A/N - Just me playing around a bit here. This short series will seem AU but will eventually (hopefully) fit within the context of a larger story I plan on writing, so please bear with me. The poem is part of Two Bodies, by Octavio Paz. Comments, feedback, and criticisms are all greatly appreciated.

Disclaimer: Just borrowing Sailor Moon for a bit, and the poem as well.

Also, thanks to Crosswood for so generously allowing me to use her formatting as a place of departure.

Two bodies face to face
Are at times two waves
And night is an ocean.

.

You couldn't quite say the evening was calm. The empty fields and lazy trail of smoke hanging over the chimneys only meant the villagers had relinquished the rest of their day to the low voices rumbling through the sky. But Ami felt enough at ease, nestled as she was between two gnarled and ancient roots. They embraced her from either side, pulling her deeper into the heart of the wood. Above her a foot swung back and forth, black earth falling away from the worn leather boot to shower the ground in front of Ami's knees.

She tilted her head back and looked past the booted foot, past the green canopy for a glimpse of the heavy slate mass above. "It won't be long now."

"Mmm." Makoto's small noise of recognition faded into the ceaseless roll of thunder, one voice riding on the tail of another. Ami wasn't likely to get much more of a response, but she didn't need one. Instead she leaned her head back so it touched the smooth bark, watching Makoto as she sat perched on a branch above her, her foot still swinging idly. She had left her head resting on one knee while her mind journeyed to some distant place.

Ami closed her eyes.

There had been many moments like this since the senshi had awoken in a time between worlds, moments where Ami found herself caught somewhere between lethargy and content. The past was gone, the future was locked in crystal, and while Ami felt like she should be desperately searching for the answers there was an overwhelming need to stop, to slow down, to just…be.

More often than not she shared these moments with Makoto. Sometimes they shared their solitude in silence. Other times they spoke when it suited them, fumbling together toward answers life had yet to give them.

"Mako-chan."

"Hmm?"

"Is it wrong, to be happy here, to be content?"

"Why?" Another shower of dirt, and a few pieces of bark. "Are you?"

"Sometimes." Ami smiled into the silence as Makoto waited. She picked up a stray leaf and began twirling it around slowly, rubbing the stem between her fingers as the leaf did flips and turns in her hand. "I like it here. I like the quietness, the simplicity."

"Then why would it be wrong?"

Ami hesitated. They both knew the answer. Her eyes flicked to the south and a little east where the sleeping city lay. Even at such a distance to be rendered invisible, it loomed over them, a ready weight on the heart whenever touched by the mind.

Without looking up, Ami could feel Makoto's sigh. It was in the earth itself. "The way I see it, there are questions and there are answers. But I don't think we can get those answers by simply looking. Now you can either deal with it by searching for the answers anyway, and let yourself be consumed by restlessness, or you can take this time, this space we've been given, and enjoy it. Live. Grow. Personally, I don't think it was a mistake. I think we are here, now, for a reason. I think the world is changed for a reason. Don't feel guilty just because it feels good."

Ami smiled again. It did feel good. There was a certain amount of freedom in being able to just sit, like she was right now with her mind quiet and her senses open. For the first time in her life, there were no plans, no pressing expectations. For the first time in her life she could relax. Relax, and simply exist.

Ami closed her eyes again.

Thunder boomed overhead, louder now. It wouldn't be long at all. Almost automatically Ami's mind did the calculations, estimating barometric pressure, wind speed, relative humidity—sometimes the thinking mind was difficult to turn off. But there was another way, a way Ami needed to perfect, a way she wouldn't have learned if it hadn't been for here, for now.

Somewhere, somewhere up there was water. She stretched her senses as she tried to feel it with her mind, feeling the moisture in the air, in the tree, in Makoto's breath as she leaned against the trunk, now straddling the branch. Ami stretched her perception further, to the sky, the clouds. In the end, she found it was much closer than she expected. The brunt of the storm had yet to unleash, but rain was already settling upon the forest canopy. She could feel the light droplets as they landed on the tops of the trees some thirty meters above them, coalescing into larger drops, slipping from leaf to leaf, branch to branch, penetrating ever deeper as gravity pulled them down.

She isolated one drop of water, feeling its energy like ripples in a pond as it worked down toward them. It hung, poised on the tip of a leaf twenty meters above them, until some rustle of a breeze sent it further on its way. Fifteen meters. Ten. Without seeing, Ami knew it's path through the knot and lace. She knew also, where that drop of water would land, in the end.

"Mako-chan."

"Hmm."

"You're going to get wet."

Thanks Crosswood for pointing out a small grammatical error. Fixed :D