Where is Endymion?

[waterfell]

There's a smell of ash in the air, though there is no crackling of fires or snap of flames. Nothing seems damaged, there is only the reminder carried on the wind. A hush pervades everything, quietly forbidding, mysterious.

At the top of a long set of marble stairs, there is a castle with sculpted columns and domed roofs, a symbol of wealth and luxury - and permanence. It sits against the backdrop of a darkened night sky, where even the stars seem dim and sparse.

Amid all this, at the top of the steps, a girl wearing a sailor uniform trimmed with lace and satin and pearls sits and stares into space as though oblivious to the muted atmosphere or anyone approaching; her face is utterly still. A tiara crowns her blond hair, worn in the signature style of the Silver Millenium royal dynasty.

The princess plays a small lap harp, the only notable sound. Her tune is gentle, but lonely and yearning, a constant ache for a past long gone. A close look reveals that the harp bears the sigil of Mercury.

(ooc: answers coming from nihil_serenitas for icons)

Comments

[nihil_serenitas]

Reno is wrong. "For me, there is only Endymion," the princess says precisely, without acknowledging the gesture or the label Reno gives her by it.

There was never anyone else. There was never anyone else to look at her and truly see her; just as now, she looks at no one else.

"He was the only one."

[tasercopter]

Reno thinks she's right. Doesn't matter if she actually is. Getting hung up on one person is stupid. People die. Things change. This mystical, fictional, so-called "true love" is nothing but a steaming heap of bullshit. She rolls her eyes.

"So what're you gonna do about it? Play your little harp some more?"

[nihil_serenitas]

For a second, a stubborn look crosses the princess' face. There is so much she will do to find Endymion, to claim him, to bring him to her side again. Surely he must want this, too. She hasn't bothered asking him, anyway.

But just as quickly, a feeling finally shows itself that might be regret. What happened before... was terrifying in its scope, a part of her still knows.

"In the past, when he was taken away, I destroyed that planet," she says; and her voice does not catch with emotion. The words are spoken as simply, as tonelessly, as the rest.

[tasercopter]

Reno sobers. "Great. Just great. So you're fucking batshit." She's had enough of people wanting to destroy planets, or wipe out all human life, or conquer the world, or whatever these megalomaniac lunatics get it in their heads to do. Maybe she should be afraid, but she isn't. It could be the fact that this is a dream, but it's not as if she hasn't faced off against a few potential planet destroyers before now. Who'd've thought that that would be something she'd experience multiple times? It was more than anyone should have to deal with.

She looks like a more or less ordinary human (or an ordinary princess, anyway) to Reno's untutored eyes, but ordinary girls don't destroy planets.

"What are you, some kind of monster?"

i'm a horrible person for laughing. XD poor reno. normal!fell agrees.

[nihil_serenitas]

It's the first time someone's called the princess that to her face. There'll be a certain amount of satisfaction for the true dreamer, who agrees with the conclusion.

Serenity seems to consider it before answering. She is responsible for acts done in passion, done in panic, perhaps done - as Reno says - in madness. But she is not a monster. She is a girl born to a throne and a great power.

"I am an immortal of the Silver Millennium," her answer to Reno is measured and simple - and for once does not include that ubiquitous name.

[tasercopter]

She's seen a lot of monsters. Maybe she's been one herself. Not that she ever wanted to do something as insane as destroy the world. There are a lot of different kinds of monsters.

"So what? So since you're some immortal silver thing, you get to do what you want and wipe out everybody cause you can't get the dick of your dreams? Give me a break."

Yeah, Reno's bullshit detector is still going off.

[nihil_serenitas]

Except, and this is the part that will be disturbing upon waking, she hadn't wanted it. It had happened amid her shock and confusion, from desperation and not malice. For that moment, she had thought she couldn't possibly face a world without him- and the ginzuishou had complied.

That was all. Just that moment. And now, whether she wills it or not, it has happened. Now, whether she wills it or not, her place will be taken by the girl she is certain will do the same thing, for the same reason.

Somehow, though this conversation couldn't be called friendly, it feels important to speak the truth. "When Endymion died," she says slowly, and there's a slight shiver at the very thought, "I could no longer stop my feelings, or that power."

[tasercopter]

"Am I supposed to feel sorry for you cause you lost your shit? Because I don't."

Reno is perhaps less forgiving than others would be, having lived through the cataclysmic results of someone who experienced a moment of despair losing their mind.

"Everybody dies. I don't care if you are immortal." Yes, this makes no sense, literally speaking, but if Reno were more eloquent, she might say that death, loss, are things everybody has to deal with.

[nihil_serenitas]

There is someone else involved here who is perhaps even less forgiving than Reno, someone willing to go to great lengths for vengeance that seems justified because of the act the princess is speaking of right now.

"Without Endymion," she says, "there was nothing else." If the myth had existed in Reno's world after all, she might recognize the same grasping feeling that led that Selene to send that Endymion to sleep, simply so as not to lose him, even if he was nothing but a beautiful shell - an immortal fretting for the fate of her mortal lover.

The words, no matter her feelings, cut out the vast numbers of people who lived on that planet, and even her own companions and guardians and those who should have been in her heart.