Anthy Himemiya
| Anthy Himemiya | |
|---|---|
| 310px | |
| IC Information | |
| Full Name: | Anthy Himemiya |
| Aliases: | The Rose Bride; Witch |
| Gender: | Female |
| Species: | Human |
| Age/Birthdate: | 15, February 29 |
| Height: | 5'2" |
| Hair Colour: | Purple |
| Eye Colour: | Aqua |
| Dossier | |
| Organization: | Ends of the World |
| School: | Ohtori Academy (Grade 9) |
| OOC Information | |
| Source: | Revolutionary Girl Utena |
- "Roses are very sensitive to the change of season."
@}-' The Fairy Tale -,--
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved her brother very much. He was a kind brother, a gallant brother; he was a very busy brother, always galloping off on his valiant white steed to save the princesses of the world. Light reigned, in no small part thanks to his efforts. Monsters kidnapped girls, kingdoms cried for aid, and the Rose Prince rode to the rescue, time and again.
When Dios came home, Anthy saw the wounds of the world's pains upon him, the weariness of endless battles creasing his young brow. Each journey grew more arduous, each recovery, lengthier. As the nights grew dark and lonely, Anthy feared that soon her brother would not return at all.
And then, he didn't.
Days stretched to weeks, the cupboards grew bare, and Anthy waited, anxious and alone. The knocks at the door grew more frequent, new kingdoms with new missives of woe. Some returned to again demand aid that had not arrived swiftly enough, and those were far less polite. Anthy's worst fear had come true, and horrible thoughts filled her head: was he bleeding on the rocks in some monster's lair? Already cold, life given for the admiration of another anonymous princess?
For she did resent them. Dios spent all of his time and his energy on the rest of the girls of the world, all of the princesses in their lovely kingdoms and lovely gowns. When she finally asked him in fit of sisterly pique, "Onii-sama, why must you always leave to save them? Don't you care for me, too?" he ruffled her hair, fond, smiling that smile that made the whole world fall in love with him.
"Of course, Anthy, but you are not a princess. You don't need saving. They need me. You understand."
Anthy understood that she needed him, too. She understood, without quite knowing /why/, that a little sister could not compete with the thank-you kisses of beautiful princesses. But she nodded, swallowed the lump in her throat, and saw her big brother off on another of his heroic journeys.
Now, finally, the worst had come, and little Anthy did not know what to do. Well... that was not entirely true, was it? She knew what she had to do, she just did not know if she had the courage to do it. Dios was the brave and strong one; she was just a helpless girl, not even a princess. But someone had to act, and she was all Dios had left, just as Dios was all she had left. Driven by desperation, Anthy stepped out alone into the world in search of her brother.
Maybe it was the pull of their sibling bond, or the hand of the gods themselves; maybe it was sheer dumb luck. Whatever it was that led Anthy to Dios, she sent up fervent prayers of thanks to it as she rolled him over in the crackling autumn leaves. His pristine white cape slid aside to reveal horrible injuries, and blood, so much blood...
Later, she would not remember the journey aside from fragmented impressions of stumbling over tree roots in the dark, staggering with her big brother's arm and most of his weight thrown across her small shoulders. The shed, though, she would always remember: a great angular shadow between the jagged claws of bare branches, blotting out the starry sky. She pushed the heavy wooden door against squealing hinges until her palms prickled with splinters, and finally settled Dios to rest in the fresh straw.
The next morning, when the farmer's son found them there and then ran off, Anthy hoped he would return with help. The day stretched into evening as she patted the perspiration from Dios' brow, and his groans grew more strangled. The knocking, when it came, was a benediction. Before Anthy could reach the door, the knocking turned to loud banging, so hard it shook the wall, and she paused with her fingers inches away from flinging it wide.
"Prince? Prince, are you in there? We need your help!"
Anthy flinched as the banging continued... and then it stopped, and she watched as the door's handle began to turn. In that moment, she made a decision. She reached over with both small hands and heaved down the heavy wooden bar, barricading the two of them inside.
They could have Dios no longer. They did not love him, and worse, did not appreciate him; they would use her brother up until there was nothing left, for them or for her. It was up to Anthy to put a stop to it, to save her brother, from himself if need be. She was the only one who could.
The shed door rattled against the bar, and then the shouting began. It did not stop, only grew over time, building to a sullen roar.
"Anthy...!"
"I'm right here!"
The walls of the shed shook with the gathering crowd's violent demands. "Prince! We know you're in there! Please, fight!" Anthy dabbed at her brother's feverish face and paid them and the sharp metallic clatter of their anger no heed. "You're the only one who can save my daughter!" All of her attention was on the labored heaving of Dios' chest. "My daughters are waiting too! Prince!"
He heard, though, and heeded, pushing up against Anthy's tending hands. Just the attempt to sit upright cost Dios dearly, wringing a cry from him that rent Anthy's heart. She begged him not to move, knowing before he gave it what his protest would be. "But...! They're calling for help... I have to go!"
The cool of Anthy's fingertips against Dios' burning cheek interrupted his struggles to rise. For the first time in her life she refused her big brother, gently lowering him back down to the straw. "Stop, please. Don't fight anymore. You'll die." Once again, Anthy knew what she had to do.
The petitioners fell quiet as the door opened, so numerous now they surrounded the shed many times over, then roiled in confusion when a little girl emerged instead of their expected, hoped-for Prince. Swords pierced the sky above their heads like shiny thorns. "Who are you?" they demanded. Anthy put the closed door at her back and faced them, defying them with her eyes and her words.
"Dios is no longer here! He belongs to me alone now. I've sealed him away where you can never touch him again!"
Audible emotion swelled through the crowd: high-pitched gasps of shock, then muttered disbelief that began inquisitive and culminated in an ugly, low growl. At first, their anger was collectively wordless and therefore aimless... until one man near the front found a name for it. For her.
"You witch!"
Everyone in that crowd knew what a princess was and every last one of them knew that the disobedient chit before them did not qualify for the title. They rallied to this new chorus immediately, taking it up with full throats and flinty eyes. “Witch!” The word set the crowd aflame, their raised blades burning with the setting sun’s light. “WITCH! Get her!’
There were so many, and the smallest among them was at least twice as big as Anthy, even with her skinny arms were flung wide as if she could possibly bar their way to and through the door behind her. When she’d stepped outside, it was with a child’s notion of determination: she would stop them at any cost. If she’d known that cost before lifting the door’s bar…
But she hadn’t; and no one would ever know if things could have been different. And how could she have known? How could she have ever imagined?
Even as the first metal thorn pierced her side Anthy did not understand. So keen was the point of the sword that she was spared pain for a few breathless seconds, and only felt an indistinct burning. Warmth flowed down her hip, a sensation she’d later come to know as the spilling of heart-hot blood. It wasn’t until the second blade sliced cleanly across her upper arm that Anthy began to scream.
She would never stop screaming, not really.
@}-' Intermezzo -,--
A black chamber, pulsing red from its heart, cracks — or are they veins? — radiating away from a silhouette at the center: a young girl, body contorting this way and that in an involuntary dance of agony. Two figures approach and speak in tones the girl can’t hear over the rushing of her own blood in her ears, not quite.
As they draw closer, the vein-cracks gleam, revealing wicked edges. They are swords blooming from her soft, vulnerable body. Not until the smaller of them, a girl with pink hair dressed for a funeral, approaches does the suspended girl really take note of either of them through her crimson haze of agony.
When the girl with the pink hair tries to reach out, the intensity of the suspended girl’s suffering repels her bodily, flinging her back. The same suffering so preoccupies the suspended girl that she still hardly notices.
“Then I’ll become a prince!” She hears that, though. “I’ll become her prince and save her!” And she begins to listen, through the pounding of her own struggling heart. She hears the boy (or is he a man?) tell the girl with the pink hair how she might do so, and in the same breath denounce her chances. She catches the gleam of a signet as it slides onto a too-small finger.
“I’ll do it! I swear, I’ll become a prince! I swear!”
The suspended girl hears, and her heartbeat races (as does her blood down skewering blades). She spends precious energy to lift her head, aquamarine eyes glazed with torment. The girl with the pink hair meets her gaze with determined eyes like the summer sky, boundless and bold and blue.
Later, the suspended girl forgets, the events lost to crimson pain and time and trauma. Her heart remembers for her. A seed is planted, and languishes, bereft of light and water and air. It does not thrive. But it does survive.
