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She had put her foot down and demanded--well, asked politely--to be allowed to sit up--like they had ever tried to stop her--and the nurses had hid smiles behind their hands as they helped her. It seemed to be the general consensus that she was one of the more adorable patients on the ward right then. Elke stayed bullheadedly oblivious, sulking except when her grandmother brought her a small stack of magazines or a nurse popped in to say hello.

Pediatric nurses were very friendly.

Apparently Grandma Arma hadn't vetted the magazines she'd brought her granddaughter. Elke had discarded Cosmopolitan, almost managing to get it to fall under the bed. A nurse had helped her out by toeing it underneath with a wink. She had similarly discarded Parenting, Oprah, and Seventeen. Now what she had left was a bridal magazine and Vogue; she had fully intended to read the more respectable fashion magazine, but then she'd just been drawn in by the pretty white dress on the cover. Now she was holding a pen clumsily in her left hand, pouting determinedly as she underlined a particular thought of her current article.

After all, what else was there to do? Her nails had been painted so many times, she couldn't do much of anything with her laptop at all, and her cell phone was charging... Maybe someone would visit soon. That would be nice. She would be able to put down the magazines.

Elke didn't seem to notice Scylla, engrossed in trying to draw a straight line with her left hand. This was a lot harder than her left-handed friends made it look. It was very hard. Elke rather thought she wanted her IV out now so she could make proper underlines, these were so ugly.

Then, when her friend spoke, the bluenette answered: "Well, of course they don't, Scy, that's why you don't eat flowers! Why are you eating flowers any--"

She realized who she was talking to and then looked up, smiling brightly enough to light up the corners of the room. Then she saw Scylla's face, and her brows furrowed, the smile turning to an unhappy frown. Scooting over--moving closer to the window, since that was the side her IV was on--and wincing, she asked, "What happened, Scy? Your face is all... all hurt!"

The dosage of her pain medication had been lowered, but apparently her vocabulary hadn't come back yet.

Elke patted the spot next to her on her bed. "Come help me make underlines," she said, holding out the bridal magazine to Scylla. It was open to a page on outdoor weddings, and it was painfully clear why she wanted the help with underlining. "And tell me what happened! Scy, you look like a mess..." Why hadn't anyone brought her her makeup?

"Angry gnomes?" Elke twirled the rose between her fingers and rested her head on Scylla's shoulder. Flowers always smelled so pretty... Experimentally, she tucked it behind her ear. The stem didn't catch and it didn't immediately fall over, so she fluffed up her hair around it. "Why were the gnomes angry? Sometimes in France they got mad and ate the strawberries... but really that was us..." She furrowed her brows and then looked back to the magazine.

With a shrug, she continued, "Am okay. Kinda hungry but I'm not s'posed to eat anything. They're all 'stuff is still healing'! And I'm all 'but I am really really hungry'." She sighed, shaking her head. Red roots were becoming pretty obvious in her hair, and it was a good thing no one had exposed Elke to a mirror because if they had she would be fretting and asking to dye her hair and they would also be denying her that.

Of the magazine... She blushed, pressing her left hand against her cheek. "Well, um, Grandma brought me some magazines and I didn't want to read the other ones and I was gonna read Vogue because Vogue is nice, except when they have the--" her voice dropped to a whisper "--naked people--" now back to normal volume "--but the dress on the front is really pretty and the text in Vogue is really small." And, with her current predicament, the larger text of the bridal magazine wouldn't give her such a headache.

"Plus, um, I was thinking about... you know, someday getting married." If she had been any less drugged-up she would never have said such a thing; she knew that Zodiacs only cared for other Zodiacs and the Princess and sometimes the Handmaidens depending on their mood. "And since I don't have hardly anything to do, I thought I could think about it." She looked at Scylla, a bit red. "It's not stupid, is it?"

Elke gasped at the army of possessed garden gnomes. She never ran into anything so weird or oddly adorable-sounding, why was that? Just gargoyles and trash youma and panther-things. Nothing cute, ever.

With a sigh, she said, "Only little bits of jello but I dunno, they told me 'your nutrients are taken care of!' So I guess I shouldn't fuss." It was okay if they said it was okay. Elke wanted them to like her, just like she wanted Scylla to like her. Painkillers gave her a bit more freedom than she normally allowed herself with her brain-to-mouth filter: "But I don't like sports drinks"--which didn't mean that she wouldn't drink one, if Scylla wanted to, just that she wouldn't drink one if she had a choice between water and Gatorade.

"Would you, Scy?" Elke would like that. She wondered what kind of reader her friend was; was she one of the people who read too fast? Or boringly slow? Maybe she'd be one of the ones who read at a just-right speed. Elke hoped so.

How could you plan a whole wedding plus groom when someone was only seven? "She was picking out your boyfriend? That's not right," said Elke. She slipped her arm through the older senshi's, squeezing gently--more to protect her own side than to make the motion unobtrusive. Then she pointed out a picture of a wedding on the beach. "That's where I want to get married. On a beach somewhere, you know? In the evening, in the summer? I think if I was getting married to the right guy, I wouldn't be scared of the dark."

Her friend was laughing, and so Elke smiled. "Okay," she said; she was being silly, wasn't she? No one would offer something if they didn't mean it, of course they wouldn't! If Scy offered to read, she meant she would, and that was good. "Could you? Come visit me, I mean. It gets really lonely here, everyone is really busy." And barely any of her Zodiac friends had come to see her... it was getting really depressing, that's what it was.

"No," she said, "They're giving it to my friend Giselle, I think, but she hasn't come to see me yet." Elke sighed, trying to make it theatric but failing. It ended up just adorable, the kind of heart-melting adorable most people can only manage at the age of four.

(What could she say, she was gifted.)

"He wouldn't have to be handsome, just mine, I think." Elke closed her eyes, imagined getting married--the groom was taller than her, of course, because that always looked best. And he had dark hair, that's all she really knew... "With seashells in my hair," she said, opening her eyes. "And pretty white gloves that button at the wrist. Flowers, too, white ones, I think."

She looked up at Scylla, setting her chin on the other girl's shoulder. "Where would you get married, Scy?"

"I have a copy of Cosmo," Elke mumbled, looking off at the window. She did not want to admit that she was actually a little curious about the contents of that particular magazine. From her encounter with Castor, she had the idea that she couldn't ever do anything that was talked about in that magazine, so... why should she read it? Plus, it made her feel awkward. "A nurse kicked it under the bed for me."

She smiled at Scylla adoringly. Once, she'd wondered what it would be like to have an older sister--now she had one in the form of Sailor Scylla, and she found it to be quite wonderful. How come she had to be the older sister, huh? "Uh-huh," she said, nodding firmly. "And... a fitted bodice with no sleeves and a big floofy princes skirt, if I don't scar too bad from this. In silk, the kind that looks like a pearl when the light hits it." Somewhere she knew that she shouldn't be talking about this. Zodiacs were for Zodiacs, but surely...

But surely...

A tear slipped down her face, but she wiped it away before it hit Scylla's fuku. "I can come to your wedding, right?" She held out hope that one day her friend would trust her enough to tell her her real name--before either of them was old enough to get married. "If you elope, you gotta at least tell me! I'd help you plan your escape."

Elke stared, and then settled herself against Scylla's side again. It hurt a little to bend her torso, but not too much that she would move. "If you promise," Elke whispered, "to be super quiet, ok?" And she resettled herself to smile up at the dark-haired senshi.

"I don't want to look adorable on my wedding day," she grumped, gently poking Scylla in the side, "I should look beautiful, or, uh, that one--how do you say it, ravishing? Is that right?" You always were supposed to be radiantly lovely on your wedding day. That's how it worked! To look otherwise was against the rules, wasn't it?

She shook her head, then looked back at Scylla. How was she supposed to explain it? The Zodiacs, and then-- and then Avery-- "I feel like... like this is the stuff I shouldn't plan. It feels like I'm cheating on someone, but I've only ever had one boyfriend and, and he's dead. And--" Elke had never really talked about Avery to anyone but Serenade, and that only one the one time. Sometimes, when the Princess cried for Eon, she would let a few tears slip, but--

"We were in a bad place together," she said, slowly, looking off at the wall. "And something bad happened to him, and he hurt me, and said things that weren't true. But I loved him--I loved him so much--and--"

It was easier to explain Avery than to explain the past. Monogamy is another word for isolation. She rubbed the white scar on her left ring finger, much like one would rub their wedding ring. Could she get married if she already was?

It was hard to picture Scylla being quiet like a mouse; Scylla wasn't cute like a mouse, she was more... regal! Like a cat! Cats were quiet... weren't they?

"We'll both be beautiful," she decided. "What kind of pretty dress would you wear, Scy?" Of course it would be a pretty dress; it would be the prettiest dress in the world, tied with Elke's wedding dress. And the Princess's dress, also, because the Princess always dressed well. Elke didn't know that the Princess would want to marry, though... Ally was dead, and Ally had been the Princess's one true love.

She blinked, then. "Are you cold?" Without waiting for an answer, she tugged the quilt over Scylla too; it was a panel quilt, telling a story of what looked like--sleeping beauty? Something fairytale... "You'll find someone, Scy. I know you will." Elke smiled, eyes bright.