Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Tomo Takabayashi and various publishers and studios. The poem is "Four Winds" by Sarah Teasdale. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Warning: AU from the second season

Pairing: Yuuri/OC, Yuuri/Wolfram eventually

Note: Phew, finally. I don't know how many of you actually read the first chapter two years ago. I am very, very sorry for the awfully late update. Life had been so hectic after my last post. I had changed job and stayed abroad. This chapter is my entry for my fanfic100's table, prompt 001: beginning. This one was unbeta-ed, so if you find any mistake first tell me about it =

Where the Road will Lead

Chapter II

Consciousness was coming slowly like warm, bright morning's sunlight to Wolfram – an unavoidable thing that nice though it was, he preferred to avoid it by hiding under the blanket he had hogged. Especially since at that particular time, his heart was beating faster than usual and his fuzzy brain was fighting even harder to stay in the dreamland.

Still, there was no way of running away from morning. After all, he had tried to do so since he was five and never once had succeeded. So, Wolfram blinked the sleep away reluctantly.

Only then that he noticed some strange things. First, he was not in his bedroom – or more exactly Yuuri's bed, but never mind, Wolfram had been sharing it with him for years after all, so it was as good as his as well.

Then, he saw everybody was crowding around him. It was a peculiar sight. Sometimes, when he forgot to lock the door at night and Yuuri was there in Shin Makoku, Gunter would enter their bedroom in the morning to wake his beloved Heika up, all the while throwing a glare or two at Wolfram. Yet, he had never found Gunter, Conrad and Gwendal all together upon awakening before; especially given that it was not even his bedroom.

Wolfram blinked again. There was something, he knew, he should have remembered. Yet, his brain refused to cough it up.

Gwendal's eyebrows were lying flat and his lips could not be any thinner. He was furious, Wolfram could tell, and it was related with that something that he forgot Conrad, on the other hand, was grim and determined, but he could also discern worries radiated out of his brother.

Then they were all crashing back at him: the welcoming party, Yuuri, an earth girl on his arm, his queen, everybody's happiness, betrayal, and finally his fire. Worse than the memories was the feeling that suddenly returned and was overwhelming him once again.

Someone could just have dissected him alive and he did not think it would hurt that bad. And twined with the pain was the anger, quick and sharp.

"What, for Shinou's sake, have you been thinking about?" Gwendal's voice was deceptively calm; belying the storm Wolfram knew was lying beneath it. He used to cringe when Gwendal said in that voice towards him. Yet at that time, it only served to fuel his anger. "Do you want to burn the palace down? How can you be so irresponsible?"

"Irresponsible?" Wolfram shouted back," And what about Yuuri? Is he responsible now?" Was Gwendal blind? Yuuri was the one who had turned his back, was betraying his own engagement, and to add insult to injury, Yuuri was introducing that woman as his queen in front of him, Yuuri's legal fiancé.

"Yuuri Heika is not the one who just embarrassed us in front of the entire nobility of Shin Makoku and foreign ambassadors," Gwendal said.

"No! He was just parading around with a slut he had picked out somewhere! He just disregarded his own engagement!"

There was silence, and then Gwendal walked purposely to the bed where Wolfram was still sitting on and backhanded him hard.

Wolfram touched his cheek in disbelieve. Against his will, his hand was trembling a bit. Gwendal had never once hit him before, not for anything. But just then, just then for that tramp, Gwendal had hit him. It hurt like another stake was stabbed into his bleeding heart.

Gwendal was his brother. Not Yuuri's.

He felt something wet invaded his eyes. Maybe it was the pain, or the anger, or even the humiliation. He could not decide and he did not want to linger on it. He blinked them away.

"Don't you even realize that your fire can be categorized as trying to kill Heika?" asked Gunter coldly. There was hatred on his purple eyes. "There were a lot of ambassadors on the reception last night. If any of them was hurt, what do you think will happen? Or is it your intention to bring war into Shin Makoku?"

"Good," Wolfram shouted again, "I hope he is hurt! I hope he will burn to die, slowly and painfully, and bring his whore with him!"

Just like my heart did, he thought.

"Wolfram von Bielefeld! He is your king and his wife is your queen! You have once sworn that you will obey and protect Heika, haven't you? Or do you want me to brand you as a traitor and chase you away?" The words were sharp, but the tone was even sharper. It was the tone of a general to a soldier, not those of a brother to his younger sibling.

For a moment, disbelieve was all that Wolfram felt. Hurt, quick and acute, spread through him. He had always looked up at Gwendal as a father figure. When he was a kid, Gwendal was the one who had always found time to play with him. Gwendal was the one who once had called him cute and then had blushed furiously when he was five.

He was your king.

The words were ringing on his mind like a dose of cold water that was drenching his body, freezing his emotion.

He was your king.

It was because Yuuri was the Maou that everybody took his side. Because Yuuri was the Maou, his own brothers had turned their back on him, without caring that he needed them, that he was not the guilty party. The brothers that had seen him waiting faithfully for Yuuri, the brothers who shared his blood, they were taking the side of a stranger. They let Yuuri stomped on his heart and turned their face away. Because Yuuri was the Maou so Yuuri would always be right. And because Yuuri was the Maou, he could not kill him.

He wanted to bark a joyless laugh.

The Bielefelds had served the Maou loyally for generations. As a soldier, he was sworn to save Yuuri's life, even if his was forfeited on the way. A betrayal of that level would condemn not only him, but also his family. He was trapped to serve Yuuri, no matter what his personal feeling was.

Once, it had brought him joy and a kind of security, being the king's protector. It guaranteed him in some ways a place to stay beside Yuuri. No matter how Yuuri wanted him to be gone, to left him behind, he had a right to stand there beside him, both as a fiancé and a soldier. He had thought that he could make Yuuri get used to him and then, maybe, maybe, Yuuri's heart would change.

But Yuuri had never given him a chance, hadn't he? The hypocrite had made the decision since the beginning, had judged him and found him wanting, simply because he was not a girl.

How, Wolfram wondered bitterly, could he be casted as villain in this story while he was the one who never strayed?

He was your king.

Wolfram felt like something was shifting inside of him – the overwhelming hatred was no longer burning, but cold, simmering, waiting for time to strike.

But killing was not the only way to make Yuuri pay, wasn't it? He would bid his time. There would be, he was sure, opportunity.

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"Wolfram! Wait!" Yuuri called out. He was out of breath. He had chased the other boy all the way from the garden to the library and despite exercising regularly; his speed was no match for Wolfram's.

It was Wolfram that usually ran after him, not the other way round. Which was why, he thought, he never realized how fast Wolfram could walk when he wanted to.

For a while there, he had been so sure that Wolfram would simply ignore him, pretending to hear nothing. But Wolfram stopped and turned around.

"How can I help you, Heika?" The voice was so polite, impersonal and distant, it was as if someone had kidnapped Wolfram and then replaced him with a stranger.

"Wolfram, what's wrong?" He asked, a note of worry crept into his voice.

The boy had ignored and avoided him ever since the terrible welcoming party.

Yuuri involuntary shuddered. He was talking with Ryoko and Greta. He remembered the women were discussing Ryoko's gown and he pretended to listen while was secretly thinking about their wedding night instead, when a terrified scream attracted his attention. His first thought was that there was an accident, and in the next moment he suspected the existence of intruder. Conrad had automatically tried to shield him, while Gwendal had gone behind him to protect his back. He, in turned, had put himself in front of both Ryoko and Greta, ready to fight, never mind that he was never any good with sword.

But there was no enemy. There was only Wolfram, in the middle of a fire storm.

It was scary, he would admit. The fire was dancing around the blond, fiery and red and wild and in the eye of the storm, stood Wolfram, seemingly in a trance.

He was ashamed to say that for a moment, he had done nothing. He was too caught up in the surprise, standing frozen there, with eyes fixated on the burning man. The temperature around him had risen considerably and the fire started to reach the nearby tablecloths.

It was Ryoko's hysteric scream that had finally snapped him out of it.

At first, he was angry at Wolfram. What did Wolfram think about? Ryoko was shaken badly; Gisela had been forced to give her some sedative. It was after all, her first day on a foreign country. A country where she knew no one and but for the help of Anissina's invention, would not even understand the language.

Yuuri had told her about how wonderful Shin Makoku was and how she would soon make friends with everybody. Then not one hour in Shin Makoku, Wolfram had scared her with that fire display.

Couldn't Wolfram be a bit more considerate? And all that other guests, screaming and running for cover. What did Wolfram want to make, a war? How if some of the foreign dignitaries or rulers got hurt?

They had tried hard to make peace with the human countries. All of that efforts would be lost if Wolfram killed someone with his fire. Worse, if that was to happen, it was possible that nobody would trust Shin Makoku again.

Even if Wolfram was angry, did he have to be so dramatic and overreacted?

But later, sitting on Ryoko's bedside, guilt started to crawl into his mind, chasing away the anger.

After all, he had never told Wolfram about Ryoko. He had, if he were to be honest, two-timing them for years, never mind that Wolfram and him were not really engage in his opinion. Still, the blond had hang on to the title for some reasons and he should just tell him straightforward rather than stringing him along for years.

It must have been quite a shock for Wolfram, to watch Yuuri came into his party with a wife in his arm. Yuuri knew that Wolfram had waited for the day Yuuri came to stay in Shin Makoku for years.

Still, it was not totally his fault, wasn't it? He had, after all, told Wolfram times and again that he didn't think Wolfram was his real fiancé. He had also told him that he could not imagine marrying a boy. There was, in Yuuri's opinion, something very wrong with that picture. Besides, how could he tell Wolfram straight to the point that the so-called-engagement was void and that he was falling in love with a girl in his university? He was not that suicidal to risk being roasted alive by Wolfram.

"Look, I am sorry about Ryoko. I mean, I am not sorry I married her, but I am sorry I didn't tell you first about it. I was just afraid, you know, that you will rant at me and so on," he said in a rush.

Nothing.

Yuuri has been prepared for Wolfram to rant and call him names. Yet Wolfram did not react, did not even acknowledge that he had said anything. He just looked at Yuuri with that look that made Yuuri jumped from foot to foot nervously.

"But we will still be friends right? I mean, nothing needs to be changed, right? Except of you are sleeping in my bed, that is. After all, the engagement is an accident, right?"

"Accident?" The tone was sharp and cold.

"Come on, Wolfram. You can't hold me for something that I don't even know, can you?"

Yuuri scowled. His temper began to rise. How much more immature did Wolfram want to be? Everybody knew the engagement was nothing more than an accident. He had told Wolfram so as well many, many times.

"I think I can't hold you for anything, Heika. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some affairs to attend to." The dismissal was swift and impersonal and the tone was definitely mocking. Then, before Yuuri could say anything in reply, Wolfram turned and walked away.

"Fine! If that is how you want it. You really are impossible Wolfram!" Yuuri shouted at Wolfram's back.

He had thought Wolfram would understand, had thought that they would at least be friend. Apparently, he had given the blond too much credit.

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"It was my fault," Cheri whispered. "He looks so much like me that sometimes I forgot that he is not me," she laughed sadly.

Conrad said nothing, but he moved to sit beside his mother on her bed. He had never seen her so scare as when Wolfram had spontaneously combusted.

"There was this man, before Gwendal's father, before yours, a minor noble that sometimes came with his father to the palace. He got nary a land, but he looks so handsome. I was just being queen for less than a year at that time, such a foolish and arrogant young girl." There was a self mocking tone on her voice then, prompting him to sought out her hand and hold it in his.

Cheri gave him a shaky smile, a look that seems out of place on his mother's face, and squeezed his hand. He had never heard this story before. In fact, he had thought that Gwendal's father was their mother's first love.

"I wanted him. I invited his father again and again to the palace. I made sure he was always being seated next to me and my brother helped me by encouraging him to take me dancing. I was so sure he would be mine."

She sighed and closed her eyes.

"Then one day, one day he told me he was engaged with the girl whose land was bordering on his. I was so angry. I felt like he betrayed me. In the end, I didn't even come to their wedding. I remembered hating that girl, thinking of her as a thief who has stolen my lover. Yet, if I were to be honest, he was never mine to begin with."

Turning her face towards him, she gave him a small smile. But Conrad could see that her eyes were still hooded.

"It took me meeting your father before I understood. It was not my heart that took the blow. It was my pride. Everybody had wanted him so I wanted him to be mine,"

And, Conrad realized, his mother had, maybe unconsciously, casted Wolfram in the role she had once been – a young noble too proud to let go of one of his many toys.

"Wolfram's feeling…"

He was lost at words. He did not want to make his mother felt worse, but he felt like he had to explain that toy was not what Yuuri was for Wolfram.

"I know. I know that now. What a mother I am! Doesn't mother suppose to be the one who understands her children the best?"

Her smile fell and there was tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. Conrad took her into his arms and letting go a sob, she put her head on his shoulder.

The truth was he knew that she never understood her own children well. She loved them; he had no doubt about that. But she was also too absorbed on her own life, her own quest, that she saw them most of the time as who she thought they were, instead of who they really were.

Still, she was his mother, so he kept that to himself.

"I am not free of blame as well, Mother," he said instead.

After all, it was also true. None of them was guiltless, weren't they? They all had assumed the same. Maybe because it was more bearable, than to reconcile the idea of a caring king with one that was so blind. Perhaps because it was more convenient, since the alternative mean they had to take side. Or maybe simply because they all were too proud, too sure that they knew, really knew Wolfram.

Yet he had understood, hadn't he? He knew the depth of his brother's feeling. He had seen the signs about how it would end.

"You are torn between both of them, aren't you? You are always so fond of Heika, after all," his mother's voice broke his rumination.

Cheri lifted her head and tried to smooth the worry lines on her son's forehead.

"Still, I know, always know, of Wolfram's feeling. It's just…you can't force love, can you? I just don't want to see him hanging in the uncertainty, wishing for things that will never come. He would always wait for Heika, while Heika would always avoid the issue. For Wolfram's sake, I have hoped that this end of engagement will bring a new beginning for him,"

Conrad took a deep breath and continued.

"But a part of me doesn't want to tell him to let go as well. He loves Heika and I have hope, that somehow, somehow Heika would see it,"

And he was selfish. He did not want to loss Heika's friendship as well. And he was also a coward apparently, because he could not bring himself to admit it to his mother.

"I guessed we were both wrong…," he whispered instead.

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When she was a kid, Ryoko had loved fairy tales of princesses and princes and castles. Of course, she knew that they were simply that, fairy tales. There were no evil witches and dragons in real life, and chance was, the prince was in cohort with said witches. Only, there on Yuuri's world, fairy tales became real.

It was an amazing world filled to the brim with the prospect of adventures. Granted, the demons were not casted as the evil force and the dragons were, at least according to Yuuri, friendly. Still, the fact that dragon was real and she got to marry a king, literally so, made her felt as if she had somehow transported into the stories of Kaguya Princess and Cinderella.

Yet the castle, the castle had felt so different than the warm and glorious images from her childhood books. The air inside was humid and were one to touch the stones, one would feel the cold seeping into one's body. The passages were long and often barely lit and even when she walked through those with a plethora of candles, she still could not shake the feeling of foreboding that was haunting her.

Or perhaps it was the secretive glances people threw her way. She had caught the maids looking at her and whispering furiously to each other whenever they thought she did not notice. Did they laugh at her? Did they think that it was silly and audacious for a human like her to become their queen? After all, she could do no magic's trick, and from what little she understood, magic was as common as air in that country.

Then there was the ominous, gloomy man, Von Voltaire. She had seen the strange, calculating way he was looking at her, as if he was trying to make up his mind whether she was worth it or not. Even Weller and Greta, who had been wonderful at her welcoming party, sometimes were acting like they didn't know what to do around her -- as if they wanted to be her friend, but afraid that she was carrying some contagious sickness that would invade them if they did.

Ryoko shuddered. She had never felt as lonely as she was there and then. It felt like there was something, something that everybody but her knew about, that bound them together and put her at the outside.

In Japan, she lived with her family. Having stayed there all her life, she knew everybody in her neighborhood. If she felt lonely, she just needed to phone one of her friends. Yet here, all she could find were strangers. Their customs were foreign to her and if she were to lose the earplug Yuuri had given her, she would not even understand what they said. Yuuri of course, had tried his best to make her felt welcome. But Yuuri was the king, wasn't he? He had obligations and duties and of course could not babysit his wife all the time.

Ryoko sighed. The sky had started to become darker. The opened window brought the wind and the sound of those strange skeleton-birds screaming bad omens.

She shivered. It was scary. Shouldn't bird sing something beautiful and cheerful?

There was also that beautiful, blond boy that looked like a few years younger than her. She had been afraid for him when he was spontaneously combusted at the party. In fact, thought it shamed her to admit, she had ended up being sedated.

Macabre was the only word she came up with to describe it. Even remembering it made her shivered involuntary. She could recall the air became hotter and suffocating and people were screaming. She had nightmares for days afterwards about the boy that was burned alive.

She had inquired about him a few times, but nobody seemed willing to tell her anything. They were quick to divert the conversations, or in Gwendal's case, simply scowl.

Yet when she saw him again, he seemed to be all right, if downright unfriendly. He was polite, of course, but his eyes, they seemed to hide barely restrain hatred.

Why? She had never met him before.

"What are you looking at?" a pair of arms enveloped her from behind and without turning back, she leaned on him. Yuuri had always smelt of sunshine and grasses and she could recognize him anytime.

"Do you think they hate me?" she blurted out. She had not mean to say anything, did not want to make Yuuri worried, but the words just came out.

"Huh? Who? Why?" There was genuine confusion in Yuuri's voice.

She reached out for his hands and unconsciously began to play with his fingers. Yuuri's fingers were not lean and the nails had been bitten often enough to make them uneven. They were tanned from the sunlight and warm. She loved them, like she loved the clueless guy to whom they were attached.

"I don't know, everybody, nobody." Her tone was fused with lightness that she did not feel. She did not want to cause problem to Yuuri. She had heard Yuuri's stories about how wonderful Weller was or how Von Voltaire was actually nice or how amazing Greta was. Was it simply her?

"Did they say something to you?"

His tone was unchanged, but she could feel his body became more rigid and his arms on her waist tightened. Yuuri was nervous.

"Should they?" Sometimes, offense was the best defense, especially if it protected her from giving an actual answer.

"It just…you seem unhappy,"

Ryoko sighed. Apparently Yuuri was not that clueless.

"They avoid me. I know they do. Is it because I am a human?"

Again, the words were out before she could try to change her mind.

"Of course not, don't be silly. Greta is a human as well, remember? They just need time to adjust."

Sometimes, sometimes she thought that Yuuri was just too simple minded, or maybe too kind. Yet, it was one of the reason she liked him, wasn't it?

Besides, the Princess and her, they were different, weren't they? She maybe was human, but she was born and grew up in this world. And everybody adored the Princess.

"I talked with your blond friend the other day. He definitely hates me,"

"Blond? Oh, you mean Wolfram. No, no, it's just your feeling. He is just such a close up person. It is just his character."

Funny, but she did not think the blond was an introvert. There were confidence and entitlement aura around him. He hated her. She was sure about it. And Yuuri was nervous, she could tell it.

"I am sure you are right. Maybe I am too much of a worrywart," Ryoko said instead and was instantly rewarded by Yuuri's bright smile.

"Everything will be all right. Just you see."

Yet, burying her face into his shoulder, she could not help but feeling that he was lying.