Lotus

"Magic Knights Rayearth" is copyright Clamp, Kodansha, Mixx, Pioneer and other associated parties. I have no rights and make no claim to any.
    WARNING!! WARNING!! WARNING!!: this fic is a SEKKISUARU ROMANSSU - a heterosexual lemon with romantic elements. If you are not of age to read lemons, it's illegal in your place of residence or you don't like that sort of thing, please hit the 'back' button NOW.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone will live to remember me.

Part of me hopes not; if there are no survivors, then there will be nobody left to curse my memory. Part of me prays that everyone will survive. But more and more of me just doesn't care anymore.

I think of him almost all the time now. Other worries, however urgent, must contend with my memories and fantasies of his face, his voice, his smile, and his touch. Too often - far too often for anyone to consider my eventual fate undeserved - the outside world is the loser in these silent battles.

There was never a choice for me, really. I was the Pillar from my infancy, and I grew up in the Palace of the Pillar. Puberty frightened me; it revealed to me the terrifying complexity of adulthood, and my body's own changes demanded actions and priorities of its own. The Pillar's position and priorities demanded simplicity, and so, as soon as my body was completely adult I fled back to childhood, where the body made no demands upon the mind, and the mind could safely divide the world into black and white.

I can still remember the day when he first came to the Palace of the Pillar. It is necessary that a Pillar should have a High Priest or High Priestess to assist them in the duty of maintaining Cephiro. If there had been a girl more fitted for the demands of the position, I might not have reached this pass.

Or perhaps I would have still seen Zagato, and fallen anyway. If there's one thing I know, sitting here in my lotus, it is that we cannot go back and rewrite the past.

If there's any one thing I regret, it is Alcyone. I had seen her, when she had been Master Clef's apprentice, and - because at that time I didn't realise these feelings were love, nor that they were returned - I asked that she be presented to the Palace, to support Zagato and I in our efforts.

That may be when Clef recognised that my heart was not untouched anymore, for he knew my capabilities better than any other, and knew I had no such need. A part of me must have known that Zagato, if free of heart, was a danger to me. So I had Alcyone - with her adult, woman's form and adult, woman's heart - brought to Court, to be for him what I didn't dare.

It didn't work.

Here, in my lotus, thinking about it, I don't see why. With a thought, I return to my adult self, and compare the memory of Alcyone with the body I would have had. She was curvier, with no lack of confidence in her body, which intensified the effect. She was powerful, intelligent, and was a very devoted person. I really expected Zagato to love her.

But he chose me.

I look up - and he's there. Zagato is standing on the edge of my lotus.

We both know the inevitable conclusion of the arrival of the Magic Knights in Cephiro. But, where I pray for their success, when I can pray for anything at all, Zagato works to prevent their achieving their goal. I know why - and were the consequences of failure not so dire, I would support him. But I can't.

"You weep yet," he observes.

"Why won't you give up, Zagato?" I ask. "As long as you engage in this useless fight, you are facing your death!"

He reaches over, and brushes my tears away with gentle fingers sweeping over my cheek - soft, warm, present. This is no illusion; rather than use the pool in the throne room to contact me, he has translocated himself here. I catch his hand, noticing in this instance that he has laid aside the armour of battle and the jewelled harness of his position of High Priest, wearing only his black robes. Holding his hand to my cheek, I stare into his eyes, sapphire to emerald. "I don't want you to die," I whisper. "I don't want anyone to die...."

"Emeraude," he breathes, and snatches me up in his warm arms, pressing me against his chest. For a moment, it seems too small, and then I remember: I'm still in my adult form. We aren't Princess Emeraude and High Priest Zagato here, but just Emeraude and Zagato.

I tilt my face up to his, just as he tilts his down to me, and this first kiss is gentle, unplanned and beautiful. The second is much more satisfying, as is the third, and fourth.... I can't say anything except his name as his lips slide down my chin, my neck, and onto my chest. He impatiently pushes the neck of my dress aside, even as I unlace it.

He is not the only one desperate to explore. My hands slide under those dark, heavy robes, searching and finding the skin of his back and chest.

We strip each other, pulling garments everywhere and throwing them every which way in this sudden burning hunger to touch, taste, and feel. I feel the tremor of his leg as I run my hand along his thigh; I can't repress a moan as he strokes my hip. The petals of my lotus are soft under my back as I pull his body down on top of mine. Zagato, how I love you - I have damned myself for love of you, and my world is about to fall apart because I can't care for anything except your happiness. And if you should fall....

I can't say it. I won't. I can't let myself acknowledge the possibility that you might die, for if I do, then I may as well shatter Cephiro now. It will not survive you, Zagato - you are worth too much to me.

Holding you now, feeling my body's pleasure rise as you are enfolded within me, a part of me, for all too short a time, and I know that I'd do anything for this. Anything for you.

The pleasure crests, and I can feel that it's the same for you. Still I don't let go of you. I don't ever want to let go, Zagato... and that is what has doomed me.

Zagato does not let go of me, even when our bodies part. He pulls me close and nuzzles in. "Even I can't hunt them down and fight at night," he whispers in my ear before he falls asleep.

I lie awake. In the morning it will begin again; it might be the morning of the day it all ends.

But for now, it is still tonight, my beloved is by my side and I can pretend reality is just a dream. For tonight.