Setsuna knelt in a corner of the teahouse down the street from to the inn they were staying at. Haruka and Michiru needed some time to themselves again. Hopefully they would wear each other out before she returned and they could all get some sleep that night. She sipped her tea and, as befitted the keeper of the Gates, thought about the past, the present, and the future.
Her past had been an interesting ride. She considered the beginning of her story to be her self imposed exile to one of the more isolated territories of the Jurai Empire. She had since come to terms with her life before then, but she still did not wish to dwell upon it. She understood why Master had seized on the chance to get away from his previous life even if it had involved chasing after one of the most dangerous beings in the galaxy.
While she had tried to leave behind her life before her arrival in this system. Her reputation and that of her family could not be erased to easily. This had brought her into contact with the upper circles of the local courts. She had been reluctant to enter those circles at first, then eager as she came to know the people who inhabited the uppermost of those circles. Her own ascension to that highest circle had come as something of a surprise to her, but she had been deeply honored by the trust that Serenity had in her to promote her in such a fashion.
Her time in the service of her Queen had been wonderful, and in many ways the fulfillment of everything she had been seeking when she left her old life. Then it had come to an end. Setsuna took a calming sip of the tea. Her failure still shamed her. It was her responsibility to see dangers coming before they arrived. Aspects of this danger had made it hard to see, but not impossible, so it had been her failure. In the end, her Queen had burned herself out sealing the danger away, and saving what she could for a better day. It had been and was still her duty to see that better day come to pass.
That duty had been hard to bear. All alone, she had called for help from outside the system, but the massive death of multitudes and death of worlds had frightened the peoples and powers of the Galaxy. They quarantined the system and when she tried to oppose this, she was locked in her own inescapable prison without walls. After more time than she could afford to lose had passed (and wasn’t that an ironic thought for her) some of the restrictions had been lifted, allowing her to operate within the star system at least. She had gone to work with a will, but being trapped that long with out hope or much in the way of contact with people had left her a little…strange.
Still, she had done her duty; as best she had been able to interpret it at the time. Steering towards the rebirth of the Princess. She was proud of some of her actions of this period, and ashamed of some actions, and most shamed by her failures to act. Things had gone their course and she had nudged here and pulled there and given the whole thing a swift kick in the side on one or two occasions as she made her way towards the Promised Land shining in her mind’s eye.
Then it had all come crashing down over seven centuries ago. Yosho made his choices and blocked all her attempts to undo them by his insight, his power, and most of all by who and what he was. She had tried to make him leave with lures and foes and complications, but in the end, he had cast his own web and bound her. He bound her with power, and with steel, and with sacred oaths both ancient and new, and with a lot of rope for good measure. He never would have been able to hold her though, if he hadn’t also bound her heart with his own. And so her world had changed and with it her priorities and plans, but she had never forsaken any of her duties. It had just taken a while and some outside pressure for her to blend them properly.
Which brought her to the present, which is always the intersection of forces and influences from the past. That was truer now than ever before in her long existence. Her past, Master’s past, and other events were all catching up and converging here and now. The better day her Queen had charged her with finding was here, and it was a better day though she wasn’t sure what the Queen would have made of this world.
To paraphrase a story that did not and might not ever exist, the future was always in motion, but there were always possibilities to work with. Right now, her future was to head back to the Inn. They still had places to go and work to do tomorrow.
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Fri, 01 Oct 2004 18:21)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.