Just a warning: this is weird. not just sort of weird, but like time and place transfer weird. One person is in one place one second, then the next, he's in a totally different place and time the next. It's told from Duo's point of view and Zechs is totally out of character. Please don't flame me, but i thought Zechs would be a better royal-in-distress than Duo because zechs IS royal and Duo is more of a street kid. which is the part he plays....
2x6, but not until later... this part is only Duo (sorry Zechs fans, he's coming) nothing bad at all... just Duo walking down a street
(Although Chella originally posted this in two parts, it's all here in the one place as just a prologue since it fit together well and she didn't actually label the parts in the body of the posts except to call it a prologue of sorts.)
The air was the kind of cold that hurt the lungs when filled to quickly with it. Snowflakes, falling in ever increasing amounts, only made the air more difficult to breath. The cold penetrated the leather of my coat and gnawed eagerly at the exposed skin of my face. Snowflakes alighted on my eyelashes and speckled the black of my attire.
It was the week before Christmas in New York City. I was working as a bouncer for a club on Broadway. The weather was a cold I had not felt in a while. I recalled then that it had been only a year before when the Eve War had taken place. Time travels quickly in a big city. And New York was the perfect place for me.
I never appriciated country living. I've spent some time at Quatre's estates now and then, since we first met but I can never stay comfortable there. There seems to be no structure in life like that at all. Everyday I would wake up when I wanted to and there would be everything I could ever need without me even asking for it. Growing up on the streets teaches you one thing: if you want something done, do it for yourself. New York has that kind of attitude. I'm glad to be on my own. I'm glad to be able to fend for myself. I'm glad that my soldier's salary gives me enough to live in a decent loft, but I'm also glad I am dependent on no one but me.
I really want to write or act or maybe play guitar in a band. Or maybe I'll do all three. New York is full of people like me. It's full to the brim with wannabe stars. Everyone here is so wrapped up in their own hopes and dreams that no one notices anyone else. And that is how I like to live my life: on my own and not attacting any kind of attention that might not be beneficial.
I was walking home from the club, early that cold December morning. I could have taken a cab, but the hot, sweaty atmosphere had made me clausterphobic and I really needed a walk. So I walked. I didn't live that far away and, dispite the cold, the morning was quite pleasant. Night shift sucks, but you get used to it.
Already, shops were opening their doors and the streets were filling up. Important buisness people, driving their important business cars, taxicabs, school kids, druggies going home after a night high, homeless shivering on sidewalks dressed in everything they owned, begging for money. In the early morning sky, they all were equal, going about getting their days started. And I was among them, one of them, one of the mob.
As I walked past, a clerk changed the closed sign in the window of a toyshop to read open. The movement caught my eye and I gazed in the window. Toys of all shapes and sizes adorned the walls. I thought of Ms. Une and Mariemaia. It was almost Christmas. Maybe I could find a gift for her here. I'd have to do it sometime... and all I wanted to do that afternoon was read that book for my college English course and drink hot chocolate under a blanket on my couch.
So I went into that tiny toystore on the corner and my life changed from there.
The shop was quite old and dusty. Obviously I had picked the wrong one. Mariemaia wasn't really the tinker-toy type of little girl. She didn't like dolls, either. I figured I would have found her a computer game with war strategies or something. But I browsed the shelves anyway. Even if it wasn't one of those modern places with huge bright florescent lights and miles and miles of toys that blew the imagination, it was still really neat. The dim lighting and dusky interior added to the charm. The toys were antique. They weren't meant to be played with: they were collector's items. Not that I was a collector, but it was something to do.
The elderly clerk looked like an angry version of somebody's grandpa. He glared at me as I entered. Must be my hair. I always get glares from old bald people who think youngins like me should all be old and bald just like them. I always get shit about my appearance, though. Long braided chestnut locks and big violet eyes are not common on young soldiers. Nor are they welcome. I was quite happy with my appearance that morning. I was pale. I'm always pale, but the black brought something out of my pearly skin that made it almost iridescent. My leather jacket was a gift from Quatre. The leather was so soft and perfectly black it felt like butter on my skin. I wore it just about 9 months out of the year. So I glared right back at angry old gramps. I have every right to be in his store. He opened it, didn't he?
I moved farther back, gazing at all of the toys, but not touching (mentally sticking my tongue out at the store guy.) Then something caught my eye. It was one of those snow globes, ya know? But the craftsmanship was so perfect. All of the little snowflake like things were at the bottom. I couldn't resist. Picking up the snow globe, I turned it upside down and watched the snowflakes drift to the bottom around a castle with a dragon sleeping, curled around it. Beautiful. I repeated the action. I wished I was a place where it was snowing--I mean really snowing--snowing like the inside of the snow globe.
Watching the synthetic snow drift slowly down, down onto a synthetic landscape was very strangely hypnotizing. It was so methodic, yet at the same time, sporadic... I felt my body relaxing as if sleep was coming over me. Deep down, I knew that watching this--this toy was a major waste of my time. There was nothing here for Mariemaia. There was nothing in the world that spoiled whelp needed, let alone wanted. Even the thought of getting her a Christmas gift was absurd. The girl didn't like me one bit. To give her a gift like this lame snow globe... that would be the end of my dignity. The girl has a tongue that could cut glass. She knows some words that make me blush.
Yet the lure of the snow globe was irresistible. It was such a common toy; I just couldn't understand my transfixion. I mean, this was the type of toy you got for Christmas from your grandmother and turned over once, ooo'ed and aww'ed for her benefit then put on a shelf and forgot about, or tried to sell in a garage sale years later for a dime but couldn't because everybody already has one tucked away somewhere. This whole buying a gift thing was so not worth the old and balding clerk's nasty looks.
I finally managed to tear my eyes away from the crystal-ball like globe to find myself in a strange position. The toy store was nowhere in sight. Actually, from where I was standing, there was nothing in sight except for snow, pouring out of the sky with a silent, graceful fury. Oh yeah, and a giant stone building which closely resembled a castle.
My first reaction was to blink several times, as if to clear the images before me from my eyes like one would a piece of dust or an eyelash. After that failed, I shook my head, trying to jar my brain back to reality. That too, failed. Next I tried the old flail-my-arms-around-and-try-to-hit-something-with-them-trick. While this seemed like a good idea at the time, after finding nothing but snow-saturated air, I look back now and realize what a freak I must have looked like.
And just as I thought I was the only person around for miles, a voice hailed me from the castle. Literarily. "How do you come?"
"Friendly." I don't know how my head cleared enough to speak that word, but lucky for me, it did. He might have opened fire on me if I had said otherwise.
"Hail thee, kind sir!" Were its exact words. "Thou hast arrived at last! Prithee, come ye inside: my Liege is waiting for thee."
If I wasn't confused before, then I sure was now. Waiting for me? What did I have to do with a castle in the middle of any place that was not New York? What did his Liege want with me? I must say, I was beginning to freeze. So as the drawbridge lowered, I stepped cautiously inside, wishing I had brought my gun.
The voice that had spoken to me was that of a small old man with the most ecstatic look on his face. I couldn't hear any noises coming from other rooms. But I also couldn't hear the wind outside and, while not much warmer, the interior of the castle was a more bearable temperature.
"Come, thee must meet with my Liege. He awaits in the throne room." Whoa, a throne room. A king? A duke? A prince? I wish could remember what kind of people lieges were. And me with my snow soaked clothes...