Work Text:
The waves roll, the air flow brings new breeze, the earth is pulsing - she can feel it under her fingertips.
This part of the world is alive; Asuka can tell she- they did well.
Though, she feels like a rickety chair; screws and nails shucking down at every screech as someone, the world, pulls.
It’s been nine years. She- no, WILLE has worked so hard to at least make a part of the world feasible for new children to grow up in. So children will grow and know that there are four seasons, so children never lose anyone they have left, so no one has to grow up and be a mess like her, so-
So why does she feels as though she’s sinking? At least a small continent doesn’t have red sand as earth, blood oceans are fading to the blue she’s only dreamed of. Even Wunder, the Ship of Hope everyone has been looking forward for, is ready for sailing. There hasn’t been lack of human life and they’ve been experimenting on how to recreate fauna, truly making quiet change as sick old Gendo sulks in his dark tip of the sky.
She’s changing the world, almost like a superhero, a ranger for the world like in the silly shows she used to watch in sterile rooms. She could even play the violin!
But Asuka sighs and plants her fist with a quick punch on the soft soil, huffing out a curse.
”In all honesty, I’m expecting balsams to sprout out of your fist real quick.”
Mari plops down beside Asuka, sighing and stretching arms. Asuka withdraws her fist and huffs again, weighing down to sit, not crouch.
“What the living hell are balsams? And,” Asuka pauses as she hangs her hands by her knees, “shouldn’t you be helping the new kids at the hangar?”
Mari holds a hand to chest, gasping lightly. Asuka rolls her eyes- eye, and blows a part of her bangs away.
“You’re not well-versed in flowers,” Mari murmurs, “how odd. You know more about puppy boy’s coordinates than this.”
“To think about such things in such a world we lived in, though,” Asuka speaks out, way too loud, “is useless. Who needs to learn about flowers?”
“Writers, I guess.” Mari concludes.
Silence envelopes them for seconds, but Mari interrupts it by adding a barely audible I’m not a writer.
Seconds turn to a minute, but those words bounce in Asuka’s head like pebbles; heavy and cacophonous.
“Are you sure about that?” Asuka asks.
Mari nods, turning view to the red expanse of sand behind.
“Flowers wither, like people. It’s just weirdly interesting,” Mari clears up.
“But if you take care of them,” Mari clears a cough, “they bloom, live longer and all.”
Asuka almost scoffs, but she settles to criticize. How odd, Mari says to her. Who was Mari to say that?
“Couldn’t you freeze or laminate a flower to preserve it?” Asuka retorts, “You’re the odd one.”
“Isn’t that cruel? It’s like,” Mari pauses and shifts a hand to scratch an ear, “like holding a dead human’s body and not giving it mercy.”
Mari never shifted to even look at Asuka, nor could Asuka feel any shift of emotion or unease in her partner’s body. Asuka stares, but she couldn’t see Mari’s eyes.
“It’s like in one of those dramas,” Mari starts again, dropping the hand. “Those people who never pulled plugs on comatose people who don’t have a hair of hope to live normally ever again.”
“They could use that money to keep themselves well, like how the patient wants for them.” Mari huffs, “that is useless.”
She could tell that she looks stunned by Mari’s analysis, but she simply couldn’t-
Mari stands up and walks to the bright red sand and-
-she couldn’t fathom why the hell Mari’s simple words moved her.
Asuka’s still staring, and Mari’s crouched, scooping up some sand.
The sand slips off the spaces of Mari’s fingertips, and Asuka shifts her right leg up to stand to help.
Mari’s smile is there, and Asuka looks down to Mari’s palm-
“White flowe-“
“Daffodils, it is daffodils!” Mari beams, then points back. “Three of them are left there.”
Asuka stands and looks down at the fragile, yet blooming flower with its roots at the spaces of Mari’s fingers. She almost smiles, and then she looks up at Mari.
Mari’s eyes were only directed towards her, and she notices that Mari has been shielding her from the blinding sun.
“You take it,” Mari says with an all-too-honest smile, “I got it for you.”
Asuka opens her palms, reaching out so that Mari can slip the plant down. Mari does so, and Asuka has never felt more responsible for some reason she can’t comprehend. She wiggles her fingers, letting the roots spread out. She smiles, so slightly.
She could feel Mari beaming in front of her, and she looks up.
“What?” Asuka croaks out, and she sees Mari’s face flush.
“Nothing, I swear!” Mari says loudly, almost defensively. “I’m just glad. Daffodils are signs for spring.”
Asuka’s eye widens in thought- “If these could grow here, on the sand…”
She scrambles to the spot where Mari found the daffodil, and Mari follows slowly, humming a song Asuka doesn’t even know a note of.
Asuka finds the daffodils; two little buds and another in full bloom. She then points with her chin towards Mari’s radio.
“Call the captain and vice, would you?” Asuka says as she kneels, eye finally seeing the buds.
“What do I even tell them?” Mari inquires, fiddling with the radio’s dial.
“Life,” Asuka says sharply. “Lives are living.”
Mari smiles and coughs, looking back down on Asuka’s crouched form.
“Shouldn’t you be helping the kids at the hangar?” Asuka recalls, smirking at Mari’s subtle slacking and avoidance.
“Shouldn’t you be living?” Mari strikes back.
Asuka shrugs. “I should be.”
Mari slides down and touches the daffodil in Asuka’s palms with a fingertip.
“I’ll make sure that happens.”