"Himessshan?" Her eyes were unfocused
"Haruka? Are you OK?" Pluto's voice. "Is it your head? You're slurring – "
"Ss not. Ss OK. They – all the nurseses gave me a – the injecsshun – they wanme tobe calm – they wanme to – notto injure mysself."
"They've given you...?" She picked up a chart and scowled at it.
Hotaru climbed up onto the bed and tucked her head against Haruka's chest. She had a book again.
"Wasshyu reading at school?"
"Papa, you sound like that crazy man at the park," Hotaru bit her lip.
"I hadsome funny medicine." She managed to articulate.
"I don't like it." Setsuna said from the foot of the bed. "I'm going to talk to the staff."
"Mm. They want me to sleep and eat. I think this makes me sleep." Haruka shook her head, hoping to remove the fuzz of it. "Tell me a story?" she asked Hotaru.
"A story for sleeping?"
"Yessplease."
"We are doing the myths of the world. These are from the Mediterranean."
"Love the Medi-terramean."
"OK." Said Hotaru. "Sisyphus was a determined man who could never win."
X
It was, and it was not, a surprise to return to Castle Miranda to find the doors to the training room forced open, and the pool drained of water, and filled with sand. Haruka knelt along the pit's edge and scooped a handful of coral dust.
"Will he drain the rivers too?" She asked the air. "Will he dry out the seas and burn away the rain?"
"I will do whatever is needed to protect the people I am bound to." Her father spoke from behind her.
"They don't need saving from me." She answered.
"And you don't need an explanation from me."
"I was followed, then." She stood, brushing the sand from her fingers.
"Naturally. You were a security risk." He approached.
"But no one intervened."
"Our soldiers don't have the same… resources as the daughter of Neptune."
"Yes." Haruka opened her palm, stretched it forward and willed a small crackling ball of energy to hover and twist in the air. "The abilities of a mere soldier rather pale in comparison."
"I assume you are wise enough not to threaten a King…"
"Now, now, why would a guardian waste time on threatening a lowly King?" The ball grew suddenly, pulsing with her words, expanding to the size of a boulder.
The King stepped back. The guardian took a breath. She allowed the orb to shrink down to the size of a fist, then snap into nothing again.
"Your powers have grown too." He spoke.
"Why are you here? Your message speaks for itself."
"I needed to understand." He said. "Why in all the worlds would you be so reckless? Tell me. Will you be a liability in this war?"
"I?" She laughed, pushed past him, and strode out of the room and across to grip balustrade that separated her from the expanse of dark sky. "I am your best hope." She answered.
"After the war," the King's tone had changed to something quieter, more plaintive, "If there is a woman or man, or a thousand of them that you wish to…"
She silenced her father with a look that could melt steel.
"You still think I live to see the other side of this war." She said to the stars.
"I must believe. If a soldier - "
"Don't." She shook her head. "Just don't. We will not see each other again. I have no intent to move to Castle Triton, and she will never come here. I don't need you to upset the architecture of my gymnasium."
"But why…?"
"But. Why. What. Why her?"
"If it were anyone – anyone – else…!"
"Oh really? Say I was inclined to spend time with a man from my sparring days?"
"Have you… such an inclination?"
"Don't be ridiculous. No more than you do."
"I don't think my inclinations have been discussed." Her father scratched his chin.
"Let's keep it that way." She shot back.
"Haruka," he stepped in again. "If this is to get back at me, or…"
"It isn't." She signed. "It isn't, and it isn't something you can understand."
She found herself blinking. The air was cold. The stars were impassive.
"Certainly I won't if you don't tell me."
"And nor will you ever. You and I are very different."
"Tell me and I will go."
"Fine." She said.
"Fine." He confirmed.
Haruka stepped further again from the King and looked out in the direction she had travelled from.
"She and I are not strangers to each other. We have been connected since birth."
"What?"
"Ask your wife." She rolled her eyes, "and don't interrupt me. When I was younger – "
"You're still a child."
"Seriously. When I was younger she – Michiru – used her abilities to manifest before me. As you have clearly discovered, she works through the medium of water. I believe they once used mirrors – or such can be done between two who understand the art. You may ask your wife about that. When I was older and on my own and close to… when I fell into a kind of despair, that's when she appeared again. She has been pulling me on… somehow… since then.
I used to think my curse for bringing about the war was to be despised by our people. I used to think that that was the penance to be served. But it isn't. My punishment is to live knowing her and being separate from her.
I am not a child; I was never allowed the luxury. I don't anticipate I will spend much time in adulthood either. But I wanted to see her – once – properly. She is like me. She has been brought up to be separate, alone, to be stripped of her choices.
She and I are weapons.
But not to each other."
X
Cassandra was a woman who would see the fall of her people, but never be believed.
She is swimming in black, still. Neptune doesn't swim alongside her. Perhaps she has left to enter a new life. Or perhaps she has tucked herself back with Michiru's soul?
Her body is suffering.
Perhaps it is no longer fit to host Neptune. She feels a kind of betrayal at the thought. It was rather unfair, wasn't it? To surrender her life, to take on such risks as she had, and then to be abandoned when her body was failing. Had she known, would she have…?
It was a stupid question, wasn't it? Of course she would have. She always would. Always to be with that particular person… It was the simple thing in all of this complexity. But then, would the chain be broken if Neptune were to leave? She recognised her body responding to the panic. It wasn't good. There was nothing good in this. And then… no… there was a… could it be?
A sense of something beyond her body. A something familiar. Calming. The panic was fading…
X
She awoke early in the morning. The hospital was silent but for its usual mechanical utterances. Her head thumped, but it was clear of the fog that had dominated the afternoon. Had it been the morning too? Setsuna must have given them the hard word. She expected to receive a different version of "the hard word" on the next visit. Of course it was difficult to sleep. And why should she be interested in eating? Michiru was in a coma, distant as the constellations.
But she had been returned to the room across the hall. The bandages were no longer covering her head. Her hair fell across her pillow, just the way it used to... Haruka struggled to the seat at the bed side and watched the lights of the machines, green, blue, illuminate the ridges of her knuckles and veins.
Her working, flexing, conscious body.
It was something that they had said that really ate at her. Had it been the surgeon? Yes. He had been so calm and earnest that it hadn't left any space in the room to challenge his statements.
"Her body is struggling." He'd said. "It could be that Ms Kaioh is able to remain in this state – supported – for a number of years."
"But if I woke up after only a few days…"
"Ms. Tenoh, it's not that it's impossible, it's just… improbable."
"But she's still alive."
"She is."
"And she could be alive for years, and years and – "
"Again, yes. But if that life is one supported by machines… it can be very hard on a body. It's not the way we're meant to live. There can be infections. There can be a myriad of forms of distress that we've hardly been able to research fully because… well, the human brain is an amazing thing."
"I'm not interested in your research."
"Ms Tenoh, what I'm saying is – as we respect your position as Ms Kaioh's next of kin - "
"It's a lousy time to be given such respect – "
" – because of that – we will act on your wishes, should it be needed, to let Ms Kaioh go."
"I can't believe this…!"
"Ms Tenoh, it's not an immediate matter but – "
"I CANNOT believe this!" She'd grabbed his shirt then.
"Ms – nurse! I need some assistance…!"
I retrospect it was surprising she hadn't been kicked out of the facility. Or transferred somewhere more… secure. She stroked Michiru's hair. Michiru didn't open her eyes. Didn't frown slightly in her way, have a moment of confusion, then smile a sleepy 'good morning'.
"I'd sing to you about a King's daughter, but I don't know the words." She said softly. "I'd show you Hotaru's picture books, but you won't open your eyes. Will you?"
Haruka breathed and watched the body before her.
"I miss your eyes."
She reached into her shirt pocket.
"I'm going to give you this now." She slipped the ring onto the too-thin finger. "I spent too long waiting for a right time."
You cannot conquer time.
"This is a piece to jewellery. Please keep it. It's for you to know that I am bound to you in this life. That I have been bound to you in lifetimes befo – "She swallowed. Her breath caught. The moon watched them.
"Kaioh Michiru, if you are hanging on by a thread then… then know I am the one holding on to the other end of it. And I want to say that I will never, never let go… but if it's what you need…" The tears were hot on her cheeks.
"If that's what you need… I won't be selfish. And If you don't remember me in the next life, I will remember you. And I will find you again and again… but for now, take this ring."
And she lay her head down beside the terribly silent girl and let her tears dry on the fabric of hospital sheets.
X
She'd found herself returned to her room again the next morning. The doctors had to do their rounds. Tests. She was in no mood to argue anymore. She watched a breakfast and a lunch tray steam then turn cool. The staff had become careful not to argue with her too. There was some kind of an armistice after Setsuna's intervention, she supposed. She found herself impatient for Setsuna's visit so that it would be over again, and she could relax into nothing and wait for more news of nothing.
At 3pm the figure in the door was not Setsuna's. Haruka did a double take. The elegant posture, the expensive handbag, it was almost as if –
No. Of course not.
"Ms Tenoh." I was glad to hear of your recovery.
"Mrs. Kaioh?"
"I've just been in visiting my daughter – "
"Really, has she…?"
"No change yet. I like to pretend she's just dreaming, you know?"
"Yes." Haruka answered soberly. "I like to imagine that too."
"You should know we intend to bring the full force of the law down on that truck driver. And the company. Our lawyers are looking into whether the tyre manufacturer might be liable – "
"Mrs Kaioh, I'm so sorry. If we had left the airport only a minute or two later – "
"Stop. Please. I won't hear it."
"I'm just… sorry."
Michiru's mother moved into the room and stood by the window. She toyed with the silk scarf around her neck.
"She's wearing a ring?" she said finally.
"I… you can remove it if you prefer."
"I'm sure she'd never forgive me."
"Oh?"
"If she found out you'd finally got up the nerve to come out and make such a proposal – "
"Well, I mean, it's not really a proposal if – "
"I think the standard etiquette demands asking the mother and father of the bride first, doesn't it?"
"Uh… given it's a non-standard situation…"
"Well, what is your intent?"
"Mrs. Kaioh, I hadn't expected to… I was going to let her decide how to… or what it should mean. I think."
"You think?"
"I do."
"Wise." She laughed suddenly. "You know her well."
"… Yes… it has been a few years now…"
"And little Hotaru, how's she doing?"
"Ha! Not so little day by day. She'll be here later today, I think. If you wanted to…"
"I'd like that. Very much."