I've posted both 5 & 6 together because chapter 6 is only a few paragraphs long. Chapter 5 is from Milliardo's POV, while 6 is from the omniscient narrator. The two are clearly differentiated. Thanks!
Disclaimer: I don't own GW or "Brother and Sister."
My slumber was disturbed that night by the footsteps of the king as his figure approached me, shrouded in dusk and the moon?s refusal to shine upon his skin, anxious to conceal him. This silver star took pity on the wayward as she hid him from my wandering eyes, wanting to keep from me what she?d witnessed that night, in some distant hour and place. And so she obscured his body in her dreary, preternatural shadows, her face turned and eclipsing him with her darker cheek. She cast a dimness on the earth, a veil of drowsiness and solemnity and haze that clouded the mind and confused the senses, heralding his midnight venture as a dream. No more than an induced nightmare that walked by shadows? light, only to find solace as it wandered its lonely way, cloaked in mental mystery. An attempt to forget the deed that damned it to its fate.
This man walked towards our camp, the ribbons of his open tunic wafting in the wind his stealthy gait incurred, causing my ears to twitch as the leaves crunched beneath his steps and heated breathing warmed the evening. It was as if he?d left... and was now returning. But why? It didn?t make sense-- But I had heard the rumors of his past, his irrational thirst for restitution. Not everything the nobleman did made sense, even when carefully calculated as his actions were. So I suppose I shouldn?t have been so shocked by his wandering. But the closer he came, the more clearly I could see the shape of another human body emerge from the blur. He carried someone through that darkness.
He held my sleeping sister in his arms.
Heero had placed one hand under the crook of her knee while the other supported her back, with the maiden?s head cradled gently against the figure?s chest, warming it with her breath. Her silken strands draped his shoulders in tarnished gold under the moonlight. Her slumber was eerily peaceful. A sigh on her lips.
Something happened. He did something to her that night... and I didn?t even want to consider the most probable scenario. No.
All I knew is that he seemed to realize someone was watching him, since his movements became deliberate, hurriedly laying Relena upon her former bed of leaves yet still careful not to stir her, then jogging over to his cloak where he stayed for the rest of the night. Not reaching for her, not even facing her. Just getting what little sleep he could before daybreak.
Yes. Something happened. Something had definitely happened. Behaviors were modified. Little discrepancies began to show themselves in the all-telling, omniscient light of dawn, and Trowa seemed to notice them too. He looked over at me while he watched the two ready themselves to leave, his stale eyes commanding me to observe them and their habit. To confirm his suspicions.
Interesting
Relena no longer sat behind the king on his stallion, not having to reach her arms around his waist for support. He placed her in front of him this time, his arms wrapped around her, almost protectively, as he pulled the maiden to his breast. Hold desperate.
Possession
My sister?s hand found its warmth with his, her fingers absently stroking that calloused skin as a plea to entwine touches, to sate longing. His grip loosened from the reins, distracted by the heat of her hand. His fingers unfolded to clasp hers, although the gesture seemed reflexive.
Tenderness
Heero rubbed her body against his as he shifted his arms, subtly writhing his flesh to graze hers. Skin caressing skin. Her soft moan and subsequent, sharp intake of breath were muffled by his tunic.
Desire
Oh God, they...
Shutting of eyes...
... a swallow...
We weren?t going back to the cottage anymore... we were riding for the castle. A change of plans proposed by the bastard himself.
And I couldn?t stop him.
Trowa couldn?t stop him. The yeoman even grabbed his sovereign?s wrist, calmly, quietly gave him every reason why the king couldn?t do this? But it was all in vain.
I was no match for Heero's strength the way I was, and the archer had no desire to break his allegiance with his master. Trowa was a man of truths, of unwavering pledges and reflective alignment. His word was his bond? He couldn't betray his own king. He wouldn't conspire against the man who commanded him all those years in war and massacre, entered sin and shame with him. He'd been drenched in Heero?s blood-- Camaraderie that could never be retracted, no matter how much the yeoman may have wished it now.
And so the king brought Relena to his palace and married her that same night.
And married her.
Heero was resolute, sincere as he held her hand before the crucifix-- It was the only way he could keep her and reign over his people as his father would have wanted: through matrimony. He made a vow before God and man that she was his and that he loved her, in the only dimension he could love: physically, in the corporeal tradition. Only then would humanity let him be, let him drown his sorrow in her body... in her love. Then he could rest his guilt at her breast; her being fulfilled him. It was what she deserved from him.
That's the only explanation I could find.
And his haste wasn?t surprising to me, either. He harbored a lot of guilt, a lot of pain; and one night wasn?t going to satiate his thirst for redemption from the nightmares, from his memories... from the past. He would have to do it over and over again, filling her with himself so that he could be rid of the shame and deposit it in her, for her warm womb to abdicate and scald into menstrual ashes. An obsession... addiction for her flesh, the soul within that constantly called for his, without mitigation. The essence he touched when they made love. Drowning the blackness in a mask of holy light--hollow and spurious. It was cruel abuse to use each other... but it was the only way he could escape, and the only way she could help him.
They were so ignorant of love that they believed sex embodied it. So innocent that they thought copulation and climax were the only ways to show their love for each other.
Even now I pity them.
She was no longer a part of me-- She was a part of him. A tool for release, glossed in a soldier?s love as perverted as it was, renewed by her body?s warmth and yearn for touch and heat from him. They fell to the basic temptation and expression of humanness: it's craving and inclination for lust. Something we all desire, repress, gratify and fantasize about. And yet it was a need he, seemingly, had never known, although condemned by his own humanity to need that sexual opium to make him forget and feel.
And... and I couldn?t do anything about it.
So I gave her up, gave in to what she wanted-- To what he wanted. What he had stolen from me. Raping her love.
What choice did I have? I couldn?t leave her with him, but I couldn?t stand to see them together, either. It made me sick each time, to witness such love and abuse made one in their eyes. My throat would close off... and I always wished for death or to wake up and find Relena and myself back in our cottage, together and happy like we were. To be embraced in the sunlight and my sister surrounded by laughter and innocence as she twirled in the falling, copper leaves. To see her eyes sparkle like the morning dew and sprint back from the meadows in a dress stained with dirt and grass.
But that never happened.
Reality would grip its hands around my neck sadistically, making panicked welts on my imagination, and then let go before I collapsed into my delusions. Teasing me. Whoever said that death was the ultimate fairness and held no bias hadn?t lived my life everyday for the next two years after their marriage. He would have modified his understanding, rephrasing it to say something more like: "Death only comes to those that don?t want it and takes away the most dear from our lives." Yeah. That?s about right.
But I had promised to protect her, and so I stayed.
I lived in the stables that were tucked away in the far corner of the courtyard, the furthest I could get from the castle without being too far for Relena to come visit me. She came as dusk settled upon the earth each night, to sing to me as storms raged overheard, as Mother had done. Or sometimes she simply spoke with me as we used to those day now passed, those times that I vividly remember. I pretended like nothing had changed.
My love for her was the same. That was a fact. No matter what she does to hurt herself or me, my love for her can never diminish. I can?t let her suffer like that? I?m obligated not to. I'm her brother.
* * * *
Two years from their wedding day my nephew was born, whether he was the spawn of a night of gentle love making or feverous lust I was never certain. But he remains the one beautiful thing that Heero ever gave her.
On that day, Heero, Trowa, and I were out surveying the kingdom a day's ride from the palace, despite Heero?s reluctance to leave my sister?s side as her time drew near-- And he wasn't alone in that concern, but I was worried for other reasons than his. I was apprehensive for her survival and the child's health, since most mothers in that year were striken with the Fever after giving birth, leading to their deaths and malnourished children. He, on the other hand, said that he felt he should share in this miracle and her pain as they shared the common grievance of molestation. For once he would be her implement, made an object for her passion to empty its sweat and screams--of agony instead of desire. Curses rather than moans. Let him drown in her pain and allow her to profanate his warmth. But it was his duty as monarch to pay heed to his people. And Heero was an obligatory man: duty came before desire, mission before intuition. So he left her.
It was a boy, the sentinel bearing the news told us, a healthy child with his mother?s azure eyes and the dark strands of his father. The queen had lost a fair amount of blood, he said, but nothing that her handmaids were too concerned with. But we didn?t trust their judgment. Neither Heero nor I would leave Relena in the protection of others for very long. She was Heero?s corrupted salvation and my life; we couldn?t survive without her love... at least not unscathed.
So we made haste to return to her side before the day was out, the new father riding ahead with the herald as Trowa finished our business in the country so that I, too, may return. But not even Heero, with avidity on his heels, could reach the castle before morning.
* * * *
As it has been recounted to me by Relena and her trusted nursemaid Lucretzia? A very respectable woman that I have come to know and grown quite fond of over the months. She visited me in the stables every afternoon, attending to my meals and freshening my blankets by warming them over the coals and beating the dust from the worn wool. Her eyes constantly watched me. A soft smile weathered her face as she swept out the loft. She usually sat down on a stool beside me during the day, when the king and queen were off on their own. She'd scratch behind my ears or stroke my stomach in the sensitive spot. And I would just regard her silently. A mutual respect between us.
Her voice is engraved on my memory, the stories that she told me about her childhood with Heero. He broke her heart each time he left for war, not even saying good-bye but promising a bloodied return and more coldness. Her devotion to my care was a show of affection that I hadn't received from another woman besides my sister. My mother as well, I suppose, but this just felt... different. It was... interesting... intimidating... yet so welcomed, all at the same time. And she even had her own name for me, the same name Heero?s father answered to: Zechs. The reason: she claimed I looked regal, almost kingly with my antlers.
From what I understand, Lucretzia was the daughter of Heero?s father?s younger brother, and thus Heero?s last remaining kin: his own cousin. But because Heero?s father was the eldest brother, his son became heir to the throne rather than her, even though she was older. And the fact that she was female didn?t help to substantiate any claim to a crown traditionally passed down through sons. But she didn?t seem envious of Heero?s privilege. She appeared more relieved that she escaped such an obligation than anything else. And I don?t particularly blame her.
Who would want the responsibility of governing a country? Not I.
And considering the fact that they were relatives, much of their conduct towards each other was strictly business related. Respect was there but not enough warmth to call it love? At least not on his part. They seemed so distant, so disparate that one wouldn?t believe they?d grown up in the same palace together. She was resilient like him, but much more personable and open with her emotions. She seemed to understand the importance of love and family at a level foreign to him. Kinship just wasn?t the sovereign?s most competent connection with others. But Relena took to the woman immediately, and I think that helped Heero cede his cousin a little more attention than before. More confidence.
But now I?ve skewed drastically from my original thought.
As I found out from Relena and Lucretzia, Stepmother apparently had a daughter, whether our father sired the evil spawn we were never sure, and her beauty faded into deformity and perverted ugliness when the moon appeared in the heavens, hiding her former prettiness in the halo?s dark crater. She was left ghastly when drenched in such shadows, with tethered skin that covered her right eye completely, and her once snow-blonde strands hung limply on her shoulders in garlands of white. She was the cursed child of a crone. Just as callous.
Supposedly the witch was bitter from rejection, because Sister ensnared the king with her sincere empathy and commiseration; her Dorothy was never even given the chance to woo him. As if the hag and her offspring were denied something that was promised to be theirs.
"Why else would I have married your poor and plain father," Une revealed to my sister on that ghastly night, her true intentions made clear. "I needed to eliminate the competition; and it?s always best to work from the inside." But her ploy went awry that day I interrupted her from overturning the cradle and attempt at strangulation in the woods. She could have never guessed that Fate Herself would seek retribution on Relena?s behalf, for if She could not bring the maiden to the king, then She would bring him to that lonely maid-- And so She did.
Stemming from this jealously, Stepmother plotted vengeance against my sister. She and her daughter used their arts to disguise themselves as transient handmaids to Relena and arrived at the castle near the time Sister found out she was with child. Their "references" were impressive, and they seemed genuinely interested in the queen and the welfare of her baby. Knowing now what I wish had been apparent to me then, they were a little too enthusiastic for the prince?s birth...anticipating something more.
As a matter of fact, they told me it was Dorothy who took on the raven?s feathers that night in the bracken so long ago, attempting to mar Relena?s face so severely that the king wouldn?t be able to look upon her without revulsion. But once again Fate had intervened as She saw fit, placing her blessing on the golden-haired child and scorning the one who donned sepulcher?s down.
As Relena soon told me, Une and her daughter actually assisted her in the birth of her son.
"This child must die," the witch declared with such malevolence as she stole the babe from my sister?s breast, letting the newborn?s head dangle over her arm as she spoke. The child?s deafening screams reverberated from against the castle stone as his breath staggered.
"No. My. Baby." Relena gasped in weakness from the blood loss of the delivery, weariness luring her eyes to fold shut and muscles surrender to oblivion. Sleep. A place to forget and be deaf to the wails of her baby, to his pain-- It was so tempting. But she wouldn?t succumb, tried to lift herself from the sheets to retrieve her child from their clutches, with linens sticking to her flesh from the blood and sweat that glistened upon her skin. Her body convulsed and twitched from spasm, ejecting more warm crimson between her thighs.
But Dorothy held her to the bed, a wicked smile pulling at her lips as she watched Relena?s eyes well with tears, heard her groan and squeal in an untamed, maternal sorrow as she thrashed against Dorothy's weight. The witch-spawn easily thwarted my sister?s struggling, but Relena refused to let them kill her baby without a fight. She wouldn't be my Relena if she didn't.
Turning back to my sister, whose brittle limbs settled onto the sheets as unconsciousness threatened her, the shrew scraped her nail against the child?s forehead, evoking a moan from his already hoarse cries, and seethed: "You took away my dream, that my daughter would marry a king and be known far and wide for her fortune. You robbed me of my greatest dream for my daughter, and so I rob you of your most precious hope for your son: life."
A lone tear falling down her face, the moon kissing the trail as it scintillated against the maid?s corpse white skin, Relena raised a weary hand to her baby and pleaded, "No... I stole your dream. Take. My life instead. You can?t blame. Him. For what I?ve done."
"He must be sacrificed for the broken promise, and so he shall be. We?ll see if your little angel can use his wings to keep from hurling to his death from a fall from the North Tower."
His blood spattering the cobblestone below to leave the tiny bones cracked, sticking out as jagged spears from his skin with depraved, crimson ribbons--just as the knife did out of our father's flesh. Cold... gruesome? These were the images that plagued my sister?s mind, she said, as the witch uttered such a fate for her son; images that relieved her of her consciousness to find refuge from death, away from pain... away from Stepmother and the horrid girl.
Une carried the little prince to the stairs of the turret, the baby?s howls resonating shrilly in the corridors and causing the stained glass of the windows to sing. Threaded cracks formed between the crystal pieces, letting in fragile strands of stralight. But before she could begin to ascend the steps, Lucretzia saw her taking the baby and stopped the woman in her tracks. The handmaid had no reason to bring the boy to the tower.
"Where are you going with the prince?" the nursemaid asked the elder woman quite blatantly, noting how the "maid" allowed the infant's head to hang over her arm, mercilessly depriving the child of his breath. Malicious. Negligent.
"I was merely taking the baby from the room. The queen is not well from the birth, and I didn?t want his wailing to disturb her." Une narrowed her eyes, in turn lowering her voice dangerously at the adversary. She would not let this rejected heir interfere with her revenge.
Stepping closer to the witch, her mind set only on gaining possession of the prince, Lucretzia remarked in an almost casual tone that mocked this shrew?s cunning, "That?s rather odd. I can?t imagine Relena being indifferent towards the suffering of her own child. Why don?t you give him to me, and I?ll be sure to tend to him for you."
"I have him just fine," the brown-haired woman answered her with contempt, stepping aside of the nursemaid to resume her trek up the stairwell. She would have none of this.
"Well then, perhaps I should just enter the queen?s chamber and ask her opinion about it myself..."
"You can?t enter that room," Une challenged her, almost startled as she turned from her mission at the turret to catch the younger girl?s attention. Allowing the nursemaid to enter the room meant discovery, and with the king due to arrive in but a few hours time, the hag couldn?t afford such a complication to her plan. She was now faced with a choice, neither option befitting.
"And why not?"
The crone didn?t answer her; she had to consider her options carefully. So she responded to the query with silence, her grip on the baby becoming so fierce as to force a yowl from his tiny mouth.
"Either hand me the baby," Lucretzia threatened viciously as she let the infant?s suffering impact her demand, "or I?ll take this up with the queen. It?s your choice."
What choice had she? Either forfeit all chance of revenge in being discovered or fulfill only part of her oath for vengeance. Neither scenario appealed, but at least if she surrendered the child she could massacre the mother. That would have to satisfy her.
She thrust the babe into the waiting woman?s arms, with such fierceness in the resignation that the black-haired maid could barely keep her grip on the child as he was shoved against her breast, which left the elder free to enter Relena?s chamber with an even more malicious perversion in her veins. Breath heated by anger. Eyes aflame with hatred.
My sister would pay for her servant?s insurrection, this witch was sure, for as far as Une was concerned, the youthful queen would never bask in the light of day again or her lover?s intercourse. She would be damned to a mortal hell. And Une saw to it.
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Chapter 6
Disclaimer: I don't own GW or "Brother and Sister."
Upon her reentrance, the heathen dame grabbed her daughter by the arm and pulled the gruesome wretch away from the bed and sleeping Lady. The fatal hand of the mother strangled the younger?s wrist as she whispered low to what death the queen should succumb. The repulsive child listened to her matron?s cunning with an almost sexual satisfaction, for the young one?s lips curled in such a wicked quirk at the vehemence the witch had spoken--a nod as her approval of the venture.
They lifted the weary maid from the linens, now soiled in dried blood and damp from earlier sweat, and dragged the body to the dungeons below the castle grounds. Deep into the bowels of that dank crypt where skeletons rotted, meat still decaying on their ribs despite the brittle dust of the skin that covered them. A place where the glow of the sun and sibling moon never touched the frosted stone, light never cast.
They pulled her body through the corpses? ash, curses shrieking from the carcasses? souls now long forgotten as her figure, limp and beyond its will, disturbed their profane relics. These two abandoned her in a cell even devoid of the dead men?s company, only darkness her cellmate when they shackled her to the stone. Between the limestone's cracks the rodents dwelled, fed on the muscle they tore from the limbs of their fellow, human inmates in adjacent cells to this one, whether alive or dead. It made no difference to them.
The witch and spawn left her there to die alone, unknowing of her family?s fate, for no one would ever find her in that labyrinth that was the palace dungeons.
and the baby thing too, although its really angsty with the whole witches who want Relena and her baby and the the revenge thing! 
