"Hey."
Enmity can get tiring. Any constant abundance of adversity will put its weight upon a person, but when these feelings rage for thousands upon thousands of years... things can change.
"Kaguya. What are you doing here?" she asked. Her voice was clipped – as it always was – but there was something else in it, too. Resignation.
"Oh, same thing as always, you know. Here to cut your head off, maybe punch out your guts for a change." Always with her dissonant humour. Her voice was light and joking, but if a stranger came into their conversation, such a quip might have been horrifying.
Mokou sighed half at Kaguya's sense of fun, and half at the dull laugh that came from her own mouth. Really, it was funny: as familiar as their gruesome rituals had become, it was comforting to hear Kaguya brush it off in such a casual manner. Indeed, there was nothing "new" about any manner her nemesis might choose to off her – it had all been done.
But, as with any protracted relationship – seething hatred or not – you begin to learn your opponent. And seeing as it had been over two thousand years now, Mokou could tell Kaguya meant nothing by it. The princess was here to talk.
"Sit down, then, Teruyo." A couple of years ago, hearing that nickname coming from Mokou's mouth would have been mind-boggling, to say the least. Immortality does things to a person, though, and change had been wrought in the way the two nobles saw each other.
Kaguya flipped her voluminous skirt out from under her and gracefully lowered to the ground, sitting in the traditional way that even now denoted her royal birth. Her face – cursed, impossibly beautiful face, Mokou thought – had lost the amusement and was now set in a peacefully open expression. It was her usual look, really; the princess was kind (if a tad shallow, sometimes), and she'd kept her courtly upbringing throughout all of her many years. She knew how to listen, and more importantly, how to persuade. She smiled softly and adjusted her silken black hair in an idle motion.
"I guess you know why I'm really here, Fujiwara-dono." The slightest quirk of humour crept back into Kaguya's voice at the comment; were they two completely different people, she'd be honouring Mokou by calling her dono. However, their situation made a perfect mockery of it: Mokou was by no means Kaguya's master, nor was Kaguya obliged to call anyone dono. She was a princess, after all. The Lunarian saw the twitch in Mokou's expression and patted her hand in a quieting motion, using her other hand to cover her growing smile. "I'm sorry, Momo."
Another sigh.
"Yeah, I do. Honestly, I... if you didn't come to me, I would've come to you." Mokou replied, voice suddenly heavy with years of fraught life.
"Oh?" Kaguya chimed, intrigued. "Really, Mokou?" For the merest second, a new emotion flashed across Kaguya's black eyes – admiration? Gratefulness, perhaps? Either way, she hid it with a blink and carried on.
"I can speak freely, then?" A nod. "Thank you."
Kaguya paused for a moment to take a deep, cleansing breath, and let it out with a slump of both shoulders and posture. For a second she looked just as exhausted as Mokou did, but then some of her royal composure came back.
"You know what I'm going to say... and I am sure you feel just as strange about it as I do. It's been so long, but it feels like every day was just a new start to it, doesn't it?"
Mokou nodded gruffly and mumbled a quiet "yeah", with feeling. Kaguya laughed awkwardly and continued.
"So, Momo, as hard as I know it must be for you..." Here everything stopped. The world teetered on this fragile moment, slender as the moonlight shafting down through the bamboo fronds, as Kaguya spoke the words they'd both been yearning for hundreds of years.
"I want to end it, Mokou." She finished.
For the longest moment, there was silence. Mokou stared at her once-adversary, expression perfectly blank save for the tiniest flicker in her eyes. Finally she broke away to look down at the space between them.
When she spoke again, her voice was subdued and wavering.
"... Thank you, Kaguya."
Her words floated in the air, perfectly clear on this silent moonlit night. They seemed to dissolve away, spreading their meaning to both women. Eventually Kaguya spoke to fill their absence.
"It's alright, Mokou. I've wanted this—we've both wanted this for too many years now. It was a stupid spat to begin with." Kaguya quickly held up a hand, thinking that Mokou might protest. "I was stupid. I hope we can both see that, now that we've... had so much time. We both overreacted. Overreacted astronomically." A weak laugh at her own joke, then Kaguya gave a deflated sound and looked away as well.
"We did. It was all so insanely idiotic. Who could... who in their right minds could spend thousands of years killing someone? Hah. We're crazy." Mokou's voice was still dull and laden, but a laugh similar to Kaguya's had crept into it. The princess looked up and met the scarlet stare of her... what now? Not enemy, not any more.
"... I should thank you, Mokou. For accepting this so well." Kaguya began, using every ounce of her high breeding to maintain what composure she had left. "I was... to be completely honest, for a long time I was so scared that one of us would refuse to let this go. And... I was so scared it was going to be me. It took all I had to come to you first, instead of sitting by in my little house of eternity waiting for you to come to me."
Her sudden ramble caught Mokou unawares, but every word of it rang true with her. That had been her exact situation; so worried that the stubborn princess – hah! no more stubborn than her, surely! – would reject any offers of closure. But now here they were. Vendetta of millennia... set aside at last.
All of a sudden, all the years came crashing down on Mokou in a wave of exhaustion. She slumped forward, head in her lands, and laughed wretchedly. She shook her head, laughter gradually metamorphosing into tears, and pounded a first into the ground. Kaguya jumped, then surprised herself when her first reaction was to grab at Mokou and hold her still in a restraining hug.
"Mokou! Momo, why are you crying?"
For a pregnant second, all Kaguya had for reply was more sobs and punches to the soil. Then Mokou gave one last ragged, cracking laugh – a broken, dry bark of a thing.
"It's over! It's all over! After two thousand bloody blasted years, it's over! I can't believe it!" She lurched forward and threw her arms around the Lunarian princess, setting her head against the crook of Kaguya's shoulder.
"Thank you, Kaguya. Thank you a million times over." She mumbled, voice muffled by the cloth she was pressing into.
Once more Kaguya laughed. But this was a true laugh: clear as a bell, pealing into the night air, carrying over the bamboo forest on the midnight breeze.
Behind them, from the warm light of an open doorway in Eientei, Eirin and Keine looked on, both smiling at the sight before them. They'd both known the two immortals for vast stretches of their life – and though for Keine it had been a significant portion of hers, Eirin had incomprehensible more years to her name. Either way, the deep rift between Kaguya and Mokou had effected both of them; for Keine, endless stress and breaking up of fights, for Eirin, the very sacrifice of the civilisation she had founded. To see them now, made up and in each others' arms, lifted a heavy weight from them as well.
Immortality can do things to a person. Changes of perspective, for one. And, perhaps, the reversal of hatred into something else.