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docholligay · 5 years ago

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By The Better Angels

A release from the Patreon vaults! Me on my Crystal Tokyo shit! Some of you love it, some of you hate it, but much like a dandelion, it will come every season.

This was Rachelle's prompt! This has been a really interesting thing to write for me--it's been rewarding, it's been frustrating, this fic so desperately did not want to be written, like yanking a thistle root. But I FINALLY MADE IT, and there are parts of it I really think are quite nice. I would love to hear what you think! Thank you!! approx 4,400 words.

The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature--Abraham Lincoln.

Loyalty.

It was what the moon had been built upon, all those years ago, and the palace of the Crystal Kingdom glistened in the sunlight, throwing daggers of light onto the gardens and into the eyes of those who might pass by and challenge it directly, and in the wind, Michiru could hear the word rise again.

Rei was wise and Rei could See and Rei was a fool, and all of her assurances and protests that Usagi was Usagi, and so there was nothing to fear, were the mutterings of a self-blinded prophet who refused to hear the echo of the past off the walls.

That Usagi had brought the world under her government, for whatever reason, was sign enough that Serenity lived in her, willing to bring an entire world to heel. That she was happy for them to call her queen.

Michiru picked at the raiments of her formal uniform, stiff and odd at her throat. Military, almost.

She was here to accept the assignment as the Commissioner of the Former Europe, if scuttlebutt was to be believed, and there was no reason not to--even in this new world, Michiru still slid herself easily into gossip and rumor, where people would confess things to her without ever knowing quite why.

It was meant to be an honor, to rule under the Queen, to have an entire continent at her beck and call. Ami had received the Former North America not two weeks ago, and Mako the South, and Mina was expected to be awarded the former Asia after her work on the uprising in Korea. But, like many things that were pressed upon Michiru that were meant to be desirable, she wanted nothing of it.

Usagi had always been selfish, at her worst, and there is nothing that brings out the worst in people quite as well as being royalty. Michiru would know that better than anyone, raised to be quite the little princess herself, and it had created something rotten in her, something spoiled and petty and small.

And she never even had a military backing her.

“The world’s at peace.” Rei had said it with an air of uncertainty, as if she did not quite believe it herself. “There’s no more war.” She had jutted out her chin, then, daring Michiru to argue with her.

But the absence of war was not peace, as Michiru saw it, and in the days passing Usagi’s full receipt of the Crystal’s power, it was true enough that entire cadres of weapons were destroyed, and that no one raised an arm against each other in this bright new world, but when one is not left with even the ploughshares to beat back into swords, revolution is slow in coming.

And she had her Commissioners now, to quell any uprisings, and her white dress stayed unmarred in the Crystal Palace.

She pulled her documents out of her pocket, all the same now, with little indication of what one’s country might have been previously other than the line that indicated languages spoken. And that, too, was changing in this world, as all schools were teaching Japanese--Usagi had never taken to English, and Serenity had no intention of learning, even after Commissioner Mizuno had advised it was the path of least resistance due to wide current global knowledge, if she sought a single tongue--and all official business took place in the same.

Michiru Kaioh looked at her picture, with the faraway and empty eyes, and felt a pang. As much as she sat in this beautiful garden, built and irrigated off the labor of others, dwelling on the slow slide of this world into complete monarchical nonsense, she knew she had her own part in it. There were no angels in the Crystal Empire.

She had fought what was called ‘valiantly’ at some ridiculous medal ceremony, where Mamoru had droned on and on in the way Michiru had never grown to find amusing, just another man who enjoyed his own soliloquy. She had charged into battle in a way that would have made Haruka proud. She had put herself in danger to protect her queen and the future.

That was a lie, it was too pure and touched too much of that word loyalty to be true.

She had been trying to get herself killed.

___

The sky was broken open like a shattered bowl, the black leaking through the dissipating bright blue, starless, moonless, draining toward the earth in slow and syrupy droops, and Haruka’s mouth fell open.

They had seen so much in their time in battle, and yet, in this moment, it felt as if they had seen nothing at all.

“What is that?” Haruka asked quietly, as if Michiru, as always, would know.

Michiru’s eyes closed for a moment, one long blink that returned her to all the dreams she had been having over the months, all the destruction she knew would come.

“We will prevail,” she replied, in her half-truth, having seen so many outcomes where Usagi rose triumphant, “and this will be the last of it.”

For a woman who was rarely sure of many things--futures as far out as she saw them twisted and moved and changed in the wind--this she knew for certain. Whether they won or lost today, the battles would cease on the galaxical stage. This was a defining moment, in so many ways,for all of them.

Haruka grinned. “Of course. Then we’ll get started on that family, huh?”

“Usagi will be tested as well,” Michiru added, afraid to respond to Haruka’s softly lilting joy, “we all will.”

Haruka took her hand. “I know you don’t love Usagi, but she’s always come through for us. She’s more than just...what new queen old queen thing she’s supposed to be. She more than just the princess. She’s Usagi.”

Michiru squeezed her hand. “I certainly hope you are correct.”

___

Her mind shifted, sometimes, like watercolors one over the other, creating some new shade that she not quite know.

Usag cried less, these days, and while she was certain that was a good thing--and anyhow wasn’t there so much less to cry about now?--it was unsettling to have someone criticize her, hate her even, and not feel moved to tears.

Perhaps this was all a part of growing up.

This was her destiny, and she had latched to it and set her life by it, and if the stars had said it was destiny, than how could it be wrong? And besides, she assured herself, she had helped so many people by bringing them peace, by uniting the world as one. Coming together, that was the beauty of the world she had created, and her palace showed it.

The finest marble from what had been Italy, crystal polished to a shine in the country that had once been Brazil, gold leaf from the former China, and those were only the very beginnings of the building. She had imported artisans from all shores to show their loyalty to their new kingdom by contributing to the palace.

Today’s parade and ceremony would be the same, combining so many elements of the lands that she now served, because, the voice in her head reasoned in its whisper, she was serving them, by taking the difficulty of rule, and bringing them to the palace.

It would be mostly things of those areas that Michiru now looked over, but there would always be a thing or two else that Usagi had discovered a fondness for, some French pastries, Swiss Chocolate.

Her mind shifted again, and she thought of Michiru, and how sad she would be, with Haruka gone, and how seeing the rest of her girls would only remind her of the space that was empty in the assembled line. Maybe she would have the cake be champagne, the light cake Michiru favored, with soft lines of cream and rose.

“I can’t,” she said aloud, to no one in particular, “I already ordered chocolate and strawberry.”

“What?” Rei turned to her, her black hair gliding like a veil around her shoulder.

She had forgotten Rei was there.

“I was thinking about the Michiru’s ceremony today,” she fiddled nervously, “I should have done better with the cake, but I ordered the wrong cake.”

“You ordered your favorite.” Rei replied.

___

The rocks tingled with the force of the power that struck them, and Michiru felt that same tingle go up her spine, triggering a memory instead of fear. Fear was of no use now, here at the end or the beginning of everything.

“Do you recall the first time we danced?” Michiru looked at Haruka, the rock crumble falling around them.

Haruka glanced over at her with a disbelieving grin. “Right now, Michi?”

“So you do not.” She teased, smiling back.

“‘Course I do,” another strike hit, “in your living room.”

Michiru had often teased that Haruka was the angel of her better nature, and Haruka pretended to understand it better than she did. She looked the part now, the mica of the stone settling into her ash hair, her shoulders and strands glittering like a tapestry on a church wall.

“You were so uncertain.” Michiru touched her arm gently, the world falling down around them but away from their love.

Haruka chuckled. “How was I gonna know how to waltz? Didn’t do that a lot.”

“You were quite natural, I must say.”

Michiru looked at her, at her soft grey eyes, and was immediately swept back to that day, to how nervous she had been, how she had taken Michiru’s hand shakily, but when she touched Michiru’s back, it was electric. She had never felt anything quite so alive, not since she was a child.

Haruka put her hand on Michiru’s.

“May I have this dance?”

____

The fire was quiet, and this disturbed Rei the most. That things should be odd otherwise, with the world being reorganized, made sense, but that the fire only mumbled and murmured to her, babbling like a brook in indistinct words, this concerned her.

And so, she told no one.

It wasn’t concealment, she swore to herself. It was a simple matter of having no one to tell, no one with the clearance and the need to know, no one she could trust that would understand.

Michiru was so distant. She spoke to Rei in small, short sentences, and Rei told herself this was because she had lost Haruka, and it had hurt her so deeply. Her unhappiness with the kingdom lay in the fact that Haruka was no longer in it.

Michiru would never forgive Usagi, because Haruka had died for her. This Rei knew, and that this was the source of Michiru’s distance and criticism Rei was sure.

She knew that, even as the fire gave no reply to the question.

The world was stable now, and no one could deny this was true. How else was it supposed to be done? She felt a small, slow sizzle rise in her, but she could not make out the words in the steam, the smoke of her own self-assured and silent fire rising around it.

She looked out the window and over the palace gardens, down where Michiru sat, doodling in a notebook thoughtfully. There was a time they would have been together. There was a time Rei would have been taking tea with Michiru, as they waited, and Mina would have teased Rei in that way that was barely teasing, and Rei would have smelled the oversweet and too bright peach of Mina’s hair as she moved.

She had not smelled it since that night in the tent, lost and scarred and trying to feel alive.

Mina had left. Rei stayed.

Our loyalties are funny things, and Rei could not leave Usagi, even when she insisted on being called Queen Serenity, even when she looked over the map of the world and saw it all covered in one color, one land, one country, and even when there was a whisper in the back of her mind that it may be an imperfect peace.

It wasn’t a whisper, it was a scream. But the fire never screamed, just stayed silent, gazing at her from across the room, refusing to tell her what she refused to know.

___

Battles are too loud, and battles are too quiet, and Michiru had always resented the duality of these feelings.

She looked for Haruka, her eyes scanning the battlefield as the enemies surrounded her. They would win this day. That was assured. She and Haruka had chosen to fight, and so fact and fate became one.

Not everything else was.

Not the things Michiru truly wanted to know.

She cut her way through whatever rose up in front of her, and they may have been enemies, and they may have been friends, but none of them were Haruka, and Haruka was the only god she sought, the only thing in which she still had faith, and that faith carried her heart, even as she felt a copper taste at the very edge of her mouth.

Even as she saw the bright gold announcement of the attack hit the sky, saw it lay waste to the large corp, falling like dominos at a children’s table, and even as she saw it stop, and flicker, and collapse in on itself.

The faith preserved. The foolish hope, taken from her lips and given to Michiru’s, that it was the light of an announcing angel, heralding not just any victory, but hers.

Michiru bit her lip harder, and the bright tin taste filled her mouth.

___

There are angels, it is written.

There are angels, it is painted, in sweet and dulcet tones, and these are the angels the world imagines, curls of soft golden and rose hair around soft and rosebud mouths, smiling beatifically at the humans they serve.

There are angels, it is sung, with rich and joyful voices raised to heaven, a perfect chorus, each one supporting the other, welcoming and warming the children of God on earth, waiting for the day when they return to the holiest realms.

But Michiru had seen how the stories got twisted, and the way a soldier could become soft and warm in the right concert hall, the right oils. She went back to the beginning. Back to where something terrible and beautiful was born, and so she knew that an angel was no soft womanly creature, gently guiding, but she was a flaming creature of wings and eyes, who brought a sword of fire to the land.

Angels, you see, come in many forms.

She had reflected upon this as she readied for the banquet, as she heard Haruka, softly, asking her to be an angel, asking her to protect Usagi.

Haruka had once accused her of being unfair, but Michiru could in no way match Haruka’s cruelty in leaving her here, asking Michiru to protect that which took Haruka from her.

She touched the gold rings at her neck, one plain as brass, the other decorated in a slight herringbone that Haruka had called, “just enough flair.”

What a cruel girl.

But she would do it. She had pulled Haruka into the whirlwind of their lives, two sparrows in a hurricane of fate, all those years ago, and simply because she had wanted Haruka, a thing her parents could not buy her, and it was a deserved punishment that she loved Haruka so desperately, and that she was forced to watch Haruka’s life as a senshi.

And so she pulled on a golden breastplate, engraved with rich detailing, as if one lace had been woven into the metal, details in silvers and rose golds. It shone magnificently in the light, as she knew it would. It was made for this day, and she had described lovingly to the man who made it how she would wear it for all official state functions and so it must be the brightest shine that could be achieved.

Usagi would pay for it, she knew, the hiccups between world reigns nothing more than moving from a member of the Kaioh court to Serenity’s, though courtly manners were few in Usagi’s first court.

She was learning, though. Or unlearning. Michiru was not sure which way she preferred the phrase, when the results were the same.

The dagger she now carried was not the chipped and tarnished thing that had accompanied her in her senshi life--their uniforms, their bodies, had always healed, but the weapons held the scars--but a new gift, given after the wars and the ascension of the crystal, sharp as the night and glittering.

A worn and dented sword lay in the corner, no replacement meant for it. No one to replace it for.

____

The wind whistled by her, low and tuneless and nothing of the song she had known in Haruka’s.

The wind. It had been silly, Haruka’s insistence on her element, so desired before she knew her own power, wanting only to be the thing that moves the sea.

Haruka did not understand that the wind caused a wave, but the earth brought forth a tsunami.

Michiru understood. Something deep in her moved, with Haruka at her side, something powerful and dangerous.

Michiru has Seen this sign in the sky before, and Michiru is no one’s fool, and Michiru knows what it must mean.

But the heart and the mind and the mouth can all speak different languages, and Michiru ear refused to recognize any of them, and she ran.

____

Sometimes Usagi did not recognize her own voice, and her mouth offered edicts that her heart did not understand.

And yet, they were not foreign. She had heard, of course, that there was something inside her that was her and was not her, and she had seen the Senshi wrestle with the same, whether they considered it a monster or a gift or barely saw it at all.

She was meant to be queen. This had always been her destiny. Whatever Usagi Tsukino had been, she was born to be something else. She had married Mamoru, and spurned Seiya, for that had been foretold. The crystal was her future and the siren song, and that made it beautiful, didn’t it?

Destiny was beautiful. To be a princess, a queen, was a dream.

And yet the happenings of this world unsettled her, even as she was the one who turned the world, and thing that unsettled her the most was the sense of discord inside of her, like water in the bottom of a boat, sloshing back and forth, listing her to one side and then the other.

And for now, she was as Usagi Tsukino as she had ever been, and her mind turned to the cake she had ordered, the cake that was her favorite. She hadn’t meant to do that, she had meant to order that light, frothy sort of thing that Michiru liked.

But Usagi had wanted chocolate and strawberry, hadn’t she?

And you are the queen, a voice from far away and very near said, and the people love you. And they love what you love.

That the senshi loved her and chose to protect her and be with her was a constant reassurance in her head. She was their family, and always had been, wasn’t she?

Yes, Usagi Tsukino had only ever brought light to the lives of her lonely senshi, and though it felt uncomfortable, she was doing the same to the world now. It was hard, when you started out with something different, something that called you to be something better. She had cried when she fought her first battles. And some of her last.

That would be a good thing to bring into the speech, that she had cried, like them, like the people, but Michiru was resolute, Michiru kept her eyes forward. Serenity was only their queen, who could only understand them, and she set people like Michiru to be the real leaders.

They were the ones with force.

She didn’t feel like crying much, these days, even when Rei looked at her in a way that might have seemed strange once upon a time, even when she noted that her senshi stayed to their assigned posts and rarely came to the palace.

Well, yes, why would they come to the palace? The senshi were only ever born to execute your vision.

Her vision. Usagi had a vision for the world, and that vision was coming true, a vision where all were educated in the ways of the Crystal Kingdom, where everyone could have Japanese as the language, where everyone got New Year’s off, so they could celebrate the most important holiday with their families, a place where the world could be as it always should have been, the kingdom of the moon brought to earth, finally, with her and Endymion.

Usagi opened her mouth and Serenity called for the guards, drawing another edict from her mind, as a wave passed over the vessel that was one person and two of them at once, rocking it back into the darkness.

___

A light in the sky led to an angel, in the stories, but all Michiru saw, in the grim gloaming was a pale and still creature, lying on the ground, carved from the light that had brought her, red too-bright and gauche against it.

The Seeing showed what might be, a mirror only, and it was not the architect of the world, and yet Michiru hated it still.

Her knees hit the ground next to Haruka--she would know this only later, looking at the bruises on them, for in that moment she felt nothing at all but a tear beginning where her heart should be.

Haruka breathed, not yet dead, her eyes wavering as she looked up at Michiru, the self-styled king of the sky now beneath it all, back to the earth where she truly belonged, and spoke.

____

Haruka’s statue gazed down at her as she was walked into the fine court, laden with gold and silver woven silks, streaming down the sides of the palace walls, sourced from lands that had once had names of their own, written in scripts that curved and moved with the words, blocked in now by the stroke of the Crystal Kingdom and all its official language. The table itself sang tribute to the kingdom, the dishware pure and glittering under the opened skylights, as if eating off spring water, cold and clean.

But Michiru’s eyes stayed on the statue as she passed, knowing that she could look at it as long as she desired with little question from anyone in the court. She was appreciating what Serenity had done, they said, making that statue as tribute for her fallen lover, which was always how they put it, as sculpted and inhuman as the statue itself.

For they had gotten her wrong, too, in the statue. Though maybe in those early days she would have enjoyed being seen that way, resolute and stone, but Michiru had loved her too long, and however much Haruka might have wanted to be remembered as a soldier, Michiru could only remember the girl, who had a tough shell and a tender heart, who took life personally and gave herself no grace, who fed the squirrels and whose hair tossed in the wind when she laughed.

Theirs was the love of legends, and like all legends, it had been polished and made in the ways that served the tale, and there was nothing of thunderstorms under the covers, sharing a cup of tea, nothing of teasing Haruka over some silly dramatics, just a carved and chipped and utterly wrong story of two soldiers.

But she would keep a promise to Haruka today. That part of the story was true.

Michiru stood at Serenity’s side, smiling and clapping politely, the sheen of her gold and teal armor bright under the lights, nearly blinding all who looked at her.

Which was precisely what she had intended.

The spark of discontent in this world shall not become a flame, my love.

“Sailor Neptune, who served so valiantly and ensured our kingdom,”

All shall remember Usagi as the girl who was, and not as the Queen she is becoming.

“I hope, in the name of the Moon, you will accept this commission,”

Let your memory guide me. Cast my selfishness aside, Haruka, my love.

“Over the lands formerly known as the European continent, now united under the Crystal Kingdom,”

The angel of my better nature.

Michiru moved quickly, in ways she had not since that day in battle, grown languid and pale like the bright white flowers that grew in Serenity’s garden, giving rich perfume, rich enough to hide the iron scent of blood. But the flush was in her cheek now, and the speed, and her hand moved to her dagger at her belt quickly, whirling it into a grip in her hand, and she plunged it through Serenity’s back, and hit Usagi’s heart.

There was barely a cry before Michiru felt her own back pierced by the smooth and seductive touch of an arrow through her, running a slender and steel rod through both she and Usagi, binding them both together as they had been from the first.

“Michiru, you gotta do one thing.”

“Haruka, my love, hush--”

“No, you gotta, you gotta be loyal to Usagi, I--you.”

“Haruka...” She stroked Haruka’s hair, angry already with Usagi, angry at the Crystal Kingdom that rose on the horizon, angry with the promise Haruka was going to force her to make.

“Please, Michiru.” Her eyes were bright even as the rest of her was fading, the last bloom on a rose bush in winter.

And she could not deny her.

“The angel on my shoulder,” She kissed Haruka softly, “I will protect Usagi. From all things.”

She had held Haruka, and Haruka had died, and a promise made was a promise kept. Usagi was safe now, from the tyrant that was born inside of her, the slowly growing crystal that was inside of them all, watching and waiting to become.

Michiru looked back up at the court, that last bloom of Michiru’s faraway memory bright cherry on her lips now, and murmured one last edict to the Crystal Kingdom.

“Loyalty.”

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