Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Bonded ❯ The Chat, Part 2 ( Chapter 5 )

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Chapter Summary: Duo finds G to ask some more questions about their race the night before J and his trainee are scheduled to arrive.

/~ blah blah ~/ G's thoughts
/* blah blah */ Duo's thoughts

Two days later, the evening before J and his trainee are scheduled to arrive

Duo found G in the observation room, staring out the windows at the stars. Walking up beside the older man, Duo looked out the window, eating the last of the apple he had taken as part of his dinner, and said, "Are you looking for something out there?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes," G replied. "I'm watching for my mate's shuttle. He did not give a specific time of arrival, so he could arrive tonight or tomorrow morning. Since I can't sense where he is, I have to use more mundane means of determining where he is."

"Can I ask you some questions?" Duo began, then hesitated before continuing. "About our race's background, I mean."

"Sure," G responded, moving to one of the couches facing the windows. Sitting down and indicating Duo should come sit with him, he added, "What do you want to know?"

"Well," Duo said, nervously playing with the end of his braid, "how did the bonding come about? I mean, when did the first bond happen, and how? How did it become common among our people?"

"We don't have very much, as far as written history goes," G began. "Most of our history is oral tradition. It's not wise, our people found out, to write our history and let humans find it – they have a tendency to call it fiction. Back in the time of the Spanish Inquisition we had to go underground, hiding our heritage, in order to survive and we lost ninety-nine percent of our written history."

"Man, that must have been rough," Duo interjected. /* I wouldn't mind getting hold of any of those books. I love to read stuff like that. */

"It was," G smiled, "but not as rough as what is referred to as the beginning." G closed his eyes and relaxed, then started the traditional oral beginning of their race.

* * * * Begin Story * * * *

A long time ago, so the story goes, our people lived in a secluded northern valley. There were many villages in this valley. At the time this story begins, there were males and females, like those known now as humans. A small percentage of the males could conceive and bear children, an adaptation necessary, as there were many more males than females among the population.

There was not much contact with those outside the valley. The terrain around the valley was very dangerous and we did not need much that we could not produce ourselves.

One day, a very ill female from the outside entered our valley. She died within days but whatever illness she had, she managed to pass it on to the females of the village where she was being treated. The effects/symptoms of the illness did not show right away, but it was very contagious. Females from the first village visited the other villages, unknowingly spreading the disease throughout the valley. Within two seasons all the females were dead. This did not cause a major problem in the valley, at the time, because of all the males who could bear children.

A couple years after the last female died the son of a village leader, we will call him Alpha, started to get very violent – emotionally and physically. He was what we've come to call a sire. He had a best friend, a bearer whom we'll call Beta, who was a couple weeks younger than him that became very concerned. One day, after an extremely violent episode – that resulted in quite a few deaths – Beta took Alpha out to the woods near their village.

They returned after two days. For the next two moons the only time Alpha became violent was if another sire came anywhere near Beta. On the night of the second full moon, a group of sires managed to separate Alpha from Beta and dragged Beta off to the forest, where they were going to use Beta to relieve their frustrations.

Before they had a chance to do more than strip Beta, Alpha was attacking, and killing, them. It did not take long, although there were between eight and ten – the stories differ in that number but nothing else.

When the two returned to the village, they consulted with Alpha's father, telling him what had come to pass in the previous two moons. They spoke of a four-line chant that mentioned joining body, mind, heart, and spirit, and how it seemed they could feel each other's emotions, tell where the other was, and sometimes hear the other in their head. They spoke of the violent emotional outbursts of Alpha and the dark depression of Beta and how both had changed since that night. They called it "bonding" but they were not sure if it was just them or if others in the valley could do the same.

What they did not mention was that they had been sexually involved many moons before the bonding but Beta had not conceived until after the bonding, when they had again engaged in sexual intercourse. This was brought to light a couple moons later when it became obvious that Beta was pregnant.

Alpha's father decided to try an experiment. He gathered the most emotionally violent sires and the most depressed bearers in the village and had Alpha and Beta tell their story of bonding. Then the young men were told to pair off with someone they were at least friends with; preferably their current sexual partner, if such existed. The experiment worked, so the procedure was repeated throughout the valley.

In the years following, matches were made between villages and they experimented with age differences between partners. It was found that the closer in age the partners were, the stronger the bond. The best pairings were found to be where the age difference was from a couple weeks to six months. It did not matter which one was older, the sire or the bearer.

After centuries of pairing at the start of the emotional violence, the valley elders decided to try bonding bearers and sires at younger ages. They found that thirteen years was the minimum to produce children.

They also attempted partial bondings and found that the only partial that worked was heart and mind. Then they experimented with ages and found that ten years was the minimum for a partial bond and that if bonded at that young age, a pair could go eight to ten years before bonding fully.

During the centuries after bonding became the norm, it was found that if either partner in the bonded pair died, the other one died within hours. They tried rebonding the surviving partner but the bond never took. So it became the norm for other bonded couples to take in, and care for, the orphaned children. It was also during that time that the problems between unbonded children of bondable age and their elder bonded opposites came to light.

There was still some interaction with those outside the valley, so the advancements of the world outside the valley made their way into the valley. Eventually, the population grew too much for the valley to hold; so small groups left the valley and started new villages, sometimes with members of the human race in the same village.

* * * * End Story * * * *

"And that's how it's been for many centuries now," G finished, opening his eyes and looking at Duo. "Any questions, about the story that is?"

"Can we produce children with the females of the humans?" Duo asked. "Our race originally had females, so shouldn't we be able to now?"

"Sadly, no," G replied. "It has been tried many times over the centuries since we moved out of the valley, but it has never succeeded. The male who tries, depending on whether he be a bearer or a sire, inevitably either kills her and then himself, or just kills himself. The need for the bond has become too ingrained in our race, and the females of the human race just cannot provide that bond. Any others?"

"Not about the story," Duo replied after a thoughtful moment. "I do have some questions about you and your mate, though."

"What are they?" G asked, sighing in either regret or exasperation is unknown, when Duo didn't continue right away.

"Well," Duo hesitated, but then gathering his courage, he continued. "You've mentioned that, when bonded, either member of the pair should be able to sense, and even hear, the other member of the bond twice now. Can you do that?"

"No, my mate and I cannot hear each other's thoughts," G replied after a moment. "I consider that to be a mixed blessing."

"Why? Wouldn't you rather be able to hear him?"

"Yes, I would," G answered, "but then the entire situation with, and about, our fifth son would have been different. As it is, J didn't know our son had survived past birth until after he had arrived back at his lab on L1. So, as you can see, there's good points and bad points to our bond being the way it is. I can still feel when he's near, especially if he's about to enter the room I'm in. Although the feel of a sire entering the room is slightly different from the feel of a bearer entering the room." This last statement was said in a thoughtful tone.

"What do you mean by feel? Can it be disguised?" Duo asked. "It could cause problems during a mission if there was someone able to tell I was there."

"I can't describe it," G answered thoughtfully. "You'll just have to experience it. You already know when I'm around and other bearers will feel the same to you. As for disguising it, I've never heard of a way, but we can work on it, after my mate and his trainee have left. You're right in that it could cause problems during a mission."

"If I accept this sire your mate is bringing, will we be able to hear each other?"

"If you both totally commit yourselves to each other," G responded. "My mate never completely committed himself to our relationship. I hope, for your sake, that my mate's trainee does better by you than my mate did by me." /~ I think that may have been why so many of our children didn't survive, and why we only had five in the first place. ~/

"Do you think he will?" Duo asked. "The trainee, I mean. Your mate is the one training him, after all."

"I think you will have more influence on my mate's trainee, in the long run, than my mate will," G replied with a smile. "You have exactly what that poor boy will need to balance out what my mate will have done to him. Now, it's time for you to go to bed. We will have a busy day tomorrow, dealing with our visitors and your regular training. Good night Duo."

After standing up and heading for the door, Duo replied around a yawn, "Good night doc. I'll see you at breakfast."

/~ Good night my son. I hope you have received enough information to deal with those two come tomorrow. ~/ G rose and looked out the window once more before turning and leaving the room to go to his own bed, a whispered statement the only thing left in the room. "You never did make things easy for us, did you J? I hope that, for their sakes, these two young ones can make it through this war. There is so much more than fighting to live for. It's a shame you never saw that."