Disclaimers, notes,
all that jazz:
Sailor Moon not mine!
You no sue! Ok... uh... whatever...
I know what you're thinking: "This cannot be the last chapter of Heart's Thunder!! No way!!" Yes, my dear friends, this is finally the end of Heart's Thunder!!!! Yay!!!!! Woohoo!!! I'm so glad. You have no idea what a burden it was to know that I was leaving all of y'all hanging for the past year!! I was reading my notes from the earlier parts, and they have stuff about the insanity that was Godspell...Godspell was last June!
My great, dear hope is to start (and finish) Heart of Ice sometime this summer, but all you Mercury fans probably shouldn't hold your collective breath. I'm writing about a zillion things right now, my friend is bugging me to finish the play I'm working on (mostly because he wants to star in it. Prima donna!!), and I'm going to be ASM for As You Like It. By the time that's over, it'll be backstage on Guys and Dolls, and then school time again! Pray to whatevery diety you choose to call your own, minna-chan, that I will find my inspiration and be able to do justice to Amy and Zoisite. Anyway, As You Like It can't hope to match the Hellish craziness that Godspell wreaked on my life, so maybe I'll have time (and energy) to work on it. Let's hope.
Outward and onward... the quote at the beginning is, as always, Shawn Mullins. I love him dearly and am writing a play based on one of his songs; I would never want to do anything to piss him off, so I give him credit where credit is due!!
Please write and tell me what you think, and feel free to offer me any ideas for Heart of Ice!
Enjoy!!
"I am here now,
You've got the best
of me.
So go ahead now,
Go ahead and take
the rest of me.
There are two of us,
There are two of us
-- it's the cycle of our souls.<
Yet we try and change
and rearrange the way the story goes.
That's the way the
story goes..."
-from "Cycle of Our Souls" by Shawn Mulllins
"Oh, Gods, Lita," he moaned into his hands, "what have I done? What have I done?" The memories of his betrayal sang through him like the wind through the strings of a harp gone dreadfully out of tune. "I'm so sorry," he murmured in agony. "I never meant to… ohh, Gods!"
He had to go find her, to tell her… but no, why would she want to listen to him now? Surely she would soon remember this last bit, this horror that was the truth about his past self. How could he face her again, knowing what he knew now? And that knowledge combined with the way he had spoken to her when she tried to tell him the truth… he shuddered in revulsion and pressed his body against the stone that felt cold as ice against his back.
"Well you've made a fine mess of things," a voice said dryly from above him.
"Excuse me?" Neil demanded, annoyed, not bothering to uncover his face.
"If you continue to sit there and wallow in your own self-pity, her pain will turn into anger, and anger into hatred. If that happens, you'll loose her forever. And if that happens, the princess will die. Then what will become of the prince? Of Crystal Tokyo? Of Small Lady? Broad and strong as they are, Nephrite dear, I'm not sure even your shoulders could bear such a weight."
"What are you talking about?" he demanded, searching for the source of the lightly mocking voice. It was familiar to him somehow, as familiar as the memories he had just experienced. It was a man's voice, yet occasionally there was a soft, effeminate quality to it. "Who are you?" he asked at last.
"Flattered as I am by your interest, that is not a question I can answer at this time. Go to her, Nephrite. Tell her all that you have remembered, and accept the love she offers you. Without it, you're doomed. Without it… we're all doomed." And then he -- whoever he was -- was gone as though he had never beenn.
'Go to her,'
he remembered with a frown. 'Go to her,' indeed!! Go to
her so that she may slam the door in my face and tell me -- rightly enough
-- to go straight back to the Hell fromm which I arose?
But some other part of him, a more rational part, knew that the man had spoken the truth. Though he had no idea who Small Lady was, or why he should care about some place called Crystal Tokyo, he knew that Lita's friend Serena was the princess... and that Darien Chiba must be the prince.
Good Gods, I hadn't even thought about that! But then, quietly, he remembered Lita mentioned Jay and Malachy, and he knew that Darien was friends with the two of them. If everyone -- especially Raye, Mina and Darien -- can forgive Jadeite and Malachite, might Lita possibly forgive me?
Suddenly he realized that the cold stone of the fountain's base was no longer behind him, and that he was walking down the sidewalk toward Lita's apartment. "Well," he murmured bemusedly, "I guess this means I'm going to take his advice after all."
He walked through the
lobby and into the elevator, hitting the button for the top floor of the
building, knowing perfectly well it wasn't the one she lived on.
He had to work up his nerve first, so he rode quietly to the top, then
down again, then up, then down... on and on. Finally he stopped on
the top
floor, the doors opened,
closed again and he did nothing. "You're a genius, Forrester," he
said aloud. He reached out a shaking hand to hit the button for Lita's
floor when the elevator suddenly started moving.
It stopped and the doors opened to reveal the very girl he was on his way to see. "Neil?!" she demanded upon looking up to see him. "What are you doing on an elevator going down?"
"See, it's like this..."
he began, wondering what exactly he was going to tell her. "I went
to the park, and I remembered everything that happened back in the Silver
Millennium. I realized that you were telling the truth -- I guess
I knew that all along, really -- and I figured that you would hate me forever
for being so mean to you. But then all of a sudden I heard this weird
voice that told me to come talk to you so that we could save the princess
and protect Small Tokyo and Crystal Lady or something;" the doors
began to close and
he hit the open button testily; "it was really quite confusing. So
then I walked over here and got in the elevator, but I was too scared to
come talk to you, so I've been riding up and down for the last..."
He checked his watch. "...thirty minutes."
The dark-haired girl stood, open-mouthed, at this haphazard spill of words coming from the always eloquent and succinct Neil Forrester. Before she could reply, the doors started to close again. He pulled her into the small space with him and allowed them to close behind her. "Look, Lita, I know you have no reason to ever speak to me again. I was horrible to you, especially in light of everything I did... back then. I betrayed you and my prince and everything. But... you need to know that I love you. I've always loved you. No matter what happens, no matter what you say tonight, I always will love you."
"You've really been in the elevator for half an hour?" she said at last, grasping onto the least confusing thing he'd said.
"What? Oh, yeah... I'm getting a little dizzy from going up and down so much," he said sheepishly.
She looked down at her shoes for a moment, and a smile began to spread across her face even as tears began to collect in her emerald eyes. "When you walked out tonight I thought I'd never see you again. I thought I'd lost you forever. I thought I was wrong about... about everything. I didn't know if I was glad you were gone or not. Supposedly it's my destiny to be with Nephrite, and if you weren't him, then my love for you went against everything written in the stars about my fate."
He smiled softly and lifted her chin with a gentle hand. "The stars know all, Lita. They would never have allowed us to meet and fall and love were it not meant to be."
"Neil, what you did in the Silver Millennium was a long time ago, and Beryl had control of you. As for your reaction to my news... well, I can't say as I blame you, really. To remember all of this so suddenly is terribly hard."
His heart stopped and he clutched her hand desperately. "Does that mean you forgive me?" he whispered breathlessly.
She smiled up at him fondly. "Of course I do, baka. I believe I would forgive you anything... don't you know that I love you more than life?"
His jaw fell open, but rather than say a word, he swooped her up to kiss her long and hard. "Oh, my Lita, my darling, my princess, my goddess, my guiding star... how I love you. How I love you!" he murmured into the side of her neck as he held her.
"I love you too," she told him softly. After a moment, she shifted away to look up into his brilliant sapphire eyes. "Would you do something for me, Neil?"
"Anything in the Universe, Lita," he replied reverently.
"Then get me out of this elevator before I pass out from claustrophobia!" she cried suddenly.
He laughed, hit the open button, lifted her in his arms and carried her back to her apartment. Even after the door closed behind them, the sound of his warm, rich, love-filled laughter seemed to fill the hallway and the box-like compartment of the elevator.
End VI
WAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!! DONE! I can't believe it. I never thought I'd see this day. See, Nessa? I told you it'd be done soon!! Actually, I did this the very night you asked me when I would be finishing it! That would be Sunday, June 4... right after the first rehearsal for As You Like It. Tell Marc he should read it whether he understands it or not! :P
Anyway... thanks to everyone who has offered feedback and/or encouragement in the form of "When's the next chapter?!" for this story. It's that stuff that keeps me writing!
I heard the song today
that I'll use for Heart of Ice or Frozen Heart or whatever
I'm gonna end up calling Amy's section. I've already started composing
the first bit, but I won't be releasing it till I'm pretty far
along, because I don't
want the same thing to happen to it that happened to this one!!
I just opened a new section on my website devoted to the Dark Kingdom Shitennou. Come check it out! I'm looking for good senshi/shitennou fanfic to post, so please feel free to suggest some or to send me yours!
Thanks, minna-chan! See ya soon!