GW and its characters don’t belong to me but to Sunrise/SOTSU Agency Bandai etc. etc.

The young queen huddled in the corner of the master bedroom, clutching to her a tiny bundle that squirmed and fussed against her heaving chest. “Sush, shush Relena, it will all soon be over.” She soothed trying her best to calm the weeping infant while extending a shaking hand to grab a knife that was on the stand to her left. “One way or another my precious daughter, our suffering will end tonight.” She then looked toward the open balcony and whispered a name that was as dear to her heart as was that of her child’s. She lost herself in memories of a tall and powerful man with eyes of deep blue and hair as dark and as wild as his nature. “Odin.”

~Flashback~

“If that is how it must be, no, I refuse to accept your decision, Clarice, you’re in love with me, not him.”

“What you say is true, Odin. I have no love towards this man my father has sworn me to marry, but, it is my father’s dying wish and it is what I feel has to be done. You knew before we became lovers, that us, together would be impossible.”

The hybrid of wolf and man, who was, at the present in his human form, tightened his embrace on the ashen blonde princess that had been resting in his arms.  “It is impossible only in your eyes.”

“I cannot let you turn me. I am my father’s only child, I, without me all would be lost, he is counting on me to bring to a close this ill war of countless years, to entwine together our two kingdoms.”

Odin then lost his temper and tore away from Clarice, rolling to his feet from the bed, his naked form hidden amongst the shadows of the moonlit room. “He is handing you over to the devil Clarice!”

She rose to a sitting position, pulling the quilts up over her breasts. “Is that not what many people consider you and your kind, yet not once did I think of turning you away, did I?” She decided to rise to her own feet when her lover did not answer her, and soon she was behind him, just on the threshold which led to the balcony, and raising a slender hand, she pressed it to his mid-back.  “My heart will always be yours, Odin, but my obligations and promises made to my father, my kingdom, must come before my own desires and needs. That is why I cannot let you turn me, nor can I run away with you. Promise me you understand this, and please let me go. If you love me you will let me do what must be done.”

He took a deep breath despite the tightening of his chest at the feel of her soft fingers stroking his spine; his anger left him, replaced by immense sorrow of loss. He stopped her hand with his when she smoothed it over his shoulder and then turned to her, once again taking her into his arms. “You know I would do anything for you, my beautiful Clarice, I love you, and though it breaks me, heart and soul to let you go, I will.” He then pulled away from her just a little and tilted her chin with his fingers so that she was forced to look up at him. “But I also promise you this. That for as long as I breath, I will watch over you and protect you and if I feel it is ever necessary for my presence to be known…”

Clarice’s fingertips on his lips halted his words and her eyes, which were warped by unshed tears smiled warmly at him.  “It is a promise I will forever hold you to.”

~End of Flashback~

Her thoughts however, were suddenly directed elsewhere as her ears picked up on the faint sound of approaching footsteps, and the men whom they belonged to, demanding her surrender. She held the knife to the back of her daughter’s neck, ready to pierce through the flesh, when the one she had just been thinking of, appeared before her. She gasped a cry of joy and clasped onto him as he whispered her name. “Clarice, fear no more, did I not always promise to protect you?”

He helped her to her feet as they began to make their way over to the open balcony when the pounding on the door began, and the frame of the door, which was not as sturdy as it should have been, began to give way, just as the three were on the ledge of the stone railing ready to make their decent down the cord that hung from it.

Wide-eyed and panic stricken, the queen turned once more to her beloved, pushing into his arms the tiny baby girl. “I entrust her life to you. Promise me…protect her, Odin.”

Staring into her eyes he saw her tears had dried and the hysteria was gone, replaced by a resolve of calm and acceptance of fate; he knew what she had planned to do. “No! Clarice! I won’t allow…!”

But before he could finish his words the one closest to his heart pushed against him, sending him over the railing, the infant held tight in his arms. “I love you Odin! Promise me!”

His ears picked up the faint scream of her words even as he fell, yet found he could only produce from his own vocal cords a sobbing, hoarse whisper, even as his eyes picked up his beloved’s form as she was pulled gruffly away from where she had just moments ago, been leaning over the railing. “I promise, my dear Clarice, I shall protect her as if she were my own.”

~Flashback~

“She looks just like you Clarice, even her eyes are the same. She should have been mine, but instead the blood of that gnarled old man flows within her veins.”

“Odin, you said you would not do this. It has been almost a year since I have seen you, please, do not make me regret my decision to do so.”

Nodding his head he stepped away from the cradle and to the side of the Queen.  “Forgive me. It still hurts me more then I thought it should, to see you here, in his castle, in his…bed.”

She closed her eyes and held her breath feeling his hand grasping her.  “Well, yes, but, if it helps at all, him being so old prevents me from having to share his bed to often with him. In fact I’m surprised I was even able to have a child by him. He has a wizard, however that I feel had more of a help in the process then he himself had had.”

The hold he had on her hand tightened. “Does he treat you well?”

“Very much so, I have whatever my heart desires here, the best of food, clothing, jewels, and now, a child yet, I still feel incomplete, alone, and very sad because I cannot have you. I still love you.”

She caught her breath again as she felt herself being twirled around and pulled gently forward, the front of her body now pressed into the front of her former lover.

“You still want me then, Clarice, you need me, desire me? For there has not been a day gone by that I have not felt the same for you.”

Odin then stole a kiss from the regal queen, his arms, holding her securely as his hands began to smooth their way up the back of her gown. He was surprised and hurt when she twisted away from him and broke the kiss.

“Odin, please. I cannot do this. I want to so badly, I need you more then my next breath, but I am married, I’ve taken sacred vows and pledged myself to that union and my King.”

“Fine! Then be that way!” Odin growled as he broke from her completely in anger.

With trembling lips the queen spoke. “It was a mistake for you to come here. Please, leave, and never return.”

A low, hearty chuckle was heard from the wolf lord. “If it were only so easy, for I have made promises of my own and so I will be forever beholden to protect you and watch over you, but if you wish it, then I will never return to you, and you shall never see my face again, in wolf form or as a human.”

He leaped up onto the rail of the stone balcony, the wind catching his hair and the hem of his tunic and in a flash he was gone, another shadow blending into the dark of the night.

Clarice covered her face and fell onto her bed as sobs and tears began to overtake her body. Little did she know, however, that through the keyhole of her chamber door, was a bright blue eye that had been peering in the entire time.

“So step-mother, it appears you have kept many secrets from my father, but fear not, for all will be revealed to him soon, and once again, I shall have my father, and his fortunes and kingdom all to myself. After all, I was able to expose easily of my brother Treize and he was seventeen years my senior, you should be no problem.” The red-headed princess stifled her giggle and rose from her crouched position and began to walk down the hall, towards her father’s study, thinking excitedly all the while of the coming wrath that would soon befall the new queen.

~End of Flashback~

He swallowed a cry as he slammed to the ground, a bone in his ankle snapped yet he was still able to rise, even as his eyes were scanning for the perfect point of escape.

“There he is! And he has the princess!”

A deep growl emitted from his throat as he tightened his hold on Clarice’s child, “You are mine now, and as I have promised your mother I will allow no harm to come to you.” He snarled once again, willing his body to obey his commands as his transformation took place and he began to run, his wounded ankle forgotten.

And, what those who were present saw, in years to come would turn into a campfire tale. The sight of a man that changed into a wolf and disappeared into the black of the forest, carrying within his powerful jaws a small bundle of tightly wrapped cloth that, swaddled inside it a human infant. An infant who had strangely grown quiet, having fallen asleep, her tiny lungs rising and falling with rapid shallow breathes.

Watching from afar, on the highest of all the castle’s balconies, stood one of many years. His skin pale and wrinkled, his beard white and streaked with gray. His highness, King Dermail, placed his aged hand on top of a young girl who had witnessed the scene with him. She was the princess, Mariemeia, who had been born of his first wife and was as spoiled as the day was long, and who had grown to have a burning hatred for her stepmother and half sister.

“It seems they have escaped your wrath father, at least my sister, Relena.”

“Yes, my darling child, your sister may have escaped us, but that whore who was her mother has already paid dearly for her crimes.”

The King’s words proved true, for there, in her room, in her bed, lied the defiled and broken corpse of the queen, drenched in a pool of her own blood. 

And while the queen lay in eternal sleep, approaching the caves that had been destined to be the campsite of Odin’s clan, was Odin himself, the cloth of the material that wrapped the babe still clenched gently between his canine teeth. He ignored the wondering and confused eyes that fell upon him as with his transformation he was within seconds walking again on two feet instead of four paws. But the gaze that disturbed him the most came from that of his own son, Heero, who had just turned seven the previous harvest moon.

“I thought eating innocent children went against your code, father.”

“Quiet that smart tongue of yours and learn to accept the fact that this human child shall be considered from now on your sister.”

“What?” Heero clenched his teeth and turned to his father, his blue eyes blazing with flame. “She’s the child of that human woman you consorted with isn’t she? The woman who stole your heart from my own mother.”

“Your mother was gone from this world a good two years before I had even laid eyes on Clarice.” The lord of the clan answered his son’s accusations as he handed the sleeping girl over to a woman who had yet to wean her own child. He then ordered her to provide the human baby with nourishment.

Turning to his son and the rest of his people, Odin spoke in a raised, stern voice. “Whether you agree or not, the human girl you see before you I claim as my own daughter, and so it will be that as with my sons she will be given the respect and protection of this clan. And, anyone going against my order, or who means to bring harm to this child will in fact answer to me and the outcome I promise will not be desirous.”

Later that evening, after Relena had been fed and bathed and fallen once again into sleep, a figure loomed above her cradle. A figure with intense, deep blue eyes and dark brown hair as wild as that of the man who had fathered him.  “Father may have proclaimed you my sister, but to me you will never be anything more than a outsider, a human curse that has fallen upon all of us. I hate you and I will never accept you as one of us.”

TBC…