Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.
Title: Of Salty Shapes and Slipping Sand
Author: Jaelee
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Mariemaia, Wufei, Dekim
Warnings: Violence, anger, maybe slight OOC-ness...
Author's Note: Back to a normal length! This takes place before Just a Kid and is before the events of Endless Waltz. I wrote this predominantly at a quarter to two to three in the morning so I don't think it's all that uh…legible in places. But I really liked it for my first time really writing Wufei. Comments will be much appreciated.
Dedication: To Rae again because she listened to me babble about it and gush over what a Terrific Idea it was and wasn't sarcastic. To Emu because she was up writing with me at two am and how many friends are That Great?
--
He is a puzzle, she decides. She watches him from the moment he first steps foot into their halls. He is quick tempered and vocal about his beliefs. His eyes are dark, darting from side to side as he surveys his surroundings with masked interest. She thinks the uniform looks stupid on him and she doesn't know why he would lower himself enough to actually wear it. She doesn't understand many things about him.
She fights with Dekim over it, over allowing him into her ranks. He is a spy, a trick to throw them off guard, a wolf in sheep's wool. In a surge of anger (it's become more recurring the closer to power she gets) Dekim slaps her soundly across the face and orders her to leave him be if she wishes to act immature and childish. She straightens her back and gathers up the remnants of her dignity as she sweeps out of the office, past the amused eyes of her officers. She will deal with Dekim later, once she is ruler and he is no longer needed to assert her authority.
But she never approaches him.
She likes to think that it's because she has no time to waste on mere soldiers. She likes to imagine that it's because he is of no importance to her and her ultimate goal. She ignores his aloofness, the sneer that crosses his face when no one else is watching. She disregards the impassive, contemplative look that sometimes controls him when he stares out a window, at space and the Earth. She will not admit that she does not understand him.
She would have continued as well, if he hadn't been the one to find her after one of her and Dekim's disagreements.
"Are you here to call me a weakling?" she demands icily. Her voice trembles and she fights back tears of anger, frustration, and hurt. "Are you here to laugh at the little girl who got in over her head and can't take the pressure?"
He sits next to her in the deserted kitchen, watching as she draws shapes in the salt she spilled on the metal tabletop. He still doesn't say anything, simply observes her through black eyes. She sketches a heart, crosses it out, and then reforms the spilt salt into the shape of a shuttle, a bomb, a knife. She imagines it stained crimson from Dekim. It brings a smile to her lips.
"I'm not in over my head. I know exactly what I am doing." She turns to face him suddenly, stool squeaking at the quick movement. Her head tilts to the side and her bangs cloud her eyes. Red as the blood she sees flowing through her grandfather's veins. "Do you know what you are doing Mr. Chang? Do you know what you are fighting for?"
His eyes narrow as he takes her in. She lifts her chin a bit and stifles the sniffle that threatens. "I am fighting for justice Mariemaia. I am seeing just what Earth is made of."
"I don't trust you, even if my grandfather does." She caves and brushes the hair out of her face. "I don't think you know what justice is. I don't think you know what to fight for."
His eyes glint dangerously. "Do you, Mariemaia? Are you sure you're on the right side?" She hesitates, salt-stained fingers hovering over the table. They curl, nails digging into her palm as she looks down at their distorted reflections. She sees his smirk triumphantly. "What makes you so certain that your side is the right side?"
"My father…my father wanted this. He wanted me to emerge victorious," she says slowly. "He understood the need for weapons, which Miss Relena doesn't grasp."
She sees the distaste in his eyes and frowns back at him. He ignores her and stands, dropping the Styrofoam cup into the trash. "You have much to learn if that's what you think of war and human nature Miss Mariemaia." She can't find her voice to reprimand him as he walks out and she worries that she's already losing control and the battles haven't even started yet.
She goes back to ignoring him and the other soldiers the following weeks. She doesn't need a former Gundam Pilot telling her that she's mistaken over her own objectives. Instead she focuses on the fittings for her coronation attire because this is what is right, what she needs to do. Her father gave her the mobile suits, he knew what was coming. He had been great, she would be greater.
"Mariemaia!" Dekim barks. She turns her head, focusing once more on her grandfather. He glares at her. "It is not fitting for Her Highness to be lost in frivolous daydreams," he intones. Her gaze darts to the others occupying the room and she notices two of her officers in their burgundy uniforms…and him. He's in the back of the room; near a ridiculous potted plant that really has no place in a tactical room. "Mariemaia, apologize for your rude behavior at once!"
Her eyes glint as she looks up at him. "A ruler does not need to apologize if they wish not to."
"You are not a ruler yet." His eyes bore into hers and she resists the urge to flinch away from him. She hears the threat in his voice. "Mariemaia!" His hand raises slightly, a smaller threat than the ones reflected in his words, and she jumps when another voice enters their verbal battle, a smaller hand latching onto Dekim's wrist firmly.
"It is weak to hit a child." His eyes glitter like the vastness of space outside. "Perhaps her majesty was contemplating the objectives at hand."
Dekim sneers down at him. "Perhaps." His gaze is directed at her again and she wonders absently when she started to hate her grandfather. She thinks it was when Uncle Trowa was killed but she knows that it was before then. "Then again, perhaps she is the weak one in mind."
She refuses to thank him for his intervention when she encounters him later. She's walking around the base sometime between twelve forty-five and three in the morning. She comes across him at one of the large windows overlooking space and she stops, staring at him. His reflection blinks and he lifts his head, turning to face her slowly. She wonders if this is an act of submission or acceptance, or maybe intimidation.
"What are you fighting for? Why are you here?" Dekim regrets enlisting you. I don't understand you. I don't like how you make me not understand myself as well. She doesn't say it, she thinks it but she doesn't say it. She meets his eyes. "Are you a traitor?"
"If I were, I wouldn't admit it. I am here to fight, to make Earth see what true peace is. To understand that peace must be fought for and not handed to them on a silver platter." He looks out the window again. "I want to see which path Earth chooses; what form of justice they take. And if they are as weak as they were."
"Do you believe that Earth will bow to me?"
"If they are weak."
"Do you always define the world in terms of strong and weak?" He inclines his head and she takes that for a yes. With a bitter smile she steps forward, hands clasped behind her back as she stares resolutely out the window. "And what was my father Mr. Chang? Was he weak because you killed him? Or was he strong because he planned ahead for this; planned for me to rule in his absence."
He eyes her contemplatively. She can feel his gaze through her shirt, her flesh, all the way into the marrow of her bones. She squares her shoulders automatically, stands straighter by reflex. He is watching her through the reflection on the glass, she is watching him.
"I…I do not know," he says finally. It sounds like he's lost all emotion, all drive. She closes her eyes and presses her forehead to the cold glass. Her bare feet are cold and she regrets not putting on socks or shoes before starting her wanderings. The glass fogs as she exhales and she watches the condensation slip away. Idly she wonders if Dekim would have answered her or if he would have lied. "He is, was, strong. He understood what drove mankind."
Her eyes rise, meeting his reflected ones. "And what am I Wufei? Am I strong or am I weak? Do I have the drive, the understanding? Am I my father's legacy?" As Dekim tells me. Am I everything he thinks me to be? Can I pull this off, even with the support, even with the suits? Will Earth bow to me? Yes. Yes because it is her birthright and Dekim swore to her that Earth and Space would be hers to rule and even if he is cold and callous at times he is her grandfather and he wants what's best. Uncle Trowa always told her this before his disappearance.
He doesn't falter this time answering and she wonders if that's worse. He shakes his head. "You are stronger than Dekim." He bows his head slightly before retreating, leaving her to her thoughts, to her predictions. He has given her the answer but not the answer to the question she asked. She is meant to rule Earth if she is strong enough to claim it, which is what Dekim has told her all her life. She feels her grasp on her plans slipping through her fingers like sand. The tighter she grips, the faster it falls.
She hopes she can hold onto it until after her coronation.