Fic: as long as you remember her
Hi all! First time posting here. A while back I did the 31_days challenge, and will be posting the fic I wrote for that in this comm. Please watch for updates!
This particular fic was inspired by the many future fics floating around. I love the Homura, Kyouko and Mami dynamic, and wanted to write more of them interacting. I hope I managed it.
Title: as long as you remember her
Day/Theme: 06. You cannot save people, you can only love them.
Characters/pairings: Homura, Kyouko, Mami, some minor OCs. Levels of Kyouko/Sayaka, Kyouko/Mami and Homura/Madoka are on par with the series.
Rating: PG13 for violence and Kyouko’s potty mouth
Content Notes: Mami, Kyouko and Homura think about people they loved. Spoilers for the entire series and mentions of character death
The wake goes by in a blur. It's only afterwards, when everyone--even the relatives that tell Mami they will be her new family--have left for their homes and hotels that Mami starts to notice anything at all.
There is far too cold tea in front of her. Mami takes it, stands up and pours it away, just for something to do.
She returns to the table and sits, helpless. The night stretches out in front of her, long and endless. Mami knows that as the only surviving member, she absolutely has to keep vigil, but even so... "Kyuubey?"
The magical creature appears immediately on Mami's coffee table. His paws leave no prints. //Tomoe Mami,// he greets her in return.
Mami means to make small talk--she knows from her mother that is what hosts do--but what comes out instead is, "I want to know... could I have saved my parents?"
//The power of your potential could have allowed for that.// He tilts his head in what appears to be confusion. //Was that what you wanted? It wasn't in the wish.//
"No," Mami chokes out, even though inside her mind she is saying Yes. "I'm glad to be alive." I wish they were here with me. But it's too late. She can only love them in memories now.
Now that she knows what can happen from not voicing what she thinks, she asks Kyuubey, "Will you keep me company tonight?"
The creature jumps down from the table. He curls up, and Mami is pleased to find that he's a warm and comforting pressure against Mami's leg. (He was a magic creature, one never knew.) //I've no need to be elsewhere.//
That night, a lonely girl keeps vigil, while a magical creature slumbers beside.
After Sayaka disappears, the world continues on.
So Kyouko thinks until Mami pulls her aside. Kyouko yelps and nearly hits her; it was too soon after a particularly tough demon fight, and the miasma is only just lifting from the fountain in this park. Mami isn't cowed. "We're here for you, if you want to talk about anything."
"What's there to talk about?"
"You haven't been the same since Sayaka was taken away by the Law of Cycles."
Kyouko snorts. If anyone was acting weird, it was Homura, who acted as if the whole world was new and she didn't remember anything. Yet there she is, standing behind Mami in a show of silent support. Her bow is hanging loosely in her grasp.
Kyouko knows Mami doesn't like what she calls "bad attitude" and Kyouko calls "things that don't deserve an answer". Honestly, sometimes Mami doesn't remember that Kyouko had to grow up --way too quickly, way too soon. Still, they're working together because demons are like roaches -- there's no advantage in bragging about numbers, and the faster the pests are exterminated the better. So she tries to explain, "Don't tell me you weren't as surprised by her disappearance."
"We're all grieving," Mami admits. "But Kyouko, you've been so aggressive lately. You need to calm down."
If there's one thing that Kyouko has learned not to do from all her experiences, it's to blindly listen to others. So she shakes Mami's hand free, turns on her heel and does not release her transformation.
"Where are you going?" Mami calls out.
"To hit things where you can't see me!" Kyouko shoots back, and yeah it's mean and petty but it doesn't change the fact that Kyouko is mad.
.. and yeah, Mami is right, but Kyouko is still mad and it's better than punching kind, gentle Mami, who would probably just let her. Tch.
(A while back, Kyouko would have called her a pushover while seething with jealousy at being replaced. Now she realises how stupid that all is.)
Kyouko makes good on her word, banging her spear against park railings and wrecking a good bit of the path when she feels someone alight quietly on a park bench. "You can come out of hiding, I know you're there!"
After a moment, Homura steps out of the shadows. Or the shadows shifted. Homura is one of those type of magic girls where if you thought about her powers too hard, you got a headache. Kyouko would swear that Homura had time powers once upon a time, but that she can't place when tells her she should probably shut up about it. Don't want to crack time or something.
It doesn't help that Homura behaves as mysteriously as her powers. "Were you wondering if you could have saved Miki Sayaka?"
"It's not my fault she was such a rubbish magic girl," Kyouko snaps back out of reflex, then winces. She usually tries not to speak ill of the dead, but Law of Cycles or not Sayaka was such a pig-headed idiot. Just thinking about it made Kyouko rattle off. "Don't make wishes for other people, Sayaka! Don't overdo your healing thing, Sayaka! Don't charge into battle alone, Sayaka! And then what does she do?"
Homura maintains a polite, but pointed silence. Mami might have said something about pot calling the kettle black, but Homura always prefered to speak by not speaking. And ugh, she really has been hanging around her for too long if she can hear Mami in her head.
"What I mean is," Kyouko continues, because she didn't get to where she was without bulldozing a few people. "I did all I could already. I reached out to her and she just threw it all away!"
"Is that what upsets you?" It might be Kyouko's imagination, but the corner of Homura's mouth seemed to have twitched downwards. "That you couldn't save her when you tried so hard?"
"Well, that means shit all if they don't want it, doesn't it?" Kyouko doesn't want to be proven wrong, so she hurries on. "It's just that I was getting to hash things out with Sayaka. And then she goes and disappears! Don't you know just how rude is that?"
This time, this time Kyouko is really sure that Homura is smiling, though it's weak and thin. "I see," she says, and hops off the bench that she really had no purpose to be standing on. "I'll let Mami know it's ok. And if you really have to beat something up, you might want to consider somewhere with less property damage."
When Kyouko goes back to calculated carnage, it's with a smile on her face. "Just you wait, Sayaka," she promises. "I'll show you what it's like to be a proper magic girl."
In the final timeline, a magic girl with a red ribbon in her hair looks out at the city.
It's a place Homura likes to visit, since she discovered her wings and that she could reach high places where no one else could go. Today, she is not looking out at the city, but instead mulls over what the younger girls had told her.
To have juniors - once, Homura had only believed Mami was capable of having juniors. In Madoka's new world however, magic girls lived longer, and were more willing to share information and territories with each other. By merely being around for long enough, Homura now had juniors that looked up to her and wanted her to teach them.
But it seems they had plenty to teach her in return too.
One of the girls had disappeared, and Homura was resigned to tell them all about the Law of Cycles (with what happened to Sayaka, Mami had seen to it to draft a proper speech) when a remaining girl said, "Did anyone see the girl with pink hair?"
Homura knew she showed surprise, but none of the girls commented on it, too busy talking among themselves: "Pink hair?" "I didn't see her." "Sounds familiar though." "Another magic girl?" "Could be... but I don't remember anyone with pink hair..." "What would she want with Emiko?"
Homura had to find out the answer. "Who here saw a magic girl take Emiko away?" she asked.
The babbling girls immediately fell silent, eager to obey their senior. After a moment, two girls raised their hands. One of them was Hideyo, the girl who had first asked the question.
Homura had to know. “What did that magic girl look like?”
But the second girl to raise her hand was now shaking her head. "I might have been too shocked," she said. Hideyo remained silent.
There was no point in demanding answers, not when the other girls looked disturbed by the entire situation. Homura comforted them, Mami's speech rolling off her tongue without her thinking about it. After the girls had departed, going their own ways to make their own peace with their friend being gone, Homura called out, "Hideyo?"
Without her peers, Hideyo was slightly more confident of what she saw, but only slightly. "It was too quick, sempai. All I saw was pink hair. But what would a magic girl want with Emiko?" She gave a wry smile, and shook her head. "Still, it's strange how other people thought they saw her..."
"Yes. Are you sure there aren't any more details that you could give me?"
There were no end of surprises, for Hideyo crimsoned in embarrassment. "Are you sure you want to know, sempai?"
"It could help us find Emiko," Homura cautioned.
"It's, well, she kind of looked like, uh, an imaginary friend I had back in my childhood," Hideyo finally admitted. "I was so happy to see her again! But then I found out Emiko was gone. Now that I think about it, maybe I was too shocked at seeing Emiko disappear, so I must have imagined her again as a form of comfort?"
Homura dismissed Hideyo in a daze, not knowing what to think about that explanation. In her confusion, she had fled to the top of the tallest building to mull over what she had learnt. It should be impossible, but then again... Homura had remembered Madoka. Tatsuya had remembered Madoka.
Now, alone and able to think about the situation more calmly, Homura realises that Hideyo and Tatsuya were the same age. Could it be that children, not knowing that they weren't supposed to see Madoka, had seen her? If that was the truth, it was a great comfort since she last saw her friend smile and sacrifice herself.
As Homura turns her attention to the city, she finds that she is smiling. She isn’t alone after all; she remembers, and maybe, just maybe, others remember too.
This particular fic was inspired by the many future fics floating around. I love the Homura, Kyouko and Mami dynamic, and wanted to write more of them interacting. I hope I managed it.
Title: as long as you remember her
Day/Theme: 06. You cannot save people, you can only love them.
Characters/pairings: Homura, Kyouko, Mami, some minor OCs. Levels of Kyouko/Sayaka, Kyouko/Mami and Homura/Madoka are on par with the series.
Rating: PG13 for violence and Kyouko’s potty mouth
Content Notes: Mami, Kyouko and Homura think about people they loved. Spoilers for the entire series and mentions of character death
The wake goes by in a blur. It's only afterwards, when everyone--even the relatives that tell Mami they will be her new family--have left for their homes and hotels that Mami starts to notice anything at all.
There is far too cold tea in front of her. Mami takes it, stands up and pours it away, just for something to do.
She returns to the table and sits, helpless. The night stretches out in front of her, long and endless. Mami knows that as the only surviving member, she absolutely has to keep vigil, but even so... "Kyuubey?"
The magical creature appears immediately on Mami's coffee table. His paws leave no prints. //Tomoe Mami,// he greets her in return.
Mami means to make small talk--she knows from her mother that is what hosts do--but what comes out instead is, "I want to know... could I have saved my parents?"
//The power of your potential could have allowed for that.// He tilts his head in what appears to be confusion. //Was that what you wanted? It wasn't in the wish.//
"No," Mami chokes out, even though inside her mind she is saying Yes. "I'm glad to be alive." I wish they were here with me. But it's too late. She can only love them in memories now.
Now that she knows what can happen from not voicing what she thinks, she asks Kyuubey, "Will you keep me company tonight?"
The creature jumps down from the table. He curls up, and Mami is pleased to find that he's a warm and comforting pressure against Mami's leg. (He was a magic creature, one never knew.) //I've no need to be elsewhere.//
That night, a lonely girl keeps vigil, while a magical creature slumbers beside.
After Sayaka disappears, the world continues on.
So Kyouko thinks until Mami pulls her aside. Kyouko yelps and nearly hits her; it was too soon after a particularly tough demon fight, and the miasma is only just lifting from the fountain in this park. Mami isn't cowed. "We're here for you, if you want to talk about anything."
"What's there to talk about?"
"You haven't been the same since Sayaka was taken away by the Law of Cycles."
Kyouko snorts. If anyone was acting weird, it was Homura, who acted as if the whole world was new and she didn't remember anything. Yet there she is, standing behind Mami in a show of silent support. Her bow is hanging loosely in her grasp.
Kyouko knows Mami doesn't like what she calls "bad attitude" and Kyouko calls "things that don't deserve an answer". Honestly, sometimes Mami doesn't remember that Kyouko had to grow up --way too quickly, way too soon. Still, they're working together because demons are like roaches -- there's no advantage in bragging about numbers, and the faster the pests are exterminated the better. So she tries to explain, "Don't tell me you weren't as surprised by her disappearance."
"We're all grieving," Mami admits. "But Kyouko, you've been so aggressive lately. You need to calm down."
If there's one thing that Kyouko has learned not to do from all her experiences, it's to blindly listen to others. So she shakes Mami's hand free, turns on her heel and does not release her transformation.
"Where are you going?" Mami calls out.
"To hit things where you can't see me!" Kyouko shoots back, and yeah it's mean and petty but it doesn't change the fact that Kyouko is mad.
.. and yeah, Mami is right, but Kyouko is still mad and it's better than punching kind, gentle Mami, who would probably just let her. Tch.
(A while back, Kyouko would have called her a pushover while seething with jealousy at being replaced. Now she realises how stupid that all is.)
Kyouko makes good on her word, banging her spear against park railings and wrecking a good bit of the path when she feels someone alight quietly on a park bench. "You can come out of hiding, I know you're there!"
After a moment, Homura steps out of the shadows. Or the shadows shifted. Homura is one of those type of magic girls where if you thought about her powers too hard, you got a headache. Kyouko would swear that Homura had time powers once upon a time, but that she can't place when tells her she should probably shut up about it. Don't want to crack time or something.
It doesn't help that Homura behaves as mysteriously as her powers. "Were you wondering if you could have saved Miki Sayaka?"
"It's not my fault she was such a rubbish magic girl," Kyouko snaps back out of reflex, then winces. She usually tries not to speak ill of the dead, but Law of Cycles or not Sayaka was such a pig-headed idiot. Just thinking about it made Kyouko rattle off. "Don't make wishes for other people, Sayaka! Don't overdo your healing thing, Sayaka! Don't charge into battle alone, Sayaka! And then what does she do?"
Homura maintains a polite, but pointed silence. Mami might have said something about pot calling the kettle black, but Homura always prefered to speak by not speaking. And ugh, she really has been hanging around her for too long if she can hear Mami in her head.
"What I mean is," Kyouko continues, because she didn't get to where she was without bulldozing a few people. "I did all I could already. I reached out to her and she just threw it all away!"
"Is that what upsets you?" It might be Kyouko's imagination, but the corner of Homura's mouth seemed to have twitched downwards. "That you couldn't save her when you tried so hard?"
"Well, that means shit all if they don't want it, doesn't it?" Kyouko doesn't want to be proven wrong, so she hurries on. "It's just that I was getting to hash things out with Sayaka. And then she goes and disappears! Don't you know just how rude is that?"
This time, this time Kyouko is really sure that Homura is smiling, though it's weak and thin. "I see," she says, and hops off the bench that she really had no purpose to be standing on. "I'll let Mami know it's ok. And if you really have to beat something up, you might want to consider somewhere with less property damage."
When Kyouko goes back to calculated carnage, it's with a smile on her face. "Just you wait, Sayaka," she promises. "I'll show you what it's like to be a proper magic girl."
In the final timeline, a magic girl with a red ribbon in her hair looks out at the city.
It's a place Homura likes to visit, since she discovered her wings and that she could reach high places where no one else could go. Today, she is not looking out at the city, but instead mulls over what the younger girls had told her.
To have juniors - once, Homura had only believed Mami was capable of having juniors. In Madoka's new world however, magic girls lived longer, and were more willing to share information and territories with each other. By merely being around for long enough, Homura now had juniors that looked up to her and wanted her to teach them.
But it seems they had plenty to teach her in return too.
One of the girls had disappeared, and Homura was resigned to tell them all about the Law of Cycles (with what happened to Sayaka, Mami had seen to it to draft a proper speech) when a remaining girl said, "Did anyone see the girl with pink hair?"
Homura knew she showed surprise, but none of the girls commented on it, too busy talking among themselves: "Pink hair?" "I didn't see her." "Sounds familiar though." "Another magic girl?" "Could be... but I don't remember anyone with pink hair..." "What would she want with Emiko?"
Homura had to find out the answer. "Who here saw a magic girl take Emiko away?" she asked.
The babbling girls immediately fell silent, eager to obey their senior. After a moment, two girls raised their hands. One of them was Hideyo, the girl who had first asked the question.
Homura had to know. “What did that magic girl look like?”
But the second girl to raise her hand was now shaking her head. "I might have been too shocked," she said. Hideyo remained silent.
There was no point in demanding answers, not when the other girls looked disturbed by the entire situation. Homura comforted them, Mami's speech rolling off her tongue without her thinking about it. After the girls had departed, going their own ways to make their own peace with their friend being gone, Homura called out, "Hideyo?"
Without her peers, Hideyo was slightly more confident of what she saw, but only slightly. "It was too quick, sempai. All I saw was pink hair. But what would a magic girl want with Emiko?" She gave a wry smile, and shook her head. "Still, it's strange how other people thought they saw her..."
"Yes. Are you sure there aren't any more details that you could give me?"
There were no end of surprises, for Hideyo crimsoned in embarrassment. "Are you sure you want to know, sempai?"
"It could help us find Emiko," Homura cautioned.
"It's, well, she kind of looked like, uh, an imaginary friend I had back in my childhood," Hideyo finally admitted. "I was so happy to see her again! But then I found out Emiko was gone. Now that I think about it, maybe I was too shocked at seeing Emiko disappear, so I must have imagined her again as a form of comfort?"
Homura dismissed Hideyo in a daze, not knowing what to think about that explanation. In her confusion, she had fled to the top of the tallest building to mull over what she had learnt. It should be impossible, but then again... Homura had remembered Madoka. Tatsuya had remembered Madoka.
Now, alone and able to think about the situation more calmly, Homura realises that Hideyo and Tatsuya were the same age. Could it be that children, not knowing that they weren't supposed to see Madoka, had seen her? If that was the truth, it was a great comfort since she last saw her friend smile and sacrifice herself.
As Homura turns her attention to the city, she finds that she is smiling. She isn’t alone after all; she remembers, and maybe, just maybe, others remember too.