Sainan no Kekka
Stille Nacht: Une

***********************
Stille Nacht! Heil'ge Nacht! 
Lange schon uns bedacht, 
Als der Herr vom Grimme befreit 
In der V�ter urgrauer Zeit 
Aller Welt Schonung verhie�!

Silent Night! Holy Night! 
Long ago, minding our plight 
God the world from misery freed, 
In the dark age of our fathers decreed:  
All the world redeemed.
-Stille Nacht, traditional German Christmas Carol 
****************************************



I don't like Christmas.

I used to- I used to love the holiday season. When I
was little, I always wanted to extend those priceless
winter weeks as long as possible. I loved the soft
white snow, the way carols seemed to hang in the air
for an extra magical moment, the taste of nutmeg in
the cookies that my mother would only make once a
year. I remember trying to steal the batter, only to
have her playfully smack my childish fingers away with
a wooden spoon. "Annalore," she would say, "you have
to wait."

Those are my precious memories. I have so few of my
mother- usually she was working. My father? I never
knew my father, though I knew his name. How could I
not? He was a wealthy (and extremely married) General
in the Federation, one who would not acknowledge my
existence. Needless to say, this made me more then a
little bitter to the wealthy, the privileged. It's
strange now to think that I have risen to become one
of the most powerful women in the world. Me, a bastard
child whose mother couldn't even given her father's
last name. 

Still, my illegitimacy never stopped me from doing
anything I wanted. If anything, it was a cause for
motivation. I was determined that I would show him
that I was just as worthwhile as his children born on
the right side of the sheets. I had been born in 174
AC- surely that was a year that shouldn't have been
contaminated with archaic morals. 

Geraldine Karr- my mother- was a rather exceptional
woman. Beautiful, confident, intelligent- she had it
all. Except breeding, and most people would have been
able to accept the gifts they had been born with and
made the most of them. She, however, did something
incredibly stupid.

She fell in love with a married man.

I was the product of that union; she came away from it
with myself, a hefty check and a threat of what would
happen to her if she ever came out of the woodwork to
haunt him. She accepted it, as she accepted everything
life had dealt her. She never really spent time with
me, though. That's why those Christmases making
cookies together were so special. Sometimes I wonder
how she could have borne having a child around who was
a constant reminder of her foolishness. I couldn't
have- I have a tendency to destroy those things that
remind me of the mistakes I make. 

I wish, occasionally, that I had her more accepting
attitude towards life. It might have made my life
easier. But how can you tell? Without my rather
assertive personality, I may not have survived. My
mother died when I was around twelve. I was shuffled
into the state system, and if I was ordinary, I may
have been lost there.

But I was not ordinary.

I had, as some would call it, ambition.

What is ambition, exactly? A desire to better
yourself? A drive to prove your worth? A need for
something, like power, or money, or fame? However you
define it exactly, I had it. I wanted many things.
Power for myself. Revenge against my father, who had
never acknowledged me. Respect from my peers.
And I swore I wouldn't make that same mistake that my
mother had- I had her gifts, and there was no way I
would let love get in my way. I kept that promise,
too- until I met Treize.

But he came later.

I worked hard for scholarships, and managed to
graduate high school at fourteen. Instead of applying
for conventional college, I applied to be admitted to
Federation army. I didn't have money for college,
anyway, and I figured another route to power would be
through the military.

In the back of my mind was the fact that my father was
military, and perhaps I could make he recognize that
I, Annalore Karr, was better then any of my well-born
siblings. None of them seemed to know how to do
anything productive. I may have been a bastard, but a
was a capable bastard. And perhaps, if I was lucky, I
would show him that ignoring me had been a mistake. He
would be the first person to learn that turning their
back on me was a bad idea, if I had my way.

After three months in basic training, my commanding
officer sponsored me into the Specials, and the rest,
as they say, is history. I finished my studies early,
in two years rather then the usual three, managing to
do so by testing out of most of the routine classes,
and doubling up on the classes that weren't. I studied
long and hard, made no friends, and earned words of
praise from my instructors. I may not have been as
gifted as Noin and Zechs, but I was no academic
failure.

I was young and naive. I didn't realize that grades
wouldn't be enough to get me where I want to go. You
had to have patronage, the very thing my father had
denied me.

I was incredibly frustrated when I was transferred to
an out-of-the-way weapons depot as a specialist.   A
dead-end track, with little hope for promotion.   I
did everything I could to get transferred to a
facility that was larger, to a place where I could
make a name for myself, but it simply was not
possibly.   They were other people as ambitious as I,
others as determined, and while not all of them had my
intelligence, most of them had backing from
politicians of rich family members.   Power stays in
families for a reason: it is something to be jealously
horded, and not shared.   

I had no clue what to do.   I considered resigning my
commission, but that would have been admitting defeat,
conceding the battle before it had even really begun. 
If I had been more astute, I would have made friends
among those who had backing, among those who would one
day inherit the titles and riches from their parents. 
 I could not become one of them, but I could be the
one behind the scenes, pulling the strings.

But I was proud, and I wanted to do it myself.   I was
pulling my hair, going through my options.   None
seemed palatable, and I was almost ready to give up. 
Six months later, Treize came into my life, and he
changed everything without a thought.
 	
I met Treize when I was seventeen.  He was on tour of
the facility, which was housing the prototype of what
would eventually become the Taurus line.   I was not
assigned to work with them; rather, I was working on
redesigning a beam cannon.   Most of my suggestions
were shot down as being financially inefficient, but I
believed in the old saying, �You get what you pay
for.�
	
I had heard the rumors of Treize�s impending arrival,
as did all the junior officers, but that meant nothing
to me.   I assumed he was like all the other well-born
brats I dealt with- lacking talent, arrogant, and
assured that his birth placed him far and above us
mere mortals.   I didn�t think we would even cross
paths, anyway.
	
Little did I know Treize.
	
He wasn�t content to inspect the carefully prepared
facilities.  Against the protests of the superior
officers, he wandered around, examining anything that
caught his fancy.   
	
I had been, as usual, arguing with one of my
supervisors over their cost-cutting.  �You can�t use
substandard parts!  You need microchips made of
titanium alloy!�
	
Greschler, my supervisor, was fed up with me by that
point.   �Why waste money on the chips?  If we
construct a good armor, the chips�ll be safe.�
	
I was on the verge of reaching out and strangling him,
wishing there was some way I could pound it through
his thick head that there was little point in
protecting a system that was made of a bunch of junk. 
 It would be worth it in the long run.
	
�I must agree with the lady,� a voice said, deep and
amused.
	
We spun around, and I met Treize Khushrenada for the
first time.  I think I fell in love with him then.  
He wasted no time in getting me transferred to his
service, ignoring the gossip that resulted.   He liked
intelligent people.

Treize renamed me, speaking in his native French. Une,
meaning one, as I would be his number one confident,
the one he would trust to fulfill his dreams. Annalore
Karr had been a nobody- Colonel Une would be his right
hand. Annalore Karr had been the average- Colonel Une
would be anything but. 

I became a hard woman for him, a woman people feared.
I became "Colonel Bitch", and I was the one who did
the dirty work. I was the one who accepted that some
things could not be done neatly, so I did them so they
didn't lie heavy on his conscience. I killed Darlian.
I arranged for the assassination of the top brass,
manipulated 01 into doing my killing for me. I was the
one who put the bullet in General Septum and threw him
out of the plane.

I did it all.

But I did it for him. Would I have done it if t would
only benefit myself? That I do not know. But I know
one thing: my father was on board the plane that Heero
Yuy destroyed. I know I should have felt something-
after all, I had been pursuing him -and his
downfall-for so long that it was almost anticlimactic.

Wasn't revenge supposed to be satisfying? All I felt
was empty.

Treize knew. I'm not sure how, because he never told
me. 

It was two days after that that Treize summoned me to
his office. He was sitting behind his desk, sipping a
cup of tea -rosehip, by the scent- with papers
scattered in front of him.   �Lady?�

�Do you need something, Treize-sama?� I asked.

He shook his head, and I was struck, once again, by
how very beautiful he was.   Each of his features was
the culmination of years of breeding, and I was
amazed, as always, that the mind behind it was even
more stunning.   �No, my lady.   But you�re entitled
to leave, and I think you should take it.�

I frowned at him, puzzled.   �I have no-�

His bright blue eyes pierced me.   �I mean family
leave,� he said softly.

I blinked, stunned.  �I have no family,� I said
harshly.

�Don�t you?  My lady, I think some time to reflect
would not be amiss.�

Usually I would have obeyed him almost instinctively,
but this was something too personal for even him to
touch.  �Reflect on what?   The death of a man I never
even met?   I think not.  He was nothing to me.�

He had sighed then.  �Sometimes, my lady, things
aren�t so easy.�

Treize knew me better then I knew myself.  He died on
Christmas Eve. 

A year ago.

Everyone else is celebrating the holidays, with the
anniversary of the end of the war to make the time
even more festive, and all I had was memories of my
beloved. I insisted that I needed to work tonight, no
matter how much Sally and Relena tried to persuade me
to take the night off and join in either the
Preventers' celebration, or go to the Cinq Ball. I
even had an invitation from Quatre Winner to attend
his party on L4, but I can't.

Christmas means nothing but pain.

I heard carolers tonight as I walked back towards my
office after stopping in deli to pick up a sandwich.
They were singing in bright tones of hope and
fulfillment, but all I knew was that there was no one
waiting for me. Treize was a visionary. The world
needed him now, not a burnt-out woman who was forever
chasing after a ghost.

Only one song reached me this year. It's a song I've
always felt close to. It's probably the most famous
German carol, if not the most famous of all carols.
Stille Nacht. It's been translated into many
languages.  I have pleasant memories of it.

The Christmas before he died -the one five months
before the Gundams made their descent, marking the
true beginning of the war- we were on the trip to
Berlin from Paris, taking the rail system. I was
rather melancholy, for Germany was the last place I
wanted to be for the holidays. It would remind me too
much of my mother.

"I thought you would be happy to be home for the
holidays, my Lady," he said.

I smiled reluctantly at him. "Too many memories of
what should have been," I said softly. I pressed my
hand against the window, feeling the chill of winter
through my white gloves.

"Don't worry about the should-haves.... worry about
the can-be's," he said softly. 

"That's even more frightening," I told him. "Sometimes
I wonder if I'll ever be in control."

He chuckled slightly, and I turned my attention away
from the barren landscape and towards his handsome
profile. We both knew I was in love with him, but I
did my best not to make it an issue; if I did, I would
have been sent away, and that was something I couldn't
have stood. I needed Treize, and I understood,
finally, how my mother could have been such a fool for
love.

"We're never in control, though we do our best to
pretend otherwise," he said. "Some of us just happen
to be better at it then others.�

A laughed caught in my throat.   The very idea that
Treize wasn�t in control of his life was so comedic
that I almost abandoned my hard fa�ade and broke out
into gales of laughter.   Had it just been us two, I
might have, but there were other people in the
shuttle, and because of them, I maintained my Colonel
Une fa�ade.

He picked up my hand and squeezed gently.   �Christmas
holds memories for all of us, my lady.  Not all of
them are pleasant.�   His eyes grew vague and fixed on
something I couldn�t see, a memory from the past. 
�Most of the time my family was so busy with the
holidays and their political machinations that I
didn�t notice.

�The one thing I liked about it was Midnight Mass- the
entire Khushrenada clan would go together.   We went
to Notre Dame, of course, but that wasn�t what I
enjoyed.   The last part of the service was.   They
would turn out all the lights and pass out candles.  
Then we�d sing a few hymns, different ones each year,
except we�d always finish with Silent Night.  It was
the prettiest thing I can remember.�

I smiled at him.   There was something I could do for
him.   I ignored the other passengers, forgot my
reputation, and began to sing. �Stille Nacht! Heil'ge
Nacht! Alles schl�ft; einsam wacht�� My voice is
pleasant, though not stellar, but that night it seemed
sweeter than it ever had before, or since. A Christmas
miracle, perhaps.  It was my gift to Treize.

To my surprise, Treize joined me on the second verse,
picking up the song in French, his own native tongue
while I continued in German.  �Douce nuit! Sainte
nuit! Rois, bergers vont a Lui....� It made for an
odd, but strangely pleasurable harmony, and my voice
gained a depth and strength it had lacked before. By
the time the third verse came around, everyone in our
cabin joined in, singing in their own tongue.. I can
remember at least seven other languages, perhaps more.
Some things are universal, and music is one of them.
It was so beautiful, and I wish I could have held that
moment forever, trapped in amber.  

I was the only one who knew all six verses, though.

Did you know that Treize could sing? Most people
don't, but he had the most glorious voice- a voice
like dark chocolate, enveloping all who heard. It
conveyed his passion and pride, his conviction and
faith. I miss it so much, especially now. Was it only
two years ago that I laughed with Treize as he gave me
a rose, warning me that it had thorns?

The world needs a new messiah. I'm not her. 

So Merry Christmas. If there's a messiah out there,
somewhere, I hope they come forward soon. I'm doing
the best I can, but General Une is really just
Annalore Karr playing at a game she doesn't
understand. The real messiah, Treize, lies scattered
among the stars he had always found so entrancing,
while I remain behind, wishing that this night wasn't
so silent.



Notes: 

~Stille Nacht is one of the most popular Christmas
songs ever.   It�s said that over 300 versions exist. 
Joseph Mohr wrote the original lyrics for the song in
German, Stille Nacht, and Franz X. Gruber composed the
melody.
~Stille Nacht is one of my favorite carols (aside from
Greensleeves and Carol of the Bells).   There�s many
stories about it, and it�s assumed legendary status.  

Look to: http://silentnight.web.za/ for more
information, stories, and many translations.
Thanks to Manon for correcting my French!   I used the
wrong version of Treize�s singing originally!


=====
"No matter what the bible says, the battle always goes to
the strong. And I am strong. I don't need to prove that to
anyone anymore."
-Excerpt from Sainan no Kekka- Act Seven, Scene VII

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Quicksilver/
http://www.midnightrevolution.org/gundam

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