Fic: The Strays
Title: The Strays
A/N: AA submission for the doggie picture.
The city is silent. Not a single leaf blowing in the wind, no laughing children, no cars whizzing by. It feels like the silence before the storm, only that the storm is already raging, quietly, deadly, underneath it all.
The closer they get to the city centre, the more crystals appear, coating buildings, bridges, streetlamps. They get thicker too. Where three streets back, they could discern exactly what lay underneath the crystalline covers (a two storey house, flower pots on the front steps, yellow curtains in the window), now they just see impenetrable spires and domes glinting in the pale sunlight. It’s looks more like the arctic than a metropolis, all glaciers and no humankind. Some streets have become impossible to pass - the crystal rises like a smooth mountain, impossible to scale.
When that happens, they have to take the long way around it, but it hardly matters. When you are already too late, you have all the time in the world.
Zoisite walks on the sidewalk, his right hand outstretched, trailing over the crystalline walls of the houses underneath. He is crying openly now. He was born here, lived in Tokyo all his life, and now he can barely tell which borough they are in. His whole family - sisters, parents, grandmother - is trapped underneath the crystal. From the outside, he couldn’t even check whether they still have a steady pulse.
Jadeite walks in the middle of the street. He hasn’t said anything all day. The city is new to him, but so are his memories. He detests both equally. Three days ago, he was normal. Three hours ago, he suddenly found himself teleported to Japan where his worst memories were measured against a new reality. He’s not even sure which is worse - the panicked screams of the Silver Millenium or the eerie silence of today’s Tokyo. Looking around him, the silence drumming in his ears, he finds his answer.
Nephrite trails behind them all, jaw hanging open, eyes widened. He still can’t believe this is really happening, and still doesn’t understand what it all means. Each element taken alone, the memories, the crystal, the sudden teleportation, the reunion with the three men who used to be his brothers, the whispering of the stars, the magic in his blood, all of that he can understand, but how the sum of it leads to him wandering the streets of an already doomed city is beyond him.
And Kunzite walks ahead, all alone, eyes on the pyramid that looms over everything. In its broad base, his prince rests. Rests is the wrong word, he corrects himself, angry to have made this mistake. Endymion is not resting. Nobody rests for a 1000 years. His prince is trapped, and there is nothing Kunzite can do about it. Nothing at all.
When Endymion wakes again, the world will once again be empty of any sign of the shitennous’ existence. Endymion will wake only to be alone again.
So here they are, doing their duty, or as much of it as a cruel fate will allow them to. They are going to stand guard in front of the pyramid for as long as their bodies will let them, and then they will perish. In a 1000 years, no sign of their bodies will be left. Perhaps Endymion will find four gems, one at each corner of the pyramid. But perhaps he won’t find anything at all. Perhaps this is the end of the shitennou. Perhaps this, Kunzite realises, is hell.
Reawakened only to be forgotten.
Reawakened only to be too late.
They are the only people in Tokyo not encased by crystal. They are the only people in the world still breathing. Four people in over six billion. Four.
But in a thousand years, they will be the only ones who are dead.
*** The End ***
A/N: AA submission for the doggie picture.
The city is silent. Not a single leaf blowing in the wind, no laughing children, no cars whizzing by. It feels like the silence before the storm, only that the storm is already raging, quietly, deadly, underneath it all.
The closer they get to the city centre, the more crystals appear, coating buildings, bridges, streetlamps. They get thicker too. Where three streets back, they could discern exactly what lay underneath the crystalline covers (a two storey house, flower pots on the front steps, yellow curtains in the window), now they just see impenetrable spires and domes glinting in the pale sunlight. It’s looks more like the arctic than a metropolis, all glaciers and no humankind. Some streets have become impossible to pass - the crystal rises like a smooth mountain, impossible to scale.
When that happens, they have to take the long way around it, but it hardly matters. When you are already too late, you have all the time in the world.
Zoisite walks on the sidewalk, his right hand outstretched, trailing over the crystalline walls of the houses underneath. He is crying openly now. He was born here, lived in Tokyo all his life, and now he can barely tell which borough they are in. His whole family - sisters, parents, grandmother - is trapped underneath the crystal. From the outside, he couldn’t even check whether they still have a steady pulse.
Jadeite walks in the middle of the street. He hasn’t said anything all day. The city is new to him, but so are his memories. He detests both equally. Three days ago, he was normal. Three hours ago, he suddenly found himself teleported to Japan where his worst memories were measured against a new reality. He’s not even sure which is worse - the panicked screams of the Silver Millenium or the eerie silence of today’s Tokyo. Looking around him, the silence drumming in his ears, he finds his answer.
Nephrite trails behind them all, jaw hanging open, eyes widened. He still can’t believe this is really happening, and still doesn’t understand what it all means. Each element taken alone, the memories, the crystal, the sudden teleportation, the reunion with the three men who used to be his brothers, the whispering of the stars, the magic in his blood, all of that he can understand, but how the sum of it leads to him wandering the streets of an already doomed city is beyond him.
And Kunzite walks ahead, all alone, eyes on the pyramid that looms over everything. In its broad base, his prince rests. Rests is the wrong word, he corrects himself, angry to have made this mistake. Endymion is not resting. Nobody rests for a 1000 years. His prince is trapped, and there is nothing Kunzite can do about it. Nothing at all.
When Endymion wakes again, the world will once again be empty of any sign of the shitennous’ existence. Endymion will wake only to be alone again.
So here they are, doing their duty, or as much of it as a cruel fate will allow them to. They are going to stand guard in front of the pyramid for as long as their bodies will let them, and then they will perish. In a 1000 years, no sign of their bodies will be left. Perhaps Endymion will find four gems, one at each corner of the pyramid. But perhaps he won’t find anything at all. Perhaps this is the end of the shitennou. Perhaps this, Kunzite realises, is hell.
Reawakened only to be forgotten.
Reawakened only to be too late.
They are the only people in Tokyo not encased by crystal. They are the only people in the world still breathing. Four people in over six billion. Four.
But in a thousand years, they will be the only ones who are dead.
*** The End ***