category: Gundam SEED
disclaimer: I don't own it.
"It's just a cut, Athrun." Cagalli says crossly. "I'm not going to drop dead anytime soon."
She stops walking next a group of bright-orange oriental poppies. Athrun sprints to catch up to her, and grabs her hand as soon as he's close enough. "It shouldn't have happened in the first place." Across her palm ran a deep line, marring the flawless white with a harsh red. "Is it stinging?"
Cagalli pulls away, skin tingling from the warmth of his touch, and mops the blood away with one of her satin gloves. "No, it's fine. I'm fine." She throws herself onto a nearby bench and peers up at Athrun. "Sit down. You're putting me on edge."
He does, but fidgets nonetheless. "Let me wrap it up, at least," he persists. "You're ruining your dress."
With a sigh, Cagalli extends her hand out to him. Athrun unfolds his pocket square and refolds it multiple times lengthwise before winding it as a makeshift bandage around the width of Cagalli's hand.
She fiddles with the loose knot. "This looks ridiculous. I broke a glass, that's all. I wouldn't even have excused myself from the room, but Representative Sato's daughter gave me the dirtiest look for using my napkin to place pressure on the cut."
Athrun closes his eyes and leans his head against the back of the bench. "I doubt she was aiming it at you specifically. She seems to be scowling the majority of the time."
"She likes you plenty," Cagalli grumbles. She refuses to admit that the reason Athrun is so favored by Asami Sato is because she has been interested in him for months now.
"Everyone likes me," he counters jokingly.
"Shut up, Athrun," Cagalli retorts, mostly because he's right. She rubs her temple. "Can we go back in yet? The flowers are giving me a headache."
"More likely it was Yuna's jabbering that did it," Athrun concludes, eyes still closed. He finds himself inexplicably irritated at the mere thought of him. That purple-haired moron. "Let's stay here as long as we can."
Cagalli smiles. "You're probably right. He lacks the vital social sense of telling when people no longer want to talk to him. Which is nearly always. Not that you can complain, anyway. You didn't have to sit next to him all through dinner."
"True," Athrun concedes. His next words spill out before he can think them through. "And I don't have to marry him."
Cagalli opens and closes her mouth several times before deciding on the proper words. "It's just political arrangement that our fathers set up," She presses down on her cut through the handkerchief. "Since my father's, well, gone…I don't think it quite applies anymore."
Athrun makes a noncommittal sound from the back of his throat and tilts his head back to study the stars. They sit in silence.
xxxxx
Miriallia doesn't think she is supposed to see them there. To be quite honest, she isn't supposed to be there at all. Her press pass only got her as far as the main entrance for the annual Correspondents' Dinner. But the gardens of the Seiran house were beautiful in the evening, and she found herself weaving past preoccupied security officials easily as soon as she got her photos of the arriving guests.
Athrun and Cagalli's voices drift over to her on the late summer breeze, subdued yet clear. Miriallia can make out everything they say.
"It's just a cut, Athrun. I'm not going to drop dead anytime soon."
Athrun speaks more calmly, obvious concern behind his words. "It shouldn't have happened in the first place. Is it stinging?"
"No, it's fine. I'm fine. Sit down. You're putting me on edge."
Miriallia stays in her position at the far end of the garden and hopes neither of them is in the mood to take a stroll over to her side. At least she's sitting on the ground behind a large tree. They can't see her through wood.
"Let me wrap it up," Athrun argues.
As the two continue talking in short stretches of teasing banter, Miriallia contemplates when they became so close, trying to remember what she can of them during the war. Cagalli appeared to already know Athrun when he first arrived in Orb with the Justice (although she can't imagine how Orb's princess could have met the son of the PLANTs chairman in the middle of open hostilities). There was the battle on Earth, and then they all spent the last three months before Jachin Due together in space. Perhaps in that time something between them happened. Certainly no one leaves behind their entire country to become the bodyguard of a person they are just friends with.
Idly, Miriallia wonders what Kira makes of the whole affair.
"You didn't have to sit next to him all through dinner," Cagalli complains.
"True. And I don't have to marry him."
Miriallia can feel the conversation skip a beat. All of a sudden she is very uncomfortable, as if she's intruding on an extremely personal moment. Would it be too conspicuous to crawl sideways to the gate? Probably. She should have left when she had the chance.
"It's just political arrangement that our fathers set up." Cagalli sounds nervous. "Since my father's, well, gone…I don't think it quite applies anymore."
Miriallia counts to ten before peering around the tree trunk and seeing them on a bench, staring at the sky. Cagalli's full gown beams yellow through the dark.
"Perseus." Athrun says after a while, pointing upwards. "See him? I think he's supposed to be carrying the head of Medusa." He moves his finger slightly. "That's Gemini. But you can see it so much better from space." Catching sight of Cagalli's questioning expression, he shrugs. "My father used to enjoy astronomy. He was one of the strongest proponents for the giant model of the universe they built in Quintilis a few years ago."
Miriallia ducks back behind the tree and regrets spying. Despite spending all that time on the Archangel with them, she doubts either Athrun or Cagalli would be very thrilled by her presence here, now.
"I'm so glad that you're here, Athrun," Cagalli tells him. She continues, stumbling a bit. "I-I know you could have gone back to the PLANTs. You would have been pardoned, like Yzak and Dearka were, and then you could have done whatever you wanted. But you stayed, here. And I really appreciate that."
Athrun murmurs something in response, and when Miriallia glances at them again, they are entwined in a close embrace (which Kira would greatly disapprove of, she is sure). Miriallia blows her bangs out of her face exasperatedly and begins to wait.
x
Over a year later, Miriallia sits in a dusty cable wire office belonging to a friend of the Terminal. She taps her fingers along the wooden counter and reads over what she has written so far.
I saw an angel in the Dardanelles. I would like to see it again.
Then she pauses, wondering how to phrase the second part of her message. An image of Athrun from earlier that day hits her – his lingering frown, the uncertainty coloring his every move. She remembers his concern in the garden from the night so very long ago, his smooth voice pointing out the constellations in the summer sky, and fits the pieces together. Miriallia smiles.
Also, the red knight is searching for his princess.
notes: A new project? Indeed! This idea struck me out of the blue, and I could honestly use a light project to keep my spirits up as school marches on. 198 days till the end of this twelve-year-long tunnel, hooray!
Er, anyway. I think this will be around twelve-ish parts, though I'm not sure. Could be more, depending on how things unfold. Hope you stick around! I have lots of fun viewpoints and scenarios planned out, and I'm super excited.
And A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DEAREST ATHRUN. I love you so, for reasons that cannot even be fully comprehended. Even though I highly disapprove of some of your actions in GSD, you are forgiven simply for being the perfect character that you are. Happy, happy birthday to you!