"I was a princess."
The phrase that started it all.
Ikuko was washing dishes at the sink when she heard her little daughter, all of three, proclaim this quite matter-of-factly from her spot on the floor. She looked down past her heavily pregnant belly to where Usagi was playing at her feet. At first she only saw twin sprigs of blonde hair, but then Usagi tilted her head up and gave her mother a toothy grin. She showed off the doll in her hand, and Ikuko could see that it was wearing a dress and crown. No doubt the trigger to this latest flight of fantasy.
"Oh, were you?" Ikuko humored her. The toddler's cherubic face lit up, pleased to be indulged. She brandished the doll again.
"Yeah'n I had dress like dis and hair hadda bun. Two buns. Can I has my hair in buns, Mama?"
"Tomorrow, sweetheart," Ikuko answered distractedly, shaking the water off a plate before transferring it into the drying rack.
"I hadda kitty too," Usagi continued. Her precocious blue eyes plied Ikuko's. "Can I has kitty, Mama?"
"No kitty, Usagi. I'm sorry. We're far too busy for a pet right now."
Usagi pouted. "Can I has cookie?" she asked, changing topics faster than the woman could blink. Ikuko rolled her eyes but found herself reaching for the jar on the counter; she could see the meltdown coming a mile away and anyway, what was the harm? Some mothers might have feared they were spoiling their child's dinner, but Usagi always had a healthy appetite. It didn't matter how much she ate, she would never fail to ask for more. Ikuko had no idea where she put it. The girl was so tiny.
She passed the cookie over and watched as Usagi chomped down with unabashed delight. She rubbed her belly and felt a thrill of nerves as the babe within kicked back.
Usagi was an utter joy, but she was not an easy child, either. From the moment she was born, she had been a handful - from the hours of colic, to her insatiable stomach, to the intensity of her mood swings. And now there would be two of them.
Would they get along, she wondered?
~o~
The initial signs were not promising.
She had read about the inevitable regressions that followed the birth of a sibling, but Ikuko was woefully unprepared for how altogether different it was to actually experience it.
"No no no," Usagi cried, shoving away her new baby brother as they tried to place him in her arms. "I don' have bro-ver!"
"You do, Usagi. His name is Shingo," Ikuko countered gently, once again offering her a peek of his sweet and wrinkly features, still so fresh from the womb. She remembered so clearly when her daughter looked like that, but now there was no trace of that innocent infant as Usagi glared up at her with an almost betrayed cast to her face.
"No, I'm princess. Princess has no bro-ver!"
Ikuko sighed, seeking out Kenji with uncertain eyes but he just shrugged, at as much of a loss as she.
"She might still be a little out of sorts. She wandered off and got lost in the children's wing after we got your flowers."
"I really do love my flowers, Usagi," Ikuko said beseechingly, trying to find her way back into the small girl's normally free flowing good graces. She shifted Shingo to one arm and extended the other. "Come see Mama?"
It was as if a shadow fell over Usagi's eyes at that word, and Ikuko was utterly bemused as the three year old went stiff with fear. "You... you not my Mama! No! You not my Mama!"
Ikuko swore her heart shattered then and there; she was surprised no one else heard the sound. Her pained and crestfallen expression was apparently such that Kenji decided to escort the hysterical Usagi from the room.
"She'll be fine. Give her time. She's just overwhelmed," he assured her, but Ikuko didn't lower her imploring hand until long after the pair left and then it was to hide her wet face in an achingly empty palm.
~o~
The trend continued, much to Ikuko's dismay. She had expected a regression to involve sudden refusals to potty train or an upkick in defiance. She hadn't expected that nearly every day, for months after they brought Shingo home, Usagi would comment about how much she missed her "other mother". She would go on about her "pretty white dress" and "wings", and Ikuko would try to bury her hurt with a kind smile and even kinder responses.
"Wow, she sounds like an angel."
"She had white hair. It glowed!"
"Beautiful," Ikuko said, shielding her tears with her decidedly unimpressive blue hair as she latched Shingo to nurse. The tiny boy suckled, blissfully unaware of what havoc his sister was wreaking on their mother's already fragile postpartum emotional state.
Nights were even worse.
She went from dealing with Shingo's screams to Usagi's; sleepwalking her way to each bedroom and somehow summoning the lucidity to provide each with the comfort they needed.
Usagi never used to have nightmares, and now they plagued her daily. She would tangle herself completely within her sheets, a sweaty frothing mess, waking in terror and confusion. Minutes would pass where she wouldn't even recognize Ikuko, let alone her bedroom and other surroundings.
"I wanna go home," she'd plead. "Please, wanna go home."
"You are home, Usagi," Ikuko would repeat, over and over like a broken mantra. The sleep deprivation lending her a merciful numbness so necessary during moments like these. "Home with Mama and Papa and Shingo."
"No. I wan' my Mama. My real Mama! When can I see her again?"
She never knew what to say to that.
So, she'd simply gather the sobbing girl into her loving arms, and though she was reluctant at first, Usagi eventually relaxed into Ikuko's tender embrace. Ikuko would hum and rock and caress until finally, finally, Usagi would drift back to sleep.
Until it would begin again.
One night, Ikuko was startled by a blood-curdling scream from Usagi.
"Endymion!!!"
Strangely it was this, more than anything so far, that shook Ikuko to her core.
~o~
It was only a name, but it was a very real name with a basis in Greek mythology which Usagi at three years old should have known nothing about. One of her friends even suggested the theory of past lives, which Ikuko scoffed at at first, but then her friend started sharing anecdotes about children Usagi's age who recited details about lives of deceased locals that turned out to be accurate. It drove Ikuko to the library, trying to read up what she could, but she found little to link between the tale of sleepy shepherd Endymion and Usagi's fragmented daytime stories. Still, she started to question the girl more intently, desperate to understand what had come over her daughter.
"What was your other Mama's name, Usagi?"
"I dunno."
"You told me you had friends? Er, guardians? Who were they?"
"Bwue, red, gween, orange... Mm... I tink others but don' 'member."
"Your kitty?"
"Dunno."
They were stacking blocks together while Shingo napped, and Ikuko could sense her frustration mounting as her towers became more haphazard. Usagi must have sensed this because she offered,
"She was b'wack do. B'wack widda mark. And she talk."
Ikuko had to admit... the longer this went on, the more freaked out she was becoming. It felt like so much more than a product of bringing a new sibling home. Usagi's imagination had always been impressive, but lately it seemed she had immersed herself so deeply in this other reality that the line between truth and fiction had blurred for her. She really thought these characters existed. Ikuko swallowed tightly.
"And Endymion? Who's Endymion, Usagi?"
Usagi's face darkened like a storm cloud. It was an eerie expression on one so young, and so out of place for her especially. Usagi was always so happy-go-lucky. She took the blocks she'd been stacking and in one swift motion, sent them careening to the floor. They tumbled to Ikuko's feet.
"Don' wanna talk no more, Mama."
"But Usagi-"
"NO!"
Ikuko snapped her mouth shut when she saw how worked up Usagi had become. The child looked close to bawling, arms crossed in anger. She took a deep breath. She'd heard a million and one warnings from other mom friends about 'threenagers'. She'd yet to experience that herself... until now. Ikuko started collecting Usagi's blocks, ignoring the guilt in her gut for pushing the girl so.
"Bet you can't build a tower as high as I can!" she goaded, falsely cheery, but thankfully toddlers were easily distracted.
~o~
Usagi's delusions reached their peak when she was about four years old, and that was when Ikuko decided it was time to pack up her daughter and her son and drive an hour away to meet a psychologist who was a pro in her field.
She sat in the uncomfortably stiff-backed chair, wringing her hands and listening to Usagi chatter on to the woman, who amazingly did not seem to care that Shingo was tottering around the office pulling out books, sticking things in his mouth and otherwise ignoring the toys Ikuko had brought along to deter him from all of the above. She knew this fantasy now like the back of her hand. The princess, the other mother, the color guardians, the damn cat. And now, the latest additions, and the reason why she trekked all this way. The burning end of a kingdom, the gruesome deaths of all these mysterious characters. And the one Usagi seemed to struggle with the most... Endymion. She still didn't talk much about him, but Ikuko had gathered that Usagi created him as a love interest for her princess figure. A love interest who also perished, without any real resolution to their relationship. The whole thing was just so, so odd, and what scared Ikuko the most was how very detailed it all was. No child should ever have information like that in their head, and especially not hers, who from the very moment of her birth she had tried extremely hard to shield from the harsher aspects of life. Aside from an ill-fated carnival goldfish, she shouldn't even know what death was.
Yet here she was, explaining what it felt like to have a sword shoved through her gut.
"And what was your kingdom, Usagi-san? The one that collapsed to the evil red lady?"
"The moon," Usagi answered, immediately.
Ikuko blinked; that was a new one. She looked to the psychologist who shot her an almost indiscernible quirk of the lips. She thought it might have contained a touch of reassurance.
"Usagi-san, you do know there are not and never have been any kingdoms on the moon, right? It's a rather uninhabitable environment up there. Man only just set foot on the moon about twenty years ago, and they have to wear these really clunky white spacesuits because you can't even breath. There's no oxygen, and also no gravity for buildings. Everything would float away!"
Usagi looked very put-out at having been corrected. She crossed her arms and scuffed one foot at the floor. "It's true though. I not lying. There was white castle, I 'member it."
"Yes, forgive me, I'm sure it is very real to you," the woman said, in the most placating tone that Usagi seemed sated. She adjusted her glasses and turned to Ikuko.
"A word alone, Tsukino-san? My assistant will be in to monitor the littles," she said with a courteous smile.
When they had privacy, the psychologist put her hand on Ikuko's shoulder. "I don't think you have anything to worry about, Tsukino-san."
"No?" Ikuko said, hopefulness a bird with wings that perched in her chest. It gave her voice a lilting trill she hadn't felt in nearly a year.
"Has Usagi-san ever tried to hurt her brother? Or you or your husband?"
"No."
"Is she struggling in school? Unable to make friends?"
"No, quite the opposite actually. Her teachers tell me she is a joy to have in class. Perhaps a little lazy, sometimes easily distractible, but that she has a heart of gold and makes friends without effort. That's why her morbid stories bother me so."
The psychologist nodded. "It's understandable. But truly, I do not think you have anything to worry about. Imaginations run rampant at this stage in life, and children are little sponges, they absorb so much more than we realize, even just passing conversations or a blurb on television. It's my professional opinion that Usagi-san created this fantasy as a way to deal with the perhaps initially unwelcome expansion of your family, and has continued to dwell in it as a coping mechanism for any further changes that rocked her previously simple world. You said she just started preschool?"
"Yes, it's her first time being away from home."
"You see? That's terrifying to a small child. Huge, momentous life change. It's no wonder she concocted up another life, and let's be honest - the darker elements, the other mother? These are cries for attention from a girl who used to have your sole attention, and now it is split. I often find that to a child, any reaction is desired - good or bad, they just want to feel seen. Heard. It's a phase, Tsukino-san. A phase like all the rest of them, and I guarantee you she's going to outgrow it. In most cases, they don't even remember once they reach adolescence."
~o~
Ikuko felt like she could finally breathe again. The psychologist left the door open to her in case Usagi ever showed signs that basically would have pointed to a latent mental illness, sociopath tendencies and the like, but in the end...
She was right.
All it took was time.
Usagi did eventually outgrow it, and as she aged the fantastical stories slowly faded away as did Ikuko's memories of the whole ordeal, to be replaced with the rigors of maintaining house and navigating junior high, puberty, boys...
That is, until the day ice rained from the sky and darkness encapsulated the earth, and surely it would have been the Apocalypse if not for an ethereal woman flanked by a man in princely armor and the legendary Sailor Senshi. She bore a pulsating crystal between her hands that shone so brightly Ikuko could hardly stand to put eyes upon it, and much like a sun it filled her with almost unbearable warmth. She also bore an absolutely striking resemblance to Usagi, until Ikuko realized...
She was Usagi.
"I was a princess... and now I am a queen," she said in a booming yet gentle voice, looking directly at Ikuko and yet everywhere else in the strangest kaleidoscope effect. It was as if Usagi was seeping into every essence of her being; a warmth that caressed her mind as tenderly as she had the girl, so many years before, after every hurt and nightmare.
"You have all been in deep sleep for a very long time, a protection against certain catastrophe. The time has now come to wake up; to renew our planet. But first let me tell you a story the world forgot. My story. And in effect... yours..."
She could see images playing out that she was not conjuring herself; a white castle... a benevolent queen... a princess who lived on the moon and yearned for a prince and a future that was not destined to be...
Flashes flashes flashes. It was true, oh Kami-sama it had been true, all of it. Every last word, every detail, Usagi had been recollecting a life she truly did live and lose... and then, somehow, she had been gifted to her. Ikuko. Her of all people, raising a powerful reincarnated moon princess she hadn't even believed, and now she despaired that perhaps little Usagi had been right all along. She hadn't been Usagi's real mother. A mother to a daughter, yes, but a borrowed daughter. Not the first to bear her. Not the first to love her. Certainly not the only to try to confine her to a path she ultimately was not meant to follow. But as these failures fell around her, as she crumpled and wept, she felt Usagi again like ghostly arms, wrapping her up and holding her tight. Her whisper, so fiercely loving that Ikuko knew, despite not being the first, despite her shortcomings... all was forgiven.
"You are my Mama. You always have been, and always will. Serenity made me a princess. You made me a queen."
~FIN~
Author's Note: A little one shot in honor of upcoming Mother's Day. The very real science of children remembering past lives has always intrigued me, and I realized I could do something really cool with Usagi and Ikuko given what Usagi might recall in her formative years. It's a perfect brew of angst and fluff and I sure hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. This latest news about Sailor Moon Cosmos has me in a fandom lovin' mood lately!
Psst. Shaaaaameless plug time, but "Blind Faith" has its 29th chapter up now too and I'm super darn proud of it. My longest ever to date. If you can believe it the story is ramping up to its climax very soon now. Only about 6 or 7 chapters left. Hop on over and give her a read!? Usagi/Mamoru slow burn first season AU ;)
As always, reviews are cake to this hardcore sugar junkie! Drop me a flavor and a line :D Chocolate peanut butter is my personal fave!
AngelMoon Girl
