Drowning: Chapter 17
On Distant Shores
Pairings: 4xOC, 1xR, 2xH
Quatre's POV
Warnings: swearing
Disclaimer: don't own
"Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
No rays from the holy Heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes-up spires-up kingly halls-
Up fanes-up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculpted ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvelous shrine
Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye-
No the gaily-jeweled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed
For no ripple curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.
But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave-there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence." 1
From where I lay on a bed of still water I can see a distant shore. It's a black desert. Filled with ice and shards of neon pain.
In the water there are souls. The souls of the living damned, those who have not yet died but will because death is the only certainty in an unreal real world. Planets drift below like great behemoths of the deep. Nightmares from sailors of old become unreality.
Sailors of yesterday, spacers of today. Water and space and endless sands, all one in the same.
Do the souls of the dead go to that cold desert? Does God see them there and weep?
Such bitterness from still waters. No storms brew and seethe in the oceans, no frothy churning waves. The danger is not gone however. This is only the calm before the tempest. A storm that is only in my mind but is so real too!
I'm afraid to go to the black shore. Is it hell? Or is it just a place of death. I can't go there! I'd rather drown. Drown in the sea of humanity because my very humanity is dragging me under the currents. I can not remain as I am and survive. I will be awash with the pounding of a million emotions. My humanity is killing me.
But what is there beyond it?! What is beyond the black-sand shores? I'm afraid. There's nothing left to anchor me to my humanity. Nothing at all.
The cold desert shore is my despair and the blue acid snakes in my arms my punishment. They will not let me expand! They will not let me go! But I must. I must. Even if I am afraid with child-fear I must move beyond the black sands of my childhood because there's no Father here to lead me out anymore. No Father here to keep me from going under water or sinking sands.
I need to see hear feel beyond my humanity. Only then can I touch foot on solid ground. Only then can I see the beauty of the distant shore and not the pain.
I can't make it on my own! I need help…oh please don't let me drown! I need someone to guide me. I need a guide past my withering humanity so I can see the true shore, past the blood red see of space and bitter emotion. Past the black shores of my horror.
There is a tempest boiling within me. Someone please help me before I destroy myself!
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Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, as always happens, they do. I had thought that after a night of fragmented dreams and horrendous visions my mind would let me have some respite. Oh how wrong I was.
It seems as though my messed up empathy has taken to switching back and forth between letting barely anything in and letting massive amounts of emotion in. Currently it has decided without any consideration to my wishes to make me feel every raw emotion that my friends and loved ones can throw at me.
This is going to be the trip from hell.
"Duo! Duo! Stop that!"
"Geez Hil, you're such a party pooper!"
"I am not! I just think that I'd rather not die in a horrible shuttle accident because my stupid boyfriend wouldn't leave the airlock alone!"
"Do you really think that I'd be so stupid as to mess with a shuttle!? I know what I'm doing. I happen to be one of the best mechanics I know! I'm just checking-
"Will you shut up! Jesus! You're the most egotistical bastard sometimes!"
"I'm a pilot! I'm allowed."
"You're a dumbass! And I'm pretty sure you're not allowed!"
Dear Allah! Why me? Why now? My poor head is going to explode!
The shuttle is jammed full of not only Sara and I, who are really the only ones who have to go to Earth to testify in the trial, but all the pilots, their respective partners, and all my sisters have decided to accompany us. All in all there are sixteen of us crammed in here together and it's fifteen more people than I can freaking handle right now.
Thankfully Isra managed to come home and is now traveling back to Earth with us. She's always been one of my most calm sisters. She and Irea have been in quiet conversation since we've left. My other sisters have taken to playing travel board games and cards and generally making as much noise as possible while doing it.
"Samirah, will you shut up!" I growl out. She hasn't stopped talking since we boarded five hours ago!
"You shut up," She throws back.
"I'm not the one who's been talking non-stop since we got on the fucking shuttle! Don't you ever shut up? Allah, no wonder Father was always yelling at you!"
"Quatre! Don't talk to your sister that way!"
"But!-
"No! Now both of you be quiet."
"You always take her side in everything. Of course you won't yell at her 'cause she's your sister and you girls always stick together! I could never mean as much to you because I'm just a stupid guy!" I'm being a baby and I know it, but I can't seem to get control of myself.
"You know that's not true Cat- Wufei! Stop strangling Duo!"
"I will if he stops being insufferably annoying!"
"I'm not annoying, you're just a dick!"
"Ya well, Quatre, I may talk a lot but at least I'm not an empathic freak!"
"You take that back!"
"Stop squirming Maxwell!"
"Bite me Chang!"
"Bitch!"
"Bastard!"
"Test-tube freak!"
"Look who's talking!"
"Will all of you shut the hell up!!!"
Funny, I don't think I've ever heard my sister Qamra swear before. Her outburst gets the desired effect however and the zoo of a shuttle goes quiet. Finally. My head is pounding. Sara is looking at me sympathetically and hands me some aspirin from her purse. I mumble a sulky "thank you" and huddle down into my seat. She probably thinks I'm really immature now. I really should know better than to get upset at my sisters, but sometimes they drive me crazy!
Trowa pats my hand understandingly. His lips are quirked up in that funny little half-smile of his. You only have one sister to deal with, I think at him all the while giving him a black look of death. He just chuckles.
"I hate to tell you this Cat," he whispers in my ear, "but you never look intimidating when you do that. You look like an angry five year old. I wonder if Sara notices how cute you are when you get all pouty."
In response I slug him in the arm. He just laughs more and goes back to reading his paperback novel. Stupid Trowa. Stupid sisters. Stupid people!!! Aghhh!
With all the stress of the upcoming trial and my freaked out empathic abilities all I want to do is go home and bury myself in my nice warm bed for about a hundred years.
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After the hellacious twenty hour shuttle ride from home to Geneva where the trial is being held, I'm ready to go into a coma. I don't think I've ever been as emotionally exhausted as I am right now. Not even after the most intense of battles in my Gundam.
Relena was kind enough to reserve us the several very nice rooms at the finest hotel in the city. Right now I just want to curl up in bed and forget about everything that has happened, but before I can do that Sara and I are meeting with the prosecuting lawyers.
"Mr. Winner!" the portly attorney who looks like he's in charge shouts across the lobby of his huge office building. The building housing the government's law firm is massive. It's almost as big as the main Winner building on L4.
"Mr. Winner…and Ms. A'Mal! So good to see you both! My name is Mr. Jameson and I'm the head prosecuting attorney in this case. I trust your shuttle ride was pleasant?"
Sara and I exchange wry looks. The only way that shuttle ride could have been any more unpleasant is if Dr. Azrael himself had been there.
"Well, hurry along this way. Most of the team is here to meet you. Tell you what, the government pulled out all the stops on this case. The people really want to see this bastard put away!" booms Mr. Jameson.
The man's gruff voice and cheery comments are starting to get on the nerves that haven't been shot on the trip here. I really hope this guy is up to the challenge of this case.
The rest of the team alleviates my fears however as we're introduced to them. They show themselves to be the best of the best. Many of them want to see Dr. Azrael put away as badly as the people of L4. As we get into talking about the case after introductions I can see that Mr. Jameson's personality is a great disguise for his extreme brilliance as a court-room attorney. I wonder how many cases this man has won. Probably almost all of them. I was deceived by his friendly manner and easy-going style of speech and I'm supposedly psychic!
It becomes clear through discussion with the many talented lawyers in the room that they are horrified by what has been done to us. We barely manage to explain the very basics of the happenings in Azrael's labs before Mr. Jameson calls the meeting to a halt, saying that they'll gather all the information from us after we've had a good rest. I can't agree more. Allah I'm tired.
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"So what did you think?" Sara asks from across the table in my hotel room, various food containers scattered across the surface.
"Well…he's certainly different. But I'm sure he's very capable of doing a good job on the case," I reply.
"Yes, I wasn't so sure of him at first, but after getting to know him and the other lawyers I'm sure everything will be fine." We eat for a while before I notice that Sara has a far-away look on her face.
"What is it Sara?"
"Oh, it's nothing. This is my first time to the Earth. Did you know that? Well, things are so very different here. It just…I dunno…feels different. Do you know what I mean?"
"Yes, I felt the same way when I first came here. It feels so alien, don't you think?"
"Sort of. Like I'm an explorer stepping onto a foreign world." She giggles a little. "Except it almost feels a little like home too. I always imagined what Earth would be like. I never expected to feel this way."
"You need to go to the desert then. It feels strange, but in some ways it feels more natural than the other places on Earth. Feels even more like home. I never really get used to being on Earth though. For me, the desert is the only place that's even close. And even that feels so different to me."
"The people are certainly different here." Sara says, scrunching up her nose.
"I know what you mean. We colonists, and especially Arab colonists, are quite different from people on Earth. We tend to be a bit more old-fashioned. My father always taught me to be patient and soft spoken in all my business dealings. To use persuasion and handle difficult problems in a calm and often secretive manner was always stressed. Mr. Jameson certainly took me by surprise."
"I know what you mean. My father…really my family…was from Saudi Arabia. My great-grandfather came to the colonies after so many of the practices of the country were no longer tolerated by the Alliance. He passed on a legacy to all his sons and their sons to uphold the old traditions of that country. When…when I was little my father divorced my mother. She had become ill from some space virus and could no longer have children. My father wanted more than just Joseph as a son because in his eyes Joseph was weak for loving his baby sister.
"In accordance with the law and with what my father had been taught, we were both to be raised by him and his new wife. I was lucky enough to be able to persuade him to let me see my mother sometimes. If he hadn't let me, I would never have seen her again. It's enough to make me hate the traditions of our people! A supposedly enlightened and advanced people!"
"I'm so sorry Sara. Even amongst our colonies it appears there are differences. We no longer have such laws. My family abolished such things when they came to the colonies and before that our family wasn't so strict. We hail from the North African Middle East. Civil war pushed us and many families into space. Because so many different people and social laws came from the African countries to our colony there was no way to set down any laws from those countries. We had to start from scratch."
"You're very lucky then. I suppose I'm just bitter. I've been thinking about my arranged marriage a lot lately."
I forgot she had told me about that. Being around my sisters who were so much freer than she was must have been difficult.
"Do you know who you must marry?"
"No. We have never met. All I know is that he is older than I by many years."
We finish our meal in silence. I don't know what to say after such admissions. All I can think is how stupid I have been to think about the silly crush I have on her when she's not free to even choose who she can like.
"Maybe this planet will soothe my troubled heart," she whispers softly as she clears away the table.
"I hope so too. Earth is a beautiful place. One could be very happy here I hope you can be happy here. At least for a little while."
"You love space very much, don't you? I can see it in the way your face lights up as you speak of it. You're very proud to be space born. I would be too if I can come from as great a family as yours…one that suffered so much that only their strengths survived the years of harsh living. I suppose Earth, though it feels so strange, could become like a home for me if I were given the chance to live here. But for you…for you it will always be an alien world. It will always just be a strange distant shore across an ocean of space."
I'm not sure if Civil war was the reason so many Arabs left Earth for the colonies, but it would seem like a plausible idea. According to the AC timeline the Arab nations played a bid role in colony expansion, probably as a way to earn money after the oil resources dried up. I imagine that a pacifist family like the Winners would have left the Middle East for the colonies as much for the business venture as to escape the conflicts between nations.
-NostalgieMalaak
1 "The City in the Sea" by Edgar Allen Poe