|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 12:31 pm
The young lieutenant found herself coming here, night after night. Everytime she stepped out to call upon the power that coursed within her, every night that she called upon the uniform and the might of Fluorite, her steps inevitably led her here.
That hill, with the four graves, and the baby phoenix youma that safe-guarded the bodies of the fallen. The youma would never hurt her, she knew. It knew who she was, knew she was not an enemy. For the most part, the youma simply ignored her.
She stepped toward those graves, and then knelt. She always knelt in front of the same one - Helicase. The one she had failed.
Silently, Fluorite prayed.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 6:06 pm
Alkaid had not been there when the bodies were laid to rest, returned back to the earth that they had all fought so valiantly to defend. Alkaid had fought to find them, she'd worked just as hard as everyone else to rescue her comrades, but at the end of the day she had not known them. It had been a mission and although she felt sorry for their deaths like she would feel sorry for every fallen soldier, she had felt the ceremony should have only been for those who knew them. It should have only been for people who would look down on their faces and feel pain for the loss - not just a loss of a comrade, but the loss of a friend.
Alkaid just mourned fallen comrades, and thus, she had kept her distance until it was all said and done.
She was returning that night, to the place she knew where they lay, to look at the graves for the first time. They were more than a memory of comrades to her - they were the memory of a hard fought battle, of a struggle. It was a memorial to their battle, as many other graves would one day be the memorial of this war.
As she came to the top of the hill though, she noticed that someone had beaten her to it tonight. The long purple hair was all she needed to know to tell her that it was the lieutenant that had gone into the safehouse with her. Still, she wasn't going to call out to her when she was obviously taking a personal moment.
Instead she walked past her, to another grave, and stared down at it while she waited for the lieutenant to speak. She was in sight, but not intruding. She knew that graves were always more for the living than they were for the dead and she would let Fluorite take what she would from it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 6:27 pm
Fluorite didn't move when she felt Alkaid approach the location of the graves. She felt her indeed, the aura that she so far knew as unique to the corrupted senshi. It was still an odd thing to her - senshi were the enemy, but Alkaid... Alkaid was different. Alkaid had fought at her side, fought for those who lived and the bodies who now laid deep into the earth in front of her.
And for that, Fluorite was more than willing to accept her.
Fluorite also hadn't known any who were buried here. She had been too new to - but she had been the one who had found the dead body of Helicase. She couldn't help but think, in a way, that if only she'd been a little quicker, he might have been able to be saved. It weighted heavily on his mind.
Finally, she moved to stand, pulled a stand of purple hair from her face, and looked at her companion. "...Alkaid, wasn't it ?" She hadn't even known half the names of those she had fought alongside with. She'd been separated from her captain early in the operation, and with him, the only link to the others that had been present had been gone. She was then left to do the best that she could.
She managed a smile to the girl. "My name is Fluorite."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:10 pm
Alkaid turned once she saw the girl begin to stand and, for once, her expectation of propriety did not fail her. The girl seemed friendly and, even if graves were not exactly great conduits for socialization, she was glad to see that the girl was willing to talk.
"Yes, Alkaid, the Senshi of Guidance." She held out a gloved hand then, extending it toward her, and simply expecting that the lieutenant would accept. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Fluorite, I'm sorry that I didn't have the time to stop for introductions before now."
Since that long, exhausting battle only a few nights past, Alkaid had been working nearly non-stop. She got little sleep and even less free time as she wandered from home to home making house calls for injured negas that couldn't all show up at the hospital at once.
It was a welcome distraction from her own injuries (bruises still peeked out beneath the hems of her clothes) but also from thoughts she would rather not entertain for a while.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 8:33 am
Fluorite took the offered hand, as she tilted her head to look up to the senshi. Really, was everyone in the negaverse taller than her ? If only barely. Really, even General Zinkenite was taller than her ! She'd probably had stolen the title of family midget.
A part of her was quite certain the general didn't mind in the least. On top of her 4'10", it was a good thing that she had a womanly figure, or else she could have too easily be mistaken for a child.
No one had even told her about chibi senshi yet. It was a good thing she'd been clued in about the few senshi in their rank, or else she might have accidentally attacked Alkaid. That certainly would have been a bad first impression.
"I understand completely. I was... pulled into the fight in a time that was quite far from normal." Most of her introductions to the others had been rushed, 5 minute things, a meeting there and there on the streets - she begrudged no one for it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 7:04 pm
Alkaid smiled down at the lieutenant as she shook her hand, seemingly not at all phased by the fact that she was just a few inches shy of towering over her by an entire foot. She did have to wonder why the negaverse continued to recruit such tiny people, though. Were they trying to deceive the senshi into making them think they were harmless? It was an admirable tactic, but Alkaid didn't quit think it was true.
"Nothing about this was normal," the smile on her face had faded quickly into a frown. She turned her head to look down at the graves, remembering how lost she had felt and then how hard the entire rescue mission had been. "But when is war ever normal?"
She shook her head and turned then, away from the graves and away from Fluorite, spinning in a slow circle with her eyes lifted to the sky. Then she simply stopped, profile view to Fluorite, but with her head turned up and her eyes locked on a star in the distance.
"You should never think that it will get easy after this. Nothing in your life will ever be easy or normal again, not until all of the senshi are dead or gone." It was a hard thing to say and her face failed to remain unphased by the words. The senshi were a blight on the planet, a disease that was slowly sucking the life out of it, but even if she had to kill every last one with her own two hands, they were still her brothers and sisters.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 10:48 am
"No... There is nothing normal about war." Fluorite agreed with that. She'd never thought she'd one day end up fighting in a war, especially something like this, something where most of the facts were completely unknown to the rest of the population. To Destiny City, the senshi and the negaverse were terrorists, or even gang members. The truth was so far removed from that, from anything one could think, that it looked more fitting to a fiction novel than into reality.
"If I have to fight to protect my family, then I do not mind. As long as I can keep those I care about safe... The world safe... I will do my best, for them." Alkaid's reaction to her own words did not escape her, and Fluorite was as a loss. "But you used to be one of them... didn't you ?" There was no accusation, no venom to her words, only curiosity, if anything. "It can't be easy... Im sorry." It seemed like such a lame thing to say. A part of her wanted to go over to the taller girl, and hold her hand, but she wasn't sure how she would take such a gesture.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 6:48 pm
Slowly, Alkaid locked her arms behind her back and laced her fingers together. Then, she looked down and to the side so she could meet Fluorite's eyes.
"You fight to protect your family and keep those you care for safe," she unlocked her hands then and spread her arms wide, taking in the view around the hill top. "I don't know this world, I don't know my family, I don't know myself." Her face was very serious for a moment as she said this, and then, a flicker of a smile was briefly on her lips. It was brief, but it was there, and she simply dropped her arms.
"My home is in the stars," she brought her hand up and pointed, staring in the distance to the same place she had looked before. "That tiny glimmer of light, thousands of light years away from your world, is my home." Then she swept her hand across the sky. "All of these are homes, every senshi you have met and some you have not, they belong out there in those distant places."
She dropped her hand to her side again and turned around to face Fluorite once more, with her back to the stars and her planet. "I am still one of them, we are still all the people of the stars and distant planets. We belong out there, not on this tiny rock - it has its own senshi, wherever her traitorous soul has hidden itself." Then she looked back over her shoulder at the star she knew as her own, at her namesake and a world she would never see again. She had sacrificed that power to fight for the negaverse. She had sacrificed so much.
"The difference between me and my brothers and sisters is that they have forgotten where they're from and what world they are meant to protect." She looked away from the stars again and smiled, very sadly, at Fluorite. "They are lost. It might be hard for me to fight them, perhaps even to kill them, but in the end I am Guidance. If I can't show them the way, who will?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 7:19 pm
Fluorite's heart seemed to drop with every word Alkaid spoke. What kind of comfort could she offer to this ? What kind of understanding could she even pretend to have to something like this ?
None. None at all. "I can... be your sister. If you want me to." The words came out without her thinking much about it. She sincerely wished there was something she could do. Because if they weren't there for each other, then who would ? She wished to bring Alkaid comfort... But she wasn't sure how. And even less sure if she ever could.
Green eyes followed the same direction than Alkaid's. "This one ?" She pointed. They had homes in the stars... Destroyed homes, that much she knew. "When I was young... I wondered if stars ever got lonely, all the way up there. They look like they're so close, but in reality they're so far away from one another..." It seemed all so silly now.
"The Earth... has a senshi ?" Her eyes went wide at that. Fluorite hadn't gotten that memo. Then... Where was she ? Why wasn't she fighting at their side ? What had happened ?
"Guidance..." It seemed so fitting, in more ways than one. Fluorite smiled. "Im not that good at reading auras... I've gotten better since the fight, but before ? When we were in the warehouse... I was using your aura as a guide when we got separated, because it was the one that stood out, the only one I could clearly identify. As long as I could feel you, I knew I wasn't lost."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 10:05 pm
"Yes," her voice was low and carried an air of anger deeply crafted in the words. "We all found out recently, but she seems to have been a traitorous fool. She is no friend to any of us." The poison in her voice said pretty much everything she felt on the subject. She had once been hopeful for Earth's return, but now? Now she was no better than any of them.
Then the anger on Alkaid's face slowly began to fade, replaced with a softness. She had been living with anger and hurt in her heart for so long that she had nearly forgotten what it felt like to feel anything else. She had clung to it and used it to get through the days that the BMC had held Tanzanite and the others captive, she had needed it to push herself through.
Now it was slipping away, uncoiling itself from her soul and leaving her open for knew things to take its place.
"Yes, that one," she said softly, slowly drawing her hand back from where it was pointing to the stars. For a moment she was just silent, and then she felt the pinpricks of tears burning her eyes and the emotions that were swarming up and taking advantage of her raw, open heart. The soldiers of the negaverse continued to surprise her, every day, with how welcoming and loving they were - even to her. Even to a senshi that had once fought them.
"I didn't know that, I didn't know that.. anyone had depended on me." She turned her head away from Fluorite, slowly, and let her gaze stare at the ground. It was a simple act of trying to hide the emotions on her face. She was normally good at building a wall, but she felt open and exposed and that made her uncomfortable. "My place here is like one of those stars. I belong to a group, but I am.. lonely, because I'm different. I feel so far away from everyone, sometimes."
The words just bubbled out, tumbling from her mouth before she could stop them. No one had ever stopped to ask her how she felt, how she was dealing with this, because it just wasn't protocol. Alkaid didn't blame anyone for that, but now that Fluorite had extended a shoulder to lean on, she realized how much she had been holding inside.
"I would like, very much, to have a sister." She looked back up at Fluorite and the tears were still brimming in her eyes, but she was doing a good job at holding them back. Even for the sadness in her eyes, though, she was smiling - a timid one, but it was real.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 5:19 pm
Fluorite, she would find out, didn't give a damn about protocol. At least as far as this was concerned. Where some might see the corrupted senshi as a weapon, Fluorite saw her as a person - a person just like each of them, yet at the same time different. She'd never had issues with difference. They stood on the same side, and that was what mattered. They fought the same war, even through Alkaid's personal war would always be so much different than her own.
Fluorite fought invaders. Alkaid fought her own kin.
The purple-haired girl walked the few steps that separated them, and then finally laced her arms around the taller girl, pulling her into a hug. "I probably won't ever understand... But i'll listen, okay ?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2011 2:35 pm
Alkaid stood awkwardly for a second as the smaller girl wrapped her arms around her, frozen by the surprise. Then, slowly, her body relaxed and her arms wrapped in turn around the tinier figure. She held her like that for a moment before she shut her eyes and leaned her head against Fluorite's, listening to what she said.
For a long time, Alkaid didn't know how to answer. She was used to being strong and plunging headlong through her problems, and here was this tiny lieutenant offering her a shoulder to lean on. Alkaid had been the caretaker for so long that she'd forgotten what it felt like to let others fill that role for her.
"Okay," she said finally around a growing lump in her throat, croaking it out in a whisper.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 11:32 am
Fluorite didn't move, didn't speak, until Alkaid finally did. The two girls stood there for what seemed like minutes, silent, freely offering comfort to the other. In truth, even Fluorite needed comfort at the moment. This was a whole new world she was discovering, and it was overwhelming.
It was by helping others that she could help herself.
She didn't mind it when her head was all but used as a leaning spot. She was used to it, and she just smiled.
She was content to just stay right there until Alkaid wanted to let go.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
