Title: Glass Cages
Author: Angel Leviathan
Spoilers: All of the manga.
Disclaimer: Sailor Moon and its characters do not belong to me.
Notes: Set in the manga universe, in the 30th Century, before the Sailor Wars.
Their past harmed her present more than she will ever let on. She wouldn't take back her time in the past, nor change it for anything in the world, but when she was finally permitted to, she returned to a time she no longer knew, with people who had become strangers in a matter of moments.
She remembers wishing Usagi was more like Serenity. Now she wishes Serenity were more like Usagi. She loves and adores her mother, even after her doubts as to whether Serenity even loved her at all, but she is as much a stranger to her as the others, even after three years back in her present. Serenity is everything she could want in a mother, but she is very much aware that she is not the girl Usagi that she remembers anymore. The queen of Neo Tokyo is everything she wants to be, but a constant reminder of everything she has lost. Her mother laughs and smiles and often dotes on her, yet she is always on her guard. She is always the graceful and refined figure she is expected to be. She doesn't quite understand that she is not the mother her daughter needs to see anymore. The pink haired princess remembers seeing Usagi in her eyes once, but then, that was when Serenity saw her as a senshi for the first time…and she must have remembered what it had been like, for a brief moment, to be Sailor Moon.
She barely recognises her own name when it is called. Forever referred to as 'Neo Lady' and even 'Serenity', Chibi Usa is gone, seemingly forever. She hears titles called after her, not her name, and certainly not who she feels she is. Trapped in a white dress, the perfect princess by her mother's side. She wishes she could run back and become a child again, even become a soldier again. She awaits the time she can get back to the fight and remember what it is like to feel true fear again and not a peaceful, empty, numbness.
She misses Hotaru. Of course, Hotaru is always by her side, but it is not the Hotaru she remembers. She knows the senshi of Saturn had to wait many, many hundreds of years for her princess to grow up, and knowing what she knows now, understands the pain of seeing a person you love right in front of you but forever absent. But she left Hotaru in the past. Saturn looks the same, never seemed to grow up, the same slight figure and childlike features, but Saturn is her guardian, companion…no longer best friend. Time has been unkind to both in ways they cannot change. She thinks she can sometimes see resentment in Saturn's eyes for how long she kept her waiting. Sometimes the senshi of destruction forgets herself and becomes the playful girl her princess remembers, but she checks herself all too quickly and remembers their stations. Remembers she is darkness and her charge is light.
Pluto is as Pluto always was. But now she is grown, Pluto no longer seems the comforting, friendly figure she used to be. The woman who used to be her only friend has become the only woman she truly distrusts. Oh, she loves Setsuna as she always did, but cannot fathom how she can remain silent when she sees and knows all. She knew she was going to die. She knew Usagi was going to have her friends ripped from her one by one. She knew everything, knows everything, even the battle ahead. She knows Pluto studies her with different eyes, expects to see so much more from her than she did before. She can't play the tearful and defenceless, lonely child anymore. She shed her present role in the past and it is one she cannot reclaim.
The others are somewhat as she remembers them. Minako has subtly changed to claim her title as leader of the senshi and has matured as such, but she still has her girlish moments. She is the one she can tell anything to and know her secrets will be kept. Usa has requested that Rei teach her control. Rei is a tutor and an idol to her, a powerful woman who would give her life for her friends when the time came. Of course, it has been and gone, and is coming again, but it is always without hesitation. She sees little of Ami, who is in high demand. Or her mind is, at least. But she is the one of the others who has seemed to remain a constant, a rock she can cling to when she thinks all is lost. Ami sends her long letters and transmissions detailing everything she can think of, down to the little things she thinks her princess might find amusing and yet are irrelevant at the same time. Mercury understands what time has done to her, more so than even Pluto, and so strikes a careful balance between 'Neo Lady' and 'Usa' that none of the others can reach. Makoto she adores. She seems to have kept a strong link to the past, still cooks, still trains in combat, is still everything she remembers about Jupiter. She teaches Usa self defence in secret.
She sees less and less of Haruka and Michiru. But then, she reasons, she sees them in Hotaru, who is still considered their daughter by more than Saturn alone. If there is so much as a twitch in space, Uranus and Neptune are in their queen's court, anxious and swearing protection against everything and anything, but she knows they see her as the dutiful princess now. Sometimes Haruka winks at her across the room and Michiru often brings her the gifts nobody else ever seems to think of, perfume and bows, pretty things to remind her she is still, despite her real age, a young woman. She knows she can count on their support whenever. But support and companionship are very different things.
She thinks perhaps she betrays her family and friends by longing for the hardship she knows is ahead. The fight calls her, but no longer from the past. Maybe in the future she truly become one of them again, stay as Usa, as a senshi and not a precious princess in a glass case. She knows they will fight to protect her. And when they do, she'll show her true colours. As a leader and a soldier, a hidden force to be reckoned with.
Fin