Ch.6: 500 Years Together
I felt completely and utterly drained of all information. I felt as if the guilt had consumed me and swallowed me wholly and completely. I could almost hear Leena's cries on how I betrayed everyone and the shocked looks on everyone's faces when they realized just what I had traded this information for a Victim. Though I knew some people would actually be happy to see the blonde come back some way or the other (namely Erts), I couldn't help but feel that I had done something horrendous, something that shouldn't have ever been done in the history of Zion.
However, that was not the only knew surprise. When I asked them why they were trying to take over Zion, they were trying to make the planet beautiful.
What did they mean by that? Wasn't Zion beautiful enough? I knew Ernest had not been a colony-born, like me – he had been on that swirling planet. I felt I had to love that planet, I felt I had to know that object of all these lives that I wanted to protect. Zion had wildlife like the Old Planet – scientists managed to herd some animals "like Noah's Ark" onto a ship before they left. But needless to say, many animals on Zion were like the ones on the Old Planet, and so as a remembrance to what we lost to the first planet the Victims took away from us, we called these animals the same as what we called them on the Old Planet. Now no one could tell whether or not the animals were Old Planet animals or Zion animals.
And from the round room that Ernest liked to escape to, I could tell that Zion had trees. Many of them, like forests, waving their branches and shedding their leaves like rain. I knew it had to be beautiful, just like what Ernest described once as "snow", something about ice that fell from the sky. I didn't even rightly know what ice was, except that it was cold and made of solidified water. From the numerous windows on G.O.A. I could see the green that covered Zion, and kept its inhabitants alive. Zion was beautiful as it was, I thought angrily. There was no need to change it.
Beside me, the angel-woman who interrogated me gave me a glance. Oh, I thought, that's right. They can read minds, can't they?.
"I think you need to take a bit of time off. Being interrogated takes a lot out of you", she said. Damn right, I shot back mentally. And just who put me into this?
My protests faded as she led me down a hall I had never seen before. Where was she leading me? Outside? What if this planet's air would kill me? Vaguely I remembered that Victims also had to breathe, somewhat, but my fears didn't go away until we reached the last door. Giving a code too fast for me to follow (plus her wing was somewhat in my way, so I couldn't have seen it even if I'd tried), she waited patiently for a moment as the door seemed to think, to consider if the code was correct. Finally, my heart racing, I stepped through, and the door slid shut behind me. The interrogator had not followed.
It was the Eeva Leena. She was in front of me, repaired to her full glory, and I almost felt like falling to my knees and praying reverently to her. I wanted to ask her to send me back home in her vessel, to take me back where I was needed. But Ernest is here, that little voice said. Ernest needs you more than G.O.A. ever would. You betrayed everyone, remember?.
Just as I felt like slamming my hands to the ground in frustration, I caught sight of something – no, someONE – in front of the Eeva Leena. Somehow they made that light slant right down and hit that spot just in front of him, and illuminating just his face, upturned as he lovingly stroked the side of the Goddess, as if meeting back with an old friend. As I watched, he leaned forward and put his cheek to the cool metal. I knew how it felt – I had even fallen asleep with my cheek to the Eeva Leena once and had to have Leena wake me up. It was that feeling that she understood all, that she would always welcome you with open arms. She was the Goddess of the Eeva Leena, and she guided me. Scientists couldn't figure it out, neurologists couldn't determine, but all the pilots knew there was an essence, a something in there that wasn't just the machine program working – it was something else, something indefinable that was always there, holding her hands in the exact position so you wouldn't waver. She lent her strength to you, and you were always grateful for the next day you came back alive because of her.
I had seen Ernest once, and that was when he was sleeping. It wasn't even rightly "seeing" as I had seen him through a monitor screen. If the wings hadn't been there, I would have guessed we were back at G.O.A., still little newbie candidates, still testing the waters of Instructor Azuma's temper, and still as far apart from each other as the elephant from the mouse. It was different now. That face gave that familiar little tug of fondness in my heart, the feeling you only get when you know someone really well, and know that they'd do anything for you. Literally, I reminded myself, and remembered how Ernest had gone off and gotten himself killed in the first place. It was a sobering thought, and as if my blonde best friend- turned-angel sensed the thoughts (as obviously he could), he turned his head and gave me the first, real look from him I've been thinking about for so long.
Smile, I urged him. Smile that soft little smile that's only reserved for Erts and me. Go on, do it. I want to see it. Haven't seen it for so long I might've forgotten it, Ernest. Wait for me, Ernest. You are my closest feeling. You tore every bit of myself from me when you left, Ernest, so wait for me. Wait for me to come to you.
And then that soft, wondrous smile crept across his face like a miracle and his eyes sparkled with unhidden delight. He didn't have to ask the question "Is it really you?", and nor did I have to answer it with a confident "YES!" that I wanted to shout to the universe at the moment, so loud G.O.A. could hear it no matter how many million of light-years away it was. He just slowly, almost as if this was the vision that could break into a hundred million gazillion pieces in lightspeed seconds, he extended his hand to me, and looked at me. I could read fear in that gaze. I could read incredulity. I could read happiness.
"Damn it", I chuckled, "now you're getting me all emotional." I took the trembling hand and clasped my friend, my savior's weight close to my shoulder, and felt the familiarity of it spread from my hand, still grasping his, spring right down to my toes. It was history repeated again – in that room, the day I dragged him to class, I extended my hand to him just before lights-out and asked him a timid "friends?". He took it and held me close. It felt like we had been friends forever, and all our hardships from all our past lives were packed into that one emotional hug. Maybe we had met before, somewhere else, sometime past and long dead.
Holding me at arms length, he studied me as if I were the favorite student of a teacher. "A famous man once said, "Why does a man board a certain boat with its passengers? Why did he choose that particular boat to board? The reason is because the man and these passengers have had 500 years together." Just like Ernest, to sprout some gibberish about being friends forever when we've just seen each other. Just like Ernest…those words meant so much. It meant that he was here, that he was alive and we could see each other and laugh over our mistakes. They never lingered long in our minds – we were lighthearted, and content to be such. Ernest was himself, and I was satisfied he was not anyone else.
Then my best friend began to look at me with those eyes that made me want to just yell, "Go into some romance movie or something with those puppy eyes! Don't wag them at me!" and then drag him to some movie studio and become his agent. Unexplainably, he began to cry, and when Ernest cried, he cried with everything he could: shaking shoulders, the sniffing and the big tears and the whole lot. You would think that the world had fallen or something. I thought it was just plain stupid.
I held him and tried to comfort him without getting annoyed or laughing my head off. This was Ernest, after all, and even if he was memory-deficient, he still had the temperament of the boy I had grown up with. "Oh, be quiet Ernest", I admonished, and panicked as he began to cry even harder. "I'm not good at this, Ernest! Please stop crying…please? Ernest, that's supposed to make you stop because it's the magic word, you know, or something like that."
He looked up at me with those heartbroken eyes and said disbelieving, "How can you be so insensitive, Garu?"
I smiled. This brought back memories. Our old argument. "I'm not insensitive, Ernest. You're just too emotional."
"You should be talking, Garu. You're crying yourself."
I touched my cheeks and was surprised to find he was right. Vaguely I tried to remember how many years it had been since I had last cried over anything. It would have to be the time Ernest died, I guessed. And then before that was the beginning of my training at G.O.A.. Even as I thought this Ernest's arms came to envelope me into a hug. "It doesn't matter how long it's been, Garu. It matters that you're crying for me."
Ernest was almost the definition of perfect. He was practically an angel (and almost every hot-blooded repairer in G.O.A. swooned over him), he had perfect marks, took care of his little brother like a dutiful sibling parent, and was the pilot of one of the Goddesses. But being his friend for so long had its little observances – that Ernest was far from it. It made me laugh, actually, how little he knew about being a friend and having a friend in return. "The school I went to was made up of people at least five years older than I was. It was hard to fit in with them, since they were sophisticated teenagers and I was not."
We laughed back then at the irony in Ernest's words. Now that we were teenagers, we knew that we were very unsophisticated. And we also knew that it wasn't just us that weren't sophisticated – it was everyone, whether they were eighty years old or nine years old.
Against my shoulder, Ernest gave a little chuckle. "I can't believe you still remember that."
I snickered. "I remember every little embarrassing thing you've done, Ernest." It felt so familiar, so…did I dare say right? to have him in my arms. Even as I thought it I tried vainly to scratch it out before Ernest could read it. That sounded like a line straight from some corny romance novel.
It was then I think I realized I was destined to be Ernest's friend for the rest of my life. It was just that feeling that you were the oldest friends and would always be, wherever you went. I saved my sanity for this – for the day I would see my friend, my ancient friend, again and be able to say, "You are still my friend. You are still my BEST friend, and I still have no regrets about saying that. No one else comes close to being as close as you are to me."
Destiny, Fate, God's decree. It didn't matter what I called it now. It was love, love of brother, love of lovers, love of our old, old amiable companionship. We were as close as twins in a womb. We were as close as the ivy on the tree. We were closer than brother, closer than the embrace that pulled us together again. I could squeeze him tight and still it wouldn't show how infidentally bonded we were. We could kiss and believe it was mushy love and it wouldn't change our relationship. It would just be another form of closeness we shared.
Then it hit me. Ernest's quote. 500 years together.
Ernest chuckled as he leaned against me, and his wings gave a warm fuzzy feeling as they close up around us. "Garu", he chided softly in that way only he could, "I told you that quote made sense.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Author's note:
That quote's from Confucius, just for your information. I just think it's cool...but that's just me. Anyways, about the 'kissing' thing: what I mean is that they are close as that. Their relationship, their image of each other wouldn't have changed even if they had become lovers. It would be another outlet to show their devotion (as friends and as lovers) to each other. Kinda sweet, actually, but I think they're just content being friends for now. This isn't a yaoi story. This is a story about how people interact with each other.
Andrea Weiling
I felt completely and utterly drained of all information. I felt as if the guilt had consumed me and swallowed me wholly and completely. I could almost hear Leena's cries on how I betrayed everyone and the shocked looks on everyone's faces when they realized just what I had traded this information for a Victim. Though I knew some people would actually be happy to see the blonde come back some way or the other (namely Erts), I couldn't help but feel that I had done something horrendous, something that shouldn't have ever been done in the history of Zion.
However, that was not the only knew surprise. When I asked them why they were trying to take over Zion, they were trying to make the planet beautiful.
What did they mean by that? Wasn't Zion beautiful enough? I knew Ernest had not been a colony-born, like me – he had been on that swirling planet. I felt I had to love that planet, I felt I had to know that object of all these lives that I wanted to protect. Zion had wildlife like the Old Planet – scientists managed to herd some animals "like Noah's Ark" onto a ship before they left. But needless to say, many animals on Zion were like the ones on the Old Planet, and so as a remembrance to what we lost to the first planet the Victims took away from us, we called these animals the same as what we called them on the Old Planet. Now no one could tell whether or not the animals were Old Planet animals or Zion animals.
And from the round room that Ernest liked to escape to, I could tell that Zion had trees. Many of them, like forests, waving their branches and shedding their leaves like rain. I knew it had to be beautiful, just like what Ernest described once as "snow", something about ice that fell from the sky. I didn't even rightly know what ice was, except that it was cold and made of solidified water. From the numerous windows on G.O.A. I could see the green that covered Zion, and kept its inhabitants alive. Zion was beautiful as it was, I thought angrily. There was no need to change it.
Beside me, the angel-woman who interrogated me gave me a glance. Oh, I thought, that's right. They can read minds, can't they?.
"I think you need to take a bit of time off. Being interrogated takes a lot out of you", she said. Damn right, I shot back mentally. And just who put me into this?
My protests faded as she led me down a hall I had never seen before. Where was she leading me? Outside? What if this planet's air would kill me? Vaguely I remembered that Victims also had to breathe, somewhat, but my fears didn't go away until we reached the last door. Giving a code too fast for me to follow (plus her wing was somewhat in my way, so I couldn't have seen it even if I'd tried), she waited patiently for a moment as the door seemed to think, to consider if the code was correct. Finally, my heart racing, I stepped through, and the door slid shut behind me. The interrogator had not followed.
It was the Eeva Leena. She was in front of me, repaired to her full glory, and I almost felt like falling to my knees and praying reverently to her. I wanted to ask her to send me back home in her vessel, to take me back where I was needed. But Ernest is here, that little voice said. Ernest needs you more than G.O.A. ever would. You betrayed everyone, remember?.
Just as I felt like slamming my hands to the ground in frustration, I caught sight of something – no, someONE – in front of the Eeva Leena. Somehow they made that light slant right down and hit that spot just in front of him, and illuminating just his face, upturned as he lovingly stroked the side of the Goddess, as if meeting back with an old friend. As I watched, he leaned forward and put his cheek to the cool metal. I knew how it felt – I had even fallen asleep with my cheek to the Eeva Leena once and had to have Leena wake me up. It was that feeling that she understood all, that she would always welcome you with open arms. She was the Goddess of the Eeva Leena, and she guided me. Scientists couldn't figure it out, neurologists couldn't determine, but all the pilots knew there was an essence, a something in there that wasn't just the machine program working – it was something else, something indefinable that was always there, holding her hands in the exact position so you wouldn't waver. She lent her strength to you, and you were always grateful for the next day you came back alive because of her.
I had seen Ernest once, and that was when he was sleeping. It wasn't even rightly "seeing" as I had seen him through a monitor screen. If the wings hadn't been there, I would have guessed we were back at G.O.A., still little newbie candidates, still testing the waters of Instructor Azuma's temper, and still as far apart from each other as the elephant from the mouse. It was different now. That face gave that familiar little tug of fondness in my heart, the feeling you only get when you know someone really well, and know that they'd do anything for you. Literally, I reminded myself, and remembered how Ernest had gone off and gotten himself killed in the first place. It was a sobering thought, and as if my blonde best friend- turned-angel sensed the thoughts (as obviously he could), he turned his head and gave me the first, real look from him I've been thinking about for so long.
Smile, I urged him. Smile that soft little smile that's only reserved for Erts and me. Go on, do it. I want to see it. Haven't seen it for so long I might've forgotten it, Ernest. Wait for me, Ernest. You are my closest feeling. You tore every bit of myself from me when you left, Ernest, so wait for me. Wait for me to come to you.
And then that soft, wondrous smile crept across his face like a miracle and his eyes sparkled with unhidden delight. He didn't have to ask the question "Is it really you?", and nor did I have to answer it with a confident "YES!" that I wanted to shout to the universe at the moment, so loud G.O.A. could hear it no matter how many million of light-years away it was. He just slowly, almost as if this was the vision that could break into a hundred million gazillion pieces in lightspeed seconds, he extended his hand to me, and looked at me. I could read fear in that gaze. I could read incredulity. I could read happiness.
"Damn it", I chuckled, "now you're getting me all emotional." I took the trembling hand and clasped my friend, my savior's weight close to my shoulder, and felt the familiarity of it spread from my hand, still grasping his, spring right down to my toes. It was history repeated again – in that room, the day I dragged him to class, I extended my hand to him just before lights-out and asked him a timid "friends?". He took it and held me close. It felt like we had been friends forever, and all our hardships from all our past lives were packed into that one emotional hug. Maybe we had met before, somewhere else, sometime past and long dead.
Holding me at arms length, he studied me as if I were the favorite student of a teacher. "A famous man once said, "Why does a man board a certain boat with its passengers? Why did he choose that particular boat to board? The reason is because the man and these passengers have had 500 years together." Just like Ernest, to sprout some gibberish about being friends forever when we've just seen each other. Just like Ernest…those words meant so much. It meant that he was here, that he was alive and we could see each other and laugh over our mistakes. They never lingered long in our minds – we were lighthearted, and content to be such. Ernest was himself, and I was satisfied he was not anyone else.
Then my best friend began to look at me with those eyes that made me want to just yell, "Go into some romance movie or something with those puppy eyes! Don't wag them at me!" and then drag him to some movie studio and become his agent. Unexplainably, he began to cry, and when Ernest cried, he cried with everything he could: shaking shoulders, the sniffing and the big tears and the whole lot. You would think that the world had fallen or something. I thought it was just plain stupid.
I held him and tried to comfort him without getting annoyed or laughing my head off. This was Ernest, after all, and even if he was memory-deficient, he still had the temperament of the boy I had grown up with. "Oh, be quiet Ernest", I admonished, and panicked as he began to cry even harder. "I'm not good at this, Ernest! Please stop crying…please? Ernest, that's supposed to make you stop because it's the magic word, you know, or something like that."
He looked up at me with those heartbroken eyes and said disbelieving, "How can you be so insensitive, Garu?"
I smiled. This brought back memories. Our old argument. "I'm not insensitive, Ernest. You're just too emotional."
"You should be talking, Garu. You're crying yourself."
I touched my cheeks and was surprised to find he was right. Vaguely I tried to remember how many years it had been since I had last cried over anything. It would have to be the time Ernest died, I guessed. And then before that was the beginning of my training at G.O.A.. Even as I thought this Ernest's arms came to envelope me into a hug. "It doesn't matter how long it's been, Garu. It matters that you're crying for me."
Ernest was almost the definition of perfect. He was practically an angel (and almost every hot-blooded repairer in G.O.A. swooned over him), he had perfect marks, took care of his little brother like a dutiful sibling parent, and was the pilot of one of the Goddesses. But being his friend for so long had its little observances – that Ernest was far from it. It made me laugh, actually, how little he knew about being a friend and having a friend in return. "The school I went to was made up of people at least five years older than I was. It was hard to fit in with them, since they were sophisticated teenagers and I was not."
We laughed back then at the irony in Ernest's words. Now that we were teenagers, we knew that we were very unsophisticated. And we also knew that it wasn't just us that weren't sophisticated – it was everyone, whether they were eighty years old or nine years old.
Against my shoulder, Ernest gave a little chuckle. "I can't believe you still remember that."
I snickered. "I remember every little embarrassing thing you've done, Ernest." It felt so familiar, so…did I dare say right? to have him in my arms. Even as I thought it I tried vainly to scratch it out before Ernest could read it. That sounded like a line straight from some corny romance novel.
It was then I think I realized I was destined to be Ernest's friend for the rest of my life. It was just that feeling that you were the oldest friends and would always be, wherever you went. I saved my sanity for this – for the day I would see my friend, my ancient friend, again and be able to say, "You are still my friend. You are still my BEST friend, and I still have no regrets about saying that. No one else comes close to being as close as you are to me."
Destiny, Fate, God's decree. It didn't matter what I called it now. It was love, love of brother, love of lovers, love of our old, old amiable companionship. We were as close as twins in a womb. We were as close as the ivy on the tree. We were closer than brother, closer than the embrace that pulled us together again. I could squeeze him tight and still it wouldn't show how infidentally bonded we were. We could kiss and believe it was mushy love and it wouldn't change our relationship. It would just be another form of closeness we shared.
Then it hit me. Ernest's quote. 500 years together.
Ernest chuckled as he leaned against me, and his wings gave a warm fuzzy feeling as they close up around us. "Garu", he chided softly in that way only he could, "I told you that quote made sense.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Author's note:
That quote's from Confucius, just for your information. I just think it's cool...but that's just me. Anyways, about the 'kissing' thing: what I mean is that they are close as that. Their relationship, their image of each other wouldn't have changed even if they had become lovers. It would be another outlet to show their devotion (as friends and as lovers) to each other. Kinda sweet, actually, but I think they're just content being friends for now. This isn't a yaoi story. This is a story about how people interact with each other.
Andrea Weiling