Kurisutaru
Kurisutaru_faithful@hotmail.com


Title: The Promise California Meant to Keep with Iris

Disclaimer: mah............. Sailor Moon will belong to me when I take over the world!!
BWAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH.....

Inspired by
IRIS by the Goo Goo Dolls and CALIFORNIA PROMISES by Jimmy Buffett

Editor: D-chan... Fly-chan..... the one whom I strongly suspect to be behind this challenge... ;)

Note: I was instructed to write... TAFF... TAFF... And if you've read my taff, it's really weak ^^''... So, this was a
challenge. SIGH. I gave it my best shot! *swings hammer randomly*

*snuggles WAFF* wahhh.... I'm not meant to write taff...
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A hunched woman rubbed her cold numb hands. They felt coarse and withered even to her dull senses. With her
dreary eyes she stared out to anywhere. It didn't matter where she looked, all around her a void darkness cloaked
her. At times she couldn't tell when her eyes were opened or closed. Yet it was of no matter, for they ceaselessly,
infinitely stung, for tears would endlessly prick her dimmed irises.

Faithful, always and forever.

Forever is such a powerful word. Everywhere it's thrown around callously like the bees that pass pollen on to the
next flower. A bitter laugh was painfully hurled from her lips as she ran a cold shaky hand across a bright object.
The object was palm-size, carefully crafted in the shape of a star. Never to open again, it was a locket that once
played a beautiful melody but now left to sparkle in this vacuum. However, it's true, she couldn't have recalled him
able to stay forever. Sometimes one must just fall away, without valid reason or explanation, and the heart would let
go to soar once again. But it wouldn't let her go, her heart clung stubbornly to the memory of her husband long dead
after their golden years together. In this misery of a place, time itself is lost, and the memories that go with it as well.
Her identity will fade with each eternal moment sealed in this place. A place called Chaos.
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He could hear it all; her bitter, doubting thoughts and her feeble attempts to hold on to her sanity. Every word, every
almost-thought burned his everlasting soul. At times he couldn't say which would hurt more: her disbelief in their
love or the powerlessness that bounded him. All that he could do was listen to her terrifying cries of anguish that
tore his heart over and over. After all, their souls were threaded together by fate. Her pain was his.

A single thought melted every resolve he had left in him, 'She deserves better.' He felt so many things. In a state of
confusion and exhaustion he realized he wasn't really a prince, a king, or a strong figure to lean on. He actually felt
quite weak, pathetic and hopeless. He had hung his head to submit to the fact that he was indeed a broken man.
What she deserved was a shinning knight that swept her off her feet to take her away to a wonderful place.
Unfortunately, he was not that man. No, he was a man that constantly brought her sorrow. The truth had become too
ugly, twisted, and painful. He felt his heart shun and run from a love he once held on to. He could no longer be
loved.

Alas, a part of him felt stubborn, and utterly possessive. That part of him would not let his pride fall or his secret
promises break. It was the part of him that wanted to assure her that they always would together. He tried and he
longed to sweep his hand through her hair, to sooth her. Yet he was nothing but a spirit or a ghost that lingered. He
couldn't even grasp himself. Every moment he had to remind and prevent himself from forgetting who he once was,
or whom he once loved. But then again, it wasn't so hard to do as he watched her slowly but surely fade paler and
paler. No longer was she the woman that she once was, no longer the woman that he had loved.

They called to him, nagged in his ear, never ceasing. 'Why?', they ask, 'Why do you still hold so dear to the flesh of
this woman? This woman that will fade to become nothing more than a power.' They keep telling him, 'Her soul is
gone, sacrificed for the power to guard Chaos.' He tried to fight, fight himself and the ones that have given up on
her. They had most certainly given up on her. 'Leave her be, it's her time,' they said. Every time they have reminded
him, his soul bleed a little more. Suddenly there was silence. It was then that it all had come to him, shoved him
down when he was completely and utterly off guard. It was time to leave. It was time to leave her alone.

He felt his heart go limp. He didn't want to leave her in this place all alone, though he knew he must. It was a part of
their fate. He glanced back one last time, to realize that this would not be the only time he'd leave her alone.
However, he'd be there for her in another point in time, and until then he'd have to leave her.

And leave he did.
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The lithe woman lifted her weary head as she felt a warm, loving breeze brush past her arm to leave goosebumps
behind. She convinced herself it was all an illusion and rubbed a frozen hand to sooth her alert arm. A whimper
escaped her cracked, blue lips, for she hadn't felt such warmth in an unimaginable amount of time. Yet, that was all
it was, a warm breeze, just a brush, and a glimpse of what the past was. To her everything slowly became a shadow.
Thoughts of Fate, which had swiped her and her love's paths in a hideous torture, caused a shudder to flow through
her quickly. Fate enjoyed giving them a taste of what every person secretly longed for only to tear it away all in a
moment.

Would we have loved? Would we have fallen deeply, truly for each other?

It didn't matter anymore, her mind had become as empty as the place she stood in. Nothing existed. All was nothing
more and nothing less. This torture, this pain, was only the beginning, as the evil in this place grows stronger and
stronger. Thoughts of the eternal battle ahead left her head feeling heavy and loaded. She was tired, oh so very tired.

Her head bowed from her guarded position; she convinced herself of only a moment's rest. Her form fell limp and
cascaded to a fallen state. The forgotten locket fell from her hands, cracked open to reveal a warm, bright light that
accompanied a once loved tune, a tune which now brought nothing but the darkened reminder of a their isolation
and prolong the existence of her solitude. That warm bright light fled from its home, faster and farther, covering
Chaos in a flawless darkness once more.
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*cough cough*
The happy ending??... GUESS! GUESS, what light left the locket... GUESS!