Archive: Just ask.
Warnings: Songfic, TWT, death
Blame:
Comments: I do not own Gundam Wing: that's Sunrise, Sotsu, Bandai, and who-gives-a-crap-who-else corporations. I do not own the rights to "Losing It": that would be the band Rush. Know that, and don't sue me! Um, not much else... except it's really depressing...
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Losing It by Shinigami's Demon
//thoughts// ::song lyrics: "Losing It"/Rush::
Dorothy Catalonia's graceful movements were all but soundless on the deserted ice surface. She *had* to get this right, she just had to. If only for memory's sake.
But it had been nearly forty years, and every one of those hard years had exacted their toll on the not-so-young lady's body. The tricky routine that she could have handled, did handle, without a problem so long ago was simply too much for her now. The pace of the music was too fast, the speeds were too much. He fair face, lined now with age and freezing from the cold of the rink, shone with sweat that dripped, when she slowed enough, onto the ice. Screaming muscles slowed against her will: it hurt. She had to stop.
::The dancer slows her frantic pace::
::In pain and desperation,::
::Her aching limbs and downcast face::
::Aglow with perspiration.::
Yet the fastest part of the music was here, and with it her favorite and the most demanding part of the routine. //Get the speed: triple axle, double toe loop, triple salchow coming up here and all quick.// Her white skates flashed as she skated across the ice and crossed over, double-time, gathering speed all the while. She *had* to be fast and absolutely sure on her feet: neither ice nor she forgave her mistakes, and she would not have the time to gather the speed in between jumps. Rather like the Gundam Pilots, all those years ago.
After the Eve Wars, Dorothy had found herself adrift. In her depression, she drifted into Minneapolis in winter. A frozen park pond just outside her flat was a favorite haunt of the neighborhood kids and one day she sat at her window, watching as the hockey game ended and a girl laced up her skates. The sun had caught the golden highlights in her long brown braid and flashed for an instant on each blade and Dorothy sensed the invisible music the girl heard. The show ended a few minutes later and Dorothy joined in the applause, smiling for the first time in a year. The next day, she paid for skates and lessons, and soon rose to compete around the world.
Now, though, she concentrated only on the jumps before her. //Now!// she thought as the music hit the critical note.
But before her skates had even come together she knew the takeoff was wrong, and she knew equally well from experience that she could not hope to land the last jump of the routine. //But I can try.// The only sound in the rink was the moment of silence as she sailed through the air, and a simultaneous grinding of steel on ice and snapping of bone as she came back down. She smiled through her tears and finished to scattered clapping.
::Stiff as wire, her lungs on fire::
::With just the briefest pause,::
::Then, flooding through her memory,::
::The echoes of old applause.::
She collapsed on the ice a moment later, cradling her leg as someone called for a stretcher and an ambulance and a few kind souls helped her off the ice.
The doctors said it was a clean break, but she knew. She had had broken bones before and this one felt different, more painful. //Perhaps because I can never skate again...// They released her, on crutches, with a plaster cast covering her lower leg, the next morning, and her skates were carried out for her by one of the orderlies. She got home without incident, and made it into her room.
::And she limps across the floor::
::And closes the bedroom door.::
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
At the same time
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Trowa Barton laid his head in his hands. Forty years had not been gentle on him, although most of the he had spent with the love of his life. Quatre had passed about three years ago, now, in his sleep: the coroner had said it was natural. Trowa had watched as Quatre bit back his cries for help just before Duo, in tears, called to say that Heero had been in a shuttle accident, only able to offer his own hidden tears and silent support to the other three. Wufei had been next: he had breathed his last in words that gave the remaining trio hope that he, at least, had been reunited with Meiran. Duo, the self-proclaimed Shinigami, said that it was rather ironic, the God of Death dying. As it happened, in a gang drive-by in which Duo was simply an innocent passerby, they both thought it even more ironic. And then Duo was gone, too.
Trowa had always been good at writing and had begun to put his feelings on paper soon after the end of the Eve Wars. The other pilots had served as beta readers for him, and he had several bestsellers out. Catherine didn�t know, nor did Mariemeia: it was a secret that he kept, one last holdover from the fighting days. Now� he was having troubles.
::The writer stares with glassy eyes,::
::Defies the empty page.::
::His beard is white, his face is lined,::
::And streaked with tears of rage.::
::Thirty years ago, how the words would flow!::
::With passion and precision,::
::But now his mind is dark and dulled::
::By sickness and indecision.::
He sighed and rubbed his temples. His sight had gone years ago, but his hands were cramped from the stylus and he had a headache. He was tired: perhaps a little rest could get this last story done. The sun�s first rays spilled over the edge of the world as he laid his head down onto folded arms and watched the sky change from pink to delicate orange to light blue�(1)
::And he stares out the kitchen door::
::Where the sun will rise no more::
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The church was beautifully decorated for the funeral. Catherine and Mariemeia attended: Lady Une was there, and Relena, and Noin, Wind, Sally: everyone. Dorothy was the last to arrive, limping in on crutches. In her hand Mariemeia carried the book Trowa had been writing.
//I miss you, Trowa. I hope you�re at peace now.//
She laid the book down on the casket lid and put her forehead to it in a final goodbye. A gust of wind from nowhere took off her hat and lifted the hard cover of the notebook, flipped through the pages, then turned back to a page and it fell open. Mariemeia gasped: she�d not noticed the light penciling before.
//Read it,// she thought she heard someone whisper in her ear. She turned to look, but only the preacher stood there, gazing out at the mourners.
"::Some were born to move the world,::
"::To live their fantasies,::
"::But most of us just dream about::
"::The things we'd like to be.::
"::Sadder still to watch it die,::
"::Than never to have known it,
"::For you the blind, who once could see,
"::The bell tolls for thee...::"
She blinked, not certain she�d read that line right through the tears, and reread it.
"::The bell tolls for thee...::"
As she walked out of the building, the deep ringing of the heavy bells began. Mariemeia turned and looked up at the belfry.
//::For you the blind, who once could see,::
::The bell tolls for thee...::
~Owari~
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