Confessions
~~ By Jayde, dreamin@notme.com, DreamCatcher Studios~~ Disclaimer- Sailor Moon and all mentioned characters belong to Naoko Takeuchi, Toei, and DiC.
"Meioh Setsuna!"
The young princess of Pluto turned in surprise. An only child with few friends, she was not accustomed to anyone showing a particular interest in her.
The woman who had called her name was silhouetted by a glowing doorway that had not existed when Setsuna had crossed the same point. Still, her clothing was easily recognizable. She wore the fuku of a Sailor Senshi, one of the guardians of the Silver Millennium. The colors seemed to be wrong, though. This was not one of the four inner princesses, and was just as surely not the princess of Uranus or Neptune. Setsuna had seen a portrait once, of a past Princess Serenity who had become a Senshi, but this woman did not have the hair of lunar royalty. Hers looked black, or some other very dark shade. That left...
"Sailor Saturn?" she ventured. The simple thought of the Soldier of Silence was enough to make her voice shake. The colors were nearly impossible to make out against the light of that portal, but they looked dark enough. And that staff could be the Silence Glaive, but something still did not seem to match up.
The mystery figure shook her head. "Iie, Princess, fortunately. Her time will not come for some years yet. Do you not recognize the avatar of your own world?"
"Sailor Pluto?" She was half a myth, and even if she existed she was never seen by anyone other than the Queen Serenity. Setsuna dropped into a deep curtsy. "Gomen nasai, Senshi. Your presence here was... unexpected." Let no one say that the Princess of Pluto could not be diplomatic.
Sailor Pluto smiled, and that blinding gate finally faded. She also did something that made that huge, garnet-topped staff vanish into thin air. Now she looked less like some harbinger of doom and more like a normal Senshi. Indeed, Setsuna saw that Pluto's hair was that dark green so common on the small planet, matching her own. It was even up in the same style. "Forgiven. You could not expect me." She gestured toward the path that entered the formal gardens. "Come walk with me."
They walked in the heated glass greenhouses that protected the gardens from the icy winds that scoured the surface of what was currently the farthest planet from the sun. After several minutes of silent motion Setsuna was ready to explode. Sailor Pluto did not just make house calls.
Her ageless companion spoke without warning. "Do you know what it's like? Living totally separate from the universe, but so in tune with it that you can feel time flow like the blood moved by your pulse?" She broke off again just as suddenly. There wasn't really any answer to that kind of question, other than a flat-out no, and Setsuna had the feeling that it wasn't even directed at her. She waited.
"It is strange, you know. You watch people you've known since literally before they were born die, but at the same time you see their mothers picking flowers as little girls. The relationship ends, and you remember all the years of it in perfect detail, but you've never even met them.
"That's the one thing the others have never understood. At the heart of time, time does not exist. They see the Gates as some magical portal that exists in the same world as the one they live in. No one thinks- it never occurs to them to guess- that there is only one Gate, has only been one Gate, and will only ever be one Gate. A single Gate that exists at a single moment in time that never occurs. There is no past, present, or future. They're all the same.
"When I talk about it, even I don't understand it."
For a while they continued to walk in silence. Finally Setsuna ventured to speak. "Avatar, why are you here?"
Pluto actually laughed. "The eternal question. Very simply, I am here to ask you one question: Will you take on your duty as the princess of your world?"
It took a moment to filter through. "You mean, become a Sailor Senshi? I could be Sailor Pluto?"
Pluto nodded.
It was all too much. There were nine planets, and the moon of Earth. Earth never had a Senshi, but its oldest prince could play the part when needed. The Moon, obviously, had the Princess Serenity. Every other planet sent their oldest princess to be a Senshi- except for Saturn and Pluto. The princess of Saturn always had the potential to be a Senshi, but she thankfully was never needed. And the generally accepted view was that the first Sailor Pluto was still performing her duties quite competently and would probably not need a replacement for the rest of eternity. If not longer than that.
"That can't be possible. I mean, there is only one Sailor Pluto, and that's you. I can't take your place. And you can't quit and retire. That's not allowed."
"True. But you weren't paying attention earlier.
"Setsuna, time in the universe flows like a river. It has a beginning, an end at some point no one can exactly determine, and a definite path. The Gate or Gates of Time are located on the back of a salmon."
"You've lost me."
"Try to follow. Time is the river, and the Gate is a fish in the river. All of the fish's life is spent completely immersed in the water, but he is not personally water. And while he would naturally drift along with the flow of the universe-river, he is not bound to it. He can swim upstream, downstream, or anywhere he pleases as long as he stays in the water.
"He does have restrictions. He can't leave the water, and whatever he does upstream will affect the entire downstream course. Too much swimming will tire him, but if he simply lets the river carry him he will never accomplish anything."
Setsuna pondered this for a while. 'Eternity times infinity, and the best analogy she can come up with is a fish.' There did seem to be one loophole. "But if you exist at all points in time, or can exist at any point in time, then there is no way there can ever be another Sailor Pluto. The first will serve all eternity in her first instant of office."
Pluto congratulated her silently. This hadn't really been that long ago. Then again, it had been eternity times infinity. 'Wherever that came from.' "True again. That means that Sailor Pluto can come from any point in time, including now."
"But it would still be replacing you, and I can't do that! It's a paradox." As a member of the royal family of Pluto, the study of time and time theory was almost required. Setsuna's near total lack of a social life had led her to an even deeper preoccupation, and she was widely recognized as the best. She was beginning to enjoy this.
"As Sailor Pluto, you will be cushioned from paradox. Not totally immune, but not affected the same as others. The universe changes with the timeline, and any alterations to it become the only reality anyone has ever known. Living totally apart from the timestream would soon result in the world being totally alien to you, You will change with the universe, but you will be aware of the changes. It is the only way you can perform your duty."
"So you're saying that if I become Sailor Pluto you will never have been? I will have served since the dawn of time, and you'll never have become Sailor Pluto?"
The question seemed to make Pluto uncomfortable somehow. She had to stop and think about it for several seconds. "I suppose that would be fairly accurate," she said cautiously. "You will become the one and only Sailor Pluto."
'She's avoiding something. But whatever it is, it doesn't seem major.' "Why do you want to erase all of your time as Pluto? It can imagine there being a lot of stress, but you're not just removing that. You're removing every accomplishment you've ever made."
"It depends on the way you look at it. In one way, I've have been Sailor Pluto for all of eternity and I have accomplished everything there is. Then again, I just assumed the office a half of a second before I opened the Gate to come talk to you here. Less than that, even. I haven't begun yet. Time for me- or you- is not linear, so all things in the timeline exist at once."
She shook her head. "Not even the Queen Serenity- any of them- understands that correctly. There are three laws she will lay before you, and you must swear to them all. There are two loopholes.
"First: You may not leave your post. The Neo-Queen Serenity and her King will give you their blessing on that, within reason.
"Second: You may never cross time. You never will, due to the magic of the Gates. To you there will be no time. What is truly forbidden is to take others with you.
"Third: You may never stop time. This the Queens are perfectly clear on. To do so will kill you and pull the rest of the universe into never-existence. The timeline will wrap back on itself and in the eternal moment before you die you will hear it scream in agony as it shreds and everything that ever was or would have been ceases to possess even the potential of being."
Her eyes showed how perfectly serious she was about this. "The fourth rule I impose on you myself. No matter what the temptation- and there will be temptation- do not let yourself be controlled by the power you will possess. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, but only if you let it.
"You will have to stand by and watch eternity pass untouched. You will stand by and watch your friends die, knowing that you could save them with less work than moving a finger, and you will do nothing. You will watch everything you love be destroyed and you will let it happen without a fight. Can you do that, Meioh Setsuna? Can you have that kind of power in your hands for millennia and still have the strength to resist it?"
There was a convenient bench underneath an arched trellis, and they both sat in silence. Setsuna was trying to fit Pluto's rules into what she considered reality, while Pluto simply sat there and looked mysterious. She did that very well.
Setsuna finally spoke, making the decision Pluto knew from her own memories was coming. "Hai, I will do it. I don't believe I can have any idea what I'm volunteering to do, but I will do by best to the best of my abilities. This I swear on my life, my soul, and my honor as the Princess of Pluto and loyal servant of Queen Serenity. May I lose them all I break in my actions or thoughts."
It was the most sacred vow she knew how to make. Sailor Pluto shook her head. "Do not swear as to what you may think. You could not be handed the power of the Gates and not consider using them to your advantage. Do not swear by what you cannot control."
"Fine," Setsuna agreed impatiently. She wasn't willing to place any bets on the length of the conversation, not with the Guardian of Time sitting next to her, but it seemed like several hours had passed. It took Pluto several more moments to speak again.
"So be it." There was a lot of weight on those three words. The pressure of years beyond imagining. She held out her hand, the key she had stored away returning. "Take the Key of Time, then, Meioh Setsuna, and open the Gate."
Time seemed to slow as Setsuna reached out. Perhaps it did. And perhaps the universe did pause for one eternal second as her hand made contact with the staff in front of her. Or perhaps time continued in its eternal march as she broke step to stand and observe.
Sailor Pluto had a strange smile on her face as she stepped back through the glowing Gate. She had remembered that conversation from both sides, but it was nice to actually say the words out loud again. There were times when even the Guardian of Time had to get a few things off of her chest, and she of all people could not have another share the burden.
----- Author's Notes
I'm not sure why I wrote this. Maybe to prove that there's more to Setsuna than the ice queen act. She has gone through a lot- how can she not have?- and she's always the calm one, the one that's never surprised, the one that stays stable. It has to be difficult.
I'm sorry if anyone thinks that Pluto's personality is completely wrong. I finally got around to buying the Sailor Moon S movie (dubbed, but it's still the movie) but I've seen next to none of the S season. And her single big action in the movie is to drink a cup of tea. I'm running off what I've read by other people.
Jayde