A/N: Yay real life, for further being a pain in my rear end. Okay, guys, this isn't good news, but it is news. I had several chapters prepared for today in a mass upload. However, thanks to last night's wind storm that totally demolished my fence (and my power for a short time) I now have to retype everything I'd written from last night, purely because my computer went back to it's restore point...5 chapters from various things, all poof!
(This is why I swear by both hard, and soft copies of everything. Those just hadn't been backed up yet, since I was still typing when my power cut.)
That said, I'm going to be running into a few blockages with real life stuff for now, so I thought I'd start a story with loosely tied and related one shots. So that's what this is, a string of loosely related one shots, that do have an actual flowing story to them. Do you have to read every single one for it to make sense? No, probably not...but I would recommend it. This one is merely a drabble to kick things off. The preface is just the opener to tie everything together, so I know it may seem just "Meh" but please, just bear with me.
The "beginning" of the story will come in chapter two.
Don't own Mai HiME.
Preface
It was destiny from the start.
Tragic perhaps, that they shared a fate no one would dare wish to experience. Horrific indeed, detailed by their memories. Haunting probably, gifted by voices in the shadows. Incomprehensible surely, by those unlike themselves. It would be without a doubt, the rise and fall of who they were. At the start of it all, young women. It was decided by fate, that the world around them began breaking them down, and rebuilding all that they knew. Everything they themselves understood, it fell, shattering like glass.
However, the story foretold by a simple little song, a rhyme that as they say, is little more than a fairytale...well, it is little more.
A truth, a segment, a memory...but alas, no matter what they wish to call it, the Carnival was merely one tiny moment in time. A blink of an eye. A single, hesitating pulse, mingling with fearful breaths. It was history, one, sadly, that just happen to rear ugliness every several hundred years. Other than that, the Carnival was just a passing phase, a time of trouble now over and done with.
Natsuki and Shizuru never really knew what was in store for them, and although the nightmarish memories may never fade, both of them could tell everyone, their journey didn't start with fighting, and it surely didn't end by the hands of an obsidian prince.
There was no lord, no king of their lives...no one ruled over their future...just, as it seemed, fate didn't dictate their past. No, that was quite by chance, both of them were sure.
It all started quite vaguely, and without pretense. It wasn't as if Natsuki had chosen that particular flower for any exact reason. It wasn't as if her palm called for it directly. It wasn't as if Shizuru couldn't be a naturally outgoing person by nature. The fate of the world didn't magically align with their meeting, and it surely wasn't the guidance of the star that made Shizuru wish to understand the reclusive, hardheaded girl. A girl of midnight tresses, who's name became known by paper slips, and dentition notices. The gods of the underworlds didn't damn their very lives purely by forcing them to meet in a garden. Their most important person could have ended up being anyone, and no, they were not pulled down by fate.
They both refused to believe in fate, because then, they wouldn't have had a choice.
Natsuki was Headstrong, and Shizuru refused to accept a cadge. It would have to be by choice, merely their wish that they remained friends, and perhaps something more...it had to be theirs, and theirs alone. However, it begged many questions, and they refused to answer most of them. A quandary perhaps, but one they dived into wholeheartedly. It was merely by chance, pure luck, or perhaps their choice to get to know each other. That was their story, and if it happened to be a fabrication, they refused to care.
It was their tale to tell, and they were sticking to it.
Natsuki would say that it was a flower, and a soft voice, that gave her reason to falter. That crimson eyes gave her reason to stutter and blush, but it was perhaps, a simple word, that had opened up her eyes to the world around her. To hear Natsuki speak of their past, she would say it befuddled her. Something so casual invited many things, but it wasn't without dilemma. What was such a word? Friendship, something Natsuki Kuga had heard about several times, but had never truly experienced. Conflicted, and confused, Natsuki found herself at the mercy of a teen who could see through her so completely. It was with slow acceptance, one unlike Shizuru had ever been accustom to dealing with. Natsuki was not one to take simple worlds idly, and never laying down. She was not one to blindly accept a kind offer, and to merely touch her, would warrant violent backlash.
Everyone knew Natsuki Kuga was one student that no one dared to trifle with.
Her reputation preceded her. So she found it odd when Shizuru Fujino, one of the most popular girls in school, began to hover around her. She was almost like a pest. She was annoying, inquisitive, and never without a retort. Her teasing something both endearing, and completely horrifying. Natsuki hated her at first, as Shizuru expected would have been the outcome. Over time, without either one of them truly noticing it, Shizuru's lips spilled one single word that fell like a definitive weight over both of them.
Friends.
However friendship grew, and so too, did the hearts of these two young woman. Their lives had revolved around singular words, phases, and names. People and places alike took on a new definition for them every single day, and to describe their world, and themselves, they realized it became all the more important. After all, Natsuki's views on many things were only negative, and in the pit of emerald fury she knew she would never fully understand Shizuru's sights.
In return, Shizuru knew she couldn't say the same. She'd never see Natsuki's forgiveness, or her own forgetful heart. Crimson eyes, both calm and understanding also held their deep secrets, the color of her eyes just as deep as the rivers of blood she spilled. For them, to define the world, to protect themselves, it became far more difficult. Still, the power of one word alone, was simply strong. Something that she just couldn't say, and thus, it was perhaps, how they began to move forward, speaking things that could slip easily from her tongue, trying to understand, the meaning she simply couldn't define.
Love...it was easy to say...but it was not perhaps so simple to learn. The lessons many, and the truths grand. Just like the petals on a flower, just like their words filled with meanings, they began to color their world, the only way they knew how. Within hues all of their own, just like the flowers in the garden, so vast and so very fragile...