The Ice Prince
Chapter II
So the Maxwells left White Fang and its luxuries behind
them, learning to farm the land and tend to their cottage. Fortunately, their
neighbors were willing to help all they could; without assistance, the city-bred
Maxwells would not have lasted through the first winter. To their credit,
the family learned quickly, and by spring, the entire outfit was working
smoothly.
Household chores were clearly divided. Relena was in charge of the
realm of the kitchen, as she trusted no one else with the preparation of
food she was expected to eat. Quatre took care of the farm animals as well
as doing odd repair jobs whenever needed. Duo took care of the rest of the
house, making sure everything was clean and everyone had fresh clothing to
wear, while Dorlian had no set specific task, but rather assisted whoever
called.
Since there were so few of them, they all helped with the hard labor,
earning their food by the sweat of their brows. Calluses formed on their
hands where they gripped their farming tools; muscles responded to taxation
by growing stronger and leaner; Dorlian was never very happy with what he
called "yokelism," but his children were satisfied.
Whenever the family had leisure, they relaxed in the small yet cozy
sitting room. Duo lived to sing and Quatre was a skilled musician, so the
two of them would perform for the rest of the family, Quatre accompanying
Duo's voice on the flute he'd smuggled out of White Fang. Relena cared little
for the technicalities of music and had no talents to offer in that area,
but she had a good ear and was able to offer sound critique.
In a small farm a short distance to the west lived Catherine and Trowa
Bloom. Catherine had once been a knife thrower in a circus, and Trowa, her
quiet, green-eyed younger brother, had been her assistant and a skilled acrobat
in his own right. As the circus traveled in the kingdom of Uchuu, Trowa
became deathly ill. Though he hid his sickness for as long as he could, the
pain eventually grew too great and he was forced to confess to Catherine.
That same evening Catherine left the circus and took him with her in search
of help. The doctors in Uchuu's capital Kah-Nohn were able to save him, but
Trowa remained frail, resisting the label of 'invalid' only through sheer
willpower. Catherine had brought him here, to the open countryside of Oz,
in hopes that the clean air would heal her battered brother completely.
Oz healed him in both body and spirit, for in Oz, Trowa found Quatre.
The two were devoted to each other from the first day they met. When they
fell in love, no one was surprised. Their union felt as natural as the sky
and sea.
To the east of the Maxwell farm lay the farm of the Yuy family. Shigeta
Yuy was a native of the distant kingdom of Artemisia, while Hana Yuy was
originally from Koelonye. They had one child together, a boy with Shigeta's
dark blue eyes and Hana's gentle temperament. Heero was a wary young man now,
somber, intense, and silent. Relena waxed eloquent over what she called his
'inner fire' and made many attempts to win Heero's heart, showing more patience
than she or anyone else had expected.
Finally, Heero took her aside and told her the secret he had guarded so
jealously: he had the rare, awesome Mage-Gift that not even Uchuu's scientists
understood. He carefully explained that he didn't understand his Gift and
wasn't sure he wanted to, and that she needed to stop trying to be his friend.
If he allowed her to become close to him, he said, his Gift -- barely under
control anyway -- could go rogue and devour her and everyone else he knew.
Relena told her family later that night (for there were no secrets among
the Maxwells) that Heero lived in daily fear of what he called "this monster
inside me."
According to Relena, if Heero better understood his Gift like a trained
mage did, he wouldn't need to be so afraid. Among the White Fang elite, everyone
was taught at least the basics about Mage-Gift, just in case. With her knowledge,
she helped him build a precarious control. Everyone saw the positive results:
Heero came out of his shell for the first time in years, talking, laughing,
joking, blue eyes bright, truly alive, a marked contrast from the withdrawn
young man he had once been. Shigeta and Hana thanked Relena profusely, and
Relena shrugged modestly and told them the truth: she would do anything
for Heero, because she loved him.
Those were the most colorful and interesting of their neighbors, and the
ones the Maxwells grew closest to. There were other families, but they were
normal countryfolk, and the Maxwells were uncomfortable around them. The
peasants of the area were generous and helpful, but Duo, Relena, Quatre and
Dorlian couldn't relate to them at all. Their mannerisms were crude and their
ways were strange. Duo in particular had trouble with them for one simple
reason: many of the families had daughters. And to Duo's dismay, they universally
adored him.
When Duo worked in the fields, he didn't bother with a shirt. As he soon
discovered, a shirt would only get filthy and nasty very soon if he wore
one to work. Since he did the laundry, he did himself a favor and went without.
The problem with that was the sheer number of girls it attracted. When he
went outside to work, there was always a covey of peasant girls hanging on
the fence, giggling, winking, teasing, blushing, coquetting. Duo didn't
get it. Weren't they supposed to be working?
Duo couldn't even tell them apart; they all had thatch-like mud-brown
hair and eyes of the same indiscriminate shade and utterly regular, boring
features. They were so unlike Heero Yuy, with those exotic Artemisian eyes
and sharp features, or Trowa Bloom, with that piercing green gaze and soft
honey-brown hair. Relena and Quatre were lucky. They had found the prizes
that this area had to offer.
None of the daughters were prizes. They had only enough intelligence to
be able to breathe and walk at the same time, but made up for it in their
sheer reproductive drive. They fluttered, preened, murmured about how the
family depended on them to keep the house clean, what wonderful cooks they
were, what marvelous seamstresses they were, until Duo felt like shouting,
I know what you're trying to do! I know what game you're playing.
I don't care about you. I don't even like you! Please go away!
Of course, he couldn't actually say any of that. Some of them genuinely
liked him, and he didn't want to be some kind of heartbreaker.
So he kept himself aloof. He refused to give them false hope. When they
chattered at him, Duo said just enough to be polite and promptly fled. To
make up for it, he talked nonstop at home. It got on everyone's nerves,
but he had to balance somehow.
His brother had Trowa Bloom. His sister had Heero Yuy. He had a
legion of farmer's daughters. There was no justice. Duo didn't resent his
siblings' happiness in the slightest, and when they asked him what he thought,
he always answered honestly and told them that he was happy for them. He
was.
But he did snap at them. He was human, after all. "This is just like White
Fang," Duo told Quatre one day. "Just like White Fang." He abandoned
his attempt to dust the fireplace shelf -- he was knocking off too many
keepsakes -- and flounced crossly down into a convenient chair. "Quatre,
I don't like girls at all, you know that. Do I have to tell them so to make
them go away?"
"Sorry, little brother." Quatre looked at him compassionately and sighed.
"I hate to tell you, but they really won't care. They'd probably take you
on as a cause and try to cure you."
"I'm not diseased." Duo scowled. "If I hadn't been born liking
men, I probably would have ended up like that by now. They won't leave me
alone, Quatre. I don't even like them! Why can't they just
leave me the hell alone..."
His older brother bit his lip and Duo watched as Quatre tried to think
of something comforting to say. "Well, think of it this way. At least you
wouldn't be lynched if you did let them know," Quatre said brightly.
"So if you can't think of anything else to do, letting them know is always
an option. It's just that they'll... um... probably refuse to accept that
as the truth. I don't think they'd give up on you."
Duo made a face and slumped. "Makes me wish I were ugly," he said glumly.
Quatre shrugged. "You'd be my brother either way. But you know," and he
smiled, "I really should thank you. The girls have been entirely distracted
by you. Did you know they used to bother Trowa?"
"No, I didn't know." Duo regarded his slight brother curiously. "What
did Catherine do?"
"Wielded her rolling pin, causing mass destruction until Trowa was left
in peace." Quatre grinned.
Duo laughed. "I could just picture her doing that, too... Well, I'm glad
I help to protect your snuggle-muffin's virtue."
Though Quatre had cheered him up, Duo was still fed up with the unwelcome
attention. That night, he formulated a plan; the very next day he put it
in action. He went to the mothers of the girls and begged them to call their
daughters off.
"Please," he would whisper urgently, widening his eyes, cocking his head
a bit to the side, hands clutched in entreaty. Then he'd close his eyes,
slowly for dramatic effect, bow his head, and pretend to fight away tears.
"I... I don't think I can take it anymore. I have no time for myself anymore...
and I feel so guilty. I feel I have been misleading you... Your daughter is
a wonderful person, but she could never be happy with me." He would then sigh
and open his eyes, gazing directly into the eyes of the mother. "I don't like
girls, milady." He'd bite his lip here and look away shyly. "No girl wants
to marry someone who can never love them."
The mothers were very nice about it, apologizing for any trouble their
daughters were giving him and promising to stop them. Duo deliberately acted
over-emotional, almost effeminate. He went to great lengths to seem pathetic
and childlike, weak and helpless. This served a dual purpose. It made the
mothers like him, for they jumped to protect this poor little unhappy thing.
He got lots of hugs, lots of reassurance, and lots of cookies, which wasn't
disagreeable. It also made the mothers believe somewhere in their subconscious
that he was still a boy, a child, who wasn't yet ready to marry
and sire their grandchildren. None of these tough country women wanted weakling
men in their family.
After that, the girls stopped bothering him, though he suspected they'd
never stop staring. The males of the area ignored him as they had from the
start.
Duo turned sixteen that winter. The birthday marked a profound change
in Duo; he had grown more thoughtful, more pensive, though he was careful
to seem the same cheerful, carefree Duo. But he wasn't. He was very lonely,
for one thing, and the way his siblings' love lives were blossoming just aggravated
that loneliness. Seeing Trowa with Quatre in particular... the way they just
clicked, their friendship, their mutual respect, the warmth of
love in their eyes, their tenderness, all those times Duo saw them holding
hands under the dinner table when they thought no one could see... It was
beautiful, and it was hard to look at without wanting. Relena and Heero
were like that, to a lesser degree -- they didn't have the convenience of
a perfect soulmatch, so they had to work to stay together, but they liked
and loved and respected each other enough to work for their relationship.
Duo had never seriously thought he might be alone in his life, but for
a while he gnawed at the possibility. He tried to reject it as impossible,
but all he could see was the evidence. All his life, people had spoken of
his beauty, had praised or hated him for how he looked. Not one of those people
had ever talked to him to discover what kind of person he was; he could have
been a pathological murderer for all they knew or cared. He knew that he
could live alone if he had to, but he would always feel so... incomplete, if
he didn't have someone to share his life with.
At night, when no one could see him close his eyes to ward off the raw
and painful emotions, he tried to work through what he felt. He was supposed
to be happy out here in the country. The work wasn't awful, the farm girls
didn't bother him anymore -- well, not that much, anyway -- and he was free
from those stifling bards. Nevertheless, he was frustrated and lonely. He
wanted someone to love him the way Trowa loved Quatre, the way Relena loved
Heero. But because he was born with big violet eyes and chestnut hair and
a slender body, he feared spending forever alone.
In the bright sunshine, hacking away at the crops in the field, his confused
turmoil seemed ridiculous. Adolescent, almost. After all, he had his family,
didn't he? And they loved him, he never for a moment doubted that. But his
emotions refused to be dismissed by such logic, so Duo worked past and around
them, until sometimes he could fool himself into thinking that he never longed
for a lover's embrace. Sometimes he really was that cheerful, beautiful boy
everyone saw when they looked at him. He wouldn't burden his family with
his selfish yearning.
So time passed, as time had a habit of doing, and soon enough, Duo's seventeenth
birthday dawned.