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ptahrrificTitle: Persephone's Waltz, Chapter 12: I think I met one in a dream, or something.
Characters/Pairings: Madoka/Sayaka, (skip) Oktavia, Kyuubei
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer/Warnings: See table of contents.
Madoka struggles with dreams of witches; Sayaka struggles to not become one.
She's running through a darkened concert hall, faceless figures in the seats too far away to make out, eerie blue light coming from everywhere and nowhere.
The audience is well trained and on their best behavior. No whispering, no glints of winking cell phones, no children making a fuss. Perfect silence greets the exquisite strains of Bach on strings. The composer wrote for the lute, but those works of his have proved easy to adapt to the classical guitar.
The only sound is Madoka's footsteps as she runs, wearing a pink Pretty Cure outfit, bow at the ready.
She doesn't want to fire. All she wants is to find...someone. But she doesn't know where to start, and in the meantime she's prepared to loose as many arrows as necessary.
The wheels come out of nowhere. Huge spinning wheels, rusted iron like something torn from an ancient and abandoned train. Madoka fires, two, three, five bolts of rosy energy, and the one bearing down on her explodes before it can crush her. There are other figures all around doing the same, girls in fluttery costumes with weapons that crash and clang, but she can't see any of them, and the rules of the dream mean she can't just turn and look.
She thinks she sees the guitarist, out of the corner of her eye. (The name "Holger" whispers across her mind.) Another silhouette, but he's larger and closer, and looks almost familiar. If he'd been in the stance for playing violin....
More wheels. And familiars in the form of paper cutouts, ghastly dolls like the scribblings of an insane child. ("Klarissa.") Madoka fires until her arms are sore, runs until she stumbles and trips over her own ribbon-wrapped cherry-red shoes.
Just when she thinks she's through the worst of it, the witch itself towers over her.
It moves as if it's underwater, cape flowing, scales glistening. Rusted armor clanks and groans; it has recognizable hands for once, and in one of these is a shining sword four times the height of a human. Carved into the floor between Madoka and the monster is a sequence of etchings the size of her palm — for a second she thinks they're English words, but no, they're some kind of mystery alphabet with letters styled like musical notes.
"Sayaka!" she screams, though it might be only in her head. "Sayaka, help me!"
Sayaka's too late. If she even hears. If she's in range at all.
The blade comes down....
***
April 17
Sunday
Madoka woke in the dark with a gasp.
At first she had no idea where she was — except that she could hear Sayaka's breath, which meant a sleepover, or somewhere else safe. Then she recognized the lights from the clock and the side of the sleeping laptop, the heavy feeling of the air and the stale smell she was beginning to get used to.
Sort of safe, then. More secure than her nightmares, at least. And still with Sayaka by her side.
Madoka rolled over to loop her arm across Sayaka's chest, and closed her eyes.
***
Sayaka stirred when Madoka got out of bed, though she could tell Madoka was being as gentle as possible. She kept her eyes closed and pretended to still be dreaming. No need to let Madoka know her gentleness had gone to waste.
A minute or so later the muffled spray of the shower came on in the other room. Time to get up now, right? True, her leg was still out of commission, on top of which she had a headache, and a puffy soreness around her eyes from all the sobbing the night before. But she could fix that. That was what magic was for, right? She was being lazy and useless and a waste of space if she didn't get her act together and fix it...
...but what was the point? Even at her physical best, what could she possibly do that she hadn't already tried?
Keep myself distracted, keep so busy that I can't think too hard about...about everything....
She lay still, deep in a slow and heavy sort of thought, until Madoka came out of the bathroom. Her eyes must have opened of their own accord at some point, though it wasn't until Madoka said, "Oh! You're awake!" that she took in her friend's casual clothing, the soaked-dark pink hair being wrung out section by section with a towel.
"Hi," she said softly. "You look nice."
Madoka turned as rosy as her hair. "Th-thanks. Are you feeling okay?"
Sayaka grimaced. "No."
"Oh!" exclaimed Madoka. "Of course you wouldn't be, that was stupid of me...Do you need anything? Water? Something to eat?"
"Not okay," repeated Sayaka, "but it doesn't hurt. Not a lot."
A shaky, anxious smile. "Oh, good!"
"And...I can heal myself." Just saying the words was wearying, as if she had to drag them out of some dark underground pit. But she never could have forgiven herself if she didn't even say them. "If you want me to get up, I'll fix—"
"No!" said Madoka instantly. "No, Sayaka, don't even think about it. You are staying in bed and resting, or I...I'll sit on you!"
Sayaka stared at her for a long moment, then started giggling. Maybe, when it's you saying it — even in such a silly way — I'll be able to listen.
When Madoka realized Sayaka wasn't laughing her off, she relaxed, self-conscious but pleased. "I'm going to try to clean up while you rest," she said. "I'll put on some music. Is there anything you want to hear?"
"Um...." Sayaka tried to remember the laptop's music folders. The rare albums from her iPod were clear as day, but the rest was all a blur. "Anything that isn't violin."
If Madoka was startled by this, she didn't show it. "Hey, Sayaka?" she asked as she clicked through folders. "This is probably a weird question, but did you ever know a guitar player?"
Now that was something Sayaka could have expounded on in her sleep. "There aren't a lot of classical guitarists in Japan," she said, the words coming automatically in spite of her exhaustion. "Yamashita Kazuhito is the most famous...I have his arrangement of Stravinsky, and the recording of a concert he did with the London Philharmonic, but I've never seen him in person."
"So you aren't friends with one, or anything."
"No, nothing like that? Why do you ask?"
"No reason," said Madoka, as a soulful Mars Reiko love song rang out of the speakers. "I think I met one in a dream, or something."
***
While Sayaka listened to the music, Madoka took a deep breath, flexed her arms, and set to work.
She began with the bloodstained sheet, carrying it to the tub and immersing all but a few unstained corners in cold water. They had very little soap, so she decided to hold it back for now. It wasn't necessary for the first round anyway: as she scrubbed folds of the fabric against each other, the water ran off them a dark and rusty red.
You can't afford to be squeamish, she told herself, every time her brain served up another persistent image of Homura stabbed, Homura's blood all over Sayaka's hands and spattered across her front. You can't fix that. Not now. So focus on making better what you can.
Ever since Sayaka had been deposited here with her, Madoka had stopped conjuring up the voice of her mother for reassurance. Now she heard, not an imaginary version of Mama, but a remembered one. Don't worry, Madoka-chan, it happens to almost every girl at some point. They're easy to get out, see? Just use a little bit of bleach or ammonia solution. But make absolutely sure you're in a room with good ventilation....
Madoka almost laughed. Even if Homura had the impossible generosity to continue providing her with almost anything she could name, open air was the one thing she couldn't get.
You can use a small amount of salt or baking soda in the water, her mother had said. And if you don't have that, cold water by itself is still very effective. Always cold, never hot.
She opened the drain and switched on the faucet. The sheets weren't pristine, probably never would be again, but the water that poured through it was notably clearer now.
That's my strong resourceful girl, said her mother's voice, and Madoka couldn't tell whether it was a memory, an imagining, or another thing she had dreamed.
***
"I should help with that," said Sayaka, without much conviction, as Madoka used the wet fabric to scrub crusted blood from the stone. The rug she had folded up and piled in one corner, a lost cause.
"You should rest," Madoka countered. "Do you want to shower? Or use the tub at all before I let this soak again?"
She didn't. So Madoka hauled the ad-hoc washcloth back to the other room and poured another round of water over it. When she returned, it wasn't to clean more, but to retrieve a plastic container of spring rolls from the fridge and sit with it on the end of the bed.
"They're cold," she said, after spearing a bite of one on a plastic fork and taking a bite, "but good. Are you ready for lunch?"
Sayaka tried to figure out if she was hungry. All she felt was blank. "Is it lunch time?"
"It's lunch time if you need to eat," said Madoka with simple practicality. She watched Sayaka's face for a moment, then added, "Sayaka, I think you need to eat."
A knight, even a useless knight, could hardly refuse an order from her lady. "Okay."
***
While she was hanging the dripping sheet over the curtain rod, Madoka felt a shadow pass over her mind like a cloud in front of the sun, and automatically ducked into the other room to look at the clock. Her instincts were good: it was two minutes before Homura was scheduled to make her daily visit.
Madoka took a moment to wash her hands, with soap, and review how far she'd gotten. There was still cleaning to be done, but to her eyes the floor, at least, was spotless. In the meantime she had coerced Sayaka into choking down half a spring roll and a cup of water. Sayaka, who was asleep again.
The laptop had switched over to a playlist of symphonies in French, German, Italian, Greek: the creations of Stravinsky, Lizt, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic. As far as Madoka could tell, they were all about tracing the arcs of mythical figures. Faustus, Prométhée, Dante, Mephistopheles, Perséfone.
Madoka muted it and gave Sayaka a gentle shake. "She's coming."
Sayaka woke. She even managed to sit up.
But Homura didn't come.
***
Five minutes after Homura should have been there:
"She's only ever been late once." Madoka cradled Sayaka's head in her lap, running a damp comb through her tangled hair. "That was the day she brought you in. So it's only when she has something really serious to deal with, you see?"
"I wasn't serious to her," said Sayaka. "Even when I was armed and heading straight here...I was never a threat." She started breathing more quickly, anxiety taking over. "She got me so easy. And so fast. Didn't even know it was her...."
"Is that why you did it?" asked Madoka in a small voice. "To make her see you as a threat again?"
Sayaka fought to take slow, hoarse gulps of air. The confession, when it came, was forced out in a desperate hiss: "I hate that I'm only alive because she pities me."
Madoka swallowed over the lump in her throat. The answer should have gone without saying; she said it anyway. "I love that you're alive, and I don't care how."
***
Thirteen minutes after Homura should have been there:
Lying on her stomach, face turned into Madoka's thigh, Sayaka shivered. "Madoka...if we start running out of food, I...."
"We won't run out of food."
"But if...!"
"We have plenty," said Madoka firmly. "And we have fresh water, which is more important. And she won't let me starve."
There was a method to Homura's madness, no matter how deep it ran. In spite of everything else, she was still able to believe that.
***
Twenty-six minutes after Homura should have been there:
"It's my fault," whispered Sayaka. "She's punishing me, and you with me."
"It isn't your fault." Madoka tucked Sayaka's dampened blue locks over her shoulder and began digging small fingers into the tense muscles of her back. How could Sayaka find it so easy to say these things to everyone but herself? "None of this would have happened if she hadn't locked us down here in the first place."
***
Fifty-four minutes after Homura should have been there:
"We should eat the strawberries," decided Madoka, after looking through the fridge one more time. "Most of the food we can save, but they'll go bad soon."
Sayaka sat up for this, clipping her hair back accepting the plate Madoka had rinsed for her. She picked up one of the specked red fruits and stared through it. "I wonder how my parents are doing."
"They're probably very worried," said Madoka, and fell silent, giving Sayaka space to respond. Was this the first time Sayaka had stopped long enough to think about her parents, or had she been worried about them all along, and was only now letting herself open up to Madoka about it?
"Probably," was all Sayaka answered, before letting the subject drop.
***
"They must think it's a serial kidnapper," said Sayaka later, when Madoka had stopped counting the minutes and started dusting. "Some creep with a fetish for Mitakihara's uniforms, or something. I bet they have people watching the school, trying to keep the other students safe."
"That would make sense," agreed Madoka. "I hope they do."
"I hope Hitomi's okay," added Sayaka.
"Mmhmm."
Sayaka was silent for another long while. "When Akemi told you someone would be automatically called if she died...did she say how long it would take?"
"I don't remember," confessed Madoka.
Sayaka's eyes fell closed. "Okay."
***
The sheet hanging over the shower rod was almost dry, the floor within the bathroom scrubbed to a dull shine. Before they went to bed for the night, Sayaka leaned on Madoka and limped over, where she unwound the wrapping from her leg and rinsed it off.
She was healing fast, faster than a normal human. The wound had been replaced with an ugly, jagged scar, and though her leg was purple with bruises, it wasn't rotting and she had no trouble wiggling her toes. Her blood still flowed around the bullet, maybe around bone fragments too — she couldn't be sure. Her own body, and she didn't know what it was doing.
It taxed her pride to ask Madoka to all but carry her back, but if she healed her leg at the cost of the last of her magic, the cost would be infinitely worse. At least she was able to wrap up her leg again without letting Madoka see.
***
"I wonder if Mami knew," said Sayaka into the darkness.
"I don't know," admitted Madoka. She was the one draped across Sayaka this time; gunshot wounds were not conducive to spooning. "Homura said they couldn't be friends, but she would never tell me why."
"She was all BFF with Kyuubei," muttered Sayaka. "And he must have known. Madoka, promise me you'll stay far, far away from him, okay?"
"I promise." Madoka decided not to point out that Homura had locked her up in the first place on the belief that she wouldn't, or couldn't, do exactly that. "Only...Sayaka? I don't know what he looks like."
Sayaka laughed a little at that, and told her.
The image in Madoka's mind of a great threatening mountain of darkness was wiped away, and she fell asleep picturing different kinds of cute plush cat-rabbits with ruby eyes and golden rings around their extra ears.
***
She's running through a darkened ballroom, silhouetted figures drifting across the floor with steps too soft to hear, eerie red light coming from everywhere and nowhere.
There's music, but it's a dissonant screech, the wail of a tortured cat or a tortured violin. Madoka wants to block it out, but she can't run and cover her ears and hold her bow all at once, so she grits her teeth and bears it.
The blades come out of nowhere. Huge steel scythes, all shapes and lengths and styles, pre-spattered with rust-red stains. The ones that miss Madoka tear through the silhouettes, spraying more blood across the floor; she slips and stumbles and forces herself back up, arrows going wild. She can't see any of her comrades, can't even hear them over the clanging and the wails. All she can do is pray they won't die before she finds whoever she's looking for.
As she's climbing the grand staircase, Madoka catches sight of another silhouette, large and familiar against the scarlet glow. A woman, dancing alone. ("Perséfone.")
Before she has time to wonder at it, the witch itself towers over her.
It moves like an undead thing, slow and ponderous, cape torn like a burial shroud. Rusted armor clanks and groans; it has recognizable hands for once, bloodstained all the way up the gloves, and in one of these is a shining dagger as tall as Madoka herself. Carved into the floor between Madoka and the monster is a sequence of etchings the size of her palm — she tries to sound out the English, GRUOCH INGEN BOITE, but they aren't any words she can recognize even before they dissolve into the mystery alphabet with letters styled like musical notes.
"Sayaka!" she screams, though it might be only in her head. "Sayaka, help me!"
Sayaka's too late. If she even hears. If she's in range at all.
The blade comes down....
***
April 18
Monday
This time she woke up sweating, tears drying on her cheeks.
Witches. She was fighting witches, in battles that were too clear and too solid to be things her subconscious had made up out of whole cloth. And the people who fought alongside her, people who deserved to be remembered, valiant and loyal and true — she couldn't even picture them. What was wrong with her?
Am I getting a premonition of the future, or remembering something that never happened?
She stumbled to the bathroom to relieve herself. The overhead lights stayed off; she had their little space memorized, could have walked it in pitch dark, could have danced here in her sleep and never missed a step.
But by the time she had gotten a splash of water down her dry throat, she was awake enough that the vivid imagery of the ballroom had faded, and the question that seemed so profound sounded ridiculous. Madoka was having bad dreams, that was all. Her brain was taking what she had seen of Homura's near-demise, and mocking up its own version with the imagery of Utenian surrealism and the eldritch horrors of Sailor Moon....
—I'm very sorry we were cut off earlier, Kaname Madoka.—
Madoka clapped both hands over her mouth to stifle a scream. Y-y-you!
—Me. I understand it is impolite in your culture to disappear mid-conversation. Unfortunately, I was...inconvenienced. Is it by intention or accident that Akemi Homura is protecting your location?—
Intention, thought Madoka. Definitely intention. Can you get past her?
—She is not currently patrolling in the direction from which I am approaching— said the Incubator: Kyuubei, the fluffy white mascot who for all Madoka knew might have understood nothing or masterminded everything. —She does have a surprisingly elaborate system of defenses in place, of a tactical quality I have not experienced before in adolescent humans. However, if you have a reason to want to see me face to face, I believe I will be able to bypass it. For example, if you have decided on a wish?—
Madoka was wide awake now, every nerve on edge. I don't have a wish...yet, Incubator-san, she replied, hedging, leaving every door open. But I have an idea. Let's work together, okay?
***
"Sayaka, wake up!"
Sayaka did. Hard not to, with Madoka shaking her like that. "Huh...?"
"I need you to listen to me and do exactly as I tell you, okay?" said Madoka, as intense and determined as Sayaka had ever seen her. "It's really, really important. Even if something seems weird or doesn't make sense, I need you to trust me."
"Of course," said Sayaka. Of course she would. If there was anything she could do in this state that would make her more useful to Madoka, why wouldn't she leap at the chance?
Madoka broke into an anxious smile. "Great! Do you have to go to the bathroom? No, it doesn't matter, you should go anyway. Come on, let me help you up."
When Sayaka came out of the bathroom, leaning heavily on the doorframe, Madoka was fully dressed and doing up her hair in its old twintails: twisting a sky-blue ribbon into half of the pink mass while holding the ribbon for the other half in her mouth.
She smiled encouragingly at Sayaka, finished the first ribbon, pulled the second out from between her lips, and said, "Whatever you feel when it happens, look happy, okay? Don't look suspicious or angry or confused or anything, just act like you think everything is great."
Sayaka, who had no idea what she was talking about, could only nod.
Then came the thump — very close by — right next to her, maybe, but no, that was only the wall....
...and then the grate of the air duct, the one she had so painstakingly unscrewed over so many hours way back what seemed like a lifetime ago, popped neatly off what she had left of its screws and hit the stone with a clang.
—So this is where you've been, Miki Sayaka,— said Kyuubei into both their heads, hopping cheerfully into the room with Sayaka's Soul Gem tucked in his mouth.
Characters/Pairings: Madoka/Sayaka, (skip) Oktavia, Kyuubei
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer/Warnings: See table of contents.
Madoka struggles with dreams of witches; Sayaka struggles to not become one.
She's running through a darkened concert hall, faceless figures in the seats too far away to make out, eerie blue light coming from everywhere and nowhere.
The audience is well trained and on their best behavior. No whispering, no glints of winking cell phones, no children making a fuss. Perfect silence greets the exquisite strains of Bach on strings. The composer wrote for the lute, but those works of his have proved easy to adapt to the classical guitar.
The only sound is Madoka's footsteps as she runs, wearing a pink Pretty Cure outfit, bow at the ready.
She doesn't want to fire. All she wants is to find...someone. But she doesn't know where to start, and in the meantime she's prepared to loose as many arrows as necessary.
The wheels come out of nowhere. Huge spinning wheels, rusted iron like something torn from an ancient and abandoned train. Madoka fires, two, three, five bolts of rosy energy, and the one bearing down on her explodes before it can crush her. There are other figures all around doing the same, girls in fluttery costumes with weapons that crash and clang, but she can't see any of them, and the rules of the dream mean she can't just turn and look.
She thinks she sees the guitarist, out of the corner of her eye. (The name "Holger" whispers across her mind.) Another silhouette, but he's larger and closer, and looks almost familiar. If he'd been in the stance for playing violin....
More wheels. And familiars in the form of paper cutouts, ghastly dolls like the scribblings of an insane child. ("Klarissa.") Madoka fires until her arms are sore, runs until she stumbles and trips over her own ribbon-wrapped cherry-red shoes.
Just when she thinks she's through the worst of it, the witch itself towers over her.
It moves as if it's underwater, cape flowing, scales glistening. Rusted armor clanks and groans; it has recognizable hands for once, and in one of these is a shining sword four times the height of a human. Carved into the floor between Madoka and the monster is a sequence of etchings the size of her palm — for a second she thinks they're English words, but no, they're some kind of mystery alphabet with letters styled like musical notes.
"Sayaka!" she screams, though it might be only in her head. "Sayaka, help me!"
Sayaka's too late. If she even hears. If she's in range at all.
The blade comes down....
***
April 17
Sunday
Madoka woke in the dark with a gasp.
At first she had no idea where she was — except that she could hear Sayaka's breath, which meant a sleepover, or somewhere else safe. Then she recognized the lights from the clock and the side of the sleeping laptop, the heavy feeling of the air and the stale smell she was beginning to get used to.
Sort of safe, then. More secure than her nightmares, at least. And still with Sayaka by her side.
Madoka rolled over to loop her arm across Sayaka's chest, and closed her eyes.
***
Sayaka stirred when Madoka got out of bed, though she could tell Madoka was being as gentle as possible. She kept her eyes closed and pretended to still be dreaming. No need to let Madoka know her gentleness had gone to waste.
A minute or so later the muffled spray of the shower came on in the other room. Time to get up now, right? True, her leg was still out of commission, on top of which she had a headache, and a puffy soreness around her eyes from all the sobbing the night before. But she could fix that. That was what magic was for, right? She was being lazy and useless and a waste of space if she didn't get her act together and fix it...
...but what was the point? Even at her physical best, what could she possibly do that she hadn't already tried?
Keep myself distracted, keep so busy that I can't think too hard about...about everything....
She lay still, deep in a slow and heavy sort of thought, until Madoka came out of the bathroom. Her eyes must have opened of their own accord at some point, though it wasn't until Madoka said, "Oh! You're awake!" that she took in her friend's casual clothing, the soaked-dark pink hair being wrung out section by section with a towel.
"Hi," she said softly. "You look nice."
Madoka turned as rosy as her hair. "Th-thanks. Are you feeling okay?"
Sayaka grimaced. "No."
"Oh!" exclaimed Madoka. "Of course you wouldn't be, that was stupid of me...Do you need anything? Water? Something to eat?"
"Not okay," repeated Sayaka, "but it doesn't hurt. Not a lot."
A shaky, anxious smile. "Oh, good!"
"And...I can heal myself." Just saying the words was wearying, as if she had to drag them out of some dark underground pit. But she never could have forgiven herself if she didn't even say them. "If you want me to get up, I'll fix—"
"No!" said Madoka instantly. "No, Sayaka, don't even think about it. You are staying in bed and resting, or I...I'll sit on you!"
Sayaka stared at her for a long moment, then started giggling. Maybe, when it's you saying it — even in such a silly way — I'll be able to listen.
When Madoka realized Sayaka wasn't laughing her off, she relaxed, self-conscious but pleased. "I'm going to try to clean up while you rest," she said. "I'll put on some music. Is there anything you want to hear?"
"Um...." Sayaka tried to remember the laptop's music folders. The rare albums from her iPod were clear as day, but the rest was all a blur. "Anything that isn't violin."
If Madoka was startled by this, she didn't show it. "Hey, Sayaka?" she asked as she clicked through folders. "This is probably a weird question, but did you ever know a guitar player?"
Now that was something Sayaka could have expounded on in her sleep. "There aren't a lot of classical guitarists in Japan," she said, the words coming automatically in spite of her exhaustion. "Yamashita Kazuhito is the most famous...I have his arrangement of Stravinsky, and the recording of a concert he did with the London Philharmonic, but I've never seen him in person."
"So you aren't friends with one, or anything."
"No, nothing like that? Why do you ask?"
"No reason," said Madoka, as a soulful Mars Reiko love song rang out of the speakers. "I think I met one in a dream, or something."
***
While Sayaka listened to the music, Madoka took a deep breath, flexed her arms, and set to work.
She began with the bloodstained sheet, carrying it to the tub and immersing all but a few unstained corners in cold water. They had very little soap, so she decided to hold it back for now. It wasn't necessary for the first round anyway: as she scrubbed folds of the fabric against each other, the water ran off them a dark and rusty red.
You can't afford to be squeamish, she told herself, every time her brain served up another persistent image of Homura stabbed, Homura's blood all over Sayaka's hands and spattered across her front. You can't fix that. Not now. So focus on making better what you can.
Ever since Sayaka had been deposited here with her, Madoka had stopped conjuring up the voice of her mother for reassurance. Now she heard, not an imaginary version of Mama, but a remembered one. Don't worry, Madoka-chan, it happens to almost every girl at some point. They're easy to get out, see? Just use a little bit of bleach or ammonia solution. But make absolutely sure you're in a room with good ventilation....
Madoka almost laughed. Even if Homura had the impossible generosity to continue providing her with almost anything she could name, open air was the one thing she couldn't get.
You can use a small amount of salt or baking soda in the water, her mother had said. And if you don't have that, cold water by itself is still very effective. Always cold, never hot.
She opened the drain and switched on the faucet. The sheets weren't pristine, probably never would be again, but the water that poured through it was notably clearer now.
That's my strong resourceful girl, said her mother's voice, and Madoka couldn't tell whether it was a memory, an imagining, or another thing she had dreamed.
***
"I should help with that," said Sayaka, without much conviction, as Madoka used the wet fabric to scrub crusted blood from the stone. The rug she had folded up and piled in one corner, a lost cause.
"You should rest," Madoka countered. "Do you want to shower? Or use the tub at all before I let this soak again?"
She didn't. So Madoka hauled the ad-hoc washcloth back to the other room and poured another round of water over it. When she returned, it wasn't to clean more, but to retrieve a plastic container of spring rolls from the fridge and sit with it on the end of the bed.
"They're cold," she said, after spearing a bite of one on a plastic fork and taking a bite, "but good. Are you ready for lunch?"
Sayaka tried to figure out if she was hungry. All she felt was blank. "Is it lunch time?"
"It's lunch time if you need to eat," said Madoka with simple practicality. She watched Sayaka's face for a moment, then added, "Sayaka, I think you need to eat."
A knight, even a useless knight, could hardly refuse an order from her lady. "Okay."
***
While she was hanging the dripping sheet over the curtain rod, Madoka felt a shadow pass over her mind like a cloud in front of the sun, and automatically ducked into the other room to look at the clock. Her instincts were good: it was two minutes before Homura was scheduled to make her daily visit.
Madoka took a moment to wash her hands, with soap, and review how far she'd gotten. There was still cleaning to be done, but to her eyes the floor, at least, was spotless. In the meantime she had coerced Sayaka into choking down half a spring roll and a cup of water. Sayaka, who was asleep again.
The laptop had switched over to a playlist of symphonies in French, German, Italian, Greek: the creations of Stravinsky, Lizt, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic. As far as Madoka could tell, they were all about tracing the arcs of mythical figures. Faustus, Prométhée, Dante, Mephistopheles, Perséfone.
Madoka muted it and gave Sayaka a gentle shake. "She's coming."
Sayaka woke. She even managed to sit up.
But Homura didn't come.
***
Five minutes after Homura should have been there:
"She's only ever been late once." Madoka cradled Sayaka's head in her lap, running a damp comb through her tangled hair. "That was the day she brought you in. So it's only when she has something really serious to deal with, you see?"
"I wasn't serious to her," said Sayaka. "Even when I was armed and heading straight here...I was never a threat." She started breathing more quickly, anxiety taking over. "She got me so easy. And so fast. Didn't even know it was her...."
"Is that why you did it?" asked Madoka in a small voice. "To make her see you as a threat again?"
Sayaka fought to take slow, hoarse gulps of air. The confession, when it came, was forced out in a desperate hiss: "I hate that I'm only alive because she pities me."
Madoka swallowed over the lump in her throat. The answer should have gone without saying; she said it anyway. "I love that you're alive, and I don't care how."
***
Thirteen minutes after Homura should have been there:
Lying on her stomach, face turned into Madoka's thigh, Sayaka shivered. "Madoka...if we start running out of food, I...."
"We won't run out of food."
"But if...!"
"We have plenty," said Madoka firmly. "And we have fresh water, which is more important. And she won't let me starve."
There was a method to Homura's madness, no matter how deep it ran. In spite of everything else, she was still able to believe that.
***
Twenty-six minutes after Homura should have been there:
"It's my fault," whispered Sayaka. "She's punishing me, and you with me."
"It isn't your fault." Madoka tucked Sayaka's dampened blue locks over her shoulder and began digging small fingers into the tense muscles of her back. How could Sayaka find it so easy to say these things to everyone but herself? "None of this would have happened if she hadn't locked us down here in the first place."
***
Fifty-four minutes after Homura should have been there:
"We should eat the strawberries," decided Madoka, after looking through the fridge one more time. "Most of the food we can save, but they'll go bad soon."
Sayaka sat up for this, clipping her hair back accepting the plate Madoka had rinsed for her. She picked up one of the specked red fruits and stared through it. "I wonder how my parents are doing."
"They're probably very worried," said Madoka, and fell silent, giving Sayaka space to respond. Was this the first time Sayaka had stopped long enough to think about her parents, or had she been worried about them all along, and was only now letting herself open up to Madoka about it?
"Probably," was all Sayaka answered, before letting the subject drop.
***
"They must think it's a serial kidnapper," said Sayaka later, when Madoka had stopped counting the minutes and started dusting. "Some creep with a fetish for Mitakihara's uniforms, or something. I bet they have people watching the school, trying to keep the other students safe."
"That would make sense," agreed Madoka. "I hope they do."
"I hope Hitomi's okay," added Sayaka.
"Mmhmm."
Sayaka was silent for another long while. "When Akemi told you someone would be automatically called if she died...did she say how long it would take?"
"I don't remember," confessed Madoka.
Sayaka's eyes fell closed. "Okay."
***
The sheet hanging over the shower rod was almost dry, the floor within the bathroom scrubbed to a dull shine. Before they went to bed for the night, Sayaka leaned on Madoka and limped over, where she unwound the wrapping from her leg and rinsed it off.
She was healing fast, faster than a normal human. The wound had been replaced with an ugly, jagged scar, and though her leg was purple with bruises, it wasn't rotting and she had no trouble wiggling her toes. Her blood still flowed around the bullet, maybe around bone fragments too — she couldn't be sure. Her own body, and she didn't know what it was doing.
It taxed her pride to ask Madoka to all but carry her back, but if she healed her leg at the cost of the last of her magic, the cost would be infinitely worse. At least she was able to wrap up her leg again without letting Madoka see.
***
"I wonder if Mami knew," said Sayaka into the darkness.
"I don't know," admitted Madoka. She was the one draped across Sayaka this time; gunshot wounds were not conducive to spooning. "Homura said they couldn't be friends, but she would never tell me why."
"She was all BFF with Kyuubei," muttered Sayaka. "And he must have known. Madoka, promise me you'll stay far, far away from him, okay?"
"I promise." Madoka decided not to point out that Homura had locked her up in the first place on the belief that she wouldn't, or couldn't, do exactly that. "Only...Sayaka? I don't know what he looks like."
Sayaka laughed a little at that, and told her.
The image in Madoka's mind of a great threatening mountain of darkness was wiped away, and she fell asleep picturing different kinds of cute plush cat-rabbits with ruby eyes and golden rings around their extra ears.
***
She's running through a darkened ballroom, silhouetted figures drifting across the floor with steps too soft to hear, eerie red light coming from everywhere and nowhere.
There's music, but it's a dissonant screech, the wail of a tortured cat or a tortured violin. Madoka wants to block it out, but she can't run and cover her ears and hold her bow all at once, so she grits her teeth and bears it.
The blades come out of nowhere. Huge steel scythes, all shapes and lengths and styles, pre-spattered with rust-red stains. The ones that miss Madoka tear through the silhouettes, spraying more blood across the floor; she slips and stumbles and forces herself back up, arrows going wild. She can't see any of her comrades, can't even hear them over the clanging and the wails. All she can do is pray they won't die before she finds whoever she's looking for.
As she's climbing the grand staircase, Madoka catches sight of another silhouette, large and familiar against the scarlet glow. A woman, dancing alone. ("Perséfone.")
Before she has time to wonder at it, the witch itself towers over her.
It moves like an undead thing, slow and ponderous, cape torn like a burial shroud. Rusted armor clanks and groans; it has recognizable hands for once, bloodstained all the way up the gloves, and in one of these is a shining dagger as tall as Madoka herself. Carved into the floor between Madoka and the monster is a sequence of etchings the size of her palm — she tries to sound out the English, GRUOCH INGEN BOITE, but they aren't any words she can recognize even before they dissolve into the mystery alphabet with letters styled like musical notes.
"Sayaka!" she screams, though it might be only in her head. "Sayaka, help me!"
Sayaka's too late. If she even hears. If she's in range at all.
The blade comes down....
***
April 18
Monday
This time she woke up sweating, tears drying on her cheeks.
Witches. She was fighting witches, in battles that were too clear and too solid to be things her subconscious had made up out of whole cloth. And the people who fought alongside her, people who deserved to be remembered, valiant and loyal and true — she couldn't even picture them. What was wrong with her?
Am I getting a premonition of the future, or remembering something that never happened?
She stumbled to the bathroom to relieve herself. The overhead lights stayed off; she had their little space memorized, could have walked it in pitch dark, could have danced here in her sleep and never missed a step.
But by the time she had gotten a splash of water down her dry throat, she was awake enough that the vivid imagery of the ballroom had faded, and the question that seemed so profound sounded ridiculous. Madoka was having bad dreams, that was all. Her brain was taking what she had seen of Homura's near-demise, and mocking up its own version with the imagery of Utenian surrealism and the eldritch horrors of Sailor Moon....
—I'm very sorry we were cut off earlier, Kaname Madoka.—
Madoka clapped both hands over her mouth to stifle a scream. Y-y-you!
—Me. I understand it is impolite in your culture to disappear mid-conversation. Unfortunately, I was...inconvenienced. Is it by intention or accident that Akemi Homura is protecting your location?—
Intention, thought Madoka. Definitely intention. Can you get past her?
—She is not currently patrolling in the direction from which I am approaching— said the Incubator: Kyuubei, the fluffy white mascot who for all Madoka knew might have understood nothing or masterminded everything. —She does have a surprisingly elaborate system of defenses in place, of a tactical quality I have not experienced before in adolescent humans. However, if you have a reason to want to see me face to face, I believe I will be able to bypass it. For example, if you have decided on a wish?—
Madoka was wide awake now, every nerve on edge. I don't have a wish...yet, Incubator-san, she replied, hedging, leaving every door open. But I have an idea. Let's work together, okay?
***
"Sayaka, wake up!"
Sayaka did. Hard not to, with Madoka shaking her like that. "Huh...?"
"I need you to listen to me and do exactly as I tell you, okay?" said Madoka, as intense and determined as Sayaka had ever seen her. "It's really, really important. Even if something seems weird or doesn't make sense, I need you to trust me."
"Of course," said Sayaka. Of course she would. If there was anything she could do in this state that would make her more useful to Madoka, why wouldn't she leap at the chance?
Madoka broke into an anxious smile. "Great! Do you have to go to the bathroom? No, it doesn't matter, you should go anyway. Come on, let me help you up."
When Sayaka came out of the bathroom, leaning heavily on the doorframe, Madoka was fully dressed and doing up her hair in its old twintails: twisting a sky-blue ribbon into half of the pink mass while holding the ribbon for the other half in her mouth.
She smiled encouragingly at Sayaka, finished the first ribbon, pulled the second out from between her lips, and said, "Whatever you feel when it happens, look happy, okay? Don't look suspicious or angry or confused or anything, just act like you think everything is great."
Sayaka, who had no idea what she was talking about, could only nod.
Then came the thump — very close by — right next to her, maybe, but no, that was only the wall....
...and then the grate of the air duct, the one she had so painstakingly unscrewed over so many hours way back what seemed like a lifetime ago, popped neatly off what she had left of its screws and hit the stone with a clang.
—So this is where you've been, Miki Sayaka,— said Kyuubei into both their heads, hopping cheerfully into the room with Sayaka's Soul Gem tucked in his mouth.
Very Nice
Date: 2012-12-22 05:47 am (UTC)Re: Very Nice
Date: 2012-12-22 03:10 pm (UTC)(When commenting anon, please sign your comments! If you have an LJ or Wordpress account, OpenID is also an option.)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-22 05:07 pm (UTC)