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It's a regular day, four of the five of them seated under the temple awning, cool in the shade, late summer cicadas drowning out any attempt at conversation. Condensation from the drinks they’d gotten from the convenience store across the street drip down onto the walkway below their swinging feet, or flicked at each other to the tune of muted shrieks. Minako just grins from her perch on the wooden steps as she watches the chaos unfold, her eyes drifting over to Rei rolling her eyes and shaking her head as she sweeps. Minako loses herself like she always does while watching Rei - the steady strokes and steady hands, the confident steps, the serene focus on her face - and it’s in that calm, in the repetition, in the familiarity that she remembers her dream.
And as always, Minako speaks before she can think.
“I had a dream from the Silver Millennium last night,” she blurts out, her eyes on the fallen leaves, the broom bristles, the white tabi. She watches them still, feels eyes on her as she tries her best to gather together the remnants of the dream. But here in the light of day, the only thing she’s left with are echoes in her ears. “All I remember are some words.”
She’s not sure of the language, but she says what she remembers, odd shapes in her mouth and equally odd noises from her throat, but they feel familiar somehow. She has no idea what they mean.
The broom clatters to the ground and Rei mutters as she picks it back up, her long hair falling like a curtain drawn over her face. It reminds Minako of the sun disappearing behind the clouds and her fingers twitch at her sides, wanting to draw her back out, to bring those eyes onto her -
“That’s Martian,” Artemis says.
Minako’s eyes track to him after a dazed moment. “Do you know what it means?”
Luna and Artemis exchange glances, shrugging in unison to the rhythm of Rei’s irregular sweeping.
***
She has more dreams after that - not every night, but often enough that she starts noting them down on a voice recorder she’d pilfered from Rei’s desk one day (in her defense, it had been during an impromptu jam session; Minako makes a mental note to wheedle Rei into doing that again, maybe get her into the recording studio too).
Some of the dreams are short, only a word or two. Some are long and have her flailing to record it before her tongue forgets the shapes, her throat the sounds. Sometimes they fill her chest with warmth; there are several times she wakes up sobbing.
But there’s a certain sequence that she’s started to recognize, a group of words that feature in her dreams most often. They have a cadence like the ocean, like sand dunes, like lightwaves and starlight, like fingers combing gently through her hair.
Minako wakes from those dreams wondering what the words mean, wondering who's saying them - herself? someone else? - and wondering at how the emotions the words leave behind echo the feeling already deep in her own chest when she watches from the shade of a temple awning, listening to straw bristles brush steadily along stone.
***
She shares the recordings with the girls the next time they all gather together a week later at Rei’s shrine, a routine they’ve all kept even in their graduation from high school and the absence of alien attacks and secret missions.
Various shades of fascination fall across their faces, with Ami and Rei bookending the extremes of the spectrum: The former immediately scrambles for a pen, a notebook, her tablet; the latter excuses herself to get more tea.
Ami is a flurry of energy as she transcribes, murmuring to herself as she writes with one hand, searches through the archives on her tablet with the other. Minako tries to tell her that she doesn’t have to prioritize it, knowing Ami likely has a ton to do for her undergraduate studies. Ami just gives her that slightly manic smile she gets whenever she’s fully intrigued by something.
Makoto catches Minako’s eye from over Ami’s head and shrugs. “I’ll make sure she eats,” Makoto says, a note of fondness in her voice that both reassures Minako and pricks a point of longing into her heart, a want to have something similar sent her own way. Still, she’s relieved to have the powerhouse that is Ami on her side helping her solve this nagging mystery.
Rei returns and retakes her seat across her at the table, pouring freshly brewed tea for everyone. It isn’t until Rei’s taking up her own cup that Minako spots a furrow of something uncomfortable marring Rei’s brow. Minako knows that look, asks quietly if she’s alright as the others bend over Makoto’s cookies. Rei’s smile flitters like a butterfly that Minako wants to chase down and follow. But hesitation weighs down her hands, her mouth; Minako lets it go instead.
***
The stars are calm during the last, long days of summer. The lingering heat and the dreams bring visions of sand and incense, an oasis. She’s sure now that the dreams are memories, Venus’ memories she thinks, a past separate from the others yet shared. No one knows why she’s the only one having these dreams, why she can’t remember them when she wakes - though the latter isn’t for lack of trying. She hasn’t called on Venus’ power for years now but lately, there’s a part of her that still feels Venus simmering under the surface of her consciousness, nudging, a thrumming, murmuring, trying to point her towards something just beyond her reach (something she thinks she already knows).
She asks Artemis and Luna about Mars, but their memories are sparse and only vaguely match the faint images that shimmer in her dreams like a mirage. She wonders aloud why she would have been there on the red planet, why she would have learned the language. Artemis suggests a stint as an emissary since Venus had been a bit of a spokesperson and had helped the Moon expand the Silver Millennium by building relationships with other planets; Luna supposes there may have been an important mission, one with a level of secrecy and sensitivity that called for the skills of the captain of the senshi.
Minako listens and nods - they make sense but neither of them sit completely right in Minako’s chest.
Rei says she doesn’t remember anything; she doesn’t turn towards Minako or stop her sweeping when she speaks.
***
“The one that repeats is quite possibly a poem,” Ami says without preamble the following week.
As they climb the steps up to Hikawa Shrine, Ami explains the cadence, and rhythm, the parallels and rhymes. “A poem,” Minako murmurs, and feels some distant recognition echo within her.
They near the top of the stairs and see Rei already at the end of the walkway. Minako had always liked this time of day, the way the late afternoon filters through the trees and falls along the path, alighting ultimately on Rei. Minako pauses to admire the sun in Rei’s hair, the curve of her lips -
Ami shifts next to her and Minako comes back to herself with a cough, picks up the faltered train of thought, wonders aloud if the poem was something her past self had written, if it had been something found, or given - to or from, she’s not sure, but she feels like she’s closer, warmer.
Inside Rei’s room, Ami spreads her notes across the table, sharing her discoveries with the girls over Makoto’s scones and Rei’s tea. Usagi and Makoto immediately latch onto the idea of a Martian suitor and begin crafting a backstory - a stoic Martian prince with a soft heart! a scholar turned advisor for the Lunarian court! a high-ranking warrior who’d caught Venus’ eye with their sword - and tongue! All of the above! - while Rei sighs and rolls her eyes in the background.
Minako only half-listens as the girls continue, even Ami chiming in every now and then. The other half of her is trained on the poem, caught by a sudden flash of violet filling her mind when she silently curls her tongue around the words.
***
She’s sleeping over at Rei’s when she has a nightmare. Minako wakes up screaming, thrashing, desperation seizing every cell in her body. She only knows she’s awake, that she’s safe, because somewhere, she can hear Rei’s voice.
It takes a long time for Minako to stop shaking, for her heart to stop hammering in her chest. Slowly she registers the arms around her, the hand rubbing up and down her back, the voice softly murmuring in her ear. It’s the cadence and the shape of the words that soothe her the most, gently leading her through the last steps from sleep to waking. It’s in crossing that threshold that Minako realizes the language.
Movement and melody slow to a stop at Minako’s sudden stiffness. “What is it?” Rei asks in Japanese. The words warm the top of Minako’s head and Minako takes in just how close they are, wrapped up in each other. Normally, Minako would have felt a similar warmth fill her chest at the rare tenderness directed toward her, surrounding her, but the Japanese feels heavy, stilted in the space they’re in.
“You do remember,” Minako says in the only language she can manage (she should’ve learned by now never to trust words Rei says without meeting her eyes). Rei’s hands clench briefly and that’s all the answer Minako needs. “Why won’t you tell me what it means?” she asks, without thinking, without keeping the frustration out of her voice.
Rei sighs and something in the sound stops Minako’s growing argument. “It’s no use to either of us now.” Rei’s voice wavers uncharacteristically. “Martian is a dead language,” she whispers.
But we’re not, Minako wants to yell. She bites it back behind gritted teeth, wishes she could break down the wall hiding the memories from her mind, take away the pain threading heavy through Rei’s frame.
She curls up into Rei instead, focusing on the feel of her breath against her forehead, her palms pressed into her back. They fall asleep with ghosts sharing their bed.
***
Minako doesn’t mean to eavesdrop. They’re all at the shrine and Minako had left Makoto and Usagi to fight with Rei’s french press in the kitchen but there’s an unusual note in Rei’s voice that stops Minako just steps from the door to Rei’s room.
“You seem very invested in this.”
It’s a careful sentence. Rei is many things, all of them wondrous in Minako’s eyes, but one thing that Rei is not, is careful.
“I’m certainly intrigued. It’s a nice challenge. Different. Complex. There’s no real right answer. In math, things transfer cleanly from one side to the other. But you can’t do that with language, there’s always something that gets left behind.”
There’s both an energy and a wistfulness to Ami’s voice. Minako realizes with a start that she’s actually having fun.
“It sounds more like an impossible task. Doomed for failure before you even begin.”
Minako feels the frustration from the other night well up inside her at Rei’s mournful tone. She’s about to rush into the room when Ami speaks again, infinite kindness in her voice.
“Nothing is Impossible when it comes to love.”
It’s an incredibly romantic notion; Ami at her most true. Minako can’t help but smile as she leans against the wall, listening to Ami continue over Rei’s stuttering.
“There is, to a degree, a certain precision inherent in translation, I will admit to that. But when we communicate, when we love, we are rarely clear, far from precise. It takes a certain amount of courage to translate, I think.”
Minako hears a shift and she can picture Ami writing a diagram, motioning with her hands like she always does when her tone lightens like this, quickens with passion.
“It’s a leap of faith, really. Just like love. Translation is an attempt to understand another person’s thoughts, their hidden meanings, and bringing it out into the open in a way that says, I understand. It’s allowing one’s self to be changed by the act, no matter how many attempts may occur - because each iteration is unique, valid. A rebirth, a new life each time.”
There’s a pause and Minako can already picture the sheepish smile that Ami gets whenever she finally realizes she’s been talking for a while. Minako figures it’s as good a time as any to make her appearance.
But what greets her is something altogether different from what she’d expected: Rei folded into Ami’s arms, shoulders shaking under Ami’s soothing hands. Crying.
Ami catches Minako’s eye from over Rei’s bowed head - something soft like understanding settling on her face, for Rei, for Minako. It’s too sudden, she’s too unprepared, to be known like this.
Minako stays silent, doesn’t allow herself to think, just hands Ami the box of tissues and leaves, somehow finds herself back in the kitchen where Makoto is trying to salvage the mess Usagi made of the coffee grounds and the french press. There’s something pulling, breaking, being reborn in Minako’s chest but she stuffs it into the back of her throat. She’s only half-there, half-aware as she helps Makoto and Usagi gather cups and plates, stretches a smile over her mouth when she feels their eyes glancing once, twice, five times in her direction. She follows them back to Rei’s room and if anyone notices the red in Rei’s eyes, no one mentions it (nor does anyone mention if they notice the desperate yearning clawing out from Minako’s chest).
***
She’s dreaming.
It’s a room she knows, has seen glimpses of before. Knows if she lifts her eyes just so, she’ll see waves of sand from the window below a sky of reddish hue, knows if she turns her head to the side she’ll see the white smoke from incense wafting from a suspended holder.
She can’t turn though, not without dislodging the warm hands combing through her hair. She knows whose hands these are, knows the voice that speaks up occasionally from behind her.
Correcting her, Minako realizes, simultaneously watching and reliving. She - Venus - is reading aloud from a book of poetry, written in Martian, fingers sliding below the written words, guiding them to her mouth. Minako has heard them before, but not like this - clear, weighted, knowing.
It’s pretty, Minako thinks, when the poem is done and the hands have retreated from her hair; in the next moment Venus says the same, asks who wrote it. Mars’ eyes falls away and Minako knows - knows that Venus knows too - the answer.
But the smile that spreads along Mars’ lips is too thin and Venus shuts the book, prods instinctively. “Tell me,” she says, without any hint of command (not here, not with her). Minako hears the unsaid in her own mind, Please let me in.
Mars shakes her head. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready? Your transport leaves soon.” She busies her hands, her eyes, under the guise of organizing. Minako knows it's a guise - knows Venus knows too. She feels the tightening in her chest as if it were her own.
“That offer is still open,” Venus says, the words deliberate in their lightness, “Plenty of space for one more.” There’s a waggle of eyebrows; Venus, always the strategist, never gives up.
“You know I wish I could.”
The words spill out as if by accident, bubbling over from the desperation in Mars’ eyes. She tries for a smile but it fails horribly, lands in a grimace that has Venus reaching out, pulling her close. Mars closes her eyes, jaw shaking, hands trembling at Venus’ back; she doesn’t cry.
A beeping from Venus’ pocket has them slowly pulling apart. Venus picks up the book. “I won’t forget,” she says, but her throat closes up before she can finish, before she can specify if she means the language, them, Mars, or love - before she can explain she means all of the above.
“It’s okay to forget,” Mars says, eyes shining as she lifts her hand to Venus’ cheek. Venus hardens at that, clenched fists and teeth, but Mars cups Venus’ face with both hands, strokes her cheeks, her furrowed brow. Leans in and softly speaks in Martian as the dream ends and Minako wakes in her bed.
She doesn’t note down the words because for once, she knows what they mean.
And as always, she acts before she can think.
***
Minako runs. She reaches the shrine just before dawn, the air still in that space of time between sleep and waking. But of course Rei is already up, already sweeping. This time of day is one Minako likes as well (though to be fair, Minako would be hardpressed to find a time of day she doesn’t like when it comes to Rei; she likes how Rei wears all times of day, likes, likes, loves -)
She clears the top step and immediately starts speaking. Her mind clears with each word, a veil lifted from her memories. “They weren’t my dreams,” she says as Rei turns to face her, “Not even Venus’ dreams. They were Mars’ - yours.” Venus was posing as a scholar, she says as Rei’s sweeping stops, pretending to be researching Mars’ history from the most learned historian at the royal temple. No one knew at the time that Mars was a senshi, nor that they were secretly collaborating to train Mars’ soldiers to help in the resistance against Metalia. To anyone watching, they were just a scholar and a priestess “- who was also an occasional poet,” Minako pronounces proudly.
Rei is still - careful, and Minako hates it, hates how close that stillness sits to fear. “So you remember.”
“I do.” Minako steps closer, hating the distance, how Rei tenses in turn. She falters. “You didn’t want me to?”
Rei exhales and her whole body seems to deflate along with it. “I don’t know. I just - I don’t know who you see, now.” She looks back up and it’s with a longing that Minako knows, that rings in resonance with her soul.
Minako remembers the words, then, what Mars had whispered against Venus’ lips. It doesn’t translate cleanly into Japanese, into this world, into this life, but she understands the gist of it, knows the heart of it. Knows Rei’s heart. So she breathes in, and takes a leap of faith.
“I see you.” Minako steps forward, resolute. “I see your past, our past. I see you now. I see us in the future, together.” Another step, and another, until she’s in Rei’s space, and the sun is rising off of Rei’s shoulder, golden and warm. “I see every me, falling in love with every you.”
“What about now?” Rei asks, a whisper. What about me, now?
Minako smiles, traces the sunlight on Rei’s face with her eyes, her hands. It’s different from the dream, different because it’s them now; different because they have yet to make their own entry, their own translation of their timeless epic. “Now, I get to love you the way I’ve always wanted to.” She tips her head towards the sun, towards Rei, allows herself to be changed. “If you’ll let me?”
Rei’s answer is the press of their lips together as the broom clatters to the ground. It repeats like a poem, a prayer, a promise - a melody that has no need for language at all.
***
There’s fall in the air when Minako says, “I had a dream last night.” She sits on the building steps, facing the early morning sun and watches how the broom bristles still, the way Rei’s toes curl into the tabi. “All I remember are some words.” She lifts her head and her eyes linger on the dark, raised eyebrow. Watches as violet eyes widen as she repeats the Martian she heard in her dream. She stops only when Rei’s palm covers her mouth.
“What?” she asks innocently when she pries Rei’s hand away, grinning at the pink in Rei’s cheeks. She knows what Rei is remembering: last night, together; their past selves, together. “Did I get it wrong?”
Rei huffs. “Of all the things to remember,” she mutters as she turns back around. At least, she attempts to, but is stalled by Minako snagging her sleeve to hold her in place.
“So you mean you wouldn’t enjoy it if I -”
“Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.” Rei’s voice is more breathless than sharp and Minako barely holds back a laugh. It’s a rough translation of what Mars had said to Venus - many times, if Minako remembers right - and it’s something she doesn’t mind hearing now. Wants to hear, even more.
She tugs at the sleeve and Rei rolls her eyes, allowing herself to be pulled forward, to fall into Minako’s arms. For a long moment, they just hold each other and breathe together, feeling both weightless and grounded, free in the here and now. And as Minako’s mouth curls into a smirk, murmurs low into Rei’s ear, tightening her arms as Rei shudders, she vows to use every language at her disposal to make good on all the promises she’s ever made, and the promises yet to come.