The Pilots of the Dark Gundam
By wsprs*nda*drk Chapter 01
The Life That Could Have Been
Hey! For those who have been patiently waiting for my non-yaoi, here's where it all starts! (NO, I have nothing against yaoi. I have just been saturated by it and I think it's time for something new, that's all) I must apologize to those out there who think Releena must die. I salvaged her in my story. Don't worry, she's actually pretty cool. All the characters will be in my story and all will have major parts. It might take a while because this story is going to be an epic. So, keep reading and enjoy!!
PS The Dark Gundam is WAR.
Oh, the characters aren't mine, yada, yada, so on and so forth.
I never would have known the difference. My life would have continued as it should have, normal for the most part. At least, as normal as it could have been being tattered and torn from all sides by war. I probably would have grown into my position as a diplomat in ways that seem sluggish and meaningless to me in this life. I probably would have become an ambassador of Earth and spread the popular but mythical notions of peace to the colonies in the only ways I could - make an appearance for the benefit of desperate eyes here; say a few words on behalf of those desperate folk to people with deaf ears there; try to negotiate with the barbaric monstrosities of Romafellar that govern humanity, armed with nothing more than the naive idea of a dream. For what you ask? For people who are so tired they don't even remember what they are fighting to gain! But that would have been ok. I would have fought for them. I would have been good at creating a façade of brilliance and hope so irresistible people would believe and trust in me. Maybe even I would have believed me. Maybe I would have thought I was accomplishing something. I might have even thought myself happy and complete. In any case, I would have been an excellent, albeit unknowing, puppet to any who would use my face, my words, and the dying power of my family name to spread their messages of oppression in the name of peace. Caught in an inescapable web... the perfect prey turned predator. Me. Doing as I'm told by those who have become my enemies in this life. Smoothing the fears of people and filling their heads with bright but hollow words that could never rally the desire for true freedom. Just doing as I am told. Believing I'm opening pathways to better, peaceful futures while in actuality I am making things worse. I'd only pacify their anger by encouraging non-violence. Make them easier to control. But better to spill into the world empty words than to be absolutely silent. Silence is admitting I will not even try to better the lives of my fellow beings. Silence is saying they are on their own. Better to lie and give false hope than to keep silent and to steal hope. Who knows? I probably would have believed the lie myself.
*****
That doesn't matter. That life is a bad dream. It's not real! It just seems that I need to remind myself too often that my life isn't that life. Compared to the grand description of the diplomat I boast of being now, that life would have been listless and unbearable. Just because I wouldn't have recognized it as being such accomplishes nothing. So it's pointless to worry about it.
Even so, shushed behind shallow breathing as though it were hiding but refusing to disappear, I can feel how close that life was to being truth. I can taste the bile churning in my clenched stomach. The icy fear of it clings to me like a sticky residue that lingers long past the fading nightmare.
Because I would never have known the difference.
Yes, I know I would have lived the tactician profile beyond the call of duty in any life. It's in my blood. But had my life not been influenced by those five incredible paradoxes of the human spirit, I would have fallen into a life that would be everything I stand against. And I would never have known.
*****
Maybe that's why my life has been as it has been. I just can't shake the feeling that without them, I would have flown through the years without changing anything no matter what I did. But now, I fight with as much passion as they do in the ways I can. I might not be as glamorous or gory, but I can still accomplish things they cannot. I can sign treaties and lead negotiations. I can arbitrate between two warring nations and create one peaceable nation. I can create out of their destruction. I heal where they wound. I can tread unscathed under truce where they would incite vicious battle. We are a team. We exist complementary. We are necessary opposites. We are the completion of human blood and tears. Heart and spirit. Love and hate.
...and I never would have known the difference.
*****
I can almost believe that years exist as minutes. How many has it been? Almost 12 years since my first encounter? I know I am tied to them, but I wasn't aware until now just HOW STONGLY I have invested my feelings and my dreams in those five, and through them - countless more. How could have I? I didn't know so many feelings could be compacted within one human body. I suppose I should start from the beginning. Not the very beginning. I don't even know where that beginning establishes itself. So, I'll start from the moment I knew my life changed from the one it could have been to the one it is. The moment I met Heero Yuy.