Well, the weather outside is frightful

[rosestolilies.livejournal.com]

Characters: Everyone!
Date: Midnight the 16th of December
Summary: The inhabitants of the Garden get their reward for making out beneath the mistletoe, in the form of a lights show in the sky.
Warnings: N/A

In the dead of night, the Garden is dead silent. Without the sound of the city or urban life, only the noises of nature pervade the air. Crickets. Rustling leaves. The occasional footsteps of an animal.

However, tonight, at midnight, the silence is broken by a loud pealing of bells, rousing the people of the garden from their sleep. The bells continue ringing for nearly half a minute before falling silent. For a moment, the peacefulness of night returns to the Gardens.

Then the enormous mistletoe plant begins glowing, with a brilliant white light bright enough to be seen from all corners of the Garden. It fizzes, shooting off heatless sparks, and then bursts, shooting up into the sky and breaking into pieces of glowing light, forming various shapes. Above the Orchard, a series of hearts form, burst like fireworks, and reform. Over the Necessities, nymphs made of sparkling light kiss and dance through the sky, winking down at the people below. Over the ruins, flowers of multicolored light pop into existence and disperse. And above the Viridian Pavilion, fiery red phoenixes swoop through the air, burn out dramatically, and are reborn in a new cascade of light.

The show will continue until morning. Fortunately, now that the mistletoe's light has dispersed, it's not so bright that it should keep people awake.

Comments

[headedforhope]

A pause, a slight hesitation before Mami responds, her voice just a shade unnaturally calm - almost forced, one might think, should they happen to pick up on the subtle tension behind the serenity. "Ah, I suppose I am. Sleep didn't seem all that possible after the bells and seeing....well, this."

She gestures toward the sky, which takes the opportunity to explode with dazzling light again. Mami angles her face slightly away from Utena, no longer looking in the direction where the other girl's face must be. There's that fluttering in her stomach again, a feeling that makes her control and composure seem like such frail and slippery things rather than her sword and shield. And now, where before there was no hope of words, comes a question that slips out of her mouth before Mami can swallow it back.

"Do you mind if I take a seat by you?"

[revolutionized]

"The bells woke me up." Utena tucks her knees to her chest, and suddenly looks very young. "It reminded me of the duels."

The question catches her off guard, and it shows for a brief instant before she recovers, nodding her head. She is nervous being around Mami, uncomfortable and often flustered. She never knows lately what to do, or to say. But for all of her hesitance, she still enjoys when the other girl is around, and that makes her nervous for another reason entirely.

She nods her head. "Sure. I don't mind."

[headedforhope]

"Did it? ...I see." Mami's at a loss for what to say, how to spin that remark into a conversation much less uncomfortable than this. She sucks in a breath of the cool night air and begins walking up the hill toward Utena. Measured, careful steps - she doesn't want to trip and fall. The memory of the last time that happened is already enough to set her cheeks aflame.

Mami sits down beside Utena, keeping a respectful distance. She, too, curls her legs against her chest and hugs them there, chin resting on her knees; it's warmer that way, and soothes her nerves on some primal and half-forgotten level. "...thank you. I had been walking around for awhile, and this is a good spot to rest. It has a nice view, even."

[revolutionized]

"You don't have to thank me." The statement could be harsh, if said the wrong way, but Utena's voice is warm and soft. Mami is a friend, awkwardness or no, and she doesn't want her to feel uncomfortable. "It's just as much my space as it is yours, right?"

As much as she wants to inspire a feeling of comfort, however, she doesn't shift closer. It's too soon for that. "Have you seen anyone else walking around?"

[headedforhope]

A light shrug, a small and helpless rise and fall of her slim shoulders. She makes an agreeable enough hum in answer to that question rather than try to fake a shallow, redundant reply.

Part of Mami is grateful for Utena remaining where she is - as though they could pretend that a much more meaningful physical distance between them had never been broken. Another, less relieved part is frustrated and confused. That side of her is why Mami is fidgeting slightly, the reason for this nettled feeling taking over her nerves.

"Ah, I saw Amamiya-san and Madoka-san, and a few others I couldn't make out well enough to name."

She curls tighter into herself, a slow and painful tensing up. "What about you?"

[revolutionized]

Utena stubbornly keeps her focus on the sky. She feels strange if she studies Mami for too long, gets an unusual tightness in her chest.

"I saw Homura-san. There may have been others around, but like you said, it's hard to see." The sky lights up again - this time, it portrays what looks like two nymphs in an intimate embrace, and Utena glances down quickly, her face beet red. She sits like that for a while, quiet and embarrassed, and then notices the way Mami has curled in on herself.

"Um...say, Mami-san. Are you cold?"

[headedforhope]

Mami misses out on that particular firework. She's closed her eyes, feeling a rush of weariness that only has partly to do with her interrupted sleep; this constant yanking around by the Gardens has got Mami feeling like a marionette on strings being tugged in a dozen different directions. The flash of color in the sky blares against her shuttered eyelids in a shapeless, meaningless burst of light.

She's slow to crack them open again when Utena asks her question. "Mm?" Mami blinks and exhales, watching her breath turn to a white cloud. A lingering pause. "I suppose I am, to be honest. I've never much liked the cold...."

[revolutionized]

She falls silent in the wake of Mami's response, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth and appearing to mentally debate something. Eventually though, she says:

"I could help. I'd have to move closer...is that all right?"

[headedforhope]

She shivers with a new gust of wind, the cold filling her mind and dulling further an already dull care; what's it matter? Utena can't help with the most important things, this tired awkwardness.

"Mm, that's fine."

Mami is expecting, at most, a friendly and platonic arm slung about her shoulder. She doesn't allow herself to blush at the thought - merely squeezes her eyes shut again against another chill.

[revolutionized]

Another moment of hesitance - Utena looks as if she may recant her offer. But then she scoots behind Mami and carefully pulls her into a loose hug. She convinces herself that this is normal - something she might do to a friend like Wakaba, or Anthy...and that thought makes some strange and unpleasant guilt nibble at her thoughts, but she doesn't quite know why.

"Um..." She swallows, hard. A deep breath. "...This is better, right? Are you warmer now?"

[headedforhope]

She doesn't feel warm at first, or anxious, or anything - nothing beyond an all-compassing surprise at the arms enveloping her waist, the sensation of another body pressing close where she can't see them.

"Ah, I-" This time, Mami's cheeks flare with heat; she fumbles for her next thought, the will to resist and pull away. And yet, and yet, the latter fails to ever come. "...I'm okay. That's- that's much better, thank you."

She swallows hard and tries to understand just what she thinks she's doing, why she's relaxing by inches (if with a sullen, defeated reluctance) into the undeniably comfortable embrace.

[revolutionized]

"Good." There is genuine relief in Utena's voice, beneath the unease and sheepishness. She is slow to relax, and keeps her embrace fairly loose, too nervous to inch any closer.

"It is pretty cold, but the fireworks are something else, huh? ...They really gave it their best shot. I wonder where they're coming from."

[headedforhope]

Her voice is faintly distracted, a little off: "Magic is responsible for it all, I imagine."

Mami lapses into silence, which in some ways is even worse than trying to pull off a casual conversation while in such a vulnerable state; the only sound is that of their breathing, and it's even harder to ignore the tiny shifts of Utena's body as she does. Unseen, Mami bites down hard on her bottom lip. (It's so hard to be brave, all the time, each and every time.)

"....Utena-san, can I ask you something?"

[revolutionized]

Utena doesn't notice the distracted tone of voice - or if she does, she ignores it. Convinces herself it isn't her business. The silence makes her uncomfortable, and she's tempted to start another line of conversation, pointless as that might be, but Mami speaks up before she can.

She tenses slightly, as if afraid she might be chastised for being so familiar, so close. "Hm? What is it?"

[headedforhope]

For a moment, it seems as though Mami won't respond. What she wants to say is caught in her dry throat, tangled up in her head. But then she breathes in, breathes out, and the words manage to come.

"When the Gardens puts us in strange situations, or makes us not act like ourselves.....I wish we could stop avoiding each other in the aftermath." She hunches forward a little, pressing her forehead against her knees. Her voice is a soft, tired sound. "I know it's.....awkward, and uncomfortable, and embarrassing. But I don't want to keep running away from things, especially not my friends. It's-"

Her voice falters in a rare moment of vulnerability, stops, then continues. "It's painful."

[revolutionized]

Her head dips just slightly, and without thinking much about it, her arms tighten across Mami's waist. She's quiet for a while too, and suddenly feels unsteady. Something is changing, something small but significant, and she is not sure how to handle it.

She pushes the thought away - focuses only on this moment, when Mami is so obviously in pain. An awkward pause, and she eventually rests her chin atop the other girl's head.

"Okay. I don't...want to avoid you either. Here, you're one of my best friends."

[headedforhope]

A light shudder rolls through her body - a relief for the moment more powerful than the strange, uneasy feeling this awkward closeness and warmth produces. She sighs again, the sound one of a needed release, and relaxes.

That precious, subtle shift has already happened for Mami, and on some level she's aware of it. What it means, where it will lead to. But that troublesome understanding is shelved for the sake of this brief, fragile reprieve. A moment passes, somehow not nearly as heavy as the ones that preceded it. Then she admits shyly: "You're one of my best friends, too."

[revolutionized]

"Good. I'm...glad." Her cheeks color at Mami's shy admittance. She's a little surprised, at how pleased she feels, and a little uneasy about it. There's something nibbling at the corners of her mind, a thought she tries to push back. But it persists, has been there since the music, since the dreams. Balanced on a scale with her determination to get home, it barely manages to tip, but it is beginning to gain weight and force.

The thought is simply this: that the Gardens are not so bad, that she could be happy here, if not for her dedication to her promise. And if the center of that promise was here, well...would it really be so bad to stay?

She does not say this though, only relaxes against Mami, comforted by the warmth of her presence. It's not so cold out here, when she has a friend.

"...Are you still cold at all? D'you need my jacket?"

[headedforhope]

"...Ah, I don't think so." Her hands lightly settle over Utena's arms where they rest on her waist; Mami leans back against the other girl in turn. She does this silently with slow, hesitant movements. There's a certain caution even in the way Mami breathes - deep, unhurried, almost silent. It's as if she's afraid any loud or sudden move on her part will shatter this precariously cozy situation.

"I'm not that cold anymore."

[revolutionized]

"Mm." Utena sounds distracted. The light from the fireworks illuminates the two girls again, alone on this hill, small and insignificant against the black expanse of the night sky. The peal of bells continues off in the distance, and Utena sighs. It's a heavy, sad sound.

"I've been thinking...about the question you asked. About what revolutionizing the world means."

[headedforhope]

The back of her head rests comfortably against the curve of Utena's neck; the embrace is warm and invites a feeling of safety. If she closes her eyes, Mami can almost - almost - let herself imagine this lasting beyond a single night.

But she doesn't dare to close her eyes. "You have?" On some level, that jolts her out of the beginnings of a dangerous reverie: all comforting touches and confusing feelings in the world can't erase Utena's connection to Ohtori.

[revolutionized]

"Yeah." She falls silent for a few long moments, and then speaks up again. Her voice is soft, calm. "I was thinking...well, it means I have to change something, right? That's what a revolution is. If I could..."

Another pause, longer than the first, and she tenses against Mami. "But the whole world...how is anyone supposed to do something like that?" It's the first admittance of this - her doubts and fears. It's the first time she's acknowledged it, thought about what revolutionizing the world meant. It's a change, slow and steady, but significant. "I thought the duels were just...a game. Just something the Student Council thought of. Why would they need to revolutionize the world?"

[headedforhope]

Mami is quiet as she listens, the way Utena's body grows unyielding and tight failing to escape her. And Mami wonders to herself in the privacy of her own mind: The duels....where one is pitted against their schoolmates in a clash of blades over the right to claim another person as a possession....a person of some great yet mysterious significance.

That's too cruel and purposeful to be a mere game.

These are things that are thought but not said. Not for the moment, anyway. "Well, people revolt when they aren't satisfied with the way things are. Any history book will tell you that, right?" She reaches up after a moment to touch Utena's shoulder, gentle and reassuring. "But I don't think that anyone can change the entire world all by themselves. Perhaps what it really means is....you're the beginning."

Mami gazes out at the sky as it explodes once more in a flurry of sparks.

"Change has to start within, after all. Otherwise you never grow as a person....you might as well still be a child."

[revolutionized]

The touch on her shoulder makes her start, but she relaxes eventually, finding comfort in it. "The beginning..."

It's just a game, she wants to say, but the thought itself seems like a lie, a careful fabrication she's afraid of finding the truth behind. The beginning of a revolution. One she had not asked for, and one she had not wished to be a part of. But if she wants to liberate Anthy from the duels, she had to.

Otherwise, it was as Mami said. She would still be a child. She would never grow past...past what?

Who is that? she'd asked her prince, after her parents died and the world compressed to her grief and her coffin. Who is that? The horrible, creaking sound of metal. The sound that spanned across eternities. The sound that followed her in her dreams.

What was it? What had she seen?

"I don't know what I'm supposed to change. Isn't wanting to be a prince enough?"

[headedforhope]

Meanwhile, Mami reflects on a more personal kind of change; the revolution within herself that’s taken months to begin, the end of which is still nowhere in sight. It’s a idyllic idea, she muses, the thought of essentially remaining a child forever here - because growth is difficult, painful, frightening. It might seem more preferable to stay the way one has always been, where at least there’s the comfort of the known and the familiar. And Mami had done just that for a long time, clinging to her grudges and digging in her heels against being drawn out of her shell.

“Mm...If it was enough, you wouldn’t need to duel anymore, would you? Perhaps you’ll discover what it’s supposed to be in time.“ A lengthy pause. “Utena-san, why do you want to be a prince?” The next is half-mumbled, almost embarrassed. “I like you just as you are.”