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Kaguya is floating, rising through the sky, lighter than air. Two divine attendants hold her arms gently, their faces set in permanent, gracious smiles reminiscent of ancient paintings of the gods. Kaguya's mind is empty - only the sound of music fills her head. One attendant strokes her hand and explains, "this will make you forget your pain", as the other drapes a pure white cloak over her shoulders. The moon, that was once so distant, now fills her vision, close enough that she can make out its magnificent palaces and elegant towers. She turns her head slightly; the Earth has become a clouded marble in infinite space. A voice breaks through the fogginess of her mind - it's Sutemaru's voice, calling her by her nickname. "Takenoko!"
Kaguya feels a warm tear slide down her cheek. She has not forgotten.
Hours or years pass. Kaguya sits on the balcony of her room, gazing at the distant planet where she knows her love is. She lives in complete luxury - her room is beautiful, everything intricately shaped of pearl and alabaster - but she feels no admiration. Her clothes are somehow even more exquisite than those she wore in the palace, a pristine white and made of otherworldly materials, but she has no interest in them. The enchanting music that beckoned her back to the Moon now sounds jarring and unwelcome. Unsurprisingly, the attendants are quick to notice that something is not right, that Kaguya is not resuming her duties as a servant of the Moon. She is taken to the throne room.
Kaguya had lived her time on Earth with no previous memories other than her strong instinctual connection to the Moon, but now that she is returned to immortality, she remembers not only her human life, but also her divine one. She'd originally been sent to the Earth as punishment for committing a crime - diverging from her duties as a servant of the Moon. On Earth, so that she would not die instantly, she would then be found by a humble bamboo cutter who, upon discovering boundless riches alongside an infant Kaguya, would raise her as a princess, fitting of her divine status. Then, after suffering through the cruelty and pain of Earth, the Moon would take pity and bring her back where she belonged. In essence, this had played out exactly as planned, save for one important problem: Kaguya had found love. Love - such a wonderful, torturous thing, a soul-consuming experience that Kaguya had suddenly been robbed of, leaving her an empty husk of a person, and cold. So cold. Only the warmth of her tears reminds her that she is real and living.
Tsukuyomi, goddess of the moon, sits on the throne. It is a humble throne, slightly raised above the rest of the ground on simple marble steps, and yet all eyes are drawn to it, not excluding Kaguya's. Tsukuyomi commands their attention. She is in her anthropomorphic form, white hair shimmering and robes floating around her in pools of silk. Her eyes and mouth are pearl-white and glow gently. She watches as Kaguya is taken forward by attendants and left on her own in the middle of the room.
"What ails you, Kaguya?" Her voice is soft but clearly not human; it reaches the ears of every divinity in the room, but does not echo.
Kaguya lifts her head to respond, eyes dull and voice scratchy. "I fear there has been some sort of error in my ways, Tsukuyomi-sama. As hard as I try, I am still unable to forget my life on Earth."
"It was not your life, Kaguya," Tsukuyomi corrects her kindly. "Your life is here. You simply experienced the horrors of humanity through a corporeal body, and now you have been returned home. If you are plagued by trauma, do not worry. You are safe here. This suffering will fade away quickly."
Kaguya feels her heart stir a little at the goddess' words. Trauma? She recalls Sutemaru's warm embrace, his arms cradling her gently. "I do not wish to forget my experience. It was not all horror. I felt...things I have not felt before. I felt alive."
"You are mistaken, child. What you believe you felt will quickly dissipate. Feelings do not belong here, and will soon be replaced by duty. Your duty - to serve the Moon."
"I am not a child," Kaguya responds quickly. Her eyes flash with emotion at the thought of losing her love. "Please do not dismiss my feelings in this way. What I felt - what I feel - is real. I have no duty here that is more true than love."
"Love?" Tsukuyomi repeats slowly, and the court stirs. "We are gods. Immortal beings. We do not feel love - only mortals engage in such useless things. They live brief lives and die because of each other, then turn to us for help. Our duty is far above the whims of humans, Kaguya. We keep the universe stable, as it should be, because we are unaffected by such whims."
"I disagree," replies Kaguya, her voice rising. She can feel something brittle inside her, beginning to snap. Her eyes dart around wildly, taking in the members of the court - they all look at her with identical, smiling expressions. She feels a little nauseous. "You might say that we do not feel love, but I do. It is possible for us, for all of us, to have feelings. I cannot agree with your view of mortals - we are made in their likeness, and act just like them. How we look, speak and live are all inspired by humans." She feels her pulse thrum with energy.
"Kaguya, you must not look down on us in this way," Tsukiyomi chides, her tone completely calm. "While we may be worshipped by humans, we are fundamentally different. We are not held down by base desires and sins. Humans worship us because they themselves know that we are far above them. We are not their equals, or even in the same category of life form."
Kaguya's mind races with images of the people she met - the smiles, laughter, tears - each one with their own worries, needs and dreams. She looks to the side and sees the divinities of the court, watching her blankly. They are all the same, she realises. All lifeless. Nothing like the living, breathing, beautiful mortals she met back on Earth. And yet, their entire existence depends on the belief and worship of humans. Tsukuyomi's words appear again in her head - 'we are not their equals.' The brittleness finally snaps.
"Then what are we?" Kaguya cries, enflamed. "If not human, what are we? You call us gods, immortal beings, superior to the mortals on this planet. And yet!" she whips her head around, ebony hair cascading down her shoulders, and stares directly into Tsukuyomi's liquid eyes. "And yet," she continues, her voice barely a whisper, "that planet and its puny mortals are all you exist for. There is no higher purpose, no greater meaning for us, than the one mortals assign us. You may turn your head, and deign to see the truth, but I give it to you now, as one of YOU - we are no better than them. Nothing sets us apart. As they are ruled by us, we are ruled by them. As they make mistakes, we make mistakes. YOU made a mistake." Her voice breaks. "You showed me my humanity, bestowed it upon me, and now you do not understand why I resent you. How, after what I have lived, after meeting and loving the humans I have met and loved - how could I not resent you? You take me from the Earth, and you take away my life!"
Those final words are torn from her throat, and bring her to her knees, breath quick and sharp, heart pounding.
"See how weak I am," she murmurs. "This is human. All of me-" she lifts a hand to her face and lets it trail down her side - "is human. There is no mortal and immortal. There is just human. I may live a hundred years longer than my beloved, I may have knowledge of the universe that he could never understand, but I am human, as is he. I kneel before you, Tsukuyomi-sama-" a wave ripples through the surrounding crowd of pale-faced divinities at her direct address of the goddess- "as a human."
Tsukuyomi does not move. She is marble, an impossibly beautiful statue that even the most enlightened of humans could not create. And yet, Kaguya tells herself, they did. She is tranquil under Tsukuyomi's distant gaze. The memory of Sutemaru's smile fills her mind. There is no reason to hold back, in this court of cold and unfeeling beings. She lowers herself, her head to the ground, ethereal robes spread around her. "I kneel before you," she says, clearly even with her face down, "as I was taught by you, to beseech your favour and show my respect." There is a shift in energy in the court. Kaguya is not moved. They are wrong to assume that her resistance is over. "A behaviour you, in turn, learned from humans." She does not regret the words as they leave her mouth. She has told the truth. It's ironic - Tsukuyomi would never tell anything but the absolute truth, and yet this truth, she does not hear.
"Kaguya." Her voice reaches Kaguya's ears directly, quiet and loud at the same time. "Raise your head."
Kaguya raises her head. She feels the eyes of the entire court trained on her, like hawks. She ignores them.
"You believe that your time on Earth has opened your eyes. On the contrary, it has closed them." Her voice is soft, deceivingly gentle. "You have taken on the beliefs and weaknesses of humans, including their egocentricity. You forget your true place." A pale white hand slips out from underneath layered silk sleeves, and gestures to the crowd. Kaguya turns her eyes to them and sees them, a mass of silent, smiling divinities, perfect and beautiful, unmarked. "Here, among your kind. You serve the Moon - the involvement of humanity in your role does not change it. Your view has been narrowed; it once encompassed universes, and now sees only one planet." Her glossy, crescent-shaped eyes ripple with light. "You are right - I have made a mistake. I have failed you. I wrongly believed that you would learn of the cruelty of humankind, and gladly put it aside. Instead, you were easily led astray by your newfound 'feelings', even in the knowledge that they bring you agony and suffering." Despite herself, memories of the palace flash through Kaguya's mind: the pain, fear, and despair. Tsukuyomi's hypnotizing voice brings her back to the present. "The blessing of our kind, as immortals, is that we act in complete indifference. There is only one path: one of greater understanding of the human world as very much distinct from ours. Because we feel no emotion, we cannot suffer, only exist. This is how the universe is, was, will be. How you must be."
"You do not understand," Kaguya replies, frustration slipping through the cracks of her calm façade. "You have not felt what I have felt. Suffering and agony - they are the price humans pay, in exchange for happiness." She remembers the warmth of Sutemaru's hand in hers, and the cold that followed when they were torn apart. "Happiness is what humans live for. Suffering is a given. You cannot have dark without light, just as you cannot have life without death. The brevity of human life gives it its meaning. If we continue to live as we do, without death or pain, our existence becomes meaningless."
Tsukuyomi's benevolent smile does not falter. "It does not matter. The meaning of our being is an issue only mortals should concern themselves with. The universe owes no-one an explanation for their existence." Kaguya realises with a start that her tone has changed, and become a little deeper. "Meanwhile, it is clear that your mortal experience has changed your view beyond repair, so strongly that you were able to retain your memories upon your return to the Moon. Forgetting the mortal world has, traditionally, been an unconscious decision made by the returner's mind, in order to protect them from the pain the trauma they were put through in their human life. You asked the Moon to bring you back because you could not bear life any longer, but clearly, there was happiness in your suffering, too." She rises from her throne and floats down the steps, ephemeral as ever. "The court is dismissed."
At her words, the pearl-clad divinities in the room disperse, filing out through various doors in complete silence, save for the occasional swish of gauze. The doors click shut, and only the goddess remains, watching Kaguya. She draws closer and lifts the young woman to her feet with a gentle flick of her finger. "You cannot stay here."
Kaguya feels hope surge within her at the goddess' words. "Then I can return?"
Tsukuyomi's milky white eyes seem to crease a little. "Not in the way you imagine, Kaguya. This is not a choice made out of favour; it would be impossible for you to serve the Moon in your imperfect human state, and it is impossible for you to be terminated on this sacred planet." Kaguya feels a shiver go down her spine at the goddess' words - she knows Tsukuyomi's limpid humanoid form conceals incomprehensible power, given to her by the Moon itself as its sentient representative. Tsukuyomi would not even have to lift a delicate finger for Kaguya's existence to be erased entirely. "For your transgression, you will be punished as you initially were - you will be sent down to Earth and made to feel your own mortality. And," she continues, unmoved by Kaguya's evident joy, "you will be entirely separated from your immortal form. That is, you will live as a simple human. None of your prayers will be answered. The Moon will not come for you, and you will not benefit from its powers as you did in your times of need previously. You will keep all of your memories, and your mortal life will resume from when you left it. When your time comes, you will die, and your spirit will descend to the realm below. Do you understand?"
"I understand," Kaguya replies without hesitation. Her dark eyes shine with light. Tsukiyomi hums, and the girl suddenly disappears, leaving an empty spot that shimmers with magic. She has been teleported in an instant, back to the palace garden in the middle of the night. Her body suddenly feels heavier, more real - gone are the shimmering garments she wore in the moon palace, now replaced by her heavily brocaded silks. Not really hers, she thinks, as she pulls them off her body and lets them pool on the floor around her in an endless rainbow. She stops when only the soft inner garments are left, and she can truly breathe again. She glances around - the courtyard is desolate, illuminated only by the ghostly moonlight above her. Somewhere in the distance, lights are turning on and shouts can be heard - the palace guards, all its maids and attendants and servant boys, are beginning their search for the insolent girl who fled the Emperor. They will not find her. Kaguya looks up on more time at the moon, memorising every shadow on its surface, and sends a silent prayer of thanks into the sky. She is one of the measly humans now, forever bound to the Earth, far below its eternal divinity. The thought makes her smile.
The girl starts walking rapidly towards one of the smaller corridors of the garden, the one that she knows will lead her all the way to the side entrance that servants use to bring in goods from the market. Her pace increases, more and more until she's sprinting, hair streaming behind her, laughing joyfully. Her silhouette is small but distinct as it heads out of the palace, along the dark road, bare feet slapping the jagged ground. She feels the air fighting its way into her lungs, the sharp ache as her muscles exert themselves, the merciless wind wrenching tears from her eyes, but they do not bring her pain or regret - instead, she feels the comfortable weight of mortality, returned to her, how she always wanted it to be. Kaguya follows the road and diverges onto a worn footpath that leads into the hills, so old but so familiar, following her memories of Sutemaru's back around every corner. Somehow, she knows exactly where he is. She races up between the trees, her breath heavier as she climbs the hill, flashes of the view of the world sprawled beneath her revealing themselves between the trees. She doesn't stop to look - her destination is further.
Finally, she breaks through the trees out into a clearing , right on the crest of the hill. She stops for a second, her heart plunging with an indescribable feeling, as she recognises the figure stood motionless and alone in the middle of the clearing, his eyes turned up to the moon. How could she ever not recognise that strong back, the firm shoulders and sturdy frame? She lets herself catch her breath as she walks slowly towards him, grass swishing around her feet. The sound alerts Sutemaru and he turns to her, his eyes meeting hers. She smiles at the look on his face, one that perfectly mirrors her expression when she'd been allowed to return to Earth. She keeps walking, and he finally manages to take a hesitant step towards her, then two, then three, until they're both striding towards each other. They stop only a few centimetres apart.
"Takenoko," Sutemaru breathes, his eyes searching hers desperately as he slowly reaches one hand up towards her face. "Am I dreaming again?"
Kaguya leans into his touch and closes her eyes at the feeling of warm, callused skin. It feels so right that she wants to cry.
"I hope not," she replies softly, lifting up her own hand and intertwining it with Sutemaru's fingers against her cheek. Her unworked, pale hand contrasts with his tanned, rough one, and yet they fit together perfectly. He responds instantly, pulling her towards him until their faces are only a hair's breadth apart.
"Takenoko," Sutemaru repeats, his voice more stable now, wrapping his other arm around her back, his gaze steady on her face. "You've come home."
Kaguya's eyes finally fill with long-due tears, and she presses her face into his chest, letting him envelop her. "I'm home."
---
Somewhere very far away, a pair of opal eyes watches over the couple, before finally turning away, leaving them to themselves.
"If it is what you want," Tsukuyomi murmurs to herself, "then find happiness, child."