Author's Notes: *cracks knuckles* Ok, first published GWing fanfic! Any text between these:/ / is a thought, and any text between these; * * is, umm...not a thought, but not speech either..it's just there. This fic is the product of minor depression, boredom, too much of the Shakespeare play MacBeth, and, of course, way too much GWing. The title refers to a line in another play, Hamlet. ^_^ I'm done now. Read away.
~Lotus
Perchance to Dream
"Vision without action is a daydream.
Action without vision is a nightmare"
- Japanese Proverb
Moonlight shone down on the re-established Cinq Kingdom, creating a peculiar, spectral landscape out of what once was normal. Trees and bushes seemed as if they were made of silver, sparkling as they waved in the breeze. Strange pale shadows roamed across the asphalt ribbons of the roads, stretching from town to town. Here, in this kingdom, this magical landscape of night, lay one city of note: the capital city, New Edwards.
New Edwards was where the queen of the kingdom lived, and where she kept her school of pacifism. There, children of world leaders were schooled in the idea of pacifism, in the hope that Earth would someday be a world with no need for wars. In that school, however, two were staying who could not live as pacifists, who risked their lives on the battlefield often. One of the two was awake that night, troubled.
Quatre sat in a chair by the window, bathed in pale moonlight. It was late; most in the building were long asleep. But for him, insomnia prevailed over the mists of sleep. No matter what he did, no matter how many times he tossed and turned, sleep still evaded him. After several hours of this he had gotten up and pulled a small chair to the window, in order to stare down at the silvery landscape. "Why can't I sleep?" he asked himself, his voice shattering the delicate silence. "Because I'm nervous? Or because..." He paused, and ran his fingers through his hair, as if to brush the thought away. "No," he said firmly, "No. I will not think of that, I will not..." He suppressed a shudder.
"I need something to take my mind off things. But what?" He glanced around the room, his gaze falling on a small bookshelf. He left the chair and took a book, not caring what it was about. He lay down in the small bed, turned on a light, and glanced at the title, `Macbeth', printed in gold on the faded blue spine. The author was `William Shakespeare'.
He opened it. "Act 1, Scene 1. Thunder and lightning. Enter three witches..." He continued, and fell into a story of a Scottish man, destined to be a Thane and then King of all Scotland. He read, not concentrating on the story as much as on the strange words that slipped through his consciousness like oil, their meanings evading him. After a while, he realized that the man, Macbeth, became king when he committed murder...
Quatre closed the book as he came to the murder, not wanting to stir up any memories that lurk in his brain. He put it down on the floor, and there it flipped open to lines spoken by Lady Macbeth, an accomplice in the murder. `--What, will these hands ne'er be clean...? Here's the smell of blood still...' "She imagines that there is blood eternally staining her hands, because of her sin..."he said to himself.
Quatre turned away from the thin blue book on the floor. /Of all the books to choose...I certainly don't want to go to sleep now./ But even as he told himself to stay awake, his eyelids were drooping downwards. His last conscious thought was another line he had read in the book; /`What's done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed...'/
Harsh breathing rang in his ears. It was a few moments before he realized that it was his breath that he heard, filling the small space of the mobile suit cockpit. /Mobile suit.../ On the monitoring screens, he saw a colony and, in front of it, a red mobile suit, the Mercurius. /No.../ It felt as if he had no control over the body he was in. His mouth moved to speak...
"I guess it's no use telling you to leave the mobile suit. Well, then, I guess I'll have to destroy you." The words came unbidden to his lips, and he fought to choke them down, but still they came, echoing in his ears. /This is exactly what happened...can't I ever get rid of this nightmare?/
Heero's voice answered him through the headset in his helmet. "If you want to then get on with it! Because I don't want to waste time talking to my enemy!"
Again, he fought to control the words, but failed, and heard, "Goodbye, Heero." They were spoken in a voice so totally unlike his own.
And then the hand that seemed not to be his reached for the controls to the beam cannon, pressing one button. He stared, transfixed, at the thick yellow beam that shot out of the gun to end his comrade's life. But then, another suit flew between the Mercurius and the blast. The Vayette, Trowa's suit. This moment seemed to drag on, voices blurring into one loud noise until the blue suit and Trowa disappeared in a huge explosion of light and sound that faded away, leaving debris floating through the darkness of space.
Heero attacked him again, and crying out in grief, he heard himself say, "Heero, let go of me! Trowa is dying!"
"And it was you who killed him!" Those words pierced Quatre to the heart, simply because they were true.
His eyes opened, and he sat up frantically. He looked around him, seeing the same small room he had fallen asleep in, still with the dim light of the moon filtering in through the window panes. He felt cold sweat slowly trickling down his forehead and again heard his own ragged breathing, echoing back like an insult. *It's all your fault.* /The dream was so real...because it really happened. It was real./ The sight of the covers of the bed laying a twisted heap on the floor made Quatre aware that he was terribly cold. He shivered and got up to pull the sheets back onto the bed. With that done, he tottered unsteadily to the sink to wash the sweat from his face.
As he reached the sink, he glanced at the mirror above it. A small gasp escaped his lips as the reflection in the mirror stared back at him. Tousled pale hair, and an even paler face. Small beads of sweat dripped from the forehead down the nose and cheeks to the chin. Dark circles hung beneath the blood shot eyes making it seem as if the person in the mirror was dead. /Surely that is not me?/ Quatre raised a tentative, shaking hand to touch his face, to make sure he was real, not dreaming, not dead. His face seemed solid enough, but there was something warm and sticky on his hand... He slowly looked down at his hands, dazed. A dark stain spread across the pale palms. Blood. He felt his heart begin to beat wildly, and he began to sweat again. Blood on his hands...not just figuratively, but literally...he looked up again into the mirror, and the dead eyes looked crazed. On the wan cheek bloody fingerprints boldly stood out. As he scratched at his cheek frantically, he felt again that his body wasn't really under his own control. /Get the blood off! Damn spot!/
So intent was he in his quest to erase the incriminating mark from his face that he almost missed seeing another person in the mirror. He saw, in a fleeting glimpse, a person he thought was gone forever. And that person was standing right behind him...
"Trowa?"
He turned. No one was there. "Just my imagination."
A glance back to the mirror perplexed him more. Still, that familiar, mute figure stood just behind him.
Turning again, Quatre saw something behind him...mist, swirling together to form an almost solid figure. Before him stood Trowa, looking just as he had when they had first met. "A ghost...then...I did..." Quatre's voice faded as he swallowed, trying to rid himself of a huge lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat. "I did kill you..." He stepped towards the apparition, sweat mixing with tears on his face. "I'm sorry Trowa! I'm sorry that's all I can say !" He looked down at his feet for a moment, then looked at Trowa again.
He was opening his mouth to speak when he was suddenly aware of whispers, seemingly emanating from all around him. Malicious little voices spoke, chanted "All your fault...your fault...Quatre's fault! Quatre's fault!"
Stepping closer to the ghost, Quatre cried out, anguish clear in his voice "I know! I'm at fault! I've confessed! But that's all I can do besides suffer for my sins! Trowa! Please, if you can forgive me...do so...but..." Quatre looked down at his hands , watching his tears drop into the red stained palms.
"Still..." As the ghost spoke coldly in its monotone voice, its form changed. It now wore an OZ spacesuit, torn and bloodied in places, charred in others, and a helmet, the tinted glass cracked, revealing a ruined face, bleeding from a thousand cuts and slashes , with a shock of matted hair. "It is your fault. Why would I forgive you?"
"Trowa!" Quatre reached out one last time to the phantom, but it vanished, leaving Quatre alone to bury his head in his bloody hands and to weep.
"No!" Quatre sat straight up in the bed, his eyes wide. There again, was the small little room, the reading light still on, unlike his dream. But was he still dreaming? He pinched himself, but still, everything remained the same. "So I'm awake, finally."
He walked again to the sink, feeling deja vu as he looked in the mirror. But there, he saw nothing unusual. His face, as he knew it, gazed back at him, not the creepy one in the dream-mirror. He looked at his hands, but no blood was visible. "All a dream...a true dream, but a dream none the less." He returned to bed, sweat washed from his face. Instead of closing his eyes and going to sleep again, he murmured, "I'd rather fatigue than another moment with those dreams." He stared at the white ceiling, watching the shadows shift across the smooth surface until the yellow light of dawn filled the room.
~Lotus
Perchance to Dream
"Vision without action is a daydream.
Action without vision is a nightmare"
- Japanese Proverb
Moonlight shone down on the re-established Cinq Kingdom, creating a peculiar, spectral landscape out of what once was normal. Trees and bushes seemed as if they were made of silver, sparkling as they waved in the breeze. Strange pale shadows roamed across the asphalt ribbons of the roads, stretching from town to town. Here, in this kingdom, this magical landscape of night, lay one city of note: the capital city, New Edwards.
New Edwards was where the queen of the kingdom lived, and where she kept her school of pacifism. There, children of world leaders were schooled in the idea of pacifism, in the hope that Earth would someday be a world with no need for wars. In that school, however, two were staying who could not live as pacifists, who risked their lives on the battlefield often. One of the two was awake that night, troubled.
Quatre sat in a chair by the window, bathed in pale moonlight. It was late; most in the building were long asleep. But for him, insomnia prevailed over the mists of sleep. No matter what he did, no matter how many times he tossed and turned, sleep still evaded him. After several hours of this he had gotten up and pulled a small chair to the window, in order to stare down at the silvery landscape. "Why can't I sleep?" he asked himself, his voice shattering the delicate silence. "Because I'm nervous? Or because..." He paused, and ran his fingers through his hair, as if to brush the thought away. "No," he said firmly, "No. I will not think of that, I will not..." He suppressed a shudder.
"I need something to take my mind off things. But what?" He glanced around the room, his gaze falling on a small bookshelf. He left the chair and took a book, not caring what it was about. He lay down in the small bed, turned on a light, and glanced at the title, `Macbeth', printed in gold on the faded blue spine. The author was `William Shakespeare'.
He opened it. "Act 1, Scene 1. Thunder and lightning. Enter three witches..." He continued, and fell into a story of a Scottish man, destined to be a Thane and then King of all Scotland. He read, not concentrating on the story as much as on the strange words that slipped through his consciousness like oil, their meanings evading him. After a while, he realized that the man, Macbeth, became king when he committed murder...
Quatre closed the book as he came to the murder, not wanting to stir up any memories that lurk in his brain. He put it down on the floor, and there it flipped open to lines spoken by Lady Macbeth, an accomplice in the murder. `--What, will these hands ne'er be clean...? Here's the smell of blood still...' "She imagines that there is blood eternally staining her hands, because of her sin..."he said to himself.
Quatre turned away from the thin blue book on the floor. /Of all the books to choose...I certainly don't want to go to sleep now./ But even as he told himself to stay awake, his eyelids were drooping downwards. His last conscious thought was another line he had read in the book; /`What's done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed...'/
Harsh breathing rang in his ears. It was a few moments before he realized that it was his breath that he heard, filling the small space of the mobile suit cockpit. /Mobile suit.../ On the monitoring screens, he saw a colony and, in front of it, a red mobile suit, the Mercurius. /No.../ It felt as if he had no control over the body he was in. His mouth moved to speak...
"I guess it's no use telling you to leave the mobile suit. Well, then, I guess I'll have to destroy you." The words came unbidden to his lips, and he fought to choke them down, but still they came, echoing in his ears. /This is exactly what happened...can't I ever get rid of this nightmare?/
Heero's voice answered him through the headset in his helmet. "If you want to then get on with it! Because I don't want to waste time talking to my enemy!"
Again, he fought to control the words, but failed, and heard, "Goodbye, Heero." They were spoken in a voice so totally unlike his own.
And then the hand that seemed not to be his reached for the controls to the beam cannon, pressing one button. He stared, transfixed, at the thick yellow beam that shot out of the gun to end his comrade's life. But then, another suit flew between the Mercurius and the blast. The Vayette, Trowa's suit. This moment seemed to drag on, voices blurring into one loud noise until the blue suit and Trowa disappeared in a huge explosion of light and sound that faded away, leaving debris floating through the darkness of space.
Heero attacked him again, and crying out in grief, he heard himself say, "Heero, let go of me! Trowa is dying!"
"And it was you who killed him!" Those words pierced Quatre to the heart, simply because they were true.
His eyes opened, and he sat up frantically. He looked around him, seeing the same small room he had fallen asleep in, still with the dim light of the moon filtering in through the window panes. He felt cold sweat slowly trickling down his forehead and again heard his own ragged breathing, echoing back like an insult. *It's all your fault.* /The dream was so real...because it really happened. It was real./ The sight of the covers of the bed laying a twisted heap on the floor made Quatre aware that he was terribly cold. He shivered and got up to pull the sheets back onto the bed. With that done, he tottered unsteadily to the sink to wash the sweat from his face.
As he reached the sink, he glanced at the mirror above it. A small gasp escaped his lips as the reflection in the mirror stared back at him. Tousled pale hair, and an even paler face. Small beads of sweat dripped from the forehead down the nose and cheeks to the chin. Dark circles hung beneath the blood shot eyes making it seem as if the person in the mirror was dead. /Surely that is not me?/ Quatre raised a tentative, shaking hand to touch his face, to make sure he was real, not dreaming, not dead. His face seemed solid enough, but there was something warm and sticky on his hand... He slowly looked down at his hands, dazed. A dark stain spread across the pale palms. Blood. He felt his heart begin to beat wildly, and he began to sweat again. Blood on his hands...not just figuratively, but literally...he looked up again into the mirror, and the dead eyes looked crazed. On the wan cheek bloody fingerprints boldly stood out. As he scratched at his cheek frantically, he felt again that his body wasn't really under his own control. /Get the blood off! Damn spot!/
So intent was he in his quest to erase the incriminating mark from his face that he almost missed seeing another person in the mirror. He saw, in a fleeting glimpse, a person he thought was gone forever. And that person was standing right behind him...
"Trowa?"
He turned. No one was there. "Just my imagination."
A glance back to the mirror perplexed him more. Still, that familiar, mute figure stood just behind him.
Turning again, Quatre saw something behind him...mist, swirling together to form an almost solid figure. Before him stood Trowa, looking just as he had when they had first met. "A ghost...then...I did..." Quatre's voice faded as he swallowed, trying to rid himself of a huge lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat. "I did kill you..." He stepped towards the apparition, sweat mixing with tears on his face. "I'm sorry Trowa! I'm sorry that's all I can say !" He looked down at his feet for a moment, then looked at Trowa again.
He was opening his mouth to speak when he was suddenly aware of whispers, seemingly emanating from all around him. Malicious little voices spoke, chanted "All your fault...your fault...Quatre's fault! Quatre's fault!"
Stepping closer to the ghost, Quatre cried out, anguish clear in his voice "I know! I'm at fault! I've confessed! But that's all I can do besides suffer for my sins! Trowa! Please, if you can forgive me...do so...but..." Quatre looked down at his hands , watching his tears drop into the red stained palms.
"Still..." As the ghost spoke coldly in its monotone voice, its form changed. It now wore an OZ spacesuit, torn and bloodied in places, charred in others, and a helmet, the tinted glass cracked, revealing a ruined face, bleeding from a thousand cuts and slashes , with a shock of matted hair. "It is your fault. Why would I forgive you?"
"Trowa!" Quatre reached out one last time to the phantom, but it vanished, leaving Quatre alone to bury his head in his bloody hands and to weep.
"No!" Quatre sat straight up in the bed, his eyes wide. There again, was the small little room, the reading light still on, unlike his dream. But was he still dreaming? He pinched himself, but still, everything remained the same. "So I'm awake, finally."
He walked again to the sink, feeling deja vu as he looked in the mirror. But there, he saw nothing unusual. His face, as he knew it, gazed back at him, not the creepy one in the dream-mirror. He looked at his hands, but no blood was visible. "All a dream...a true dream, but a dream none the less." He returned to bed, sweat washed from his face. Instead of closing his eyes and going to sleep again, he murmured, "I'd rather fatigue than another moment with those dreams." He stared at the white ceiling, watching the shadows shift across the smooth surface until the yellow light of dawn filled the room.