What colorful butterfly will fly next?

[waterfell]

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.

Comments

[waterfell]

She says it directly. "This is the graveyard of the stars."

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.

[one_one_se7en]

The words remind him of Lethe. She had spoken of a similar realm. Even if it's only in dreams, he's gotten to see places no other human alive before him ever has.

"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.

[waterfell]

It's a reminder that makes her stir herself again. But even as she does, her body itself begins to lighten, and fade. She doesn't have long.

"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.

[one_one_se7en]

She is vanishing. Even now as he sees the spectral energy gathering Mercury, binding her to this place... He doesn't know what to do.

"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.

[waterfell]

The words come to her mind before she's sure she means them. They don't sound like her, far too hopeful and taking into account a future she can't be sure of at all. But they come anyway.

"I'm not the right person to say it," Mercury says, "But maybe... if you remember me."

[one_one_se7en]

"That'd be kind of hard not to."

[waterfell]

Oh, it's easy. So very easy. That's why memories can have power. Even Mercury respects that - the power, more than the memories, though she'd searched for her own.

"Then maybe, in the dreams." Maybe. A qualifier. Nothing certain.