category: Gundam SEED
disclaimer: I don't own it.
There is a boy with sad eyes. He is perpetually quiet, always uneasy. He has beautiful hands, Lacus notices. But sometimes she thinks she glimpses red creased deeply into the lines on the palms. Red guilt, red confusion, red blood.
It's inexplicable, this dream. The edges of images are sharpened. Lines jump, colors swim. Lacus sees people talk in her direction as if she is actually there in front of them, as if she is responding to what they ask her. And they are all strangers – participating in some unfamiliar war. She hears everything that's said, but never catches a name.
The boy cries. Lacus tries to ask him why but the words never form.
She returns home from the unfamiliar ship. Athrun comes to visit her, once. But it is not the Athrun she knows. He is a year or so older, and hardly speaks. When he does, his voice sounds distant. She doesn't understand a single thing he mentions, save a few drifts about mobile suits and battles gone badly that she picks up on. Words. Archangel. Freedom. Cagalli.
A kiss on the cheek as gets in his car. Lacus wonders if she only imagined the detachedness.
And then, she finds herself suddenly on another ship, except this time she's sitting on the bridge. There's Commander Waltfeld there, whom she's met before, but he's missing an arm and a leg and an eye. They are in a battle and Lacus hears shouting all around her. Athrun and some girl with a fiery look, a brown-haired captain who is sobbing, the boy whose name she does not know calling out to someone important lost in space.
Everything that is happening registers with an abrupt weight that falls on Lacus's shoulders and leaves her breathless. Her father is dead. A girl with red hair is dead. The Natural pilot with blue eyes is dead. Some other thousands of soldiers are permanently blown to dust. She never asked to be part of this war. She doesn't understand. A sadness she can't fully grasp overwhelms her and she places her head in her hands.
Lacus wakes up. Her cheeks are damp. She hears footsteps, and makes her way downstairs. It feels as if she is still sleeping. Her father is preparing to leave for work. Lacus brings his briefcase to the door for him.
"I had the strangest dream," she tells him. "It was a very sad dream." Her mind drifts back to how much destruction and tragedy there was in that world, how muted and gray its occupants were. The edges were precise. The emotions were clear. "But what I saw wasn't blurred at all."
After her father leaves, Lacus sits in the greenhouse under the cloudy sky. She thinks she never wants to see something like that again.
x
When she arrives, Athrun and his two guests are already speaking quietly on the back balcony. The summer breeze lifts Lacus's hair around her face as she approaches them. She gets closer, places the box of pastries on the table next to the tea.
Athrun walks to kiss her cheek. The other two turn from the granite railing.
"Hel-" and then Lacus stops abruptly in the middle of the word. It's been weeks since her dream, months. But it's that boy who greets her – with the sad voice and beautiful hands. The girl with hair that glows golden in the sun like an afternoon wildfire. She holds her brother's arm tightly. Smiles. Introductions.
"Kira," the boy says. His eyes are purple. The creases in his hands are not red.
Yet.
Lacus wonders.
notes: I wrote the bulk of this (through the first paragraph of the second section) in February or March 2012. It's been quite a while since then. Yowza. In any case, I got in an editing mood and polished this up this past spring. And now I'm posting it, finally. I know Lacus stories aren't very popular around here, but I had an idea and I'm fond of her.
The lines, "I had a dream. It was a very strange dream. But what I saw wasn't blurred at all," are from the translation of Find the Way, ED3 for SEED. That's where the inspiration for this came from. Trying something new with the title.
Also, I'm currently working on something of Athrun/Cagalli, so stay tuned for that if you're interested. Might be a little while until it's ready, though. ;)