August 1998
I suppose I loved her.
We are -- she was... we were both very young.
Death has peculiar properties of transcendance. It has its way with things, it illuminates and preserves things as they were, bringing with it a moment of perfection. She will always be what she was, flaws and all, but Death's hand has captured only the finer, prouder aspects within memory's reach.
Always as she was, she will be.
Boku no Nataku.
Wufei lifted his face into the sharp night air, feeling the stars against his face as tangible as a silken touch. He had been here, in seclusion, for days now but it was time to cast off this solitude.
The encounter with Treize had shaken him.
Never before had he experienced defeat at the hands of an enemy. It was not something to be borne; it cast doubt and suspicion on his own strength, on the two hands that gripped his sword, but had failed him. With those two hands he piloted Nataku. If his strength was susceptible to defeat, then...his worthiness to pilot Shenlong was similarly cast into doubt.
The answer was clear in his mind. He had to best Treize. He had to prove he was stronger than the other swordsman, and that the other failure had been a fluke. Besides, here, in this place, he had been alone long enough. With only the mountains and the wide endless sky and the giant, silent Gundam for company, brooding thoughts came too easily and unbidden.
If he hadn't acted at last, thrown from the shocked immobility brought on by the sacrifice of those people, throwing their lives down to protect him, Sally Po might have died, too. Died too young.
Just like...
With a twitch of his shoulders Wufei turned to strip away the camouflage netting that covered Shenlong and disguised his Gundam from prying OZ eyes.
Treize Khushrenada was no longer on an easily-ambushed convoy, and this time he had no backup waiting in the wings. And this time, there was no guarantee Treize would let him go with amusement dancing in his eyes. But it didn't matter. He had to seek him out, and defeat him.
He had to defeat the uneasy tangle of feelings the man's soft laughter had invoked. Purge the sight of amused, searing blue eyes that contained something more than just a joke at his expense.
Why had Treize let him go? Why!?
It would have been a kindness to kill him. Better that, then to fester in a crucible of self-doubt and the shame of having been beaten. He had been bested. To continue to fight, now... First he had to prove that Treize had no claims over him. No debt was owing, whether in honor or the calculation of those narrowed, considering eyes that had run over him completely.
Wufei climbed into the cockpit, still puzzling it over. What had Treize wanted? Did he expect something of him, that he'd let him go?
It made him angry at the same time it fired his indecision even higher. That had taken him a full day of meditation to calm down.
With deft bronze fingers darting over the control board, Wufei fired up the thrusters and powered up Shenlong. Within a few hours he would have his answers, and his second chance.
Victory or death.
Treize shifted, sighed, and sent a stack of papers fluttering across his desk with the exhalation. Slim gloved fingers twirled a pencil idly, and then with one clench he broke it into two ragged halves.
The sharp report of the breaking pencil rifled the calm silence of his office, and a brunette head popped in, framed with glasses that only accented the cutting line of her nose. The Lady's hair was gathered up into two braided buns that he'd always thought ridiculous -- especially with the two red ribbons holding them in place.
"Treize-sama, do you need anything?"
He smoothed his features quickly and gave her a calm smile. "Lady Une. I'm fine, thank you for your consideration."
She bobbed her head nervously and gave him an uncertain look, then withdrew from the room once more.
Treize sighed again. Une was always hovering. He wondered what she would do if she knew that his preferences lay elsewhere -- that his lieutenant Zechs was far more attractive to him than she was. Or perhaps that slim, bronzed young boy who had burst into his office on the freighter the other week. Now, *he* had been quite lovely, a fierce proud young creature who was far too beautiful -- and young -- to die.
It had been a tactically unsound move to let him go, he knew, but he couldn't help himself. The young man -- he still wasn't sure of his name -- had been irresistable. Under other circumstances, perhaps...
Besides, the boy's honor was far too keenly developed to allow him to stoop to anything less than a fair fight. With any luck, some day his chance might come again.
He turned his attention back to the stack of documents awaiting his attention, supposedly indispensible but most of it matters that could well be handled by any of the upper secretaries, or even Lady Une. The woman had her uses.
He flipped through the papers. Memos from the board of trustees at the Romefeller foundation, a sheaf of reports about Gundam...he scanned hopefully through those, and his fingers halted on one particular report. An oval face leapt out at him, dominated by a pair of piercing, sloe-dark eyes.
A name had been found, dug up from one of the colony registers.
Chang Wufei.
"Ahh..." escaped his lips, as one gloved hand ventured over the surface of the glossy photograph. His face was fierce, the slim body poised in the midst of hand-to-hand combat. According to the report, he had been aiding a refugee Federation doctor, one Sally Po. Still fighting.
A bemused smile crossed Treize's lips.
It was something of a thrill, the altogether new combination of the danger involved -- the boy was a Gundam pilot, gunning for him -- and the boy's youth, a decidedly verboten factor. All of it mingled together in his guts along with traces of sensuality evoked by the slim hardened lines of Chang Wufei's body.
With regret, he put aside the report on Wufei and turned to the task of sorting through the rest of his paperwork. There was nothing he could do about it, after all, unless the boy himself decided to show up for a rematch.
And then, of course, he would name new terms.
Wufei gave the camouflage netting one last pat, snapping at one of the ties with his finger to test its security. His Nataku would be safe, while he reclaimed his honor and made sure with a decisive stroke of the sword that there were no debts owing.
He turned in the screening shelter of the trees, frowning as he peered across the darkened lawn. Most of the lights in the building were glowing softly, and he wondered which one was the room he was looking for. The office, that was where Treize would most likely be.
Running an elite army poised for ultimate takeover was surely a difficult job.
Penetrating this complex, Treize's personal abode, would no doubt be difficult but he knew that it was within his abilities. Wufei smiled wryly. If a simple break-in and enter was beyond him with all his training, then he truly didn't deserve to be a Gundam pilot.
Wufei crept across the night-overcast lawn, determination filling his veins, stiffening his spine. There would be no mistakes. He *had* to succeed.
I was unsure of the true meaning of the concept, before *she* taught it to me.
Honor is not something that can be taken from a man, without his permission.
Thus it is now, that I am forced into action. Because, being who I am, and with everything laid upon my shoulders, that concept is something I cannot allow to be taken from me.
Everything I truly learned of strength, I take from her and the memories that, now, are all too precious as they slip through my fingers. Time's passage is harsh. But it was her fierce determination, for me, that gave me a new sense of purpose. Even a sparking coal from the ashes can forge a roaring flame.
In the end, perhaps, it was her death that solidified the course I was to take. I will never escape the charge that has been laid upon me, both by my obligations, and of course her entangling memories.
Dark eyes and a love of justice.
Nataku, now immortalized.
End of Part 1
(:./talya/price1)
