Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ The Gift of the Wind ❯ The Gift of the Wind ( One-Shot )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

OK, this fanfic is rated PG-13. I have absolutely no idea why, I
just feel like rating it this way, though I really hope nobody
would find it offensive in any way anyway. For some strange
reason, I wasn't born as Naoko Takeuchi (darn Karma!) so,
unfortunately, I'm not a real genius and thus cannot own such a
great characters as Haruka and Michiru (or any other Bishoujo
Senshi Sailor Moon characters, for that matter). I'm just using
them here without anyone's permission because I'm allowed to be
evil once in a while. This is one of those times, so beware! If
you have any comments (unless they are really bad), you can E-mail
me at my address IolantaStar@hotmail.com. However, please know
that I worked really hard on this fanfic, and my self-esteem is
quite low as it is. Well, I guess I'm done with my rambling. Oh
no, wait, the song I used in this fanfiction was originally sung
in Russian. It's called "A Boy Wants to Tambov". I translated
it to English myself, but, unfortunately, I forgot the name of its
original author in the process. If you know it, E-mail me.
Arigatou!!!


The Gift of the Wind

"Time to sleep, Hime-chan," Michiru said tucking her adopted
daughter in. "Sweet dreams, my little Saturn."

"But I don't even want to sleep yet," Hotaru complained
sleepily, gazing at the Senshi of the Sea. It was that kind of an
early June night when the birds still sing their beautiful songs
in the courtyard of the mansion even at the dusk, and one would
wish nothing more than to walk out there, stare at the bright
stars just beginning to appear in the twilight sky and dream about
happiness, which for Haruka and Michiru, who were now trying to
get their daughter to bed, was so close that they could touch it
with a simple rise of a hand. Unfortunately for them, Hotaru had
absolutely no intention to give up that easily. "Tell me a story,
pleasssssse! I promise to go to sleep right after you tell me a
story."

"Hime-chan, I don't think I even know any stories. It's
been a really long time since my Mom last told me one," Haruka
responded giving her daughter a good night kiss. "And at any rate,
I certainly wouldn't be able to tell you stories as well as your
Setsuna-mama does."

Michiru nodded enthusiastically, showing that everything her
girlfriend said applied to her, too.

Hotaru frowned. "It's no fair. Setsuna-mama is away
guarding the Gates of Time, and I have to go to sleep without my
bedtime story. I went to sleep so many times without them in the
past because my Daddy was evil and then Mistress 9 took over my
body, and it was scary, and then I sacrificed my life, and was
reborn into a really small baby. And all that time no bedtime
stories because nobody loved me or I was so little that I couldn't
really love anyone. So now in this big house I thought at least my
Sailor Senshi Mommies would tell me stories every night before I go
to sleep. And now this..." Hotaru couldn't continue, and the tears
shone bright in her purple eyes.

Haruka sat on the bed and hugged her daughter, kissing
tenderly the coal-black hair. She could feel her white
short-sleeved shirt starting to get wet with the little Saturn's
tears. "Shh, Hime-chan. Don't worry. You know we love you. So
if you want, I'll tell you that bedtime story, but you have to
promise not to laugh because, as I said, I don't have much
experience in the area. And somehow I don't think that a smart
girl like you would buy the story about Cinderella and the seven
dwarfs or whatever that American Disney movie we watched yesterday
was about." Hotaru pulled back, and her eyes shone with the new
happiness. It was quite obvious that she didn't really care what
the story was about as long as her Haruka-papa loved her enough to
tell her one.

Michiru sat down on the nearby chair. "Now that would be
interesting", she thought to herself. Haruka didn't like to talk
about herself and her feelings; everyone who ever met the Senshi
of the raging wind knew it. And this time Haruka would be simply
forced to do so, for it was the perfect truth that a long, long time
has passed since she was little enough for her parents to tell her
stories, and the blonde racer most certainly didn't remember any of
them.

And so Haruka began.




You were standing on sand of the seashore,
You were staring at the blue of the sky.
Some boy run by out of nowhere,
And about his troubles he cried.
The wind carried the phrase; she boy sat on the sand,
And he cried like a child of the breeze.
You ran by to him, at his feet down you sat,
And you said, "Please, no tears."




It was in another lifetime. A beautiful princess with the most
gorgeous aquamarine hair sat by the shore of the endless sea, and
watched the sunset with her tired blue eyes. It was the first time
she was ever away from her native planet, Neptune, and though at the
very beginning it was a joyous event, by now she knew that the royal
balls were not at all what they seemed from reading the wonderful
fairy tails. She had to talk to so many people today that her
temples throbbed, and she wished for nothing more than some peace and
quiet.

This wasn't at all how it was done on her own planet; Princess
Neptune knew this for sure. Over there, where the teal shine of her
home already began to penetrate the light of the sun low at the
horizon, there weren't any balls for years now. Her people
preferred to gather in small companies of the closest friends rather
than be among few hundred other people they have never met and
probably won't ever meet. Princess Neptune didn't understand it
before this night. It just seemed that in the midst of thousands of
people it would be so much more romantic to meet your prince than to
have some sort of an old academy friend of your father's introduce
him to you at a friendly gathering. Sitting at home on her bed and
listening to her life-long nanny telling a fairy-tale, Neptune could
just imagine it, seeing the love of her life coming to her through
the crowds of people, who all paled in comparison to his
handsomeness, and asking her for a dance. She would raise her hand
to his lips then and whisper ever so slightly, "I'm all yours, my
prince."

At least that's how the dream went. But real life proved to be
different. There were so many people there that she couldn't
remember any of the faces, they simply began to go blank in her mind.
And even though lots of young men asked her for a dance, she knew
that neither one of them really was her prince, and rejected them.
This was beginning to get really boring; Neptune was tired and worn
out. That's why she ran away, well, sort of, since she was still
technically on the property of the Uranus's royal family castle.
She ran away to the shore to sit by the crashing aquamarine waves as
bright as her exquisite hair and think, and listen to the sounds of
the sea, the sea gulls at the horizon crying as they tried to catch
up with the setting sun, never realizing that it won't come back for
an entire night.

The soft whisper of the waves made her sleepy, and it seemed as
if the warm sand welcomed her in its golden bed made just for her.
Neptune was so deep in thought that she didn't notice as another
person came running from beyond the arc of the castle, just as this
person didn't notice the beautiful princess, whose hair and dress
perfectly matched the color of the sea.

Back then Neptune wouldn't know who that girl was even if she
did notice her, though I bet if anyone asked her this question just
a week later, she would answer sweetly, closing her eyes, "Why, it
was the beautiful Princess of the Sky, Uranus". To tell you the
truth, my dear Hime-chan, Uranus wasn't really as beautiful as
Neptune later thought her to be. At least I don't think so. You
see, there was a tattoo on her face. No, not one of those awful
tattoos people now put on their bodies, for that is something only
Earthlings could ever come up with. No, Uranus's tattoo was a
tattoo made by deep unhappiness, the most horrible torturer of all
times. And with a terrible mark like that on her body, not even
Princess of the Wind's impossibly long golden hair and shiny gray
eyes could make her beautiful.

Uranus ran to the very edge of the shore, that dark brown line
of sand, where the sea licks the land only to find it bitter to its
aqua tongue and quickly retreats back to the blue sky of the horizon,
forgetting everything in its lover's cloudy embrace, but eventually
doomed to return once again to the brown land. The princess's long
light blue dress got wet in the cold of the oncoming wave, but she
didn't mind. Today was just like any other, filled to the point of
spilling out with the loneliness and unhappiness until finally for
the first time in her life there was a sort of feeling in her soul,
a quiet premonition, and something snapped adding that last
long-needed drop to the cup of her sorrow. That drop or maybe just
one of the billions of tears she cried every night for the last few
years had now brought her here, to the shore, and the light wind
gently caressed her burning skin.

"My Wind, my dear friend, tell me, what is the meaning of this
life? You're telling me I will one day find someone special, but
nobody comes. I'm just as lonely as I was yesterday, and the day
before, and for as long as I can remember." Her speech had started
with a whisper, but by now she was crying so loudly that only the
deafening music of the ball prevented all the guests in her parents'
castle from hearing her words and running outside to see what's going
on. "How do you know if I'll be alright? And how do I know that you
really know if I'm not even sure if you're real or just a figment of
my own imagination? Do you really caress my skin to comfort me or do
you just blow mindlessly over this planet like you do over all the
others not caring whose lives you touch? If you are my true and only
friend, why can't you just bring me death? You hear me? You, gentle
Wind, and you, waves of mysterious sea, I want to die!!!"

The echo carried the phrase far into the twilight sky, and
Uranus took one step into the darkness of the salty water. But the
waves didn't answer, didn't reach out to embrace her and take away
her life, and neither did her gentle friend the Wind. So the
Princess of the Sky fell down into the oncoming tide, and began to
cry.

The Princess of Neptune, who awakened from her day-dream at the
very first cry of Uranus, was touched deeply by her words. How could
the other princess even ask that of anyone, right along her best
friend and companion? Death was the most horrible thing imaginable
in the world of Queen Serenity's Silver Millennium, just as it is
now. Just imagine, not being able to live, not wanting to live, one
wouldn't think, one wouldn't feel, one wouldn't suffer, one wouldn't
love... One wouldn't be anyone, just the bones in a grave or the ash
carried by the wind across the land.

The beautiful Neptune got up on her feet and ran to the
Princess of Uranus, begging her not to end her life, begging the
whole world not to bring this tall blond girl so much suffering,
begging the sea not to crash its waves so desperately onto the shore
in the time of storm, begging the wind not to penetrate the very
souls of the people with its bitter truth, begging for peace. And
Uranus was so overwhelmed by her own emotions that she wasn't
surprised at the sudden appearance of the other princess. She simply
layed down in the waves of the darkening sea and cried on Neptune's
shoulder, never caring who was it that came to her rescue with such a
vigorous fight for a human life as long as that person cared for her.

"Please, no tears," Neptune whispered, gently rocking the other
girl in her lap until she gradually began to quiet down. "Don't say
that. Please, don't. Don't ever say you want to die. There is
nothing worse than death in this world, don't you know this?"
Neptune herself was finding it increasingly difficult to speak, for
her tears threatened to choke her at every word.

However, at the quiet words of the gentle princess's
reassurance, Uranus's mood changed rapidly, as it often did at the
times when her soul was it turmoil. "My life is. My life is far
worse that death can possibly be," she cried out jumping up on her
feet and leaving Neptune's warm embrace, already beginning to faintly
miss those white fragile hands on her body and slightly surprised at
even that thought. "Who are you to tell me what to do or not to do?
I don't even know your name," Uranus continued though she already
calmed down a little, and the last sentence was said with the purpose
of quieting her own racing thoughts more than anything else.

Neptune felt struck by the blonde's words. Here she was trying
to help, and this stranger was returning only hate for her love. The
tears in her eyes finally spilled out, and in the last try to compose
her self, she said in as formal voice as she could muster. "My name
is Neptune, Princess of the Planet of the Sea." Her voice broke down
on an unnaturally high note, though, and the pretentious formality
collapsed as a ship crushed on the rock face of a mountain by the
raging wind.

Uranus saw the effect her words had on the beautiful princess
and cursed herself silently for being so harsh with the only person
probably in the entire world who had ever cared enough to want her to
live her life... simply live. She fell on her knees again, and the
sea hugged her in an embrace as cordial as a lover's, as she put her
arms around the slender body of the teal-haired girl. "I'm sorry. I
shouldn't have said that. I'm very sorry. My name is Uranus,
Princess of the Planet of the Sky. Believe me, beautiful princess,
I've never meant to hurt you with my words." Her tone was gentle,
almost motherly.

Neptune sobbed on Uranus's shoulder, but was no longer able to
hold a grudge against the blonde. She could feel almost
instinctively that the other princess's soul was in a great turmoil.
Trying to take away this beautiful person's pain, Neptune asked
quietly, not meaning at all to intrude, but rather nearly pleading
with Uranus to open up her heart, "What's the matter with you, Your
Highness? What evil could have driven you to wish for something as
awful as death?"

Uranus couldn't keep the sarcastic smile from appearing on her
face. "And there you go, too. It seems like everybody only sees in
me the Royal Highness, Princess Uranus of the Planet of the Sky.
People don't know who I am inside. The only thing they know about me
is how I look. If it wasn't for you right now, you know, I would've
done it, and there would've been a great funeral after my death, and
all those people would've came wearing black and crying over the
grave of the Princess. Yet none of them would've been crying for me
because nobody knew who I was, what I felt inside."

"I'm very sorry for upsetting you," Neptune whispered, feeling
a bit hurt herself. "Then, if you don't wish me to view you as a
princess, would you mind terribly if I called you Uranus?"

The Princess of the Sky was a bit taken aback by such a
proposal. Her feelings were raging as the swift hurricane, taking on
all of the different hues of emotion all the time. Half of the time
she herself couldn't guess what it was that she was feeling, that
caused this utter sadness and loneliness. And yet here comes this
beautiful teal-haired vision, and she is able to understand her
better than Uranus can herself. The Sky Princess recovered soon
enough, though, and answered with a coy smile, " Of course, I
wouldn't mind, but only if you give me a permission to call you
Neptune."

Uranus's eyes glittered in the light of the setting sun with a
newfound light, and gazing into them, Neptune found herself melting
inside. "You may call me whatever you like", she whispered softly,
almost inaudibly. Yet even the slightest resonance of a sound causes
the delicate glass world of a day reverie to shatter, and the
teal-haired princess blushed bright red, not quite comprehending the
meaning of her own feelings and yet bathing in their undeniable
beauty.

Uranus just smiled at the words, too absorbed in admiring the
exquisite vision of a girl before her to be able to understand
anything else, even the soft whisper of the other princess's lips.

Neptune was confused by her own emotions. She could feel the
attraction to the blonde, and it frightened her. She could never
imagine that one could feel something like that towards someone of
the same gender. The entire situation, the whole rainbow of feelings
just awakened in her young heart, was just too much for her mind to
handle, for a mind of a person is always one step behind his or her
heart. Determined, to ignore her emotions, Neptune did the only
other thing she saw fitting - she changed the topic back to the Sky
Princess's unsuccessful suicide.

"So, you feel alone, like nobody knows you or even cares enough
to know you. That must be terrible," she sighed, chasing away
mentally her own melancholic thoughts on such a subject. "Well, I
care. The waters of this sea guided by my home planet Neptune didn't
take you away from this shore, from me, and I'm glad they didn't, for
by rejecting you, they gave me a chance to know you. And I want to
know you, Uranus. Please, open your heart to me. You've just told
me that you are lonely because there is no one who knows who you are
inside. Please tell me all about you so that you will never be alone
again. I promise to listen, for I already see - don't ask me how,
but I do see - that your soul shines with strength and purity."

Uranus hardly even noticed the scarcely concealed compliment in
the other princess's last words, so startled was she by Neptune's
gentle proposal. How could she ever explain to this sweet caring
girl that in all of the years of loneliness she endured, her heart
lost its ability to communicate? That even if those strange and
unknown people who gathered in her parents' castle every day of her
life did want to know more about her, she wasn't sure she could even
begin to form the words, which would somehow betray part of her soul
to their cruel judgments? How could she ever explain that she, the
great Princess of Uranus, was afraid, afraid to be hurt? It was an
irrational fear, having no real reason, but the years of loneliness
had taught her to avoid people and not to trust them quite so easily.
Yet, none of this really needed much of explaining, for Uranus felt
so incredibly at ease in the company of this teal-haired princess.
There was a certain calmness in her heart now, calmness she couldn't
for the life of her explain, but each Neptune's word echoed in her
soul as a soft whisper of the sea, a quiet serenade, whose silent
notes resounded in her mind with the new intensity of the verse - <i>
This is meant to be</i>.

Uranus closed her eyes and layed back on the sand, searching
with her eyes the gorgeous expanse of stars beginning to sparkle in
the twilight sky, the infinity of it almost as endless and mysterious
as her own feelings. The princess sighed softly with an unexplained
contentment and began, "When I was little, my parents for my birthday
gave me a small elegant statue. I swear on the Sword of Uranus, it
was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The saddest, too.
You see, it was this very small unicorn, entirely black if not for a
blazing white horn on his forehead. He was confined by the glass
walls of the statue, unable to break free of his precious bonds.
That statue was supposed to symbolize the eternal imprisonment of
evil, which in the happy times of our Silver Millenium and under the
kind Queen Serenity's caring eye would never get to my heart. All
the people who saw it smiled at the justice of the infinite
confinement of the evil. Only I could see that this unicorn although
black couldn't possibly be evil or bad. There was too much purity
and shine in his sparkling horn, too much kindness and despair in his
mournful eyes. They didn't know who he was; they never cared,
really. So they put him inside than crystalline clear cage of glass,
where he could always see the world, but never quite touch it. One
day I could no longer take that impossible sadness of the unicorn's
pitch black eyes so I smashed the damn statue, seeking to set him
free once and for all. But as his glass prison shattered to pieces,
so did his heart. Thousands of little black crystals all over the
cold stone floor of my room... That unicorn never did get to show
the world his true goodness. I know the story might seem irrelevant,
but that's how I feel. I don't expect you to understand, but you
wanted to know, and now you do."

"That is so sad", Neptune whispered, fighting back the tears,
which were threatening to flood over her eyes. "But you're wrong; I
do understand. I know what it's like to be lonely, and I want to
help you. Tell me, Uranus, what would you like to do most of all
right about now? I swear to you, I will do anything you wish. One
wish, my princess, is worth quite a lot," she joked, trying to lower
the intensity of the charged atmosphere around them. Half of her
desired nothing more than a single wish from Uranus, the wish she
would make true with the growing passion in her heart. Another
part, of her, though, was panicly afraid of the other princess's
decision.

Uranus laughed a bit self-consciously and shyly gazed up at
the teal-haired girl. "This might seem really weird, but at the
moment there is nothing I would wish for more than getting rid of
this terrible hair," still laughing, she raised up her braid,
which got wet during the princess's unsuccesful suicide attempt,
and now looked like someone had gingerly woven strands and strands
of sandy pearls through it so that the braid itself was completely
lost somewhere underneath. Neptune laughed, too, relieved that
Uranus didn't wish for what she desired, and at the same time
oddly disappointed in such an unexpected turn of events.

"Well, if that's all you wish for," she smiled, "what are
we waiting for?"

In a few minutes the princesses were already in Uranus's
room in one of the towers of the royal castle. The planet
Neptune shone softly through the window, giving a sort of
mysterious aquamarine lining to the girls sitted on the bed. The
Sea Princess was deeply engaged in the process of slowly
unbraiding Uranus's long blond hair. The sand from the braid fell
in her lap, but she didn't mind too much. It's not like after her
sitting right in the waves at the beach for so long her dress
would be suitable for the ball anyway.

"OK, then," Neptune murmured, as the last strands of blond
hair fell free onto the other princess's shoulders. "Would you
like me to make a high bun out of it? Or would you prefer
something fancy, like maybe the hairstyle a la Queen Serenity?"
There was a soft glitter in the Sea Princess's deep blue gaze.

"Oh, for the sake of all that is good, no!" Uranus
exclaimed, actually sounding terrified. "As much as I admire our
good Queen Serenity, I wouldn't ever wish for her hair. Besides,
all of these blond waves are just not me," she said, disgustedly
gazing at the ones falling about her shoulders. "Cut it off; all
of it! I hate my hair so I might as well get rid of it."

Neptune's eyes widened in shock. "Why would you want to get
rid of such beautiful hair? Surely, it can't be for a wish to
remain bold. How about a compromise? I'll cut most of it, but
leave you with a short haircut in the end. I don't believe you
can hate your hair so much as to kill it completely!"

"I think I would like that. And I wouldn't want to be
completely bold anyway. At least not on the outside." Uranus
grinned mischeviously, and Neptune answered her with a light
smile. And yes, my dear Hime-chan, my jokes were just as bad in
the previous lifetime as they are now.

After a lot of assiduous work, the Princess of the Sea gazed
approvingly at her creation. "I think I'm finished. Now look in
the mirror, and don't be afraid to tell me if you think this is
completely horrible. I'm really not sure. I've never given a
haircut to a princess before."

Neptune took a small sky blue mirror from a dresser nearby
and offered it to Uranus. The blonde slowly accepted it and gazed
in it a bit apprehensively. "So you mean to tell me that you've
given haircuts to somebody else before and they also turned out
this way?" she inquired after a few seconds of looking at herself
in the mirror.

Neptune's cheeks became completely red. "Well, I would
exactly call it 'somebody'," she admitted. "It was sort of my
doll. But my nanny said the haircut was really nice," she added
quickly. "Of course, she might've been trying to make me feel
better after I found out that the doll's hair wouldn't grow back
like mine does."

"Your nanny wasn't lying to you, sweetheart. This is truly
amazing!" Uranus exclaimed, admiring her own reflection. "Oh,
dear Planet of the Skies, you have to idea how free if feels to
finally get rid of that annoying long braid. It always felt like
a chain of sorts binding me to this damn castle. Now, I'm free!"
She smiled at Neptune and whispered softly, genuinely, "Thank
you!" Then Uranus raised her hand and carefully took the golden
hoop out of her right ear, leaving the one in the left ear alone.
Shaking her head in amazement at how good it felt to be free of
the earring's golden weight, the blonde asked her companion, "So
how do I look?"

"Perfect, just perfect," Neptune whispered, lovingly
gazing at the other princess. However, as soon as the words left
her lips, the teal-haired girl blushed deep red and willed her
filled-with-longing eyes off the perfect vision in front of her.
She wasn't even supposed to have thoughts like that; not toward
another girl, anyway, and a princess at that. What would Uranus
think about her?

But just as before Uranus chose to shrug the incident off
with a bit of humor. "Well, as much as the two of us agree in
our opinion of my new looks, somehow I really doubt that my
parents would be in favor of them."

And the Uranian Princess couldn't have been more right.

"What have you done with your beautiful hair?" her mother
exclaimed just as Uranus together with Neptune entered the
ball-room the next evening. Thousands of candles were shining
bright, giving a heavenly hue to the high dome of the ceiling,
but the princess's heart was beating with an ominous rythm,
fearing what was to come. Not even the laughter of the dancing
guests could cheer her up.

"For heaven's sake, Princess Uranus, this has got to be
the worst idea you ever had," the King said with biting
reproach. "Who would want to marry a girl with no hair? No
self-respecting prince would even look at you now. Especially
if he had already visited the Moon and saw the exquisite beauty
of the Moon Princess Serenity."

"Mother, father," Uranus said quietly, nodding towards
each of them in turn, "you don't know me at all. How dare you
tell me that no one will marry me because of my hair? I think
I'm a little more than my looks! And anyway, who says I would
want to marry that prince of yours, or any prince, for that
matter? You liked me with my long hair because that braid like
a heavy golden chain was binding me to the path you chose for my
future. Well, I'm still here, in this damn prison of your
castle. Allow me at least a piece of freedom once in a while!"
Her voice was rising with every word of this speach until by the
last sentence all of the guests stopped dancing and were now
staring half-astonished, half-curiously at the scene unfolding
before their eyes. Noticing this, Uranus flashed bright red,
turned on her heels, and ran out of the castle, with Neptune
trying desperately to catch up to her in time.

"Do you think we might have been to harsh with her?"
Queen Uranus asked her husband, who was still standing
open-mouthed at his daughter's sudden reaction.

"Nonsense," he answered, finally regaining his ability to
speak. "She'll thank us for it when a nice prince comes along
and the two of them will live happily ever after. She's
probably right. Short hair won't stand in the way of true love
if that prince will really be worth having her. She is still my
beautiful little angel, as beautiful as you, my dear love."

"I suppose you're right," the Queen whispered, turning her
green eyes to observe the once-again-dancing guests.

But in reality, the Queen had no way of knowing how wrong
her husband actually was. With the speed of wind their daughter
ran onto the beach and met the oncoming tide. "Oh, Wind, my
dearest friend, hear my prayer. Free me from the burdens of
this life. Let me fly freely with you rustling my wings in the
blue sky. You hear me? Let me die!!!" And with those words
she took a step into the darkening in the growing twilight sea.

"No!!!" Neptune cried, running out of the castle and onto
the beach. In a several seconds that oddly seemed like eternity
to her, the teal-haired girl reached the other princess, and
embraced her with all her might. "Please don't! You don't
deserve to die," she whispered softly into the blonde's short
hair.

"Neptune, listen to me," Uranus answered, gently wiping
away the tears streaming down the other girl's cheeks. "It's
not the matter of deserving or not deserving. I want to die.
Didn't you see it back there, in the castle? I don't belong
here. This place is like a prison for me, just as the glass
statue was the prison of my poor little unicorn. I'm bound to
it for life, and only death can bring at least some relief."

"Death is for cowards!" Neptune exclaimed heatedly,
pushing away from the blonde's silk-covered shoulder. "Fine
then... You want to be a coward, so be it!"

She turned back as if to go back to the castle, but Uranus
caught her arm, and Neptune had no other choice than to face her
again. "Surely, you don't mean that," the Princess of the Sky
said calmly, trying to keep herself in line. "Not in the Moon
Kingdom, for the happiness of which so many devoted warriors
have died in a battle. Death can be honorable, my lady. Death
can be honorable when it's for the sake of something one
believes in. I'm begging you to understand me, for, as you had
a chance to see, nobody else can."

"Then why don't you make them understand? Why don't you
break the walls of your prison, and show them the real you?"
Neptune whispered insistently, her vision blurred by a sea of
tears.

"Don't you get it?!!" Uranus exclaimed, unable to hold
herself down any longer. "I tried to set that unicorn free,
and his soul ended up shattered at my feet on the cold,
unfeeling floor. That is the price of freedom, and I don't
have the power to pay it!"

For a moment Neptune just stood there wide-eyed, shocked
at the other girl's outburst, and even more so at the desperate
meaning of her words. The tears that were clouding her vision
finally spilled over again, and the Princess of the Sea gently
touched Uranus's cheek with her hand. "You are afraid," she
whispered increadulously. "Don't worry, I won't let you soul
to be shattered like that unicorn was. Don't you trust me,
Uranus?" She pulled back to look the other girl straight in
the eyes.

The Sky Princess was sobbing, scolding herself at the
same time for such a weakness. However, she met Neptune's deep
blue eyes and could do nothing else, but to nod and whisper
softly, "I trust you with my life."

"Good then," the teal-haired girl said just as gently.
"Because I trust you with mine, too. Make a wish, Uranus. I
will do anything for you." Just as she said those words,
though, Neptune scolded herself silently. She was digging
her own grave again, playing the same game, not knowing
either its rules of its price. Yet, her heart's maddening
beat told her that it was already too late.

Uranus smiled softly, first time for that whole
evening. "There is something that I would really care to
wish for right now," she said with a mischevious spark
appearing in her gray eyes, "but I'm not sure if you could
help me with that."

Neptune looked slightly astonished, but recovered fast
enough and enquired, careful not to betray her amazement, "And
what would that be?"

"Well, you see, it seems like our every meeting we
somehow end up soaking wet in the sea, and this fabric was
really not meant for swimming," she raised the now extremely
sorry-looking navy blue silk of her skirt, her gaze darkening
in disgust at the mere sight of it. "What I wish for more
than anything is getting into some new clothes, preferably not
wet, and preferably without anything in the slightest bit
resembling a skirt." She laughed a bit embarrased. "Sorry, I
should have warned you, the fun with me never ends."

"I noticed that myself," Neptune answered with a
smile. "Well, come on. If I promised to be your fairy
god-mother and make your every wish come true, I'd better
start working on it. Let's just hope the tailor will agree to
do the job on such a short occasion."

The tailor did agree to do the job, and at the next
night's ball Uranus appeared wearing her new navy blue suit
with bright golden trimmings and a wide smile, for the
Princess of Neptune was there by her side, as she always would
be for the rest of their lives.

However, for some very strange and as yet unexplained
reason the blonde's parents didn't seem to like her in this
new outfit. As the two princesses approached the royal rulers
of Uranus, the Queen's mouth dropped open and she gazed at her
daughter incredulously, for a moment at loss for words. The
King, on the other hand, found his ability to speak
immediately and used it to exclaim, "What have you done?!!"
He wanted to sound mad, but there was so much shock in his
voice that it overshadowed whatever anger he did put into
this phrase.

"Nothing really," Uranus answered with unusual
cheerfulness. "I just thought I would look nicer in a suit
rather than a dress. Not to metion that it's so much more
practical and comfortable this way."

"Why, you look simply ridiculous in that men's outfit.
Now go change into something more feminine before one of our
guests notices you in this... this thing," the Queen
ordered, looking at the suit with a certain measure of disgust
although she did have to admit that the new cloths looked
amazingly well on her daughter especially with the princess's
new haircut.

"You don't seem to mind when Father wears something like
this, Mother, so I really don't see how you can think this is
in any way ridiculous," Uranus answered defensively, already
beginning to anger. "I like myself this way, and that's
something I couldn't say for a very long time!"

"Well, you might like yourself this way, but what about
us? What about the princes, who in a couple of years will
undoubtedly be lining up at the door asking for your hand?"
Her father exclaimed angrily. "Do you think they would want
to marry someone who dresses the same way as they do?"
Uranus felt the old despair rising in her heart and beginning
to cloud her eyes' vision. The King noticed that, too, and
willed himself to come down a bit. "Please understand," he
said, much gentler this time. "I only wish the best for my
little girl."

Uranus looked into her father's eyes and could see that
he really was sorry, but she was too angry now to care. "Why
don't you for once allow ME to decide what's best for me? You
don't care what I want! You just want to lock me up in your
castle forever and marry me to some prince who I couldn't care
less about. That's not the life I want to live! That's not
the future I want to have! That's what you wish I was like,
not me. You don't even know the first thing about me so how
can you know what's best for me?!!" And with these angry
words, the Princess stormed out of the castle, again leaving
Neptune to try doggedly to catch up to her.

Back in the ball-room the Queen looked up to meet her
husband's silvery gray eyes with her own green ones. "What
did she mean by 'the prince she couldn't care less about'?
We would never even consider marrying her to someone she
didn't love. I just want her to be happy like I am with
you."

The King could only shrug his shoulders in answer to
that question. He also lost the ability to understand his
daughter very long time ago. Hence, both of Uranus's parents
were trying to blindly feel their way out of the dark forest
and into their not-so-little-anymore girl's future. They were
truly kind, the King and the Queen of the Windy Planet, but
neither of them had any way of knowing how much their genuine
love was harming their daughter rather than helping her.

So now, guided by their cruel care, the Princess Uranus ran
out onto the beach for a third time in three sucessive nights.
Again she ran into the sea, meeting the coldness of the icy water
and returning the embrace of the darkening waves. The navy
fabric of her pants broke the soft reflection of the planet
Neptune, which was beginning to shine in the twilight sky. The
princess gazed into the dark heaven and cried out again her
desperate wish to end her life. "Do you hear me, Wind? I've
tried everything that could've made me happy, but I'm still bound
to this castle by some invisible chains. So be a good friend and
put me out of my misery. I want to die!!! Grant me at least
this, the very last of my wishes."

It was at this time that Uranus felt Neptune's wet hand on
her shoulder and turned around to meet the other girl's teary
eyes with her own resolutely strong ones. "I'm begging you,
don't ask for death. Please, live," the Princess of the Sea
whispered quietly, and the terrible sadness and desperation in
her tone made the blonde shiver even more than her friend's, the
Wind's, breath on her wet skin.

"Neptune, please," she answered condenscendingly. "This is
the only way. There's nothing for me here. These walls are
suppressing me, making me dance to their morbid rythm. I might
seem alive, but I'm dead inside. I'm much more dead right now
than I could ever be after a real death. Let me die, and nothing
- believe me, nothing - will make my life happier."

Uranus started to turn away to walk further into the dark
sea, but Neptune threw her arms around her and sobbed sorrowfully
on her shoulder. Then she regained control of her feelings and
looked the other princess straight in the eye. "I understand.
You think it's the only way. Then take me with you. Hear me,
Winds of Uranus and Seas of Neptune, let both of us die!!!" As
she yelled out the last phrase, the waves she commanded leaped
more violently onto the shore, and a terrible hurricane picked up
a new strength somewhere at the horizon. There was sure to be a
storm very soon.

Uranus looked straight at the other princess's face, a
shock evident on her boyish features. "My dear Neptune," she
whispered. "I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I knew that
I became the reason for such a wonderful girl's death. Besides,
I know you. It's not in your nature to want to die." She smiled
sweetly, trying to reassure the girl in ther arms, but the latter
only barried herself deeper in the navy fabric covering Uranus's
shoulder. "Why do you wish for death?" the blonde inquired after
a few moments of silence.

Suddenly Neptune wrenched herself away from the other
princess and cried out as loudly as she could, for in those rare
moments when a human heart is allowed to have a voice of its own,
it becomes truly free and uses every resonance, every echo to its
fullest. "Because I wouldn't bear to be away from you! Because
I love you, Uranus! I love with you with all my heart!!!" The
tears as dark as the sea's waters were streaming down her face
now, and Uranus could do nothing at that moment, but to allow her
own heart the same freedom. She threw her arms around the
teal-haired princess and kissed her so passionately that her head
began to spin. When the two of them were finally able to pull
away from each other, both of them were teary eyed.

Uranus raised her hand from Neptune's waist and gently
wiped away the other princess's tears. "I'm sorry," she
whispered. "I'm sorry for not seeing your love before. I'm
sorry for hiding my feelings for you. I'm sorry for ever
doubting our destiny to be together. I love you, Neptune, and I
wouldn't bare to be away from you, either. So don't you dare die
now that I found you!" With those words the Princess of the
Sky's lips once again softly touched the other girl's soft salty
ones until the kiss grew deeper and more passionate, in virtually
no time carrying both of them into Uranus's bed.

Neptune woke up at sunrise and gently reached for the
nearby pillow, expecting to touch her lover's sweet skin and wish
her the best of mornings. But her hand found nothing, as the
blonde's head was no longer resting on the sky-blue pillow.
Neptune paniced. She thought Uranus had abandoned all of the
thoughts of suicide. But what if she was wrong? What if Uranus
left her sleeping here forever alone only to take her own life?

"Please, Kami-sama, don't let this be true," Neptune
whispered, running through the seemingly endless halls of the
cold stone castle. "Uranus, I swear to you by the Seas of
Neptune, that the sun won't rise to see us apart. If you're dead,
than my life is worth nothing."

The Princess of the Sea ran out onto the beach, the night
breeze blowing the skirts of her nightgown wildly around her
legs, for in her hurry Neptune didn't bother to dress more
appropriately. The sky was already slowly beginning to light up,
as a flame of a candle flickering with a few blazing sparks
before really starting to burn with the coming sunrise. The last
stars were beginning to die in the heaven, but their dim light
was enough for the teal-haired girl to sea her lover meeting the
oncoming tide. The waves were calm now tired from a full night
of restless storm. Neptune, still unnoticed, started towards
Uranus, but stopped midway at the sound of the other girl's next
words.

"Thank you, Wind!" the Princess of the Sky cried out to
her old friend. "Thank you so much for not listening to me.
Thank you for giving me my soul, my love, my life!"



As Haruka finished her story, she noticed that her adopted
daughter's head was comfortably resting on the small lavender
pillow, and the violet eyes were closed, giving away their
mistress's deep sleep. The blonde gently leaned forward and
kissed the little girl's forhead. "Good night, Hime-chan", she
whispered and moved away, allowing her teal-haired lover to
perform the same kind of nightly ritual they had for putting
their daughter to bed. Then the two of them rose to their feet
and left the room, turning off what seemed like millions of
lamps on their way and softly shutting the door.

Once outside, Michiru turned around to face Haruka and
gently kissed her on the lips.

"What was that for?" her lover asked mischeviously after
the kiss was over.

"For telling me all of this," Michiru answered, her voice
just as kind and caring as it had been a thousand years ago, in
a previous lifetime. "I know you don't like talking about your
feelings. That's why I'm so proud of you. What you told
Hotaru-chan, that story... it was truly beautiful."

Haruka couldn't help but smile. "Not nearly as beautiful
as you are, my love. It was all true, you know. I don't
remember much of the Silver Millennium, but I remember this. I
could never forget this. You are my savior, Michiru. You are
my soul, my love, my life." She leaned forward to kiss her
girlfriend again, and then whispered as gently as before, "My
dearest gift of the Wind."