The Light of the Mercury Lamp
The strive for perfection was the one thing they all had in common,
along with the knowledge that each and everyone among them had fallen
short of that intended but elusive goal in the eyes of their creator.
In the case of Suigin Tou, the strive for perfection was far more than
just that... it was her obsession, her purpose, the only reason she
continued living. Far more than for the others, Suigin Tou needed to,
no, _had to_ prove her worth by becoming the strongest, the one that was
triumphant. If she was that, then she might finally win their maker's
love and he would make her complete.
All Suigin Tou ever wanted was to be whole.
First to be born amongst her sisters Suigin Tou would naturally have
taken the place of their leader in harsh times, the caretaker, the
loving sister whose black wings would form a shield to protect her
precious and innocent younger siblings against the dangers that might
face them. She would have doted upon them and rejoiced in their
happiness, content with her lot as she was.
But her heart had been discarded, her soul inspected and found flawed,
then thrown away uncompleted. Their maker had not even granted her the
mercy of destruction, rather he appeared to have forgotten her existence
completely as his focus – and his love – turned to the younger siblings
who came after her. Suigin Tou watched from her dark discarded place the
shadows of her sisters at play, heard their voices as they laughed
together in those early days as she writhed in endless pain, alone.
No one saw Suigin Tou's tears.
This was all the base for Suigin Tou's existence, and it was the reason
she was feared. Oh yes, Suigin Tou was aware that her younger sisters
feared her and that many of them considered her evil; her and her alone,
as their maker, their father, was never at fault. All of them... save
for one very important exception.
In that dark, desolate and twisted spirit world Suigin Tou had created
for herself, Suigin Tou spent her time while awake in thought on many
things, whereas her sisters would spend theirs in play, bound to a
master that would love them. Suigin Tou of course had no one that loved
her, and so she had no master. She had no use for play either, as she
never had the opportunity to know what that was.
Sisters. How strangely amusing it was that they used such a human
concept to describe themselves, they who were alive but not born, not
flesh, but wrought and given life by the hands of a genius. Their bonds
to one another were not of a physical nature, but a spiritual, emotional
one, and such things were too fluid, too ever-changing to label that
easily.
Having spent so much time in thought, Suigin Tou had realised how
erroneous this chosen term were for their small group, even if the
others had yet to grasp it. Suigin Tou had seen it... the maker's
intention.
With the dream-gardening pair, Suisei Seki and Sousei Seki, it was so
blatantly obvious that even the others had understood from the start
that there was something binding these two closer to each other than to
any other Rozen Maiden. These two who shared a love so deep that in
their earliest days they had done something unthinkable... Sousei Seki
plucking out one bright green eye to trade for one of Suisei Seki's
crimson red ones, and vice versa. Suigin Tou had of course not seen the
pair back then, and thus not known that although the maker had created
the two together their appearance were not identical; Suisei Seki
long-haired and feminine in her sweeping green dress and Sousei Seki
short-haired and androgynous if not masculine in her boy's clothing and
tall hat. Suigin Tou had only known the maker's outrage when the deed
was discovered, and while the maker did not undo it, their perceived
rebelliousness prompted the creation of the next Rozen Maiden, all in
the search of perfection.
Suigin Tou wondered if it had ever even occurred to Sousei Seki and
Suisei Seki to regret what they had done. Probably not, after all, their
love for one another alone proved somehow strong enough that they were
never separated... they slept and woke together, any master that
accepted one of them into his or her heart by default accepting them
both.
She envied them that togetherness, thinking how wonderful it must
feel... not to be alone.
Eventually Suigin Tou realised that it was not only the dream gardeners
that were created this way, with the intention of being a pair in the
maker's mind, although none of the others were created like these two
had been, together. Once she had this insight, the intention seemed oh
so obvious to Suigin Tou's eyes... anyone who had seen the tiny
annoyances, the braggart Kanaria and the childish Hina Ichigo would
surely notice that the two of them were a matching set, in size and
appearance as well as in spirit. Why it was that the maker saw fit to
create two such helpless eternally small children was something Suigin
Tou had yet to fathom, but in all honestly she could not care less.
Kanaria and Hina Ichigo were weak and of no importance to her.
Following this logic then of the seven Rozen Maiden there remained three
whom Suigin Tou had yet to determine how the maker had intended to be
paired: herself, number five, Shinku, and number seven, Bara Suishou.
This was something of a dilemma.
In her most bitter moments Suigin Tou would occasionally entertain the
thought that otherwise was banned from her conscious, that she herself
was probably not in their maker's plans – having been discarded after
all – and therefore there was really only six real Rozen Maiden...
leaving the ones yet to be matched Shinku and Bara Suishou.
This possibility burned beyond belief, and for the longest time Suigin
Tou managed to convince herself that this was so merely because she
wished her existence to still be a factor with their maker, that he had
not undone her life in his mind completely. In time she came to realise
that this was not all the reason she hated the thought that she might
not be a contender in this rather cruel little private struggle. Yes,
more and more the truth of the matter was becoming too hard to ignore.
Shinku. If Suigin Tou did not count for a real Rozen Maiden, then Bara
Suishou was the one intended to form a pair with Shinku. And that was
something Suigin Tou could not accept.
_She_ was the one whose thoughts never strayed too far or too long from
the elegant and almost haughtily proper red-clad blonde, _she_ was the
one whom at any given moment, yes even when rising from her gilded
casket after a long period of sleep, could accurately state the number
of days, hours and seconds since her last encounter with Shinku. _She_
was the one who had devised a way to traverse through the realm of
dreams so she could visit Shinku in her casket dreams, even though it
was not Suigin Tou that had been given the power of dream gardening.
_She_ was the one that ignored all others to obsess solely on the
diminutive fifth.
Surely the maker had intended them, Suigin Tou and Shinku, as the ones
to be paired?
The realisation had not been an easy one to stomach, much less to
understand. The relationship between Suigin Tou and Shinku had always
been an adversary one, their encounters either outright combat – though
neither had ever taken things too far before – or a strange, almost
affectionate hostility where Suigin Tou would issue threats like
caresses to rose-dusted cheeks and Shinku haughty retorts like
invitations. It was a long-standing habit that was hard to break.
They had a unique kind of understanding, and Shinku was the only one
that had Suigin Tou's respect.
In the silence of her own mind, if Suigin Tou had a rare moment of
complete stillness and clarity, she could admit to herself that she
would never grasp why their maker had continued to create Rozen Maiden's
after Shinku. Surely Shinku was the perfection personified that the
maker sought after? To Suigin Tou's eyes there was nothing flawed about
Shinku, nor could there ever be... even her faults seemed like
perfection to Suigin Tou. Why had their maker not seen that?
A final, startling, realisation had come late, when Suigin Tou had
entered Shinku's dream after her resurrection, supposedly to issue
threats and to show Shinku that she was not defeated after all, but in
reality wanting to tell Shinku that she was not only alive but whole,
that she had finally found grace enough in the maker's eyes to be
completed. That she, Suigin Tou, was now a complete Rozen Maiden and
worthy to become Shinku's mate at last.
Of course, no words to that effect crossed Suigin Tou's lips as she
neither knew how to speak them, nor would have quite had the nerve to
issue such a claim before the perfect Shinku. After all, not only had
Suigin Tou failed in combat against Shinku last time, but Shinku had
also spoken the word that in all the time they had known each other
Shinku had never said to Suigin Tou... the word that on anyone else's
lips had been the grounds for their immediate execution, but from Shinku
was Suigin Tou's soul's undoing.
Junk.
No, Suigin Tou, while fearless of most things, would not have the
courage to state her intentions to Shinku after having been so
completely undone in their previous meeting. What shocked her though and
made Suigin Tou feel as something was crushing her chest, was that when
it dawned upon Shinku that Suigin Tou in Shinku's dream was not a
nightmare but the real thing, in a visit like they used to have, Shinku
had unabashedly wept in joy.
Perfect Shinku had wept with joy that she, the evil and incomplete
Suigin Tou, still lived.
Suigin Tou had reeled at the sight, and her own emotional response had
been... overwhelming and just a bit frightening. The things she had
wanted to do, the truth that had been right there before her, screaming
and undeniable... it was just too much. Suigin Tou had fled with as much
dignity she could muster during the circumstances, followed by an image
of pale blue eyes that would haunt her.
There was just no denying it to herself anymore. She, Suigin Tou, was in
love, utterly and completely.
A nearly white hand fluttered to her chest as a slow, warm and
surprisingly shy smile bloomed on features that had oh so rarely known
more than the tiniest upturn of pale pink lips. The softest of whispers
escaped those lips to be carried away into the night.
"Shinku."
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