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In the living room, Homura fixes a bouquet of orange gerberas, just the right size and shades to complement the cozy decor in Madoka's house. Everything here is so malleable, like drawing with sticks across the shore; she just has to make sure the tide never comes to these stories told in sand. She moves her hair away, a faint smile of pride crosses her face, brushing off the thought. It wasn't going to be so easy for that determined girl to crash the plans she set in motion, but that's a problem for another her. Always has been.
Music plays when she blinks; a soft waltz comes from nowhere, flooding the room.
Madoka just watches her, pushed against the sofa by a distant force, like the moon dragging the waves. That force is soft, familiar. Both are silent, letting the music wash over them. Madoka wants to talk, but doesn't know about what. Homura knows exactly what about, but not where to begin.
“I'm sorry, Homura...” She closes her hands, the words leaving her lungs like air from a balloon, "but I don't know how to dance."
“Then I’ll teach you, Madoka,” Homura replies, overflowing with confidence. Twelve years of looping time are enough to get down some basic figures.
The world revolves around the two, and Madoka vacillates, in the middle of the hesitation waltz, about this dance.
“S-sure,” Madoka says, looking around, resting her hands on the cushions, “I guess it could be fun, heh.” The air tastes sweet, like pumpkin pies.
Homura offers her hand, a crooked smile peeks through then quickly flees. Her eyes spark twice, once when Madoka takes it and gets up, twice when the gentle light of the sunset roosts on Madoka's pink hair. The sunbeams always knew that was their place.
“Are we doing it right?” She asks, looking around and then down, “We could break something, or fall.”
“Don’t worry, Madoka” Homura tightens her hold, bringing the girl closer. So close, “just follow me, our hearts will lead.”
She brings Madoka to the center of the living room and smiles. One, two, three, they’re dancing, first slow, taking their time. Starting with box steps, Homura leads with her left foot moving forward, and Madoka follows. Glancing down at the tiled ceramic floor, and turning in the same tile until Madoka feels comfortable. One, two, three. The world becomes smaller, just the two of them in the ceramic islet, and they both go with the wordless rhythm of the music. There's no universe outside, there never was, only two halves of a binary light going round and round, hope and love circling around.
As a circle they go. Step, tap, and to the right. Madoka is awestruck, looking at Homura’s eyes, but regret churns beneath, wrinkling her face, and she feels so wrong about it. She can’t keep up with Homura’s rhythm. Something boils inside her stomach; it's like she can't do it, not in the living room of her house, not like this, not right now. There's nothing she wants more than dancing with Homura, but it feels profane, it can’t be here, it can’t be now, it can’t be like this. The world is spinning, round and round. Names appear and disappear, sharper colors, magic weapons, lights and shadows, all things mixed in. As the sun dazzles her eyes, she feels the warmth as a hug, the hug of someone she used to be.
And Homura knows, she knows so much and says so little. Step, tap, tap, and to the right. Not even the worst of calamities could disrupt their rhythm. The girl leading the dance tightened her movements and slowed the pace; Madoka was confused, wondering if her expression was getting on Homura's nerves. If that was the case, she knew how to put a wall behind those fiery eyes.
"How's Japan treating you, Madoka?" she says, the voice echoing with a syncopated rhythm. Her footsteps quickened and slowed at an unpredictable pace, confusing the girl.
Madoka is so focused on not falling and following the rhythm that she hardly registers the shift in the music and how it follows Homura’s voice.
"It's..." she looks aside, the world comes back to form, no more sharp colors, no more blue, red, yellow or purple, only the muted orange of the sunset, "It’s cozy…" She shifts her weight, and for a second, Homura loses the lead in the dance. "Feels like home.
Homura's heart skips a beat. She nods and takes over again, and spins and twists, thinking about Madoka's home, about her own home. That sacred place, the last sanctuary of the self, the start and finish of any journey. Madoka’s arms. Her only home. Where her heart is. Going round and round till eternity asks her to turn off the lights before leaving. But she couldn't leave, she couldn’t end.. This was the last breath of her journey; this was her home. That homesick yearning crushed her heart when she realized. How could she not figure it out sooner? And to Madoka to remind her of the evident tells. For all she thinks and plans, always two steps ahead, to miss something so obvious, how embarrassing!
Homura only wants to go home.
The music grows louder and louder, in conjunction with Homura´s thoughts. She steps and hesitates, taps and to the right. Oh, the sight of her pink eyes and soft skin, rooted in her mind since the cherished day when everything changed. But nothing has to change anymore, not for Homura Akemi, not for her life with Madoka Kaname. She saw that face so many times for the first time, her heart would vaporize in a cloud of love and pain if she had to do it again. No more lunar cycles in this night sky. Homura’s love is a bundle of stubborn willow roots, breaking mud, dirt, concrete, hopes, and reality itself if it has to. That tree is hers and only hers. Its roots, clinging to the heart of this altered reality, will not be bound by the roars of the earth or the heavens. Floods may snap the trunk in half, fires scorch its branches to ashes, and beasts tear the leaves to shreds, but the roots will endure and sprout anew, standing firm in the wasteland of its own creation.
Both of them dance and twirl, with Homura leading with a fierceness that burns through her eyes. She pulls Madoka along with her, and what began on their little ceramic island turns into a dance that fills all, they both laughing and spinning. Tap, tap, tap, and around the room. A celestial dance of the two. The red eyes of Homura looking for the eternal eclipse. For the sun shining on the willow roots with a light so kind it might hurt, for the moon to drag the waves at her pleasure. Looking to the day those astral bodies dance in harmony across the cosmos.
Everything fell into place, she was willing to sacrifice whatever it took to go home, to see a world where Madoka could simply be. Everything she could do, she’s done, and then a little more. All that journey takes her to this universe of her own doing, to the piece of the Law of Cycles resting on her, a profane theft. She's the chaos who stole the order, the catastrophic ending that never ended, just started on and on again. The unholy willow whose roots curved so much over reality that they could never let go, twisting and snapping in place. The waves, driven by the full moon, are closing in on themselves, trapping the fury of the seas. She broke the circle and made a spiral.
“You’re a natural.” Madoka spins and laughs and trips and spins again, any doubt long gone since they started to dance with that fast-paced rhythm, and she feels free again.
But Homura doesn't respond; it's clear to her that Madoka isn’t free, and never will be, and all that she has done and ever gonna do will just trap that piece of sunshine in the cage of her dreams, because what are wishes but tumors, furrowing the fabric of reality, and her wish twisted so much she was warped with it. There's no world where her desire and a free Madoka could coexist, and there’s no keeping the sun in a glass bottle.
She wasn't just Madoka Kaname anymore; she may never be. She keeps her face, her voice, her looks. She’s still got a smile so bright it could warm the whole room, but she wears it like a child's costume, many years too small.
Homura Akemi had kept her looks, her wits and her love, but everything else was shed and left behind, to rot under the moonlight so many timelines ago.
They were more, and they were less. Just opposite sides of a coin, never to see eye to eye. For that reason alone, they will be enemies.
One last gleam of sunset before the thundering night. The sea is rising, the sky is cloudy, the earth rumbles. But they both keep dancing, even with her taller size, Homura feels so small alongside Madoka, like a feeble, long shade against the radiance. Even so, she’s still holding, still dancing, still with the one, two, three. The tide rises, and the tide falls. And she clings to her like she could strangle herself in those hairs, let that breath drown her, follow each one of her steps. Step, tap, and to the right. Is this right? Step, tap, tap, and to the right. How many days until this astral phenomenon is undone? Step and hesitate, tap, then to the right. How many eternities can she have in these few seconds? Tap, tap, tap, and around the room.
Homura only wants to see Madoka be.
”No, this isn't right.”
Madoka was startled by the voice of Homura coming from nowhere, at a pitch her ear couldn't stand. Her feet slipped, falling backwards. When looking around, it's like time just stopped. Before her, a circle shatters into a spiral, a damned spiral of desire that brought her here, but she’s got elsewhere to be. She has stars in Andromeda to hug, galaxies to wander through, and moons to dance with. But not right now, not like this. Not in this endless fall forward down the spiral of Homura’s desire.
Like a missed beat in the tempo. Like Alpherantz vanishing from Andromeda. Like a wheel missing a spoke. Just the moon ringed by the sun, encroached by the fiery walls of a corona full with spiral patterns.
Homura catches her, and time keeps going. Music keeps flowing. The world grows big again, bigger than she could ever remember. They were enemies; there was no other way to be, both dancing, both falling, both hoping, both loving, both dreaming, both lonely.
Madoka wants to cry, but she doesn't know why.
Homura wants to cry, but she doesn't remember how.