Characters: Meer Cambell, Lacus Clyne
Pairings: None
Time frame: GSD post ep 26
Shade of imagination
Who is Lacus Clyne?
Meer has asked herself this for as long as she has been helping out as Lady Lacus. The question has always been on her mind, repeated multiple times daily to play her role as good as possible. It has become a mantra in the back of her mind, so monotone, that Meer has forgotten it is there in the first place.
Maybe it has slowly been answered with 'me'.
And that startles her.
When her shuttle has been stolen it has taken her a long time to understand that it has not been an imposter but Lady Lacus herself who did it.
When the thought has occurred to her, she has been back to PLANT for days already.
There are many things she wonders now. Like will her substituting come to an end soon? Or why did Lady Lacus steal a shuttle and risk being shot down when she could have simply gone to the Chairman and asked for one?
Why is she still hiding? Why is she allowing Meer to take her place?
What does it all mean?
Meer has no answer to this questions and she is still not able to admit that she might not want to know the answers.
But she stll thinks.
Lady Lacus hijacked Meer's shuttle.
An act that has more dangers involved than Meer has faced in her life.
Surely there had been other options; subtle but less dangerous.
But Lady Lacus had not chosen them and instead proved her courage by impersonating Meer and taking her place on ZAFT's doorstep.
Evidently, there is more to Lady Lacus than public appearances.
She is, Meer has been forcefully reminded that day, a war hero. And she is supported by other war heroes.
Meer imagines what it would be like to have something like the Freedom or Athrun being there for her. At her word.
She remembers the crushed, utterly annihilated base and thinks it is scary and very heartwarming. It also makes her feel hollow, but she doesn't understand why.
She wonders what Athrun has to say about shooting at his fiancée and her only barely escaping.
What would it be like to be protected like that? Just her. To be cared for like that. Not her image.
The Freedom has made her wonder, has made her fear. There is something like the Freedom out there, knowing about Meer and protecting Lady Lacus. What if she does something the Freedom does not like?
She thinks with that extra tour by the control center, the Freedom gave her a special warning and reminder. You are not her. It protects Lacus and if Meer becomes a danger to Lady Lacus... like shooting down a shuttle carrying the real Lady because she is mistaken for an imposter because of Meer...
The Freedom does not fight for Meer. One of many who don't fight for Meer. Don't care for Meer.
Meer is not Lacus.
There is so much she doesn't know about Lady Lacus. How can she be Lady Lacus when Meer knows so little about her? There are only her public appearances at theaters, her support of few projects and hardly even one interview.
Meer doesn't know anything about the woman called the White Queen, what she is truly like. Has Meer not been doing a good job?
And to make things worse for Meer, there is more to Lady Lacus than just 'behind the scenes'. She has another side.
What has made her take command of a warship? How has she been able to lead so many different sides from war to peace? How does she command a warship for that matter?
Meer can hardly even tell surface and space ships apart.
Meer is far from Lacus.