"Only the Phoenix rises and does not descend
And everything changes.
And nothing is truly lost."
- Neil Gaiman, The Wake

AC 189
Prince Town Academy

The wrought-iron gates of the new academy rose with a lofty authority, gathering in its spires and whorls the weight of finality and the abruptness of endings. Although the enameled school seal, embossed with Latin, the language of the old world, bore the proud patina of history, it spoke more of the new and the foreign. Thus, the gates opened not to a home for the next four years, but rather, to a four-year exile from all that was dear.

Zechs, the only constant at Victoria Academy, was gone, off piloting in Tokyo. And Noin knew if she stepped through those gates, she would be leaving him behind, consigning him to the fading memories of the past. The gates would weed away the extraneous and leave only her on the other side, a mere shadow. They would strip away the shell she had grown and sustained with Zechs, taking all but the unformed essence of her, an unknown factor.

Noin gathered the tattered remnants of who she thought she was and stepped through the gates.

* * *

AC 191
Prince Town Academy

The familiar gates arched gracefully toward the sky, the delicate iron reaching for the hidden stars. Within the metalwork lay intricate twirls and patterns in patterns, each as distinct and complex as the creased lines of her palms. She reached out a hand, finding comfort in the spots where the paint had worn off, leaving only the cool smoothness of metal, varnished by other touches from other times. Her eyes closed briefly as she imagined the vast number of students who had passed through these very gates, perhaps even allowed their fingers to brush past this very spot.

Anchored in the past, she allowed herself to spiral within, finding another girl, one who had been intimidated by the promise that was guarded by the gates, one who had feared the change that her passage might have wrought. But she was here, and she had uncovered parts of herself without him. In the Gothic stone buildings, compassion had been tempered into a deepening dislike of the brutality of war, coupled with a granite determination to fight the ugliness by training the best soldiers possible and by taking arms herself, if that was needed to stop the killing. She tilted her head up, letting the impossible blue of the sky sting her eyes while imagining she could pick out the stars from the masking glory of the sun. There was peace up there, if only she could find it, and a refuge from the conflicts of Earth.

The sharp edge of a scrap of paper against her palm brought her back to the cobbled path, and she absent-mindedly touched her cheek, feeling for a small scar that had long since disappeared. Her time here had flown by too quickly, four years whittled into two as her instructors uncovered the budding intelligence that rivaled some of theirs. Two years apart, she mused as she unfolded the orders in her hand. But I'm coming back to you, whoever you are now.

With a smile lurking in the corner of her lips and an expectant glow in her eyes, Noin stepped through the gates and back into the world.

* * *

AC 189
Tokyo Academy

He entered the school a boy, with a boy's softness and pliability. His hair still possessed the fineness of goose down, the cloudy strands slipping out of his ponytail and into inexperienced eyes, as blue and untouched as wildflowers. The lines of high cheekbones and delicate chin, heritage of nobility, were blurred by downy cheeks, still smooth, untouched by blade and unbroken by the sandpaper roughness of a beard.

Within, however, lay none of the youthful innocence in his face, the emptiness in his chest a gnawing hunger that belied a content look. Though other civilian schools in the area had already been in session for months, Tokyo Academy followed the Western system of the military. He wished however, that he had been here for those months, with time as a buffer against the unnerving feeling of loss in the pit of his stomach. Not only was her absence a constant emptiness inside him, but the unfinished business between them also ate at him, taunting him with unrealized possibilities, giving his demons a chance to escape. The vacuum, a black constant, had been his enemy since the Peacecrafts had been annihilated in a fiery blaze; it threatened to consume him, to swallow him in its numbing cold. She had held it at bay with her laughter, with her warm human presence, but now she was gone, and there was no sanctuary. He was alone, only one against the specter inside him, a vengeful ghost that wailed for the blood price to what had been taken. And he was afraid, unsure if he could withstand the icy onslaught that was already beginning again.

For you, he vowed silently to the memory of a girl smiling faintly. I will fight it for you.

* * *

AC 191
Tokyo Academy

He left the school a soldier, with war in every tendon and sinew of his adolescent body. His growth spurt had occurred in his time training, hormones stretching his frame and deepening his voice. His lanky silhouette belied the whipcord muscles beneath, hid the wiry strength of hands callused by Mobile Suit controls. And though his face still possessed the beauty that had shone through as a youth, it was hardened now, akin to the coldness of marble rather than the fleeting grace of breathing flesh. It was also masked by a heavy metal helmet that took his royalty away, subtly disguising the aristocratic lines of his face.

The glass of the mask distorted his vision, distanced him from the outside world. The slightly metallic tang to the stale air only served to further remind him of his new burden. The mask was an unwelcome weight on his head, and it pressed down with an urgency that was to remind him of his vow to avenge his father and his kingdom, a vow made to assuage the ever-present guilt that imbued his every breath. The emptiness within had disappeared when he had set upon his dark path and rid himself of his fear at last. No longer would he avoid the rage that came with battle or shy away from what was necessary. After all, he had already thrown away his father's legacy. There was no more need for restraint. He put his hand to his mask, the chill of the metal penetrating his gloves. He welcomed it now, scoffed at the boy who had tried so hard to escape what had always been inside of him. His brief two-year stay at the academy had forged him into a worthy weapon for both OZ and himself, and his edge had been sharpened and whittled till it was paper-thin and razor-sharp by his inner struggle.

He reached for the new orders in his pocket, allowing the slip to pull him back to a time when she had provided the warmth that chased away the cold. But she was probably changed, and something else now occupied her space. Unlike her, though, it had accompanied him everywhere, tainting everything, coloring his world. It caressed him and breathed promises in the lonely nights, giving him purpose, giving him strength. He embraced it now.