Auothor's Note: This chapter does contain some graphic descriptions of violence. Please read at your own risk.
By the Red Moon Part 6
It had been an... incredibly long first day in Romefeller for Duo.
After learning the details of his origin and lineage, as well as the fact that he had to fight off an incredible force threatening to wipe out this new world he was in, he almost mentally shut down. To give him some time, Quatre and Relena had taken him on a tour of their homeland with Wufei and Anna flanking the prince.
Much as he appreciated their efforts to put him at ease, Duo still felt and saw all of the eyes on him wherever he walked, reminding him of the daunting facts of his life that surrounded him. Sensing his guest's discomfort at being out in the open where everyone around could watch, the empath suggested they go back inside for some privacy.
Following dinner, the braided prince asked if there was a room where he could get clean and sleep. Once he was taken there, he freshened up in a bath of hot water that did little to soothe him when he normally enjoyed a long soak. When the water started to lose its warmth, he dried and pulled on a white one-piece that was provided for his night attire.
The moment his head fell on the soft pillow of the feather-down bed of his room, Duo's eyes closed and he was taken into a deep, dream-filled sleep.
* * * * * *
"I am worried about him," Wufei frowned the following morning as he continued to run a sudsy sponge over Nataku's back.
Lying on her stomach in her stall with her rider working on his hands and knees on her back haunches, the green dragon purred quietly with a look of pure content on her face and eyes at half-mast. In the next stall over, Anna was already moving on to Ingier's long stretch of a neck as her steed happily stayed still for a rare change.
As far as the dragons were concerned, they had been receiving the best treatment they could be granted over the course of their stay at the kingdom in the mountain. Fresh straw to lay on, other dragons to exchange stories with and now a bath to clean their scales instead of having to bathe themselves... they were certainly enjoying this visit.
Sitting up, the swordsman ran the back of his arm over his brow and looked over to the next stall where Anna continued in her own work with her back to him. "What if he is not ready for what lies ahead?"
Her arms lowering heavily at her sides, the archer turned to face her lover and replied, "He just needs some time. He had a lot of information thrown at him yesterday to change everything that he thought he had known over his years in another existence. I'm sure that he will come out of this just fine."
Wufei peered over to the front of the stall where Duo was sitting in his new attire of a red tunic drawn in at the waist by a thin brown belt, black legging pants and tall brown boots that were half-way to his knees. It was an outfit given to him by Relena and Quatre so that he stood out less in a crowd.
In his hands, the young prince held his baseball cap and just stared down at it blankly. Lost in his thoughts, he continued to listen to his MP3 player's song list run on to block out any sound other than what was running through his head.
Shaking his head, the Asian knight asked quietly, "What do you suppose he is doing with things in his ears?"
Anna followed his gaze over to Duo and tilted her head in confusion. "Meditating?" she shrugged.
Ingier grunted quietly, slinking his head around on the straw to check on why his rider had stopped cleaning him. "Oh, relax, you big baby," the redheaded knight huffed while lightly poking him in a large scale at the middle of his neck. "I haven't forgotten about you."
The corners of her blue-purple steed's mouth curled back in a sly grin as he pulled his head back to stare forward again. Wufei snickered along with Nataku over both the young dragon's antics and the archer's ability to rein him back.
"Open the gates!" the voice of one of beyond the courtyard walls shouted. "We are have traveled far with the Princess of Epyon!"
Both knights froze in their work, eyes wide and whispered, "Epyon?" Quickly taking filled water buckets to rinse off the suds on their dragons, they all but threw their gear down to run from the stalls.
Seeing their frantic rush, Duo blinked in surprise and removed his headphones just as they ran towards him. "What's going on?" he questioned while rising to his feet. Before either of his friends could answer, Quatre and Relena hurried into the stable.
Anna focused on the oracle and stated, "You did not see her coming?"
With a sheepish smile, Relena replied, "Unfortunately, since Dekim's darkness has spread, my ability to foresee anything beyond what I was able to see clearly before that has been clouded. However, it is not a surprise visit necessarily. We had sent word to Epyon that the prince would be here not long after his return to this world when I was able to see it days ago. It only makes sense that she would want to be here to see for herself."
Looking from one face to the other, Duo threw his arms in the air and shouted, "Hello! Who is 'she'?! And why would they be here to see me? I'd appreciate a little bit of a heads-up here."
Quatre bit back a sharp laugh over the snap and smiled while the others blinked in surprise for their forgetting that the main person of interest was right there with them. Bowing his head, he said sincerely, "Our apologies, your highness." Inwardly, the braided teenager winced. It was going to take some time for him to get used to that endearment.
Taking a deep breath, the empath stated, "One of the things that we did not have the chance to tell you yesterday is that you do have a surviving extended family in this realm." Duo's eyes widened with a sharp gasp and his mouth hung open. His hand opened limply to drop his player into the straw.
Family? He... He had family here?
"And it would appear as though your cousin has arrived to see you for the first time," Relena smiled.
That was all Duo needed to hear before he was running out into the open courtyard just as the main gates were opened to reveal a very large army of armored men. Overhead, nearly a hundred dragons were taking to the air with their armed riders saddled safely on their backs.
All around, the gifted that had been moving about the yard and in the balconies of the castle were gathering to watch. Blinking in surprise at the number of soldiers marching into the space in a tight formation of twenty men across and about twenty back, the prince moved towards them. The crunching of metal boots stomping the ground came to a swift halt when the army met him in the middle.
Sharply, the men raised their right arms to plant fists over their hearts with one solid clang in their unison. Lowering their heads, they stepped aside for a young woman secured deeply within their structure. Duo watched, heart pounding in his chest, as the short-haired girl was revealed. There was no question that she was of a noble stature based on the thin ring of white jewels that wrapped around her head of short, dark hair.
Her wide blue eyes took the braided young man in and her pale blue, long-sleeved dress shimmered in the sunlight as she slowly stepped forward. Every step she took came more quickly than the last until she was running. "Duo!" she cried with a sob when she reached her cousin and threw her arms tightly around his neck. "Thank the good spirits, you have returned to us safely!"
Taken aback, the prince reached up to return the embrace... albeit a bit hesitantly at first. Pulling back, the princess's face was drenched but her smile was radiant as released the hold on his neck to cup his face. "You look just like your father," she breathed.
A sudden wave of realization flashed in her eyes as she gasped and reeled back a step as though she had been burned. She brought a hand to her mouth and giggled, "I am sorry for forgetting myself as well as the fact that you have no idea who I am." Dipping her head, she grinned, "I am your cousin, Hilde, Princess of Epyon. Our mothers were sisters."
Duo gave her a small smile, reassured by the girl's enthusiasm in meeting him. It had been a very long time since he'd received a hug like that. "Very nice to meet you, Hilde," he responded with a bow of his own head. "I... it's nice to know that I still have family here... or anywhere for that matter."
Her smile faltering a bit, Hilde tilted her head. Rather than push the braided prince into something that he may not have wished to discuss, she brightened again and stated, "I never had the chance to meet you after you were born, but there is no question that you are my cousin. Your mother's eyes and father's face do not lie."
Quatre stepped up to the reunited family and smiled. "Why don't we all head inside so that you may talk privately?" he suggested. "Princess Hilde, you, your army and their dragons are all welcome to stay and rest for as long as you wish."
Sighing deeply, the girl nodded, "Thank you.." At that, she reached for her cousin's hands and squeezed them with a wide grin. "We have much to discuss."
* * * * * *
Sitting around in a large den lit by the flames contained within a fireplace, Duo sat in one of the plush chairs at a round marble table with the knights, the two gifted and his newly found cousin. Golden goblets filled with juice were placed at each of their settings as the small band took a much needed moment to just sit and talk.
After she'd relayed some of the happier memories of her parents and their kingdom to give the prince more insight into the life of a royal, Hilde settled back into her chair with a sad frown. Creases of worry and pain that she had been holding back worked their way across her face to almost age her.
From the corner of his eye, Duo spotted Quatre clutch at his heart while a concerned Relena beside him took his free hand into her own. Clearly, there were some very powerful emotions that the empath was picking up on.
"Oh, cousin, I wish that you did not have to come back home during such a tumultuous time," Hilde said softly to the young man sitting across from her. "Epyon has opened its gates to many people who had been sent fleeing from their homes, from their loved ones and all that they know to spare themselves from Dekim and his creeping army."
Biting her lip, the princess shook her head and whispered, "The things that they had to say about the sights and sounds of an attack from that dark shadow as it closed in." She stopped for a moment to collect herself enough to say, "I have nightmares of those stories to this day."
Wufei lowered his head a bit and stated, "I can believe it. Anna and I were lucky enough to escape with our lives along with the other knights of our band that got out of Sanq in time." His lover took a deep breath as her blue eyes lost their focus in recalling those harrowing moments in that dark hour.
Duo blinked widely at the pair that had been his escorts since arriving to this world that he only now knew was his first home. "I had no idea that you're both from Sanq. So you were both knights to my parents?"
"It is... not easy for either of us to talk about," Anna explained. "And we did not want to burden you with more information than what you could handle. Sanq, our homeland, was the first to fall to Dekim. And though we knew the day would come, nothing was able to prepare us for what we witnessed."
Leaning forward in his chair towards the riders, Duo requested quietly, "Tell me?"
Wufei let out a deep breath in a sigh before meeting his prince's eyes and began, "It was the middle of the night when it all started. Anna and I were only knights in training at the time and had been miles beyond the city with over a dozen others. Our head mentor, First Knight Odin Lowe woke us all from our sleep to prepare for battle." When a shudder ran through the normally unshaken swordsman, Duo held his breath.
Squeezing Anna's hand that had slid into his own, Chang leveled the braided teenager with a steel gaze and continued, "Even as far away from Sanq as we were, we could hear the battle in the distance. We could see the fires rising up above the tree line with billowing black smoke. Back then, we were all only at the age of fifteen in comparison to the realm where you grew. And so I am sure you can imagine many of us being a bit frightened at the prospect of going into a fight like that, but we did."
At another squeeze on her hand, the redheaded knight went on for him, "We flew to Sanq to find that the ogres and their battering rams had broken through the city as though they were paper instead of the stone and metal that they had been made from. Debris was everywhere from the holes they created to pour through. And the castle... it was almost unrecognizable."
She bit her lip and breathed, "There were so many of them, all wearing black armor over their massive bodies and their faces gruesomely disfigured. And the dragons that they had were skeletal with steel claws that would slice through our own riders as they tried to defend themselves in their saddles before they fell hundred of feet to the ground. And the screams from the people in the burning city were horrid."
When Anna turned to him with shimmering eyes, unable to go on, Wufei nodded to her reassuringly and focused back on the prince to state, "Those that had been killed by the sword or arrow were lucky. Many of the women were... used as play things before they were skinned alive in front of their children. Whole families were barricaded into their homes and made to stay inside as their house was set to flames where they would be burned alive."
Clearing his throat, the swordsman shook his head, "No one was spared... not even the defenseless. There was one old man without a hair on his head who was little more than a twig that fell to his knees and raised his hands up for mercy just before an ogre on horseback ran him through with a lance."
He paused to swallow roughly past the lump that had formed in his throat. "There were many other sights that I cannot even speak of, they were so horrific."
Tears freely running down her face, Anna whimpered, "We did everything within our power to stop them. Even as we watched our brothers that we had trained with for many years fall along with their dragons. Every one of us was prepared to fight to our deaths when Odin saw the futility of our efforts and called those of us still alive to fall back. No one wanted to retreat, but we knew that we needed to do so to strengthen our numbers if we had any chance of putting and end to Dekim."
Her head lowered as she whispered, "Before we went into the fight, we started with over fifty knights in training. In the end, there were only nine of us left." A small sob broke from her as she groaned, "And I can still hear those damned screams at night when I go to sleep. I can still smell that smoke and the blood."
Wufei's own fortitude was fading at his lover's uncommon breakdown and his own eyes began to mist over. Slowly wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he pulled her close against his side and gently kissed her forehead. Anna closed her eyes and rested her head against his shoulder, forgetting her pride in trying to always be strong and just accepting the support that she needed.
Gently pulling back on her the left sleeve of her purple tunic, the swordsman revealed a deep, wide scar that wrapped the whole way around and up her arm. Lowering the right shoulder of his own, brown shirt, he showed the three claw marks left on his chest. The sight of those traces had the others gathered around gasping and staring wide-eyed.
Meeting all of their frightened eyes, Wufei told them, "We will forever wear the physical and mental scars of that night." Carefully hiding their markings away again, he frowned deeply, "And even then, we were two of the lucky ones. I am glad for these scars as I do not want to forget those people that were lost... the ones who we do not want to see their deaths be in vain."
Hilde wiped at her own tears and commented, "Sanq was the first to fall, but many others have followed. The stories of the survivors my people had taken in are the same as what you have just told. Dekim's army looks to destroy every living soul that has not been sold to fight alongside them. We are all to be eliminated... wiped from this world completely."
Finally able to find his voice, Duo looked to the oracle and asked quietly, "D-do you see anything that says what side will win out in this war? You had said that I needed to be here to be able to help, but you haven't said how the outcome looks."
Wrapping her arms around her waist with a shiver, Relena frowned deeply, "I wish that I had a way of saying with certainty that we would be victorious in standing against this darkness that is threatening to consume all. However, my ability only shows me the possible paths that the future could take. Those branches of options break off into even more possible events. I am afraid that I am as good as blind in this."
Difficult as that response was, Duo nodded to her in appreciation and pushed his chair back. "I need to get some air," he announced while rising to his feet. Wufei and Anna moved as though they were going to join him for protection, only to stop when he raised his hand and requested, "I could really use some time alone."
The reluctance of the request was evident in the knights' eyes, but they abided his wish with a firm nod of their heads. Flashing them a grateful smile, the prince turned to leave the room.
Quietly traveling the halls by memory from his tour the day before, Duo found one of the balconies overlooking the stretch of mountains surrounding the palace. At that altitude, the wind was strong enough to pick up the end of his braid and play with it.
Folding his arms on the edge and leaning forward, he thought of the horrific retelling of what happened to Sanq... his home that he had never known existed along with everything and everyone else here.
He thought of the incredible odds that he and his new friends were up against with the dark army that was creeping to devour everything in its way. And he wondered how in the hell a normal kid like himself was going to be able to do anything about this.
None of this was asked for. He did not want this responsibility or so many people looking to him for his help that he had no idea where to begin.
...But there were people dying. Innocent lives were being destroyed. And scary as it was to think of going against the sorcerer, Duo was not about to sit back and not do anything. If there was some way he could put an end to the nightmare that was wracking this realm, he would just have to figure it out.
Reaching down, he removed his baseball cap from the belt where he had stuffed it against his red tunic.
Just as the pendant that he had always worn was a hope there was a place where he belonged, that cap had become a reminder of the world he'd left behind that he had known all his young life up until then. A world where he was unwanted.
Here he was not only wanted, but needed. And how many times in the past had he wished more than anything to be in such a place?
With his heart hammering and a part of him screaming in fear of the unknown, Duo smiled and straightened himself. Taking his eyes from the cap to stare out to the mountains, he pulled it back with his arm and sent it out into the wind with a strong throw.
Forcing himself to take a deep breath, the teenager watched the hat drift off until it disappeared form his sight. And along with it, so did all of his initial wishes for returning back to a 'normal life'.
So, he was a prince. Daunting a realization as that was, there was reassurance in one simple fact.
He was home. And he would do everything in his power to defend it.
TBC...
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