Inertia
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It was quiet. Very quiet. The kind of quiet that made one feel drugged, combined with the sort of weather that made one feel draped in heavy, warm clothing. The resulting feeling was somewhere between a comforting, happy, dreamlike state, and panicked with inability to move, a vertiginous feeling of paralysis; which was a near complete oxymoron, except for the fact that nothing could describe the feeling more perfectly. Couldn't breath, couldn't move, couldn't think a rational thought, absolutely couldn't do anything but panic, and then you realized that you weren't drowning in a pool heated by some hellish thermal activity, but were only out in the garden, supposedly getting a breath of fresh air.
It was very quiet. The kind of quiet that would, on a normal day, make one wonder about one's sanity. The kind of quiet that covers everything like a snowy white blanket, pushing all sound out through the cracks and into outer space, where it is lost forever into the void. The kind of quiet that makes one want to scream, just to break it, but nothing can get through. Even the most piercing of screams would only be sucked away into that same depthless abyss, you know without even having to try. Even gentle conversation with loved ones does nothing, not against this quiet. Words are empty and hollow, and silence is a hungry ghost that needs something more filling. More filling than screams, more filling than conversation, more filling even than crying. Even willful silence against it, fire against fire, doesn't do a thing. It laughs back at you, the silence, in ripples of fierce heat against your forehead. It laughs back at you, hot breath ripping through the trees, and you can't help but feel that you've lost it all.
And then you realize that you have.
Charred remains were mostly what was left of Crystal Tokyo. She had no idea how it was that crystal turned black, when burned. She had, in fact, had no idea that crystal could burn. Melt, maybe, yes, but not burn. But then, she could remember holding the Ginzuishou in her hands, her bare hands, and it at times had seemed to burn, with a heat more passionate than that of any other flaming substance. More passionate, even, than she thought the sun itself could muster. But the Ginzuishou didn't bring the type of heat that burned flesh, not human flesh at any rate. The Ginzuishou was healing, and it would never destroy anything, not like this—this reeked with the stench of evil, this was the sort of sight that brought the bile rising to the back of your throat. This was the sort of thing that had maybe, in the past, made her angry enough to do something. The sort of thing that had roused her insides—people had been hurt, here!
So where was Love, now? Where was Justice? Where was the universal sense of good and right, and why weren't they out there fighting this inhumanity?
Love, she knew, was still asleep in the palace. Justice, perhaps, had hidden her lovely face behind her fan at the sight of all of this unbridled horror. And the universal sense of good and right was obviously not so universal.
Maybe it never had been.
But Serenity herself, Serenity was in the worst condition of all. Serenity couldn't summon up a feeling inside herself, save numbness. But then, numbness wasn't a feeling at all, was it?
The worst part was the not knowing when it was going to happen. Serenity could remember now, the past that she had made, and she remembered her own part in it. The part of Serenity—played by a cool chunk of crystal. A beautiful statue, to be looked at only, but not disturbed. What would she feel, in that crystal? Would she be awake, conscious of the terror that was going on around her? Or was she just… laying there, insensate?
Yes, the not knowing was the hardest part. Perhaps it was foolish of her to even be in the garden at all. Perhaps she should run back into the palace and hide under her bed—surely the Black Moon would never think to look for her in such a mundane place!
…But no, that made no sense. It was fate, damn it, and fate did what fate wanted. She knew that somehow she would be lured out into the open.
If only there were some way to change it. She wanted desperately for this not to happen—to her husband, to the senshi, and especially, to Chibiusa. If only there were some way around it, if only…
…There was a way around it. Dimando loved her. If she could figure out some way to use that to her advantage, to maybe make him stop the senseless violence, and see reason.
No, she couldn't do that. Not to Mamoru. And anyway, it was too late! Already the city was destroyed, she had known it was coming, and somehow she had let it happen.
It was her fault, in the end, wasn't it? She had allowed it to happen. She had allowed thousands of her people to die, horrible deaths by fire, or if they hadn't been so lucky to die in the fire, then the Jakozuishou monolith that she knew the Black Moon would implant in her Earth would kill them slowly with its creeping poison.
It was her fault. She couldn't plead with Dimando, partly because she could never do that to Mamoru, and partly because she had let all those people die. Why should her family be allowed to be any happier, when she had inadvertently caused so much sadness for so many? That was showing favoritism of the highest order, and showing favoritism was something that a Queen shouldn't do.
Her brain wouldn't move. She had never been exactly sharp, but her mind had seldom chosen to lock itself up like this, even in the most severe states of panic. Even when all of her senshi had been dead, cold dead in the frozen world that Metallia had inhabited, and she alone had had to defend the world. Her mind had not fled her then. Her mind had not left her in those final moments alone with the cowled skeleton who was behind all of this, now. She had defeated him, but still it came to this. With Pharaoh 90 and Nehelenia there had been no need for her mind—there had been no time to think, there had been only the fighting, the chaos, intense, unavoidable. And in the Cauldron, also, with Galaxia, there had been no need for her mind—only her heart.
No, her mind had never locked up like this before. She just couldn't think. There was noting to do, she supposed. There was no need for thinking. The end, which wasn't really an end at all, was inevitable. Maybe she shouldn't be scared. She would come out of it alive, after all. Her, the senshi, Mamoru, her daughter, they would all be all right in the end.
But still, she couldn't coerce herself into action of any sort. In fact, she hadn't moved from her spot in the garden for some time.
It was just so hot. How could she do anything in that heat?
It would be all right, at least, for the time being, she realized. Yes, for awhile now it would be all right, because before anything could come crashing down around her feet, the Ginzuishou had to be gone. Chibiusa had to take the Ginzuishou before any of the horrible things that she knew were going to happen would come into reality. And the Guinzuishou was fine. It rested still in the case where it had sat for years, unneeded in the utopian Crystal Tokyo. It was still there, all right, she could feel it. She could feel it sitting there—
…No.
No. She couldn't.
Her spine froze. That was the only way to describe the sensation—the bundle of nerves which carried sensation to and from her body to her brain, back again, circling, circling, always there, always telling her what was happening, had been replaced by ice crystals, burning so cold that they would eat away her flesh. And it was traveling, crawling up her neck, little sensations like icy pin pricks, and soon it would reach her brain, and she would have only a cold mass of jelly rattling about in her skull.
But it was very hot outside. So hot that the ice didn't really freeze her at all, and soon she broke from it.
"Small Lady!"
She managed, somehow, to burst into a run. Back down the garden path she tore in a frenzy, her panic so deep that she managed not to carelessly trip on her dress once, as was her usual habit.
The ships… The ships, she could see them swarming suddenly in the air behind her in the reflection of the glass doors which led back inside. She pushed through and ran through the halls, screaming for her daughter, until she found herself in the throne room.
It was quiet. Dead quiet. So still, so silent, that she wondered if she was already inside the crystal, already unconscious, and then, behind her…
tap… tap… tk tk tk tk…
Like a ball had been dropped. Like some child had lost their toy. Only more crystalline a sound. She turned slowly.
"Minako?" was the first thing she thought to ask, turning to look for the source of the sound, and then suddenly the world exploded into sound and a slight wave rocked her as some horrible thing dropped from the alien ships outside. Hot air rushed past her face, and the world stilled again.
And then there was nothing. Nothing at all, except outside the cry of a child.
"Small Lady!" she cried, turning back around quickly.
And that was when it hit her.
The pinpricks again, moving slowly up her legs, only they weren't a feeling produced by the panic in her body, this time. This was real.
So this was what it felt like to be incased in crystal—for her own protection, of course. So that her body would be preserved while the fight raged on around her. While the death, the pain, the horror, the blood flowed on in the city below, while the senshi protected the palace, unable to do anything because of their Queen, their beautiful monarch, encased in crystal, like a ladybug in amber.
It flared out now, around her feet, so that she could see the true structure of it. It moved more quickly, suddenly, as if sensing the urgency of it all, and soon it was up to her chest, soon her neck, head, and then, the Queen was…
was…
…
was, and that was all.
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The first page of this had been sitting on my hard drive FOREVER (with the filename "some sm crapola," no less). I don't know what prompted me to finish it off, now. Anyway, hope you liked! … Or at least didn't hate.
::insert standard disclaimer here, because FRITHRAH, I hate writing them.::
(I just used a curse from Watership Down. -_- Jeez, what's wrong with me?)