19-Jun-2001
Draft: Rough
Posted: 06/19/01
Author: Jay / carboxylated@yahoo.com
Archive: Gundam Wing Addiction (Tyr), Desolation Angels (Ashura, if she wants it)
[Full fiction index @ [www.gwaddiction.com]
Disclaimer: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing is not mine, but belongs to Bandai, Sotsu and Sunrise. ;_; The characters and timeline have been borrowed for my own fiendish fangirl ends.
Title: Dichotomy
Category: Angst, "what-if?", Alternate Reality
Timeline: After Operation Meteor, AU
Rating/Warning: R. //**FIC SPOILERS**// Angst, angst, angst, angst. OOC,
torture, deathfic, Relena bastardization.
Feedback: Comments, criticisms, ramblings, death threats, and marriage
proposals all welcome.
Note: Channeling Relena too much nowadays... @_@;;
/... .../ = thoughts
For a moment, the only sound he could hear was his own breath, rasping and labored. He tongued the blood between his teeth, tasting the iron; it was rusty and salty and-- thin, the red disappearing before it congealed in his mouth.
There was a precise click of boots besides him, followed by the muted sounds of cloth sliding against metal; he guessed that the guard beside him was saluting someone. His speculation was affirmed by a respectfully murmured, "Majesty."
Then she spoke.
The tones of her voice surprised him, somehow. He kept expecting a child's shrill voice carrying a child's haughtiness. When the words reached his
"Zechs Merquise, you are being brought before me for the charge of high treason against the crown."
He opened his slit eyes and looked at her, the wistfulness covered by the mask. It was such a lofty statement for such an unassuming form. He suspected that beneath the folds of her dress, her feet swung at least an inch from the floor of her raised dais. She had white gloves on, covering her fair skin from elbow to fingertip, and the glittering of jewels tight around her proud neck and above a grave brow gave her a more mature look than he remembered seeing. His chest tightened momentarily as he recalled the worn newspaper clipping he used to carry with himself of her. She was only fourteen then. Here, a mere four years later, she seemed more remote than time dictated she should be.
Somehow, he was not surprised.
Queen Relena Peacecraft of the New Sanq Kingdom looked at the infamous Lightning Baron, Zechs Merquise, with a staid expression in her blue eyes. She had not expected a response from the prisoner, but she had not entirely expected the defeated slump of his shoulders either.
"OZ and the Alliance once held the colonies in militant shackles, sparking conflict on Earth as well as in space. Your personal actions have cost the lives of thousands of civilians and threatened the peace we hold today."
Zechs spoke for the first time, his voice grating over the uncertain syllables. "And what of freedom?"
Her gaze was as even as her father's. Zechs almost crossed himself at the memory, but his fettered hands only shook minutely before he stilled them.
"Freedom is the necessary cost of pacifism. Freedom is the price of peace."
Zechs' voice rose suddenly, injecting sharply, "Tyranny is not the ultimate ends by any means. Peace is worthless to a man without liberty or choice."
Relena arched one eyebrow and responded with a chill poise, "Man wanted peace."
"Man wanted a cause he could die for, not one a despot provided with a closed fist."
She shrugged carelessly. "You remind me of a man," she said conversationally. "His name was Treize Khushrenada." Her eyes glittered like snow over ice.
Zechs' hands began to tremble violently again, and the chains rattled before he could clench his hands. Relena gave him a satisfied smile.
Treize Khushrenada was, depending varying propaganda, by turns a martyr or a war criminal. The leader of the OZ resistance to the intercolonial rule had been seen by the firing squad ordered by Queen Relena as the latter. Half the rebel effort died with him.
For the first time, Zechs considered the ramifications of his own death with frightening clarity. He mentally reminded himself of the flat blades concealed in the soles of his boots and, for a moment, idly noted the sparse security of her Highness; a guard of only two stood between him and Relena.
Relena, as if mindful of his silence, motioned to the two silent figures that stood a step beneath her throne. "Barton, please escort the prisoner to his cell with Davids and Sterling."
A young man, no older than eighteen or nineteen himself, saluted her and walked down the steps. The other one remained motionless; it was the coiled stance of perpetual readiness that identified him as a soldier, and one of excellent training. Zechs had no doubts that he was watching the two pilots of, respectively, Heavyarms Zero and Wing Zero. Trowa Barton (codename 03) and Heero Yuy (codename 01) were the pride of the New Sanq monarchy.
Trowa spared Zechs one look and nodded sharply to the two accompanying soldiers. One of them jerked the chain of the cuffs that were bound around his wrists, and he slowly rose.
The Queen and her soldier watched as the man once known as Milliard Peacecraft, the former heir to the Sanq Kingdom, hobbled away, leaving the throne room thick with silence.
End teaser
Jay
Please send comments to: carboxylated@yahoo.com