Disclaimer: Sailor Moon doesn’t belong to me.  I’m not making any money off this.  Don’t sue me. 

Author’s Notes: Well, I seem to be fandom hopping.  At any rate, I was tired of reading fanfiction tonight, so I decided to write some.  I opted for a Sailor Moon fic.  I’m fascinated by the idea of love that Sailor Moon represents.  The characters all have this idealized kind of love in a highly tragic style.  These terrible things are always happening, but they still love each other throughout millennia.  Isn’t that just incredibly appealing?  Ah, l’amour. 

Oh, and I love reviews.  If I receive any, I may write a little more, although I had originally intended to leave this as a one-shot vignette. 

The Moment of Surrender

By Jenni

She has seen it in her fire, the doom that will follow.  She has seen what the others have not: the betrayal, the heartbreak.  And also the inevitability.  His face appeared to her in the flames, a vision so irresistible even then that she had drawn dangerously close to the heat.  She remembers the pain in her hands that sent her reeling back into reality. 

 Would she have loved him if she hadn’t seen what she had?  Did she love him for the danger, for the destruction he would bring?  Did she love him because romance was best when crossed? 

The first time she had seen him in her fire, she had thought she could fight it.  But that was a long time ago and she had been so young and so naïve.  She didn’t know then what it was to be held by a man and to feel his breath against her cheek as he cried her name.  And the miracle of seeing herself light up his eyes—to know she alone gave his life purpose...  No, that had not yet been learned.  Only a face had appeared to her in the fire, and none of himself.  She hadn’t known that his smile would be crooked or that he would run his fingers through his hair when he was nervous or that his temper would flare whenever she teased him, but he would remain preternaturally cool when she offered a real insult. 

Now, as she stands in the garden, she ponders all these things.  Is it right to return to the palace, and to fall again into his embrace?  Is it right to savor the moment while it lasts, or should she try to stop it? 

Is she wrong not to tell the others of the apocalyptic future they are weaving, even now amidst their joy?

The sound of footsteps is followed by a shadow, which stops over the silver-lit fountain.  She knows it is him, not because of fire visions or dreams, but because she knows his step intimately.  Because she recognizes his silhouette.

“Milady?” he asks, half whispers.  His tone shows concern and undeclared love.  She shivers, though she is not cold. 

“General,” she answers, keeping her voice even.  “Please, I wish to be alone.”

“Why do you push me away?”

She wraps her arms about herself, takes a step toward the fountain and does not answer immediately. 

Had she felt this hopeless when she first saw him—not in the flames, but him—kneeling to her Queen?  When his cerulean eyes had looked upon her in shock because she had struck him?  The kiss in the hall, perhaps, and the passion that had followed. 

But all these were physical things.  Her destiny would not be made through lust.  What was it that made her love inevitable?  Why did it burn so strongly within her, though she knew where it would lead?  Why couldn’t destiny be changed?

“I thought…” says the man behind her, “I thought it meant something to you.” 

Still she does not turn. 

“Rei?”

“I saw you in the flames,” she tells him, finally. 

And he understands what she is really saying because he knows her as a man seldom knows a woman.  But he does not know what she saw. 

“When?”

“Many years ago.  I asked the fire to show me the man I would love.”

Though she has not turned to face him, she feels his pleasure at her words, and it disturbs her that her vision might make anyone feel happy. 

“Then why are you afraid?  Didn’t the flames tell you I would love you in return?”

“Yes,” she answered.  “And they told me other things as well.  Horrible things await us in the future.  Betrayal…”

Nothing is between them but silence for a long time.  His breathing is deep and controlled, but once she hears him shudder.   

“And I…I do this.”

She turns at last, to see those eyes staring into hers.  They hold the blue of the sea, and tonight they hold much more, for he knows what she has seen.  Now they hold the weight of atrocities not yet committed, the shame and the horror that he will not feel when they are truly accomplished, and she is moved to pity.  In this moment she forgives what has not yet come to pass.  In this moment she surrenders to fate. 

“Hold me,” she tells him.  He is confused, but complies and comes to her.  She feels the warmth of his embrace.  The uncertainty of her sudden change of heart is evident in the tentative way he touches her.  She feels his nervousness and fear.  She feels his goodness. 

In the future, she knows, she will regret this decision.  The flames had told her of a great sorrow. 

They hadn’t told her she wouldn’t care.

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