The Prelate's War Chapter Seven

 

Midii walked rapidly through the darkening halls, the loud tap-taps of her feet echoing strangely in the long expanse of marble and inlayed granite. Her face, ensconced by flickering shadows and the weird, writhing candlelight, was unreadable, as singularly imperturbable as a smooth porcelain mask. Even her eyes were opaque gray, so forcefully blank of all emotion that one could not help but feel that behind those orbs, there was a mind seething and roiling with frantic conflict.

What should I do?

It had been an unwelcome shock, confronting Trowa here in what she had thought was an ally's lair but her mind had already jumped ahead of that to the political ramifications of his presence. Probables said that the Bartons had sent plants in the Dominion as they had in all other surrounding countries. There were spies in the Sanq too, of that Midii was completely certain, so the fact that there was a spy in the Dominion was in itself unimportant.

The question was why Trowa, a man of noble birthright and commander of his own army? Where was the Kas'even-ra now? Poised at the border's edge, ready to strike? Was the White Fang Dominion the Midland's next target? Or did that mean that the Sanq Kingdom had been betrayed and the Dominion had clandestinely allied itself with the Bartons? So many questions, so many possibilities, none of them good.

What a trying situation this was.

Her feet stopped and she looked blindly ahead, letting herself indulge in the weakness of showing a moment's emotion, of clenching her hands into knotted fists. If the Bartons are involved, every motive now has a new dimension to it. Gods damn them for being such ubiquitous little critters. They're like bugs in summer: you keep on squashing them and they keep on turning up to sting the hell out of you.

"Midii!"

She stopped, turning slightly as an exuberant shadow seemed to pull itself from the walls and plaster her with a ramming bear hug.

"Idiot." She acknowledged calmly, not even bothering to try squirming out of his death grip. Duo laughed, slamming his hand against his chest and slumping over dramatically as if he had just been stabbed with a dagger. For extra effect he let out a theatrical groan, obviously carefully rehearsed and cultivated to near perfection to be used in conjunction with his charming violet puppy eyes. Midii smiled distantly, something that might have been affection lurking in the fathomless silver-blue depths of her eyes. The baka. He never changed; not one bit.

When she refused to humor him, Duo added cheerfully, "Ouch! That really hurt. Cut me to the quick. I might never recover, you know, since I'm so sensitive and all." Midii merely snorted, and he fell into step beside her, whistling a merry ditty. "Where you goin'?"

"No where, really." Midii answered quietly. "Maybe walk around to get a mental layout of the complex. To check on Lady Relena, perhaps, since there are some things I need to talk to her about."

"Good. The rest of us are converged around ojou-san's room anyway so we're going in the same direction." He slung an arm around her shoulders, ignoring her immediate stiffening. "Oi...don't tell me after all this time you're still the antisocial hide-me-in-a-corner Wallflower!" Middi grimaced at the old nickname, but before she could open her mouth to retaliate, Duo continued quickly, "We've been exiled to this godforsaken place for what, two months? You can give us news of home, then, to stop us from running home like a bunch of jackrabbits to assure ourselves personally that everything's ok."

"Home...?" Midii repeated, then grimaced slightly, "If you wish. But I have more important-"

"Nothing," Duo interrupted firmly, "is more important than home." They had reached Relena's door and with an evil grin, Duo gave her a slight shove, making her stumble into the room with a bitten off curse. Hands immediately encircled her shoulders and waist to keep her from falling and voices rose in scolding protests.

"Duo, you ever-cursed idiot!" "Yes, that's the way to treat friends, you stupid Maxwell; help her crack her head across the threshold." "Duo Maxwell! If you ever-"

"Oi oi!" Duo held his hands up in mock surrender, then stuffed them in his pockets, leaning against the doorframe with an impudent shrug. "Just dragging Wallflower from her hidey hole. No harm done...right?" If anything, his lips stretched even wider, and it was clear to every single one of them that he was well pleased with himself.

Midii glared at him, then straightened herself out before she turned to stare at the assemblage in Relena's room. Hilde, Duo, Odin, that Dominon warrior from before, Heero....she coughed meaningfully, making all the Preventors shuffled guiltily away from her gaze. A single, blonde brow rose. "I thought Miss Sally ordered Lady Relena to be left alone until she was better. In fact..." Her eyes alighted on Odin and Duo, who looked up at the ceiling innocently, "I'm almost certain that you two were supposed to guard Relena against this."

"Oh well, you know how stubborn they are," Duo replied ingenuously, opening his violet eyes wider. "Here we both were, just minding our own business and as soon as Sally left, they mobbed us with wooden bats, but we fought them off. Then they tried to hit us over our head and drag us out of the way, but Odin and I have these really strong skulls, so we brushed it off...barely."

"Right, because you're such a numbskull, you didn't feel a thing..." Hilde muttered under her breath. There was a ripple of laughter across the room, but Duo pretended to ignored her.

"Then Hilde said she'd never cook for me again," He sighed regretfully, "and then what could I do against that threat? So we had no choice but to open the doors and let them enter."

"In other words, you went and got them as soon as Miss Sally fell asleep." Midii concluded, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Oh well...sometin' like dat..." Odin agreed. An unrepentant smirk crinkled at the corner of his eye, causing the scar on his cheek to wrinkle and fold over itself. "But Rel was already awake an' we knew tha'the rest o'us would worry otherwise, so...." He threw his hands out in an all-encompassing gesture, "Here we all be. Ye know that th'Lady Dorothy would be 'ere too, but she's still sleepin' off th'drugs and Quatre's makin' sure she's alright whilst she sleeps."

Midii sighed quietly, surrendering to the inevitable. "If I didn't already want to be here to talk to you, My Lady..."She walked to the side of the bed to kiss Relena on the cheek before bowing and brushing her own forehead lightly with three fingers. "Lady Relena. I am relieved that you are on your way to recovery. Your brother was very worried for your health."

"Worried?" Relena asked with a slight smile at what was probably a diplomatic attempt to be less than truthful.

"Frantic." Midii corrected herself, "unreasonable, frenetic, and calmly hysteric...I say calmly because it doesn't befit the Prelate to act like a 'half-crazed, completely impossible elder brother that just might be a few brays short of an ass.' Your sister-in-law's words, not mine." Midii added as Relena groaned, slumping back on the bed. Heero had stiffened slightly, an unreadable expression crossing his face, but Relena didn't notice.

"Wonderful..." Relena sighed, "I'm surprised he isn't here himself to make sure that his little sister hasn't been foolish enough to get skewered by a Dominion sword."

"He would've been."

"WHAT??" Midii's lips twitched in a wry half smile as the room exploded in snickers at Relena's horrified expression

"He would've come himself," Midii repeated calmly, as if she wasn't shocking the hell out of her commanding officer. "Except Lady Consort Noin drugged his food and locked him in the chambers until he had had a good night's sleep and a day to think the incident over thoroughly." She considered something thoughtfully, as if trying to decide whether or not she should say any more, but then she shrugged, shaking her head.

"That can't be the end of it..." Hilde observed shrewdly, "There's something else you aren't telling us, isn't there?"

"Yeah...you'd have expected Lord Prelate to do something rash after the announcement..." Duo remarked, narrowing amethyst eyes at her. "So what is it?"

Midii blinked back at him. "That would be considered gossiping about my sovereign which is plainly unacceptable." She said primly, undaunted by the groans and boos of disappointment that followed her statement. She shifted slightly, even though a small smile flickered on her lips. She had not intended to come in here to banter with her fellow Preventors at the Prelate's expense. The Preventor Captain needed to know that a Barton spy was already planted in the Dominion. There was no time to-

"The Prelate is your brother." The room was suddenly silent as a new voice entered into the conversation and all eyes swung to the taciturn Dominioner. Relena's smile froze on her face and her eyes chilled, then she forced herself to relax, shrugging her uninjured shoulder slightly in tacit confirmation.

"Yes." She replied. Her face assumed a mask of such serenity that it bordered on apathy and she spoke in a cool, objective tone that matched Heero's in its lack of emotion. She could have been talking about the weather in the Silver Isles or the quality of the year's crop harvest and still have the same conversation lilt of her voice. "Milliardo Peacecraft once called Zechs Marquis, Lightning Count, and now Prelate after my late Lady mother, Prelate Kilan Millerna Peacecraft, is my brother. And what of it, Sir Yuy?"

Her expression remained passive but she watched Heero's reaction's with tense, hawk eyes, her fingers buried into the bed sheets betraying her tension. He didn't respond except for an angry clench of his jaw, so Relena sent her Preventors a quick, pleading glance. They took the hint immediately, murmuring awkward excuses before they slipped through the doorway, leaving the couple alone. The door clicked, almost inaudibly, behind them, but Relena hardly noticed the small sound.

"You were not told?" She asked quietly.

"No."

"Then I understand why you are angry." His silence was damning, as if she had, in some, unexplainable way, betrayed him.  

When nothing else was forthcoming, Relena looked down as a quick lance of pain went down her arm. Her fingers were clenched so tightly that the knucklebones shone white through the skin and the muscles of her arms stood out, causing her wound to constrict painfully. Taking a deep breath, she forcibly loosened her fingers, relaxing each muscle one by one until her upper arm stopped throbbing in protest.

"That's understandable." She said.

"Are you here to spy for on us for your brother?"

The toneless question had Relena's head shooting up, her azure eyes sparking with vexation. "If someone was sent to spy, it would be one of our undercover agents, not me. I merely command the Preventors Unit, which specializes in diplomatic interaction in addition to field training. Look at them. Dorothy and Quatre have been trained since they were in swaddling clothes to be ambassadors. Hilde has been drilled endlessly in Court manners and ritualistic address. Even Duo and Odin, for all they don't care to show it, are well versed in the same. Each one of them can take over ambassadorial duties if they needed to. That is why the Prelate sent us and not any other group."

Prussian blue eyes narrowed at her and Heero remarked coolly, "He could have sent another commander. Why his own sister?"

Relena gave him an unladylike snort. "Let another feckless wet-behind-the-ears idiot command my Preventors? Someone that doesn't know how we operate and the worth of each person on this unit? I don't think so. And you are going to ask if there are other units that could handle this job. Yes there are. But why not my cousin, Lord Leonard Winner of the Wolflings instead? Why not Lady Sylvia Noventa, who has joint command of the Rei Angels with Lord Bernard Noventa? Sylvia, by the way, is our half-sister, same father, but mothered by Father's second wife. There are other units of course, but none that were trained for diplomacy only, as Duo so eloquently puts it, 'the usual slipshod mess of slaughter and killing', which I don't think his Excellency would approve of. In any case, you would have to deal with one or another of my brother's royal court, it just so happens that the Preventors are the best that the Sanq has to offer. And it just so happens that they are under my command."

She tossed her head back defiantly, pride and audacity bringing a slight flush to her over-pale face and her lackluster eyes sparkled with more life. Heero guessed that any slight against herself, she would brush off easily, but none against the men and woman that she had trained with such diligence. They were the one pride and vanity that she permitted herself.

She caught her breath, struggling to control her temper and what she knew was becoming an irrational rant, before continuing in a more normal tone of voice. "Relationship with the Prelate aside, after all is done and said, I am still competent enough to carry out this assignment. And my Preventors, more than qualified." She managed a weak smile. "In any case, if we are going to duel over my unit's honor again, I ask only for a few week's grace to," She raised her bandaged arm, "recuperate."

"You tell 'em, Rel!"

Both their eyes immediately swiveled towards the oaken doors where they could hear other voices hissing after Duo's untimely interruption. There was a small scuffle and a few muffled thumps of a body slammed against the granite floor followed by heartfelt cursing and threats. "Duo, you twit!" "Ye young, loudmouthed idjit!" "Very good, Idiot. I'm glad you've lost none of your stupidity, or I would worry."

The last, obviously Midii, was dry and exasperated, the door opened slightly, her voice coming out bland, but with a tinge of embarrassment.  "As everything seems all right, we will be retiring for the evening, Lady Relena.  Is there anything else you might need?"

Relena choked, resisting the urge to press the palms of her hands against her cheeks to hide the blush that waved a red flag across her cheeks. Was it possible to die of shame? She wondered, And after that whole rant about the Preventors being the best unit for diplomatic situations. There goes that impression. He probably thinks he's dealing with a company of half-trained nitwits. Oh damnit, when I get my hands on you, Duo, you'll be praying to Inshala that I'm so merciful as to just murder you!

"My Lady?" Midii's voice held a note more concern, the gap of the door opening a little wider. "Are you all right?"

Gathering her wits about her, Relena shook her head slightly, forgetting that at this angle, Midii couldn't see her anyway, "Nothing, Midii. Although..." She hesitated, remembering "you needed to tell me something?"

There was silence at the other side of the door, heavy with uncertainty. Then, "It will wait for another night, my Lady Captain. My apologies again. Lady Relena, Sir Yuy, good night."  The panel of wood closed again, the edge scraping lightly against the stone floor before fitting snuggly into its frame with a soft snick. The smooth sound of heavy footfalls fell away, interrupted only by an occasional raised voice and loud protest before even those faded, dominated by the soft coo of birds nesting outside her window.

Heero glanced down at Relena. She was embarrassed; her head ducked lower between her shoulder blades so that her hair, skeins of molten gold, tumbled over her shoulders to hide her flushed face. Her eyes were closed tightly and her jaw clenched, working in silent circles until he could almost hear her teeth grinding together.

"I'm sorry." She began quietly, her voice low and tense, "Be assured that I will talk," She spat the word out, "to my people about-"

"Forget it."

Relena's head shot up, surprise making her eyes round and wide. "Forget it?" She repeated dumbly, "My unit just made an ass of itself. My Preventors were eavesdropping like little children or...or shameless busybodies-"

"Forget it." He repeated, then unbelievably, grinned, the corners of his mouth turning up in self-deprecatory smile as if he remembered something about himself that he would rather forget. A rare, sardonic humor sparkling in his dark blue eyes as he leaned back, head tipped back to rest on the wall. "They were only worried. It is natural." Then the humor was gone as soon as it came and he looked back on her with a perturbed expression on his face. "It is my duty to tell his Excellency to tell him of your relationship to the Prelate."

Relena blinked. "He knows."

Both eyebrows rose in surprise and he dropped his crossed arms to his side. "Treize knows?"

She nodded once, her azure eyes wary, "Of course. Lord Kushrenada fostered Treize to the Sanq Kingdom for one summer where he met Milliardo. They became, and are still friends, as I remember. My brother and Lord Treize still keep up a healthy correspondence and I've no doubt that my brother told Treize of my arrival. In fact," She glanced at him quickly before averting her face, "I wrote him myself. That is why it was so astonishing to me that you did not know."

 

 

Tbc...