Wufei angrily stormed into the palace after dismissing the villagers. He was
still upset that an innocent had been injured, and moreover they had been unwilling
or unable to accept the offered aid.

"Why such a dark mood?"

Wufei turned and was surprised to see Heero lazily sitting in his throne. The
young king had his chin resting in his fist and a leg carelessly swung over the arm
of the priceless piece of furniture. "Why up so late?"

"Touchy touchy..." Heero jumped down from the raised platform and landed
perfectly. "I was thoroughly bored after finishing up some paperwork and yet,
I couldn't sleep. I figured might as well go to the one place that knocks me
unconscious." Heero gestured for Wufei to join him on his way to the kitchen.

"We didn't see any beast tonight." Wufei felt his stomach grumble at the
thought of food, and thanked a few deities that his king was a thoughtful one.

Heero rolled his eyes. "You actually thought there would be some beast? Hell,
I wouldn't have sent you out if I thought I could get rid of the guy any other way..."

Shaking his head Wufei continued. "That's not it though. We did see something...
It was a person... It was only illuminated for a moment before they took off
running."

"Interesting..." Heero ignited an oil lamp in the kitchen and set about making
a sandwich. One thing to be said for this monarch- he was self-sufficient... a trait
that annoyed some of his servants.

"But one of those idiot villagers didn't realize it was human- or just didn't
care, and released an arrow wounding the person! We tried to follow and give aid,
but they disappeared." Wufei made his own sandwich as well and sat down at the
old wooden table beside Heero.

"Hmmm..." Heero chewed thoughtfully. "Did you consider that what the
people thought was a beast that stole and ate their captured animals was really a
person setting them free?"

"That's possible..." Wufei hadn't really considered the idea, but it did
make sense.

"So this is where you've stashed our man, Heero..." Quatre sleepily wiped
his eyes with his arm before sitting next to Wufei. Trowa retrieved a glass of water
for himself and another for the blonde man and sat down next to Quatre.

"So how was your hunt 'fei?" Trowa took a sip of his water.

Wufei swallowed the last of his meal and sighed. "It was horrible." He shot
an angry glance at Heero when the king snickered at his dramatics, and Heero otherwise
kept silent. He was gonna get pity sex out of this. Sure, they would have made love
anyway... but if it was pity sex, that meant he got to be the one tied up.

"How so 'fei?" Quatre ran his hands through Wufei's shoulder length black
hair.

"Not only was there no 'beast', but an innocent was wounded."

Quatre gasped. "An innocent? One of the villagers?"

"No no... it turns out that it was most likely some person that was releasing the
animals from the traps... well, we only shone light on it for a moment before they fled.
One of the villagers was either too scared or stupid to realize it was a person and
shot anyway."

Obviously angered by this Quatre's voice got low in Quatre's 'I'm not happy so you
better try to make me happy or else' tone. "So some kind individual was rescuing
animals from traps... and got shot for their trouble... and you didn't bring them to me
to be healed?!"

Wufei quickly tried to calm his small lover down as Heero watched the scene with an
amused look on his face. "No! We tried to catch up, but they got away... then
we came to a ravine where I was sure they hid. I called out for them to reveal
themselves, but they didn't... we finally just left."

Unfortunately Quatre did not appear to be mollified in the least by Wufei's assurances.
The Chinese man held up a hand before Quatre could say anything. "But! We're
already planning on returning tomorrow to try to find this person and make amends."

Quatre relaxed, and Wufei knew he was in the clear. Now for his revenge on Heero for
even sending him on the stupid mission in the first place... "In fact, Heero
promised to be there to extend his personal apologies to the person for all the pain
and suffering caused."

Heero looked like he was going to protest, but Quatre beat him to it. "That's
very big of you Heero! I really think it is the least you can do. now..." Quatre
stood and pulled Wufei to his feet. "We're going to steal Wufei for the rest of
the night..."

Wufei was instantly sandwiched between his lovers, and was led to their chambers. He
shot a smug look to his king just in time to see Heero give him a rather crude gesture.

~*~*~

Heero was unsure weather to kill or thank Wufei... he was now scheduled to spend the
next day in a forest to apologize to some peasant for the actions of an idiot. But
that also meant that he didn't have to spend the day locked up inside the castle
listening to the various sycophants that constantly hung around.

Heero finished the rest of his meal before making his way back to his chambers. The
entire castle was opulent, but his personal chambers were the personification of
luxury. He had his own private bath, private gardens, a study, and his bedroom was
the size of most commoner's houses.

And the focal point of his bedroom was the large four-post bed. It was lavishly
draped in black silks from the orient, and it could easily fit three or more people.
Sleeping every night in that bed almost depressed Heero.

He had no use for it. Sleep was only to sustain the body for the next day. And he
had no use for so much room. He would have given it to Wufei, Trowa, and Quatre long
ago if he could have found a way of getting it out of the master bedroom... it must
have actually been built in the room because the doors were much too small for it
to fit through.

Heero doused his lamp and slid into the large bed. He stared up at the draped cloth
for a moment before closing his eyes. It was times like this that he considered
actually taking some of the courtiers up on their amorous offers.

Heero rolled over and hugged a pillow to his chest. He would be safer sleeping in
a pit of vipers than to actually take any of them up on their propositions. He had
no illusions about their motivations. It would be purely political move on their
part... and maybe it was just the bad influence of his friends... but Heero actually
wanted some sort of emotion behind the fucking.

Or at least a believable facsimile.

Finally Heero drifted off with a yawn. ~At least I won't have to deal with the
courtiers tomorrow.~

~*~*~

Alex and Mueller watched as the King's man returned to the castle alone. They
looked at each other knowing that he was extremely angry with the men in the hunting
party, angry with Mueller in particular. It was his shot that wounded the person.

Alex grabbed Mueller by the arm and pulled him into the shadows along the side of the
trail. "Shit! You really screwed that up."

Mueller nodded silently. He's let his fear of the beast get the best of him, and he'd
shot an arrow without really looking. "What am I gonna do Alex?"

The dark haired boy shook his head. "WE'RE going to go find that person."

"WHAT?!"

Alex clapped his hand over Mueller's mouth. "We're going to find the person, take
them to the castle, and then Sir Wufei will be able to make his apology... and
probably reward us for saving him the trouble of finding the person himself!"

Mueller nodded fiercely behind Alex's hand. The other boy always had the best ideas!
"OK! So... where do we start?"

Alex frowned in thought. "We should go back to the tree... Sir Wufei seemed to
think the person was around there."

"Yeah! Let's go!!"

~*~*~

Duo blearily blinked his eyes. Finally that awful night was over. He yawned and
stretched shaking his head to clear it of its usual morning fuzziness. The loud rumble
in his stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten last night thanks to those men... and
add that to the amount of energy he used to heal himself it all added up to one
cranky Duo.

Duo slowly climbed back onto the bank of the ravine. He yawned again and stretched his
arms over his head. He never saw the limb swung at his head.

~*~*~

Alex stared at the fallen body and then at Mueller. "What are you?! INSANE?"

"WHAT? What did I do?"

Alex slapped his forehead. "Gods you are an idiot! We were going to bring him to
the castle... not bash him over the head!"

"Oh." Mueller dropped the limb and looked at the fallen boy. "What are
we gonna do now?"

"We can't just take him to the King all unconscious like this... We'll bring him to
the village. They'll heal him and then we'll take him to the castle!"

The pair easily hefted the thin boy onto their shoulders and made their way back to
the village.

~*~*~

"What are you doing boys?"

Alex and Mueller looked up to see the hunched form of old man Septum. "We're
taking this boy to the healer... Mueller accidentally knocked him out."

The old man shuffled closer to inspect their burden. "Hmmmm don't remember seeing
him around."

Mueller shrugged. "Me neither, he probably lives in the forest or something. A
little weird if you ask me..."

Septum's eyes seemed to clear for a moment. He quickly reached out and grasped the
unconscious boy's face in his hands. He pried open the boy's eyelids and gasped.

Septum fell back. "Drop the creature!" Even though the boy's eyes had been
rolled up into his head, a small sliver of violet had been visible. Violet eyes.

"It's the demon boy! The demon boy Duo has returned from hell!"

Doesn't Mueller remind you of Lenny from "Of Mice And Men"? I didn't do
that on purpose... 0_o

Next!