A/N: I have a fondness of writing in POV, so with this, I give you a short little POV segment. Natsuki's perspective.
The idea behind this word, is that, although they know what the HiME are, the girls all seemed to struggle within themselves in order to find out who they were. What they wanted to be, who they wanted to love, and protect. They fighting with themselves a lot inwardly, and I believe no one struggled with that more as a unit than Natsuki and Shizuru. This is a dark chapter, so just be warned.
The Last Petal
Word Three: Indistinct
Her eyes glimmered as she looked out, sitting on the veranda, as if she'd been awaiting something. I stood there, committing to memory everything I could. Right down to the way her dress seemed to flow freely over her body. Shizuru's that kind of woman. She's so easy going, sometimes you forget how soft she really is. How her breath isn't so carefree, but instead, quite heavy. She doesn't want you to know all that she fears, her pain falling through the broken mirror that her eyes become, sometimes without her even noticing. During the darkest of nights, when she looks into her own heart, seeking answers better left alone.
Times like this.
When the moon rises high, and her blood red eyes shimmer in the dim light like rubies. As if, looking for hope in places she can't seem to reach out for, the stars ignorant of her wish. The cool air unlike anything, the numbness so well concealed, that even as her full, beautiful lips become pale to the cold. She doesn't care. She waits...as if, someone will save her. Safety however, is very cruel thing. I wanted to protect her, from everything, even myself. Still, like a woman who bathes in blood, her sins fall over her, ghosts of her past, she can't undo. I wish I could help.
I wish, I could make it all go away, but I can't.
I am not the stars falling from the burning needs of desire, and requiems of flame. I am not god. I am only human. A woman, same as her...a lost lover, who knows nothing of what I should. The things I do know, are but a fleeting dream. Ones wafting against a tapestry of loathing, and regret...the winds of life carrying them without pretense. I wish rain would come and wash away the dust, the stains, and leave behind the milky white purity her heart longs for. To my dismay, I wish I could speak to her the way I think. Beautifully, the way a poem dances across the page. I would like to tell her these things, but, I find it difficult, one look into her eyes, and it makes me uneasy. Her eyes, trickle sadness as if blood from veins. The clarity something majestic, and yet, forbidden.
She can only see a monster within herself. I see something more...something, breathtaking...
She makes me sound like an idiot...like I'm stupid. I stutter, and fumble around, lost for words. I hated that...that she could so easily turn the tables for her favor. That she could dance around the wall I put up. She, like a melody, could sway my mood, and my actions, merely with a crescendo of her beautiful voice. I doubt she understood the power she had back then...and the power she has over me now. I doubt she understands at any length, the truth behind who she really is...and what the HiME were meant to do after the fighting ended.
We all looked for ourselves...I know I did...I just didn't find anything. My life, shambles, I had nothing left to find in the ruble...just fragments of my past that I never really wanted.
So, if I were to look up at the sky at night, the way she does, when we sit and just talk...or sometimes, just watch, not ever saying a word, I know I'd be upset. I'd be lost. Trying to find an answer that the stars just can't give. That the gods would never allow. Redemption never within her sights. Forsaken, but her own dark whims. Shizuru, she really is beautiful...trapped, shackled by her inner demons, perhaps...but still, very radiant in her own way. I wish to unlock her, of her very sin...the sin of love. If I am to burn in hell, then let the flames engulf me...it would not be the first time I'd be scorned by the world around me...but it would indeed be the last.
If that madness wanted to overtake me, I would laugh...the pit of hell unaware of just how far I would go for that woman...after all, I died once didn't I? It would freeze over, by my hands alone...a dish, a life, best served cold...because if I ever lost Shizuru, there would be hell to pay. Until then, I shall dress her sorrow, and feed the beast. I believe a monster who's been satiated, gifted, and warmed...that monster would no longer want to be such frightening beast.
It would become tame...unlike the most rabid of animals, who see only of insanity...it would calm, it would stop craving, it would be content...and it would learn to wane a gentle tune in the evening sky, to let forth a melody, harmony within the soul...I feel as if that's what Shizuru wants most.
To bathe in her darkness...to never forget those who faced her wrath, never to come back...to feed her inner beast, not with revenge or hate...but with memory and remorse.
To breath again.
To smile.
To live.
To be.
To just exist within this world as what she is.
A HiME...