Fic: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder (for yuri_challenge)
Title: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Author/Artist: melengro
Fandom: Simoun
Pairing: Rodoreamon/Mamiina
Rating: PG
Request/prompt: See title.
Word count: 1,006
Notes: This is part of a longer personal canon of mine regarding these characters, but you don’t need to read the other parts of such to understand this story.
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
It was the middle of the night and the Lady Rodoreamon Kyabyu Mofas, formerly Home Secretary of the Theocracy of Simulacrum, could not sleep. She was staying in the capital overnight, having gone to a parade in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Resurgence Day. The Chairman of the Governing Council had talked with her for a time but had of course had to return to the blue Spring eventually. It was lonely here, and Rodoreamon was growing older.
The thought came, of course, unbidden and a little bit idle and a little bit pathetic, to her head that the person she loved would at least never have to go through quite this set of lonely and rather depressing experiences. In those days Rodoreamon had not communicated her feelings too well, and such feelings had been accepted far too late. Since then, there had been things touching on what passed for reunion-visitations of sorts, many of them. But even so…that unspannable and ineluctable longing stayed locked up unfulfilled in her breast.
Rodoreamon looked out the window. The skyline was developing at a worryingly rapid rate. It was something that Mamiina, traditional in aesthetic and sensibility as she was radical in her beliefs and blazing in her forthright action, would by all rights have hated. Yet here she was, claiming not to mind, claiming to simply be glad to set her non-eyes on this city once again.
‘What do you mean?’ Rodoreamon asked.
‘I don’t have the luxury, little ladyship, of complaining about such things any more, you understand,’ Mamiina said in her light ironic tone. ‘I am sure that if I retained that luxury I would be having the same issues with this that you are. But I am dead.’
‘You are,’ said Rodoreamon. ‘And…’
‘You think of what would under normal circumstances be a very unsatisfactory human relationship as something akin to a miracle, the good kind,’ Mamiina said. ‘It is not quite the same, but I feel myself in somewhat of a similar position here.’
‘I do not think I would ever think of being with you as anything less than totally wonderful,’ said Rodoreamon. ‘Why do you think that, Mamiina?’
‘Because I’m not ‘really’ here, after all,’ Mamiina said. ‘Twenty-eight years and you have still not been able to determine even whether or not I am here outside your mind. How would that satisfy you?’
‘It satisfies me because you are here.’
‘Exactly.’ Mamiina sat down in, or rather manouevred her apparent form-which was, of course, without actual substance to take purchase-into, a low-slung rattan chair in Rodoreamon’s capital quarters. The chair came from one of the wicker islands at the moment under the control of, if Rodoreamon’s memory served, the Argentum People’s Popular Front for Victory. They had taken it from the One Argentum Continuing Army a year ago, and all sorts of these goods had begun to flow into allied countries once more. ‘You are content for lack of better options.’
‘That’s mean! You are the best option.’
‘But this ‘me’ is not the best option for me,’ Mamiina said acridly. ‘Even you must see that, mustn’t you, little ladyship? I would be alive in the best case situation.’
‘A lot of people would be alive in the best case situation, Mamiina,’ said Rodoreamon with a light smile. ‘It is foolish to go on about it like this. You are in your world and I am in mine and it is something to be thankful for that, I know not why, but it is possible for us to be together even to this degree.’
‘Of course little ladyship would think so,’ said Mamiina, moping as she had been moping for forty years now.
The thought blazed through Rodoreamon’s head that it really was absurd that she could possibly have thought that trifling bodily death could stop Mamiina from laughing and sneering and wallowing in sarcasm and bemoaning her lot. These things were what Mamiina did almost to the point of being who Mamiina was. There were other traits buried deeper in her than that, ones that death had had equally little success in erasing from her being, but they were traits that could be found anywhere common humanity flourished. They were the traits, putting it simply, that had allowed Mamiina and Yun to be such close friends.
What Rodoreamon loved and had loved about Mamiina was how these traits asserted themselves in the caustic surface. For example: Here she asked, ‘I say, are you really all right, Rodore?’ with the same tone that she had used once for ‘What these MPs do not understand, Rodore, and what you and Yun, even, don’t seem to fully comprehend, is that you are an Excelion-class aerial superfortress, my dear; you will cripple them in the air, metaphorically, before bombarding their attempted wrecking amendments to this humane legislation with the incendiary bombs of your words. Metaphorically.’ This was what she had first noticed about the girl all those years ago; it was this that had stirred up an interest in Rodoreamon’s heart in what Mamiina’s ‘true’ persona was, and so because of it she had found the wonderful things beneath.
‘I am all right,’ said Rodoreamon. ‘I am absolutely all right.’
‘But we are so far away,’ said Mamiina, confusion thrilling through the delicate muscles of her insubstantial face. ‘We can barely touch. How are you all right knowing all that?’
‘Yun says that it’s a unique ability that I have, to love in all contingencies despite all odds of horror,’ Rodoreamon replied. ‘I do not know why Yun of all people is yearning to explain it so. I think it’s simple. I think it’s something cleaner than that. I love you now, more than ever, more and more and more.’
‘You know what they say?’ said Mamiina.
‘About what?’
‘Things that are absent. People who have passed on-loves that have passed on. All things gone away.’
‘That’s silly,’ Rodoreamon said. ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but you’re right here.’
Author/Artist: melengro
Fandom: Simoun
Pairing: Rodoreamon/Mamiina
Rating: PG
Request/prompt: See title.
Word count: 1,006
Notes: This is part of a longer personal canon of mine regarding these characters, but you don’t need to read the other parts of such to understand this story.
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
It was the middle of the night and the Lady Rodoreamon Kyabyu Mofas, formerly Home Secretary of the Theocracy of Simulacrum, could not sleep. She was staying in the capital overnight, having gone to a parade in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Resurgence Day. The Chairman of the Governing Council had talked with her for a time but had of course had to return to the blue Spring eventually. It was lonely here, and Rodoreamon was growing older.
The thought came, of course, unbidden and a little bit idle and a little bit pathetic, to her head that the person she loved would at least never have to go through quite this set of lonely and rather depressing experiences. In those days Rodoreamon had not communicated her feelings too well, and such feelings had been accepted far too late. Since then, there had been things touching on what passed for reunion-visitations of sorts, many of them. But even so…that unspannable and ineluctable longing stayed locked up unfulfilled in her breast.
Rodoreamon looked out the window. The skyline was developing at a worryingly rapid rate. It was something that Mamiina, traditional in aesthetic and sensibility as she was radical in her beliefs and blazing in her forthright action, would by all rights have hated. Yet here she was, claiming not to mind, claiming to simply be glad to set her non-eyes on this city once again.
‘What do you mean?’ Rodoreamon asked.
‘I don’t have the luxury, little ladyship, of complaining about such things any more, you understand,’ Mamiina said in her light ironic tone. ‘I am sure that if I retained that luxury I would be having the same issues with this that you are. But I am dead.’
‘You are,’ said Rodoreamon. ‘And…’
‘You think of what would under normal circumstances be a very unsatisfactory human relationship as something akin to a miracle, the good kind,’ Mamiina said. ‘It is not quite the same, but I feel myself in somewhat of a similar position here.’
‘I do not think I would ever think of being with you as anything less than totally wonderful,’ said Rodoreamon. ‘Why do you think that, Mamiina?’
‘Because I’m not ‘really’ here, after all,’ Mamiina said. ‘Twenty-eight years and you have still not been able to determine even whether or not I am here outside your mind. How would that satisfy you?’
‘It satisfies me because you are here.’
‘Exactly.’ Mamiina sat down in, or rather manouevred her apparent form-which was, of course, without actual substance to take purchase-into, a low-slung rattan chair in Rodoreamon’s capital quarters. The chair came from one of the wicker islands at the moment under the control of, if Rodoreamon’s memory served, the Argentum People’s Popular Front for Victory. They had taken it from the One Argentum Continuing Army a year ago, and all sorts of these goods had begun to flow into allied countries once more. ‘You are content for lack of better options.’
‘That’s mean! You are the best option.’
‘But this ‘me’ is not the best option for me,’ Mamiina said acridly. ‘Even you must see that, mustn’t you, little ladyship? I would be alive in the best case situation.’
‘A lot of people would be alive in the best case situation, Mamiina,’ said Rodoreamon with a light smile. ‘It is foolish to go on about it like this. You are in your world and I am in mine and it is something to be thankful for that, I know not why, but it is possible for us to be together even to this degree.’
‘Of course little ladyship would think so,’ said Mamiina, moping as she had been moping for forty years now.
The thought blazed through Rodoreamon’s head that it really was absurd that she could possibly have thought that trifling bodily death could stop Mamiina from laughing and sneering and wallowing in sarcasm and bemoaning her lot. These things were what Mamiina did almost to the point of being who Mamiina was. There were other traits buried deeper in her than that, ones that death had had equally little success in erasing from her being, but they were traits that could be found anywhere common humanity flourished. They were the traits, putting it simply, that had allowed Mamiina and Yun to be such close friends.
What Rodoreamon loved and had loved about Mamiina was how these traits asserted themselves in the caustic surface. For example: Here she asked, ‘I say, are you really all right, Rodore?’ with the same tone that she had used once for ‘What these MPs do not understand, Rodore, and what you and Yun, even, don’t seem to fully comprehend, is that you are an Excelion-class aerial superfortress, my dear; you will cripple them in the air, metaphorically, before bombarding their attempted wrecking amendments to this humane legislation with the incendiary bombs of your words. Metaphorically.’ This was what she had first noticed about the girl all those years ago; it was this that had stirred up an interest in Rodoreamon’s heart in what Mamiina’s ‘true’ persona was, and so because of it she had found the wonderful things beneath.
‘I am all right,’ said Rodoreamon. ‘I am absolutely all right.’
‘But we are so far away,’ said Mamiina, confusion thrilling through the delicate muscles of her insubstantial face. ‘We can barely touch. How are you all right knowing all that?’
‘Yun says that it’s a unique ability that I have, to love in all contingencies despite all odds of horror,’ Rodoreamon replied. ‘I do not know why Yun of all people is yearning to explain it so. I think it’s simple. I think it’s something cleaner than that. I love you now, more than ever, more and more and more.’
‘You know what they say?’ said Mamiina.
‘About what?’
‘Things that are absent. People who have passed on-loves that have passed on. All things gone away.’
‘That’s silly,’ Rodoreamon said. ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but you’re right here.’