Disclaimer: I do not own one particle of Gundam Wing nor do I get any money from adapting scenes in Ayn Rand?s The Fountainhead.
A/N- At long last, the finale to the first arc has arrived. Prior to Birth and Binding, I had never been very serious about writing, but after this eight-week journey, I feel like I?m really ready to commit to this story ? and to my new favorite hobby. In this first arc, I relied heavily on the source material from Ayn Rand?s novel, but beginning with Choosers of the Slain, I?m going to be entering new territory. I?m a little nervous, but I feel like I?ve firmly established a world and from here on out, I can let my characters loose to run amok in this world.
Having read many of your reactions to Sylvia Noventa, I felt that it was necessary to devote, more-or-less, a chapter to her. Many fanfiction writers tend to vilify her, whether as a 1xR home-wrecker or otherwise, and it might not seem as if I?m any different, but I?d like to think that the way I?ve portrayed her makes it clear that she?s not evil. She?s simply after something and while that something has been elusive so far, I hope that this chapter will really flesh out her motivations.
Canaries are especially sensitive to methane and carbon monoxide, which made them ideal for detecting any dangerous gas build-ups in early coal mines that did not have ventilation systems. As long as the canary in a coal mine kept singing, the miners knew their air supply was safe. A dead canary in a coal mine signaled an immediate evacuation.
In chapter one, Dorothy compares Sylvia Noventa to ?a canary in a coal mine,? because she can learn about people by the way they react to Sylvia.
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Birth and Binding VII:
The Canary in the Mine
by Terra
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Sylvia Noventa was a stargazer. She was seven years old the first time she beheld the constellation Pegasus in the sky. The winged horse had fascinated her, because it was a land animal who defied nature to soar in the heavens. When she researched the subject, she discovered that Pegasus had been created from the blood shed by the decapitated head of Medusa, who had been slain by Perseus, the son of Zeus. To her dismay, she realized that her beloved myth had been born of murder, and that no miracle had spawned his wings. The message was clear in her mind: You can?t make something of nothing. To win, someone must lose.
She was nine years old when her parents died and she was taken in by an orphanage run by the local parish. Until the end of their lives, her parents had spent lavishly, lived ostentatiously and were always poor. Her father, Daunte Noventa, was born the youngest son, who discovered early in life that society held few options for the younger offspring of an aristocratic family. There were two acceptable professions for a gentleman who had no skills or specialty: the church or the military. The only other choice was to wait patiently for his father to die and then divide, piecemeal among his siblings, the Noventa inheritance. When his father seemed poised to live on for many more decades, Daunte decided that he had spent enough of his life living in his family?s shadow. When he ran away from them, he vowed that he would build an estate one day that would put to shame the entire Noventa legacy. But Daunte Noventa failed as an entrepreneur. He was unimaginative and overzealous as an investor ? rapidly squandering nearly all of his allowance. He lived the rest of his life in want of money, but too proud to appeal to his father.
Mrs. Noventa was an actress, beautiful and shrewd, the kind of woman who would have found the man Daunte became in his later life most distasteful. But she discovered one day that she was pregnant and so she married the young, dashing heir only to realize postnuptially that he had been disowned. In fits of despair as she carried her child to term, she felt that the rest of her dreams lay firmly on the shoulders of her daughter. And so, Natalia Noventa was sorely disappointed when her daughter inherited none of her delicate features or innate grace. Sylvia was born painfully thin and underweight, neither dark nor quite blonde, with the kind of face one could not remember even while looking at it. Natalia never forgave her daughter for her ordinariness. But whereas, her mother saw in her only stunted potential, her father adored her, because she was utterly unremarkable. He was a man who was principally concerned with others? opinion of his own self-worth ? enhanced, he felt, because he could bestow affection on so uninspiring of an object. There was martyrdom in loving Sylvia. She was a child who did not obviously deserve love and so, he loved her more for it, congratulating himself all the while on the magnanimity of his spirit.
In the evenings, under the flickering fluorescent lights ? when Natalia scrounged up enough credits to pay the electric bill ? in the family sitting room, Daunte would begin, in a tense, challenging voice, angry and defeated in advance: ?Listen, Talia ? I want to buy a pony. A pony for our girl. All the girls her age have them; you should?ve heard Anthony Bennett going on and on about his daughter?s damn pony ? her second, if you?ll believe it. Talia, I want a pony for Sylvia.?
?Absolutely not!? Mrs. Noventa would answer, sharply. ?When you bought her that ludicrously expensive telescope, you near bankrupted us. You know I?m saving for her pageant lessons.? She glanced at Sylvia absently. ?When I was her age, I had already been in two commercials. No daughter of mine is going to be ordinary.?
Daunte would argue, his voice rising in jerks toward an indignant shriek.
?Father, what for?? Sylvia said, her voice soft, rich and clear, lower than the voices of her parents, yet cutting across them, commanding, strangely persuasive. ?There?s many things we need more than a pony. What do you care about Mr. Bennett? His daughter is snooty. I don?t like her. And she can afford it, because her father owns a company. His father?s a show-off. I don?t want a pony.?
Every word of this was true, and Sylvia did not want a pony. But Mrs. Noventa looked at her strangely, wondering what had made her say that. She saw her daughter?s dim green eyes looking at her blankly; the eyes were not sweet, not reproachful, not malicious; just blank. Natalia felt that she should be grateful for her daughter?s understanding ? and wished to hell the girl had not mentioned that part about owning a company. Sylvia did not get the pony. But she got a polite attention in the house, a respectful solicitude ? tender and guilty, from her father, uneasy and suspicious from her mother. Mrs. Noventa would do anything rather than be forced into conversation with Sylvia ? feeling, at the same time, foolish and angry at herself for her fear. When Mr. and Mrs. Noventa perished in a tragic yacht explosion, during a party they were hosting on a glamorous boat which routinely failed inspections, Sylvia became an orphan with no known family.
The banks seized all their property to pay for the numerous debts they had accumulated and Sylvia inherited only her parents? personal effects. She was taken in by a local orphanage run by a Catholic church. It was three days later that she turned the hose upon Johnny Chandler, as Johnny was passing by the orphanage lawn, dressed in his best Sunday suit. Johnny had waited for that suit a year and a half, his mother being very poor. Sylvia did not sneak or hide, but committed her act openly, with systematic deliberation: she walked to the tap, turned it on, stood in the middle of the lawn and directed the hose at Johnny, her aim faultless ? with Johnny?s mother just a few steps behind him down the street, with her own caretaker and the minister in full view on the porch. Johnny Chandler was a bright kid with dimples and golden curls; people always turned to look at Johnny Chandler. Nobody had ever turned to look at Sylvia Noventa.
The shock and amazement of the adults present were such that nobody rushed to stop Sylvia for a long moment. She stood, bracing her thin little body against the violence of the nozzle jerking in her hands, never allowing it to leave its objective until she felt satisfied; then she let it drop, the water hissing through the grass, and made two steps toward the porch, and stopped, waiting, her head high, delivering herself for punishment. The punishment would have come from Johnny if Mrs. Chandler had not seized her boy and held him. Sylvia did not turn to the Chandlers behind him, but said, slowly, distinctly, looking at her guardian and the minister: ?Johnny is a dirty bully. He beats up all the kids in school.? This was true.
The question of punishment became an ethical problem. It was difficult to punish Sylvia under any circumstances, because of her parents? recent death; besides, it seemed wrong to chastise a girl who had sacrificed herself to avenge injustice, and done it bravely, in the open, ignoring her own comparative physical weakness. Somehow, she looked like a martyr. Sylvia did not say so; she said nothing further; but the minister said it. And everyone, except for the Chandlers, was inclined to agree. For the year of her stay, Sylvia made an indelible impression on the staff. She had a sonorous voice that was astonishing in her small frame. She sang in the choir, where she had no rivals. But her voice, like the rest of her, was not memorable. It was that anonymous quality that made her voice so pleasing to the ear, because no one strained to remember when he had heard it last or wondered who the singer was, but simply relaxed, allowing the mind to disengage, in its presence. Sylvia could be mesmerizing ? almost hypnotic ? when she chose to inflect in her particular way. It was her only obvious talent.
At school, she was a model pupil. She always knew her lessons, had the neatest notebooks, the cleanest fingernails, loved Sunday school and preferred reading to athletic games, in which she had no chance. She was not too good at mathematics ? which she disliked ? but excellent at English and history. Her teachers and caretakers considered Sylvia to be a truly selfless child, who didn?t care about material things at all. This was true. Sylvia did not care about material things, which could be snatched from her in an instant by her fellow attention-starved orphans, but preferred to horde knowledge. She studied conscientiously and hard. She was not like Johnny Chandler, who never listened in class, seldom opened a book at home, yet knew everything before the teacher had explained it. Learning came to Johnny automatically, as did all things: his able little fists, his healthy body, his startling good looks, his infectious vitality. But Johnny did the shocking and the unexpected; Sylvia did the expected, better than anyone had ever seen it done.
When her grandfather abruptly arrived one somber, rainy morning in search of her, a year after she had been orphaned, she was surprised to see that this tall, imposing man with a crown of white hair was her father?s father. As hard as she looked, she could find no resemblance beyond superficial appearance. Giovanni Noventa was a Field Marshall of the Alliance and exuded authority in his every motion. To the best of her knowledge, her father had lived miserably under her mother?s thumb and boasted in lieu of action. She was swiftly adopted and brought to her newfound family?s estate in Sicily where she found herself surrounded by the wealth her father had always coveted. She thought it was unbearable ? the careful way money was invested in the marble floors, the walls of famous artwork and the rich texts of Palazzo dei Normanni. It was a shameless display of wealth memorialized in a material legacy. It was beautiful and that was what made it ugly to Sylvia.
Her grandmother was a kind, old woman who, having lost all her children to adulthood, devoted herself to the care of her granddaughter. It was she who found, from the orphanage?s storage, the boxes full of Daunte and Natalia?s personal possessions and delivered them to her young charge, feeling that they rightfully belonged to her. Rifling through her mother?s diary one night, Sylvia was startled to discover that Natalia Noventa had not always been a woman devoid of all passion for life, as she had observed. Natalia had been made that way by her rushed, unfortunate marriage. Before the ceremony, she had had an illicit affair. Her girly, floridly penned passages left no doubt as to the paternity of her child. It would be years later, when Sylvia was enrolled in an elite boarding school at the age of thirteen that she would track down her real father, Eduardo Sifr. She smiled bitterly when he turned out to be a retired actor and boorish drunk. She laughed when she realized that his surname ? her real name ? meant ?zero? in Arabic. For Eduardo, it had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sylvia had no desire to meet a similar end.
The Noventas prided themselves on their pure Italian heritage. She was an imposter ? an Italian-Arabic mutt ? and she maintained her charade, because she unwillingly loved her grandfather. He was strong and important and warm. Sylvia felt an inexplicable desire to impress upon him her lack of faults; she did not realize that her feelings were normal for a child who wanted to be loved. She was determined to love no one by loving everyone, but her grandfather became the exception to her rule. It was apparent to all that Giovanni deeply regretted the loss of his son and saw in his granddaughter a chance at redemption. He trained her in all the manners of a young aristocratic female, sent her to the best schools and indulged her every whim. He found that he liked to tempt her. Giovanni would sit down at the dinner table and ask: ?Sylvia, your grandmother tells me that all your friends are going skiing in the Swiss Alps. Wouldn?t you like to go, my dear??
Sylvia said, earnestly, authoritatively, ?Grandpa, they?re not my friends. They only invited me to avoid offending you. Besides, what should I need to go skiing in Switzerland for? There?s the Dolomites on the mainland1 that would do just as well, especially since I barely know how to ski in the first place.?
He was overcome with pride every time she politely declined an expensive new gift or quietly informed him that she was quite content with how things were. He slowly came to believe that she was his true heir.
The children at the orphanage, jealous of the minister?s blatant favoritism towards Sylvia, had called her names, taunting her with chants of ?Saliva! Saliva!? in the playground and during the night. Her classmates at her elite boarding school let her have her way, and avoided her when possible, but not openly; they simply could not figure her out. She was helpful and dependable when someone needed assistance with his lessons, but she did not join the usual cliques and seemed completely indifferent to her wealth. She made no effort to acquire special treatment through the usual means and that gave her a special status. She had too much self-assurance and quiet, disturbingly wise contempt for everybody. She was afraid of nothing. She would march right up to the richest snobs, in the middle of the hallway, and state, not yell, in a clear voice that carried for corridors, state without anger ? no one had ever seen Sylvia Noventa angry ? ?James Anderson is an incorrigible twit. Olivia Taylor doesn?t even have the brains of one of those ponies she likes so much. Patricia Sanders is a bully, but she?ll get hers, because her father?s gone bankrupt and she?ll have to leave the school.?
She had no close personal friends. She was considered impartial and incorruptible. There were two incidents during her school years of which her grandmother was very proud. It happened that the wealthy, popular Olivia Taylor gave a birthday party on the same day as Vicky Winer, a girl on scholarship who fulfilled the prophecy of her name by whining incessantly. Nobody accepted her invitation and of those asked for both occasions, Sylvia was the only one who snubbed Olivia Taylor and went to Vicky Winer?s party, a miserable affair from which she expected and received no pleasure. Olivia Taylor?s enemies howled and taunted Olivia for months afterward about being passed up in favor of Vicky Winer.
It happened that Drusilla Dunn offered Sylvia a designer purse in exchange for a surreptitious peek at her test paper. Sylvia took the bribe and allowed Drusilla to copy from her test. A week later, Sylvia marched up to the teacher, laid the unopened boxed containing the purse upon his desk and confessed her crime, without naming the other culprit. All his efforts to extract that name would not budge her; Sylvia remained silent; she explained only that the guilty girl was one of the best students, and she could not sacrifice the girls? record to the demands of her own conscience. She was the only one punished, but the teacher had to drop the matter and let the test marks remain as they were. But it threw suspicion on the grades of all the best pupils of the class, except Sylvia Noventa. Thereafter, she was untouchable.
She attended the best private academy in France at fourteen. Until then, she had felt herself drawn to the career of a minister2. She thought a great deal about religion. She talked about God and the spirit; she read extensively on the subject; she brought her audience to tears in one of her greatest oratorical triumphs with the theme of ?The meek shall inherit the earth.? At this period, she began to acquire friends. She liked to speak of faith and found those who liked to listen. Only, she discovered that the bright, the strong, the able students of her class felt no need of listening, felt no need of her at all. But the suffering and ill-endowed came to her. On the day Sylvia turned fifteen, she astonished the Bible-class teacher by an odd question. The teacher had been elaborating upon the text: ?What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul??
Sylvia asked: ?Then in order to be truly wealthy, a man should collect souls?? Soon afterwards, she lost interest in religion. She had discovered socialism. Among the proud young descendents of proud old names, she found an audience and gave them an achievement of which they felt capable. She told them, politely, not in the manner of one seeking favor, but in the manner of one granting it, her reasons for loving the masses over the selfish, egotistical individual whose efforts could only breed narcissism and create the capacity for evil. Her attitude was contagious. People did not question the reasons of her superiority; they took it for granted that such reasons existed. She stood in the courtyard and allowed her voice to soar over the crowd: ?To achieve virtue in the absolute sense, a person must be willing to take the foulest crimes upon his soul ? for the sake of his brothers. So you think you love mankind? You know nothing of love.
?You give a few thousand credits to the Salvation Army and you think you?ve done your duty? You poor fools! No gift is worth a damn, unless it?s the most precious thing you?ve got. Give your soul. To a lie? Yes, if others believe it. To deceit? Yes, if others need it. Yes! To whatever it is that seems lowest and vilest in your eyes. Only when you can feel contempt for your own priceless little ego, only then can you achieve the true, broad peace of selflessness, the merging of your spirit with the vast collective of mankind.?
Sylvia Noventa became associated with distinction and progressive intellectualism. If this was a victory, she did not seem conscious of it as such; nor did she care. She moved among all the nobility with the assurance of a woman who has a plan, a long-range plan set in every detail, and who can spare nothing, but amusement for the small incidentals on her way. Her smile had a secret, closed quality: the smile of a shopkeeper counting profits ? even though, she was not winning anything in particular. During her third year at the academy in Marseille, the Eve War escalated to new heights. Her grandfather became nearly absent in her life at that time, called away as often as he was to duty. She missed his company, because he was the only one with whom she could be forthright and honest. Her grandfather did not usually agree with her views, but his opposition was refreshing when compared to her obedient, groveling peers.
When she heard of his death at the New Edwards Base, she felt an entrenched grief as never before; she was incapable of strong feeling. Yet, he had been the only person in her life who had not immediately dismissed her for her simple looks and unremarkable carriage. If anything, he loved her more for the tremendous effort she willingly expended to match and, ultimately, surpass her more talented peers. When Heero Yuy appeared in her life mere days after Giovanni Noventa?s passing, she had wanted to kill him: to pull the trigger and lodge a bullet in his brain, to give him the death he so obviously craved. She had yelled, ?You're a coward! You're making me kill you, so you can be freed from your guilt. You ? coward!?
He had looked at her then, as if she mattered, as if in the entire world, only she existed. ?This is all I can do.?
In that moment, Heero Yuy ? a complete stranger ? made her feel more significant than anyone before him; and it was a feeling she knew she would never experience again. But his unerring selfishness, his incorruptible sense of self and purpose, inspired in her great envy. He was the first truly great man she had ever met and she recognized immediately that he was the man she had been fighting all of her life; fighting to destroy, because a world in which Heero Yuy could be allowed to exist did not have room for her. Shaking with the effort not to press the trigger, she spared him, because this was not the way she wanted to kill him; because her grandfather in death had given her his greatest gift: the debt of a Gundam pilot and entry into the world of politics. But as deeply as she hated him, her enmity was nothing when compared to her feelings towards her truest enemy: Treize Khushrenada.
To her, he was a manipulative bastard who fancied himself a hero worthy of saving humanity from itself. He had been raised a noble ? with all the privileges that station bestowed, was gifted with nearly supernatural charisma ? and a brilliantly sharp mind, and borne the appearance of a prince. He was a man who inspired other men; he unconsciously belittled the achievements of others through his own greatness; he was the kind of hero people felt a violent desire to tear down, yet he surpassed them all effortlessly. He represented everything Sylvia Noventa had ever unwillingly coveted and so, she strove in her every despicable act to undo his life?s work. That he chose to die in a blaze of glory was nearly unbearable to Sylvia, because one could not fight a dead man. Her power was over the living, over those who were ignorant of what it meant to live.
To that end, her prowess at oration translated easily into the written arts. She wrote prolifically and saw her syndicated columns published, reproduced and quoted everywhere. She was a rising star in the political world and it was no accident that she chose to associate herself at every opportunity with Relena Darlian. She was not beautiful and did not have the Vice Foreign Minister?s ageless appearance, her noble countenance or her ability to inspire any audience to greater emotional heights; her power lay wholly in her ordinariness, stemming from her common roots and swayed in those who listened a deep sense of guilt for pursuing worldly desires, for living selfishly and for loving themselves. Those feelings delivered them into her hands wherein she found them to be unforgivably malleable. But she took care to avoid attending functions where Relena Darlian would be present. When such encounters were unavoidable, she strove to be dull, blank and forgettable, a task made infinitely easier by her totally undifferentiated appearance.
Relena Darlian had an uncanny intuition about people and Sylvia could ill afford her disfavor. So, she bided her time until she had perfected her art, waiting until after the Mariemaia Incident to claim her seat in the House of Lords, choosing to become a career politician. She did not cease to write and added appearances on popular talk shows to her lengthy r?sum?. That year, Sylvia Noventa became a fashion. Intellectual hostesses fought over her. Some people disliked her and laughed at her, but there was little satisfaction in that, because she was always the first to make the most outrageous remarks about herself. Once, at a party, a smug businessman listened to Sylvia?s earnest social theories for a while and said complacently: ?Well, I wouldn?t know much about all that intellectual stuff. I play the stock market.?
?I,? Sylvia replied, smartly, ?play the stock market of the spirit. And I sell short.? The years passed, with each busy day of her life like a small drop of water in a bottomless lake, and her sphere of influence grew. Of all the many titles bestowed upon her, she preferred one: Sylvia Noventa, the Humanitarian. She was now twenty-five years old ? and poised to reign, with only one more worldwide catastrophe. For that, she would need Dorothy Catalonia ? who was already hers, regardless of the Catalonia heiress?s unwillingness.
He crushed the icy sand in his fist, compacting the chilly crystals into an orb, feeling the cold resonating in his palm, the pleasant pain shooting up his arm to his elbow. The swirling blades of the helicopter ruptured the neatly piled heaps of snow on the helipad, swirling the flakes so that it rained down on them. Duo Maxwell stood with his back to the clamoring sounds of people disembarking from the aircraft, looking at the breathtaking mountain backdrop resting idyllically beneath an idly setting sun. He loved snow. In his childhood, he had only seen it a handful of times on L2, the colony officials ruling it a waste to create a season that was frosty and universally considered unpleasant; most importantly, it was not cost-effective.
When Duo became the chairman of the Sweeper Group, he made giving winter back to the residents a condition of building his headquarters on L2. But snow in the colonies could never compare to the majesty of the snow-laden Swiss Alps, where the chalet village of Davos was nestled; the small village traditionally hosted the annual Earth Sphere Economic Forum, where a dearth of important officials and business leaders congregated yearly to lay plans for world-molding. It was the most exclusive group of insiders in the solar system; Duo considered himself its lone outsider. With his rough upbringing, easygoing demeanor and eccentric hairstyle ? a waist length chestnut-colored braid, he was considered the exception to many rules. It was an unspoken law that the press corps and other non-governmental attendees arrived in a coach train or a conference bus. The moderately powerful rode a first class train to the mountain?s crest. Duo belonged to the extremely powerful and came with his good friend ? and business partner ? Quatre Winner in a helicopter that loomed over the earthbound vehicles and surpassed them to the summit.
Escorted by bodyguards, they bypassed the security checkpoints: the thousands of Swiss police and soldiers, tanks and armored personnel carriers, missile launchers and antiaircraft weaponry. They strode past the live current barbed wired fences and no one stopped them as they cut in front of the milling crowd waiting impatiently by the metal detectors and x-ray machines, designed to service the thousands of delegates expected. Glancing at the Armani-clad man beside him, Duo said, wryly: ?If someone manages to take out Davos this week, they?ll have killed half of the world?s ruling class.?
Quatre smiled faintly. ?If we weren?t here, I?d be sorely tempted to do the job myself.?
?Why so cynical? Changes are afoot.?
?You mean Relena??
?Sure,? he said, carelessly. ?Who knows? We might lose our day jobs tomorrow.?
?Would you want to??
?No,? Duo replied, slowly, honestly. ?I?d want to go out on my own terms.?
?We may not have to. Duo, we weren?t wrong.?
He laughed. ?Of course. There?s just the small matter of convincing the rest of the world. In all honesty, I?m not too keen on going down in history as the God of Death.?
?Duo, we can?t control how we?ll be remembered, but we?ll always know how we lived. Today?s heroes may become tomorrow?s enemies; yesterday?s villains ? today?s martyrs.?
?And what are we??
Quatre said, dryly: ?Hopefully, not martyrs.?
Entering the main conference hall behind his friend, Duo surveyed the room. It was almost entirely occupied. Delegates stood strewn along the aisles in idle conversation while the press lined the balcony, busily interviewing bystanders and positioning their cameras at favorable angles, carelessly jostling against people in the way. As the two of them descended the stairs towards their designated seats, Duo nodded in acknowledgement at several of his colleagues, who had caught his eye ? mentally red-flagging the most important faces. He paused when he saw the impatient figure of Fatima Winner standing in wait for her brother?s arrival. In their few encounters, Fatima had left him with the impression that while she despised all men, she reserved most of her vitriol for him and her brother. Duo clapped a heavy hand on his friend?s shoulder, muttered an apology before swiftly walking away in the opposite direction.
He muffled a chuckle at Quatre?s stormy expression. From behind him, above the din of indistinguishable voices, a familiar voice spoke, with suppressed humor, ?Fatima?s not that frightening.?
He turned and looked at the immaculately dressed woman standing ramrod straight, as if in defiance of the concept of exhaustion. ?You?re wrong there, princess. Let?s just say that you?re not equipped to enjoy her particular brand of charm.?
Relena laughed, a tinkling sound that reminded him of a bubbling brook. ?Is that right? And how does one become properly equipped??
?Through procedures best not mentioned in polite company. Well, it?s true that Fatima doesn?t hate everyone ?? he amended, ?she only hates men, and especially men like me and Quatre.?
?Why, Mr. Maxwell, you?re outrageous!? she said, covering her mouth daintily with her hand in mock affront. ?How should I punish you for offending a lady?s sensibilities??
Duo smiled, mischievously. ?But I don?t see any ladies here ? do you??
She laughed. ?Thank you. You always know just the right things to say. I really needed a good laugh before my press conference.?
Tilting his head toward the harried reporters gathered on the balcony above, he said, ?The vultures are already circling overhead.?
?Yes, well ? I suppose I can?t stall forever.? Relena touched his arm reassuringly in parting and made her way towards the balcony. He watched silently on the ground floor as she exchanged a few words with her press agent, absently checking her appearance in her handheld mirror. Stalwartly, she stepped behind the podium and gazing intrepidly into the cameras, announced, firmly: ?I?m in. And I?m in to win.?
Turning away, Duo glanced absently at the wall-mounted vidscreen where a larger-than-life pixilated Relena Darlian declared, ?But I?m not just starting a campaign. I?m beginning a conversation with you, with the Earth Sphere3 ??
Without warning, the broadcast was disrupted and her face disappeared. In her place, a stunned anchorwoman announced, ?We interrupt Foreign Minister Relena Darlian?s announcement of her presidential candidacy with breaking news! In an exclusive press release, we have learned the identities of the Gundam pilots, those five elusive men who left total destruction in their wake ... and started a revolution before vanishing without a trace. Our exclusive source, Society columnist Dorothy Catalonia, has chosen ESN News to reveal their names. Lady Catalonia, the Duchess Dermail, has firsthand knowledge of their identities and is disclosing to the public for the first time ? just who these dangerous terrorists were and where they?re hiding today.
?Don?t change that channel! This is an exclusive story from the network you can trust. We report. You decide4. I?m Natasha Williams, reporting for ESN News.?
As Duo?s grim gaze collided with Quatre?s steady glance across the conference hall, he whispered, softly, with finality: ?It?s beginning.? The room fell eerily silent. As the images of destruction during the Eve War flashed across the screen, the anchorwoman began to recount meticulously the history of mankind?s most tumultuous year, AC 195: Operation Meteor, Gundam?s descent to Earth; the attack at the New Edwards Base; Operation Daybreak, OZ?s coup de tat and the Alliance's downfall; Treize Khushrenada?s resignation from the Romefeller Foundation, following the advent of mobile dolls; the coronation of the Queen of the World; the ascension of the White Fang; Treize Khushrenada?s reinstatement as sovereign of the World Nation; His Majesty's tragic death in battle; the falling pieces of the battleship Libra onto the Earth.
?And now, we are ready to release to the public the confirmed identities of the Gundam pilots. In what is perhaps the most shocking twist of fate, Winner heir and renowned pacifist Quatre Raberba Winner has been exposed by Lady Catalonia as a Gundam pilot, the pilot of the Gundam designated zero-four.? Glossy photographs of the blonde Arabian were paraded across the screen: Quatre at a press conference, Quatre shaking hands with the president, Quatre at the construction site of Winner Tower. His picture was juxtaposed next to a surveillance shot of Sandrock. ?This is no hoax, ladies and gentleman. We can definitively confirm the validity of this information. Quatre Raberba Winner, the multibillionaire, is a Gundam pilot!
?And the twists don?t end there, folks. These guys have been hiding in plain sight! He is Winner?s closest friend and business partner. He is the chairman of the Sweeper Group.? He stared at his own likeness on the vidscreen. Then, he saw the Deathscythe, broken and shattered, drifting in Outer Space, the victim of OZ?s machinations. ?His name is Duo Maxwell and he is a Gundam pilot, the pilot of the Gundam designated zero-two ??
The stunned silence continued for another excruciating moment. Then, the conference hall erupted.
1Italy's north-east is dominated by the Dolomites (Dolomiti), an extensive range of impressively jagged peaks. Popular with summer walkers and climbers, in the skiing season the Dolomites rejoice in sunny weather and plenty of powdery snow, with slopes and trails for all abilities.
2In the year AC 6, the Catholic Church officially sanctioned the initiation of women priests. While they had unofficially led numerous churches throughout the years, the Pope?s declaration that the Bible recognized female ministers demolished one of the last roadblocks to gender equality in the church.
3Hillary Clinton?s words when she declared her candidacy.
4Real world news network Fox News? trademark motto.
A/N- In Norse mythology, there are several precursors to Ragnar?k, the end of the world and the beginning of the next. The first event that must take place is the birth of J?rmungandr, the sea serpent who grew so large that he was able to encircle the Earth and grasp his own tail. In Valhalla, it?s Dorothy Catalonia who most resembles this creature, because she has come full circle in this arc ? from a cynical, disgusted idealist to someone who has begun to accept that she may have been wrong, that there may still be hope for humanity, because there are still men like Quatre and the Gundam pilots.
The second birth is of Hel, ruler of Helheim (hell), who was cast down to her realm in the underworld and charged with watching over those who do not die gloriously in battle but of sickness or of old age. Here, it?s Quatre Raberba Winner who fits this role as caretaker, not as a leader of bloodthirsty warriors, but as a protector of ordinary people. Quatre is no general of an army; instead, he?s a vigilante who cannot tolerate the abuse of power. Since the war ended, he has been in this role, as a watchdog, but now everything he?s done is being called into question and he will have to answer to those he risked all to save.
The third birth is of Fenrir, the wolf, who was bound by the gods, but is ultimately destined to grow too large for his bonds and will devour Odin, the chief god, during the course of Ragnar?k. Fenrir represents Sylvia Noventa, who is poised to conquer the world stage. Compared to Dorothy and Quatre, she is easily the one who has changed the world the least, the one most bound by the restraints of being average. In Valhalla, she?ll slip those binds and all hell will break loose, because of her ambition.
The spotlight was on Dorothy in this arc, but that will soon change in Choosers of the Slain, when Quatre takes the helm. Thank you all for reading!
Valhalla: Birth and Binding [7/7, 4xD]
Moderator: Lauren
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Blondesimone
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I look forward to your comments every week. But don't wave goodbye to Dorothy just yet, she'll still be around to shake things up.