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Disclaimer: This story takes place Thirty years after the initial ending one recieves in Star Fox Command with some alterations.
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It's another night of empty promises and loneliness. My latest suitor promised to call me in a few days as he gets up to dress and promptly leaves. His cold boots thumping off the fine tiled floor while I sit in the window, half naked after a night of emotionless sex.
My lips wrap around the butt of a cigarette much as it did the males shaft whose name I don't even care to remember. When the door shuts, I break. Tears, much like the rain pattering off my window flow down my cheeks in deep wracking sobs of grief. It's the only emotion I have left really. Love, loyalty, compassion, empathy… it's all for show these days. To keep up appearances and let people think the "Savior" Of Lylat during the Anglar Blitz is all happy and smiles. It can't really be any other way, if their morale tanks, so does the system.
It's pathetic, really. They think I have it all, they aspire to be me with my luxurious blue and white fur. Women emulate me, getting dye jobs and hair styles. I'm a trendsetter; a generation of fake Cerinians running around trying to be me, wanting to be me. But they don't know… they don't know what I've sacrificed to be here, the stupid choices I made and where I would rather be.
My heart wracks and heaves in anguish at the mere thought of what I've done as I grab a nearby bottle of vodka to drown my sorrows, chugging it like it's water. It's strong contents sear my throat but it barely phases me. My genetics make me nearly impervious to Lylatian Liquor and it only makes me lash out as I throw the bottle in rage. It sails through the air shatters next to a stupid picture of Star Wolf.
That backstabbing piece of shit Wolf, the psychotic Leon, and that suave, treacherous letcher, Panther. How could I have been so foolish? What possessed me to run away and join them? What in the name of my gods was I thinking?!
Don't act like you don't know. My conscience whispers.
He offended you; you thought he was treating you like nothing more than a ward. A fragile piece of pottery to be put on a pedestal… And he destroyed himself emotionally because of what he did to you and saw what you became.
My heart and chest heave again with my fists balling over my eyes. My wails like that of the Banshee and no doubt my neighbors hear. I don't care… let them hear the dying wails of a doomed species, forever adrift and alone.
It's all your fault, you could have had it all. If only you stopped and listened to me. It's the voice of hindsight, of inner truth. And like a battered girlfriend, I am prisoner to my own demons with no chance of escape.
He begged you, pleaded with you on an open channel to come back. He apologized… and you mocked him alongside those who had been trying to engineer his downfall for his adult life. Even at his lowest point, he still loved you.
My howls of sorrow are at a fever pitch and I can scarcely control myself. It's a nightly routine, but one I am increasingly losing control of. My makeup runs in thick dark lines beneath my faded teal eyes that gaze into the window and it's reflection. I see nothing but a bedraggled, unsatisfied woman who longs for one thing, and one thing only.
To be loved.
To be cherished.
To be safe.
And I have none of those things now.
I am loved; but only for my body.
Cherished; only for my fame.
Safe; only because Corneria protects me.
All these men who come to me, asking to date me, to love me… I can feel it all. Their slimy thoughts of how they want to dominate and control me. To say they slept with the Legendary Krystal. I'm nothing more than a notch on their belt, a point of pride and fame. They have no interest in me, no love for me, only their image of me.
They're all just like Panther. Sure, some are sweeter than others, but in the end, it's emotionless sex and I am left bereft of any true bliss. Only one man ever gave me that… and I ruined him.
My cries continue for hours. I'm sure the first few times the authorities were called but now it's just another night and finally after sometime, my eyes dry up. I go over to my drawer, bathed in pale moonlight as the raining has stopped.
It's like a beacon in the darkness. A ray of hope as I slide the drawer open and move my various garments aside to stare down at a singular key… A key that the Krazoa had gifted unto me and said to try again. Beautifully forged in gold with a brilliant sapphire gem at the very tip of the handle. At the opposite end, one could just barely make out the shape of an Arwing engraved into the cool metal.
The Krazoa always did seem to have a twisted sense of irony. But it's all part of the routine. I never work the guts up to actually use it. Because why should I get a third chance?
Fox gave me a second chance at life, he gave me a home, a purpose… and though he was shy about it, his heart was mine. Our futures were so intertwined that nothing could have possibly tore us apart…
Except for me.
That stupid argument, that stupid childish me from thirty years ago!
I sweep the top of my dresser off and send it's contents crashing to the floor in a fit as I think back to how moronic I was! What was I doing?! What did I have to prove! I already survived on the Aparoid Homeworld! I fought Scales tooth and claw on Sauria alongside Fox! I survived the downfall of my homeworld! What did I need to prove?!
Nothing. Came my inner light, long since faded, degraded, much like my eyes. So tired and weary from the negative aspects of my life. So few positives.
You showed the galaxy what you were capable of… You did everything right until Fox began to worry that the very line of work you chose would once again tear away someone he loved. Someone he would die for.
Gods I wish that voice would shut up. To just let me live in my sorrows and rage until I gave out. But it'll never happen. I never shut it out even though I could. Because I deserve this. Everything I am now, I deserve it.
I took Lylat's greatest champion and fell in love with him. I fought by his side, and then for one instant he showed weakness, instead of propping him up, I kicked him in the stomach and ran off to a man who was nothing more than a pretty face, false promises, and even more hollow words…
Fox actually cared, and I failed to see it…
Five minutes. That's all it would have taken, five minutes of an adult conversation and we would have survived. Five minutes to avoid thirty years of grief and lonely nights. Five minutes to be truly happy and smiling. Five Minutes to be in his strong arms and holding me tight, hearing soft and so sinful words of true love and adoration before we make love and try for the fifth or sixth child.
And so plays out my next routine. What life could have been had I just taken those five minutes. A nice big house for our family and friends. Social calls and visits to places where we sell stupid assurances and train the next generation of fighter pilots to protect this mad house of a system. Slippy is married happily, Falco and Katt finally get over themselves, and Peppy retires while helping raise mine and Fox's kits.
Paradise… But it's a lie for myself so I don't suck start my blaster and end it all.
"Five minutes…" I whisper and drag myself into bed, placing my makeup stained face into the pillow and spill the last of my tears, pretending it's Fox. My arms clutching it so tightly and whimpering his name in apology.
"Five… minutes…" I drift off for another fresh day of hell.