened to the hill, being the smallest, comprising of a sitting room and two small servants' rooms. Then a tall curving staircase took his past the main bedrooms and down to the living area of two sitting rooms, a dining room and a large kitchen.

Tobin and Josian were sprawled in large cushioned chairs drinking wine and looked rather surprised to see them. They were both red faced and rather drunk. "Danny, my boy," Tobin said struggling to stand, "you brought me a present," Then he belched.

"Tobin, you said we could stay here on our way to Dramathen." Danev said lifting Tobin's arm from around his shoulders with a world weary patience.

"Did I," Tobin asked himself, "of course I did, Margie," he called out, "more wine, and supper for our guests, make up two beds." He leant in to Quatre, "has anyone ever told you that you look good enough to eat?" Quatre blushed into his hairline and Tobin's smile became distinctly predatory. "Hey, Jose, wanna go to Dramathen to see the princess? It's been a while."

Josian had his head cast back and was snoring off his drunk.

Tobin just laughed, "so come on, little boy, sit on my knee and tell me all about it."

Danev just shook his head and pulled up a chair encouraging Quatre to do the same. Quatre thought of Trowa who he had left behind, and how Tobin may have been drunk but he was very handsome, and sat on his knee instead.