Hearing this, Amatsukunitama was put into a great rage, and could think only of bringing harm to Amenosagume, and said: "She may live, but I shall break her wing." To which the deity Omoikane said: "Tsukuyomi has no need for her wing. I cannot deny thee." Thus Amatsukunitama took his twelve-span sword, and with it cut off the wing of Amenosagume, so that all might see the fruits of her actions.
Sagume groaned and rolled over in bed. Her back was knotted up and twitching, and she arched it, trying to work out some of the tension. Her wing spread up into the air, splitting the dim light coming through the window into feather-striped bars.
Beside her, Eirin stirred as well. "Your wing again?" Even in the darkness, Sagume could feel her eyes on her.
Sagume didn't answer. She was right, though. Sagume could feel her missing wing twitching and flapping in the air, leaving her entire body tense and sore. Another shudder ran through her, and she reached back to irritably slap at it. Her hand hit nothing, of course. Even the feeling of her fingers passing through the empty air didn't convince her body that there was nothing there.
Eirin shifted out from under the sheets to kneel next to her. She rested her hands on Sagume's back and started kneading the flesh. Slowly, the twitches subsided.
"I've told you... three hundred and ninety-one times now. If you'd stop being stubborn, I could fix this."
"I like the reminder," Sagume murmured.
"You like refusing help, mostly. You'd say yes in a heartbeat if you thought you could make it look like your decision."
Sagume gave a disinterested grunt, but she couldn't deny it. There was no point arguing with Eirin, anyway. She was always, infuriatingly, right. As the tension drained out of her, she flexed her wing again, and this time was pleased to find that she couldn't feel a nonexistent one mirroring its motions.
She glanced to the clock. It was a thin rectangle of glass, but dimly-glowing characters on the face assured her that it was 2:48 AM. New technology, the fruits of gathering all of the heavens' brightest minds together on the moon, had been steadily creeping into her life for centuries. The knowledge they'd amassed over the ages could prevent untold suffering on the Earth. Here, they mostly used it to tell time or make their doors open automatically.
Sagume spread her wing a few more times before sinking into the bed with a sigh. "It's fine now. I was awake anyway."
"Very well." Eirin's massage slowed to a stop, but she didn't move from Sagume's side. One hand drifted up to rest near where her wing had been severed, fingers lightly tracing over the scars. "If you'd rather treat the cause instead of the symptoms, I've been thinking about a method to regrow your wing. If we could isolate you in folded space-time, it should be fairly easy to manipulate belief to repair your body..."
"Not interested."
"And there you have it. You'd rather say no than accept any help. I'm almost surprised I convinced you to join us in the first place."
"I'm a contrary bitch like that." Once she was certain that the pain had passed, Sagume rolled over onto her side to face Eirin, tucking her wing in against her back, and leaned in to press a single kiss to Eirin's bared thigh.
Eirin stroked a hand through her hair. "And why couldn't you sleep?"
Sagume eyed her and stayed silent for the moment. At this point, she wanted to decline to answer solely to annoy Eirin. It might make her feel a little better. She felt like she wasn't going to get any sleep until she'd brought it up, though, so...
"There are rumors," she said.
"I'm sure there are."
"Rumors that..." She paused. Over the centuries, she'd gotten very good at dealing with the limitations of her speech, but cases like this still called for careful deliberation. Even directly acknowledging the situation she was speaking about could be enough to reverse it, and she wasn't sure that she wanted to risk that yet.
Instead she stayed silent.
Eirin studied her face. "You wouldn't have brought it up if they didn't concern me in some way."
Sagume didn't answer.
"I'm right, then."
"You're right."
"So you've heard about princess Kaguya's recent interests."
Sagume glanced aside, and willed her face into stone. She didn't know that her abilities could be triggered by nonverbal communication, but in a situation like this, she wasn't about to risk it, either.
"Your network of informants is better than I gave you credit for," Eirin said. "She's been very careful about who she discusses it with."
"I'm told that I'm both cunning and devious," Sagume said dryly.
And the conversation went silent again. Sagume could still feel Eirin's eyes on her, though. She didn't think she was going to get out of some comment on the topic. "If a princess were to consider high sedition, she'd do well to remember that the punishment is very severe."
"And what if she isn't afraid of the punishment?"
Sagume could find no good response that she felt safe putting into words. Eirin answered her own question after a few seconds: "She might welcome exile, in fact. It isn't that she fears death. She's interested in life. She wants to see the things around her grow and change, and have the time and leisure to enjoy them."
"And watch them die."
"And maybe even see them die, yes. She's still young and curious like that. Even if she gave up now, I don't think she'd be satisfied with life on the moon for much longer."
Sagume's lips curled in distaste. Exactly what she should have expected from a princess. She'd heard words like that a dozen times, and they always came from self-absorbed, pampered brats. The kind who had been born here on the moon, who'd never lived on the Earth. Naive and so sheltered that they thought they might find some beauty in watching their friends die.
It was annoying enough that it took her a second or two longer to realize that Eirin didn't sound disturbed by the idea. "Why haven't you tried talking her out of it?" she asked.
"I did. Several times, in fact. She's even more stubborn than you." Eirin looked out the window pensively, and was silent for a few seconds. "I can't entirely disagree with her, though. Eternal life, separated from the need for purity and stasis that we have on the moon... It would let us do some wonderful things."
"... if anybody else were saying things like that, you'd ask me to investigate them."
"Perhaps I would." Eirin slid back down under the covers and up against Sagume's side again, planting a soft, calming kiss on her forehead. "Something like that would take decades to develop, though. I still have plenty of time to talk her out of it."
The two settled in, and after a few final murmured remarks, the conversation ended.
While her pain was gone, Sagume didn't manage any more sleep before the morning came.
