Title: Freecasting
Author: Utenakun
Series: Revolutionary Girl Utena
Summary: Anthy journeys after the end of the series. Luck won't help her search, but she'll find her own way.
Rating: PG, Anthy/Utena
Disclaimer: Um. I hate to break it to you, but I don't own Revolutionary Girl Utena, and am making no money off of this. That's right! Fanfiction is not a seller's market! I'm so sorry to have crushed that dream for you.
Notes: Another oneshot. It's occurs to me that I seem to be writing or planning a lot of unrelated Utena fics that all take place in the "after-the-series" world I've projected. Which is to say, this has nothing to do with "Night at the Ends of the World" or "Beginning With Us," but it definitely meshes with them. Maybe someday in the future I'll link them all up.
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She has money-- more money, in fact, than a middle-school dropout could possibly have. But she is entirely an unperson, no identification at all in official eyes. (This is either an oversight or the final act of malice from an impotent god, who granted his other players places and recognition in real-world time, but not her. Or is it because she walked out, instead of being placed gently and oh so nicely?) So she cannot rent a temporary living space, or a job above menial work-- not that she could get such a job, anyway, being without a high school diploma. But would that matter to the interviewer who stares into her eyes, beyond even wisdom in their timelessness? No one can say.
So she lives out of youth hostels and kind peoples' homes, and occasionally out of homeless shelters. This causes a fair amount of confusion among the workers there-- she takes scrupulous care of her clothes and possessions, and always seems to get more or less enough to eat, so she doesn't fit the homeless model they have been mentally bracing themselves for. But it's alright, she always leaves soon.
She'll take any job, but loves it best when someone asks for help in the garden. Then she'll work carefully, thoroughly, but quickly as though the joy she feels pushes her far and fast. It's crazy, the housewives admit to one another with cheerful, embarrassed laughs, but somehow-- even if they only hired her for one day, just to tend one ailing plant-- the flowers somehow seem nicer once she's gone. Aren't they just a little taller? Didn't their petals open a little more, their colors shine just the tiniest bit brighter? And somehow, there is no whisper of enchantment or witchcraft, but introductions, favors asked, until she has carefully watered (and planted, tended, caressed) every flower in the neighborhood. Then she feels she can move on without the guilt of an unfinished job behind her. But in every garden, when the work is done, she stops and fishes out a small bag, then asks please, might she be allowed to leave something? Just a thank you, a perennial rose, it's small and would look truly beautiful winding around that corner of the trellis that hasn't been used. Would you please let me thank you for how kind you've been, she asks, a gentle smile on her lips and eyes as deep and sustaining as the soil beneath them. Suddenly, they feel-- warmed, somehow. A little.
They always say yes.
It's not always so easy; in the larger cities, gardening jobs are scarce and she has become accustomed to finding alternatives: secretary work, cleaning, messenger jobs. Though she'll take what's offered, she does prefer something that will let her out, walking about and always glancing from face to face, truly looking at every person she comes across.
There is only one job she will not take, and when confronted with an offer, she simply stares into the other's eyes, lips tight. Expression blank-- but her eyes burn, distantly and coldly, with the fury of faraway stars. And then, her would-be customer shrinks, retreats a step, and meets her eyes one more time before wincing away and allowing her to walk off unmolested.
And in every city, before she leaves, she finds every public park, and a caretaker or gardener in each. I'm spreading these roses throughout the country, she explains, it's a project of mine. Which is true. Look, she adds, displaying a photograph of the roses in full bloom, they're beautiful, aren't they? Such a lovely color. Is there a spot, a nice spot with not too much sun and not too much shade, where I can plant one?
There always is.
Not the white the Victor wore, that player and puppet of Akio. The roses blooming here will be pink, your color, my Utena, the color of the rose I gave you when you fought not for a prince or any such bribe but for your own self.
This is what she whispers as she carefully sows her trail, the clues that may, one day, find her love even before she does. Once she proclaimed the roses she had grown, presented them in a loud voice, and now she whispers. No one has ever overheard these words, but someday she prays one woman will stop short, stare at a pink rose in full bloom and hear them in her mind, spoken in the voice which never spoke as it wished to her, but will. Someday.