Chapter two: child of darkness, child of light
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools
**************
"Come now Wufei, you have to realise, you can no more fight this war by yourself than you can bring back all the lives lost. It's futile to even think about it. Too many book and film hero's have done it, but it is impossible in real life." Quatre followed his fellow pilot around the room in exasperation. Wufei was tipping the place upside down looking for his sword.
"I don't want to fight the war by myself onna. I want to kill one man. I'm sure it's not beyond even your weak nature to kill just one man."
"Wufei! Too many lives have already been lost to go about killing more. Stop this foolishness now."
"Foolish? Child, gravely ignorant is the one who calls Chang Wufei foolish. Now move! Where is my sword? Nataku curse the one who stands in my way."
Quatre stepped out of his friend's path, and sat sadly down in the armchair near the window of Wufei's hospital room. "If your can see the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower," Quatre voiced his inner personal mantra, unknowingly mimicking the actions of the deceased sergeant as he massaged his frowning forehead and gazed at his rampaging fellow Gundam pilot.
"If your can hold in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour." Wufei absentmindedly finished the quotation off before crashing onto the bed, flummoxed. "But what does William Blake have to do with anything baka? Tell me now exactly what I am supposed to do and how master Blake will help me do it?"
"Wufei, I don't know what you have to do, but I know what you have to stop doing. Stop thinking that the wars of the world are your fault and your responsibility. Stop insisting on blaming yourself every time you can't manage to achieve one of the impossible tasks you have set yourself. Stop thinking that the world hates you if you don't succeed at everything. Everyone shows weakness at some time or other, it is part of human nature. It is perfectly natural and healthy."
"I am a Gundam pilot, Quatre Winner. I am not allowed to make the same mistakes a human being allows himself to make. For every mistake I make, people lose their lives."
"Not true. For every time your lash out with your Gundam, people lose lives. Or your sword. You are not Allah. You do no decide who lives or who dies. He does. You are just the agent that he sends to aid him with his task."
"Tell that to your father." Wufei said cruelly before he walked out of the door, having remembered that he put his sword downstairs in the hospital lobby, buried deep in the foliage of one of the ornamental trees.
***********
"Now you have killed him, where will you go? What will you do next?" Quatre squinted up at Wufei, who was standing over the body of his latest victim.
"I do not know. I suppose I will attempt to find the others." Up close, Colonel Burton was a weedy man, rat-like and weak. Hardly a worthy kill.
"What did he do to you? What made you kill him? How did he wrong you in such away that it was necessary to take his life?"
"I don't know. Maybe Allah just thought it was time, ne?" Wufei let out a deep laugh, the first one he had let loose in ages.
"You always were unnecessarily cruel." Quatre observed. "The remark about my father will not be forgotten."
"Nor should it be."
"Where do we go know? Where do you think the other pilots will be?"
"Well, we know that a spate of attacks on world leaders has been taking place. We know that OZ thinks there is only one likely victim left, and we know that she runs her own school for the daughters of nations, girls poised to become leaders."
"Heero?"
"Relena." Wufei confirmed. "He will kill her, and then we can ask him if the doctors have given us new missions or Gundams."
"Maybe we can get there before he kills her." Quatre was worried for the loss of a girl so bent on pacifism.
"Maybe, maybe not." Wufei shrugged. "Either way, we're not going to stop him."
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools
**************
"Come now Wufei, you have to realise, you can no more fight this war by yourself than you can bring back all the lives lost. It's futile to even think about it. Too many book and film hero's have done it, but it is impossible in real life." Quatre followed his fellow pilot around the room in exasperation. Wufei was tipping the place upside down looking for his sword.
"I don't want to fight the war by myself onna. I want to kill one man. I'm sure it's not beyond even your weak nature to kill just one man."
"Wufei! Too many lives have already been lost to go about killing more. Stop this foolishness now."
"Foolish? Child, gravely ignorant is the one who calls Chang Wufei foolish. Now move! Where is my sword? Nataku curse the one who stands in my way."
Quatre stepped out of his friend's path, and sat sadly down in the armchair near the window of Wufei's hospital room. "If your can see the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower," Quatre voiced his inner personal mantra, unknowingly mimicking the actions of the deceased sergeant as he massaged his frowning forehead and gazed at his rampaging fellow Gundam pilot.
"If your can hold in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour." Wufei absentmindedly finished the quotation off before crashing onto the bed, flummoxed. "But what does William Blake have to do with anything baka? Tell me now exactly what I am supposed to do and how master Blake will help me do it?"
"Wufei, I don't know what you have to do, but I know what you have to stop doing. Stop thinking that the wars of the world are your fault and your responsibility. Stop insisting on blaming yourself every time you can't manage to achieve one of the impossible tasks you have set yourself. Stop thinking that the world hates you if you don't succeed at everything. Everyone shows weakness at some time or other, it is part of human nature. It is perfectly natural and healthy."
"I am a Gundam pilot, Quatre Winner. I am not allowed to make the same mistakes a human being allows himself to make. For every mistake I make, people lose their lives."
"Not true. For every time your lash out with your Gundam, people lose lives. Or your sword. You are not Allah. You do no decide who lives or who dies. He does. You are just the agent that he sends to aid him with his task."
"Tell that to your father." Wufei said cruelly before he walked out of the door, having remembered that he put his sword downstairs in the hospital lobby, buried deep in the foliage of one of the ornamental trees.
***********
"Now you have killed him, where will you go? What will you do next?" Quatre squinted up at Wufei, who was standing over the body of his latest victim.
"I do not know. I suppose I will attempt to find the others." Up close, Colonel Burton was a weedy man, rat-like and weak. Hardly a worthy kill.
"What did he do to you? What made you kill him? How did he wrong you in such away that it was necessary to take his life?"
"I don't know. Maybe Allah just thought it was time, ne?" Wufei let out a deep laugh, the first one he had let loose in ages.
"You always were unnecessarily cruel." Quatre observed. "The remark about my father will not be forgotten."
"Nor should it be."
"Where do we go know? Where do you think the other pilots will be?"
"Well, we know that a spate of attacks on world leaders has been taking place. We know that OZ thinks there is only one likely victim left, and we know that she runs her own school for the daughters of nations, girls poised to become leaders."
"Heero?"
"Relena." Wufei confirmed. "He will kill her, and then we can ask him if the doctors have given us new missions or Gundams."
"Maybe we can get there before he kills her." Quatre was worried for the loss of a girl so bent on pacifism.
"Maybe, maybe not." Wufei shrugged. "Either way, we're not going to stop him."