'The introduction of the Gundam pilots was the main cause of the Eve War.' How far do you agree with this statement? Explain your answer.

It is easy to blame the Gundam pilots for the mess that was made of the colonies and, to a lesser extent, the Earth. The installation of the United Earth Sphere Alliance was the main precursor to the Eve War, and all subsequent battles and disagreements between the colonies and Earth.

Mariemaia pauses, stares at what she's written, and scribbles it out.

Blaming the Gundam pilots for fighting in a war is like blaming a starving child for stealing food. It does not make sense.

She pauses again, angrily scratching out what she's written. Forty-five minutes have already passed and she still doesn't know how to respond to the essay question. Idly, she chews on the pen cap and glances surreptitiously at her classmates. Most are bent over their papers, pens scribbling furiously while Dr. Arthav wanders the aisles between their desks. The sole exception, that she can see, is Davenport who is slumped over drooling on her exam booklet.

The Alliance was too self-assured to think that someone wouldn't go up against them. Despite their flaws, the Gundam pilots should not be blamed for Earth's own narcissim.

Mariemaia hates this. The short response questions had been a breeze to answer, but this? This is the question that makes her freeze. She doodles a flower in the margin of her exam booklet and wonders if Dr. Arthav will grin gleefully when he sees her scribbled over writing. She lets her head thump against her desk and breathes in slowly. She drums her fingers against her leg and lets her mind wander. Dr. Arthav had spent the past weeks going over the little that was known of the Gundam pilots as well as what was documented (and released) about their involvement in the war. This should be easier than it's turning out to be.

With a groan, she sits up to try again. Thirty minutes left.

Trying to pinpoint the cause of the Eve Wars is like trying to discover which droplet of water boiled first in the pot – impossible. Did it start with the Alliance taking over or with Earth taking the autonumy right for the colonies to govern themselves away? Perhaps it began when Heero Yuy was elected or when he was assassinated? Or, was it when OZ comes into play and the Gundam pilots deploy? All of these things had a part to play in the battles eventually collectively referred to as "the Eve Wars." By solely blaming one group over another, you are shifting the blame without acknowledging responsibility for the evident lack of leadership and forward thinking that the other groups demonstrated.

Yes, the Gundam pilots of the colonies' mobile suits are to blame. In a way, they were the kick-off to the war, however that is not looking at the anger and disgust that was already brewing in the colonies. The Alliance's stranglehold on what the colonies could and could not do was absolute, and people were breaking beneath it. They had found hope with Heero Yuy, hope that the Alliance and Earth could plainly see, and his untimely murder just added logs to an already kindled fire. The Gundam pilots were simply the gas that ignited the explosion.

The introduction of the Gundam pilots, and by extension the start of the war, brought to light all of the Alliance's dirty laundry. They already had a weak hold over the Earth Sphere, despite presenting a uniform front, and this was highlighted by Treize Khushrenada's rise to power and the subsequent take-over by OZ. If the Alliance had not stretched itself so thin and instead instituted a fair and just ruling, then the Specials project would not have gained the momentum that it did.

While many blame the Gundams as the catalist to the Eve Wars, this is narrow minded. The pilots saw an issue that was not being resolved. They saw the poverty and disease within the colonies, and they acted without fear of the repercusions. It is something to be admired, especially since the rest of the world was content to turn a blind eye as people were dying.

. . ... . .

Mariemaia is still scribbling when the bell rings at the end of class. She hears her classmates getting to their feet, voices loud and plaintive after the test. She looks up as the shadow falls over her desk. Dr. Arthav is peering down at her from behind his oversized spectacles.

"Time's up, Miss Khushrenada." He presses his lips into a thin line, peering down at her booklet, noting the disjointed writing and scratched out sections. "Not your usual work."

Mariemaia flips the booklet shut and slides it to the edge of her desk. "Not the best question to respond to."

Dr. Arthav's eyebrows raise, forehead wrinkling in curiosity. "Oh? And what was wrong with the question?"

Mariemaia gathers her belongings, packing them away carefully and using the time to think over her response. When she looks up, Dr. Arthav has collected her exam and is watching her expectantly. "You yourself said there were many facets to the war, why blame it all on the Gundam pilots?"

"It was a common belief during the war."

"But now?" she asks.

He tilts his head, squinting at her. "They were, essentially, terrorists, Miss Khushrenada. To this day, the colonies deny ever enlisting their assistance."

Mariemaia shrugs as she stands, smoothing the pleats in her school skirt, before picking up her bag. "Perhaps they're just really good liars."

Dr. Arthav's lips twitch into an almost-smile. He turns and moves up the row to his desk and sets the exam booklets down. "Did you know, Miss Khushrenada, that there's a rumor one of them works for the Vice Foreign Minister?" He isn't watching her, but Mariemaia keeps her face politely blank regardless.

"I can't imagine the Vice Foreign Minister employing a terrorist, Dr. Arthav." She pauses, watches him carefully. "Can you?"

His face is inscrutable when he looks up. It reminds her a bit of Wufei's, back when he was employed by her grandfather and she didn't know what to make of him. She stares back, all wide eyes and honest curiosity. Dr. Arthav is silent, but it isn't an uncomfortable one. She watches while he considers her question. Finally, he shakes his head slightly.

"No," he admits, "but I have heard of stranger things."

. . ... . .

Kenzie finds her after the last bell, somehow spotting her in the throng of students escaping the stuffy halls to fresh air outside. Mariemaia doesn't notice her until the other girl loops an arm through hers, the same way she's seen her do with Yen or Julia or Yasmin. Mariemaia still jerks in surprise and Kenzie just grins at her.

"Penny for your thoughts?" she asks. Before Mariemaia can respond she continues, "No, wait, I know. It was Arthav's exam, wasn't it? His are always a beast!"

Mariemaia shrugs, squeezing past two students chattering at the water fountain. Kenzie hums as she leads them outside to the car line. It's gray and overcast, a thin chill hanging in the air. Mariemaia tugs her sleeves down over her knuckles and presses gratefully into Kenzie's warmth at her side.

"So, how was the test? Did all that studying help? I know it never helped me. He always managed to pick the topics I hadn't reviewed, you know?"

"Yes," Mariemaia agrees, distracted. She searches the line for Henri's car. "It was on the Eve Wars."

"Ah, a favorite topic of his," Kenzie replies, nodding. "I heard he lost family in it. Well, who didn't, right?" Suddenly Kenzie's chatter cuts off and Mariemaia glances at her in surprise. Kenzie's attention is on her shoes. Mariemaia glances down at the other girl's scuffed leather shoes, but there's nothing out of the ordinary on them.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," Kenzie replies. She straightens up, smile back in place though it doesn't reach her eyes this time. Mariemaia raises an eyebrow in question. "Sometimes, sometimes I forget you were a part of it, is all. Like, really a part of it."

"Ah."

"Not that, I mean. It's not. I'm not."

"The car's here," Mariemaia interrupts. "I'll see you at practice." She pats Kenzie's shoulder briefly before striding down the steps and over to where Henri's car is pulling up. She thinks she hears Kenzie's voice over the crowd of students as she opens the door, but she doesn't turn to look. It would be pointless. Anyway, if Kenzie wanted to talk to her, she had her number.

. . ... . .

To his credit, Henri only glances at her curiously when she asks him to bring her home instead of to Preventers. She spends the ride home huddled into her school sweater and staring out the window. Henri's questions are answered monosyllabically and after a couple of blocks he turns on the radio softly. Mariemaia feels a twinge of guilt, but she also feels exhausted.

She ignores her homework when she gets home. Instead, she grabs her towel and pajamas, and carries them into Lady Une's bathroom. There's a large jet tub and she intends to soak in it for the foreseeable future. She feels tense and achy, still on edge from Dr. Arthav's exam and the look on Kenzie's face. Sometimes I forget you were a part of it.

Mariemaia turns on the jets, slides beneath the heated, bubbling water, and dunks herself under the surface of the water. She wonders if this will be her legacy after all. A war she was never a part of, not really, and a rebellion she lost control of. Her lungs begin to tingle unpleasantly, that warning that she'll need oxygen eventually. She ignores it, opens her eyes to stare through the bubbling water.

When she can't ignore it any longer, she pushes up and inhales deep lungfuls of air. Her hair hangs limply in her face but she doesn't bother pushing it out of her eyes. She reclines back, head resting against the smooth coating on the side of the tub.

She runs her fingers through the water, enjoys the way the whirlpools pull at her fingers, the water streaming between the digits. Is there such a thing as normal? she wonders. Miss Relena was just a few years older than she is now when the war broke out. Mariemaia remembers the zeal she'd seen in Miss Relena after her abduction during the rebellion, the calm acceptance of her own potential death. Dekim had warned her not to trust anything Miss Relena said, but there had been something so certain in her eyes, something so old and knowing, that Mariemaia had hesitated, had stepped in front of a bullet for her.

Her hands still in the water. Mariemaia shivers despite the warmth of the water. She lifts her leg until a jet hits the muscle just right, working at a knot of scar tissue or nerve damage or whatever it is that's flared up today.

It's the same look that the Other Trowa had in his eyes when he'd said he'd be leaving, would be going back. The same look Wufei got last year when one of the resource colonies was commandeered. It's the look in Miss Relena's eyes when she visits Lady Une for long hours and the cameras aren't around to see her. The look Heero Yuy had when he promised to kill her.

Dekim had warned her, time and time again, not to trust anyone. The warnings had only gotten more prevalent, more precise, after her Uncle Trowa's disappearance. Her grandfather had never been a cuddly man, but he had grown more distant, the look in his eyes more closed-off and tired. She sees that look sometimes still, reflected in Miss Relena's eyes or Lady Une's. Sometimes, she imagines she sees it in her own as well.

"History is like an endless waltz," she muses. It was something her Uncle Trowa had told her as he'd put her to bed at night. She still remembers the way his voice had lilted and dropped, a three-beat cadence that made her eyes droop and her thoughts drowse. She still isn't sure why she had mentioned it to Miss Relena, all those years ago. It had been something almost too-personal to share. And here, again, she had shared those same words with Lady Une just the previous night.

Her fingers resume their gentle sweeps through the water. She wonders if the waltz is starting again after all.