DRAGON BAIT

Chapter Twelve

Why was Heero always doing this to him? He wondered: helping him, guiding him, tricking him into trusting him-LIKING him even- though all his instincts warned against either, and then repeatedly tossing him out on his own, forcing him to plot and make decisions and confront his enemies, all by himself?

He burrowed deeper into the bedding and lowered his eyelids so that they were open only the slightest crack, pretending sleep. Une still stood by the door, shifting her gaze from her hand to the bath Heero had taken. Whenever she looked, she wore an _expression which reminded Duo of the thought of the dog Heero had been feeding last night. At least IT had had the sense to be afraid. And at least IT was getting food out of the relationship.

*Don*t get any thoughts in your head windbag. The only body Heero*s touching is mine.*

As though suddenly aware of what she was doing, Une cast quick looks at Duo and beyond, presumably to Relena who was noisily setting out the breakfast meal. Apparently satisfied that on one had been watching, Une moved out of Duo*s range of vision to help Relena.

\"Here,\" he heard Une say, \"go put this by her.\"

\"But she*s disgusting,\" Relena protested. \"She*s all bloody and\"-Duo could just picture the wince-\"dirty.\"

*Hn! I*m only ugly with these bandages. Your ugly all the time.*

\"Hush your mouth and do as I say.\"

Relena sneered, \"YOU do it then if you*re so taken by him and his brother.\" Then, \"All right, all right, ALL RIGHT,\" she squeled in a tone which made Duo suspect Une was twisting her ear.

Through the quivery slits between his eyelashes Duo watched Relena gingerly approached. She stopped while still at least six feet away, then put the steaming wooden bowl on the floor and eased it somewhat closer to the bed with her foot, slopping gruel over the edges. Duo grumbled and snorted sleepily and Relena scampered away.

Eating in front of anyone was too dangerous: he*d have to loosen the bandages and they would easily see that he wasn*t really so badly hurt as they* been led to believe. With nothing better to do while he pretended to sleep, Duo actually did fall asleep.

When he awoke, he was alone. He could hear Trieze in his ship next door hammering, a sound he had heard all his life. There was no sign of Relena, but Duo could hear Une talking outside, complaining to someone about the heat this summer. As far back as Duo could remember, Une had always complained; the weather was always too hot for her- or too cold, or too dry, or too windy, or too changeable. Possibly because he was just waking up, a wisp of laughter floated into Duo*s memory. He thought of his friend Edward Elric (Not MINE! ), who had died after stepping on a rusty nail the summer he was eight. (Sorry Ed!) Ed had been able to do a wonderful imitation of Une: \"It*s too...........it*s too....it*s too perfect, for my taste,\" Ed would say, tossing his long golden hair.

From the direction of the stream where the village women washed their clothes, Duo could very faintly hear singing, a sweet high voice which could only be Aldercy, who- until she*d put aside girlish interest and girlhood friends to get married-had been Duo*s friend.

Without warning, Duo*s eyes were suddenly full of tears. *Things weren*t horrible in St. Toby*s before,* he thought. * I want to go back. I want to go back..* He wiped his nose roughly to bring himself to his senses. His father was dead; there was no going back. Instead, he got up and fetched the bowl Relena had set out on his own, but not eating could result in real weakness. He loosened the bandages. Though the meal was cold and congealed into thick lumps, he ate it in quick mouthfuls lest someone enter and find him at it.

Finished, he tied up the bandages again, lay back down, and hoped that whatever Heero was up to, he*d be quick at it.

Lying on the straw mattress, waiting, he thought about the years during which he had grown up in St. Toby*s, playing the games of jackstraws, and the straw dolls they used to make. And with that he suddenly knew how to trap Relena. Everybody knew that village girls weren*t the only ones to make straw dolls, Witches did too, except theirs were made in the image of a particular person. Then, when the right spell was spoken, whatever the witch did to the doll would happened to the real person. He got up again.

Working hurriedly, he pulled out a handful of straw from the mattress and fashioned a doll, folding the straw in half and trying off the head, then braiding arms and legs and a braid to match his usual hair style. He found a rag, which he wrapped around the figure for clothes, then pulled a tiny button of Relena*s feast-day dress. For a long moment he held the button, knowing that it was his father*s hands which had poured the metal, then shaped it. He was torn between the desire to keep in and the knowledge that putting tin on the doll would make people think it had been imaged after the tinsmith*s son.

\"I*ll make them sorry, Papa,\" he whispered, though his father had never been the kind of man to seek revenge on anyone.

Duo fatened the button to the doll then got a stick from the wood pile by the hearth and fastened to the doll to the stick. Hopefully, when the villagers saw this, they would think that Relena had compelled them to condemn him, to leave him tied up on the mountains for the dragon.

Seeing the completed doll in his own image, Duo felt strangely unsettled. Although he knew he had no wizards power, he whispered out loud-three times, since that was the way with spells-\"Not Duo. Not Duo. Not Duo.\" just to be safe. Then he hid the doll under Relena*s mattress and lay down. He*d worry later about how to bring it to everyone*s attention.

Eventually he fell asleep again.

Eventually he woke up again.

Slowly the day passed, and when Heero finally returned it was already late evening.

\"Welcome back.\" Une scrambled up from the table where she and her family were having supper to greet him. She wiped her hands on her apron. \"I hope you found everything in order back at your farm. Trieze glanced up to scowl at Heero; Relena never stopped shoveling food into her mouth, as thought afraid somebody*d eat her portion if she let her attention wander.

Duo groaned and stretched as though Une*s greeting had awaken him.

\"Everything*s as it should be.\" Heero took Une*s hand in his and smiled into her eyes.

Une blushed and acted surprised, as though she hadn*t wiped her hands hoping for just this.

\"And how*s my little sister?\" Heero knelt beside Duo*s bed.

\" I hate you,\" he murmured into Heero*s ear. \"Without you, the plan*s going all wrong.\"

\"What?\" Une asked.

\"She said better, thank you, but she feels weak from lying down for so long.\" Heero grabbed him by his unbandaged arm and pulled him to his feet. \"There,\" he said chipperly,\" \"hows that?\"

He glared at him. \"Now I*m supposed to be able to walk?\" he asked.

\"You want to go for a walk?\" Heero said. \"I*m not sure that*s for the best.\"

Duo started to sit back down, but he held him where he was.

\"Well, if you insist. But slowly.\" He smiled and nodded to the others and led him towards the door.

\"What are you doing?\" he demanded.

\"You*re doing fine,\" he assured him.

Duo sighed and didn*t try to get any more out of him until they were outside. They walked very slowly, with him leaning heavily on Duo*s shoulder because many of the villagers were out, pointed at him and saying, \"There*s the poor girl hurt when Trieze*s wheel failed.\"

Duo loosened the bandage slightly. \"We*re going too far,\" he warned. \"If we talk quietly, nobody*ll hear us. If I*m supposed to be half dying, I should be able to walk this far.\"

Smiling and nodding at someone across the way, Heero said, \"We can always say you overextened yourself. I*ll carry you back.\"

\"Whatever.\" Duo told him.

Heero smiled but didn*t say anything till they were beyond the last cottage. \"So,\" he said, \"what have you done all day?\"

\"What have I done?\" Duo pulled away from his encircling arm and sat on a long by the side of the road. \"What have YOU done?\"

Heero shrugged. \"Nothing. I*ve just been waiting for evening.\"

\"WHAT?\"

\"Nothing. I*ve just been w-\"

\"Why?\"

Heero paused to look at him before answering . \"Evening are more romantic.\"

\"WHAT?\"

He sighed, sounding annoyed, either at his limited range of questions or his tone. \"Humans find moonlight romantic, right? You want me to flirt with Une right? Why are you getting all upset when I*m doing exactly what you to me to do?\"

\"I never told you...\" Duo rested his head in his hands, exasperated, \"I don*t want you to.\"

Heero knelt at Duo*s feet and gave him a small smile, \"Will it make you feel better when I tell you that I mean nothing by it?\" \"No. I still hate watching them stare at you the way they do.\"

Heero did truly smile at this and rested his head on Duo*s thigh and held Duo*s *good* hand in his own.

\"Don*t. I care not for any of them.\"

\"All right,\" he said.

\"Besides..\"

\"All right.\" He pulled the bandaged entirely away from his face so he could speak properly. \"I*ve been thinking more about the plan. We want everyone to believe Trieze is making bad wheels, so we started with the wheel he made for us. Can you damage some of the ones he*s made for other people?\"

\"Me?\" Heero asked.

\"Maybe by turning into a mouse and gnawing at the spoke here and there. Just a little bit, as though Trieze gouged the wood while working it and didn*t bother starting over?\"

Slowly Heero nodded.

\"As for Une....Eventually what we want if for her to leave Trieze for you.\" Heero didn*t react. \"Slowly, over the next tow or three days, we want her to fall in love with you, make a fool of herself in front of the other villagers.\"

Heero*s voice giving away nothing of what he thought, he asked, \"somebody falling in love with me would look foolish to the villagers?\"

\"No.\" Even in the moonlight Duo found himself distracted by the sapphire of his eyes. He looked away, suddenly confused.

\"No. I just mean..a married woman, with a daughter your age...\" Heero arched a eyebrow, smirking. \"...the age you seem..\" He forced himself to meet Heero*s eyes again. \"It*ll look foolish for Une.\"

\"Ah,\" he said.

\"So taht when you ask her to run away with you, to meet you in Griswold, and then you never show up there, she*ll be too ashamed to come back to St. Toby*s because everyone will know where she went and why.\"

Once more Heero nodded.

\"As for Relena, I made a straw image of myself and hid it in her things. Now all we have to do is get people to look-just like we did with Dorothy. I thought maybe you can turn yourself into a crow and follow her around-witches always have crows.\"

Heero didn*t look convinced about that one.

\"And everytime she has an argument with one of her friends-she*s always having them0we can do something to the friend.\"

\"Something like what?\"

\"I don*t know. It didn*t take much for them to believe I was a wizard.\"

\"Cause them to fall down stairs?\" Heero suggested. He looked interested again. Maybe too interested. \"Have their geese or chickens disappear?\" Perhaps burn down a few houses? Something like that?\"

Duo squirmed but smiled at Heero antics ,\"Something like that.\"

\"I see.\"

\"We*ll discuss it beforehand, for each person.\"

\"Certainly,\" he said with a smoothness that made Duo*s cheeks tint.

\"Maybe,\" Duo started, \"you-\"

Heero lunged at him.

Duo was giving a kiss before Heero had one hand on his shoulder and the other..... Suddenly he realized what he was doing; shoving the bloodied bandage up by his jaw. In another moment, even as he scrambled to tighten the cloth back around his head, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps and the jangle of metal.

The bandage wasn*t as secure as it should have been when a woman came around the corner from the direction of St. Toby*s. Duo tried to disguise his sigh of relief . The woman was a stranger-obviously a wandering peddler: she had pots and crocks and assorted other merchandise lashed to her back and chest and belt.

\"Hello, my friends, hello,\" she said in a loud, squeaky voice which hurt his ears. She flashed a smile which showed good strong teeth despite the shabbiness of her clothes and the fact that she was dirty and had a patch over her right eye. She pointed at Duo. \"You must be that young lady I heard tell about what got hurt in that farm-cart accident.\"

Duo nodded, holding the bandage with his hand, unsure whether it might come loose.

\"I just been in town a few hours, but already I heard all about it from everyone. Everybody*s talking. Terrible things, terrible things. I told that woman, the wheelwright*s wife, I got just the thing for you, but she wouldn*t let me in the house, more*s the shame, but now, just as I*m leaving, here you are.\"

*Here I am,* Duo thought. Trust it to his luck that the woman wasn*t going to spend the night at St. Toby*s like any normal peddler but would set out again this late.

The women was disentangling herself from the various bags and harness which held her wares. \"I have,\" she repeated, \"just the thing.\"

\"That*s very kind of you,\" Duo mumbled into the bandage, \"but really we don*t have any money anyway..\"

\"No, no, I*ll have it in a moment.\" With her one light lavender eye, she looked up from pawning through the contents of her bags. \"Silver it is,\" she said. \"Where am I going to sell silver in village like this? But is had healing properties. That*ll make it worth more, you say?\" She waggled a dirty finger at him. \"But it*s not for sale. It*s for giving. A beautiful young man with bright golden hair gave it to me when I caught the flux last winter. He said, *I*ll give you this-here bracelet, like someone gave it to me, and somebody before that gave it to him, and when you*re through with it you must give it away, too.\" She went back to looking through her bag. \"That*s where the magic is, don*t you know, in the giving it away.\"

Duo glanced at Heero, who shrugged.

*Psychotic wench.*

\"Here it is.\" The peddler pulled something out of her bag with a flourish, but Duo couldn*t get a good look at it. \"Hmmmm,\" she said, \"it should probably go on your injured arm. You\"-she indicated to Heero-\"hold the girl*s arm out straight, and I*ll put it on.\"

It seemed the fastest way to get rid of her. Duo nodded at Heero, who helped support his arm as though it were sore.

After seeing all the real silver that he had in the last couple days, Duo caught one glimpse of the peddler*s so-called silver bracelet and knew it was too dull, too heavy to be real. If she thought she was to talk him into-

But before Duo could finish his thought, the peddler shoved him so that he fell off the log, causing the bandage to stop away from his face entirely.

He didn*t have time to worry about that, for in the same instant she snapped the bracelet around Heero*s arm and Heero cried out as thought the metal burned. But before he could seize the bracelet off, the peddler swung one of her huge pots and cracked Heero across the side of the head with it.

\"Heero no!\"

Heero collapsed to the ground just as Duo sprang to his feet and leapt as the women. She hit him in the stomach with her elbow; then when he doubled over, she ran into him so that they fell to the ground, her on top of him. He tried to rake his fingers across her face, but she turned so that he only ripped off the eye patch before she had both his hands pinned to the ground on either side of his head. Two perfectly whole and healthy pale lavender eyes looked down at him, and then the peddler smiled.

\"Dorothy!\" he gasped.

End Chapter Twelve.