OK, this fanfic is rated PG-13. I have absolutely no idea why, I just feel like rating it this way, though I really hope nobody would find it offensive in any way anyway. For some strange reason, I wasn’t born as Naoko Takeuchi (darn Karma!) so, unfortunately, I’m not a real genius and thus cannot own such great characters as Haruka and Michiru (or any other Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon characters, for that matter). I’m just using them here without anyone’s permission because I’m allowed to be evil once in a while. This is one of those times, so beware! If you have any comments (unless they are really bad), you can E-mail me at my address aay117@psu.edu. However, please know that I worked really hard on this fanfic, and my self-esteem is quite low as it is. Well, I guess I’m done with my rambling. Oh no, wait, the song I used in this fanfiction was originally performed in Russian. It’s called “A Boy Wants to Tambov”. I translated it to English myself, but, unfortunately, I forgot the name of its original author in the process. If you know it, E-mail me. Arigatou!!!
“Time to sleep, Hime-chan,” Michiru said tucking her adopted daughter in. “Sweet dreams, my little Saturn.”
“But I don’t even want to sleep yet,” Hotaru complained sleepily, gazing at the Senshi of the Sea. It was that kind of an early June night when the birds still sing their beautiful songs in the courtyard of the mansion even at the dusk, and one would wish nothing more than to walk out there, tostare at the bright stars just beginning to appear in the twilight sky, and to dream about happiness, which for Haruka and Michiru, who were now trying to get their daughter to bed, was so close that they could touch it with a simple rise of a hand. Unfortunately for them, Hotaru had absolutely no intention to give up that easily. “Tell me a story, pleasssssse! I promise to go to sleep right after you tell me a story.”
“Hime-chan, I don’t think I even know any stories. It’s been a really long time since my Mom last told me one,” Haruka responded giving her daughter a good night kiss. “And at any rate, I certainly wouldn’t be able to tell you stories as well as your Setsuna-mama does.”
Michiru nodded enthusiastically, showing that everything her girlfriend said applied to her, too.
Hotaru frowned. “It’s no fair. Setsuna-mama is away guarding the Gates of Time, and I have to go to sleep without my bedtime story. I went to sleep so many times without them in the past because my Daddy was evil, and then Mistress 9 took over my body, and it was scary, and then I sacrificed my life, and was reborn into a really small baby. And all that time no bedtime stories because nobody loved me or I was so little that I couldn’t really love anyone. So now in this big house I thought at least my Sailor Senshi Mommies would tell me stories every night before I go to sleep. And now this...” Hotaru couldn’t continue, and the tears shone bright in her purple eyes.
Haruka sat on the bed and hugged her daughter, kissing tenderly the coal-black hair. She could feel her white short-sleeved shirt starting to get wet with the little Saturn’s tears. “Shh, Hime-chan. Don’t worry. You know we love you. So if you want, I’ll tell you that bedtime story, but you have to promise not to laugh because, as I said, I don’t have much experience in the area. And somehow I don’t think that a smart girl like you would buy the story about Cinderella and the seven dwarfs or whatever that American Disney movie we watched yesterday was about.” Hotaru pulled back, and her eyes shone with new happiness. It was quite obvious that she didn’t really care what the story was about as long as her Haruka-papa loved her enough to tell her one.
Michiru sat down on the nearby chair. “Now that would be interesting”, she thought to herself. Haruka didn’t like to talk about herself and her feelings; everyone who ever met the Senshi of the raging wind knew it. And this time Haruka would be simply forced to do so, for it was the perfect truth that a long, long time has passed since she was little enough for her parents to tell her stories, and the blonde racer most certainly didn’t remember any of them.
And so Haruka began.
You were standing on sand of the seashore, You were staring at the blue of the sky. Some boy run by out of nowhere, And about his troubles he cried. The wind carried the phrase; the boy sat on the sand, And he cried like a child of the breeze. You ran by to him, at his feet down you sat, And you said, “Please, no tears.” |
It was in another lifetime. A beautiful princess with the most gorgeous aquamarine hair sat by the shore of the endless sea and watched the sunset with her tired blue eyes. It was the first time she was ever away from her native planet, Neptune, and though at the very beginning it was a joyous event, by now she knew that the royal balls were not at all what they seemed from reading the wonderful fairytales. She had to talk to so many people today that her temples throbbed, and she wished for nothing more than some peace and quiet.
This was not at all how it was done on her own planet; Princess Neptune knew this for sure. Over there, where the teal shine of her home already began to penetrate the light of the sun low at the horizon, there were not any balls for years now. Her people preferred gathering in small companies of the closest friends rather than being among a few hundred other people they have never met and probably will not ever meet. Princess Neptune did not understand it before this night. It just seemed that in the midst of thousands of people it would be so much more romantic to meet your prince than to have some sort of an old academy friend of your father’s introduce him to you at a friendly gathering. Sitting at home on her bed and listening to her life-long nanny telling a fairytale, Neptune could just imagine it -- seeing the love of her life coming to her through the crowds of people, who all paled in comparison to his handsomeness, and asking her for a dance. She would raise her hand to his lips then and whisper ever so slightly, “I’m all yours, my prince.”
At least that is how the dream went. But real life proved to be different. There were so many people there that she could not remember any of the faces, they simply began to go blank in her mind. And even though lots of young men asked her for a dance, she knew that neither one of them really was her prince and rejected them. This was beginning to get really boring; Neptune was tired and worn out. That is why she ran away; well, sort of, since she was still technically on the property of the Uranus’s royal family castle. She ran away to the shore to sit by the crashing aquamarine waves as bright as her exquisite hair and think, and listen to the sounds of the sea, the sea gulls at the horizon crying as they tried to catch up with the setting sun, never realizing that it will not come back for an entire night.
The soft whisper of the waves made her sleepy, and it seemed as if the warm sand welcomed her in its golden bed made just for her. Neptune was so deep in thought that she did not notice as another person came running from beyond the arch of the castle, just as this person did not notice the beautiful princess, whose hair and dress perfectly matched the color of the sea.
Back then Neptune would not have known who that girl was even if she did notice her, though I bet if anyone asked her this question just a week later, she would have answered sweetly, closing her eyes, “Why, it was the beautiful Princess of the Sky, Uranus”. To tell you the truth, my dear Hime-chan, Uranus was not really as beautiful as Neptune later thought her to be. At least I don’t think so. You see, there was a tattoo on her face. No, not one of those awful tattoos people now put on their bodies, for that is something only Earthlings could ever come up with. No, Uranus’s tattoo was a tattoo made by deep unhappiness, the most horrible torturer of all times. And with a terrible mark like that on her body, not even Princess of the Wind’s impossibly long golden hair and shiny gray eyes could make her beautiful.
Uranus ran to the very edge of the shore, that dark brown line of sand, where the sea licks the land only to find it bitter to its aqua tongue and quickly retreats back to the blue sky of the horizon, forgetting everything in its lover’s cloudy embrace, but eventually doomed to return once again to the brown land. The princess’s long light blue dress got wet in the cold of the oncoming wave, but she did not mind. Today was just like any other, filled to the point of spilling out with the loneliness and unhappiness until finally for the first time in her life there was a sort of feeling in her soul, a quiet premonition, and something snapped adding that last long-needed drop to the cup of her sorrow. That drop, or maybe just one of the billions of tears she cried every night for the last few years, had now brought her here, to the shore, and the light wind gently caressed her burning skin.
“My Wind, my dear friend, tell me, what is the meaning of this life? You’re telling me I will one day find someone special, but nobody comes. I’m just as lonely as I was yesterday, and the day before, and for as long as I can remember.” Her speech had started with a whisper, but by now she was crying so loudly that only the deafening music of the ball prevented all the guests in her parents’ castle from hearing her words and running outside to see what is going on. “How do you know if I’ll be alright? And how do I know that you really know if I’m not even sure if you’re real or just a figment of my own imagination? Do you really caress my skin to comfort me or do you just blow mindlessly over this planet like you do over all the others, not caring whose lives you touch? If you are my true and only friend, why can’t you just bring me death? You hear me? You, gentle Wind, and you, waves of mysterious sea, I want to die!!!”
Echo carried the phrase far into the twilight sky, and Uranus took one step into the darkness of the salty water. But the waves did not answer, did not reach out to embrace her and take away her life, and neither did her gentle friend the Wind. So the Princess of the Sky fell down into the oncoming tide and started crying.
The Princess of Neptune, who awakened from her daydream at the very first cry of Uranus, was touched deeply by her words. How could the other princess even ask that of anyone, right along her best friend and companion? Death was the most horrible thing imaginable in the world of Queen Serenity’s Silver Millennium, just as it is now. Just imagine, not being able to live, not wanting to live4 one would not think, one would not feel, one would not suffer, one would not love... One would not be anyone, just the bones in a grave or the ash carried by the wind across the land.
The beautiful Neptune got up on her feet and ran to the Princess of Uranus, begging her not to end her life, begging the whole world not to bring this tall blond girl so much suffering, begging the sea not to crash its waves so desperately onto the shore in the time of storm, begging the wind not to penetrate the very souls of the people with its bitter truth, begging for peace. And Uranus was so overwhelmed by her own emotions that she was not surprised at the sudden appearance of the other princess. She simply laid down in the waves of the darkening sea and cried on Neptune’s shoulder, never caring who was it that came to her rescue with such a vigorous fight for a human life as long as that person cared for her.
“Please, no tears,” Neptune whispered, gently rocking the other girl in her lap until she gradually began to quiet down. “Don’t say that. Please, don’t. Don’t ever say you want to die. There is nothing worse than death in this world, don’t you know this?” Neptune herself was finding it increasingly difficult to speak, for her tears threatened to choke her at every word.
However, at the quiet words of the gentle princess’s reassurance, Uranus’s mood changed rapidly, as it often did at the times when her soul was in turmoil. “My life is. My life is far worse that death can possibly be,” she cried out, jumping up on her feet and leaving Neptune’s warm embrace, already beginning to faintly miss those white fragile hands on her body and slightly surprised at even that thought. “Who are you to tell me what to do or not to do? I don’t even know your name,” Uranus continued though she already calmed down a little, and the last sentence was said with the purpose of quieting her own racing thoughts more than anything else.
Neptune felt struck by the blonde’s words. Here she was trying to help, and this stranger was returning only hate for her love. The tears in her eyes finally spilled out, and in the last try to compose her self, she said in as formal voice as she could muster. “My name is Neptune, Princess of the Planet of the Sea.” Her voice broke down on an unnaturally high note, though, and the pretentious formality collapsed as a ship crushed on the rock face of a mountain by the raging wind.
Uranus saw the effect her words had on the beautiful princess and cursed herself silently for being so harsh with the only person probably in the entire world who had ever cared enough to want her to live her life... simply live. She fell on her knees again, and the sea hugged her in an embrace as cordial as a lover’s, as she put her arms around the slender body of the teal-haired girl. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m very sorry. My name is Uranus, Princess of the Planet of the Sky. Believe me, beautiful princess, I’ve never meant to hurt you with my words.” Her tone was gentle, almost motherly.
Neptune sobbed on Uranus’s shoulder, but was no longer able to hold a grudge against the blonde. She could feel almost instinctively that the other princess’s soul was in a great turmoil. Trying to take away this beautiful person’s pain, Neptune asked quietly, not meaning at all to intrude, but rather nearly pleading with Uranus to open up her heart, “What’s the matter with you, Your Highness? What evil could have driven you to wish for something as awful as death?”
Uranus could not keep the sarcastic smile from appearing on her face. “And there you go, too. It seems like everybody only sees in me the Royal Highness, Princess Uranus of the Planet of the Sky. People don’t know who I am inside. The only thing they know about me is how I look. If it wasn’t for you right now, you know, I would’ve done it, and there would’ve been a great funeral after my death, and all those people would’ve came wearing black and crying over the grave of the Princess. Yet none of them would’ve been crying for me because nobody knew who I was, what I felt inside.”
“I’m very sorry for upsetting you,” Neptune whispered, feeling a bit hurt herself. “Then, if you don’t wish me to view you as a princess, would you mind terribly if I called you Uranus?”
The Princess of the Sky was a bit taken aback by such a proposal. Her feelings were raging as the swift hurricane, taking on all of the different hues of emotion all the time. Half of the time she herself could not guess what it was that she was feeling that caused this utter sadness and loneliness. And yet here comes this beautiful teal-haired vision, and she is able to understand her better than Uranus can herself. The Sky Princess recovered soon enough, though, and answered with a coy smile, “Of course, I wouldn’t mind, but only if you give me a permission to call you Neptune.”
Uranus’s eyes glittered in the light of the setting sun with a newfound light, and gazing into them, Neptune found herself melting inside. “You may call me whatever you like”, she whispered softly, almost inaudibly. Yet even the slightest resonance of a sound causes the delicate glass world of a day reverie to shatter, and the teal-haired princess blushed bright red, not quite comprehending the meaning of her own feelings and yet bathing in their undeniable beauty.
Uranus just smiled at the words, too absorbed in admiring the exquisite vision of a girl before her to be able to understand anything else, even the soft whisper of the other princess’s lips.
Neptune was confused by her own emotions. She could feel the attraction to the blonde, and it frightened her. She could never imagine that one could feel something like that towards someone of the same gender. The entire situation, the whole rainbow of feelings just awakened in her young heart, was just too much for her mind to handle, for a mind of a person is always one step behind his or her heart. Determined, to ignore her emotions, Neptune did the only other thing she saw fitting -- she changed the topic back to the Sky Princess’s unsuccessful suicide.
“So, you feel alone, like nobody knows you or even cares enough to know you. That must be terrible,” she sighed, chasing away mentally her own melancholic thoughts on such a subject. “Well, I care. The waters of this sea guided by my home planet Neptune didn’t take you away from this shore, from me, and I’m glad they didn’t, for by rejecting you, they gave me a chance to know you. And I want to know you, Uranus. Please, open your heart to me. You’ve just told me that you are lonely because there is no one who knows who you are inside. Please tell me all about you so that you will never be alone again. I promise to listen, for I already see -- don’t ask me how, but I do see -- that your soul shines with strength and purity.”
Uranus hardly even noticed the scarcely concealed compliment in the other princess’s last words, so startled was she by Neptune’s gentle proposal. How could she ever explain to this sweet caring girl that in all of the years of loneliness she endured, her heart lost its ability to communicate? That even if those strange and unknown people who gathered in her parents’ castle every day of her life did want to know more about her, she was not sure she could even begin to form the words, which would somehow betray part of her soul to their cruel judgments? How could she ever explain that she, the great Princess of Uranus, was afraid, afraid of getting hurt? It was an irrational fear, having no real reason, but the years of loneliness had taught her to avoid people and not to trust them quite so easily. Yet, none of this really needed much of explaining, for Uranus felt so incredibly at ease in the company of this teal-haired princess. There was a certain calmness in her heart now, calmness she could not for the life of her explain, but each Neptune’s word echoed in her soul as a soft whisper of the sea, a quiet serenade, whose silent notes resounded in her mind with the new intensity of the verse - This is meant to be.
Uranus closed her eyes and laid back on the sand, searching with her eyes the gorgeous expanse of stars beginning to sparkle in the twilight sky, the infinity of it almost as endless and mysterious as her own feelings. The princess sighed softly with an unexplained contentment and began, "When I was little, my parents gave me for my birthday a small elegant statue. I swear on the Sword of Uranus, it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The saddest, too. You see, it was this very small unicorn, entirely black if not for a blazing white horn on his forehead. He was confined by the glass walls of the statue, unable to break free of his precious bonds. That statue was supposed to symbolize the eternal imprisonment of evil, which in the happy times of our Silver Millennium and under the kind Queen Serenity's caring eye, would never get to my heart. All the people who saw it smiled at the justice of the infinite confinement of evil. Only I could see that this unicorn, although black, could not possibly have been evil or bad. There was too much purity and shine in his sparkling horn, too much kindness and despair in his mournful eyes. They didn't know who he was; they never cared, really. So they put him inside that crystalline clear cage of glass, where he could always see the world, but never quite touch it. One day I could no longer take that impossible sadness of the unicorn's pitch black eyes so I smashed the damn statue, seeking to set him free once and for all. But as his glass prison shattered to pieces, so did his heart. Thousands of little black crystals all over the cold stone floor of my room... That unicorn never did get to show the world his true goodness. I know the story might seem irrelevant, but that's how I feel. I don't expect you to understand, but you wanted to know, and now you do."
"That is so sad", Neptune whispered, fighting back the tears, which were threatening to flood over her eyes. "But you're wrong; I do understand. I know what it's like to be lonely, and I want to help you. Tell me, Uranus, what would you like to do most of all right about now? I swear to you, I will do anything you wish. One wish, my princess, is worth quite a lot," she joked, trying to lower the intensity of the charged atmosphere around them. Half of her desired nothing more than a single wish from Uranus, the wish she would make true with the growing passion in her heart. Another part, of her, though, was panicly afraid of the other princess's decision.
Uranus laughed a bit self-consciously and shyly gazed up at the teal-haired girl. "This might seem really weird, but at the moment there is nothing I would wish for more than getting rid of this terrible hair," still laughing, she raised up her braid, which got wet during the princess's unsuccessful suicide attempt and now looked like someone had gingerly woven strands and strands of sandy pearls through it so that the braid itself was completely lost somewhere underneath. Neptune laughed, too, relieved that Uranus did not wish for what she desired, and at the same time oddly disappointed in such an unexpected turn of events.
"Well, if that's all you wish for," she smiled, "what are we waiting for?"
In a few minutes the princesses were already in Uranus's room in one of the towers of the royal castle. The planet Neptune shone softly through the window, giving a sort of mysterious aquamarine lining to the girls sitted on the bed. The Sea Princess was deeply engaged in the process of slowly unbraiding Uranus's long blond hair. The sand from the braid fell in her lap, but she didn't mind too much. It's not like after her sitting right in the waves at the beach for so long, her dress would be suitable for the ball anyway.
"OK, then," Neptune murmured, as the last strands of blond hair fell free onto the other princess's shoulders. "Would you like me to make a high bun out of it? Or would you prefer something fancy, like maybe the hairstyle a la Queen Serenity?" There was a soft glitter in the Sea Princess's deep blue gaze.
"Oh, for the sake of all that is good, no!" Uranus exclaimed, actually sounding terrified. "As much as I admire our good Queen Serenity, I wouldn't ever wish for her hair. Besides, all of these blond waves are just not me," she said, disgustedly gazing at the ones falling about her shoulders. "Cut it off; all of it! I hate my hair so I might as well get rid of it."
Neptune's eyes widened in shock. "Why would you want to get rid of such beautiful hair? Surely, it can't be for a wish to remain bold. How about a compromise? I'll cut most of it, but leave you with a short haircut in the end. I don't believe you can hate your hair so much as to kill it completely!"
"I think I would like that. And I wouldn't want to be completely bold anyway. At least not on the outside." Uranus grinned mischievously, and Neptune answered her with a light smile. And yes, my dear Hime-chan, my jokes were just as bad in the previous lifetime as they are now.
After a lot of assiduous work, the Princess of the Sea gazed approvingly at her creation. "I think I'm finished. Now look in the mirror, and don't be afraid to tell me if you think this is completely horrible. I'm really not sure. I've never given a haircut to a princess before."
Neptune took a small sky blue mirror from a dresser nearby and offered it to Uranus. The blonde slowly accepted it and gazed in it a bit apprehensively. "So you mean to tell me that you've given haircuts to somebody else before, and they also turned out this way?" she inquired after a few seconds of looking at herself in the mirror.
Neptune's cheeks became completely red. "Well, I would exactly call it 'somebody'," she admitted. "It was sort of my doll. But my nanny said the haircut was really nice," she added quickly. "Of course, she might've been trying to make me feel better after I found out that the doll's hair wouldn't grow back like mine does."
"Your nanny wasn't lying to you, sweetheart. This is truly amazing!" Uranus exclaimed, admiring her own reflection. "Oh, dear Planet of the Skies, you have to idea how free if feels to finally get rid of that annoying long braid. It always felt like a chain of sorts binding me to this damn castle. Now, I'm free!" She smiled at Neptune and whispered softly, genuinely, "Thank you!" Then Uranus raised her hand and carefully took the golden hoop out of her right ear, leaving the one in the left ear alone. Shaking her head in amazement at how good it felt to be free of the earring's golden weight, the blonde asked her companion, "So how do I look?"
"Perfect, just perfect," Neptune whispered, lovingly gazing at the other princess. However, as soon as the words left her lips, the teal-haired girl blushed deep red and willed her filled-with-longing eyes off the perfect vision in front of her. She wasn't even supposed to have thoughts like that -- not toward another girl, anyway, and a princess at that. What would Uranus think about her?
But just as before Uranus chose to shrug the incident off with a bit of humor. "Well, as much as the two of us agree in our opinion of my new looks, somehow I really doubt that my parents would be in favor of them."
And the Uranian Princess couldn't have been more right.
"What have you done with your beautiful hair?" her mother exclaimed just as Uranus together with Neptune entered the ballroom the next evening. Thousands of candles were shining bright, giving a heavenly hue to the high dome of the ceiling, but the princess's heart was beating with an ominous rhythm, fearing what was to come. Not even the laughter of the dancing guests could cheer her up.
"For heaven's sake, Princess Uranus, this has got to be the worst idea you ever had," the King said with biting reproach. "Who would want to marry a girl with no hair? No self-respecting prince would even look at you now. Especially if he had already visited the Moon and saw the exquisite beauty of the Moon Princess Serenity."
"Mother, father," Uranus said quietly, nodding towards each of them in turn, "you don't know me at all. How dare you tell me that no one will marry me because of my hair? I think I'm a little more than my looks! And anyway, who says I would want to marry that prince of yours, or any prince, for that matter? You liked me with my long hair because that braid like a heavy golden chain was binding me to the path you chose for my future. Well, I'm still here, in this damn prison of your castle. Allow me at least a piece of freedom once in a while!" Her voice was rising with every word of this speech until by the last sentence all of the guests stopped dancing and were now staring half-astonished, half-curiously at the scene unfolding before their eyes. Noticing this, Uranus flashed bright red, turned on her heels, and ran out of the castle, with Neptune trying desperately to catch up to her in time.
"Do you think we might have been too harsh with her?" Queen Uranus asked her husband, who was still standing open-mouthed at his daughter's sudden reaction.
"Nonsense," he answered, finally regaining his ability to speak. "She'll thank us for it when a nice prince comes along, and the two of them will live happily ever after. She's probably right. Short hair won't stand in the way of true love if that prince will really be worth having her. She is still my beautiful little angel, as beautiful as you, my dear love."
"I suppose you're right," the Queen whispered, turning her green eyes to observe the once-again-dancing guests.
But in reality, the Queen had no way of knowing how wrong her husband actually was. With the speed of wind their daughter ran onto the beach and met the oncoming tide. "Oh, Wind, my dearest friend, hear my prayer. Free me from the burdens of this life. Let me fly freely with you rustling my wings in the blue sky. You hear me? Let me die!!!" And with those words she took a step into the darkening in the growing twilight sea.
"No!!!" Neptune cried, running out of the castle and onto the beach. In a several seconds that oddly seemed like eternity to her, the teal-haired girl reached the other princess and embraced her with all her might. "Please don't! You don't deserve to die," she whispered softly into the blonde's short hair.
"Neptune, listen to me," Uranus answered, gently wiping away the tears streaming down the other girl's cheeks. "It's not the matter of deserving or not deserving. I want to die. Didn't you see it back there, in the castle? I don't belong here. This place is like a prison for me, just as the glass statue was the prison of my poor little unicorn. I'm bound to it for life, and only death can bring at least some relief."
"Death is for cowards!" Neptune exclaimed heatedly, pushing away from the blonde's silk-covered shoulder. "Fine then... You want to be a coward, so be it!"
She turned back as if to go back to the castle, but Uranus caught her arm, and Neptune had no other choice than to face her again. "Surely, you don't mean that," the Princess of the Sky said calmly, trying to keep herself in line. "Not in the Moon Kingdom, for the happiness of which so many devoted warriors have died in a battle. Death can be honorable, my lady. Death can be honorable when it's for the sake of something one believes in. I'm begging you to understand me, for, as you had a chance to see, nobody else can."
"Then why don't you make them understand? Why don't you break the walls of your prison, and show them the real you?" Neptune whispered insistently, her vision blurred by a sea of tears.
"Don't you get it?!!" Uranus exclaimed, unable to hold herself down any longer. "I tried to set that unicorn free, and his soul ended up shattered at my feet on the cold, unfeeling floor. That is the price of freedom, and I don't have the power to pay it!"
For a moment Neptune just stood there wide-eyed, shocked at the other girl's outburst, and even more so at the desperate meaning of her words. The tears that were clouding her vision finally spilled over again, and the Princess of the Sea gently touched Uranus's cheek with her hand. "You are afraid," she whispered incredulously. "Don't worry, I won't let you soul to be shattered like that unicorn was. Don't you trust me, Uranus?" She pulled back to look the other girl straight in the eyes.
The Sky Princess was sobbing, scolding herself at the same time for such a weakness. However, she met Neptune's deep blue eyes and could do nothing else, but to nod and whisper softly, "I trust you with my life."
"Good then," the teal-haired girl said just as gently. "Because I trust you with mine, too. Make a wish, Uranus. I will do anything for you." Just as she said those words, though, Neptune scolded herself silently. She was digging her own grave again, playing the same game, not knowing either its rules nor its price. Yet, her heart's maddening beat told her that it was already too late.
Uranus smiled softly, first time for that whole evening. "There is something that I would really care to wish for right now," she said with a mischievous spark appearing in her gray eyes, "but I'm not sure if you could help me with that."
Neptune looked slightly astonished, but recovered fast enough and enquired, careful not to betray her amazement, "And what would that be?"
"Well, you see, it seems like our every meeting we somehow end up soaking wet in the sea, and this fabric was really not meant for swimming," she raised the now extremely sorry-looking navy blue silk of her skirt, her gaze darkening in disgust at the mere sight of it. "What I wish for more than anything is getting into some new clothes, preferably not wet, and preferably without anything in the slightest bit resembling a skirt." She laughed a bit embarrassed. "Sorry, I should have warned you, the fun with me never ends."
"I noticed that myself," Neptune answered with a smile. "Well, come on. If I promised to be your fairy godmother and make your every wish come true, I'd better start working on it. Let's just hope the tailor will agree to do the job on such a short occasion."
The tailor did agree to do the job, and at the next night's ball Uranus appeared wearing her new navy blue suit with bright golden trimmings and a wide smile, for the Princess of Neptune was there by her side, as she always would be for the rest of their lives.
However, for some very strange and as yet unexplained reason the blonde's parents didn't seem to like her in this new outfit. As the two princesses approached the royal rulers of Uranus, the Queen's mouth dropped open and she gazed at her daughter incredulously, for a moment at loss for words. The King, on the other hand, found his ability to speak immediately and used it to exclaim, "What have you done?!!" He wanted to sound mad, but there was so much shock in his voice that it overshadowed whatever anger he did put into this phrase.
"Nothing really," Uranus answered with unusual cheerfulness. "I just thought I would look nicer in a suit rather than a dress. Not to mention that it's so much more practical and comfortable this way."
"Why, you look simply ridiculous in that men's outfit. Now go change into something more feminine before one of our guests notices you in this... this thing," the Queen ordered, looking at the suit with a certain measure of disgust although she did have to admit that the new cloths looked amazingly well on her daughter especially with the princess's new haircut.
"You don't seem to mind when Father wears something like this, Mother, so I really don't see how you can think this is in any way ridiculous," Uranus answered defensively, already beginning to anger. "I like myself this way, and that's something I couldn't say for a very long time!"
"Well, you might like yourself this way, but what about us? What about the princes, who in a couple of years will undoubtedly be lining up at the door asking for your hand?" Her father exclaimed angrily. "Do you think they would want to marry someone who dresses the same way as they do?" Uranus felt the old despair rising in her heart and beginning to cloud her eyes' vision. The King noticed that, too, and willed himself to come down a bit. "Please understand," he said, much gentler this time. "I only wish the best for my little girl."
Uranus looked into her father's eyes and could see that he really was sorry, but she was too angry now to care. "Why don't you for once allow ME to decide what's best for me? You don't care what I want! You just want to lock me up in your castle forever and marry me to some prince who I couldn't care less about. That's not the life I want to live! That's not the future I want to have! That's what you wish I was like, not me. You don't even know the first thing about me so how can you know what's best for me?!!" And with these angry words, the Princess stormed out of the castle, again leaving Neptune to try doggedly to catch up to her.
Back in the ballroom the Queen looked up to meet her husband's silvery gray eyes with her own green ones. "What did she mean by 'the prince she couldn't care less about'? We would never even consider marrying her to someone she didn't love. I just want her to be happy like I am with you."
The King could only shrug his shoulders in answer to that question. He also lost the ability to understand his daughter a very long time ago. Hence, both of Uranus's parents were trying to blindly feel their way out of the dark forest and into their not-so-little-anymore girl's future. They were truly kind, the King and the Queen of the Windy Planet, but neither of them had any way of knowing how much their genuine love was harming their daughter rather than helping her.
So now, guided by their cruel care, Princess Uranus ran out onto the beach for a third time in three successive nights. Again she ran into the sea, meeting the coldness of the icy water and returning the embrace of the darkening waves. The navy fabric of her pants broke the soft reflection of the planet Neptune, which was beginning to shine in the twilight sky. The princess gazed into the dark heaven and cried out again her desperate wish to end her life. "Do you hear me, Wind? I've tried everything that could've made me happy, but I'm still bound to this castle by some invisible chains. So be a good friend and put me out of my misery. I want to die!!! Grant me at least this, the very last of my wishes."
It was at this time that Uranus felt Neptune's wet hand on her shoulder and turned around to meet the other girl's teary eyes with her own resolutely strong ones. "I'm begging you, don't ask for death. Please, live," the Princess of the Sea whispered quietly, and the terrible sadness and desperation in her tone made the blonde shiver even more than her friend's, the Wind's, breath on her wet skin.
"Neptune, please," she answered condescendingly. "This is the only way. There's nothing for me here. These walls are suppressing me, making me dance to their morbid rhythm. I might seem alive, but I'm dead inside. I'm much more dead right now than I could ever be after a real death. Let me die, and nothing -- believe me, nothing -- will make my life happier."
Uranus started to turn away to walk further into the dark sea, but Neptune threw her arms around her and sobbed sorrowfully on her shoulder. Then she regained control of her feelings and looked the other princess straight in the eye. "I understand. You think it's the only way. Then take me with you. Hear me, Winds of Uranus and Seas of Neptune, let both of us die!!!" As she yelled out the last phrase, the waves she commanded leaped more violently onto the shore, and a terrible hurricane picked up a new strength somewhere at the horizon. There was sure to be a storm very soon.
Uranus looked straight at the other princess's face, a shock evident on her boyish features. "My dear Neptune," she whispered. "I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I knew that I became the reason for such a wonderful girl's death. Besides, I know you. It's not in your nature to want to die." She smiled sweetly, trying to reassure the girl in her arms, but the latter only buried herself deeper in the navy fabric covering Uranus's shoulder. "Why do you wish for death?" the blonde inquired after a few moments of silence.
Suddenly Neptune wrenched herself away from the other princess and cried out as loudly as she could, for in those rare moments when a human heart is allowed to have a voice of its own, it becomes truly free and uses every resonance, every echo to its fullest. "Because I wouldn't bear to be away from you! Because I love you, Uranus! I love you with all my heart!!!" The tears as dark as the sea's waters were streaming down her face now, and Uranus could do nothing at that moment, but to allow her own heart the same freedom. She threw her arms around the teal-haired princess and kissed her so passionately that her head began to spin. When the two of them were finally able to pull away from each other, both of them were teary eyed.
Uranus raised her hand from Neptune's waist and gently wiped away the other princess's tears. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry for not seeing your love before. I'm sorry for hiding my feelings for you. I'm sorry for ever doubting our destiny to be together. I love you, Neptune, and I wouldn't bear to be away from you, either. So don't you dare die now that I found you!" With those words, the Princess of the Sky's lips once again softly touched the other girl's soft salty ones until the kiss grew deeper and more passionate, in virtually no time carrying both of them into Uranus's bed.
Neptune woke up at sunrise and gently reached for the nearby pillow, expecting to touch her lover's sweet skin and wish her the best of mornings. But her hand found nothing, as the blonde's head was no longer resting on the sky-blue pillow. Neptune panicked. She thought Uranus had abandoned all of the thoughts of suicide. But what if she was wrong? What if Uranus left her sleeping here forever alone only to take her own life?
"Please, Kami-sama, don't let this be true," Neptune whispered, running through the seemingly endless halls of the cold stone castle. "Uranus, I swear to you by the Seas of Neptune, that the sun won't rise to see us apart. If you're dead, than my life is worth nothing."
The Princess of the Sea ran out onto the beach, the night breeze blowing the skirts of her nightgown wildly around her legs, for in her hurry Neptune did not bother to dress more appropriately. The sky was already slowly beginning to light up, as a flame of a candle flickering, with a few blazing sparks before really starting to burn with the coming sunrise. The last stars were beginning to die in the heaven, but their dim light was enough for the teal-haired girl to sea her lover meeting the oncoming tide. The waves were calm now, tired from a full night of restless storm. Neptune, still unnoticed, started towards Uranus, but stopped midway at the sound of the other girl's next words.
"Thank you, Wind!" the Princess of the Sky cried out to her old friend. "Thank you so much for not listening to me. Thank you for giving me my soul, my love, my life!"
As Haruka finished her story, she noticed that her adopted daughter's head was comfortably resting on the small lavender pillow, and the violet eyes were closed, giving away their mistress's deep sleep. The blonde gently leaned forward and kissed the little girl's forehead. "Good night, Hime-chan", she whispered and moved away, allowing her teal-haired lover to perform the same kind of nightly ritual they had for putting their daughter to bed. Then the two of them rose to their feet and left the room, turning off what seemed like millions of lamps on their way and softly shutting the door.
Once outside, Michiru turned around to face Haruka and gently kissed her on the lips.
"What was that for?" her lover asked mischievously after the kiss was over.
"For telling me all of this," Michiru answered, her voice just as kind and caring as it had been a thousand years ago, in a previous lifetime. "I know you don't like talking about your feelings. That's why I'm so proud of you. What you told Hotaru-chan, that story... it was truly beautiful."
Haruka couldn't help but smile. "Not nearly as beautiful as you are, my love. It was all true, you know. I don't remember much of the Silver Millennium, but I remember this. I could never forget this. You are my savior, Michiru. You are my soul, my love, my life." She leaned forward to kiss her girlfriend again, and then whispered as gently as before, "My dearest gift of the Wind."
