Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Homura/Madoka--She Who Is Drowned
Title: She Who Is Drowned
Author/Artist: melengro
Fandom: Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Pairing: Homura/Madoka
Rating: PG
Word count: 1,106
Request/prompt: ‘He who is drowned is not troubled by the rain’.
Notes: The brief lyrical snippets are from Stan Bush’s ‘The Touch’ and an English translation of Lorenzo da Ponte’s libretto for Don Giovanni.
The middle of the night at the beginning of spring. The rain came down in surging gushes, taking up the character of all it touched, bringing every down with it into the gutters and storm drains of the city. The city was moving and working, bending the night to the wills and passions within it. In this city stood a girl, a dead and living girl, her face hardened, her eyes narrowed to conceal as much as possible of the emotions seething so very hotly within and behind them. She stood, frowning and looking down over the wet darkness, seeming mutely triumphant.
Not so.
In that apparent place, beneath that apparent sky, Akemi Homura stood and was wanting. She had already been through her current situation at least four times, maybe more; she could not remember exactly. Her dreams of a happy life with friends and love and peace had vanished, collapsed, into the altogether more uncertain, more touch-and-go dreams of a girl; a girl who lay somewhere in this town at this moment, quite without knowledge of the affairs of Homura’s world.
That was as it should be. That state of affairs was exactly what Homura wanted to protect, without concern for resources, other people, other ideals, or her own happiness. This thunderstorm was small time. Did it think it was fairly tough? ‘Bad’, if you would indulge her? Well, it made her laugh. It made her absolutely laugh. It was pathetic. She had gone through rougher stuff than this by a mile and, more than a rainy night or anything, she would go against ersatz gods, smirking monstrosities, nightmares from the far reaches of time…empowered in the way that she was, there was almost nothing she could not, and thinking the way she did there was absolutely nothing that she would not, destroy for Madoka’s sake.
This was not a triumph. It was not something that admitted of a categorization of ‘success’, not by a long shot. Of this, Homura had no illusions.
In her hospital room-she still had a couple of hours, it seemed, until they would discharge her-something very special was happening, which thing was a whole set of eighties music that the hospital had for some reason decided to play as a morale boost for some of the long-term patients. Homura, who was only very vaguely by any stretch of the imagination conversant in English, had over the past four (or however many) iterations of this learned the lyrics to Stan Bush’s ‘The Touch’ more thoroughly than she had learned some things in Japanese.
‘You got the touch, you got the power; when all Hell’s breaking loose, you’ll be riding the eye of the storm. You’ve got the heart, you’ve got the motion…’
It bothered her. She had become, as one might have every reason to expect, rather chilly and somewhat cruel over the past iterations of this time, and had of course felt within her through and in that time a very cynical notion of what touches and powers were. It bothered her a lot.
There was no fun for her any more, of course, but that did not bother her. She knew that she had chosen this path. She had remembered her thought process in doing so and still held true to that thought process. After all, what was Madoka?-Nothing-
-everything.
Homura paced impatiently. Her discharge would come soon, soon, soon…and then she could deal with what she truly wanted to be dealing with in this world. Soon her parents would be here. Her parents-! Homura missed the old days with them, she would admit.
But she was not traveling for trafficking or for her own sake. She had a calling here, a cause, someone special who she needed to protect. She would drown herself in that cause-indeed already had, to a great extent, and would to an even greater extent, no questions asked, without hesitation or regret of any kind. She was Akemi Homura, protector of Kaname Madoka. She had chosen that for herself and she would live and was living with the implications of that choice. Even if the world spat at her, even if Madoka did not remember, she would not fail to repay the protection of one who had shown her such kindness and acceptance back in those brighter days.
Now, in dark passages, she scowled at the storm. To-morrow she would leave this place and it would all begin anew. Repeat, repeat, whatever it took. That was the watchword and the byline.
More and more rain came down. Homura almost smiled. It was as if, at the end of her last campaign, that little monster had gone beyond simple sins against the ideas and interests of the human race, and had become so despicable as to now call down upon himself celestial castigation.
Homura almost wanted to laugh, or to go out into the storm and shout out ‘why don’t you just try?’ It was absurd, to think that she could be stayed from her course of love in this way. She had no idea where such an idea in the courses of the universe could possibly have come from. She knew that she was being prideful, perhaps even greedy by some definition; she had no reason to care and would carry on regardless. The world spread out before her, dark and filled with sadness; that she would change, that she would fix, that she would make well again, if only for one girl. Her exultant thoughts growing louder, her line of vision growing at once narrower and deeper, she cried aloud.
'Tremble, tremble, vile betrayer! To the world I will proclaim thee, as a villain men will name thee; be evermore abhorred! Fear the wrath of heaven offended; fear its thunders o’er thee breaking, that thy reckless course o'ertaking, on thy guilty head will fall!'
Yes. They were as nothing to her, the storm and the monsters. All of them were obstacles in the way of fulfilling her obsession, her madness. She would not lose. Bring it on, all of you, all of them, everything and everyone. Nothing would stop her, nothing would still her, nothing would defeat her. She was strong. She was Madoka’s knight and protector, and that gave her all she needed to keep going no matter, no matter how many times. Above and beyond, standing athwart this sorrowing universe, she stood, and would stand, for Madoka’s sake and Madoka’s alone. Nothing else could stop her; everything else lay without sign. She who is drowned must not allow herself to be troubled by the rain.
Author/Artist: melengro
Fandom: Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Pairing: Homura/Madoka
Rating: PG
Word count: 1,106
Request/prompt: ‘He who is drowned is not troubled by the rain’.
Notes: The brief lyrical snippets are from Stan Bush’s ‘The Touch’ and an English translation of Lorenzo da Ponte’s libretto for Don Giovanni.
The middle of the night at the beginning of spring. The rain came down in surging gushes, taking up the character of all it touched, bringing every down with it into the gutters and storm drains of the city. The city was moving and working, bending the night to the wills and passions within it. In this city stood a girl, a dead and living girl, her face hardened, her eyes narrowed to conceal as much as possible of the emotions seething so very hotly within and behind them. She stood, frowning and looking down over the wet darkness, seeming mutely triumphant.
Not so.
In that apparent place, beneath that apparent sky, Akemi Homura stood and was wanting. She had already been through her current situation at least four times, maybe more; she could not remember exactly. Her dreams of a happy life with friends and love and peace had vanished, collapsed, into the altogether more uncertain, more touch-and-go dreams of a girl; a girl who lay somewhere in this town at this moment, quite without knowledge of the affairs of Homura’s world.
That was as it should be. That state of affairs was exactly what Homura wanted to protect, without concern for resources, other people, other ideals, or her own happiness. This thunderstorm was small time. Did it think it was fairly tough? ‘Bad’, if you would indulge her? Well, it made her laugh. It made her absolutely laugh. It was pathetic. She had gone through rougher stuff than this by a mile and, more than a rainy night or anything, she would go against ersatz gods, smirking monstrosities, nightmares from the far reaches of time…empowered in the way that she was, there was almost nothing she could not, and thinking the way she did there was absolutely nothing that she would not, destroy for Madoka’s sake.
This was not a triumph. It was not something that admitted of a categorization of ‘success’, not by a long shot. Of this, Homura had no illusions.
In her hospital room-she still had a couple of hours, it seemed, until they would discharge her-something very special was happening, which thing was a whole set of eighties music that the hospital had for some reason decided to play as a morale boost for some of the long-term patients. Homura, who was only very vaguely by any stretch of the imagination conversant in English, had over the past four (or however many) iterations of this learned the lyrics to Stan Bush’s ‘The Touch’ more thoroughly than she had learned some things in Japanese.
‘You got the touch, you got the power; when all Hell’s breaking loose, you’ll be riding the eye of the storm. You’ve got the heart, you’ve got the motion…’
It bothered her. She had become, as one might have every reason to expect, rather chilly and somewhat cruel over the past iterations of this time, and had of course felt within her through and in that time a very cynical notion of what touches and powers were. It bothered her a lot.
There was no fun for her any more, of course, but that did not bother her. She knew that she had chosen this path. She had remembered her thought process in doing so and still held true to that thought process. After all, what was Madoka?-Nothing-
-everything.
Homura paced impatiently. Her discharge would come soon, soon, soon…and then she could deal with what she truly wanted to be dealing with in this world. Soon her parents would be here. Her parents-! Homura missed the old days with them, she would admit.
But she was not traveling for trafficking or for her own sake. She had a calling here, a cause, someone special who she needed to protect. She would drown herself in that cause-indeed already had, to a great extent, and would to an even greater extent, no questions asked, without hesitation or regret of any kind. She was Akemi Homura, protector of Kaname Madoka. She had chosen that for herself and she would live and was living with the implications of that choice. Even if the world spat at her, even if Madoka did not remember, she would not fail to repay the protection of one who had shown her such kindness and acceptance back in those brighter days.
Now, in dark passages, she scowled at the storm. To-morrow she would leave this place and it would all begin anew. Repeat, repeat, whatever it took. That was the watchword and the byline.
More and more rain came down. Homura almost smiled. It was as if, at the end of her last campaign, that little monster had gone beyond simple sins against the ideas and interests of the human race, and had become so despicable as to now call down upon himself celestial castigation.
Homura almost wanted to laugh, or to go out into the storm and shout out ‘why don’t you just try?’ It was absurd, to think that she could be stayed from her course of love in this way. She had no idea where such an idea in the courses of the universe could possibly have come from. She knew that she was being prideful, perhaps even greedy by some definition; she had no reason to care and would carry on regardless. The world spread out before her, dark and filled with sadness; that she would change, that she would fix, that she would make well again, if only for one girl. Her exultant thoughts growing louder, her line of vision growing at once narrower and deeper, she cried aloud.
'Tremble, tremble, vile betrayer! To the world I will proclaim thee, as a villain men will name thee; be evermore abhorred! Fear the wrath of heaven offended; fear its thunders o’er thee breaking, that thy reckless course o'ertaking, on thy guilty head will fall!'
Yes. They were as nothing to her, the storm and the monsters. All of them were obstacles in the way of fulfilling her obsession, her madness. She would not lose. Bring it on, all of you, all of them, everything and everyone. Nothing would stop her, nothing would still her, nothing would defeat her. She was strong. She was Madoka’s knight and protector, and that gave her all she needed to keep going no matter, no matter how many times. Above and beyond, standing athwart this sorrowing universe, she stood, and would stand, for Madoka’s sake and Madoka’s alone. Nothing else could stop her; everything else lay without sign. She who is drowned must not allow herself to be troubled by the rain.