Rigid (revised) Rated R/NC-17

[Tomorrow]

Warning: disturbing? really disturbing images. However, this piece, like many other works of mine, is symbolic. I chose this situation for a reason.

I also want to thank Zapenstap. Her suggestions really helped and inspired the revision. I hope this is better than the original. -_-;

Disclaimer: standard disclaimers apply



He caused it. It was his fault. But who is he, really? A man who wants to kill a dream, because his sleep only forges nightmares? Someone so estranged from kindness that he can't even fathom what it's like to bed it, that his mind can't give it a name or an image, not even a connotation? and so he fears it? Is it that he's terrified of what he doesn't know, can?t seem to understand - not without crawling out of his own prejudicial cocoon of sheltered, presumptuous opinions? Can he really detest love so much and befriend Satan so willingly? because he just wants to fill that emptiness with something? Anything? Because sin involves so much more creativity than doing as he's told? Is so much more exhilarating and vengeance so immediately gratifying?

Does it matter who he is? He's a tyrant. Nameless. Faceless. Just someone who wants war, finds the sadistic slice of humor in the pain of others, wants power and fame. He wants things emptier than the void where his soul should be. He likes when it's their misfortune, not his own. For some reason, he can't understand solidarity. But who is he, specifically?

He's the hand of the troubled teenager that plunges a knife into his father's flesh when the old man sleeps. His motive glistens through the eyes of an abandoned child, falls to the ground with her tears - but always comes back, always pricks at her lashes again when the memories resurface. He lives in the growl of a jealous lover as he watches his wife kiss a stranger - his best friend, maybe. Resonates when the sheets crumple and twist around their bodies. He even hides in the raspy, broken wail of a parent who loses her child to shrapnel, a blade, to the apocalyptic sphere of an explosion.

He's always there, lurking in everyone? slinking through the corridors of the human heart.

He rallied an army to satisfy his destructive craving. He shredded the tapestry of civilization with his teeth and unraveled the lives woven through it. He burned those threads of mortality to ashes. He made the world this way. Desolate and dry and ruined. He sentenced them to this.

Thousands of soldiers stood in a clearing, where such decadence hadn't touched. It was still dim, still colorless? but there was life. If nothing else, then life, at least. Men disturbed it with their footsteps on the earth and tainted the air with their breath. All surrounded a planked scaffold, eyes strapped to the men standing on that wooden stage - and one woman. Some were clad in black with garish, bronze buttons to detract from their austere countenances and stubbly chins. Their boots, recently polished, shone in the flickers of bolted light. Another wore a cloak and somber face, as hellish red curls tethered his temples and offset his amethyst eyes, those that glowed with the violence and vehemence of the flames of Gehenna itself. Perversion stoked those smoldering cobalt pits. It distorted the straight ray of truth with the wavering, flaring heat of deception and mounting hatred those eyes kindled. This man was his messenger. This man was one of his minions that apprehended the rebels.

"The penalty for treachery is death by the noose!" the violet-eyed man bellowed to the crowd. Yet not a sound was made in response, only the deliberating whispers of the storm as the currents pushed it away to the east.

He looked over at a man who stood as stiffly as the congregation and with a length of chain dangling around his neck. His chocolate spikes rustled in the gale; his Prussian blue eyes stared off at nothing.

No? he had to be staring at something. Not nothing-- Nothingness. Even if his mind didn't register the site, was too jaded with it, after seeing the predestined cycle of siege; struggle; and ruination over and over again for the past ten years, his eyes surveyed in order to remember. Not always the same country, though. Not always the same terrain - deserts, bayous, valleys, mountains - the military spared nothing. In January of the first year it was Ukraine. Japan was his the December of the following. Then Canada. African countries prostrated before his army, begged to be overrun, it seemed, in the Year After Colony 199 - June. Even America finally submitted to his authority after an almost mawkish game of bluffs? to the power he commanded. It all fell.

People fought. The doomed man fought.

But the ending was always the same...

Mutilated, rotting corpses floated on the waves of a choppy sea, glinting from the fanged, shattered foam of glass shards. Daybreak licked that crystalline ocean with its tongue, warm and moist, leaving a thin sheen of runny, sticky drool on the splintered breakers. Galleons of crumbling bricks littered those demolished waters, along with islands of marble; stone; melted plastic; and buckled armadas of concrete, sinking into the depths of brokenness. Fleets of bodies, tossed like sails by the storm's winds, swept across the crystal. They bobbed in the rain, set adrift. Blood tarnished that sea in acrid, strewn spurts; grisly sprays; deluges; and torrents from gory canals, accompanied by moans and screams and a steady maelstrom of tears that engulfed the light.

But now?

Silent but for the groans of the gale. Still, save for the rumbles of throaty, bellicose thunder. Dark if not for the distant flashes of lightning in the gray sky. The clouds hung low, clutched the land in their palms' clammy, sharp coldness and mazes of breathy smoke. The terrain was level-- No tall buildings pierced the heavens, with cities reduced to jagged rubble and cracked foundations. No trees dotted the landscape with vibrant leaves and the rough, knotted bark of their trunks. Only stumps remained, dull and drab like the sky. The grass was dead, charred, with the singed, red blades glowing like embers and spitting fumes into the clouds. No animals. No children-- Except for the dead ones. Nothing.

The victim locked the muscles of his back, so straight it quivered from the tightness. Infectious, swollen welts seared that flesh in the pattern of a morbid grate, and gashes of dried blood supped at his forehead and collar, implicating the hours of torture he endured. His arm was twisted at an awkward angle, with loose skin drooping around the deltoids-- Surely his adversaries pulled the limb out of its socket. His chest was bare and beaded with sweat, irritating the fresh whip marks and sterilizing the erratic slashes across his stomach. More chains restrained his hands, while his pants were tattered, torn away from the start of his shin, downward. The soles of his feet throbbed upon the dusty wooden beams, and his lip was fat from a solid punch to the jaw.

"What have you to say to this, Heero Yuy?"

A forest of shadow-draped men, rigid and erect, stood at silent attention like arbors at midnight - awaiting the commands of a ghostly breeze to stir their branches or the wolves' deferential howl to Hecate that resonates through lakes in oscillating ripples and echoes off the hillsides. Eerie, but domineering nonetheless. No hint of humanness. No flinch of feeling. No women-- But for those with chopped hair, plucked eyelashes, taped breasts, and baggy clothes that hid their feminine shape in a sheet of black. Perhaps there were children scattered through the ranks, but they stood so stoically. They didn?t fidget. They didn?t shift their weight from foot to foot. They didn't smile. They didn't laugh. They didn't cry. No humming. No teasing. No askew glances. Just stillness. Just black. Just straight.

Heero's lips thinned. His mouth remained sealed, gaze still averted.

The thunder growled. The lightning reared at his stubbornness with a horrific burst that spiraled from its perch in the cumulus. But the wind calmed, anxious for him to speak.

"Well?"

He closed his eyes and turned his cheek.

The accuser's breathing became eccentric, eliciting labored huffs while his face scrunched from ire and his shoulders shook with feverish adrenaline. "Then you, princess," he seethed as he turned to the flaxen-haired woman, chained to a rough, granite altar that snarled the silk of her gown when she shifted. "What have you to say for your actions?"

Her white dress pitched in the wind and snagged on the rusty links, wallowed around her voluptuous body and mingled with her long, golden tresses. Against his scowl, her ice blue eyes glittered with conviction, with the same ethereal beauty of snowflakes as they fall from the sky. Starlight embraces them intimately, their five lucent arms running over the flakes' curves and fondling their scintillant, crystalline points. Even after being kissed by the pentangles, however, those maiden flurries must wed the soil, which rapes their sodden wombs to protect the vegetation beneath in such a deadly, frigid season.

She looked so fragile against the leaden hues. Her strands pirouetted so brilliantly, overwhelming, in the stark, wretched desolation. "I say? that if being traitorous means that I advocate humane treatment and peace?

Thump-- Thump...
Hu-u-u-u-uuuuh-h-h...

"If it means that I speak out against tyrants like you, people who think they have the God-given right to enslave those weaker than themselves, murdering innocent civilians; children; and dashing people's dreams?

Thump-- Thump...
Gulp...
Hu-u-u-u-uuuuh-h-h...

"That try to erase all individuality and compassion from people's hearts for the sake of personal principles, rather than the good of humanity?"

Light braided through the thickness of the clouds, though the tempest continued to retreat into the offing, pursued by the beating, whirling battalions of wind. They sliced in undulating wails, spilling luminous glimpses of carnage on that screen, rendering it airy, nearly transparent-- As opposed to the opaque, oppressive cage of gray that earlier fettered the heavens.

The crowd said nothing. Stood unfazed. Their eyes remained shackled to her face.

Relena smiled. "? then I will proudly say that I'm guilty."

The red-headed man snorted and turned away from her in a swivel of black, chuckling while shaking his head at her obstinacy. The blazing ringlets scorched the corners of his mouth. "Still spouting your fairytale ideals, I see. As if anything you say could actually save you now.

"But you," he sneered, narrowing his eyes and pointing towards Heero. "You have a chance to repent for your treachery. Lucky for you, you?re an excellent soldier, and your skills are of use to us." He grinned, the points of his teeth gleaming through the stagnancy, reflecting the maniacal twinkle that pulsated within those condemnatory, violet orbs. "Renounce your position as her bodyguard, swear allegiance to me; and then, Heero Yuy, I'll spare your life. Or would your rather take your place among the ranks with your fellow, former gundam pilots?"

Heero's jaw tightened? but his intense glare never faltered.

Four bodies. Four mounds of arid, crumbling clay. The air smelled of blood, stank of sweat. The stale breeze tasted of immanence, bland with the weak spice of sacrificial anticipation. Of four young men sent to the slaughter, fighting? knowing the battle would be their last. They somehow cherished the promise of peace in their deaths, a smile when the enemies' blades ran them through. It meant liberation from the mortal hell that humanity wielded with greed and prejudice and pride and hatred. The vultures screamed it. The horses stomped on it. Grunts and suppressed squeals of pain drenched the field.

Four bodies.

Four mounds of dry, decomposing earth.

Four desecrated graves?

The man sighed. "Then so be it."

He walked over to Relena, his fiery locks tousled by the wind, scalding his chin and cheeks with coiled flames. They roared around his eyes, gained fervor from those possessed, amethyst coals, and writhed around his scalp like the tongues of a thriving torch. With a haughty sniff, he unsheathed his sword, held up the steel to the parting clouds, and allowed the sunlight to refract off the blade in blinding, crisp glints that bleached the assembly with each tilt. He lowered it to her knees, split her dress with a few abrupt jerks of the point-- When his breathing quickened. His chest trembled with each exhalation, inducing his shoulders to spasm. He swallowed.

"You will be given a fate worse than death, as you deserve nothing less for your dissention. You'll live your life with a constant reminder of what you've done, branded the traitor that you are." His gaze descended on the audience. "An example for all to observe and take heed."

He cackled, eyes wide and incandescent with the sepulchral pyre of hell. Ashes to ashes? dust to dust. "Your mark shall be your infertility. When I'm through with you, no man will be able to have you, and thus no spawn can flourish inside you that will babble on about your fairytales and dreams." His tongue ran over his teeth - slowly, tortuously. Making love with his grotesque promise. "No. More. Betrayal." He ran the blade down her smooth, porcelain leg and flipped his wrist. The saber nicked the inside of her thigh. Her breath hitched as blood dribbled from the laceration and manacled her leg in a crimson cuff; her body went rigid as he made a matching slit on the opposite thigh. A depraved, gruesome chastity belt. "You'll learn what it really means to be alone in this world? because really, my dear, in your sentiments," he poised the glimmering tip above her entrance, "you are alone."

He shoved the steel?

Twisted?

Gouged?

His lips brushed against hers, hesitant touches as his fingers grazed her hips. His thumbs stroked her abdomen, massaging it in ticklish, stimulating circles.

Carved?

Hacked?

He lowered her to the ground, ghosted his tongue along her neck and the slope of her breasts. An involuntary flutter of his lashes against her collarbone roused a giggle, which contorted into a moan, hoarse and frothing from the tumultuous cauldron of her stomach, when his mouth fondled her nipples. Her lips sought his hands, his face, the contours of his torso. She chased him through the heady spell of caresses, bruising friction, and kisses - the erotic, carnal chants their slick flesh made. Through the incantations of their names.

In?

And out?

She couldn?t let him go, strangled his chest when he entered her. Buried her face in his neck as their hips came together, laced with sweat and a smatter of virgin blood. She bit his shoulder, eyes damp with tears from the staggering crest of sensations, both indulgent and aching. Her soul convulsed when he moved within her, enticing her to jitter. Clench.

Faster?

Harder?

It was new but? binding. Together? they became something beautiful? made something beautiful.

Fucking on the edge of metal?

Her cries, those resounding, guttural groans frightened the storm as they bounced off of the shambles of the leavened city and planted themselves in the fissured, asphyxiated earth. A reverberant shriek from the gale commanded the clouds to shrivel at her body that thrashed against the altar. It scraped her arms, ravaged her legs. Raked along her back. Blood painted a slimy, sticky portrait of her silhouette on the granite surface; its residue seeped into the stone, stained the slab with her body's oils in drying red spatters. It even sheared her hair, wove it through the ridges.

And Heero let go?

He pulled the chain? freed the knot? plummeted?

Snap. Jingle-- Jangle.

Trembling, she reached out her hand to his swaying body, as tears scored her cheeks and impaled her lips like salty, fluent pikes. A grunt. A few hurried, strained gasps that made her hips writhe.

His vacant eyes, glassy like the sky had once been, like the smashed debris in the streets? not able to face her. Not in their defeat. Not in his failure. Just swinging at the will of the wind, the creaking of the irons.

Back and forth?

Back? and? forth?

Back?

"And so ends the dream of the gundam pilots and their precious princess," the man murmured, voice flat, as he watched Heero dangle? as Relena's sobs echoed amidst the soft, musty sunlight that swaddled the victims in its warmth? in its promise to return tomorrow.

Platinum blonde hair billowed in the tempestuous breeze of daybreak, that which ravaged his cape and slapped his back in a consoling rhythm and coolness as he tucked a little boy closer to his chest. Sliding his arm down the toddler's shoulder, he wrapped the brown-haired boy more securely in the blanket, covering his tiny hands and chin. His cerulean eyes fluttered open for a moment, but he only sniffed and snuggled deeper into the fabric. Groaning.

Sky-blue eyes looked down at his nephew briefly, and walked off into the stormy distance? away from that place?to somewhere, somewhere the child would never be found?

Until the day when he would be needed?

[Andrea]

I actually shoved everyone out. I needed silence.

For some reason, the first part of this story made me think of Jesus' torture. It was as if you were describing his wounds and pains... A traitor who defied an empire.

I had trouble setting a timeline for this story. At first, I thought maybe it was an AU set in the past, maybe during the Roman's Empire. But then you mentioned the gundam pilots, and got me all confused again.

*wails* I didn't understand!! Okay, Heero and Relena defied (who?) and they were punished for it. Relena was defiled in the worst possible way, and Heero ended his own life after watching what they were doing to her. They gave their son to Milliardo to keep from harm. (Such a crude summary! It doesn't do your story justice!!)

In my opinion, this story describes perfectly well Heero and Relena's relationship throughout the entire series; Or how we perceived their relationship, anyway. Heero's wanting to protect her, defying everything for her ideals... I believe the utmost truth to his character here was when he let go, and hung himself. As horrible as it may sound.

But for the life of me, I can't see the symbolic meaning to this story. *sniff* I'm sorry.

As always, your writing style had me sitting on the edge of my chair and my nose practically smashed against the screen.

Now, put me out of my misery, and tell me its meaning!! I'm dying. I feel horrible. And know that when you tell me, I'm going to flip... *sigh*

[AnShino]

wow...im quite...intrigued. nice one, though i echo andrea's sentiments. im a tad confused ^ ^;;;; ...jst a tad, lol. but in all, it was quite good indeed.

[Andrea]

Okay! Now that I've been told WHAT is what really needs to be deciphered/analyzed..


I did analyze everything as individuals.

Heero, the soldier who gives up after everthing's lost. Hope slipping away. A defeated warrior, honorable.

Relena, the personification of hope. Defiled, her image shattering her people's hopes and dreams.

The graves, the end of an era; fallen soldiers, an ideal of salvation buried and almost gone.

The prosecutor/executioner, evil incarnate, (I did pick up on your fire/flame/hell metaphor), cold eyes, and wicked lips. Severing the last thread between the soldier and his ideal.

Milliardo, a guardian, the hidden soldier chosen to cultivate hope in the defiled hearts of the people.

The son, hope reincarnated.

[lilac310]

Like I've said many times before, there is something about the way you write that makes it so powerful.....Your words, your symbolism and all that just made this story (and all your other stories at that) magnanimously interesting....Your stories always manage to touch my heart...

...However, I have to admit that I didn't understand the whole symbolism in the story at first (just like Andrea)..so, I have to read it over again.....It just reminds me of a fallen empire when you've mentioned that all the other Gundam pilots died as well...

..I think I'm getting its symbolic meaning but it would still be nice to hear directly from you as to what you really wanted this story to put forth..

[Wingnut]

Okay! Now that I've been told WHAT is what really needs to be deciphered/analyzed..


I did analyze everything as individuals.

Heero, the soldier who gives up after everthing's lost. Hope slipping away. A defeated warrior, honorable.

Relena, the personification of hope. Defiled, her image shattering her people's hopes and dreams.

The graves, the end of an era; fallen soldiers, an ideal of salvation buried and almost gone.

The prosecutor/executioner, evil incarnate, (I did pick up on your fire/flame/hell metaphor), cold eyes, and wicked lips. Severing the last thread between the soldier and his ideal.

Milliardo, a guardian, the hidden soldier chosen to cultivate hope in the defiled hearts of the people.

The son, hope reincarnated.

In that case make the prosecutor person Duke Dermail as he is the closest character in GW to being truely evil.

[Morrighan]

Wow... Again, your fics render me speechless, Tomorrow... The imagery was absolutely heart-wrenching. I want to cry now....

Great job!

[bookworm]

Veyr interesting. I like Andrea's explanations. The son...oh, the weight on his shoulders. But the fire of hope is raging inside him. His parents' torture/sacrifice won't be in vain. Truly symbolic/dark and memorable, Tomorrow.

[Tomorrow]

As promised, here's my explanation:

First of all, Andrea pretty much hit the nail on the head. All of the rest of you that thought along the same lines as she: good for you, too. You guys, for the most part, are correct.

The beginning paragraphs are simply to set the tone and give the reader an idea of how desolate and ruined the earth had become. It isn't an AU story. Actually, it's more like a post-apocalyptic story, after a demagogue (like Dekim) gathered a nearly invincible army and conquered the earth. In this respect, the identity of the actual tyrant himself is not particularly important (which is why no organization or leader was ever named, and I skimped on background information). Rather, the decadence and result of his actions, more specifically the misery and consequences of war, ARE the important ideas to keep in mind. The exposition is symbolic, then, in that it describes the horrific destruction that war, avarice, and hatred can bring.

The crowd is, of course, an army. The fact that men, women, and children serve together, with no distinguishing characteristics, represents the idea that war and hatred aren't exclusive to any specific gender or age. Anyone can hate; be selfish; be intolerant; and act cruelly, regardless of age; race; religion; sex; etc. Congruent with that logic, the repetitive use of the color black embodies death and agony--repercussions of war and transgression towards our fellow man. Furthermore, the congregation's rigidity signifies people's stubbornness and proclivity to be closed-minded. War can be a consequence of people being too obstinate to compromise or negotiate.

The hair and eyes of the accuser represent evil: the evil in man, in life, in war... just evil in general. That's why so much fire and hell imagery was implemented in his description.

Relena, by her nature, represents peace and the dreams and hope of humanity--it's goodness (hence all the pretty, sacrificial snowflake metaphors and her defiance). Defiling her with a sword has two symbolic meanings:

1) War shattering peace, shattering the dreams and hopes of humanity. Evil constantly seems to overshadow goodness.

2) The fact that he impaled her there, thus making her sterile, exemplifies all the lives lost by war that can never be replaced. Just as she can no longer have any children, those who died in war at the cost of hatred no longer have life. The widows, the mothers, the orphans-- They've all lost something precious, lost members of their families. She lost her ability to create a family.

The four graves, obviously, were the other four pilots who had all ready been killed previous to the story. As Andrea said, they illustrate the ending of an era and/or ideal.

Heero, sadly, symbolizes all of us who give up the fight. Those of us so torn with grief and devastation. Those that believe in goodness and try to protect it... but somehow... we never seem to do enough. We can't always protect the dreams and righteousness of humanity from succumbing to evil.

Their son also epitomizes hope, more precisely the reincarnation of hope (as Andrea mentioned): there's always another generation to take up arms against evil, to stop the fighting. There's always hope for the future. The gradual retreat of the storm and the eventual sunrise denote "a new and better tomorrow" as well.

So, technically, the message of the story is sort of uplifting.

I know, it was weird, and I hope it makes more sense now. I just wanted to incorporate that theme in a story, was listening to "Remember Me" from the Troy soundtrack, and... well, you've read the rest. I felt bad doing that to Relena... but I thought it was one of the most shocking, vivid ways to make my point.

Thanks, everyone, for all of the feedback. I'm beyond words, knowing that my writing touches you all on some level. I write to inspire feelings and send messages, almost nothing I write is just a "story." In that vein... thank you.

~Tomorrow

[Mizaya]

It was beautiful and heart-wrenching and I don't think I could do it justice in a review, but suffice it to say it floored me!