The Desert Fox

by saiyuri-dahlia

In the future, Quatre promised himself he would heed more caution before hugging a stranger without supervision. In his own defense, this was a unique complication he was in, but boy was he going to get an earful from the Maganac... Rewritten and reposted to correct bizarre OC's pronoun choice. No more 'this one', I swear.

Story Title: The Desert Fox

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.

Author's Notes: This fic came out from me wanting to do a comparison between Quatre and fennec foxes, because it is in my opinion that a fennec fox best represents Quatre. Seriously, if fennecs had blue eyes, it would be Quatre's animal form. This story is set about a year after Endless Waltz and I must admit that Quatre's depiction here is part canon, part my vision of him. Nothing I added will hopefully be too wild or not all that unreasonable to imagine of him.

This is the rewritten, reposted version changing my OC's pronoun use to something less irritating. This rewrite came about Bright Anarchy's review on the original, now deleted version criticizing my pronoun use with my OC. I admit, months ago and long before I received his/her review, I had been considering rewriting my first chapter since I no longer thought my artistic choice was such a brilliant idea. It does come across more like Smurf-speak, and honestly makes me cringe, and Bright Anarchy's review was basically the final incentive for me to get around and rewriting this chapter. Plus I finally got a day off from work and had the time to correct it.

Basically, I made an artistic decision to do something different with my OC and it flopped. It happens. So I changed it. The only complication it makes is that CH 2 is written from Quatre's viewpoint using third-person. See, the original plan was that I was going to alternate chapters from my OC and Quatre's eyes. Now, I'm apparently going to have my OC's chapters in first-person and switch to third-person for Quatre's. But since my OC is not supposed to be human or shares human concept of gender and can't use gender-defining pronouns and using 'it' isn't correct either, switching between first and third-person seems the least annoying choice. I apologize for anyone that hates switching between POV types but this is a weird story. And it's easier to read than 'this one' over two hundred times.

To Bright Anarchy, the original version of this chapter is not how I normally write. It was an artistic experiment and one that I saw fail. I appreciated your criticism and agreed that it was valid. A rewrite was something I had been considering anyway. I've read bad fanfiction (and written some too), but please note that I'm not a fledgling writer. That said, I can still make mistakes, make poor artistic choices, but when I'm called out, I can accept criticism, admit I was wrong, and hopefully rewrite a better chapter afterwards.

That said, to all who give this rewrite a chance, thank you for reading.

-o-

Chapter One: The Tune Played Upon His Heartstrings

-o-

It was easy to find him. Go to where there was suffering and he would be there. He would be there with aid—food, medicine, and supplies for the impoverished locals and diplomacy, tact, and persuasion for the warring chiefs and political leaders. He was the CEO who had not been behind his desk in over a year now, who preferred people over paperwork, who cared more about doing something with his family's fortunes than allowing it to accrue interest and age.

He was here. And I am here but let it be known that I am not human and I am neither male or female but for the time I am among humans, I will be seen as a female. Superiors told me to be here because my presence had been written in The Book For Which All Is Written. Superiors had not asked me nor had I volunteered myself for this assignment. It had been written and so I would be here.

The Book had also detailed my mission. I had been informed all of what I would be granted to know by my greater, my direct Superior, and descended into the realm of the humans. I was here to do the job decreed by the Book. No hard feelings to it. At all. My kind do not possess feelings. We emulated human emotion, at best, when among humans. It allows us to walk among them, influence them without suspicion, without drawn interest. Humans meet and socialize with us day to day without ever knowing.

I chose an attractive female face as a base and dulled my physical features so I could walk among humans and hide in plain sight, safe from humans and our enemies alike. My kind always choose familiar but overall plain appearances, often meeting the criteria of the golden ratio, to mask ourselves. When we meet, he will only recall my appearance afterwards as similar to another human he had met before but also like another person and yet a little like yet another, only none of these people actually look similar. I will, at best, be a supremely pieced together mosaic of human features.

He was easy to find but difficult to reach. People always surrounded him—my notes detailed a magnetic quality to him that coincided with his amicable nature that draws other humans to him. I have no other choice but to separate him from the forty men in his protective circle, the Maganac Corps as the notes designated. I cannot reach him at the present moment.

For now, I will wait. Earth's sun had just risen but he and the Maganac were already very busy and there were many hours left on this world's day, so I can wait. In the meantime, I recited the facts given to me.

I was on Earth. I was on a large piece of land the humans called a continent on Earth. The continent was called Africa. There was much suffering in Africa. There was much need of help in Africa. He was here in Africa to give help. He was a young human male named Quatre Raberba Winner. Age 17. Head of the Winner family and CEO of WEI and key holder to its vast resources. Former pilot of the Gundam Sandrock. Active agent of the Preventers. War hero. Pacifist. Philanthropist. Squishy.

However, I believed, as all of my kind believed, that all humans were squishy. So many things outside their own bodies could terminate their existence—the list could contain everything in their universe and beyond. It even included the things their own bodies did to kill them.

It was endless the number of means humans could die. I often wondered why they existed at all if it seemed like everything in the universe could end them. They seem pointless to me but I have no right to speak on the existence of humans. Though, as I considered as I waited, perhaps their squishiness was why there were so many of them and how they could repopulate so quickly to replace their lost. It was their means of balance. Everything in the universe had a means a balance. For every action, an opposite but equal reaction. A life lost, a life made. For every push, a pull.

The notes suggested that, despite Quatre Raberba Winner being squishy, he was quite difficult to squish. My notes detailed a history of injury that he had been shot in the arm and went on to pilot a weapon humans once produced called a mobile suit and led the Maganac Corps into battle. He had been stabbed in the lung by a rapier but his injury did not prevent him from giving a lengthy speech to his assailant and then from escaping further attack in a mobile suit. It also appeared that being left floating in space with a limited quantity of oxygen could not terminate his biological functions.

Reviewing the extensive list of his ongoing resistance against the constant attempts to squish him, I must admit to being in a sort of state of what humans called impress. His physical details list him as short (but with years to grow), slender-built, of above-average athleticism and of nigh superhuman endurance and that he was trained in various forms of combat, and his weight as about ninety pounds dry and 106 pounds soaking wet. Given his stats, he was not an imposing figure physically but the notes detailed that he exuded an aura of confidence, backed with strong ideals, that added weight to his presence and made amends for and, on occasion, belied his slight appearance.

This projected confidence and firm ideals were most useful in his political and business dealings. Without them and with only his family name to bear his influence, his competition and potential allies would cast him off as nothing more than a child, a silly rich boy with too much time and money to spare using dead daddy's company to play politics and business with the big boy professionals.

But the men and women he must face to secure promises of charitable contributions and promises of reform soon see him for what he really is—not a boy they could ignore or manipulate but a young man that was not merely a minor player in their games but a mastermind. Those who doubted him soon found that they really had only the choice to ally with him or find their businesses and accounts ultimately acquired by him and with a bright smile nonetheless. What the former bosses could never understand was why their former employees seem happy, jubilant even, when they announce their company has been overtaken by the WEI—after all, WEI consistently remained at the top in worker satisfaction.

As noted before, he does not particularly care for the corporate and necessary political aspects of his family position but these were things he was responsible for and he would uphold them for he possessed a strong sense of responsibility and he knew these things were necessary to aid his much preferred philanthropic work. The notes, after all, emphasized his kindness, his generosity, and his genuinely good heart. It listed his kindness as both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.

Too uncertain if I would manage to fool the tight-knit band of Arab mercenaries by shifting my features and form to mirror a blend of comrades from their unit, I cast shadows over myself and remained in the dark and listened in on their plans. Today, he and the Maganac were going to deliver and distribute food and medicine and when that was through, the Maganac would build homes and schools and fortify and repair existing structures. There were interviews and meetings with leaders for him days from now but I would be long gone by then. I had my mission, I would complete it, and that was that. The ramifications of my actions on him beyond that were inconsequential to me. I was here to do what was written.

I crept and hid about the Maganac camp and rode underneath the truck bearing him to the impoverished local hospital. When we arrived, he walked along the side, right past me. I was close enough to grab him by the ankle. There was much I could do to him to keep him restrained with even that meager grip on him. I even could have slipped right out and appeared directly behind him and completed my mission then and there but there were too many Maganac around. My kind do not perform for crowds. I held on tight to the underside of the truck.

These men have proven to be an obstacle. The Maganac were always around him. They were always watching over him, not in an oppressive or intrusive manner, but in a loyal, protective manner. They looked out for him, their co-leader, younger brother, and son. I supposed this was necessary—after all, he has had quite a history of injuries, so much so I wondered if his waistcoat was bulletproof—and in truth, their vigilance was necessary because I was here and I would not return unsuccessful.

So I waited and watched. My time would come. From the hospital, it was a short drive across the small city to the food distribution center. Once the truck stopped, I hastened into an alleyway for better shelter and to formulate and then execute my plan. One of the Maganac lieutenants caught sight of me but passed off the dark shadow that flitted across the corner of his sunglass-shaded vision as nothing more than a street mutt running by, just as my glamour had projected.

I hid among the humans who have come needing his aid. I smoothly adjusted my face to reflect neighbors and distant kin to raise no suspicion among the crowd. I was any one of them and every one of them but I was not like any one of them. My turn in line came and I stood face to face with him. I took the provisions he offered me and clasped hands with him. I offered him generic but grateful thanks and blessings like all the others as he smiled and nodded and seemed like he was about to say something to me before a woman with a crying infant bumped me out of the way and stole his attention from me. I had almost had enough eye contact to charm him into following me.

As soon as I caught my balance and tried push and jostle my way through the horde to reach him once more, a soldier not from the Maganac grabbed me by the arm. Fearing I had made too great a scene already, I permitted the solider to pull me away without harm. Reluctantly, I retreated, feeling what I believed was disappointment at failing to separate him away from his men or the surrounding hungry eyes reaching their wanting hands toward him.

I stood and watched him from afar in shadows, surveyed my surroundings, and calculated and weighed my options. At first, I thought there was no way to separate him from his protectors, but I reminded myself that I had been the one written for this mission and in doing so, it meant that I was capable of succeeding. It was not written in the Book that I would fail so I would find my chance and take it.

I saw him step away so I followed him.

And then I saw my chance.

He was walking back to the truck alone. I did not know why and did not care. I had him alone, unguarded, unwatched, and that was all that mattered. I did surmise that, though this was most likely a meager task he could ask any of the Maganac to accomplish, he most likely saw no reason to trouble them when he could easily complete it himself and so he was walking back, alone. It was enough time for me to devise my plan and set it into motion.

After altering my face and form to reflect a girl of similar age as him, I peeked from around a dirty corner and briefly but intentionally met his eye and then quickly hid again as he approached the truck and asked a request of the first Maganac that greeted him. As he thanked the Maganac and turned to leave, he caught sight of me again peeking from around the corner. I pretended to be nervous, embarrassed that I had been caught. I made a quick but fake check around and down the alley and then gestured to him to follow. And, as if locked in the hook shape my bony fingers made, he followed.

I hurried down the alley quicker than him and darted my wary, uncertain gaze a lot in show. Even though I looked like a harmless, sickly peasant girl, I could not help but question why he had followed me and how easy it had been to get him to come with me without even charming him. Truly, his kindness was a dangerous weakness.

Soon, I lured him inside a thatch hut. It was dirty inside and it was dark. The only exit was the sole door covered only by an old blanket. I made sure that no one had seen us and to assure our secrecy, I projected an illusion of an empty alleyway on both sides of us. He had hesitated before he had entered and I was certain he had calculated the risks before he decided I was not a great threat to his existence. Such miscalculations were often the very errors that caused many humans the termination of their existence.

"Hello," he said right off and offered me his hand to shake in greeting. "My name is Quatre Raberba Winner. What is yours?"

I did not give him a name. I had no name to give. He introduced himself and asked again and again for my name in different human tongues and still I did not speak. I played my part and picked at my fingertips and timidly stared down into the red dry earth. I moved my mouth and spoke words without a sound as I pretended to be apprehensive, to be trying to make my voice come forth but manage only high, strained cries.

His eyes were warm and kind. They offered the girl I pretended to be help and hope. His eyes did not fear me, or rather the girl he believes I was. There was bravery in his kind eyes. However, the line between brave and foolish was a very thin one. He was brave, yes, and he was rarely foolish but he could be fooled. Play on his kindness, strike at his heartstrings, win his trust, and he could be fooled.

So I cried. Fat tears that spoke of years of despondency and woe leading to sudden overwhelming hope and joy streaked down my fabricated dark cheeks. They were lies, every tear, but he did not know that.

"It's okay," he said softly and repeated his words to me as he drew closer. "It will be okay soon."

And without reason, without request, and much sympathy and love as a living being for the girl I wasn't, he hugged me.

A serrated-tooth grin stretched impossibly wide across my face as I realized I had him.

I spoke for the first time but I spoke in my language, one he did not know and would never know. My bony fingers elongated and sharpened and were like spider legs tipped with scythes when their transformation was complete. I wasted no time and pierced my fingers into his back. They buried through his purple and pink cloth, through his flesh, through his blood and muscle. I sunk my hands deep into his corporal body and broke through to his spiritual and sought for his soul.

I felt his every emotion. He stood neither here nor there but frozen in the between I created. His back was arched and his brave eyes were wide in fear and his mouth was open as if he was screaming. He appeared like a still photo of a human that had just been shot. I had been shot before but it did not kill me, merely inconvenienced me, as my kind were immortal. I remembered the pain, though, but knew the magic I was performing on him produced far greater pain throughout far deeper depths of the human body than what a bullet ever would have done to him.

At last, my hands wrapped around his soul. At first touch, my hands jumped away as if burned, though human souls merely take the appearance of flames. It was strange, the feel of his soul. It was warm and reassuring. I felt as if my hands rested comfortably in his and that he was ever so happy to see me. The thought and feeling brought a smile to my face. I expected to look up and see him smiling cheerfully back at me but when I looked up, his state of silent screaming reminded me of my mission at hand so I quickly focused back down on his soul. Though the good feelings remained, I lost my smile.

I had not performed this spell many times but of the few times that I have, I have never felt a soul like his. Feeling the depths of his love for other humans and of life itself, I was in awe of his love. Having spent little time in the company of humans, what with their fleeting lives never impacting my own eternal existence, I had never considered that life was a profound joy meant to be cherished like he believed. I had believed humans were inconsequential, pointless, expendable. I considered reevaluating my stance. His thoughts were fascinating to me. He wished nothing more but to help others and live a life worth living.

He was completely unlike the other humans I had been sent to Transmute in the past. By human standards, those other humans were wicked, unpunished criminals, true cesspools of humanity with greasy, withered dark souls. Other humans would have agreed that they had deserved their sentence. However, in comparison to them, he was an angel, an innocent…

Dare I say, he was pure?

No, he was not pure. I saw he was not as I turned his soul about in my hands. He was good, by human standards, and his soul was like a warm ball of sunlight, ever comforting, but he was not without darkness. However, I sensed it was not in his nature to produce such darkness. It was the result of other humans with souls far darker than his marking his soul. Such was the nature of humans. But I felt he was meant to be a light in the dark and was comforted that his soul would never turn greasy and withered.

I soon realized I had been admiring his soul for far too long. I justified my fascination on account of rarely being giving a target that so clearly did not deserve my presence but this was my mission and I would do as it had been written. Still his overwhelming compassion and generosity intrigued me as I did not possess these qualities and would never understand or be able to show such emotion as freely and honestly as he did. After all, I could only emulate these qualities. I could only pretend to be kind.

I drew his soul from his spiritual body into his corporal and as such the magic of my spell commanded, his body changed shape.

Humans had a belief of spirit animals, that their souls and personalities could be represented by an animal. There were even specific rituals, tests, and quizzes a human could take to help determine their animal. My kind did not have such a belief but we utilized this belief in our soul to flesh spell because this was what a human would expect to happen. Our magic took more easily to humans when it suited human expectation and perception.

He grew smaller. His clothes did not. They laid crumpled over him, hiding him in his tiny new body. The spell was painful and frightening but it did not take long to complete. He lay motionless but I saw his heart beating and his chest rising and falling in sharp, alarmed breaths and knew he had survived.

And so my mission was done. I turned to leave at once and, though it was not required, I found myself pausing and turning back around.

"I think you're supposed to learn a lesson," I said in his language. I was confused and uncertain as to why I had offered any sort of explanation at all. It had not been written for me to do so. And yet, I had felt overwhelmingly that it was the right thing to do.

He did not respond and so I left.

There was a heaviness in my chest as I vanished and slithered back to my realm. I thought I felt…regret…or it was sorrow for what I had done. I maintained my glamour and cupped my hands in the hollow between my breasts where my soul would be if my kind had souls and recalled his warmth, his kindness, and his love in a strange desire to comfort myself after what I had done but found the half-shadows I managed to conjure and emulate only made the heaviness drop me to my knees.

I had been simply told to be there and what to do. I did not know why he had to be Transmuted and I do not understand why. If his soul had been dark, I would have thought nothing but it was not dark so I do not understand. I know why I do not know. It was not my place so my direct Superior did not inform me and I am not supposed to question. My kind followed the Book's word without fail but the information procured from its pages was compartmentalized within strict need-to-know-basis within our orders and ranks.

It was not my place to question but to understand why a soul like his deserved such a fate...

I would seek to know.