My apologies for the time it took to update this. The reason it did take so bloody long was that I was at "Opera Camp" for three weeks. It's much more fun and much more serious than you think, I can assure you. And yes, there were s'mores. I have since made the entire plot and mapped out the sequence of events for this story. If this chapter is any indication, this is going to be a long one, which I hope to complete. All of the reviews and author alerts have kept me working on this; thank you all so much! If you enjoyed this chapter, please do tell me, and if you wish to offer suggestions, I'd love to hear them! Thank you all so much for the feedback. I hope you like it.
Wufei was frightened. He would never have admitted it to his traveling companions, to his clan back home; but here, in the darkness, surrounded by wave after choking wave of tallgrass and wheat. Here, searching for the damn horses that fled the immense blackness of the dragon into the safer dark of the night, Wufei felt fear. A stifling, sweaty, unknown terror that upset and confused the proud warrior. If he had ever admitted it to his companions later, they would have – perhaps sheepishly – confessed to the same feelings. A dread of the night, unexplained and unforeseen, felt only during the strange events of the evening.
There was something odd going on, and it disturbed him.
Wufei crashed his way through the tallgrass, making more noise than he had ever in his life, frustrated at his own weakness. The horses would have stayed together; there was safety in the herd, in the mass of panicked flight across the blind plains of the night. As he trudged on, realizing again and again that the horses could have run miles by now from the threat of the dragon, he thought of the two strangers that found their way to the encampment.
Quatre's spell made the fire invisible to all but friendly and familiar eyes, so the dragon couldn't track us by the light – which is what undoubtedly brought it to us in the first place. So how did those two see it? Neither looks to be a mage themselves; in fact, the black clad one had the mark of a thief or dancer about him. A trickster, no doubt; perhaps luring men into dark alleyways with his hair and then robbing them for all they're worth. He seemed strong enough to do it, too; his companion was wearing chain armor and has a full compliment of weapons, yet he carried the man with no trouble. I hope Trowa remembered to disarm them both before they woke; Quatre never would. After making me find these thrice-cursed horses, I'd better not come back to dead traveling companions and a thief rifling through my possessions. Why the hell did the woodsman, master tracker, not come after these stupid animals?
Wufei halted his headlong crashing, listening. There! The sound again! A soft pandering of hoofed feet. Relief coursed through the warrior as he parted the next swath of wheat, revealing his beloved black mare, and the two other stupid beasts the companions had procured in their travels.
The horse whinnied a frightened and relieved greeting to her Master; everything would be fine now that Master had come to bring her home. No more black shadows and Death on Silent Wings to take her.
Quatre bent over the prone form of the black clad figure, brushing back the brow bangs to see if a lump had formed on the well-shaped forehead. A slight blush and a deep sense of shame trembled Quatre's hands as he noticed the proportions of the young man's face; beautiful. Shaking his head to clear himself of such deviant thoughts, Quatre was relieved to note that there seemed to be no lacerations or permanent damage, although the young man was going to have one hell of a lump.
The man in black shuddered at the cool touch of the mage's hand, his eyelids fluttering as he moaned softly, waking up. Quatre backed up so as to not startle him, and the prone figure's eyes suddenly snapped open, unseeing, unfocused. The eerie blue light of the magical fire reflected the deep blue of the young man's eyes, turning them a violent purple seen only in flowers and silk fabrics of the far west.
Quatre inhaled sharply as the young man's eyes found his own, widening in shock. He wasn't beautiful, Quatre thought. He was stunning.
Trowa started at the mage's quickened breath; he had been puzzling over the innate form of the black clad figure's friend. The soldier had not moved or made a sound the entire time since the mage had dragged him into the blue circle of the firelight. Still on alert for the re-appearance of the dragon, Trowa had searched the pockets of the soldier and found nothing. No money, no food rations for crossing the vast, strange grasslands, no water rations. This struck Trowa as the most perplexing; with out Quatre's ability to draw water from different elements, the three companions would have long ago dried to empty husks, blown apart on a puff of arid wind.
The black clad man's eyes focused on the young mage, and quickly widened in his own shock. He croaked out;
"Qu…Quatre?"
The young mage was perplexed, "Do I know you?" Fat chance; Quatre thought to himself, I would have remembered those eyes.
The black-clad man tried to sit up from the ground, and winced at the pain that shot through his head. "Fuck, it feels like I've run into a wall. What the hell did you do to me, Quatre?"
Quatre recognized his own name, but the words of the stranger were odd; although the young mage knew many different tongues, learned throughout his travels, the words of the man were slippery and had a false ring to them. Words that floated through the mind, defying comprehension or even recognition as language. Even the bell-like words of magic seemed grounded to this world; the words of the stranger were alien.
Trowa quickly stood as the black-clad man spoke, drawing his short sword and pacing silently to Quatre's side. The black-clad man's next words were swallowed in haste as the tip of Trowa's sword nicked his neck.
"Are you thief, vagabond, murderer? Rogue mage? Those words you speak seem evil." Trowa's sword dug deeper into the stranger's neck as the stranger grinned wide. Quatre's breath caught in his throat. He might be a villain, but he was ravishing.
The man in black blanched almost as white as his unconscious companion, making his skin seem translucent in the firelight. He looked like he had seen a ghost, and it made Trowa uncomfortable to be under such scrutiny. Switching to Traveler's Tongue –the language the companions most often used and were speaking then – the black clad man grinned up at Trowa, breaking the strange moment; "Well, he's going to be glad to see you, at least."
Trowa's eyes narrowed in suspicion and confusion, but before he could either run the man through or demand an explanation, the prone solider groaned and began twitch. Quatre hastened to see to the warrior. Trowa kept his attention and his sword on the still-grinning black clad man.
Quatre took a cursory look at the soldier, and felt his stomach drop. The soldier's skin was waxy and pale on the face, but the arms and hands were covered in deep bruises that indicated burst blood vessels and deep impact. Over the purple and black bruises, there were long, thin scars marring the strong flesh of the upper and lower arms. Quatre began hastily stripping the solider of his armor and under clothes, leaving only the typical loincloth of the solider. The bruising covered almost all of his body, which was sweating unnaturally. The breathing was erratic and shallow at best, rattling and choked at worst. His chest was caved in, almost as if his ribs had collapsed into his lungs, and his entire torso was covered in the mottled bruising. Quatre felt the soldier's stomach, and his fears worsened when he found it rock hard and unyielding; his injuries were far below the surface and bleeding profusely. The internal bleeding continued down his legs; Quatre took a deep breath, calming himself. He had never seen anyone so severely injured and still alive.
Quatre leaned over the head of the wounded man, marveling at how such grave injuries could have missed the head as well. Lifting the eyelids, Quatre almost cried out. The pupils responded to the shift in light; this man was awake! Slowly lowering the lids, Quatre turned back to the man in black, still under the ever-vigilant gaze of the woodsman. The sword had tilted the man's head back, leaving a slight trail of red blood where the blade had carefully begun to pierce flesh. The black clad man was still grinning, having an intense staring contest with his captor.
Quatre called out, speaking Traveler, his voice calm despite his horror at the condition of the soldier; "Stranger, what happened to this warrior?"
Never taking his eye's from Trowa's, the black clad man's grin fell into pained concern. "I certainly hope you're skilled in your art, Quatre. I take it you're a healer, right? Probably a war mage as well, if I would hazard a guess. So you can hopefully recognize the poison in him" the man's eyes flicked his companion "and find the correct spell to draw it out. As for the rest of it…never mind how it happened, just fix – irk!"
Trowa's sword dug dangerously deep into the back-clad figure's neck, cutting off his words and keeping the captive completely still. The infuriating grin returned and Trowa's desire to kill the man rose.
Grabbing hold of the wounded soldier's head, Quatre placed his index fingers on the temples of the man, closed his eyes, and brought his forehead gently to rest on that of the warrior's. Speaking from the bright spark of magic entangled in his body, Quatre recited his spell:
"Innalan Yaro, Betalke beyona sotele. Iikio, lo nanea panteyea provisio. Noh!"
The black-clad man's eyes focused on the young mage and his companion as an eerie green light began to shine from the soldier. Starting beneath the bare skin of his collapsed chest, the light began to pulse up and down his body, spreading with the irregular heartbeat. As soon as the warrior was covered, head to toe, with the sickly green light, it shot out of his mouth and into the night air in a violent stream. It hung menacingly in the air for a moment, pulsing and seeming to ooze it's own malicious intent, before an errant breeze swept it up and scattered it across the plains.
At least Quatre knows what he's doing. Well, it looks like Quatre knows what he's doing. I still can't believe Quatre and Trowa are here! Trowa…I never thought I'd see you again… Gak, speaking of which…
"Oi, good woodsman!" the black-clad man managed to choke out around the sword "you're cutting it awfully close, don'tcha think?" The violet eyes rolled down to indicate the offending blade, which proceeded to move slightly away from the thief's throat.
"Ah, I'll thank you kindly for that. Closest shave I've ever had! You have my compliments." A grin.
Trowa rolled his eyes slightly, and the black clad man's ever-present grin widened. Well, well, well! This is new! Seems they may share the same face, but this isn't the same Trowa I knew. If he let's me live, we'll see how this pans out. They might help us find a way back.
The black clad man turned his attention once more to Quatre as the mage began another spell, short, sweet and almost automatic. Quatre had cast this particular spell far too often.
"Yaro, dwenal!"
At once, the soldier's body gave a convulsive shake, and what looked like small insects began to crawl beneath his skin. His chest seemed to puff outwards, then settle back into place. Quatre felt the soldier's abdomen, and nodded approval; the rock-hard feeling of trapped blood had left.
As the last of the chalky pallor was leaving the warrior's face, Trowa's head snapped up to watch the outer ring of the tiny clearing the companions had made. A soft rustle that was clearly not the wind came closer, and soon enough, Wufei appeared in the blue firelight, leading his dusty black mare and the other two horses. He observed the scene with a keen eye, and seeing everything under control, nodded and went to his packs, taking out the dried rabbit meat that was his supper ration.
He studiously ignored the black clad figure staring at him with large, violet eyes in disbelief.
Quatre stood, and checked his pockets for a certain leaf. Holding it up to the blue firelight, and seeing the four long points, Quatre nodded and bent once more to the prone soldier. He crumpled up the leaf and sprinkled it into the open mouth of the warrior. Almost at once, the breathing evened out, and the warrior looked at rest.
Quatre stood, and wiped the dirt from the knees of his longish robes, leaving streaks of brown dust on top of the darker brown dirt. The mage sighed, and thought fleetingly, wistfully, of being clean. Shaking his head – and sending a small shower of dirt down onto the sleeping soldier – Quatre walked towards the black clad man.
"Now, we'll start with some answers, if you please. What is your name, stranger?"
The black clad man sighed, and put the ever-present grin back on his face. Looking around at the three companions and ignoring the sword still at his throat, he gazed straight up into Quatre's eyes and extended a hand.
"Duo. Duo Maxwell."