Times of Yore by Maaya
Standard disclaimers apply

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-- AC. 194 --

Sun was not an option on colony L5-A0206, so one couldn’t say the sun was hidden behind thick layers of rain-heavy clouds. The poetic touch in that statement couldn’t be reached if you, instead, mentioned that the light-sensors in the ceiling were covered by layers of rain- heavy clouds. But how you ever said it, one could not deny the truth in both statements.

It was not a nice day, not if you considered the weather, nor if you considered the mood of two certain people taking residence on the old L5 colony; one male from the Chang-clan and one female from the Long-clan. Technically, they were now considered as both from the Chang-clan, because those two had come to share the male’s name in cause of marriage.

Chang Wufei and Chang Meiran was not a happy couple. They had, against their will, been forced to marry each other at the mere age of fourteen. That age was chosen because it was during that time when most females (and some males) sexually matured and would be able to give birth to the child that would to be the next leader of the clan. But whatever the reasons were, Meiran and Wufei did not approve of what had come to be their duty.

They were, luckily, not yet forced to share their own house, but they had *one* room together with *one* bed to sleep in. That mere fact was embarrassing to most fourteen years olds.

Meiran sat on ‘her side’ of the bed, legs drawn up in an imitation of the old tailors’ way of sitting, eyes fastened on the form of her husband, who did stretching motions that resembled yoga on the floor. She frowned, and hesitated for a while before deciding to speak. “That is the only practice I’ve ever seen you doing. How come you’re not training martial arts together with the rest of our class?”

Giving his shoulders a couple of rolling motions, Wufei replied. “It has been recognized that I am beyond your class’ abilities. I train with an older group of students. ” It was a statement, not spoken with any kind of arrogance or malicious pleasure.

Meiran sat up a little straighter, annoyed. “Oh? I am the best in my class. How come I haven’t got the offer?”

“Just like you said, you are the best one in your class. Not in other classes. That is why.”

“But you never practice.” She half-complained, half-taunted. “I don’t see how you can be so good when you just read all the time. Is that what you did at the boarding school you went to too? Read? It’s a wonder you haven’t read all the books on the colony by now.”

Wufei stood up and went over to their shared bathroom. He went inside and grabbed a towel from the rack before stepping out in the bedroom again, sweeping his sweaty face off. He didn’t like having his boarding school sneered at the way Meiran always did. That was the place he would have been getting a good education and profoundly enjoying himself at the same time, if it hadn’t been for his unwanted marriage with Meiran.

“I never practice together with people.” He finally answered. “I prefer to do it alone.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Meiran rolled her eyes. “If it hadn’t been for me, you’d never find someone to marry.”

The Chinese boy wondered inwardly what the point of this conversation was. It held him back, when all he wanted was to go out somewhere . . . alone. “I don’t seek marriage. And *I* didn’t find you to marry, someone else did.”

“Then we’re two in that matter!”

Wufei opened his mouth to reply something indifferent, but was broken off when someone knocked on their door. Instead, he now turned his head towards where the doorway was. “Yes?”

The door was opened, revealing a woman in her forties, with hair beginning to grey close to her temples and forehead. Her face was already getting furrowed around her thin mouth. “Master Wufei.” She greeted and looked at the two of them, a little curious of what they were fighting about. “I’ve come to collect your sheets.”

“Do it later!” Meiran snapped, at the same time as Wufei said. “Go ahead.”

The old woman looked between the two of them for a while, before she decided that Wufei, being the male, was the one to obey. She collected the sheets under the careful scrutiny of Meiran’s deadly, dark-brown glare, and walked out hastily, closing the door a little less careful than usual.

Shrugging, Wufei went to follow her example to get away from his hostile wife, but didn’t get very far, because of Meiran.

“Doesn’t this bother you at all?!” She snapped and pointed at the bed she had been forced to stand up from as it was now without sheets or pillow-cases. As Wufei just threw her an uninterested glance, she elaborated. “That they are checking our sheets? To see if we’ve – we’ve . . . done ‘it’ yet?” Her cheeks coloured just a little.

Wufei just raised an eyebrow and shrugged, resuming his walk out of the room. Just before he closed the door behind him, he answered over his shoulder. “Well, they’ll have to check for a very long time then, don’t you think?”

He closed the door and left Meiran alone with only her anger and frustration as company.

***

He went to the field. His beloved field, the only place that didn’t show any significant signs of that the nature around him was artificial. The flowers and trees were sowed long ago enough to look natural after having gotten about twenty years of multiplying themselves without help from human hands.

But the best thing about the field was maybe the solitude. Nothing more than the birds and he, himself, ever came there.

He lay there in the glass and pondered about his and Meiran’s argument for a while. It didn’t really bother him that they had fought; they did that a lot after all, but the fact that she had brought up their future . . . ‘lovemaking’ did.

Wufei was not that kind of person to scuff problems that would come in the future until that time actually came. It felt better to know that he had solved them beforehand, so that he wouldn’t worry for so long about the future.

He couldn’t imagine himself having sex with Meiran. She was like a . . . stepsister to him. A stepsister he couldn’t even get along with for more than five minutes a time. It was strange to even imagine himself doing such things together with her.

A drip of water fell onto his nose, startling him out of his thoughts. He blinked up at the dark sky, more surprised than he wanted to admit, and decided to for once scuff his problems aside, at least until he could find somewhere away from the coming rain.

***

Meiran was that sort of person who took out her anger by help of force, preferably body activity. She even owned a special punching bag for that only purpose, and the use of it had increased considerably much since she had gotten Wufei as a husband.

Punch, turn around and kick.

God, how he pissed her off sometimes! He was so . . . so generally annoying and arrogant, acting as if he knew so much more than she did! But *she* was going to become a gundam pilot, and he wouldn’t. He did probably not care at all about the fate of the colonies, as long as he had his beloved books and the right to some solitude.

Two kicks, after one another.

He disgusted her. Not caring at all about justice and freedom, he didn’t even seem to mind that earth was oppressing them all. But what angered Meiran the most was the fact that Wufei had an offer standing to pilot Shenlong, though he didn’t want to. The likes of him didn’t deserve a chance to fight for freedom and justice.

“Haah!” She gave the bag another hit.

Hit, left kick, hit . . .

***

Meiran stopped at the threshold to her and Wufei’s shared room, blinked once, then twice. Stared. “. . . what is that?”

The . . . something she was staring at was placed on the wall above the bed in the room, with Wufei placed in front of it, studying it with a hint of satisfaction in his black eyes. “Monet.” He stated then, simply so.

Meiran blinked again and frowned impatiently, not liking to appear like a fool. “What?”

“An artist. From the pre-colony time.”

“Oh.” She paused and waited for an explanation that didn’t come. “And what is it doing on our wall?” The words ‘*our* wall’ left a sour taste in her mouth, but she ignored it for the time being, as things more important for the moment took her attention.

“Master O gave it to me.” Wufei sat down on the bed and proceeded to take off his socks. “He saved it from a raid on a museum long ago during the terrorist attacks on earth. It is one of the only paintings left by Monet now.”

Meiran tilted her head to the left and looked at the painting again, trying to see what her husband obviously found so fascinating about it. All she could see was a flower field with red poppies, and two mothers with one child each walking over it. “What’s so special about it?”

Wufei threw her an annoyed glance. “Monet was a famous artist in the twentieth century. He created impressions.”

“Impressions?”

“Yes.” Wufei shrugged out of his white jacket and pondered about how to explain for Meiran. Usually, he should have just looked at her disgustedly and ignored her, but she was actually looking as if she was making an effort to understand, so he guessed he shouldn’t let that opportunity fly away. “The poppies are actually just red dots. . .”

Meiran frowned, and nodded. It was true.

“. . . but you are still under the impression that they are poppies, right?”

She blinked and thought about it, then looked over at the flowers again. “Right. But anyway, what is the painting doing here? Shouldn’t it be at a museum or something?”

Wufei just shrugged. “No one knows about Monet anymore, or they just don’t care about it. Politics and the thoughts of creating better places to live are more important now.”

“Well, they are. People are killed out there, while we are in here discussing art. Don’t tell me you think drawings are more important than human life and justice?” Meiran almost feared what he would answer, but hid it with anger. Didn’t he care about other people at all?

“People created war. People die in their wars. There’s no reason to let culture suffer from it.”

“Wrong!” She snapped, amazed at the way he was thinking. Walking up to him, she stared him straight into his eyes from a close distance. “People created culture too. Without our kind, that painting wouldn’t exist!”

Wufei looked back into her brown eyes that looked as if they were burning with dedication. What could he say to make her understand? “The human kind is changing, to the worse. I am trying to save the last remaining shreds of what was once peace of mind. Drawings, books, philosophy. There was a time when people developed those things. Now, all we are doing is developing war craft.”

What could she say to make him understand? “Not everyone! We . . . I am fighting for justice! When people have justice, they will be able to go back and be what they once were.”

With that, she turned away and began to undress. Silence filled the room and felt a hundred times heavier after the loud words that had echoed in there seconds ago. Wufei looked at her mutely as she ripped off her socks angrily, then began to button up her shirt. His eyes widened slightly as she took it off in front of his eyes, not caring that another male was looking. “Can’t you at least turn away?” He asked a little dryly.

She gave him a murdering glance and stood up to unbutton her pants, ignoring her state of half nakedness. “What for? We’re man and wife. You’ll be forced to see me naked one day anyway.”

Was she hysterical? No, that was not it. Wufei turned away as she took her pants off. She was just angry and probably bitter. She would regret this later. “Go to bed.” He muttered and followed his own advice.

***

“We are too different.” Meiran stated clearly.

Wufei looked up from his book, gave her a look, and stated flatly, “Really.”

“Much too different.” The girl continued, unwilling to get discouraged by her spouse’s clear indifference. It was raining outside, which was the reason to why none of them had been willing to leave their comfortable, warm room just yet, despite the company of each other. Meiran had now, however, dressed into some hardwearing clothes and was on her way to go practice. Her statement had escaped her mouth while she was in the middle of buttoning her grey shirt. “We’re two of a kind.”

The boy in the room gave her a look that said ‘your point?’ and raised an eyebrow.

“We were pushed into this marriage because of our clans’ wishes, despite the fact that we weren’t willing. I mean, we argue all the time, and our beliefs conflict one another.”

Still doubtful, Wufei finally closed his book and gave her his full attention. He’d held a finger between the pages he had been reading, though.

“We can’t go on like this.” She smoothed out some wrinkles from her shirt. “I might not believe in what you do, and do not believe in what I believe in. When politicians are like that, it causes war. We have to respect each others thoughts; otherwise we are no better than the Federation and politicians on earth. On the colonies too, for that matter.”

“. . . what do you suggest we should do?”

“Respect each others opinions. That simple.”

“Okay.” Wufei shrugged. Why not? As long as Meiran didn’t freak out like last night, and they would stop fighting each other. They were obviously going to live with each other for a long time, so why not start accepting that fact already?

Meiran blinked. “Okay? No objections?”

“Should I have some?”

“No . . .” She hesitated for a while, watching as he opened his book again and resumed his reading. Then she shrugged and put her shoes on, and went to the practice room. Wufei was Wufei after all, and she guessed he was okay with the newly agreed arrangement, otherwise he wouldn’t have agreed in the first place.

***

“The cockpit is a little too large. I have a hard time reaching the sensor controls.”

“We’ll modify it to your needs later. Are you really sure you want to do this? It is not a woman’s job.” Master O regarded the fiery, Chinese girl with a bastard mix of distrust and reluctant respect. “This machine needs a very strong and brave pilot.”

Meiran snorted. “Of course I do want it. It is for a good cause, isn’t it?” She was standing in the hangar, dressed in a tight, uncomfortable space-suit and with her helmet tucked under one arm, eager to get home and change into something that didn’t hug her body quite *that* much.

“Of course.” O bowed his head in defeat. It was not every day a fourteen year old girl managed to surpass his dedication for the cause. But then, Meiran was not a normal girl – way beyond her years and definitely not an ordinary woman. “Zi-ling [1] will not argue with that. You can come back tomorrow.”

“You sure you can make it?” A new voice mingled into the mix. Wufei stepped out from the shadows cast by the prototype Leo. With his white clothes, it was a wonder he hadn’t been spotted earlier. O hated to admit it, but as he admired Meiran for her dedication, he also admired Wufei for his strength and knowledge. That was two people not even half his age, and still were his equals. It was a proof of how one shouldn’t always deem people by their ages.

“Why shouldn’t she?” He now asked, looking at the boy. “She has proved herself to be able in simulators and tests.”

But Wufei just shrugged and turned to the a little irritated Meiran. “Shall we get going?”

“And just what made you think I wouldn’t handle going home alone, husband-dear?” She wondered sarcastically as she ran to his side.

“Actually, master Zi-ling sent me to pick you up.” He looked at her up and down a couple of times, a little critical. “He said that one could never know what could happen to a lonely girl on the dark streets.”

“Oh.” Meiran endured Wufei’s eyes on her body for a couple of seconds before bursting. “What are you looking at anyway!?”

“Where are your clothes?” He countered with a question of his own, eyebrow raised

It made her stop in her tracks and think about it. “I left them in the washing room, they got sweaty.” She swore. “I guess I’ll just have to go out like this.”

With ‘this’, she meant the piloting-suit. Not that she really wanted to show herself in public in clothes like that, but there was not another option so she’d just have to accept the fact.

“You can’t.” Wufei stated flatly.

“What? Why?”

“It would cause too many suspicions. Remember that the gundam project is not common knowledge yet.”

Of course. It annoyed Meiran she hadn’t thought of that – she hated when people pointed those simple facts out for her. Never mind that she needed them sometimes. “What do you suggest then? That I go out naked?” She rolled her eyes.

Wufei’s only answer was a quick shrug out of his white, traditionally long coat. He handed it to her. “Here. Hide the suit underneath this.”

Meiran stared at the coat in his outstretched hand, unsure whatever or not she should accept it. Not that accepting a jacket would be a sign of *weakness* or anything, but it was something, a little voice in her mind that told her. Accepting help from someone, especially Wufei, was not an opinion. But it was either that or go out naked, or betray O’s trust in her to be discreet. Crap. It didn’t look like she had a choice. But why was she still hesitating?

Just as she finally made up her mind to take it, Wufei got impatient. He sighed disdainfully and threw it towards her, forcing her to catch it before it hit her in the face.

“Hey, be a little more careful!”

Wufei shrugged and began to walk towards the door. “I thought you didn’t want me to pull my punches.”

“Manners are one thing, pulling one’s punches another!” She snapped, annoyed like she often was when arguing – ahem – *discussing* things with Wufei. Running up to walk by his side, she put the long jacket on. It hit the most outstanding features of a piloting-suit, leaving it to look as if she was wearing a pair of very tight black pants, that didn’t particularly match the jacket. Luckily, Meiran wasn’t one to cherish fashion or trends.

Wufei opened the door and stepped out in the cool, quiet night air. They could both sight stars outside the strong glass-like material that was covering the colony, but the concave shape of it deformed the constellations slightly. Wufei had read all about constellations that could be sighted from earth once, though.

He was wearing a dark-blue tank top that matched the dark space outside, and while it didn’t do much to the cold, it was still better than nothing.

They walked in silence for a bit, neither completely comfortable nor uncomfortable in each others company. None of them did like to make small talk, but the silence still felt rather awkward, so Meiran finally ventured. “So, what have you been doing all day?”

If her husband was surprised by her sudden politeness, he didn’t show it. “Read. Practiced and studied.”

Meiran, used to one word sentences like that, didn’t comment. “Is there really a difference between reading and studying?” Her experience in the matter wasn’t very exclusive - so what?

“Of course. Studying you do to learn. Read, I do for enjoyment.”

Quiet fell upon them again and Meiran simply settled with watching the stars while walking. She jumped when Wufei surprisingly spoke again.

“Today is the day when our ancestors celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival.” He broke off and thought for a while, looking around as if searching for something in the sky he couldn’t find. “It was a festival to honour the moon.”

Meiran was on the verge to ask why the tradition wasn’t upheld on their colony, but stopped herself in time, realizing the stupidity in the question. The moon was out of L5-A0206’s sight. And what good would it be to celebrate the moon if one could never see it? “It’s a shame. Colony-people would need some festivals now and then.” She said instead and spared her husband a glance.

“People would take too much for granted if they were spoiled like that.”

“You think so?” Meiran frowned. “There are things people *deserve* to take for granted. You were the one who brought it up in the first place anyway. Why did you do that if you don’t agree with it?”

A mere, non-committal shrug was her only answer and they both fell into quiet again.

“Hey.” Meiran said, just as they were standing in front of the door to their shared house. “Thanks for the jacket.”

Wufei’s nod was maybe not very polite, nor friendly, but it was an acknowledgement. And that was enough for now.

******

The End

******

[1] That is Meiran’s grandfather, according to the Episode Zero manga.
Forgive me about the whole Monet bit. I just needed something to make Wufei and Meiran sort out their differences. And the conversation is partly taken from one that I and a friend had before, when I tried to make her understand why I fancy Monet so much. =,=
It was hard to make Wufei and Meiran argue about their beliefs. To make good arguments, I had to understand what they thought and it was hard to go from one opinion to another like that.

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