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SHIN KIDOU SENKI GUNDAM WING

SAINAN NO KEKKA
Trio: Milliard

"The Fates were also three-Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. Their office was to spin the thread of human destiny, and they were armed with shears, with which they cut it off when they pleased. They were the daughters of Themis (Law), who sits by Jove on his throne to give him counsel."
-Bulfinch's Mythology


Create....

Preserve...

....Or destroy?

The words whispered through his mind as he walked down the hallways of the Cinq palace, wondering exactly what the hell he was doing there. Most likely he had come to see Relena, his muddled thoughts reasoned, but why had he done that?

Ever since Christmas, he had been doing his best to avoid her. Still, he was here now, and if he didn't at least stop by, she would begin to hound him again.

She was a master at that, as Heero Yuy had learned.

Relena Darlian Peacecraft sat in her office, apparently waiting for him, but her oak desk was missing. In its place was a small stool seated behind a looming spinning wheel. Milliard blinked a few times, but it was still there. In fact, aside from the stool, Relena, and the archaic spinning wheel, the office was empty.

Relena peeked around it, waving with a graceful hand. "Hello, oniisama," she said, a smile lighting her noble features. "Come on in and have a seat."

He glanced around. "There's no furniture," he said in a soft voice, wondering if the whole damn war and responsibility he had thrust onto her had driven his sister mad.

"Before there were chairs, man sat on the ground," she answered, her amusement apparent by the sparkle in her eyes.

He wasn't quite sure what was going on. Relena was dressed in white from head to ankle, in gauze and lace, and he noticed her bare feet poking out from where she sat. The dress reminded him of a wedding dress- pure, virginal. Her golden hair was free of all adornment, and hung loose around her cheeks. "Relena, what are you doing? Don't you have work?"

Her laugh reminded him of the sigh of bells on the wind, as light and sweet as the forgotten melody of time. "I am working, oniisama. Can't you see?" She motioned to the wheel, which she starting to turn with a steady, even rhythm. She began to hum again softly as her fingers moved to the wheel.

"Relena..."

"Aren't you going to sit?"

He complied, wondering if he should inform her personal physician or something. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

She blinked innocently. "I'm spinning, of course. You know that's what I do." A delicate twist of a hand, and she began to spin an amazingly fine thread- from an empty distaff. She was working with no material, yet from her fingers emerged a strange thread that held no color, yet seemed to reflect its surroundings.

Something was definitely going on.

"Relena, you're the Queen of the Cinq country. You don't have time for this foolishness. Now, can I call Pargon to drag all the stuff back in here?"

She sighed, and her eyes looked at him sadly. She reminded him of how she had seemed whenever another one of the reports from her operatives told her there was no sign of Heero Yuy, and that according to records, there never had been such a person, aside from the colony leader. "Oniisama, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees." She continued her spinning.

"Relena!"

"It's the truth. How about just sitting back and accepting things as they are, rather then forcing them to conform to what you want?"

He barely kept from snorting. "Relena, you're being hypocritical. Aren't you the one who tries to force the world to play by your rules?"

"Maybe it's a family trait," she said serenely.

"What did you want to talk about?" Milliard asked.

"You," she said. "I hardly ever see you anymore. You're my brother."

"Relena..."

She stopped spinning for a second. "Have you spoken to Noin lately?"

"Noin's dead. In fact, what the hell am I doing here? The last thing I remember is being on A007, preparing for the attack."

"Oniisama, when will you stop believing only in what makes sense? Sometimes you have to just trust in what your heart tells you."

"She's dead," he insisted. "She has to be; Une herself told me that she had been attacked."

"But that doesn't necessarily mean she's dead. If anyone could survive, it would be Noin. After all, wasn't she the best student the Academy had ever seen?"

"That would be me."

Relena shook her head, an amused smile quirking her pale lips. "Only because she let you. What would you do without Noin?" she asked, her smile curious.

"Same thing that I've been doing."

"You don't think she's dead," Relena said softly. "If you did, you'd throw the whole assignment back where it belongs. A007 is hopeless, and you would be better utilized at home."

"Noin's dead," he insisted.

"And Dorothy doesn't love you," Relena countered sarcastically.

He blinked slowly, unable to follow her train of thought.

"What are you talking about?"

Relena cast her eyes down. "You know it. Dorothy's been in love with you forever."

"She has not!"

"She has. The only reason you won't admit it to yourself is that you don't want to admit that you've abused her love."

"No-"

"You don't want to acknowledge the pain you've inflicted on her, taking her on a pointless mission to save the woman whom you DO love."

"No-"

"We always hurt those closest to us. Do you know I used to wonder why Dorothy wasn't your sister? You two are much more compatible then you and I.... wouldn't you rather have Dorothy as your sister, someone who can understand the pain you've gone through?"

"Relena...."

"No. I'm wrong. You like me the way I am; after all, why else would you send Noin to me, to support me in the pacifism that got our father killed? You want me innocent. You see how you should have been in my face, yet it hurts you each time I speak. I am what you love and fear most." She sighed and finished her spinning. She handed the spool over to him. "Do me a favor?"

"What?" His mind was reeling from all her accusations. Is she right?

"Deliver this to the next worker. She's in the room over."

"What?" If it was possible, his confusion grew. "Go out and go to the room to the right. She'll know what to do."

"Relena..."

"Shoo!" she ordered, rising to her feet. "I have other things to do!" She started to spin again, starting from a fresh skein.

He complied, hoping whoever was next door would be able to explain exactly what was going on. He felt off-balance, and it wasn't a feeling he liked. He pushed open the next door after knocking once, then his heart dropped.

Noin. It was Noin.

"I thought you were dead…." he whispered.

"Who says I'm not?" Noin said playfully. "If Heero Yuy can come back from the dead, why can't I?"

"Noin…. How did you get here?"

"You brought me, don't you remember?" She brushed her hands over her dress, smoothing it down.

Noin wore a simple dress of gray, something that seemed off to him. He could count the times he'd seen her wear a dress on both hands with fingers to spare, so it always threw him off. Sometimes he had a hard time remembering she was a woman, rather then a soldier and the person he trusted most in the entire world.

"Relena said to give you this," he said, ungraciously thrusting the spool of thread at her.

She took it gently, her exaggerated care mocking his eagerness to discard his delivery. "Don't you know better then that?" she chided him, then laughed lightly. "That wasn't such a hard task, now was it?"

"You- you knew I was coming?"

Her eyes were mysterious as the night sky. "Of course I did, Zechs," she confirmed. "I always know what you're up to. Will you keep me company while I work? I have another errand for you to do shortly, after I finish with this."

He was about to argue that he wasn't a servant, but the look of serenity in her calm face told him that she, too, was afflicted with whatever phenomenon had taken hold of his sister.

So much for getting answers out of Noin.

Noin's fingers unwound the thread which Relena had labored on. With seeming practice, she extended the pellucid strand until it was a little over two feet, then touched it with her index finger. The spot she touched darkened ever so slightly, and she smiled in satisfaction. With a slight smile, she materialized an empty spool and started to wind it around. "This will take a little time, but then, time is all we have."

"Noin, where are you?" Milliard demanded. Hadn't she been lost, and presumed dead by the Preventers? Hadn't he been mourning her death, seeking... redemption? Yet now she stood before him, calmly taking a thread and examining it, every now and then making marks by touching it with the tip of a finger.

This time the smile didn't reach her night-dark eyes. "Do you like fairy-tales, Zechs?" she asked quietly.

"I don't. I prefer reality," he said, wondering where she was going.

"Well, then I might have a story for you," she said. "Sit for a second." Her hands were still busily winding.

He decided to humor her and sank to the ground, wondering what affliction she had been struck by, and if it was contagious.

"Once upon a time, there was a prince," she began. "This prince was born to a beautiful, yet peaceful, country, and his people began to train him in the arts that would make him a just ruler, as his father was. In time he was even granted a baby sister, whom he doted upon." Noin paused in her tale to undo a tangle that had mysteriously appeared.

"Now, everything in their kingdom was wonderful and peaceful, but the outside world was not. Their father, the King, preached peace to a world which didn't want to hear about it. Eventually he was killed for it, and the prince ran away, hiding his face from the world. The beloved princess was smuggled away by the family's loyal servants, and it seemed that that was the end of their story together."

Noin steadily worked on examining the thread, which made Milliard want to yank it out of her hands. "Now, if this was a traditional fairy-tale, you know what would have happened: the prince would have shown the world that his father's values were the right ones and retaken the throne, marrying his beloved sister off to one of the knights who helped save them. And all would be peaceful once again.

"But it wasn't; the prince harbored hatred for those who killed his father in his heart, and planned revenge. He succeeded in this, but only by becoming what his father would have detested most; a warrior. The prince was wise enough to recognize that he could never be kind of the peaceful country, so he pushed that burden off onto his younger sister, who still was too innocent and unprepared for the hardship that lay ahead of her, for unlike the prince, the princess had never been trained to be a ruler.

"As for the prince…" she stopped, and continued to do her work.

When it became apparent that Noin wasn't going to continue, he prodded her gently by saying, "As for the prince?"

"I don't know. That would be up to the prince, don't you think? The end of the story hasn't been told yet."

"No happily ever after," he said softly.

"In life, there rarely are." She finished with the thread, and handed him the spool. "I'm done. Go next door and give it to who you find there?"

"Noin…"

"I'll see you again shortly," she promised.

Milliard walked out, feeling even more muddled as he obeyed.

He wasn't surprised to find Dorothy Catalonia.

Dorothy knelt on the ground, her ebony skirts pooled around her like a deep lake of darkness from which she was arising like a goddess. The tight bodice lifted her breasts into a cleavage that would tempt most red-blooded males, and her flaxen hair cascaded like a river down to fall into her lap.

Dorothy looked up at him, her blue-gray eyes hard and predatory. Milliard much preferred to see her in colors, for black made her look far too much like the Dorothy who had been a scion of the Romafeller Foundation. "Hello, Milliard. I understand you have something for me," she said.

He handed over the skein Noin had sent him to deliver. "Dorothy, can you please tell me what's going on?" he demanded. Dorothy he could count on to be reasonable, even in weird circumstances such as these.

She smiled and produced and ornate pair of scissors that looked like they had been made out of gold. "If I told you, that would take the fun out of it. Come, Milliard, surely you can guess," she said, raising a strangely shaped eyebrow his direction.

"Dorothy..."

"Milliard..." she returned, in the same aggravated tone he had used on her. She began to take the thread in her hands, inspecting it. Then she leveled her shears on a dark spot -the first one Noin had made- and made as if to sever it with a twitch of her wrist. "Just kidding," she said teasingly. "I'm not the one who'll cut this thread."

For some reason, she made him more uncomfortable then either Noin or Relena had.

"What?" he asked.

"In everything, there is a beginning and an end. This," she held up the end of the thread, "is the beginning, but where is the end? Should I use the entire spool? Or should I let the thread weaken, and break by itself? It's good, strong thread, but sometimes.. things don't go as planned." She made a move as if to break it with a jerk.

"Stop!" a voice said, and Milliard spun around to see Noin enter.

Dorothy's eyes flashed with annoyance. "Can't you at least let me finish with him before you come barging in here?" she demanded.

Noin sighed. "I'll be right over here, then," she said with great reluctance, earning her another glare from the blonde girl.

"You're ALWAYS around," Dorothy accused as Noin vanished back into the shadows. Her eyes lingered on the space where the other woman had been for a moment, then returned her attention to him. "I make you uneasy, don't I?"

"No," he answered, but it was a lie. Dorothy had always made him uneasy. She was unpredictable.... erratic.... brilliant. She relied on him, just like Noin and Relena had, but he wasn't entirely sure he could trust her.

Her smile was pained. "It's okay," she assured him. "I make everyone uneasy." Her eyes shifted to a point beyond him, and he could see she wasn't really seeing him. "I speak the truth, and no one wants to acknowledge that, you know?"

"War is glorious?" he said, lifting an elegant blond eyebrow, mirroring what she had done a minute before. "Didn't you learn anything from the Eve Wars?"

"What did you learn from them?" she countered. "How to kill? How to betray and betray again? What did you learn, as my cousin Treize died? Wasn't he your friend?"

His expression grew pained. "I don't want to talk about Treize," he whispered.

"Why not? Why don't you? Do you feel guilty for betraying him?"

"Dorothy, I see no reason I should have to explain myself to you…" he growled, low in his throat. He was within an inch of leaning over and throttling the combative young woman. Only Dorothy had ever dared talk back to him, making him question his beliefs. She respected nothing; with her, nothing was sacrosanct. It was one of her most admirable qualities, but also one of the reasons he felt so uneasy around her.

"Will you explain to me, then, oniisama?" Relena stepped out of the shadows, still wearing her white dress.

"Or me?" Noin asked, ignoring the dirty look Dorothy cast her as she emerged.

"I don't need to explain anything I've done!"

"Not even to yourself?" Dorothy asked, finally rising to her feet. She handed the skein back to him, and he wondered what he was supposed to do with it.

"It's time," Relena said.

"Make a decision," Noin chimed in. "Choose where to cut."

"Where shall you choose, Milliard Peacecraft?" Dorothy handed her delicate shears over to him. "It's up to you to cut it. Just make sure you don't screw up, or you'll live- well, you'll regret it, to say the least."

Milliard took them hesitantly, wanting to get rid of the things, yet finding himself unable to. "Dorothy…"

"Be decisive, Zechs," Noin said, her face stern and serious. "There's no second chances.

"Take command, and do this yourself," Relena agreed. "There are some things a person must do for himself."

He looked at the two other women in his life, wanting to argue, yet words wouldn't come to his lips, no matter how much he tried.

Past…

Present…

Future…

All were one, and they all meant nothing, nothing if he could not, for once in his life, take control of his own fate. Raising the sheers to toss them away, he was surprised to find them close in along the thread instead. "Where do I cut?" he asked in a husky voice. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

The other two women deferred to Dorothy, who spoke freely. "That's your choice, Milliard."

"But..."

"Choose quickly!" Noin said.

"We don't have all day, oniisama!"

He nodded, and started to bring the shears down, yet his hands trembled.

Milliard couldn't take the final step. "I can't," he said softly. "I can't take the chance I'll chose wrong."

"Is that your choice, then?" Noin asked.

"I didn't make one!" he retorted.

"Not choosing is a choice in and of itself," his sister said gently. "One of these days, you'll find yourself regretting your cowardice."

"COWARDICE?"

Relena laughed. "Oh, oniisama," she said, rising up on her toes to deposit a kiss on his cheek. "You learned nothing from the war. Perhaps someday, you'll be ready."

"Ready for what?" he demanded.

"Your fate," Noin said.

She who spins...

She who measures...

She who cuts...

It fit together, in a bizarre sort of way.

"What is my fate?" he asked, wondering what the hell they were doing messing with his head. Hadn't the Zero System been enough?

Dorothy opened her mouth to speak....

And then he woke up.

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