Disclaimer: It's mine! Mine! All MINE! Mwahahahahahahahaha!
Kangaroo: We don't own Gundam Wing. All references or similarities to other people or objects you may know personally are purely coincidental. We are making no profit off this endeavor. *cough*LikeWeCould*cough*
OrangeSmoke: Lies! All lies! I own it all and I'm making millions, I tell you, MILLIONS!
K: Of what?
OS: ///-paying no attention-/// Eiyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! My brain hurts. Geeee.
K: Calm yourself, your audience won't respect you if you keep this up. *smiles at readers* Nice to meet you. I'm Orange Smoke's new muse.
OS: Hmph . . . other people have muses, so why can't I?
K: She was jealous.
OS: WAS NOT! . . . okay, maybe I was, but just a little. And anyway, I'm an author too! I reserve the right of the authoress to lose her mind and refer to imaginary muses for writing purposes!
K: Your rambling.
OS: On with the show!
In dark of light, in light of dark
Prequal(is that a word?) to Duo's Trouble with Tree's :)
Chapter 1 - - How did you know my name?
///Flashback
"Noin, I-"
"Just shut-up Zechs! I'm so sick of this all, it's like an endless dance with the same steps over and over and over. 'Oh, Noin . . . I'm so very sorry. I'm afraid I've fallen out of love with you.' And then two months later your back again all, 'Oh, Noin . . . I've been so wrong. I do love you, Noin, I do love you.' Well I'm not-"
"HA! I got you this time, I never say I love you twice in one sentence."
"I can't take this anymore. I'm leaving. Don't bother coming back this time Zechs, if you don't love me, that's fine. Goodbye."
"Oh, yeah? And where are you going to go? I've got news for you Noin! No one wants you but me! Not Relena, not Hilde, not Dorothy, not Sally, not Catherine, not even Lady Une! No one but me, and even I don't want you anymore!"
Blinded by rage and hurt, she ran through the house, slamming the door behind her.
"Don't you run out on me Noin!"Zechs shouted, the whole house shaking with it's ferocity.
"Your running out on me! And anyway, I survived without you throughout most of the war Zechs! I can do it in this time of peace!"
End Flashback///
Sighing dramatically at the terrible memory, still fresh after three weeks, Lucretzia Noin continued her trek down the busy sidewalk, pausing once and again to gaze listlessly through a shop window. Wincing at the sound of a fire engine, blaring it's horn while making its way down the narrow avenue, she quickly ducked through the door of a nearby shop which promptly dusted her with cobwebs and dirt. Turning to glare at the offending door, she backed into a small end-table, knocking off a small treasure. Smiling grimly, she replaced the pieces and glanced about the room.
Just my luck. She thought cynically to herself. She had to choose the oldest, dirtiest shop in the world to jump into. Jeeze! She exclaimed silently, it doesn't even have a cash register. Looking about more closely now she saw that it was an antique shop, made up of one small room stuffed to the brim with furniture and various trinkets that catch the eye.
Slowly, she made her way over to the counter and leaned over it slightly.
"Hello? Is anyone here?" Her voice echoed back to her from the dank, shadowed hallway behind the counter. "The sign on the door says your open . . ." she said, letting her words trail off into silence.
She waited a moment more than turned to leave, feeling a little guilty about wanting to leave so soon without making any purchases. Then she stopped. Something creaked . . . and again. Noin whirled around ready to fight and stopped. She came face-to-face, or rather stomach to face with a tiny old man. He only looked about three ft. tall. He had thick, yellowed eyeglasses and thin, wispy, silver hair. His skin had lost almost all its elasticity over the years and it hung on his rail thin form like an empty bag. In fact, Noin almost smiled to think that Dorothy would say that he looked like a midget version of Ichabod Crane.
The old man smiled and reached out a trembling thin arm, taking her hand into his own and shaking it gently,
"Welcome!" he said in an amazingly robust voice for a man of his apparent, for some reason Noin felt he was something other than he pretended to be, age, "I have so few visitors these days , I get excited when someone comes in just to browse. I know exactly what your looking for. Now if you'll just wait here a moment, I'll be right back with your box."
"I wanted a box?" Noin asked under her breath.
Leaning a hip against the counter top, she looked back into the hallway. The man hobbled closer into view and she gasped when she saw the box. It was almost an exact replica of the one she had found on her doorstep four years earlier. It had been the first New Years after the Marimeia incident.
///Flashback
"Your party is wonderful Relena. You always host the most glamorous events." Noin said conversationally.
"So Zechs has left you again." Heero Yuy stated in his monotone voice.
"I didn't say that,"
"You never compliment Relena's parties because you hate social events and you still haven't explained why Relena's own brother has not shown up for her New Year's party."
Heero was too observant for his own good, Noin thought to herself.
"Odd that he left so soon. After you started your new life." Relena Darlain-Peacecraft and soon to be Yuy added, " He needs time to heal, you know. He still needs to find his place in this new time of peace. After fighting just to survive all his life, he needs to adjust."
"Strange that your so quick to forgive him," Noin had said loftily, "When Heero took off for a few months, I remember you went bezerk."
Both women grinning at Heero's slightly blushing, yet expressionless face, Relena retorted, "Oh, yeah? Well, at least I went after him, dragged him back kicking and screaming, and forced him into submission."
Laughing now, Noin grinned even wider, "I wonder what your brother would do If I tried to force him into submission.(AN: Maybe I could borrow Lady Scarlett-Une's Posession. Mwahahahaha)"
Turning on his heel, Heero left the laughing pair and went to the balcony to look out into the night. Giggling harder at Heero's discomfort, Noin drew a deep breath to steady herself.
"I guess I'd better be going. It is getting late."
"I'll talk to you soon Noin." Relena said her happy expression and giggles now gone, replaced with genuine concern. "Let me know if you hear from Zechs. That brother of mine needs a stern talking to."
"Yes, I'm sure if you write him a strongly worded letter and force him to be your bodyguard for the rest of the year and listen to all your boring speeches and go to your boring peace-talk meetings, he'll come to his senses and marry me."
"Hey, those speeches do good things for your position with the Preventors. Anyway, I'm sure." Relena said a sympathetic and understanding smile gracing her lovely face. "Goodnight, Noin."
"Goodnight, Relena," Noin responded.
There had been something special about that night. It was like it was message to her that things would never be the same. Nonetheless, Noin treated it like any other night, blaming the odd sensations as leftovers from the terrors experienced during the war. She too had wounds that needed time to heal.
Strolling up the custom flagstone walk of her Victorian style house, she paused at her doorstep to get her keys and looked down when her foot hit something. There was a small box on her doorstep, made of wood so pale it was almost white. It had ornate carvings all over it and the clasp and hinges looked and felt like solid gold. Frowning slightly in confusion she took the exquisite box inside and set it on her kitchen table before going up to take a shower.
She had forgotten about the box until around 3 a.m., in the middle of the night. She had woken up with a start, filled with anxiety and dread. Her head whipped about, looking for the object of her absolute terror. Petrified out of her mind, she raced downstairs and grabbed the box she suddenly felt the urge to protect. Turning, she had just started up the stairs when she heard the first growling behind her. Frightened and on the verge of hysterics, she thought desperately to herself, I must protect the light box. At all costs, I must protect the light box.
Not even bothering to look behind her, she raced up the stairs, the menacing hissing and growling tearing after her. She dived onto the bed and hid the box. Sitting on the light box under the blankets, she reached under her bed for her revolver and quickly yanked her hand back in pain. Looking at her hand and her gun, she saw four long, deep, bloody scratches. Upon closer examination, she realized that where the marks ended on her hand, they continued in grooves onto the metal handle of the weapon. The growling grew louder, and more horrifying than before. She even heard some from beneath her bed.
Clutching the gun in her two hands and screaming in terror, she cried out, "Show yourself, dammit, or I'll blow you off the face of earth!"
Slowly, oh so slowly, the door creaked open. Then dozens and dozens of pure white and pure black cats with red glowing eyes came streaming into the room all around her. The biggest one, a big black cat with white whiskers, ears, and tail, crawled out from under her bed and jumped up onto the mattress, its milky, dead eyes staring straight through her.
"Give me the box."
No one had said it aloud. It was in her mind. The cat was speaking directly into her mind! Oh, God . . . she thought, I'm so screwed.
"That's right you are, now Give Me THE BOX!"
"You . . . you can read my mind . . ."
"You can read mine. The box or your life. Decide. NOW!"
Suddenly, it felt as if something snapped inside her.
"NO! You won't take it from me, NOOOO!" she screamed, her voice tearing out of her throat like a flaming saber. Purple mist danced in the air. The louder she screamed, the more it appeared. The cats screams echoed inside her head as the mist ate away at them like acid, rotting away their skin, muscle and bone until there was nothing left but the suffocating darkness, the silent terror of the experience, and the echoes of the cats last thoughts resounding inside her head.
"You will pay. The box will soon be ours."
Noin lay awake until dawn. Then she finally slept.
Strange that she only now remembered that. She had woken the next morning hugging the box to her chest in a death grip. Downstairs, she had found Zechs in the kitchen, drinking hot, freshly brewed coffee, reading the news paper, and generally acting like he'd never left. Smiling, she had crept up behind him and, putting her arms around his waist, she laid her head against his back.
"I will always be waiting for you to come home to me. I love you Zechs."
End Flashback///
Shaking her head to clear her mind of memories, she ran her hand over the smooth surface of the dark box before her. It was warm to her touch and she stroked it gently as if it were a living thing.
"That looks just like mine, except mine is pale. Almost white and this one is so dark, it's almost black." Noin said studying the almost identical box.
"Yes." The old man smiled, "and the light box's grain flows from the back to the front, while the dark box's grain flows left to right."
"Give me the box," Noin said as easily as one would when asking someone to pass the salt.
"Now, you know I can't do that," he reproved her gently. "First, you must show me the light box. Then I will give you the dark box."
"Why?" She asked skeptically, beginning to wonder if he was her guide after all.
"Why?" he echoed incredulously, "So I know you're the One. That's why."
"Is my word not good enough for you?" Noin asked him quietly.
"So you admit it? You are the One?"
"Yes."
"It is dangerous to have two boxes. A novice like yourself cannot control the power of both boxes yet, it is difficult enough to control the powers of one box. First you must master the light box, then the dark, and finally, both. I will hold on to the dark until such a time as you can control it."
Glaring at the old man for his lack of faith in her, the One, Noin wondered. In here, now, she knew that all her terrifying nightmares of protecting the valuable light box had not been nightmares at all, but actual experiences. She wondered if after she left the shop she would not recall this as fact either, but maybe as a hallucination.
"I have used the lone power of the light box many times. The purple mist always comes to my aid when I call it." She stated softly.
"I know. I have sensed it, but I said you must master it so it can protect you and the dark box when you need it. The red fog of the dark box will not come to you until you completely master the purple mist from the light box and its transportation powers. After such a time has passed, You will master the red fog and its time properties. Finally, you will become Lord of the Light and Dark when you master their combined forces, the orange smoke(AN: hee, hee), the green vapor, and the transfiguration of both you and the boxes. Bring me the light box. I will explain further then. Now, go Lucretzia. Bring me the light box and say goodbye to your friends. You may not see them for a while."
"Yes. My destiny awaits as the One. Goodbye, old man. I will be back in a week . . . and old man? Call me Noin."
With that, she turned and walked out the door. Outside in the hot summertime city's downtown, she whirled around.
"How did you know my name?" she shouted at the brick wall. Brick wall? Wasn't there a shop there a few moments ago? Wasn't she just in there?
"Oh, jeeze . . . I'm hallucinating again." Now, she strode down the sidewalk with a sense of purpose. She was going home to get her box. She didn't know why she wanted the box, but it didn't matter. She felt compelled to get it, so she left to do so.
***
Orange Smoke: Yeah! It feels good to have written again. I haven't written in so long!
Kangaroo: She's lying. She just kept throwing everything away before she finished six pages of the rough draft.
OS: *trips Kangaroo* Oops! Did you fall? Oh, pobresito.
K: grumble
OS: Any way, you like? You no like? THROW ME A BONE HERE!
. . .
Sorry, I'm cool, collected and not angry. I'm cool, collected and not angry. I'm cool, collected and not angry. MOVING ON!
K: I wish.
OS: what?
K: nothing.
OS: No one asked for how Noin and Zechs got where they were in Duo's trouble with trees so screw you all!
Kidding.
Actually, I'm going to rewrite that and incorporate it into this story later on. If I ever get that far. Hee, hee.
So, this is the beginning of how everyone got where they are and you'll all understand someday if I ever finish. That was long and boring to read, but I want you to know if you did. I appreciate it.
K: She's not kidding. Everyday she reads her reviews to make her feel better about herself.
OS: ALL LIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!