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 Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 3:45 am
He said reactively, "I am home," and was aware he'd given too much information. It was hard enough not to swear afterwards, or tense. So he just said, "I'm home now, this is my home," and let that be that.
Hector was looking up at the stars. The night was cloudy, and there were only a few unimpressive pinpricks that dotted the skies overhead. One day I will do what I want was a threat, a prophetic promise, one that was much more chilly than her light little voice meant it to be. One day I'll do what I want. He'd said that a lot of times as a stupid kid to Marc, to Clevo, as a sort of afterthought of rage at unfairness. One day I'll get what's mine. One day I'll do it. One day I'll just take it, I'll just reach out my hands and take it, you get what I'm saying?
They didn't, sometimes, though he thought Cleveland did. Or Taylor. He'd lie down with Tay as Tay expanded on plans he thought were big, college-sized plans or future-car-sized plans, only veering into Jesse's approval when he'd give up frustratedly and say: you know what? One day I'm just going to leave all of this -- bullshit! That was an actual plan. Hector said, "And what'll you do when Wiseman says, nice try, honey, but I'm not ready for you to do what you want? You should want what I want."
One hand gestured to the sky. "He'll never stop wanting," he said. His throat burned with the disloyal indignity of it when he added, "Don't you contradict me. I know. Alexandros never stops wanting either."
(And that wasn't Dylan, that was Alexandros. It wasn't Dylan. It wasn't even Jesse, it was Hector. Only.)
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:33 am
Thankfully for Hector, his companion thought little of the statement that he was already home, thinking it was just a reinforcement of Nehelenia making a foothold in this world. It was nothing to her but an expectation, and it was brushed off just as easily. Destiny City certainly wasn't her home, and the princess wasn't sure it would ever be.
His comment on never ceasing to want made her swap her reclining position for one that hugged her knees, making her look more pathetic than anyone had thought possible. There was something incredibly disarming about Black Lady when she did such things, because she was unmistakably evil. But when she did such innocent, pathetic things, you had a hard time remembering that, and you couldn't really help but want to reach out to her and offer some sort of comfort so that she might go back to trying to blow your face off. It was expected, it was comforting. You didn't want to feel bad for the villain. It never ended well.
Her brow furrowed as she contemplated this, and then shrugged carelessly. "Hope. That is funny, for me to say. I do not have a lot of hope." Buns shook and heels tapped against the plastic in a staccato burst. "I do not know, is that what you want to hear? I can only live now. Not in the future. The future is gone." Exasperated with herself, with the idea that everything she was aiming for might be wiped away with a swipe of her Wiseman's hand, Chibiusa pressed her forehead to her knees for a minute. Her original plan had been to grow up, marry Helios, and continue the line of Moon Princesses to guard the Solar System into the end reaches of time. It was her only duty in Crystal Tokyo, she'd been eager to perform it.
Now, Helios was a girl and the line was nearly broken. What were you supposed to do with that? "I am not Serenity. I am just Chibiusa. Does not matter what I do or not do." And that was the whole truth of the matter. She, very much like him, was the secondary, the pocket trump. It didn't matter what she did, because she would never be as great as the Almighty Serenity, though she herself was one.
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:50 am
"If you really believed that, you wouldn't be here." Hector's voice was a switch, a cut. "You'd have drank Drano -- slit your wrists -- you know, suicide, seppeku." (He pronounced it terribly but it was recognisable Japanese.) "That's what you do when you got nothing left to live for, Small Lady. You want something. That's why you're still alive, you're waiting."
He pushed himself off the slide, crunching on the waffle weft of plastic threads as he spun around to point. When he spoke he did it like he was declaiming poetry. In reality Jesse would have not made a shabby actor if he'd bothered working on settings not melodrama, if he'd mentioned theater and not followed up with 'fags'. "When you really have nothing, rock-bottom, that's when you go crazy. You're still hanging around doing what Wiseman wants. Jesus, you're even doing what I want you to do, aren't you?"
The Mirrorverse cavalier had stepped towards her. The black-and-violet cloak fluttered a little in the wind. He said, "You want to live. Admit it! You want to live so much you let Puu send you away and Wiseman pick you up because you're so s**t-scared to die."
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 5:04 am
It was childish, she knew it was childish, but she couldn't help it. Black Lady put her hands over her ears, far too late to make any difference. Every word that had come slicing from Hector's mouth had sliced deep where he had intended it. He didn't need the rapier to make an effect, words were perhaps the most useful weapon against this adversary. These were uncomfortable truths, things that before nobody had bothered to tell her. But then, who knew the whole story of this princess? Only two, and Wiseman needed her, wouldn't tell her these things even if he believed them. Did he think that of her?
It was the truth, so it wasn't too far-fetched. Slamming hands against the plastic, Chibiusa rose from the slide with her eyes blazing. "So what?!" She'd been waiting to use that one, but not even her triumph over the English language would calm her now. "You do not know. Sailor Moon died many times. Always came back, they always wait for her. I am the only one left to wait!" Another excuse, a convenient excuse and she whirled away to pace, full of turmoil and anger. Anger at whom? She was never sure. Herself, Hector, Wiseman, her mother? It was so mixed up, jumbled, twisted, she was never sure of anything or anyone.
Finally she whirled and advanced on the prince again, expression set and almost desperate. "What if I die, and no one waits for me? Who waits for the second princess?" It was her biggest fear, that if she vanished, there would be no memory. All the senshi in this city were searching desperately for Serenity, not a single one of them knew who she was. Who had heard of the princess from the future, the child of two dead monarchs who should rightfully never exist? Would she even get a grave if she died?
Not likely.
"Is it bad, to be afraid?" It seemed that she was always afraid, like if she simply turned around things would be worse and worse, until she was spiraling in a circle of despair.
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 5:20 am
He had caught up her hands at her wrists. She had small wrists, obscured by black gauze and now by the rings of one pair of gloved fingers and one pair bare. It was the grasp of one of the parents whose child had just ventured out of the barrier of the wooden rail. Sometimes her father (not Mamoru, as he was) had caught her hands up like that when she --
His father had caught up his hands like that as well. The past dictated he follow it up with a slight shake but revulsion stopped that urge in its tracks. The same revulsion made him calm but he didn't let go, just stood there, and her cheeks were red with anger. "Don't yell at me again, Small Lady," he said. "You're not the first, but I don't give people a second turn. All right? All right."
Hector's grip was still tight on her wrists. "I'll wait for you," he said, still as calm as though her anger wasn't there. Was not present. He loosened his hands only when she tugged on them, tested his hold to see how much he would push it, his arms dropping to his sides. His sword still glimmered at his hip. "Don't get scared if you're not going to use it. If you're feeling it, you're right, but fear's a trashy version of anger. I'll teach you better."
When he spoke he did not rush through it like he had before, but was patient and deliberate. His eyes were very violet, Hotaru eyes. "I said, I'll wait."
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 5:43 am
"You lie." Her voice was calm now, but the flush that spread over her features remained, tinged now with shame that she had revealed so much of herself in an unguarded moment. "You have to be. Why would you wait?" Desperately though, she wished he was serious, and it was easy to read in her face. When you wanted something bad enough, it was impossible to hide your desire and your need. Chibiusa had ample amounts of both, akin to the naked longing that had appeared on her face when she'd spoken of hope.
Fingers touched her wrist where has fingers had closed around them, feeling the touch there still. It had felt like he cared, but did he really? Wasn't he from the mirror, could he be trusted? Hector was so very, well, not entirely kind but in his own strange way he was. God, it was all just so confusing, why couldn't things be easy? Why did every single thing have to be tied up in who you served, who you were, who you had been. Black Lady could not forget that she was a White Moon princess from the future, and until she did, things would never settle for her. Until she could accept that she was not supposed to be the Messiah, but was loved anyway, the fear would never subside.
"What do I do with fear, Hector? I have lots of fear. Too much to be very strong. Do I look weak?" It was an odd switch, but it was an important question, one that Wiseman had jumped at to reassure her that she was not. Beryl had assured her that she was. What would this person think?
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:04 am
"You want to know how weak you are," he said. "Do I live in your head, Small Lady?"
Wiseman had said, they don't breed you weak in the Moon Kingdom. Now Hector was saying, "Weak's in your brain. You're standing here. You're talking to me. Weak's when you're afraid and you just let yourself be afraid, and -- " He cut himself off tersely. "I can't tell you what you want to hear. It's not me you want to hear it from anyway."
The cavalier half-turned away from her, back to the slide. She looked at him in profile. Hector was full of frustrated pity, an empty vortex that sat in his gut and howled at the moon, making him hate himself acutely. For a moment he hated himself and had to hate Alexandros by association. Alexandros and Nehelenia, and every single Court member down. "I can't tell you what you want to hear," he repeated lowly. "Get scared. Get angry. Whatever you feel is the real thing. Whatever you do with it makes you weak or strong. Lesson number one."
Underfoot the bark crunched as he turned back. "Lesson number two," he said. "I'll wait because I am desirous of waiting." (Desirous was a Dylan word, lightly dropped from his mouth. Wouldn't mean a thing to Chibiusa.) "I'm a second prince, Princess."
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:47 am
It was another lie, the idea that she didn't want to hear what he thought. Obviously the cavalier had no problem speaking his mind, and seemed genuinely interested in helping her. To what ends, it was uncertain. Did he think maybe she would quietly step aside when the time came, if they were friends? Would she do that? Two questions that went on the list of Unanswerable Things.
It was baffling, the first lesson. So she was weak because she gave in to her emotions and then followed through with them, but didn't get controlled? That sounded familiar, but it seemed so at odds with everything she had learned from Usagi. Usagi had always followed her emotions, and been blessed by the heavens for it. But then, you couldn't exactly say that the original Moon Princess had negative emotions. Sorrow certainly, but she almost never got actually angry and certainly was almost never afraid. Fear was just something to be defeated, like all the evil that had fallen in her wake. Here was a thought that deserved further contemplation, and maybe, if she could muddle through it enough, Ray could be asked. It was not easy, having your only adult friend also be the great force of evil that you worked with to destroy the world.
Really wasn't good for personal development, that was certain!
Black Lady was so lost in her own thoughts that when he reminded her again that he was also the backup royal, it caused her pink head to look back at Hector and a slow smile. Walking over, Chibiusa slipped one slim hand into his own and held it lightly. "We are second together?" It wasn't much, but it was a start. Lying or not, it was incredibly comforting to think that even if something happened to her, someone would wait for Small Lady Serenity to come back again.
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:11 pm
His hand held hers. Lying or not. "Yes," he said, "we're second."
It was not like Helios holding her hand, when Helios had had sorrowful eyes or addressed her as Maiden or any of the other things he'd done when she was so hopeful about how he felt about her. Hector just held her hand in his own and looked down at their fingers, not her face, which again went on the list of Unanswerable Things. Apparently she only ever met people who prompted unanswerable questions. Unaskable questions. It was depressing.
A big clock chimed in the background. Now her life was Cinderella. "I have to go," said the cavalier, but didn't expand on why. Their hands were dropped. "You come back here Friday. Not tomorrow night, but the night after. Meet me here."
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:17 pm
Chibiusa very nearly laughed at that point, but didn't think that it was exactly what the prince wanted to hear and she was feeling mildly generous at the moment. Why? It was impossible to say. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn't immediately dropped her hand, that he had agreed, that he'd made the effort to arrange a time for them to meet yet again.
If nothing else, she had someone to talk to, someone who understood at least half of it. Never mind that to her, his queen was a b*****d ursurper, and Black Lady the thief who had aided in the loss of her crystal. Never mind that he didn't understand her attachment to the charismatic Wiseman no matter how many times she explained. Nobody was perfect, after all. When powers were thrown into the mix, perfection became almost entirely unreachable.
"Night after next. Friday." Almost as if she had been holding it the whole time, the gold star was again in her hand, and glimmering in the light. "It is a date!" The grin was wide, and the giggle almost carefree when both charm and girl vanished again into that odd glimmer of pink sparkle. After all, it was pointless to remain at the playground by herself, it would have been lonely now without Hector.
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