Title: A dying hope
Author: Ree
Theme: Hotaru/Saturn (messiah)
Genre: General/Drama(?)
Version: Anime/Manga Silver Mellinuim (Ree's Fates story line)
Rating: G

Hotaru and all her friends and enemies are originally from the mind of Takeuchi Naoko. Any character she didn't create must fall to me.

A dying hope

Nix carefully cut the threads that Atropos was knotting. Lachesis was cutting just as quickly, but also very carefully. When Nix had a moment, she noticed that the loom was almost full. It was almost time for her duty. She looked over at Klotho, hoping to see the third princess materialize next to her, and already trained and proficient at her duty. But that hope was slowly dying. Carefully cutting one more thread, she remembered when that hope had was first been sparked.

Lachesis actually smiled at her when she returned from her trip home. Nix could see in her eyes that Lachesis already knew what Aunt Hemera had told her. The ageless lady had gestured her into a sitting room near the weaving solar.

"Now you understand what you are, correct?"

Nix reigned in her frustration. She felt that she should have been told much earlier, but there was no changing fate. Keeping her frustration out of her voice she answered the question. "Yes. Aunt Hemera explained it very well, and I also read the book where she found her information."

Nix caught Lachesis' quick, almost guilty, look towards the door, and began to get suspicious. Watching carefully, she continued. "Aunt Hemera said there was no record of that book ever being in the royal archives or in the royal library. According to all of the documents that she found, that book does not exist."

Lachesis did a good job of putting on a blank face, but Nix had been studying people for most of her life and Lachesis for many months. Her suspicions were confirmed. Somehow, Lachesis had slipped the book into the archives. 'And she somehow made sure Aunt Hemera found it. I wonder why?' Peering a little closer at her mentor, she decided that maybe Lachesis did it so that someone close to her could help her through finding out the truth.

Lachesis slipped on a confused look for a moment. "Well, wherever it came from, at least you now understand why you are here. I know that your duty, the one that ends all, seems bleak... horrible... so wrong. But just as a life has a proper end, so does an Age. It is your job to give everyone a quick, painless ending. To prepare everything for rebirth."

Nix felt a small part of her heart brighten at the thought of rebirth. "Who causes the rebirth?"

Lachesis stopped and considered her words carefully. "Rebirth always occurs after the destruction, but typically everything has changed. It is a completely new beginning. But if she comes, then everything will be reborn, healed, as if the destruction did not take place."

Nix felt the question pulled out of her. "She?"

Lachesis nodded. "The princess that spins life. The messiah. The holder of the chalice."

"And she can stop the end from happening? Does she also destroy what was causing the end?"

Lachesis shook her head no. "She can only bring life, not destruction. You are the bringer of destruction. You will destroy the enemy. You will end the Age. She will allow the Age a second chance. A chance to continue, but she will not heal the evil. So the enemy will be gone, lost into time."

From that day on, she had watched and waited for the princess of life to come. Now the end was nearing, and messiah still had not appeared. Focusing on her work, she continued helping Lachesis cut threads.

Suddenly she felt a summonings, a pull at her heart. Only she seemed to feel it, to hear it. It was the sound of the wind rushing past the edge of a sword's blade. The sound of waves in a pool. It brought to mind the gazing pool from home. When you dropped stones into it, the waves would break across the stillness of the water and lap gently against the sides. That is what is sounded like to her. Waves where there should not be any. And then there was the sound of a crystal resonating, as if the other waves were hitting it and causing it to vibrate. Or like someone running a wet finger around the lip of a crystal glass, but the tone was deeper, richer.

Even as the summons pulsed through her, Nix felt the glaive in her hand elongating until it finally formed the weapon of Saturn. When she opened he eyes, she looked down and saw she was wearing the fuku of a sailor senshi. She had transformed. She was Sailor Saturn.

Instinctively, she stepped back into the shadows, and her eyes shifted to the chalice on the shelf behind Klotho. 'Surely there is still time for her to appear. The end is not quite here yet.' The room went completely still, even the summonings faded to a low hum. Saturn's gaze locked on Lachesis as she cupped her hands around a silver thread hovering over the basket, gently pulsing. As Lachesis conversed with the soul, she checked to see how close Atropos was to the top of the loom. As she waited, the minutes ticked by.

Finally Atropos reached the top of the loom. Saturn stepped out of the shadows as the summonings faded away leaving an aching silence. Lachesis looked over at her and spoke. "It is time, Sailor Saturn."

As she raised the glaive, she felt the last spurt of hope. 'She has to come. The messiah has to come.'

She held the glaive steady and judged where she would cut, and with how much pressure. 'The cut must be smooth and even. I will not bring a bad end to this Age.' She let the glaive fall with a long, even swing. As it sliced the first thread, Saturn felt the hope die. 'The messiah is not coming.'

The glaive cut through the last thread. Saturn's eyes focused on the unclaimed chalice as she faded away. Slowly the glaive fell to the floor. The Age had ended.