Disclaimer: Usual applies. PS: Heero's ass is the best in Space.
Oh, all those grabbing, grabbing hands. Relena shook each that came at her, arrows aimed at a target, smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding. So many hands.
"A formal?" Relena had opened the bathroom door and poked her head out irritably. "In a week? Why now - is this necessary?"
She chatted everyone up, briefly, succinctly. 'How lovely to see you' or 'Thank you for coming', mostly. When Mrs. Darlian turned to give a more sweeping greeting to one of the guests Relena caught a glimpse of bare neck - the deep scoop in the back of the dress bared the tips of her mother's shoulder blades, the strong muscle of her neck. She looked truly beautiful, in Relena's opinion. Oh, but she was forgetting to smile, and half-bow, and nod, and greet, and shake hands with, and smile some more...
"Relena, this is part of your campaign - you have nothing to whine about." Dim yelps of, "I'm not whining!" came from inside the bathroom but Mrs. Darlian only shook her head again. "We will need to do this more often - but this is such a busy time, it will not be hard to fill a hall with people, especially politicians."
Well, the hall was full now. Relena weaved her way through the loose crowd to indulge in more chatting-up - it happened that she first came upon Senator Doyle (an American senator) and his daughter (if she remembered correctly the daughter's name was Olivia - but it was difficult to misplace that pinched face, all cheekbones and eyes, with a thin slit of unforgiving mouth).
"Good evening, Senator Doyle." They shook hands. Then Relena turned to Olivia. "Hello, how are you tonight?"
Olivia Doyle, due to that pinched expression in her face, constantly emanated disdain. This time she appeared more pleasant, more colorful. The corners of her mouth turned up as she responded with an equally civil, "Good evening, very well, thank you."She wore a bright silk gown trimmed closely to the body and the angular flare of her hips. She seemed thin enough to be transparent and hung from the arm of her father like a talking paper cut-out.
Relena held up the dress she was to wear to the formal and considered it closely. She was tired, goodness knows, but her mother picked this out for her and it deserved the attention - she so appreciated what her mother was doing for her, all crabbiness aside...Relena scrutinized it. The color - oh, this had been her father's favorite color on her, and Relena's breath hitched the slightest at this.
Chea and Official Rigoldi stood clustered with a group of others at one side of the hall. Upon seeing Relena Rigoldi waved her over, the movement awkward as the hand she gestured to Relena with was also the hand holding a small flute of champagne. Her other grasped Chea's hand in a familiar grip.
"Good evening, Foreign Prime Minister."
"Good evening - hello, Chea." The woman smiled, a gentle warmth glowing around her face, and raised her own glass in greeting. Relena was re-introduced to the Sanders, a family similar to her own in its political traditions and heritage, who were traveling Space for another week before returning to Sweden. Their's was a happy, albeit quick exchange - then interrupted by the approach of Olivia Doyle, this time unaccompanied by her father (who Relena spied talking with the Chairman of Electoclectic, yet another of her sponsors and donors). Relena introduced Olivia to the rest.
"Well, how are you enjoying space?" Chea asked Olivia. Olivia shrugged, a small frown settling over the pointed archs of her eyebrows.
"Oh, busy, really - I'm traveling with father now, and that is - well, trying. Political agenda and all." She directed a tight smile at Relena (apparently, eased-up smiles were not in her supply of made-to-wear facial expressions). "I don't mean any offense, it's only, I'm not used to father's schedule." Relena shook her head and smiled.
"Of course. I understand that you model, though?" A preening glow took hold of Olivia's thin, whispy figure and she straightened (Rigoldi would later say she "un-shriveled").
"Well, yes, but that is entirely different, and I have never modeled in Space before. Flights on Earth are much less warisome." Chea nodded gently - like a flower with a too-heavy bloom drooping on its slender stem - and took another sip of her champagne. Shortly thereafter the group disbanded and Relena wandered to another, and another, and around the room she trooped on nothing but two half-glasses of champagne and a few finger sandwiches. (Again, she forgot to eat).
"Oh bother." Relena thought to herself the night before the formal. "Oh bother...it's eleven again. Or at least, it is on Earth. In Cinq, at home. I do wonder, now, how people get anything done in one life time - and since there is proof that it has been done, perhaps millions of times before, how did those people do it? How did they leave such an enormous impact on the rest of the human history? I can't make sense of it anymore, all order has escaped my world, and all I can think of are dramatic interpretations of the same...and tomorrow it starts all over again. Is progress, advancement and accomplishment all biproducts of 'just doing it'?" Relena, then lying on her bed, turned on her back and chewed the inside of her cheek. "Is that really what it is, 'just doing it'?....".
Relena turned and joined Sir and Lady Mitchell with the Slanksteins near the punch bowl. She still hadn't finished her champagne.
Relena turned back on her stomach and propped her chin up awkwardly on the backs of her hands, thoughtful. It would have been difficult to provoke her attention in this state, it was somewhere else completely. The ticking of the clock on the bedside table failed to bleed through the gauzy wrapping of her wary, tired mind. Her mother tried knocking at her door but didn't persist - after all, it was almost 11:30, Relena was probably asleep by then, she thought. Meantime, Relena continued in a half-doze, not managing to gain a foothold in any of her thoughts and leaving them undone to move onto something else. The campaign. That, and the project consuming most of her days of refitting elderly colonies for proper human habitation, never failed to dazzle her. She felt mindboggled by the possibilities. Naturally, what she was doing was not actively, officially campaigning - no, that required much more money, more televised news conferences, and interviews that more closely resembled sibling spats than civil adult banter.
She was, however, advertising herself - making herself a more relatable, or at least more welcoming person in the eyes of her peers. She wanted to keep her office, knew several of her opponents (had she not declined the offer of running, one such opponent would have been Rigoldi), and therefore - did what her mother told her to do. 'Mother knows best.' While they had their tiffs Relena knew - Mrs. Darlian had seen more of the late Mr. Darlian's campaigning than need be mentioned.
What a surprise to welcome Lady Une at this gathering - that she had even bothered! Relena felt somehow proud, even went so far as to preen herself a little at the other's presence. They spoke for a while, discussing less-worn topics having little to do with Relena's work. Relena had to look up to meet eyes with her - with her hair piled up that way Lady Une seemed taller, elongated, and Relena, it seemed, was to be always stuck with the label 'petite'.
"By the way, how is Mariemaia?" Lady Une's nose wrinkled a little in thought before she responded. A waiter came by with a tray of filled champagne glasses and Lady Une slipped one from the tray without attracting his notice.
"Very well, thank you for asking." Now she smiled, swirling the champagne in her glass around. "Actually, her physical therapy is moving along quickly. She's impatient, though. And, " Here Lady Une's expression held a wry, smirking quality that seemed to be directed more at her charge than Relena, "She has been avidly following the various candidates for office in the Earth Sphere United Nations. It gets her mind off walking but she takes it quite seriously." Relena laughed lightly, reservedly.
"Oh? Well, she certainly understands politics - she could probably reason politics better than most people in the position." Lady Une bowed her head as though to nod but glanced at Relena with lowered eyelashes - a very faintly smug, knowing, even seductive expression.
"We both know she is more than simply intelligent, or precocious. She has genius, and Mariemaia - is very much like...her father." Here a starched quality came between the two - and the differences between each other, one who idolized Treize Kushrenada post mortum, the other more a victim of his schemes as well as a former political opponent, suddenly broke them apart. Lady Une cleared her throat. "I mean to say - she will know more than any above-average adult about these elections, and their outcomes. She especially expresses interest in you." Relena repeated her laugh.
"In that case...well, I'm flattered." Lady Une looked a mite puzzled at this reply, then shook it off and gave Relena small, private grin.
1 AM. Relena could not sleep. She mused she had filled her head with so many half-baked ideas it could not shut down properly. More realistically, it might have been the fault of the espresso she had with dinner. So she turned and squirmed and rolled round in her bed, warming the sheets until all thankful coolness had evaporated and the contents of her pillow had gathered in one end, leaving the other end horribly flat. She finally climbed out from under the covers and lay on the rumpled surface of her bed, waiting for her skin to cool down. It was quite a wait. Relena lay on her back, blinking up at the ceiling and not feeling in the least tired. She still felt full from dinner, and that had ended five hours ago. Then again, she did not need that much food, and she filled up so quickly...sheets took so long to cool down, but waiting for her body to do the same was slow going, too...there was no fan in this room. Nothing had a fan in space - fans circulated too much dust and were only used on Earth these days. But only when she held really still - still enough that not a sheet rustled, that she could feel the blood in her ears rushing in and out with every heartbeat - could she hear the whispered breath of the air purifier.......uggh, these sheets were never going to cool down.
Relena's head turned in the direction of sudden laughing. She caught sight of Chea with her arm around Rigoldi's shoulders - Chea was indeed taller, by almost a head - head back and looking extremely entertained. Despite the usual grousing expression on Rigoldi's face - that surly look Relena was so used to - Chea had made her smile. Then Chea brought her face to Rigoldi's ear and her arm tightened around the other's shoulders - now Rigoldi gave a brief, barking laugh. The party took on a more mirthful color at that point, and Relena started on her rounds again. (Meet - greet - shake - bow - smile - laugh - chat - twirl - chat - chat chat chat). That moment she had witnessed reenergized her - even though, she let off on the champagne at that point. She could only sustain so much bubbly before the tipsying effects began to show. How inelegant that'd be! She shuddered inwardly at the prospects of those 'tipsying' effects.
So the dress was put away and Relena put under the yoke again. The hours she kept raised her mother's eyebrows though Mrs. Darlian chose to tactfully say nothing of the matter. Sleep, apparently, was not the precious stuff it used to be. But the puffiness fled from Relena's face as she dug herself deeper into her work, replaced by a gray, wary light that retreated only in front of a camera or in an interview. The puffiness must have been a warning of her coming physical exhaustion - and now she was past the point where it mattered. So the puffiness left. All good.
Relena gathered her team around her, made her people also her security, her support group, the voices that lent strength to her single call, her pack. There were people who could move between her pack, herself, and the outside world but they might as well have stitched the word 'Outsider' into their clothing. They were not let in. This meant she was guaranteed solidarity as well as companionship. And her mother was always there, more there than she had been in years. She could not remember her mother being so consistently nearby since she turned twelve and started studying at that boarding school. That was roughly about the time time things went crazy at home. Those years marked the last phase of the Alliance's downfall, whose authority had already been so undermined that the only surprise was OZ's relatively leisurely pace in taking over.
Meantime, Relena met a wider range of people than heretofore - hard to believe? Some of these people had nothing more to do with politics or business or advertising than, "Oh, that's my father." or, "I'm his/her date." Such as the senator's thin model-daughter, who Relena saw several times at various events in Space over the next few months, or Official Rigoldi's father (a former plumber), or the team leader to a children's summer camp who was also the cousin of a chairman. So while the hole in her head, that gossamy, silky, watery place she crept into when having suffered too much use, filled with the gray that had become the tempo of her life, she shook oh so many hands OH SO MANY HANDS! that the uinnterrupted act of writing - notes, speeches, jokes - became a coveted moment of bliss.
But besides her work and sleep and the activities that filled a day, she found little nuggets of time - moments - minutes - in which her musings took sudden, vindictive control of her mind and refused to let go. At these times she'd be found staring at nothing and, apparently, meditating. At that point, one would have to repeat the question one asked her only once more, and she would come to life with an attentive smile.
For example, the off-moments really got to her. Not unusual, not strange, not foreign in nature - moments that were just a little unbalanced, just somehow 'off'. Like a crooked wall or one of those mens' calendars that, despite being filled with busty, smiling women offering bets on the depth of their cleavage, manage to be boring anyway. (The same went for womens' calendars chock-a-block with construction workers in too-small, dusty jeans handling drill bits and smirking). For the life of her Relena could not recall that time in the elevator a pizza dropped and stuck to the lower half of her pantleg (and how the pizza carrier turned a shade of pink she thought meant self-asphyxiation). The only other who remembered was her mother, who had been standing by when the elevator doors opened onto a dazed Relena and gasping pizza guy. But she did remember the formal, simple - yet off!!! - introduction to a certain Roan Harris ("Why, that's Congressman Harris and his daughter, Roan. I believe she's taking time off from...well, something").
A delicate pink silk sweater with a plunging v-neck reaching down to the navel, baring the watery rose silk camisole with lacy froth edging the sweatheart neckline. The hem of the camisole hung a little past that of the sweater, complimenting the cream-colored pencil skirt in a sueded cotton hitting just above the knee. The patterned hose - white - ran down the length of her legs into the confines of red velvet ballet flats with a darker rose trim. Her dark brown hair tied into a chignon at the back of her head, and she kept her hand in the crook of her father's arm at entering the room.
Roan Harris was statuesque and quiet, and towered over her father; he, meanwhile, gleamed in a faintly brutish, jolly way. He was burly but had grown squat with the coming of his mid-fifties. Where she said little he spoke continuously, and where she seemed the definition of sophistication he appeared crude when put at her side. When Relena met her all Roan gave her was a formal thanks and a smile. But it was a beautiful smile.
Congressman Harris was the sort of man to simply enjoy feminine beauty - the rumors of his affairs were understated in the retelling more to lessen the impact than to spread it. While faintly incestuous in appearance there were simple reasons for why the two got along so well despite so many differences and old familial break-ups: Roan Harris was a kind of human pet, all velvet and silk, well-kept, well-looked after, and too gentle to resist; her father liked her for her grace and her beauty, its timelessness. He enjoyed her manner, her ease around company. She added care and reserve to his rough edges. She was seen on his arm like this at any event he went to. But she never really seemed to get out much - nor care that she didn't. Roan seemed very happy, on the other hand, with velvet ballet flats the color of roses and sweaters of pure silk.
"It is wonderful to meet you, Foreign Vice Minister Darlian."
"I am glad to finally make your aquaintance, Ms. Harris."
"Roan, please."
Now what had been odd about that moment? Granted, it was a very ordinary semi-formal introduction - but it had that flavor of oddness Relena always kept an eye out for. And she kept track of oddness, so she eyeballed the father-daughter couple on their way into the luncheon.
Later, it happened that Roan and Relena bumped elbows in the buffet line (which just settled the matter for her, this confirmed her suspicion of a coming Moment of Oddness).
"I beg your pardon." They echoed each other. Roan smiled at her, dimpling faintly.
Another introduction led to light, unrelated chitchat. Roan was level-headed but very tame. Her opinions could only be called general. But a kindness bled through that bland, if beautiful personage that made her more interesting, a kind of case-study for Relena.
Relena and Roan went off to find a restroom. But it was clear that they were a little lost. Relena then came across a door she thought seemed familiar to her. It hadn't any specific markings so she took her chances with luck.
She gripped the doorhandle and quickly opened. Relena stopped, stared, and gaped a little. She still managed to bite her tongue in the process, somehow.
It was a kind of sitting room (but small). Sun shone in through windows higher up on the wall. A couch in the tradition of candy-colored stripes, a bare floor, and attractive furniture completed it. But Relena's eyes had been torn to the gentle activity on the couch. Chea and Rigoldi sat there, arms around each other and kissing. They were completely oblivious to any commotion (or creaking door hinge) that might have otherwise bothered them. Even sitting Chea was a mite taller, and her arms hugged Rigoldi close, her hands on her the other's back, stroking encouragingly. Rigoldi's right hand brought her girlfriend's head in for the more vigorous kissing, the other hand held her at the waist. Hair had been slightly mussed and jackets lay abandoned on one of the couch's armrests. They never noticed when Relena shut the door as quickly as she'd opened it.
Relena stepped back. She'd never walked in on someone before. Not even her parents. Roan hung back, clearly puzzled.
"That wasn't it?" She asked, uncertain. Relena glanced over her shoulder.
"No, sorry. Let's check down this hall." Relena said, already backing away from the door. Roan followed, and Relena, for a split-second, met her eyes without the pretense of being polite about it. She saw a maddeningly, timelessly gorgeous woman in front of her - dressed in the most delicate of things. The velvet would one day soon wear off those flats. Dust could marr that skirt for eternity, and nothing but kid gloves and freshly-scrubbed skin could come in contact with that camisole. Her hair and cuticles and skin were near-flawless. To look her in the face would be to think a beauty mark a flaw if one had existed anywhere on it.
Yet forthat handsome exteriorshe was completely taken care of by her father, who never seemed to hear or ask for her opinion. Relena had watched, and in the short time she'd had for character-studying, that little bit seemed to fit another piece into the puzzle that was Congressman vs. Roan Harris, or caretaker vs. a gilded lily.
Oh the people you meet, and oh what questions they make you ask yourself. Do meeting people, a social component that makes up so much of peoples' lives,influence so much ofwhat you ask yourself? - almost as a kind of reaction to those peoples' very presence? How crazy - how absurd, really!
...But it could it be?
There you have it. See, I'm not all gone. Not entirely sucked up by the Void That Is School(work). Despisable Void that it is. Thank you so for reading - Becca-W