Well, at least I found Michiru again. In the arms... of someone else. Yes, crack pairing ohoy. To those of you who have watched Miyuki's Dracul Triology, you already know who Vampiru is. To those of you who haven't... go watch those musicals now. They are brilliant. Especially Last Dracul and Transylvania no Mori (both versions). So much Nao and Yuhka love. Oh, and Hikari-love... mm... Well, none the less... I've signed up for Michiru/Vampiru at LiveJournal this May and therefore there'll probably be some more fics with this pairing. Be kind on me, ne? I love Haruka and Michiru together, but sometimes... Michiru needs to spread her wings as well.
And remember, I own nothing. Takeuchi-sama owns the characters and whoever wrote the script for the Dracul series... kudos to them as well. I only play. Nao, forgive me for letting your beloved Kappa cast her eyes on someone else. You should just never have let yourself be bitten in the first place... that scene, by the way, pwns all Sera Myu ever! :D
Ah, I'm rambling, it's just because I'm so nervous no one will read this. Well, it doesn't matter. Here it is. Enjoy!
Owari no Koshuuki
The End of a Time of Lonely Contemplation
Of course oto-san wasn't given a funeral. There was nothing to bury, after all. Nothing but his memory, because his physical form had been sealed away in the Underworld… "Until the day of judgment," as he'd said to her in farewell.
Yet another thing Vampiru doesn't understand and probably never will.
When it came to her father there had been many such things. Untold secrets and illogical lies. And she had hated him for it, but along the way she'd also come to realise it was his way of expressing his love. The only way he knew of.
So where normal parents gave their children nicknames and bought them candy to make them feel cherished, Vampiru thinks with a bitter smile, he… he had helped preventing Ragnarok. For her sake.
Then again… normal had never been a concept that fitted them. Maybe, for their kind, it was appropriate.
She lets her eyes come to a rest on the coffin where haha's dress has been splayed out once more in the ceremonial display that he arranged, so many years ago. No funeral equalled no grave, but this… his death bed and the white veil of the dress that always reminded her father of his love and Vampiru of her hate… it has become her private altar.
Sometimes when she looks at it… she gets the feeling that the life she has been living since returning to Transylvania takes place within an evil dream – an ensnaring memory – that she has no means of breaking loose from. A labyrinth of eternal night that has made the hope of a day full of light become wistful thinking…
"It has been a while," a gentle yet sharp voice notes behind her, Vampiru swirling around to face the person who has managed to walk in on her, lost as she was in thought. The woman is not tall, but her posture speaks of pride and her eyes of warmth. Vampiru recognises her in an instant.
"Neptune," she hisses, embarrassed at having been caught off guard and letting her embarrassment show in a verbal attack. Like father, so daughter, ka? She, too, knows no other way but the way of beasts.
Neptune (or rather, her civilian form) only smiles.
Vampiru remembers then that it was this woman's lover that she claimed for blood relative when she was still being manipulated by Lillith of Darkness and her gang. Raising her chin arrogantly, she spreads out her arms, asking in a harsh voice:
"Have you come for revenge?"
Shaking her head wordlessly, Neptune steps forward, looking the coffin over with a curious interest edged into every of her features. Observing her in confusion, Vampiru ignores the fact that she shouldn't allow anyone else close to her private sanctuary.
The forests of Transylvania are a place of loneliness, not companionship, when all comes down to it.
Neptune lets her fingers run slowly down the side of the casket, her fingertips causing the material of the gown spread out over it to rustle gently. Instinctively, Vampiru grabs her wrist, yanking her hand back. Long, green hair falls into the other woman's face, almost covering her intelligent eyes as she raises her gaze to look at Vampiru. She doesn't seem afraid.
Vampiru doesn't think she has ever met someone that didn't show some kind of fear around her.
"If not revenge, then… doshite?" She lets go of Neptune's hand and hides her unease by returning her attention to the dress. Haha's dress. That she never got to wear.
"I never thanked you," Neptune answers, though it isn't much of an answer. If anything it just raises new questions. Hundreds of them. Narrowing her eyes, Vampiru tries figuring out what kind of trickery it is that the Sea Senshi is playing at. Cocking her head, the smaller woman carries on in a deceivingly light voice: "For returning Haruka to me."
"Nani?"
The pretence of being interested in her deceased mother's dress and her stupid father's coffin fades away with that last sentence and Vampiru turns her head sharply to stare at the woman as she stands in front of her, clad in her simple, but elegant dress. She looks fully human (almost fragile) like that – nothing like the soldier Vampiru saw fight alongside her partner to save the planet from Death Vulcan. Nothing like Vampiru who may have human blood running through her veins, but has long ago been overtaken by the cold legacy of her vampire linage.
Returning to Transylvania was like returning to the many painful years alone, cut off from the world because she, Bloody Dracul Vampiru, is a double-edged sword. Sayonara to the freedom she experienced in Japan, sayonara to the clothes of her choice and sayonara to the life of a human being. Tadaima, unbreakable shadows of Transylvania.
It isn't fair.
She thought she had come to terms with this destiny, but those words… those words reminds her that not everybody is a prisoner of loneliness. An empty shell. Cold. Dark.
"Michiru, doko ni iro no? Did you find her?" A darker, more masculine voice echoes off the walls in the hallway, Vampiru remembering the taste of strong, rushing blood just by the sound of it. Uranus.
Neptune… no, Michiru, was it, ka…. sighs, bowing shortly in Vampiru's direction before heading for the door leading to the corridor outside. In her otherwise polite and aloof smile, Vampiru senses the clear trace of understanding, though she has no idea how this particular woman will be able to understand the fearsomeness of night, of solitude, when she's so clearly devoted to someone else – her heart so obviously one of two.
"Matte," Vampiru calls, her cloak billowing around her as she moves forward.
Stopping in the doorway and pushing some tresses of curly hair behind her ear, Michiru's eyes glint as she looks at Vampiru over her shoulder, but her lips form no reply. Instead she says, almost teasingly: "I was told once that unpleasant dreams are something you can run from… but whether it works, I haven't found out yet."
"Michiru?" The other voice again. Uranus. Was it Haruka, Michiru called her?
A lock of her reddish brown hair tickles her cheek as Vampiru comes to a sudden halt, goose bumps rising on her arms when a gentle breeze finds its way through the gothic, leaded windows high above their heads. A greeting from the outside world. Michiru's expression softens into the mere ghost of a smile. For some reason, Vampiru doesn't want the other woman to leave. Not now. Not now when she has finally realised that there is another life than this… where her heart isn't tied to a coffin and an old dress.
Walking out into the corridor, being almost swallowed up by the shadows residing there, Michiru pauses for a second with her hand on the door handle. The fast, almost panicked drum of footsteps comes to a halt further down the hallway.
"I'll leave the door open, shall I?" Neptune's voice is quiet – a mere whisper, really – but warm and soft with layers of meaning that Vampiru suddenly has an overwhelming urge to explore. It's not a question and as their gazes lock, Vampiru's and Michiru's, Vampiru knows that even though she might not look like it, this strange woman with the powers of the ocean has more than a faint inkling about what solitude really means.
"What'd you say?" The voice of the other Senshi has moved closer and Michiru quickly rushes out to greet her, leading her away from the entrance to the south lobby where Vampiru is… hiding isn't the right word, but close enough…
"Nani mo nai, Haruka. Let's go back, there is no one here…"
Waiting in a tense, unsure silence until their steps die out, Vampiru doesn't know what to think and feel anymore. Hearing the double doors downstairs fall shut, assuring her that she is indeed alone again, she brings a shaking hand to her face, pushing her hair back, out of the way.
She is alone. Again. In an empty house.
Only then does she move, spinning in a slow circle to face her father's coffin, the dusty light making it look older than time itself. Or a fragment of a dream in black and white…
No one here… ka?
Vampiru wants to see the sun again, if only because darkness lulls you to sleep.
For the first time in what feels like ages, she smiles a crooked smile and leaves her sanctuary of mistrusting dreams behind, closing the door after herself without further thought. These walls can be lonely all by themselves… they don't need her as companion in their sorrow, do they? She won't prevent them from continuing their uneasy sleep, but neither will she adhere to this illusionary existence any longer.
Crossing the hallway hurriedly, she is just in time to follow the two silhouettes from the nearest window as they stroll carelessly through the gardens, heading for the motorcycle parked some hundred metres away from the castle.
When you sleep, you dream. And when you dream, you forget to live.
No one here… No one here…
If she wants to, Vampiru can leave as well and start running… She doesn't have to be a slave of her past, because someone has left the door open…
Someone… no one here, but someone…
A smirk not unlike the one on Michiru's lips as she left, both hot and cold at the same time, form her mouth into a curve of wordless understanding.
There is a woman whom she never got to tell "do itashimashite".
Now she has been given the chance.
Sotto ai ni kitto yureru, jigen no shita made…
A gentle love, certain to flow to the dimensions below…