Section 10: Personal Image
Journal 8-Ø:
"I'm not sure I have anything nice enough to wear to a formal dinner." I admitted quietly once we were once again in the hall. The suit, Quatre's tailor made for me, for the trial was the first formal wear I'd had since outgrowing my K R&D uniform. Now it was rumpled, travel stained and clearly in need of laundering.
"Everything here had been left just as it was." The lady answered not meeting my gaze.
Everything was left…I felt incredible stupid, only now realizing the master suite was surely where Treize stayed, and when she opened the doors, I was certain of it. A cozy den decked out in ancient splendor. Huge windows clothed in deep wine-red draperies. Dark wood furniture carved with a rose motif. Shelves heavy with books and a giant canopy bed with an assortment of silk pillows of various sizes artfully arranged on a brocade coverlet.
"Treize was my brother," I tried to protest. "I can't just…" I faltered. He was gone…no one knew that better than I did. I felt him die after all. But these things…these were HIS.
"I know." She said. "What you are looking for is in the wardrobe. It was his wish that you have it."
Her words inflamed my curiosity until it overcame my uncertainty. I grasped the wrought iron rungs that served as handles to the double doors of the wardrobe. I pulled them open simultaneously, revealing the neat row of stylish suits neatly pressed and arranged by color and type. My eyes fell immediately on the brilliant blue and gold of his OZ dress uniform, positioned front and center….Beside it was another seemingly conjured out of my musings. My hand reached out, all on its own, to caress the rich jade fabric. The silver epaulets made my breath catch in my throat.
A gentle tug slipped the jacket from its hanger. Before I could fully register the weight of it in my hands, my gaze fell on a symbol burned neatly into the wood when the hanger was hanging regularly, it looked like a 'lemniscate' also known as an infinity sign, but removing the coat as I did left the hanger skewed…from this angle the symbol was an 8… In my twin's convoluted word-play the meaning was clear, "Octave Forever." I clutched the jacket to my chest. Burying my face in it, I breathed in the scent of cedar and rose.
"His Excellency designed the dress uniforms for Oz." Anne told me what I already knew. Then she went on to say, "I was responsible for keeping his accounts. It wasn't long before I noticed every time he outgrew his uniform or had it altered or replaced, it cost him double the usual price. Not so surprising. A commander is entitled to some perks. I figured his had a silk lining or was somehow of higher quality than the norm. Later I learned that he always had his tailor make two, as you see. It confused me. I never saw him, or anyone else, wear the green uniform. But I saw him touch the cuff or hem sometimes before dressing in his own. After Zechs abandoned the cause, forcing Treize to send troops after him, I found him sitting on the edge of the bed holding the green jacket just as you are now. That was when I finally questioned him about it.
"I suppose Chang told you I suffered split personality disorder during the war. It isn't much of a secret. I made many errors in judgment over the years but His Excellency never held it against me. In fact he always went out of his way to lend me whatever help he could. He meant so much to me but I saw myself as unworthy of his regard. He confounded me. Treize said I shouldn't put so much faith in him, that he was brken too. We were alike; wounded by what others had done to us. But while I had two souls housed in one body…his had been irreparably torn in two. Treize could not abide flattery. He often reminded me he was only half the man he should be. He wanted to make sure I didn't rely on him too much. He counseled me to be strong and prepare for the time when 'everything he strived to achieve came to naught.' He said I needed to find balance to last the storm. It took me many years to learn how to do so. I suppose I didn't really succeed till after I lost him. Now what he built passes to you-Naught-…just as he said it would."
Her words likely meant more to me than they did to her. She was not a product of ZERO the way Treize and I were. She had not been shaped by the Makar the way the pilots were or tainted by Dekim's meddling the way Mia was, still, she found her balance only after she flew Wing Zero. Treize created Epyon to integrate the divergent halves of the Z and O codes stabilizing the Zero Operating System. I wondered if my brother hoped his work would save her as it did us or whether it integrating her personalities was simply a side effect of the balanced system.
Anne shook her head sadly. "When Milliardo refused to face Treize in honorable combat it broke him far worse than when he split from OZ. I tried to bring him back, but he never expected
to survive the war. I told myself nothing could have stopped him. I was correct. You could have done it, Naught." She used my name half in adoration half curse. I didn't know what to make of it. She went on to explain, "You are the other half of his soul. If you had been there, you could have called him back from the brink. If you had been here during the war, I suspect things would have never gotten that far at all, but you weren't. I don't know how I feel about that yet. It doesn't change the fact that he is gone…I can not believe you did not care for him. I can see you are divided just as he was. Someday I would like to hear what it was that kept you from your rightful place at his side…but for now, I expect the subject is two painful for either of us. Regardless, the green uniform is yours by right. I would like to see you wear it to dinner."
I swallowed uncomfortably and thrust my hand into my duffle, drawing out the framed photo of Treize and I as boys together at K R&D. "I'll want this back" I said, quietly handing her the image of the two of us together in complimentary uniforms of blue and green identical, in all but size, to the one Treize had made famous and the duplicate she bid me wear to dinner.
I heard her breath hitch in her lungs as she burshed the frame with a tentative finger before taking it from me. Before I could register the complex expressions flitting across her she turned on her heel with crisp Military precision and disappeared down the hall without a backward glance leaving me with the daunting prospect of preparing for my very first formal dinner.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
When I was young, I envied my brother's hair; it shone like the sunset. Mine was flat and dull like straw. I expressed my wish to dye it to match his and one of the technicians beat me rather badly because of it. He said we were enough trouble as it was. They would not have me thinking to complicate matters by making it more difficult for them to tell us apart. The masters' commanded me never to dye it. I hadn't…Trowa had. He had done a marvelous job too and I had successfully impersonated my brother just as my keepers feared all those years ago.
I gazed at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. The green uniform hung on a hook on the wall behind me. The steam from the filling tub made the image soften. Unconsciously I stretched out my hand as if yearning could summon Treize from the other side of the glass. Heartless soldier I was not. My breath caught in my chest and I knew if I didn't do something about this now, then my eyes would be red-rimmed with unshed tears when I went down for dinner.
I knelt on the plush rug beside the huge porcelain tub. Correctly speaking this was a 'Bathing Chamber' rather than a bathroom. My erstwhile apartment had a stall rather than a tub. The shower-head leaked and the hot water cut off at unpredictable intervals. This bath had Jacuzzi jets and a shower hose that could moderate the shape and pressure of the stream it produced. It was decadent in the extreme.
I used that hose and scrubbed my dyed mane with a vengeance. Trowa told me the color was as temporary as it could get. Anything more than a light drizzle should eradicate it completely. It didn't. The color lightened a bit but I could see it was a far cry from the dull white gold the mirror reflected most of my life. Instead the blond became richer more vibrant yellow-gold with Coppery highlights. I wondered if the tech had known that this would happen if my hair were dyed. Even the feel was different now; it was as if I was seeing my natural coloring for the first time. I shouldn't have been surprised. The Makar had done what they could to separate Treize and me, but, we had never been all that different. He was a part of me and no amount of scrubbing could make things go back to the way they were.
I dried myself off and cleaned the tub before dressing in the fitted white pants and polished black boots I found in the closet. There were many starched dress shirts in the closet suitable to be worn under the uniform jacket. I chose a silk one, the color of sandalwood with pearl buttons. No matter how our lives had diverged, everything fit like a glove-- in size if not style.
Unpacking came next. I rummaged through my duffle bag removing several ratty t-shirts and cargo pants. Next came two pairs of jeans, one pair of dress khakis, a long sleeved shirt and three sweaters. Scrunched up in the bottom of the bag was a pair of sweats, shorts and sleeveless shirt that was my usual sleeping attire. I found an empty drawer beneath the bed which easily accommodated all my things. The thought of wearing my tatty shorts in that grand canopied bed seemed wrong. I was sure I could find something better in the chest-of-drawers.
In the lab both my brother and I had generally slept naked but for terry cloth robes and sterile cotton sheets. But a quick inspection confirmed my suspicions; Treize had definitely developed an appreciation for satin…loose drawstring pants of midnight blue with a matching top, monogrammed no less. Unless one knew what to look for it was difficult to make out the letters TZN amid the ornamental embroidered design in the breast pocket. I could not help notice there was no 'K' for Khushrenada, Even in all this finery my brother still thought of himself as Triple-Zero-Naught. I smiled softly at the thought.
The knock was quiet and I hastily buttoned up the jacket before calling, "Come."
The young maid curtseyed politely and informed, "Dinner is ready Excellency. It will be served at your leisure." She was perhaps a year younger than my boys, but despite her youth she did her duty with formality and precision; a testament to generations of family members who had devoted themselves to the service to the family Khushrenada.
"I am ready now…Miss Molly." I guessed and the girl's smile and blush told me I'd been correct. Both she and the other young maid Libby had similar features and were likely sisters, but Molly was the one with the braids. "I will need you to direct me to the dining hall though, if it is not too much trouble."
"Of course Sir, but I shall have to gather the others on the way—if you do not mind that is." She curtseyed again.