A drabble series focusing on Chibi-Usa and Hotaru's relationship, or Hotchi as I prefer. Will be updated from time to time. Please enjoy and review.
Oh, and the title of this drabble set was inspired by the song Sandalwood by Lisa Loeb.
Sandalwood
Drabble I
Pretending
She watches the Princess - her Princess, with rapt attention and focus as the pink haired maiden makes her way through the gardens, the Priest at her side, as always. Laughter from the Princess of the Moon and the Earth and the Stars drifts to her ears and she feels a prickle of jealousy rise in her stomach. Her voice is melodic, she thinks to herself, yet she never laughs that way for me.
She sinks to the ground - hidden behind a rose bush like a jilted lover - a white rose bush. A rose bush the Priest planted for the Princess, the silent watcher will think of later, and holds her head in her hands. She wants to cry, but she doesn't. Instead she closes her eyes and wishes fervently that she wasn't Saturn, that she wasn't Hotaru. She wishes she was more like the boy whom held the Princess' heart in his hand. She wishes with a great deal of energy that her pitch black dark locks were shimmering white, and that her deathly purple eyes were a warm honey color instead. She wished she held the power of beautiful dreams and not the power of death. She wants to trade places with Helios, Priest of Elysion, she openly admits to herself, but such wants are hopeless she knows. She let's out a small sob, though still no tears fall from her eyes
She doesn't hear them until they are upon here. A hand places itself gently on her shoulder stirring her out from her thoughts. Chibi-Usa and Helios are looking down at her with concern. Chibi-Usa warm, but small hand resting on her sagging shoulder.
"Hotaru-chan?" the pink Princess questions, "Are you alright, dear friend?"
Friend.
Hotaru bites back bile and quickly stands up. She erases all looks of jealousy, of longing, and of sorrow from her fine features and smiles. She smiles so well, that the lovely pair smile back at her in return.
"Of course," she says brushing the dirt that wasn't there off her knees. "I fell. Clumsy me." She has grown better at lying with age, she finds.
And Chibi-Usa laughs, not the laugh like she would share with Helios, but a small laugh that she shared with her friends. "Not as clumsy as me," the Princess admitted.
"My maiden is the sheer epitomy of elegance and grace," Helios speaks up with a tender smile that causes Chibi-Usa to blush. Hotaru looks away.
Chibi-Usa grabs her lover's hand and squeezes it tight before leading him out of the garden at a leisurely pace. Over her shoulder she waves farewell to her oldest friend and retreats into the Palace.
So she is left there, alone and seemingly forgotten among pale white roses and she isn't sure how much longer she can stand all of this. She makes a resolution (like so many times before), to tell Chibi-Usa in the morning that she loves her far more than friend should love another friend. That she dreams of her and yearns for her in a way she can't begin to describe.
Then again, she thinks with a bitter smile, maybe she shouldn't. She was very good at lying - at pretending after all.
End.