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 Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 7:51 pm
Honestly, it had all seemed like a dream.
A dream she didn't want to revisit again, but it haunted her. All the memories haunted her. The memories of being in Barren Pines, talking with her schoolmates, talking with Miss Johnson, working on the play... it had all been a curse, a lie. But she, Princess Chronos, Serenade Soriano, still dwelled on these memories, trying to make sense of it all. Trying to make sense of what Barren Pines had meant, and how they had all died and ended up there, in that school that really wasn't a school.
They had all died in that fire. Not all of them, if you wanted to be nit-picky about the details.
Almost all of them, she amended quietly in her mind, cerise eyes open and staring up at the hospital ceiling. It was all so white, so eerily calm that it almost hurt her eyes. She had been vaguely aware of whispers by her side as doctors and nurses came by, and did her parents too? She couldn't remember. All she could think of was when they were pleading the Opal Crystal to end the curse, and when images flashed through her mind. When Queen Serenity's last words echoed in her mind, nagging at her even though she still did not truly know what it meant.
And that boy. That caramel-haired boy she had been with. There was a faint tugging at her heart and she struggled to sit up, so she wouldn't have to look up at the blank ceiling any more. Who was he?
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Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 8:00 pm
The others were in the ward, too -- oftentimes visited by family or friends, sometimes with weeping, sometimes not. Hero Barrett had been visited by a tall, pretty fair-haired woman, who sat down by her bedside with the curtain drawn and talked with her for quite a long time. There was a lot of activity going on around her. Aurelia -- the bed opposite -- was talking to a man with glasses who looked as though he might have been her father; there were the others, lined up --
-- and there was Astraea with a beret over her cat ears, stuffed into jeans and sandshoes, the tail hidden. The guardian cat had obviously done a lot to make it into Destiny Memorial without anybody pegging her as a cat. And now she sat down at Serenade's bedside just after drawing the curtain herself -- Serenade nearly expected Foramen to show up, but the pretty redheaded senshi wasn't there. Just the guardian.
Astraea looked very tired.
"Your highness," she said formally, though still a little curtly -- "Are you all right? They say it's just exhaustion; you'll be out in twenty-four hours. I can't stand this hospital."
Beat.
"This is a social visit. I'm not your cat. I just wanted to see how you were."
There was a kind of longing in Astraea's eyes; maybe for the queen that Serenade had been, the woman who had been talking to her, the woman who took over her body. Queen Serenity. The Ancient Lady.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 5:11 am
Serenade nodded quietly; that was good. She didn't like hospitals much either, didn't like it that they were all in here. But then again, she had died. In that fire. Twice. A small part of her mind said very very softly.
It was uncanny that now she was used to people calling her as though she was a figure of authority because she now knew she was. Even so, it still was very strange to be thought that way. Hero was a better leader than she ever would be.
"I'm fine." She said with a small smile. "Is Zue okay?" Astraea's words had reminded her, reminded her of her real guardian cat, or to be more specific, the Zodiacs' guardian cat. If she remembered correctly, he had fainted.
She then drew in a breath, looking pained, even though she had suffered no external injuries. "They're all back now. Even Pisces. But I still can't shake off this feeling that someone is missing." The question she was asking Astraea was obvious. Who was missing? Who was she missing? Serenade looked at the other with desperation in her eyes, pleading her to tell her the answer.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 6:19 am
For a very long time Astraea looked at her. Her grey eyes were somber, her mouth a tight line, and the waves of silvery hair that fell down from underneath the beret masked her face for a minute. And then -- because it was mercy, because it was terrible, because it was both -- the guardian cat reached out and took Serenade's hand within her own.
-- Memory --
Sera.
-- a boy -- an older boy? -- caramel hair, deep indigo eyes, a frank smile --
-- I know. I have to fit this in-between studying. --
-- Sera, I've said this before, but take care of yourself --
-- (Gerbera daisies, pink ones) --
-- So if time waits for no man, procrastination is the thief of time, what's the relationship between man and procrastination? --
-- "Two atoms were walking across a road when one of them said, "I think I lost an electron!"'
"What happened then?
"Okay, the other one said -- "Really! Are you sure?" And the other one said, "Yes, I 'm absolutely positive."
...
"It's bad. I just wanted to see you laugh."
-- "Why do you worry? Isn't being a good ruler being a good person? You have that down. It's me I think people wonder about." --
-- Sera --
-- "Ballad pour Adeline. Before I mix it up and call it Ballad pour Abeline again; you'd smother me, right?" --
-- Chronos!
Astraea took her hand away again. The jolt of electricity ended. So did the jumbled-up, panicked memories.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 7:02 am
The wait was excruciating to her; it was as though Astraea knew and was holding back, and Serenade longed to know the truth. It was as though there was a hole in her heart right there that she had been trying to ignore...
And then her hand was in Astraea's and the memory flashes came. How he looked like, how his smile used to make her so ridiculously happy that she laughed, how sweet he was, and how much she loved him. There were tears, and she did not bother to wipe them away. She let them fall; the shock of the sudden flood of messy memories was nothing compared to the shock when she realized that she had forgotten him. "A...ally." She managed out softly. "I... forgot."
More tears fell and she muffled her mouth. It wouldn't do to let the others hear her sobbing; she was sure all the Zodiacs would immediately rush to see what was wrong. "Thank... you." She said to Astraea, but did not look at her properly.
To her, it was better knowing, as painful as it was, then forgetting and not remembering at all. Even if she still couldn't remember much, at least she now had something to go on with. A piece of the puzzle, which then she could use to try and put the whole picture together.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 4:53 pm
Astraea had only started something, and she knew it: the cat looked as though she had done something irreparable, heavy with guilt. She did not need to touch her again. She did not say anything to thank you; Serenade had nothing to thank her for, and the tears were still rolling down the Princess' cheeks --
-- her finger was broken. He seemed more anxious about it than she did. "You're a piano player," he said. "Can't do gymnastics on the keys with this. Hang on." Sitting, doped up on Tylenol, in his dorm room, him carefully easing the chip of bone (chipped, not broken) up underneath, hissing in pain for her -- "it's fine. You're fine. You'll be fine."
-- (more gerberas: Alick McGill, and a pot plant)
-- his back was stubbled with thorns. He was, he was a doctor? No, he was a nursing student. He wanted to be a nurse. "Take the tweezers," he said. "Are you all right?
-- are you all right --
-- she was sobbing, curled up on his lap --
-- he'd stopped her mouth, one finger against her lips. "Here's what separates us," he said. "Five years, six months, three weeks, two days, a couple hours. In the eyes of everyone else. That's like the Grand Canyon, it's also unfortunately, um, something police would be interested in. Here's the other truth: no matter what separates us in the eyes of anyone, I will always be with you. So we can wait."
-- I will always
-- I will
-- I
Astraea did not look at her.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 8:50 pm
The stark cold realization then hit her as more memories came, and she welcomed them, no matter how much her heart hurt right now.
I will always be with you.
The words seemed to have been burned into her mind, and Serenade gazed, at something far away that Astraea could not see, with a dazed sort of expression on her face. When she spoke again, her tone was flat, blank, as if she had given up trying to express all the grief she felt. "He's not here." He said he would always be here, but he's not here. She drew in a shuddering breath and pulled her legs to her chest. "I have forgotten a lot, haven't I?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:46 am
"Sometimes the brain," said the cat, after hesitating, "forgets things -- to protect itself." Oh, God, was Astraea trying to be comforting? Astraea made Zue look like someone who would pick the princess up and rock her -- though, actually, that probably wasn't out of the question. Astraea looked awkward. Astraea looked grim, and her eyes were tearless little stones. She sat back in her chair and looked at Serenade, hugging her knees, staring off into the middle distance.
"I didn't -- know him, personally," said the guardian cat. "I saw him only a few times."
But the bargain had been obvious. The Zodiacs and their Princess were here, and their Prince was not. It seemed the type of thing that he would do.
"I can't do anything. I'm sorry."
-- She was sobbing like a child with a broken heart.
His arms were around her. He had simply pulled her to him, in the easy chair, her curled up with her head on his shoulder and her mass of pale green hair sticking to her hot, tear-flushed face. He leant back and he held her. He never let go. He held her hand, and he was humming to her, at first the tuneless humming of someone trying to comfort and having no words for it:
and then it got a tune, hummed over and over, a kid's tune, sung under his breath to her. Nothing more hard-hitting than Sesame Street.
So if I should visit the moon
Well: I'll dance on a moonbeam and then
I will make a wish on a star
And I'll wish I was home once again.
Though I'd like to look down at the earth from above
I would miss all the places and people I love
So although I may go
I'll be coming home soon:
Because I don't want to live on the moon.
They wrapped their ring fingers around each other, the ones with the Zodiac band marks. And she cried, but she was whole.
He could be exasperating; he could be neurotic, detached, dismissive, hiding everything under a smile and becalmed indigo eyes. He could be patronizing. He could preach. He was older than she was, and didn't let her forget it. He didn't have a moral high horse, he had a moral high stable --
(So although I may go
I'll be coming home soon.)
-- but he had been Alistair McGill, Cavalier Eon. And although he hadn't wanted the weapon, he had raised his sword for her, calm and steady.
"I can do nothing," said Astraea.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:10 am
Perhaps. Perhaps it had been Serenade's way with coping with everything that had happened, to shut herself out from all the shock, to focus solely on practicing the piano and not bother about forging new relationships. Or had it been the Opal Crystal? Or maybe even him? He would do something like that. To make it seem all better to her.
But Serenade was stronger than the weak little princess everyone thought she was. She did not cry, she simply shut her eyes, thinking. He had promised her. He didn't break his promises. And... he had been willing to wait for her. Five years.
If he could wait that long, she could wait too. He had promised her he would come back, after all.
It was silly, really, clinging onto some hope desperately even though she couldn't do anything, that Astraea couldn't do anything. "I'm fine." She managed to say after a while, although it was more to reassure herself than Astraea. Her eyes snapped open again. "Has Destiny City been alright since we... were gone?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:20 am
"No," said Astraea, who was like a cat equivalent of a stone. "General-King Charonite corrupted two senshi. Cavalier Kunzite arrived late, and killed one of them. The Dark Kingdom is at least twenty strong, not the handful you faced with the Zodiacs.
"You remain the only Princess in the city. With Eon's death, Kunzite is the only cavalier. Charonite's also corrupted two of the guardian cats." Four in all, one down. "We have three senshi who have struggled to Super status. One was corrupted, then killed. One makes his attempts. The third could not care less.
"And between most of the senshi in Destiny City -- of whom I've tirelessly awakened -- they all have five brain cells to share together, and mostly they lose those brain cells all the time. We are in desperate need of the Zodiac Guard's strength."
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 5:33 am
It wasn't as though she had expected Astraea to say 'No, everything's been fine and dandy since you were gone, Princess, welcome back'. If it had been Zue, he would have perhaps tried to lie, if it had been Ophelia, she would have tried to put it across more gently, but it was Astraea, and it was the harsh truth she was hearing. Better hearing it now then facing it when she had to fight again out there. Better hearing it from Astraea then let Aries slowly find out about it and rant about what disarray the city had fallen into while they were gone.
Although, Hero would probably do that despite who she found it out from. Even if it was from her.
Charonite. The name sent a shudder through her and she tried to repress it. She couldn't. He still scared her; the name still scared her. He had captured her, and used her to kill all (well, almost all) of the Zodiacs. And he was head of the Negaverse, the head of All That Was Evil. The man that killed them. It was actually rather scary to sit here and contemplate this, while knowing that the year they had spent dead, Charonite had managed to corrupt senshi, had managed to strengthen his army. Had managed to corrupt even guardian cats.
And that the senshi that remained seemed so hopeless.
Destiny City's future looked bleak, even dismal. She took another deep breath in. "They need to be organized then. Are they working in groups?" They should. Not all senshi had the ability to work alone, like Virgo really; Virgo was more of a support senshi. "Maybe Hero and I should meet... Kunzite." Despite her trying to focus on the situation of Destiny City at the moment, she wondered. Did Kunzite remember Eon, being a fellow cavalier?
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 6:02 pm
"You should meet Kunzite." Astraea was fixing her hat. "You will meet Kunzite." She was standing. "I'm getting together a meeting of the senshi with the cavalier so that we can tell them of the danger -- Queen Beryl is back."
Queen Beryl is back.
Queen Beryl
--
Queen
And that was something Astraea hadn't said properly, which is why she had left it until last. Somewhere inside her, she'd known. Charonite was a scary name. Beryl was one that would make her cry out in wordless horror. Aries was going to be grimmer than Aries even usually was.
"I have to go," said Astraea curtly, and made to leave.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:26 pm
Serenade nodded mutedly and made it a point to tell Hero about this upcoming meeting... and promptly froze as Astraea said a name that struck a chord of fear right through her. The very mention of Queen Beryl was even more intimidating than that of Charonite, and that was saying something. She was terrified of the General King. Terrified and angry at him that he had killed all of them.
But Beryl. The emotions she got just by hearing that one name far exceeded the fear she felt whenever one mentioned Charonite.
"Thank you, Astraea." She said again and lay back down on her bed, heart beating so loudly in her chest that she wondered if the Zodiacs beside her would hear it.
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