I do not own Sailor Moon

Blemished

Sometimes, the only way to be happy is to forget everything in your waking life. I live by this creed. If you forget everything when you smile, you can smile like you mean it. This is one of those days when I need to forget in order to smile. Everyday has been one of those days for a long while now.

It has everything to do with him, but it is not his fault. Not any more than mine.

Just looking at him is more than I can bear. He looks the same, but I am not the woman I once was. I could never be that again. He sees her when he looks at me. It sickens me; I am stealing from the dead. Committing a taboo. That look of adoration only fit for her. She deserves better, the woman I once was, than to have her lover's looks showered on so poor a cast of her. So proud and good. All innocence and love. She might pity me if she did not know I was herself reborn. But if she knew, she'd abhor me. She hated quitters.

Yes, I've given up. Does it surprise you?

I know, leader of the guard, queen of a planet, beloved of a queen so good that darkness scatters before her, what more could I want? But that is part of the probelm: I've finished it all. What is there left for me? All I wanted as a girl I have done or outgrown wishing to do. I realize I am too selfish for children no matter how often Jupiter told me I'd grow to like them. I've been an idol. Better than that, I'm worshipped as a Goddess. Can't ask for more than that. I've sung and danced my fill. A few millennia will do that to you. I've gotten my princess back her throne and seen her live a LONG and happy life, filled with love. I've seen my friends regain a semblance of the happiness of our past lives. And as for love, ah, as for love...I just don't want it.

I know, I spent every shooting star, every coin thrown in a fountain, every birthday cake's candles on that one dream. On wishing for my soulmate, something even remotely like my King is for my Queen. But what I really wanted, I did not get. It was gone. Yes, my soulmate came back. Yes, I got my wish. Kunzite returned to me. But the love did not come back. He loved Princess Venus. Loves Princess Venus. And she does not exist.

Do I love him still? As who he is?

No. Not this shadow of a warrior, this broken soul in a God's body. I loved a force. An unapologetic manifestation of Earth's majesty. Who walked among mere mortals with a detachment born simply of difference, of a nature far and above their own. When I was whole, when he was whole, we challenged the universe to match us. No one could touch us.

Except the universe. Yes, we did wrong to challenge it. It smote us mightily. Broke us, sent our pieces off into space, not to be repaired as handily as the Crystal. If your better half is not whole, they cannot complete you. So, not I him, and not him me. We neither of us have ourselves to give anymore.

So, he stays in love with a pile of dust on the moon. And I wish to join that dust. To be a little more like the one he loves. So great is what she is in his eyes, even as dust.

Do I love him at all anymore?

Yes, I love my long dead lover still. But I would not be worthy of him now. He would scorn me in my weakness. As the woman I was would scorn me.

How much longer is eternity? Have not I give enough, paid enough for my youthful arrogance? What more can I give?

Everyday I pray that Serenity would stop looking at me in that hopeful way, as though to say, is today the day, Venus? Is today the day you tell me you're ready to marry the love of your life and settle down with a brood of children like the others?

I wish she'd say instead: I free you, my servant, to go out among the stars and take back what you lost. But she would see that as not believing in me. She does not have it in her to give up. And I still love her too much to do anything but clear my mind and smile, smile as if it meant something. So, I wait on until she sees fit to let us all be free of human form.

I don't know how the others do it, manage to function with fragments of a soul. How easy is living without thumbs or a liver? But they do it, everyday. And even seem happy about it. I have lots of little nieces and nephews, and have been a bridesmaid four times over.

Perhaps I really am the weakest of the senshi. Maybe that is what it all boils down to. It may be that because they are stronger, they can function incomplete while I flounder. Believe it or not, but I am truly happy for them that they can. I just wish they would stop looking at me with such pity.

I spend a lot of time with Pluto now. She never smiles. But she slaps me when I need it, so I can go out there and smile. And do my job. That she offers no word of comfort does not give me much hope for my soul, for a tidy patch job and a summer wedding. She may be the only one who wants it all to end more than me.

I've already seen Serenity today, and she gave me that look. So it will not be today that I can walk back among the stars. I'll not think of it; I'll smile when she sees me. I cannot even pray to my Goddess to set me free because I have supplanted her and she has nothing more to give me. So I just dream, dream of a way to be free of what binds me here in my imperfect form, of the day when I'm free and free to love him. I always dream it will be tomorrow.

The only problem? Far, far too many tomorrows.