This is a little something that stuck in my head after @rhiorhino‘s ask about Pluto and this post in @keyofjetwolf‘s PE liveblog. It’s different from my usual stuff, so take it as you will.

Being Human
~750 words, Minako & Setsuna

---

Setsuna is surprised when there’s a knock at the door. She’s
still getting used to surprise, that particular human reaction, beyond the mere
unexpected. There were never any true surprises at the door. She spent to long
examining what could come to be for that.

She moves to the door. There is a peep hole, but she chooses
not to look. She savors the surprise while she can have it, Time only knows how
long she’ll get this form. She turns the knob, and out in the hall is someone
she’d never have guessed would be there.

“Can I come in?” Minako asks. A plastic convenience store
bag hangs in the crook of her elbow, hiding a small box. Setsuna nods and moves
aside.

Minako sets her bag down on the little kitchen table and surveys
the walls and shelves. “You’ve made it nice here.”

“Thank you.”

“I probably shouldn’t say so, but I half expect it to be
totally blank. Bare, I mean, besides necessities.”

Setsuna smiled. She had jumped at the opportunity to have a
home rather than just an inhabitance. It may have been frivolous, but she’d scouted
thrift stores and flea markets for bright rugs and paintings and knick-knacks, filling
every corner of her little apartment with color and warmth and reminders of all
life could be. “Have I given you that impression of who I am?”

“No.” Minako runs her fingers around the edge of a red
placemat. “And I’m glad for it.” She looks up through her bangs, a gesture
Setsuna knows is uncharacteristically shy. “We’re not so different, you and I.”

It is not a comparison she would have made on her own, but
Setsuna sees it. They remember, the two of them, and they are bound by the
past. “I suppose that’s true.”

“I’m happy you’re here,” Minako says, and Setsuna understand
she does not mean in the apartment. “And I thought it might be nice for you to
have something.” She reaches into the plastic bag and pulls out a tin of tea. “I
wasn’t sure what you would like, but this seemed right.”

Setsuna takes it from her to examine. The tin bears a simple
design, all rich shades of burnt orange save for white letters—Hot Cinnamon
Spice. She opens the top and breathes in the sharp scent of the tea. Something rolls
over in her chest, or so it feels. She realizes she’s never been given a gift
before.

“Would you like to have some with me?”

“If you’ll have me.”

Setsuna finds her eyes tearing as she retrieves her newly
bought tea set from her cabinet. “I didn’t think I’d actually be using this,”
she admits.

Minako smiles. “Use everything at least once. Break some of
it.” She takes a seat and tilts her chair back on two legs. “This isn’t like
then. Nothing’s pristine or royal, except technically Usagi. And even then, she
doesn’t need the same sort of coddling.”

“Queen Serenity would be appalled to hear that.”

“Queen Serenity would be appalled about a lot of things. But
hey, she’s the one who made us human.” She frowns, looking Setsuna over. “Or
most of us, anyway.”

“I’m not sure how it works either, before you ask,” Setsuna
says, pouring water into two porcelain cups. “This may well be a hiccup in her
parting wish.”

“Whatever it is, you deserve the break.” Minako takes a
small sip of the tea. “We all deserve to be a little something more than what
she made us.”

It is hard sometimes, even from afar at her door, to see
both the soldier and the child in any of the girls. Sometimes they are so much
the Silver Millenuim warriors, living and fighting and dying for their cause,
but sometimes they are children, true children the way none of them had ever
gotten to be in that life. Now, here at this little kitchen table, Setsuna sees
both in Minako, feels something like both in herself, though she is by no
standard a child. She reaches for Mianko’s hand before she can think herself
out of it. “It’s strange to be so human.”

“It’s strange to be so alien. But you’ll get used to it.”

The tea is warm, both in temperature and the way it makes
Setsuna’s chest feel, the way the flavor seems to curl into her soul.  “Tell me about it. Tell be about being human.”

Minako smiles. They talk until the tea is long gone.