I know it has been some time since I updated anything. And I am sorry. To
make up for it, I am going to upload the next two chapter is this story and
I give my word to work on getting the next chapter to "A Rose By Any Other
Name" done and uploaded as well. I hope you all like this story so far ...
Enjoy ...
The Living Dream
By: Rena Cresten
Chapter 3
Rated: G
Disclaimers: I don't own the characters of Sailor Moon, don't claim to. I don't own Crystal Tokyo, don't claim that either. But the story itself is mine. So please don't use it for anything without asking me first.
******************
Again weeks passed. Only this time unnoticed. I had so much work around me, work that I had put off for two hundred years. No longer did I simply sign papers, I drew them up. I made document after document until my hand could hardly move anymore. Then I had it written by someone else as I dictated. There were so many problems with my kingdom, so many I could fix with a single pen stroke.
I loved that thought.
After all of these years, all of the imprisonment inside myself, I still had as much power as I had had then. Even in the few weeks I had worked on the easy problems, there had been a change in the city. A drastic change.
At night, when I stood on my balcony and stared at the city before me, imagining the world beyond, I could see a difference. There were joyous sounds, faint but there. And lights. Where there had been only darkness, now there was light. A few at first, but as the days passed I saw more and more.
I wasn't the only one coming out of the darkness.
My so called friends could only stare. They gave little if no help to my cause. And I had certainly learned to move on without them. They could talk and plan and do whatever they did in that conference room of theirs, I didn't really care anymore. My kingdom would live and flourish again if I had to work myself to my death bed.
Which many had told me I was doing.
Had I cared, I may have slowed down. But care for myself was, for once, far out of my mind. It was my job, my only hope.
I closed the door behind me and settled comfortably in an overstuffed chair. As little as I had used this room, as much as it haunted me, it was the best place to think. The study held a scent not unlike the depth of intelligence, should it have a scent. The books around me seemed to offer up wisdom that floated through the sunbeams from the high windows.
I leaned back, closing my eyes and willing the thoughts out of my head, the many thoughts that seemed to clutter my consciousness like a torrent, a flood. And when I thought my head would explode, I automatically retreated here. To the one room in this palace that hadn't really been touched by time.
Swinging the chair around I started shuffling through the dusty papers that cluttered his desk.
His desk.
This had been his study. His place of solitude. He had, so many times, run here as I had just done. Run here to get away from all the pressures of life outside. How many times had we snuggled next to that very fireplace, the etched designs something he had done to keep himself busy on his times off. I had laughed at him.
"Why work on your day off?" The angels with their tiny gold wings seemed to echo his answer the way he had once said it.
"So that when I come here during work, it'll feel like a day off."
I hadn't really understood then, but I sure did now. He needed something of his own, something relaxing, something he could cherish of his own doing when he relaxed. The smiles on the angels and the glitter of their little bows and arrows still seemed to sing from around the empty fireplace. So that a fire wasn't really needed to give warmth in ones heart.
I pulled the picture of us off the far side of the desk and curled up into the chair to reminisce. His hair, each strand a sea of nighttime, fell into his eyes just the way I liked it. One of my favorite pictures, this one. We were both so happy. Him in his dingy white T-shirt and paint stained, ripped jeans. Me in my favorite sun dress, the tiny roses all over it and the pale white satin looking regal next to him. I had fought him in that picture, not wanting to get dirty.
He never listened.
He had simply held me close, using his superior strength against me, and had Mina take the picture. My dress had gotten soiled because of that, but we all laughed so hard it didn't really matter. The half done fireplace in the background seemed to sing just as loudly as the finished one did.
He had a way with everything.
Everything he touched became beautiful, everyone he met was better off for knowing him, everything he did was for the greater good and turned out as such. He was the perfect king, the perfect husband, and would have been the perfect father.
Grief.
That thought brought some tears. Couldn't I at least have been blessed enough to have had a child? Something of him left over. Something I could hold on to for the rest of time, unlike I could hold him.
That was nonsense.
He's alive!!
I didn't let myself go down that path, I had done that more than enough. If he came back, then it was real. If he didn't than I must simply have an over active imagination. Even those two roses could have come from anyone.
But they don't wilt.
I pushed myself up from the chair and set the picture back down. I gave another look around the study and walked confidently out into the hall. I still had some more papers to sign.
The Living Dream
By: Rena Cresten
Chapter 3
Rated: G
Disclaimers: I don't own the characters of Sailor Moon, don't claim to. I don't own Crystal Tokyo, don't claim that either. But the story itself is mine. So please don't use it for anything without asking me first.
******************
Again weeks passed. Only this time unnoticed. I had so much work around me, work that I had put off for two hundred years. No longer did I simply sign papers, I drew them up. I made document after document until my hand could hardly move anymore. Then I had it written by someone else as I dictated. There were so many problems with my kingdom, so many I could fix with a single pen stroke.
I loved that thought.
After all of these years, all of the imprisonment inside myself, I still had as much power as I had had then. Even in the few weeks I had worked on the easy problems, there had been a change in the city. A drastic change.
At night, when I stood on my balcony and stared at the city before me, imagining the world beyond, I could see a difference. There were joyous sounds, faint but there. And lights. Where there had been only darkness, now there was light. A few at first, but as the days passed I saw more and more.
I wasn't the only one coming out of the darkness.
My so called friends could only stare. They gave little if no help to my cause. And I had certainly learned to move on without them. They could talk and plan and do whatever they did in that conference room of theirs, I didn't really care anymore. My kingdom would live and flourish again if I had to work myself to my death bed.
Which many had told me I was doing.
Had I cared, I may have slowed down. But care for myself was, for once, far out of my mind. It was my job, my only hope.
I closed the door behind me and settled comfortably in an overstuffed chair. As little as I had used this room, as much as it haunted me, it was the best place to think. The study held a scent not unlike the depth of intelligence, should it have a scent. The books around me seemed to offer up wisdom that floated through the sunbeams from the high windows.
I leaned back, closing my eyes and willing the thoughts out of my head, the many thoughts that seemed to clutter my consciousness like a torrent, a flood. And when I thought my head would explode, I automatically retreated here. To the one room in this palace that hadn't really been touched by time.
Swinging the chair around I started shuffling through the dusty papers that cluttered his desk.
His desk.
This had been his study. His place of solitude. He had, so many times, run here as I had just done. Run here to get away from all the pressures of life outside. How many times had we snuggled next to that very fireplace, the etched designs something he had done to keep himself busy on his times off. I had laughed at him.
"Why work on your day off?" The angels with their tiny gold wings seemed to echo his answer the way he had once said it.
"So that when I come here during work, it'll feel like a day off."
I hadn't really understood then, but I sure did now. He needed something of his own, something relaxing, something he could cherish of his own doing when he relaxed. The smiles on the angels and the glitter of their little bows and arrows still seemed to sing from around the empty fireplace. So that a fire wasn't really needed to give warmth in ones heart.
I pulled the picture of us off the far side of the desk and curled up into the chair to reminisce. His hair, each strand a sea of nighttime, fell into his eyes just the way I liked it. One of my favorite pictures, this one. We were both so happy. Him in his dingy white T-shirt and paint stained, ripped jeans. Me in my favorite sun dress, the tiny roses all over it and the pale white satin looking regal next to him. I had fought him in that picture, not wanting to get dirty.
He never listened.
He had simply held me close, using his superior strength against me, and had Mina take the picture. My dress had gotten soiled because of that, but we all laughed so hard it didn't really matter. The half done fireplace in the background seemed to sing just as loudly as the finished one did.
He had a way with everything.
Everything he touched became beautiful, everyone he met was better off for knowing him, everything he did was for the greater good and turned out as such. He was the perfect king, the perfect husband, and would have been the perfect father.
Grief.
That thought brought some tears. Couldn't I at least have been blessed enough to have had a child? Something of him left over. Something I could hold on to for the rest of time, unlike I could hold him.
That was nonsense.
He's alive!!
I didn't let myself go down that path, I had done that more than enough. If he came back, then it was real. If he didn't than I must simply have an over active imagination. Even those two roses could have come from anyone.
But they don't wilt.
I pushed myself up from the chair and set the picture back down. I gave another look around the study and walked confidently out into the hall. I still had some more papers to sign.