20-Apr-2000
There was once a king who had seven sons, and still he had no daughters, let alone one. He and his Queen wished and wished and wished until one day, their wish was granted, and a little daughter came to them.
There was great joy, but the child was small and sick and the priest said that the child needed to be privately baptised.
The king summoned his oldest son, Treize and said, "Go to the spring and fetch me water for your sister's baptism."
And so Treize went to the stream, taking a pitcher with him, and his other six brothers went and followed him too. Then, each of them wanted to be the first to fill the pitcher but somehow the pitcher flew out of their hands and it went into the stream and was gone forever.
Zechs, the second oldest groaned, "Oh no, now what should we do?"
".." Trowa, the third oldest didn't say anything, when Duo, the
fourth oldest chanted, "omigod omigod" for millions of time until
sundown. The fifth oldest, Heero, went on his usual line of, "Omae o
korosu" and the sixth oldest, Wufei spew out strings of curses. While
the seventh oldest, Quatre said,
"We can not come back home. Now what should we do?" and he returned
to hug his plush camel toy even more.
As they still did not return until the next sun rise, the king grew even more impatient, and said, as he paced holes into the castle floors, "The have certainly forgotten it for some game, those naughty boys!" He became afraid that daughter would have to die without being baptised and in anger he cried, "I wish the boys were all turned into gundams."
Hardly was the word spoken before he heard a multitude of gigantic footfalls and trees falling all around them, and he heard the whirring of mechanisms over his head, and the king looked up and saw seven gundams walking away towards the horizon.
The king and queen could not recall the curse, and however sad they were at the loss of their seven sons, they were comforting themselves with their little daughter, whom they named Relena, who grew into a very beautiful princess.
For a long time she did not know that she had ahd brothers, for the
king and queen were careful not to mention them to her, but one day
she overheard:
"The princess is certainly beautiful, but we all know that she was
to blame for the misfortune which befell her seven brothers."
Then she was much troubled, and went to her father and mother and asked if it was true that she had had brothers (okay, it's not everyday that you woke up and being told that instead of having no brothers at all you now have SEVEN older brothers.. and kawaii bishounen and biseinen.. even as they are now gundams) and if so, what had become of them?
Her parents couldn't keep the secret any longer, but said that what had befallen her brothers was the will of Heaven (God: yeah right, blame it all on me, then!) and that her birth had nothing to do with it.
But Relena thought about it everytime and thought she must help her brothers. She had no rest nor peace. So one day she sneaked out of the palace and went out into the big bad wide world to search for her seven brothers, or more fittingly seven gundams, and set them free.
Because she was in a hurry, she grabbed anything that was in her range of sight, so, she grabbed a loaf of bread from the table, and a pitcher of water, a small folding chair so she could sit when she's tired, and a little ring belonging to her parents (JF: she said, she's taking it for a keepsake.. but.. er.. okay! okay!I am not saying anything!!)
Then, because this was the time when people still thouhgt that the Earth was flat like a frisbee, she reached the end of the world. And at that end of the world she came to the sun, but it was too hot and terrible. So she ran away, and got to the other end of the Earth and found the moon. But it was so cold she almost got hypothermia. So she ran again, and found the congregation of stars, all sitting nicely on their little chairs.
The stars were all good to her and treated her nicely and placed her near the bonfire so she felt warm. Then the morning star arose, and he gave her a drumstick of a chicken and said, in all the the grandness of old, posh starlanguage:
"If thou hast not that drumstick, thou canst not open the Glass mountain, and in the Glass mountain are thy brothers."
She took the drumstick, wondering whether she should feed some odd beasts with the drumstick, like in the stories her mother used to tell. But the morning star said that its not to feed anyone, but it is a key to the lock.. She looked at the morning star with creased brow ("surely this star must be er.. you know something wrong up there.")
But nevertheless she wrapped it carefully in a cloth and went on until she came to the Glass mountain, all the way muttering something along the line of "crazy stars" and "gundams as brothers" (which are actually quite amusing in a surreal way)
Then she got to a door with a large key hole, and it dawned to her that it looks like a chicken drumstick! So, believe it or not.. the drumstick was useful. (JF: this is a fairy tale, don't think too much")
So she rummaged her bundle and lo and behold, to her horror, there's a fat mouse burping, lying on its back, with its bulging tummy beside what looked like the remains of the chicken drumstick.
Now what to do? she thought. She wanted to rescue her brothers, but she had no key to the door and the only thing that she had was this big fat mouse to big to even breathe. So she took the mouse out and put it into the door and succeeded in opening it.
When she got inside, a lady came to meet her and said, "My child, what are you looking for? I am Lady Une, the keeper of this Mountain."
"I am looking for seven gundams, they were my brothers, before my father swore, without thinking, them turning into gundams."
Lady Une shook her head, "Parents! thats why I don't want to get married. Children brought bad omen. Makes you swear incoherently. The best thing being single is that you could go around making others swear incoherently."
Relena stared blankly at Lady Une, and then the lady said, "The gundams are not at home yet. but if you want, you could wait here until they come back."
Therefore, Lady Une, after seating Relena on the sofa proceeded to lay the table for the gundams, getting dinners which consists of nuts and bolts with Bolognese sauce on massive plates, and Chocolate natural petroleum in buckets.
Then Lady Une went back into the back room to watch soap operas which she had abandoned for that short period of time, after instructing Relena to sit in the guests room. Relena walked to the massive table and climbed up onto the table and took one pair of nuts and bolts each from each plates and out of curiosity drank a bit of the concoction that Lady Une said are the delicacy drinks from each buckets. It tasted nice in a surreal way. So, when she reached the last glass, er.. bucket, she couldn't drink any more, and dropped the ring of her parents into the bucket.
Suddenly she heard a whirring of mechanism and loud, earthquakey footfalls and Lady Une siad,
"Now the gundams are walking back home." Then they came and wanted to eat and drink and looked for their plates and buckets. Then,
"Someone took some of my food and drank my drink," said Tallgeese II.
"Someone took some of my food and drank my drink, too, I wonder who," said Tallgeese.
"Someone took mine too. I wonder who." said Heavyarms, glaring.
"Someone took some of my food and drank my drink, too, I wonder who. If I caught the culprit I will make s/he repays me back.. everysingle drop of it..." and Deathscythe droned on and on. "omigod omigod"
"Someone took mine. Omae o korosu" said Wing Zero
"Someone took some of my food and drank my drink. I am fairly sure that its a woman. i could smell an onna from miles away." Shenlong commented.
"Someone took some of my food but not yet touch the drink" said Sandrock, as it proceeded to gulp the contents of the buckets for its thristy. But the ring that Relena dropped into the bucket went into Sandrock's system as well, and it choked, making the other gundams having to perform first aid help.
Then the ring flew into the air as it was released from Sandrock's airpipe and thus freeing Sandrock from temporary, or even permanent hiatus of disability,
"Look. a ring," said Deathscythe, picking up the tiny ring with its massive hand. "This belongs to our parents."
"Then our sister is here, and we would be free," Tallgeese II concluded.
So when Relena, who was standing behind the door watching, heard the wish, she came forth and all the gundam were restored to their human form again. And they embraced each other and went joyfully home, even as Duo said, "I kinda miss being a gundam. You know when you're a gundam almost everything's smaller than you. Things kinda got easy and sometimes very challenging as well."
What happened to Lady Une? Well, she's still back in the Glass Mountain and taking care unfortunate sons who had been turned into gundams as victims of parent's curses. And the mouse in the keyhole stayed there for another three months until its thin enough to squeeze through the hole and scampered away. It had learnt its lesson: never eat drumsticks that weren't yours, they did nothing but total destruction and months of hunger.
***<>< JejeFish