queenoflogs | Well, the weather outside is frightful

Entry tags:

Well, the weather outside is frightful

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.

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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?"

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.

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?"

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.

"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."

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?"

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?"

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."

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."

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."

"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?"

"...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."

"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."

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.

"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?"

Edited 2012-02-05 19:58 (UTC)

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."

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?"

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.”

"I guess not..." Mami has a point, but it bothers her, the knowledge that she might be dueling for much longer than she'd planned.

I see. It's that memory that's been supporting you until now.

Utena blinks, and is silent for a very long time. She'd heard that before...hadn't she? She feels odd. It's the same unusual feeling she gets after waking from a long dream...but the feeling never goes away now. She's always waking up, it seems like.

"Why? Well, I...I told you, remember? When I was small, and my parents-"

Please don't open it.

She falters, and begins again. "-when my parents died, I met a Prince, and he gave me my ring. Since then, I've wanted to be a Prince like him...he told me never to lose my strength or nobility, even when I grew up." There was something off about that, wasn't there? Hadn't he said something else? "So, since then...since then I've been trying to be a Prince. Maybe I'll meet him, and I can thank him for helping me."

Don't be ashamed. The memory you possess is a worthy one.

She shivers, presses closer against Mami. The cold reminded her of a saying she'd once heard, about how you got a chill when someone walked on your grave. "...Thanks, Mami. I like you the way you are too."

Edited 2012-03-05 19:28 (UTC)

A curious silence settles over the two of them, unbroken save for the sound of their breathing and the intermittent crack and boom of the fireworks. And even those sounds seem a step removed by now, belonging to a different and separate world. This conversation is like a cloak - or perhaps a heavy hand, slowly tightening and pressing them closer in ways beyond the physical. Pushing them nearer to some sort of brink, the edge of an understanding waiting for them in the shrouded distance.

Mami endures it all patiently: the lingering quiet, the slow fragments of Utena's responses, the way the other girl tightens this embrace.

"Yes, you told me that." Her voice is calm, far from dismissive, and yet quietly unsatisfied all the same. "But Utena-san, why do you have to be a prince to have strength and nobility? Aren't those qualities you already possess?" A certain softness creeps into her tone - cracks in her armor. "...I guess that's what I don't understand, because I already think you're as good as any prince. I don't know why you can't thank him as yourself - as Utena."

Mami holds little stock in fairytales. The world had long since ground her down too far for her to place her brittle faith in those kinds of impossible ideals. "And besides, princes....they aren't infalliable, you know. They aren't perfect, or always what they seem. I met someone who gave me a ring too, like I told you, and-" She quietens, letting that old pang roll through her heart, and doesn't continue.

"I..."

And she realizes, with a sudden start, that she can't answer that question. To answer it would be to...to ruin something inside, to admit to...to what?

"Because..."

But soon, you will become a woman, and you'll forget about this day.

I won't!

"Because I have to prove it."

The words come as if from a dense fog, and Utena sounds almost dazed, as if waking from a deep sleep. She had to prove it. It didn't matter...if Mami, if anyone thought she was as good as a prince. As good wasn't good enough. It wasn't the same as being one. It wasn't the same as really having strength or nobility. It wasn't the same. And if she was meant to...to save anyone, to meet her Prince, well... "I have to prove it." And there is something firm and final in her voice now. But there is something else there, something hidden and closed-off, far away. She doesn’t know why she has to prove it, or to whom. She just knows it’s necessary, some primordial and half-formed desire. Even if princes weren’t...perfect.

I cannot help her any longer.

And an image flashes through her mind, of her prince. But he hadn’t been the brave and handsome prince she remembered in foggy daydreams. He had been young, not much older than her. And so tired...his eyes. They’d been so tired. She shakes her head as if to clear it, and some of the light returns to her eyes. This conversation has made her uncomfortable, and the tenseness is felt in her embrace of Mami - her shoulders are drawn taut, the muscles in her arms are tight and unyielding. Her psyche carefully repairs itself - she begins to rationalize her thoughts. This was just the result of that awful, disturbing dream. Her imagination was getting ahead of her. Her attention slowly returns to Mami, and she latches onto the new topic, too bothered by her muddled memories to want to delve deeper into them. “I just have to, that's all." And then the subject is quickly dropped in favor of a new curiosity. "You said that before...about a ring. Is that the same thing that makes you a magical girl?”

Edited 2012-03-31 19:19 (UTC)

Mami listens, going very quiet and still as Utena tenses against her. And she thinks on those words, long and hard, as fireworks continue to burst and bloom above them in shapes of whimsical fancy that have never seemed less appealing. There are loose threads here that she can pluck at in the hopes of unraveling some of the mystery shrouding Utena. There are gaps, chinks in the other girl's armor, that Mami can pick and pick and pick at until they widen in crumbling chunks under her fingernails. Mami knows how to be stubborn, to be cruel if it meant ultimately being kind - for despite the barbs that sometimes lace her words and despite the way her gold eyes can narrow dangerously, all Mami has ever really wanted is to help others. It's kept her walking, kept her breathing, even when it had to lean upon wounded idealism and the guilt of survival to do so.

Her voice is soft and neutral. "I see."

But Mami decides to let the subject of princes and Ohtori and all their trappings go for now, for tonight. She's not Utena; charging forward out of heroic impulse isn't her way. No, her way is subtlety and caution and being keenly aware of fragile underpinnings, the minute yet significant impact of the smallest pressures. Forcing something now won't help Utena - and perhaps Mami's already pushed too much, too soon, as it is. She rubs her hands together, caressing the slim and elegant knuckles, feeling the cool metal of her ring. "Yes, that's right."

Silence. Her breath escapes in a thin white cloud. Then the gem set into the metal band begins to glow brightly as Mami comes to a decision.

"I guess I never told you the whole story about that, huh?" A slight shifting movement, and now there is no ring but instead her Soul Gem nestled carefully in the palms of her cupped hands. It continues to glow, the golden light free of corruption and oddly comforting. "About how I gained my powers, about Kyuubey."

There's a quiet sort of relief that comes when the subject of Ohtori is dropped - Utena relaxes against Mami by degrees, her grip loosens and her breathing comes easier. The unpleasant thoughts of her prince - something that normally gave her comfort - fades and goes soft at the edges, replaced by the gentler, gauzy memories she's more accustomed to. But the ugliness beneath those memories lurks there, hidden like brackish, cold water beneath pristine ice. For once, those ugly thoughts don't completely go away when the topic is redirected to Mami.

There would be time later, to analyze that, but for now, Utena leans in to study the Soul Gem cupped in Mami's hands. It's a pure, golden light, and Utena thinks it's more fascinating than any of the fireworks that the Queen and her ilk had conjured up this evening.

"Wow...it's beautiful." It's spoken with a quiet, childish sort of awe. The unfamiliar name though, that gives her pause. "Kyuubey?"

Mami's breath catches in her throat, suddenly and without warning and with an intensity that surprises herself. For a long moment she's utterly sure that she didn't hear the other girl correctly - because although Utena didn't know it, she had just said that about Mami's soul. The thought of it, the very idea that someone would find this vital essence of her something to be spoken about in such awed tones.....She swallows hard, gathers the threads of her composure and control together with a fistful of effort, and is dimly grateful to find that her voice doesn't waver at all when she speaks.

"Kyuubey.....well, this is going to sound strange, but he's not human. He looks sort of like a white cat, about this size." A pause, and the Soul Gem returns to ring form as Mami gestures with her hands to indicate what she means. Her voice has already lost the soft edge from earlier, the strange and awkward pleasure from before quickly fading and leaving her cold. "He's a magical creature that makes contracts with young girls, and he can grant pretty much any wish. ....Of course, he doesn't warn about all the consequences." Mami grows tense against Utena, hunching up and drawing her limbs closer as if to protect herself. And she laughs, quietly, but the sound is humorless and ends fast. "Heh....you could say he's a creature of opportunity before he's one of compassion."

A long, uncomfortable silence. Then Mami continues, some of the bitterness dropping out of her voice to be replaced by weariness. But she does not cry. She won't cry here, not about this, this just is an old and scabbed over wound.

"I would have died in the same car crash that had killed my parents if he hadn't found me, if he hadn't twisted what I said into a wish to live - into another contract he could fulfill. I spent a long time thinking I had traded away my parents to save myself, that I was selfish and...and a terrible person, and he never tried to convince me otherwise. Why would he care, right? He had gotten what he wanted from me: another magical girl to fight until she either died or fell into a despair that couldn't be escaped from."

"So he's some sort of animal that grants wishes?" She smiles, but it's a hesitant, nervous expression. "That sounds like the manga Wakaba reads..." Her expression sobers though, when Mami continues, and soon enough she's gone completely quiet. Her embrace tightens somewhat, as if to protect Mami...although she knows the damage has been done already, it's still...sad to know that someone she cares about has gone through so much pain.

"...But you didn't have a choice. It's terrible he took advantage of you like that. No one should have to make a choice like that." There's real anger in her voice now; her jaw tightens. "That's just...the lowest of the low." Some of that anger leaves her voice a moment later, and she frowns. "Um, for what it's worth...I think...well, I think you're a wonderful person. I don't think you're terrible at all, or selfish." She blushes, but presses on. "After finding out all that you've figure out, about being a magical girl, about yourself...well, I think it'd be really hard to accept. But you know, I knew I was right, when I said you were one of the strongest people I know. You really are strong, Mami-san. And brave."

Well, the weather outside is frightful

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