Communication V: Frame Shift
Title: Communication V: Frame Shift
Description: Broadening your horizons is one way to describe a change in perspective that destroys your peace of mind.
A/N: Fifth installment of six. Takes place in the same universe as Two Truths and a Lie, which should be read first. Both parts take place some time after the events of Two Truths and a Lie (the second one takes place directly after Sugar and Spice). One of these days I’ll come up with a timeline…
Frame Shift
“I don’t remember much about the Silver Millennium, but I do know this. My family thought I would make a terrible senshi.”
She had been moving into the peak of her power just as the Silver Alliance began its fatal decline, and seeing her in action evoked the old goddesses, who epitomized power, beauty, and passion. He had no idea what her family had been thinking, and said so.
With its sultry, dizzying heat and the dozens of seedlings bursting from their planters, the greenhouse was a world away from the rest of the dormant palace. The air was thick and humid here, the perfect setting for talking about things half-remembered, a time so close yet so distant that it seemed as if they were in the midst of waking from a shared dream. But for him, the dream was his only reality, and he clung to it fiercely. For her, it was only one of many that was best left forgotten.
“I was used to doing only what I wanted, what I thought was right. I often acted in the heat of the moment without thinking through the consequences. My family thought that such a trait would not bode well for my ability to follow orders. They thought that at some point, I would listen to my heart over my leader, and that would be that.
“And I did, didn’t I?” she asked wistfully.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again when she continued, “But I never thought a time would come when a great chasm would open up between what I wanted and what I thought was right. In the Silver Millennium, everything I knew told me it was wrong for us to be together, but-”
“It wasn’t wrong. It was the most right thing there was.”
Makoto tilted her head, studying the speckled orchids she was babying along. Gently, she twitched off a browning petal. It crumbled to dust at her touch, and she shook her fingers lightly over the soil. “Do you honestly believe that, Nephrite?”
“Our love is not the reason the Silver Millennium fell,” he said heatedly.
“Our actions - our failure - led to the destruction of countless lives and an entire civilization,” she countered.
“That was Beryl and Metallia’s doing, not ours! If she hadn’t come, if they hadn’t been so filled with malice and hatred and evil-”
“Then Earth would have gladly accepted Serenity as its queen, the Silver Alliance would have refrained from tearing itself apart in civil war, and we would all have married and lived happily ever after? Is that what you think?”
Her laugh was bitter in a way he remembered it had never been, as bitter as the strong coffee she made every morning and the dark chocolate she favored in her baking.
He countered, “Why do you think that two - no, ten - people being together was enough to collapse the universe? We were merely the last straw to break the camel’s back. The foundation of the Silver Alliance was already dissolving from beneath, but everyone was too arrogant, or too frightened, to see it. Until it was too late.”
“Perhaps any civilization falls, eventually, but it didn’t need to have happened then. It didn’t need to have happened to Serenity.”
“She made her choices, and we made ours. We’re only human, Makoto, and not even the stars can see the future clearly. At any given moment, we can only do our best.”
She turned away, staring blindly at the opaque crystal wall. “What if the best choice had been not to fall in love with each other? There was no way for things to have ended well.”
He closed his eyes. “Falling in love was not a mistake. The greatest mistake we made was not trusting each other. The Silver Millennium fell because its time had come, not because we dared to try and find happiness together.”
“Are you certain? Because I’m not. So you understand, don’t you, if it’s not as easy to begin again as it seems?”
She finally looked up at him, and it was small comfort that his eyes were as wet as hers.
*****
They sat together in a room that was floor-to-ceiling with maps: historical maps with sea monsters, topographical maps, and traffic maps. Minako wished finding the directions to her life were as easy as finding the shortest route from Tokyo to Yokohama. Take this little-known back road to avoid the traffic jam of parental drama, get onto the left ramp to assure Usagi and Mamoru’s happiness, follow the U-turn marked in red to figure out where everything went wrong and start over again.
All of the cookies she had made with Makoto had been eaten, and her misshapen and exotically-colored cookies were clustered forlornly in the center of the plate. Only Usagi continued to nibble valiantly on one of them, and Minako suspected that her friend was too preoccupied to notice the tough, dry texture that Makoto said was from adding too much flour.
Minako had always been one for excesses, usually in emotion or devotion, but recently a deafening numbness was floating her through her days. She kept her attention firmly on the projector screen, willing herself to show interest and avoiding the gentle concern radiating from Usagi when she failed to respond to Rei’s question.
“Minako?”
Her voice was falsely cheerful, as brittle as the heart-shaped cookie she snapped in two. “Yes, of course. Those priorities seem logical to me.”
The tilt to Rei’s dark brows was skeptical, but she couldn’t fault her for lack of attention. Their plans for what to do when the Sleep receded were constantly being reformulated and expanded, but their earlier fervor had died away. They really had no idea what to expect when the people reawakened, and the irremediable uncertainty and constant quibbling over details was draining.
“Fine. So we are agreed that our main focus should be on infrastructure and communication. We must ensure that people have shelter, food and water, and adequate clothing. This will be easier in some places than others, and as Ami and Mamoru have pointed out, we have no idea what condition people will be in once they wake up.”
When the meeting finally dragged to a close, they had each been assigned what the senshi rather ruefully referred to as “problem lists.” Minako’s mainly centered around the diplomatic nightmare of how to inform what remained of the world governments of the situation, as well as trying to figure out ways to integrate older systems and personnel into the new government.
Usagi tried to catch Minako’s eye as the others started filing out. When that failed, she plucked Minako’s sleeve, her touch as light and arresting as the brush of a butterfly’s wing.
From his place beside her, Mamoru said hesitantly, “Minako, if you like, perhaps you could discuss some of this with Kunzite. From what I understand, several of the issues they - we - faced in the early unification of Terra may be relevant, and he seems to remember most of the details.”
Unlike Mamoru himself, who recalled almost none of them. Minako glanced briefly at the doorway, through which Kunzite had exited moments ago, and fought the compulsion to bring her thumbnail to her lips.
“Ami has also been talking about some of these things with Zoisite, so if you prefer to work with them instead-”
She thought, with a pang of regret, that she was more used to seeing worry than content grace Mamoru’s features.
“No, no. It’s a good suggestion.” She forced herself to smile, wondering what part of her expression was making Mamoru wince. Minako, who was usually quite aware of how she carried herself, did not realize that her arms were folded so tightly that they suggested arctic temperatures. “In this situation, it makes sense for us to speak directly. I would appreciate his insights, especially since he’ll also be heavily involved in the adjustment process.”
That was how they talked about the situation, as if this transition phase between twenty-first century Tokyo and Crystal Tokyo was somehow like dealing with a traumatized child.
"But you don’t need to if you don’t feel ready - not right away, anyway,” Mamoru tried to reassure her.
She continued to nod and smile, but her head ached with residual tension, and she was glad when he finally left.
“Mamoru thinks it’s difficult for you to talk to Kunzite because you were once enemies. But that’s only half the story, isn’t it?”
Minako looked down at her friend, into those wonderfully clear blue eyes that seemed untouched by the shadows beneath them. “No,” she agreed, letting out the breath she’d forgotten she was holding. “It’s not because we fought each other. It’s because we loved each other.”
She sat down at the table again and leaned her head on her arms. When Usagi’s hand smoothed her hair with long, comforting strokes, she closed her eyes.
“Usa… I don’t think any of us really realized what it was like for you when you found out that Mamoru was Tuxedo Kamen and Prince Endymion. We thought you were overjoyed about being reunited with your prince, but that wasn’t all of it, was it?”
“No.” Usagi’s voice was quiet, and she didn’t stop moving her fingers through the silken strands. “It wasn’t only that.”
She continued, “But I did have very strong feelings for Mamoru, even if they weren’t overwhelmingly positive.” She and Minako shared a brief smile in memory of a flighty young girl who had once been called Odango Head by a serious young man.
“My feelings weren’t the only things that changed. I had to shift the way I thought about him, what parts of my life he fit into. He wasn’t just a shadowy dream of a handsome prince, a mysterious and dashing ally, or an irritating friend of a friend. He was all of those put together, and so much more than that. But in many ways, it was easier for me.”
“No, Usagi.” Minako raised her head now and took her friend’s hands in hers. “It wasn’t easier, never easier. It was just…different.”
Usagi smiled at her reassuringly. “All right. But what I mean is, I was able to decide, rather quickly, what role I wanted him to play in my life. I don’t think we know yet what the senshi and the Shitennou will be to each other in this time, let alone Minako and Kunzite. Do you understand what I mean?”
“You mean our private selves can be kept apart from our public selves. The leaders of the Neo-King and Queen’s guard will have a relationship of necessity, but it doesn’t have to be the same relationship that holds between the individuals in question.”
“Yes. But you can’t just let things drift away until you find yourself in a place you didn’t mean to be, with no memory of how you got there. Together, you must decide what you will be to each other.”
She nodded fervently, finally let her confusion rise to the surface as the tears glimmered under her eyelashes. “Oh, Usa, I can’t find the way things should be. If I was his lover, his wife, in a former life, what does that make me now?”
Usagi hugged her tightly. “You will figure out what is right for you, Minako. I know you will.” She sat back, and her compassion and concern were tangible presences with weight and warmth. “Would you like me to be there when you talk to Kunzite?”
Minako tried to brush away her tears, and Usagi’s eyes widened at the sight of her fingers. They were bitten to the quick, the skin as raw and red as the pain that stalked her senshi.
“What happened, Minako?”
Her fingers curled into her palms, then flattened again. She dropped her gaze to them, straining against her nearly-unbreakable habit of shielding the princess from whom she no longer had any secrets.
“Every time I see him, I want to pull out my heinshin pen. It’s very difficult to resist. The instinct feels buried so deep inside me that I feel like I’m fighting my true nature. So I bite my nails to stop myself, to have something else to do with my hands.”
“Doesn’t it hurt?” Usagi couldn’t keep the shock and dismay from pervading her words.
Minako’s voice was utterly emotionless. “Yes. It hurts.”
*****