before his judge he stands : reaps chagrin for his crimes, the blasphemy committed by an heir of peacekeepers. he spies your eyes, laden with a dolefulness towards your wayward child, who aimed to make use of the curse in his cells, the wrongness incarnated and crystallized in him, and with it, destroy what must be destroyed. “ this rotten cycle needs to be broken, mother. what good does it do with its mindless battle for balance going on an on ? i’ve done my deeds for a new beginning, for hope, for all of us. -- i did it for you. ”
kinslayer ( noun ) : an individual who slays a member of their own family; kinslayers are believed to be cursed for eternity. // @apollynn
the gauntlet had already been thrown between them centuries ago; her hands stained red with her own child’s blood from the very moment he had left the womb. the signs, as small and inconsistent as they were, had always been there ⎯ any doubt and suspicion drowned out by the sound of his innocent giggles or the warmth of his tiny hand intertwined with hers. he had always been a little too curious for his own good, too often in his own head but any concerns over it were fleeting and inconsequential. instead, in her ignorant, motherly bliss, she fully indulged every one of his oddities and quirks; filling his head with fairytales and sweet dreams about the wonders of the stars above over the cruel reality that hid in their depths. ( he is only a child. he is only a child. ) what harm could a little lie do when she, his mother and protector, had vowed that none of the violence and suffering she once endured would ever fall upon him as well?
yet as she painfully stares at the man who called himself her son and listens as he coldly pleads to her about new beginnings and hope - she doesn’t know whether she should laugh or cry hysterically. he sounded...so much like her. back when she too stood at the galaxy's edge and pleaded to another to end the suffering before it could truly begin. but she had been wrong. usagi, the better her, had shown her the way. every part of her wanted to show him too, to talk him off the edge and convince him to be the boy she remembered rather than the man that had now nearly decimated the galaxy she had worked so hard to restore.
but she says nothing. simply staring at him with remorse and hurt, a singular, unspoken question running through her mind while she unflinchingly hovers the blade of her own lance near the base of his throat: did i curse you by simply being your mother? the stars around them give no answer to her secret worry, only serving to act as a silent jury for this trial. their verdict, or was it hers, had already long been decided in truth. ( he is only a child. he is only a child. ) she and chaos, the untamable beast, had and will forever be linked in a toxic, delicate dance. it was deemed a necessary albatross across the many iterations of her life but when she had banished it to the depths of the cauldron once again, she never would've imaged that it would go so far as to plant itself in the star seed of her own unborn child, willingly grow within her, come to love her.
❛ i know archisei. i know. ❜ her voice is light and surprisingly even once she speaks at last, full of all the love and warmth she held for her son as she smiles softly at him - reminiscent to when she would tuck him in at night before he had deemed himself too old for such childish things. somehow, despite it all, she is still a god in all but name desperately trying to play the role of a mother all the way until the very end.
❛ but...we also both know the truth, don't we? ❜ she speaks almost in an empathic but scolding tone, watching as the eyes that so closely resembled her own in the past now burned with an intense fanaticism while he studied her in turn. her son, her supposed blessing, opted to remain silent, eyes only narrowing at her in understanding: she, both his mother and judge, had made her choice. his sentencing had begun. ❛ even after you destroy this cauldron, destroy our galaxy's very future, it would never stop here, would it? you would never be satisfied because it could never let you be. no, not until you've destroyed everything. ❜ she grew quiet after making her point, her own eyes closing when she lowers her weapon from his throat. it was never her intended target anyway.
for a moment she hesitates, briefly wondering if whatever that drove him to go this far would actually be willing to kill her if necessary. the closest she gets to that answer is the twisted look of betrayal and hurt on his face when she reaches into his chest and snatches away his sailor crystal. she forces herself to look on impassively as he stumbles back from her in surprise, struggling to speak but choking on the air that still remained in his system now that his body, a lifeless husk, was rapidly disintegrating without its core. when he weakly reaches out his hand before he dissipates entirely, she's never quite if he was reaching for the crystal in her palm or the mother that had failed him. ( he was only a child. he was only a child. ) she had killed enough of her own throughout the war to learn the intricacies of how to shatter a star seed in one, swift motion. it was an act riddled in contradictions: an inherently invasive style of execution that could also be both merciful and painless if one chose for it to be.
or maybe that was just how she justified making killing another easier on herself.
slowly, she walks towards the edge of the cliff that overlooked the galaxy cauldron and can't help but stare up at the stars for...something. anything. i did it for you, she nearly pleads to them like a child. yet they only blink back at her in indifference. she had just committed in their name and all she got was silence. swallowing the bile that threatens to build up in her throat, the mother clutches his sailor crystal close to her chest one final time before letting it fall from her hands and into the sea of stars below - the source of both of the endless cycle of her misery and happinesses.
and now she stands at the very edge of creation alone once more, seemingly in a daze before the harsh reality of her actions begin to seep in - the mask she wore to hold herself together in the final moments between mother and child suddenly cracking. her knees start to slightly wobble before they finally buckle and collapse in on themselves, her body, a vessel of sorrow and ruin, crashing hard onto the rock below. her hands move to cover her mouth on their own, a fruitless attempt to silence the violent sobs that wreck her body as akari lets herself cry for the first time in centuries.
she hopes that next time, regardless of whatever form he takes, he hates her instead. maybe it will make the pain of all this easier.
