when love comes calling, don't look back
Characters: Utena and Mami
Date: During the mistletoe event
Summary: The best way to make things between a friend less awkward is to make out with them! Oh wait.
Warnings: None
( when love comes calling, don't look away. )
Date: During the mistletoe event
Summary: The best way to make things between a friend less awkward is to make out with them! Oh wait.
Warnings: None
( when love comes calling, don't look away. )
Dressed in a similar fashion, if with slacks instead of jeans as well as the addition of a scarf, Mami traces her own path through the lightly-powdered vegetation - her stride purposeful, yet blind. It doesn't matter where Mami goes as long as she's moving, as long as she's out of her empty apartment and making some effort to outpace the memory circling her brain like a vulture. Leaves crunch noisily under the tread of her shoes; she closes her eyes and breathes in deep, willing the sound and the chilly air to cleanse her mind of troublesome thoughts. But it doesn't work, Mami realizes soon enough. The epiphany comes with only a trace of bitterness - for why would the attempt succeed now, of all times, when it had only failed before? The strange tightness in her chest persists: a brief, almost painful squeeze that comes and goes when Utena pops into her head. A sensation unlike anything she's felt before, beyond her ability to describe let alone control. Yet for all her attempts to break its hold on her, to bury and forget it, the ache had simply refused to be swept under the rug, leading her on distracted walks that seemed to have no end. (She could escape Utena's presence, perhaps, but not these unsettling feelings.)
Mami is in the middle of trying to convince herself for the tenth (or eleventh, or perhaps even the fifteenth) time that it's just some lingering discomfort, a sense of humiliation and embarrassment from when the magic of the Gardens had compelled her to act without regard to distance or propriety, when the commotion catches her attention. Surprised, she speaks up without thinking.]
Ah? Utena-san, wh-
[But then she quietens when the identity of the other person hits home, color bleeding out of her face. There's that pressure again, making her feel heavy and awkward and poised to fall on her face. Mami pauses, then braces herself; her voice is soft, polite, and careful above all else.]
...do you need some assistance, Tenjou-san?
[That hurts to say, to allow that small yet significant measure of emotional distance to reassert itself. But Mami doesn't know what else to do, and in a moment of cowardice, she once more retreats.]
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She almost darts past Mami, but stops at the sound of her name, freezes and turns around. She begins to smile.]
Oh! Mami-san, I... [But she freezes in mid-greeting, the hand that was beginning to raise in a wave falling at her side. The use of her family name, it seems, has not been lost on her. The smile freezes in place and then disappears. For the first time, Utena's expression is difficult to read. Her hand curls into a loose fist, and she shakes her head.]
I don't need any help. I'm just trying to get my ribbon from those birds. [It looks as if she might say something else, but instead she jogs toward the tree, deftly grips the low-hanging branch with one hand, and lifts herself up. The branch creaks beneath her weight and the force of the wind, but Utena pays it little mind and continues to climb up. She can see the birds now, and has a memory of Kozue holding a birds' nest as if it was a lifeline, hanging precariously beneath a window sill outside the school.
But Utena remembers she doesn't have a brother to catch her, and that thought makes her vision blur for a second. She blinks in surprise at the sudden swell of emotion, regains her composure and continues. If she doesn't have a brother, she thinks, she'll just have to climb more carefully. There are plenty of footholds in a tree, after all.]
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You're- ...wait! [It comes out almost like a plea, as if she was asking Utena for something so much more meaningful than to simply stop. Mami quickly walks over to the tree on legs that don't feel quite steady. It's hard, but somehow she manages to look up at Utena trying to conquer the branches.] Ah, you don't have to do that. There's...I'm sure there's another way... [one hand leans on the trunk as if for support, the other tugging lightly at her scarf - she's imagining her ribbons, enveloping the birds, ribbon and all] ...and I don't want you to fall. They're pretty high up, you know?
[Despite everything, all the embarrassment and unease and that damned tight feeling in her chest, it's concern for Utena's well-being above all else that finds a way into her voice.]
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She hears Mami and swallows the first bitter words that come to mind: Why do you care? Instead, she tries to give her some hollow reassurance. There is no need to lash out, she convinces herself. She wonders why she's so angry, anyway.]
I'll be fine! Don't worry!
[She's so close to the birds. The world has compressed, shrunk to this goal, and this one alone. They seem to be waiting for her to move, and she does. Her hand reaches out to grab the ribbbon. She's so close...]
I'm...almost there...
[The branch underneath her feet is too weak to hold her weight, however, and snaps with a wet-sounding crack. Utena is quick to move, the outstretched hand instead moving to grip the branch where the birds are perched. But it's slippery, covered in ice, and she knows her grip will loosen. She knows she'll fall.
The sky is a heavy, dismal gray. It's an ugly gray, Utena thinks. In Ohtori, it rarely looked like this. The sky was almost always a robin's egg blue, threaded through with wispy, white clouds. When the sun would set, the whole campus would be painted in shades of red and gold. And at night...she and Anthy always had stars. The twins, Castor and Pollux. Ganymede. Akio taught her all the constellations. Outside of the tower, the sky was alight with stars, bright and endless in the dark night. They went on for eternities, she was sure.
The sky in the Gardens never had any constellations she knew.
Her hand begins to slip on the ice. She is cold, and the wind is doing her no favors.]
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You idiot, at this rate you really are going to fall.
[And then the sound of the breaking branch snaps Mami back to reality, and Utena is hanging on but for the moment, and Mami realizes something very important very quickly: there's no time.
No time to let these confusing feelings paralyze her. No time to hide away, to try and run and leave them behind, to wrap the old distance around herself in hopes that it would help. There's no time to do anything but the one thing she had failed to do when Charlotte was closing in, all garish colors and grinning teeth in a sickening, surreal place that was a world unto itself: act. Her eyes narrow; a golden light bursts forth from the ring on her finger.]
Utena-san!
[She's finished transforming before the shout has a chance to fade into silence - that hated, lonely, unbearable silence. An oppressive emptiness Utena somehow always managed to chase away with her existence alone, that cheerful energy that seemed so free. Mami's magical girl uniform is poor protection on a day like this; the sudden cold is shock to her system. Yet it's a harshness she welcomes, the bite in the air making her feel focused for the first time in weeks.
With a single graceful snap of the wrist, Mami unleashes her ribbons; they speed toward Utena, spiraling and twisting into themselves as they go until they form a platform that waits just beneath Utena's toes. The only girl only needs to release her grip, and she'll be safe.]
Utena-san, you can let go - I'll catch you, I promise!
[She doesn't know where the words come from, the ringing conviction within them. It's selfish, Mami knows, to ask for Utena's trust after her recent behavior - but she needs it now. And deep down, some part of Mami realizes that she's always needed such a thing....to have another place their faith in her despite her flaws and her mistakes, rather than out of ignorance of them.]
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Why expect help? The only people that had ever helped her were her prince, who she hadn't seen in years, and Anthy and Wakaba, who weren't here. Any assistance from the Duelists had been a means to an end, she's sure, and she realizes she expects this from Mami as well. Empty promises and empty friendships, moods that changed from one moment to the next. Inconsequential and impermanent, lasting only for a single instant in time. There was nothing eternal about them.
Her vision blurs again; her eyes fill with frustrated, angry tears. The birds are only faint pinpricks of color now, barely visible. Finally, she can't hold on any longer, and there is nothing left to do but trust. Her grip loosens, she falls and lands safely in the ribbons.]
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Soon, Utena is near enough to the ground to reach out and touch it. Mami smiles at her, the expression weak and weighed down - heavy with a hundred things she can't yet say. But there's an apology there, and concern, and a genuine relief that Utena isn't hurt. A pause, searching for some way to begin, and then Mami asks softly:]
Are you all right?
[She doesn't just mean the near-miss.]
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I'm fine. [She quickly wipes at her face with her sleeve. One of the birds flutters down, the ribbon held in its beak, and gently deposits it into Utena's hand. The look she gives it is enough to make it retreat, returning to its safe haven up above.
Utena ties her hair back again. She appears tense, the movements of her hands rushed and stilted.] You didn't have to help. [This is at least delivered a bit more gently.] I could've gotten a leg up on the branch, but thanks anyway. [She untucks her ponytail from her jacket collar, straightens her shoulders. Her hands hurt from holding on to the branch, and she stuffs them in her pockets.]
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You're right, I didn't have to. [She sucks in a quick breath, wraps her arms around herself to weather another icy breeze.] ...I did it because I wanted to. You're my friend, I didn't want you to get hurt. [Mami regards the ugly, depressing sky; her smile becomes a bitter and self-hating thing.] ....ah, but I haven't been a very good one lately, huh....?
[A moment to brace herself, and Mami steps forward. Slowly, she reaches out to gently touch Utena's arm.]
I'm sorry, Utena-san.
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Her hand reaches up to touch Mami's, and she sighs. The tenseness in her posture dissipates - she seems almost relieved. Her feelings are still hurt, she's still a little confused. But an apology goes a long way.]
Thanks for not letting me fall. ...I'm sorry too.
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....It's all right.
[She closes her eyes, concentrates. A golden light blooms from her fingertips, envelops Utena's hand in a warmth that heals and soothes - meant to reduce pain to little more than a bad memory. Mami shivers; the rest of her is growing colder, becoming numb, but she can't find it in her to regret this.]
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Ah...um, thank you. [Finally she glances over her shoulder to smile at Mami. Her anger is forgotten for now...or at least, pushed to the side and buried.] It feels a lot better now. [She studies Mami carefully, tilts her head.] Aren't you cold in that?
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A little, but I'll be fine.
[She withdraws her hand and searches Utena's face, the golden light and warmth fading into nothingness for the time being. The same selfless concern is heavy in her gaze, even as another breeze whips around them and raises goosebumps on Mami's skin.]
Your other hand...it probably hurts too, right? [Tentatively holding out both hands, testing the boundaries of this shaky return to friendliness:] ....let me see it.
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[The obvious concern etched on Mami's face makes her feel guilty, for being so angry. She still felt strange and off-balance when she looked at the other girl; the memory of their time with the music had not left her. That memory shifts and melds with others: the dreams, and what happened afterward. She remembers the advice of the woman on the Vine now, and her cheeks color slightly. Should she ask? Is it the right time?] Say, Mami?
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Mami's thoughts are not running parallel to Utena's; she's too busy being grateful for this chance to atone in some small part to think about Claire's advice.] Yes?
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She stares down at their hands, at the soft, golden glow of Mami's magic, and breathes in.] I wanted to say that I'm glad we're friends.
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