Usagi
The door on my back felt leaden, strong and unmovable.
I found myself back in my room, surrounded by the white, a mocking reminder of our conversation at the dinner table. Who was he to say I didn't understand the way of the world, that things were not so binary. Of course I understood that. So many of my enemies had turned into allies or friends. We set people free of their evilness, we did not think it a permanent curse collared around their necks.
Anger stifled me, but it was the confusion that fed flame to a different fire. I didn't know where I was, or how to get home. I didn't know the darkness that was trying to capture the power of the silver millennium crystal. I didn't know if anyone had realized I was missing, if anyone was looking for me, whether anyone had made the discovery that I was in grave danger.
But what was even more treacherous was the fact that I didn't know Dimande's true intent, and I didn't know why my heart twitched when he asked for my trust.
The world around me was spinning, hurling me into every direction even though I stood still. I was off-kilter, haunted by the words Dimande had left me with, struggling to breath under the intangible mass that had formed on top of my chest. I struggled against it, clawing at it to push it aside, to free myself from drowning. And yet, as I stood, it rushed up against me and made my skin itch.
Suddenly the room grew larger, the door was heavier than before and every inch of every surface glowed with an artificial glossiness.
I needed time to think. I needed to get out of this place.
I felt empathy for Dimande—I really did. He was driven once again to a place so dark even the sickest of solutions seemed to be agents of good. But I knew better. He had sold his soul once again to a devil, one offering him something that seemed too good to be true, and once again I found myself square in the center of their conflict.
The walls crashed down on me like a cage. He had told me when I first arrived that I was no prisoner, but he was wrong. There were no literal locks, but the figurative ones were enough. I was free to leave, but I was doomed to never return home, because even if I tried, I did not know my way back.
My heart caved. The easy way out would be to help him, but to relent to him meant more than just giving him my magic. He had always wanted a piece of me to dangle, a pendulum swinging between good and evil. And now his tactics were an even crueler shade: Where he had not bound me with chains, he was making me question myself. He was stripping away the layers of life bit by bit, making reason give way to doubt, chipping away at the understanding I had of right and wrong.
I heard his desperation. I understood it. I believed him as he promised me he was a better man—a good man—and it took everything in my power to not to fall for it. But even now as I gripped onto my dwindling sense of reality, I could see it tilting in his favor.
It started as a singular bubble, the realization that the world went on and changed even as I stayed the same. Then it continued to boil when I saw everyone else becoming something new, something bigger and better from what they were before. And finally, when Mamoru looked at me as if he didn't love me anymore—as if he was tied to me not by choice, but by duty—that is when I started to feel the steam drenching my skin, its heat blistering along me like a tattoo.
Those moments of grey opened something within me. They allowed me to see myself. They allowed me to see Dimande.
His eyes had laid across me like a stain, his lips so close and his breath so ragged. I wanted to take him in my embrace, to peel him from the life of evil he had chosen once more. But how could I? To give him this piece of me would be to invite the darkness in.
And yet, my light had been dimming long before he took me that night. He was not the only one casting shadows upon me, but he was the first to make the darkness seem less hollow.
Panic gripped my throat.
I went to the window and looked out at the great expanse. The strange moon was hanging in the sky again, pouring silvery moonlight onto the gardens. My eyes traced the green shrubbery and the maze carved out against the tile and dirt, the path snaking around all the way to the horizon. My pulse quickened and instinctively I ran.
I escaped the room, through the hall and down the stairs. The walls whooshed by, a flurry of stone engravings and tapestries spun from the finest materials, and I kept my eyes forward. Hurling myself onto the marbled floors, I rushed through and through, not stopping to look behind me or to take a moment to consider my half baked plan.
Instead, I rushed into the ballroom and the great hall, past the gilded table where we had dined, past the thick doors that separated this enchanted castle from the world, through the green gardens and the swaths of pink and white and purple, and finally to the wooden door, it's iron latch all too conveniently undone, as if it knew I was coming.
I flung it open, my fingers burning in red hot anticipation, and I started to the side, the lip of the platform only a few feet away but still so far. I was going to jump. I didn't care if it killed me. I didn't care if I had to swim in the nothingness. I didn't care. I wanted to be free. I had to be free. I had to—
A hand gripped by waist, flinging me backward, a cable snapped tight. Suddenly my vision went wide. I was being pulled back into the garden, and another hand wrapped around me, bracing my writhing body against a harder, stronger one. My arms reached out to the edge, still reaching for the relief that met me on the other side, but it was no use.
"What are you doing?" Dimande shouted. "Stop!"
I bucked, trying to buckle his knees, but Dimande was too strong. He wrangled me close and I gave another kick.
"Let me go!" I screamed, thrashing my limbs. "Let me go!"
He held on tighter. One of his arms released, but just enough to wrap it over to my opposite bicep, pressing both my arms down toward my core. Dimande stumbled backward, still holding on as I kicked out my legs.
"Stop!" He shouted, pressing down harder. But it was no use. I continued to buck, flailing my legs out, positioning my body like a fulcrum as if to push myself back before flinging forward. All the while, he continued to grip. As I snaked against him, I looked out into the sky and the enormity of it hit me.
Its blackness rolled in and out, the way a cloudless sky does on a brilliantly sunny afternoon. If you looked at it too long, you would start to realize the sky is nothing but a void, a sea devoid of life that floats on for ever and ever and ever. Suddenly, I was shaking. Was I really going to try and fight all of that?
I was out of breath, gasping for air, and my legs gave way to the floor. Dimande let me go, watching me as I liquified. As I sat on my knees, I looked up at him, his face illuminated by the moonlight, his eyes flickering and slicked in black.
"What were you thinking?" His voice cracked. "Usagi, you could've died!"
"I know," I sputtered. My body slumped even further and I fought every nerve in my body to resist looking back at the edge behind me. "I know."
He fell to his knees and reached his hand out to me, gently placing it on my shoulder. My head hung down and my eyes fixated on a single piece of tile lining the walkway. It was scuffed and dirt-speckled, but it was still beautiful. My heart pumped beneath my chest. I had almost died. I was almost dead.
"Usagi," Dimande lifted my chin. His usual self assuredness was gone, instead he looked strained, almost as if he was afraid. It was one of the first times I had seen him look truly genuine. "Why would you do that?"
My breath caught. I wanted to cry, I could feel the lump burning my throat, as if it were about to rupture. But I couldn't. Instead I looked into his face, studying his eyes, and shook my head.
"I don't know."
He took his other hand and brought it to my face. Both his palms cupped my jaw and I flared with heat. Dragging his thumb across my cheek, he looked at me with a sincerity that soothed me inside and out. He had been scared. He was relieved. He was grateful.
"Please," he whispered. "Please don't ever do that again."
His hands roved to the back of my neck, and he drew me in. Instinctively, I pressed my hands into his back, returning his embrace. It wasn't a sensual hug-or even a friendly one-it was like a cold shower after a long, hot day. It awoke my body and made me feel a tranquility that reminded me I was still alive. On our knees still, he held each other, our fingers clawing in, too afraid to let go.
When he finally drew back from me, he got to his feet and reached out a hand. I took it, pulled myself to my feet, brushed myself off and waited for him to speak. Suddenly, I felt so foolish. The adrenaline of my near-jump was now completely gone, and I was left with the shameful realization of what I had done and of what could've happened.
Dimande looked into me—through me—and his face twisted with uncharacteristic concern.
"Did I drive you to do this?" He asked, his voice somber and slow.
He had, but I didn't want to say it.
"I…" I paused. "I was just trying to go home."
He nodded his head, but his eyes flickered to mine, and I could tell that he understood. He knew his words had driven me to the edge. He knew he was to blame.
"Usagi." He shook his head. "I'm so sorry."
"I'm fine," I lied.
"You're not," he said, reaching for my hand. I didn't pull away as he caressed it. "I should've never asked you to do this."
He let out a trembling sigh and clenched harder down onto my wrist. He turned his head, looking over both of his shoulders, surveying the grounds with his eyes and penetrating the night with a listening ear, before he turned back to me. Violet danced in his eyes, a mesmerizing shade that looked mournful and resolute.
"I shouldn't have run." My words were a lie, a heavy, heaving lie that laid flat in my mouth. My stomach turned. I had to run-I needed to run-but I should've been more thoughtful, less careless. "I couldn't stay here, Dimande."
"So you would rather condemn yourself to death?" His voice was tight. "I couldn't bear it."
"But you could bear to see me used by a stranger?" I could feel the anger burning in me.
"No," he shook his head. "I didn't know you would've tried to do this, Usagi. I thought maybe you'd fight, but that I could convince you—"
"You thought you could trick me." I pulled my hand away from his and shoved it back down to my side. "You thought you could control me."
"I don't want to control you," he whispered, his voice pricked by sadness. "I only wanted your help. I was going to do whatever it took to keep you safe. I was going to be the thing that stood between him and you."
"And why would you need to do that, if you hadn't already sold me out?"
"Because he was going to find you anyway."
His words hung. Dimande had intercepted the mysterious man who wanted my crystal, but in what way, I wasn't sure. Something in the way he stood in front of me, bare and vulnerable, made me deviate just slightly into his orbit. Was it because I had been so hurt by Mamo? Was it because I felt so lost?
The man standing in front of me was not the one I had come to know many years ago, the one obsessed with petty revenge. If he was acting, the stage he had set was unlike any other I had ever seen: Full of passion, of sorrow, of regret.
My mind raced against itself. My friends had become strangers, my lover had abandoned me. Could it be possible that now my enemy was changing too?
"What do you mean?" I choked. "I thought he needed you…"
"He needed someone," Dimande said. "I was just the first target who agreed."
"He asked others?" I said.
"I'm not sure," Dimande responded. "But I do know he would've found you with or without me. And at least if I'm here I can protect you from him."
"And gain something for yourself," I spat back. His eyes clenched tight and he swallowed. My words had teeth.
"Yes," he said softly. "I would gain something: The chance to start over again, redeem myself and my people. A cause I thought you could understand."
"I…" I stammered. "I want to believe you."
"Usagi," he said. "Believe me, please. Believe me. Even if it means I have to take you back to Earth and protect you with my life—without your magic—I would do it. But after seeing this—after seeing you—I can't just keep you. I would never let anything bad happen to you."
He trailed off, reaching out to me as he did it. He looked so weak, like an injured bird trying to catch one last gust of wind.
"You would take me home?" I clarified. "And you wouldn't make me use my crystal."
"If that is what you truly wanted me to do, I would do it."
He burned with a sincerity that cascaded around me, sucking up the midnight air and spitting it out again, renewed and hopeful. It jolted against the stillness and I had to shore myself against it as it rained down. I believed him.
I believed him.
I nodded my head and stepped forward. He reached out his hand and I took it, at first a chaste handshake as if a deal among associates, but when I turned mine in his, I weaved my skin underneath the weight of his palm and our fingers interlaced. He was stunned.
Soberly, he watched me, examining my every move.
"I'd like to go home then," I said softly. "I'll take my chances against him there."
Dimande nodded. "When morning comes, I will take you home."
He pulled on me slightly, and we began walking together back toward the castle in perfect silence, the fairy lights illuminating our path. And with each step I took back toward the castle, pieces of my doubt in Dimande started to fall away like petals floating off a dead, lifeless stem.
Later that night as I lay awake, I couldn't stop thinking about that desperate look in his eye.