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She's gone. She's really gone. Oh God, Aisha is gone and she can never come back.
Mika falls to her knees within the infinite dollhouse. One of her closest friends, her only friends. One of Mika's everything. She saved Aisha's life at the cost of her beauty, her very life itself and now-! And now.. now she'll never be able to live again.
She thinks of Aisha being offered goddesshood, to replace Leora. To switch lives with Death (and what a laugh that makes!), to let Death live and understand what she's never been capable of experiencing. As though that were anything close to equal trade! If Aisha were any less kind a girl she'd have kept her own life, Mika knows it and yet- .. Aisha was the kindest woman she'd ever met. Ever would meet.
Mika's friends are struck still beside her as well. She can vaguely identify Mikako's hand on her shoulder blade, twitching like it wants to comfort but is over staying a welcome as is. And that awful little messenger angel, standing before them, allowing a goddess to steal something as precious as Aisha's life, crouching down as though she were simply going to fly away after this whole mess and- wait.
She can take her to Aisha. Maybe this could still be undone.
Mika scrambles to her feet to grab hold of the angel's sleeve, who turns and sputters in bewilderment. “How dare you! No one has ever-” “Take me to Aisha. Let me fix this.”
The Angel's face softens, though still painfully neutral. “I don't think that's going to do what you think it will. She can't change back.” “Then take me to someone who can change her!” “..Yes, of course. Hold on tight.” The Angel wraps her arms around Mika’s core in a swift motion, which startles her to do the same. If Mika looked back now, little Orpheus that she is, she’d see the faces of her best friends, just as heartbroken and confused in sudden grief as her. She’d want to let go to comfort them, and she knows she very likely would.
Mika does not look back.
The Angel spins and crouches, launching herself into flight that she’d done uncountable times before. Her sparkling wings carry herself and a clinging Mika through the divine beauty of the stars, the dollhouse fading from sight in only moments. Mika always loved to look at the stars at night, though it wasn’t easy with the city’s light pollution. With her powers, she could look through the smog and see all the ethereal colors and lights blending into each other, the world’s prettiest watercolor. She wonders if this wretched angel ever did the same, before she gave the world up for magic. She feels a small strike of guilt; maybe she should speak a little kinder of the messenger within her mind. She at least had the heart to help her out.
Through the stars, through the planets, through the meteors, they land delicately together on the surface of a black hole light years away from Earth; Mika lightly taps her foot against it and marvels at the sight. The Angel tuts at her astonishment, and she looks up to see who she was taken to meet.
An amalgamation of stars and countless variations of worlds rise from the blackhole, forming a near blinding shape that Mika has a difficult time not shielding her eyes from. As her vision adjusts to the lights, she also has a difficult time not being enchanted by the form she sees: an impossibly tall and mighty woman of stars stands before her and The Angel, who gracefully bows. A flashing set of images seemingly meant to imitate infinite sets of shiny eyes and smiling lips take hold over the height of the entity. “Your Divinity, the Dreamkeeper has requested your presence in a meeting, over the matter of the Cupid’s ascension.” A soft laughter echoes through the universe, reverberating an impossible amount and yet never fully reaching Mika’s ears. “Of course, my messenger. Thank you. Please leave us be for a moment, Lady Terre.” Lady Terre bashfully curtsies and flutters off to whatever’s considered a reasonable distance away.
Mika takes a single step forward, no closer or farther from the goddess than a moment before. “Turn her back.” The laughter echoes yet again. “My my, so direct. I’m afraid I won’t be doing that! My daughters are allowed to make their own poor choices and learn from them; I’m sure they’ll trade back their mortality in the blink of an eye.” Another step. “This isn’t about your daughters! This is about Aisha. She didn’t know what she was doing! It shouldn’t have to be on her to suffer forever like this! At least turn just her back to human, please!” “That’s not how gods work, star vessel. It’s a trade. And besides, it’s not as though she doesn’t exist anymore! You can still speak to her, so long as she permits it.“ “But she’s not her anymore. She can’t be her anymore, not until she’s human again. She’s been changed and she needs to be changed back. Why doesn’t it matter that she’s dead?”
“Of course it matters, my dream keeper! Everything matters. But nothing ever truly dies in death, if we’re being technical to call it that. The evidence of life will always exist, even when it changes into something else. Things that go extinct, whose bodies decay into the dirt and remain unknown.. Those bodies still exist as dirt, and the bugs that fed, and the plants that grew! Your world is a cyclical thing, and will continue to be long after it fades to stardust. And that stardust will still be the result of that cycle of the world's death, therefore making it still present. Just because the form changes doesn’t mean it ceases, darling!” Mika’s nose twitches at Irisia’s attitude; maybe it all feels the same to her, but change feels a hell of a lot different when you have to feel it yourself. She runs a hand through her fuchsia hair and feels it trail down, down, down to the hilt of her greatsword.
If she won’t free Aisha herself, Mika will have to make her.
Irisia’s sparkling projection of eyes drift to the sword and crinkle in amusement. “No good, hm? Let’s make this a little more fair for you and a little more fun for me, then.” The flashing image of stars shaped into an arm sweep across Mika’s line of sight, and when the light dims from her vision Irisia better resembles a human. Though still sparkling, and still more like a series of flashing images than a living creature, the shimmering periwinkle hair and vague concept of clothing adorning her helped quite a bit. She playfully swings her takouba in one hand and flashes Mika a smile. “I’m feeling pretty good at the moment, so if you lose I won’t smite you, but I think we should come up with a couple of rules, yeah? Make for a good clean fight.” Mika says nothing, only shifting her greatsword to raise it to the bastard goddess with both hands. “Alright, alright, sheesh! At least be a little grateful I’m willing to play with you like this, do you even know what an honor this is? Just don’t do anything stupid.”
Mika lunges.
It’s difficult to determine how long the fight truly lasted; Irisia slashes, Mika ducks, Mika thrusts, Irisia gracefully dodges, on and on and on for what very well could have been between 5 minutes and 5 millenia. Lady Terre keeps watch, as inherently expected of her, making sure the fight remains even. Mika’s will runs for as long as it possibly can, passion and hurt fueling her body well past her limit, but even that can only last so long against an unknowable goddess. By the time Irisias sidesteps one of Mika's attacks to elbow her to the ground, she can’t bring herself to get up from the blow. “This was nice, star vessel, but you need to think these types of things through! Once you recover, Lady Terre will escort you back to Earth. Enjoy your mortality.”
No. No no no no no no no. This couldn’t be happening. If only she wasn’t alone, she!-
Mika thinks of Aisha. Of Yoko, and Natsumi, and Mikako and Akemi. Thinks of their smiles and tears and the fact she’ll never know them the same after this. She knows they’d never want her to be fighting like this, to put herself in harm’s way for their sake, but they’ll love her anyway.
Her heavy breathing halts for a moment. They’ll love her anyways. They’ll support her anyways, no matter how much it hurts. They’d hate what she was doing but cheer for her anyways, because they know she wouldn’t stop for anything, know she wouldn’t stop if it meant they would be okay. Because she loves them as much as they love her. She can’t stop now, she needs to see this through, needs to save Aisha, needs to make her friends proud- no, they’d be proud of her no matter what. And she’d be proud of them too. But she needs to keep them safe, by whatever means. She needs to make sure none of them can ever make this mistake ever again.
Mika painfully rises from the ground and reaches for her greatsword. Stumbles in her balance when she raises it with both hands, shaking with the weight of it. Lunges once more for a final slash at Irisia, who looks amusedly at her with a sense of expectation yet doesn’t move out of the way. When the blade meets supposed flesh, right through the heart, a burst of light flashes through the wound. Mika doesn’t flinch from her attack. The light grows brighter, vivid, blinding, and Mika’s eyes do not falter. She looks straight in at the illuminated slash, Irisia’s laughter echoing around her louder than before, and
Everything goes white.
There’s a story, passed around through word of mouth. Up in the stars, far, far away from the sorrows and joys of day-to-day life and countless worlds away, there’s a woman lying on a bed of galaxies, dreaming the shape of the world as we know it. She sleeps fitfully, and when she wakes the universe ceases to be. But she never wakes for long; when she goes back to sleep the universe takes shape yet again, built and destroyed infinitely. No one knows just why she dreams of us. Perhaps it is for love of humanity and the way we live, perhaps for hatred of humanity and the way we collapse in on ourselves, perhaps nothing to do with us at all. But she dreams anyways, and we all just live in her fickle concept of a life.
That’s what I think, anyway. Or heard, I guess, haha! I gotta say, I don’t usually get asked about ‘Star Women.’ Could I get a name for that order?
Aisha? Alright, Aisha, if you wait over there your order will be ready in about.. Twenty minutes?
Have a nice day!