FYI, this is a (much) more serious piece than usual, but I hope you still appreciate what I've tried to do with the theme.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hush Sound's beautiful music (darn), specifically "You Are the Moon."
#47: Broken Glass
I will bring a mirror, so silver, so exact
So precise and so pristine, a perfect pane of glass
The soft rustling of sheets and the slight creak that sounded as Usagi rose from bed, wakened her fiancee. Her form slipped out of the nighttime shadows that engulfed the bedroom as, with a click, she turned on the bathroom light.
He would have allowed sleep to roll over him once more, if not for an undefinable tug he felt within him. There was nothing out of the ordinary about her waking up and going to the bathroom, but when he only heard frozen silence escape that room, and he'd looked to see the dots of perspiration that remained on her pillow—in spite of the cool night—Mamoru pushed himself up to follow her.
His unease bloomed into panic upon hearing an abrupt shattering of glass. The mad dash brought him to the bathroom's threshold and then he saw her sitting there: under the brash halogen light, the hand mirror she kept in his cupboard held in her tight grasp, as she stared intently into it. The broken glass showed empty eyes, but she didn't break her unwavering gaze. The glittering shards splayed out on the floor were spread about her like the moat protecting the fortress.
A mumble: "S-sorry, it fell. I'll clean it up."
He knelt. Put up a hand to free the mirror from her fragile fingers, but her clasp only tightened.
All the light that you possess is skewed by lakes and seas
The shattered surface, so imperfect, is all that you believe
It was a burden, he knew. God he knew. Not the responsibility, but the doubts rousing her from sleep; the apprehension of never being good enough, not being ready to be Neo-Queen Serenity.
Without a word, he scooped her into the hollow of his arms. Clinks from the glass sounded behind them as pieces fell from the skirts of her nightgown. She continued to look into the mirror's cracked surface, the black shooting out across it like veins.
"I broke it. Bad luck," she told him, eyes focused on her distorted, white-faced reflection.
The girl, the warrior who could stand down an army, who'd met death's eye unflinchingly, was reduced to a magic trick: white smoke and a mirror.
She murmured, "Put me down. You don't need to act like the savior all the time." He slid the balcony door open and gently released her. But she continued: "Even I'm strong enough to walk on my own two feet. But you probably don't agree, huh?" She didn't wait for an answer. The young woman shut her eyes to the moonlight and in a voice that broke: "I can't do it. I can't be the destiny of this whole world. I can't be queen. I'll ruin it—everything. Why do I have this...this weight on my shoulders? I'm not fit for any of it, Mamoru!" She whirled to face him, then immediately looked back at the mirror. "This is not the face of a leader. I'm weak. Broken."
She was still luminescent in white, her hair's soft light cast about her shoulders, but when he took the mirror from her he didn't show her this particular beauty. Instead he turned it to face the full moon. Its incandescent white light was brilliant even in the glass shards. He showed her the glow of the moon's face, a beauty that cut through the night with surety.
"You're wrong. That is you, Usa. It's your past and your present, and all of us are your future. The moon has the courage to come out every night, no matter its brilliance, sometimes a sliver of light, sometimes a whole, beautiful self. I know you can push forward too, love; and your light can lead all of us out of the darkness.
Yes, you're our destiny. But the Earth is the Moon's destiny too. It is yours and you, my beautiful Usa, are mine; you're not alone, love."
You don't see what you possess, a beauty calm and clear
It floods the sky and blurs the darkness like a chandelier
"And now the Moon's bidding us good night. Please come to sleep, my moon."
She let him twine his fingers in hers and he saw that the light had begun to fill her eyes once more.
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