Ficlet: halfamoon ~ Revolutionary Girl Utena

[thehyenagal]

Title: pull me in with those thin fine strings

Author: hyena_gal  

Fandom: Revolutionary Girl Utena

Summary: Anthy's not blind to the resemblance.

Rating: G

Spoilers: Allusions to ep 34.  

Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be.

Notes: For halfamoon  2010, and shelled_avenger's Impromptuthon prompt: Anthy, reflections on any canon occurance from her POV or character analysis. Set after episode 12. I… seem to have run with it. 

Word count: 597

*

 

 

It startled her -- the resemblance to Dios. 

 

Because right at that moment, that very *second*, it had been so obvious, so painfully clear from the sword breaking to that one knee forced to the ground that, oh, she couldn't deny it, and she hadn't been prepared for all what that essentially *meant*. The tear burned a singular wet trail down her cheek, sensation of it bringing her back to the present situation and then all she could see was Utena surging forward and then there were petals, rendered and drifting --   

 

It's only later Anthy plays the duel over again in her head, standing in the small corner of her rose garden, watching the roses' heads bow for the water she pours over them. Something fragmentially like benediction in the sight of it. Something that possibly *could* be a teasing pull in the memory of raw feelings the scene between the much too young Duelists had provoked inside her.   

 

Nothing's changed since Touga-san was defeated, really. 

 

Anthy still can't see *through* Utena-sama: this one girl who refuses to back down from the challenges she faces in the form of offered flowers, who flunks math, who's so thin for someone with so huge a will and who laughs like life is an enjoyable thing and…

 

And.   

 

The day she was won back as her Rose Bride… 

 

It had been an reenactment of their first meeting over again that night, in spirit. Their given roles again. Only, this time Utena had smiled at her, the kind that shines from your eyes, leaves crinkles, and she had sensed her own mouth copy what she was presented with, and for once, it had actually been a genuine smile. Anthy had meant it, at least for as long as it took the corners of her lips to quirk up and respond.

 

They walked back home together, the pink-haired girl wearing her ruined uniform like a battlescar, an achievement to be proud of. 

 

It made something within Anthy feel as if there wasn't enough room for her heartbeat in her chest.   

 

Maybe that was why there seemed a sort of strange comfort to be taken in the knowledge that this, *this*, was all pretend; just the half-reach of a commanding thought from her, and the darkness would gently throb and clutch at the pair of them, remind her of what she really was: witch-witch-witch, being that controls the elements, that lives with the black in the deepest part of her heart. *Is* the deepest part of her.    

 

When they finally returned to their room, Utena climbed up the small ladder to her bunk and looked down at her with lidded eyes, tiny smile briefly on her mouth before reclining and falling into a deep, loose-limbed sleep, giving herself completely up to fatigue. 

 

Anthy had remained standing next to their shared bunk bed for twenty minutes after that. Simply staring up at the other female. Feeling it all come back to her; the smell of hay thick in the air again, the roar of a raging mob just outside, so many starved wolves after her blood, and her brother's raspy breath, slow, slowing beneath her ear…   

 

Flared in her, the fleeting urge to climb up and rest her cheek against that white slender throat, just for a little while. Repeat what she did years and years ago, because...  

 

It's not like she has *forgotten*. She never will. 

 

In her garden, Anthy watches a bead of water rest precariously on the tip of a rose petal before it races down along the thorny stem. 

 

end.