By Moria Polonius
***
February 3rd, 189 AC
Lake Victoria Academy
Hot, it was so hot. Lucrezia could feel sweat streaming down her spine. She must smell terrible. Next time she would swallow her pride and ask that pompous roommate of hers, Charlotte, to help her choose a better antiperspirant. Although the strategy lessons in the open field probably required no less than a removal of the sweat-glands. Even Mobile Suit training was easier in such heat, at least the machines had the air-conditioning installed.
"Noin!"
She turned around. Zechs advanced towards her across the lawn, his dark glasses screening his eyes from her. In his hand he hold a small computer pad.
"You look disgustingly fresh," she noted. "Can't you get sweaty like a normal guy, just this once?"
His usually somber expression lightened. "Anything for you, Noin. I'll try next time. I got the results from the last Naval Tactics practice--"
"How did I do?"
She had to give him credit, he didn't even flinch, although Naval Tactics was one of his strongest subjects. Most of the time he was best in it. "You were two points ahead of me. We can go through them in the cafeteria."
She hesitated and then shook her head. They had an hour-long break between two blocks of lessons, a break destined for lunch, but she needed a shower more. "I must get this dirt off me. Will you wait for me?"
Zechs shrugged with indifference. "Sure."
God, sometimes she wished he would get irritated. She hated his indifference. It was completely illogical because her making him wait fifteen minutes in the cafeteria was hardly a matter of importance, but then he never liked waiting and she wished he would drop his act with her. She could be trusted, damn it, she was his friend and she deserved some honesty.
"I'll be back soon."
He nodded, already turning away.
When she got back, the cafeteria was full, idle chatter filling the hall with noise. Lucrezia scanned the crowd in search of flaxen-haired head. She saw him in the far away corner, reading a pad, his dark glasses on the table in front of him. She thought it strange he was sitting alone; as one of four older team leaders he was usually busy talking to other cadets during the lunch break, handing out their results and consulting their lessons plans.
She noticed one of the third-year cadets get up from his chair and walk up to Zechs, but then the boy stopped in the midstep and turned back. Lucrezia pitied him. Zechs had that eerie ability to dismiss a person with one icy glare when he was not in mood to talk to anybody.
And he's been out of sorts since yesterday. He didn't even join her in the library in the evening as was their custom, although they were supposed to study history together. Zechs was good in history and probably didn't need to study much, but he always honoured their deal that they would study the theoretical subjects together. He benefited when the subject in question was psychology, she benefited when it was philosophy.
"What did you make out of it?" she asked seating herself in front him and finding her favourite salad and chocolate ice-cream already on the table. Feeling completely disarmed by his consideration, she picked up a fork.
Standing up briefely to acknowledge her presence, he handed her the pad. "I made a mistake of sending Shankerseth as first. He's fast underwater, but his speed was useless against your rectangular formation. He would have won me a victory if he were placed in the back."
She grinned, reading the analysis. "Your loss, my gain, Commander Merquise."
He didn't return her smile, his vacant look drawing a frown to her features. "Is something wrong, Zechs?"
His eyes returned to focus. "No, everything is fine." A pause. "Did you read the chapters Mr. Ngebe told us to?"
"Of course," a hint of reproach crept to her voice, "I wasn't going to give up my studying habits just because you failed to turn up in the library. I bet Mr. Ngebe is going to make a quiz."
He nodded somewhat absently. "What did you think of it?"
She pushed the red peppers to the edge of the plate and started to eat the salad. "That there hasn't been more political scheming than in the seventies and early eighties since the founding of the Alliance."
"Political scheming..."
In his tone she could detect a trace of bitterness. "Zechs?"
"And... what about the... Sanc's access to the Alliance?"
She put the fork away, confused. He stared at her, and she was reminded of the time when this kind of stony look on his face was all everybody got, herself included. "Zechs, what is it?"
He rised abruptly, almost knocking his chair off. "I must go. See you later."
Lucrezia looked after him, astonished. What the hell was that all about?
"I have a surpise for you," Mr. Ngebe said, holding a small disc up. "A short quiz, to find out whether you read through chapters sixteen and seventeen."
The collective groan that spread among the cadets more amused than angered the history teacher, but then he was one of the very few non-military (although military-connected) teachers in the Academy and thus less uptight and strict than the rest.
"Was it the answer?" he joked as the students activated their computers and waited for the test to come up. "Tough luck then, ladies and gentelmen. The completion of the unification under the Alliance is a key event and the final test will have many detailed questions about it. You have fifteen minutes."
The children busied themselves with the quiz, their focus on the task absolute. When he first came to teach at Lake Victoria four years ago, he was astonished by the extent of the concentration some of the children were capable of. Sebastian Ngebe couldn't help but think of his students as children even though he was sitting in front of the graduate class, the oldest being seventeen years old, the youngest thirteen. Sometimes, when he remembered to see past their intelligence, past their physical strength (every each of them would probably be able to kill him in ten ways with their bare hands), past their competetiveness and often fanatical devotion to the system that shaped them, Sebastian pitied them. The youngest couldn't even know what normal childhood is - if set loose among other children their age, they wouldn't know how to play. The adolescents, having had their social lives extremely limited and the role-models terribly single-minded, didn't even realize that looking at a beautiful female instructor and being tongue-tied was perfectly normal at their age.
Military schools should be banned from existence.
But they were not, and all Sebastian Ngebe could do about the situation was to show those kids how normal people acted. He would mention his wife to them, and his two little daughters, he would reminiscience what kind of pranks he used to pull on his schoolmates. Even if his ramblings resulted in the cadets' misbehaviour, it was damn good for them. Life shouldn't be all about fighting and studying and improving one's results. Kids had right to misbehave every now and then, even if all the Liteunants and Majors on the staff were intent on punishing every disciplinary lapse.
Sebastian scanned his twenty-seven-people class. Since he teached a purely theoretical subject, his classes tended to be relatively large, a whole year of eighty one students being divided into only three groups. This particular class contained students with the surnames starting with I through P, with Eric Ibsen at the top of the list and Yevgeney Platov at the bottom.
It also contained his favourite student, Lucrezia Noin, one of the few girls in her year. He smiled seeing her 'test complete' sign on the tool bar of his computer. This time, she was first. When he was bored while the children were occupied with the tests, he amused himself by guessing who would finish first, Lucrezia Noin or Zechs Merquise. It was a fifty-fifty shot, but generally the girl performed faster during the quizes while the boy tended to complete essay-style tests earlier.
He knew few children more brilliant than Lucrezia and Cadet Merquise. Correction, he knew none. If he never witnessed their performance in the field excercises, he would have believed that the world lost two very promising and insightful historians, the way they could dissect the sources and come up with valid hypotesises. Merquise especially was gifted in the philosophy analysis and sociology theorising. But Sbastian did have a chance to see them flying Mobile Suits once and their calling seemed evident.
Simply put, these two were incredible. Hard to believe they were only thirteen, considering how they talked and acted. While Lucrezia was admirable and endearing in her very mature attitude towards life, Merquise was downright intimidating in his all too intense will to succeed. The other cadets didn't see that, but Sebastian, given the advantage of some thirty years over them, knew already that Lucrezia Noin and Zechs Merquise didn't fit any standards. They were the ones to set them. He only hoped those standards wouldn't destroy them.
"Time's up," he announced and touched the screen to close the test.
Uneasy expressions on some faces told him that not everybody was approximately as quick or as sure of their answers as Lucrezia. Well, the last stages of unification, with all the political scheming and several military interventions, were quite a packed portion of recent history.
"Adjust your computers to the refference mode, and we can start the lesson," he instructed them cheerfully and rose from his desk. Pacing through the classroom always helped him to come up with the colorful descriptions the kids found so funny.
Teaching modern history was always more difficult than teaching about ancient times, or Middle Ages or Before Colony era. The latter were interesting because of the very difference in the life-style. The slavery, the religion wars, the over-population problems. The former was about the technology advances and politics, fractions rising, dividing and falling. It took a lot of effort to put those events in interesting light.
"So when King Trillion Peacecraft got totally stuck in his self-absorbtion, the Alliance leaders had little choice but to intervene. The Easter War -- who knows the date? Cadet Ortega?"
"April 7th, 182 AC, sir?"
"Very well. The Easter War was kind of a shiny example of Blitz-Krieg; in one day the Alliance troops forced the Sanc's defences to surrender -- touch the link of the map to see the initial positions of the troops, it's another example of the de la Hora's tactics you studied with Instructor Khushrenada last year -- and introduced the wavering king to the joys of political alliances. As you remember, Sanc's extreme isolationism caused severe economic collapse in the region. Folks couldn't buy a decent watch with those cosmically high customs fees so they were pushing on King Trillion to do something. But the King, being one of those get-stuffed guys, decided to go on his own as long as he could. Alliance meant giving up some of the power to the higher authority and that doesn't usually suit well the ruling houses. Anyway, only four days after the overtaking of Sanc, in Luxembourg, the treaty was signed and Sanc joined the Alliance. Anybody knows how the treaty was nicknamed?"
Clueless faces told Sebastian that nobody knew. Although Cadet Merquise did have a strange look on him...
"Well, it was the 'Treaty for the Pretty' -- the King of Sanc was supposedly a damn fine piece of a cute hunk," he saw some cadets touching the reference links, "but sorry, cadets, you won't see it through that beard on the photo... yes, Cadet Merquise?" he asked seeing the raised hand.
"May I be excused, sir? I..." the boy stammered, "I don't feel well."
True enough, Sebastian decided with a frown. The kid's face was pale and slightly sweaty, his icily azure eyes shone feverishly. And he tremebled. Sebastian couldn't remember Cadet Merquise tremble even after most exhausting and nerve-straining excercises. Concerned expression of Lucrezia, Merquise's best friend as the rumour claimed, was telling how bad the situation seemd to her.
"Indeed, you don't look well, Cadet. Report to Doctor Masawi immediatly."
Nodding, Merquise hastily left the classroom. No, Sebastian thought, not just left hastily. He practically ran out. Most peculiar behaviour for such a dignified person. Shaking his head, he shifted his attention back to his lecture. Merquise was not his resposibility but Treize Khushrenada's.
"Okay, back to the Sanc Kingdom and the Alliance..."
"Is Cadet Merquise here?"
Doctor Masawi looked up from the blood samples she was examining. "No, Cadet Noin. I sent him to his room for rest."
"Is he ill?" Lucrezia asked worriedly.
"No," the doctor calmed her. "It's just an exhaustion. The heat was particularly vicious today and people with fair complexion tend to--"
"Thank you, doctor," the girl said with a faint smile and left the infirmary. She wasn't calmed, not at all. The heat has never bothered Zechs before, he had more than five years to get used to it. How many times has Lucrezia asked him to betray her the secret of coping with it? He enjoyed it, like some kind of a damn cold-blooded lizard.
She glanced at the watch as she walked out of the medical facility. Sixteen hundred twenty eight, the Hand Combat training starting in two minutes. She bit her lip.
She's never been good in Hand Combat anyway, the only class in which she didn't manage to rise above average. Instructor Xiao Zhian would be mad her... oh, hell. So he would make her a practice target for the next month, she could live with that.
Her mind made up, Lucrezia walked into the dormitory builiding and went up the stairs to the third floor where the graduate class boys had their rooms. She often thought that Zechs' door should have some kind of distinction plastered upon it, it was too ordinary for the person who lived behind them. She knocked.
No answer.
"Zechs? It's me, Noin!"
No answer.
"Zechs, are you there?"
The door opened with a low hiss and she stepped in, worried by the lack of verbal response. The light in the room was toned down, the window glass half-darkened. Nothing unusual there, for as much as Zechs enjoyed heat, he disliked bright light.
He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, his back painfully straight against the wall, eyes tightly shut. She would have thought he was deep in some kind of meditation were his fists not clenched and trembling.
Something was wrong, very wrong.
"Zechs, what is it?"
"Nothing."
The tone alone told her that he was lying. "I'm not blind."
"Noin--"
It was clear that he intended to dismiss her with some irrelevant excuse. "Zechs, talk to me. You always listened to my lamentations and it helped..."
"Lucrezia, I--"
She climbed on the bed and sat next to him. "Let me return the favour, just once. I won't say a word, I promise."
"You don't want to hear about it."
Were his voice not so tight, she would have gotten irritated, but as it was, the words almost brought tears to her eyes. "I'm your friend Zechs. Of course I want to hear about it." She paused, the event in the history class replaying in her head. "You didn't feel unwell, did you? It was something else? The same thing that bothered you at lunch?"
He nodded. "Yes."
"What?"
His eyes snapped open. They were so full of pain, of hate, of helpless rage... Lucrezia backed away a little.
"Zechs?" she whispered. "What was it?"
"Sanc. It was about Sanc," he choked out.
She licked her lips nervously. "I... I'm afraid I don't understand..."
"The Easter War was kind of a shiny example of Blitz-Krieg; in one day the Alliance troops forced the Sanc's defences to surrender," Zechs mimicked, "and introduced the wavering king to the joys of political alliances..."
Sanc? She shook her head, completely at loss.
"Defences!" he suddenly shouted to her face, the facade of control broken. His nails draw blood from his palms as he jumped off the bed. "Defences, my ass! Sanc had no defences whatsoever, the hundred Imperial Guards could hardly be called that! Alliance troops forced them surrender? You know what it really looked like, Lucrezia?"
She blinked, feeling how her eyes go wide and breathing getting heavier with his every word. "No."
"It was not an intervention, it was a full-fledged invasion. It was a massacre. A bloodbath. They didn't spare anybody, not an Imperial Guard, not a one comissioned secretary, not a chambermaid, not a gardener. And they didn't just killed them, they slaughtered them. The blood was everywhere. Everywhere."
His voice dropped low, almost to a whisper as he paced back and forth across the room, eyes blazing madly. Lucrezia sat on the bed, Zechs' tale slowly permeating her frozen brain.
"The blood was in the dining hall, in the kitchens, in the drawing room, in the audience hall, in the library, in Father's study, in Mother's chambers, in Relena's nursery, in every single corridor I went through!"
His gaze fixed on hers. "And when they killed everybody, they bombed the palace... And while the palace burned, they set explosives to the port. And then they did the same with every major city in Sanc."
A moment of silence followed. Lucrezia stared at him numbly. Zechs tried to calm down but failed, his breath quickening.
"They introduced the King to the joys of political alliances? Wrong. Father had his head blown off before he could even see the total destruction of his country. Sanc joined the Alliance? Wrong, any authority that could rightfully sign the access act was dead. The King was dead. The Queen was dead. All Council members were dead. All Ministers were dead. Princess Relena didn't sign it, she couldn't even write. And sure as hell, I didn't sign it either!"
Noin gulped. That... was not what she expected to hear. What did he mean that 'father had his head blown off'? He had told her before that his parents were dead but she assumed... And why would he be the one to sign a treaty? The questions whirled in her mind, but she was afraid of voicing them, afraid that if she disrupted his narrative he would never say a word to her again. Pain in his hoarse voice was so palpable that she had to let her tears fall. If he couldn't cry, she would cry for him.
"And they call my father a self-absorbed isolationist! Liars! Damn, fucking liars!" He hit the wall by the door with all his considerable strength, leaving the red trail of blood. "How... dare... they...!"
Lucrezia opened her mouth, understanding dawning on her, understanding she wanted to refuse to acknowledge... no words came out, her throat tightened with emotion. "Zechs..." she managed finally, rising from the bed, approaching him.
"Milliardo." He looked up at her, eyes once again empty, glassed over.
She didn't understand him again and the shame that came beause of that made her stop in the middle of the room, made her feel like a useless doll that could offer no comfort.
"It's my real name," Zechs said in a barely audible voice. "Milliardo Gandhi Yuy Peacecraft, the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Sanc. I was named after my great-grandfather and two historical pacifists."
Lucrezia let out the breath she was holding. God, oh dear God... Zechs... A heavy lump that was nestled in her throat, one she wasn't aware of just a second ago, threatened to suffocate her. Don't break down now! she ordered herself, tears slowly trickling down her cheeks. "Ze... Milliardo... I... I'm so sorry, Milliardo."
His pupils widened at her use of his birthname and his heavy breathing broke into choked sobs, hands automaically going up to cover his face. Noin crossed the rest of the space between them in two swift steps and pulled him into tight embrace. After a moment his hands dropped onto her arms, fingers digging into her flesh painfully, with strength born out of desperation. His entire form shook as he cried into her hair.
"Sometimes... I forget..." he breathed between the sobs, "... who I am... And sometimes... I deliberately make myself forget.... so that I can be free of hatred..." If possible, his grip on her became even tighter. "Because I hate them... God, how I hate them sometimes... but they always make me remember, the blood, the screams, the shots... and I hate them more and more... like today..."
"I know who you are," she whispered into his ear. "You're my best friend."
He ceased fighting tears. "Lucrezia..."
His voice was so thick that she could barely understand, but then there was no need to understand the words. They both collapsed to the floor, their tears mixing together until it was impossible to tell who cried more.
As they half-sat, half-lay on the floor, Zechs... Milliardo... told her everything.
He told her about his family, and the little tidbits of memories he had mentioned to her before were completed with more substantial information. He told her how his father tried to continue the policy of his spiritual brother, Heero Yuy, and how he used to take his son to the Council meetings. He told her how his mother used to read him novels before bedtime. He told her how one of the servants of the palace named Pagan taught him how to fence. He told her how he enjoyed pulling his baby sister's, Relena's, hair to get her attention. He told her how he liked to outsmart the Imperial Guard and sneak out of the palace.
And then he told her about the Easter Sunday, four days before Relena's second birthday. How he saw the Alliance soldiers shoot his father in his study. How he ran through the castle searching for his mother and Relena and how he found them in the chapel. How he hid with Relena under the altar and how he saw his mother getting shot too, together with the priest who accompanied her. How Pagan found them and delivered them to their respective foster families. How he was settled with the Khushrenadas who owed the Peacecrafts a great favour.
How the old Lady Khushrenada passed away and he was sent to the Lake Victoria. How he was glad to have the opportunity to learn in order to take revange. How he formed sort of an alliance with Treize Khushrenada.
"My father would hate me," Zechs... Milliardo... remarked quietly, staring emptily at the ceiling, his blond head resting on Lucrezia's lap.
What could she say? "Don't worry, everything will be all right?" It was not true and he wouldn't have it; she could almost hear his derisive laughter at such 'comfort.' "I will help you?" She didn't know how to. Her own bitterness and anger at her parents that they had happily sent her away seemed pitifully inadequate experiences. The animosity of her brothers and sisters she had to live with was nothing in comparison to the hell he was forced to endure. It was a wonder he befriended her. And she could hardly believe that he trusted her enough to confide his secret to her. What did she do to deserve such trust?
"I don't think he would hate you," she responded, trying to ease his pain. "You're too good a person to be hated."
"Some would not agree with you," he said hollowly. "If anybody found out who I really am, I would be dead within a week."
Her heart clenched because she knew it was true. Last year, on L3X18999 she was forced to start to think about politics and fighting as more than just theory. But she has never expected they would come so close to her, make her realise how dirty they could really be, how they could influence lives.
How they would influence her life.
Because the knowledge Zechs... Milliardo... has just entrusted her with would surely influence her life. Through him, the political treachery and bloodshed of seven years before would change her future, she knew that already. She could only make sure that she would stay more or less intact. And that Zechs, the only person who always seemed to know how she felt and always knew the right words to say to her, would stay more or less intact.
"They don't know you. They wouldn't kill you because of hate," she attempted to rationalize his mental state. "It would be because of..."
"Politics," his lips curled into a humourless grimace. "I would rather it was because of hate. It's easier to accept someone wanting you dead because they hate you than because you're a danger to their ambition."
Lucrezia brushed the pale strands off his forehead. "But they all think you dead already, except for Instructor Khushrenada. So right now you have nothing to worry about."
He nodded absently. "Right now I'm just a faceless name on the Academy's list of cadets. But it won't always be so." Again, his face took that fierce expression. "Oh no, it won't... What then?"
"Then we will have to make sure you get out of the mess alive."
He smiled faintly at that, he actually smiled. "We?"
"Sure. You didn't think I would leave my best friend all on his own, did you? Why else would you tell me all of this?"
Zechs looked into her eyes intensely. "I wanted someone I could talk about this, someone who would know... because I don't want to talk about it with Treize. I know, I shouldn't burden you..."
"Hey," she protested weakly, sniffling. "Do you hear me complaining?"
"No, but..."
"You can always talk to me, Milliardo, about anything you want."
He caught her her hand, the one that was tangled into his hair, and squeezed it tightly. "Thank you, Lucrezia. It will be... the most precious of gifts."
For me too, she thought before wiping her nose with her sleeve. "So, do you have a tissue somewhere in here?"