"You should have told me about Mako-chan, Ami. Maybe I could have done something."
Ami sighed, annoyed that this swim, of all of them, should have been so rudely disturbed. She looked up as her queen strode into the room. "What, Serenity?"
"Makoto can't-couldn't have children. She told me that she told you centuries ago, Ami. You should have told me!"
Ami cocked her head. "Did you say 'couldn't'?"
Serenity's eyes were red from tears, confirming Ami's guess before Serenity even had time to nod. "Yes. She's-gone. She left."
Ami nodded. "I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose..."
"Why?! Why shouldn't you be surprised? Did you know this was going to happen?"
Ami closed her eyes again and floated through the water, allowing it's coolness to absorb her irritation. After a second of blissful silence she opened them and stood up in the shallow end of the pool. "No, Serenity, I didn't know this was going to happen, but Mako-chan told me she's been feeling tired lately."
"Well then, you should have told her to take more naps, not do this!" Serenity was sobbing again. Once Ami would have felt bad about that, but she was past that now.
"Not physically tired, your Majesty, emotionally tired. Tired of the world, tired of this life...this eternal, unending...life..." Ami closed her eyes. She'd been hoping to do this privately, but her own lassitude was almost overwhelming.
Suddenly she heard a splash, and Serenity was walking through the water, an angry expression on her face. "Mizuno Ami, what are you saying?" Ami felt an unaccustomed feeling run through her--surprise. She hadn't thought Serenity would do such a thing. She was absolutely soaked! "I don't like the sound of your words." Tears were running down her face again, slowly, as if her ducts had to struggle to find enough moisture to hold more tears. "You're not going to leave me too, are you?" She pulled close and wrapped wet hands around Ami's arms. "Are you?"
Her intensity was mesmerizing, inspiring. Ami summoned up the will to smile. "Yes, Serenity, I am."
Serenity shook her violently. "No! I won't let you! I won't! Do you hear me! I order you as your queen!"
Ami laughed, simply for the pleasure of being able to do it again. "Oh, Serenity, I should have come out of my laboratory more often. Talking to you would have revived me so!" She suddenly sobered. "But it's too late, you realize." She swept her hand around her. "I've discovered so much in the realm of science! I've done things that I never dreamed were possible, but I've finally realized how empty that is, because I'm too tired to make myself care. Because no mortal can follow in my shoes. Because there's no point in working anymore..."
"What do you mean, Ami? You're the only one who can do the things you do. You have to!"
"I spent the last 400 years studying elemental physics after medicine no longer interested me, Serenity. After about 20 years of study I understood what was already known, and worked to discover new things. Do you know what I've calculated, Serenity? It would take approximately 50 years for an average student to learn everything I now know about elemental physics, Serenity. Fifty years! Do you know how long that is to a mortal? It used to seem like a long time to me, when I was young." She snapped her finger. "But now? It's next to nothing." She tried to explain her lack of feeling. "What's the point? Why should I struggle to find the will to stay alive, simply to study things that most people don't care about anyway?" She pushed away from Serenity and began to drift again. What was the point in working so hard when she herself couldn't find the desire to care anymore?
"No! Ami!" Ami stifled a growl at Serenity's tenacity. "You could be a doctor again! You could heal people, keep them alive long enough to learn all you've discovered! Doesn't helping people make you feel good?"
Ami felt her mind begin to drift again, and knew that even Serenity's presence couldn't stop her forever. "No. At first I cared so much-other than you, I think it was the only thing I actually cared about. But after almost three thousand years I gradually stopped." She held up her hand, watching droplet's catch the sunlight as they fell from her slim fingers. "I spent almost a thousand years researching longevity, Serenity. A wasted millennium, can you believe it? Did you know there's a tail at the end of a cell's chromosomes, and every time they reproduce that tail end gets one piece shorter, until the tail's gone? Then the cell can't reproduce correctly, and that's when aging begins. Do you know what kind of human cells don't lose pieces off that end, what kind don't start to die after a while? Cancer cells." Ami shook her head. "It's hopeless. Their own bodies betray them."
She paused for a second, then continued. "The only universal truth I've discovered is that we are kept from truly understanding the universe by our own natures. Even I, immortal though I am, am limited in my discoveries to things that can be translated into one of my five senses. It's useless to try anymore, because it's impossible that all the phenomena of the universe could even be conceived by my mind. What's the use in trying to understand everything, when I already know it's a hopeless quest." She held out her hands to push off from the edge of the pool as she approached it. "I'd always kept such thoughts in the back of my mind, hiding from them...but I just don't have the energy to stifle them anymore."
Serenity shook her again and Ami looked up at her queen. Were those tears in her blue eyes? She reached out and felt a faint pang of grief. "I'm sorry, Serenity. I don't really want to leave, I just can't hold on anymore. There's nothing left to hold on to." She patted Serenity's arm awkwardly. "It'll be all right."
She felt herself begin to fade away and fell back into the water, only this time it seemed to flow through her as well as around her. She saw Serenity above the surface, her mouth open as she said something, but the water rushed through her ears too loudly and Ami closed her eyes. She was just so tired...