onepassingnight | ☆ she dreams of stars 001;

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☆ she dreams of stars 001;

At a glance, this just seems to be a normal and peaceful dream. The sky is a bright blue color that seems to expand on forever. The green grass sways with a gently and comforting wind that passes through and the sound of water flowing through the creeks adds to the music that nature has created. There are trees off in the distance. The huge canopy of green is held up by the strong brown trunks and it casts a shadow to cool yourself from.

But something is amiss. ... There's something not right with this dream.

Upon further inspection, you notice that the grass is in fact not grass. It's long tubes of green pixie stix that you can pluck from the ground and devour. The water is actually blue kool-aid and the rocks around it are upside down cups you can scoop the liquid and drink. The tree trunks are actually made of chocolate that never melts holding up text book leaves that sway back and forth, flipping pages of college material that may or may not have to do with science and math.

...what the heck kind of dream is this? And where is the dreamer?

Where you appear in her dream doesn't seem to harbor any clues but if you search you'll sure find her. Perhaps she's laying in the field of wheat and mint staring at the sky or maybe she's under a tree munching on some chocolate and reading a book she may have plucked from a tree. But somewhere in this dream scape, she is alone. In this dream of childish whims and light, she keeps to herself. No one to talk to or to keep her company.

Will you be the one to relieve her loneliness?

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[Sailor Mars must be criticizing her again. That's what Ami wants to say. She wants to turn it into a joke, belittle it, make it nothing like she was nothing.

But the words don't come. No words come, for a moment. She stays quiet inside herself until finally she looks straight at Usagi.]

When did that start to become important to you?

[ It had become important that fateful day she had to swallow reality and face it for what it was. There would be no one to hold her hand for the rest of her life -- not like the Senshi. Not like Mamoru. But they had died to make sure she lived. It was a wake up call.. and wake up calls of that magnitude suck. ]

It should have been important to me from the beginning.

[ She's doing good at holding her sadness back. But, when she smiles, it's bittersweet, heavy on the bitter. ]

But, you know me. I have a habit of being late half the time.

[She could say it again: This is different. It isn't the answer she'd expect at all. She'd have expected some nonsense speech about how it was always important, when every fact would contradict that.

She hadn't expected the admission. The surprised look that crosses her face is entirely unguarded, and thus sincere.

She doesn't want to listen to Usagi again. She knows where it leads: Usagi, happy and loved by everyone no matter what horrors she commits or what sickening realities she learns, while Ami has only darkness and blood on her hands she only wishes she could shrug off that easily and still know how to smile.

Except right now is a far cry from that bright enthusiasm. Except she knows it only takes another twist for Usagi to run and play and be happy, happiness Mercury hasn't been allowed since setting foot in the Dark Kingdom.

She knows, she knows all of it in her mind and he's so right when he calls her hatred shallow if a moment and a few empty words can make her want to answer differently. Her lowered eyes snap open.]

Sometimes 'late' is 'too late'.

Then I have do better so that if I get another chance, I won't be late.

[ That's the problem. Usagi's not happy. Not since then. The only glimmers of happiness she gets is when her dreams are kind and don't play on her memories. ]

I'm not going to give up. They wouldn't want me to when they believed I could do so much.

[ Somewhere inside of her heart, even though she's upset, she knows that is what they'd want her to do. Take care of herself and live life and do good. ... So, she lets the smile soften as she tilts her head forward just slightly. ]

[She can feel her heart beating faster with the confusion, the chaos Usagi always brings to her determinedly ordered mind, the fight between the urge to lash out and the urge to soften. Why couldn't she simply be strong enough to leave it all behind her?

No. That was the wrong question. How could she be strong enough to leave it all behind her with constant reminders from other worlds and even her dreams?

This time, the fight for control is lost as her features and posture relax just the slightest bit.]

You're saying you're really doing this for them? [Not her. But them. She isn't sure if she has a pang of jealousy, or if it's a start.]

I'm doing it for everyone. For myself. For my parents. For my friends.

[ Slowly, Usagi kneels down so she's close to the ground, allowing her hands to skim across the tips of the candied grass and letting it lightly tickle against the underside of her hand.

She pauses on one blade of grass before letting it go and watching it sway back and forth in the wind. Slowly, her head lifts up and she's searching the other girls' features for another moment before adding. ]

Even you. Even if it's too late for us because of the other me you know, I still want to do better for you too.

[For her, too. Ami can't quite meet Usagi's eyes as she sifts through what that should mean. This is no 'Ami-chan is Ami-chan', no 'because we're senshi', none of those empty - or manipulative - reasons Ami hated.

But that very fact raises a new question.]

'Even me', huh?

Why?

[ Why? The answer leaves Usagi befuddled for a few moments before a calm smile finally falls on her face. ]

Because, I'd like to be your friend.

[ Usagi stands up from the ground, and then finally decides to reach into the tree and pluck her book she had been avoiding for a little while and tugging it off of the branches. ]

And because I'd like to get to know you more if you decide to give me that chance.

[ Because she can see the differences between the Ami she knew, and the Ami before her. She wants to know why things happened to this girl the way it did and thanks to seeing the could be of her world.. she doesn't want her to feel alone for the things she's done. Things she's holding back because of what had to be done. ]

[Except if it hadn't had to... Everything changes. Even now, she isn't a girl who can shrug off motives.

Ami faces Usagi. It's her turn first.]

Then tell me what happened in your world, honestly from the beginning.

[ The question startles her. Truly and honestly. And it's not that she doesn't want to tell the other girl what happened in her world.

She's not prepared for an explanation right then and there. And almost as if her dream scape wanted to fit the mood, the sun seems less bright and the gentle wind slowly turns into motionless air. Nothing else seems to change besides that.

So, she straightens, swallowing the lump that's tried to close up her throat. ]

How far back do you want me to go?

[She doesn't mind the dimming. The dark tale of the Silver Millenium deserves a dark place to be told. And so, it's what she asks for, the very beginning of it all, how far back being bound to this girl who could throw them away was supposed to go.]

The past life. Start from there.

[ Well, at least telling the story from the beginning could give her enough time to prep for the disaster that was the Galaxy Cauldron. So, she nods in response and decides that sitting for this would be better. ]

Alright.

[ Usagi takes a deep breath and then tells the story of the Silver Millenium. Princess visiting Earth, falling for the Earth Prince against everyone's wishes. How when the Earth had realized the Moon and its inhabitants, banned together thanks to Beryl and Metalia and attacked the beautiful kingdom. That Endymion and everyone else had died protecting her. Grief struck that everyone she knew and loved was dead, committed suicide with their corpses on the steps of the Moon Palace and that was how the Queen found them before sealing the evil away. ]

[It's so close to the same - the children who were supposed to give up their lives for a princess who never had the ability to appreciate or even understand the sacrifice. The war over the jealousy Earth felt for the immortality and power of the Moon Kingdom's goddesses. The despair of the deaths, one after another. The terrible calamities.

The death of the prince and the end of the world.]

A fairy tale, they call it sometimes. [She says this much with bitterness that is perhaps justified. It's no fairy tale to those who lived through the tragedy.]

[ There's a small chuckle that escapes Usagi's lips, but there's no joy in it. It's her way of agreeing that only those who were involved wouldn't call the ending of an era a fairy tale.

Still, she continues. Usagi Tsukino at age 14 meeting up with the black cat named Luna learning she was a senshi and then being told to find the other inner senshi, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter so that they could find the Princess. Along the way meeting up with Tuxedo Kamen along with the inevitable reveal of who the true Princess was. The Silver Crystal not working, heading to the Moon Kingdom to hear of the past from the fallen Queen being met with the brainwashed Mamoru who attacked them for the Crystal and then Beryl dying at the hands of Venus and who is then whisked away to Metalia by Mamoru and Moon rushing in to save her friend.

She then tells about using the sword to kill both herself and Mamoru and that the reason the silver crystal had stopped working was that a part of it had fallen into Mamoru and that they were both encased by it to be healed. Being eaten by Metalia after the encasing and then after awakening, defeating the evil and restoring everything to its proper state.

Usagi has to pause, and in fact decides to get herself a drink from the stream next to her because it's so much to tell and it also helps to calm her nerves. ]

[Herself, instead of all of them; she killed herself. But it's still the same. How is not being willing to live for their sake, better than not being willing to let them live? In both cases, they're nothing to her, and Ami looks away, head held high and stiff shoulder presented to Usagi.]

[ Of course, she doesn't end there. Then there's Chibi-Usa.. the girl from the future being followed by the Black Moon Family. Her search for the Silver Crystal of the past, leading up to Mercury, Mars and Jupiter being kidnapped by the invaders of the future. How Chibi-Usa had almost gotten away with stealing her crystal and how she had almost lost Venus but had gotten to her just in time. Traveling to the Time Gates, meeting Sailor Pluto, heading into the destroyed future to find out what had happened, why it happened and who Small Lady truly belonged to. ]

[Small Lady. No - Black Lady, the one person who understood that loneliness and the deception of the so-called loving Tsukino Usagi who could claim to save the world but abandon her senshi, or even her own daughter. The person so much like Ami that they had shared so much. There is even a small pendant of the poison black crystal that Ami was given as a gift from the one person who knew her.

At least, she'd thought that once. Like everyone else, even Black Lady could abandon and betray what she'd stood for.]

[ Then there's the telling of how she was kidnapped by Diamond. How she searched their base for the other senshi before they all managed to escape. Chibi-Usa being kidnapped by the Wiseman and then becoming Black Lady who then kidnapped Mamoru. Trying to search for her in the 4th dimension, only to have to go back home due to Moon using up her power to bring them all home.

... Then having to go back to the 30th century. Fighting against Black Lady, Diamond, Sapphire and the Wiseman. Where they had managed to take the ginzuisho from her and almost bring the powers of the past and future crystals together and Pluto dying to prevent it. ]

[This is new territory to her, whose later enemies had been handled very differently. She treats the story seriously, her face masking many of her emotions as she maintains a brooding silence.

Usagi had sacrificed herself for them. It's both what she wants - needs - and the worst feeling of all: that it's her who's too flawed to be saved or loved, because even the 'her' of other worlds was enough.]

[ She then talks about Black Lady turning back into Chibi-Usa due to the death of Pluto. Her transforming into Chibi-Moon and then the inevitable final battle with the Death Phantom before departing the 30th century.

Then she talks about the witches 5. Their plans to gather up hosts for the monsters that they've created along with meeting up with Neptune and Uranus. Getting to know Michiru and Haruka. Finding Pluto had been reborn after her death in the 30th century. Creating the holy grail to become Super Sailor Moon to quell the fighting amongst the inners and outers -- and the sad truth of Hotaru being Sailor Saturn. ]

[As always with Chibi-Usa, it's her own fate: to have been foolish enough to return to Usagi's side after, in this case, Usagi's seeming death.

Well. Kunzite, and Ami's own determination, put a stop to that. Why pretend for a few months, only to have to raise her sword again in the end anyway?

'You have a chance to prevent much more than I, and I hope you take advantage to the fullest.' She had. She had fought to end it sooner, quicker, before so much was already lost.]

[ Then it's Chibi-Usa whose crystal was then taken by the possessed Hotaru. Mistress 9 was born and the city was under attack. Mamoru stayed behind to keep the princess of the future alive while she and the others went to the heart of the infinity delta -- mugen infinity college. The battle raged on and when it looked like Pharaoh 90 had almost achieved his goal of devouring the planet, she tells about how she jumped in with the powers of everyone flowing within her to defeat the beast before it could fulfill his desire.

It's a miracle that she hasn't died, but her leap of faith succeeds. It works enough that Pharaoh 90 has to retreat back to its solar system to regroup and heal. Saturn is revived and then follows the dark entity to the Tau system where she destroys it after Pluto closes the door behind her.

Then Hotaru is reborn and the outer senshi take the newborn child and decide to raise her as their own. ]

[She's never been as skilled as she'd like in hiding those emotions. The anger, the frustration, the jealousy, the spite, the triumph at Usagi's low points; they all show plainly on her face before she controls her expression and posture again.

It was so different in a world where so much couldn't be saved. Of course it was wonderful for Usagi. Of course Usagi had everyone with her to use their powers - all she had wanted from them from the start. Of course Usagi had not had to struggle through pain and loss and fear and darkness.]

[ A new school year approached. They were in high school and Chibi-Usa should have returned home, but the Dead Moon Circus showed up. The Circus and a new power born from the will to protect everyone. How one by one the dead moon circus tried to break the bonds of the senshi only to fail at the hands of each of the inner senshi. Mamoru getting sick due to the Circus' presence in Elysion -- the Golden Crystal that needed to be unlocked. How she ended up catching the spell that had befallen the Earth Prince while the inner senshi had gone on their own mission to figure out the Circus. The Outer Senshi's return and how she and Tuxedo Mask had almost died.. only to head to Elysion and learn the Golden Crystal resided inside of the Prince. How the nightmares were growing and how Usagi finally entered the realm beyond the mirror: to find the Queen Neherenia of the Dead Moon, the imprisoned ChibiMoon and Saturn. Journeying back to Elysion when the Evil made its way back. How Neherenia claimed to curse the baby Princess Serenity before the fall of the Moon Kingdom. More nightmares and fighting before everyone finally gathered their powers together and her becoming Eternal before sealing away Nehelenia. The Amazoness Quartet awakening as senshi and the end of that terrible nightmare from the past. ]

[So the prince was that connected to the planet... Well, no matter to her. And to Kunzite, it was only one of the things the prince had abandoned and betrayed.

Yet if that were true, by betraying the planet, the prince betrayed his very self. He'd go even that far for the princess?

She knew the answer. Those two, committing any crime to stay with each other.]

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