(no subject)
I'm doing a complete overhaul of my first story, which is still in progress: The Dance of Life. I began writing it more than a year ago, and my writing style has matured a lot since then. I'm going to go over it chapter by chapter and post it here. I think I'll shorten the title too, so from now on, it's just going to be known as "Dance." It's a story focusing on all the pilots, particularly Quatre, after the war is over. There will be a very slowy progressing 3x4 relationship, but when I say slowly, I mean really slowly. The plot has the gundam pilots all joining Preventers after the first war. (Endless Waltz never happens). But soon, it becomes apparent to Commander Une that the pilots are not recovering from their wartime experiences. She does the only thing she can think to do to help: She sends them to a reformatory high school that has a focus on rehabilitating teens traumatized by the war. You can find the whole thing (so far) at my account on fanfiction.net. (My name there is gymnastics_lover). But as I said, I'm proofreading and rewriting parts of it. Here's the new and (hopefully!) improved first chapter:
Quatre sighed quietly as he listened with half an ear to his friends’ bantering. Somehow, he didn’t have a good feeling about the impending meeting with Commander Une. After the war, the five gundam pilots had begun working for the preventers. They had become an unstoppable team; the last line of defence for peace. Quatre closed his eyes in contemplation; He hadn’t always aspired to join the Preventers. There had been a time, just after the war, when he had thought he could return home, to L4 and his father’s company. Quatre took a deep breath and looked up at the clock: 10 minutes to debriefing. He brought his hands up to his face, massaging his temples as the memories of how he had lost everything came to mind unbidden.
Quatre carefully stepped down from the shuttle that had taken him to L4. The airport was deserted except for the few janitors who had not finished their work for the night. He swallowed the hurt feeling that surfaced when he realized that none of his sisters had bothered come to the shuttleport to greet him. That was alright, he told himself; he didn’t know his sisters very well at all. There were even a few he hadn’t met yet. Of the few he had known, some had been kind, but others had not. Many had always seemed dissatisfied with him. It wasn’t really surprising that they hadn’t come to meet him. Since Iria had died, he hadn’t kept in touch with his family. He clenched his teeth at the wave of sadness her memory had brought him. Iria had been so kind to him; loving, almost like the mother he had never had. He hoped that he could make a fresh start with his remaining sisters. It would be nice to finally be a family.
He stepped out onto the curb, braving the rain to hail a taxi. Wallowing in self-pity would not do. He climbed into it and tried not to think about how little he was looking forward to taking over Winner Enterprises. He hated dealing with the upperclass businessmen; the “gentlemen” that so often frequented the building when they wanted to make a deal with the owner of Winner Enterprises. Corruption and greed were the ruling characteristics among these men. Lost in anxiety and dread, he didn’t notice that they had arrived at their destination until the taxi driver tapped him on the shoulder.
He had tipped the driver and stepped out into the pouring rain. Looking up at the huge gates that guarded entry into the Winner grounds, Quatre felt a mixture of awe and disgust. The mansion looked dark and deserted. Eyes huge and fists clenched, Quatre stared at the intimidating excuse for a home. He felt unsure of himself, not for the first time since landing on L4.
“Stop that!” he told himself, “You are a gundam pilot and you will not balk before your own buildings!”
However, something inside him told him he would never look upon Winner Enterprises as his home. Gathering his courage, he prayed to whatever deity that was listening that the gate codes hadn’t been changed since he’d last been there. Punching them in, he realized with a sigh of relief that they hadn’t. He frowned; glad as he was of that the codes hadn’t changed, he knew that it was poor security. If he was going to be in charge of this place, he was going to have to make some changes.
Closing the gates behind him as he went, he strode up to the mansion. Lifting his chin and straightening his back, he knocked twice with an enormous lion-headed knocker. Immediately, he heard scuffling as someone got up to answer the door. He felt reassured; they were expecting him after all. However the face that he saw when the door swung open was neither familiar nor friendly.
“Quatre,” the woman before him acknowledged with a nod of her head, but she didn’t open the door any wider.
The woman looked to be in her late twenties to her early thirties. Quatre guessed that she was one of his sisters. She had dirty blonde hair and blue eyes like Quatre’s, but that was where the similarities ended. Her face held neither compassion nor gentleness.. Her gaze was distinctly cold, calculating. It was making Quatre more and more uncomfortable. His discomfort only grew when she, apparently without any intention of letting him in, leaned against the doorframe and lit a cigarette. A pregnant silence ensued. It was broken when the woman sighed and said in a cold tone of voice:
“Quatre, I’m one of your sisters. My name is Naimah, and I see that I’m going that have to be blunt with you. Father disinherited and disowned you when you went out into space to fight! You compromised the family’s ideals, and everything that we stand for as Winners. As such, we cannot in good conscience let you come back and run the company: we don’t trust you anymore. Father died because of a war that you helped to start.”
Suddenly her cold expression melted and her face crumpled, a sob shaking her thin shoulders. She quickly composed herself, and went on.
“We don’t want any kind of relationship with you, business related or otherwise.”
Shocked, Quatre took this in. He had known that he wouldn’t exactly be welcome back home, but he hadn’t expected this… total disownment. He had known that it was possible his father had disinherited him, but disowning was something entirely different. It meant that he could no longer call himself a Winner, and that the girl in front of him was no longer his sister. Trying to control the tremor in his voice, he asked,
“Naimah, I believe you when you say that father disinherited me, but I refuse to believe he hated me enough to disown me! That’s… I will need to see that in writing before I believe it.”
Quatre clenched his hands to stop the shaking that had begun as soon as Naimah had started to talk.
Naimah barely kept her cool. How could Quatre think he could just go and fight in a war, especially a war that he had helped to start! It went against everything their family and more specifically their father stood for. How could he expect a warm welcome when he back into the family? Not only had he fought, but he had piloted a gundam! They were among the fiercest killing machines in the war. Her husband was an ex-oz soldier. He had told her the truth about Quatre. He was among the cruelest of murderers. He didn’t even deserve to be alive, let alone managing her company… but Naimah wasn’t a cruel person at heart. Quatre was right, at least about one thing. She felt she had to tell him the truth.
“Quatre, you’re right. Father didn’t disown you. But he did disinherit you, and he left everything to Iria. As you are no doubt aware, Iria also died in the war.” That you helped to start, Naimah added to herself. “When Iria died, authority over the company and everyone in it passed to us sisters. We took a vote, and decided as a whole that we just could not forgive you all you have done. We disowned you the very same week father died.”
“But-but Naimah!”
“Did you think you could go out and fight in the war, disregarding everything our family has always stood for without consequences? Not only did you fight in a gundam, but you refused to even grant father’s dying wish, that you stop fighting. It was all he ever wanted, Quatre, to know that he had taught you correctly and that you would be a responsible and loving heir! But instead you are a remorseless murderer. You broke his heart! Go away, Quatre. Don’t come back! We don’t want you here. You are a disgrace to father and our family.”
With that, the door was slammed in his face, and Quatre was left standing pathetically on the doorstep in the pouring rain, trying to control his reaction.
A gentle tap on the shoulder brought him back to the present. He looked up and saw Trowa looking down at him in concern. He was embarrassed to find that he had tears rolling down his cheeks. He angrily wiped them away. Smiling at Trowa, he told him he was okay. A reassuring squeeze on the shoulder was all he got in response, but he was understood.
The pilots had all grown somewhat in the two years it had been since the war. Heero was about 5 foot 6 inches tall. He was still quite slight of build, although he had filled somewhat. Duo was perhaps the most dramatically changed, standing at a well-muscled 5 foot 9. Trowa stood at 5 foot 10, and though he was still quite thin, he had broadened somewhat in the shoulders. Quatre had grown a little too, although he was quite dissatisfied with his own height. He stood at a meager 5 foot 3. His features, though had matured; he had lost some of the baby fat in his face. He had also gained quite a bit of muscle, and though he was still slender, he made up for what he lacked in height. Wufei stood at about 5 foot 5, although he was well-muscled and quite wiry. They had all changed.
They proceeded down the hallway in an orderly fashion towards Commander Une’s office. When they reached the end of the hallway, Heero, who was in the lead, looked back at them questioningly. Wufei took a look at his watch, and nodded back at Heero, who opened the door. They filed into Une’s office and stood at attention until they were acknowledged.
“At ease, gentlemen.” Une said without looking up from her desk.
In perfect unison, the gundam team changed positions. Une put away her paperwork and smiled at them.
“You all know how appreciative the Preventers are of your continued impeccable service to our organization.” She seemed to struggle with her next words, and was silent, ntil Wufei, bristling with impatience, said,
“With all due respect, Commander, please just say whatever it is that you want to say.”
Wincing as though she had been struck, Une acquiesced.
“Very well, I will get to the point. You are all excellent soldiers, but we, as preventers feel that the skills required to be a good soldier are not sufficient to get a person through life. None of you had what anyone could consider a normal childhood. Consequently, none of you have the people skills or the experience interact in a normal way. Therefore, I have decided that the best course of action is to send you all to school, where you will be free to develop your social skills and maturity. You will be placed in appropriate classes at a school called Saint Christopher’s high school. You will graduate with other teenagers of your age group.
She got up and walked around her desk to stand in front of the stunned group of teenage soldiers.
“You may consider this a mission, Preventer Yuy,” she said adjusting her glasses and smiling at him when he made a move to speak.
Heero nodded, but Duo wasn’t satisfied.
“Commander, we are not normal teenagers. I think I speak for everyone when I say you need to fuck off if you think we are going to abandon our duty just so that we can go and have a ‘normal’ childhood. I will not be that selfish! What if there was a rebellion or something of that caliber broke out and we were sitting on our butts in Saint friggin Christopher’s unable to do anything and unaware of the situation!?!” He finished on a softer tone, “I would never forgive myself.”
Une’s face, which had gone stony after the first expletive left his mouth, softened when she heard that.
“Don’t worry, Preventer Maxwell. You will be provided with communication devices which you will be expected to wear at all times that will enable us to contact you in emergencies. In the event that an emergency should occur, the communication device, which will also serve as a watch, in order to quell suspicions, will commence beeping. You will leave whichever class you are in, and you will press a button which will allow you to communicate with the dispatcher. We will arrange transportation.”
Turning so that her back was facing the pilots, she asked,
“Are there any more questions or comments?” A few moments passed, and then Heero replied,
“Negative.”
“Good. You may leave to prepare yourselves. You leave tomorrow at 06:00 hours.”
Turning back around so she was facing the pilots, she looked straight into Duo’s eyes.
“Maxwell, the use of such language is inappropriate. Might I remind you that I am your Commander? You will control yourself in future. Is that understood?”
Duo looked at the ground.
“Ma’am.” He replied.
“Good.” She said.
A few moments later, she barked,
“Dismissed!”
The gundam team left the room without as much as a sound.
Quatre sighed quietly as he listened with half an ear to his friends’ bantering. Somehow, he didn’t have a good feeling about the impending meeting with Commander Une. After the war, the five gundam pilots had begun working for the preventers. They had become an unstoppable team; the last line of defence for peace. Quatre closed his eyes in contemplation; He hadn’t always aspired to join the Preventers. There had been a time, just after the war, when he had thought he could return home, to L4 and his father’s company. Quatre took a deep breath and looked up at the clock: 10 minutes to debriefing. He brought his hands up to his face, massaging his temples as the memories of how he had lost everything came to mind unbidden.
Quatre carefully stepped down from the shuttle that had taken him to L4. The airport was deserted except for the few janitors who had not finished their work for the night. He swallowed the hurt feeling that surfaced when he realized that none of his sisters had bothered come to the shuttleport to greet him. That was alright, he told himself; he didn’t know his sisters very well at all. There were even a few he hadn’t met yet. Of the few he had known, some had been kind, but others had not. Many had always seemed dissatisfied with him. It wasn’t really surprising that they hadn’t come to meet him. Since Iria had died, he hadn’t kept in touch with his family. He clenched his teeth at the wave of sadness her memory had brought him. Iria had been so kind to him; loving, almost like the mother he had never had. He hoped that he could make a fresh start with his remaining sisters. It would be nice to finally be a family.
He stepped out onto the curb, braving the rain to hail a taxi. Wallowing in self-pity would not do. He climbed into it and tried not to think about how little he was looking forward to taking over Winner Enterprises. He hated dealing with the upperclass businessmen; the “gentlemen” that so often frequented the building when they wanted to make a deal with the owner of Winner Enterprises. Corruption and greed were the ruling characteristics among these men. Lost in anxiety and dread, he didn’t notice that they had arrived at their destination until the taxi driver tapped him on the shoulder.
He had tipped the driver and stepped out into the pouring rain. Looking up at the huge gates that guarded entry into the Winner grounds, Quatre felt a mixture of awe and disgust. The mansion looked dark and deserted. Eyes huge and fists clenched, Quatre stared at the intimidating excuse for a home. He felt unsure of himself, not for the first time since landing on L4.
“Stop that!” he told himself, “You are a gundam pilot and you will not balk before your own buildings!”
However, something inside him told him he would never look upon Winner Enterprises as his home. Gathering his courage, he prayed to whatever deity that was listening that the gate codes hadn’t been changed since he’d last been there. Punching them in, he realized with a sigh of relief that they hadn’t. He frowned; glad as he was of that the codes hadn’t changed, he knew that it was poor security. If he was going to be in charge of this place, he was going to have to make some changes.
Closing the gates behind him as he went, he strode up to the mansion. Lifting his chin and straightening his back, he knocked twice with an enormous lion-headed knocker. Immediately, he heard scuffling as someone got up to answer the door. He felt reassured; they were expecting him after all. However the face that he saw when the door swung open was neither familiar nor friendly.
“Quatre,” the woman before him acknowledged with a nod of her head, but she didn’t open the door any wider.
The woman looked to be in her late twenties to her early thirties. Quatre guessed that she was one of his sisters. She had dirty blonde hair and blue eyes like Quatre’s, but that was where the similarities ended. Her face held neither compassion nor gentleness.. Her gaze was distinctly cold, calculating. It was making Quatre more and more uncomfortable. His discomfort only grew when she, apparently without any intention of letting him in, leaned against the doorframe and lit a cigarette. A pregnant silence ensued. It was broken when the woman sighed and said in a cold tone of voice:
“Quatre, I’m one of your sisters. My name is Naimah, and I see that I’m going that have to be blunt with you. Father disinherited and disowned you when you went out into space to fight! You compromised the family’s ideals, and everything that we stand for as Winners. As such, we cannot in good conscience let you come back and run the company: we don’t trust you anymore. Father died because of a war that you helped to start.”
Suddenly her cold expression melted and her face crumpled, a sob shaking her thin shoulders. She quickly composed herself, and went on.
“We don’t want any kind of relationship with you, business related or otherwise.”
Shocked, Quatre took this in. He had known that he wouldn’t exactly be welcome back home, but he hadn’t expected this… total disownment. He had known that it was possible his father had disinherited him, but disowning was something entirely different. It meant that he could no longer call himself a Winner, and that the girl in front of him was no longer his sister. Trying to control the tremor in his voice, he asked,
“Naimah, I believe you when you say that father disinherited me, but I refuse to believe he hated me enough to disown me! That’s… I will need to see that in writing before I believe it.”
Quatre clenched his hands to stop the shaking that had begun as soon as Naimah had started to talk.
Naimah barely kept her cool. How could Quatre think he could just go and fight in a war, especially a war that he had helped to start! It went against everything their family and more specifically their father stood for. How could he expect a warm welcome when he back into the family? Not only had he fought, but he had piloted a gundam! They were among the fiercest killing machines in the war. Her husband was an ex-oz soldier. He had told her the truth about Quatre. He was among the cruelest of murderers. He didn’t even deserve to be alive, let alone managing her company… but Naimah wasn’t a cruel person at heart. Quatre was right, at least about one thing. She felt she had to tell him the truth.
“Quatre, you’re right. Father didn’t disown you. But he did disinherit you, and he left everything to Iria. As you are no doubt aware, Iria also died in the war.” That you helped to start, Naimah added to herself. “When Iria died, authority over the company and everyone in it passed to us sisters. We took a vote, and decided as a whole that we just could not forgive you all you have done. We disowned you the very same week father died.”
“But-but Naimah!”
“Did you think you could go out and fight in the war, disregarding everything our family has always stood for without consequences? Not only did you fight in a gundam, but you refused to even grant father’s dying wish, that you stop fighting. It was all he ever wanted, Quatre, to know that he had taught you correctly and that you would be a responsible and loving heir! But instead you are a remorseless murderer. You broke his heart! Go away, Quatre. Don’t come back! We don’t want you here. You are a disgrace to father and our family.”
With that, the door was slammed in his face, and Quatre was left standing pathetically on the doorstep in the pouring rain, trying to control his reaction.
A gentle tap on the shoulder brought him back to the present. He looked up and saw Trowa looking down at him in concern. He was embarrassed to find that he had tears rolling down his cheeks. He angrily wiped them away. Smiling at Trowa, he told him he was okay. A reassuring squeeze on the shoulder was all he got in response, but he was understood.
The pilots had all grown somewhat in the two years it had been since the war. Heero was about 5 foot 6 inches tall. He was still quite slight of build, although he had filled somewhat. Duo was perhaps the most dramatically changed, standing at a well-muscled 5 foot 9. Trowa stood at 5 foot 10, and though he was still quite thin, he had broadened somewhat in the shoulders. Quatre had grown a little too, although he was quite dissatisfied with his own height. He stood at a meager 5 foot 3. His features, though had matured; he had lost some of the baby fat in his face. He had also gained quite a bit of muscle, and though he was still slender, he made up for what he lacked in height. Wufei stood at about 5 foot 5, although he was well-muscled and quite wiry. They had all changed.
They proceeded down the hallway in an orderly fashion towards Commander Une’s office. When they reached the end of the hallway, Heero, who was in the lead, looked back at them questioningly. Wufei took a look at his watch, and nodded back at Heero, who opened the door. They filed into Une’s office and stood at attention until they were acknowledged.
“At ease, gentlemen.” Une said without looking up from her desk.
In perfect unison, the gundam team changed positions. Une put away her paperwork and smiled at them.
“You all know how appreciative the Preventers are of your continued impeccable service to our organization.” She seemed to struggle with her next words, and was silent, ntil Wufei, bristling with impatience, said,
“With all due respect, Commander, please just say whatever it is that you want to say.”
Wincing as though she had been struck, Une acquiesced.
“Very well, I will get to the point. You are all excellent soldiers, but we, as preventers feel that the skills required to be a good soldier are not sufficient to get a person through life. None of you had what anyone could consider a normal childhood. Consequently, none of you have the people skills or the experience interact in a normal way. Therefore, I have decided that the best course of action is to send you all to school, where you will be free to develop your social skills and maturity. You will be placed in appropriate classes at a school called Saint Christopher’s high school. You will graduate with other teenagers of your age group.
She got up and walked around her desk to stand in front of the stunned group of teenage soldiers.
“You may consider this a mission, Preventer Yuy,” she said adjusting her glasses and smiling at him when he made a move to speak.
Heero nodded, but Duo wasn’t satisfied.
“Commander, we are not normal teenagers. I think I speak for everyone when I say you need to fuck off if you think we are going to abandon our duty just so that we can go and have a ‘normal’ childhood. I will not be that selfish! What if there was a rebellion or something of that caliber broke out and we were sitting on our butts in Saint friggin Christopher’s unable to do anything and unaware of the situation!?!” He finished on a softer tone, “I would never forgive myself.”
Une’s face, which had gone stony after the first expletive left his mouth, softened when she heard that.
“Don’t worry, Preventer Maxwell. You will be provided with communication devices which you will be expected to wear at all times that will enable us to contact you in emergencies. In the event that an emergency should occur, the communication device, which will also serve as a watch, in order to quell suspicions, will commence beeping. You will leave whichever class you are in, and you will press a button which will allow you to communicate with the dispatcher. We will arrange transportation.”
Turning so that her back was facing the pilots, she asked,
“Are there any more questions or comments?” A few moments passed, and then Heero replied,
“Negative.”
“Good. You may leave to prepare yourselves. You leave tomorrow at 06:00 hours.”
Turning back around so she was facing the pilots, she looked straight into Duo’s eyes.
“Maxwell, the use of such language is inappropriate. Might I remind you that I am your Commander? You will control yourself in future. Is that understood?”
Duo looked at the ground.
“Ma’am.” He replied.
“Good.” She said.
A few moments later, she barked,
“Dismissed!”
The gundam team left the room without as much as a sound.