onepassingnight | 002nd Promotion ♛ Shall we dance?

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002nd Promotion ♛ Shall we dance?

[In the Great Hall of a palace made of crystal, gold and white marble, there's a party, a big one with many guests who mingle with each other, dance, talk, laugh and eat, enjoying themselves. Everyone is in their best suits and dresses, even you, unexpected guest, will find yourself perfectly dressed for the occasion, the only difference between you and them is that them all wear masks covering their faces completely or partially. Even the musicians, at a corner of the gigantic room, cover their faces as they play music without rest or pause. The music is delicious and keeps tempting you to dance. The delicate food spread all over the tables at each side of the room also invite you to take a bite or take a drink, it doesn't matter how much you eat or drink, the food never runs out neither do the drinks.

The ceiling raises high over your head, higher and higher than your eyesight can reach, point at which it melts into a nocturne sky full of sparkling stars that shimmer and dance on their own private dance floor. No matter where you look the large windows, that show to a garden full of bright crimson and silver flowers, are all closed. Yet there must be a door or a window open as to explain the natural present of those golden butterflies and brightly red cicadas that circle around in the air, flying everywhere but not bothering anyone. Then again, they aren't exactly normal insects, are they? There are no butterflies or cicadas made of golden or red light that burst into small harmless sparkles the moment you poke at them. But it doesn't matter, why should it?

Come and relax uninvited guest. No one care where you're from or why you're here so don't worry yourself with those things either. Just relax and enjoy yourself in this dreamlike party. Who knows how long will it last?]

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I hope not. Lectures always bored me unless it was a specially interesting subject. And it would be too hypocrite even for me to preach about something in which I don't believe either.

[He said nothing against worlds of mostly light or mostly darkness after all.]

Sounds good to me.

I don't have any trust in sweet words. I want to wait to see what's done first. If it's a so-called hero, I want to see... what they really do, and, what they treat as precious to them.

[By what, she really means who.]

Seeing then believing, huh? That's not a bad way to go around things and it suits you. After all, words are just words, it takes little effort to claim that one loves everyone or that they will sacrifice themselves for the world. But it takes the real deal to actually take action in accordance to those words.

Yes. The one who says the prettiest words in my world, destroyed it completely.

[For once, the words come with no heat of anger, not before a man uninvolved.]

How can those words be true if it means that little to her?

Would it make more sense if you thought of them as "candy bullets"?

As what? [She turns to face him; no, that is not helpful, Primo, that is more confusing.]

What do you mean by that? [Her voice is a bit terse with the confusion.]

Ever heard about the case of a man who made bullets out of hardened sea salt? He gathered the sea salt himself and prepared it to create a bullet which he used to kill someone at their own home besides the fireplace. Because the body was besides the fireplace for a long time before it was found, even as the body's temperature fell, the sea salt melted until there was no trace left of the bullet. By the time anyone found the body, the sea salt bullet was long since gone.

[He talks with ease and knowledge, as if he has seen it happen himself, he probably has.]

A candy bullet is similar. An imaginary ammunition, powerless and without a physical form, something apparently harmless that slips into your body and slowly dissolves into it. Rotting your soul and mind from the inside with its sweetness if you're not careful.

Maybe those pretty and sweet words of hers were never meant to be anything other than candy bullets destined to destroy you. In that sense, wouldn't that make sense? It's not that she lied, it's just that no one realized than what she was doing was firing candy bullets to destroy things at a slower pace.

It's a good metaphor.

[She says so thinking of the way Usagi had seemed to infiltrate her way into their lives, with that meaningless smile and those shallow embraces. For once, she lets the image of the smiling girl stay in her head. She puts it next to the image of the destroyer. The result is something much like her old, old hallucination of Usagi carrying a gun...]

However, the end result is the same.

Indeed, but an end that makes sense is more enjoyable than one that doesn't make sense. Otherwise you may end wondering about if it was the right end or the "real" end even. As pointless as it is, it's within human's nature to second guess their own convictions when faced with something uncertain or that doesn't properly add up.

[Yes; yes, he's very right, and she seizes on those words. All her confusion, all her frustration, it isn't because of any lingering feelings! (Of course not, of course not.)

It's because the duplicity of the princess and her senshi never made sense! Something was wrong from the start, way back when she refused to become a senshi because she smelled ulterior motives in that girl.

She was right, always right, and she only needs to trust her instincts.]

You're right.

However, an end is still an end. When it's over, it's time to be finished with it.

That's how it usually goes, isn't it? When you reach the end of the book, you don't leave it open on that last page around your house. You close it and store it back in the shelves before picking another one, or maybe you even just return it to the library or to someone else and never again even bother to look for it for a light re-read.

Specially with stories that aren't of your like.

[Just like Bernkastel runs away from the memory of being locked in a logic error and all those countless worlds that spawned from it. Just like he himself rarely turns back to look at the worlds he was once part of, or the first world which he helped to reach the absolutely happy ending. Those stories are over already and when the mysteries are unraveled those stories hold little value of being read again.]

No, you don't.

[You don't leave the book open. But for as long as she lives, the book of her life is open, and the early chapters will influence the later ones. She can't separate herself from what came before. It made her the Mercury, the Mizuno Ami, of today.

Without Kunzite's encouragement (or at least approval; she is overly generous when it comes to him), she would not have become a doctor in the end. Without the end of the past life, she would never have been born as Mizuno Ami at all. Without the collapse of her hopes, she'd never have turned to the Darkness. So many things.]

However, until the end of a story, you don't close it.

I thought we were talking about stories that had ended already?

[He knows it's not quite the same. There's little that connects him anymore to any Keiichi one could find in those worlds. He only has connections with one and that one vanished a long time ago to become Primo. It's easier to consider it the end of a book and close it, even if the story continues through other volumes.]

Still, I suppose there are stories long enough to actually need several books. So when a part ends, and the book comes to be closed, there's yet another book opening in order to continue the story.

Don't say those things without understanding the situation.

[There's no second chance for her. There's no new book, no hope of salvation. There's no clock to turn back - and she wouldn't, even if she could. There's no wiping out those deeds.

There's no hope.]

Sorry, but I don't remember addressing to a specific situation this time. Was a generalization just as bad?

[He doesn't agree, he wouldn't agree with those thoughts. For starters, why should it be about second chances? Why would she even need that? Why should she turn back or care about it? He was talking about moving forward the whole time.]

[No; no, it's all her, not him. She's the one who lets his words make her think of other things, of her own situation in her own world.]

It's nothing.

[She uses the excuse of the moves of the dance to turn slightly away.]

[He says nothing, he knows better, it may be unfair to her actually, because while he wasn't really specifically talking about her or her situation -he could know more, he has means for it but if he's capable of meeting her like this he would prefer this way of getting to know her-, he can understand why she would feel like it was. It's human nature after all, to try to relate things to themselves, for good or bad.

He allows her to use the excuse of the dance to turn slightly away and he continues to dance with her smoothly and in silence for a while. He has to admit, he likes the fact that his party is subject to receive unexpected guests, it makes things more interesting.]

[By the time the dance steps make her face him again, there's no sign of any conflict or uncertainty. Her head is held high, with a tiny proper smile on her face that seems to mock the scenario even as it couldn't be called rude.]

You dance well. [Empty words.]

Only if my partner is skilled.

[Honest words.]

Flattery? It's been awhile since I've been flattered at a ball.

[Thousands of years, in fact, back when the whole world wanted to be in good graces with the princess of planet Mercury, who was known to be close to the Moon Princess.]

Really? I take you haven't had the chance to attend many balls, or that the guests to those balls were just a bunch of fools. It's hardly flattery when it's a fact that you move with more grace and ease than anyone else I've had the chance to dance with.

[And again he's being honest. She can see it herself, though the other dancers aren't disastrous there's just no couple of dancers present that could be considered equal to them in how they dance. if it was a dance competition they would have been the only ones left quite a long time ago.]

Flattery is something I'm not interested in anyway.

[All those people who just want to use her to climb higher themselves... disgusting. The ones who see her as a passport to favor, pathetic.

She looks up into Primo's face now.]

So, don't flatter me either, alright?

If that's what you want, I have no problems complying. It's not as if I gain anything out of it other than exercise for my jaw and tongue.

[And who needs that?]

[After a brief heavy silence, she changes the subject.]

What is this ball celebrating?

Nothing in particular, at least on my part. But I'm sure some of the guests have their own reasons to celebrate.

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