Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Between Black and White ❯ Part Two ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

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<DIV>Title: Between Black and White - Part
Two/??? Genre: fantasy Warnings: AU,
dark Pairings: 3x4/4x3 eventually, misc. other pairings (aka this
writer has no idea) Comments: This part took me two years to write.
The condense version of why it took me so long is this: started it once. Got the
first section done. Decided I hated it. Deleted it. Started second section.
Liked second section. Had it almost finished. Then disk got corrupted and I lost
it. Gave up for a year. Came back to it. Restarted it with a entirely new and
different first section. Got two parts down. Wrote third part. Deleted. Re-wrote
third part. Deleted. Took a several month long break. Next time I finally got it
right.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So yeah, I have dubbed this the part from hell. I've started a
writing livejournal for myself at <A
href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/damning_dance">http: //www.livejournal.com/users/damning_dance</A> 
I'm storing my writing there and most fic stuff (including parts to this) will
appear there a couple days ahead of me posting it on FFN or elsewhere. 
Plus any random tidbits that I come up with that really have no place in a
fic.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Thanks to everyone that's given me reviews, past and present. <A
name=cutid1></A> ***** Nat ure, perhaps, is the Balancer’s greatest
enemy. It is a wild and unpredictable thing and it is everywhere. It is vast,
the sky above heads. It is enormous, the earth beneath feet. It is immense, the
water before beings. Its very existence disrupts the Balance. It
destroys and creates things upon a whim. The earth can roll from waves that are
better suited for water. The fire of rocks can flow like a river down a mountain
side. A wall of water, towering high and unstoppable, can roll onto the land.
The sky can be dark with furious rain and apocalyptic winds that whirl in
anger. The Balancer has some control over nature. But the some is a
little and nature is great in power. It is like the Balancer, except without
direction. Without thought. Without duty. It does what it
does, only because it can. The Balancer and nature battle against each
other. Nature is mindless in what it does. The Balancer is not. And
whatever nature does, the Balancer must do something in turn to correct the
Balance. It could be destroying a people or saving a kingdom. It could be
anything. The Balancer will do whatever it takes to correct the
Balance. Nature does everything to disrupt
it. ***** The morning sun beat down upon bronzed arms as they
rose gracefully above his head, past the dark wild brown strands of his hair,
and into the air, his long fingers reaching for its light. His body rose with
his arms, slender back arching and heels rising off the worn stone block on
which they had rested. He balanced precariously upon the ruined stonewall, the
last vestiges of a time when Rainever Fortress must have been a place of
grandeur and not a crumbled ruin. It was the faint sound of a stone
rolling amongst its siblings that caught his attention. On swift second later
and he was crouched upon the wall, his hand outstretched having already thrown
his dagger almost before sharp blue eyes could register what he was throwing it
at. The dagger shook the young tree--nearly a sapling yet--that it had
struck and not an inch between itself and the young woman who stood beside it.
She took a step forward, a delicate hand reaching down to pull up the hem of her
plain gray dress as a brown booted foot carefully navigated the rubble filled
ground. He relaxed his pose, pulling his darkly tanned hand back to rest on his
knee. “Relena.” He drew out the last syllable of her name, letting it
linger in the air. Her appearance was hardly a surprise. Clear blue eyes
silently laughed back at him, not a trace of fear after the incident with the
dagger. “Good morning, Heero.” “I could have hit you.” “I knew you
wouldn’t.” Her calm voice spoke volumes for the amount of trust she held in him.
Heero allowed the edges of his mouth to tug downward in a faint frown. Her
unwavering faith in him was disturbing. No one should trust him that much, but
Relena’s trust in him had always been certain. He seated himself upon the
low wall--his gray trousers nearly blending in with the worn rock--even as she
reached her destination, the very side of the wall upon which his legs were
placed. She leaned against it, head tilted slightly up in his direction with the
light bringing out the honey tones of her light brown hair, patiently waiting
for him to speak. As with most things concerning her, he eventually
fulfilled her expectation. “Can you be so sure?” “Yes.” Her mouth curved
upward in a smile, white teeth flashing between pale pink lips. It unsettled
Heero--as it always did--how she managed to convey such a large amount of
meaning into a simple world. “You should stop worrying about me. If I need to I
can take care of myself.” She winked at him. Did Relena have to remind
him of that incident? “I know. I still have the bruise on my
shoulder.” Her eyes widened, “Honestly, I didn’t meant to hit you that
hard with the staff . . . wait a minute!” Slim fingers wrapped around the toe of
his boot, Relena’s determined movement to make sure she was looking at her. Few
had ever escaped her resolve and Heero had never been one of the few. “You
didn’t go to Sally, did you? You wouldn’t have that bruise if you
had.” There was only one way to answer her accusation. Words would only
persuade her to speak more and lies had always enhanced her vocabulary, for some
sixth sense always alerted her to such fabrications of the truth. So without
resorting to words, he shrugged. “Stubborn,” she said,
frowning. He watched her for a brief moment, fretting with the gray wool
of her sleeve, then her mouth moved once more, words falling out of it in a
worried torrent. “Sally and Une got into a fight today.” One of her
foolish worries over something that Relena could never control; the actions of
other people. “So?” Hearing the apathetic tone of his voice, her eyes
flashed with irritation. “Quatre was displeased.” She wrung her hands, “Their
confrontation may have lessened their chances to be chosen as one of the
Cloaks.” “Then it has gifted us with a greater chance of being chosen.”
The specifics of why certain Grays were chosen to become the Black Cloak or the
White Cloak had never been fully understand by human minds. Only the Balancer
knew what they were truly looking for in their Cloaks. The facts they knew were
few and far between. The two Cloaks differed in temperament, the most common
example used was that one Cloak was passive in their thoughts and actions and
the other Cloak happened to be more aggressive. One Cloak was at one end of the
color spectrum and the other Cloak was at the other end. Hearing the
apathetic tone in his voice, her fists clenched and he wisely looked away from
the ire that rose in her blue eyes. It was best not to face her during those
moments of insensible passion. She always won. “How can you say that? They’re
our friends.” She still did not understand. Would she
ever? “Relena.” The soft, honey-filled voice took him unawares, but he
knew who it was, even as the woman’s tone hardened on his name.
“Heero.” “Dorothy!& #8221; “Dorothy.” ;The young woman addressed
smiled, hands clasped upon her breast. “Heero, if you could only express as much
emotion as Relena I might actually consider you human.” “Dorothy, be
nice.” Their first encounter had never been memorable, Heero noted, but
he had never forgotten the glance of the girl--tall as a child with white-blond
hair blowing everywhere in the wind--glacial blue eyes staring him down. He had
known she was a predator in a sense that he was not. “What are you doing here,
Dorothy?” A faint smile appeared on her pale face. “I was told to bring
you back, immediately. The Balancer wishes to see all of his
Greys.” ***** &#8220 ;What were you thinking, Duo? Allowing him to go
outside alone!” “Maybe, just maybe, that he needed some breathing room
before the festivities begin.” An irate Catherine had finally tracked him
down, a fate Duo had been trying to avoid for the better part of the afternoon.
It was bad luck’s wicked humor that she had to find him at baths. He should have
known better. When fleeing from an angry redhead never stay too long in one
place was one of his rules, shortly made after meeting Trowa’s older sister. The
lure of hot water and soap had demanded his presence. Behind the stone
divider, he heard the rustle of her skirts as her voice rang out. “If he had
such a need he should have brought guards along.” “What? Is that my
fault? I can’t make him summon the damn guards if he doesn’t want
to.” “You could have summoned them.” He sunk lower into the warm
water, giving the surface a thorough once over. If he ducked under the water
would she be gone by the time he came up for air? “Damn, you’re jumping to place
blame on me.” “You deserve a good part of it, Duo. Trowa was not the only
one I was worried about.” She muttered something inaudibly under her breath,
cursing was his best guess. “Sheesh, am I now under home
arrest?” “I can’t make you do anything,” she said, “but both of you
should know better. Especially when a delegate from the Nors is due to
arrive.” “Hey! He came early and-” The soft patter of footsteps made him
jerk his head around to observe Catherine striding around the stone divider, her
dark red hair held away from her face by a simple tie. Other than that, she had
not a trace of clothing on her. “Catherine! You’re naked!” She stepped
into the bathing pool, smiling. “Yes, I am.” In some far distant corner
of his mind, he wondered how badly he was blushing. She wasn’t supposed to be
this female in front of him, considering she was almost his sister. Almost.
“This is the men’s bath,” he hissed. “You’re the only man in here and
you’ve seen me naked before, just as I’ve seen you. Stop acting as if it’s the
end of the world.” She raised an eyebrow at him, amused to no end no doubt. “And
don’t think you can leave with soap in your hair.” A pale finger was shook at
him, mocking. His hair rivaled most ladies of the court in length. In
spite of taunts and certain nuisances--he glared down at the wet and soapy
strands of chocolate-colored hair--he rarely cut it. He was allowed to have his
quirks he figured and it could not be worse than keeping mummified animals
stored in one’s bedroom such as one noble did. “What if someone else comes in
here?” “Then you’ll have to protect me.” Catherine had never lived by the
rules for as long as he had known her. Most applied her eccentricities to being
raised outside of Citadel and poor tutors. Duo held that no matter what,
Catherine was only eccentric in the fact that she considered most noble
principles ridiculous and deigned not to follow them. “Are you going to
continue?” He almost asked ‘continue what?’ but he snapped his mouth shut
as he placed her reference. “Ah, the delegate. He came a day early and it’s
Zechs Merquise.” She nodded, gray eyes observing him from beneath her
eyelashes. “The foreigner. What do you think of that?” What was there to
think about? “Merquise . . . he’s still settling into his rooms, isn’t he?” He
studied the ceiling, composed of tiles alternating black and white. It was
better than staring at slender lines of Catherine’s shoulders or the brief
glimpses he caught of her breasts. Sister, he reminded himself, it’s nearly
incest. “Chang trusts this man if he’s sent him to help set up for delegations.
It may also point to the fact that Chang doesn’t trust his fellow Nors . . . or
Chang thinks nothing will come of this in the long run.” “Both high
possibilities,” Catherine sighed. “All we can do is observe at this
point. The action will start next week.” “Just what I’m looking forward
to. You should have seen your face when you rode up to see Merquise there,”
amusement was rising in her voice. Duo was doing his best not to look at
her. He may not have seen his face, but he had gotten a good enough
glimpse of Trowa’s. “I can only imagine.” “You and my brother-” The heavy
door sounded its opening and she stopped speaking. Duo automatically looked to
her, his eyes going wide. She merely winked at him and whispered, “You’re good
with your mouth, Duo. Use it.” When angry, Catherine always found a way
for justice, even if it was partially at her dignity. If she had any dignity
concerning this aspect of her life. He had to admire her. ***** On
certain days Quatre wondered how long Rainever Keep had stood. It had been in
much the same condition when he was a child. How many Balancers had lived within
its walls? He knew a building should not remain in the same condition as it had
centuries before. His travels across lands and cities had proven that time and
time again. Things changed as timed passed, a fact of life he had learned
well. Change always came with time, except change never came to Rainever
or the Balancer. Balancers did die, eventually, but they never truly changed.
His line had one mission and one goal in their long lives and that was their
existence, so the transition between Balancers was not much a development at
all. He knew of change, but it was a foreign concept to him. His job was
to instigate change, but Quatre would never change. Perhaps Balancers had
influenced Rainever into withstanding the forces of time, making their home here
for countless ages and walls becoming part of them. It was either disturbing or
comforting to know that it would greet the next Balancer. He found it hard to
decide. A polite cough next to him made him raise his head from the worn
book he had been gazing at -- having stopped his reading to merely stare blankly
at the pages -- lost in thought. He smiled in reflex, “Treize, you’re already
done packing?” Treize leaned his hip on the nearby desk, penetrating blue
eyes gazing at him. He was too clean, too rigid, too so many things to fit into
this cluttered, dusty library. Relena had attempted to clean it several times,
but the library refused to be neat and orderly and eventually she had given up,
letting the small room alone since it seemed content with its rickety shelves,
tables piled with musty, ancient books, and the mismatched couches and chairs
placed here and there. “I have little reason to pack too many
items.” That was true. They were traveling to the man’s home. He
had stumbled upon Treize nearly two decades ago, the tall man at that point had
only been a small child, covered in scraps and running from the men who had
slaughtered his father. The boy was one of the Nors, his father a nobleman that
spent most of his time away from Citadel. On that fateful day, Treize’s father
had taken the boy for a ‘father-son adventure’ only to have it end it tragedy as
bandits attacked them without warning. Quatre had saved Treize that day and took
him back to Citadel, but not before having him take the blood oath of a
Grey. As Treize had grown older, he had taken up the habit of leaving
Citadel and taking long and distant trips to foreign lands. In truth, he was
making his way to Rainever Fortress, to learn from the Balancer as a Grey
should. Treize had been his first Grey and the only one that had a life
outside of Rainever. At this moment, Quatre was grateful for his Grey’s
life in Citadel. It made his plans easier. “Of course.” “Are you
concerned about bringing the other Greys with us?” “No. Merely
contemplative.” Treize yet studied him, face impassive. He was talented at
hiding his worry. “I have the utmost confidence that everyone will behave
accordingly.” “Even after this morning-.” “Yes, Treize,” Quatre
interrupted him, “the acts of this morning has surely reminded everyone to keep
themselves under control.” Such uncertainty was unusual from his eldest Grey --
a man, perhaps, too confident for his own good -- and it suggested that Treize
was searching for an approach to another subject. The man was diplomatic and
subtle enough at times that even patience might lose it. “Speak plainly, my
friend. What’s causing your unease?” The acknowledgment that Treize could
speak to him as an equal had been the key, as Quatre had often found it to be.
Too frequently, his Greys got caught up in the truth that he was Balancer and it
tied their tongues when they wished to voice concerns. “The others are
worried over what this means.” The setting sun’s light filtered in through one
of the library’s windows turning Treize’s ginger hair into a blaze of
red-gold. Quatre felt the corners of his lips turn up in a tiny smile.
Those words were something he had been expecting and of course it would be
Treize to state the unvoiced concerns of his fellow Greys. “And are you
worried?” “I am only certain that everything comes to an end
eventually.” “That’s the only thing you can be certain of, isn’t it?”
Sometime during their conversation it had started raining. Rain streaks scored
themselves across the windows and Quatre heard the faint whistling of the wind
against stone that gave it no crack or cranny for its path -- Rainever’s stone.
Storm clouds had rolled in during the late afternoon, throwing everything into
shadow, and now he only hoped that they would rain themselves out before he and
the Greys left for Citadel. It would be a miserable journey in the wet if they
didn’t and it took far too much energy for Quatre to attempt to push them away
himself. “It will end, Treize, and those words will not lighten the other Greys’
hearts.” The taller man nodded thoughtfully -- his fingers brushing
across the cover of a leather-bound book laying upon the desk -- but he did not
speak again, leaving Quatre to study his face without interruption. “What
do you say of ends, Treize? I’m about to start a civil war between your own
people and the Nors that will destroy both races.” “I say ends must come
and you are only doing what your position demands.” “I’ve saved more
kingdoms and realms than eliminated.” It was growing cold in the room and he
thought it might be time to light wood in the fireplace before the damp followed
the chill. “I am sorry. The little things have been piling up; the rains ending
a drought, a storm suddenly veering north away from a city . . . everything on
top of everything else. I can’t leave it like this.” For all his long
life, Quatre had always been fairly certain and resolute in his decisions, but
the past few years had tinged his thoughts with doubt, as if the older he got,
the soil he stood upon was less firm. It was like laboring up a mountain and
finally -- nearing the end -- finding himself on the pinnacle of it with nothing
to hold onto anymore and as each day passed his balance dwindled, leaving him
swaying back and forth in roaring winds. It was only a matter of time before he
fell, but not yet. Treize -- as he was wont to do -- took his words
without visible reaction. Where Quatre stood, tottering upon a mountain’s peak,
Treize had his feet planted firmly upon the ground. It was his Grey’s words, not
his facial expression that gave Quatre comfort. “Rainever is where I belong and
the mission of the Balancer is what I believe in. That’s all I
need.” Those simple words centered Quatre and he was no longer quite so
close to falling. “As you say, then.” The storm outside remained constant and
with the comfortable silence following his words, he studied what had become a
delicate weaving of water trails down the windows. “I think I shall go check on
the stable before dinner.” And Treize answered, “I will join
you.” ***** “T he open ground outside the city gates would be an
ideal place to hold the conference.” Lord Zechs Merquise was the
antithesis to the Nors. He was tall and pale -- blue eyes and blond hair that
could have been made of the snow from off the mountains -- while the majority of
the Nors were shorter than average and colored dark tones -- their hair and eyes
as like black ink and skin the rich tones of earth. He was exotic and so very
different to the Nors, yet Trowa believed that this foreigner who had somehow
been accepted as one of the Nors was the best choice to help prepare for the
meeting between the two races. “We use that area for markets and fairs.”
Trowa said, watching the other man carefully. He had been studying him
throughout dinner -- a quiet affair attended by only himself, his sister, Duo,
and Merquise with his two silent Nor companions, punctuated by only the rattle
of china, the clink of silverware, and the distant polite murmuring shared
between the six of them -- and had come to the conclusion that Merquise was more
than he seemed. Over ten years ago, the tall man had come across Saver’s Pass
and strangely enough the Nors had made him one of them -- evident by the blacks
swirls and strikes of the tattoos the Nors were so fond of using to indicate
rank and enhance their standard of beauty that Trowa kept glimpsing underneath
the sleeves of Merquise’s shirt -- and to the Aquis he was an enigma, seen
rarely up close. A suspicion in the back of Trowa’s mind was forming on
the reason for Merquise’s visual absence to any eye other than the Nors. The way
the man ate, the way he spoke, the way he moved, it all spoke of noble breeding
and training. This was a man taught the ways of court from his youth. It was an
interesting tidbit and gave a better explanation as to why the foreigner was
here and not some Nor. This was a man able to interact with both the Aquis and
Nors and not risk offending either of them. Duo frowned, “It’s too open
for my comfort.” Which Trowa knowingly interrupted into ‘like the Black, you’ll
put my friends in danger’. “It wouldn’t hurt to take see what we can do,
Duo,” Trowa said. His friend was about to open his mouth again when
Catherine smoothly interrupted, putting her fork down and gently clearing her
throat, looking every bit the elegant lady. A well done facade on her part.
“Brother, a messenger bird from Lord Kushrenada arrived today. It appears that
he shall arrive the night before the talks start . . . and he is bringing
company.” “Ah, company.” Outsiders most likely. Citadel was already
swarming with them, every greedy merchant or foreign noble who sought to wrangle
a prize or two from the coming meeting. “Lord Kushrenada?” Merquise
questioned and this time Trowa caught the sound of a faint rolling accent in his
words. Duo slouched in his chair, far from looking the part of an
advisor. “A lord from up north, Lord Merquise. Not that he’s ever home to lord
over things.” “He’s considered a bit of an eccentric, always exploring
the rest of the world,” Catherine explained. “Not that one would blame
him.” Merquise leaned forward -- no doubt interested in Catherine’s last
statement -- and Trowa fought a grimace. The why of Lord Treize Kushrenada’s
trips was not something that should be approached with Nor company and he
scrambled to come up with a distracting subject before Zechs could speak. Of
course! That rumor had been making its courses about Citadel. “You
shouldn’t make too much of him being eccentric, Catherine. An intriguing piece
of information has been circulating about today, something about a servant
finding you in the men’s bathing room . . . with Duo.” It was better to
embarrass friends and family than bring up the story of Lord Kushrenada and how
his father had been killed by Nor bandits considering the situation. While he
errant lord might bring enough trouble with his coming, Trowa had every
intention of heading it off for as long as possible. His sister was blushing
furiously, but Trowa thought it was more from anger at herself than
embarrassment. She knew what she had nearly revealed and -- ultimately -- she
was absolutely shameless. Duo must have caught on, however, it did not
stop him from shooting and irritated glare at Trowa. “I obviously didn’t pay the
servant enough to shut him up.” No doubt Duo was already plotting his revenge
upon the poor fool. Merquise shifted uncomfortably in his chair, perhaps
thinking the topic was more risqué than it truly was. “Yes, well . . . things
are certainly more open here than the-” “The court you came from?” Trowa
suggested. Merquise froze for the slightest moment -- so brief that Trowa
thought he might have imagined it -- before regaining himself. “What would be
considered the Nors’ court is not comparable to the Aquis’.” “I imagine
not.” “And we’re not that open, so do not concern yourself, Lord
Merquise.” Catherine winked, “I needed to speak to Lord Maxwell concerning a few
issues and since he can be so difficult to catch, I thought it would be best to
grab my chance while he was in one place.” “Such is my luck,” Duo raised
his cup to the air. “Bad.”</DIV></BODY></HTML>