Frozen by Hi no Miko (i_love_kurama@hotmail.com)

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Chapter II



Who then can warm my soul? Who can quell my passions?

        ---"Exile"---Enya (Watermark)



        Haruka lay alone in her frozen prison. The ice

went deep into her soul. Her very spirit was frozen.

Her loneliness was overwhelming, with no one there to

speak to, to comfort her. She was, for the very first

time in her life, terrified. She had long ago given up

hope of ever seeing Michiru again. It had been so long

since she had seen her....

        Her aqua hair that blew in the wind so perfectly,

never falling out of place. And their daughter, so precious,

eternally precocious and curious. Haruka missed the simple

things with them. She hadn't seen them in what must have

been about eight months.

        Yet, it had never warmed, this hell was eternally

ice cold. Every now and then that vile woman would come

trying to convince her to join the ranks of her other slaves.

They had given in to her. Haruka couldn't do that. Not yet.

Not while she still lived.

        "kaze ni nari tai...." Haruka whispered to herself.

'if I were the wind, I could escape, return to Michiru and

Hotaru....if only...if only...'

        But she wasn't the wind, and although she could

probably physically overpower that woman known as the

Golden Queen quite easily given the chance...she wasn't

given such a chance. Her bracelet, the very trap which

caught her in the first place kept her as a hare in a

snatch trying to gnaw its own foot off. She had tried

everything to get that bracelet off. And, yes, she had

tried cutting her own hand off, but the bracelet wouldn't

let her. When she even thought about putting anything

sharp near that hand, her other hand would cease to move,

no matter how much she wanted it to. She was trapped, so

trapped.

        Michiru opened her eyes to the break of dawn.

She had barely slept at all. Her worries about Haruka

had kept her awake, not to mention the fact that she

was used to sleeping in Haruka's arms. She glanced at

her sleeping child who lay next to her. Hotaru had

kept wakening with nightmares of the Golden Queen

all night.

	She stroked Hotaru's hair off her forehead as 

the child fussed in her sleep, "Don't worry, Hime-chan, 

we are going to get Haruka-papa back today. No matter 

what it takes."

	They gathered their sack, with new provisions 

from Makoto added to it. They began their journey with 

Makoto to the base of the Golden Queen's mountain.

They began their hike through a dense wood that was 

abnormally silent. 'Where are all the animals, the birds? 

Even in winter there should be something...' thought Michiru 

in dismay. "Makoto, is there something wrong with these woods? 

Everything seems so...dead."

	Makoto gave her an anguished glance, "She killed 

all the life here...a long time ago."

It was then that Michiru decided that her thoughts of 

killing the woman really weren't so bad after all. 'Harm 

no one! Harm no one!' she thought frantically. 'Maybe if I 

keep telling myself that I won't kill her when I meet her. 

It isn't really good to just kill people, no matter how evil 

they are!'

They kept hiking until the sun was at its highest peak. It 

was then that they took a break for lunch. Michiru hadn't 

wanted to, but Makoto convinced her to do it for Hotaru's sake.

	"How much farther will it be, Makoto?" she asked, having 

finished her meal already. She wanted to get going again.

	"Another half day, I suppose." Makoto said, 

cringing at the look on Michiru's face.

	"Shimatta! I had hoped we would arrive sooner! I 

want to be home in time for Yule!" she looked at Hotaru 

worriedly, "This walk isn't too much for you is it, Hime-chan?"

	Hotaru shook her head, "I'm fine, Michiru-mama, we 

just have to keep going, so we can save Haruka-papa."

	"If you get tired, tell me?" Michiru said to Hotaru. She 

wanted to get Haruka back but not at the cost of Hotaru.

	They gathered their things and began again. It wasn't long 

before they found a stream which they had to cross. Fortunately, 

it like everything else in this long-dead forest, frozen.

        They began to cross it when a mysterious figure appeared 

before them. She wore a brief green dress and wore her hair in 

two plaits.

        "Who comes here?" she called out to them. "This is the 

territory of the Great Golden Queen Galaxia!" she seemed to be 

extremely angry.

        When she stepped out of the shadows of the woods, they 

saw that her skin was completely frozen.

        "I am Kaioh Michiru, and I have come to retrieve my 

lover from your queen's grasp." Michiru called out heedlessly.

        Makoto gasped, "Oh, you shouldn't have done that, you 

really should not have done that. She's one of her minions you 

know, they don't have any mind of their own! They do whatever 

she programmed them to do, and it certainly looks like this one 

is meant to keep people out of these woods!"

        "Would you stop whimpering?!" Hotaru commanded, "I'm 

sure Michiru-mama knows what she's doing, don't you?" she 

asked her mother.

        "Hush, dear, I'm thinking," Michiru replied. 'What 

am I doing? I've endangered my child now! Okay, calm down, 

there must be something I can do,'  but she didn't have any time 

left... Lethe had grabbed Hotaru in an instant.

        "This child would be an excellent toy for her majesty, 

don't you think?" Lethe asked, stroking Hotaru's throat with 

one gloved hand.

        Hotaru was frozen in place, gazing at Michiru with 

a mixture of fear and hope.. 'Mama! Help me!' Michiru heard 

her child's mental pleas.

        She flashed back to the message that Phobos had 

brought her from Demeter. 'The mirror will help you see 

past the deceptive white purity of the ice and snow, that 

I might find  my love. Of course, she didn't mean just being 

able to see the evil, she meant seeing what isn't obvious 

at first.'

        Michiru pulled out her mirror, and gazed into it. 

'Please don't fail me now, I have too much at stake...'

        "And how will that mirror help you?" Lethe laughed, 

her head thrown back. Hotaru began to glow a deep hue of 

purple, unnoticed by her mother who gazed into her mirror, 

by her captor who was in the throes of a maniacal fit, and 

by Makoto who was hiding behind a tree.

        What Michiru saw amazed her and filled her with 

joy. She saw the woman before her, this cold and controlled 

being as what she was prior to the Golden Queen's control. 

She was with another young woman with a similar dress and 

hairstyle. They were in love. 'That she must remember, deep 

inside...'

        Hotaru looked towards her mother, seeing a look of 

recognition and inspiration strike her features. She 

deliberately calmed herself, believing that this time, 

her mother could deal with the situation.

        Michiru looked up, the woman walked towards her, 

"I am Lethe, a senshi of Galaxia."

        "Who is she?" Michiru asked.

        "You don't know who Galaxia-sama is?" she asked 

shocked.

        "Of course I know who she is. That's not what I 

asked. Who is that woman? Your lover?"

        Lethe shook her head confusedly, "I don't...I ...

I don't know ....what.....Mnemosyne!" she cried out. Her 

icy skin began to crack, revealing warm flesh beneath. 

Her glazed eyes cleared and she looked about in disgust 

at herself.

        "What have I done? Oh, Mnemosyne, she has you 

now, doesn't she?" she cried tearfully.

       "We are on our way to rescue my beloved Haruka 

from Galaxia's grasp, why don't you join us, and together 

we can save both of them?" suggested Michiru, understanding 

perfectly how Lethe felt.

        "You would help me? Even after the things that I 

have done?" Lethe smiled, "Arigatou."

        Haruka wasn't alone anymore. Now she had a 

cellmate. Okay, so her room was not a jailcell. It was 

actually quite pretty. The twin beds had deep gold quilts 

and canopies. It was a gorgeous room, truly. However, 

Haruka would probably have appreciated it more if she 

could leave it. They had an adjoining washroom, so she 

couldn't even use that as an excuse. Her new cellmate 

was pretty but very melancholy, but then again, so was 

Haruka. The young woman had wore her hair in two plaits 

and wore a  short peach-coloured dress that had an empire 

waist and a sailor neckline. She was very quiet, she hadn't 

submitted to Galaxia yet either, but Haruka got the 

impression that perhaps someone close to her had. They 

didn't speak to each other.

        Haruka sighed, 'I hate my golden prison...' she 

thought ruefully. 'Michiru...to hold you in my arms again, 

that is my only dream, but so unattainable.' She gazed out 

the window.

        Everything was ice and snow. The Golden Queen's 

drones sculpted it regularly to her satisfaction. Haruka 

just didn't understand why they would give in so easily. 

She just couldn't...wouldn't give up. Her memories of 

Michiru ...of her family...meant too much to her, and 

giving in to Galaxia would take those away from her.

        She gazed out the window, seeing the scene 

below through the shimmer of the glass.

        The bitter moon poured like crushed ice upon 

the cool stone below. A willow waved in the whispering 

wind, wind that called out to her. Snowflakes drifted 

hesitantly down the bitter currents of air, landing 

with light touch of a feather, molding to the cold earth. 

The silence was malevolent.

        The icy night had a long-awaited calm, undisturbed 

by call of an owl or the cry of a wolf. It was almost as 

if the cruel queen had stolen the voice of every creature. 

This place was filled with anger guarded only by the 

brittle gates of dead bushes and trees. Everything was 

dead. No living creature existed here. A hazy cloud 

masked the moon and a darkness falls like a shroud of 

death that could last forever. Yet, it passes and light 

was cast upon Galaxia's garden once more.

        A stone with strange engravings sits central 

in her garden. The pristine snow is crisp. It is bright 

and has the illusion of daylight upon the stone. Haruka 

stared at it, unfathomably drawn to its textured surface. 

The snow on the stone seemed to be soiled. The stains of 

blood appeared to seep through the snow. It looked as 

though something were recently killed. Although she 

couldn't tell how, or by what.

        A raven flew across the moon casting a 

momentary shadow. It lands on the altar. Its eyes 

glinting almost hungrily at the blood. The raven's 

feathers shimmer in the moonlight. It caws sharply, 

"Michiru!"

        The silence of Haruka's mind was broken in 

an instant as all her dreams shattered. 'Michiru...? 

NOOOOOOOOO!!'

        And then she was frozen. Her night was 

endless, morning would never arrive. For now 

Galaxia was truly queen, controller of everything.

        Mnemosyne stared silently as her roommate 

was drawn into the still tableau outside their window. 

She had called out to the girl, who sat unhearing. 

She saw the girl's face reflect horror and grief 

and her lips silently forming a name, before she 

turned completely to ice, her pale blonde hair turning 

ice blue, and her skin a similar shade.