Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Taking Flight ❯ Arwel's Explanation ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter 04 - Arwel's Explanation

"After a turning point, there is no turning back."

//…// Denotes thought.

***

It would seem of late that Duo Maxwell had developed a habit of waking up to buttery morning sunlight after emergencies involving a certain irksome back injury of his; this particular morning being no different. The bright light reaching through his eyelids was the first thing he noticed as he slowly came around. The second thing he noticed was the odd, numb, distant feeling of his arms and legs. His entire body felt like a cloud, a sensation he sometimes noticed when coming out of deep sleep on a cold morning.

//"…Am I dead?"// Was his first coherent thought. Though it took him longer than it should have to string the words together, the next moment his eyes fluttered open. He winced at the sudden light, but his pupils quickly adjusted to it and an image of his cream-walled hospital room came slowly into focus. //"…It's too bright for hell…"// he concluded with dry humor, but wondered suddenly why (if he wasn't dead) he didn't he feel a thing …except cold. Duo could never seem to escape the cold. //"They must have me on medication."// He concluded at last.

Duo's body felt almost as if he had been tied up his entire life and then suddenly released. This feeling was quite pleasant, actually, since at the moment Duo's brain seemed to be filled with the same fuzz as his body was reporting. He was in no condition to think anything else of it; that was until a nurse entered the room.

Hearing the door creaking and soft footsteps follow, Duo groaned in annoyance.

"Ah, I see that you're awake, Mr. Maxwell." A soft, feminine voice came from near the door. "I'll fetch Doctor Arwel…."

As Duo tried to speak, a lingering soreness in his throat transformed his intended words into a series of coughs. Immediately the previous night's events came rushing back to him, rolling over him like a steamroller. The pain he felt had been unimaginable-and not only the pain of his injury but of the helplessness it had brought about-yet as the memories made their way to the front of Duo's mind, it all remained… distant, dream-like, unreal. The woman hesitated at his coughs, a look of irritation on her face. "…Er, …lady?" Duo finally managed. "My friends, the people who visited me yesterday… Where are they?" He wondered out loud.

"Oh, the other Gundam pilots?" Duo winced at the naive tone of the young woman's voice, as well as the obvious lack of security around this place. //"It would drive Heero nuts…"// he mused humorously. "They've gone to the warehouse last I heard. You're not allowed to have visitors… this early." The logic was there, but the strange distance in the anonymous woman's indigo eyes sent a chill down Duo's spine. Still, his lingering grogginess ensured that any further thought on the topic was out of the question. Eyelids heavy, Duo once again began to drift off as the slender woman exited his room. Some sort of slight, warm, comfortable pressure-like that of a thick blanket-made itself known as he shifted further into his pillows. It was a pleasant contrast to the fuzzy chill of the rest of his body. //"Like hot chocolate when it's snowing, I think… I'd like to see snow…"// He lazily pondered, relaxing completely.

His stomach gave a lurch as his room's door opened swiftly and slammed shut. The blanket feeling became heavier and less pleasant as he shifted, looking up with wide eyes and searching the room quickly for the object of his surprise; Duo's search didn't last long.

Nostrils flared, glasses skewed, and uniform wrinkled, Doctor Arwel stormed angrily into Duo's room having slammed the door behind her. The fury that seemed to emanate from her spread and flowed throughout the room not unlike the motions of an erupting volcano. On a wandering concern, Duo briefly wondered if his room was sound proof. "What the hell were you thinking!?" Arwel screeched. "Pulling a stunt like that in the middle of our hospital, in the middle of our valley… not to mention the idiocy… letting) it go that far… among) them…" her face swelling and reddening like a tomato, the doctor seemed unable to pull her thoughts together into coherent sentences. Duo merely laid where he was, contemplating his odd numbness as she continued on a tirade about "his little stunts". He allowed his mind to drift (like he often did during Wufei's infamous rants) while Doctor Arwel continued to shout. Duo only employed an infrequent "mhmm" here and there in case she expected him to respond.

//"They have nice blankets here…"// Duo silently appreciated what he gathered to be temporary comfort until his next round of medication. //"Nice and soft, not scratchy like most cloth blankets, warmer than sheets, feels thinner than a comforter…"//

"How could you even think about taking this sort of risk around people like them? You could have been discovered, you could have exposed us!" Arwel shrieked.

Somehow, Duo managed to tune into the one sentence during Doctor Arwel's entire angry rant to this point that could have sent alarm bells jarring the inside of his skull. "…Wait a minute." He interrupted her, "what do you mean by that?"

Arwel snorted. "Those… associates of yours. Should any outsider ever discover that members of the proud Dragyr race make their home here-…"

Duo's eyes widened. This was beginning to sound like something out of a bad science fiction movie. "…What did you say? 'Dragyr race'?" He was mildly surprised as the tones, which sounded difficult to pronounce, yet rolled off his tongue with uncanny ease. "Are you running some kind of marathon here?" He supplied comically, flailing for a bit of humor to reign in his anxiety. Whatever the doctor was rambling on about just didn't seem to fit with anything he had ever learned. //"It must be some kind of African sport thing, or at the very most a secret faction or something opposed to OZ…. Yeah, of course, that has to be it. Arwel is one of J's contacts; it has to be something like that…."//

The doctor scoffed. "Your absurdity is unnecessary. I find it hard to believe you can question me like that. Didn't your mother ever tell you? You could not be here now if no one ever told you of our stronghold."

Duo's expression remained one of confusion. A dull throb began in his head and he raised one chilly hand to it. Doctor Arwel's eyes seemed to scan the floor, and then widened and looked to him questioningly, requiring an explanation. The weary braided boy sighed reluctantly, and then continued with obvious irritation laced into his tones. "I don't know what you're talking about." He rolled his eyes in a mechanical gesture, pushing aside the painful bite of his memories and not wishing to dwell upon them. He had plenty of opportunities for that while unconscious; the nightmare of his reality didn't need to invade his waking hours as well. "Does the name "Maxwell" ring a bell?" Duo smirked darkly, and then, not noticing a spark of recognition in the doctor's eyes, grudgingly elaborated, "'Maxwell Church Tragedy?' It was all over the news. I'm a war orphan, duh." He paused, and then continued with less punch, "As for being here, I was assigned to this mission, I didn't choose to come. Now, if you're almost done, I'm starting to get hungry. I'm sorta partial to rice balls, have any by chance? I know cafeteria food is horrible, but…" Duo trailed off, his forced grin wavering and his energy waning.

Arwel sighed seriously after several moments of tense silence. "If it's true you don't know about the Dragyr then, to put it bluntly, you're in for a shock." She smirked at some hidden joke.

"…Whatever." Duo rolled his eyes, interested in what the middle-aged doctor had to say, but not quite so much as he had been initially. "So, are you going to get me something?"

"You can do it yourself. Get up." She replied tonelessly.

"…What?" Duo asked, taken by surprise.

"Get up." The doctor repeated.

"You have to be joking."

"Get up." Arwel insisted a final time.

Duo sighed darkly, then laughed. "You're the doctor, I guess…." Placing his arms carefully beneath him as he had before, Duo began to push up expecting his body to rebuke him with terrible pain. Suddenly, the braided boy stopped, face filled with surprise, not agony. He lifted one eyebrow questioningly at the doctor, and then slowly turned his gaze around.

"HOLY SHIT!!!" He yelled, throat protesting the strain of his volume. He literally jumped several feet into the air, head striking the ceiling, and then falling onto the floor, rubbing his ailing top. Two snowy-white, feathered wings, black tinted at their second joints and draped rather ungracefully across the floor were connected to Duo's back just below his shoulders. The skeletal appendages flopped around lifelessly as he jumped and then scrambled into a sitting position, and then proceeded to shrug as if they were some sort of accessory that he could strip off like clothing, though he had no such luck. Though his face originally had been dominated by a surprised, almost repulsed expression, it quickly turned to anger. "What the… what the hell did you do to me!?"

"Other than save your life, absolutely nothing." The annoyed doctor replied detachedly. Her tone only seemed to fuel Duo's rage.

"Bullshit! You… you did something! I know you did!" Disbelief still shone in his wide, fearful eyes, which swirled within his fury, and he continued to shout with ghosts of dark laughter heightening his tones every once in a while.

"Mr. Maxwell," the doctor tried to speak calmly over his frightened, panicking tones, "you must please try to understand that you've always been this way…"

"Like hell!" He shouted, interrupting his previous sentence, then continued ranting. "This… this is all a joke… It has to be… ha ha, very funny guys. You can all come out now… come out, really… I'll only skin you alive after I'm done choking you to death…" He laughed hollowly for several moments before starting again in disbelief and anger, panic filling his voice with greater intensity. All things considered, he took the situation rather well.

"ENOUGH!" Arwel finally shouted, silencing Duo with the force of her voice. She stood quickly, shoulders back, arms straight down, fists clenched, and generally intimidating. "Mr. Duo Maxwell, you are a member of the proud Dragyr race, and as such, you will behave like one. I have grudgingly compiled a list of instructions for you, seeing as though you have taken no motion to take care of yourself in the past. Now, for as long as I see fit, you will sit down and listen without interruption to the things I have chosen to tell you. You will not scoff, argue, or otherwise interrupt until I am finished. Then, and only then, will you be permitted to ask questions. Do I make myself clear?"

Silent and decisively still, Duo replied quietly, "…Yes, ma'am." On a wandering realization Duo found that the fuzzy feeling, which his body had earlier reported had faded (perhaps he hadn't been on medication? But then where had the pain gone?), though the ignorable chill had not left his now-clammy hands nor the rest of his body. Cold air had even seeped beneath his feathers and a rapid chill had spread in an odd sensation through the thin limbs. Duo never could seem to escape the cold.

Arwel nodded, satisfied for the moment in her position of dominance, but then noticed Duo's thin, skin-and-bones wings. They hung limply, bound only by the walls of the curtained room. The half-drawn shades allowed late morning light to filter through and leave short zigzagging trails across Duo's bed and the floor. "First of all," she began, "lift your wings. You'll have a needlessly difficult time preening them later if you ruin your feathers like that."

Still unable to completely grasp the concept of the "new" appendages being his, Duo allowed confusion to gleam from his darting eyes. "Er… how?"

Obviously annoyed, Doctor Arwel sighed and lifted a hand to her head, expressing the headache that Duo seemed destined to cause everyone he came in contact with. "Here." She told the boy as she walked swiftly over to him and lifted one of his light wings from the floor. "Stand up and lean against the wall."

He complied, dragging his other wing over the bed.

"No wonder you have barely enough muscle built to lift them; you've never used them, have you?"

Duo shook his head slightly, smirking at what desperate humor he could find in the situation.

The doctor continued the exercise. "Feel this?" She lifted one of his wings and positioned it over his shoulder, then slowly let it down to the floor. Arwel then repeated the motion, moving over to his other wing. Duo nodded (in reply). "Good, now do it on your own."

Duo took a deep, staggering breath, his eyes still troubled and much of his body caught in shakes that he couldn't seem to control. His mind was numb with panic, but was seemingly unable to register anything at the moment, save wild stabs at humor and attempts at convincing himself that this wasn't real. //"None of this is happening. I'm still in bed, that's it…. I haven't woken up from the hospital since going down in that fight; this is all a dream…."// Catching an impatient glare from Doctor Arwel, Duo realized that he had been standing there long enough to look entirely foolish. In a motion too sudden to be anything but forced, Duo's wings gave a sort of feeble twitch, then a flop, and then didn't move again for several seconds. Arwel began to tap one foot, arms folded with annoyance across her chest. Too worked up to even think up a witty comment to lighten both of their moods (and Duo was quite convinced that his mood needed serious lightening) or much less start an argument, he attempted the motion again, gritting his teeth and obviously straining to pull up the light appendages. Lactic acid seared through the tiny muscles lining the bones of his 15-foot wings, opening a dormant section of Duo's mind to every detail of the contracting organ system and beyond. Though it felt like an eternity, before Duo had even realized it his strain had lessened and his wings were positioned folded over his shoulders. He opened his eyes and blinked several times, dumbfounded. As he relaxed slightly in his momentary surprise, the thin appendages fell back onto the floor, top joint striking it hard. Duo winced as a prickling sensation raced up and down the bones as if he had struck his elbow.

Doctor Arwel sighed, clearly nearing the end of what little patience she had gathered. "Get on the bed." She instructed him coldly. Duo complied, lying once more on his stomach. His brain felt as though the chilling sensation that constantly surrounded him had frozen it over. He lifted the weak, light appendages with his hands and folded them instinctually. It was perhaps a good thing that his shock had not yet leveled out; the realization that he completed this with such practiced ease might have upset the youth even more. Duo was still shaking as he watched the doctor fetch a chair from a shaded corner and drag it into the dappled light at the foot of his hospital bed. She remained silent for several minutes, as though to wait for Duo's mental functions to return before elaborating. Within five minutes, the young man had halfway convinced himself that this entire occurrence was an elaborate OZ scheme (though none of his wild ideas could explain the little hints along the way, the things that had always been but remained ignored, the fact that such technology and medical knowledge couldn't possibly exist yet, the point that OZ would have had to have initiated this wild scheme before the violet-eyed youth had reached age five, and that this was an awful lot of trouble to go through for just one subject. Then again, he was a type D… thingy, like that doctor lady said…). Then, Arwel took a deep, calming breath-like Wufei often did while attempting to reign in his temper when confronting Maxwell-and began to speak. The longer she spoke, the wilder her tale became, but the less Duo was able to write it off or ignore it.

She told him how his wings have been growing slowly inside his back since around age 12, possibly causing redness, but not causing much irritation due to the few receptors of pain on the skin of his back. He experienced great irritation recently because of the huge growth spurt that occurs at the end of this three-year period, which tends to last two months. Arwel explained that he already went through a week of it by her calculations, in which his wingspan swelled from a 5-foot wingspan to 15 feet. Duo closed his eyes and smirked at this, suddenly aware of the reason for his greatly increased metabolism of late. He had always been a thin kid (part of living on the streets), but he had been losing weight like crazy recently and was currently somewhere around 94 pounds.

"I told you not to scoff." Doctor Arwel scolded Duo, who immediately returned to the dreamy, concerned face that his shock had left him with. "Now, our wings are the pride of our race, they are made of a special Keratin that allows them to bend, fold, and contract quite easily inside of our backs. The complexities of this highly evolved organ system would be far too difficult for you to understand, child. The skin of our backs, as you might have noticed, is the surface of an extremely specialized organ that heals quickly when sliced or split. This is essential as our claws have the function of cutting a way out from where our wings are stored. The organ that stores our wings is actually a very complex muscle group that is responsible for pulling your wings back in and storing them under extremely high pressure. You have glands at the bases of your wings beneath the skin that produce and pump a special chemical through your wings that causes them to soften for their storage. You may have also noticed shallow dips in the back of your rib cage that have been filled with muscle. Our flight muscles contract as well in storage, though not quite as severely. Now that your wings are out, you'll notice that they fill those grooves and extend with even more bulk beyond."

Duo was half paying attention, half not. Unlike Doctor Arwel's practiced, relatively short speech on the "Type D", she sounded as though she had studied these things that she now spoke of, but never had to explain them to anyone. She paused frequently (between every sentence) and didn't seem to know what to say next. The braided boy resigned to lying languidly on the bed with his new and strangely familiar appendages balanced immobile over his shoulders.

"Perhaps I should explain this before anything else…. About the growth spurt, you will need to let your wings out for 15 minutes every two hours for the next week, including at night. I understand your position among your… acquaintances," she seemed colder suddenly as she admitted Duo's position within the ranks of his fellow pilots, "and therefore you will need to know… you can max out at four hours with little pain or consequence. After that, however, your Rager^r^a-that's the organ responsible for healing after your claw slices-will be unable to keep up with the strain and your… your skin will become raw and it will be quite uncomfortable (of course you'll have noticed that little to no pain is caused by the splitting of your skin, but much is caused by the strain of the muscles and pressure to your wings, which still can feel pain…). No matter what situation you are in, I strongly advise against putting it off for five hours. Your skin will split by around that time, and not only will the bleeding be an unnecessary minor risk to your health, but it will be quite unsightly and suspicious considering your company. I can't imagine a situation where you would need to go more than that long, but by ten hours your wings will be released involuntarily. Even if it wouldn't be for the serious health risk so many hours of bleeding, such a release would put a serious strain on your Rager^r^a. It takes a lot of energy to keep up with the constant and quick rebuilding of cells. It is my place to also strongly suggest that you eat more in the future. Your weight is dangerously low already…. Your wings need to be released to give your body a chance to… rearrange, and your wings need a chance to dry, harden, and stretch."

The doctor paused several long moments this time. Duo had been running his fingers along the top joint of his wings, slipping the fidgeting digits through the fuzzy, black, apparently ornamental feathers that covered his skin, of which traces of blood had been washed from. He wove his fingers across the smooth, dry skin beneath and around the bases of his feathers (a strange thought, but one that seemed peculiarly distant at the moment) until he came across a smooth, bone-like protrusion. Curious, he ran his fingers slowly along the pinched top of the six-inch claw, feeling his strange muscles flex automatically and lift the gleaming, pearly bone out from beneath the plumage covering it, right as Arwel paused. The stretch was mildly satisfying, he realized, as his fingers reached the pointed tip. Without thought, his curious fingers broke from their momentary hesitation and began to slide back down along the bottom. A mild shock of slicing pain shot to Duo's brain as the sharp edge sunk into his fingers and drew blood. "Ow!" He shouted in surprise.

Just having taken a breath to continue, Arwel quickly abandoned her previous thought to continue along another. "I should have warned you. Yes, your claws are very sharp. They need to be." More to stall for thinking time than out of real concern, the doctor walked quickly to a nearby cupboard to fetch a band aide and ointment, then applied both to Duo's bleeding, slightly shaking fingers. Remembering the words of the blonde youth from the day before, Arwel sighed at the realization of how much of a shock this must be to the braided boy in order for him to have remained quiet this whole time. Finished with the bandage, she threw away the wrapper and set the ointment on the stainless steel tray with Duo's IOU note still sitting on it, and concluded, "…Those are the basics of our biology, at least in terms that any 15-year-old Dragyr might understand. Do you have any questions?"

Still shell-shocked, Duo lowered his eyes further, unable to force an answer into his throat. Everything she said seemed absolutely true, and her explanation sounded much more realistic than his theory of a wicked plan of OZ. His thoughts turned suddenly to how his friends would react. He knew Quatre would probably be the most responsive next to Wufei. The cherubic youth would probably be stunned, then sympathetic and concerned, and pretty much typical of any halfway decent person out there. "Injustice!" Would be Wufei's first word, followed by a rant spanning from everything between ancestors, women, the greater good, and Duo's many weaknesses…. Duo had to admit that he didn't really know Trowa well enough to tag a reaction on him. The silent clown rarely spoke, but he tended to have wiser things to say than the others when he did decide to. Heero…

Duo scratched his head. A fleeting image of himself telling and showing Heero Yuy the biggest shock of his life flashed quickly through his mind. In this image, Heero's response was his usual reply of "hn" and the stony boy casting him a quick, calculating glance, and then asking him when Deathscythe would be repaired. Duo laughed out loud, realizing only a moment later that he had succeeded in draining away even more of the doctor's patience. She clearly had not expected to give an explanation when she stormed in only… half an hour before? Falling silent, Duo's thoughts wandered quickly to the battlefield.

They wandered to his alter ego, as he liked to call him, Shinigami: the person he became while surrounded by death and destruction. In a moment of stunning insight, Duo wondered how an "addition" to himself such as this would affect the flow of the complete mental transformation he had to undergo between his "real" life and the one that followed him as a Gundam pilot. He was already having difficulty with his reflection, with knowing that his face, his body, his arms, legs, and hands were those of a murderer (but not his braid, not his wardrobe, and not his name. Those did not belong to him, those things belonged to the greatest people that Duo ever had the good fortune to meet). Duo already believed himself to be a monster, no different from those that took the lives of everyone he had ever loved so many years ago. He only lived with his self-image by insisting that he had a reason, a very good reason to. The colonies needed him, even if most of them didn't realize it. He just didn't know if he could live with the fact that every time he had insisted that he hadn't lost his humanity to the war along with everything else he ever had to lose… was a lie. Duo felt dirty and terribly cold. He wasn't human after all. He was… D, Dragy something… type D?

Doctor Arwel cleared her throat to bring Duo back to the present. A few seconds after the noise reached the young pilot's ears, he seemed to come to his senses. His eyes locked with hers, eyebrows drawn into rigid slants. Duo's voice was no longer muted and sounded quite serious and firm when it passed out of his throat. "Yeah, I've got questions for ya." He told her with the sort of tone he usually reserved for particularly hateful OZ soldiers. "My question is 'How?' How can I be a… a whatever you say I am? I've seen some strange stuff, but there's always an explanation behind it. Lady, I'm not exactly into the habit of taking everything someone says to be Gospel truth."

As if expecting this, Doctor Arwel continued nearly unfazed. "While humans evolved from apes, we evolved from reptiles. Our race is far, far older than theirs. We developed intelligence and have recorded our history since the time Dinosaurs roamed this planet. When our astronomers warned us of an asteroid approaching, chosen members were sent underground. They were the strongest, fastest, and brightest, and they brought with them important records of our history, though only half of those records survived. There they remained for millions of years, the pathways lit artificially, burrowing deeper and deeper into the planet to find warmth and sustenance. Here, there was no room for our bulky wings, no space for our large bodies, and not enough food for our lightening-fast, warm-blooded metabolism. We evolved into slimmer, lankier beings, and our wings developed the ability to be contained within us. We became shorter, smaller, and developed excellent immune systems to cope with the hundreds of new diseases that we came in contact with. Our tails disappeared entirely, and our eyes became the color they are now to help reflect the ultraviolet light." She paused briefly as if wondering how to continue. "We also developed the R^R^oua."

Before she had a chance to pause and stall again, Duo rolled his eyes and asked, sneering uncharacteristically, "And what's that?" He was decidedly stressed, angry, and overall, pissed off.

The doctor paused anyway, deepening her breathing as if trying to remind herself not to lose patience with Duo. "Different areas of our wings," she said slowly, "change color when an immediate family member perishes."

"From whatever color they are normally to either black or white, right?" Duo quipped sarcastically, a particularly nasty expression widening over his face as he tried desperately to convince himself that all this was bullshit.

"No," Arwel clarified for him, "from whatever color they are normally-white in your case-to either black or red. Wings are normally very light pastel color or white more commonly-…"

"Wait!" Duo shouted, filled with surprise and… sudden hope. Quickly checking over his own wings, then looking back to the doctor with wide eyes, he asked breathlessly as he pointed to the black feathers around his claws. "What does this mean?" He checked his wings again, as if he was afraid that the rest of his feathers would suddenly fade to black if he looked away too long.

"The feathers of your top joint correspond to your mother. The top bone edge is for your father. There are always three eggs to a clutch, so your two siblings split the broad flight feathers. Your oldest sibling takes the feathers farthest away from your body and your youngest sibling takes the feathers closest to you. Each hatches a year after the one before it…"

Duo's face was mixed with extreme emotions. He wanted so badly to believe that it was true, for that meant that he still had family, that he wasn't alone after all. Still, fear clutched his heart in its strangling hold, causing it to beat at a rate that couldn't possibly be healthy. It couldn't be true; he didn't want it to be true, yet he did….

He tuned out as Arwel continued on with the rest of her explanation. It was impossible… he just couldn't believe it….

Duo might have been interested to learn how the Dragyr evolved through the ages, developing a sort of symbiotic mimicry with humans after several plagues and disasters caused their numbers to dwindle. She told of their ancient forms of art, and of the prized skills of their race, which served as a sort of right of passage into adulthood. Arwel also explained their notably longer life span and slower aging, both byproducts of their immune system. She also told him why so much peroxide must be used; with so many Dragyr gathered in such a small place, any and all necessary precautions must be taken to prevent a single sick member from causing a plague that was sure to wipe out their remaining numbers.

The braided boy processed this fact dully, the majority of his mind's function being spent on deciding if he wanted to believe it or not. His thoughts quickly turned to a dark day in his past, eight years ago. Perhaps it was his… inhuman immune system that saved him from dying from the plague on L2, while Solo… Solo….

Duo's fingers fell from his feathers. His eyes fell to meet them.

Not seeming to notice, Doctor Arwel paused for a moment to think before admitting, "…We never expected to find any more Dragyr. I suppose it's possible… but it's hard for me to believe that you could go this entire time without any innate knowledge, any hit or suggestion that you were, well, different…."

The dark youth sighed heavily, a sudden weariness creeping over him. Everything Arwel had told him, everything that he had tried to convince himself wasn't true, fit. It was possible. //"It's more than possible, the whole damn, fuckin', stupid…. It all fits…."// Duo clenched his fists and teeth, closing his eyes tightly, then relaxed and slowly opened them. Over his face stretched a loose frown and Doctor Arwel noticed for the first time the dark rings under his eyes. "…I guess…" he supplied weakly, "I guess I have had a few… clues along the way…" Suddenly, his eyes widened and he looked up, realizing something he should have before. //"Of course! Why didn't I think of it? God, I can be such a baka at times…."// "Hey, lady!" He yelled angrily, eyebrows tightening as a glaring inconsistency beat at the inside of his skull. "What about my belly button? I don't know much about biology and that shit, but I couldn't have been born from an egg!" He was outraged, angry, and generally pissed off that she had tried to pass such an obvious lie to him. How could she expect him to believe this? //"Ha! I've got her now…. OZ, you'd better watch out! You may be losing your touch, but Duo Maxwell's skills are as sharp as ever!"// Quite pleased with himself, Duo laid back cockily and awaited the doctor's answer, which took surprisingly little time to form.

The doctor frowned irritably, disgusted with the apparent stupidity of her current charge. "That," she rolled her eyes, "is an evolutionary step which has been completed within the past two-thousand years. Some superstitious humans took up the practice of hunting us down after grouping our race with what they call 'demons'. Our mimicry was perfect except for the presence of 'belly buttons'. If you'll notice, yours is probably not exactly the right size or shape."

Duo glared at her angrily, then quickly checked. Instantly, the last defense he could raise between himself and this truth had crumbled. Doctor Arwel was right. Duo had never spent much time examining his navel before, but now that he did, he noticed that the doctor was exactly right. He sighed. "Oh… that's it then…." Unable to come up with more of a reply, he busied himself once more with his feathers.

The doctor nearly smirked as she found humor in the situation, a rare thing for her. "Your friends say that they normally can't get you to be quiet."

Duo laughed half-heartedly, his voice softer and more irritated than usual, "I'm an honest guy, the truth is that I'm still a bit shocked right now…." A growl sounded from his stomach and he continued weakly, "…and hungry."

The stern woman sighed. "A growing Dragyr's metabolism…." She mumbled, and then walked over to the large cream button and the speaker above it. Pressing the button, she ordered rice and the special from the kitchen. "You can't get it yourself yet, to be truthful. I have to teach you how to work your wings yet. With those friends of yours wandering around, we can't risk them seeing even a slight glimpse of you like this. You need therapy before humans of any kind can see you again. Though our rooms are sound proof, your friends would have to be executed if they were to learn our secret."

Duo smirked at what humor he could find. //"I thought they were sound proof…."//

***

Over the next week Duo remained in his room and received therapy for three hours every day. His exercises included how to contract and release his wings and electronic nodules were placed over his muscles to assist in the building of muscle where he would need it. The stern doctor also made him memorize a list of instructions on how to preen and otherwise care for himself ("because you obviously know nothing about the matter"). Despite all his treatment, by the end of the week Duo still had trouble balancing with his new appendages. On the final day, the doctor gave him a series of numbers and the name of a street. She told the braided youth that it was in this city.

"Return when you wish to perfect your flying skills and leave the disgraceful company of your associates. I hope that you decide to arrive sooner rather than later." Arwel told him. Duo refrained from replying, too busy gathering the coded blueprints and his other possessions that were scattered all over room 23. His mind only caught up with the doctor's dialogue several seconds later, as he had been far too focused on the joyful feeling fluttering inside him. Tomorrow was the day that he could see his friends again! He had thought of plenty of new tricks to play on Wufei, plenty of jokes to crack, a few new topics to have one-sided conversations with Heero…. Even as the scathing tones of Arwel's voice finally contacted his brain, Duo's mood couldn't be dimmed. Tomorrow, he could leave these strange, anal, angry Dragyr and life could return to normal….

It was a thought of his own that finally dimmed the hopeful flame within him. Normal, it was something that Duo could no longer claim to be. Not that he ever claimed to be normal, but there was a huge difference between the idle claims of a child and ugly, horrible, undeniable facts. Tomorrow he would be returning to his fellows… as an outsider. He would fill the same shoes that he had left behind, but Duo was worried that possibly those shoes would no longer fit. The boy who had laughed at death almost as often as he had at the Sunday comics would no longer be who he once was. Well, he had always been who-what-he was now, but now that he knew… could he face the others with the same cheerful grin he had worn when he still believed himself to be….

Duo could no longer deny that he was a monster.

Thinking that her words had in fact convinced Duo to return as soon as he possibly could, Doctor Arwel nodded more to herself than to Duo. She turned on one heel, walked swiftly out of the room, and left Duo alone to brood in silence.

***

As he stepped out the open door of room 23 early the following morning, Duo was greeted by all four of his friends, some showing their relief and joy more than others. He wore the same black garb he always did, the same black shoes, the same cheerful grin, and the same plaited hair, yet the heart he wore twisted and curled in his chest as Quatre launched at him with a crushing hug.

"Duo!" He yelled joyfully. "I-that is to say we-were so worried! I'm so glad you're back!"

Taken only slightly aback, Duo replied in falsely cheerful tones, "Hey, buddy! It's great to be back! I missed you all too," then, to complete the effect, he tossed in jokingly, "but unless you want to send me straight back in there," he indicated room 23, which now had its curtains drawn and was bathed in red, brown, and black, "you may want to lighten up just a little bit…."

Quatre immediately jumped back, horror written all over his face. "I'm so sorry, Duo!" he said quickly.

Duo merely laughed. "It's alright, I'm joking! Quatre, you can calm down." //"That didn't go quite as well as planned…."//

Shaking his disturbing thoughts of red from his mind, Quatre sighed, nodded, and giggled, but remained silent. He couldn't think of what else to say. Only moments earlier his mind had been buzzing with hundreds of things to tell the braided boy, but now none of them seemed to be a proper thing to break the silence with.

"Welcome back, Duo." Trowa said warmly, grasping the boy's left hand with his own and shaking it.

"Hey, Tro!" Duo grinned in response.

"I would like you to know, Maxwell, that if you ever pull a stunt like this again…" Wufei began.

"…The dishonor and injustice, blah blah, and weak like women, blah blah blah…. I've heard it hundreds of times before, 'Fei. I'd think that by now you'd get some new material…." Duo quipped sarcastically.

Wufei's face reddened with anger and he took a breath to begin another rant, but was interrupted when Heero moved past him and locked his calculating gaze onto Duo's face.

The braided boy froze. He usually kept some sort of witty comment or joke saved for the inevitable long moments of silence that stretched between himself and the person he considered to be his best (if least expressed) friend. Unfortunately, Duo had only a few times before this where he had been faced with Yuy's analyzing stare, and every time he froze just like this. Duo didn't dare move, much less breathe, until Heero looked away several long moments later. "Hn." He voiced quietly, almost as if the affirming sound was meant for Heero's ears alone. "Our window of opportunity is approaching." Heero told the others in his usual monotone. "We need to go."

As Heero began to walk toward the exit, brushing against Duo (who was scrambling to retrieve his cheerful mask from wherever it had gone), Arwel pulled him aside and whispered tersely in his ear, "Remember, every two hours."

"I know!" Duo replied, rolling his eyes, before pulling away and rejoining the others.

"What was that about?" Asked Quatre as the braided boy fell into step beside him.

Duo shrugged and replied, "Just a little reminder; nothing to worry about."

Wufei smirked. "Probably telling him not to do that again."

Laughing, Duo quipped, "Like she would need to when my own personal nag lives only a few feet away!"

Growling, Wufei yelled, "MAXWELL!!!"

Duo smirked; things were definitely getting back to normal.

[End Chapter 4]

AN: And another round of updates hits the presses. ^_^ Sorry about the lateness, but this was a really hard chapter to write. Cliché discovery scenes like this are always a pain in the butt to write. It's really difficult to avoid making them sound corny, and I'm still not sure I got it right.

Just to serve as a warning in future, I didn't get nearly enough reviews this time to warrant such an early update. I'm only posting now because it's now or next month, and I don't want to torture you readers too badly. ;)

Special thanks goes out to Rya once more for getting this chapter back to me with quality beta reading despite a severely shortened time period to work in.

Thanks to Momoko-chan for reappearing and giving me an extra-hard kick in the pants to update. ^_^

And also special thanks to SS for reasons stated below! :D

Fanfiction.net, Mediaminer.org, and the SDDI get the spotlight this time. ^_^

Mediaminer.org is first this time with a grand total of 3 reviews:

Dyna: I'm glad the last chapter was exciting enough. ^_^ I must admit, I had my doubts while writing it…. Was this update fast enough?

princesspriscillamaxwell: Do you have any idea how hard your name is to type? ^_^ Finally, someone who mentions all of the effort that was put into this! I was beginning to think that readers took my constant slaving for granted… Well, here's a little treat for you. :D

HellsDarkAngel aka neko satan: Now I have updated. Please don't kill me! **Puppy dog eyes** O^O,

Fanfiction.net in the fray…

tina: "What happened?" is the question that you're reading the story to find out. ^_^ If I just told you, that would be no fun. I can, however, tell you that the things explained in this chapter fall FAR short of clearing up everything. Now that the beginning of a plot is forming, the story can begin to move along. The next chapter I daresay is my favorite in this entire story. :D

Duo's girl: Ah, so you've noticed the precarious position that our favorite stone-cold bastard has been placed in. I'm not supposed to tell you that this is very important, but I guess I just did! ^_^;; And thanks for the shoe! I shall treasure it forever! :D

And last, but certainly not least, the Society for the Defense of Duo's Intelligence (SDDI):

SS: Thank you, thank you so much for your reviews of every chapter and installment! The best reviews come when readers decide to share their thoughts about certain parts and what it makes them believe/feel/etc. Only then do I know that my style of writing is working. Feedback is by far the most essential thing readers can give me to help me improve my skills. Thanks so much! +special thanks

Once again, I feel that it is my duty to remind all readers (and thus potential reviewers) that without reviews, I find myself without the ability and ambition required to update. Please don't just read this chapter and think that "someone else will review; I don't have to". Every review counts; every review brings the update date closer to today! Stuff a review in a shoe and hurl it in my general direction, then wait several weeks for a reply (in the form of an update)! Well, ja ne until next time. ^_^