Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Sea in I ❯ XXIV ( Chapter 24 )

Unbeta'd

Warnings: Angst, death, and violence.

 

Pairings: 1x2/2x1, and the pen dabbles around a bit

 

This may be the longest chapter yet, but I can't bee sure I haven't had time to check the others. I am working on the last chapter ^_^ so there is an end, 3 chapters left

 

*hugs you all* Thank you guys for reading this confusing story of mine, favs and reviewing!

 

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Disclaimer: I don't own any of the sexies in Gundam Wing AC, I just love to see them in different situations, and then sit back and watch the fireworks. *grin*
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XXIV

 

“My Lady,” Jirrad swept his cape behind him when straighten from the quick bow. The smile on Jirrad's face was condescending as he stared down his nose at the girl he'd watched grow up. His smile grew when Relena stared back defiantly from where she stood on a smooth looking, grassy pebbled mound that rose several feet from the ground.

 

“Is this,” Jirrad let the smile slide from his face, stepping forward from the crowd of his soldiers and from Michal's side to the clearing. He stopped just before the grove of trees where a ridge of rock had been forced through the once flat, grassy surface. It ran from the green grove to the sand covered rock grotto home of the Gua. Jirrad tested the ridge of rock with two heavy stumps and let his booted foot rest on the raised, uneven surface. “Is this... how you treat someone you once called father?”

 

A hush spread over the assembling crowd like the ripples on the water's surface.

 

Relena grimaced with an annoyed roll of her eyes, “Once and I was mistaken. What you and the Monarch are doing is wrong. You can't deny that wielders outside of the Order are in hiding and for good reason if being captured by you means they meet the same end as all those poor people in the mountains. What right do you have to murder peaceful people to fulfill some prophecy-”

 

“A prophecy that would restore water to our world and make the lands green again! A chance, worth everything for a dying world like ours.” Jirrad shook his head, looking at her sadly, “The very thing we were attempting to do.”

 

Relena snorted, glaring at Jirrad when he gestured toward her and himself. “Not at the expense of people's lives! Do you think I didn't know that more and more of my people died to make those farces you call miracles happen?! I just let myself be blind and not believe that you would do something so horrible to help the Monarch. I was mistaken to think of you - - to have trusted you.”

 

“Were you mistaken when you healed me? An impossible feat for such a small girl. One would think that you'd have some misgivings to do such a thing for a stranger? But you were not just any girl, you are the One. Or so we thought. You were the one who healed a man when he was bleeding fatally from a severed limb and repaired his nearly sightless eyes after a battle where I was betrayed. This was an incomparable act for such a young, young girl and you did it so selflessly.”

 

Jirrad raised his flat slat gray eyes to Relena and smiled contritely, “You know, that particular battle was against traitors who forced my hand. They wouldn't give me what I asked for when I went to their little gathering. They made it their final decision and hid him away from me. For that, I took their lives, their children and razed most of their village to the ground. Yet… you healed me, even though you stood there watching me as I cut them down-”

 

“No…” Relena's eyes rounded while her brows furrowed in disbelief as she tried to remember.

 

“-as my men cut them down, felled like trees.” He chuckled darkly, “Indeed, upholding their peaceful ways to the very end.”

 

“No, you're lying.”

 

“Parrots.” Jirrad laughed outright, “I didn't think that particular bird resided in Maheran.” He chortled, several of his men chuckling along with him. “You and that mutt have gotten quite close for you both to say such similar things.”

 

Jirrad smirked at her fondly, the look in his eyes flat and incredulous, “You delude each other.”

 

Relena shook her head, “They were peaceful! My father, my family, my people were peaceful! They accepted and helped everyone equally! They wouldn't have refused you without good reason! They would have done what I do, if not better!”

 

“Would they?” Jirrad said with something sharp threading through his flat tone, “I doubt that. Perhaps, perhaps if you had been then... You would've come and tried to save her.”

 

The anger cleared a little from her face while she watched him in curiosity. She felt as if the pain in Jirrad's solemn words seeped from deep inside him. So much so that it left his gaze distant, sorrowful and full of lost. Then his eyes focused on her and a slick slithering grin spread across his face, making it difficult for her to keep looking at him. But she held his gaze, disturbed by the quick change in his demeanor. She wondered who he was referring to. She knew that very few would even know because the majority of the survivors had been children in the time before and their memories - with all that had been done to them - wouldn't provide much insight past certain points.

 

“Ay, Relena, fine words for one so young. Really, they are when they can do little to aid you. You are outnumbered and these people prefer not to see this...” Jirrad paused as though he couldn't think of the word he'd meant to say.

 

Relena made a face at him, his expression was familiar and that of the fatherly protector she remembered growing up with. She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to keep herself alert despite the heart wrenching familiarity of what used to be.

 

“This…truth.” Jirrad's eyebrows curled up, projecting a thoughtful expression, “They want the veil to stay, if it means their lives continue as they are. Lives that are better if they live this life and not believe this truth you're telling them. Especially if it means they lose everything here. What would you offer them then?” Jirrad raised an eyebrow.

 

“They have a right to know the truth and not the lies that they've been conditioned to accept for over a decade! My people have the right to be free and not hunted or enslaved in any way. They need to know the crimes committed against my people!”

 

“Done!” Jirrad said in a dismissive snort. His hands splayed palm-up, he swung them out from his body in a wide sweeping motion out to his sides, as if bringing her attention to all the people gathering and those already present. “We stopped the enslavement and hunting of your most sacred people years ago!”

 

“The Priests-”

 

“Yes, they did with our help. It was a joint and worthy effort to stop the wicked,” his lips curled at the word, “from harming them further. They have all heard you, my Lady. This is more of a conversational piece and if you had wanted to voice this, all you had to do was say so and we would have made a formal announcement.”

 

Relena shook her head, eyes narrowing at his false resigned tone. “You wouldn't have jeopardized your standing and have the Monarch remove you for the rallying of my people.”

 

“Oh, but my dear, I would have. We have been protecting your people all along. If it wasn't for me-”

 

“You mean, if wasn't for the Order and the Monarch.” Relena interrupted, glaring at Jirrad, who blinked at her as if he didn't understand what she meant.

 

“No… I mean me.” His smile broadened, “I control the Monarch. I relegate the priests and have always attended to the One.”

 

“You are so bold to claim such a thing before this many witnesses? Do you not think that word would get back to the Monarch of your betrayal?”

 

Jirrad glanced around, and then shrugged with a slight wince, his flat gray eyes returned to her face.

 

Relena kept her glare trained on him, “Where's Duo?”

 

Jirrad quickly covered his surprise with the exaggerated lift of his brows, “Duo?” There is no one I know by that name. Perhaps you could speak with the One. He can sense many things and maybe he can even tell you where this `Duo' you speak of can be found. If you seek audience with the One you are free to return as an acolyte in his service.”

 

“Where is he, Jirrad?”

 

“Are you upset to have been revealed false?” Jirrad smiled in curious consternation, “Or is it jealousy?”

 

“You haven't answered my question?”

 

“Haven't I, great healer?” Jirrad quipped, his eyebrows arched in mock befuddlement. “He is here. You'd be shocked to know that you are standing where a healer of your strength once stood nearly a decade ago. An unfortunate loss, but he is here. Where else would he be but with his bonded.”

 

“Bonded?” Relena looked around, searching Jirrad's ranks and the hooded soldiers amidst the monks for a distinctive mop of unruly of hair.

 

“Yes, the One and I will do much more together.”

 

“You?!” Relena gawked at him in shocked abhorrence, “Heero wouldn't-”

 

“The Principal,” Jirrad corrected with a snide look. He smiled tightly as he rubbed the faint line of scar tissue on his left forearm, “has served his purpose and will have other uses. I must say that I would have preferred it to be you.” Jirrad's eyes swept over her, “To have had you as my One, but I tire of this. She is with me through him and that is all there is. Michal, bring her and dispose of the rest.”

 

Relena blinked wide eyes at the innuendo inherent in Jirrad's words and gaze. She had never noticed before and couldn't hear the battle cries bursting into the air around her. She watched, in disbelief, as the man who had been one of her suitors and had once considered a long time friend, obediently approached her. She waved away Wu Fei's concerned gaze and hoped he would focus on the soldiers who were attacking him and not endanger himself by coming to her aid. She could protect herself.

 

Firming her heart, she stumped on the rocky mound beneath her feet. A stone staff, an inch thick shot up from the ground and into her hand. She eyed the soldiers engaged in battle and swarming her people. They pushed past those milling about and confused in the grove, killing those who didn't move fast enough. Then Michal was there, in her face. She took in his short cropped black hair, handsome face and eyes devoid of the person she thought she knew.

 

“You're really going to do this?” He said nothing and held his hand out to her. “Michal, help me stop him. Help my people.”

 

“I may consider it if you agree to warm my bed in your new position at the One's side.” A smile split his handsome face, “I always intended to make you mine but now things have changed. There's no more Heero-”

 

“What? Heero was never- - what do you mean `no more Heero'?” Relena broke in with a shake of her head.

 

“It's not important. Just come back with me.”

 

“You are pitiful. There was no competition as far as you were concerned.” She whispered the last to herself, whirling her staff behind her. Relena saw his eyebrows quirk disbelieving at the defensive motion.

 

“Why bother?” Michal said, eyeing her with a derisive twist to his lips and implying she couldn't use the weapon she had forged from the earth.

 

“You are wrong to underestimate me.” Relena sent the staff sailing through the air to connect with the back of his knees. Michal blinked as his feet were knocked out from under him and his breath left him in a whoosh where his back connected with the downward slope of the mound. Relena let a regretful smirk curl her lips and swung her staff downward; going for a stunning blow to the side of his head, but Michal blocked her with his sword. Michal pushed her staff up and away in a swirl and screech of metal sliding against stone as he quickly rolled back to his feet.

 

“You refuse me?!” Michal heaved out in a shocked breath. His nose flared with each breath that followed as he frowned and reappraised her where she stood. He rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder, waved his sword in a loose grip and slipped but remained standing when he began circling her. It was not lost on Relena that he was attempting to gain better footing on the flat surface of the mound where she stood instead on trying to keep his balance on its slopping sides.

 

“I have.” Relena swung her staff, forcing Michal to slip further down the mound. She glared through the hurt that remained on her face, biting back her urge to reason with the man she thought she knew. “I don't know... I don't know what I thought I saw in you.”

 

“Then I won't give you to anyone!” He thrust sword at her, but she blocked him easily. He came at her again and again, trying to force her back.

 

“I don't belong to you!” She held here ground and nearly knocked him off his feet again.

 

Michal raised his sword, swinging at her higher than he should and leaving himself open. She didn't take advantage of it, instead overextending herself to block him. He repeated the move, forcing her to leave her side open when he pressed down on his sword. Relena missed the quick movement of his free hand, reaching behind him when they broke free again.

 

The wind picked up around them and Relena found herself suddenly blinded by hair. She stumbled back a step, whipping her staff out to block another of Michal's wide swinging attacks and felt the clang of metal against stone. She tensed under the heavy blow, straining to hold her staff while Michal bore down on it. She pushed at the hair in frustration and tried to pull her staff away only to find it was caught on Michal's sword.

 

Damn hair! The thought of it annoyed her so much that she threatened under her breath to cut it off to her shoulders. Relena grabbed a handful of it, trying to jerk it back behind her, but the self inflicted pain never came. She frowned, her displaced hair shifted from her face. She tilted her head back, curious at her own lack of concern when she should have been worried about leaving herself open to attack instead of staring at the clouds darkening the sky.

 

I have to wait. I have to... Relena blinked, not understanding her own thoughts. Her grip tightened on the hair it held as she felt the weight of her ponytail settle against her back. She should have felt the movement, but she didn't. None of it made sense to her. Relena steadily pulled herself free of the strange daze she had succumb to and stared unblinkingly at the waterfall of hair in front of her. The wind shifted it, revealing the sharp tip of a blade poking through and jerking slightly in place.

 

“Duo!” She gasped out, starting to touch the blade when Duo didn't respond, but decided against it and touched his arm instead.

 

“Duo?” She called to him again, turning him easily toward her then held her next breath at seeing the blade sticking through his side. The wound looked surreal without blood coming from it the way it should have been. She swallowed thickly, ready to fire an angry retort at Michal but found herself speechless when she laid eyes on Michal floundering in Duo's grasp. Michal was blue in the face, one of his hands gripped Duo's wrist until it was an angry red while the other hand switched between pounding on Duo's arm and sporadic jerks. The desperate effort to get free only made Michal tire faster and she watched his eyes begin to close as Duo continued to hold him several feet off the ground.

 

“Aid me?”

 

She jumped and lost her grip on her staff, startled by the quiet sound of Duo's voice. She heard it clamor softly with Michal's sword down the side of the mound. Relena pulled her eyes away from Michal's closed ones, nodding absently and forcing her concern for Michal away. She glanced at Duo and found she couldn't complete the action when her breath stalled in her chest. Black sockets were set where vibrant violets used to be. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment then looked again.

 

At first, they looked empty, and then she saw the movement of Duo's lashes where they fluttered over tar colored black orbs in shadowed sockets. She shakily smiled at Duo, before she boldly took hold of the blade hilt. The smile crumbled when pain broke across the dispassionate look on Duo's face just from her grabbing hold of the hilt. She eased her grip on it and tried to still the shaking of her hand.

 

“Sorry about that,” she flexed her fingers over the leather covered handle/hilt, “but Duo I can protect myself you know? I knew he had another blade. Don't risk yourself like this. You're not invulnerable.”

 

Relena took in a steadying breath and pulled the blade out. She gritted her teeth at the sucking, wet swishing sound the blade made as air passed through with it. She shivered, more for Duo than herself, when he remained perfectly still despite the pain she knew he had to be experiencing. She threw down the dagger and quickly put her hands over each side of the wound. She pressed harder against it when blood sluiced through her fingers like Duo's body just realized it should be bleeding. Relena closed her eyes and willed the torn tissue to reconnect and flesh to knit back together. She frowned at the odd pull from Duo's body.

 

“You need to be careful--!” her own gasp unexpectedly cut her off when deep seated pain hit her like a fist. She broke out in a sweat, feeling more damage than was possible from a sword wound alone. Duo pulled her away from his side and held her in front of him by a hand on her shoulder.

 

“Y-you… Let me finish! Duo-the damage… what happen--” She looked at him, her wide blue eyes pleading for some explanation. The stab wound on Duo's right side was still open with blood smeared around it. It began to bleed again, but sluggishly, the rest of the blood hidden beneath Duo's tunic. She tried to reach for the wound, but Duo was quick, catching her arms and holding her in place.

 

Relena trembled when Duo's cold hand was suddenly under her chin, tilting her head back so he could press his nose to hers. She gasped, meeting black orbs that looked right through her. They lacked any emotion and being this close, they looked like black holes in his head.

 

“No… you're hurt…” but the strength of her protest faded to a breathy whisper near his lips as he inhaled at her every exhale. “Use… me… you… you're killing… him.”

 

Relena slumped, drained and Duo let her fall, the wind guiding the descent to her knees. She swayed and tried to stand but the wind restrained her. She blinked sluggishly at where Duo had dropped Michal. The man made choking sounds, but didn't move from where he landed.

 

O----------------------OoO----------------------O

 

The force of the wind grew, whipping around Duo in a swirl of dirt, grass and leaves while his hair and clothes remained undisturbed. Duo stepped away from Relena, his face expressionless, though his brows twitched when soldiers tried to advance on Relena. Ethan, Thecla, and Wu Fei had been forced far enough away that they wouldn't make it back to assist her if they attacked her.

 

Duo blinked once his brows relaxing as the ground opened beneath the soldiers' feet. Half of them were not quick enough to react and fell into the holes he created. The ground slammed shut cutting off their screams, crushing them and appearing as if it had never opened.

 

Duo didn't have to look back to see the men taking furtive steps or jabbing at the ground as they inched their way across to try and seize Relena. Duo's lips curled and they all scrambled back when the earth opened and a few more fell to their deaths. The wind whipped several across the grove, and then swatted them to the ground like insects when they tried to jump to the mound Relena rested on.

 

Jirrad raised his hand to them halting their movements all together. He bowed slightly, “Of course you would not want an invaluable wielder, such as she, touched after being threaten.” He gave Duo a slick smile and a slight tilt of his head, “It will not happen again.”

 

Duo walked calmly towards him and Jirrad waved his soldiers out of the way, sending them past Relena to reinforce those fighting around her. Jirrad extended his left hand, “I am glad to see you have returned to me, Amadahy. Come, join us here, and we shall dispense with these nuisances.”

 

Black orbs regarded him. The light of day fading as clouds roiled in the sky making the dark circles under Duo's eyes heavier. Duo gave Jirrad an empty smile, showing all his teeth, “We intend to share all.”

 

Jirrad's brows furrowed at the second voice that overlapped Duo's. It was a lilting and almost feminine sound that was just as provocative as the wielder's own. Suddenly, Jirrad grasped his left hand as it jerked and his fingers strained when they flexed too far and clenched too tight. Jirrad growled low in throat, his glare contorting with a mixture of pain and disbelief as the skin swelled and blackened before his eyes. Jirrad whipped his arm back in a swirl, wrapping it in his long cloak and gritting his teeth as he worked to keep his pale face devoid of what he was really feeling.

 

Jirrad narrowed his eyes at Duo. “It seems, you remember too much through him.” Jirrad whispered before shaking his head, “It would have been better if you had just taken his body to use as your own.”

 

Duo looked at him with detached interest.

 

“Contain him!” Jirrad ordered sharply, with something akin to regret flashing across his face as he retreated along the rocky ridge.

 

Black orbs gave the soldiers creeping toward him a dispassionate onceover. The ground opened and swallowed them down without a second glance from him. The fighting escalated around him. He could feel the pain and suffering of the fallen, the conflicting emotions of those who've yet to choose and the ignorance of those who chose not to acknowledge any of it. He stared at the people who stood at the fringes of large gaping holes in the ground where the wall had once been, some began to scatter others just stared back at him.

 

Duo smirked absently, it left him unsatisfied.

 

Duo's eyes narrowed as screams suddenly rang out among the people on the fringes. In several places, the ground shook and exploded up into a mud trap. It held several people in silently, moving masses of exposed limbs. He heard the startled gasps of people around the mounds and saw some of them try to pull them free. Duo smirked and the mud whipped out from the sides, pulling them in before they could alert anyone to what was happening.

 

Duo observed the varying reactions when more and more people realized that people were missing. That was when they saw the mounds, the reaching and waving limbs, and realized those missing people were trapped inside them. Duo waited until crowds started to gather around the mounds, then had the mud shift, pulling the people and their rescuers completely inside. Before anyone else could try to pull the mound apart, Duo called to the flame. It sent small bursts of smoke along the dried leaves on the ground near the mounds and seemed to jump from the charred bits to burst into life across the mounds' surfaces. Duo widened the flames and they flared outward, sending people reeling back from the intense heat.

 

Duo's smirk grew in its malevolent intent.

 

Several other pyres shot up amongst the crowd, sending people screaming and others crying out in shocked horror. An acolyte came to him then with tears in her hazel eyes. She recklessly grabbed his arm and bowed. Her shoulders shook as she pressed her forehead to the back of his hand and kissed it. Dark orbs focused on her, unmoved by her display.

 

“Please! Oh, by the One! Please, stop this! M-my bonded is there! He's--!” a sob broke through her words. She raised her head and gestured wildly at a burning mound nearly on the other side of the grove. She forced herself to speak through another sob, “He's all I have! He's my world! Please! I know and can sense your pain, bu-”

 

Her hazel eyes went wide as she choked on whatever else she was trying to say. She strained to look down at Duo's hand around her neck. Duo sneered, the black of his eyes shifting to subdue the color that had began to show. “You need not say anything more.” He lifted her off her feet, numb to the nails that dug into his arm and created bloody furrows in his skin. “Join him.”

 

Duo simply let go of her throat and she was thrown into the slosh of bubbling mud and sucked down deep until nothing more of her could be seen. He straighten, taking in the discord, agony and fear around him with a vacant smile curling his lips. His hold was restored.

 

He turned to pursue Jirrad, but frowned at fighting people blocking his path. His brows furrowed when Jirrad caught sight of him. Duo watched as the white haired man pushed more violently and started cutting people down who blocked him. The sky darkened further with Duo's frown even though the empty smile remained in place. The clouds thickened and ice pelted the entire city, inciting screams of dismay. A thunderclap drowned out all sound in one deafening booming rumble, only for it to return in a discordant roar that called to Duo's buried memories.

 

“Ice from the mountain comes from the sky!!”

 

“This is the end!”

 

The frantic cries pulled Duo away from memory's grasp. His head swiveled to his left and a monk made an inarticulate sound when Duo's eyes held his behind a white mask with squiggly lines on the left cheek.

 

“We have done so little... no wonder you came. So many have fallen!” The monk sobbed out before he dropped to his knees before him. The monk removed his mask and held it up in shaking hands toward Duo.

 

Duo's brow twitched, the monk was blocking his path. He looked at him indifferently and stepped past him, too intent on the course Jirrad was taking to bother with the man.

 

“The end of all things… the end of all things….” The monk muttered in a half sob to himself before he collapsed forward onto his forearms.

 

Duo spared him from the sword that threaten to severe his head from his body and turned him to vapor in a roll of one black eye.

 

Obsidian orbs roved over the struggling bodies in front of him, blind to their strife and peril. He called to the wind and it responded to him in eager gusty streams that whipped around his body. With one exhaled breath from him, the wind carried out his desire and indiscriminately swept combatants from his path. It swirled them into the sky and through the funneling clouds overhead. Their shocked screams and pleas waned the higher the wind took them up into the clouds before their voices returned then were quickly snuffed out as they were flung into homes, shops, and the temple itself.

 

All about him, people screamed for their kin, for their losses and for themselves. Duo reveled in the sound, a small part of him cringed but it was forced to the background. His vacant smile threaten to split his face as he surveyed the cleared path and caught sight of Jirrad running down the colonnade into the semi-enclosed foyer toward the entryway his vessel had brought him through. Those around him saw Duo disappear and then reappeared walking on the marbleized floor of the foyer. He watched the white haired man's face contort as he shifted. Jirrad's face stretched outward into a wolf's snout and the shifting of his bones under his skin slowed his mad dash to the door to a limping jog. Duo blocked him with a wall of black water.

 

Jirrad slowed his pace as he approached it and scrutinized the black wobbling mass blocking the entryway. He laughed, turning to Duo, his ruin forearm clutched in one long fingered, claw-like hand. “Didn't like my use of you?”

 

Duo stared blankly back, the unchanging vacant smile sent a shiver through Jirrad that the white haired man quickly staunched.

 

Jirrad growled, dropping into a squat as his feet morphed and broke through his boots. “You were meant to be my bonded! You're family refused me!” He looked to Duo affronted. “They said I wasn't your bonded! Doubted that I was led to you, but I knew you had to be here! The mark, you being proves it! I searched for you for so long then that mutt-” Jirrad broke off with an indignant shake of his head and a frustrated gesture of his remaining hand, “had nothing to do with it - with us! But I knew! I knew it was you, because our souls are linked to our elements… I could find no other wielder as strong … fewer and fewer water wielders were being born and dying much too soon … but I knew… the clan wardens knew and feared- -you had d-died. You died... you would die and come back in the last… yes, the last…”

 

The string of words was nearly incoherent, but Duo said nothing. He just stared at Jirrad, watching the sorrowful longing heavy in the white haired man's voice twist across the warden's face before yellow-gray frenzied eyes refocused on him. Jirrad shook in barely restrained anger, “You were mine from the start! It is only right we be reunited and this world be ours!”

 

Duo observed him, unaffected by the white haired man's zeal.

 

“No matter,” Jirrad started in a quiet and anguished whisper, “no matter what clan I took you to, they refused to heal you, to bring you back to me! For that-!” he quieted, violent rage simmering beneath his skin. Jirrad fisted his hand to stop its shaking.

 

“For that, I made them pay.” Jirrad declared with a vehement, stricken look to him before he let loose a snarl that warped one side of his face. He approached Duo, pleased to see Duo didn't run or move out of his reach. Jirrad tried to hold the gaze of the black orbs in the shadowed foyer, “Amadahy.”

 

Duo blinked at the name, his face taking on a look of curiosity.

 

“Yes. Amadahy...”

 

The name made Duo frown the second time it was spoken. It was familiar, but he couldn't remember if it was a name he had been given or he had heard too much. But he knew it was a dead name. Duo blinked again, a long slow movement that made him aware of how tired his eyes were. Unconsciously, he tilted his head when he drew a blank on where he was. He frowned, when he tried to remember who he was and squinted curiously at the man who stood before him.

 

That's… The thought stuttered to a stop, things-memories that did and at the same time didn't belong to him came to him. The tension in his head made itself painfully known as he tried to find himself amongst the memories.

 

Different… it was a quiet whisper that wasn't his own. It was feminine. It was the same voice who made the false dream and the pain stop. She came forward and a hand, his hand rose and stopped short of his face as his curiosity became confused wonder.

 

“You remember.” Jirrad spoke as if he were in a daze, and the warden's mouth warped into a toothy grin.

 

Duo didn't remember. There was pain, violation and hate simmering through him, shared with her. She remembered and Duo's face reflected her sadness, his pain and their hate.

 

“You… had no say! It was not for you to decide…” Duo gasped out in a lilting whisper.

 

Jirrad arched a brow, straightening as best he could and staying in his half changed state, “Yes, I did! You were mine!”

 

Duo shook his head, “He had chosen another.” Duo glared at Jirrad, who growled at his comment, “They had chosen each other as it was meant to be, as it has always been done. As we had done once…”

 

Duo's glare became both thoughtful and conflicted as he spoke through a gasp, “You-! You made him the last! This was not to come yet. This was not-- You caused the downfall of our people... This place, it... it reeks of-” his head swiveled about quickly taking in everything around them as his nose wrinkled, “This world-”

 

“All for you!” Jirrad exploded, arms making a wide sweeping gesture.

 

“For a memory.”

 

Jirrad shook his head. “We can have the children that were denied to us. Shema, Jaden, Ad- - Rule as no other clan had dreamed!” Jirrad smiled, holding out his uninjured arm in a placating gesture. He beckoned Duo to come to him with a twitch of his clawed fingers.

 

“No.”

 

Jirrad jerked in place as if he had been slapped.

 

“He is not me.” The vacant smile returned, stealing away the last vestiges of emotion from Duo's face, “We are not her. She has passed.”

 

“No,” Jirrad's shook with suppressed emotion as he took a step back then took one forward again. “Amadahy, speak to me again. Amada-!” He choked back the sob the name nearly became. “Give her back to me!” he growled, face twisted in pain deeper than what he felt from his mutilated arm.

 

Duo tilted his head at the demand and ignored it with a considering glance over Jirrad's person. “You have stolen time,” Duo's eyebrows shifted upward, his eyelids drooping as black orbs stared at Jirrad as if they could see into him. His lips curled into a malicious yet amused smirk. “You are a fractured being of borrowed parts,” then flattened into a pitying grimace, “Warden, you have been thus too long.”

 

Jirrad shook his head, a wild look in his flat yellowish-gray eyes while a smile twitched on and off his face.

 

“All of this, I've done for you,” he announced in a reverent whisper, “I did it to bring you back to me so that we could be together again. Amadahy, I called you!” Jirrad's voice boomed off the Foyer's high ceilings. In following silence, all the warden could hear was the whistle of wind through the foyer's high arches and his own labored breaths. He stared imploringly at the being standing before him.

 

Duo stared back at him, a vacant smirk firmly taking hold of mouth.

 

“No. You have paved the way in bodies, pain, hatred and despair...” the smirk stretched, curling one corner of Duo's mouth while the tip of his tongue ran briefly over his bottom lip, “You... called death.”

 

Jirrad made an incoherent, tortured sound that transformed into an enraged howl as he lunged at Duo.

 

The air shifted, Duo was suddenly farther away and Jirrad ended up in an awkward sprawl on the stone floor. Jirrad growled, jumping to his feet and ran at him again.

 

“I, thank you.” Duo said with an airy emptiness as his black orbs continued to stare forward without blinking. “It's so nice to be out and have my turn at the world.” A manic smile replaced the smirk and spread across Duo's pale face.

 

Jirrad couldn't reign in his shudder this time; the smile was too much like a skull's grin. He feinted to the sides, Duo's large black orbs remained fixed on where he had been. Jirrad smiled and made a swipe at Duo, sure that he would strike him. But Jirrad smile of triumph quickly became a grimace of pain as he shuddered and coughed out in shock. Then he flinched violently when the force of his strike was thrown back at him.

 

He tried again and again, but his attacks were returned each time. While Duo remained unfazed, only his hair flying forward as the wind blocked each of Jirrad's attacks. Jirrad panted, bloody saliva dripping off the sides of his long toothed maw. He hunched down over his deformed left arm, his other raised hand shook in the air a few feet in front of him. He swiped again at Duo and was quickly overwhelmed by the unseen blows that beat him back. This time they didn't stop because he stopped, they kept hitting him until he was knocked from his feet and into the wall of water. Jirrad stiffened as the icy dark mass soaked through to his skin and held him suspended from the ground.

 

Duo had his hands out in front of him so Jirrad could see him slowly reduce the space between them and see the motion mimicked by dark watery mass that held him.

 

Duo caught the nervous flick of the warden's eyes when he caught on, even as a shock of lightning white-out everything around them.

 

“Amada-!”

 

Duo pushed his hands forward suddenly and the water swelled, submerging Jirrad's face first, cutting off the name. Then he brought is fingers together, interlacing them so only a circular space remained between them and his touching thumbs. Dark orbs glanced up, lips twitching in approval at the spherical column the dark water mass had formed. Duo dropped his hands to his sides and watched Jirrad struggle inside it.

 

Duo's head tilted examining the column as the wind swirled around it. He allowed an air pocket to form around Jirrad's nose. He called to the flame and it burst into life, swirling with the wind around Jirrad's watery prison. Duo held out his hand toward the half wall that revealed the open space of the grove. Lightning flashed across the sky, stealing away the color and when it returned, Duo held a white blue bolt that zigzagged across his hand. His palm reddened where it crackled and danced. The patch of burnt skin healed then was burnt again as the bolt continued to move.

 

The downward shift of Duo's eyebrows was the only indication that the black orbs had rolled back to Jirrad, who continued to struggle in his prison.

 

“See.”

 

Jirrad jerked in place, his eyes rapidly blinking even though they were closed. He couldn't move his arms, couldn't move anything except his head. He shook it, trying to get his eyes to open fully and the images that appeared before his eyes to stop. They were the images of people living their lives, and then their deaths at his hand, by his word and through his betrayal. He recognized some of them, but the others he didn't know personally.

 

“Feel,” Jirrad's mouth opened and bubbles exploded out of it as he screamed, “all that you have given to others. I leave you with this.”

 

“A gift,” there was a brief flutter of dark brown lashes when Duo looked up at Jirrad then back down at his hand.

 

Duo watched the living energy flicker in his palm for a moment longer, before he swung his extended hand from the garden to Jirrad. The bolt danced in a zigzag and then leapt toward the wide eyed warden. A satiated smirk replaced the crazed smile that stretched Duo's blue tinted lips at the garbled sound of Jirrad's screams. The lightning sent low charged pulses through the heated water. Duo slowly increased the strength of the charge, adding dirt to the column of graying water until all the water was absorbed and the fire hardened the makeshift tomb.

 

A shudder snuck up on Duo and control was lost for a few moments. The elements he held in check lashed out violently, cracking the marble floor and splitting several columns, while creating a mini wind funnel. Duo growled behind clenched teeth, closing his eyes briefly to force it away. He swayed in place and calm return to the foyer. The elements continued to surround Jirrad in his tomb. Duo sent the mound hurtling through several of the stone columns of the colonnade and through the walls of the foyer.

 

He released his hold over the unmoving, half crumbled mound and it remained deeply embedded in a far wall within the palace-temple. He stepped back out into the garden. Duo didn't notice the grass shriveling beneath his feet, the neighboring shrubs turn a withered brown nor did he see the ground blackening and cracking open with his every step. He left behind a scarlet trail in the heel of his footsteps. It spread through the cracks and grass sprung up, replacing all that had died. The same thing happened when the grass reached the shrubbery.

 

Duo walked on, heading toward the center of the grove, leaving a trail of death and renewed life behind him.

 

 

Tbc…