Week 8 - proper lemonade, this time
A/N: Perhaps, one day, some place, people will no longer write libellous, hurtful things in the newspapers...But Relena’s ESUN is not that time or place.
When Life Hands You Lemons
Heero was on the roof adjusting the satellite disc to receive signals from Mars when Relena called from below him: “I have lemonade, if you want some?”
Since it was a very warm day, and he was done anyway, he called back: “Just let me tighten the screws and pack up the tools,” before doing so and jumping down, ignoring the ladder completely. He waited for Relena to comment that it was a good thing that no-one could see him, but she didn’t. Frowning, Heero accepted a tall glass from her and took a long sip.
“This is nice,” he offered. Relena nodded. She seemed preoccupied. Heero frowned again.
“A hint of liquorice,” he said, and Relena nodded again; she wasn't paying attention. Heero sighed. “Relena.”
“Am I blonde?” she asked abruptly. Heero blinked in surprise.
“In summer, when the sun has bleached your hair, and the light hits it just right, yeah,” he answered cautiously. There had to be something more than just hair colour on her mind.
There was. Relena sighed and handed him a copy of the Talk of the Town news magazine, among the people fondly known as the Babble of Brussels, open on the letters pages.
Heero read:
Image over Morality
We all knew she was too good to be true. Pretty Princess Relena Peacecraft, or Darlian, or whatever it is she’s calling herself now, has shown her true colours. We suspected when she didn’t take her husband’s name that it was mostly a trophy marriage - get hitched to a nobody from the Colonies, no-one will ever question your allegiance to the common folk then! Or was she trying to appeal to the romantics among us, with her story about how they met during the war and met again afterwards? She seems to have missed something - a romance hero is traditionally TALL, dark and handsome.
A man can marry a trophy wife for her youth and her looks, but a woman’s trophy marriage should reflect her womanly side, and so the pretty princess set out to get a trophy baby. Nature fooled her there, when she conceived of triplets. And that was a problem. Because a woman may look good when pregnant if she dresses right (and the pretty princess has got her claws in some good stylists over the years), but if she’s carrying three babies, she will balloon like an elephant. There’s no getting around that. Relena’s entire career is based on her pretty blonde image.
But if she got rid of one or two and it got out, her political career would be over. So she yanks them all out and puts them in so-called ‘artificial wombs’ and walks around, happy and pretty and slim, while her babies cook in glorified pressure cans. A half-assed excuse about ‘medical reasons’ isn’t good enough. A woman who hasn’t felt the pain of childbirth doesn’t deserve to call herself a mother, and a woman who can’t be a mother to her own children doesn’t deserve to be a mother to the world.
Enraged but enlightened,
Estelle Schwartzkopf
There were many things he could have said. He could have pointed out that it was true, he wasn’t very tall, and that a woman carrying three children would get bigger than a woman carrying one child. He could have pointed out that ‘medical reasons’ did sound quite vague, and that while uterine replicators were very common on the colonies, many Earthlings were still sceptical.
But having been married to Relena for over three years now had taught Heero some things. Going public and stating that “We don’t know why, but the triplets are all growing as though they were alone in the womb and leaving them in there would be risky for mother as well as children” would never have quieted some people, and conceding some points an idiot might have made was no good when your wife was upset.
So Heero said: “So, you asked me to confirm your hair colour to see if she had at least one thing true amongst all the misogynistic, traditionalist horse shit she was spewing?”
The look of pure gratitude on Relena’s face told him that he’d said the right thing.
When Life Hands You Lemons
Heero was on the roof adjusting the satellite disc to receive signals from Mars when Relena called from below him: “I have lemonade, if you want some?”
Since it was a very warm day, and he was done anyway, he called back: “Just let me tighten the screws and pack up the tools,” before doing so and jumping down, ignoring the ladder completely. He waited for Relena to comment that it was a good thing that no-one could see him, but she didn’t. Frowning, Heero accepted a tall glass from her and took a long sip.
“This is nice,” he offered. Relena nodded. She seemed preoccupied. Heero frowned again.
“A hint of liquorice,” he said, and Relena nodded again; she wasn't paying attention. Heero sighed. “Relena.”
“Am I blonde?” she asked abruptly. Heero blinked in surprise.
“In summer, when the sun has bleached your hair, and the light hits it just right, yeah,” he answered cautiously. There had to be something more than just hair colour on her mind.
There was. Relena sighed and handed him a copy of the Talk of the Town news magazine, among the people fondly known as the Babble of Brussels, open on the letters pages.
Heero read:
Image over Morality
We all knew she was too good to be true. Pretty Princess Relena Peacecraft, or Darlian, or whatever it is she’s calling herself now, has shown her true colours. We suspected when she didn’t take her husband’s name that it was mostly a trophy marriage - get hitched to a nobody from the Colonies, no-one will ever question your allegiance to the common folk then! Or was she trying to appeal to the romantics among us, with her story about how they met during the war and met again afterwards? She seems to have missed something - a romance hero is traditionally TALL, dark and handsome.
A man can marry a trophy wife for her youth and her looks, but a woman’s trophy marriage should reflect her womanly side, and so the pretty princess set out to get a trophy baby. Nature fooled her there, when she conceived of triplets. And that was a problem. Because a woman may look good when pregnant if she dresses right (and the pretty princess has got her claws in some good stylists over the years), but if she’s carrying three babies, she will balloon like an elephant. There’s no getting around that. Relena’s entire career is based on her pretty blonde image.
But if she got rid of one or two and it got out, her political career would be over. So she yanks them all out and puts them in so-called ‘artificial wombs’ and walks around, happy and pretty and slim, while her babies cook in glorified pressure cans. A half-assed excuse about ‘medical reasons’ isn’t good enough. A woman who hasn’t felt the pain of childbirth doesn’t deserve to call herself a mother, and a woman who can’t be a mother to her own children doesn’t deserve to be a mother to the world.
Enraged but enlightened,
Estelle Schwartzkopf
There were many things he could have said. He could have pointed out that it was true, he wasn’t very tall, and that a woman carrying three children would get bigger than a woman carrying one child. He could have pointed out that ‘medical reasons’ did sound quite vague, and that while uterine replicators were very common on the colonies, many Earthlings were still sceptical.
But having been married to Relena for over three years now had taught Heero some things. Going public and stating that “We don’t know why, but the triplets are all growing as though they were alone in the womb and leaving them in there would be risky for mother as well as children” would never have quieted some people, and conceding some points an idiot might have made was no good when your wife was upset.
So Heero said: “So, you asked me to confirm your hair colour to see if she had at least one thing true amongst all the misogynistic, traditionalist horse shit she was spewing?”
The look of pure gratitude on Relena’s face told him that he’d said the right thing.