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Entry tags:
Challenge 041
Story title: Expressions
Author: Ingvild
Word count: 500
Rating and warnings: Safe for everyone
Characters and/or pairing: Relena, Relena/Heero, some others.
Summary: How different people see Relena’s face.
The public image of Relena and the person she is at home isn’t quite completely different. There are enough similarities that her adoring constituents would recognize her easily, and the people who know her in private can always see the Relena they know in the person speaking in front of a large audience, holding a press conference, or being interviewed. It’s a key feature to her popularity; unlike many other politicians it’s clear to the public and the press that Relena is genuine. But she isn’t completely open. There are some things only close friends and family get to see.
The face Relena shows to the public is usually a very somber, serious one. This is mostly because she entered politics while still a teenager. At such a young age, she had to look serious in order to be taken seriously. Teenagers, girls in particular, can all too easily be seen as flighty if they smile and laugh too much. So Relena put her smile aside, and traded it for a sincere, focused look of quiet competence. As she’s grown older, she has allowed herself to smile a little from time to time, but seriousness is still her standard expression.
Her mother knows of a different face, one bright and smiling and laughing. Not quite bubbly, but not far from it. It’s a face that she hasn’t seen since Relena turned ten, and decided that she was too old to be a cheerful child anymore. That was the moment when her parents realized that their little girl wasn’t quite like most other little girls. Relena still smiled, and laughed, but she did it in a manner almost too mature for her, and so her classmates found her unapproachable, her parents’ acquaintances found her charming, and her parents found her concernworthy.
The people close enough to her that she can’t call them mere acquaintances – Dorothy, Quatre, Noin and, after they spent quite some time talking and finding similarities and common ground, Mariemaia – know a different face. Dorothy and Mariemaia see the face of someone who doesn’t know how to give up. Her face lights up with every challenge, and her smile takes on an almost shark-like appearance. Quatre and Noin see the more uncertain Relena, who occasionally doubts herself. This Relena has a nervous smile on her face, and her eyes flitter about some, before she determinedly chases the insecurity away.
Heero is the only one who gets to see some of her expressions. Her face when he suddenly showed up on rainy day at the door to her Brussels apartment showed shocked surprise, and turned to the sweetest smile of astonished delight that has ever been worn by anyone (according to him, at least). As it became clear that he was planning on staying, her smile became permanent.
She doesn’t smile during lovemaking, but she wears one of pure bliss afterwards. Heero finds that he could watch that smile forever. That, as far he’s concerned, is the world’s sweetest smile.
Author: Ingvild
Word count: 500
Rating and warnings: Safe for everyone
Characters and/or pairing: Relena, Relena/Heero, some others.
Summary: How different people see Relena’s face.
The public image of Relena and the person she is at home isn’t quite completely different. There are enough similarities that her adoring constituents would recognize her easily, and the people who know her in private can always see the Relena they know in the person speaking in front of a large audience, holding a press conference, or being interviewed. It’s a key feature to her popularity; unlike many other politicians it’s clear to the public and the press that Relena is genuine. But she isn’t completely open. There are some things only close friends and family get to see.
The face Relena shows to the public is usually a very somber, serious one. This is mostly because she entered politics while still a teenager. At such a young age, she had to look serious in order to be taken seriously. Teenagers, girls in particular, can all too easily be seen as flighty if they smile and laugh too much. So Relena put her smile aside, and traded it for a sincere, focused look of quiet competence. As she’s grown older, she has allowed herself to smile a little from time to time, but seriousness is still her standard expression.
Her mother knows of a different face, one bright and smiling and laughing. Not quite bubbly, but not far from it. It’s a face that she hasn’t seen since Relena turned ten, and decided that she was too old to be a cheerful child anymore. That was the moment when her parents realized that their little girl wasn’t quite like most other little girls. Relena still smiled, and laughed, but she did it in a manner almost too mature for her, and so her classmates found her unapproachable, her parents’ acquaintances found her charming, and her parents found her concernworthy.
The people close enough to her that she can’t call them mere acquaintances – Dorothy, Quatre, Noin and, after they spent quite some time talking and finding similarities and common ground, Mariemaia – know a different face. Dorothy and Mariemaia see the face of someone who doesn’t know how to give up. Her face lights up with every challenge, and her smile takes on an almost shark-like appearance. Quatre and Noin see the more uncertain Relena, who occasionally doubts herself. This Relena has a nervous smile on her face, and her eyes flitter about some, before she determinedly chases the insecurity away.
Heero is the only one who gets to see some of her expressions. Her face when he suddenly showed up on rainy day at the door to her Brussels apartment showed shocked surprise, and turned to the sweetest smile of astonished delight that has ever been worn by anyone (according to him, at least). As it became clear that he was planning on staying, her smile became permanent.
She doesn’t smile during lovemaking, but she wears one of pure bliss afterwards. Heero finds that he could watch that smile forever. That, as far he’s concerned, is the world’s sweetest smile.