princesses, birds and fish
"You told them that the two worlds yearned for each other? Nia, my love...truly, your bias shows."
Nia scoffs, as sweet as she can manage. "And wouldn't you have said the same?"
"I think I would have been too afraid to," Melia replies. It's really a somewhat baseless romanticization, even anthropomorphization, to apply to the idea that matter and antimatter, sprung from a single source some time long ago, should one day mean to reunite. Yearning is a concept of sentience; even if Aionios is based on literal motive desire, the thought that the very earth beneath her feet (the Bionis, or what was left of it) should start to tremble and cry...is terrifying, in and out of context.
Or, rather, in any context but the one of her love for her fellow queen, it is terrifying. In that alone, it is beautiful, blooming, blossomming, taking flight and pouncing on glittering instants in the stream of time.
(She has spent far too much time analyzing Z, hasn't she?)
"Hello? Your Majesties?"
They cannot deny, those queens, that it is much simpler to be able to refer to the pair of them as something roughly (delicately?) skirting royalty, rather than race the ambiguity of a caller wanting one or the other and not necessarily both. They always do get both, however, and as Mio and Eunie enter it's clear that they had, indeed, been looking for the joined wings of Aionios in a pleasant pair, and counted the odds in favor of their presence at the beautifully scenic Cloudkeep, as opposed to the comparatively dour Keves Castle.
Many stories, had Melia told Nia, upon her counterpart's request in view of the grim place, of the lightness and the jewel-toned silvers of Alcamoth and its armours; of the starkness and refinement of the proud, proud High Entia. Her commanders were all brusque, idealistic women and men, each a rogue unit of a larger puzzle whereas each of Nia's was a floating gulf of compelling character.
But those are stories to discuss with her love again another time, Melia reminds herself, straightening the skirt of her tunic and turning around to find Eunie, too, tugging at the hem of a miniskirt fastened by suspenders and belts and pauldrons in blues and whites and, peculiarly, golds that in every way resemble her own traveling outfits of old - excepting, of course, the places where they resemble Fiora's colony attire.
She flicks an eye to Nia and sees her companion also faintly agape at the sight of Mio in the robes of her Blade appearance from way back when. Whichever coy scholar had granted them these regalia (the Archsage? Poppi, in exhibition of her proud prior knowledge? Minoth, on half a costuming tear and half a wildly affectionate joke?) knew the potent, secret joys of Aionios well. It was only here that moments like these could happen - perhaps only here that they even mattered.
So Melia begins: "Hello." No more words suggest themselves; she cannot possibly think why.
Mio frowns. "Is something the matter? Did we interrupt you?"
Eunie is uncharacteristically quiet (Nia too, as she watches craftily). Melia does have an idea why that might be, but she's afraid to speak it. She swallows once, twice, feeling her wings flick as she has trained them not to do, and slips a careful hand over to Nia's, who twists their fingers together like she can refashion a pseudo-gordian knot stronger than even Aionios and all its undoing bonds.
"You look well together," Melia pronounces, through a thick intangibility stopping her throat. Eunie's smile shows both that she already knew that and that she can feel a faint tinge of the same trepidation.
"All very nice, when it's about to be over," she says gracelessly. No one scolds her for it. Mio only lays hands over her Core Crystal, as if trying to cover up its similarity to Nia's. Did she not consider that it could be rude, to waltz in to the queen's domain with her very own raiments on, and much of the same golden-eyed face?
Then, something in all of them breaks, gently, and the miniature endless now (all one transient hesitation) of that awkward moment elides into Mio pulling Eunie with her closer to the queens, the four of them now bound together even closer than before.
"I'm glad you came," Nia affirms to them, with the quiet strength that only the Queen of Agnus has ever commanded or ever will command (but then, who knows what Mio will do, one day, in yearning and in health). Melia nods, too, imposing but welcoming all the same.
Eunie shoots Mio a look, and then confirms Melia's worst fear: "You know, seeing you two together...it really does make me confident that the two worlds will meet again. Not like this-" she gestures at the nearest visible site of annihilation event "-but someway, somehow. Because you can't bear to be apart."
"Eunie!" Mio gasps, likely due to the implication that the queens are the most Moebius of all.
"I wouldn't count on it," Melia says slyly. "So go on. Make the most of your time together."
And let us, now that that's that, do the same with ours...