"Sena-chan, calm down now. You'll get a hernia before you're 14, if you keep on doing that."
"--Ew. Spoilsport..."
The four Pluto's leaned over the mirror.
Ashes swirled in the night air, and the dancing fires could be seen from far afar.
Michiru ran. She knew what that building was.
As every adult in Omelas had.
"Haruka!"
She runs, through packs of struggling people.
"--Harukaaa!"
"...Hi, Michiru."
Haruka, Haruka, Haruka behind a building, with a blanket-wrapped something in her arms..."
"...Haruka. You can't."
"...Not true, Michiru."
"--Haruka. You can't."
"I just did. Burning the building down so everybody could see was actually more difficult then getting her out, weirdly enough."
Haruka coughed, and smiled, then.
"--Don't worry. We--I made sure nobody got hurt, and what's burning there is more old paper then anything else, actually."
Michiru sat down. Ahh, what was this? Kaidoh Michiru was ladylike at all times (or at least tried to be) but it wasn't like she was a wilting lily. She did not feel dizzy, or faint, or...
"You burned it, so people would know. On purpose."
"Yes, Michiru."
Haruka was patient, so patient. There was something wrong when she was the patient one...
"I wandered the world, Michiru. Made enemies, made friends, met many people, for good or for ill. And then I came back and talked to Setsuna. Again."
"--Why?"
"...Why what, Michiru?"
"Why did you do this?"
"...Because I wandered the world, and saw how people lived elsewhere...And then, and only then, was I able to ask the right question."
Michiru sat up, then, through the swirling whiteness.
"Which was?"
"--It's a bit hard to explain, Michiru. It was exactly the same question as the one I asked before, you know?"
"..."Why"?"
"Well, yes. ...The answer was a bit different this time, though."
"...That happens." Michiru allowed.
"And so I went away again and thought things through again, and talked to friends, made plans, made arrangements...Voila!"
Omelas wasn't really burning, Michiru knew.
It just felt that way...
"But...But, what would happen now?"
Michiru moved her hands, encompassing the City entire.
"Well, many are the possibilities. They might try to get another Child in a panicked frenzy, but since I made sure pretty much everybody knew there was no Child for the duration... Don't know how that would work out, eh? The other possibility is that they'd tear themselves apart in a panicked frenzy, but that's not really too likely either, frankly. Not City-wide, anyhow. People are really pretty much well behaved, here, after all..."
Michiru waited in silence.
"The possibility I'm hoping for, actually, is that the people would realize one day that they hadn't had a Child being miserable for them for quite a while, and nothing had changed. Not noticeably, anyhow. Not that the High muckty-mucks would like that, off course--Their main method of social-control-by-guilt and weeding-out-potential-troublemakers discredited like that!"
"......What?"
"That's just what it is, Michiru. Other places have other methods, for better or for worse, but this place is mine. I grew up here, and you're here, and..."
And the City is important to me despite and still.
"Did you ever hear of the story of the girl with the mark over her eye, Michiru?"
"--No, Haruka. I can't say I ever had..."
"Well, once upon a time, in a small city, nothing as big as this one, there lived a girl. She was quite ordinary, except for this mark over her eye, which her parents kept painting over with makeup, and instructed her to keep concealed. And so she did, till one day when she was about 14, both her parents died in a accident, or so it seemed--and an old man and an old woman who said they were her uncle and aunt came to get her, to live with them. She hadn't known she had relatives at all till then, for her parents never talked about any, strangely enough..."
Michiru shuddered. She felt the winds of misfortune already.
"And so the girl went to live at the village her parents had been born, but things were so strange, there! People kept staring at her mark and whispering, while non but the younger children would make friends with her. But things were going at least tolerably well, till one day, her uncle and her aunt said she had been chosen to carry the offerings to the shrine in the mountain at the yearly festival. It was a high honor, especially for a girl who hadn't been even brought up in the village. Or so they said.
And so the villagers dressed her in pretty clothes of white and red and green, and put ribbons through her hair, and then she went up the mountain... Till she saw the village idiot looking at her, down the mountain path. Don't go, the boy whispered. Don't go. Run.
They'd kill you and feed the mountain and the stream and the birds. For a good harvest, to end the bad years...
And so the girl ran, and ran, and didn't stop running to she came far over the bourder-stones...And then cried and cried and cried. For herself. For the boy, who had broken taboo, and was most probably dead now. For everybody.
But do you think she was wrong to run, Michiru?"
I don't think so. She owed it to her parents, to herself..."
Haruka smiled, then. Fiercely.
"Come on, Michiru. Come and see the World. The City might be gone by the time we come back again, true--But I just don't believe that, you know?"
Michiru thought deeply, then, brushing soot off her overcoat...
"What did the Seer Setsuna say?"
"--They'd cope. Or not. It's up to them, but they probably will. All luck willing."
Michiru shuddered. For Setsuna to speak of luck...
"Come, Michiru. Please. I want to introduce you to my new friends, too."
And so at long last, Michiru decides.
All right
And later on, riding the armored car throughout the sanddunes, Haruka laughed and laughed and laughed...
"Come on, Michiru. You didn't really think I'd just walk away from Omelas, did you?"
"...Whoaa..."
"Yup. When Uranus does stuff, she sure doesn't do it by halves...Most Uranus', anyhow."
The four Pluto' nodded at each other ruefully. And then, one smiled...
"OK. Actually, I have something interesting to show all of you too..."
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(Posted Fri, 12 Aug 2005 15:22)
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