It is a simple fact of physics that a heavenly body travels much faster the less mass it has to propel through space. To carry a shell light-years from one end of the galaxy to another might take eons. To compensate for this lethargy, the universe creates loopholes: chronological wrinkles, sometimes called wormholes, sometimes time machines.

But even this may prove tedious. Sometimes, the universe will deposit a shell and its cargo in a remote postage-stamp lot somewhere within the vicinity of the galaxy-neighborhood. A more learned civilization might call it the middle passage.

In the flowing and ebbing of washes of light commonly called the birth and death of stars, after a grueling route of celestial rapids, on a little planet around a mild and mediocre bi-star system, Usagi Tsukino lies sleeping.

At least, that is what she is called, within this dormant body, too heavy and soaked with memories, loves, betrayals, trials, and the desperate all-consuming act called living, to be propelled directly home as she requested. Her long white limbs fall loose and tensionless. Her profusion of soft-ink lashes touch the peeks of her creamy cheekbones but do not stir. The sun-yellow strands dangle from her head and pool around her. Her body cocoons in a deep, soft mattress of lush, long grasses, which tufts out in a gentle slope, so subtle as to seem almost flat. The encircling sky seems to swallow the tiny planet, and the multitudes of stars wink knowingly on the gently waving blades, murmured over by an unseen current of air, casting a bluish light to all they touch.

All is peaceful.

Then something happens. As if an unseen hammer pounded into her chest, the small frame of the sleeping maiden jerks suddenly, a victim to an unknown violence. She is unceremoniously and ineloquently shoved back to life. A breath draws inside her. Then another one. In a gray haziness, consciousness enters the once-empty form. She blinks awake but is not aware.

For a long time, she lies breathing. This is what newborns do. In out, in out. The sensation is novel. She is conscious of nothing but the cavity behind her ribcage, filling and emptying itself of thin, warm air.

Instinctively, her hand glides up to the place between her breasts. She touches it lightly, to better feel the movement of her chest. A faint hum of memory comes to her. She remembers shining, happily burning and shining her brightest, set to work on this one task and giving her heart to it (her heart – a coal-deep, smoldering center, born from a furnace far, far away). She was happy. And she watched her sisters glow and hum. They sang together in harmony. And she was content. And one day, someone came to her, spoke to her, and told her that she would leave. That she was destined for greater things. But that she would not rest; no, never rest again, not for what might as well be considered eternity. She would suffer for it. No, never again would she be content.

But.

The little, fiercely piercing light shining from her coal-deep center sparked with joy. And that was the first time she had ever felt such a pain. A deep-heart pain like joy.

And sorrow.

She sits up now. And these memories of deep time retreat into the foggy blue haze. She gazes around her, cerulean eyes deep as pools reflecting starlight. With the movement, she falls into herself a little farther. She looses her star-sight. She is nearer herself (the self called Usagi), but still, still . . ..

She sees around her now, the depth of vision returning. The long, lush, blue grass descends, sloping gently, gently away below her feet, so subtly, yet, in the distance, she sees the hazy twilight, as if from a great height. Above her, the grass marches upward, a clean line, disappearing before her poor earth-eyes can detect its peak.

A sigh in the grass.

She is startled.

There is something else with her – someone. A dark form in the blue waves. She reaches her hand out, innocently as a fawn, and just brushes smooth warm skin beneath her fingertips.

The figure stirs, sits. Looks at her inquisitively with blue eyes framed in thick lashes. A sweet nose. Inky hair crowned in silver starlight and a sleek strand flowing from the nape of a slender, curving neck, undulating with the wind, as if underwater.

"It's you," she breathes. A warm voice, even newly used. A soft smile like a flower budding or the moonrise.

The black-haired woman blinks at her. Puts her hands on her arms and rubs them upwards against her shoulders nervously. This body. This place.

This celestial being sitting and smiling at her in the long blue (was it blue or was it just the starlight?) grass.

Her slender, long hands touch something soft and rustling. White, light fabric gathered at her shoulders. She looks down. For the first time notices she is wearing translucent, delicate robes. When her eyes return to her companion, she notes the golden-crowned girl is dressed similarly.

She breaths deeply. "Who – " then stops. Shakes her head. Her mind snags on something solid. She can't see it, but she can feel it. Don't push into it. It's tender. It will hurt painfully, like a burst sore. She lets it go.

Drops her hands. Smiles back. "It's me."

And she knows that they've known each other. Over eons and ages and light-years and inches and seconds and atoms, deeply, infinitely, intimately. A pain in her chest. Her heart is gorged.

Joy is a kind of pain. Like they promised them, long, long ago; they who were candidates.

The dark one puts her hand on her head, softly, and the light one, concerned, reaches up and takes it from her. "What are we doing here?" she asks the golden child.

"I don't know," is the soft response. "I don't . . .." No need to finish. She feels the blank, too. A wall. Don't push. If it falls, it will shatter.

"Never mind," she smiles again. "I think I can remember . . . what matters." She still holds her hand. She looks down at it now, takes it and holds it open on her lap, stroking it.

The dark one is intent and sad. "Don't go away," she murmurs. Somehow, the plea comes from deep within her.

But the golden one – she is called Usagi, sometimes – just laughs softly and continues to stroke. "This is a small life," she says, and she knows this is true, though she doesn't know what it means.

There is a strange choking sound from her companion. When she looks at her, her head is lowered, chin to chest, sinking. There are small convulsions from her shoulders.

Distressed, she bites her lip. How to cheer her? She scoots closer, closing the gap in the tufting grass, lifts her companion's face swiftly and swipes tenderly at her tears. "Now, don't," she scolds gently, and a faint memory laces in their hair on the breeze. The same, only different.

Usagi's hands fall away. Once, wasn't it the other way around? The deep blue eyes wait patiently for Usagi to return. She seems to startle herself. But her pupils focus back on her tall companion. She throws her arms around her tightly. The other reciprocates.

"I don't want to forget," she whispers, pathetically.

Now they are lying in the deep, deep grass. A blue sheen reflects off their white skin. Usagi holds her companion's head in the crook of her elbow, keeping it close to her collar bone, and the companion has wrapped her legs and arms around her.

Usagi – she is called that but she is so much more than a name – picks absently at the grass.

It is growing harder to breath, and they both are falling drowsy. Soon, they will die.

Theirs is a premature birth. They can't take these bodies with them, to return across the gaping distance. They must leave them and separate. They will awake in them again, in a distant place, and pick up where they left off before. But they won't remember, and they won't know – what they do in this dim in-between time.