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Thanatos no Hana [part 2] Heero didn’t know whether it was the contact or the mention of food, but the boy finally turned over and his eyes blinked open. For a moment, Heero was looking into swirling pools of dark purple and black, feeling a weight on his shoulders and a tug at his chest. But he blinked and the feeling was gone as if it had never been and he was only looking into bright violet eyes that peered up at him in sleepy confusion. “Nani? ‘Yu-” The boy shook his head minutely. “I mean, what?” Heero straightened and blinked, startled to hear the ancient language coming so nonchalantly from this boy’s mouth. Heero himself only knew a little bit of the language; by no means was he fluent, although he did know enough to hold a simple conversation. It could be called one of his “hobbies” by someone who didn’t know him well. His friends, on the other hand, would rightly call it an obsession, one they humored by learning some of the ancient language as well, and searching for manuscripts written in the old language to add to his not-so-modest collection. Heero had met few people who were as interested in it as he, and they had only been scholars, interested in all types of different languages, including the ancient one. But Heero had always been fascinated by the ancient language for some reason, even as a little boy. At his coming of age ceremony, the point at which boys and girls could pick the names by which they’d be called for the rest of their lives, he’d picked a name he’d come across in one of the first manuscripts he’d ever seen. Some of the characters had been faded beyond recognition, but he could make out enough to read “Heero Yuy.” And that’s who he’d been since that day, only using his full name - Heero Yuy Lowe - on official documents. A few seconds had gone by, and the boy’s sleepy eyes were beginning to clear. Before Heero could even try to think of a reply, the boy said “Hi! I’m Duo Maxwell. Did you say something about food?” *** Heero watched out of the corner of his eye as the boy - Duo Maxwell - licked his fingers clean from the last bite of fish. He hadn’t had that much to begin with, but Duo had apparently hidden bread and jerky in a cloth sack in the bush he’d been sleeping next to. So, added to the fish, it made for a good meal, and enough for two. Heero had been surprised at just how soft the bread was. The clearing was a few hours’ walk from civilization in any direction and it looked like Duo had been sleeping there for hours before Heero had arrived. How had the bread stayed so soft? But he hadn’t asked Duo yet. As a matter of fact, since he’d awoken, Duo had been doing all of the talking. It was like he hadn’t talked to anyone in months, but Heero knew that that wasn’t likely. Duo sat back with a sigh and a satisfied smile on his face. He looked over at Heero. “That was deeelish!” Heero ignored the old slang and replied “Yes, it was quite good, wasn’t it? Then again, almost everything tastes good when you’re starving.” Heero watched Duo’s face as he answered, trying to determine if the boy knew what he was talking about, wondering why he cared. “I don’t know, but I know that I like almost everything!” Duo replied. It didn’t really answer his question, but Heero didn’t pursue it. Instead, Heero finally asked what had been on his mind since he’d seen the boy. “So, who are you and what were you doing sleeping here?” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Duo wondered when Yu- that is, when Heero (he’d introduced himself when they sat down to eat) would get around to asking that question. Duo mentally admonished himself. No matter how similar he appeared to be to his former soulbonded, he had to remember that this was not Hiroyuki. They might share the same soul, and the same ancient memories, but their lives had treated them differently and so their outward personalities could be as different as night and day. Although how this Heero Yuy had gotten a name so similar, he didn’t know. Nor was he inclined to question the workings of Fickle Fate, as he liked to call her. But these thoughts were late in coming. His first thought had been to grab Hiroyuki, or Yuki-chan, as Duo had taken to calling him in the brief time they’d had together, and never let him go. He’d been alone for so long, he hadn’t thought to disguise his eyes in time to prevent Heero from seeing them. Luckily, though, he seemed not to believe what he’d seen. The first time, Hiroyuki had seen them accidentally, too, but he’d immediately pounced on Duo and demanded to be told what they meant. Then again, the people of those times had been a lot more inclined to superstition and a belief in the supernatural than those of the current times. //Indeed//, Duo thought, //I’ve been alone for far too long. There have only been a few soulbonded before Hiroyuki//. Duo regretted being unable to even meet them before their lives had come to an end. //Only being able to share myself with one before Hiroyuki… it’s made for a lonely existence. Of course, there are always the ghosts - the ones who, by sheer stubbornness, refuse to pass on - to talk to, but by nature, they are roamers; never do they stay here with me, in my little clearing.// //The first of my soulbonded, Solo, falling to the Plague as a child… All the others, not even getting to see them… Then, Hiroyuki… dying before he could return to me… I could not help but choose to Sleep for the last two hundred years. How could I bear it without him? Seeing his face - that same face, always, over and over - leaning over me, upon my awakening… I had thought, for that one brief second, that we could finally be together. But he didn’t know me, and it almost killed me. Me! Death! And it seems that with every death, the time before his next incarnation becomes longer and longer. This latest took hundreds of years. How can I go on without him for much longer?// Duo blinked his thoughts away. This was no time to be getting all weepy and sentimental. “Well,” he began, “I’m Duo. Duo Maxwell. I run, I hide, I do everything-” he paused here to wink “-but I never lie.” Duo waited for a reaction. All he got was a “hn.” “And,” Duo continued, “I was here sleeping… as you saw.” When Heero glared mildly at him, Duo continued. “Well, I’m not doing much, really. Mostly avoiding the Oz army and staying out of Sank. There’s a boiling pot ready to blow its lid if I ever saw one”. //Just because my conscious self has been Sleeping for the last two centuries doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on. I am Death, after all. Besides, there are always ghosts ready with a complaint about the war, the killing, blah blah blah. As if it were all *my* fault their opponent decided he’d rather kill than be killed.// “So I’ve just been traveling, nowhere in particular. Just keeping on the move. I stopped in this clearing ‘cause it seemed a nice, quiet place to rest.” Duo paused. “What about you?” While he did know almost everything about the current political and social situation, and he could find out more by either reading a few minds, asking the local politicians, or even asking the pesky ever-present faeries that he’d mistaken Heero for when he’d been trying to wake him up, he refused to pry into his soulbonded’s mind without permission. Duo could be assured of the fact that Heero would never know - until or unless he willingly stayed with Duo in the end - but it was too much a violation of free will for Duo to be comfortable inflicting it on his beloved. Heero looked at him consideringly and Duo put his most trustworthy, you-know-you-want-to-confide-in-me smile on his face. “I’m on a mission,” Heero replied. Duo’s face became serious. “Oh? Are you a soldier? What kind of mission are you on? Are you in Sank’s army or Oz’s?” Duo’s face became suspicious. “You aren’t an assassin, are you? ‘Cause that’s a dangerous line of work. Of course, so is being a soldier, but…” Duo trailed off when Heero shook his head. Heero didn’t know what was making him so loose-lipped around Duo, but he seemed to have this inexplicable feeling of trust for him. It was baffling; it was completely unlike him to trust someone within hours of meeting them. It had taken weeks to learn to trust even his closest friends back in the Wings. And yet, he’d learned to trust his instincts and emotions; they’d never let him down before. //I’ll settle for a compromise with myself. I can tell him the truth without revealing *everything* about myself.// “No, I’m an ex-captain in the Sank Army. But Queen Relena has disbanded the regular army; she only has a battalion as her Personal Guard, now. But my mission is self-assigned, I’m not working for Sank any more.” “So, what’s your self-assigned mission, then?” Duo asked. “I’m looking for an unusual type of flower. I only know what it looks like… but not where to find it.” “Oh?” Duo asked, eyes wide, pretending not to know a thing Heero was talking about. “Where’d you see it, then, if you don’t know where to find it? What does it look like? And are you looking for it here, in this clearing? I don’t think I’ve seen any unusual flowers here. Just the occasional dandelion.” Almost unwillingly, Heero shared the information. “It’s a black-petaled flower with six or seven petals. I saw it in this area once, but I’ve never seen it here since.” Heero adeptly avoided saying that he’d seen it *in a dream* in this area. “So I was hoping that coming to this area again would give me some clues as to where to start looking for it.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If he wasn’t so disciplined, Heero would’ve grumbled. As it was, he was hard pressed to keep his temper under control. He had *not* meant to have a companion on this journey. Yet *somehow* Duo had managed to ignore, shoot down, or otherwise weasel out of all the arguments Heero had given as to why they should not travel together. True, the reasons themselves hadn’t been all that strong. But Heero had been somewhat reluctant to give Duo the real reason he didn’t want to travel with him. In fact, all that Heero had been willing to admit to himself about it was that Duo would be the one distraction Heero thought he wouldn’t be able to ignore. In any case, Duo had brought up a few points that Heero had not been able to argue. When he’d told him of the black-petaled flower in his dream, Duo’s violet eyes had widened in surprise and he’d gotten a smile on his face. Then he’d said, “Hey, I’ve heard the legend of that flower - it’s called the ‘Flower of Death.’” Heero had stiffened in his seat. The unexpected confirmation had left him speechless. After all, he’d only seen this flower in his dreams. On one level, he’d been searching for it, but on another level, he hadn’t really believed in its existence. And hearing its name - Flower of Death - had rocked him to the core. It had been like a current of power had jolted through him, stealing his breath and leaving him adrift and floating within his own mind. Thoughts had run through his mind like lightning - Why was it called the Flower of Death? What was the legend behind it? And most importantly… how had Duo heard about it? +end part two+ +TBC+ ========================
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