onepassingnight | [008 ☿] Cliff-Diving

Entry tags:

[008 ☿] Cliff-Diving

[There's a gorgeous view from up here: a rocky cliff face overlooking the sea. The breeze plays with her hair as Ami waits at the very highest point, right on the edge. She looks down, an angle likely to give vertigo but she only grins broader.

She's going to jump.

She lets go, and her body suddenly looks so small against the backdrop of open sky as she plummets towards the water and sinks beneath the waves. The movement is a thrilling rush and the moment she's immersed, she smiles. She lets herself stay there, savoring the feeling, and she rises to the surface only reluctantly and belatedly.]

(ooc: not necessarily theme, but I'm open to theme antics as well if anyone wanted to catch her here for them; let me know)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

We did.

[She smirks, as though there was no doubt of this, not even a possibility. She gestures to the land around them.]

This planet is ours. We won't hand it over.

Who's 'we'?

Myself, and the shitennou - the four kings of Heaven: Kunzite, Zoisite, Nephrite, Jadeite.

[there's a soft hum sound to show he's paying attention as he continues to look out over the scenery. After a minute, voice low, he asks:]

Allies or friends?

Allies.

[She called people 'friends' once, for the first time in her life. She won't make that mistake again.]

[his answer is a quiet noise. Like the Turks then. He can understand that. Though he has noticed that she never actually mentions friends.]

Is your planet healing now?

Slowly. A damaged planet isn't so easy to recover.

[They don't have - or trust - the dangerous power of the princess, which could heal it in a moment but which has such horrible consequences and has already damaged the planet itself.]

[he nods. His own planet is still recovering from its first wound centuries ago. It's second... they're still finding out how deep it went this time. Absent, his hand shifts to knead his other arm, down where the muscles ache.]

Where there's life, there's hope.

[remembering her claim to not believe in hope, he adds:]

As long as there's someone there to defend it.

The years it will take are a long time to a human.

[She states this neutrally; she might be including herself or might not. The senshi have longer lifespans she should be able to expect - and yet a senshi had died of some illness, this time. They aren't what they were.]

[he makes a soft sound, understanding. He's done his part for the planet. Already played its hero and he's glad it's over. Sephiroth is dead, Meteor is gone, the planet can get back to healing. He doesn't want to be a hero and he doesn't need the planet's attention. He'll be happy to grow old next to Tifa and die when it's time.

Or die before his time in a fight or accident...

The fingers of his left hand flex, trying to shake feeling back into them and he shakes his head the smallest bit.]

Defenders have a way of showing up. There's always a next generation of heroes waiting to have the chance.

[and boy did he feel sorry for them]

Wasn't there someone before you?

[It's different for her. Very different, in this respect, and although she doesn't put it in the same terms, it speaks of the frustration of infinity, the other side of immortality.]

I was the one before me. In my past life, I watched over this planet. When Mizuno Ami disappears, Mercury will still live on in a next time.

[They're words any of the senshi could speak, would speak; but they're words that speak of a certain futility to their human lives, even without the additional struggles she's gone through in the darkness.]

[it's not the first time he's heard about reincarnation from a young girl and his head turns to look at her, eyes curious. Little pieces of puzzles from other dreams click into place a little more for him. But first, he has to ask:]

Do you remember each life, when you move on to the next?

[She shakes her head.]

Not at first. Even now, some of the ones who lived back then remember it more than others. I didn't know about the past life at all until I was fourteen.

[he makes a low noise to show he's following what she's saying, brows down as he looks back at the horizon. It's still death than, losing all you are, all you've worked so hard to be. A second chance too though... except if you don't remember what you did wrong the last time how were you supposed to do it right the next round?]

I met a Princess Mercury.

You met me.

[It's natural to say it, when he already knows so much.]

I was the Princess Mercury in the past. [She seems to consider this, and corrects herself.] No, I am the Princess Mercury. All the power of my planet is still mine. I'm still the heiress to Mercury.

[She's half talking to herself, by now.]

[it makes sense, he thinks, that the princess he met was from the past. It would explain why she didn't remember him or being Ami. It would explain the differences between the two women as well, because he noticed those and is still sorting through them in his head. Guessing, but fairly sure of the answer given the conversation he'd had with the younger princess, he says:]

We're not on Mercury though, are we?

No.

[For a long while, it seems like it might be all she says. She struggles with emotion, held back as she schools herself to calm.]

The Mercury Kingdom was also destroyed. This is Earth, where I was reborn.

[Everywhere, everywhere, the reminders of the past and her nature, the story of the Princess Mercury tied to the story of where they are now, tied by an inexorable cord to the destruction and the moon princess who hated the ones who should have been closest to her.]

[his eyes flicker and for a long time, he doesn't say anything at all. It's a strange echo blow against the inside of his soul and his own eyes find and focus on the sky as he lets it reverberate. A step outside of that, his mind careful adds more pieces to the growing puzzle she's given him, fitting them to ragged half finished parts from previous.]

I'm sorry.

[it's not apology or conciliatory. He knows from experience that there are no words that can ever encompass or soothe losing your home, your entire world at the time. And, unlike him, he thinks the wound is still raw for her - will always be raw for her. Voice low, he asks:]

Was it the same thing that almost destroyed this world?

No. What ruined this planet this time was Kaguya.

The one to destroy the planet in the past was the moon princess. Sailor Moon. Tsukino Usagi.

[Her hand tightens into a fist as she says the names, as though the anger is that strong that even calling them up calls it up as well. Princess Mercury had served at the court of the Moon Kingdom. Mizuno Ami had called Tsukino Usagi 'friend' - what a worthless word.

She has no shame in naming the other girl's identities; why should she leave her with all those lying protections? Why guard her safety, now?]

Edited 2011-07-24 10:09 (UTC)

[his eyebrows twitch down a little at that and a frown hits the edges of his lips as he continues to look at the sky in front of them. He knows those names. Or two of them at least. And they both belong to the same guileless girl with the huge heart and vulnerable eyes. While he's been wrong about people before, Cloud's always had a hard time getting over his first impression of someone. And Usagi... Ami's too sure of herself, too steady in her hatred for Cloud to think she's lying. More pieces to a puzzle that's suddenly so much larger than it had been a minute ago. Like a child at a school desk, concentrating very hard to make sure he understands the explanation, he looks at the woman next to him.]

How did it happen? Your planet being destroyed -

[It's a surprising reaction, to her. She's used to either sympathy - not the reason she tells the tale - or the infuriating insistence that Usagi would never have done it, it was a lie.

It was no lie.]

War came between Earth and the Moon. The prince of Earth betrayed his own men to defend the moon princess against them. He died for it. When he died, she destroyed everything.

['prince of Earth'? He thinks he might even know the name that matches that title if he remembers Usagi's stories right. He silently digests what Ami tells him, believing her because, as far as he knows she hasn't lied to him yet but more importantly, she has no reason to lie to him. He knows that Usagi and her prince were in love. She'd told him so - and he'd seen it in her sad eyes. What would he do if someone killed the ones he loved most?

Sephiroth...

But what if it wasn't something that obviously evil? What if one of his friends - what if he lost Denzel? Or Marlene? Or... Tifa?

How far would he go - how mad would he go - in response?

He gives it serious consideration. Every SOLDIER but one had turned into a monster at the end. He might not be SOLDIER but he has all that madness, all that mako, all that monster inside himself too. How mad would he go if his family was taken away from him forever...?

Not that mad, he realizes. Destroying the one that had done it, the ones that had done it... yes. Obsessively. But a world? Innocents that happened to share the same space as the monsters...?

No.

He'd had that happen to him. He won't repeat it.

Maybe he doesn't love strongly enough.

Tifa would be so disappointed in him if he ever became the monster they'd almost lost everything destroying...

Low, he asks:]

Then what happened?

[He knows the rest, without knowing it. She's told him too much of her story, and now the way it connects to Usagi unfolds.

It's a very direct connection.]

We were reborn, without remembering that past. We were lied to and just told to serve and protect her again. She had a substitute pretend to be her, to take the danger away from herself.

We discovered the true princess. She was already approaching the prince. And, surely, in the end, if it hadn't been stopped, that fate would have repeated. It was already beginning to.

I took her life instead this time.

[again, he stands silently for a long time and simply digests what she tells him. It fits so many of the little puzzle pieces into place for him, things that both of the girls have told him. And he's not so fast to rush to judgement on Ami.

Because... if he had the chance to stop Sephiroth before the man ever went mad... would he?

Would he kill one temporarily innocent man to save all the lives he'd cost in the end?

To save Aerith...?

He... doesn't know. A part of him says 'yes'. A part of him says 'no'. He's never been given the choice before. Would he sacrifice one questionable life to protect all the ones he cared for? Cut it short instead of giving it the chance to change because the risk was too high? Absent he rubs at his left arm, frowning.

Usagi's not dead. In fact, the one he knows best is probably about Ami's age. And he's met the one that's older, thousands and thousands of years older.

Somehow, even though he's not consciously aware he's dreaming, his mind provides dreaming logic, glosses over the fact that they can't exist at the same point in his life is one is already dead.]

She'll be reborn again, won't she?

[It's Ami's own endless internal struggle: She did it and it's done. She did it from hatred and jealousy. She did what was necessary. That wasn't her first reason.

And she'd certainly do it again, given the same forces at work, the same situations.

And, for good or ill, the Soldier of Knowledge will not stop at half-measures.]

No. There are ways to destroy even a sailor senshi.

[She does not specify what they may be, leaving it to Cloud's imagination and as a testament of her own caution and careful stepping. She says 'destroy' and not 'kill'; it is a true end and there will be no next time, this time.

Even the other senshi who have been allowed to live in her world, will probably have only this lifetime left to them. She alone suffered with the Dark Kingdom and now triumphs with her fellow sufferers. ]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject