SHIN KIDOU SENKI GUNDAM WING

SAINAN NO KEKKA
The Little Princess: Reeshya

Once upon a time there was a princess.

This princess was the youngest of many sisters born to the kingdom, each more charming and beautiful then the last. Still, as the youngest, she was the most precious. Her father the king had no sons, and though he loved his many daughters, only a son would be able to inherit the realm. As the years passed, it seemed futile to hope for a boy child. Plans were made for the kingdom to pass to the child of the daughter Sapphire, the first to produce a male heir.

But fate was kind and a male heir was born at last to the king, and he was even more beloved his sister. True, this was an age of enlightenment, and the father loved all his children, but in that culture, ancient custom still reigned supreme.

The princess had no knowledge of this, for she loved and was loved. The little prince was perfect and shining, a precious child who was as innocent and pure-hearted as an angel. His brilliance sparkled through sky colored eyes, and his heart was as lovely as the golden locks that crowned his head.

The princess, like her older sisters, doted on the little prince. It was entirely natural that she out of all the sisters would spend the most time doing so, for some of the eldest were old enough for the age of motherhood and had other cares and burdens. But she still in the bloom of young childhood had none. The little prince and princess spent many hours together strengthening the bonds of friendship and love between them, passing the time blissfully, with that bliss known only to the young.

All too soon, these happy times came to an abrupt end when the father decided that the young prince was of sufficient age to learn the art of statecraft. The prince was blessed with a sound and skillful mind, but solemnity began to darken eyes which had previously not a care in the world. Still, he remained the brother the little princess adored, loving all of those who surrounded him.

The princess was saddened by the loss of her brother to their people, but understood the necessity of the deed. It was imperative for him to learn to rule wisely and well, for in the future, his decisions would affect many.

Time passed, and the young pair grew and blossomed. But alas, sorrow was destined to come into their lives for the first time. There was a sister that was close to them in age, beautiful and intelligent and seemingly content with her role in life. But that happiness was seen to be only an illusion when one day the sun rose and it was discovered that she had vanished during the night.

There was a single note left behind. "Do not follow me," she wrote.

The princess bore her grief with her head high, though she wept secretly in the dark for her sister. She poured out her sorrows to her brother, hoping he would share them with her. But the prince, who was not so young now, remained uncharacteristically silent.

She was angry. "Why won't you cry for Lilah?" she demanded.

The prince raised his eyes from his books of study, peering up at her through long golden lashes. "Because Lilah has made her own choice. Should I weep for her independence?"

He was younger then she was and yet so wise, and it infuriated her, she who knew of her own naïveté. So she retaliated in the only way she knew how, by raising her voice and acting the part of the grief-stricken elder sister. But that accomplished nothing, for her brother's manservants appeared and removed her from his presence, telling her that she must not upset the young master. He was, after all, the cherished male heir.

After that a distance grew between them. The princess feared to speak her heart to him, for now her words seemed of less importance than those of the great scholars and rulers and merchants of the prince's books. She had never been close with the other sisters, and she watched in silence as they doted on him still, not noticing the small ghost of a girl that floated silently between them, the ghost which she had become. Even the servants treated him like precious, fragile china, and she as if she did not matter.

The years passed, and the prince himself became withdrawn, troubled. Before Lilah's disappearance, the princess would have been the first to ask, and the first to comfort him. But the petty jealousy festering in her heart kept her distant. She was well aware of the hurt she was inflicting on the brother who had once been the sun around which her world had orbited, yet she did nothing to heal the breach. The sisters and the servants came to her, requesting her assistance, knowing only that if anyone could reach the prince, it would be she. But she refused. It was not her duty, she said. She was only a princess.

It was a time of trial, for it soon became apparent that the young prince wished to rule the kingdom differently, according to his own ways rather than the ways of the father. To avoid the arguments and icy silences, many of the older sisters moved away, old enough to pursue their own dreams. But the princess was still too young and too frightened to venture out into the world, so she remained. She thought of her sister Lilah, who had been the bravest of them all, and she thought of her brother the prince, who she had once known and who now was only a noble stranger.

So it came to pass that she was the only one who witnessed the final battles between the prince and their father, the king.

The prince was still young when he began to disagree with their father. It was a natural enough stage of childhood, and if the prince had been any other boy, neither she nor her father would have thought anything of it. But he was no ordinary boy, and he was passionate in his argument. At first they were nebulous and quickly resolved, but as time passed, one argument became central to their daily lives: that of peace, war, and pacifism.

The princess was shocked when she heard her brother's beliefs. He believed in none of the principles of pacifism and silent resistance that the family had for centuries stood for, believed that sometimes war was needed to end suffering. There were tyrants on the Colonies, he said, and the people must stand up for themselves if sovereignty and self-government was their goal.

Their father was unhappy with him and made his displeasure known. Fiercely, he pressured his own position onto his son: that peace could only be achieved if one was willing to make the necessary sacrifices. Never lift a finger; turn the other cheek, he counseled. In his son, he saw the hot blood of youth, passion that would cool as maturity sculpted the prince into a wiser man. Until then, the prince should defer to his elders.

This issue was not the heart of the problem, but rather merely a symptom of it. The father saw none of this, the princess knew, but she still knew her younger brother well enough to understand that the topic of debate was but the tip of something stronger and even more passionate. She wondered if she should speak to him after all, to ask him what his vision was, if it was indeed a vision. But then she would reason with herself, saying, tomorrow. Tomorrow I will go. There was always tomorrow.

One morning, the day before her fourteenth birthday, she awoke to a house that felt oddly empty. She lay in bed for a moment, wondering at this strange feeling, and then left her room, deciding to search out her younger brother. He would know what was wrong, because he always knew before she did. That was the way things had always been.

The princess searched high and low, but to no avail. The prince was not in any of the rooms of the house, and the carefully controlled Colonial greenery on the lawns and gardens held little cover for even a boy as slender as the prince.

Panicking slightly, she reached out with her seldom-used sixth sense, the ability her brother called the kokoro no uchuu. The prince was quite gifted in its use, seemingly always able to call forth the abilities that were beyond the ken of normal man. The princess had less of a gift, but today her troubled soul gave her skill a depth it had never had before. She let the sense flood her heart, but all she was able to perceive was a sense of great distance, a sense of closure. The prince was gone.

There were no false hopes. She knew then that her brother wasn't coming back, that he, too, had run away. The sense of betrayal was overwhelming, and she collapsed to the floor of her room, weeping inconsolably. Why had he done such a thing? She had loved him. Perhaps she had loved him too much. He should have known that. She thought he had known that.

Soon after, the last of her sisters departed their home to escape the wrath of their father, who had grown increasingly unstable since the prince had vanished. She alone remained, watching the once strong and powerful king bury himself in the affairs of state, becoming a haunted shadow of the man he had been. His children had deserted him, his heir had rejected him, and he seemed determined to forget that she even existed to spare himself from further pain.

But she stayed with him, as was her duty. She cared for him in the areas where the servants' responsibilities ended, making sure he ate regularly and did not forget to sleep. It was tiring, but she survived. Only one of the older sisters kept in contact with her, and she was lonely. Her status as a princess meant a life of luxury, but without companionship, luxury meant little. And she had no time for friends or even time alone, acting as her father's social secretary and hostess day after day.

Two years passed in this way. The unrest brewing in the Colony turned to war, but it seemed distant and of little concern to her. Her father and her home were all that she knew, and as long as those were safe she did not trouble herself with larger matters.

Then the young prince returned, and it became clear that his long absence had not changed his feelings towards his father's philosophy. The princess avoided her brother altogether, though her heart ached. Part of her knew that she had pushed her brother away through her earlier coldness, yet another part of her felt that he had betrayed her. She longed to approach him and throw her arms around him, asking him where he had been and why he had abandoned her. But she did not.

Then their father died, and the Colony which had treasured their presence for so long branded their family traitors. The princess, already reeling from the loss of her father, took the second blow to heart. Her world, which had slowly been unraveling since the disappearance of Lilah, was finally splitting open at the seams, and she did not know if she was strong enough to face the catastrophe which would almost certainly follow.

Then the war which had been plaguing the world ended, and her brother returned for a final time, this time to stay.

She hadn't been ready to see him. It was his fault their father died, she cried silently. It was his fault that she had grown into a woman unable to let go of the past. Her heart was still wounded, her soul still darkened by tragedy, and she lashed out at him as he stepped towards her with acceptance in his gaze. She watched as the light in his eyes died and felt the old scars in her heart open once more. But the words could never be unsaid, and she cried herself to sleep that night, longing to make things right, wishing that she was not so proud.

She built a wall around her heart. She would never be hurt again, she vowed. If she did not feel so deeply, nothing could touch her.

Over a year passed before he finally contacted her again, a year in which she had spent traveling, meeting many of the older sisters that she did not know well. It was her first time away from home and her travels were pleasant, but the memory of him remained in her heart. She could not erase it, though she tried. He had been the most important figure in her life even through the ruins of their childhood. She wanted, needed, to understand his thoughts and his words and his actions, as she had long ago.

Even through the wall of her heart, she knew she still loved him.

So when the message came, she packed her bags and boarded the shuttle and stepped onto the soil of her Colony with a new resolve. It wasn't that the wounds were forgotten, but that she was willing to do anything to heal them. Anything.

She hurried to the family manor, keeping her face carefully expressionless though her heart was pounding with anticipation. One of her sisters answered the door, and she wondered at that. Usually a servant would answer. The house seemed awfully quiet.

The other sister's eyes were dark with concern, and the youngest sister felt something catch in her throat- perhaps it was her soul. "Is something wrong, Aisha?" she asked.

"Yes," Aisha whispered. "Something's very wrong. Come, I'll let him talk to you."

There was no need to ask who "him" was, as there was only one male of importance now that their father was dead. Only one male figure of importance, to her.

Aisha led her through rooms and corridors. During her year abroad she had forgotten how large the house actually was; when her father was ill he had kept to his chambers and she to hers. The rooms were well-kept but had a feel of disuse, as if the house had not been lived in for a long time. She was surprised to pass some of her other sisters on the way, and would have stopped to offer an embrace, a word, but it was not time for such things. Something serious had to have happened for so many of them to have returned at once.

And then they entered another room, and she knew instinctively that this was the moment. He was sitting on a couch, talking to the oldest sister, unaware of her arrival. Two of the other sisters sat quietly by. She would have spoken to them also, but her eyes were both on him and the brilliance he emanated. He had grown since she had last seen him and become even more beautiful, if such a thing was possible. He was an angel descended from heaven, and she again felt a surge of guilt for those words she had spoken.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, and then mentally slapped herself. She had vowed to make things better with him. She had vowed to heal all the previous rifts, but she did not know how.

The prince looked up at her, his blue eyes world weary and lackluster. He showed no surprise. "Hello, Reeshya," he said softly.

She wanted to weep at the sound of his voice, but she shook aside his welcome, though she had not missed the way his soft voice pronounced her name, as though it was a prayer. "You sent for me," she said, hiding her worry that he was ill. "Something is wrong. What is it?"

"You've heard the news about the Gundam pilots?" he asked.

She looked at him in confusion. "Of course I have. It's all over the news. What does it have to do with anything?" The kokoro no uchuu tugged at her, but she pushed the feeling away.

He stepped forward, catching her hands in his. She tried to jerk them away, but his cool hands gripped her tightly, and she was forced to look into her brother's eyes. He was so strong, in so many ways.

Cold hands, warm heart, a sneaky part of her mind whispered.

"Reeshya, I need you to listen to me," he said.

Something about the intensity of his voice knocked at the walls of her wounded heart, and she nodded slowly. "All right…I'll listen."

"Reeshya, I'm sorry."

"I-" she began, but he cut her off with a nod. The sisters about them seemed to have faded, and she felt they were alone in the vast universe, just the two of them. The walls in her heart wavered, but she pushed them firmly back into place. Not yet.

"You were angry about Lilah, yet I pushed you from me. I ran away without telling you. I should have. I was a coward, and you were right to be angry. Forgive me."

She didn't speak, just looked into his eyes. He sighed.

"About the war. Father wasn't angry at me just because I ran away- he was angry because I chose to be a Gundam pilot."

She blinked, then blinked again. Her gaze wavered. It all made sense now. All the arguments, all the slammed doors and icy glares. All the philosophizing about pacifism and war. Her angel brother…a Gundam pilot? What could she say to this? All her arguments were void in the face of this revelation.

The walls began to crumble.

He released her, stepping backwards until he could sink into the couch cushions. "If you want me to say I'm sorry for this, I won't. I did what I thought was right. I hope you will understand. I…"

She felt the blood drain from her face, but her mind was calm. She stared at him, blinking back the tears, trying to decide what she could say.

What happened surprised her. She looked at him, and saw him with eyes that had grown older, and wiser. What she saw wasn't the golden boy prince of her memories, but rather a young man who bore too many of the world's worries on his shoulders. His eyes were dark and fathomless, and she realized that he had grown up, and she had not.

She felt the last walls in her heart shatter.

Quatre wasn't a prince. He was a man, just like any other.

The last of Reeshya's fantasy world shattered as she stepped forth and wrapped her arms around him. "It's ok, Quatre. We'll make it through- we always have before, haven't we?"

He stiffened, startled, then his own arms were around her, and he buried his face against the top of her head -when had he gotten so tall?- shedding hot tears that trickled into the luxurious chocolate waves.

"Neechan," he whispered. "Thank you, neechan." He clung to her as if he never wanted to let go.

Reeshya looked over his shoulder, and saw Jaffa nodding her approval.

"Things will be rough, but we'll survive," Reeshya whispered. "We always do- that's what it means to be a Winner." She felt her own tears trickle down her chest and soak into his shirt, but it didn't matter.

"I love you, Quatre."

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