Meeting the Emperor, was something that Heero had always done from afar, among the throngs of senators and hangers on, and far enough away where the man's face had always been obscured. He hadn't expected him to be handsome, or to look so sane. Sitting on his throne, his white hair a cascade over his golden armor and white linen robes, he looked ready for war, even if the armor was only an affectation.
Blue eyes studied Heero as guards brought him forward. They had let him wash and dress in clean senate robes, so it wasn't a beaten prisoner the man was seeing, but a thorn in his side, a rogue who had tried to thwart his will.That he was seeing Heero at all, spoke for how successful their rebellion had been.
"I'm told that you wish for truce?" The Emperor said. "Tell me why I should grant it?"
Heero gave the man a graceful bow and then approached closer, a move his guards halted with lowered spears. "I think that we both see the waste that continued warfare would be for the both of us," Heero replied. "We are on the verge of mutual starvation."
The ice blue eyes narrowed. "I am beset with fools, and you have been the worst fool," he replied. When Heero blinked in confusion, he continued, "How is it that I, and only a few of my councilors, understand how large and ravenous the city has become? Can't you understand that my methods were necessary to keep the populace from starvation, now, and not in the future? I did not frivolously order that the Provinces be stripped. There wasn't any other way."
Heero's perspective shifted, and it wasn't a pleasant sensation. "You've only postponed the inevitable, then," he argued, "and assured that the Provinces starve with the city."
"I have been securing new territories in the south," the Emperor explained. "Conquest is not an easy thing, especially when I must use my soldiers to put down a rebellion as well. Our continued existence hinges, now, on taking the fertile fields of the delta. You can imagine, that the inhabitants there, aren't so willing to simply hand them over to me."
"The Spaniards?" Heero scowled, his military training supplying him with a list of difficulties. "They are well armed and fierce."
"So are we," the Emperor retorted. "We've had some successes already, but having my forces divided has not won us victory yet."
It was the way of the world that a man took what he needed by force, and that men died who couldn't hold on to what they had.When survival hinged on expansion, war was often the only solution.With starvation looming for thousands, and fertile fields in reach, it was an easy decision for Heero to make, to bow to the Emperor and offer,"I was fighting to save people. I offer myself again, in your service."
The man studied him for a long moment and then asked, "And your fellow rebels?What is one man when the rest will continue to drain my soldiers from the front of battle?"
"I can only speak to them and try to convince them that we were wrong," Heero replied, but then he was frowning and adding, "Your murder of so many innocents will make that difficult."
"War is ugly," the Emperor replied, "and rebellions doubly so. You've been in the military. You also understand that every man cannot be guided, watched, or vetted for morality. It was not by my will that atrocities occurred. Where such men, who committed such acts, can be found, and proven guilty, I will punish them."
"Allow the Provinces peace to farm their lands," Heero urged. "Entreat them to fight for you. When they understand, I assure you that they will give all they can to the city."
"You are altruistic," the Emperor scoffed. "Do you think they will give while they starve as well? If they hold back, it will be the city who will descend on them and take what they have, not my soldiers.They have no choice, but to give all they have, so they will fight, still, like any man who would fight to survive."
"People will starve and you have decided that it will be the Provinces," Heero growled, daring much.
"I save who I can," the Emperor replied, "and I am minded to save those who have the power to take me from my throne. That's only wise, don't you think?"
Heero's jaw worked angrily and the Emperor seemed amused by him.
"I accept your service," the Emperor suddenly said, startling Heero. "Fight to win us new lands to feed us all. That will end this bloodshed. Convince as many as you can to fight with you. I give you this freedom, and this chance, to redeem yourself. Fail my trust, and turn on me again, and you will die, and not quick, or pleasantly."
"The men who were imprisoned with me..." Heero clutched at freedom, clutched at a chance for all of them to get out of that stalemate situation.
The Emperor made a dismissive gesture and said to his guards, "Who ever swears fealty to me has a commission in the army, and leave to fight in it under my name. Whoever refuses, or shows disloyalty, is to be put to death on the rack."
The guards bowed and saluted and Heero was taken out of the Emperor's presence. He needed time to think, to understand if he had gained anything at all. It seemed that he wasn't going to have that chance, though, and he was going to have to convince the others to fight with him, and to give up their rebellion without the reassurance that he was doing the right thing.
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"Just like that?" Duo sneered. His clothes were ripped and he was sporting a black eye. His guards looked worse. They hadn't managed to get past his defenses yet."You expect me to tell my people to bow down and fight a war?"
"Do we have a choice?" Heero wondered. "The Emperor has given us a way to feed everyone.We can't not take it."
"Maybe we're willing to die to keep our autonomy," Duo snarled as he turned away from Heero, wrapping arms around himself and hunching over.
"The city will empty into the country like starving rats," Heero told him, coming up close and standing behind him. "They will take whatever they need and leave your lands desolate."
"They haven't already?" Duo snapped back.
"Not... completely. You can still recover, still plant. There is yet time before the axe falls." Heero put a tentative hand on Duo's shoulder. He didn't shake it off. Through that contact, Heero could feel Duo trembling with suppressed emotion.
"I was on the street," Duo told him. "Nobody. Hungry. Cold. Now, I'm someone. People look up to me. I'm their hero. I... I can't let them down. I can't-"
"We were all willing to sacrifice for them," Heero said softly. "This isn't any different... only... now we're fighting for the city as well... to save everyone."
"At someone else's expense?" Duo half turned, eyes anguished. "We're going to kill, Heero. We're going to take what isn't ours, just like the Emperor was doing to us. I don't want to be what I hate."
"I would rather be the spoiled master of a handsome, tattooed slave,again, ignorant of politics," Heero sighed, "but that isn't the way the gods have decreed it.We fight or we die. That is our truth, right now. There isn't any other."
"The Emperor could trade, Heero, barter, make treaties, make peace," Duo pointed out. "He makes war, instead."
"They don't want peace, or trade, he told me," Heero replied as he pressed into Duo's back and wrapped arms around him. "They want our lands."
"And we know that isn't a lie?" Duo sneered, but his hands were clasping Heero's tightly.
"It doesn't matter, now," Heero breathed into his neck. "The arrow has already been shot. The war has begun. If our people are to survive, we must fight in it. We must win."
Duo went hard under his hands and pulled away, leaving Heero cold as he turned and faced him. His expression was the one he showed his enemies, death behind the beautiful peonies. "Let's get Quatre and fight the Emperor's war, " he said, "then, fight it until he's sick of blood and bodies, fight until the stench reaches even his throne and taints the bread he's willing to kill innocents for."
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Heero dismounted from his rangy horse, and let it loose to graze, as he walked through the overgrown garden of his old villa. His uncle had been turned out of it on his return, his gift for service from the Emperor, himself. His uncle, it seemed, had let everything go to seed, unwilling to do more than wallow in luxury and ignore the duties required to care for the place.
For months, now, Heero's life had been narrowed down to hacking with his sword through flesh, smelling blood, seeing countless deaths, and leading his troops to victory. He had seen little of the others, though he had been kept informed of their victories, their fierceness in battle, and the excellence of the tattooed, ex pleasure slave. Men had chanted 'Shinigami!' everywhere that one went. 'The god of death'.
Heero doubted that he would ever see Duo again. Their anger, their feeling that he had betrayed them all into that war, had been clear to him. He was certain, now, that the war was over, that they would go back to the provinces, cursing his name. The others made him ache, made him feel the loss, but Duo made his heart constrict and feel as if it carried a mortal wound. It was almost as if he were bleeding to death, slowly, and returning to the villa, where it had all begun, seemed more like a good place for a funeral, rather than any sort of homecoming.
His servants acted happy to have him back, but he doubted that they cared who's backside sat in the master's chair. They asked for orders, Heero wasn't inclined to give them. He left them in confusion and uncertainty, instead, and walked out to where he had once enjoyed his pleasure slave by the pool. It was green, and overgrown with vines, but the bench was still sound and only covered with a few dead leaves. Heero brushed them off and sat down, almost hating the bright sun that warmed him and the tiles underfoot.
A figure obscured his view. A figure in a simple tunic.
"I don't require service, now," Heero growled and made a dismissive gesture.
"As you wish, master," Duo's voice said and he turned to go.
Heero's hand shot out and he caught the end of a swinging braid. He looked up into Duo's face, not certain whether he was dreaming or not. Duo looked down at him, his expression pained and his eyes full of shadows.
"Am I mad?" Heero wondered softly. "Are the gods mocking me? Making me see what I most desire?"
Duo turned and moved closer. "Do you desire me?" he wondered. "I'm covered in blood. I've killed the innocent. I've taken what wasn't ours and handed it to the Emperor on a silver platter."
"So did I," Heero replied in anguish.
"I'm not the hero any longer," Duo said as he kneeled at Heero's feet, looking up at him. "I'm just a fatherless, motherless slave."
"Is that why you came?" Heero felt the pain in his heart become unbearable, "because you didn't have any other place to go?"
Duo cocked his head to one side. "I've had hundreds of offers. I can live well, if I choose."
"And yet, you are here." Heero brought the end of Duo's braid to his face and held it there, feeling like a fool. He waited for Duo to speak, so that his heart could finish dying, so that his villa could truly be a place for his funeral. There would only be cruelty on Duo's lips, he was certain, words he had saved to scorch him with.
"Why are you trembling?" Duo wanted to know. "I don't hold death in my hands any longer."
"No, it's on your tongue," Heero replied softly.
There was a long moment of silence. "Not there, either," Duo finally replied. "Not for you."
"Why come, then?" Heero dared to ask.
"Am I not welcome?" Duo wanted to know.
"Always." Heero let the braid go and watched it fall by Duo's tattooed leg.
"Your offer is better than all the others," Duo told him. "Your offer is the one I've chosen."
Heero felt as if a fist had grabbed his heart and squeezed. "Mine?" His voice trembled.
Duo frowned. "I know that I can only be your slave, your servant, but that's the way of the world and it's better... better than killing."
"You've been given freedom by the Emperor himself," Heero pointed out. He reached and smoothed a hand along Duo's cheek. There was a new scar there, following along his jaw line; a scar earned in battle."You're no one's slave."
Duo made a face. "I can't escape my birth, even by an Emperor's decree. They will always see me as a pleasure slave, a street orphan."
"I won't treat you like one, not in my house," Heero promised. "Here, that decree, is law. You are..."
Duo grinned suddenly, and it looked stiff and unused. "Welcome in your home?"
"Always," Heero breathed and pulled Duo into his arms. He held that steel strength against him, death cloaked in beauty, and knew that nothing was his to grant or take away. He wasn't Duo's master.
Duo pushed back a little and looked into his eyes. "I know we all did what we had to. That's past," he said. "Quatre told me that I was being an idiot, hating you, but, you know, I never really could do more than pretend. I suppose that I needed that during the fighting, to have that distance so that I wouldn't charge off to fight by your side. I didn't need Quatre to tell me that there was nothing else that you could have done."
Heero felt relief flood him, though it was hard to forgive himself.
Duo looked around. "This place has gone to seed. It was beautiful when I was here last."
Heero found a smile, though it was sad. "I only remember you."
Duo gave him a look and then snickered as he pulled Heero to his feet."On my back, with my legs spread, I suppose?"
Heero remembered an erotic dance and his body began to think about other things besides fighting and killing. "I remember how handsome you were... and flexible."
Duo laughed outright and Heero's smile became genuine. He was still hesitant, though, as Duo leaned in close and wondered, "Can we clean it up, plant flowers, and make it nice again? Maybe I'll do my dance, here, again... only willingly this time."
"It wasn't before?" Heero teased, but then he was serious, gripping Duo tight. "Can we do this... as if..."
"I can," Duo replied. "We can't change the past, or what we had to do... but, the Gods know, we deserve this, now; this peace."
Heero seized a kiss, long and deep, not caring if the open sky, and a few lurking servants, saw them. "There is only peace, with you. As long as you stay with me, I will have happiness."
"Peonies," Duo suddenly said and Heero blinked at him, confused. "We'll plant peonies, cover up the scars, and forget about them."
"Red peonies," Heero agreed as he smoothed a hand along Duo's tattoo and seized another kiss.
The end