Ch.1: The Tree
Behind me, the door slid shut, and I looked up to see the replica of something of a
forest. I could feel that people had been here not very long before; auras remained
lingering even hours after a person had physically been here, especially if the person had
gone through some sort of strong emotion or revelation. But these were irreverent at the
moment; for me, I was here for one purpose, and that was to see my brother.
In actuality, my brother could not be seen. If he had been able to be seen, no
doubt Gareas would have skipped all classes to come here and talk with him. My brother had
no physical form, had no voice - it was the artificial trees and the pure air that flowed up
through artificially manmade grass that held him, lingering like a recent memory. This had
been our sacred place, a place where no one could touch us. The other students didn't come
near here when we were here - they knew to stay away when we had our moments. The trees
and the grass were so real, but they were fake, made out of materials not native to any
plant. How fitting I would find such a place to hide away, like a mask.
For now, I would stay here. My brother would understand, he would know what I was
going through. He must have felt the same, the whispers, the songs that haunted dreams and
laughed away just as I woke up. My brother must have sat in the very same spot at the roots
of the tree, and pondered what he had heard. He would have been angry, just like I was
now.
"Am I a traitor?", I heard myself say. "Did you go through the same, brother?"
My brother had no choice when my parents died; we were rich, but we were young, and
therefore didn't have any close-blooded relatives to become our guardians. The first few
weeks I could remember being comforted by his thoughts and mindless crooning of old
lullabies he claimed our mother used to sing to him. I couldn't remember, though, and after
a while at G.O.A., neither could he. For two months we spent our time in the linoleum
halls of the Training Station, and wondered what was in store for us. Relatives from every
inch of the known world came flying to us, asking for a part of the will, asking in their
false tones to take care of us. My brother was fourteen, and he rejected every letter; our
parents' will was ours, and he was not about to share it. Our grandparents from both sides
had inherited the money to our accounts, and that only grew in value when our father became
an almost miracle doctor. "The hands of God", one woman expressed when she walked out of
the office. It was the only memory I still had of what I once considered my home, somewhere
else, far away on Zion.
We were not colony-born, my brother and I. Our roots reached deep into Zion, and my
father only moved to the colonies once he heard they needed more help up there than down
on the home planet. So that was where I grew up; amidst the stars, and grew to love them.
When my brother decided to become a pilot, the last blood relative of ours released
his temporary keep on us, and dedicated his will to include everything he had to us. He
died three years later to a shuttle accident from one colony to another, trying to convince
teenagers to come to G.O.A., to fight the Victims.
And the Victims, of course, were the root source of my anger.
I wished I could ask my brother this question: what are the Victims? Certainly I
knew that some scientist on Zion would want to study them, but we couldn't allow any Victim
on Zion or any space station to be studied; government claimed they were dangerous. Another
question for my brother Ernest: did you hear them too? The songs they sing? Haunting,
eerie, beautiful, but they sing those songs like something called a... 'whale'? Is that
what they called it on the Old Planet? We heard a clip of the gentle beasts once, on a
historical study of the Old Planet, Earth. The name was forgotten now; the Victims purged
it into pieces before the survivors of the human races' eyes.
"They call to me, brother. They tell me they are sorry, sorry for killing, for
hurting, sorry for everything they have done to us. They don't understand, brother, about
death; they think their purpose in life is to beautify."
The Victims don't talk - or rather sing - in voices. They don't quite whisper, they
don't quite harmonize, but they have the same lilting rhythms. They use colors and music.
They create movies out of these simple elements and creep into my dreams at night, flying
with their music. Dare I say they were beautiful? They only wanted to make Zion like their
planet, and I saw it in the images they showed to me: grass like Zion, trees in strange
shapes but still trees, wildlife that could not fly but walked on the ground, like deer and
wolves and squirrels, like us. They were delighted when they found I could hear them. They
said they could feel my brother still in the Ingrid, and that he spoke of me fondly.
It must have been the typical little brother/big brother thinking. I thought my
brother was invincible, like the knights in the happy fairy tales. I never stopped to think
that my brother was more vulnerable than any of the other pilots, just as I am, and still
are. Our abilities put us aside; it makes us stronger, and weakens us faster.
"Do you hate me now, brother?", I ask to the rustling tree. The wind rustling it
comes out of vents, of course, underneath the grass and to both sides of the building. The
tree has two branches, and I remembered my brother and I used to sit there, and talk about
our annoying relatives. He came to visit me daily, knowing I would spend the whole day here
or in the shrunken library. He never missed a day, not in the three years of training, nor
the two years he was a pilot. Once I fell asleep in the branches waiting for him after a
battle, and was woken by his tired, but happy face to see I had actually stayed up. "I'm
here", he said, and held me. I could not begin to explain my relief he was still alive.
My brother was usually in studies all day. When he first became a candidate, he
tried to put me apart from the schoolwork, but he found nothing else to talk about. That
was one of the reasons I sprang to the top of the candidate chart in so little time; I had
already learned the curriculum, knew what tests they would be performing, and how to use a
Pro-Ing from my brother. Some called that cheating, but Instructor Azuma just described it
calmly as 'sibling love'. All other time I spent in the little cubicle they shouldn't have
called a library - it had a few computers on a desk and only two shelves of what were
'books', but were actually digitalized screens that flipped pages with the touch of the
button on the right. These weren't as heavy as books, but they couldn't be checked out.
Furthermore, the computers were the only ones available for free use in the school, and a
person couldn't use them without having "I love so-and-so" and "So-and-so is an idiot"
popping up on your screen every ten seconds (students learned to make pop-up commercials, so
to speak).
I did not know what my brother heard when he went out in Reneighd Klein and
destroyed the Victims. I knew he was not the best pilot, nor was he the most motivated;
some people called him downright cowardly. Those were the people who didn't know his
ability, though, and didn't respect him for what he could do.
The teachers graduated him two years early, and graduated me three years early. My
brother said that they wanted us to die quicker, so they deployed us as fast as they could.
"They have their own biased thinking, Erts", he said in his light voice. "They think we're
demons or something. But we're not. Isn't Gareas proof of that?"
It was true. Gareas hadn't thought twice about opening up to my brother or me. He
tried so hard, though, to pull Ernest out of his little hole and into the sunlight. I knew
he could still see my brother in me, and he only showed it more when he looked at me for a
moment, then turned away. The others were always uncomfortable with that afterwards, as if
I knew something they didn't.
I did know something they didn't. How could we be destroying something that showed
so much beauty? They came from the sky - dare I say they were angelic in all but physical
appearance? We could not speak, we could not talk, and therefore we killed each other.
Only I could hear them, hear they cry when one was destroyed, hear one whimper when it got
hurt. I never heard any happiness from them; they only sang sad songs, knowing that they
were going to die soon.
"I hardly know if I'm sane, brother. Tell me that I'm not crazy yet, brother."
I leaned against the tree and closed my eyes. The others wouldn't come here looking
for me, pretending to not remember that I was here - they knew. I knew all of them, the
other Goddess pilots, from my brother. He described them perfectly, and showed me when we
clasped hands together, how they acted that day: Gareas brash and loud, Rio protesting at
the dinner table, Yuu silent except for the odd comment, and Teela absent, as usual. The
others respected my brother, almost feared them, except for Gareas. I almost imagined them
to slap me away and scream "Where is Ernest? You are not Ernest! Bring him back!" and
push me outside, into clear space.
If I leaned back hard enough, I could almost imagine my brother was there, his arms
around my shoulders, and our thoughts going back and forth with fevered anxiety. Another
day brought another battle, after all, and I knew my brother to know he could get hurt
easily from all the 'static' he picked up from the Victims, the spectators, and the
repairers on the ship. Sometimes my brother only stayed ten minutes before he was called
back to review the battle and go on another sortie. Sometimes my brother had time to spare,
and talked for half an hour or more before he was called back. It wasn't hard to accept
he was dead when I could still feel him around: in the tree, in the clothes I wore (they
didn't have time to cut down Ernest's uniform so I had to wear his, which was oversized),
and when I put my hand to lean against Reneighd Klein. The others could sense him around.
Of course, that didn't exactly seem to bother anyone but Gareas.
I couldn't bear to call them by their names. 'Elidd-san' was what I called Gareas,
and for the others as well. What would they understand? Even Gareas never completely
understood my brother and the complexity of being a telepath.
I would wait for them to find me. But for a little while, I would spend time with
my brother.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Author's notes:
*sighs* Yes, I know. Erts and Ernest did not seem particularly close, as a brother
and his little brother should be, right? Could it be said I wanted it to be a little
different? As for timing...I guess I can't really say that this is right after Ernest's
funeral or anything. But, this just might be AU - that's up to me. Now, I have to finish
a history assignment that I sorely neglected for writing this thing...
Andrea Weiling
Behind me, the door slid shut, and I looked up to see the replica of something of a
forest. I could feel that people had been here not very long before; auras remained
lingering even hours after a person had physically been here, especially if the person had
gone through some sort of strong emotion or revelation. But these were irreverent at the
moment; for me, I was here for one purpose, and that was to see my brother.
In actuality, my brother could not be seen. If he had been able to be seen, no
doubt Gareas would have skipped all classes to come here and talk with him. My brother had
no physical form, had no voice - it was the artificial trees and the pure air that flowed up
through artificially manmade grass that held him, lingering like a recent memory. This had
been our sacred place, a place where no one could touch us. The other students didn't come
near here when we were here - they knew to stay away when we had our moments. The trees
and the grass were so real, but they were fake, made out of materials not native to any
plant. How fitting I would find such a place to hide away, like a mask.
For now, I would stay here. My brother would understand, he would know what I was
going through. He must have felt the same, the whispers, the songs that haunted dreams and
laughed away just as I woke up. My brother must have sat in the very same spot at the roots
of the tree, and pondered what he had heard. He would have been angry, just like I was
now.
"Am I a traitor?", I heard myself say. "Did you go through the same, brother?"
My brother had no choice when my parents died; we were rich, but we were young, and
therefore didn't have any close-blooded relatives to become our guardians. The first few
weeks I could remember being comforted by his thoughts and mindless crooning of old
lullabies he claimed our mother used to sing to him. I couldn't remember, though, and after
a while at G.O.A., neither could he. For two months we spent our time in the linoleum
halls of the Training Station, and wondered what was in store for us. Relatives from every
inch of the known world came flying to us, asking for a part of the will, asking in their
false tones to take care of us. My brother was fourteen, and he rejected every letter; our
parents' will was ours, and he was not about to share it. Our grandparents from both sides
had inherited the money to our accounts, and that only grew in value when our father became
an almost miracle doctor. "The hands of God", one woman expressed when she walked out of
the office. It was the only memory I still had of what I once considered my home, somewhere
else, far away on Zion.
We were not colony-born, my brother and I. Our roots reached deep into Zion, and my
father only moved to the colonies once he heard they needed more help up there than down
on the home planet. So that was where I grew up; amidst the stars, and grew to love them.
When my brother decided to become a pilot, the last blood relative of ours released
his temporary keep on us, and dedicated his will to include everything he had to us. He
died three years later to a shuttle accident from one colony to another, trying to convince
teenagers to come to G.O.A., to fight the Victims.
And the Victims, of course, were the root source of my anger.
I wished I could ask my brother this question: what are the Victims? Certainly I
knew that some scientist on Zion would want to study them, but we couldn't allow any Victim
on Zion or any space station to be studied; government claimed they were dangerous. Another
question for my brother Ernest: did you hear them too? The songs they sing? Haunting,
eerie, beautiful, but they sing those songs like something called a... 'whale'? Is that
what they called it on the Old Planet? We heard a clip of the gentle beasts once, on a
historical study of the Old Planet, Earth. The name was forgotten now; the Victims purged
it into pieces before the survivors of the human races' eyes.
"They call to me, brother. They tell me they are sorry, sorry for killing, for
hurting, sorry for everything they have done to us. They don't understand, brother, about
death; they think their purpose in life is to beautify."
The Victims don't talk - or rather sing - in voices. They don't quite whisper, they
don't quite harmonize, but they have the same lilting rhythms. They use colors and music.
They create movies out of these simple elements and creep into my dreams at night, flying
with their music. Dare I say they were beautiful? They only wanted to make Zion like their
planet, and I saw it in the images they showed to me: grass like Zion, trees in strange
shapes but still trees, wildlife that could not fly but walked on the ground, like deer and
wolves and squirrels, like us. They were delighted when they found I could hear them. They
said they could feel my brother still in the Ingrid, and that he spoke of me fondly.
It must have been the typical little brother/big brother thinking. I thought my
brother was invincible, like the knights in the happy fairy tales. I never stopped to think
that my brother was more vulnerable than any of the other pilots, just as I am, and still
are. Our abilities put us aside; it makes us stronger, and weakens us faster.
"Do you hate me now, brother?", I ask to the rustling tree. The wind rustling it
comes out of vents, of course, underneath the grass and to both sides of the building. The
tree has two branches, and I remembered my brother and I used to sit there, and talk about
our annoying relatives. He came to visit me daily, knowing I would spend the whole day here
or in the shrunken library. He never missed a day, not in the three years of training, nor
the two years he was a pilot. Once I fell asleep in the branches waiting for him after a
battle, and was woken by his tired, but happy face to see I had actually stayed up. "I'm
here", he said, and held me. I could not begin to explain my relief he was still alive.
My brother was usually in studies all day. When he first became a candidate, he
tried to put me apart from the schoolwork, but he found nothing else to talk about. That
was one of the reasons I sprang to the top of the candidate chart in so little time; I had
already learned the curriculum, knew what tests they would be performing, and how to use a
Pro-Ing from my brother. Some called that cheating, but Instructor Azuma just described it
calmly as 'sibling love'. All other time I spent in the little cubicle they shouldn't have
called a library - it had a few computers on a desk and only two shelves of what were
'books', but were actually digitalized screens that flipped pages with the touch of the
button on the right. These weren't as heavy as books, but they couldn't be checked out.
Furthermore, the computers were the only ones available for free use in the school, and a
person couldn't use them without having "I love so-and-so" and "So-and-so is an idiot"
popping up on your screen every ten seconds (students learned to make pop-up commercials, so
to speak).
I did not know what my brother heard when he went out in Reneighd Klein and
destroyed the Victims. I knew he was not the best pilot, nor was he the most motivated;
some people called him downright cowardly. Those were the people who didn't know his
ability, though, and didn't respect him for what he could do.
The teachers graduated him two years early, and graduated me three years early. My
brother said that they wanted us to die quicker, so they deployed us as fast as they could.
"They have their own biased thinking, Erts", he said in his light voice. "They think we're
demons or something. But we're not. Isn't Gareas proof of that?"
It was true. Gareas hadn't thought twice about opening up to my brother or me. He
tried so hard, though, to pull Ernest out of his little hole and into the sunlight. I knew
he could still see my brother in me, and he only showed it more when he looked at me for a
moment, then turned away. The others were always uncomfortable with that afterwards, as if
I knew something they didn't.
I did know something they didn't. How could we be destroying something that showed
so much beauty? They came from the sky - dare I say they were angelic in all but physical
appearance? We could not speak, we could not talk, and therefore we killed each other.
Only I could hear them, hear they cry when one was destroyed, hear one whimper when it got
hurt. I never heard any happiness from them; they only sang sad songs, knowing that they
were going to die soon.
"I hardly know if I'm sane, brother. Tell me that I'm not crazy yet, brother."
I leaned against the tree and closed my eyes. The others wouldn't come here looking
for me, pretending to not remember that I was here - they knew. I knew all of them, the
other Goddess pilots, from my brother. He described them perfectly, and showed me when we
clasped hands together, how they acted that day: Gareas brash and loud, Rio protesting at
the dinner table, Yuu silent except for the odd comment, and Teela absent, as usual. The
others respected my brother, almost feared them, except for Gareas. I almost imagined them
to slap me away and scream "Where is Ernest? You are not Ernest! Bring him back!" and
push me outside, into clear space.
If I leaned back hard enough, I could almost imagine my brother was there, his arms
around my shoulders, and our thoughts going back and forth with fevered anxiety. Another
day brought another battle, after all, and I knew my brother to know he could get hurt
easily from all the 'static' he picked up from the Victims, the spectators, and the
repairers on the ship. Sometimes my brother only stayed ten minutes before he was called
back to review the battle and go on another sortie. Sometimes my brother had time to spare,
and talked for half an hour or more before he was called back. It wasn't hard to accept
he was dead when I could still feel him around: in the tree, in the clothes I wore (they
didn't have time to cut down Ernest's uniform so I had to wear his, which was oversized),
and when I put my hand to lean against Reneighd Klein. The others could sense him around.
Of course, that didn't exactly seem to bother anyone but Gareas.
I couldn't bear to call them by their names. 'Elidd-san' was what I called Gareas,
and for the others as well. What would they understand? Even Gareas never completely
understood my brother and the complexity of being a telepath.
I would wait for them to find me. But for a little while, I would spend time with
my brother.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Author's notes:
*sighs* Yes, I know. Erts and Ernest did not seem particularly close, as a brother
and his little brother should be, right? Could it be said I wanted it to be a little
different? As for timing...I guess I can't really say that this is right after Ernest's
funeral or anything. But, this just might be AU - that's up to me. Now, I have to finish
a history assignment that I sorely neglected for writing this thing...
Andrea Weiling