30 Ways to Conquer Mars
#010 - #10
A.C. 197, August 11 「Rota Fortunae」
Gundam Wing © SOTSU AGENCY - SUNRISE - ANB
This is a work of derivative Fanfiction. No claims are made towards the ownership of intellectual rights pertaining to the metaseries.
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Few pilots get away with not having a little bit of superstitious faith. When you are flying above the world every day in something that weighs, on average, heavier than a houseful of bricks, you have to believe that something a little more than nuts and science keeps you in the air. For Zechs, it was the Tarot.
On days such as these, when the unknown pressed uneasily against his chest, he turns to drawing a card from the richly illustrated pack of cards he kept in their velvet sheath, as much for the meditative distraction as the guided comfort. Picture him now, seated before his pathetic excuse of a desk in perfect poise and posture, damp hair pushed back, a towel thrown across his bare shoulders, left over from his shower. Watch him withdraw into that quiet other-world, all his own, eyes lightly lidded, tugging free an antique plasticard from its fellows. He is well aware of how feminine the effect is, having picked up the practice from his mother.
There is a moment where time stands still, before he opens his eyes to study his choice.
Rota Fortunae, the Wheel of Fortune. Capricious fate, role-reversal, the rise and fall of things. But for whom?
He put it out of mind until half-way through lunch, when Donn and Noin stormed into the Mess Hall in the midst of what looked to be a heated argument. She is magnificent in her indignation, always has been. Zechs allowed himself a small, vague jealousy at Donn and thought against pretending not to notice, since, by now, everyone in the Mess Hall was staring, though only those seated closest could hear the words exchanged.
He caught her by the upper arm and hissed something close to her ear, prompting her to pick up a convenient glass and toss all of its dark green contents in his face. Zechs winced sympathetically. It was an instinctual male response, like cringing when another man, regardless of how you felt about them, is kicked in the groin.
Donn retreated. Zechs turned his lunch tray at a ninety-degree angle and nudged it gently towards the opposite side of his table as Noin skulked towards him. Zechs was not a difficult man to spot. In any bustling Mess Hall, he would be the man left with a whole table to himself while others took turns sharing seats. He knew better than to utter the first word as she descended upon his fries, seething with all the intensity of a lightning storm.
She growled something and helped herself to his drink. Zechs raised an elegant, perfectly composed, eyebrow at her language.
"He found out about your Space Guild proficiency exam." He guessed coolly, in a statement rather than a question.
"Of all the arrogant, chauvinistic… gah! I'll show him 'busting his balls'!" She fumed, stabbing at empty air with a deep-fried potato finger.
"First-Class, then. Congratulations." Zechs chewed nonchalantly on a stick of vegetable from his tray. He wasn't sure what vegetable it was supposed to be, and he wasn't sure he would want to find out.
"Thank you," Noin accepted curtly. "I'm glad there is still one man in my life who does not feel threatened by my achievements."
It started innocently enough, with Noin's weeks of recovery from her little adventure in naked space. To alleviate the boredom between her physiotherapy sessions, Donn suggested she take up something from the Continuing Education programme, a plan which she appeared to abandon after an hour and a half of browsing through the courses being offered. At least, that was what Donn thought.
Zechs risked a light smirk. "That's because I know I'm better."
Sheldon Donnovan, Space Guild First-Class, the best mechanic assigned to a security team aboard the Marsprojekt, was livid because had not expected to walk into a special Guild convene to find his girlfriend taking up the floor. He had thought he was being invited, as a resident Guild member, to observe a routine Offer of Membership.
The Space Guild was, in a nutshell, the definitive Union for space-faring engineers and mechanics throughout the Earth Sphere, its success witnessed most commonly by the fact that it had survived the twenty years of communication ban between the colonies more or less intact, despite its major membership being segregated in their permanent residences in space. The Guild determined and policed engineering regulations and standards, including the proficiency level of whosoever wished to be subject to their examinations, and extended its elite membership only to those who qualified for the honour of First or Second class. Sheldon Donnovan was considered young when he achieved his First-Class designation last year, at age twenty-eight, and had fought fiercely most of his life to get to that point.
Lucrezia Noin, to the best of most knowledge, had studied three weeks and requested a Guild examination in the fourth. She was almost twenty-one.
He could barely contain himself long enough for the videoconference to be over. The second the Guild Officials winked off screen, he turned on her and exploded.
"He was the one who suggested I look into further accreditation, and he said, oooh do you know what he said?" Noin plowed on ahead with her rant, deliberately ignoring Zechs' attempt to redirect her attention. "'I thought you'd do some poetry, or learn to cook. Something lady-like'… Mio Dio! Lady-like?..."
"You're being too hard on him, Noin," Zechs said mildly after three minutes of gushing along a similar vein. "The man has just lost onboard exclusivity to his Guild title, be more considerate. It must have been quite a big shock for him, being unseated by you before he even realised you were a threat. It's not easy losing your place as 'the best'. Why didn't you tell him you were sitting for the Guild exam?"
"I didn't want to say anything to anyone until I knew for certain I hadn't disgraced myself. It's the first time I've been tested by any board outside of Lake Victoria…" She mewed miserably.
"You told me," he pointed out, as cold and stoic as ever.
She opened her mouth to protest, then jumped to her feet all of a sudden, anger suffused in every muscle.
"Whose side are you on anyway?" She yelled, and strode briskly away before she could blurt out anything more.
Zech leapt after her, against his male instincts, and caught up with her in the corridor outside the Mess Hall. "Noin…"
"Forget it, Zechs, just stay away from me." She hissed, like a cornered cat.
Zechs Merquise would not be daunted. Either of their rooms would be too far, and there was virtually no privacy aboard this ship. Ah, there. He grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her into a nearby janitorial-closet.
He doesn't ask "Noin, what's wrong with you?" He doesn't say "Noin, you're being a cow". He said, in a low, steady, tone, "Svala, tell me what's going on."
Noin closed her eyes, it was painful to hear him use that name, as though he had reached into her chest and ripped out her organs himself.
"Don't…" she whispered in a voice made hoarse by an impending breakdown. "I don't understand you, Peacecraft. Sometimes it seems you want me, and then you push me into someone else's arms, and to see you work so hard at it… No, you don't get to call me that. Sanq is fallen. You are not my Prince. There is nothing left between us, remember?"
Zechs looked down and blinked. What is there to say? He could barely make her out in the dark, but he didn't need to see to know she is there, and how she stands, how she is trembling to hang on to every last shred of self-control, how she rubs her eyes with a fist, determined not to cry. He had somehow caused her grief, again. It broke his heart.
"Noin, I… I never meant that." He fumbled to find words for what he did mean. "I just thought… it wasn't fair to force you to stay by my side, not for the sake of something that no longer exists. I thought you were happy with Donn."
His hands hovered over her shoulders, close enough to feel the heat radiating off her, not daring to close the distance.
"'You and I make two', you said. Remember?" Zechs could feel himself choking. He had to force the next words through. "As long as you and I are still alive… … You are… my partner…"
Partner. Best friend, companion, keeper of one's soul. The word hardly held a candle to what she was to him, but he didn't know any others that would suit.
"I was frightened, at that time." He swallowed the bitter saltiness overwhelming the back of his throat. "Svala, I cannot lose y…"
She cut him off with a brief finger to his lips, unwilling to hear the rest, so they stood close together in the dark, barely touching, and fought silently to bring themselves back in check.
He lost count of time. Finally, Noin coughed up a laugh, a small, light, highly embarrassed, sound that sounded embarrassed of itself. "I was too harsh towards him, wasn't I?"
"A little," Zechs joined her in a similar chuckle. "Though he probably deserved most of it."
"He's right. I should be more lady-like."
The tall blond smiled. "Yes. I doubt he could have said anything to deserve a full glass in the face. What was in it anyway?"
"I think it might have been wheatgrass."
"Oh dear."
They shared a comforting low chortle and everything seemed better somehow, in the cool, stagnant atmosphere of the closet.
He turned to unlock the door.
"Hey," Noin mumbled hesitantly with a shuffle of her feet. "Do you… do you want to know what he said?"
Zechs straightened and watched her expectantly. Whatever it was, this would be a clue to her recent agitations, if not the reason itself.
Noin inhaled sharply, feeling the blush take over every inch of her skin, thankful for his inability to see it. It was oddly important to make this confession, although she could not find a single logical reason for it.
"He thinks there is sexual tension between us. He said I should just kiss you and get it over with."
Noin wringed her hands as the seconds trickled by, willing Zechs to say something, anything, to get the humiliation over with. She was his partner, his best friend. There was a wishful hope on her part, but mostly, admitting she felt a sexual tension towards him was really awkward, possibly as much as it would be if she had to tell him that his sister has an incurable lust for him. Thankfully, Relena didn't.
She couldn't hear his pulse racing in his ears. All she heard was his voice as he gently put his warm hands on her arms, a finger's width down from the tip of her shoulders, calm and even as usual.
"So… why don't you?"
He was drawing her towards him. Did he realise he was doing that? She pressed herself against his chest, an automatic response.
Her mouth went dry. She licked her lips, another automated response, slipping her arms up and around the back of his neck, pushing herself up on tipped toes, pulling his shadowed face towards hers. It was like her moment in space, where nothing felt real or connected, and nothing made sense.
She touched the tip of her nose to his, entranced in the caress of his breath on her lips. "Because," she rasped thickly through her frozen consciousness, "I'm afraid that once I start, I wouldn't be able to stop…"
And that was when the screaming started.
...
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A/N:
The Wheel of Fortune is the 10th card of the Major Arcana in Tarot, in case you're wondering how #10 fits in.