Spoiler Warning: Everything up to and including the first OAV of Endless Waltz.
[Guided by the wind]
"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable."
-Seneca
The room smells of drugs and pain, the peculiar stench of sickness and bleach. A medic walks in, without a word, without a smile, and starts to poke at my left elbow while making "tsk... tsk..." sounds under his breath. I barely stifle a wince as his fingers probe deeper in the wound, red blood like wine snaking down my arm.
With a sharp tug he removes the piece of shrapnel still stuck in the wound, and the blood gushes forth, drenching my white OZ pants. I had not removed it, as I know that it was all that was keeping the blood from flowing freely, and they had to cut through my red vest to get to it. I see the tatters around me like a lost ideal.
I grit my teeth as the medic takes out a small needle and starts to patch me back together.
_ "You should be more careful, Merquise, I see you here too often. Do you have a wish to die?"
The needle threads in and out of my flesh, my blood gathering around the holes in so many pearls. I feel pain in my leg. One of my hands reaches down, groping along my thigh, until I come to the source of my discomfort. Through my gloves, I can feel sharp edges. More parts of the control panel that short-circuited and blew up. I grab hold of it and twist, a satisfied smirk on my face as I feel the wound weeping.
@-- >----
I hurt and the world is black around me. I feel the pain in my leg. One of my hands reaches down, groping along my thigh, until I come to the source of my discomfort. Through my gloves, I can feel sharp edges. More parts of the control panel that short-circuited and blew up. I grab hold of it and...
Everything is dark around me.
@-- >----
_ "What are you doing! You're making it worse. Stay still and you will be out of here soon."
I laugh. Why had I made it, why did I always survive while my men died around me? But I stay still, and his expert hands make my body whole once more. He jams a hypo in my arm, no matter my objections. I want to feel the pain, because it reminds me that I am alive. As he numbs my pain, the world fades away, just another illusion.
I stagger through the deserted corridors, towards my quarters. This trek in the harsh brightness of the fluorescent lights reminds me of my life.
@-- >----
My hands flutter over my body, looking for more injuries and, miraculously, finding none. There are no fluorescent lights now. Only darkness.
@-- >----
The door to my quarters opens with an empty sound. Empty, bitter, like the taste of revenge, the feel of slick blood on my fingers. The blood of all those who had died under my command.
"How many more have died today, Lady Une."
Treize.
@-- >----
My fingers run expertly over the keys in a practiced dance but the control panel stays unresponsive.
I reach out, press the palm of my hands against the hatch, and I can imagine the feel of cold metal through my gloves.
I am trapped. Cocooned in the entrails of Epyon's mechanical body, confined within the machine that was made to carry out Treize's will. And it had.
_ "Dammit, Treize, I did what you wanted didn't I?"
It had whispered to me the path to take. And I had followed.
@-- >----
"On both sides, Lady Une, I want to know who died, on both sides. So I can remember those who died for peace."
So many died for peace.
@-- >----
I do not want to die for peace. I want to live in it.
I want to live.
I struggle to free myself of the constricting harness and reach towards the panel that covers the hatch.
I want to live.
My breath becomes ragged and I start to hammer the panel.
Let me out. Epyon taught me I was wrong. It showed me the way back to honor for me and my family. And I have survived. Against all odds. But for how long? All systems were dead, ZERO was silent, and the air would run out sooner or later. I will die the way I deserve to; I will die like a rat in a cage.
I won't die.
I feel the frame of the panel bending, the fiberglass that covers its surface splintering. I hit harder.
_ "Let me out, EPYON!"
The machine shudders and as I rise from my cramped seat in the pilot's chamber to throw myself against the closed door, the hatch cracks open like an egg. Light pours in and I lower my visor to shield my eyes against it.
A warm light. I am not drifting in space...
I reach out towards the opening, standing on the pilot's chair: Epyon, or what was left of it, must have fallen on its back. Hoisting myself up, my arms screaming in pain, I manage to stumble out of the cockpit. I can barely feel my right leg, and I slip, falling down the side of my Gundam until I hit the ground, the breath knocked out of me. I feel the blackness eating at my consciousness but I fight it off and fumble to unhook the clasps of my helmet. I finally remove it, uncaring of the wet strands of hair clinging to my face, uncaring of the harsh light that stabs my eyes accustomed to the darkness of the dead cockpit.
Filling my lungs with the sweet madness of oxygen, Earth air, not compressed colony filth, I scream out a challenge.
_ "TREIZE! IT'S NOT MY TIME TO JOIN YOU IN HELL!"
Then I start to laugh.