by Emily "Mink" Koh
DISCLAIMER: "Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki" is © 1992, AIC and Pioneer. I don't own it. "Hidden In The Heart" is © December 2000, Emily "Mink" Koh. Do not repost without my consent.
***
Inside my heart, someone is asleep--yet he is there all the time, awake and ready to tumble out. He gives joyful cries and others that are painfully hard to bear, but he is there, and forever will be there.
He has rosy cheeks and his fingers knit the edges of Night close together, to bring Morn to the sky. He can call the stars, he can pull apart the clouds without a care, yet he can be cruel, too.
In all of his majestic glory, he listens to no one. The longer I call out to him to come forth to me, he does not. He stays put and ignores me--simply continuing his usual round of affairs of making the world happy.
Yet . . . I know, that in a sense, he calls for me too. And I go to him--but he does not meet me. He surrounds himself in Darkness's blanket; an area which I cannot go to.
This sleeping prince--this awakened prince--he teases me without knowing it. He jabs at my heart with a hot poker, yet he yearns for love.
I suppose I should trace this problem back to the origin--the beginning of the fairy tale, the beginning with the "Once upon a time."
The prince, like any prince, had a queen--his mother. I can't judge the queen since I can't say I knew her well back then. And like any queen, she had a suitable king, the father. I can easily judge the king, for he was an old acquaintance of mine--he was a little clumsy, and had a different perspective on everything the queen had--while her's was more analytical, he tried to mold it together.
They were happy, I suppose.
Until the king's family realized what happened, that is. They realized that there was a huge difference between the queen and king--social status, in the end, was what it accumulated to. Evidently, the prince couldn't grow up in such an environment, so he was taken away immediately, with the prince.
They left the queen to weep and die . . .
. . . But in the end, the queen arose from the dead, like the phoenix that rises from the ashes. I have even some doubts about how a mythological creature like that can do that, but then again, Tenchi-dono remarks that I'm too analytical.
Like the queen . . .
But back to my story.
The queen rose from the dead, because a light had been awakened in the dark tunnel that she had been encased in. The light was dim, but the queen could make the light grow brighter and brighter, until it blinded her to every extent--and that was her goal.
To make the light shine so hard that it blinds me with happiness, so I couldn't see.
But I suppose I hadn't exactly tended to feed the light. Someone had seen this light, too, but for other reasons than I had. They wanted my light, too, not their own.
The only light I would have in my life, he stole.
And then, I died again.
But like the phoenix, I came back again.
And in horrible circumstances as well--my light was back, yet it had been almost completely doused by the person who had robbed it from myself in the first place.
For a moment, I remembered the prince . . . and how he had disappeared.
And I felt my self ache, and I realized that if this new light was waning, then flickered out completely, there was no use for me . . .
But somehow, the light didn't flicker out.
She was brightened, too, by her own prince.
. . . Sometimes, royalty succeeds at its best.
And today, my life is blinded by the light. I suppose there could be more work to make the light horrifyingly blinding, but this is good enough for me. I won't push the light to an extent so that it can't shine anymore.
Her name's Ryoko.
***
"I have one request of you before you leave."
Ryoko gave her a strange look, an irritated scowl.
"Could you please call me 'mama'?"
"Wh-?!" Looking enraged and half-embarassed, the space pirate teleported back to the other dimension to finish her fight.
Washu smiled. "She's just like her mom . . ."
OWARI