THE PERSON I LOOK UP TO
Chapter 4: "Words and Misunderstandings"
A Neo-Sailor Moon fanfic
By Bill K.
With the daytime sun beginning to set in the west over Kinotai, life among the clan of Queen Shinrin began to wind down. That was an incredible relief to Sailor Moon.
The teen senshi sat against the foot of a towering tree, munching on Simpa berries and watching the orange remnants of the sun's reflection in the nearby stream as the sun disappeared over the horizon and the water flowed south. From time to time a member of the clan would walk by, carrying water or food, tending to children or guarding the perimeter from intruders. Each time the person would glance at Sailor Moon and smile, friendship radiating from green or gray or violet eyes. Each time Sailor Moon would nod back. They seemed friendly enough people, though a bit more active than the teen could cope with.
Sailor Moon popped another sweet Simpa berry into her mouth. Spending time with these people certainly explained why they were so fit and athletic. Everyone's day was filled with working to support the clan. Food needed to be gathered, clothes made or mended, children taught and supervised, and most importantly the trees of the forest needed to be tended to. Trees were very important to this society, revered as the givers of food and protection, but even more as givers of a spirituality that the members of the clan could look up to and learn from.
"Cere-Cere would love this place," Sailor Moon mumbled to herself, grinning.
One of the males of the clan walked by. He was carrying a little girl, probably three or four, while two older children followed eagerly. The male was in his late twenties and exuded a rugged, wiry, primitive attractiveness that a lot of the males on this planet seemed to possess. Sailor Moon's eyes drifted after the man as he lovingly cradled the little girl.
"Wooo," the teen sighed, returning to watching the stream. "I wonder if 'Kinotai' means 'paradise' in the local language?"
"Care to share some of those berries?" she heard and looked up. Her mother was standing over her. Without waiting for an invitation, Queen Serenity sat down next to her daughter.
"Finally wore Queen Shinrin out?" Sailor Moon asked, handing over some of the berries.
"More like she finally wore me out," Serenity moaned, then downed several of the sweet berries. "The woman is insatiable! She's so excited about learning to control her new power and so energetic! She absorbs everything I teach her and always wants more. Honestly, when I first ascended, I was scared to death of the new power I had. But she treats it like it's a gift on Christmas."
"It seems to be like that for most of the people here," the pink-tressed senshi said. "Anything bad happens, they accept it and keep moving. Anything good happens and they treat it like it was a gift from heaven." Sailor Moon thought. "Mom, how long do you suppose this society has been like this?"
"Shinrin says things have been this way for thousands of years."
"With no progress? The place is at a scientific standstill. There are no machines. You hardly even see any metal, except for the stuff the Queen and Danro wear. It's weird."
"It's different," Serenity corrected her. "Shinrin says they're very devout in their worship of the trees. Their society is dedicated to caring for the trees. That seems to be more important to them than scientific discovery. To each their own, Sailor Moon. We've no right to judge the value of another's beliefs."
"I wasn't judging them," scowled Sailor Moon. "It's just - - strange." She thought silently for a few moments. "What do you think of Danro?"
"He's very dedicated to Shinrin," Serenity replied. "Very loyal. And VERY handsome. Almost heart-stoppingly handsome."
"MOTH-THER!" gasped Sailor Moon.
"Now, dear, I love your father and I will always love your father," Serenity cautioned. "But just because I'm over a thousand years old doesn't mean I can't appreciate a handsome man any longer. And oh my is Danro handsome."
"You're disgusting," scowled the teen.
"Why did you bring him up?"
"It seems," Sailor Moon hesitated. "I don't know. He just seems way too interested in Shinrin's new power."
"He's probably just delighted to see her develop," Serenity reasoned. "Like I said, he seems very loyal to her. He's probably thrilled to see her accomplish so much. Shinrin is a very quick study. A lot quicker than I was."
"Yeah, I'll bet," snickered Sailor Moon.
Just then, the native youth Shoko crossed into view and knelt down next to Sailor Moon. He had a huge bunch of Simpa berries cupped in his hands. The youth offered them to Sailor Moon.
"Um," Sailor Moon began hesitantly, because the light was just at the proper point to highlight the firm, taut muscles in Shoko's chest and arms and thighs, yet cast his face in brooding shadows. "No thanks, I'm pretty full."
"I'll take them," Serenity smiled. Shoko nodded without taking his eyes off of Sailor Moon and handed the berries to the queen.
"Are you happy in your stay, Sailor Moon?" Shoko asked, entranced by the girl.
"Yeah, it's nice. It's a nice place," she replied.
"I am glad. You guard your queen well. I'm sure you are a very brave and powerful guardian."
"I'm sure she is, too," Serenity smiled. Sailor Moon's cheeks began to burn.
"Your cheeks grow red," Shoko gasped. "Are you sick?"
"No, it's," Sailor Moon began. "No."
"Ah, good," Shoko nodded enthusiastically. He seemed to gather up his courage. "Great Queen Serenity, may I speak with your guardian?"
"You seemed to be doing a pretty good job of it already," Serenity smiled. Shoko gave her a pained look. "Oh! Alone! Certainly. I can find a comfy branch to eat these delicious berries on."
With that, Serenity levitated up to one of the branches above them. Instantly Sailor Moon got to her feet, quickly followed by Shoko. She had an innate feeling where this was going and was surreptitiously looking for a means of escape.
"I-I was very disappointed to learn that you were pledged," Shoko said. "Since the moment I first saw you, I have thought of little else but you. You are quite beautiful, Sailor Moon."
"Thank you, Shoko," the teen swallowed.
"Were you pledged by your parents?"
"By my . . .?" Sailor Moon asked. "You mean arranged? No, I love Helios. We pledged to each other."
Shoko grimaced.
"I would fight him for you," Shoko announced.
"What?"
"I would prove the strength of my desire for you - - prove my strength and fitness to sire your young. I would fight him for you."
"Are you serious?"
"And I would win!" Shoko proclaimed. "For losing would mean losing hope of being with you - - and I suddenly can't bear such a thought."
"Look," Sailor Moon began, backing away from Shoko's masculine presence, "that's not why I love Helios! Shoko, you're probably a nice guy, but I would still love Helios even if you did win some 'fight'. It's not about how strong he is or how handsome he is. It's about who he is."
"No!" Shoko gasped, grasping Sailor Moon by the upper arms. "You must give me a chance! You must!"
Sailor Moon tried to break away, but the youth was very strong. Quickly the point became moot when Queen Serenity glided down from the branch she had been sitting on. Instantly Shoko ripped his hands away.
"Is something wrong?" Serenity asked.
Shoko, for his part, couldn't find words to speak with. Sailor Moon's gaze sought the ground.
"Maybe you better go," the princess said to Shoko. The youth seemed to want to protest, but the presence of Queen Serenity intimidated him enough to push him into leaving.
"Usa?" her mother inquired. Sailor Moon felt her cheeks burning again and silently cursed herself.
"Serenity, is everything all right?" Shinrin asked, approaching them.
"It's nothing," Sailor Moon told them both. "I'll handle it."
Serenity seemed to want to probe further. Instead, she turned to Shinrin and said, "Forgive us for disturbing you. There doesn't seem to be anything greatly wrong."
"Was Shoko bothering you?" Shinrin persisted.
"Just a misunderstanding," Serenity alibied. "Please put it out of your mind."
Shinrin nodded and moved off. Serenity turned back to Sailor Moon, but the girl was already wandering away, her desire to be alone obvious even to the queen.
Ves-Ves usually dreaded going to her anger management psychotherapy sessions with Dr. Mizuno. Part of why she dreaded it was because it was time out of her life that she didn't control and Ves-Ves had a deep-seeded need to live her life her way. Part of why she dreaded it was that Dr. Mizuno insisted on making her dredge up and examine all the painful portions of her life. If she wanted to remember how her father beat her mother, she would. If she wanted to recall how she lived on the street and learned the hard way that you had to fight harder, run faster and seize opportunities quicker or you didn't survive, she'd keep a scrapbook. And then there was her time under Queen Neherenia's spell. They were painful memories of a past she didn't want to remember and recalling them was like picking open a scab.
If it weren't for the fact that they were actually making some progress in resolving her repressed anger with life in general, she'd have stopped coming long ago.
The teen paused just outside of the door sensor's range. She was dreading this session even more than usual, though. Momentarily she contemplated running away - - but one of the things life in the slums of Sao Paolo taught her was that running from a threat only invited it to attack your unguarded back. She stepped forward and the door hissed open.
"Good afternoon, Ves-Ves," Dr. Mizuno said, looking up from her computer terminal. Her glasses were perched on her nose as usual. Ves-Ves always thought it odd-looking, but the princess once explained that Dr. Mizuno was allergic to the regenerative eye tissue solution usually used to eliminate astigmatism and had to use old fashioned eyeglasses. "Please sit down."
Same as usual. Dr. Mizuno could be so predictable.
"I'm going to deviate from where we left off last time," Ami said. "I hesitate to bring classroom behavior into these sessions, but I think this might be related to what we're dealing with."
Here it comes.
"I was very shocked at your score on the Vector Geometry test, Ves-Ves," Ami related, looking at her over those glasses perched on her nose. "I know math and geometry aren't your strengths, but I didn't expect this. Did you even study at all?"
"No," Ves-Ves replied. The girl crossed her arms over her chest, body-language Ami recognized only too well.
"Why not?"
"Why?" She saw the answer didn't satisfy Dr. Mizuno. "I was going to fail it anyway, so why bother? Why do something you don't like doing if it isn't going to pay off?"
"A legitimate question," Ami nodded. "It assumes you aren't going to receive a reward for enduring an odious task, though."
"I wasn't going to pass."
"Ves-Ves, testing is a means of measuring achievement, not status. It's a way for a good educator to see how much of her teaching got through and was retained, so she can go back and reinforce what wasn't learned. And it's a way for the student to see that as well and possibly go back on their own to learn what wasn't retained the first time. It's not a means of judging the value of a person."
"Why do I even need to know Vector Geometry anyway?" grumbled Ves-Ves.
"Were you ever planning on owning an aircar?" Ami asked her. "Piloting an aircar, even a short range city model, requires a passing knowledge of vector geometry to obtain a license. I admit it isn't a skill that is used every day, but it can be handy to know in this computerized age of ours. Not learning it puts you at a disadvantage in society and I would think that, given your background, you wouldn't want another barrier to success in your way."
Ves-Ves remained silent.
"Of course, if you don't try, it gives you a built in excuse to fail later on," Ami added. "It can become easy to fall back on your disadvantaged youth as an excuse for every failure in life. It can even become a reason not to try to succeed at anything."
"I'm not going to do that!" snapped Ves-Ves. "You sound just like Jun."
"And you resent that?" Ami observed. "From the tone of your voice, this is another thing that makes you angry." Ves-Ves stared at the floor. "You think Jun-Jun, as a member of your surrogate family, should be more supportive of your wishes, correct?"
The girl's lips thinned.
"Is it more? Perhaps Jun-Jun isn't the only one objecting to this behavior?" Ami continued. "Someone else - - someone whose opinion and approval you desire? Palla-Palla, perhaps?"
Ves-Ves glared at Dr. Mizuno.
"You want to abdicate responsibility for bettering yourself because it's too hard and you want your family to automatically approve of this self-destructive behavior," Ami summed up, "and you grow angry when they don't."
"THAT'S NOT HOW IT IS!" Ves-Ves snapped.
"Then tell me where I erred," Ami replied calmly.
"Man, there's just no winning against you!" Ves-Ves fumed. "You've got an answer for everything!"
"Do you know why?" Ami asked. "It's because your problems aren't unique to you. They're problems that have been suffered by humanity since there was humanity. Too many people think their woes are unique only to themselves, when in reality they're just the latest in a long line of people suffering from it."
Ves-Ves remained silent.
"If you think your 'sisters' are being too hard on you, you should have been raised by my mother," Ami told her. "I had as voracious an appetite for learning as anyone I've known, and still she pressured me to excel until she got on my nerves. For the longest time I felt I had to be perfect in order to please her. It's difficult when a person you admire and respect doesn't seem pleased with your efforts. It was only later that I realized she was just trying to get me to perform at my absolute best so I wouldn't cheat myself. She wasn't trying to get me to please her, she was trying to help me the only way she knew how. I think that's what Jun-Jun and Palla-Palla are doing. They're not disapproving of you living your life your own way. They're disapproving of you cheating yourself out of bettering yourself."
Ami studied the teen's face as she spoke. Ves-Ves was beginning to soften from anger to chagrin.
"They do it because they love you, Ves-Ves," Ami continued. "They won't think less of you if you try and fail. They only think less of you if you don't try."
Ves-Ves sighed in frustration. "Man, life sucks sometimes."
"Only if you dwell on the negatives," Ami told her. "If I give you a make-up test in a week, will you promise to study for it?"
Ves-Ves scowled.
"OK," she whispered.
"Good. I've downloaded a tutoring program to your workstation that can help you if you decide you need it," Ami said. Then she smiled. "Or I'm sure the other girls would be willing to help you study if you prefer the human touch. It's your choice. I think we're done for today."
Ves-Ves nodded and left - - silently. Ami studied the girl's body language as she left, hoping for some insight into her mind's workings.
Snuggled within the soft wedge of the bough, Sailor Moon slept and dreamed. She was visiting with Helios, because he had sensed within her the turmoil brought about by the incident with Shoko and came to her in her dream. The couple strolled hand in hand through a rolling forest beside a crystal blue lake. Animals watered from the lake, glancing up casually at the passing couple, unafraid.
Ignoring the tingle that grasping his hand gave her, Usa fought to articulate what had happened in response to his query. She worried how he would react. Would he become jealous? Would he look down on her? Her explanation became more and more quantified, thus more and more rambling, until the teen wished that she would just explode into bits to save herself from the humiliation.
"You are - - attracted to this youth?" Helios asked inscrutably.
"NO!" Usa howled. "Well - - yes, I guess. But not in the way I am to you! Helios, I love you! I do, please believe me!"
His hand tightened around hers.
"Of course I believe you, Maiden," he smiled. "I have pledged my love for you and can do nothing else and still be true to that pledge." He glanced over at her, almost shyly. "But more importantly, I have looked into your soul and seen with my own eyes the love that resides there. Did you not brave the sorceress Ctesias to rescue me? Am I to forget that and believe a momentary distraction caused by a beautiful form? To do that would make me unworthy of loving you."
Usa felt so relieved and happy at that moment that she wanted to cry.
Suddenly he turned, grasping her upper arm. He shook her and Usa couldn't understand why. And suddenly it wasn't him shaking her, it was her mother, and she was no longer in Elysian but in a tree on Kinotai.
"Hmm?" Sailor Moon queried, struggling to orient her senses.
"Usa, wake up," prodded Queen Serenity. "Something's happened."
"What?" the girl asked groggily.
"Don't you feel it?"
Sailor Moon paused and opened her mind to any sensation that might want to come to her.
"No. Should I?" the girl asked.
"Maybe I'm the only one who could have felt it," Serenity mused. She looked terribly worried, almost haunted. That concerned her daughter immensely.
"What happened?" Sailor Moon asked.
"Someone just died," Serenity told her. "Someone in the clan. It has to be. It ripped me right out of my sleep."
"That's no easy trick," Sailor Moon commented.
Serenity grasped her daughter's hand and levitated them both to the ground. Upon landing, Serenity turned to her left and swiftly moved in that direction. Sailor Moon ran to catch up, a difficult task because in her haste to arrive at the spot she was headed for, Serenity was levitating inches off the ground without realizing it. As she ran, Sailor Moon materialized the Crescent Moon Wand. She wanted to be ready for anything and, knowing her mother, one of them should be prepared for danger.
Sailor Moon reached a spot near the edge of this particular forest. An on-rushing river bordered it and hovering over the river was Serenity, hand to her mouth in shock. The queen gestured and Sailor Moon saw a body being pulled up from the rushing water. The senshi ran to the spot on the bank where Serenity lowered the body. When she got close enough to see who it was, the girl realized why her mother was in shock.
"It's Shoko!" Sailor Moon gasped.
Continued in Chapter 5
