It's all done!! Sorry this took so long--I meant to have it out last week, right after the last chapter, but real life got in the way. Just a short little epilogue to wrap things up, and an appendix to explain all the minutia on the off-chance anyone is actually interested.

Thanks for sticking with this so long--it's been fun!

Ashura

*****

NIOBE'S VIOLETS

by Ashura Nagisa

DEDICATION: For Dan, for his 1x2 School fic contest.

DISCLAIMERS: The usual. I don't own any of the characters, names or places from GW, I've just warped them.

WARNINGS: Yaoi (3x4, 1x2), Yuri (HxC, RxD)

ARCHIVE: Desolation Angels (http://www.dreamwater.net/ashura)

AUTHOR'S NOTES: AU, Humour, Drama. More notes at the bottom...just like yoghurt.

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Epilogue: Our Revels Now Are Ended

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"Is this really going to work?" Quatre asked nervously. He was perched birdlike on the edge of the infirmary cot, bony arms folded tight across his chest, nibbling absently on his chapped lower lip. Trowa's body lay on the cot itself, still trapped in Mariemaya's shape, empty of spirit or consciousness but still breathing--that was comforting in itself, for it meant the body still functioned despite the absence of its owner, and there was at least something for Trowa to return to.

If he chose to return. That was what Quatre was there for. Treize and Zechs had set up the room and the twins' bodies in the way they claimed best allowed for the flow of consciousness and energy. All that remained, if Trowa was inclined to split from Catherine again, was to guide him back into his own body.

Zechs, at the foot of one bed, began a low chant. Quatre's fingers wrapped tight around his lover's tiny pale hand, gripping instinctively til the girlish fingers were in danger of darkening with loss of circulation.

"Please, Trowa," he whispered. "Please come back to me."

****

Whole. Eternal, brilliant, /complete/--he had not felt this way in almost longer than he could remember. Flashes of memory caressed his battered mind and then were gone--some were his own, some were not; he was no longer a single entity limited to the confines of his own consciousness.

Nirvana, then?

//This feels right.// The words themselves were an experiment, an exercise in the delicate touch of the mind, of his to another's, a test of the link that had once trickled between them and now encompassed them.

Yes, she agreed--not a word but a swell of affirmation, of understanding without the need for language. They could remain forever thus, joined, eternal--

//Please come back to me.// The voice belonged to neither of them, it sliced through the ether as clean as a sword, quivering with passion that bordered on despair. It left a hole in its wake; an empty void of feeling imbued with desperation that sent ripples along his ethereal skin.

//I....//

She swirled, covering the empty place, patching the hole--//Did you forget?// she asked, disapproval in her thoughts.

//I....// He could not remember.

He felt her push against him, gentle and insistent. //You should go.// Hesitant at first, he wavered, unsure, and when she nudged again he flowed away from her. //Go on, love. Wake up.//

He blinked, blinded by the sudden flood of light into his unused eyes. His felt his body stretch, elongate, shedding the uncomfortable lines of someone else's shape and melting back into the form he knew was his own.

And on the edge of the bed, Quatre watched the transformation with wide, hopeful eyes. "Trowa!" he cried--the name was almost a sob, and the Siren threw his arms desperately around his lover and held him tight. Trowa's arms lifted slowly, rubbing weakly at his shoulders.

They were still in the same position when the Lady Une eased open the door to call them to the garden. "Come," she beckoned. The school was gathering there to lay their ancient battle--and Sylvia Noventa--to final rest.

****

One Year Later....

"Did you see did you see did you see?" All the air was knocked from Duo's lungs as he found himself tossed backward into the wall, a beaming Hilde laughing giddily and dangling from around his neck. "It's finally official! The school's officially under the control of Mr. Treize and Winner Enterprises! There's no /way/ anybody can take it away from us now!"

Duo would have laughed with her, had he been able to breathe. "All right, all right, get off," Heero grumbled good-naturedly, delicately extracting his boyfriend from his section-mate's evil clutches. "Catherine, come control your pet!"

Hilde stuck her tongue out at him and dropped to her feet. "Just for that I shouldn't invite you, even though that's why I was looking for you!" she threatened. "But I will anyway. We're going out to get some ice cream and celebrate--want to come?"

Heero turned a little pink around the edges, and Duo shook his head, grinning broadly. "Actually we were just about to go for a walk," he explained, pretending not to notice Hilde's knowing smile. "You go on without us."

The dark-haired imp just shrugged. "Suit yourself." She reached for Catherine's hand as the taller girl approached and dragged her off toward the door. "They're not coming...they're going for a /walk/," she said meaningfully, and both girls' giggles echoed in the hallway long after they had vanished.

Heero slid his hand into Duo's, tugging gently. "Shall we?" The long-haired boy nodded, squeezing the strong, slender fingers laced through his own, sneaking a glance at his love from the corner of one eye. Heero had changed in the past year--he smiled more now, contentment shining in his deep blue eyes. He had grown, too; he was taller than Duo now, though still delicate of build, and feminine boyishness had begun the faintest trace of change to more mature lines.

Of course, they all had changed, and not just grown. They weren't hiding anymore, they weren't living in constant fear of discovery and exploitation--they were free, and the staff of St. Gabriel's as well as the students thrived on it.

They walked in silence until they reached the garden. A year before, they had buried Sylvia beneath the old willow tree, and all through the fall and winter the ground had refused to settle or yield up anything more than rocks and frozen soil. Then spring had come--the sun melted away the snow, the air sang with life and the eternity of nature's revolution. And as the last vestiges of fading winter dissipated into the warm April air, the garden had begun to blossom.

It was white now--carpeted with lilies, unplanted and unplanned, flooding the garden and blanketing the ground with soft pale petals. The sight left Duo breathless every time he crested the hill above the pond and gazed down on it, and this time he couldn't resist--he let out a joyful yell and launched himself down the hill, still clutching Heero's hand. For a moment, they flew--then Heero laughed and let them tumble, finally rolling to a stop in a giggling heap amid the flowers.

"So what was it you wanted to show me?" the seraph asked, propping his chin on his hand, peering down at his lover in anticipation.

Duo laughed. "More than one thing," he purred suggestively, most of the seductive effect lost by his wriggling as he fumbled for a folded piece of paper in his pocket. "Take a look. I'm now officially and legally Iria's responsibility." He passed the note to Heero and let his head fall back into the grass, a long, satisfied sigh leaving his lips. "It's probably pathetic, I know, but it's a nice feeling...having somebody want me."

"/I/ want you," Heero protested, punctuating his claim by trailing a finger lightly down the length of Duo's side.

"That's different," Duo responded, twitching away from the touch--"I love you, but that tickles, knock it off."

"But I'm serious." Heero said. He obligingly lifted his hand, rolling above Duo and propping himself up on his hands. "Oh, I'm happy for you, I don't mean I'm not. But I'd take care of you, you know, even if Iria didn't."

"I know you would." Duo reached for his lover and pulled him down, wrapping his arms tight around the seraph's neck, melding lips in wordless confirmation of the bond they'd undergone so much for. "You don't have anything left to prove, Heero. I'm alive, you're mortal--we're going to be together forever." A tentative giggle against the other's cheek as he added, "We've earned it."

"Then let's celebrate it," Heero agreed, laughing til he smothered it in another kiss, and then there was no more need for conversation--the two boys shared promises too deep for mere words, reaching for each other, half-buried in the soft white petals of blooming lilies.

//Feel it.//

//Become it.//

//We are one--and we are eternal.//

****

~Owari~

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The Bits Left Over

(Appendix to Niobe's Violets)

The World

The Characters (incl. past lives)

Symbolism & Shakespeare References

Thanks and Credits

Final Note

The World

The world of Niobe's Violets is not a happy place. It has a post-apocalyptic feel despite the fact there's been no apocalypse--merely the decay of over-industrialisation and technology developed and abused without restraint. The creation of the Newtypes set humanity on edge, and made them bitter and distrustful of anyone who might have 'powers' like those the students exhibit. The original Newtypes were enhanced test-tube children, raised in a completely controlled environment and studied in a variety of experiements that far surpassed 'abuse.' The St. Gabriel school was originally meant as a sanctuary, but Romafeller soon came to claim the price of their silence.

As for the "old world" of the characters' past lives...the year is really irrelevent. It's a fantasy-type world, where cultures mingle far more than they did in our own, and time is not necessarily consistent. I think Cassandra and her children lived somewhere on the northern coast of the Mediterranean. The Sanq kingdom would have been further north, though not so far it couldn't be reached, and Arbaa's lands would have been just south of the same Sea.

Characters (and the Past Revealed)

Heero Yuy

Heero was listed as an "L-1" talent: physical mutations only. Hilde explained that he had "exceptional strength," because she, like the rest of the school, was unaware of his real ability--wings. He kept them hidden from everyone but Treize and Sally, who had first 'discovered' him, though much later he confided in Sylvia.

Heero is the only one of the "good" characters who has not been reincarnated. He was an angel. His responsibilities, at various times, included helping dying souls pass over to the afterlife, playing guardian to wayward children, and preserving the beauty of Creation. The young Bin a-k'San originally caught his attention during the second, and captured his heart in the third. Heero had watched Bin grow since childhood, and realised finally that he loved him. His "fall from grace" wasn't really--it was just a fall. Angels have free will as well as mortals--Heero has the choice, he can give up his immortality and power to live with Bin as a human, and he does. Bin finds him lying in the field and helps him home, where his mother Cassandra recognises him for what he is and takes him in. Heero courts Bin til the boy falls in love with him.

Enter one Evil Demon Dekim, who's had it out for Cassandra for ages. It was originally neither Bin nor Heero he was after, except as they were connected to Cassandra--he wanted to destroy her and everything related to her. When Bin suffocated from smoke inhalation and died in Heero's arms on the floor of their home, Heero did the only thing that remained him: he prayed. He asked for a second chance, to be allowed to wait for Bin to be born again and return to him so they could enjoy the life he'd fallen for. His prayer was granted, and Heero wandered the world as an immortal for a very, very long time. It was Une who first spotted him, and informed Treize. Heero had forgotten almost everything; he had forged an identity that even he believed. Just before Treize found him, he tried to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge--but being immortal, he didn't die. Treize took him back to Sally, who healed him and discovered his wings. They progressed slowly with Heero from there, and he didn't come fully back to himself until after meeting Duo.

Relena Darlien

Relena's connection to the others is more distant. In her current incarnation, she's no relation to any of them, but rather the younger daughter of a prominent politician who sends her to Romafeller in order to hide her away--he doesn't want the publicity of a child with webbed feet and gills. As an L-1, her power is limited to the physical. (The demonstration with Wufei in the talent show, by the way, was purely orchestrated; she was /not/ actually calling water from the air.)

Her previous name, though given only briefly in the story, is Cyane. (The name is taken from a naiad, a Greek water-spirit.) She was half-naiad herself, the illegitimate daughter of a king and his supernatural lover. Were it not for her loyalty to her elder brother and his family, Cyane would probably never have been involved at all.

Hilde Schbeiker

Hilde first stepped into this story and took off with it--she's the driving force behind the first several chapters, and behind Duo's quick assimilation into the school. She demands attention--she's well-known through the school for her pranks, she talks incessantly, even her demonstrations of her Talent are geared toward performance. Hilde's father and stepmother, who are mentioned but never seen, are plain middle-class folk, unlike many of the students, who are connected in some way to Romafeller. As a child her Talent was impossible to ignore, and it frightened her parents, who searched actively--if discreetly--for a "safe place" to put her out of the way until she was grown. Her father still feels that it must somehow be his fault that his daughter is a mutant, so he feels the obligation to care for all her more mundane needs--he pays for her to attent St Gabriel's, he makes sure she has enough clothes and books and ways to keep herself entertained--he just has a hard time thinking of her as real, or as reconciling her with the little girl he once loved, so he tries to put her out of his mind. Though she pretends not to, Hilde feels his emotional abandonment, and seeks constant reassurance from the people she now considers family that they think of her and love her.

Hilde is very, very old. Her former incarnation was Kara a-k'San, Cassandra's only daughter and youngest child, but even before that she had been alive as the spirit of a northern warrior-queen named Bryn. (Both these names are taken from Norse Valkyries.) When Une calls up Hilde's past life memories, it's Kara who haunts her dreams with images of Bin and Trey-ti, but in battle in the courtyard it is the older, dormant Bryn who guides her body through the fight. Strangely enough, it's also Bryn who Sylvia saw in her painting--the warrior-queen's death on the battlefield. Kara herself was killed outright by one of Dekim's minions; he snapped her neck and left her for Bin to find.

Duo Maxwell

Like his counterpart in the original series, Duo grew up on the streets and took his last name from the orphanage that raised him. No mobile suits destroyed it this time; Maxwell Church Children's Home fell instead to the mundane guillotine of poor funding and lack of public interest. Duo moved between street corners and homeless shelters, always putting off the thought of "what would his life become" because it was too hopeless a prospect to consider. He had no way of getting off the streets and not much chance of a long life if he remained on them. He was a thief and a beggar, and if left there much longer would probably have become a prostitute and drug addict as well. Fortunately, his power erupted in the right time and place for Iria Winner to find him and sponsor him at St. Gabriel's.

Duo in this story does lack some of the attitude and manic banter that the series gives him--that seems to be Hilde's domain instead. The reason for this is the school itself--in the space of a few days, he discovers he has what is essentially a "magic power," and is thrust into a brand new environment where not only does everyone else have similar talents and accepts them without question (think how odd Cathy's constant "passing dishes" at mealtimes must be for him!), but all his simple, physical needs are provided for. He has as much to eat as he wants, a hot shower every morning (if he wakes up early enough!), and a standing order to get "whatever he needs to be comfortable" on Iria's tab. I think he does marvelously, he probably should have been in shock.

His power doesn't have a specific name--it's merely the manifestation of energy, and until he learns to control it is prompted by his emotions and subconscious mind. Even by the end, though he's learned some control, he can't harness it completely--he blows apart an entire section of the roof fighting Dekim, enough that if it weren't for Heero's conveniently-revealed wings he'd go "splat" on the ground below!

Previously, he was Bin a-k'San. (Bin comes from the Latin for "two," a-k'San is a truncated version of what is essentially "child of Cassandra.") He was Cassandra's younger son and middle child, a beautiful creature who caught the attention of an angel. It was hard not to love Heero from the minute he fell, and even at the end Bin never did quite understand why his family was being targeted. He only knew that everything was falling apart, and he sought refuge in Heero, who in the end couldn't protect him.

Duo is reborn with the internal knowledge of his past self already implanted deep in his mind. His power is latent and unformed because he never had a use for it before--he had been too young, when he died, to have been completely taught how to use it. The fierce determination to protect himself, and Heero, is what brings it surging to the surface. Duo is a tougher soul than Bin ever was--this time, there will be no surrendering to death in his lover's arms.

Trowa Barton Bloom

Trowa and his twin sister Catherine were born to a pair of acrobats. They grew up in the circus, beginning as child clowns who passed out candy to passersby and finally growing into the knife-throwing acrobatics they became known for. The circus folk discovered their talents early on, and took care to protect the children from discovery and persecution. A circus, in the dark world of the story, was a place for idealists and vagabonds, and they looked after their own.

Neither of the twins ever learned who betrayed them, but Romafeller was determined enough to get their hands on the pair that they had no qualms about setting fire to the entire camp one night, killing the Bloom parents and fully half the performers in the process of kidnapping Trowa and Catherine. Dekim was ultimately behind it, he recognised Trey-ti's particular shattered spirit early on. The ten-year-old twins were delivered to Treize as wards of the school.

Trowa met Quatre at fourteen, when the latter entered St. Gabriel's, and in their words, "something clicked." Best friends at first sight, their relationship developed over the next two years into a deeper, unconquerable love.

Trowa's talents are, fittingly, three. Primarily, of course, is his shapeshifting: he's a doppelganger, he can take the form and voice of any other person he's seen. This alone makes him powerful enough, but he can also summon an energy shield centred around his body, and is telepathic with his twin.

In his old life, Trowa was Trey-ti a-k'San (Trey-ti: from the Russian for "third), Cassandra's oldest child. He was the most studious of them as well, and the only one who had a real grasp of his own power. His interest tended toward books and horses--until the day when a foreigner, a travelling Arab shiekh named Arbaa, stopped to ask him for directions.

Trey-ti and Arbaa fell instantly in love, and their affair had an intensity that bordered on obsession. Their longing for each other when they were apart was constant, and when Arbaa was unable to come and visit, he sent exotic gifts instead, which Trey-ti returned with reams of heartfelt love poems.

By the time Dekim captured Trey-ti, he was growing more artistic. Snapping his neck, as he'd done to Kara, was no longer enough--he wanted to destroy Cassandra and all her children, soul as well as body. Discovering that Arbaa had abandoned his home to search for his lover, Dekim lured the Siren to him using Trey-ti as bait. When Arbaa lost control, his scream shattered Dekim, Trey-ti and the entire surrounding area. Trey-ti's soul broke in two, and he was reborn as the twins.

Catherine Bloom

Cathy's history is tied entirely to Trowa's. She really only departs from him as a character after the twins are taken to St. Gabriel's and she begins "losing" her brother to Quatre. After an extended period of adolescant pouting, she finally warmed up to the idea--besides, it takes a lot of effort to dislike Quatre.

Smart, kind-hearted (despite attempts to hide the fact) and acid-tongued, she found herself again in Hilde. It was like instant recognition for Cathy, though it took a lot of persistance and courting before she finally turned a partner-in-crime into a lover.

Her loyalties are split, but the twins long since came to terms with this division. They're a part of each other, and remain so, but they accept each other's devotion to Quatre and Hilde as healthy and necessary for both of them. Still, they're connected in a way no-one else is, and when Trowa's soul is chased out of his body, it's almost instinct for the two to merge.

Cathy's primary talent is a strong form of telekinesis--it's not just little things like notes and pencils she can move. She has the capability to lift a person (like sending Quatre to Tsuberov) or a number of smaller things at once, the way she's always sending the dishes flying about at mealtimes. She's also telepathic with Trowa.

Quatre Raberba Winner

Quatre was sent to St. Gabriel's at fourteen because his sister Iria felt she could no longer protect him. Iria was a college friend of Noin and Sally; she had followed their work and often funded it. By the time Quatre was sent to them, she felt she could trust he would be safe from Romafeller's influences.

At first Quatre himself was extremely unhappy with the arrangment. Until that time he'd been homeschooled and essentially allowed to hole up at home without any real responsibility; now he was being pushed out of his comfort zone and into an entirely new world. Fortunately, this new world had Trowa--it didn't take more than an afternoon for the Siren's attitude toward St. Gabriel's to change completely.

His power is to "sense emotions and manipulate them through soundwaves," which would make him incredibly useful to Romafeller as well. Fortunately for the home team, even they don't realise how incredibly potent Quatre's talent actually is--they underestimate him. Their mistake.

His previous incarnation, Arbaa, was hailed as a miracle from birth. His father was the shiekh of an Arab Bedouin tribe, and when his wife gave birth to a child who, by virtue of blonde pale colouring, could not possibly have been his own, he took the easiest way out--rather than accusing his wife of having an affair, he said that she must have been visited by the gods, and the child was a manifestation of her will. And perhaps he was--certainly anyone who might have seen fit to dispute the legitimacy of this claim was soon swayed by the almost-tangible power in the child Arbaa's voice. In time before he would be needed to succeed his father, he left on a journey to "see the world." What he found was Trey-ti--the rest has already been explained.

Wufei Chang

Wufei was one of the St. Gabriel Institute's original two students (the other, not surprisingly, was Sylvia Noventa). Romafeller's methods of acquisition were less violent with Wufei than with the Bloom twins--they essentially bought him from his family, who could not afford to keep him, let alone protect him. If Wufei felt betrayed by his family, time healed him of it, and he simply found a new clan in the staff and students of his school. His primary loyalty, though subtle, was always to Sylvia, who he had known since childhood--while he shared a bond with her, that of two children locked away from the world, he also felt responsible for protecting her.

His previous life ran paralell to his current one. He was Long Diwu ("Fifth Dragon"), a half-dragon half-human abandoned by his family as an aberration and adopted as a ward of Decitre Khushrenada. He was desperately in love with his foster-sister Cassandra, but never courted her--he believed himself unworthy of her, even though he was the only man to consistently protect and care for her and her children. This was the weakness the demon Dekim finally exploited against him; Diwu cracked under the demon's mental manipulations and caused the firestorm that took Bin's life. Realising what he'd done, he called it down on himself and burnt to death.

All Wufei remembered of his past lifeat first was that he had failed--he was reborn with the knowledge, and it haunted him throughout his life. It was Sylvia who told him his name, and when Une awoke the remainder of his memories, he vowed never to let his family fall again.

Dorothy Catalonia

Dorothy's talent was listed as L-Zero: unclassifiable. This is because it took on so many forms. Hers was, in a sense, the manipulation of electrical energy. Experimentation found many uses: she could interface directly with a computer (think "Johnny Mneumonic" or a Shadowrun Decker, only without having to be jacked in), cause shorts and blown fuses and power surges, run her laptop without need for a battery, and by the end, shoot lightning from her fingers. As if that weren't enough, she had an eidetic memory that could not only remember the most minute details of everything she saw or heard, but compute complicated equations in her head faster than even the most advanced calculators. Not surprisingly, Romafeller and her grandfather, Duke Dermail, had been grooming her for their ranks since childhood.

They might have succeeded if they had kept her away from St. Gabriel's. In her past life, Dorothy (called Allison at the time) was sent by her family as a spy to infiltrate the royal family of a small kingdom called Sanq. The trouble with sending teenagers for this sort of work, of course, is that their emotions tend to interfere: Allison fell in love with first the handsome and charming Prince Milliardo, and later his younger sister Cyane--and so devoted she remained that she never returned to her family. Relena has the same effect on Dorothy in this life that Cyane did on Allison long ago, and Duke Dermail lost his chief potential operative. The test of loyalty was absolute--when Dermail threatened Relena's life, Dorothy fried him with a lightning bolt.

Sylvia Noventa

Sylvia infiltrated this story more than even I expected her to--she was only a face in the shadows at first, another characteristic of the oddity of the school Duo found himself in. And as the story unfolded, she revealed that she was really the centre and pivot of it, and that all the events (explained or not) could be traced back to her. Influences? She was Cassandra of Troy and Shakespeare's Ophelia, given to symbolism in flowers and snippets of unidentifiable prophecy.

Cassandra (probably not actually Cassandra of Troy, unless one wants to play with the family tree, but possible) was the daughter of Decitre and Niobe; she was a Prophetess and a seer and in more mundane matters a farmer. The father of her three children remains her own secret--whoever he was she never married him, nor did he have any influence in the lives of Trey-ti, Bin or Kara. If they had any father figure at all it was Long Diwu, and he was too remote and formal to really fulfill the role properly. Cassandra made up for it--she was mother and father both, and strong enough for all of them.

Whatever Dekim's reasons for hating her, he was exactingly thorough in his revenge. He murdered her children, forced her parents into hiding, and tormented her extended family. After Bin's death--the last of her children to be killed--she tried to flee with Heero, but in the end she found she couldn't remain hidden. She slipped away from Heero and challenged Dekim to a duel in which he finally killed her.

For Sylvia, being reborn was like waking up from a long sleep. She never had any clear idea of who she was in either life--she had full knowledge of her previous self but no sense for when anything had actually happened, and when combined with the visions of her children and her prophecies, it's no wonder her family thought she was incurably insane. Her father was a government official, and pulled strings to get her sent to St. Gabriel's isntead of a mental institution. She recognised Treize and Une as her parents immediately, but they didn't remember her--the same was true of Wufei, and she waffled between trying to build new relationships with people she already cared for, and shutting them out altogether. She was eternally haunted by visions that she couldn't quite explain. Her memories as well as her current knowledge were sporadic things, as if she travelled uncontrolled between worlds and times.

Sally Po

Sally was a doctor, a former college roommate of Lucrezia Noin, who recruited her for the Romafeller Institute because of her interest and research into Newtypes--Noin eventually found out her interest was brought on by her own Healing Talent, so she fit in perfectly.

Previously she was one of three sisters--Helena, the middle sister, the healer. (Name: Helena was a physician's daughter who had learned her father's trade in Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well.) She was also the only one Dekim left alone, in either incarnation--her power made him nervous, although as she never actively fights him, it remains unclear what might happen if she did.

Zechs Merquise

I don't really know why Zechs decided to be a shaman; he just did. Maybe I just liked the image of him shirtless with tribal tattoos. His ability is to "talk" to the natural world; he's a part of it much as Treize is part of the mystical and arcane. This probably partially forms his easygoing attitude, and of all the school's staff he's the easiest one for the students to confide in.

He doesn't remember anything of his past life until the end when he connects with Relena. He was Prince Milliardo Peacecraft of the Sanq kingdom, heir to the throne and husband of a holy-warrior named Lucia. It was through his wife that he became the target of the demon--Lucia fought and lost, and Milliardo died attempting to avenge her.

Lucrezia Noin

Noin and Treize were the original founders of the St. Gabriel Institute, and the ones responsible for turning it into a haven out of Romafeller's control. Interest in the arcane brought them both into Oz, though they broke away from it later. Noin is a clairvoyant and clairaudiant; she sees and hears things happening far away and, on rarer occasions, at other points in time. This is how she finds most of the students, as well, by being perpetually in tune with events that might only seem out of the ordinary to most, yet to the trained would signal a Talent at work. Treize' nickname for her is "Lucia-bella;" he only meant it as a derivative of the longer "Lucrezia" and the idea that she was an "alarm bell" for the school, but it just shows the strength of Treize' subconscious at work.

Noin was the holy warrior Lucia, youngest sister of three (Niobe, Helena, Lucia--Une, Sally, Noin) and consort to the prince of the Sanq kingdom. She was the self-styled protector of the royal family, a knight in shining armour whose name was cheered in the streets. She fell at last in a duel with the demon Dekim.

She knows she's drawn to Zechs, but not until the very end (when she's scanning for Treize, and everything falls into place for her at last) does she realise why. At the same time she becomes aware of who Relena is, and sends the former princess to aid and lend power to her brother.

Lady Une

Treize essentially started the school for Une's sake. She worked with him in the Oz Special Committee until she was assigned to a task force sent to help GeneTech with their experiments. The atrocities being committed to the Newtype children depressed her almost to the point of suicide--when one of them died in the process of "research" and its tormented spirit remained behind to talk to her, she suffered a nervous breakdown that left her with multiple personalities. Une is a medium; her ability enables her to speak to the dead..

Previously her name was Niobe, and she was Cassandra's mother. She and Decitre were forced into hiding by Dekim, and she never forgave herself for outliving her daughter and gradchildren. She never explains quite when she becomes aware of everything; only that by the time Treize and the others need her, she's there and ready to surprise them all. (Niobe: a Greek myth about a woman who cried for her lost children, she was turned into a slab of stone but tears continued to fall from it.)

Treize Khushrenada

The shining star of Romafeller and the Oz Special Committee, Treize was assigned the task of running a school for "talented" children--Romafeller wanted to develop these talents for use, rather than experiment on them the way they did with the Newtypes. Perhaps they felt more discomfort at taking apart real born human children than artificially created ones; at any rate the students were to be protected--that is, until they decided Treize was a threat, that he was acting too independantly and encouraging the students to do the same. This prompted the decision to close down the school and bring the students into Romafeller's fold.

Treize himself is a warlock. He is ingrained with the energy that would be cons idered "magic" in a more primitive time--he has access to a wealth of it, and total control over its manipulation. He seldom uses it in his role as a teacher; only when his daughter and his students are directly threatened does Treize haul out the big guns.

His chief weakness is Mariemaya. He may have loved her mother once, or it may have been an infatuation that was never given time to grow old--either way, Leia was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound shortly before the start of the St Gabriel project. Treize still harbours the suspicion that the death was not really self-inflicted, and that Romafeller engineered it to gain custudy of Mariemaya and control over him.

In his past life he was called Decitre (fiddling with the Latin for 'thirteen'); he was Niobe's husband and Cassandra's father. (With those two for parents, it's no wonder really that she turned out the way she did.)

Duke Dermail

In charge of the Oz Special Committee and the chief public face of the Romafeller Foundation. Also Dorothy's grandfather and legal guardian.

Tsuberov

A necromancer who worked under the guise of science to create an army of flesh golems, soulless warriors that would fight in his place. By the time of his death he was quite mad, and convinced if the golems killed enough people he would become immortal himself.

Dekim Barton

The form taken by the demon Dekim in the current timeline.

Symbolism

Just a couple things that are important--there might be more that I haven't found yet, my stories have a way of growing like that on their own.

Flowers:

Violets=Faithfulness

Rosemary=Remembrance

Rue=Regret

Lilies=resurrection, peace

Shakespeare References

They were all over the place. All the chapter names are lines from Shakespeare, as is some of the stuff that comes out of Sylvia's mouth. I don't imagine anybody's all that interested in them specifically, if for some reason you do want to know where one comes from, just ask me.

The Credits!

Gotta say thank you to some people here, forgive me if it sounds like I'm rehearsing for my Oscar acceptance later in life or something. *grin* But these folks deserve it, and I want to gush at them for a few minutes.

Thanks go to Dan Huron, for holding the school fic contest in the first place--it's quite possible I would have gone ahead with writing this anyway, but by no means guaranteed. So this is a lot his fault! Also to Lion, for giving consistently detailed feedback and more importantly drawing Sylvia's paintings! D, baby_pen and Saishi did some gorgeous illustrations as well (even though Saishi didn't realise that's what he was doing at the time!). Thanks to Hilary on general principle, for writing the ever-inspiring TSG and being so damn good that I feel compelled to work harder and harder in attempt to match her. And finally of course to everybody who ever left feedback, especially K-MD, Jay, Rhina, Raven, and the others whose messages occasionally consisted of more than threats on my life if I didn't write faster. *grin* (Not that I don't appreciate those, too!)

And no, no thanks go to the Academy at all! But my Muses should get a little credit.

Author's Final Note

There's something really gushy and involving about writing something this bloody /long/. This fic is over 200 pages at final count, and some 45,000 words. It's the longest thing I've ever written singlehandedly, so it's a bit of a milestone and I feel like I've accomplished something. On the other hand, I'm really sad to see it end. As you can see from the size of this appendix by itself, I got really, really involved. Even now I'm sure I've forgotten something, and can only remind myself that it can't possibly be that important, and to let the baby out of the nest already and move on to something else. I'd like to plan sidefics for this or something, but--well, the truth is it's pretty well-contained, all the cards have been played and there's not really anything else to say. The good guys won, true love conquered, and they all lived happily ever after. I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I did.

"Our revels now are ended....

Yea, all that it inherit shall dissolve,

And like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

as dreams are made on, and our little life

is rounded with a sleep."

-The Tempest, IV. i

-Ashura

The Bits Left Over

(Appendix to Niobe's Violets)

The World

The Characters (incl. past lives)

Symbolism & Shakespeare References

Thanks and Credits

Final Note

The World

The world of Niobe's Violets is not a happy place. It has a post-apocalyptic feel despite the fact there's been no apocalypse--merely the decay of over-industrialisation and technology developed and abused without restraint. The creation of the Newtypes set humanity on edge, and made them bitter and distrustful of anyone who might have 'powers' like those the students exhibit. The original Newtypes were enhanced test-tube children, raised in a completely controlled environment and studied in a variety of experiements that far surpassed 'abuse.' The St. Gabriel school was originally meant as a sanctuary, but Romafeller soon came to claim the price of their silence.

As for the "old world" of the characters' past lives...the year is really irrelevent. It's a fantasy-type world, where cultures mingle far more than they did in our own, and time is not necessarily consistent. I think Cassandra and her children lived somewhere on the northern coast of the Mediterranean. The Sanq kingdom would have been further north, though not so far it couldn't be reached, and Arbaa's lands would have been just south of the same Sea.

Characters (and the Past Revealed)

Heero Yuy

Heero was listed as an "L-1" talent: physical mutations only. Hilde explained that he had "exceptional strength," because she, like the rest of the school, was unaware of his real ability--wings. He kept them hidden from everyone but Treize and Sally, who had first 'discovered' him, though much later he confided in Sylvia.

Heero is the only one of the "good" characters who has not been reincarnated. He was an angel. His responsibilities, at various times, included helping dying souls pass over to the afterlife, playing guardian to wayward children, and preserving the beauty of Creation. The young Bin a-k'San originally caught his attention during the second, and captured his heart in the third. Heero had watched Bin grow since childhood, and realised finally that he loved him. His "fall from grace" wasn't really--it was just a fall. Angels have free will as well as mortals--Heero has the choice, he can give up his immortality and power to live with Bin as a human, and he does. Bin finds him lying in the field and helps him home, where his mother Cassandra recognises him for what he is and takes him in. Heero courts Bin til the boy falls in love with him.

Enter one Evil Demon Dekim, who's had it out for Cassandra for ages. It was originally neither Bin nor Heero he was after, except as they were connected to Cassandra--he wanted to destroy her and everything related to her. When Bin suffocated from smoke inhalation and died in Heero's arms on the floor of their home, Heero did the only thing that remained him: he prayed. He asked for a second chance, to be allowed to wait for Bin to be born again and return to him so they could enjoy the life he'd fallen for. His prayer was granted, and Heero wandered the world as an immortal for a very, very long time. It was Une who first spotted him, and informed Treize. Heero had forgotten almost everything; he had forged an identity that even he believed. Just before Treize found him, he tried to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge--but being immortal, he didn't die. Treize took him back to Sally, who healed him and discovered his wings. They progressed slowly with Heero from there, and he didn't come fully back to himself until after meeting Duo.

Relena Darlien

Relena's connection to the others is more distant. In her current incarnation, she's no relation to any of them, but rather the younger daughter of a prominent politician who sends her to Romafeller in order to hide her away--he doesn't want the publicity of a child with webbed feet and gills. As an L-1, her power is limited to the physical. (The demonstration with Wufei in the talent show, by the way, was purely orchestrated; she was /not/ actually calling water from the air.)

Her previous name, though given only briefly in the story, is Cyane. (The name is taken from a naiad, a Greek water-spirit.) She was half-naiad herself, the illegitimate daughter of a king and his supernatural lover. Were it not for her loyalty to her elder brother and his family, Cyane would probably never have been involved at all.

Hilde Schbeiker

Hilde first stepped into this story and took off with it--she's the driving force behind the first several chapters, and behind Duo's quick assimilation into the school. She demands attention--she's well-known through the school for her pranks, she talks incessantly, even her demonstrations of her Talent are geared toward performance. Hilde's father and stepmother, who are mentioned but never seen, are plain middle-class folk, unlike many of the students, who are connected in some way to Romafeller. As a child her Talent was impossible to ignore, and it frightened her parents, who searched actively--if discreetly--for a "safe place" to put her out of the way until she was grown. Her father still feels that it must somehow be his fault that his daughter is a mutant, so he feels the obligation to care for all her more mundane needs--he pays for her to attent St Gabriel's, he makes sure she has enough clothes and books and ways to keep herself entertained--he just has a hard time thinking of her as real, or as reconciling her with the little girl he once loved, so he tries to put her out of his mind. Though she pretends not to, Hilde feels his emotional abandonment, and seeks constant reassurance from the people she now considers family that they think of her and love her.

Hilde is very, very old. Her former incarnation was Kara a-k'San, Cassandra's only daughter and youngest child, but even before that she had been alive as the spirit of a northern warrior-queen named Bryn. (Both these names are taken from Norse Valkyries.) When Une calls up Hilde's past life memories, it's Kara who haunts her dreams with images of Bin and Trey-ti, but in battle in the courtyard it is the older, dormant Bryn who guides her body through the fight. Strangely enough, it's also Bryn who Sylvia saw in her painting--the warrior-queen's death on the battlefield. Kara herself was killed outright by one of Dekim's minions; he snapped her neck and left her for Bin to find.

Duo Maxwell

Like his counterpart in the original series, Duo grew up on the streets and took his last name from the orphanage that raised him. No mobile suits destroyed it this time; Maxwell Church Children's Home fell instead to the mundane guillotine of poor funding and lack of public interest. Duo moved between street corners and homeless shelters, always putting off the thought of "what would his life become" because it was too hopeless a prospect to consider. He had no way of getting off the streets and not much chance of a long life if he remained on them. He was a thief and a beggar, and if left there much longer would probably have become a prostitute and drug addict as well. Fortunately, his power erupted in the right time and place for Iria Winner to find him and sponsor him at St. Gabriel's.

Duo in this story does lack some of the attitude and manic banter that the series gives him--that seems to be Hilde's domain instead. The reason for this is the school itself--in the space of a few days, he discovers he has what is essentially a "magic power," and is thrust into a brand new environment where not only does everyone else have similar talents and accepts them without question (think how odd Cathy's constant "passing dishes" at mealtimes must be for him!), but all his simple, physical needs are provided for. He has as much to eat as he wants, a hot shower every morning (if he wakes up early enough!), and a standing order to get "whatever he needs to be comfortable" on Iria's tab. I think he does marvelously, he probably should have been in shock.

His power doesn't have a specific name--it's merely the manifestation of energy, and until he learns to control it is prompted by his emotions and subconscious mind. Even by the end, though he's learned some control, he can't harness it completely--he blows apart an entire section of the roof fighting Dekim, enough that if it weren't for Heero's conveniently-revealed wings he'd go "splat" on the ground below!

Previously, he was Bin a-k'San. (Bin comes from the Latin for "two," a-k'San is a truncated version of what is essentially "child of Cassandra.") He was Cassandra's younger son and middle child, a beautiful creature who caught the attention of an angel. It was hard not to love Heero from the minute he fell, and even at the end Bin never did quite understand why his family was being targeted. He only knew that everything was falling apart, and he sought refuge in Heero, who in the end couldn't protect him.

Duo is reborn with the internal knowledge of his past self already implanted deep in his mind. His power is latent and unformed because he never had a use for it before--he had been too young, when he died, to have been completely taught how to use it. The fierce determination to protect himself, and Heero, is what brings it surging to the surface. Duo is a tougher soul than Bin ever was--this time, there will be no surrendering to death in his lover's arms.

Trowa Barton Bloom

Trowa and his twin sister Catherine were born to a pair of acrobats. They grew up in the circus, beginning as child clowns who passed out candy to passersby and finally growing into the knife-throwing acrobatics they became known for. The circus folk discovered their talents early on, and took care to protect the children from discovery and persecution. A circus, in the dark world of the story, was a place for idealists and vagabonds, and they looked after their own.

Neither of the twins ever learned who betrayed them, but Romafeller was determined enough to get their hands on the pair that they had no qualms about setting fire to the entire camp one night, killing the Bloom parents and fully half the performers in the process of kidnapping Trowa and Catherine. Dekim was ultimately behind it, he recognised Trey-ti's particular shattered spirit early on. The ten-year-old twins were delivered to Treize as wards of the school.

Trowa met Quatre at fourteen, when the latter entered St. Gabriel's, and in their words, "something clicked." Best friends at first sight, their relationship developed over the next two years into a deeper, unconquerable love.

Trowa's talents are, fittingly, three. Primarily, of course, is his shapeshifting: he's a doppelganger, he can take the form and voice of any other person he's seen. This alone makes him powerful enough, but he can also summon an energy shield centred around his body, and is telepathic with his twin.

In his old life, Trowa was Trey-ti a-k'San (Trey-ti: from the Russian for "third), Cassandra's oldest child. He was the most studious of them as well, and the only one who had a real grasp of his own power. His interest tended toward books and horses--until the day when a foreigner, a travelling Arab shiekh named Arbaa, stopped to ask him for directions.

Trey-ti and Arbaa fell instantly in love, and their affair had an intensity that bordered on obsession. Their longing for each other when they were apart was constant, and when Arbaa was unable to come and visit, he sent exotic gifts instead, which Trey-ti returned with reams of heartfelt love poems.

By the time Dekim captured Trey-ti, he was growing more artistic. Snapping his neck, as he'd done to Kara, was no longer enough--he wanted to destroy Cassandra and all her children, soul as well as body. Discovering that Arbaa had abandoned his home to search for his lover, Dekim lured the Siren to him using Trey-ti as bait. When Arbaa lost control, his scream shattered Dekim, Trey-ti and the entire surrounding area. Trey-ti's soul broke in two, and he was reborn as the twins.

Catherine Bloom

Cathy's history is tied entirely to Trowa's. She really only departs from him as a character after the twins are taken to St. Gabriel's and she begins "losing" her brother to Quatre. After an extended period of adolescant pouting, she finally warmed up to the idea--besides, it takes a lot of effort to dislike Quatre.

Smart, kind-hearted (despite attempts to hide the fact) and acid-tongued, she found herself again in Hilde. It was like instant recognition for Cathy, though it took a lot of persistance and courting before she finally turned a partner-in-crime into a lover.

Her loyalties are split, but the twins long since came to terms with this division. They're a part of each other, and remain so, but they accept each other's devotion to Quatre and Hilde as healthy and necessary for both of them. Still, they're connected in a way no-one else is, and when Trowa's soul is chased out of his body, it's almost instinct for the two to merge.

Cathy's primary talent is a strong form of telekinesis--it's not just little things like notes and pencils she can move. She has the capability to lift a person (like sending Quatre to Tsuberov) or a number of smaller things at once, the way she's always sending the dishes flying about at mealtimes. She's also telepathic with Trowa.

Quatre Raberba Winner

Quatre was sent to St. Gabriel's at fourteen because his sister Iria felt she could no longer protect him. Iria was a college friend of Noin and Sally; she had followed their work and often funded it. By the time Quatre was sent to them, she felt she could trust he would be safe from Romafeller's influences.

At first Quatre himself was extremely unhappy with the arrangment. Until that time he'd been homeschooled and essentially allowed to hole up at home without any real responsibility; now he was being pushed out of his comfort zone and into an entirely new world. Fortunately, this new world had Trowa--it didn't take more than an afternoon for the Siren's attitude toward St. Gabriel's to change completely.

His power is to "sense emotions and manipulate them through soundwaves," which would make him incredibly useful to Romafeller as well. Fortunately for the home team, even they don't realise how incredibly potent Quatre's talent actually is--they underestimate him. Their mistake.

His previous incarnation, Arbaa, was hailed as a miracle from birth. His father was the shiekh of an Arab Bedouin tribe, and when his wife gave birth to a child who, by virtue of blonde pale colouring, could not possibly have been his own, he took the easiest way out--rather than accusing his wife of having an affair, he said that she must have been visited by the gods, and the child was a manifestation of her will. And perhaps he was--certainly anyone who might have seen fit to dispute the legitimacy of this claim was soon swayed by the almost-tangible power in the child Arbaa's voice. In time before he would be needed to succeed his father, he left on a journey to "see the world." What he found was Trey-ti--the rest has already been explained.

Wufei Chang

Wufei was one of the St. Gabriel Institute's original two students (the other, not surprisingly, was Sylvia Noventa). Romafeller's methods of acquisition were less violent with Wufei than with the Bloom twins--they essentially bought him from his family, who could not afford to keep him, let alone protect him. If Wufei felt betrayed by his family, time healed him of it, and he simply found a new clan in the staff and students of his school. His primary loyalty, though subtle, was always to Sylvia, who he had known since childhood--while he shared a bond with her, that of two children locked away from the world, he also felt responsible for protecting her.

His previous life ran paralell to his current one. He was Long Diwu ("Fifth Dragon"), a half-dragon half-human abandoned by his family as an aberration and adopted as a ward of Decitre Khushrenada. He was desperately in love with his foster-sister Cassandra, but never courted her--he believed himself unworthy of her, even though he was the only man to consistently protect and care for her and her children. This was the weakness the demon Dekim finally exploited against him; Diwu cracked under the demon's mental manipulations and caused the firestorm that took Bin's life. Realising what he'd done, he called it down on himself and burnt to death.

All Wufei remembered of his past lifeat first was that he had failed--he was reborn with the knowledge, and it haunted him throughout his life. It was Sylvia who told him his name, and when Une awoke the remainder of his memories, he vowed never to let his family fall again.

Dorothy Catalonia

Dorothy's talent was listed as L-Zero: unclassifiable. This is because it took on so many forms. Hers was, in a sense, the manipulation of electrical energy. Experimentation found many uses: she could interface directly with a computer (think "Johnny Mneumonic" or a Shadowrun Decker, only without having to be jacked in), cause shorts and blown fuses and power surges, run her laptop without need for a battery, and by the end, shoot lightning from her fingers. As if that weren't enough, she had an eidetic memory that could not only remember the most minute details of everything she saw or heard, but compute complicated equations in her head faster than even the most advanced calculators. Not surprisingly, Romafeller and her grandfather, Duke Dermail, had been grooming her for their ranks since childhood.

They might have succeeded if they had kept her away from St. Gabriel's. In her past life, Dorothy (called Allison at the time) was sent by her family as a spy to infiltrate the royal family of a small kingdom called Sanq. The trouble with sending teenagers for this sort of work, of course, is that their emotions tend to interfere: Allison fell in love with first the handsome and charming Prince Milliardo, and later his younger sister Cyane--and so devoted she remained that she never returned to her family. Relena has the same effect on Dorothy in this life that Cyane did on Allison long ago, and Duke Dermail lost his chief potential operative. The test of loyalty was absolute--when Dermail threatened Relena's life, Dorothy fried him with a lightning bolt.

Sylvia Noventa

Sylvia infiltrated this story more than even I expected her to--she was only a face in the shadows at first, another characteristic of the oddity of the school Duo found himself in. And as the story unfolded, she revealed that she was really the centre and pivot of it, and that all the events (explained or not) could be traced back to her. Influences? She was Cassandra of Troy and Shakespeare's Ophelia, given to symbolism in flowers and snippets of unidentifiable prophecy.

Cassandra (probably not actually Cassandra of Troy, unless one wants to play with the family tree, but possible) was the daughter of Decitre and Niobe; she was a Prophetess and a seer and in more mundane matters a farmer. The father of her three children remains her own secret--whoever he was she never married him, nor did he have any influence in the lives of Trey-ti, Bin or Kara. If they had any father figure at all it was Long Diwu, and he was too remote and formal to really fulfill the role properly. Cassandra made up for it--she was mother and father both, and strong enough for all of them.

Whatever Dekim's reasons for hating her, he was exactingly thorough in his revenge. He murdered her children, forced her parents into hiding, and tormented her extended family. After Bin's death--the last of her children to be killed--she tried to flee with Heero, but in the end she found she couldn't remain hidden. She slipped away from Heero and challenged Dekim to a duel in which he finally killed her.

For Sylvia, being reborn was like waking up from a long sleep. She never had any clear idea of who she was in either life--she had full knowledge of her previous self but no sense for when anything had actually happened, and when combined with the visions of her children and her prophecies, it's no wonder her family thought she was incurably insane. Her father was a government official, and pulled strings to get her sent to St. Gabriel's isntead of a mental institution. She recognised Treize and Une as her parents immediately, but they didn't remember her--the same was true of Wufei, and she waffled between trying to build new relationships with people she already cared for, and shutting them out altogether. She was eternally haunted by visions that she couldn't quite explain. Her memories as well as her current knowledge were sporadic things, as if she travelled uncontrolled between worlds and times.

Sally Po

Sally was a doctor, a former college roommate of Lucrezia Noin, who recruited her for the Romafeller Institute because of her interest and research into Newtypes--Noin eventually found out her interest was brought on by her own Healing Talent, so she fit in perfectly.

Previously she was one of three sisters--Helena, the middle sister, the healer. (Name: Helena was a physician's daughter who had learned her father's trade in Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well.) She was also the only one Dekim left alone, in either incarnation--her power made him nervous, although as she never actively fights him, it remains unclear what might happen if she did.

Zechs Merquise

I don't really know why Zechs decided to be a shaman; he just did. Maybe I just liked the image of him shirtless with tribal tattoos. His ability is to "talk" to the natural world; he's a part of it much as Treize is part of the mystical and arcane. This probably partially forms his easygoing attitude, and of all the school's staff he's the easiest one for the students to confide in.

He doesn't remember anything of his past life until the end when he connects with Relena. He was Prince Milliardo Peacecraft of the Sanq kingdom, heir to the throne and husband of a holy-warrior named Lucia. It was through his wife that he became the target of the demon--Lucia fought and lost, and Milliardo died attempting to avenge her.

Lucrezia Noin

Noin and Treize were the original founders of the St. Gabriel Institute, and the ones responsible for turning it into a haven out of Romafeller's control. Interest in the arcane brought them both into Oz, though they broke away from it later. Noin is a clairvoyant and clairaudiant; she sees and hears things happening far away and, on rarer occasions, at other points in time. This is how she finds most of the students, as well, by being perpetually in tune with events that might only seem out of the ordinary to most, yet to the trained would signal a Talent at work. Treize' nickname for her is "Lucia-bella;" he only meant it as a derivative of the longer "Lucrezia" and the idea that she was an "alarm bell" for the school, but it just shows the strength of Treize' subconscious at work.

Noin was the holy warrior Lucia, youngest sister of three (Niobe, Helena, Lucia--Une, Sally, Noin) and consort to the prince of the Sanq kingdom. She was the self-styled protector of the royal family, a knight in shining armour whose name was cheered in the streets. She fell at last in a duel with the demon Dekim.

She knows she's drawn to Zechs, but not until the very end (when she's scanning for Treize, and everything falls into place for her at last) does she realise why. At the same time she becomes aware of who Relena is, and sends the former princess to aid and lend power to her brother.

Lady Une

Treize essentially started the school for Une's sake. She worked with him in the Oz Special Committee until she was assigned to a task force sent to help GeneTech with their experiments. The atrocities being committed to the Newtype children depressed her almost to the point of suicide--when one of them died in the process of "research" and its tormented spirit remained behind to talk to her, she suffered a nervous breakdown that left her with multiple personalities. Une is a medium; her ability enables her to speak to the dead..

Previously her name was Niobe, and she was Cassandra's mother. She and Decitre were forced into hiding by Dekim, and she never forgave herself for outliving her daughter and gradchildren. She never explains quite when she becomes aware of everything; only that by the time Treize and the others need her, she's there and ready to surprise them all. (Niobe: a Greek myth about a woman who cried for her lost children, she was turned into a slab of stone but tears continued to fall from it.)

Treize Khushrenada

The shining star of Romafeller and the Oz Special Committee, Treize was assigned the task of running a school for "talented" children--Romafeller wanted to develop these talents for use, rather than experiment on them the way they did with the Newtypes. Perhaps they felt more discomfort at taking apart real born human children than artificially created ones; at any rate the students were to be protected--that is, until they decided Treize was a threat, that he was acting too independantly and encouraging the students to do the same. This prompted the decision to close down the school and bring the students into Romafeller's fold.

Treize himself is a warlock. He is ingrained with the energy that would be cons idered "magic" in a more primitive time--he has access to a wealth of it, and total control over its manipulation. He seldom uses it in his role as a teacher; only when his daughter and his students are directly threatened does Treize haul out the big guns.

His chief weakness is Mariemaya. He may have loved her mother once, or it may have been an infatuation that was never given time to grow old--either way, Leia was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound shortly before the start of the St Gabriel project. Treize still harbours the suspicion that the death was not really self-inflicted, and that Romafeller engineered it to gain custudy of Mariemaya and control over him.

In his past life he was called Decitre (fiddling with the Latin for 'thirteen'); he was Niobe's husband and Cassandra's father. (With those two for parents, it's no wonder really that she turned out the way she did.)

Duke Dermail

In charge of the Oz Special Committee and the chief public face of the Romafeller Foundation. Also Dorothy's grandfather and legal guardian.

Tsuberov

A necromancer who worked under the guise of science to create an army of flesh golems, soulless warriors that would fight in his place. By the time of his death he was quite mad, and convinced if the golems killed enough people he would become immortal himself.

Dekim Barton

The form taken by the demon Dekim in the current timeline.

Symbolism

Just a couple things that are important--there might be more that I haven't found yet, my stories have a way of growing like that on their own.

Flowers:

Violets=Faithfulness

Rosemary=Remembrance

Rue=Regret

Lilies=resurrection, peace

Shakespeare References

They were all over the place. All the chapter names are lines from Shakespeare, as is some of the stuff that comes out of Sylvia's mouth. I don't imagine anybody's all that interested in them specifically, if for some reason you do want to know where one comes from, just ask me.

The Credits!

Gotta say thank you to some people here, forgive me if it sounds like I'm rehearsing for my Oscar acceptance later in life or something. *grin* But these folks deserve it, and I want to gush at them for a few minutes.

Thanks go to Dan Huron, for holding the school fic contest in the first place--it's quite possible I would have gone ahead with writing this anyway, but by no means guaranteed. So this is a lot his fault! Also to Lion, for giving consistently detailed feedback and more importantly drawing Sylvia's paintings! D, baby_pen and Saishi did some gorgeous illustrations as well (even though Saishi didn't realise that's what he was doing at the time!). Thanks to Hilary on general principle, for writing the ever-inspiring TSG and being so damn good that I feel compelled to work harder and harder in attempt to match her. And finally of course to everybody who ever left feedback, especially K-MD, Jay, Rhina, Raven, and the others whose messages occasionally consisted of more than threats on my life if I didn't write faster. *grin* (Not that I don't appreciate those, too!)

And no, no thanks go to the Academy at all! But my Muses should get a little credit.

Author's Final Note

There's something really gushy and involving about writing something this bloody /long/. This fic is over 200 pages at final count, and some 45,000 words. It's the longest thing I've ever written singlehandedly, so it's a bit of a milestone and I feel like I've accomplished something. On the other hand, I'm really sad to see it end. As you can see from the size of this appendix by itself, I got really, really involved. Even now I'm sure I've forgotten something, and can only remind myself that it can't possibly be that important, and to let the baby out of the nest already and move on to something else. I'd like to plan sidefics for this or something, but--well, the truth is it's pretty well-contained, all the cards have been played and there's not really anything else to say. The good guys won, true love conquered, and they all lived happily ever after. I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I did.

"Our revels now are ended....

Yea, all that it inherit shall dissolve,

And like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

as dreams are made on, and our little life

is rounded with a sleep."

-The Tempest, IV. i

-Ashura