Interlude: Ran
'What's a guardian character?' Amu had asked.
'The self you want to be. You wished for it, didn't you? "I want to be a different me." That's how I was born,' Ran had said, lying flat on her back in mid-air and smiling. She was always smiling, nothing really got her down. That hadn't changed. It wasn't faked.
Nothing would ever truly upset her, Ran had thought, and she'd been wrong. She'd found the exception all on her own.
"Ran-chan. Ran!"
That wasn't a worried voice. That was the fond, reassuring voice of her mama, on whose lap she'd fallen asleep. It failed to wake her up, and after that first failure there were no further attempts.
She hadn't woken up, but neither was she still asleep.
Warmth, comfort, love. Darkness. Ran stretched minutely, pushing her head into her mother's hands, scraping against her clothes. A deep sense of lassitude, of safety enveloped her. Last she had felt those hands, they'd been busy braiding her hair…
Not for any reason. Just because. It wasn't braided now.
Soon she'd have to wake up, but for now she treasured this simple existence, this happiness that Amu felt too embarrassed to seek. She felt as comfortable as she'd ever felt in her egg.
She'd never go back to that. Not when she could rest like this, smelling that perfume that was uniquely
mom.
It was a nice thought. A comforting thought. The best kind of thought for waking up to. She was a real girl now, in Miki's words. The first of her siblings to become one, but hadn't she always been first? Or was that Miki, this time? Her dazed mind couldn't say, and didn't care. She was happy to have caught up with Amu. She would have been equally happy if that had been Miki, or Su.
"Let me try," Miki's mischievous voice came. "Hey, Ran. It's lunchtime!"
She startled awake, staring blearily at Miki's grinning, upside-down face. The bluenette nodded smartly, giving their mom a thumb's up that looked like a thumb's down, and pulled herself back up on top of their bunk bed.
That, of course, meant Miki was still in her full-sized form. Giving her sister an unreserved smile in return, Ran took a moment to sleepily confirm their position.
Still in their 'bedroom' in the JPs barracks, of course. The room had started with eight bunk beds, four on each side of the spartan, rectangular room, but someone had dragged out the two outermost ones and swapped them for a commode, two chairs and a table. That was more luxury than most guests here ever got, even before Miki and Su had cooperated in covering every single bed with embroidery.
One of the pairs belonged to mom and dad. Dad wasn't here, but she wasn't worried; he'd be around. One pair belonged to her and Miki, and wasn't
that a change she had trouble wrapping her head around. Miki had taken the upper half. They'd yet to use it for sleeping, but—even the thought of having her lying there, like they were perfectly normal siblings?
She could feel her heart thumping. It made her want to smile, and cry, all at the same time. The end of the world had somehow been very good to her.
The bunk bed past that belonged to Amu and Utau, and Su, who still slept in her egg. The one across from it… she snickered to herself, at the childish demon's head drawings that Eru and Iru had plastered all over it. Those girls were a lot less annoying when they were too excited to taunt her, or bother her, and Miki's tips had made them excited, that was for sure.
"It's not really lunchtime, is it?"
"Not really." Miki 'hmm'-ed at her, glancing between Ran and the sketchbook she was holding. She'd shrunk maybe a little further, but was still taller than Ami at least. Unlike Ran, her 'little sister' didn't have the energy to stay full-sized all day. Not yet.
She'd cheer her on forever, of course.
"What are you drawing?"
"You want to see?" Miki smiled, and that was also new. She'd usually smirk, but the last two days she'd been really happy.
"Yes, please~"
Ran gave mama an excited grin. The three of them crowded around Miki's sketchbook, and—yes, the drawing Miki had made of them was good—but that wasn't why she was nearly crying. The three of them. Mom, and two daughters. A family of seven, nine if you counted Uta and Dia, and a family she was finally, honestly part of.
A family held together, as much as anything, by Amu. Who wasn't here.
Nothing short of a second end of the world could have broken Ran's excitement, and nothing would for days, but standing there like that—the much smaller Miki squeezed in between the two of them—she made a resolution. It was, maybe, the first true decision she'd made all on her own.
She still loved Amu most of all. She was the source of Ran's self, and Ran knew—
knew, in a way she hadn't before Exa had shown up—that they were closer than sisters, closer than twins. If it hadn't been for Amu, she would never have existed, but Amu had been lonely, had wanted to change and had wanted friends, and—
Huh. That was probably why the three of them were so strange, by shugo chara standards. She'd never thought of it that way… but Kiseki and the rest were
still wrong, she thought petulantly. It wasn't a betrayal of Amu to become exactly what she'd wanted them to be.
She'd help her family, and support them. Not as Amu's little dream self, but as Hinamori Ran, her cheerful, identical twin. They could still transform, but she wouldn't do just that, she'd support her as a
sister would. If she had to, she'd become the person Amu no longer had a chance to be.
Amu was gone, but she'd be back. Ran would be her place in the sun.
And, wow, she couldn't wait to pull 'twin' jokes in school. One day.
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A/N: Because, although this scene was sitting in the 'recap' doc for a little while, I see no reason to sit on it while I finish up the rest of this. Many thanks to @Snowfire, @Nero200, Coda and Shadow for helping me do that.
Oh. Also, Ran gains a motivation. I'm sure that won't matter very much.