Mizuno Ami☿Mercury (
waterfell) wrote in
onepassingnight2012-05-16 08:48 am
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What colorful butterfly will fly next?
Cold fog swirls, and makes the darkness even deeper, shrouding everything in a damp, cloying mist. There's a smell of ash in the air. To the side, a single golden pin impales a blue butterfly with black markings, just above the thorax. It struggles with a vain flurry of its tired wings, but for all the writhing desperation, there is little life left in the spasming body. It rests weakly between fits of frantic activity.
Beneath the butterfly, a picture of a blue-haired girl in a tiara and sailor-style collar has been clearly marked 'Mercury'. Nearby, similar displays bear the names of other planets. In some, the butterfly's wings have been pulled off or its body has been singed and scorched or bent to sickening angles; others are fresh and empty, but labeled in anticipation. They stretch into the distance as far as the eye can see in all directions.
Beneath the butterfly, a picture of a blue-haired girl in a tiara and sailor-style collar has been clearly marked 'Mercury'. Nearby, similar displays bear the names of other planets. In some, the butterfly's wings have been pulled off or its body has been singed and scorched or bent to sickening angles; others are fresh and empty, but labeled in anticipation. They stretch into the distance as far as the eye can see in all directions.
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The area around that butterfly darkens in his eyes. He feels a very familiar spectral presence. And the disturbingly familiar image below it.
Ami. As he turns, he sees many, many more spectral auras in all of the wounded butterflies. Countless senshi and countless planets consumed. By Galaxia.
He walks toward the one of Mercury, and removes the pin. He will have to remove the rest as well, but her... She is important.
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Then it changes. The butterfly fades to the form of the picture: Mercury. She lays on her side, uniform as tattered and torn and ragged as the butterfly had seemed, and moving just as little.
She seems disoriented, and as she tries to gasp out a breath, she winces with the pain instead, and falls back to inactivity. Only one word is croaked out.]
John?
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He's spoken those words before to someone like her. The Spartan leans down to her, to begin treating the wound in several procedures he's done so many times he doesn't even think of them. One of them extracting the biofoam from his suit -- The means to both sterilize and seal the wound with an expansive healing antiseptic foam.
"What did this?"
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Take her back? Across the galaxy... no; she isn't sure she can even go there, now.
What did it? As though surprised by it, Mercury suddenly moves just her head, to look down at the prominent wound. That's right... She was injured. Badly.
Killed?
"A battle." The words are the easiest summary, and the fewest she can speak while still trying to explain.
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He will bring her back across the galaxy if necessary. He has done it before.
Her?
The Master Chief doesn't ask. His helmet still turns to her, wanting to mentally confirm who he thought it was.
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She remembers. "Sailor Aluminum Siren."
There hadn't been time to avoid it. The attack had come suddenly, as soon as the enemy had located her. That force and that power had made a quick end. Her sailor crystal- she touches her hand to a spot just near the hole- had been taken. Her eyes narrow; but she lacks the strength to give it the threat it should be.
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He notices there is a small lack of supernatural presence in her. Her star seed?
With the wound sealed, he scans for threats, before turning back to Ami.
"We'll get you fixed. Then we get the rest."
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"This life is already ended. Also, there won't be a 'next time'."
She has no future. She's not sure anymore whether she was fighting for the past or for the future, to avenge or to preserve, but right now they're one and the same, equally ended.
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It's his only reply. Unless either of them are dead, that can be his only one.
The Spartan keeps an eye on his radar and everywhere around him for supernatural threats before trying to help Mercury up, and carry her if needed. With the biofoam sealing her, there would be no risk of moving her.
His eyes continue to look at the rest of the butterflies. If only there was more time to save them all.
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Her body is heavier than it should be, with much of its weight sagging against the force lifting her; but she is still small and slight. She stirs vaguely, but makes little effort to move more than that.
"I won't leave here," she says quietly. Holding on to speak with him in these moments is difficult enough right now.
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"What is happening?" The hell she won't. He came for her. He will get her out. Something is preventing this.
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She says it another way. "This is where a senshi rests." Senshi each carry a star. This is where they end, under the dubious ministrations of the graveyard's own guardian.
She sounds far too accepting. Where is the fire that led her to defy everyone against her? Perhaps the answer is in the question, and in the long time spent struggling.
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"You said you'd fight it off."
Even if the Master Chief knew it was pride, it was still determination. To get out even from the realms of the dead.
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"I won't give up everything," she says. "Even if it can't be there, or here." Even if it can now only be in dreams.
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"Will I see you here?"
While dreaming. Perhaps... Not a bad place to rest in for her. Someplace she would be able to find some peace.
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"I'm not the right person to say it," Mercury says, "But maybe... if you remember me."
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"Then maybe, in the dreams." Maybe. A qualifier. Nothing certain.