The Immortal
By StarzAngelus
The clatter of the metal utensils is not enough to tune out the mind-numbing silence and it only serves to remind me that this day will no doubt be just like the others. Meetings, negotiations, hearings, greeting parties, receptions will all make up the schedule for most likely the next millennium. Any other person-- a normal person-- would consider that expression of time an exaggeration, but that is a normal person. That is not me.
“Small Lady, please stop playing with your food. You know better than that,” comes the soft voice from my left.
Nodding in affirmation, I stuff a spoonful of steamed carrots into my mouth-- my favorite. As I allow the soft vegetable to slowly make its way down my throat, it doesn’t get past me the steady, meaningful glare being shot in my direction.
“Honestly, must you eat in such a despicable manner? Your plate is not going anywhere.”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes, reflecting silently on the irony of such a request. “I’m sorry, mother,” I respond curtly, gathering more onto my spoon. “I can’t help it. The kitchen staff has done a magnificent job with dinner today. Particularly the carrots.” I delicately place said food in my mouth, smirking.
My mother-- known as Neo-Queen Serenity to the rest of the world-- stares at me, a rapid blink being the only indication of the turbulent emotions rapidly building inside of her. Knowing exactly what will come next, I still refuse to back down. I see it in her eyes, her crystalline, blue eyes that look at me with sheer coldness. I shiver involuntarily.
“What has gotten into you, today?” she asks calmly and authoritatively. It still astounds me how she is able to do it. “Are you still upset that we were unable to attend your presentation? I had told you that we would try our best to be there, that it was not a guarantee. We had very important matters to settle with the newly-formed Matariki Kingdom in the Pleiades sector. We are in the middle of an impending war here, Small Lady, and as a member of this family, you of all people should not need an explanation for our absence.”
I look down at my plate. It is made of crystal, just like the rest of this colossal palace and its many headquarters. It isn’t just any crystal, no, for the royal family and its representatives would never settle for the mediocre or the plainly well-crafted. This is a fine crystal, rare and unbreakable yet still see-through and hard and beautiful. I want to break it, throw it across the room and make it shatter into a million pieces and watch as the light dances across it making patterns on the walls like stars in a clear, night sky. But I don’t. Instead I look across the table pleadingly at the only person in the universe (and I have visited much of it) that has an inkling of understanding of my situation.
There he sits in his usual seat with the same stoic expression he has when he pretends that he is not truly affected. He is delighted, for we are dining together, a momentous occasion in which I have no desire to partake in. I wonder if I will look back and actually believe that we are what we let others believe we are.
He looks to his right to the focal point of the room at the head of the table. There she is. There she always has been. Her image takes the entire room hostage, unwittingly taking my appetite with it. She glows. She shines. She conquers. She has the face that inspires sonnets and the launching of a thousand ships, yet here she is, in our dining room, conquering. Conquering me and forever conquering him.
He never wears his mask when we dine and I can see his stormy blue eyes clearly as they bore into mine. It is one of the many traits I wish I had inherited from him-- the blue-gray quality of his eyes, his raven-colored hair, his great height, his patience. When I was brought into the world, I was instantly compared to my mother. Comments of her famous beauty continually brought up when making note of mine. Besides my pink-colored hair and my crimson eyes, I am the spitting image of my mother. When I look into the mirror, however, I have always seen my father. It has yet to please me.
“Darling,” he says, arching his eyebrow in that way as if I am a child and not a young woman of sixteen. “You know that we try to be there for you, but we have an entire world to watch over. You have us-- your mother and I-- and the Senshi, the guards, and so many to watch over you. But do not ever think we care less for you than we do for them, Chibiusa.”
My throat constricts at the sound of the familiar nickname and I feel a burning sting at the back of my eyes. Several images flash across my mind from so long ago, memories of laughter and running and hot-fudge sundaes and coffee, roses and youmas and warm eyes. It seems like centuries but when the reality hits me I realize that in fact, it has been. Bile rises in my throat at the thought of the rest of the centuries of my extended life to come. I want to go back… Mamo-chan…
“Chibiusa?” my father asks, concern tingeing his voice. “Are you feeling all right?”
He’s frowning now and he looks so much like him and not like the powerful king and husband to the high Queen that he is today. I hate him in that moment, loathing him for taking him away from me. Really, though, it isn’t his fault but hers because he was always hers to begin with. It confuses me how the feeling of loss fills me over something that I never had. I am hers, too.
“Excuse me,” I say, politely pushing my plate away as I rise from my chair slowly. “I am not feeling well and I would much rather go to bed early. May I be excused?” I make sure to direct my face towards my mother.
She isn’t looking at me but at my unfinished plate made of crystal. Behind her the long window panes show the setting sun in the distance filling the now dark sky with hues of orange, pink, and blue. It isn’t a coincidence how the seating in the dining room is arranged. The Queen is conveniently placed facing the rising of the sun so that her graceful features are illuminated and then highlighted like a halo when the sun sets. Everything she touches must be marked by light.
“You may.”
I am startled out of my thoughts by the baritone voice of my father. It feels strange being granted his permission when even he stoops down to my mother. Not bothering to think more about what just happened, I hurry out of the room trying my best to not make it look like I’m fleeing.
It is instances like this that I hate the size of my ancestral home for it takes several minutes instead of moments to make it to my own private quarters. In the grand hallway-- which is used to greet guests and leads them to our waiting room-- I run into the questioning eyes of one of my mother’s most trusted advisers, Sailor Mars. I feel naked in her presence, knowing full well that there is no need for me to look away for her powers of intuition will grasp me no matter what. She wisely stays silent and merely nods as I walk past her, her red skirt fluttering with her steps. I am both saddened and relieved that she does not bother to ask me what is wrong. In a way it is comforting that without words she is aware of a situation but I have never been one to be comforted by silence. I pray that I don’t run into any of the other Senshi on my small journey.
As I enter my room, I let out the breath I was fully aware I was holding. The bed is perfectly made, there is no clothing scattered on the floor, not a single book arranged out of place, not a speck of dust on any of the finely-carved furnishings. I squint my eyes because for a moment I can swear that it even shines.
Flopping tiredly on my white bedspread I reach out to the bed stand to retrieve the small item that I will now blame my entire predicament on-- a silver medal hanging from a bright yellow ribbon, engraved with the words Crystal Tokyo Annual School Decathlon: Second Place in Political Debate. It is so small and insignificant but even the smallest star was useful in navigation when the first global sailors of Earth used the constellations. It matches nothing in my world that is filled with gold and platinum, whites and lavender, diamonds and crystals, nothing loud or chaotic or secondary. But all in all, I earned it and it is proof that I was capable of doing something on my own, proof that I was able to conquer a fear of public speaking (an act I would have to get used to for the future).
I’m not sure how long I lay there staring at my small trinket when a soft knock comes from my door and my father’s smooth voice asks, “May I come in?”
Quickly, I shove the medal into the bed stand drawer and lay back down on my bed. “Yes, please come in.”
Just like the king he was always meant to be, my father walks in gracefully, a skill he has perfected to an art. He is dressed only in his regal slacks and a plain white dress-shirt. When he is like this, he is no longer King Endymion nor his heroic alter-ego, Tuxedo Kamen. It is only when he is with me that he becomes the only person I want him to be: my dad, Chiba Mamoru.
I stay motionless in my spot and I feel the bed shift as he sits down. It is completely silent.
“I’m sorry.”
I blink. It’s the only way for me to hide my shock for it was the last thing I expected him to say.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
I nod dumbly not knowing what I should say in response to that. I feel like there is nothing to forgive, I could never fault my dad for anything.
“I wanted things to be the best for everyone and I suppose they have. Now I want things to be different, back to how they were. I didn’t know that I would sacrifice so much for the good of all. As a father, it is natural for me to want my child to be in the best environment possible. But what is the best, Chibiusa?”
I feel like a spectator accidentally stumbling upon a private thought and not someone who is having a conversation with her parent. I feel just how he feels and it only reminds me of the bitterness I feel over the system-- if there is an opposition, than it is eliminated and I am one of the many things that does not fit in. Again, I don’t know what to say and I think he is not expecting an answer. He takes my hand in his and I’m surprised to find that they are not soft but rough like a worker’s hands. A smile spreads across my lips.
“Tell me about Sailor Moon, daddy.”
I almost want to laugh at the face he makes, his eyes widening so much his eyebrows are nearly to his hairline. “S-sailor Moon?” he stutters.
“Yes.”
“What else is there to know about her? You’ve been in the past so many times, you know her almost as well as I do.”
“But I don’t, so I’m asking you.”
“Chibiusa--” “I want to know about the pretty sailor-suited soldier, Sailor Moon, and her devotion to love and justice. I want to know how the klutzy, ordinary girl Usagi became a great warrior. I want to know about her life, her trials, her adventures, her friends, her love, everything. Everything that you love about her, I want to know.”
For a moment I think that this is all in vain, that I’m being crazy, a temperamental teenager in the middle of another trivial tantrum when I hear my dad clearing his throat. I close my eyes, feeling the anticipation run through my veins and my heart beginning to beat faster in excitement.
“Well, it’s a good thing that I have nothing more important in the world than to attend to my tenacious daughter. But I have to warn,” he says, in that story-telling voice he would use when I was a child, “that this is a very long story that spans centuries, millenniums, lifetimes to be exact.” He gives me an inquiring look, raising his dark eyebrow comically. “Are you sure you are up for such a tale?”
I grin. “I think I can manage.”
--
I am awakened that night by a dream filled with afternoon strolls in the Tokyo city park and the smell of burnt curry in Mamo-chan’s apartment due to Usagi’s “wonderful” cooking skills. My forehead is damp with sweat and my face is streaked with dried tears. Sitting up in my bed, I take out my small award and rub my thumb over the piece of silver. My stomach clenches at what I am about to do. Getting up from my bed, I walk across my bedroom to the elegant fireplace that I never use, the award’s yellow ribbon still wrapped around my fingers.
I burned it that night. It didn’t deserve to exist.
