05-Jun-2002
Title: Lightning on the Sea
Author: Ravynfyre ( ravyn@famvid.com )
Archive: GW Addiction. Anywhere else, ask please.
Category: Introspective Reflection
Pairings: 1+2+5
Standard Disclaimer: All parts of Gundam Wing are Not Mine. It's all Theirs.
*sigh* Too bad, but otherwise, I guess I'd never get anything done *happy hentai
thought*. Anyway, not makin' any money offa this so dun sue me. You'd only get some
college debt, a few dogs, and a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers anyway. Ya know... blood. Turnip. Do the math.
Rating: PG
Warning: Mild Cursing
Spoiler: None.
Notes: Dedicated to Bonnejeanne and Vonceia. It'll always be a sea to me.
Feedback: Yes, please. All comments welcome (although flames may be fed to my dogs,
who, since they have notoriously gassy intestinal tracts,
will be spending the night with the flamer afterwards)
Author's notes: Greetings everyone. Long time, no ficcie, I know. I'm working
on Inferno 23, but on my flight home from Project: A-Kon, this fic just kinda
rose up outta nowhere and bit me on the ass. I think it's been stewing in my
brain for a few days now, but never actually solidified into words
until I hit the sky. Enjoy.
They probably think I'm nuts, I'm sure. Heero and Wufei, I mean. They gave up trying to talk any sense into me about ten minutes ago and fled inside where it's drier. Me? I'm pretty content to stay right where I am.
I turn my face into the wind, closing my eyes against the needle sharp droplets of brine and rain that pelt my cheeks. I love storms. I just can't get enough of them.
I'd never seen a storm before I came to Earth. The closest I ever came to thunder and lightning was watching the artificial horizon of the colony light up in sporadic flashes and feel the steel and concrete under my feet rumble as some asshole faction or another launched another attack against the Alliance when I was still a street kid. L2 was always pretty dry. The powers that be figured it would be easier to dehydrate the populace into submission than it would be to beat us into submission. The first time I came to Earth and got treated to a live, honest to goodness storm, I wasn't sure if it was a miracle or if the world was broken. Stuff like that only happened on L2 when the weather sims were busted, and it never lasted for long. Worst part was, the assholes in charge always ended up shorting us on our water rations after that happened to 'make up the difference'. When the rain didn't stop right away, and kept going and going, I couldn't believe it. I took off my hat, danced around in it for a while, and caught all that I could. I figured I'd need it for later when they decided to tighten the water rations again.
Howard laughed at me when I explained what I'd been thinking to him. Sounds like a pretty stupid thing, huh? Dumbass colony brat, doesn't even know what rain is, right? I wasn't totally clueless. I'd seen rain on vids and in books and stuff, but the first time you've ever had that much pure liquid life falling on you freely from the sky, when all your life you've learned to make do without and scrimp even your own sweat some days to make sure you can get by, you lose sight of the intellectual stuff. It was like a miracle and hell, all rolled into one for me. Like, yeah, sure it's cool now, but what's it gonna cost?
You learn to think like that when you're raised by the streets. You don't have any other choice but to die if you don't, because sure as shit, someone will take advantage of you if you aren't always looking for the hidden catch.
That's when I decided that I loved storms. When I'd first landed in the ocean on the Earth, I was pretty stunned by all the water around me, but it still never added up to how stunned I'd ended up being by that first miraculous shower from the heavens. I'd start to look for them, wait for them. I'd watch the weather radar zealously, plotting out where the storms would be and wheedling Howard into just skimming this front, just skirting that system, whining until he'd acquiesce so I could get another storm. When I got my first rain shower on the sea, it was pure perfection. Water from the sky, water all around. Water everywhere, and no way for me to share it with the ghosts of my loved ones from L2 but rejoice in it.
It was like being born again.
But then the coolest thing happened. The sky opened up, split by a bolt of pure white fire that danced over the water's surface in these weird staticky fingers that made spots dance before my eyes. Before the light had even faded, I thought we'd been bombed; the sound of the thunder was so loud, it thrummed through my body. In the distance, another bolt struck the sea, and the thunder rolled overhead in this long protracted wave that sent shivers from the tip of my braid to the heels of my boots. Howard had suggested that I might want to come inside on the bridge of the ship so I didn't get fried or catch pneumonia. For a second when Heero and Wufei had said the same things a few minutes ago, I couldn't help but smile at how much like Howard they'd sounded. Bunch of mother hens, I swear.
But it's cute, in a weird, over-protective kinda way.
That would be a hell of a note, though, wouldn't it? Survive the streets, survive being a stowaway on any number of ships, end up piloting a Gundam in not just one, but *two* wars, survive all that, only to be taken out by an errant bolt of lightning on the deck of a ship on the sea. Or worse yet, a sniffle on steroids.
I declined then, just as I did now. I wasn't sure if I'd ever get to see anything like that ever again, so I wanted to soak as much of it in before I died.
The Earth is full of such amazing things like thunderstorms and weather, real weather and not that fake stuff they attempt to pass off as it up there on the colonies. Then again, from the sound of it, lousy sims may just be a phenomena restricted to L1 and L2. Quatre never had any complaints about the weather sims from L4, and neither did Wufei. Of course, Wufei's pretty tight-lipped about his past.
I've found, though, that I like watching the storms roll across the sea more than anyplace else on Earth. Out there, surrounded by all that water, it's so flat. There's nothing like terrain or even so much as a tree to get in the way of your view. You can see for miles and miles and miles. Almost as if you can see forever. And when those clouds loom up over the horizon, and you can't tell anymore where the sea ends and the clouds begin, it's like sitting in the middle of a dark, comforting dream. The lightning creeps up across the water, like liquid fire, and the deep rumble of the thunder rolling across the waves is like the protective growl of a mother wolf. I can feel her tongue washing over my face, wiping away my troubles with the first drops of rain.
All that water around, it does something to me, ya know? I feel insignificant, a tiny little speck, just like I do when I'm floating in space, only it's different. In space, it's like everything around you is dead. If you reach out past that canopy, past that vid screen, all that dark vacuum will spill in and suck your life away. It's dangerous, even as it's beautiful, but it can't ever give anything back to you because all it is, is a vacuum. Nothingness.
The sea, though, it's just as dangerous, just as deadly, but it's the origin of all life. No matter what it takes, it will always be able to give back far more than it's stolen.
Ya know, I wish Sister Helen could have seen all this water. Even just the amount that's soaked into my clothes is more than we usually saw for everyone in a month up there.
The world dissolves into quicksilver and fire behind my closed eyelids, a deafening crash slamming into my chest so close that I can feel it shaking my bones. It's only when a warm hand slides into each of my own, that I realize that I've leaned as far forward against the railing as I can, my arms flung up towards the sky as if I could reach out and hug the thunderheads to my chest. I blink my eyes open, ducking my head down against the spray to look at Heero and Wufei. They've slipped up behind me, each to a side, taking one of my hands as they slid their other arms around my back to clasp their hands together, completing the circle.
It's perfect.
No matter where I go, they will always be my lightning on the sea. I can see the primordial fire of it in their souls, feel the burn of it in their touch. Nothing to get in the way, nothing to mar my view. Just an endless sea of comfort, the low rumble of their voices soothing the aches we all share between us of our pasts.
And still that bite of unexpected electricity dancing between them and myself when I dare to reach out to the storms of their passion.
I can't stop the rebel yell of joy that bursts up from my soul. The hands in my own tighten fractionally, and two voices join with mine.
I was wrong those years ago when I stood staring wonderingly up at my first storm. Nothing was broken. Nothing is broken. It's more right now than it ever has been before.
And this, these two hands in mine, these two voices joined with mine, my own personal lightning on the sea. That's the real miracle.
Come. Let's race Destiny together.
~owari~
RavynFyre
Please send comments to: ravynfyre@hotmail.com