Kinship Beset (R/NC-17) 2/8

[Tomorrow]

AN: Thanks for all of the replies, everyone. I really appreciate the feedback and compliments. More importantly, I'm glad that you're all enjoying it. I know it seems weird that Zechs was turned into a deer, but that's how the original tale goes. I, personally, think he makes a very regal little roe.

Also, the iltalics indicate the POV change from Milliardo to an omniscient narrator.

Thanks everyone.


Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or "Brother and Sister."



The little boy with wild brown hair looked up to the sky as rain began to fall unto the earth, the watery beads dripping from his wrists and down the slope of his neck in shimmering, fluent shackles. They enslaved him to the past?s degenerate overseer, that of a child?s recollection of this breeding ground, this forest of gory memories and bitter, carnal devastation. The droplets whipped his back, water slapping his face and wiping the blood that testified to his earlier abuse. Hiding his gashes behind a sheet of rain; covering his scrapes with the storm?s sterile mists. Flesh of cuts and bruises and ragged breath.

His midnight blue eyes searched through the fog of gray and black to find the star that promised to guide him home, pentangle of all weary travelers? But the North Star was not to be followed on such a day when tempests cradled the land in darkness and cold. It was a day when the woods consumed children?s souls that wandered alone amongst its gallows, lost and orphaned both. Squalls that waited to lynch them in the arbors' lower boughs of ugly, twisted fingers, to strangle them in dangling ivy and make them disappear. Their screams could still be heard amidst the leaves, their cries for a mother being lost as the wind grew stronger. Drowning their last hope for redemption.

The thief had come upon the two so fast, his father saddling their horses for their journey home and unaware of the assailant hidden amidst the trees, armed with an arrow pulled back to fire. The king didn?t even have time to react before the tip found its place in the small of his back, blood trickling from the wound and dampening the earth below as the prince?s father fell to the soil with a grunt and spew of blood. Splashing mud unto the highwayman?s feet and calves. Staining them in burnt, red spatters.

A knife unveiled. More wounds. More gore. More groans and screams. A gasp... and then the child was alone. Father gone. No horses. No way home.

Alone. Abandoned of human company.

He had only the companionship of the Guiding Star for a few short hours before the storm erupted over the brush, deafening him as the thunder cried; blinding him as lighting wrapped its chains about the sky and flogged him with its numinous might... drenching him as the droplets came. Without that celestial savior this boy knew he couldn?t find his way back to the castle. He could see only water and light and flickering blackness. But he walked on regardless, wading through lakes now enraged by the assault of the wind upon their glassy faces. Foaming surges churned, to wrap him in their depths as they sought retribution for the tempestuous abuse they suffered? On his little body. He scaled the ridges that he passed, the cliffs nipping at his toes as his feet became stuck between the rocks, licking at his fingers to make him lose his grip and plunge to the grass below. Only so that he could climb the stones again.

He was exhausted. Desperate for sleep. His scrawny legs shook as they tried to carry him across the meadows and through the trees that scorned him of shelter from the downpour. He needed to stop... just lay his head upon the leaves... succumb to darkness. But he couldn?t rest. He had to get home. His father had ordered him to run home, to survive... as the attacker stabbed the king repeatedly, using the blade to gouge his eyes from their sockets, blind to the pain his son would suffer. Sadistic mercy.

But it was just so far.

The prince collapsed beneath a naked tree, even in the midst of summer its branches were bare to leave him victim to the chill of the rain. The mud splashed on his face and into his mouth as the ground received him. He wheezed dark brown sludge, caking his lips in loose mire. He was cold. He was tired. His father was murdered right in front of him, the man?s blood spattered in his hair and sodden in his long lashes, leaving crimson strokes beneath his eyes when he blinked. Branding streaks. Blood on his once chaste hands, red dried in his palms' creases and beneath his nails. Layered with the guilt of helplessness.

Perhaps if he closed his eyes he would die too, or at least find himself somewhere besides the dank shade of an old tree?s skeleton-- As frail as his father when he died.

But the specter of the king watched the boy from afar, sighing as he saw the child fall to the ground so weary of such a trial as he faced, one so young. The screams of the starving ghost kin drew nearer as the prince did not stir, their translucent figures appearing in the branches above to look down upon their newest sibling as they reached out their hands to him. They called his soul forth.

The man looked to the figure that stood beside him, eyes downcast as he nodded his head in agreement to the old man?s offer earlier rejected.

"You can save my son?" the dead man asked of the other with silver hair and a claw in place of palm and finger. The king was not one to easily trust another? but his child was dying-- And he could not interfere. For the worlds of the dead and living create such a delicate balance, one which even the most nominal prayer can tilt-- With the penalty of damnation, to be dragged into the very last circle of hellion bowels. Those cryptic children its keeper.

"I can," the elder replied simply, his long hair tousled in the breeze that ran passed. "But if I?m going to do something for your child, then he will have to do something for my daughter in repayment."

"Never..."

"What will Heero need to do to compensate you, Jay?"

"It?s not something he can do right now... but perhaps years down the road," the old man explained as he opened the claw and then clenched the metal together quickly, his thick spectacles glinting through the shadows the storm had cast upon his face. "And let my just say that it?s not something I particularly wish to be involved in. Rather, my wife, Lady Une, will arrange everything in time."

And so the pact was made.

As the king bowed his head in his son?s fate, his lips moving in a silent prayer to God that He spare his child of the commitment as time would pass-- That condemnation may befall him rather than the ignorant, abandoned child, the phantom kith turned their heads away from this boy whose heart still beat, and vanished in the mist of the new dawn. Their laughter faded. Their mourning echoed further.

The prince was lifted into the old man?s arms who carried him home, left him sleeping on the castle?s drawbridge that evening, where two of the sentinels found him.

The deed was done. A contract made.

When the boy was cradled in the soldier?s arms, safe and alive, it sealed a pact, one that doomed the boy?s hand to the daughter of the stranger ... even though his heart was meant for another. Though Fate had thought otherwise.

His father?s word had spared him from death that night... but he also denied his son the child?s destiny.

[lilac310]

YAY!!!..I'm the first one to post a reply!!!!...(jumping happily)...this is awesome, but I have some questions though...

1. Lady Une and Dr. J.......married???? (cringes at the thought of it)
2. Who's the "daughter"? Is it Relena? Sylvia Noventa? Dorothy Catalonia?

Post the third chapter soon!!!!...I can't wait to read it!!!! PWWEEEAAASSSSEEEE!!!!! (puppy eyes) ...oohhh..make it longer, if possible..hehhehe..am i too demanding???..hehe...well, sorry 'bout that...i just love your story..it's great!!!!!..hopefully, there'd be more romance on the way!!

[Raspberry]

Post the third chapter soon!!!!...

Yes, yes post next chapter! We beg you Tomorrow! Wow, this story is great and soo... I can't describe it! It's just wonderful!

1. Lady Une and Dr. J.......married???? (cringes at the thought of it)
2. Who's the "daughter"? Is it Relena? Sylvia Noventa? Dorothy Catalonia?

Yeah, I'm wondering about that as well...

[C.G]

^_^ gotta love it

[silent muse]

I remember reading the real version of this fairytale when I was younger, and the witch/evil queen/whatever always terrified me! If I remember the tale correctly, then this is bound to be one hell of a fic. Keep up the great work, and please post soon.

-muse-

[lilac310]

Hey Tomorrow!..It's me again...hehe..if you have time, please post the next chapter...i'm really looking forward to read it......i signed in just to check if you had posted anything yet but unfortunately, you weren't able to..it's ok though...keep writing!

[sweet_me_beajai]

that was some powerful emotion in there!!!!

it really got me hooked!!! but you know, my heart(for dramatic effect ) keeps telling me to stop reading because i might end up getting hurt.... i'm the kind of Heero-Relena reader that feels....jealous.....betrayed....(for the lack of better words to explain what i'm feeling) when heero gets a little too....attached with another woman, other than relena.

i hope heero would not kiss or do other....stuff with 'the daughter of the stranger'.

anyway, that was really good! brilliant!!! amazing!!! wicked!!! superb!!!....wow!!!

so now, i'm off to reading the third chappie!!!