Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Chapter 4 – The Apprentice

Extra! Extra! Extra!

I'm done for!

There's nothing to worry about.

I'm dying!

It’s very common, actually.

Really?

Sure! Everyone uses photos to remember the good old days.

And they cut and paste all the different parts around and swap the heads and change the locations?

…

So, I am done for then! Even though I considered myself a trend setting artiste, I’m really just a scrapbooker.

Wow, so many moments mashed together.

I'll never find my way home like this. What should I do?

[…what’s so bad about never going home?]

Hey! Who said that?!

* * *

The train bounced over the gauges in staccato, as Anthy stared at the three cards in front of her. Her fingers lightly corrected their position as they shifted with the rhythm, Brownian motion that demanded her constant attention lest they spill over the edge.

Atop her sea throne sat the Queen of cups, her goblet cupped possessively in one hand, the other covering the lip to keep the contents mysterious. Cloudless heaven above, flat ocean below, the night sky in her hair. But where did her compassion fit into Anthy’s plans?

The two of swords wore her blindfold well, as behind her the waves crashed in volent spray against the islands in her path. Her swords were in perfect balance, pointing away from one another; if they were extended, they would never again meet. The crescent moon hung above her – intuition, but Anthy had determined her course of action after sleepless nights under that disquieting silver light.

Finally, her beautiful fool. But there was no innocence here.

“Excuse me, is the person who booked this seat coming back?”

Anthy blinked at her cards, then lifted her eyes towards the source of the intrusion. The woman who stood there was vaguely familiar, her short hair mussed from being a fidget toy for her fingers as she vibrated in time with the train.

Anthy opened her mouth to lie – then noticed the red and white Lion logo on the bag hung upon her trespasser's shoulder and remembered where she had seen her before: distracting a guard for long enough to let her and Chu-Chu board the plane to Japan. She changed her mind and told a different fib. “No. He took a call and had to leave – a business emergency. Please.” The woman stood there a moment longer, looking down. Anthy followed her gaze and sighed. “Chu-Chu!” She scooped her friend up from his makeshift bed on the seat, where he dozed under a napkin. He squealed a sleepy objection, then accepted her lap as a substitute and quieted down, peeking with one eye at their new neighbour.

She hopped to shove her bag overhead, then flashed her teeth in what Anthy presumed was intended to be a smile as she sat down and pulled out her phone, rapidly flicked through the notifications, then stuffed it away again. Her fingers drummed an allegro beat on the tabletop until her eyes settled on the cards, whereupon it increased to vivace.

Anthy slipped into her customer service persona. “Do you seek guidance?”

“I don’t believe in tarot cards.” Those eyes snapped to hers again, icicle blue and curious, despite her answer.

Anthy laughed into her hand. “That’s alright, I don’t really want to believe in fortune telling either. We can pretend it’s just a game.” She touched the three cards laid out in front of her. “Tell me your problem and think of the cards as just a way to frame the answer. If you don’t like the answer, you can just remember that you don’t believe in this anyway.”

“Call me Nikita.” Nikita tossed herself back in her seat and tucked one foot beneath her. “I’m meeting someone at the end of this line, and I don’t know what I’m going to say to her…” she trailed off.

“That explains two of the cards in front of me.” She drew the pink haired fool to the first position, Nikita leaned in curiously for a closer look. “This person, she was the Fool at the beginning of her journey, blind to risk. Her innocence will have hurt her along the way. Perhaps it has also led her to hurting others.”

Nikita hummed doubtfully. “Anyone could guess that. We all start the same way.”

Anthy’s smile widened into actual amusement, and she reached out, placing the two of swords in the middle. “Indeed. You won’t be impressed with this, either. She faces a split in her path; two choices diametrically opposed. She cannot fulfil both roles; she cannot both accept and reject whatever you’re planning to offer her, nor go halfway.”

An arched brow met her gaze as she lifted her eyes to see how close she was to the bullseye. “I thought you said you gave guidance.” Quite close, then.

“I thought you didn’t believe in it,” she replied as she tapped at the first two cards. “These are the past and present, they are only ever descriptive.” She paused as she moved the queen into position at the end. “This is you, the Queen of Cups. You must be compassionate with your girl. Hmm…let me put it this way. She is preparing to leave one of her lives behind, and she is going to look at you to ask, ‘Which of these is right for me?’, but if you really want what’s best for her you’re going to have to help her discover which one she thinks is right.”

Nikita frowned at the trio laid out on the table between them, then crossed her arms. “Foolishness. You didn’t need those cards to tell me that.”

Anthy laughed again, tickled by the other woman’s thorns. “It’s easier to work within some restrictions.”

For a moment she thought her seatmate was about to get up and leave, but then she barked a laugh and nodded, releasing some tension. “Like tactics. If you have infinite options it’s too hard to choose what to do. You need to be able to be able to see the viable options before you can pick one out. Limits help.” Her fingers beat a rhythm on the table again until her real desire burst out. “But it would be so much easier to just tell her what I want her to do. She could be one of the greats!”

“Would that work?”

“Absolutely not,” she answered, with zero hesitation. “Not just a fool, she’s a stubborn fool. Compassion.” She rubbed her temples. “Could you just come with me and give her a tarot reading too?” she asked optimistically.

“Sorry, my stop is coming up.” She was already stowing her deck away and gathering a grumbling Chu-chu into her bag. Once his fate became inevitable, he gave up his resistance and rooted optimistically for biscuits.

“Hm? But the next stop is the terminus.” Nikita looked up at her in surprise, then glanced over at the route map uncertainly. “Isn’t it?”

Anthy stood, and Nikita let her pass. The rhythm of the train’s clack-clack-clack over the gauges slowed as the train came to a stop at a well-maintained platform by a forest. “As I said. Good luck with your problem girl.” No-one else got off, or looked out, except for Nikita, who waved curiously after her.

Anthy hovered under the eaves and watched as the shadows played gently under the trees in the wind. She hesitated until the train had vanished into the horizon, then, cautiously stepped forward, her feet set on the only path visible in the undergrowth. This place felt older than any woods in this location had a right to be and Anthy tried to focus her eyes directly on the path straight ahead of her. Whenever she caught sight of a tree in the corner of her eye, her head whipped around to catch the face she saw hidden in the negative space between branch and bough – and each time, the face disappeared, laughing with the wind.

A fallen tree-trunk two hours into her walk proved timely, as Anthy sat down with a sigh and pulled off her right boot, tapping out a stone. She pulled a sandwich out of her bag, then put back the half that had a Chu-Chu sized bite in it, to the delight of her companion. “You could provide better company, if you’re going to make me carry you and share my food.” She paused suddenly and looked around at the sound of approaching footsteps.

“Afternoon, Miss.” A heavy axe came to rest near her feet, as a mountain of a man sat down beside her, pulling off his hat to cool down. “I hope you’re not planning on sticking around here too long. If you’re here for a walk, it’s not too bad. It’s just, there do be wolves in these woods, if you go too deep.” His voice was like gravel flowing downhill; she found she liked it.

“I’ve been here before and I know where I’m going. I’ll reach it before dark.” She wondered if he’d noticed that the tree was now tilted in his direction, her end lifted high enough that her feet dangled in the air. She didn’t ask, instead she pulled out a flask and poured herself a cup of tea, letting the steam condensate into droplets on her cheeks before sipping.

“Well, it’s not just wolves. People say strange things about the people who do live here too.” Under the surface of his awkward words, Anthy recognised a hunger, a need for human contact. She wondered how long it was since a traveller last came through here.

“I hope so. I’m here to see a witch after all.” She turned to face him and smiled as she said it, and he laughed as if she had told the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

“Witches? Har, that’s a new one!” He laughed as if he’d forgotten how it was done. “But if there do be witches in the world, this wood would definitely have one. You’re going to Priscilla.” He waited for her nod and tossed his head back to laugh again. “A witch? That old lady is a saint, I do say.”

“Maybe it was because I last saw her when I was small. Lots of things are scary when you’re small,” she said and relaxed in his shadow as he blotted out the sun. “Maybe now she’ll look like a nice old lady.” Reaching up, she poked his elbow, then offered him some of her tea when he peered down.

He stared at the cup curiously, then took it between his index finger and thumb and lifted it to his mouth, draining it in one gulp. “Well, if it’s her you’re seeing, not to fear. No wolves do trouble her door, no indeed.” Her mug drained, he returned it to her then unfolded upwards, his hat next to the treetops. “Have a good day, Miss.” Heavy footsteps echoed as he strode off the path across from her, his axe tossed lightly over one shoulder.

She counted five minutes, then left as well. She didn’t wonder why he never asked for her name, nor offered his own. The forest had its own manners.

The sky grew heavier above her as she walked, and the light got hazy. She found that the brush had started to push back against her, that faces intruded more and more in her vision as branches grabbed at her, caught at her collar, tangled her wrists until she panted and gasped with every step. Arms raised like a boxer to protect her face, her legs pumped as fast as they could, the scratches on her body ignored until she burst into a clearing, collapsed to her knees and pushed her fingers into the soil to regain some sense of balance.

When she felt connected to the earth again, she stood and walked to cabin in the centre of the clearing. Its redbrick chimney puffed inviting circles of smoke into the sky and the burnt light of sunset, now bruised in places where the stars had appeared. She didn’t look back but knocked on the old oak door.

Her small fist knocked a second time. As she waited, she tried to suppress the creeping sensation that behind her the woods had closed in to cut off her retreat, but it bubbled up despite her efforts. Her hackles raised, she lifted her hand a third time, this time to the handle and let out a sigh of relief as the door opened for her, then jumped at a voice from behind her.

“I’m sorry dear, I was gathering mushrooms. Let me open the door for you.” That mellow voice didn’t take the edge off Anthy’s nerves, as a woman came past her and pushed the door open the rest of the way. Her white hair was tied up like an onion and a blue dress hung shapelessly to her feet, made of comfortable cotton. She moved smoothly, despite her age; the lines in her face spoke more of experience than strain. She looked back as she stepped over the threshold, gentle brown eyes widening in surprise. “Well, well, Anthy Himemiya. I didn’t expect to see you again.” After a pregnant pause in which those same brown eyes dissected Anthy where she stood, the old woman stepped to the side. “Come in out of the cold.”

Anthy shivered as she stepped over the threshold. The cabin remained largely as she remembered it, though she thought some of the furniture had been replaced and the stove was new. “Thank you for inviting me in.”

“Oh, I always make time for my old apprentices, Anthy,” Priscilla nattered as she grabbed a kettle, and handed it to her. “Even the ungrateful ones. Fill that from the pump outside, now, and we’ll get all caught up.”

Anthy’s arms jerked under the sudden burden, but she sighed, took the weight in her stride and went out to set the kettle under the pump. Her chest was heaving by the time she had filled it, and the sky had turned black – dappled with silver stars. She hurried inside without looking at the woods; a shiver ran down her spine at the sound of a distant howl. She set the kettle on top of the stove, the fire inside burning merrily away as lanterns pushed the night out. On one of the windowsills, Chu-Chu paced on all fours and answered the howls from outside, his round ears pinned back in imitation.

When she turned around, her host was at the kitchen counter, reaching for tealeaves. “To what do I owe the unexpected presence of your company, Anthy.”

She ignored the question as she ran her fingers through her hair, plucked a leaf out of a tangle and looked anywhere but at her host, then stepped to the other side of the table and sat in an old chair. “This fits me better, now.”

“I told you it would, given time,” Priscilla replied, her dress bunched up at her elbows as she worked the pestle. “Where is your brother?”

“I don’t know.” She shook more leaves out of her hair angrily. “Actually, I don’t care.” Her old mentor looked up from her work, a genuine expression of curiosity on her face. “I’m not here for him.”

“Oh, but you are here for someone?” Priscilla asked as she looked down again, refocused on the task before her.

“For myself.” Anthy took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

The kettle started to bubble and whistle in the silence that followed her statement. “Oh?” Priscilla prompted her when she didn’t elaborate

“I shouldn’t have left the way I did.” Anthy clicked her tongue, unsatisfied with the shape of that apology. Priscilla had wanted her to stay, had wanted to train her properly – but her brother had returned and she had gone with him. And when Priscilla had pushed her, she had lashed out. A pattern she loved to return to. “I hurt you.”

“Hm. Well, water under the train tracks, Anthy.” Priscilla lifted the kettle off the stove. A heavy towel protected her hands as she carried it over to the table and set it down atop a wooden disk that took the burn mark and added it to the others it had accepted in place of the weathered table beneath it.

“I’m sorry for calling you an old crone, too.” Priscilla’s laughter at the additional layer on her apology didn’t make it easier to say the words she needed to, but she squeezed her hands together under the table and spoke. “I need your help to find someone.”

“Oh, dearie me. Well, if you’re sorry…” Priscilla was chuckling still, and it stung Anthy’s pride to sit there and let her, so she sat up straight and reached across the table, grabbed her hand.

“I was your apprentice and that gives me a right to ask a boon of you. This is what I ask of you: help me to find Utena Tenjou,” Anthy’s voice was quiet, almost smothered by the crackle of the flames.

At last, Priscilla settled down and put on her glasses to regard her. She hadn’t worn those before, they seemed anachronistic in this setting. Anthy found herself uncomfortable under the intensity of those eyes. After what might have been a minute, her host asked her, “So, it’s like that, one for another?”

Anthy shook her head emphatically. “I haven’t traded princes. She might not even want to meet me when I find her.” She rose from her seat and stepped to the window to look up at the stars, only able to watch Priscilla’s reflection rather than meet her eye. “I made her a promise, and I won’t break it.”

She remembered their fingers laced together gently, both scared to tighten the knot in case it snapped; Utena held her close as the elevator rattled up the tower; the wind tugged at her hair, as the gravity sucked at her feet.

She turned back to face Priscilla. “Not again.”

Priscilla, blinked first, stood, and reached to the shelf above her counter. She pushed aside the jars until she found a small vial of honey-coloured droplets suspended in clear liquid. She poured it into one of the teacups and returned with both, slid the treated cup across the table to Anthy. The golden droplets shone out in the lamplight.

“What will happen if I drink this?”

“Pleasant dreams, Anthy Himemiya.” Priscilla sipped her own tea. “You couldn’t find her in the real world. It will be up to you to decide if you find her in these.”

She looked at the spheres, shapes strangely flattened as their refracted light passed through the surface of the tea. She pushed her suspicion down, defeated by her failure and lifted the cup to her lips. She savoured her first sip, let the sweet heat of it rest in her mouth and closed her eyes to just enjoy the moment.

Then she tilted it up and swallowed the rest, gasped at the cloying saccharine taste of the golden liquid that clung to the sides of her throat, that cut off her airways. Her arms jerked and knocked the teacup over, spilled the dregs onto the dark wood of the tabletop as her chest heaved, tried to force enough oxygen into her lungs for her to survive. Anthy hacked and coughed until her eyes blurred with tears, until the room disappeared in candlelight fractals.

When she could finally breathe again, she wiped her tears away and her eyes came to rest on an empty chair, a modern steel frame enamelled in white. Something about that seemed wrong – surely it should be wooden? But she couldn’t remember why she thought that.

She blinked and the chair was filled. Utena beamed across at her in her duelling uniform but she didn’t open her eyes. The silence there grew and grew until it pushed Anthy up out of the chair, her legs tangled in it as she tried to stand and turn and step away all at once.

“Hey, watch out!” Words spoken moments before disaster; Anthy tripped over her chair, staggered into the tray next to her and knocked the milkshakes onto Utena. “Cold!” she cried out. Her blouse and skirt were coated in the white liquid, it dripped down her body onto the floor and pooled under her shoes.

“I tripped,” Anthy explained, dully, staring at the mess.

Paper napkins were the best Utena could find to try to brush herself clean, patting her pockets over and over and over. “Where is it? My handkerchief, where did I put it?” Anthy reached into her sleeve and pulled out a white square of fabric, monogrammed with the letters UT and silently reached out. “Oh! Uh. Are you a magician or something?”

Anthy closed her eyes and stepped past her. “Yes. Or something.” She ignored the tremors in her body as she sped up until she was running blindly around corners. A pair of arms encircled her just in time to stop her hitting the ground as she sprinted headlong into a body that refused to yield a centimetre.

Utena was firm in every regard and stared down at Anthy with inquisitive blue eyes, half her face painted with roses and thorns in black and white. “When I hoped we’d run into each other Himemiya, I didn’t think it’d be so…literal.”

Her arms cradled Anthy, who found it difficult to breathe so close to her. Utena smelt of fresh sweat and honey and her face filled Anthy’s field of vision. When she noticed Anthy’s paralysis, she firmly took the lead and settled her feet back down on the footpath, though she let Anthy’s fingers remain hooked around her forearms, firm as ropes thrown to a drowning woman.

“Hey, earth to Himemiya? I thought I was supposed to be the block-headed one!” Utena laughed at herself. As she did, she tilted her head back and showed off the vines that trailed down her neck and under her top. Anthy was filled with an almost uncontainable desire to trace them to their roots.

She forced herself to look up and question it. “I wouldn’t have guessed you’d get roses on your skin.”

Utena shrugged and walked with Anthy onto fresh mown grass, past fountains that blasted water in high arcs through the air, where the wind caught it to splash the unwary. “People started calling me the Rose Bride because it was all I could talk about when they found me. So, I grew my own roses.” Her long fingers reached up to touch a blossom on her cheek and purple ink flowed into the lines from her fingertip. She traced the vine, careless of the thorns that spread out on it. “Yours were better.”

Anthy stumbled on a rabbit hole in the ground and tightened her grip on Utena’s arm. “And are you now the Rose Bride?”

“You’d have to stay with me to find out, Himemiya.” Those eyes looked down at her, a cautious invitation. “Are you strong enough?”

She stepped away after a moment. “Strong enough…” she repeated, tasted the words. “Would I need strength?”

“Wasn’t that what I needed to get close to you?”

Anthy reached up, cupping a pink rose almost hidden by the sweep of Utena’s hair, then cried out in surprise as the thorn pricked her finger. She looked up again, as she sucked the metallic-tasting blood from the wound; watched how the colour pulsed and grew, fed by her blood. She remembered the gentle, careful way their hands had reached across the gap in their beds.

She turned to the side and brushed past. Utena didn’t try to stop her.

The sound of voices attracted her. At the fountain, she saw pink hair framed against the light of the setting sun that dyed the streams of water burnt orange. She got closer as the stars rushed out and Utena looked up, stood when she saw who had appeared, stretched out a hand towards her.

“Cut! Tenjou, it’s not like you to break character like that.” A shadow detached itself from the surrounding buildings and scolded her dramatically, arms akimbo.

Utena just laughed as her right hand rose to rub the back of her head awkwardly. “Yeah I know, it’s just – sorry, I saw an old friend.” She slipped around the frustrated shade in a tight arc as she spoke, then turned smoothly on her heel in another to stand before Anthy, grabbed her dress and pulled her away from the crowd of phantasms that appeared once a break was called. When they turned the first corner, she reached up and touched Anthy’s cheek. “You’re solid.”

Anthy focused to decipher her words over the noise of the blood that drummed in her ears. The pads of Utena’s fingers were soft, not those of someone who played basketball or gripped a hilt. They pressed into her cheek again and drank in the sensation of her corporeal body.

“No-one seems solid, here. And yet you appear in front of me, in the flesh.” Her other hand pressed against Anthy’s bare shoulder. She realised she was dressed for dinner in a glittering silver gown, tied at the other shoulder in an ornate rose. Somehow the style was familiar to her, though she couldn’t place from where. “How did you get here?”

“I walked.” Her mouth was dry, and she felt dizzy, as if she’d trekked here under a burning desert sun. They turned a corner and sat on the lip on the other side of the fountain to the shadow play. Her hand, shocked into motion by a spray of cold water, reached up to pull Utena’s fingers away from her cheek. “You seem happy to see me.”

Utena laughed, a refined tinkle in the time with the bubbling water. “Himemiya, you’re being so presumptuous.” The stars in her sky were all in her eyes, the sweet scent of roses enveloped them as she pressed herself softly against Anthy.

“I think you’re the one being –” Her voice cut off as Utena’s lips covered hers, the sensual feeling confused by the sticky feeling her lipstick left behind, by the way Utena’s breath tickled the sensitive nerve endings. “Oh dear, now your makeup will have to be redone,” Anthy commented, distant in her own body.  She looked at Utena again, cheeks flushed, and eyes shining brighter and knew if she sat there things would take their course without any input and

She stood up. “No. This isn’t – I have to – let go!”

Utena’s fingers had been resting lightly on her wrist, but they fell away as she stood up and tears clouded over the sky. “I thought…I hoped, you’d want me too. It’s so lonely, living surrounded by shades, but I thought you would spend the night with me, again. It’s…you’re all I’ve wanted all these years, Anthy.”

“Stop it! This is wrong!” Anthy fled, face turned away from where those eyes were swallowed by the night.

She bounced off a happy couple. “Himemiya! Wow, you really did grow up.”

Into a doorway, where Utena stood head cocked as if there was something on the tip of her tongue. “Himemiya? That name rings a bell…”

Utena on the street knelt down when she stumbled. “Can I help you, Miss?”

Utena the artist, Utena the baseball player, Utena the investigative reporter – Utena, Utena, Utena, too many of them, living too many lives.

“Utena, my love!” A cheerful voice cried out as its owner leapt onto Utena’s back and knocked Anthy unceremoniously over.

She fell backwards out of the tower and landed hard; the breath knocked out of her. She lay still, as the crimson folds of the dress – her dress – settled around and against her on the grass. She didn’t want to move, dazed from the height of her fall, so she lay there and watched the clouds slipping between the turrets of a mighty castle suspended above them.

How long she lay there, she couldn’t say, only that it ended in fire. The cylinders of a motorbike tore open the peaceful scene with a metallic roar that made her turn her head to watch. She watched it eat up the distance between them, then coughed into her hands as it turned sideways and kicked up dust at the last second, stopped in its tracks by a hedge of thorns that had sprung up around her as she lay dreaming.

“Himemiya! I’m here to rescue you!” The headlight beam over Utena’s shoulder turned all her details to silhouette as she pulled her helmet off. The only thing Anthy could make out was the white motorcycle jacket with the shiny gold fringes on the shoulders as her prince leapt off her steed.

“Not this, please.” She tried to scrabble away, her heels and palms pushed into the earth searching for any grip to push away but a sudden pain made her cry out as thorns dug into her back and tore open the flesh on her arms and grew around her, higher and higher.

Utena strode forward, unperturbed. “Rapunzel, you’ve already come down from your tower and now your prince has arrived.”

Blood from her forehead poured down freely, tinted her vision red as the barbs pushed harder into her skin whichever way she tried to move. “This is wrong. A prince isn’t supposed to save a witch.” The thorns wrapped around her neck scratched her throat as she spoke.

“But you’re only a witch because the Prince couldn’t save you.” A smaller engine snarled into life, a chainsaw in Utena’s hands rattled as it cut open a path for her to approach.

Anthy pushed until her hands bled and at last the bush behind her cracked, but the branch over her head fell in revenge and before she could turn away two spikes came to rest against her eyes, a viper’s mouth dislocated open, ready to kill. Her heart pounded in her chest until she thought her ribs would crack but she could still speak, if she were willing to accept the pain. “I thought you knew what being a prince meant!”

Bristles bristles pushed between her lips, pierced her cheeks, filled her mouth with blood and silenced her at last.

“Of course I know.” Utena’s voice was grimly determined. “That’s my choice to make.” She stood before her, chainsaw purring quietly at her side as she surveyed the state of affairs, ready to use the monster to free her. “And I choose to save you, An-“

Anthy pushed her eyes onto the rose’s fangs.

* * *

I’m so fucking tired

And I was doing these wrong

I’m dense, winter fog

* * *

She grasped the table in time to stop her face millimetres from the edge, her jaw painfully tight as she hyperventilated, eyes wide open. She swallowed, then blinked, still expecting to see only thorns, or nothing at all, then looked across the table to where Priscilla sat, sipping her own tea. She seemed innocent, except for the way her cup rattled against its saucer as she put it down.

Anthy straightened slowly, took a breath. “Was I supposed to find her in there?”

Her host put her cup down. “You were supposed to find honeyed dreams to tempt you.” Priscilla stood and stepped over to the counter. “With maybe some truth in the mix.”

“Do you know that the honey of the rhododendron plant could poison an army, Priscilla? And these were only my dreams.” Her mouth twisted around the words and she turned away.

“Anthy, you put all of your imagination into cruelty, now just as you did then,” she replied as she poured a new cup and went back to her shelf, reaching back to the same row the golden drops had come from and plucking out a phial filled with vermillion liquid. When she emptied it into Anthy’s tea, it spread like blood until the liquid became completely opaque. “Maybe something more bitter will suit you.”

Her lips curled down as she stared at her cup, then she lifted her eyes back with a neutral smile painted onto her face. “You still know best, Priscilla.”

“Oh Anthy, you don’t have to pretend. I’m not doing this as a favour, or even really because you demanded a boon,” she said, as she pushed the cup closer to Anthy where its acrid aroma melted her false smile. “I’m doing this because this is the first time you’ve ever expressed a desire for something of your own.”

“I don’t desire her for myself. I –”

“That’s not what I meant and you’re smart enough to know it,” Priscilla snapped as she took her seat across from Anthy again with a tired sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Well, drink it or don’t, dearie, it’s all the one to me,” she commented, “It’s almost time for bed. The wolf is prowling and the door is locked, so make up your mind. Chu-chu already did.” While Anthy dreamed, Priscilla had set out a small bed before the stove for him, a jewellery drawer lined woolen scraps. He was already curled up and let out contented, high pitched chus with every breath. A mask was pulled tight over his eyes as he, at least, dreamed peacefully.

Anthy wet her lips with the tip of her tongue as she stared at her reflection in the liquid. She watched herself grimace as she lifted the cup to her lips, then paused. She had to force her mouth to open over the protest of her nose, then she tilted her head back and drank it in a single swallow, her eyes squeezed shut against the assault on her senses, the sharp flavour like breakfast tea that had been stewed from full moon to full moon.

The sound of a ringtone made her open her eyes and unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth. She stared down at the mobile phone in her hand, curious. Its light was the only illumination in the darkness that pressed against where she sat, surrounded by an earthy scent.

She let it ring thrice before she answered, her eyes drawn to a sudden movement as Utena appeared across from her, sitting in her own darkness beside a rotary phone on a decorative marble and bronze table. The dress she wore forced her to sit side-saddle on the chair, she couldn’t pull her legs in under the table with how it sprung out. Her pink hair was done in tight curls – ringlets styled the same way Juri used to wear her hair, Anthy realised after a moment. Her shoulder blades slid down in release when Anthy answered.

“Himemiya? Is that you?” Time – or something else – had sanded down the rough edges her voice held in Anthy’s memory.

“This is she. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” She tried to keep any unnecessary emotion out of her voice, to let the call play out as if she wasn’t watching. As she took a deep breath in through her nose to steady herself, she realised she was in a flower shop. She couldn’t see the plants, but she could pick them out by scent, the flowers and the herbs, the overwhelming scent of growing life.

“Yes, I’m…sorry it’s been so long.” Her voice sweetened, like poison in Anthy’s tea. “I never thought I’d see you again, but I was looking for flowers when I saw the name “Himemiya’s Horticulture” coming up again and again in the prize lists and I wondered, I hoped – I mean, I…I wanted it to be you. Himemiya.”

Anthy could see the white knuckled grip she had on the phone. “But why would you need the services of a florist, Utena? You were never one of those who cared for my roses.” She tested the waters, curious to see what cold depths would suddenly yawn open beneath her.

“Oh! Oh…” Utena’s eyes turned away from the table with the phone and Anthy saw dark pools where there used to be sunlight and bit her tongue to stop a cry from escaping. She played the part assigned to her, but restlessness made her stand and pace through her shop, unlit except for a warm glow over the door to the outside world. “I’m getting married.” Her voice trilled with excitement belied by the lines tightening at the side of her eyes and lips. “I need…that is, a wedding should have flowers. And yours are award winning.”

Anthy leaned forward, tried to let gravity pull her gaze from the phantom boxed in across from her – but her mouth continued the conversation automatically. “My prices have gone up since the days at Ohtori.”

Utena smiled, a memory of joy. Anthy saw her back then in a different chair, sitting silently in the rose garden as she did her homework or read her books, filling the cage more and more each day until Anthy had thought the bars were going to burst. Until Akio had to intervene directly. “That’s good to hear. People will only value you at what you charge them, I’ve learned.” Her other hand rose to her curls, twisting a ringlet around her finger before she visibly exerted her will to pull her hand down. After a moment of stillness, Anthy saw her leg twitch under the dress, and she knew Utena must have longed to stretch.

But she didn’t.

“And what about the future Mr Tenjou, he won’t object? Some men might get jealous around a woman who was your nightly companion.”

Utena’s face turned pale, and Anthy knew that she didn’t want to hear what the answer was going to be, but it was already too late and she couldn’t unseal her lips or hang up, only wait for the axe to fall. She realised she was starting to sweat.

“Touga won’t mind. I think he’d be excited to see you,” Utena replied airily. She didn’t seem to notice she had started to silently cry.

Anthy’s eyes slid shut, her even breaths the only sound in her shop or on the phone for a moment that stretched out until the tension felt like it would snap the line between them. She realised she was free to respond however she preferred, no force impelled her forward anymore. She didn’t hesitate. “No.”

“Himemiya? What do you mean, no? If it’s money, it won’t be a problem.” Utena’s control slipped, her fingers tangled in the cord of the telephone, stretched it, threatened to rip it out of the receiver. “No expense will be spared.” Disgust coated the words, but hunger did as well.

“No.” She repeated her answer as she walked towards the exit, the only other light in the darkness.

Utena stood as well, but her body trembled as she shouted down the phone. “Please, please Himemiya, I need your help. Don’t I deserve it? I want to get out of this but I need your help!”

Anthy couldn’t breathe, or feel her heart beating, or do anything at all other than listen to those words echo again and again in her ear. She gathered her voice and regained control. “Then walk away. That’s the only help I have to offer anyway. Goodbye, Utena.” She hung up; dropped the phone from her numb fingers. She opened the door, then paused and looked back. Utena sat on the floor, a drowned woman in all her finery – Anthy turned away and walked out.

Behind her, the door rattled shut and she stood in a familiar elevator. She whipped around, but there were no buttons to change its destination or speed, as it rumbled upwards. The bell chimed and she grabbed the join where its doors met, fought to keep them shut until her fingers ached from the pressure. She gritted her teeth and leaned in, stopped them at a gap of ten centimetres, relaxed as the engine stopped – then fell out as the doors yanked themselves out of her grasp. They slid quietly shut as she looked back, the rustle of gears like mocking laughter as she rose in the foyer of a familiar apartment. The forbidding doors of the planetarium were closed but didn’t fully block out the muffled voices from the other side.

She pressed her ear to the wood, then shut her eyes and licked her lips at Utena’s voice. She slipped down onto her knees and peered through the large keyhole, looking over the back of a white leather couch. A weight grew in the pit of her stomach as she spied who was conversing.

“I know you want to restart the rules of the game, Akio, and of course we must do that soon. But we’re still not ready, there are more pieces to lay out on the board.” Utena had draped herself across him, her head spilling over the arm of the couch. Anthy could see her face as she spoke, her expression tight. She could see her eyes, but she knew Akio couldn’t – there was no way he would let the contempt in them pass.

“Perhaps. But we can’t let it go too long, Utena. The brightest lights need the most fuel.” Akio was distracted, Utena’s fingers played in his hair as she shifted in his lap.

Utena sat up and kissed the side of his head, then rested her head on his shoulder. Anthy’s shoulders slowly rose as Utena’s eyes met hers, as a smile spread over her face, some anticipation finally released before Utena smothered it again. With startlingly precise movements, she rose, turning back to Akio, her expression masked under a gentle smile and lidded eyes.

“You’re right. Of course, you’re right, you’re always right. We can start tonight with what we have here.” She guided him out of the seat to a kiss, let his arms encircle her for the barest moment before she slipped out of them. “But you know I need more ordinary fuel as well, and the fridge is empty. Won’t you go pick something up for us?” Her black dress moulded to her body as she melted against him, murmured in his ear quietly, promised everything he desired as her eyes stared into Anthy’s soul over his shoulder, hot enough to burn. After a moment, they jerked to the side, a silent command.

Anthy slipped behind the counter and watched as Utena deftly guided the night-sky past her to the elevator, waved with a lover’s smile as her brother left, waited until the doors shut and the descent began then dropped it all: her hand, her smile, her act. She bisected the room with a straight line to where Anthy hid, leapt over the table and pulled her to her feet, her grin that of the lioness whose fangs took down the zebra. “Finally. Finally, Himemiya, I don’t know how much longer I could have kept it up, but I knew you’d have to return here if I waited long enough.”

Anthy was struck dumb as Utena reached out to cup her cheek. For a moment, Anthy was sure she was going to kiss her and her cheeks burned against those cold fingers, but instead she slid her hand down Anthy’s neck, traced the joint of her shoulder down to firm muscle she’d built up over the years outside, tangled their fingers together and pulled her into the other room to occupy the couch.

“We have twenty minutes until he gets back. He always takes the same route.” Utena laughed at an unspoken joke. “So predictable…was he always so predictable?” Anthy thought it was rhetorical, but when she lifted her eyes from Utena’s long fingers she met an intense blue gaze that burned with the need to know. “I’m guessing he was, and I was just too naïve to see it.”

“…my brother was always much less mysterious than he pretended. But he was skilled at pretence.” She felt as if she were a ship in a maelstrom, Utena’s hand a rope that pulled her along towards either safe harbour or the heart of the whirlpool and she couldn’t say which. “Why…were you waiting for me?” She had wanted to ask why Utena was with him, but she couldn’t face that directly yet. She looked up, instead, frowning at the faint outline of a castle hanging over them in the projector lights.

“Himemiya, you remember cantarella, don’t you?” Utena laughed at her sudden start, the sound of rustling grass on the savanna. “Of course, you do.” She reached into her clutch and took out a small bag of white powder. Anthy sat still as a statue as Utena reached out, pressing the bag against her hand. “It wasn’t that hard to figure out how to make, once I knew it could be done. Together, we’ll take him down.”

The phrase broke her new paralysis and she pushed the bag back at Utena. “Why not just leave, the two of us?”

Utena, laughed at that, holding the bag up to the light. She shook her hair back, let it frame her face and body to soften Anthy’s defences. “It’s not enough for witches like us to be free. We have to make sure there’s no wannabe prince to come after us, don’t you agree?”

Anthy stared at her, at how the pulse in her neck beat a slow, hypnotic rhythm. She found she did want to stay. The thought of an Utena who understood what it meant to be a witch was…alluring. She stood up. “I will not lie in a rose scented coffin, not even with you.”

Utena moved in a flash, one moment languidly stretched out, the next she overshadowed her. Her blue eyes shone in the darkness of the room as the shutters slammed closed. “You think so? You might think you walked away, but here we both are.”

Anthy backed away, and Utena followed. Anthy was sure this was wrong, but she couldn’t say just why. This room should be unoccupied, she was certain. Sweat trickled down her spine and stuck her red dress to her back unpleasantly. A rose appeared in stained glass to their side, bloomed and died with their footfalls but Utena paid it no mind.

Crenelations bumped against the back of Anthy’s knees and she almost fell. Utena stood before her, back straight and lip scornfully curled, her entire body a rebuke of Anthy’s choice. “Well? Are you going to help me, or am I going to have to do this by myself too, Himemiya?” Utena’s voice was tight like a garotte.

Her hands lightly shaking, Anthy stared at the witch in front of her. The poison in her hand glittered like diamond dust in the light of the hologram. She knew Utena wouldn’t let her get by, not when she was so close to her moment of triumph. But this room didn’t end at the wall. “Goodbye, Utena!”

She flung herself across the abyss, onto a platform adjacent to reality where she landed with a thump and rolled. Her hands found traction to stop her motion just before the edge and she stared over it into a deep nothing. She scrabbled backwards away from that emptiness, rolled over and stared up at a glittering fairy-tale castle, everything she remembered it to be as it illuminated the stage, the only source of light. The room behind her had vanished.

No sounds echoed back to her from the other end of the strip of concrete; the rose gate had not reappeared. At first, she thought she was alone.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

Anthy’s shoulders hitched. She realised a lump in the darkness at the end of the platform had started to uncoil itself slowly.

“No-one should come here, but especially not you.” Utena’s voice rasped and shook along with her body, but still she tried to push herself up. Her arms spasmed when she straightened them and threw her back down on the rough stone where her cheek scraped a bloody trail where she fell. Her body shook, she curled up. Anthy took a half step forward to help but froze at a frustrated hiss.

Utena punched the ground and propelled herself up, each contraction of her muscles enough to make her grunt in pain. She gained her feet, but the effort made her overbalance and the stumbled towards the edge. She hung over the precipice, ready to fall.  

Then her entire body shivered and the repulsive jangle of metal-on-metal filled the dark space around them. She was pulled onto her toes by some punishing force, at the ragged edge of the only solid ground that existed, as her long, slender fingers clawed at the air. Her back arched, bent further until Anthy covered her ears and shut her eyes rather than be audience to the inevitable crack of bone.

But there was only the ring of steel, and the rough sound of her own breath. The light of the castle shone out brighter as she opened her eyes; it revealed fractured wings of steel driven into Utena’s sides that flared up and out to keep her from tumbling over the boundary.

Utena’s body unclenched, finally, as her heels settled back. Sweat streaked her face and plastered her hair to her skull as she turned to face Anthy. After an uncertain moment, caught between falling and moving, Utena stuttered her way towards her. “Why are you here?”

Anthy’s foot hovered in mid-air a moment longer before she set it down, a step closer than she was before. “I came back to find you, Utena.” At the sound of her voice, the rattle increased to a gale that howled the word ‘Witch!’ at her, screamed it over and over in blind fury. She flinched and covered her face with her arms again, hunched over against the storm.

No blade pierced her flesh or tore her dress. When she overcame her fear enough to look, Utena’s fists were clenched, her gaunt arms trembling. The storm subsided.

“Ha…they said that you would never come back. The witch had won and tricked her prince,” Utena rasped, half a laugh as her fingers uncurled, blood dripping from her nails. “I hoped you wouldn’t.” She lifted one hand, dragging her hair out of her eyes, then staring at Anthy through a cage of those fingers. “Then I hoped you would. Just recently, I had even learned to stopped hoping either way, Himemiya…but here you are.”

The other voices ebbed and flowed under Utena’s. Anthy took a breath and another step closer. “I want to help you.” Mocking laughter wound its way through the tide.

“Help…she wants to help…” Utena’s voice fell to a mutter as she spoke to herself, the only company she’d had for years. Her voice had all the qualities of a girl who saw a mirage in the desert and, familiar with all the facts, chose to believe that there was water there if she could only keep walking. “Himemiya, let me show you how you can help.”

Utena reached to her breast.

Her sternum cracked like a shell, and her hand grasped the black handle that sprang out; dragged, inch by inch, steel from the still-beating muscle inside, out through her own flesh. The butcher noise of a blade in meat overwhelmed even the voices and when she drew out the point, only silence flowed back. For a moment it shone clean and true– a shimmer flowed down the keen edge and around the handle and its pink stone. Then she choked, coughed crimson blood onto clean steel where it dripped and steamed.

Anthy collapsed, her world turned black. She saw nothing, until blood flowed onto the ground in front of her and her eyes were pulled up that trail by some terrible gravity to stare into Utena’s. Their blue had been drained, now they showed only milky whiteness.

The blood dripped down her chin like a vampire. “All you have to do to help, Anthy, is give up your body.”

Anthy couldn’t unclench her jaw, her throat was constricted, sound was impossible. She shook her head frantically in voiceless rejection.

“Please, Himemiya.” Utena’s voice cracked, but her belief in the mirage returned. “You did it for Touga, when he asked.” The chant of ‘Witch’ was deafening again, but Utena’s weak voice reached her. “For Akio. Don’t I deserve that much?”

Anthy’s body rocked back and forth, until the tip of the blade pressed against her chest. She forced herself to unclench before she impaled herself and reached out to touch the blade. Her hand flinched, then settled on the steel, where hot blood pooled in the lines of her fingers. “Utena…”

“Himemiya…please…” Utena wouldn’t push the blade in herself, even now. Anthy collected herself and stood, her fingers gently lifting the blade with her, keeping it pointed at her heart. “Please.”

“Utena…I’m so sorry.”

She closed her eyes, fell back, and let the icy darkness engulf her, chased out by a keening wail that would haunt her for as long as she lived.

Her chair slammed into the floor behind her, dumping her unceremoniously onto her back, where she lay, completely still. The ceiling blurred and she knew she was crying. “Utena…”

Before she could process where she had returned to, Priscilla was beside her, gently touching her cheeks and feeling her pulse. Her hands on Anthy’s neck felt like thick gloves and her voice seemed to reach her ears via an old phone line. For a moment, Anthy saw her in mentor’s face that of a predator who smelt blood in the air and she twitched away, pressed her back against the table leg and lifted her hands to defend herself.

She blinked, and she saw again an old woman who cared for her student and slowly let her breath out, then reached out to accept her help. As she got her set up in her chair again, Priscilla quietly inquired, “Tell me. Were any of your nightmares the real thing, Anthy Himemiya?

Her brain seemed to be full of cotton wool, Anthy had to have her repeat the question before she understood what was being asked. As she rested her hand on the table she looked down, surprised her fingerprints didn’t leave bloody stains on the wood. She shook her head. “No. I…no.”

“Hm. Well then, I can’t help you find her.”

Anthy stopped breathing. “What?”

“I deal in dreams, nightmares and the finding of people whether they like it or lump it.” Priscilla lifted her teacup to her lips but didn’t actually drink. “So why couldn’t I help you find her? Tell me, Anthy, that castle, is it a spell of yours?”

Anthy’s did not register any response to the question. It was so hard to think; whenever she did, she saw milk-white eyes and blood trailing down sickly pale skin. She tried to focus, even a little. “The castle. I put that up long ago.”

“I thought it looked like your work. Well, the reason I can’t get you to her mphfhnmph-!” Anthy looked up with a start and stared as Priscilla’s mouth seemed to try to eat itself as she tried to speak. She gave up and sat back in her chair with an angry grunt. “You really do know how to be cruel to yourself, setting up a curse like that.”

“Well. At least this time it’s directed towards someone who deserves it,” Anthy commented, looking out the window at the shadows in the wood.

“Phooey! Do you think I’d have tried this hard if you were the kind of person who deserved your cruel streak?” Anthy didn’t respond. “Well, just because I can’t help you, that doesn’t mean it’s the end. I know someone who might be able to.”

Anthy’s head fell into her hands under the weight of her relief, her eyes pressed into her palms. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

“Oh come, come, don’t be too upset with me. You know I get there in my own time,” Priscilla stood and started to douse down the flames in the stove, turned away from Anthy. “Amalie was my last apprentice. She deals with the real world…well, mostly. I’ll give you her address tomorrow.”

Anthy felt exhaustion in her bones. “…thank you.” Her chest was tight, curling tighter with each heartbeat, but she meant what she said. She leaned forward to rest her head on her arms, just for a moment and passed out on the table without another word.

* * *

I still can’t seem to write directly about her.

I will talk a little about my brother, instead. With some distance between us, I now think – I’m sure, actually – that Akio and Dios were simply the same person, and not split as he pretended.

As we pretended.

Dios was Akio, taking what he thought the world owed him for his service. Akio was Dios, traumatised by his failure to live up to all that people demanded of him.  How he hated me for telling them I had sealed him away - but I only ever shut the door, as he knew, it was their choice to believe me. They never even checked if it was locked. And he never told them otherwise. Was he disgusted by his inability to save me and unwilling to face it?

Only…it’s just…

You could have saved me, brother. If you had been willing to look at it another way. And of course you knew that too but the swords always terrified you. When you looked at them, you could only see how they might hurt you.

She could only see how they did hurt me.