"With all due respect, sir...A truce with that faction simply won't work. Even if we were able to negotiate... when you look here..." Relena tapped a space on the map spread out on the table in front of her, where a large green patch and a brightly striped red spot met and overlapped. The Sank kingdom was less than a centimeter from her finger, much too close to the border war that had more or less erupted at their front door. "They're not going to agree to any of our terms, not as long as you hold these lands. All my agreement would do would be to drag the Sank directly into the middle of your dispute, and that is not a position I can take." Relena knew it wasn't what the prime minister wanted to hear, watched his tightly sculptured features creased with a deep frown. "Certainly the Sank kingdom can see the necessity in helping hold together the traditions of an old and distinguished principality." The prime minister said it as fact, annoyed that she couldn't grasp the obviousness of his words. He hadn't given her an inch all day in the debate, and they both knew he was intentionally being difficult. //One by one is two, two by two is four, four by four...// Relena had an old habit of reciting multiples when she got angry, as a way to distract herself, so that she wouldn't lose her temper. In the past, her head had filled with tiny brown-haired boys in tight black shorts. Inexplicably this time, a hundred thousand blonde haired girls were dancing in her head. //Mm-hm. /This/ is helping your concentration.// It didn't matter much to the prime minister whether she was paying attention or not. He had been the one controlling most of the meeting, making long, formal, important sounding speeches directed more to his own committee, sitting behind him, than to her. Relena hoped she was wrong, that he didn't simply want to have sympathetic backup, when their negotiations didn't go well, and he went back to his country to declare war on the Sank. "Indeed, our country has shared a long and rich heritage with your kingdom, we are almost like blood brothers." //Yes... except my kingdom doesn't kill innocent women and children in a pointless border war.// Relena resisted the urge to chew on her bottom lip in nervousness, knew the prime minister was watching her every move for any sign of weakness. He had spoken his peace, and now expected her to simply cooperate. //Not someone used to taking orders, or to being refused...// The older man still carried himself like the general she assumed he had been, as if invisible medals were still gleaming on his chest. //Just one more leader, trained in war, who doesn't think a whit of Absolute Pacifism... and even if he doesn't truly have evil intentions, he still sees my path as disrespectful to everything he holds to be right and just. I'm only an idiot child who doesn't know what she's talking about.// Relena wished Zechs or Noin would stand up and talk, add something to the argument, or at least try to back her up a little. //You're military, brother. You or Noin, he'd listen to either one of you... he's /not/ going to listen to me.// The two former OZ soldiers were as still as statues, sitting quietly against the wall, too far away to offer even the slightest bit of comfort or support, and they didn't seem concerned with moving anytime soon. //Alone then, it's all up to me.// Relena winced as a sudden flash of light, the sun shining off the man's bright brass buttons, stabbing into her brain like a pickaxe. "Sir, please try to understand my position. The Sank kingdom would look like a tyrannical giant if we simply crushed any smaller country that caused our allies any problems, and this truce would, under these terms, cripple their entire economy..." "An economy built on the backs of our people!" Relena refused to move as the man leaned forward, suddenly shouting directly in her face. Unwittingly, she realized she had touched a nerve, and turned the hour or so of mainly quiet, although still tense debate, into a fierce argument loaded with built-up anger. "We worked that land a thousand years before those greedy claim jumpers set foot on it! It's our right to expect some help from our more civilized companions, in dealing with these idiotic upstarts! I don't understand why you so stubbornly cling to your position, when it so obviously would not require the Sank kingdom to engage in any kind of war!!" Relena couldn't think past the sudden, sharp pain in her head, which somehow had traveled down, connecting with the churning ache in her stomach. The brown-haired girl knew she had an ace card to win this argument, but using would probably result in losing the war of words. //Don't do it Relena, don't provoke him. Just keep telling him you're working on it but that you're a country of peace, just keep saying that...until he finally /has/ to give up. You've put /hours/ into this already, don't screw it up now. Two by two, four by four.// "Supporting the machines of war, making policy that directly allows war to continue, there isn't much difference between that and the Sank kingdom firing the weapons itself." The man leaned back with a scornful laugh, taking her in with a disdainful, merciless sneer that somehow never showed up on his lips, only in his eyes. His next words were soft, meant for only Relena's ears. "What a shame, to leave the fate of such a powerful, strong country up to children. If our country chose the same path, we wouldn't last for a generation... It's just too bad your father isn't here." There weren't numbers big enough for her to multiply to get out of feeling the sting of that comment. Relena saw red, and she rose to her feet, immediately throwing her words like daggers over the table. The brown-haired girl had made it her business to know all sides of a conflict, and she had done a lot of research in the early hours of the morning, for days before the conference. The two countries at war had been fighting on a lower key ever since they had split only a few decades before. Before that, the larger country had been a fairly good sized empire, but the dissolution of one piece of their territory had only been the catalyst, and the remnant of the empire was losing more and more land all the time. The true cause of the new, alarmingly violent battles was shrouded in secrecy by both sides, but the underlying conditions remained the same. The wounds of the countries' split were still open and raw, rife with bitter hatred, civil chaos and irreconcilable differences. Reminding the larger country of the empire it had once been, especially a man of the government who had served it all of his life, was like rubbing salt in a bleeding cut. Relena didn't actually hear what she was saying, only knew that the words came out almost on their own, and tasted hot and sweet in her mouth. It felt good to tell the prime minister exactly what she felt, to cut through his veiled accusations and near threats, and tear his pride out at the roots. //How dare you tell me that I'm failing, that /anyone/ could save your country from war, when /you're/ the ones who are so eager to fight! I'm giving this everything I've got, /everything/." "... and so, Mr. Prime Minister, although the Sank Kingdom's greatest goal has always and will always be the advancement of peace in the universe, we cannot prop up every sagging, backward feudal kingdom with our strength in order to achieve that goal. I hope you understand." The prime minister looked as if he were about to explode. His eyes bulged out, competing in distance with one large vein in the center of his forehead. For a long time he simply glared at her, and Relena was struck into an eerie calm by the realization that if he could, he would have reached out and wrung her neck right then and there. The brown-haired girl could feel her temples throbbing as the anger receded, her stomach lurching in time with the pounding of her heart, and she felt hot and sick with guilt. //What the hell did I just do? Good job, Relena. Great job. I think the 'Queen of Peace' has just insulted her way right into a war.// After a long moment of unbreakable silence, the prime minister slowly reached up, and pointed a meaty finger straight at her head, an imaginary gun he no doubt wished were real. "You'll reconsider your decision." The man's deep voice was heavy with barely contained rage, a pressure cooker threatening to explode, held under the thinnest veneer of civility. "We'll talk later." ----------------------------- "What the hell were you thinking?!" Relena slumped down low against the desk, head in her hands. Except for a short walk from the conference room to the inner chambers, she had been in that position since the prime minister had turned, and made a very dignified, ominously silent exit with his personal guards and advisors. The brown-haired girl could almost see the sparks of anger shooting off his bald head as he walked away. "/Were/ you even thinking?! Do you understand what strategic position their country holds on us?" Zechs was almost yelling into her left ear, but her headache was already bad enough that it didn't make much of a difference, and Relena didn't want to anger him any more by complaining. Her brother was livid, blue eyes flashing as he paced back and forth across the room, pausing only to send another comment sizzling her way, hands making short, chopping gestures in the air, as if he didn't know what to do with them short of attacking her. "If you could have possibly thought of anything more scathing, more intentionally inflammatory to say..." "I know, I know... but he wasn't going to listen, he was going to be unhappy no matter what I said, because I said no. We had to say no." Relena ran a hand through her hair, and groaned as her fingers stuck in her braid, pulling it apart slightly, too much to merely slide it back into place. //I'll have to fix that before the next meeting. Oh god, the next meeting.// Her stomach twisted into double knots. Much too soon, she would have to do this all again. The only emotion she could finally cobble together was a very bitter sarcasm. // Another country, not near us, but with enough strategic armaments to blow us up five times over anyway. Something to do with mining rights. If I work this right, maybe they'll want to start a war too. God, we're going to be able to pick up the remains of the Sank kingdom with blotters.// "If you could have just been a little more... diplomatic." Noin was standing near the window, cross-armed, the streaming sunlight turning her figure into a collection of sharp edges. Her voice did little to change that perception. "My God, Relena, what were you /thinking/?" "I don't know... I just... He said something I wasn't expecting and I... I didn't mean... hell, I've got this headache... I'm kind of tired." "That's no excuse!" Zechs slammed down into a chair on the other side of the desk. "You can't just go off half-cocked every time someone insults you, because you didn't get to take your beauty nap. You're supposed to be representing all of us! You're the figurehead for the Sank kingdom, the motivation behind Absolute Pacifism..." Relena felt a moment of panic, utter terror at the implication in that statement. //You can't make mistakes anymore, Relena, you can't let yourself ever be wrong. Now, when you're in error, people will die for it. They'll die, because you didn't do your job.// The brown-haired girl knew she was shaking, and used every drop of will she had left to hide it, praying that she wouldn't burst into tears, that her hands wouldn't tremble, that they wouldn't see. //I have to be strong. Everyone's depending on me.// "Hello, Relena!" In the midst of the horribly tense discussion, when Relena could hear seven or eight invisible admonitions from Zechs exploding behind every word he actually said, Dorothy's cheerful chirp cut through the tension like a gunshot. The blonde didn't wait for permission to enter, the slightly peeved looks she received from Noin and Zechs only seemed to increase her cheer. She was carrying a cherry wood breakfast tray with a silver-colored bowl, and a smaller cream-colored ceramic bowl inside of that. Relena could smell the delicious aroma wafting up, from a thick, rich bowl of vegetable soup. Her stomach stopped twisting, and forcefully, almost angrily grumbled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten in quite a while. //Breakfast? No, I didn't have... I had some ice water last night, but then they called an emergency meeting before dinner, and I had too much to do after...// "Dorothy, we're in the middle of an important meeting." Zechs voice was low, and carried an undercurrent of extreme annoyance. "Oh, that's all right. I don't mind. I just made this for Relena, I thought she might be hungry." Relena almost cracked up laughing as the blonde brushed past her brother, not giving his angry tone a second thought. Dorothy didn't even look at Noin, setting the dish down and sliding the spoon almost into Relena's hand. Their hands met, for the briefest of moments, but Relena fought back the sudden urge to cry out, to reach out and hold on to the blonde for dear life. The feeling vanished almost instantly, but Relena was still stunned. //You're going psycho, Relena, that's all. Just going a little crazy, not like it could make things any worse.// Relena gave Dorothy her best smile, putting more effort into it than she thought she had left. She wanted to make sure the blonde knew how much her gesture was appreciated. //What would I do without you, especially now?// The blonde girl was rapidly becoming the only thing she had left to count on. "Thank you, Dorothy." "My pleasure, Relena." Without another word, the blonde walked toward the door. Just before she reached the doorframe, Dorothy turned around in that strange, somehow too quick way, a movement that was hers and hers alone, as if she had all her pauses and gestures planned out well beforehand. "Oh, Relena?" Relena had already started eating, looked up at the blonde with the spoon already halfway to her mouth. "Yes?" "Some almonds fell in while I was cooking, and I didn't notice them for quite a while. I spooned them out, I don't think it should spoil the flavor, but let me know, and I'll make you a new bowl, all right?" Relena had to fight to keep from choking, nearly bursting into laughter for the second time in less than a minute, as both Noin's and Zech's eyes widened, and her brother half-lifted a hand in her direction, a silent gesture to stop eating, which she ignored. //Cyanide tastes like almonds, right Dorothy? That was the joke...just between you and me, because you knew it would get a reaction. You're not afraid, either. Not to tease them, to make fun of them for being so overprotective, you just wanted to make me smile, even though you weren't here to see it.// The happiness in that thought melted into a strange sadness. Relena continued eating, her face betraying none of her inner thoughts, acting as if nothing was the matter. As soon as Dorothy was well gone, Noin moved quickly to her side. "Relena, are you sure you should...?" "Don't worry. It's fine." The brown-haired girl murmured softly, hiding her own opinion in the soft tone, that if Dorothy had just poisoned her, it would probably have been a favor. She frowned slightly as she continued eating, watching Zechs and Noin move to the other end of the room, and quietly discuss things in voices just low enough that she couldn't make them out. Every once in a while, a pair of eyes would flick towards her, then dart back down, as if afraid to be caught. //Dorothy would never let them get away with it, with making plans as if she weren't here. She'd force her way right into their conversation, she'd make sure they knew she's in charge.// The soup took the edge off her hunger, but the first twinge of pain in her abdomen let Relena know she'd be paying for it later. //Dorothy is so brave. Not like me. Not like me.//
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