"Hm?"
"Do you love me?"
"Yes."
"Really?"
"Yes, really."
"How much?"
"...Why are you asking me this, all of a sudden?"
"Please, tell me - How much?"
"Let's see..."
The full moon shines high in the sky, shining on one Tsukino Usagi and one Chiba Mamoru.
"Enough to make me feel all filled with energy just by being with you."
The tall handsome man strummed the harp, the moonlight shining through him, a sheathed sword at his side.
"...Zoicite was much better at any musical instrument. Even Nephrite was better then me, actually..."
Ahh. Meiou Setsuna grinned drunkenly.
"Hiya, Prince Endymion, I'm a Pluto and I'm druuuunk..."
Endymion blinked. "So you are, it appears. You also seemed to be without a body for the moment."
"Nah, nah, it's alright, my body is safe at home. If Michiru doesn't set in on fire or something by mistake, that is."
"Why would Neptune set you on fire - no, never mind." Endymion sighed.
"So. You have been - celebrating?"
"Well, yes - it was a 'we're happy we're all not dead and neither is our Solar System' party, actually. Not that I think that things are really gonna be peaceful for very long - nature abhors a vacuum, and Galaxia getting out of the 'blast Star Systems to kibble' business sure as hell left a gigantic hole in the scheme of things, after all, so..."
"So life goes on." Endymion sighed yet again. "It never ends, eh?"
"Not while the stars shine in the skies and the universe turns, yeah, I don't think so. Well."
It was Setsuna's turn to sigh, then.
"I came here because I sort of had this idea that I should tell the loverbirds over there that I'd managed to contact Crystal Tokyo after all and their 'Chibi-Usa' seems to be alright, but - "
"Ahh. Well, now is not a good time, I don't think."
Endymion murmured, watching Usagi and Mamoru kiss.
"No, it doesn't look like it, does it. Well, I managed to tell you, anyhow."
"Hmph." Endymion murmured. "Well, then. It is good that she is all right. And - Crystal Tokyo?"
"Oh, nothing ontoward happened there at all, it seems. Except that a certain Sailor Pluto managed to turn up, at long last. She'd been sort of dead since she stopped time at Mugen, so the Queen made her a new body. A baby one. They're calling her 'Puu-chan'."
Endymion blinked at that. " - Ahh. I had thought that you might not be the same one as the one that we saw guarding the Gate and fighting the Deathbusters, but - "
Setsuna simply shrugged at that. "The Pluto that fought Neherenia and Galaxia with you people was really This-Me, though. As far as I know."
"Ahh, I see - your name, Lady Pluto?" Endymion bowed, formally.
"Meiou Setsuna. - It's actually my name. Pleased to meet you, too, your Highness." Setsuna murmured, with a somewhat drunken curtsy.
"And why are you playing the harp under the moonlight this clear and fine night, Prince Endymion?"
Endymion quietly looked up towards the moon.
"For my lady. Serenity of the Moon."
"Ahh." Setsuna whispered softly.
"I met her in the Royal Rose Gardens, you see. I met her and I loved her, and - we weren't supposed to love each other, but we did. And then Beryl killed us, Beryl and Metallia, but then we were both reborn, and - we loved each other. Despite and still."
Endymion looked up at the skies, and the clouds chasing each other across the full moon.
"And then - Beryl and Metallia killed me again. That was the last time that I saw her."
"...Tsukino Usagi is right there, though." Setsuna murmured.
"Oh, yes, and so is Chiba Mamoru. He is not me, and Tsukino Usagi is not my Serenity. Whatever may come in the future, and whether she ever comes to be called Queen or not..."
Endymion looked right at Setsuna, eyes hooded.
"Galaxia has been healed and purified, with the Chaos thrown out of her. Unless something truly unpredicted happens in the next few years, I think the chances of anything like the so-called 'Great Freeze' happening would be quite slim indeed."
Setsuna snickered. "Oh, well, this is where I should be acting all mysterious-like, but never mind that now. I'm trying to get myself out of the saying or even thinking 'that'll never happen', anyway - the universe always seems to try to prove me wrong with those things. Well, let's just say that, for now, the potential futures seem to be bouncing all over the place - the whole thing is in flux. The good thing is that most of the futures I can actually get a glimpse of seem to be nice and thriving ones, with the 'Dead Earth' ones being few and far in between. On the other hand. - Small Lady's Crystal Tokyo, though..."
"Is not our future. I have suspected this, from the first time that I - Mamoru - went to that place."
Setsuna blinked. "That early? Why?"
"Small Lady Serenity was supposed to be Tsukino Usagi and Chiba Mamoru's daughter, but could recognize neither of them as younger versions of her parents until she was told so. This seemed to suggest that Tsukino Usagi and Chiba Mamoru - and the rest of the Inners - were very different from her parents and friends that she knew. And when Neo Queen Serenity channeled herself through Sailor Moon to talk to her daughter - it is hard to explain, but I felt my Serenity was there. Older, slightly different, but - "
Setsuna considered this. "Well, I don't really have much to go on but lots of rather garbled memories, but Princess Serenity and Tsukino Usagi were pretty different to begin with, in my opinion. I mean, really different. Like - um, a fruit pie and a veggie and cheese quiche?"
Endymion blinked. "Ah. A strange comparision but - apt, in some ways. If they had been both fruit pies, or both quiches..."
"Then it wouldn't have been too hard to merge them if that was the best way to go, but - well. Trying to fuse a quiche and a fruit pie..."
Setsuna looked at the skies too, then.
"Is she...all gone? Entirely?"
" - Probably not. I sometimes sense a glimmer of her in Tsukino Usagi, or Sailor Moon... The quiche has aquired some raisens and fruit, perhaps."
"Raisins and fruit can go well with veggies and cheeses, if you don't overdo things..."
Setsuna covered her eyes with her arms.
"I had - I had hoped that, if the Crystal Tokyo we saw them actually was our future, that - my Serenity would eventually emerge from Tsukino Usagi again. Somehow. Someday. But she fought Wiseman in Serenity's dress, but she was still Tsukino Usagi. And then she fought Pharaoh 90, but she was still Tsukino Usagi. And then she fought Neherenia, and in the end, Galaxia herself, but still..."
"That was her Wish, I think. When she died. To be Tsukino Usagi, and live Tsukino Usagi's life." Setsuna murmured.
"Ahh. I wonder, then, what would have happened if..."
"If she had made another Wish, then?"
There was no answer. Setsuna and Endymion looked at the stars and the moon.
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(Posted Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:27)
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