Author: Abigail / Pikari /
Drive Me Mercury / The Woman of Many Names
Email: abigail@makenai.org
Rating: PG-13
Chapter started: 8-29-04 Chapter ended: 12-28-04
Disclaimer: Sailor Moon and all characters and settings belong to
the one-and-only Naoko Takeuchi. All created characters and plots within this
story are my own.
---------------------------
*Chapter 13*
-Fragments--
Seiya officially hated the
Somewhere she realized she was bouncing. No, to be specific, the bed was bouncing. So either there was an earthquake or… Seiya rolled over only to place her hand in something wet on the bed. Confused, she looked up and squinted at two round pink eyes.
“Oh… hello, George,” she slurred groggily, as soon as her mind had reached a stage of some comprehension. “Nice to meet you. You do realize that’s a bad way to make a first impression, don’t you?”
The furry white face was immediately replaced by panicked blue eyes.
“George is really sorry. He didn’t mean it. He’s really nice, see?” The rabbit
blinked boredly at her, not seeming to care a shred
about the new human he was being introduced to, or the messy puddle he’d just
left on the clean sheets.
Seiya backed away from the furball
that was pushed eagerly in her face. “Okay, that’s nice, really…” But the more Seiya moved away , the more
insistent Miya seemed that George seal the apology
with a kiss. With a bruising thump she ended up on the floor in a tangle of
sheets, fully awake now. Rabbit and child peered over the edge of the bed.
“George is really sorry…”
“Miya! What time
is it?” Seiya attempted to free her legs from the web
of blankets.
“
Seiya managed to push aside the blankets and
stumble to her feet, raking a (clean) hand through untamed black curls. She
pondered it for a moment, before she scooped up the blanket and tossed it back
on the bed, drowning black pigtails, rabbit, and all under its softness.
Without further word she headed for the bathroom.
“Hey!” Miya called after Seiya’s
retreating back. Finally finding an opening in the fabric, she swiped a mildly
confused but contented George into her arms and jumped toward the door before
it had a chance to close in front of her. “Hey, hey! Seiya-papaaaa... I wanna have you
meet my mama today! Please!? Okay, come on!”
“Alright, that’s nice, but... this early?” Seiya
reached for the faucet.
“I’ll go tell her you’re coming! Alright, bye!”
Before she would hear another word of protest, the girl had disappeared and was
already running down the halls. With a sigh, Seiya
turned off the water. Next item on her agenda, teach that girl the meaning of
“sleep in.” She proceeded to snatch up a towel and headed for the shower.
She found no complaints against the
While she tied the belt of her robe, as if on cue a child’s eager voice
floated through the doorway into the room. “She says hurry, ‘cause she has to
start work in twenty minutes,” Miya relayed urgently,
watching Seiya dump the contents of her suitcase on
the bed to sift through the clothes with little regard to what semblance of
order might have previously existed inside the case.
“Miya-chan, maybe another time would work bet--”
“No!” she urged, tugging on her papa’s sleeve. “She wants to meet you now!”
While it was likely that Makiko-san was very interested in meeting her, Seiya knew enough to attribute the sudden life-and-death
urgency to Miya. But any more protests might as well
have been directed at a deaf puppy, and Seiya didn’t
feel the need to expend the energy. After all, this was the woman who had
raised her daughter. She already owed her much more than a mere visit.
They met Taiki outside the room, already dressed
and returning from the breakfast room with a mug of steaming coffee. “You’re up
early,” she noted plainly.
“Things to do, places to see,” Seiya
waved her arms vaguely, injecting some sarcasm into the day’s outlook. “Old
flames to look up, more illegitimate children to discover...”
Taiki raised the mug to her lips, deadpan face
showing no reaction to the attempt at humor. “Mm... good
luck.” And without further word or expression she brushed past and
entered her rooms.
Seiya dropped her arms helplessly. “Okay, stay
mad at me, see if I care,” she spoke to the empty hall as she followed in Miya’s direction. The girl had already skipped off out of
sight, probably unaware her papa wasn’t following close behind. The hall opened
into a large alcove, branching out in several different directions. To the
right, a balcony wound in a semicircle out toward the open air. Clear glass
panes wrapped around the perimeter and a crystal dome above brought in the
morning sun to play in prisms of light across the floor. Seiya
had no idea which hallway to take, so she stopped to lounge by the windows with
full faith that Miya would come running as soon as
she was discovered missing.
The balcony offered a stunning view of the cityscape below, from its
vantage point several stories high. Windows sparkled like hundreds of eyes in
proud white and gray buildings. Far away on the skyline, the
A hard thump of her heart took away her breath momentarily, and froze her
body in place. Or rather, it was more likely the cause of all three reactions
was singular. Seiya would have thought the woman had
walked straight out of her dream if she was not wearing the same surprised and
unguarded expression that probably mirrored her own. She looked the same as
ever, yet so different. Childlike blue eyes gazed back at her, stripped down to
a vulnerability that made Seiya wonder what she could
be so afraid of.
“Usagi.” The name
fell off her lips almost unconsciously.
In hardly a few seconds, the brief expression was masked by a happy and
welcoming smile, making one wonder if it had even been there in the first
place. “Seiya! It’s really
you! I couldn’t believe it. It’s been so long!”
Seiya wore a smile as she stepped toward the
petite person paused in the hallway entrance. For just a moment, the distance
of years and separation fell away at her feet. A silly schoolgirl, an ‘Odango’, beamed in greeting as she waited for her idol
classmate to approach. No... she was no schoolgirl...
but a Queen. Yes, it hadn’t been too difficult for Seiya
to discover Usagi’s new royal status, between Miya’s constant chatterings about
palace life and small hints from unaware staff last night, though being unsure,
she’d kept it to herself. The woman she now faced was without doubt that
schoolgirl, although sovereign silver locks that now framed her face seemed to
drain all the sunshine from her countenance. But that didn’t matter for the
moment, because she was there, and she was Usagi.
“Usagi...uh, wow.” Seiya’s
lack of intelligent speech came not so much from any
kind of overwhelming emotion or nostalgia, but pure awkward uncertainty. “It
has been a while.”
“It has.”
“You look good!” It wasn’t a lie. At Usagi’s
modest but sincere smile, she continued, rambling. “No, seriously – I mean it.
You don’t look a day over eighteen.”
“Twenty-two.”
“What?”
“Twenty-two. It’s when I stopped aging. Side effects of the Silver Crystal.”
“I see.”
“You... look pretty well-preserved yourself.”
“What am I, a frozen casserole? We Kinmoku senshi have our own secrets to longevity.” With one or two
chuckles the air fell back into silence, but it didn’t last for long.
“Seiya-papaaaaaaaaaa~!!” Seiya’s legs nearly buckled as a soft weight rammed them
from behind. She caught herself from falling face-first into the woman in front
of her. “Hey…” a familiar childish voice whined. “You’re supposed to be
following me… oh.” Miya gave a soft word of
realization noticing her papa wasn’t alone in the room.
Seiya watched Usagi’s
face carefully, and watched it go from porcelain to pale. That same fear she
had first noticed had resurfaced and pooled in her eyes. There was no mistaking
Usagi knew her child. Her hands shifted uncomfortably
over her dress, and her eyes followed suit, not daring to meet Seiya’s own. Seiya felt something
tighten inside of her at the other woman’s unease. So Usagi
must know her deception as well.
Seiya looked down at the child. “Miya, would you give us a minute alone? Tell Makiko-san I’m
sorry, I’ll have to meet her another time.”
“But, Sei-”
“Miya.” Her papa’s
voice was firm, and Miya had never heard her this serious. There would be no argument. She shrank
back meekly, giving a crooked bob that passed for a curtsy – her mother would
have her head if she didn’t show proper respect to the royalty – but not
without a cold glare at the woman who had stolen her papa this morning and made
her act so strange and serious. With that, she ran away down the hall. The two
adults who remained watched her disappear in uncomfortable silence.
“Why…” Seiya finally voiced the question that
didn’t need to be spoken. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Seiya, I…” Her eyes drifted away and Seiya saw she was nervously eyeing a maid who had come into
hearing distance pushing a laundry cart through the hall. “Can we talk
somewhere else?” she suggested.
Once she had closed the door on a nearby empty guest room, Usagi sat down, sinking into the edge of the mattress. “I
thought… that was where she had gone,” she spoke quietly. “Though
Setsuna-san never said.”
Seiya lingered nearer the doorway. “I don’t
understand.” She was still waiting and hoping for that one explanation that
would clear up all the misunderstanding and make things right again, but
somehow she feared it wouldn’t be that simple.
“To… your planet…” Usagi explained, looking
confused. She thought her meaning had been clear enough, unless she’d
misunderstood the reason Seiya was now here with Miya.
Seiya would have smiled if this had been any
other conversation. Well, she had
always been a little slow on the uptake. “That’s not the part I meant.” Everything – that was what she didn’t
understand.
Usagi’s eyes
dropped to her hands again. “Seiya, I’m sorry…” She
paused, fiddling with a knot on the quilt she sat on, taking a moment to gather
her thoughts. Finally she spoke again. “When I found out I was pregnant, I was
so afraid. So absolutely terrified. I didn’t know what
to do, and I was afraid to tell anyone. I could only trust Setsuna-san.
I gave her to Setsuna-san. It was the only thing I
could do, for everyone’s future.”
“You could have given her to me.”
Usagi looked up to meet the other woman’s eyes.
“You were rebuilding your planet – your home was in shambles. You had a
princess to live for. Could you really have cared for her back then? Could you
even have accepted her?”
Seiya winced inwardly, knowing everything she
spoke held truth. At that point in her life, had she really had the capability,
physically and emotionally, to care for a child, especially Usagi’s
child? Perhaps she was partially right, but it also angered her. “You could
have at least given me the choice!”
Her head fell again into her hands, as if unable to hold its weight. “I’m
sorry, Seiya… I always meant to tell you… but I never
could. I’m sorry…”
Seiya couldn’t accept her apologies. This woman
in front of him, this was not the Usagi she knew.
Thinking of Miya only made the anger grow. She shook
her head, unable to understand. “She doesn’t even know you. You’re her mother.”
“It’s probably better that way.”
She looked away, and her eyes held a hollowness that struck a disturbance
deep inside of Seiya. But she couldn’t take this weak
regret, this silent, uncharacteristic depression, this… apathy. “How can you
say that? How can you even say that when your daughter… my daughter… is being
raised by a stranger!? You would just turn your back on her like that?”
Usagi’s head
snapped up, apparently a spark of argument still left in her. She raised her
voice to match Seiya’s. “How can you tell me that?! What right do you
have to tell me what I should have done, after you left!”
“I left!?” Emotion had taken over
her rational thought completely now. “I left!? Of course I left, Usagi! What did you expect me to do? Was I supposed to
stand by and just watch you be all love-love over him?”
“I never asked you to stay, Seiya,” she spoke,
more calmly now.
“I know. I left by my own will.” She looked away. “Of my
mind, if not my heart.”
“Which one…” Usagi began after a pause, while she
continued to fiddle with the quilt. “…willed you to return?”
Seiya frowned. “I came back for Miya’s sake. The rest doesn’t matter now. Because… I’m not
in love with you anymore.”
A silence permeated the room that
seemed weighted with finality. Seiya had shoved her
hands into her pockets, staring at the bed curtains without really looking. Usagi closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m glad,” she spoke
when she finally looked up. “I’m glad. At least it will make things less
awkward.”
“You’re right,” Seiya smiled slightly. The smile
soon faded, though. “What… will we do about Miya?”
“Will you take her back with you?”
“I suppose that’s her choice. But she has family here on Earth already. Adopted family and… biological. Are you just going to keep
deceiving her?” Seiya didn’t pretend to smile
anymore. ‘Less awkward’ or not, she hated this strange atmosphere between them,
and hated the position they had put their daughter in.
Usagi felt her jaw tighten. “Seiya, you’ll never understand…”
“I understand.” Seiya heard the coldness that
crept into her voice, and did nothing to suppress it. She turned toward the
door. “You’ve changed, Usagi. You’re not the person I
knew.”
“Everyone changes. People can’t stay the same.”
Seiya’s hand
paused on the doorknob. “I’ll only stay for a week or so. Miya
will have time to decide what she wants to do.”
Usagi’s hand flew
to her mouth, as soon as the door had closed with a final heavy click, leaving
her alone in an empty room. Alone, again. She gasped, holding back the emotions that fought
to rise to the surface. The tears had stopped coming years ago, but somehow,
now they dripped to stain her pure white gown.
“…except for you, Seiya,” she whispered to
nobody. “You’re exactly the same.”