Heh. Well, on the one hand, 'add a new character at the start' seems to be one of the elemental SEED fandom memes, but on the other, you've already managed to set up a more interesting and plausible 'new element' than any of the other attempts I've (tried to) read.
I'll admit to having a Seed fic of my own bubbling away on the back-burner, but I don't think I've seen anyone play the 'serious snowballing divergence AU' card in that fandom, yet, so it shouldn't have so much competition to wipe out the aftertaste of.
... hell, why not. I wonder if I can juggle three scene-trading threads...
"It... it hurts..." Her Highness Cagalli Yula Attha, Princess of Aube and heir presumptive to that nation's throne and, with it, the title of Chief Representative of the Oceeanic Resource Base Coalition, was not a crybaby. She was not. The fact that even trying to wring enough strength from her braced and bandaged legs to get them to support her weight forced tears to her eyes was intolerable. The whimpered words that had left her mouth when the therapist began to ease off her support of the girl's weight were even worse, though, and she felt her cheeks begin to heat.
"Nothing to be embarassed about, sweetie," the therapist - her name was Karika Maning - encouraged. "You're doing something your body doesn't remember it can do. It's hard, I know, and it will hurt, but..."
"I know," Cagalli nodded, then gritted her teeth and forced her way through the rest of the session without making a sound.
"That was very brave of you," Karika said after they had finished. She smiled, secretively. "I know - why don't we get you some ice cream on our way back to your room?"
Cagalli twisted her neck to look back and up at where the therapist was pushing her wheelchair from behind, and her face was somewhere between disgust and terror. "I'm not supposed to have ice cream."
"All right, if you don't want any..."
"I do!" the princess protested instinctively, then frowned and shrank back in on herself. "But I wasn't supposed to be on that wall, either, and now... now people are dying."
Karika pulled them gently to a halt and then stepped around to kneel at eye-level with her charge. "Your being hurt doesn't make it your fault; the only ones to blame are the people who are so eager to hate others."
Cagalli nodded and looked down at her hands, and, though she didn't say so, obviously didn't believe a word of it.
*****
[title and credits]
*****
"Hey, you're one of the new students, aren't you?"
Kira stated violently as the bright, cheerful voice intruded on his attempts to interpret the badly printed map on his brochure. Once he'd gotten his heart rate back under control again, he hitched his carry-on bag up higher on his shoulder and answered. "Oh, yeah. Sorry, I seem to be a little lost..."
The girl who had come up behind him stepped past and then spun back to face him. "Oh, they've got you in Gilbert Hall, then? Yeah, the maps are useless with the way they hid it. My boyfriend's in there, too - c'mon, I'll show you." She waved towards one of the paths leading out of the courtyard and started walking. "I'm Miriallia Haw, what's your name?"
She was so open, so... enthusiastic, that for a moment he was too stunned to respond. When he had shaken the surprise off, he answered, "Oh! Uh, Kira. Kira Yamato. Pleased to meet you."
She laughed. "Don't think too kindly of me - with you transferring from that super tech-school on Heliopolis, I've finally met someone who can explain bloody calculus to me!"
"Heli- how did you know that?"
"There aren't any other student transfers happening right now," she shrugged, then grabbed one of his hands and dragged him down a path that dissapeared behind one of the tall, narrow academic buildings that lined the campus's main plaza. The dorm that was almost completely hidden behind it seemed to be three-quarters buried in the sandy soil of the atoll, and if she hadn't been pulling him through one of the main entrances, he might well have missed the mostly-subterranean building completely.
"Hey, Blaze!" Miriallia called as she stuck her head in the door. "Do you know-"
The girl she was talking to was slender and fairly pretty, with a clear, almost caucasian skin tone and hair so utterly black that the reflected highlights that would ordinarily have been cast by the common room's flourescant lights were completely absent. She was perched on the edge of the cusions of the couch at the center of the room's conversation grouping and had her eyes glued to the news program on the television. She didn't look up when spoken to, just waved a hand and snapped, "Shush, Miri! This's important!"
The news program was showing a map of Taiwan. "-reports of exchanges of fire between Chinese Taipei militia forces and regular military units of the East Asian Republic. This marks the third time in as many weeks where disputes over the island's status as a territory of the Republic or a member state of ORB have cost lives, and many are expecting the renewed bloodshed to cause a breakdown in the diplomatic talks between the two territorial Unions. Given the two powers' close ties with the opposing sides of the ongoing debate over the Archanis Treaty and its proposals for the long term future of the PLANTS and ZAFT, many sources feel that the forecast is not hopeful."
Miriallia sighed as the newscaster started in on the debates raging over the treaty's ratification in the Atlantic Federation's Senate, then walked over and yanked its power cord cleanly out of the wall.
Blaze exploded to her feet so quickly that Kira almost missed it, which would have been a clear tip-off even without the vivid, inhuman gold shade of her eyes - Kira might not be very interested in sports, but he couldn't help being aware that his reflexes were exceptional even for a Coordinator. Whether it was just a matter of luck and good stock or if his parents had had more put into his prenatal modifications than their comments had suggested he didn't know, but even with most of his classmates on Heliopolis being Coordinators also, whether ORB born or visiting from the PLANTS, this was the first time he'd ever seen someone who might have moved faster than he could.
"Miri!" she shouted, and the cheerful blonde girl who had latched onto him so casually completely ignored her friend's irritation. "I was... they were... you heard what happened! Don't you even care?!"
"Of course I do! But there's nothing a college student like you or I can do to change it, so you moping about like that is just a waste of energy."
Guess. ^_^
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"
I'll admit to having a Seed fic of my own bubbling away on the back-burner, but I don't think I've seen anyone play the 'serious snowballing divergence AU' card in that fandom, yet, so it shouldn't have so much competition to wipe out the aftertaste of.
... hell, why not. I wonder if I can juggle three scene-trading threads...
"It... it hurts..." Her Highness Cagalli Yula Attha, Princess of Aube and heir presumptive to that nation's throne and, with it, the title of Chief Representative of the Oceeanic Resource Base Coalition, was not a crybaby. She was not. The fact that even trying to wring enough strength from her braced and bandaged legs to get them to support her weight forced tears to her eyes was intolerable. The whimpered words that had left her mouth when the therapist began to ease off her support of the girl's weight were even worse, though, and she felt her cheeks begin to heat.
"Nothing to be embarassed about, sweetie," the therapist - her name was Karika Maning - encouraged. "You're doing something your body doesn't remember it can do. It's hard, I know, and it will hurt, but..."
"I know," Cagalli nodded, then gritted her teeth and forced her way through the rest of the session without making a sound.
"That was very brave of you," Karika said after they had finished. She smiled, secretively. "I know - why don't we get you some ice cream on our way back to your room?"
Cagalli twisted her neck to look back and up at where the therapist was pushing her wheelchair from behind, and her face was somewhere between disgust and terror. "I'm not supposed to have ice cream."
"All right, if you don't want any..."
"I do!" the princess protested instinctively, then frowned and shrank back in on herself. "But I wasn't supposed to be on that wall, either, and now... now people are dying."
Karika pulled them gently to a halt and then stepped around to kneel at eye-level with her charge. "Your being hurt doesn't make it your fault; the only ones to blame are the people who are so eager to hate others."
Cagalli nodded and looked down at her hands, and, though she didn't say so, obviously didn't believe a word of it.
*****
[title and credits]
*****
"Hey, you're one of the new students, aren't you?"
Kira stated violently as the bright, cheerful voice intruded on his attempts to interpret the badly printed map on his brochure. Once he'd gotten his heart rate back under control again, he hitched his carry-on bag up higher on his shoulder and answered. "Oh, yeah. Sorry, I seem to be a little lost..."
The girl who had come up behind him stepped past and then spun back to face him. "Oh, they've got you in Gilbert Hall, then? Yeah, the maps are useless with the way they hid it. My boyfriend's in there, too - c'mon, I'll show you." She waved towards one of the paths leading out of the courtyard and started walking. "I'm Miriallia Haw, what's your name?"
She was so open, so... enthusiastic, that for a moment he was too stunned to respond. When he had shaken the surprise off, he answered, "Oh! Uh, Kira. Kira Yamato. Pleased to meet you."
She laughed. "Don't think too kindly of me - with you transferring from that super tech-school on Heliopolis, I've finally met someone who can explain bloody calculus to me!"
"Heli- how did you know that?"
"There aren't any other student transfers happening right now," she shrugged, then grabbed one of his hands and dragged him down a path that dissapeared behind one of the tall, narrow academic buildings that lined the campus's main plaza. The dorm that was almost completely hidden behind it seemed to be three-quarters buried in the sandy soil of the atoll, and if she hadn't been pulling him through one of the main entrances, he might well have missed the mostly-subterranean building completely.
"Hey, Blaze!" Miriallia called as she stuck her head in the door. "Do you know-"
The girl she was talking to was slender and fairly pretty, with a clear, almost caucasian skin tone and hair so utterly black that the reflected highlights that would ordinarily have been cast by the common room's flourescant lights were completely absent. She was perched on the edge of the cusions of the couch at the center of the room's conversation grouping and had her eyes glued to the news program on the television. She didn't look up when spoken to, just waved a hand and snapped, "Shush, Miri! This's important!"
The news program was showing a map of Taiwan. "-reports of exchanges of fire between Chinese Taipei militia forces and regular military units of the East Asian Republic. This marks the third time in as many weeks where disputes over the island's status as a territory of the Republic or a member state of ORB have cost lives, and many are expecting the renewed bloodshed to cause a breakdown in the diplomatic talks between the two territorial Unions. Given the two powers' close ties with the opposing sides of the ongoing debate over the Archanis Treaty and its proposals for the long term future of the PLANTS and ZAFT, many sources feel that the forecast is not hopeful."
Miriallia sighed as the newscaster started in on the debates raging over the treaty's ratification in the Atlantic Federation's Senate, then walked over and yanked its power cord cleanly out of the wall.
Blaze exploded to her feet so quickly that Kira almost missed it, which would have been a clear tip-off even without the vivid, inhuman gold shade of her eyes - Kira might not be very interested in sports, but he couldn't help being aware that his reflexes were exceptional even for a Coordinator. Whether it was just a matter of luck and good stock or if his parents had had more put into his prenatal modifications than their comments had suggested he didn't know, but even with most of his classmates on Heliopolis being Coordinators also, whether ORB born or visiting from the PLANTS, this was the first time he'd ever seen someone who might have moved faster than he could.
"Miri!" she shouted, and the cheerful blonde girl who had latched onto him so casually completely ignored her friend's irritation. "I was... they were... you heard what happened! Don't you even care?!"
"Of course I do! But there's nothing a college student like you or I can do to change it, so you moping about like that is just a waste of energy."
Guess. ^_^
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"