Silence

By: Silent Lullaby

I hold no claim to Gundam wing. However the story is mine.

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I'm sorry there haven't been any updates recently. I've been rather sick since Saturday.

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Breakfast had been nice, the cheerful chatter or Quatre's sisters, the savory food, and the ethereal image sitting beside me. More than once I nearly stabbed my face with a forkful of food. After the third time I had forced myself not to look at the blonde beauty until I had finished eating.

This was so unlike me, I never let emotions control my actions like this. I had watched him dance for nearly a year but that was only for a short period of time in a day. I had never given into my desire to talk to him, to touch him. Now I couldn't stop staring and caressing him whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Frowning, I idly looked at my surroundings. The bench I sat upon was crafted so that it appeared to grow out of the ancient willow. Leaning back into the tree's embrace I watched the long graceful branches wave and dance in the breeze.

Perhaps it was a good thing after all. The Yuy family had lived and died by a simple phrase. The path to a good life is lead by one's emotions, you have only to follow.

I had almost forgotten the saying after my mother had died. She had followed her emotion and she has died from despair.

Pulling my legs up to my chest I stared at the endless blue sky that remained me of the long ribbons she wove into her hair. The cloth had been intertwined and folded so that it looked like butterfly wings on a kite's tail. One time I had asked her why she did that. She had smiled and told me of how her mother used to put them in her hair to make her stand out as a little girl.

A smile crept unbidden to my lips as I remembered how I had asked to wear the ribbons too. Mother had winked and replied no before going to her room and returning with a tiny chest. Inside was a pendent. It was of a crane with a bough of mountain pine on either side of it and above the elegant bird was a small pearl set into the jade.

Mother had taken the treasure from its chest and taken her favorite ribbon, a green one with the phases of the moon embroidered in silver thread. She slipped the ribbon into place and tied it around my neck; the cool jade had been carved so that it fit perfectly against my skin. She had secured it tightly so that it would not fall off but loose so that I could breathe without hindrance.

She said it was a family treasure that had been passed down for centuries and that now I would wear it. If only she had known that the creditors would take it away. The day she had died I had put on a plain high necked Chinese shirt our old neighbors, the Chang's, had given me, in hope it would hide the pendent.

The landlord had come with the rest of the creditors. He had been a fair and kindhearted man but I couldn't help myself from being angry with him to this day for what he did. He had come to talk with the creditors since I could not. As the last of them prepared to leave he turned to talk to me as I sat in the corner of the now empty living room.

He noticed part of the ribbon peeking out from the collar of my shirt and asked if it had been my mother's. Before I knew it the last of the men claiming debts had turned on heel and held me by my neck. Removing the ribbon he stared at the pendent and pocketed it. He had called me a dirty thief trying to steal what was rightfully his. I knew the man; he had tried to marry my mother after my father had died. No debts were owed to him. I had tried to tell our landlord this; I had attempted to take it back from him but to no avail.

Straightening my legs I stood up and walked to the front of the house. Quatre had said he'd return with some friends of his by eleven. I took one last glance at the sky and went inside to clean up.