“Lady Relena!”

The little maiden who went by that name didn’t look up.  The voices were still pretty far off, and the grasses of the meadow were high around her.  She didn’t want to go in just yet.

The sky was so beautiful – such a lovely pale shade of blue.  The color reminded her of something, and she wanted to keep quite still and quiet until she remembered what.

“Lady Relena!  This instant child!  Your father is leaving!  Lady Relena!”

Relena sat up abruptly and scrambled to her feet.  “Papa!” she called, waving enthusiastically as she gathered a handful of her heavy brocade skirt and ran through the tall grass in the path she’d made earlier.

The tall man smiled affectionately, catching the girl in a hug as she came hurtling at him.  He straightened her crown of light brown braids and kissed her forehead.

“Papa, must you go?” she asked, pouting prettily.

“Relena,” he pleaded, “you know very well that I must.”

“Milady, please don’t bother your father like that,” her lady-in-waiting hissed quietly.

“Relena could never be a bother,” he said, smiling at her.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He mounted the brown horse that stood beside him, and urged the steed into a canter.  Relena watched him disappear through the trees.

“He indulges you far too much,” the lady-in-waiting scolded.  “Lady Relena, I don’t know how you’ll ever make a proper young lady.  Fourteen already, (Relena didn’t bother to point out that already was quite some time – she’d be fifteen soon…) and still going on like a spoiled child.”

Relena, far too accustomed to such admonitions, turned her attention back to the sky.  Was it the color of someone’s eyes?  Not her parents – her mother’s were a darker blue than her own, and her father’s were brown.  She didn’t know anyone with eyes that color.  Did she?

 

Zechs squinted his pale blue eyes has he gingerly pulled the bandages, stiff with dried blood, away from Noin’s wound.  He felt her wince.

            “Sorry… Did I hurt you?” he said, glancing up at her.

            “No, it just hurt, that’s all,” she replied shortly, sitting up a little straighter, determined not to show such weakness again.

            “I guess it would,” he muttered, cleaning the injury and binding the witch hazel poultice to it.  His hands were quick and gentle as he firmly wrapped the bandages, and warm where they brushed her skin.

            “Do you have a lot of experience with this sort of thing?” she asked, clenching her hands into fists and trying to distract herself from the pain.

            “No, I’m afraid not.  Does it show?” he asked with a lopsided, apologetic smile.

            “No, I’d actually assumed you had,” she responded, shrugging, flinching, and then making a mental note not to shrug.

            “Well, despite my lack of experience, I’m going to make an observation.  You look awfully pale.  Aside from this, are you all right?”

            “I feel weak and tired and miserable, but I think that has something to do with the injury,” she replied, making a conscious effort not to shrug.

            “Should it?” he wanted to know, concerned.

            “How should I know?” Noin answered.

 

            Try harder, boy.  I thought you were capable of more than this.  Perhaps I should be looking for a new apprentice…

            Growling under his breath, the boy knitted his brows together, strands of chestnut hair falling in front of his indigo eyes.  Sweat was beaded on his brow, and each of his muscles was tense, even though he stood, unmoving.

            Better, better, the voice cackled happily, although you shouldn’t have responded to my taunts.  Weak-minded fool.

            Too tired to be angry, the boy sighed.  The first thing he was going to do when he learned a little more magic was find a way to keep that crazy old man out of his head.

            I heard that.

            “Yeah, well, good for you,” he snapped in annoyance.

            “You’re going to ruin your concentration, Duo,” the old sorcerer warned.

            “We’ll see about that,” Duo muttered.

            Abruptly, the glow around his hands disappeared.

            “Behave yourself, boy,” the old man chided.

            “This is crap! [Duo:  Hey!  I didn’t say crap!  Me:  Hush, you…] It was going to work!” he moaned.

            “Too bad,” the sorcerer sneered.  “Start over.”

            Scowling, Duo tried to clear the remnants of the old spell from his mind.

            “You should be more grateful to me, boy.  If I hadn’t taken you on, you’d be Brother Linus or some such nonsense by now.”

            He’d thought about joining the monastery – all of the boys in the Abbey orphanage had.  The monks had pulled them from the streets of the city, fed them, clothed them, and taught them to read and write.  He was grateful to the monks, and knew that their life was nothing to sneer at.  He also knew that it wasn’t what he wanted – but he certainly wasn’t going to give the sorcerer the satisfaction of hearing him admit that.

            “Yeah. Thanks a bundle,” he remarked sarcastically.    

            “You really are a little ingrate,” the sorcerer stated, amused.

            Duo didn’t bother to respond to that.

            “Fine.  You’re done for the day.  Hey-!  I didn’t say you could leave!  Duo!  Get back here!”

            Ignoring the old man, Duo flipped up the hood of his cowl, knocking his yard-long braid over his shoulder.  The raining falling in a fine mist, he trudged out of the crumbling ruin of a castle in which the sorcerer made his hermitage.

            Duo made a strange sort of figure, still in his secondhand habit and sandals from the Abbey.  The weather was turning cold, and he was going to need boots – the sorcerer didn’t much care whether or not his apprentice was in possession of all of his toes.