Fic: As the Rubble Settles

[ingenious_spark]

Title: As the Rubble Settles
Fandom: Saint Seiya Original Series
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Relationships: Aquila Marin/Ophiuchus Shaina (pre-relationship)
Characters: Aquila Marin, Ophiuchus Shaina
Word Count: 1000
Summary: The aftermath of the last Holy War offers Marin a moment to reflect. And from this, a chance for healing begins..

When the dust has settled, Marin struggles to breathe. The boys have returned from the Underworld, and they're all in the hospital, along with Lady Athena. The doctors aren't sure that Seiya will live, and that makes Marin’s throat close up, her lungs struggle for air. He had been practically a punishment at first, getting in the way of her own training, when they had foisted him upon her, but now he was a slightly annoying baby brother.

Sometimes she wished she were Seika, the girl she'd found down in Rodorio Village under the care of old man Luka. She'd seen those ruddy brown eyes and known .

Athena vanishes from the hospital, which makes everyone panic. She'd been well on the mend, a couple of days from being released, as the least injured among them. She'd needed several blood transfusions, she is still weak, but she's doing better.

Marin scrapes air into her lungs one painful breath at a time, grits her teeth, and looks through the Twelve Palaces. She has a hunch, as to where Athena had gone.

She's right. All the Gold Cloths sit in their rightful places save for the Scorpio Cloth. She goes to find Shaina.

“Why aren't you helping look for our Lady? She could have gotten kidnapped again!” The Ophiuchus Saint hisses. Marin eyes her tiredly behind her mask, exhausted in a way she can't explain. How does Shaina still have energy?

“Because I know she wasn't. She's gone to get a Gold Saint. The Scorpio Cloth is gone,” she says, and that stops the Italian girl in her tracks.

“Do you think… Scorpio Milo survived somehow?” She asks, and Marin smiles, a touch bitter, invisible behind the firm, unchanging surface of her mask.

“The Lady keeps her secrets. It could be that she's gone to find a candidate, and the new Scorpio will be Kiki’s age,” she shrugs. “Just pass the word along, okay? I'm going to get some sleep.” She turns and goes back to her dormitory, thankful that the Silver Saint barracks are mostly undamaged.

She used to have a roommate, but she doesn't have the energy, emotional or physical, to wonder where the other girl is, whether she's one of the many casualties. They still haven't done a census of the living.

When she wakes up, Athena has returned, and is now ensconced in the hospital once again. She seems to be fine, but she's asleep, and the nurses won't let anyone wake her, so her secrets sleep with her. Marin finds Shaina, and together they haul themselves up the stairs to Scorpio.

No one's there, not even the damned Cloth. Bewildered, they press on up the hill, to the Palace of the Grand Master.

Scorpio stands there, wrapped around a person much older than Marin is expecting. The person turns, and Marin’s heart skips a beat at the sight of a smooth golden-toned mask over the face of the Saint. Shaina inhales too fast on a gasp and starts coughing a bit.

“Ah, my welcome entourage at last, I take it?” The Scorpio asks, and her voice is warm and deep. She lifts her hand, and takes off her mask, to Marin and Shaina’s shocked gasps. Her face is worn-lined with age, her warm brown skin patterned with crows feet at the corners of her eyes and her full, ruby-stained lips are bracketed by fine lines. She's beautiful, for all that she has to be above forty, which for Marin, at sixteen years old, is ancient. Her nails, the Aqulia Saint notices, bemused, are clipped practically short and painted a sparkly royal purple. Her hair is short, deep brown, and coiffed into a soft pompadour.

“Who are you?” Shaina ventures the question, and she smiles.

“Scorpio Tryphosa, nice to meet you two, Aquila, Ophiuchus. Lady Athena has pulled me out of retirement to take up the post of Grand Master of Sanctuary.” She tells them, and for just a moment, Marin sees in her eyes a heavy burden of grief, nearly crippling. Marin shivers and looks down.

“Retirement?” Shaina asks, befuddled. Tryphosa’s mouth twists in a wry smile.

“Indeed. I retired at forty three, when I believed I could no longer serve Sanctuary appropriately.” She tells them, and then flaps her hand. “Go on, please take off your masks, I feel like I'm talking to a pair of porcelain dolls.” Marin raised her hand to her mask, hesitant and worried.

“But it isn't allowed!” Shaina says, sounding worried. Tryphosa smiles gently at them.

“You know, Shion was extremely lax about enforcing the law of the mask. I spoke to him once, and he told me he was considering abolishing it entirely, but he was waiting for the Lady’s incarnation. I often ignored the law entirely, myself.” She says, gentle and encouraging. Shaina still hesitates.

“What about the abandonment of femininity we have to swear to to become Saints?” She asks, and Marin pauses. “The unspoken law that we must love or kill any man who sees our faces?” Her voice is urgent and soft. Tryphosa looks truly bewildered.

“Wow, that's… sexist, to say the least. There are no laws like that. The false Grand Master must have perpetuated them. You don't have to be afraid, girls, or abandon any part of yourselves.” She says, and it is with shaking hands that they remove the masks and drop them to the ground, a faint metallic clatter. Tryphosa moves close, and carefully gathers them into an embrace, and Marin has never felt so safe around a Gold Saints before. She feels herself deflate, like a balloon, and hears Shaina begin to cry, just a bit. She knows the other girl has been trying really hard to love Seiya, because she's fond of him and didn't want to kill him.

Marin flushes, wondering now if she could reach out to the other girl. She's wanted to kiss Shaina for a long time now, and maybe, just maybe, now she has a chance.