Actions

Work Header

The Dark Mage

Chapter 17: CHapter Seventeen

Summary:

Duo has so many faces, Heero's not positive which one is the real one.

Notes:

Hey, I'm on time!! ^_^

Hello, hello and hey, we're halfway through the week now, yay!

Ah man, this chapter...I had it all ready to go and then re-read it and hated it. So I re-wrote it >_> I was actually thinking I wasn't going to make it to do the update because I really was not happy at all and I don't post subpar things just to remain on my schedule, but I like the rewrite better even if it did take me down to the wire of posting, haha.

I do hope you all have had a good week and all those going back to school and jobs, good luck in this coming year!

Enjoy~

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text


 

The Dark Mage
Chapter Seventeen

 

 

Heero stared at the manic grin on Duo’s face with bewilderment, his mind catching up with the dark mage’s last spoken words that were echoing over and over in his mind. Those insidiously uttered words just didn’t register properly with him and he frowned as he refused to drop his gaze. The legends he had heard said that Duo killed the other mages because they killed his parents, but Duo was admitting to killing them himself?

 

Twilight glowed as Duo leaned in closer, chestnut bangs framing his face and calling even more attention to just how large the mage’s eyes were. His lips were twisted in a sinister grin and he laughed as his whole face scrunched, creating an almost fae look—an evil fae, but fae all the same. “Surprised?”

 

“Why would you murder your parents?” He asked quietly, reminding himself that the one before him wasn’t the Duo he had been a companion to. Duo seemed so normal most of the time that he kept forgetting that the lithe creature before him was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of mages and almost for the deaths of his friends. Despite his slight stature, he was the Magician Koristaja, Shinigami and probably a slew of other titles Heero didn’t even know about, but he was not someone to be taken lightly.

 

“Can they really be called parents when they saw me as nothing more than a way to make money?” Shinigami retorted lowly, his half-lidded depths watching Heero closely. “I was treated as a mere slave to them, they had no magic within them and yet I was born with an almost infinite amount and with an affinity to all the elements. They were farmers and saw I could plant, water and cultivate the fields much faster than they could with crops that were superior to their neighbors.” He scoffed, anger contorting his expression into something Heero recognized all too well. It was an expression he saw often on Odin’s face whenever the assassin talked about those who used him to complete their dirty work, but thought of themselves as above him since they hadn’t physically dirtied their hands. “They worked me while they did nothing and collected money from other farmers who also wanted my services. They saw me as nothing more than a tool and treated me as such instead of as their child.

 

“Is that what parents are?” He rhetorically asked, knowing full well that Heero couldn’t answer it, “I saw other children whose parents looked at them with something mine never did, children who had real beds instead of straw in the barn, children that ate with their family instead of alone with just the cold scraps from the table.” Shinigami disappeared as Duo looked at Heero with crushed disappointment and such deep hurt that his fingers twitched to comfort the dark mage in some way, “And yet…I would’ve stayed forever because I loved them, at least until they sold me as soon as someone offered them more gold than their minds could fathom.” He snorted, “What kind of idiocy is that?”

 

“I don’t know, I never had parents to know what is normal and what isn’t.” He murmured, he only had small glimpses of a woman with dark hair and bits of a melody. “Not that I remember at least.”

 

“I was happy with them, even though they didn’t love me like I saw other parents love their children, but they sold me off like chattel.” Duo added bitterly, that luminescent twilight color glowing brighter for a moment as the fire flared dangerously, flames licking at the floor and the sides of the mantle.

 

Heero furrowed his brow recalling the mosaics outside of the throne room that he had to assume Duo had made himself. “To another mage?”

 

“There is power in our blood,” he whispered, holding up his hand and staring at the thin white scar lines on his fingers and wrist, “and as one that had five innate affinities, my blood is extremely potent and can be used for any spell.”

 

“Blood is blood, wouldn’t any blood be useful for a spell?”

 

Duo laughed, the twilight fading as if what Heero said was the funniest thing he’d heard in centuries. “Don’t you know anything about mages, Captain?”

 

“I know that buying children is not allowable anymore.”

 

He smirked, the darkness fading from around the long-haired man and the room itself, “I know, I made Zechs promise to outlaw that practice for my help in uniting the tribes.”

 

“You’re not mentioned in any history books I’ve read on the war.” He murmured quietly, tilting his head as he studied Duo anew.

 

“Ah, but you heard that Zechs had mages on his side.” Duo riposted, waving his hand before sticking it out as if to shake Heero’s hand, “Nice to meet you, I’m said mages.”

 

“But it was said King Zechs had an infinite army of magicians!”

 

“Please,” he snorted, rolling his eyes and grinning impishly at the brunet, “almost all the mages were dead and those left were in hiding. Zechs had the strongest mage as his right hand man, no one else stood a chance as no made would stand against me. They thought I wanted to eradicate all mages because that’s what they had been told, but that was never the case. I just wanted those high up and so corrupt they were willing to kill those they feared to be punished and to never have the chance to hurt me again.”

 

Heero thought back to the mosaics at the bottom of the stairwell, specifically on the one that had shown a young child with violet eyes kept in a prison cell except for when he was giving blood. “They treated you as a tool as well.”

 

“I’m an excellent tool as I have discovered, the last thing I am to anyone is an actual living creature.” He spat, anger spiking again as his eyes glowed twilight momentarily, but that midnight octave didn’t return. “The only reason I hadn’t been fought over or passed around was because the one who bought me was the High Mage, he was the strongest mage and no one would dare go against him.”

 

“You were stronger though.”

 

“But a tool isn’t alive and thus cannot hold a position of power.” Duo retorted acerbically, “And despite my powers, I was untrained until I was ten and so despite what I could do, I wasn’t as skilled as a trained mage.”

 

The former captain licked his lips as he hesitated to ask, but his curiosity to know more about the man before him won out. “What happened?”

 

“My master discovered I was too strong to control,” the manic grin returned and Heero vividly remembered Quatre’s fire tornado and the strength of it that utterly crushed that wind mage, the mosaic of a young Duo reminiscent of it, “and as I hadn’t had my Threshing yet but was already stronger than the High Mage, I was sent to the Magician’s College to be trained so that I didn’t end up destroying things and killing a bunch of people.” Duo snorted wryly, “That worked out so well for them.”

 

From what he remembered about the mosaics, the High Mage was the first person Duo killed and it would still be a few years before he gained the name Koristaga, but it was the second person that intrigued Heero. What happened that caused absolute darkness to enshroud the young mage after that person gave Duo something? “Who was the second person you killed?”

 

Duo’s face turned vacuous, his eyes deadening as the mirthful look disappeared. “Enough about me, I answered your original question already.”

 

“Hn.” He shrugged as if he didn’t care either way, but internally he wanted to know more. The dark mage was fascinating and so elusive that he wanted to pin the long-haired man down and force him to answer every one of his questions, but he’d be dead long before Duo would acquiesce to that. He should be satisfied with what Duo had told him already as the mage had told him he was willing to discuss his magic but not his personal life, but he was long from being satisfied, what he had learned made his curiosity burn brighter. Never had he found someone so captivating and engaging.

 

Duo rolled his eyes, an impish smirk curling his lips as he gave a longanimous sigh, “I can practically see the steam coming from your ears, so I’ll grant you one more question, but not about me.”

 

He pressed his lips into a thin line of displeasure and the dark mage’s smirk widened into a Cheshire cat grin because they both knew he wanted to ask more about Duo. He wanted to see Duo use every single element, to ask how he got into the castle undetected and the princess out of the castle with such ease, he wanted to know what he studied, what the man who bought him did to him and how long he had been living in this castle-fortress. Did he have other houses? Other companions? A lover?

 

“Cat got your tongue?” He teased, violet eyes dancing jovially.

 

Heero scowled at the mage who only laughed at his expression, “How does the plumbing work? Is there a natural hot spring you tap water from? But then the blocks of ice in the storage rooms and the plants that grow without sunlight… how is that all possible?”

 

“I said one question.” Duo answered flatly, but the amused expression told Heero he hadn’t overstepped. “I’ll answer your first, your others will have to wait for another day. There is no hot spring, but I have tanks that hold heated water for the baths and I replenish them as necessary. I don’t have guests often and a communal bath would be wasted on me since the servants would not dare to bathe with me, so a private bathroom is sufficient and the tanks last quite a long time for only a few people.”

 

“You’ve never bathed with friends?”

 

His eyes narrowed, a silent warning in them that Heero was almost overstepping. “Few wanted to be friends with me and those who did wanted something from me other than friendship.”

 

“It can be fun.” Heero murmured, thinking back to the times he and Trowa would bathe in the stream. They couldn’t afford to bathe in the heated pools as they were lowly apprentices, but the streams were free and clean and quite refreshing in the summer. They would relax, roughhouse, talk about when they’d grow up and as they aged, their conversations moved to sex, alcohol and their jobs. Their times bathing in the stream lessened once they entered adulthood and were fully encompassed in their jobs, but those memories were the happiest in his life.

 

Duo cocked his head, his braid following the movement of his head as he contemplated Heero’s words and expression. He wasn’t trying to wheedle information from him, but was actually curious and despite his stoic way of talking, Duo knew it wasn’t for a lack of care. The Captain often wore a placid look, but over the past year he had discovered that the man was far from placid, his emotions burned brightly if one knew what to look for and Duo was slowly figuring it out. “Is it? I can’t remember ever bathing with anyone, let alone a friend…”

 

He looked up, catching Duo’s gaze, and grinned, “You should try it.”

 

“Wouldn’t I need a friend first?” Came the self-deprecating sarcasm as Duo turned to leave, his hands clasped behind his back as he made his way to the door in that leisurely stroll that gave him an air of aloof disinterest.

 

“Aren’t we friends?” Heero asked, so quietly that if Duo hasn’t stopped in his tracks and looked over his shoulder with abject surprise, he’d think he didn’t ever utter them aloud. The surprise quickly morphed into incredulity.

 

“I just admitted to you that I murdered my parents, would you honestly be friends with a murderer?” He asked with mocking derision, “And not just a murderer, but your captor and jailer.”

 

“I have just as much blood on my own hands, it would be hypocritical of me to hold you to a higher standard than I hold myself to.”

 

“It’s not the same as parricide.” Duo rebutted, his back straight and taut as if he were being attacked.

 

He shrugged, “My actions led to the death of the man who raised me until Captain Jay took me in, he might not have been my biological father—or maybe he was, I don’t know, but he was the closest thing to a father that I had and I betrayed him and watched him be beheaded for his crimes.” The expression of anger and betrayal on Odin’s face still haunted his dreams at times, the assassin had always believed he would one day be captured, but he never thought it would be at the hands of his apprentice. “And the people I killed, they were someone’s father or mother, someone’s son or daughter or sibling or spouse.”

 

Duo furrowed his brow, his lips downturned in a deep frown as he studied Heero like he was the enigma that couldn’t be cracked. “I…don’t understand you.” He whispered before Shadow collected and the magician disappeared before Heero’s eyes.

 

Dhampir
Page 7
9/15/2021

Notes:

Duo needs to stop disappearing. Heero's going to get fed up with it, but it's kind of hard to stop a mage that can just disappear like that >_>

I'll see you all in two weeks! Have a great September ^_^

And as always, thanks in advance for the comments, kudos and love!