DISCLAIMER: Power Rangers in Space is property of Saban Productions and Disney. I don't own the characters. I never will. I'm done crying about it. ;)
The grass was usually tall for the time of year, and was indicative of a neglectful community with more important things on its collective mind than landscaping.
She hardly noticed as the long, green blades brushed against her slender hips as she pushed her way through the field. The ground underneath was muddy, soft and unstable, and she stumbled more than a few times.
She remembered a spring like this. Her young mind kept a vague, rarely recalled record of her few years on KO-35; but incomplete though it may have been, she knew she'd lived through at least one similar climatological event.
Her mother had called it "The Rains". There was a smile in her mother's voice as she'd said it, and the young girl had been acutely aware of a psychological yoke that was, in that moment, lifted from her mother's soul.
For The Rains meant springtime, new growth, renewal. The melting of the snow, the return of the lush foliage which so beautified the family's garden.
"Yes," she thought now, a difficult and unfamiliar smile coming onto her face as she jogged through the grass. "This must be after The Rains! Yes! Of course it is!"
The Rains were always celebrated for at least a week, if she recalled correctly. During that week, it was forbidden to cut any of the new plant growth, which explained the overgrown grass. Even when the week was over, the people were very careful to only take that which was needed, out of respect to the new life. The people of KO-35 felt a great responsibility to, and an even greater pride in, their planet's ecosystem; and the beginning of a new growth cycle was always met with much joy and anticipation.
The smile on her face faded as her childish mind came to the startling realization that she couldn't understand her own people's habits, and their sanctification of all life. She looked down at her hands suddenly, almost expecting to see unusually colored alien blood staining her palms.
Though her hands were clean, her guilt was not assuaged. These were the hands of a privileged life, one which she would have never had on KO-35.
At thirteen, she would not have yet been ready for marriage on KO-35, but her mother would have been very adamant about her daughter's fulfillment of various wifely duties, so that when the day came, she could boast of her abilities to a matchmaker if no suitable beau had been found through conventional means.
Though KO-35 had a modern, even futuristic society in its urban areas, she came from a more rural area where manual labor, cooking, cleaning and raising children were still the order of the day. By the age of thirteen, the girl would have been solely responsible for keeping the garden and the crops in order, as well as assisting her mother with cooking the meals and cleaning the house. Her hands would be far from ladylike, as was expected; and in actuality, soft, callous-free hands were seen as a sign of laziness.
"Of course," she thought with a more comfortable kind of smile, a wry, twisted half-smirk, "My hands will be the last thing anyone will be looking at today, won't they?"
With that thought, she suddenly looked straight ahead. A generously sized, one-level house stood at the top of a small hill, barely a hundred yards away.
Home.
It had been seven years since she'd seen it last, and she was surprised at how much she'd forgotten. She used to spend cold, sleepless nights awake, passing the time trying to remember every little detail of the house.
What the view from her bedroom window looked like in the morning. Which direction the flowers pointed after lunch. Where the sun hit the side of the house. The sounds. All the sounds. Mother cooking eggs and listening to the latest goings-on in the cities. Father telling Andros all about the Power Rangers for the hundredth time while getting ready for work.
Now it was all a blur. The seven years had been unspeakably cruel to her; chipping away at her precious memories until all she had left were snippets of major details that she was now forced to mistakenly believe constituted the entirety of her childhood experience.
It was small comfort to her as she realized that the real, actual house looked almost as if history had forgotten it just as she had. Where she knew she was once able to recall the location every single brick in the walls, she now only saw the shape, the general color and the basic location of the house. Her vision didn't seem to clear as she got closer, and she felt ill at ease.
It was her age, she knew, and felt sick to her stomach. What magic this land had once held for her was now replaced with cold, hard reality. And she realized with a start that she wasn't able to take in the once fascinating details because her eyes had been trained to scan for and recognize only things that would benefit her in a tangible way.
Childhood memories did not fit in that category.
She was at the house, and the door was hanging open, as it often did. When coming into the house with armloads of vegetables or meat, or buckets of water in both hands, a closed door was an inconvenience. Neighbors trusted neighbors just as they trusted complete strangers. It was a stark contrast to her own secured, locked and guarded "home", where any strange creature may have had lethal intentions and agendas which could do her harm.
She crossed the threshold into the cool, airy house.
Did it look the same as it had in her childhood? It must have. She knew where to find the sink, and the food storage cabinets. The ventilated vegetable locker. The cupboards.
How little it mattered to her now.
The living room, and its quaint, earthy decor. Not a thing within its walls that hadn't been made by materials found outside the walls. Wood furniture. Woven rugs made from the fleece of native animals. Dried flower and herb bouquets. The only piece in the house that was constructed outside of a forest was the family's satellite communication receiver, a piece of technology that allowed the family access to news and entertainment from all over the planet, as well as a text-only e-mail utility.
As she walked through the house, she became increasingly aware of the silence. In a house with three people inside, one of whom was a fourteen year old boy, there should have been some indication of life. But it looked as if the house had been uninhabited for years.
She passed through the living room, and came to a door that had been left slightly ajar.
Her parents' room. A bed in the middle, a wicker side table. Three... no, four lanterns. A large pink rug.
Pink. Her mother's favorite color.
Empty.
The room smelled of some kind of flower. She had never known what it was in her youth, and the knowledge had certainly not had occasion to come to her in the following years. It had a lovely scent, very human.
Very insignificant.
The next room was her brother's. The room had one window, with the shades drawn. It was eerily dark inside, and her eyes couldn't make out any details. She took a step and felt something crunch underneath her foot.
Startled, she drew back, and squinted at the floor. There was clearly something made of glass that was now shattered into a number of pieces.
How foolish. Why would he leave something on the floor, where it's dark and people can step on it? she thought irritably. In her childhood, her brother had often done similar irresponsible things and had numerous broken toys (not to mention injuries) to show for it. She recalled that he was always forgetting what he was doing right in the middle of playing a game, and he'd go running off and leave his belongings, then forget where he'd put them.
She was annoyed. Seven years later, and he was still doing the same foolish, childish things. They wouldn't have a thing in common.
But it wasn't him that she'd come back for, after all, and she shut her brother's door and walked down to the end of the hall.
The room was just as she'd left it so many years ago. A bright purple rug under her feet. Soft and warm. It didn't occur to her that she was wearing boots and so, should not have been able to feel the rug.
Everything was just as she'd left it. And she never would have worn shoes in the house as a child.
The bed. The almost comically small bed.
"Just my size," she had said when she first saw it. She had been afraid of large beds, hadn't she? Afraid of getting lost inside a dream and not being able to find her way out of a large bed. A paralyzing terror of getting lost. Never seeing her family again.
Her father had built her bed himself. Presented it to her right before it was time to sleep one night.
"There you are, darling," he'd said. "Now you won't ever have to worry about getting lost again."
She wouldn't fit in the bed now. She didn't even want to try.
The blankets had been perfectly arranged, and even a single wrinkle would look obscenely out of place. She reached out to touch the purple and red quilt on top and then drew back.
Pictures on the walls. Her mother and father. Her grandparents. Her brother. Herself.
Herself.
No, not herself. A stranger. A tiny stranger with long, brunette hair and an unashamed smile. A smile that spoke of enthusiasm and joy over the smallest little things.
No, certainly not herself.
She looked away, and something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She hadn't remembered anything being on the floor, and she glanced down.
A pair of blue eyes stared back at her. She gasped and stumbled backward onto the bed.
The blue eyes did not follow her. They did not blink or look quizzically at her strange behavior. They simply stared straight at where she had stood a moment ago, unaware of everything.
Her mother.
Her mother was dead. The Rains had come, and her mother was dead.
And beside her, her father was dead as well. His arm was draped over his wife's torso in a futile protective gesture. They had clearly died, if not together, then at least within a very short time of each other.
She couldn't touch them. She couldn't even look at them anymore. She felt as if she was going to faint, and she gingerly stepped down off the bed, shaking all the way.
Her foot touched down on something, and she let out an uncharacteristic scream and fell back onto the bed, whimpering and shuddering uncontrollably.
She knew without even looking that she had stepped on something human.
Or, that had once been human.
This was home, she knew suddenly. It all made sense now, but not in the way she had hoped. She had foolishly hoped for home to be what it had been before, and what she had always wanted to believe it still would be, even so many years later.
She had hoped for a place to lay down her weary head. Above all else, a place to unburden herself. A place to not care about anything, to let others do the caring. A place where she could just... be.
But that place was gone. It was gone the minute she woke up that day seven years ago, wasn't it?
They'd told her it was gone, but she hadn't believed them. She had demanded to go home, even when they told her there was no home to go to. She'd tried desperately to keep this perfect image and this burning desire alive in herself, protect it, guard it with her life so that one day she'd be able to return to it.
And now, the harsh realization came to her, and she closed her eyes, knowing none of what she was seeing would be there when she opened them back up.
"It was the..." she mumbled, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. "The... Power Rangers..."
She opened her eyes, suddenly, and he was there, crouching by her bedside.
"My princess," he said softly, "Are you all right?"
She was confused for a moment, her head throbbing in tune with her racing pulse. She clutched her head with both gloved hands, and she grimaced at the sensation of sticky leather against her temples. Her mouth was dry and she tried to slow her breathing.
"It was... a... dream," she panted.
His facial expression never changed; was not actually capable of changing. Even so, she thought that the look he gave her was one of concern.
"There is a process you should be aware of," he said, "A very simple, quick procedure that would eliminate your need to sleep. It's been tested with very positive results."
She blinked at him and rubbed her eyes irritably.
"Ecliptor, for god's sake, what are you talking about?!" she asked angrily.
He bowed his head apologetically.
"Forgive me, Princess. I understand that you cherish your human rituals. Indeed, it's your unique human perspective that makes you so valuable to Dark Specter, but this is the third time this week you've had nightmares. I am beginning to get worried."
She scoffed, as was her first instinct.
"Valuable to Dark Specter, hmm? My humanity has nothing to do with that." She sighed and pushed herself into a seated position. Ecliptor moved to accommodate her, and she looked up at him.
"Was I screaming again?" she asked quietly.
He was the only one in her world to whom she showed even the slightest hint of vulnerability, and he always responded reassuringly. He made sure, however, that she knew that he was likely the only one in her world who would respond reassuringly, and to show weakness to anyone else could be fatal.
They both knew that the sound of a frail, young, female human screaming in the night did not fit in to the cool, calm image she had been trained to project to others, and she was suddenly very worried. If she'd been making enough noise to call attention to herself, she'd likely hear about it from someone tomorrow.
But Ecliptor was shaking his head.
"No, not a sound," he said.
She breathed a sigh of relief, and started to run a hand through her hair. She had to stop, however, when she came to a rather massive tangle a few inches from the top of her head, and she was nearly unable to extract her hand.
"Damn!" she hissed. "Ugh! I should have that pitiful excuse for a hairdresser put to death for this."
"I'll make a note of it," Ecliptor said. Whether he meant it as a joke was not clear, and she chose to ignore him. She finally got her hand free, and started patting down her hair.
"I've had that dream before. I know it," she said. "But every time I have it, it's like it's brand new. I'm at my home-- what used to be my home. I'm my age, and it's been years since I've seen it, and I get inside and-- and everyone's dead."
Ecliptor didn't say anything. She sighed and continued.
"And I get this feeling, almost like... if they were alive, they wouldn't want me. I don't... I don't know. I'm not going to talk about it anymore. It doesn't matter, anyway. They're dead."
She inhaled sharply, the painful truth affecting her deeply in the safety of the darkness.
"Aren't they?" she asked. She knew the answer, of course. Had known it since she was six years old.
"Yes, they are dead," Ecliptor said. "But you mustn't forget who it is that caused their death, and you mustn't let it be in vain. You mustn't let those who destroyed your family and your way of life go without paying for their crimes."
She looked up at him and nodded vehemently.
"No. I won't. You're damn right I won't."
Her sudden burst of passion was almost embarrassing, and she shook her head. She then lay back against her red, velvet pillows, and sighed quietly.
"Well, once I eliminate the Power Rangers, I won't have these dreams anymore."
Ecliptor silently began arranging her blankets, and she subconsciously felt herself becoming more at ease. It was a simple, albeit needless exercise, one which had been a foreign concept to him when they first met, but which he was now an expert at doing exactly the way her parents had. She had seen to that.
"Ecliptor, I'm much too old for you to tuck me in," she scoffed in what she hoped was a very mature voice.
"Perhaps," he said.
"I'm thirteen now," she said self-importantly.
"I'm aware of that. I will be twenty seven thousand and forty one in November. You're still a child as far as I'm concerned."
She rolled her eyes, but smirked her familiar old smirk.
"Ecliptor, tell me," she said suddenly. "If I didn't scream tonight, how did you know I was having a nightmare?"
"It's my job to know."
"Were you spying on me?" she asked.
"Misdirected suspicion."
"Not if you were spying on me!"
"I am your protector. It's not considered spying. It's considered guarding."
She sighed.
"Well, I can take care of myself, thank you very much. I don't need you to guard me. After all, you saw the way I dealt with those mutant gargoyles, didn't you? Didn't everybody?"
"Everybody who matters, yes."
"Yes. So, you don't need to worry about me."
"As you wish," Ecliptor said.
She bristled at his comment, taking it as condescending.
"I mean it! I should be guarding you. You're twenty three... and... a million... and... however old you said you were."
"I am actually a relatively new model. My predecessors, on the other hand, would certainly benefit from your protection."
She closed her eyes for a second, and then snapped them open. She rolled over quickly.
"Ecliptor!"
"Yes?"
She hesitated.
"You don't dream, do you?"
"I don't have the ability to sleep. I recharge every seven days."
"Is it... nice?"
"It is what it is. I have no experiences to which I can accurately compare it."
"Do you wish you could dream?"
"Your accounts of the bizarre images and scenes which you witness in dreams are fascinating. But I have no logical purpose for any such experience."
"Like I do?" she said incredulously.
"You must."
She sighed and rolled over, turning her back to him.
"Oh, just... leave me alone. And lock the door. And stop spying on me."
"As you wish, Princess."
She heard his footsteps approaching the door, and she sighed just as he was about to pass into the corridor.
"Unless, I mean... unless someone breaks in and wants to try and kill me. I might need backup."
"Perhaps," he said.
"Well, it is your job, anyway."
"So it is. Good night, Astronema."
"Mmm."
"Karone! Karone, down here!" a voice said.
She was in her old bedroom again, standing right where she had been before. Her parents' bodies were still lying motionless, their lifeless eyes staring into oblivion.
Clearly, the voice had not come from them. Gathering up all her courage, she looked past them, underneath her bed.
She met two more eyes, these ones belonging to a young boy, as full of life as she was.
"Karone!" the boy cried, his eyes glittering and brimming over with tears. "Karone! You came back! You came back!"
A lump caught in her throat, and she looked at him quizzically.
"You're back, Karone! I know, I know, I'm in your room. I'm not supposed to be in your room. I know, I'm sorry. But don't be mad at me, Karone! I've got so much to tell you!"
"You..." she frowned. "You've got so much to tell me?"
"Well, sure! Since you've been gone! So much has happened!"
The boy wriggled out from underneath the bed, and stood up. At his full height, he only came up to Astronema's chest, and he stared up at her.
"Well, come on! We can go in my room!"
She hesitated, and then started to follow him. He got in front of his door, and looked at the broken glass on the floor. Astronema followed his glance, and saw a small glass model of a ship.
The boy looked at the shards, then up at her. A look of betrayal crossed his face.
"You broke your ship, Andros," she said simply. "What a fool you are."
FIN