everything that's good is borrowed. time, joy, light, that green sweater, your crooked marvelous body. you don't know when anything is due back so dance it all to dust while you can
-by Tiny Fairy Tales ( tinyfairytales on Twiiter)

Juu sighed as she finally reached the door of her flat. Curse you elevators, she thought, you're letting this whole damn building down. It was not as if she had flight magic or a good enough command of transportation runes to compensate. Still, she supposed this was one of the good things about not being nearly as creaky as one would expect from someone her age.

Not that it stopped her from almost flopping over when she unlocked the door and stepped into the flat. She managed to pull herself together to lock the door behind her, then dump her bag in her room before going to take a shower. Said shower mostly seemed to do the trick, but it was not until she returned to her bedroom and gazed out of the window that she felt any sense of relief. From this high up, she could practically see the entire length of the river, glittering under the early evening sun as people strolled past it, presumably heading home from work, school and other places. She could also still hear it from this high up, that rushing of water that grounded her. It was why she lived here, after all. Why, in the years she'd been homeless she'd tried to camp by riversides or lakes, and she hadn't moved in with any partners who didn't live nearby to bodies of water. Her fellow pool survivors were the same. It was why Jan still lived in her late grandfather's lakehouse, Risu in her houseboat and Rain in her cute little house by the sea, near Hotaruhama. That pull of the water, it was one of the few things that had not disappeared as they'd returned to fully human, a reminder that they could never truly be normal again.

There were other things too, of course. But in some ways it was the pull of the water that had been the one that had dominated Juu's life all these years, although now she was aging there was another concern.

But don't think of that now, Juu said as she opened her window and leant out slightly, gripping onto the sill so she didn't fall over, before closing her eyes. She breathed it in, the smell of the river and all the plants beside it, the crispness of the air that promised a cool night ahead, the gentle warmth of the remaining sun. She let it all wash over her, clearing the last of her workday exhaustion and general disorientation away and then she opened her eyes and looked out at the view.

Hold on a minute, is that…?

She frowned down at the figure standing by the pretty tree near the riverbank, and despite being high up she was sure.

"KYOUKI!" she yelled as loud as she could. "KYOUKI!"

The figure startled, and then looked up before lifting a hand to wave. Juu grinned.

"Give me a moment," she called. "I'll come down!"

She closed the window and then grabbed her keys, her purse and jacket before slipping her shoes back on and heading back down the stairs she had trudged up moments ago, before going down the road and around the corner to reach the river. Kyouki was facing the other way, so Juu called out to her again and then grinned and waved. Despite being tired from rushing back down all those stairs again, she rushed the final few steps until she was standing next to Kyouki underneath the tree.

"Hi," Kyouki said. "I'd forgotten you lived around here now. The last time we saw each other was…when? Risu's wedding last year, right?"

"Yeah, that's right." Juu replied.

She remembered that well, how happy it had been, especially considering how late it was in their lives for such a thing. She remembered wanting to dance with Kyouki the way she had once done when they'd been young but refraining.

"So," she continued on valiantly. "Your son and grandkids are around here, right? You've been visiting them?"

"Yes, that's right," Kyouki smiled. "They're growing up fast, they are. Reminds me of when Arjun was little…but anyway, isn't this such a lovely example of a Snow Larch?"

Kyouki turned to pat the trunk of the tree that they were standing under, and Juu stared at it.

"Snow Larch?"

"Yes," Kyouki explained. "Some of the World Trees can be grafted with certain already-existing trees, or their seeds…well, in a way it's almost like trees having children. It's hard to explain the process, really, but it's not really like how typical trees breed. In any case, Professor Snow's tree can combine with larches, and they've called it a Snow Larch. That's what you're seeing here."

Juu kept staring at the tree. She'd thought that it vaguely resembled Professor Snow's World Tree, the pastel prettiness of it. But since it didn't look exactly like that tree she'd just assumed it was a rarer magical species. She supposed that in a way she was right though.

"Have any others done this?"

"Professor Nyamai's and the ash tree, Professor Mshrupo's with the willow-there are loads of those around where Seraph lives, we call them the purple willow. And, actually, Professor Kenta's and the Angel Tree. We call them Angel Yews-there are some guarding my local graveyard. Look, I'll show you."

Juu's interests did not lie in the tree direction, but nonetheless she was fascinated as Kyouki got her phone out and pulled up a picture of a large tree. She recognised it as a yew tree with a large white trunk that shimmered faintly. The leaves were eye-achingly green, but interspaced with leaves that were opalescent and there was something that was softer about the tree in comparison to a typical yew.

"It's the closest those two would get, don't you think? To having children of their own." Kyouki murmured.

Juu nodded. She knew the person who had once been the Angel Tree had died before really having time to be devastated by the barrenness that immortality had bought her. But even though Juu was still mortal (she should know, given how she and the others had been tested six ways to Sunday to make sure), she knew that devastation herself, a consequence of having been transformed into something else for all those months. Still, she supposed that the Angel Tree had had a good afterlife, and Juu's life was also currently good, despite everything that she still regretted, despite the difficulties. A life well lived.

Which reminds me…

"How's Jun?" she asked, passing the phone back.

Kyouki's expression clouded over as she took back her phone.

"He's…well, he can do some stuff in his own garden but it's Kenna doing most of his work for Riverlight. I mean, that was always her plan, but day by day's he's deteriorating and it's hard for them to watch that, for her to be starting the role because of that. But the whole family are just trying to make the most of what days are left. We all are, really."

"That's why we're trying to arrange another Hotaruhama trip, right?"

Kyouki nodded at this, gazing at the river.

"It'll be nice for all of us to see each other again in one group, even if he wasn't going to die. Right?" Juu asked hesitantly.

"Oh, of course, especially for you," Kyouki nodded hard, still looking ahead. "Still, it's not fair though. I mean, it's not as if any of us would ever want to be immortal or anything but it's not fair."

Kyouki looked at her, anguished. For a moment all Juu could do was blink. Even after all these years, Kyouki was beautiful. No, not even after, but because of the years. The lines around her eyes and mouth, the silvering of her hair, the age spots and paperiness of her hand's skin- all of those were signs of a life well lived. Juu wished she could look in the mirror and see the same.

"It's not fair that we went through everything before only for it to be like this. The illness is hollowing him out, it's like seeing everything crumble around us all over again. "

"I….I know." Juu said. "It hardly seems fair, when he's not done anything wrong. But we didn't really back then, either."

"I did." Kyouki said fiercely.

Juu blinked at her, and Kyouki reddened slightly. Juu found herself remembering the first time she'd met her, in their dorm after the first day lessons and how absorbed Kyouki had been in gathering the things she needed to dash out to the school gardens that she hadn't noticed Juu standing there watching, already enamoured but trying to hide it. We could have been something, couldn't we? If not for that night in the forest, if not for the way we escaped it, the two of us could have been something.

"It wasn't your fault."

"I could have said something anyway-"

"Frost was ruthless, we know this. She was ruthless, and Cookie was just trying to protect us the only way she knew how at the time. And what were any of us supposed to do, really? Those weights were not ones that should've been placed on our shoulders."

"You've forgiven me?" Kyouki asked thickly.

"There was nothing to forgive you for in the first place."

It felt oddly freeing to say the words, that had been buried so deep inside of her, that had remained so even as she'd regained her speech. She sighed and stretched, glancing at the Snow Larch before continuing.

"But if there had been anything to forgive you for, I'd have done so a long, long time ago."

Kyouki gulped, and wiped her eyes roughly.

"Even so, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Is this why you've been avoiding me all these years? Even though I know that you've held some sort of feeling for me?"

"I…."

"No, that was mean," Juu shook her head. "I'll always be grateful that you're still in my life, and how much you were there for all four of us in those scary days when we didn't remember what it was to be human. But we had something, didn't we? We had something, and even though I respected your choices to try other romances and was so happy for you when you married I think there was always a part of me that was wondering…"

There was a part of Juu that hated how long she had spent pining and not just because she'd trashed so many other relationships with perfectly lovely people because of it. Not just that, but also because when Kyouki had divorced while her son was still a teenager, there'd been a part of her wondering if this was it, the chance at love she'd been searching for. Even as she had listened to Kyouki's worries as she went through the divorce process Juu had wondered this, and she'd hated how selfish it'd made her. She'd never said anything, of course.

Kyouki stared at her for a long moment, and then said:

"There was a part of me that was wondering, too."

"But you never said anything, either."

"I didn't want you to think it's because I felt sorry for you, or because I felt bad. And you were recovering on top of that and by the time I worked up the courage it…it felt too late."

Juu swallowed, and stuck her hands deep in her pockets, leaning back against the trunk of the Snow Larch.

"Do you think that now?"

"I…"

"I don't. I mean, we're all getting old, even me. And perhaps one of us might be the ones to get ill next, or we'll just pass on in our sleep one day but…you said Jun and Robyn and their family are making the most of the time they've got left, right? They've gone on to have a happy life together despite what happened all those years ago and now they're treasuring what they've got left of it. And after all, we have just been to Risu's wedding, so we all know happiness can be found at any time. It can't be too late."

Kyouki laughed softly, sadly and shielded her eyes against the now-setting sun.

"As long as we're alive, right?" she sighed. "I….I know we can't pick up from where we left off but…I'd like to try, I think. At least to dance with you again, if not anything else."

Ah, yes, that dance. Juu smiled at the memory-the outfit she'd worn and how it felt against her skin, the warmth of Kyouki as the two of them had swayed- and she nodded.

"Well, we could start with that. I think I have some of the songs that were played back then somewhere on my music player. Do you want to come back up to mine? That is, if you've not got to go back home or anything."

Juu held her breath. It was the first time she had ever invited Kyouki to her home, and only Kyouki. Another of those thing she hadn't dared to do, feeling it was too late and selfish. A part of her was terrified, thinking that perhaps it really was too late, too selfish.

But then Kyouki smiled and held out her hand:

"Sure."

Now it was Juu's turn to roughly wipe her eyes, but once she had done so she smiled, and grabbed Kyouki's hand. Then, the two of them started walking back towards home.