Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Survival ❯ Interlude: Candle Flicker ( Chapter 2 )

Interlude:

Candle Flicker

 

-

-

-

-

September 25th 196 - Sunday

“May I get you something to drink, Miss?”

 

“Virgin strawberry dacori, please,” replied Relena politely, peering up at the waiter from under her finely woven straw hat. “Bill it to my room.”

 

“Naturally, Miss Peacecraft. Is there anything else I can get for you?”

 

“No, thank-you,” she answered. “That's fine.”

 

She sighed as he walked away, covering her eyes with one hand. She hated this… frivolous life. Milliardo was out playing God with humankind as his latest toy, and in order to keep her “safe” while he “prepared” the world for her “purer” rule, she was under constant guard and escort.

 

She had tried to stay near him at first, to make him see what he was doing that was wrong… But it had been useless.

 

`You're fifteen, Relena, please. I'm happy to see that you're so enthusiastic, but leave well enough alone, for now. I can take care of this.'

 

She wasn't sure whether it was his or her annoyance with the other that had made her leave and strike out on her own.

 

But of course, Milliardo Peacecraft's little sister could not go out alone. It wasn't like she could take care of herself. Why, the moment she set foot out on pavement without a six-guard escort she would immediately be kidnapped or assassinated. No no, she should go and enjoy herself at a ski resort.

 

Or at a beach.

 

Or in one of the old cities. You do enjoy museums, don't you, Relena?

 

Why not take a cruise through the Mediterranean?

 

Or a tour through the colonies?

 

 

Top rated resorts, five star hotels, the softest sands, the smoothest slopes, every fashionable ball on Earth or in the colonies… she'd been to them all. She'd been to and through every expensive shop in London, Paris, Florence… She'd carried out every frivolous, meaningless, damned stupid farce she could think of in an attempt to drown her need to do something.

 

Over the past six months, she had been more places and spent more money than one should in a lifetime. At this point, she really felt like somehow ditching her escort and taking a walk down the road so maybe someone would shoot her for her fat wallet.

 

It would be a nice change.

 

She wanted back into the politics game. She wanted to stop her brother's madness from wracking mankind anymore than it already had. She wanted to start things settling back into a balance…

 

She wanted to know if Heero was really alive or not.

 

But no, no, Relena was only sixteen, what could she possibly know about politics? She had only grown up as the daughter of the vice foreign minister, only been through a war where she not only was the ruler of a small, peaceful nation, only been Queen of the damned World for a while.

 

How on earth could she possibly know a thing about politics?

 

The waiter brought her drink back and she took a deep gulp from the icy strawberry goodness. I should've had Heero kill him back in Antarctica… she mused darkly.

 

So here she was, at a nice little resort in Rome, spending a morning out by the pool in a striped green canvas lounge chair with a drink that she was starting to wish had a little alcohol in it like it was supposed to, wearing a sundress and a pink straw hat with a dorky looking yellow flower on it that had cost a good twenty dollars more than it ought to have.

 

Arrayed around the pool in other variously striped canvas chairs were a couple of people who were all much older, and all with smaller budgets, drinking, or sleeping, or reading the newspaper. Generally enjoying themselves.

 

They appeared to enjoy doing inconsequential things.

 

But maybe they'd been rebellious when they were her age.

 

God, but she wanted to be rebellious…

 

For now she settled for reading someone else's newspaper because they were sitting near her. It wasn't her paper, after all, she had no business reading it. So there. She tried not to think about exactly how petty that sounded as she leaned over slightly to see it better. She saw a story at the bottom of one page that caught her eye immediately.

 

-

Gundam Pilot Report False

 

It has been found that Therese Wilburn, a woman who reported people living in the attic of her house, did not in fact have fugitive gundam pilots squatting on her property. Police investigators report that while it is possible, there is not enough evidence to support the claim. Some (continued on page 6)

-

 

Snatching the paper from the middle-aged man reading an entirely different article a number of pages over, she frantically flipped to page six, wanting the rest of the story.

 

“Hey kid, can't you get your own?” asked the man irritably. “I was reading that.”

 

Relena ignored him, standing up and heading up to her room, reading the article as she went. She hated the attitude of the reporter, who obviously thought that the pilots were either all dead or as good as, and that too much of a fuss was being made over them. Folding the paper under her arm, she shook her head disgustedly and dug out the key for her suite.

 

Once she was in her room, she went over to one of her suitcases and pulled out her scrapbook, quickly tearing out the article from her stolen paper and adding it to her collection. Hands trembling - though with what emotion she didn't know - she flipped back to the beginning of the book then randomly through it, scanning headlines.

 

-

Gundam Attack: Lake Victoria Base

Gundam Kills Minister Noventa

Gundam 01 Goes Kaboom: One Down, Four to Go

Colonies Cry for Peace: Gundam or No Gundam?

Pacifist Kingdom Defends with Gundam

-

 

Again and again, headline after headline, the gundams were damned, and everything associated with them too. There was never any peace; they were under constant attack.

 

 

She had hoped, as she gathered all the clippings for this notebook over the last year, that eventually the people might recognize the gundams and their pilots for who they really were.

 

But now that the Regime wanted them dead, and nobody else honestly cared.

 

-

Gundam Pilots Still At Large

-

 

There was hope in that, at least. They might still be alive.

 

If only there was something I coulddo…

-

-

-

-