He always knew where to find her - by instinct or by the similarities of their characters - and because no one knew them well enough, it was not something that could be brought into question. She always had an eye on the future and he always had one on the past, looking in opposite directions only meant their backs were pressed up against each other for a long time. "Unsure what the future holds?" he would tease her, politely, of course.
"Only if history would stop repeating itself," she would reply back in kind. An enigmatic smile on her lips was the only difference that separated them two. She was rather good at playing mysterious. He, on the other hand, was only good at hiding his age.
"Someday, maybe something will surprise you," he supplied with a shrug.
"It has already happened," she thoughtfully murmurs, eyes looking backwards for once, missing his rare moments of surprise. "When the Silver Millennium fell, I hadn't expected that."
"So it was like that," he finally concluded, soft and ponderous. Copper eyes flicked to her dusty skin but she did not meet his gaze. "I guess, we all started somewhere."
"You want to say we were all innocent once, yes, Elios?" Sailor Pluto asked, though it was rather rhetorical.
"I wanted to say we all believed that the good would triumph, no matter what... once upon a time." Elios elaborated, but shook his head. "In the end, it is the same thing, yes?"
"Sooner or later, evil would win," Pluto told him gently, her voice conveying the fact that she knew that he knew it to be true as well.
"Sooner or later, good would triumph again," Elios added softly, though his hands were loosely fisted and his voice was clearly haunted.
"Let us always pray for the sooner," Pluto amended. She put her hand on his tense shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze. "You always know where to find me," she changed the subject with another, different smile.
"You do not wonder far in your dreams," he answered.
"Perhaps my imagination isn't as vast," she teased him again, laughing at herself at little.
"No, Setsuna," he looked at her with compassion in his eyes - almost pity but not, "you just want respite here, isn't that what you are looking for? Sanctuary..."
"Companionship," their voices melded into one.
"You cannot have her, not the way you want," Pluto finally said after a long moment of silence. Her kindness lay in her cruelty. He was old enough to recognize that.
"Neither can you have him," Elios replied in kind, though his tone was far gentler than his words.
"Look at the two of us," Pluto laughed a little sadly, "are we not too old for this?"
Elios did not answer this time. All he did was smile and gently, reaching across the small distance between them, he clasped her hand. They were silent for a long time afterwards, until the sun sunk low in the darkening skies and the waves of the holy lake rippled against the breeze. "In all of time that you have witnessed here, Elios, does love conquer all, in the end?" Setsuna found the sound of her own voice resigned and tired, but with his back pressed against hers, she didn't have to hide the expression of sorrow and disbelief from her eyes.
"Not always," he told her honestly. "But enough to give me hope." He looked to her than with those quiet, old eyes of his. Turning, turning, turning... until they were face to face for the first time in a long time. "What does the future say, or does it prefer not to show its hand until it becomes inevitable?"
Pluto smiled at his expression more than his words. "Hope," she mouthed at last, though it was too frail to reach his ears. He still caught what she had meant to say and his smile was kind. There was cruelty in his kindness. And unlike all the people she had spoke of the future with, Elios did not ask for elaboration, instead he turned his profile to her and looked to the skies before them. His eyes, they had been the color of warmth, and his fingers radiated that soft heat as they tightened around hers. He did not beseech her for more, but took her words for what it was.
Hope.
Before them stood the vast, unending beauty of Elyusion. Between them, the portal to the outside world laid unopened. Above them was the bright sun that never set but was also never seen. Beneath them, the ancient Earth that lived only in memories and dreams stirred against the breeze while their reflections in the water blurred and wavered, showing nothing and hiding everything.
The ache in Pluto's chest intensified as the unseen wind caressed her cheeks. Smiling, she leaned her head back as he watched her with his hooded eyes. "It feels nice," she told him, fingers curling and uncurling against the tingling at her finger tips.
In the silence between them, Elios left the lie alone.
