just a dash of absinthe by Papirini

With a Dash of Absinthe
by papirini

Alone. All those years of work, all those years of sweat and toil. All the blood that had been spilled dodging projectiles, and all of the energy that she had spent to stay bonded with her friends. It had all dissipated within a matter of moments. She was once again alone, lying stretched out in a pool of sand, her senshi armor all but gone, and she herself completely exhausted.

And at the very moment, even on the hottest day of the month, that was exactly how she wanted it.

The sweat and toil, the energy was no longer directed at monsters and strategy and the unending battles; it was directed towards making the perfect martini. The only projectiles she worked with were paper umbrellas and the occasional request for an Adam Bomb. Sangria was the name of blood here, made from gin and vodka.

And the closest Aino Minako got to Japan was when she was creating a Kyoto for a random tourist from the Austrailian mainland or New Zealand. Her closest neighbor on Nukunono Atoll was the occasional great white shark, in the middle of nowhere.

She gave a sigh and went underneath the cabinet where her cocktails were. She was not a big drinker, at least she wasn't when she first arrived. But time went by slowly, and eventually she came to have several concoctions a day as a means of escaping the inanity. Today in particular, she was in the mood for a cinnamon margarita. And it normally did not matter if she drank on the job; currently, there was a three day streak of no customers at her little flipflop bamboo bar.

She really did have to get away from what was going on in her hometown. Crystal Tokyo had become, after the end of the Black Moon Wars, a cesspool of never ending boredom on one hand, and an endless stream of intrigues on the other hand to get rid of the Sailor Senshi. Many upstanding politicians were pressuring Neo-Queen Serenity to disband her closest friends and send them packing towards civilian lives, which she refused to do.

“Get rid of the Senshi!!” The peaceful populace protested. “Get rid of the warmongers!!”

Soon there were public denouncements of the Senshi, which could only escalate from there to threats, and finally citywide riots. Each woman tried to do her part to keep the peace, and prove to the world that there was still a use for them. And indeed, with the violence over their existence escalating, they were forced to prove that they would always be needed.

But not Sailor Venus; she was never needed again. Her career ended with the riots.

She loved her friends, and she wanted to keep to her duty with protecting the royal family. Unfortunately, during one of the most violent protests, someone had managed to get to her. Minako could still remember as she went to make a speech, how someone had come up behind her. She remembered seeing the shadows only seconds before the pain kicked in.

The blood, and the screams, while she fell down, her body convulsing as she hit the ground. She remembered it all, even as she tried her best to block it all out. Tears began to fall from her eyes as she saw her friends' faces, filled with horror, dancing on the waves of the beach in front of her.

....No.

She wiped the tears away from her salt-sprinkled cheeks. She didn't want to remember the day she woke and learned of what had happened; she had been shot by a semi-automatic, illegal since the ascension of the queen, and that it had lodged in her spine.

Nor did she want to relive the months she spent in traction, then in rehabilitation, just so she could walk somewhat properly. She especially did not to remember the reason why she was on Nukunono Atoll to begin with. Because the doctors told her she could never transform again, no matter what she did. It wasn't that she could not transform, per se, but the slightest force trauma to her body could cause the bullet to move and sever her spine. So, she could never battle again, not even if Neo-Queen Serenity intervened. For once she started, it could end up instantly killing her.

It was a shame Minako knew she would never recover from. So as soon as she was strong enough to travel, Minako did so, under the cover of darkness and secrecy. She told no one where she was going, not even Artemis. They didn't need to know; what use would it be, since she could not fight alongside them, and could never recover the harmony she had with her comrades?

Ugh....

The next thing Minako knew, almost her entire drink was gone, and her head began to spin. She imbibed the margarita too fast, and she almost fell before reaching her bartender's stool. If only she had not lost her shaker of salt, then she wouldn't have caved to the buzz; in that case, it was her own damn fault. With a moan, she laid her head on the bar, her eyes half-closed. She had gotten good at mixing, but once in a while she still made mistakes.

Mmmm.....food.

There were no days to go by on that little island; no one there counted. The only thing that mattered to the sparse population was that the sun rose, and the beach was hot; the sun set, and the beach was cold. It was like that with Minako; during the day she was servicing at her bar, because her little hut was too stuffy. At night, though, it was just right, and all she needed was a blanket and a mosquito net to keep herself comfortable. Her only contact with the outside world was with tourists, and with her distributors from New Zealand, and they only came once every month or so.

So for most of the time, as she was at that moment, Minako was alone and bored. She'd been there for months, even years, and the effects of her exile showed. She was not as she had been as a sailor; her lower belly had started to paunch out noticably, her hips had widened slightly, and her skin tone was dark brown from countless days in the sun, while her blonde hair became off-white. In short, she could have been another person one who didn't mind the heat anymore, not when it concealed her pain from the world.

Her throat parched for food, Minako reached for the bowl of peanuts on the other side of the bar. Her hand lazily grabbed for a pile, and with a drunken gesture spread the peanuts into a single line.

“Hmmm....” With a hum on her lips, she swiped up one peanut at a time and popped them into her mouth, a song of the slightly drunk on her lips. “For every one I eat, a puppy goes to sleep....soldiers in a line, going to my mouth....Pac-Man, Pac-Man, pizza in your ear.....pinch a peanut, aisle 5......”

Each one went into her mouth, faster than the previous one. There were thirty peanuts in a row when she started; within sixty seconds, she had wolfed down half of them. She ate each one, after that, slowly, as if to ration them as she got near the end of the run. It didn't last very long; she was finally on the last peanut, and with a sigh at the thought that her game was over, she reached for it.

Another hand grabbed it before she could.

“H...heeeeey....”

Minako's eyes squinted slightly. Her fun had been ruined; no doubt it was a tourist who was about to pound the bar and yell for some odd drink she'd never heard of, one she'd have to look up in her book as she made it. She hoped she didn't look too flushed as she brought her head up to meet the eyes of her patron.

Clear, royal blue eyes.

What....?

Suddenly, Minako was quite sure she had mixed a little too much tequila into her margarita. Perhaps it was the way her mouth went dry as she looked at her new customer, or perhaps it was the way she began to sway as she sized up her customer, who simply took to chewing the lost peanut with a smile on their face.

Or perhaps it was the fact that Minako's eyes showed her a customer with blonde hair tied up into circular buns, large blue eyes filled with relief, and a crescent moon boldly placed in the middle of her forehead.

“Minako-chan.” And a flower-print blue muumuu. “We finally found you.....”
“Uh.....I....”

Minako's assertion that she was drunk enough to hallucinate began to fade away when the customer clasped her hand tightly to hers. As they touched, drunken loneliness was replaced by warmth; Minako was still slightly tipsy, but there was no mistaking who it was in front of her anymore. Feelings of surprise, even shock, began to sink into her mind.

“Y....you....” Minako stared at her customer dumbly, unable to say anything. “Usagi....chan?”
“...Minako-chan.” Her customer's smile deepened, even as her eyes began to shimmer. “Oh, Venus......I never thought I'd find you. I spent months looking, and....I thought I'd never see you again. But somehow, I....I heard of you from some businessman in Canberra, and I found this island.....and.....and....”

Minako was too struck to respond a this. It wasn't right. This wasn't supposed to happen. She was useless to her queen, a nonentity. She was supposed to languish in exile forever as the royal court went on to bigger and better things. They weren't supposed to look for her, be worried, cry when they find her.

They weren't supposed to be her friends anymore.

“Minako-chan?” The customer's eyes filled with concern. “What's wrong?”
“I....” Minako's eyes began to fill with tears. “You....came for....me?.”
“Oh....! Of course I came!” The customer's eyes widened. “I could never let you suffer! The man in Canberra said you looked so sad when you served him. I don't want you to be sad; I...I want you to get better. To come home, if you want to ”
“But....I'm.....” Minako shut her eyes tightly. “A failure....”
“No you're not.”

Before Minako knew it, her friend's arms were wrapped tightly around her neck, and her smell filled the bar. The way the queen hugged her agitated the bullet in her spine, but the pain was fleeting.

“I love you. I always loved you; we all do. Please, come home....”

Indeed, as Minako looked upon her queen's face again, all pain was fleeting. The months in the hospital, the feelings of helplessness and uselessness seemed to fade in comparison to her friend's loyalty. A loyalty not to Sailor Venus the soldier, but to Aino Minako the person. It was something she had not felt for months, for years....she wasn't sure, as she had lost count.....

The heat and isolation of the island was suddenly too much for Minako to bear. Thoughts of a temperate climate, and a large crystal palace beckoned to her as if they had never been a part of her life before. Thoughts of friends and family she thought would never care after she fell, but whom in the end had gone to the ends of the earth just for for her.

Then came the thought of how everyone would react the first time she made them each a cosmopolitan, and she smiled.

“Usagi-chan....”

If they would let her near the alcohol, of course. If the draconian doctors knew she'd been downing countless cocktails for months on end, their brain cells would explode at the very mention of it. That alone made her want to laugh.

“......Let's go home.”

end