Blue Jeans Factory

Cats and Demi-gods Part II

2009-12-05T18:01:21Z

Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. And don't read if you're not old enough.

Please read: Part I - Mortality before continuing with this.

Title: Cats and Demi-gods
Chapter: Part II - The Scent of Sorrow
Universe: Rurouni Kenshin
Rating: R
Genre: Drama/Fantasy/Romance
Version: AU

It was eighty years later that she found him in a snow field, drenched in blood that was, once again, not his own. In his arms was the corpse of a human woman. She guessed from the smell the scene that would greet her long before she ever saw his hunched back. Yet, she was still surprised by what she saw when she came upon the field.

Grief.

It was as powerful as a touch. The cloying scent of it came off of the human woman in his arms, but even as he held the dead it could not latch onto him. "Fool," she had overheard him whisper as she treaded ever tighter circles around them, closing in with careful sweeping glances.

Yes, she had agreed thoughtfully as her feline eyes landed on his back. He was a fool to grieve so for a human. They lived and died so easily, their existence so brief. They were frail and weak, and she knew that better than anyone. Once she had almost been like them and had loved a father who had been no different.

But she was different now.

Not ever again would she be human, and yet, she was still too unskilled to call herself a true, full demon. Her tail swished in the cold air and her paws made neither sound nor prints upon the snow. It was the one thing she had learned and she took pride in it as she made one last wide circle around the greiving pair before settling in a spot to better watch his back for him.

He had saved her once, after all. She owed him this small moment of grieving, if nothing else. Her eyes skimmed the snow again, and she snapped into attention as her gaze fell on something that was not just snow or landscape. She tensed as she recognized another body a little ways off. At first she had puzzled at the feathers but in the end, it was not a bird she saw but a humanoid man with torn wings and a deep cut.

The guise that camouflaged him was melting away like a chipped shield and Kaoru blinked at the strange overpowering scent that came upon her like a wave, the smell of crumbling Power.

She tensed all the more when her once-savior rose and walked over to the being that laid in the snow. It was still alive, she realized with alarm. Whatever it was had began to laugh, and it was a rich, deep sound that was neither sinister nor human. "I won't be the last. This war has just begun," the thing said.

Her blood-haired savior cut into the other's vocal cords, twisting and pulling the blade out in a painful, precise and silencing move. His opponent gagged as fresh blood splattered onto snow. Fresh golden blood that seemed more like light than life force and more like metal than Power. The unfamiliar scent was sweet and delicious, something that made her feel as if she had smelt it before. It had the power to make her mouth water and her throat dry up with thirst. Yet, she made no move and only watched as her once savior expertly ripped the rest of the head off and raised it to eye-level. Lines of liquid gold fell from the detached head as the hair seemed to shimmer like snow beneath sunlight. "Tell your maker that I will be coming for him," her savior said in a different voice than the one he had employed when they had first met and he had saved her life.

The head could not answer and before long, the body and the deliciously smelling liquid that must have been the creatures blood, disappeared. Only the red prints of the dead female human remained with winged imprints in the snow to be the only telling of a story the humans would call superstition.

"I know you're there," he called out to her.

Her ear flicked but otherwise she held perfectly still as she watched him. He could have meant someone or something else, though she did not smell anything else except the scent of death. The being he had killed was scentless as he had been, it had surprised her to see it - or was it a him? - but it was not demon.

Her savior was also not demon, even if he looked feral now.

"You don't have the killing intent, but I do not like to be watched." He warned her quietly. She heard every word but still did not move. Her once-savior turned her way and cocked his head. "Is this a game of hide and seek?" he asked. His voice was harsh, almost impatient. She thought it strange how much younger he acted and how much smaller he seemed now that she was not looking up at him from the floor. His eyes were also red-rimmed from tears, clear as they now were, the evidence of a seemingly human heart could not be so easily concealed.

"If it is," she finally said when she intuitively felt his impatience began to shift towards violence. "I have obviously lost already." She assured him the best way she knew how, by admitting defeat.

He turned to her fully then as she came from under the low, snow covered bushes. Snow coated her fur and thin icicles hung on her whiskers. She watched him wearily as he stared back at her, the widening of his eyes showed he was surprised though there were no other hints.

"A demon? Who are you?" he asked her as she stopped by the shadow of the lone tree before the shrine.

She watched him for a long moment to see if he would recognize the color of her ears or the fading patterns on her tail, but he did not. "You saved me once," she finally answered. "Decades ago," she added. "My mortal name was Kaoru. And you, savior? Have you a name?"

He looked at her a bit dumb-founded, until she started to feel the urge to turn human and throw a shoe at his head. It was getting to be a bit insulting. "Kaoru?" he finally said, surprised and then looked away wearily. "Kaoru," he repeated as if a memory flickered faintly in his head as he turned back to look at her who was now fully transformed. "I am known by humans as Battousai." He finally answered her softly, turning to head back to the dead woman in the snow.

"And what are you?" she asked with a tilt of her head, watching his back bend as he lifted the corpse. "I know you are not a demon, despite your colorings. You are not a human either, for you do not carry the scent."

He gave her an assessing stare over his shoulder, cool and in control. "We are not alike, but it does not make me any less a demon. Humans believe us no different."

"Humans call anything different from their expectations and experiences gods or demons," Kaoru said pointedly, as he looked down at the human he held. She watched him but did not probe further, even when she wanted to. Now was not the time. She had received his name, and it was enough. "Battousai," she tested the title instead, as he turned to go. "If ever we run into each other again and you need my help, you need only ask it." Kaoru told him as he began to walk away. "I owe you a life's debt, after all."

"Is that all you came to tell me?" he asked skeptically as he looked to her again. His eyes were sadder this time, but he restrained himself in her presence.

She hesitated. "I smelled grief," she finally answered, carefully watching his non-reaction. "And it was like a touch. I had never smelled such strong emotions on a human before, but I was wrong to think it was impossible," she answered as her eyes flickered to the body with a combination of pity and curiosity. She sensed him drawing into himself, could see the faint light of power around his form, dimming as the snow covered them both. It was time to go, she knew it instinctively. "Until we meet again, Battousai," she said softly. Without waiting for an answer she turned as well and leapt into the shadows, only to come out in the midst of Aokigahara*.

She had scented him, and given him the message she had long wished to give. She was not powerful, but she was not mortal. Kaoru had meant what she had said after all. She owed him a life's debt and she had no qualms about him killing demons.

She had her own hunt to deal with, but the offer was given and now all she needed was to wait for him to collect.

She looked over her shoulder, almost expecting him to follow. He did not. "Battousai," she murmurred to herself as she turned back to the forest with a swish of her tail.

"We shall meet again."

---

She met a man on the road one day. He was in a great deal of pain when their paths crossed. "Who are you?" he asked her when the evening dimmed around them and her lantern swayed in the wind.

"I am Kaoru," she told him. She stepped forward and tilted her head. "Would you like some help?" she asked. "My house is not far from here." Her eyes trailed to the dark stain on his haori as his foot slipped against the dirt ground, wet with his blood, but she did not raise her lantern nor wrinkle her nose at the rich iron smell of his blood. She did not blink at him stumbling to right himself, struggling to keep upright.

"Why?" he asked through gritted teeth, swaying in the wind like the end of a wind chime.

"You remind me of someone," she answered just as he collapsed forward. Her light was his fading vision as her feet came into view.

He was unconscious for a day, but woke on the afternoon of the next. He had had a slight fever, but it had not been as terrible as his loss of blood. She had carefully sutured his wounds, but she was never certain, when it came to humans, who would live of those she helped.

His first word had been a quiet gasp, and so she fed him water enough for him to speak. "Who are you?" and "Where am I?" would have been what she had been expecting, but he introduced himself instead. "I am Kamiya. Kamiya Sousuke." He told her while his eyes scanned the room for danger and his body tensed under the hand she laid upon the bump of his shoulder, outlined by the futon.

"I am Kaoru," she told him once more. "You are at my house. We met on the road just outside and you had collapsed."

He was silent for a long moment. "Are you all by yourself?" he asked gravely. She did not answer but his frown deepened. "I could be a criminal, or rob you. You are a young lady, it cannot be proper for you to help out a stranger on your own." He turned his head away, as if ashamed for both of them that he was in this room without chaperons.

Kaoru only smiled at him, even if he refused to look at her with his stern eyes. It was not yet time to tell him that she lived alone as well. "If you were a criminal," she told him instead. "You would not raise such an alarm at my helping you out."

He turned his head this time to give her a weary scowl and he would have continued to scold her for her words, but he was too exhausted by then and was unconscious before he could open his mouth. "Humans," she mused as she brushed aside a stray hair. "So fragile," she added with a wasteful sigh.

He got better under her care. She had been the daughter of a medicine man for awhile, after all. It had been a means to make money for her father and herself when they had travelled everywhere. Helping others, Kaoru found it brought her closer to the memories of those years when her father still lived.

When he was up to it, she brought Sousuke food, which surprised him in that there was always meat from wild game and hearty vegetables that he guessed were from her own garden. It still tasted horrible though, as if she'd never learned how to cook properly even with the variety of foods she brought him. But he ate it nonetheless.

She had leaned into him many times while she checked his wounds, and though she usually did it when he was asleep, he woke once or twice during her ministrations. She never smelled of soft perfume or heavy incense when she got close, but it was always a familiar odor that he had not expected to smell on any woman. It was the scent of the wild and the wind and the earth and the forest. Her face always greeted him when he woke, and he usually knew her presence was there from his own dreams. As quiet as a shadow she would sit and watch over him, and he would dream of the forest and the mountains when he slept whenever she was there.

There was also something strange about her eyes. He noticed that when he would wake for longer times and note the exotic color of them. It was not a color he had ever seen on anyone.

It was not often their gaze would meet in the daylight hours. Darkness often blinded him when he usually woke, and he never stayed awake long enough that first week to truly observe or remember anything too clearly. But as he got better and remembered more, he remembered one afternoon, with faint light in the distance, he had opened his eyes to watch her pull away. Their eyes had met while the sunlight was just starting to shyly pour into the dark room. He saw then, in the pale and feeble light, that she had strange, alien blue eyes, framed by shadows.

It was not the color of wood or of earthwarm browns, not of honey nor of a black midnight sky, or of any shades he had seen of the people he had met throughout his life. It was indigo blue like deep, stormy oceans and dark lagoons. Those eyes were intense and fathomless and they sometimes made him uneasy when she looked at him, as if they were trying to enchant him. If she had not saved his life, he might have thought her possessed or meant him harm, though he had trouble reading the expressions that lay in her gaze.

It made him distinctly uncomfortable at the wrongness that she was the only other person in the house with him. When he had found out, he had tried to leave, but the action opened old wounds that were too new for such sudden motion and she had scolded him instead for his foolishness.

"Who do I remind you of?" he asked her one morning, when he had been well enough to go outside. Her form was a pale shadow on the white linen sheets while he watched her hang the laundry in her yard.

She glanced at him over her shoulder, a bit surprised by his voice. Just as quickly though, her gaze slid away. He sensed that she knew her eyes made him uncomfortable. "You said, when we first met, that you helped me because I reminded you of someone." He prompted her when she did not answer right away. "Who?" he implored, wanting to believe she was human and real and like himself.

A pause ensued at his question and he wondered if he had over-stepped his bounds. "You remembered?" she said at last as she bent to take out another sheet. He saw her mouth straighten into an expression that could only be called loneliness as she turned to look over the wall surrounding her courtyard. "My father," she finally answered, her eyes still averted but she did not turn her back to him to hide the expression on her face. "You reminded me of my father," she clarified. "He died a very long time ago."

Ashamed that he brought up such sad memories to his hostess and savior, Sousuke remained silent for the rest of the day in Kaoru's presence.

---

The graveyard may seem like the perfect place to meet a demon, but he was surprised to see the white of her kimono as she turned her head his way. "Battousai," she said as her eyes averted to the side.

He stilled at her naming him with such familiarity and certainty. There was not a question in her infliction and yet her face was as unfamiliar as any other.

How could a demon know with such certainty his human title? He had killed all things, demons or humans or the soldiers of the other side that hunted his footsteps. They knew who he was and they had all been erased from the plains of this world. He had only ever met but one...

"Kaoru," he finally said with certainty that it could be no other. She had changed, from the half-transformed demon he first met and the demon form she used to greet him with later. This was her full human disguise, without the slanting cat eyes and fanged teeth that cut her tender human-like lips while she struggled between worlds.

"Why are you here?" she asked as her eyes finally rose to meet his.

"I smelled grief," he answered. "I did not know that demons could grieve until I met you."

Her eyes shimmered like the deep sea beneath moonlight. Dark and deep and human-like, but still unreadable. He had never seen demons who had such eyes either, as if the demon inside her was a physical being only and held no sway over her human heart. In a way, they were similar in this one thing, if nothing else could tie them.

"I wish I didn't know how," she finally said with a voice that did not break like her eyes did beneath his eyes. Her shuddering breath came out in a puff of white in the space between them, evaporating like smoke and ghosts.

I am too busy studying to write, so here's some quotes from real authors

2009-10-25T23:19:05Z

The book I'm currently reading was published in 2004. Because it is a non-fiction and deals with political issues, time does matter:

The quote of the day is from Stokely Carmichael, in 4/1967, during an anti-war demonstration (Vietnam) concerning the military draft and Black people. It was mentioned specifically in an essay by Arundhati Roy, in her "An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire". The essay concerned race issues in America that permeates into its policies dealing with the rest of the world.

Before I write the quote however, in order to understand better what Roy is pointing out and Carmichael is talking about, let me explain how the statistics work for, what Roy dubs, the "poverty draft" into the military - in this case, specifically African Americans.

They are pretty disturbing, so you have been warned.

First off, African Americans make up only 12% of the U.S. population. You might already know this, but that's why they're a minority. However, they also make up 21% of the total armed forces and 29% of the U.S. Army. Affirmative action working hard here. The essay also points out that nearly 4 million Americans have lost the right to vote because they are convicted of felony charges. Of those 4 million, 1.4 million are African Americans (13% of all voting-age Black people cannot vote). Oh, and Roy specifically said this:

"For African Americans there's also affirmative action in death. A study by the economist Amartya Sen shows that African Americans as a group have a lower life expectancy than people born in China, in the Indian State of Kerala (where I come from), Sri Lanka, or Costa Rica. Bangladeshi men have a better chance of making it to the age of sixty-five than African American men from here in Harlem."

Now that we know what the context of the quote I'm about to post is, here's the quote of the day, which I thoroughly enjoyed the irony and language of:

"[The military draft is] white people sending Black people to make war on yellow people in order to defend land they stole from red people."

That was. once again, referencing the Vietnam war, which Roy then links to be not so very different from the ~~Vietnam~~ Iraq one.

----

On a side note that is far less serious, I'm mostly through the fourth season of Supernatural. And it's fantastic. Not AS great as Season 3 which made me laugh SO hard (and adore Dean's character more - not just his rugged good looks, mind you) but god, there are definitely episodes I LOVE in S4. Memorable scenes include:

1) Bipolar Teddy with "Lollipop disease"
2) The slash comments Sam and Dean made when they found out about "Supernatural", the book series, and the fandom that follows it. OMG, that was so LOL!

Favorite quote from Bobby (got to love Bobby!):

"You stupid, stupid son-of-a-bitch! Well, boo-hoo! I'm so sorry your feelings are hurt, Princess. Are you under the impression that family's supposed to make you feel good? Bake you an apple pie, maybe? They're supposed to make you miserable, that's why they're family!"

Cats and Demi-gods Part I

2009-09-13T17:29:46Z

Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. And don't read if you're not old enough.

Title: Cats and Demi-gods
Chapter: Part I - Mortality
Universe: Rurouni Kenshin
Rating: R
Genre: Drama/Fantasy/Romance
Version: AU

The first time she met him was three hundred years ago.

He was not known as he was now. Man called him other names then, but he never told her what those names had been. She had been too preoccupied with other things to ask anyway, newly reborn as she had been and completely vulnerable when he had saved her. Perhaps she might have been lucky that she was not in the Below when the change had occurred, despite it being her birth place. It was the place where her mother had died for a crime her father never told her in any detail about, though they too bore the punishment for it.

They had bound her father's powers and made him mortal because of it after all, which was a death sentence in its own way. A different type of bitter punishment in comparison to death in the Below, but death nonetheless. She too was a part of her mother's and father's punishment, though she did not know the depths of it all until much later. Her burden was not like her father's. The purpose, after all, was not only to make her suffer but to make him suffer the more in the knowing of it.

They had cursed her to lose the seal they placed upon her human back upon his death, this much she knew. To die when he died, was what they were told, linked as the seal was to her father's death. They had carved it into her to remind them both for as long as they lived, marking her for the End before she could truly remember the Beginning.

A demon, long used to claws and teeth, her father had been a great fighter. His powers and his pride were only taken from him when they placed him into a human's body. It was weak and ill and old. Above all else, it was Mortal.

They were lucky though, because he could fight with a sword, as well. It had been his weapon of choice as a demon - a strange thing too that he did not only rely on the brutality of his nature. This unusual skill lengthened his mortal life - a blessing and a curse in its own way. And he taught her the skill as well. At least, he did what he could with his weakening limbs as the years passed while she tried to learn with her unchanging, miniature form. "If humans do not kill me, mortality will," he had warned her wearily when he started to teach her the art. "Yet, I'd chose the more worthy adversary."

She was his daughter, and if he could make her live one day more, he would. It was a strange thing for a demon to have aquired, this type of loyalty. Sometimes, when she asked him about emotions and the crime that sentenced them all, her father would laugh wearily and shake his head. "You would not understand," he would say. And it sounded, as she aged, as if he did not want her to know.

He was right though. She didn't understand. She had only been a hatchling then and pain was much of what she remembered of the Below. From it, she had gained something that was not quite a mortal's body and a seal that disabled both her ability to grow as a human and a demon.

For years they were forced to travel because she could not age while her father could only age. It was dangerous on ther road, but if they had stayed anywhere too long, the humans they knew would also become too dangerous. As long as her demon was sealed, she could still be easily killed like him. And so she learned about the aging of Man as she watched her father's hair thin and whiten and his skin, that was not his skin, whither.

But her father taught her, at least, what he could. He taught her how to run with her small, short legs and how to land from a great height, for a human child. He taught her how to climb trees and fish in the river with her small, unchanging hands. Yet, they both knew the day would come when they would find an old man and a young child dead, side by side in some unknown place at some unknown time.

And so they travelled, till he was too ill to travel. They struggled to a secluded place in the mountains, so it would be harder for people to find them or notice her ungrowing body. She watched his hair fall away and his body become thinner and weaker, no matter what she fed him or how much he slept. She watched and the days went too quickly by, and one day she woke to her stomach growling. It was not that strange, but she had slowly noticed her appetite growing. She cared for her father when she could, but she was beginning to find herself always so hungry and tired and weak herself.

The weaker he grew, the weaker she grew.

One night, she woke without remembering falling asleep. It had been going on for the last few days, but it still startled her to open her eyes to the realization that she had closed her eyes without notice. Her stomach grumbled, it was the only thing it seemed to know how to do anymore.

"You awake?" her father's voice rasped, making her jump a little in surprise.

"I'll go get food," she said once she got ahold of herself.

"The time is coming," her father's voice told her brokenly, stopping her from leaving. "I must tell you while you still have the strength to listen." Her stomach grumbled a reply and he chuckled a little. It was weak and dying, like him. She did not protest, for as young as she looked and as scared as she was, she was not so young in human years and she had long lived with fear.

Tears still gathered in her eyes, but the darkness kept her father's mortal eyes blind and his mortal nose senseless to her grief. Yet, he knew nonetheless. A blind man can learn to live without his sight, so too her father had learned to live without the things that once defined him to be more than Man.

"They told me you would die with me," her father said at last. "I had believed them. Especially after they told me that if I killed you myself, the curse would be broken and I would be sent back to the Below." She looked to her father than with wide-eyed surprise, failing to repress a shudder at the name of her birth place. "I couldn't do it," her father said softly. "I thought about it a million times, because I was a demon, but this human body houses a human heart. And as I watched you age..." He paused as his voice trailed.

She blinked, because she did not grow old. How could her father see her age? Sometimes his words puzzled her.

"You have eyes like your mother, did you know that?" he finally said. "Not the same right now, because they are human eyes. The expression though, it is the same. As if there exists something else one should be aware of, other than Power." Her father's voice grew wispier as he spoke and her heart quaked at the sound. She was suddenly terrified of him dying, of what he was saying to her. The sureness of his passing was a suddenly very real weight upon her shoulders.

"I know what they wanted now, child." Her father sounded urgent again after a short pause, his breath at his throat. "You must run from here..." his wizened hand suddenly grasped her wrist, surprising her with its accuracy and touch, though its grip had lost all its strength. "You-you will not die with me," he weazed. "You-you will become Demon once more. But you must not return to the Below or let them touch you. No one can protect you there nor here. So you must run! They will know when I have died and they will come for you--"

Her stomach rumbled.

"You will change and it will be painful, child." Her arm shook till his hand could no longer hold onto her. "You must not change here. Forty years of demon growth with the onslaught and you will be utterly vulnerable! You must run! You must run! You must...you... must..."

His chant faded to silence as his last breath escaped him in the midst of his warning. He did not even sigh as his body slumped. Her mouth opened to a soundless cry of grief as the seal broke the same moment his heartbeat stilled.

---

The first taste she had was of blood. Her blood. It flooded into her sensitive mouth as her human baby teeth fell out, one by one, replaced by two rows of fangs pushing their way out of her gums. Her whole body ached as she writhed and contorted her body as her bones and organs felt as if they were exploding inside of her. She was paralyzed despite her futile attempts to struggle to the door, though her body twisted on its own as it tried to escape the inescapable pain.

Her father told her to run. His voice chanted in her head until it became her own. It screamed at her to run.

But she could not even crawl away.

She could only feel as her human bones snapped and stretched and grew to the length and size it was supposed to be. It was denser, thicker and heavier than that of the mortal child's skeleton that she had worn for decades. Her muscles shredded and healed and shredded again, trying to keep up with her skeletal growth. Her skin tore and her hair fell out, clumps landing onto the ground around her. Her back arched as her spine elongated, new nerves coming to life as old ones died in burning waves. Even her blood was escaping her and her sight turned to darkness as red rivulets of tears, the only ones she could produce, trailed down the sides of her temples and ran into her rapidly retreating hairline.

Her body was rejecting every piece of mortal flesh in the most excruiating manner. She would scream except that her vocal cords were destroyed while she cut her lips and tongue against teeth she did not yet know how to use. Her body burned, down to her finger tips as claws pushed its way out of the skin beneath her finger nails.

Her spine continued to grow, the sharp tip pushing out till it reached passed her knees. She could only wheeze as her lungs shuddered and her heart thundered louder and faster in her ears. She was growing new eyes quickly, in a nauseating and dizzing manner. She didn't know, and didn't want to know, where her human eyes went.

The first thing that came back was her ability to taste. Blood that was like iron in her mouth was suddenly sweeter, as if honey was added though the iron was still there. It lingered but it no longer revolted her. The second was smell, though gradual in its recovery as it became more and more acute, it also rapidly becoming overpoweringly so. Then, it was sight. The world was more and more painful to look at every time she blinked as she saw it clearly for the first time in the darkness. Her eyes though didn't know what to focus on and she felt even more nauseous than before as they flew about, never fully under her control.

Blessed darkness though, nonetheless, for sunlight would surely have burned her new eyes to nothing once more.

The darkness still hurt her, despite it all. New claws dug into the floor boards as her body alternated between too hot and too cold while she fought for relief from the agony. Her transformation would not wait for her to adjust and continued quickly still. Her clawing only brought her more discomfort as her bones shifted when they met resistance, but she could not stop the instinctive act. Slowly, for it felt like eternity, her wheezes became whimpers and then grunts and finally, when she could, scraping her teeth against the bittersweet taste of wood, she screamed. She screamed and screamed as her vocal cords were returned to her, the last and final sense to be given back to her.

A sudden shock jolted through her body as her transformation was completed and she slumped, finally, blissfully, into unconsciousness.

---

She woke up naked and prostrate to the feel of cold steel tracing the line of her spine.

"You awake?" a sneering, familiar voice greeted her.

Her fur bristled...

Fur?

"Half transformed," the voice continued. "You really don't have any control yet, do you?"

There was laughter and her ears flicked in reaction to the harshness of the sounds that pierced through her. Did her ears ever flick before? The voices pounded at her skull and she could smell them. It was a mingling, cloying scent of familiar things that clogged up her throat. She coughed and wiggled her nose, sharp teeth scrapping against the floor when she opened her sore lips.

"You're healing faster than I thought you would," the voice continued. "Which is good, because I'm going to enjoy this longer, by the looks of things." Then she was introduced to another type of pain as a fistful of her hair was grabbed and her neck was strained as a warm, heavy weight was placed at her back. Her tail flicked wildly before that too was grabbed. It was no less painful or continuous as they took their time with her newly sensationalized body, but it was different...

Now, at least, she had a voice to scream with and eyes to cry with.

---

It could have been worse.

She could have been killed when he had found the demons beginning the ritual of devouring a female. They might have just let her live, for such ceremonies were never specific on whether or not the female survived. Usually they didn't. Female demons were rarer than males and impregnating one was something desireable and somewhat of a social status, no matter how undesireable the mating or the mate would be. But demons were known for their brutality for a reason, and Power could be earned in varies ways and in different forms.

They still might have just killed her for the fun of it...

After all, demon killing still granted benefits of its own. It was not entirely unheard of that a group of male demons would rape and then devour their female prey. Sucking the mental and physical strength out of another powerful being had its own added bonuses and females usually contained more powers, mostly latent, than males. She had hers just restored to what it should be, and she was told, while they took it, that it had tasted tender and unblemished.

It was luck that saved her that night.

Her change had released a large amount of demon energy. If it were not for the seal and the stranger's location to her own, she might never have made it. He also hunted demons and felt her seal release in all its dark hunger. It took him longer to reach her than her own kind, and though he was a natural enemy, by then his work would not have mattered to her.

Killing her kind?

They had long stopped being her kind. She hated and despised them instead. They had killed her family, cursed her into a human child's body, forced her back into her own demon one and then tortured her in a ritual to take what little was left of her into themselves. She would have killed them all if she could have then. And at that time, she wouldn't have cared too much if he would have kill her too.

But he didn't.

She had looked and met his gaze, breasts heaving as a new sensation coursed through her, tingling every nerve and making her grimace with discomfort. His blade dripped blood onto the ground beside her as he held the head of the man who had carved her curse into her back forty years earlier and was in the process of having a few others put on throughout her body just for the fun of seeing her scream. She had nothing left then, and yet, when she met those inhuman eyes she had felt her lips curl and her new teeth meet air.

"I hope it was painful," she told him through strained vocal cords as sunlight spilled over her naked, half-transformed body.

"It was efficient," he finally said, tossing the head aside before pulling out a cloth to clean his blade.

"You won't kill me?" she remembered asking.

"Do you wish it?" he asked.

She thought about this for a long moment. "Someday," she finally said as she closed her eyes. "When I have done what I must," she said.

He did not answer her and between one relieved breath and the next she had fallen asleep again without meaning to. When she woke, there was only a jacket laid over her to tell her that it had not all been a nightmare. It had the smell of blood and death on it, but it was clean otherwise.

He was gone, though the scent of death had not gone with him.

A meal was set out for her on the table and the room was cleaned out of bodies, her father's included. She was greatful for that because it would have been too painful to bury her father on her own and too wasteful to take care of the ones who had tried to kill her after her father died. She didn't think she would see the being that rescued her again either, especially when he didn't show his face for the rest of the days she remained at the cabin. At least, she did not think she would see him again for a long time to come. In a way, by human years, that might have been true. In demon years, however, it would not be long at all before they met again.

TBC.

Cat Street: Message (Attempt 1)

2009-09-12T23:38:57Z

Title: Message
Fandom: Cat Street (Manga)
Characters: Keito Aoyama, Kouichi Mine, OC
Time Line: A few years after the end of the manga [may contain spoilers]

"Am I named after Uncle Rei?" Rei asked as she clambered onto the bed. Mama looked up from her place on the opened script and raised an eyebrow at this. Rei crawled over the sun warmed sheets to snuggle against Mama before looking over at Papa who was getting ready for work by the vanity.

Mama tilted her head at the question and ruffled her daughter's hair. "Did Uncle Rei tell you this?" she asked instead, amusement in her voice and a small smile on her lips. "It's been a while since he's been over, so why the question now?" Mama pondered outloud, shooting Papa a look.

Papa glowered at the mirror but refused to say anything. He was still mad at Uncle Rei, though Aunt Momiji called it "jealousy". Rei just didn't know why Papa would be jealous though, it didn't make sense. "Is Papa mad?" Rei whispered to Mama loudly.

Mama laughed. "He can be pretty grumpy, our Papa."

Papa glanced over to them from the corner of his eye, but instead of being grumpy, he smiled. Mama stilled next to her and Rei felt they were talking again, in that way they did without words. Mama also wasn't breathing.

"I think you're turning purple," Papa said casually.

Mama gasped and sputtered a bit at this and Rei laughed. "Mama's red, not purple, Papa!" And she was right because Mama only turned redder.

"You're tie's croaked," Mama pointed out after she calmed down a bit and sniffed at Papa in a snobby manner. Papa raised a brow this time, but Rei knew Papa knew perfectly well how to tie ties. Papa was perfect that way, but he sometimes did it wrong so Mama would fix it for him. Sometimes he'd do it so they could make up quicker. Today seemed like such a day, because Papa walked over and sat down next to Mama. She smiled and moved away from Rei, straightening the length of cloth. "All ready, Mr. Principal!" Mama declared cheerfully when she was done, the end of the tie still in one hand as Mama looked into Papa's eyes.

But Papa only glowered at Mama, since she was in front of him instead of a mirror and he never liked to be called "Principal". "It makes me sound old," he often complained. But Mama just laughed at him and kissed his thinned lips every time.

It was Papa's turn to turn red. Uncle Rei often told Rei that her parents still acted like "newly-weds" with a roll of his eyes. Rei didn't know what that really meant since her parents were married and they weren't newly married... did newly married people act differently? But adults were very confusing that way. Still, her parents always seemed really happy together and, Rei thought that if feelings were like strings that tied people together, Mama and Papa had a very thick string between them.

"Is my brother going to be called Momiji or LU?" Rei pipped up, tired of being ignored. Papa and Mama had told her that they were going to bring her a brother in a few months time. It was one of the reasons Mama was taking a break from work, even though she was still reading scripts of possible upcoming stuff.

Papa and Mama both looked at her in surprise. Rei shrugged, "It makes sense." For some reason, her parents ended up laughing at her, but before she could get annoyed, Papa and Mama pulled her in between them and Rei felt very warm and safe, so she didn't bother to do more than make a face at them.

"Mama," Rei asked from between her two parents when they settled down. "What did Aunt Momiji mean when she said that Uncle Rei confessed to you again? Did he do something bad more than once?"

Papa stiffened next to her but Mama looked at him from over her head instead of at her this time. He relaxed again under her Mama's gaze and only then did Mama looked down at her and answer. "Rei, you know Uncle Rei... he had a bit too much to drink at the last Christmas party." When adults talked about drinking, Rei knew that they were talking about alcohol. It seemed that sometimes they got happier when they drank a lot of it - and sometimes they said things they didn't mean? Rei liked her juice just fine, but she was always curious about this Christmas drink her parents would take out on special occassions. "He said some things, but he didn't mean to hurt anyone by it."

"Did it hurt Papa? Is that why he's angry at Uncle Rei?" she asked, perplexed if she should be angry at Uncle Rei too, even though she really liked Uncle Rei. But if Papa was hurt...

Mama smiled. "Uncle Rei is a very dear friend to both your Papa and me," Mama told her instead. "Sometimes we all get into fights and we get angry and disagree. You get angry at Mama and Papa sometimes, right?" Rei nodded slowly, trying to follow. "But, we love each other, so we'll also forgive each other one day too. That's what happens when people love each other. Your Papa just need a little bit of time to forgive Uncle Rei, but he'll come over again and visit you soon when Papa and Uncle Rei make up." Mama promised, this time ignoring the look Papa gave her over Rei's head.

"Are they going to make up like you do with Papa?" Rei asked with a frown. She didn't like that because Papa shouldn't kiss anyone other than Mama.

Papa spluttered, turned very pale while Mama turned pink. Mama looked at Papa, but Papa just looked sick. "No," Mama finally said, laughter bubbling in her voice. "Not like that," she said because Papa looked too sick to speak.

Rei frowned, not sure if she said something wrong. She crawled closer to Papa and patted his chest in the most reassuring way she knew how, but decided when Mama started to giggle and Papa started to smile rather weakly at her that maybe it wasn't so bad. "Who do you love the most, Mama?" Rei asked, turning to look at Mama. Sometimes she felt that's what Papa wanted to know too, and maybe if she asked, Mama's answer would make him feel better.

Mama blinked at her and then looked to the ceiling as if she was concentrating very hard in finding the best answer. Then Mama smiled and ruffled her hair. "You, of course!" Mama told her with a laugh. But it was Papa's smile that made Rei tilt her head. It almost seemed like Mama gave him a different answer.

Sometimes her parents didn't need words, but she thought, maybe Papa got an answer to a question he couldn't ask without Rei's help. Uncle Rei called it "telepathy" and Aunt Momiji said it was like a "radar" - but Rei didn't know what either of those things were - but Rei had seen how it worked. Mama and Papa always seemed to be able to talk to each other even when they weren't. Like that one time in the middle of a fight they were having when Mama and Papa were glaring at each other for a really, really long time and then they both simultaneously turned away from each other and stomped off, or that other time when Rei was really sick and Mama was really worried but Papa showed up soon after even when Mama didn't leave her side or call him and he looked just as worried. They were always able to find each other in a crowded room too, no matter how many people came to see Mama or Papa and were crammed into their huge living room.

Aunt Lu described her parents' powers best, or at least, in the way Rei could understand. Her aunt sometimes would just look really dreamy and tell Rei that her parents were like a "fairy tale". Rei knew what that meant, at least. If Papa was the perfect "Principal" then Mama would be the beautiful "Actress" he loved. Rei didn't need knights or princesses when she had a Principal and an Actress.

Maybe, what what they had was really like was a cell phone, Rei concluded. Papa and Rei were the people that Mama loved the most, so whenever Mama needed them she could just call out and they'd hear her even if Mama never opened her lips. So no matter what the distance, Rei knew that if she needed them, Papa and Mama would come as well.

Sometimes words just weren't necessary.

End

For those who never read Cat Street the manga, I recommend it. It's shoujo-ish, but it borders on josei. Its themes are slightly darker and romance is not always its main one. It doesn't always sugar coat things but it isn't blatantly cynical. There is, however, definitely a central romantic story. It was very enjoyable, the characters were all really interesting, though I don't think it delved as deeply as it could have into most of them, but I do like some of the themes it did explore.

Why is this attempt number 1? Because there's something I really wanted to write about when I finished the manga, and I felt this attempt was a bit clumsy. So I'll try again later.

Thanks for reading, though!

Heaven and Earth Challenge: Sugar & Spice

2009-08-13T02:01:13Z

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, but I did write this story. Please try not to plagiarize. Usually not attempting prevents it from ever happening.

Bringing Back Sasuke
(The ordeal of a life-time)

Sakura once met a black cat with white spotted paws, grooming itself on the fire-escape by her window. She had stared at it with wide-eyes and then had dragged Naruto to see it from his place on her couch. "It's so cute, let's buy it some milk," she suggested excitedly when the cat bravely looked back at her in a rather imperious manner and didn't leave its perch.

"It might not be here when we get back," Naruto pointed out simply, not sure what was so "cute" about a pompous cat. He quickly agreed to go though, when Sakura looked a little crestfallen at his words.

"Maybe we should call him Sasuke-kun?" Sai suggested as he followed Naruto into Sakura's bedroom to see what all the fuss was about.

The medic-nin had chucked a well aimed medical scroll at her uninvited guest but Sai dodged it skillfully. Despite Sakura yelling at him to get out, it was Naruto who eventually dragged the dark-haired young man away, not wanting to accidentally end up in the middle of a scuffle. It never ended well for the blond when those two got started and grocery shopping was a hundred percent safer than leaving those two alone to tend to themselves.

Sakura left milk for a week on the fire-escape. The cat didn't come back for a month. "He is kind of like Sasuke-kun, after all," Sakura muttered darkly as she glared at the same cat a month later, grooming itself again by her window. It always did come back on its own afterwards, even if it was never when she expected it to.

Ino was visiting that day when the cat was there. Her friend was painting her nails in Sakura's bedroom when she looked up and frowned to see what Sakura was talking about. "Isn't that TenTen's cat?" the blonde shinobi asked as she blew at her fingers with a raised brow. "I think it's a girl."

When Naruto heard of this, he couldn't stop laughing. He was so amused that Sakura was able to hit him with every medical scroll she had chucked at his head. It was a story that they would never tell Sasuke about, though Naruto does, once in awhile, snicker uncontrollably when he sees Sasuke and the cat on the same day...

---

Uchiha Sasuke started the proceedings over tea.

The bitterness seeped onto his tongue from beneath the fragrant aroma and he liked the strength of it despite his surprise the first time Sakura served it to him. The room had been overly bright, but the window faced west and the hour was just right for the hot sun to beam onto the furniture, the floor and the guest sitting in the small, unventilated room. It was to be expected. The cup in his hand was not fragile, but his hands were larger now and Sakura had observed earlier that it seemed surprisingly frail in his hands. She had sounded surprised and then her face seemed a little sad as she turned away to seat herself.

He hated that look on her face. It unsettled him and he was not accustomed to being unsettled. After all this time, he had thought that vague childhood attachment would have evaporated in the grandness of other things. It had been so small and nascent that he did not believe it would have survived the test of time, but it had, tattered as it was now, though it made him uncomfortable.

He had felt, or at least believed he had felt nothing when Naruto had looked up at him from that crater in the ground, years ago. He had not felt moved to question his course, even when her green eyes reminded him of childhood and Team 7. Was it memories that drove Naruto to chase him so? Was it infatuation, an emotion that he could not comprehend in their innocent, untouched hearts that made them believe so much while vengeance had shaped him and blackened his blood, making him incomprehensible to the thing that called them after him?

She had said she loved him, long ago. As if words could change his mind and rewrite history. But she had no such powers then and now, it was not her who was waiting for an answer.

Strange, how time changed all things.

She was so different now from the girl he left behind. Different from the frivolous child who laughed and cried without restraint and made him envy her innocence. Different from the helpless girl who saw in him more than he had ever seen in himself. Different from the shinobi who had clutched at his back and trembled in fear at the fury she had witnessed burning like a curse, a disease, spreading across his skin.

But there was a frozen type of surprise in her eyes as comprehension came upon her at his proposal. The thing that she had asked of him those years ago, beneath dark night skies and with longing words, he was returning them back to her. The thing he had refused her then and offered her now was finally within her grasp, and her hesitation puzzled him.

"Take me with you," she had implored him years ago.

And he was glad he had said no then. She didn't understand what she had asked of him and of herself those years ago. But now she does and everything was different. "Come with me," he repeated himself when she failed to respond.

Sakura closed her mouth at his voice, as if coming out of a trance. She opened her lips, but words failed to come out, again. Then she blinked her eyes and her pale, long lashes fluttered as she slipped from the grasp of his gaze.

"Candy?" she asked abruptly, a note of desperation in her voice as her stare landed on the small jar of sweets she kept on the low table between them.

He raised a silent brow that she did not see. She rose, agitated now and he had the uncomfortable feeling that she was going to refuse him. "No, of course not," she said, almost muttering to herself with a shake of her head as she took an uncertain step towards the left of her before changing her mind and turning the other way. "You don't like the flavor of sweet beans..." she trailed off and put a trembling hand to her lips, her eyes suddenly flickering as if something came to mind and she stifled a fleeting, nervous smile. "Well, that surprised me, Sasuke-kun," she admitted with a bit of a stumble in her motion as she sat down clumsily again. She didn't seem to know what to do with herself in front of him and her mind was elsewhere. "You surprised me quite a bit already," she added without reservation, a frown now marring her brows and she was troubled again without care if he knew.

Her face, it had always been transparent when they were children and had not changed after all this time. Every feeling she had was written there for him to see. She was like Naruto in this way, though perhaps more so than Naruto in some ways, since that idiot sometimes smiled to hide his own unease. Vulnerable, with everything she felt, she often left Sasuke feeling unsure of how he should respond. He wondered, many times already since he had set foot into her apartment, how she had ever earned her Jounin vest with that face but was not surprised that she was not ANBU because of it.

ANBU wore masks, but even with it off, Kakashi had shown them long ago that there were masks beneath masks for those who were ANBU. And ANBU once was ANBU always. Sakura was no such woman, and her callous hands could not fool any trained ninja into thinking she owned a callous heart.

"I should punch you," she suddenly said and he gave her a weary glance as she clenched her fists and her gaze met his own. "I should punch you," she repeated herself. She was serious, he was sure of it as she stood again and he straightened, preparing for the blow. But then, as suddenly as she approached him with the grace she lacked earlier and the speed he had not expected, her lips turned down and the bottom one started to tremble. Her eyes filled up but she hugged her arms closed to her body and did not cross that final distance between them.

He was suddenly feeling vulnerable, more vulnerable than she made herself in front of him, time and time again. This moment, when she looked away from him as if ashamed. This silence that never answered his simple request to her when he had been sure of the answer she would have given while preparing to ask it. He was afraid, and he sat there, unable to ask her a third time because now he wasn't certain that what she would say would be in his favor. Instead, he could only wordlessly watch her as she turned her profile to him and silently shook with tears falling from her eyes, never once meeting his gaze.

---

And that was how Naruto found them.

"Hey Sakura-chan," the blond man walked in without a knock on the door. Neither of them were surprised to see him but Naruto stopped at the doorway, his hands casually placed in his pockets. Sakura had been trying to stop the tears from falling before the other arrived, but failed miserably. So it was up to Sasuke to meet the blond man's gaze without flinching while they assessed each other tensely. "You okay?" Naruto finally asked, his eyes on Sasuke but his question was all for Sakura.

One destroyed village and millions of refusals later, Naruto never gave up on him. "I'll drag you back, again and again, if I have to!" the blond had promised him, arms crossed while grinning at him menacingly. That grin had always irritated him. But, one thing had been clear since he came back: Naruto had no qualms about beating him up if he made Sakura cry.

It was not the first time this had happened and it would certainly not be the last.

Naruto had, after all, succeeded in bringing him back for this situation to occur in the first place. The blond hadn't just succeeded once, not even twice, but a third and then a fourth and then a fifth time. Sasuke had been dragged back beaten and raging, and most of the times, quite unconscious for the majority of the trip. The fifth time was especially hellish. They nearly killed each other... again.

"You can't keep doing this," Sasuke remembered saying as he winced through broken ribs and the blood flowing into his mouth.

"Can and will," Naruto had retorted back stubbornly. "Until you stay." And Sasuke had almost believed Naruto. He had almost believed it was just because of him. Until that evening, when Naruto confessed by the fire pit, knowing Sasuke was awake. The other had been keeping watch to make sure he didn't try anything funny - like running away again, even with his leg broken to ensure he wouldn't get far even if he tried. Well, in some ways at least it was better than the last time he was dragged back.

Sasuke remembered that time, when he had been nice enough to show his appreciation for Naruto's annoying resilience with a kunai to the blond's back, and Naruto, to repay him for not hitting anything too vital, had succeeded in having both of his limbs, the ones he needed for walking, broken. Naruto always claimed it was to prove a very specific point though they had both been pretty pissed off by that point. That time had truly sucked, more for Sasuke than Naruto though. "I'll keep bringing you back, Sasuke. You're still too thick skulled to come back on your own, after all." Naruto had vowed once more under the stars while the blond crouched by the flames that made his face gold and red, using Sasuke's name, not for the first time but in a rare event of civility when they weren't fighting each other. "I'll keep taking you back to Konoha. Until you get it. Until she stops crying when you leave and you realize that we're your family now."

So why did he feel betrayed about Naruto's intentions? The thought festered until suddenly convincing Sakura to go away with him solved all of his problems. She was strong enough to follow him now. A medic-nin of the highest caliber, she'd even be an asset. He didn't like to see her cry, and when she smiled it was truly... beautiful. When she looked at him like that, sometimes it made him even wonder about things he could not put into words. When he took her away, then Naruto would have no more reasons to take him back to this village that made his hand itch to destroy and made his heart clench with something he did not wish to name. And it would change that grin into something more suitable, make Naruto feel a bit of that something that he had felt that evening when this constant profession of brotherhood was turned into the same farce his brother's crimes were made into.

That evening, he had hated Naruto a bit more than usual.

When Sakura smiled weakly but warmly at Naruto when her eyes fell on the blond, Sasuke wanted to hurt both of them with something harsh and violent and honest, because that was their favorite weapons against him.

"I'm alright, Naruto," she reassured the blond as she moved a step away from Sasuke and took a step closer to Naruto.

"I was asking if Sakura was willing to leave with me," Sasuke interrupted Sakura's instinctive move toward Naruto with the truth. Naruto's hands came out of his pockets, weaponless. They were fisted though, and the blond man's face was tense, which pleased Sasuke greatly. This was the worth of their so-called brotherhood, Sasuke thought more bitterly than he wanted to acknowledge.

"Is this true, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked in a low, dangerous voice that Sasuke had never before heard. He knew Naruto had overheard at least some of their conversation, so why did the other want confirmation from Sakura?

Sakura looked hesitant as her eyes swept over Naruto's face, but she nodded in the end before her voice confirmed it when Naruto's eyes did not stray from Sasuke's. "Yes," Sakura answered softly, but there was none of the hesitation in her voice as there was in her worried gaze. "He did," she confirmed.

"And your answer?" Naruto asked. Sasuke was almost surprised that the other was not riled enough to miss that all together. When it came to Sakura, Naruto was easier to rattle than anyone else. He had noted that long ago, but only when he was older did he understand more of what that had meant, and even then, only when he could ignore it no longer.

All this time... this was the price of their brotherhood.

"I haven't given it to him yet," Sakura replied and even Sasuke felt his eyes swing to her only to see her straighten her spine. Her eyes did not shift to him in uncertainty or plea silently for his aid. Instead, her gaze was locked with Naruto's, a direct and unfaltering stare that she could not give to him earlier, and something, though he was not sure what, passed between them.

"Oh," Naruto was the one who finally spoke and then, the other blinked. Now the blond's shoulders started to relax and the serious expression earlier that promised bloodshed was nowhere evident on his suddenly grinning face. "Well, I was thinking of ramen. You can think about it while we visit Ichiruka's!"

Sakura stared a bit incredulously at Naruto before she made a disgusted face, which was what really broke the serious atmosphere. "You and ramen," she said with a weary sigh. "You sure know how to tip the scale not in your favor," Sakura added with a pointed look at Naruto.

The blond, instead of being threatened, actually pouted. "Aw, come on, Sakura-chan! I know you like their specials..." he trailed off as her pointed look remained on his face. "Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration," he admitted. "But you don't hate it!"

Sasuke sighed before he could stifle the reaction. "I'll come back later then," he cut in. He wasn't going to wade through this all night. He wasn't going to sit by Naruto's forced enthusiasms and unforced hand on his shoulder, because it always lands there eventually. He wasn't going to subjugate himself to an evening of Sakura stirring her soup until the noodles got too soggy as she sometimes stole glances at him, but was always too afraid to touch him. He wasn't going to sit there and feel the silence itch across his skin with their expectations, always unspoken but always there. But Sakura's hand stopped him, as it had many times in his life, even if she could not keep him from truly leaving her or Naruto or this village, she had always had the power to make him pause. Sometimes he hated her for this small bit of power she had over him, as much as he hated Naruto's ability to make him wish for impossible things - things that would never be.

She didn't touch him exactly, she had always been so careful since he had been brought back to never touch him outside of their healing sessions. Instead, she had simple reached out and grasped just the edge of his sleeve as her other hand clutched awkwardly onto her outstretched arm. "Come with us, Sasuke," she said simply, this time deliberately leaving off the '-kun'. She was in control of herself again, but at the same time, she was also opened. She was, in some ways, always opened to his rejections and the barbs in his words. Yet, each time, she had accepted the harshness of his silent rage that never quite left him alone. Even after Itachi's death and the wondering lost years, when the anger did not die and only grew, when days and months flowed unnamed and life only seemed to matter when there was another mission to accomplish. In those years his odium had no direction or a true target that he could fixate on the same way he had fixated on his brother. It would never be the same as when the other had been alive and he had been ignorant of everything. Even when he condemned Konoha, even when he hated the world that created the abyss inside of him and the culture that had sprung from the shadows of the ninja world's creation, it was always with a knowledge that it would not be enough.

It would never be enough.

It was not like when he went after Itachi and his words of understanding vengeance fell from his lips like a prayer that could be answered. There was no answer to his hatred this time. There was only more hatred and black nothingness waiting to engulf him in madness if he stopped or paused or hesitated too long. There was the vague sense of needing to continue, of dissatisfaction, of a hunger without name and a desire without answer that drove him onwards. Yet, still, Naruto and Sakura pursued him as if he could be brought back... as if he wanted to be brought back.

They did not listen to him then, not to the cold words from his lips and not to the actions he employed when they met and fought while their eyes leaked tears for him still. Year after nameless year, confrontation after countless confrontations, they came after him the way he went after that black feeling that dogged him forward. "We need you back," Naruto yelled out at him as the blond limped after his retreating back while he cradled his broken shoulder. His scattered ex-teammates followed him, Sakura, for once, silent and more determined than pleading. Those two had both been ravaged by the same fight that injured him but nothing short of death or unconsciousness would have prevented them from following him.

No amount of denial from him was going to change their minds. Even he eventually learned this. Even he was eventually exhausted by the single-mindedness that drove the team he had abandoned long ago. So, where ANBU and elite ninja from other great villages failed, he guessed his old teammates succeeded.

That success, however, never lasted long.

---

The first time he was brought back, the Elders wanted him dead. It was Sakura who had led him out to the edge of the village with more stealth than he had thought her capable. "Don't go too far," she told him with a frown on her lips. "We'll get you back when this settles," she promised.

He didn't even stay for a goodbye. As soon as she had deactivated the chakra seal on his temples, he was gone. Well, he put her in a trance for good measure but he had always been cautious. There was no need for her to have to ask him for an alibi when she clearly needed one.

The second time, there was an assassination attempt. He didn't particularly mean to save one or two of the Elders' lives, but he wasn't about to let someone implicate him for a crime he only thought about committing. After Danzou's death, he had lost a good amount of interest in the deed altogether and he would rather give credit where it was due. Needless to say, the Elders were suddenly more willing to be lenient after that complicated and rather public case. They weren't grateful enough, though, and he wasn't going to stick around to have his eyes gouged out as a precaution.

It was Naruto who escorted him to the gates this time. "Don't go too far," the blond warned him with a threatening grin and words that were starting to sound a bit too familiar. "If you make Sakura-chan cry again, I'll have to blind you myself."

He had snorted then. "I'd like to see you try," he almost said but thought the look he gave Naruto to be challenging enough without them. Naruto only grinned wider and waved him off, though he was gone before the guards were anywhere close. This time he didn't bother to provide Naruto with an excuse for his absence.

The third time, no one saw him go. But he paid for that with two broken legs on his way back in the fourth time around. Sakura had raised a brow at Naruto's sheepish grin as Sasuke hung off of the blond with a very unhappy look on his face that could have been menacing if he hadn't been in so much pain. "What?" Naruto asked when Sakura began to tap her feet impatiently as her arms crossed over her chest and her glare turned fierce. "He stabbed me in the back, what did he expect?" Naruto asked pointedly, ignoring the exasperated glare Sakura shot at him. "And he made you cry," Naruto added that last part rather gruffly before dropping Sasuke in all the wrong angles onto her sofa. He was deposited wrong enough to get Naruto swatted at while he involuntarily groaned in pain.

"Not everyone has super healing skills like you," Sakura had retorted rather aggressively, shaking an accusing finger at Naruto after shoving the bigger man aside.

"He stabbed me in the back," Naruto said with great emphasis as he rubbed his shoulder, far from where Sasuke had actually stabbed him, and then pouted at Sakura. After all, Naruto ended up having to get a clone to pull that one out. "That was low and he needed to be taught a lesson about that," Naruto added grumpily. "Anyway, he doesn't need super healing skills when he has you."

Sasuke tried to glare hazily through the pain at Naruto, but even he was surprised at the blush that came over Sakura's cheeks. That moment ended quickly when she then proceeded to flick Naruto across the room. "Idiot," she had muttered as she dusted her hands, apparently not worried about the types of impressions she'd be giving to her soon-to-be patient when doing such violent things. Her cheeks though, remained warm and flushed for a while longer, even as she turned formadible eyes onto Sasuke. He wisely kept his mouth shut as she then proceeded to set his bones back in order, and she did it in what was possibly the most painful way she knew how.

He had stabbed Naruto in the back, after all.

"Ow," Naruto groaned from across the room, almost unheard of due to more involuntary grunting from Sasuke, who was still trying to fight off vocalizing the discomforts Sakura was deliberately putting him through. Sasuke grounded his teeth together more harshly and tried very, very hard to neither pass out nor cry out anymore in pain, but he shared the blond's sentiments exactly. He'd never admit to it, of course, but while he hazily remembered Sakura beaming angelically at him when she was done with his legs, her eyes, and the procedure she used, held all the silent warnings he needed to remind him that she was definitely more dangerous than she looked.

Everyone had their own ways of getting revenge, and Sakura apparently could hold a grudge.

---

If it had just been Naruto's confession, maybe Sasuke would not have been as put off for as long as it had lasted. He could have lived with that. He could have lived with Naruto's unanswered affections for their teammate. He could have handled the initial surge of resentment at the other's admission and the unfamiliar fear of losing something, someone, though he wasn't sure who that feeling was directed to.

Yet, waking from another grueling healing session from a smiling Sakura, he remembered hearing them talking in her kitchen. It was Naruto's unconcealed rustling of movements around in that small cramped space that he recognized, though the blond never asked for directions or where anything was. The familiarity had never surprised him or made him suspicious, it wasn't like he had not been back here before or never witnessed the activities that occurred between Naruto and Sakura. Yet, suddenly all those nuanced, unnoticed things from before meant something that he had so easily and so studiously denied thinking about in the past.

They weren't talking about him either, not since they had first gotten him back.

They were discussing things that were completely mundane: Village gossip. The talk skipped from subjects as diverse as how profitable the Yamanaka Flower Shop was to Rock Lee and Hyuga Neji's latest bout of challenges and the bets TenTen was taking for it. Sakura mentioned to Naruto about Nara Shikamaru's latest game of Go and how the lazy bum tried terribly to seem uninterested on whether or not Sakura would like to take on the challenge of playing him this time. Naruto then proceeded to tell Sakura about Kiba's latest girlfriend of the month and a disgusted but amused Sakura moved the matter deftly to Shizune's latest research topic instead. It was so mundane that Sasuke felt like gritting his teeth, though he wasn't sure what agitated him so much whenever he caught the two of them conversing so casually.

"Eat your vegetables, Naruto," Sakura suddenly said sharply. "Don't even think about it!" she threatened. Sasuke found himself digging his head back against the cushion in reaction to her warning, having just gone through the pain her voice promised, despite not being on the receiving end of that particular tone this time.

"You know I hate salads, Sakura-chan!" Naruto whined.

"You want me to add hot sauce to it like I did your noodles last time?" Sakura challenged Naruto. This really irritated Sasuke because he wasn't sure what she had meant by that at all, having never been told about this particular episode.

"No!" Naruto suddenly protested loudly enough for Sakura to shush the blond. "You nearly killed me last time," he heard the other hiss at Sakura in a much lower tone.

"Can't help it if you can't handle it spicy," Sakura answered evenly.

"I can handle it spicy," Naruto replied indigently. "But you just don't dump half a bottle of that stuff into a man's miso ramen and expect any other reaction except pain, Sakura-chan! Where did you even get that stuff anyway? You don't even like spicy food!" Sasuke didn't hear Sakura's answer, but he suspected from the slight noise from Naruto that it must not have been a nice gesture of concession. Yet, having his ignorance explained without prompting annoyed him even more, instead of appeasing him of his curiosity, as he would have expected.

"Naruto, let me look at your hand," Sakura said finally, her tone was suddenly gentle. "I know you and Sasuke never play nice," she continued pointedly, to which Sasuke felt an unexpected swell of pride. In the silence that fell over the room, one that was interrupted only by the slow, solemn munching of crisp veggies, her change of subject matter and the voice she employed had been distinctive enough that Sasuke blinked as the feeling of pride left him and was replaced with unease. It was unexpected enough to leave him unsure as to whether or not he had fallen asleep and was waking to a different situation altogether.

"I'm alright," was the jumbled reply she was given, though it must have looked far worse than it sounded. But, she didn't reprimand Naruto this time about manners as he had anticipated and Sasuke silently rose from where he was laid earlier to look to find out why. He peered over the back of the couch and, instead of seeing his two teammates casually conversing, he caught sight of Sakura holding Naruto's hand beneath the warm yellow glow of the kitchen light.

It wasn't the casual hand hold that a medic-nin might give to a patient whose hand she wished to examine either. It was one where fingers were laced, intimate and familiar, while Naruto's thumb absently caressed her skin. She wasn't even looking at Naruto's appendage or blushing at an unfamiliar touch. Instead, she was smiling at the other as she rested her chin in her free hand and watched the blond masticate his way through the greens with a bit more enthusiasm than one would have expected from someone who detested the stuff so much. Every once in awhile, Naruto's eyes would meet Sakura's and those familiar blue eyes would crinkle. If his mouth was lucky enough not to be full, Naruto would smile a smile that Sasuke had never seen his old teammate direct at anyone before.

It was all very comfortable and familiar, and absolutely alien to Sasuke.

That was the moment, Sasuke thought back with realization. That was the moment he felt the nagging, uncomfortable dislike for Naruto start to set its permanent roots in his heart. Some might have called it jealousy, others might have named it longing, but Sasuke only knew that he needed to go before he did something that would make him regret what he wanted to do that very moment. It would end his chances in obtaining a goal that he had never considered until that night on Sakura's couch, at least, not specifically.

In the end, it was not just Naruto's smile that made him catch his breath, but the one Sakura answered back with in the silence of her small kitchen, a smile that made his heart shudder awake.

---

This time, the last time, he came back on his own.

Sakura had returned home to find him lounging oh-so-casually on her couch and her initial reaction was a raised brow. She must have sensed his presence in the hallway, but disbelief still colored her eyes as she set down her bag that jangled with the sound of glass vials. Her lab coat covered her usual outfit, and she was not wearing her Jounin vest. Once, she had told him that it was too cumbersome in the hospital and that she only wore it for missions.

"It's easily accessible," she said with a shrug and he was reminded of the girl he once knew who cared about looks more than practicality. That was, before he realized she wore a thinner vest with metal lining the inner sections of her black outfit. It was purely an accidental discovery, something that happened when he fell on her while trying to walk out on Naruto and herself the day after she healed his legs the fourth time he was brought back. "Well, I didn't completely heal you," she admitted later with an innocent look on her face while she watched him wince beneath her hands because he broke bones too new to withstand his full weight. She had shot him a rather dead-pan expression after the amused one left her face, but it just reminded him of the look she had when she healed him the first time. "We didn't want to help you run away when no one's gunning to kill you around here, yet," she had said rather pointedly, if not with a bit of ironic humor.

"You came back, Sasuke-kun?" she finally stated, and though there was still a bit of surprise in her voice, her expression smoothed and became composed. She had already seen that he was able to stand on his own and he didn't look the way he looked when he fought with Naruto. She calmly walked into her living room and her eyes never left his. "This is an improvement," she added matter-of-factly and the smile she gave him was the same smile that had often caught him off guard with its genuineness.

He didn't bother to answer and steepled his fingers as he watched her approach, hidding his unexpected reaction by watching her from behind his hands. She finally walked passed him to the kitchen behind him. "Tea? Fish onigiri?" she suggested as her stomach growled. Sakura was already heading for the fridge so Sasuke wasn't sure if she was blushing or not, the way she used to when she addressed him or tried to please him. She was no longer sycophantic, but he thought that sometimes she watched him as if he would disappear when she least expected.

"No thanks," he answered as he rose and watched her bustle through the kitchen. She ignored him and led him back to the living room when she was finished prepping her tray. He watched her eat a pre-made onigiri and drink her tea. He barely touched the delicious tea that she liked so much to share with him, as if she knew he liked it even though he had never hinted either way.

"It's strange," she finally said when she was finished, a sigh of satisfaction on her lips. "I'm not used to seeing you uninjured on my couch," she observed with a bit of wicked humor on the corners of her lips. Was she always like this, teasing him so easily? Maybe she had taken some of Naruto's playful manners, though it could just be that when they were younger she had liked him too much to show him this aspect of herself. He didn't immediately reply, just watched her until she tilted her head at him questioningly instead of looking away with a blush the way she would in her girlhood. "Is something wrong, Sasuke?"

He didn't answer at first and her gaze traveled to his hands, watching his long, tapered fingers clutch harshly around her cup. Her expression became serious, because Sakura knew him better than perhaps people gave her credit for. She had chased after him, yes, but she had also been his teammate. "Your hands have grown," she observed a little sadly. She never mentions it, but it saddened her that she didn't grow up with him or Naruto.

He was surprised by her words and unsettled by the look she refused to direct at him. The sunlight was hot on his face while he watched it turn her hair orange and gold and red. "I'm leaving for Rain country tonight," Sasuke said at last. "Come with me." He wasn't sure what prompted him to slide his eyes from her shocked face but he did, telling himself that the setting sun was too bright as it came through the window behind her. He preoccupied himself with drinking from the still full cup in his hands to avoid looking back at her.

In the silence, he waited to hear her answer.

---

Here they were again.

The water fell between them as he stood on one side and Naruto the other. ANBU had long stopped following them, in part because Naruto was ANBU and had proven to be reliable enough to not need backup. In part because of the debt the Elders held to Uchiha Sasuke's name, a debt that could not be hidden away and made into nothing because of Naruto's big mouth and Sakura's wise gossip choices to point Naruto towards. In part because Naruto was not just ANBU but a ninja who held favor with most of the people he met and the blond had also saved many lives as well. Things were different now, and in Konoha, Naruto was a hero.

Yet, here they were again, as if nothing had really changed except the bodies they now resided in.

"If you hurt her, I'll kill you," Sasuke told Naruto, meaning every word. His hand casually rested on his sword and his back was presented as if it were a weakness.

"No, Sasuke," Sakura had answered him earlier with a shake of her head. "Thank you, but no. Here is your home, but out there is not my home."

Silence and then a barking laugh. The blond's response grated on his nerves, though he didn't show it. "You've already tried that before," Naruto challenged his back. Sasuke did not see the other look down, eyes following the flow of the water between them. "And it's you," Naruto added. "You're the one who makes her cry more than anyone."

Sasuke frowned at those words, though Naruto would never see the troubled expression on his face this moment. Why was it that he felt this similar ache when he had seen Sakura smiling back at Naruto so? It had been a private smile that he had caught couples share when he observed them for missions. He had never understood or been bothered by it until he saw Naruto and Sakura doing the same thing to each other.

"You don't have a promise to keep to her anymore," Sasuke said softly. "So why are you still chasing after me?"

Naruto continued to grin at Sasuke's back but it gentled a bit at the question, though his hands stayed on his hips. "Because I consider you my brother. I made a promise to Sakura-chan, but it wasn't the only reason I wanted you back. You were the first person who acknowledged me. You considered me a rival and treated me like a teammate, a friend. Even though we rarely agreed on anything, you became important to me." Naruto was always so honest, Sasuke couldn't fathom how anyone could reveal their feelings so blatantly and not be afraid.

"I am not your brother," Sasuke finally said. "I don't want you to keep chasing after me."

"Sasuke," Naruto's voice was suddenly serious. "You are Sakura-chan's and my own precious teammate. We would chase after you to the ends of the Earth. And you do need us," Naruto declared. "Maybe, even now, you aren't ready to admit it, but one day you'll see. And we'll be waiting for you then too, so take all the time you need." Sasuke looked to the blond over his shoulder to see the other smiling at him still, arms crossed over his chest now. "Don't go too far though," Naruto repeated those soon becoming hateful words. "If you stay away too long," Naruto warned while wagging a finger at the irked expression that could not be hidden on Sasuke's face, "I will have to break your legs again and drag you back. This time, maybe the arms too. Sakura-chan would just love that."

Sasuke was smart enough not to shudder at the thought of Sakura healing him through the described ordeal. So he just stared at Naruto with all the rage and hatred of his years, pouring it out of his blackened gaze. "Huh," he sneered, though what he really wanted to say was "You wouldn't dare!" But he didn't want to encourage the blond.

Naruto just kept on grinning, and this time, he watched the Uchiha walk away, back disappearing into the forest beyond. Here they had been before, but some things were different now and even though it was not perfect, it didn't need to be. Overhead the sunlight flooded the sky, and this time Naruto was not so broken that he could not appreciate the view.

---

The stairway was narrow and he raised his head on the last flight to meet her tired gaze. Sakura's eyes scanned his face and his body, looking for injuries and finding none. He saw her visibly relax. "Hey," she said. The light from the window in the stairwell sharpened the angles of her face and she looked beautiful to him. She had always looked beautiful to him.

"Hey," he answered back.

Naruto took the last few steps and met Sakura on her landing, walking into her arms while bending and curving his body around her smaller one. She had seemed placated as her fingers fisted into the fabric of his jacket and she pulled him to her in those last few moments they were apart. When Sasuke was around, they tended to minimize the physical contact they shared, but it was not always easy to support each other from afar. "He left again?" she asked, her voice a little sad but not as sad as it used to be.

"Next time, I think, he'll come back again on his own," Naruto told her, his chest rumbling against her with the vibration of those words as he closed his eyes to savor the feel of her. Sakura sighed but the remaining tenseness gave way to contentment. She rested against his shoulder, warmed by his arms and the words he always knew to say to appease her of her worries. The blanket she had wrapped around herself slipped from one shoulder and she burrowed into him more, trying to soak up what she had been missing every time Sasuke comes back, their constantly uncertain and lost childhood friend.

"Welcome back, Naruto," she greeted him instead, pulling back a bit as she freed one hand and rested it against his warm cheek. Her thumb caressed the lines of his whiskered face and the gold stubble growing from his travels. After all, chasing after Sasuke had always been an ordeal in itself. She studied him with a contented smile on her lips, gladly receiving him back from missions and Sasuke. "Welcome back," she whispered again, relief and happy tears seeping into her voice as his eyes grew even warmer as he watched her. He wasn't hurt this time and Sasuke had come back all on his own without threats or violence. Things were getting better, like Naruto promised and like she had believed. She watched him a moment longer before tilting her chin and kissing his eager, hungry lips.

"Yeah," he whispered back, glad of this kiss. Time and experience had only added to the warmth and the sweetness of her kisses. Their dark silhouette were lined by the morning sun as he leaned in even closer, so happy to be exactly where he was that he still wondered at times if he were dreaming. He knew now that she would never leave him, not for Sasuke who did not know where he belonged and not for the asinine things that sometimes came out of his mouth. She had always been strong enough to handle his and Sasuke's foolishness, even when she didn't know it herself. "It's good to be home again," he answered with an easy grin against her smiling lips, lips that he had missed since his idiot teammate came back without prompting this time. She only pulled back to laugh at him when he picked her up and carried her back into her apartment, though he wouldn't let her stay unkissed for long. Her green eyes sparkled with more mischief than she'd ever dared to show anyone else but him as he kicked shut her apartment door, cutting off whatever else might be coming out of her mouth.

There was not a trace of sadness or longing in her eyes. She had long ago made peace with herself and untangled the feelings that Naruto still struggled with when it came to Sasuke. She also trusted Naruto's words, believed in him and herself. More importantly, she believed in Sasuke, that he was not completely lost to them and that he would come back, one day, and stay.

Because this was his home, and out there was not.

It was not their perfect ending yet, but they still had time to make it so, Naruto thought. Someday, Sasuke would understand. When that time came, the three of them could go to the Shuumatsu no Tani and drink themselves stupid, remembering that waterfall the way it should be remembered. When that time came, their trips to Ichiruka's with Kakashi-sensei would no longer just be memories or just be them trying to capture the past that was never coming back anyway. In fact, when that time came they would make new memories that were not so filled with sadness or yearning or loss. And like Sakura's kisses, they would only turn sweeter with time.

Sasuke was still not ready, they both knew that when he made his offer to Sakura and turned his back on Naruto. But they believed that one day, someday, he would find his way back to them. No matter how long it took or how many times they had to drag him back, beaten and bloody, they would show him the way, again and again. They were strong enough, Naruto promised Sakura. They were strong enough now, finally and at last, to prove just how different they were from the roles that people expected them to play. Like the changing seasons, Naruto believed that someday they would be able to reunite...

And unlike their teachers before them, their story would not be a tragedy.

end.

Because NaruSaku is freaking HOT, and Sasuke, unfortunately, is not someone you just ditch on the side of NaruSaku <3 He's integral. Give the stubborn pretty-boy some love... well, okay, maybe not love... but Naruto and Sakura know how to punish him...

Hehehe.

Enjoyed?

Pluto begins, an old August short, revised

2009-08-01T22:48:40Z

I kind of stumbled upon this and realized how much better it could have been and that I really liked the possibility in this story that I didn't really work towards the first time I wrote it. I hope you enjoy the revision!

Title: Child of Pluto, Child of Chronos
Author: bjfactory
Theme: sm_monthly Day 1: Origins
Genre: General/Drama
Version: Manga
Rating: PG

He came on the darkest day of the year. She remembers, vaguely that meeting. His burgundy robe had been so deep a purple as to almost be black. He had stood before her, the delicate silver keys that were so unfitting the image of him who was a warrior through and through, glistened from the sliver of light that had fallen upon him. He had reached out to her with his surprisingly youthful hands, skilled and long fingered. His unchanging face was handsome but not beautiful, and yet, so very intelligent. She does not remember his voice, just that the cadence he employed was smooth and that she was soothed by it and others, charmed by it, no matter the words the fell from his firm lips and the tones he used. His gaze though was black and penetrating, filled with something she could not describe as anything but old. Very, very old. Not just the way anything seemed old to her then that was passed twenty season's cycles, but truly ancient, like ruins whose stories were lost and forgotten, and the infinite sky... Old. She would not forget the feelings those eyes inspired within her, not even centuries later. It was like looking through obsidian glass and seeing forever stretch before you, unending, as dark and deep as the space between planets and people. Except, not empty. Never empty. Filled, always. Filled with so much... it was hard to take it all in at once without feeling the need to look away.

She had always known he was coming for her...

"Child of Pluto," he said softly, moving till his features became obscured by shadows. It was the first thing he had called her when they had met, because names are fleeting but her duties would never be. In her young eyes then, he had seemed a giant that filled the dark emptiness that shrouded him. Yet, even with his warrior's figure and despite the strange armor that were hinted at when he stretched out his hand to her, she was not afraid of this stranger who had suddenly appeared in her room. Perhaps it was because she had seen his face a million times before in her dreams, or perhaps it was because his presence then was so subdued as to almost be nonexistant. "I have come to bring you a gift," he had tried to bribe her pleasantly.

And he knew that she knew he was coming...

"I already have gifts," she had refused him with all the precociousness of her youth. She was so young then, too young to know how to rein in the truth and how to observe without words. All of these things, he would later teach to her in the dark and shadowed hallways of his gates, until she was no longer afraid of the dark or the shadows. It would be decades before the Queen of the Silver Millennium would give her a palace lit with brightness and light to win her favor, but he had wanted her to know shadows and darkness so as to never be misled by it due to her own ignorance.

"Time reveals all things," he would remind her often. "She likes to destroy the secrets she reveals and eat them up again when memories fail to preserve them with age. She reincarnates them again and again, this way, Child. And you must recognize the cycles that are not just made up of seasons but of knowledge and mistakes and forgetfulness. You must learn to live in both worlds, ours and theirs. You will learn what the world others live in looks like in daylight and by a fickle moon, and how ours are changed by the actions of such ephemeral creatures." Even without light, Chronos had wanted her to always know the way or, at least, how to find it. He had wanted her to see what others could not see, what others failed to see because they had never needed to know how to look. He taught her how to move passed the fears and observe what others did not need to see simply because they did not wish to see it.

She learned from him that being a Senshi and a Guardian of Time was not a choice but a necessity...

The wand appeared before her on her thirteenth birthday. She had heard rumors and extravagant tales, before she was taken by Chronos. Children born to be Senshi received theirs at birth, usually. "Why did I get mine so late?" she had asked him.

"Because, you weren't ready then," he told her simply. And she remembered that he neither called it an honor nor a curse, despite her trepidations and the servants’ excitement upon its discovery.

"Two thousand years since the last one," she had heard some murmur. And she had been proud then too. Too young to know better, having no one but Chronos as her guide.

And he was glad that she was still strong enough to create choices, despite destiny and the gifts she possessed already...

"I can still see the future," she would tell him, "most times it is bleak and cold, but the visions are dimming and I feel that one day, they will disappear all together."

"And now that you are Senshi, Child of Pluto, you may create light and warmth where hope has flown and darkness reigns. You can walk your own path instead the one that others may have written or dictated for you. Those eyes you used to look through the veils of Time to see only one possibility, you no longer need them and they are no longer adequate." His hand was not as large as they used to be and now they rested upon her shoulder instead of upon her head. "Power," he told her, "is just a tool, a means to its own end. Sometimes, you need to discard the things you no longer need, no matter how powerfully it had once served you."

"When I had first received visions of the future, I did not see any light in it at all and I was scared of that," she told him in return. "You taught me how not to be scared or, at least, you taught me how not to just be scared. Yet, now that they dim so quickly, I think I shall miss it when it is gone."

"Will you?" he inquired. "Familiar things lost evaporates into memories and then fade completely if you live long enough."

"But, I'll miss it. I'll miss learning to see the light on the leaves or the sparks on the rivers. The light you taught me to look for where once there had only been darkness for me. I'll miss being able to see how brightly people would one day shine and even sadness, when it meant so little before such grief takes meaning and reality... I think I'll miss not understanding, too."

"You are only starting," he smiled at her for the first time. A true smile that she could recognize as genuine and real, without goals in mind, or perhaps because she now knew what the goal had been. "Even if it is also an end to something once held precious."

And his blood still ran in her veins, to this day...

"Is this wine?" she asked him, with the sweet coppery taste on her lips.

"No," he told her, watching her finish. "It is my blood." The empty cup slipped from her numb fingers, clattering onto the ground at his declaration. "You have drank small doses until now. It is why your visions are disappearing. But now, you are more than just a child of Pluto with a fading gift to see the disasters to come," he continued. "You are now a child of mine, with the ability to cross the Gates of Time and observe all the possibilities that could be and all the paths that had been. I have waited long for you, my child. Guardian after guardian has passed under my watch, and all of them inadequate for the extra burden I wished to place upon them."

And it was one end, the first goodbye that had really mattered, but far from the last that would hurt.

It was not long after that night, when he kissed her brow and called her daughter, before Chronos disappeared into the corridors of Time. One day he stepped through the doors of Time and did not return to her. He broke no promises, of course, because he was old and wise enough not to make them. Since then, lifetimes later, Pluto still found herself searching for that burgundy robe almost the color of a moonless night, a past giant with obsidian eyes and blood that tasted like wine. She searched for him every time she stepped back into the Gates and looked behind her every time she set foot outside of the world he gave to her. Even though she was no longer a child and never needed a father, even though she had finally learned how to speak not the truth in her head but the words needed to shape the future to be what the Doors of Time had shown her it needed to be, this piece of herself that was tied to him by the blood he had given her, remained.

Long passed the gifts he took from her and replaced it with others. Long passed the Silver Millennium, and the other, countless, nameless centuries and rulers and cities she would only be a witness to. Long after the death of her first Queen and the start of the rule of that Queen's progeny and all the progenies of rulers after...

So long as she lived, this would always be true...

That she had seen him coming, and she had seen the grief of his passing glimmer around the edges of her own eyes. Despite knowing so, she had still went to him when he had shown himself before her and stretched out his hand to her. She went to him, knowing she would be blinded by the light that was no different than darkness. She went to him, knowing he would teach her wisdom and then set her on the road towards sorrows unimaginable. He would take away the eyes that could only see and replace them with a sight so clear as to shape what was to come. But he'll also leave her with too much heart still to be able to regret the choices that would cost her much to pay for in making reality. She went to him, even knowing he could only lead her to doors, unending and innumerable doors that were hard to open and easy to close, and that he would not walk through even one of them with her...

And she accepted, like Eve from the snake in an Earthling's fable, the gifts of his eternity and his wisdom. She accepted those things that were so bright and so painful to behold, things that could never be discarded once taken up. She accepted them, even knowing they would forever change the shape of her being and the blood running through her veins. She accepted, knowing she would miss him, perhaps even longer than the eternity he had given her.

After all the time he had given her, she guessed, that it was because of this final gift that she could give to him in return that had moved him to choose her to take his place, at that timeless gate, the Gate of the Forgotten.

---

"Child of Pluto, Child of Chronos" by blue [Day 1: Origins]

---

Why I liked this piece?

I know how tiring and boorish I once was analyzing my own writings, but I thought while I'm ahead, why not? We all know about Pluto's softer side, and I like this piece because it shows that she was able to preserve it because her teacher had not been such a harsh task master as to drive that softness out of her. I thought I'd like to show both their humanity, the weakness that drove him to choose her and the strength she had in accepting his choice. I don't particularly believe the Guardian of the Gates is truly a duty every Sailor Pluto held, considering how long she could hold it for. It was something that's more of an add-on, IMO. The duties, in my eyes, really just came down to protecting your planet, for a Senshi that is. Saturn's destructive powers and Pluto's time-altering ones are perhaps things that can be expound upon as interesting twists and duties given to them by powerful beings outside of the Senshi universe.

After all, in such a magical place as the world these Senshi occupy, surely there are other beings as powerful and benign as the youma and devils that Senshi fight against are fearsome and malignant?

Rei gets some drama

2009-07-31T02:28:13Z

So, in trying to fulfill Theme 5, here were some rejects….

5 Traits Rei Never Knew the Origins Of

1. The first flower that Rei's father gave to her mother was a Casablanca. It was a promise to her from him, not of beauty or grandeur, but of a white house. A house with opened windows and the breath of a salty sea fluttering through pale, evanescent curtains. A house with long, green grass and small, effusive violets dotting the lawn. A place they could call home.

The Casablanca was, once upon a time, her father's favorite flower...

The promise he couldn't keep.

2. Her name was her Grandmother's choosing. Her grandfather was the one who sat by her mother's bedside and held her hand since Grandmother was too sick to come herself. Her mother had been so distraught by Grandmother's health that she had not had time to settle on a name with her husband past a few boys' names.

"Rei," her father had murmurred speculatively behind his father-in-law, who told them of Grandmother's suggestion. Her father tested it out as her mother turned her face into the pillow.

"It's alright with me," she said in a tired whisper.

Grandfather's eyes worriedly traced what little of her averted features he could see before turning to look at the man standing behind him. "It's a good name," her father had said with solemn gravity, but happiness tilted his lips when he met Grandfather's stare. "Hino Rei."

The two men smiled at each other and missed the single tear silently hitting her mother's pillow as the other closed her eyes.

3. Her Grandmother died a week after her birth. Rei would not remember the soft, lingering touch of a frail hand when her father brought her to the dying woman's bedside. It was also just too little time for her mother to have recovered enough to be allowed by her doctors to visit herself. Rei would never know that it was years before her mother could forgive herself for the reminder Rei brought every time she looked at her daughter.

Forgetfulness and forgiveness were both difficult acts for the women in Rei's family.

4. The first few months Rei was born, her mother would not even touch her.

She would not remember that it was father who clumsily figured out how the diaper was to be changed and what brand of milk she liked when her mother refused to feed her. It was her father who took her out on evenings when he came home from the office, introducing her half-opened gaze to the objects of the world. Her father and her mother had quite the fight over whether or not they should hire a nanny to watch her in the day. Over her cries of distress, they finally compromised to only have someone come in during the day time since her mother refused to look at her if she could help it. At that time, he was still not yet completely caught up in his career, so it was he who sat by her bedside throughout the night the first time she got sick. Her father was the one who swaddled her body and kept her on the bed his wife refused to sleep with him and their baby in.

The first time Rei smiled, it was at her father. The first one see her roll on to her stomach and crawl, was him. The first word she spoke was "Paaa".

She was just too young to remember it, but she was first a Daddy's girl.

5. The first white dress Rei received was from her mother. She had wanted a summer smock like the other girls in school, but her mother had bought her a traditional kimono instead. Her father had just returned from days away from them, campaigning in Kyoto for his party as one of two rising stars in his organization. She had stubbornly refused to wear it when she found out what laid waiting for her in the white box and then sulked about not having a modern dress. Her mother only rolled her eyes and her father had even managed to look both weary and sheepish and terribly young as the maid scolded Rei about manners.

The kimono had flecks of cherry blossoms, pale pink and hot red against the white of the cotton. It was her mother's favorite pattern. She had thought it terribly hot and uncomfortable, not to mention the robe was at once, to her fledgling senses, both old-fashioned and impossibly childish. It was a struggle to wrestle her into the frock but she was vain enough to reluctantly smile in delight when she had seen herself in the mirror, twirling before the exasperated maid and her amused mother and father.

Later that evening, despite the heat of the summer night and dazzled by the fireworks and fairytales of Tanabata, she had refused to take it off. The maid chased her around the apartment but her mother was the one who finally caught her, struggling with the hired help to get the kimono off of her. Her father had laughed at the whole ordeal, much to everyone else's chagrin and his helpless delight.

"Next year, we'll get you a white dress," he promised her with a wide grin, ignoring her sullen pout as she sat in her underwear and refused to put on her night clothes.

Rei doesn't remember that night or the teasing oath her father made to her, but her father remembers it and often thinks to it as the only promise he had managed to keep.

5 Girls That Rei Will Never Be (WIP)

1. Father - Makeup

A rolled up skirt and almost one button too many undone on her school uniform. Large socks that emphasized the slimness of her pale thighs and rouged, pouty lips, crimson for temptation. Painted nails from cheap salons or her own reservoir when her funds were cut. Rei smiled at herself icily in the mirror at the perfect, traditional features made gaudy by accessories.

She looked on the edge of something: Someone who was just about to cross the thresholds of a tanning salon and come out permanently marked. A golden tattoo on her skin of her status as a girl with a penchant of meeting lecherous, cheating salary men in bars with fake IDs.

She knew that the girls in her Catholic school all whispered and stared after her, too afraid of her icy demeanor and vindictive personality to say things to her face. They were cowed by the name of her politician father who funded much of the school and the status she bore as an only child to such a powerful man, one reinstated whenever she stepped out of the limousine that dropped her off. She sensed their cowardice that made them frown behind her back when her panties flashed the staring police men while her saunter pauses the rest in the streets. She sneered at them, jealous cowards with eyes blinded by status and money and shallow, hypocritical ideas of righteousness, her eyes cold like frost while her heart thudded with the rush of an inexplicable rage shimmering beneath her skin.

Father with his disapproving eyes and voice soft with the subdued anger of someone who had long given up, his shadows lived inside of her. His disappointment had always felt like a fist in her gut but she smiled with the same sarcastic glint in her eyes and the wall of too much pride despite it all. Her mother would wring a different handkerchief each time beside him, all those silk and pristine clothes, crumpled and stained by tears that could no longer touch her heart.

Look at me, she say without words, I am your creation. Those silent things were all for the man who lived beneath the same roof as her but has never bothered to pay attention unless she comes home smelling of alcohol and too much smoke or gets herself splashed in the evening gossip columns. They are wordless actions used to shock a woman too blinded by a weakness that some called Love and the other's own helplessness to act or change anything at all. She hated the cage of a house they've created, one where no one lived in without masks and lies and pain. She wants to push their limits until they broke, and perhaps, only then, something will finally change.

Mother had tried to pull her aside when she was younger and reprimand her ways, thinking she was still naive enough to listen. But Mother was a burden too. Frail bones and a too pretty face, no spine beneath those limpid eyes and a mouth that's forgotten how to smile. Those eyes on a face so like her own that it made her grit her teeth and her heartbeat would quicken when she met those still vulnerable eyes. She resented the woman who wore it and marred the same skin as her own with tears. Mistress after mistress would get their faces splashed upon the papers with the evanescent titles of secretary and staff. They came and went with their faces young and words, sharp with reprimand and mockery when Father brought them home like show dogs before a helpless judge and a useless daughter, people who can only weep at the indifference stashed in plain sight.

She was tired of crying and asking why. She was tired of seeing a mirrored face look away and hopes crushed beneath callous apathy. She was tired of screaming without being heard, of the endless assistants that came in and out of her life, like bones thrown at her feet to appease the starvation in her heart.

She was tired of men like her father who teaches protégés like Kaidou, and the faceless young men after him. She was sick of those smiling, careless males who knew only where and how to strike when a woman was at her weakest and use them till they were too spent to be anything but trophies on an arm in a sparkling dress on gala nights. They were just men who spewed words of love and made stabs at guileless hearts with disarming expressions and apologies they didn't mean. She won't ever give them that type of power over her, not the way her mother does. She won't be used until there was nothing left to give and nothing more to care about. She would not act as if the waves would stop battering the rock if it would just hold still long enough.

So she slants her eyes at men with wives like her father, in restaurants she's too young to visit. She plays piano and flashes the paleness of her skin in all those forbidden places, a sophisticated girl with eyes cynical and cruel (but her prey rarely ever looks up to meet her gaze). She ruins their lives with rumors and marks them in her little black book, playing half the perplexed girl and half the woman too bitter to take in love or care for justice.

She wants vengeance and thirsts for blood, because she's tired of playing Prey.

Beneath the glitter of her makeup, she's not a doll but an arrow waiting to pierce the grayest of hearts, ones that have long forgotten how to beat.

2. …

5 Things That Rei Has Never Known About Family (WIP)

1. Father – Obligations

"Rei," her father's voice reached her over the distance of seas and continents. "Your mother's appointment is today, so I need you to look over the left-over preparations for the party in her place. I've already arranged the necessary staff, but she won't be hosting the party as previously planned."

Hino Rei grimaced but told her father she'd handle it. After all, he had called her instead of having his secretary do the deed. It meant the evening was important, so she would have to deal with it regardless of her preference.

Of course, the call came two hours before the dinner was to start. Rei gritted her teeth and told the staff that there was an emergency she had to deal with. The disapproving look one of her father's staff gave her as she was walking out the door, gritted on her nerves. It was a look that only started appearing after a talking cat and some Juuban girls came into her life and made a mess of it. "I'll be back," she promised. She hoped this battle would not be her last, irritated as she felt, she still sprinted some ways from where she had instructed her driver to drop her off.

She wasn't an idiot. Even though she would have preferred to have left this in the hands of the police, she was well aware that the things that bumped back in the dark may not necessarily be stopped by bullets or the threat of a uniform, or even jail. She would have liked it to be someone else's problems, nontheless.

The battle was not long, but it was a good forty minutes before it was over. By then, she was at the end of her patience with the blonde girl on her team. Tsukino Usagi had let go of a sigh of relief before beaming at her after the battle was over, there wasn't even ashes to bespeak of their struggle but moments ago. "Why don't we go for ice-cream? Get to know each other better, Re--"

"No names," she cut in coldly with a firm shake of her head. Mizuno Ami, still in her Sailor fuku like the rest of them, winced behind her still functioning visor while Usagi, behind her mask, looked hurt by Mars' tone of voice. "I agreed to help you guys out, but I still have other obligations and none of them include being your friend."

"But--" Sailor Moon tried again, her face imploring.

"No buts, Sailor Moon." She said the other's title with considerable emphasis before turning to check the clock in the park. "I don't have time for this," she muttered with building irritation. "You might not have other obligations, but I do." Father would not be pleased if he found out she was late to the dinner party she was in charge of hosting.

The talking cat, Luna, frowned. "You guys need ot work together, even you, Sailor Mars," the older voice instructed with a gentle reprimand. "The monsters you've been fighting have been getting tougher and stronger, you'll need to learn to rely on each other."

"I'm sure that is all entirely possible without getting to know one another," Sailor Mars answered back. "It's not possible for me to spare time I don't have," Sailor Mars shook her head and turned to go. "I'll help you in this attempt to save the world, but it's not my only responsibility. I am willing to help you find this princess that can supposedly take out all the monsters, but after that, if I'm no longer needed, I'll go. I have other things to attend to, and being a hero, in another life-time or not, has never been on my to-do list in this one." Without waiting for a reaction, she took off.

"That girl," Luna said with a sigh.

"She's so different from her powers," Ami observed later, as they were walking to the arcade. "Her tone is always so cold."

"She seems incredibly lonely," Usagi answered with a forlorn sigh, plucking at her uniform skirt. "It's almost as if she's afraid to be friends."

Ami smiled. "I can understand that," she told a frowning Usagi. "But you changed my mind Usagi-chan, I'm sure you can for Hino-san as well."

"You think so, Ami-chan?" Usagi asked, perking up. At the other girl's encouraging nod, Usagi broke into a smile.

Theme 11: Spider

2009-07-01T06:41:23Z

Title: Omen
Genre: General/Humor
Version: Manga/Anime
Rated: PG

When Minako reached for her tea cup during a study session, it cracked just as she touched the rim. "Yay!" the blonde cried out in surprise, throwing her arms back theatrically as Makoto looked up in surprise.

"What a bad omen," the brunette commented with a frown as she stood to go into the kitchen, the dripping cup in her hand.

Ami tried to soothe the panicked Minako who insisted on buying Makoto a new cup. The blue-haired girl looked over imploringly at Rei, but found the priestess silently frowning at the wet ring left by the dripping cup. "Minako, it's alright," Makoto said as she came back with a rag. "I have other cups."

"I'm still a bit unsettled," Ami admitted with her brows drawn down. "Could this mean a new enemy? Oh, if only Luna and Artemis were here!"

"Did you find any in your monthly scans?" Makoto asked as she wiped the spot with her towel.

"No," Ami shook her head. "I haven't checked since two weeks ago," she quickly added as she reached for her computer. "I wasn't planning to do another one for another two weeks. It's been so quiet the whole last two years."

"The beginning of every month, huh?" Makoto asked, impressed by her friend's diligence. "Even the cats got lazy," she pointed out.

"Well, it's not like our enemies were ever really considerate about timing," Minako said with a huff. "It's a really bad sign, isn't it?" the blonde lamented. "I haven't even lost my virginity yet! I can't die before that!"

"Too much information, Minako-chan," Makoto said waving her hands at her friend pleadingly while giving out a nervous laugh.

Ami became slightly pink but turned back to her computer, hoping not to encourage her friend from continuing with her silence. "I-I'm sure you won't die a v-virgin Mina-P," she added with some embarrassed stuttering. Her gaze went over to Rei, almost expecting the other to make a sarcastic remark, but the miko was gathering up her books. "Are you leaving, Rei-chan?"

"I need to go home," Rei answered with a nod of her head. "I need to consult the sacred fire."

"Aren't you going to stick around for Ami's readings?" Makoto asked with a tilt of her head.

"It won't be done for another two hours if she doesn't know what she's looking for, but you can call me on the communicator if she finds anything earlier." Rei replied matter-of-factly.

Makoto looked to Ami in surprise but the other girl only nodded helplessly in apologetic consent. "It's the only way to be sure," she explained. "It's easier if we knew what we are looking for but each enemy we've faced are a little different and sometimes it takes awhile for the program to pin-point, especially in the beginning." Rei looked satisfied with the explanation and sat at the entrance way to put on her shoes.

"Well, alright then!" Minako announced with gusto. "But if you don't help out, I'll come back and haunt you, Rei-chan!" Minako threatened, giving Rei a rather strange expression as she hung off of the other's shoulders. "I'll keep you up at night, going 'Rei-chan, Rei-chan! How dare you leave me to the scary youma?' until you get wrinkles and tanuki eyes so no man would sleep with you either! And then you'll join me in hell as a dead virgin!"

"Let me see your hand," Rei interrupted as she grabbed Minako's appendage and gave the blonde's palm a cursory look. "I see," Rei said sagely. "You'll die a virgin," the miko stated with a blank expression.

Minako blinked at Rei's profile, her arms weakly giving way as the other got up to go. "Amazing," Makoto whispered to Ami. "Usually it takes at least fifteen minutes for anyone to escape Minako's grip of death and her ghost threats." The blue-haired girl nodded in agreement with this, having once had to experience it when Minako wanted help with homework.

"No Mamo-chan!" Usagi's squeal interrupted them as four pairs of eyes turned to her and four hands clutched at henshin pens. "Don't do that... tha-that's nau-naughty--!" Usagi slurred, settling down once more with a loud giggle and a thump from her place on the floor. "Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!" the odango-blonde muttered as she sat up again, having hit her head on the floor when she plopped down.

"Usagi-chan's not a virgin," Rei suddenly declared pointedly. Everyone froze at the miko's declaration as Minako slowly turned her wide-eyed gaze from Rei back to the princess.

"Who's a virgin?" the princess grumbled, rubbing the back of her head grumpily as she was finally awakened by physical pain.

Makoto felt her expression vaguely turn into a nervous, awkward smile. "Th-that's not something to declare out loud, Rei...-chan?" she trailed off as she looked at the empty entry way before looking down at the table in defeat. "Just as I thought, I wasn't heard," she said to herself sadly as the sound of the closing door was her only answer. Ami patted the brunette on the shoulder sympathetically, her face slightly pink again.

Minako, on the other hand, had stomped over to her princess and was currently molesting her poor friend with watery eyes and shaking hands. "How could you, Usagi-chan?" she said as she gazed at the other imploringly, jerking Usagi's shoulders with emphasis. "I thought you truly believed in love, and waiting till after the marriage ceremony to share your special something with Mamoru-san on a marriage bed. How could you let your lust blind you of the ways of true love? How could you take the first step without waiting for your friends who are not as lucky? How could you? How could you? How dare you!" At this moment, the odango-haired blonde was being shaken so hard she could not answer even one of the barrage of questions aimed at her. Suddenly, Minako stopped as she leaned in close to the dazed Usagi. The long-haired blonde's expression was no longer menacing but dreamy, a look Makoto recognized immediately to mean nothing good for anyone such a gaze was directed towards. "Usagi-chan, now you must tell me what it's like! In fact, why don't you show me what it's like, Usagi-chan!"

"Mina-P! S-stop! I'm not like Michiru-san and Haruka-san!" Usagi wailed, snapping out of her dizzy stupor as the two struggled. Makoto leapt in to separate the them, which really was her trying to restrain Minako from doing something dramatic and utterly inappropriate on her living room floor. Yet nothing was helping, Minako ending up being surprisingly strong, and Usagi still being slightly dazed from having her neck snapped about.

"No, Mina-P! Y-you have to stop--!!"

---

Rei frowned at the shape that greeted her in the fire. "A spider?" she pondered out loud as she clutched her fingers into fists before reaching into her robe and retrieving her communicator. "Ami-chan," she called out as the girl's face came up. "It's a spider. Our enemy looks like a giant spider."

"Did she say spider?" Minako could be heard wailing in the background. "I hate spiders! Why do the gods hate me? I don't even have a boyfriend yet! Isn't that cruel enough?"

Ami smiled a strained smile but ignored the commotion behind her. "I'll narrow my search then," the blue-haired girl said with carefully cultivated calm. "Thank you, Rei-chan. Are you coming back to Mako-chan's apartment now?"

Rei turned to look back at the fire. "I think I should also keep searching. Maybe I will find out about the enemy's weakness while you try to locate it in the city."

"Rei-chan, did you really find it?" Usagi's face suddenly showed up as she snatched the communicator from Ami. "Is it really a spider?" the blonde asked, sticking her tongue out in distaste.

"It has eight legs and an insect's body. I could be wrong, it could have been a centipede." Rei replied with a shrug, the disdainful look she shot her princess was to make up for the fact that Ami was probably too nice to show she minded.

"Ew! I hate centipedes!" Usagi exclaimed, completely misinterpreting the hostile glance and the sarcastic comments shot at her.

"Why are you wet?" Rei asked instead, not bothering to explain how widely Usagi missed her meaning. Her face was impassive though there was a very small hint of a smirk on her lips, though whether it be annoyance or amusement was something that Usagi wouldn't have been able to tell.

"Ah... Ami-chan dumped water on us." Usagi told her with a sheepish smile while running a hand through her wet bangs and messing it up further. Rei raised an eyebrow at this but could hear Ami's apologies in the background. "It's alright, Ami-chan! You saved me from being molested by Mina-P! I know you didn't mean to."

"Minako tried to molest you?" Rei asked, quirking her brow further.

"Uh... Don't punish her, Rei-chan! She wasn't acting like herself. She thought she was going to die a virgin--"

"It's all your fault, Rei-chan!" Minako snatched the communicator from her princess and pointed an accusing finger at the miko. "You told me by reading my palm and then spilling the skittles on Usagi-chan."

"What? What skittles?" Usagi asked excitedly. "You have candy, Mako-chan? Didn't you leave me any?" the princess asked with a pout when she didn't see any close at hand.

"Beans," Ami could be heard muttering in the background. "Spilling beans," she corrected without being heard by the person who mattered.

"I wanted to break you hand, that's why I was looking at it," Rei answered calmly. "I refrained but you are rather likely to die not yet completely a woman, considering that it was your cup that broke and you're probably not going to have time to lose it."

"Meanie! You lied to me?" Minako accused Rei as she bit down on her trembling lower lip. "Did you lie about Usagi-chan too? To turn her against me?"

"I didn't turn her against you, you decided that yourself." Rei replied with a slight tic at her temple. "Well, she's obviously done it last summer, anyway. You saw Mamoru-san. He looked like a man who got laid."

"Rei-chan!" Usagi's embarrassed exclaimation was ignored by both parties on the communicator.

"I think Rei's been influenced by Mina-chan's vulgar talk," Makoto told Ami in the background. "She used to be so polite, even if she's still equally blunt."

"The part about you dying a virgin would become the truth if you get yourself killed today by an insect," Rei added, not bothering to respond to Makoto's comments either.

"Meanie! Meanie! Meanie!" Minako wailed, flailing the communicator so that she was no longer even visible on the screen. "I thought you were my friend."

"I thought you hated liars," Rei retorted.

"That doesn't mean you have to be so mean about it," Minako sputtered.

"Don't be an idiot. If I wasn't your friend, I wouldn't even speak to you," Rei said and no one could deny that to be the truth.

---

"Don't be an idiot, huh?" Sailor Venus blinked, fighting the sleepiness that threatened to take her under. Her arms were restrained by sticky strands of cobwebs. Mars hadn't been lying when she said their enemy would be a giant spider - a giant, alien spider, that is. It was still bigger than any spider Venus tried to squish before with her spare shoes but smaller than the giant spider she imagined dwarfing the Tokyo Tower.

Sailor Venus hated spiders.

The spider had finally been tracked down to a warehouse and it had already claimed a few victims. They got separated on the way through. Jupiter had fallen through the weakened floor boards and Mercury, having caught the brunette's hand had fallen with her, down into a dark space that they didn't have a light to penetrate. She and Sailormoon were trying to find a way down when Mars called on their communicator. She had been waylaid by another enemy and would be late. "I'll be there soon," the dark-haired warrior had promised. "Don't do anything stupid until I get there," she had given Venus a rather pointed stare when she said this but all she got was a raspberry blown at her. Needless to say, Mars was far from amused by this.

She was suddenly taken from Sailormoon's side when that call had ended and now, she woke to find herself here. She had looked around, blinking hard against the drag of her own eye-lids, but didn't see any of her friends. She had felt this before, a few times, when an enemy tried to drain her of all her life energy. It was just never this bad...

"You were right, Rei-chan," she muttered to herself as a shadow fell over her. "I'm really going to die a virgin."

---

Minako was walking through a field of flowers when she saw black hair flying against the golden grass. "Who are you?" she asked.

"You know who I am," the woman who turned to her had on an exasperated expression. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" she asked in return. "Swearing's not nice," she said pointedly.

"Why are you little?" the woman asked her, surprise erasing the angry lines. Minako tilted her head to look at the other, and thought that this was one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen, though she couldn't remember very well what other women looked like.

"You're pretty when you're not angry," Minako answered instead.

There was suddenly a softening of features and the woman looked even prettier. Then a gloved hand touched the top of her head. "You'll never lose your virginity being a cute child, Mina-P." Her eyes widened as she looked up from under that hand on her head. "Do you really want to die like this?"

---

Sailor Venus' eyes snapped open. She felt even weaker than the last time she could remember waking but for some reason she was more awake. She found she was being embraced and Sailor Mars, who was slumped over her. She narrowed her eyes at the web clinging to both of them and the black beast with red eyes staring at her from beyond.

"What you did is unforgivable!" Sailor Venus said with her mouth grimly set. "How dare you rob a young girl's dream and pressure her to rush her most important moment in life and love! I'll punish you!" With that she let out a war cry and felt her powers surging, weak but burning throughout her body.

With a fierce glare set at her opponent, she unleashed her attack overhead to rain over them all...

---

"In the end, you almost died," Usagi pondered this thoughtfully. "So that cracked cup was a warning after all."

"That's nothing to be amazed about," Minako declared proudly. "After all, Rei-chan was wrong! I'm not going to die a virgin and she's going to have to own up to telling such a blatant lie!"

"All thanks to me!" Usagi declared proudly, as she was the one who killed the giant insect in the end. Once she finally found her friends, that is. She got so lost in the factory on her own that she was still crying when she stumbled upon Venus fighting for her life against the spider, while Mars remained unconscious from trying to protect her friend earlier.

"So, how did you escape from that thing anyway?" Makoto asked as she rubbed her leg from her place amongst the dozens of pillows her friends forced her to sit in. They had finally found her and Ami under the broken floors. They were both relatively fine but immobilized by the debris that landed on them. Makoto got a sprained ankle and some bruised ribs and back. Ami was pretty beat-up herself, and her shoulder was strained, but other than that, both girls were not grievously injured.

"Uh-ha ha," Minako laughed a bit nervously at the question. Makoto raised a brow and even Ami looked interested.

"She can be very motivated when she wants to be," Rei answered for Minako with a cryptic smile. "Her determination is part of her charm. But don't worry Mina-P, you're still a virgin. So there's still plenty of time for my palm reading to come true."

Minako blinked. "B-but you said you didn't even read my palm!" she sputtered when the words sunk in, horror filling her face.

"I said I contemplated breaking your hand, I didn't say I didn't see your love-line," Rei answered innocently. "Idiot," she added as an after-thought, causing Minako to splutter.

Outside Makoto's apartment window, a spider scuttled back into the shadows.

end?

I ran out of time... but uh... hope it wasn't too shabby.........

In an slightly OOC way....

right.

Theme 6: Kaidou

2009-07-01T03:49:03Z

Title: Reunion
Genre: General/Drama
Version: Manga
Rating: G

Years must have passed and she thought she would not feel so nervous upon meeting him. His attendance was to be expected (and well publicized), being that it was her Father's funeral. Despite the two men no longer being in the same party anymore, once upon a time, Kaidou had been her father's protégé - and once upon a time, her childish heart had ached for him. It had been a long time since, at least that was how it should have felt like now.

He stood and looked even more distinguished than before, his dark, fitted suit gave him a distinctly sharp and well cut silhouette. His pretty wife held on tightly to his curious daughter a step behind him, as a proper woman who yielded the spotlight to her political husband aught. Rei met his proud dark eyes and was suddenly unsure of how to feel about him or his presence. Should she be relieved, angry, apathetic or something else all together different?

She no longer adored him, as she had when she had been only a child. The sight of him putting his hand on his wife's shoulder no longer filled her with despair or envy or heart break. No longer did he even have the power to fill her eyes with tears, not any more than the man who was being buried into the ground that day. In fact, if she was honest, even at her most desperate of moments, perhaps her Father still had more influence on her still. Once she had loved that man too, but Rei had learned that Love, burning hotly as it did in her breast, could be unbound and unraveled like a frayed string holding onto too much weight while lacking support.

She remembered how her impetuous youth had given her courage to take her first kiss but could not protect her from the reality outside of her fantasies. She watched his face and could see the angles that were still attractive and had many times attracted her, even as she had grown older. She had read newspapers and passed television stores, catching glimpses of him at the street corners of Shibuya. She remembered pausing at the sight of his profile in her teenage years, suddenly visited by the memory of how the nape of his neck and the softness of his hair had felt against her fingers as she pulled him down. She had recalled many times, how his hand had burned passed the white of her miko robes at her wrist and the scent of fleeting cherry blossoms, as fleeting as courage and hope and happiness.

A leader of his own party now, he was quite like everything she had once told him she despised, but she found that she still could not hate him after all the disappointments he represented.

"Rei-san, you've grown," Kaidou greeted her after the ceremony was over and the guests gave their condolensces at her father's house. He had that same charismatic smile that she had often seen her father use and had come to loath, he had the same scent as a man with ambitions and power and too little room in his heart for real love. "You're as beautiful as your mother was," he added his eyes scanning her face but politely straying no further. Despite his facade, his eyes were tight and his hand shake briefer than was customary. He gave himself away, but only because she had known him before he learned to wear such elaborate masks.

"Thank you," she answered with all the gravity she was due to show. "I am glad to see that Kaidou-san has fulfilled all the expectations my father surely had for you when he took you as his assistant."

"Ah, you are too kind," he replied while his wife gently tugged on his sleeve to remind him to introduce her and their child. "I'm not so skilled to deserve such praise, it was all thanks to your... late father." His expression was very somber when he said this, and she thought politician's were all such great actors. He was also polite enough not to ignore his wife's insistence too long, but her eyes were as sharp as his. "This here is my wife, Kaidou Sanae, and our daughter, Mai."

By the friendly expression she was given by the woman and the warm, genuine greeting, Rei doubted the other knew anything about her or Kaidou's associations with her beyond the basics. "Nice to meet you," she answered politely. "I have heard much about you from my husband. He was very fond of you when you were a child. It is almost like meeting another daughter or a young sister-in-law," Sanae told her with a gentle, nervous laugh. Rei doubted Sanae truly knew anything about her, and being a daughter or sister to Kaidou would probably be the last thing to describe their relationship. "If only it were under better circumstances," the woman added regretfully.

"Yes, but thank you for coming," she answered instead. "My father would have appreciated it, Sanae-san."

"Your father," Sanae said, grasping her hand. "He was truly a good man. He introduced my husband to me, after all, and because of him, my daughter is in this world. Even though politically my husband may not agree with your late father, we owe him much of our happiness!"

Rei smiled tightly at this and wondered, for a man who was able to spread so much supposed joy onto others, how had he managed to fail so badly at doing the same thing for his daughter? "We won't keep you, Rei-san." Kaidou interrupted his wife quickly, perhaps recognizing the look on her face. She had been utterly honest with him in her youth, and perhaps he may have remembered that fondness for her father was not something she had in her heart. Kaidou gave the line behind them a meaningful glance before looking back at her instead of his wife. "There are many guests here, because Hino-san was a great man indeed. Thank you for allowing us to come and pay our respects, Rei-san."

"Not at all," she said faintly as they left. Seeing him so close, Rei wondered why her heart stuttered so when there was nothing at all about him to love or even like, anymore. Perhaps she had been wrong about herself, about the feelings she had called frivolous and the hopes that he had inspired in her as a child, ones she had eventually believed to be no more than mere delusions.

Maybe she was getting heartburn, she corrected herself as she spent much of the evening thanking the other guests she knew nothing or little about. They all spoke highly of her father and so she ended up feeling nothing in common with any of them. Not that it really mattered in the end...

"There you are," Kaidou's voice surprised her out of her thoughts as she stood looking out over the city. "Most of the guests are gone, but I hadn't told you that you did a good job. There wasn't enough time..." he trailed off and she thought she heard implications in his words when he did not continue.

"Kaidou-san?" she asked, blinking at him but finding much of his expression hidden in shadows. The balacony was not a well lit place but it was private. "Where is your lovely wife and daughter?" she asked calmly. "She's quite pretty, as I remembered her being."

"She had to go clean Mai-chan up. Mai-chan is still too young to understand keeping food in her mouth," Kaidou answered easily, with his tone tinged with embarrassed amusement. As if there was not something suspicious in him coming to see her alone, as if she had not once kissed him and confessed her feelings of love and loneliness. But she had and she was not foolish enough to believe he had forgotten.

"They are both very lovely," she said at last, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looked up to him. Silence settled between them. At last, Kaidou cleared his throat.

"I-I came to apologize," he finally spoke, breaking the silence. "I never had the courage when I was younger."

"Apologize?" she asked.

"You had feelings for me," he said after another long pause. "I didn't know how to deal with it, so I ran away from it."

"It was a long time ago, Kaidou-san. If you had felt nothing for me then, I don't understand why you would apologize for it now. It is the past and how I felt was not something you had control over."

"Rei," the too familiar way he spoke her name made her take a step back from him.

"You should go back inside," she told him instead. She was not a child anymore. The sight of him walking away would not weaken her knees and the denial on his lips would not blind her with tears. Time does not just heal wounds, it teaches. At least, that was what Rei told herself as he stood and looked back at her with that same, dark and quiet stare that once made her catch her breath. Yet, it was different now, more confident and far more guarded.

Her heart thumped but she was no longer a child ruled by only her heart. "You look so much like your mother," he finally said softly.

Her gaze was firm and she stood straight and proud. "I am not my mother, Kaidou-san. I am not a ghost nor would I settle for being treated as second rate to another's aspirations. And where once I had thought us kindred spirits, that is also no longer true." The wind blew through her hair and she clutched the fingers that still wondered if his hair felt the same and if his skin was still as hot. "Kaidou-san, I must go say goodbye to the remaining guests. You are welcome to stay out here as long as you like," she added the last part with a tilt of her chin and did not wait for his reply as she walked passed him. "Excuse me."

"I did care for you... in my own way, Rei," he told her softly. "And this, it was what was best for both of us at the time."

She heard him but she did not stop walking away or look behind her shoulder to meet his gaze or pause to speak more of regrets with him. He had been the second man to disappoint her and the first man she had ever kissed. Yet, she had long decided, that day when she had seen him smiling for another, that it was over. She had judged his heart long ago, on the side-walk by another woman - one who could help him achieve his political ambitions and be sated to be his shadow - and she had found him wanting.

Because for Rei, it would never be enough.

end

I'll be honest here. Kaidou, I'm meh about him. On the one hand, he reminds me of Jadeite with glasses... which is kind of sexy. On the other hand, he's the jack-ass that broke Rei's heart. And then, there's the fact that his face is probably why Rei reacts to him the way she does...

So like, do I really like Rei x Kaidou, not really. But, I do like cynical stories about them... If I had time, I'd have made this something different. Like: Kaidou, corrupt politician, meets Rei, girl from his past! [insert sound affects]

Hmm...maybe later... ne?

Theme 1: Rosary

2009-05-07T00:59:06Z

Theme One: Rosary

Title: Unwanted gifts
Genre: Drama/General
Rating: G
Version: Manga

Now she would have buried them all.

It was strange for her to think of it this way while she lifted the lid and her hand touched the cotton beneath. All the preparations had already been made, much to her relief, tinged as it was with always that slight hint of irritation she felt whenever she thought of him. Yet, she had to prepare one funeral already before this on her own, one more, she thought, would not have made that much of a difference. At least, not while the first had hurt so much.

Yet, to her surprise, it did matter.

The realization was a slow one. The call had been an unexpected one, to say the least. She had, at first, thought it was a rather nasty prank. But, the crisp voice on the other end held neither humor nor sympathy. The car was already waiting for her when she crossed under the torii and looked down to see the black, sleek shape of it gleaming beneath the still bright sun. The city had passed, at first familiar and then, the further the car drove, the less the scenery she recognized.

She had calmly approached the nurse behind the counter. Had rode up the elevator without a sign of urgency nor a show of distress. She had heard rumors of his slow decline, not so much in popularity but in health, so it had not been entirely a surprise that this was where he had ended up. And yet, not until now had he called her. Not until now had she really been in the same room as he had been in since her Grandfather's passing. Since that night he had offered her to go back to the house that would never again be a home and the man who she never again would think of as a Father beyond the title she called him by, they had never spoken. She had never taken a yen he had sent after and he had never bothered to visit or call or write.

Not until now.

She had thought it was over then. Thought she no longer cared that afternoon she stood in the sun dappled room with a rising annoyance that had always visited her whenever she was forced to enter a hospital. She had thought she would not care what he would say or what he would do. There was nothing between them, and perhaps too much to be wiped away by disease or death. Not when life had failed them in healing wounds that no longer mattered.

He had watched her as she stopped, just at the edge of the shadows. Far enough not to obstruct the door but close enough to exit without delay. She had hesitated there, her eyes lingering due to the surprise of seeing him. He had lost weight, from the few pictures she had seen of him before the newspapers respectfully let him disappear gracefully from the spotlight. The shadows beneath cheekbones and underneath eyes were darker, his skin was more sallow and his hair far thinner.

In those shadows, she saw what waited for him to close his eyes.

There was not even the politeness of greetings between them, and after awhile she could no longer look at him. "I'm glad you came, Rei." He had said her name with the same rich timber, yet it still lacked the warmth of familiarity he so easily displayed in the presence of his supporters. Of all that he had been, his voice had not changed. It had strength in it that belied his image and the conditions she had already been briefed on before arriving in this room. Yet, it was still cool and controlled, as if she were a stranger...

And she was, as much to him as he was to her.

There were a million things she could have said then. Some words cruel and some kind, some angry and some sad, some cold and some needy. Yet, she stood straighter instead and tried to smooth the frown from her face. He did not look away from her and she refused to meet his gaze. "You may sit," he finally indicated to the farthest chair from him, as if he understood that she would not sit closer and wanted to keep the physical distance between them as wide as the emotional ones.

Out of politeness, she did as he commanded. They spent much of the night in silence. He never apologized for anything and she never showed any sympathies for the situation he was in. For three days, she watched him get weaker than he already was when she had arrived, leaving only for brief periods of time to clean up and eat. No one asked her to stay nor told her the limits of a visitor's hours, something she had experienced before in another room by another bed. He was still powerful, and even if they held no ties of emotions, the titles still mattered. They spoke very little. He tried, once or twice to ask about her friends and the life he had so little hand in, but her answers were always terse and left little to keep a conversation alive.

She thought, once, his eyes had flared and the expression they wore were disturbingly familiar. It was a resemblance she wanted little in reminder. On the day he died, he had woken her from her dreamless sleep. She hated the hospital but duty, if not love, forced her to stay by him even if he had never stood by her. "You look just like your mother did," he told her. Nothing she had not already known and nothing he had not already said. "Rei," he breathed a labored breath. "Can you come here?" She wanted to refuse but something, in the air and the darkness that stuck to him like an enclosing skin, made her move stiffly from her chair to his bed side. "Your hand," he insisted. She clenched her fingers into fists, this was the one thing she didn't want to do. For a long moment she thought about walking out and never coming back, but at last, she hesitantly laid her fingers over the hand he had not the strength to lift.

He did not even have the strength to turn his hand to clasp her tentative fingers. Instead, he glanced at their point of contact before looking back up at her. There was no warmth or forgiveness on the blank face she shown him, and his held no relief or smiles of acceptance. "You look so much like your mother, especially when you smile," he repeated himself, this time with what may have been regret. "But you have my eyes, Rei," he continued and there was pride in his voice that she had never known to exist. His eyes glittered alert and sharp in the dim light of morning, yet they also looked tired. "And my stubbornness," he added, and though he did not smile at her, there was still an amusement there in the corners of his mouth. His eyes, and the subtle nuances of his face, were things she had not been close enough to witness for a long, long time. It was also the first time she was old enough to grasp more of the things he had never said to her and never will.

The moment passed, as so many moments between them had passed.

It was not long after, but she felt him go as the city woke beyond the window and in the city he pursued at the cost of his family. By that time, she had long returned to her chair and was watching the sun rise over the taller buildings from the eastern windows that decorated that small coffin of a room. She sensed an itch beneath her skin as she felt, more than saw, his last breath take with it the life left in that body. She was suddenly visited by the same feelings she had felt when her childhood self had stood upon the steps and watched him leave her for, what she had thought then, was the last time.

But that had not been the last time.

In the mirror, she had seen her eyes flash in anger before, and the look they had held had been the same look her father had given her in that room with little comfort and even less resolutions. She had realized, as she picked the kimono he would wear for the funeral, that this was forever and surprised herself with the darkening of clothes between her hands as the tears fell. She was taken to the house she had not set foot in for almost two decades, and it was a stranger's house. She stood at the foyer of another's home and came to the realization that she cared still more than she had ever wanted to. Even after all this time, after all the things he had never done and all the disappointments caused by the distance they both kept, she had still wished that he had tried harder.

She had spoken to the other girls over the phone, but chose to stay away from the shrine so that they could not seek her out. Some things, even after all this time and all the terrible, wonderful things they'd been through together, she still did not wish to share with them. She had dutifully agreed to all the terms of the agreement to the funeral. She had greeted the guests that were marked for her father's burial. Had given gifts in thanks and accepted the money given when the funeral ended. She had watched them bury the urn with her father's ashes and she had felt suddenly so very alone again, as alone as she had ever been.

And then she had gone home to the temple.

She had smiled a relieved smile at the friends that waited for her there. She had laughed and hugged them, had looked the right amount of sad and just enough aloof for Usagi to hesitate on asking too many questions. Makoto had held her hand and Ami had respectfully brought her tea. Then they had gone. Minako, she had lingered at the end, and held her stiff shoulders. "It's okay for you to cry, Rei-chan."

And she had been close. She had been so close to saying that she had no tears to shed when she had already shed them in the bedroom that a stranger slept in, in the shadows of another's life. She had almost given herself away, letting go of that bitterness that had lived in the darkness that followed her and the echoes of her footsteps in empty hallways. She had been so good, despite the catching glimpses of her father in the daily newspapers or the screens of somebody else's TV. But, she had instead pressed her hands to Minako's cheeks and said, more gently than she had meant, that the other worried too much.

It didn't explain why, in the end, she had ended up standing in front of a closet of white dresses her father never picked out and stared at them in a daze. It didn't explain the sudden urge that possessed her to start methodically taking down each from its hanger. Somewhere between the first dress and the last dress, she began to toss them away around her room, knowing only that she wanted them down and not able to spare the crumpled ones she'd thrown on the ground a glance. She had collapsed and clutched at her middle when her hangers were bare, rattling gently as the frames bumped clumsily against each other. In the midst of the mess she'd created, she felt the shrine seem to echo with the sound of metal against metal.

She knelt there, hunched protectively over her knees, pressing her forehead to the floor and tried to stop the break-down that shook her body. She attempted to regain the composure she usually kept but it was the sound of her voice, the distant stumbling of sound without words that caught her off guard. Why was she so distressed? Why did it hurt so much that she felt as if she had received a physical wound? Why for a man who had never even been able or willing to do anything more for her than her friends, friends who would have laid their lives down for her without hesitation? Why could she not share this? This one small, infinite pain that ate at her from the inside and shook her in places she never even realized to exist. She had been so sure, so certain that she had wiped him from existence when he first walked down those one hundred steps, got into that car they rode to get to the shrine for the first time, and never looked back.

She had not cried this way since she had cried with a child's bewilderment, after her mother's passing. She had not stood with such solemn, swollen eyes since she had hovered over her grandfather's body, wishing him back to life despite him imploring her, with a voice hoarse from exhaustion and age before his passing, "Just remember to bring those pretty friends of yours to visit me when I'm gone." He had held her hand and doted on her, in his own way, till the end. There had been a smile on his face while he told her to smile back. "Don't ever lose that smile, Granddaughter. It was your mother's smile, but now it is yours." And then she had lost him too, to the relentless tide of time and age and disease. How could this death possibly measure up to the ones that had passed already? How could this make her feel so miserable, a familiar misery she had already felt when those who had actually loved her crossed the bridge of no return?

Why did it matter to her when she had never mattered to him?

She smashed her fist against the floor, hoping the physical pain would distract her from the internal one. Here and now, with her head pressed to the floor-boards of her room, she waited for the sudden flare of unexpected moment to pass. She refused to accept a loss that had long taken root. Why feel abandoned when the act had been done years ago? And yet, tears still fell and darkened the wood with moisture, wetting her skin as she pushed herself up.

Time had passed and evening had fallen over her. She stood before her opened drawer, unsure why she felt so unwilling to lift the lid. The white box laid innocently in her hands and she had only opened it once before, at her grandfather's urgings. It had been her twentieth birthday gift, and instead of a white dress and flowers, instead of a meeting with a stranger over a silent dinner table at the Rain Tree, a driver had come with a signed birthday card and a box at the bottom steps of her shrine.

The smooth, polished rosary with its deep brown and glossy beads were protected by a white cotton cloth within, as she had left it. She removed the strand and held the weight of it in her hands. She had put it all away like the dresses she never wore and the flowers that lived longer than the hope she had had for a father's care, if nothing else. She had briefly wished she had burned it all and buried them, along with all of her useless wishes. They were, after all, only empty husk without even the touch of lingering memories or fondness, their worth gone with the body of a man who barely even acknowledged her.

Yet, she had not done so no matter how many times she had stood before that closest and thought she could, this time.

It had been the one gift that was more like her than all the other gifts he had ever given her. All those rituals that had never meant anything to either of them and none of those hours wasted went anywhere. They had only ended up being just another series of events that had managed to widen the growing gap that had separated them for as long as she could remember. This had almost seem like the most tentative of acts and it had startled her with an attempt that was closer to the mark of her beliefs than she had every expected. It had still managed to miss her heart completely though, because he had never followed up on any of her expectations and this had been no different.

She touched the wood and found no fond memories that visited her, no nostalgia for the past, and nothing to tie her to what was lost and gone. It was just like any other prayer beads from any other stranger. And yet, while she held them in her hands she felt the ache in her chest ease slightly and the echoes in her head subside. The solid strands wrapped around her hands, unused and new. It was not a symbol of her father but a symbol of herself.

She moved to sit at the table with the single small mirror in her room and looked to see her father's expression in her eyes, resting upon her mother's face. He had given her so very little in life, and not provided her with much more in death. She could not forgive him in life, but she had found that she could not forget him in death either. Perhaps she would always wonder what it would have been like to have been loved by him. Perhaps she would always watch with a small amount of jealousy in her eyes whenever Usagi told her stories about about the other's father and his constantly changing opinions of Mamoru, even after all this time. Those stories would even move their stoic Prince to rolling his eyes like an exasperated teenage boy and sometimes she would find herself laughing without meaning to, while other times, she would smile until her face felt like a crackling mask and her heart an empty space. Perhaps, she would always have to stop herself from flinching when Makoto touched her hands with too much understanding in those forest green eyes, because of all the things she wanted to have in common with her well-meaning friend, this pain was not one of those things. She had tried hard not to stiffen more than necessary when Minako hugged her, some times too close for comfort, always asking her to speak or show more than she was willing to or able to. Perhaps, one day, even Ami's respectful silence would not grit on her nerves or make her chafe at the care she doesn't always want and has never asked for.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

She settled the rosary back into the box she'd never throw out, but she knew as she lets out a shuddering breath, that she would never use them either. Some memories, she would never willingly visit, and some feelings were better kept in boxes left unopened...

And now that she has buried them all, Rei wondered if memories and regrets were as simple a thing to let go of as ashes to the grave.

Dumdum!

2009-02-21T09:59:03Z

Currently editing the feel of her name.

Damn my need to make sense!

~~1. the forest~~
2. the soundless
3. the searching
4. the memories

sm_monthly January Theme 10: Plan

2009-02-10T01:22:10Z

Valli - Lady Jupiter
Ishtar - Lady Venus
Beset - Lady Mars

the feel of her name

3. the searching

My lover's gone
his boots no longer by my door
he left at dawn
and as I slept I felt him go
Returns no more
I will not watch the ocean
My lover's gone
no earthly ships will ever bring him home again
--My Lover's Gone by Dido

4. the memories

Perhaps it was the long, tiring meetings that made her careless. Perhaps it was the insomnia she suffered that dulled her senses. Or maybe, it was because she had tried so hard to ignore Mars' sudden absence that at the other's unexpected presence she could not help but start. Whatever it was, it could not excuse how she had jumped in surprise at the voice and the face that greeted her. Venus was thoroughly annoyed with herself for not realizing, in the darkness of her own room, the foreign shadow that waited for her by the edges of the half-draped windows. Not until the lights flickered on to show her the uninvited guest, and not even until the woman had broken the silence to greet her, did she even note the shifting of red hair and the movement of another's crimson dress.

"I thought you would have realized that I was here," Mars chided her casually, her fingers steepled toward the ground. The other had turned fully towards Venus then, in such a graceful manner that it almost looked like the half turn of a Venusian dance. It was like Mars had never broke and Venus had never witnessed a small piece of her dear friend's sanity splintering before her eyes.

Yet, as the lights grew in intensity, Beset's haggard face came into detail. The hollows were deeper beneath her pallid skin, not just the usual umbrage cast by lights but from a lack of nourishments and sleep. Her lips were cracked and dry, lacking the rigidity of her usual solemn sternness while maintaining none of the fleeting flexibility that hinted at rarely seen smiles. Still, her eyes were alert and alive, strangely more aware than it had been since she had been retrieved, and her hair gleamed red and gold.

"What are you doing here?" Venus felt the question leave her lips and could not dredge up a feeling of guilt for the hint of hostility there. She was exhausted and Mars was the cause of it, along with much of her current anxieties.

"I have heard that you had sent a notice to retrieve Phobos and Deimos back from their pilgrimage," Mars answered, her face as placid and clear as the still pools of water in the many hidden gardens within the palace. "I cannot allow you to call them back. The pilgrimage is sacred on Mars and, most importantly, to Martian protectors. Even if they wanted too, they cannot forsake their duties. The request would only leave them in a state where they will be unable to fulfill their duties to our gods."

"You're already forsaking yours to your Queen," Lady Venus pointed out coldly. "Why not ensure you recover some bits of what little is left of your reputation with this decree? They are your guardians and they should be here. Call it a sacrifice on their end."

Mars didn't even seethe with her usual pride. She only studied the indignant emotions radiating off of her leader and her harshly spoken words. The Venusian's face remained impassive and unreadable though, beneath her scrutiny. "What remains of my reputation?" Mars finally asked softly, a hint of mockery in her voice. "It is not worth the wrath of already angry gods," she added with a shake of her head. "You must retract that message, and if you will not, I will contact the head of the Martian priesthood to ensure of it. Even if it will bring ruin to me, I cannot allow anyone else to pay for the decisions I've made."

"They will suspect with the message I already sent, giving them evidence concerns me little," Venus answered with a frown. "Yet, as your commander, I have requested that they come back," she added sternly, unwilling to relent. She was more than ready to do what was necessary to get the situation back under control.

Mars laughed a humorless laugh. "You've been very diplomatic until now, why ruin the charade? I will go along with this specious facade if you allow them the right to appease the gods with what little affects prayers have." Those eyes held black frost beneath their reddish hues as Mars spoke as if the words left a bad taste in her mouth. "I can no longer do it for them, I have made my choices and they have made me a heretic. Yet, my gods, they spite me with my visions still."

Venus openly studied her second-in-command and a silence hung between them. Not able to hold back the outrage at the passive expression staring back, she finally spoke. "What happened to you?"

Mars raised a brow but refrained from giving another one of her eerie chuckles. "Why don't you tell me? Are you not the champion of Love?" The last part was almost a sneer but then Mars blinked and the blackness in her eyes finally began a slow fade into shadows. "I apologize," she said carefully, as if still trying to get a hold of herself. "I thought I was getting better."

"For the Kingdom," Venus began again, with difficulty. She could not trust the calmness that settled over Mars. "I have to call them back, Mars."

"Mars," her friend echoed. This time there was no attempt to rein in the darkness that seeped into a once luxuriant voice. "And here I thought we were passed that," the other said, speculatively. "Are we no longer, friends?"

Venus gritted her teeth. "You don't deserve the title if you can't act the part," she snapped angrily, her chin tilting up in defiance.

"Oh?" Mars asked. Her voice was now hard, like the edge of the ancient stone sword that protected the royal family and the Moon. "And what have you done for me lately, Ishtar, my friend?"

"I have sent for Phobos and Deimos, because you need help," Venus said with her face rigid.

"Help you cannot offer yourself?" Mars continued derisively, her head tilted to the side.

She froze as she looked at Mars. "Help that you won't take from me," she said after a long, agonizing pause.

The other was turning away though, just to the side, as if afraid to turn her back. They've never been like this, not even when they strongly disagreed or when they had resorted to yelling at each other, or even when they threw tantrums. Not ever. This made all their previous arguments up to this point seem petty and meaningless, unable to prepare Venus for this moment of confrontation. The Venusian felt a chasm somewhere opening between them, a yawning abyss that her confrontation a few weeks ago had not had the ability to accomplish until now. "What did you come here for?" she finally asked, the exhaustion now in her voice even as she struggled to not show it on her face. She wanted the conversation to end, before their once-close relations became worse than it already is.

Mars did not move but it was as if Venus was watching the other shed a layer of skin, becoming less a stranger and more the person she had called friend. "I dreamed," Mars said at last, voice distant and frail and full of meaning, "of the end, Ishtar."

The end.

She wanted to ask then what the other meant. She wanted to joke about the end of the day or the end of the week, or the end of this horrid depression that made Mars a stranger and blotted out Beset's existence in this stranger's armor. Yet, the air seemed suddenly cold and filled with power, while her body was heavy with fear. Mars always gave off warmth wherever she went. It was a small leakage of the powers she contained. Still, Venus could not sense that warmth now, instead she self-consciously wrapped her hands along her forearms to stave off the shiver that went down her spine.

She wetted her lips but before she could speak, Mars was moving to the window to look at the sliver of Earth appearing over the horizon. The slope of the other's bared shoulders were more relaxed, and that earlier reluctance to show Venus her back was gone, and in its place was the preoccupation of remembering.

"Did you know that in my dreams, Lord Jadeite lives?" Mars asked, a curiosity and wonder in her voice. "Yet, in my visions, there are only monsters and corpses and blood." The red-haired woman put her hands to the glass and pressed her head to the backs of them. "Our shadows are falling away," Mars continued dreamily. "Earth is falling into darkness," she said with a sigh, tilting her head back as she looked up to the sky beyond the glass. "The palace is crumbling beneath our feet, Ishtar, but it will not be our resting grounds. The stone sword ends it all, our happiness, our misery, and the future of this world."

Venus took an involuntary step back at the power in that voice, in the half song beneath the consonants and the half spell beneath the song. "Stop it," Venus whispered, falling to her knees. The other didn't turn, even though Venus clutched her head and tried to tune out that beguiling voice. "You need to stop--"

Mars lifted her head and stared out into the darkness. "We are all of us, shadows in the dark," she continued without hearing. "The Princess, her light is dimming, a dark moon rising," she hummed as she closed her eyes and swayed, her head lolled to the side like a cat receiving a caress, "and our Lady Queen of the Moon, she shines so brightly at her fullest hour, the last hour of our current existence..."

Venus opened her mouth to scream as the spell closed upon her.

"Don't you want to be honest with yourself before the end?" Beset asked her, slippered feet suddenly visible before her dimming gaze. She was caught in the scent of the other's embrace as she fell forward into the other's arms. "Dear Ishtar of Venus, how would you go on to the next life if you refused? For love is so dangerous, dear avatar."

Venus could not speak even as darkness came. She did not want to confront the road she'd walked and the choices she'd already made, long before she knew the true visage of Love and the things she stood for. She did not want to go back or look on the face of a man she could not have, one who understood what it meant to deny oneself of all things except for duty and be satisfied in choosing what was more important. She did not want to look back, only to weaken and regret the things up ahead.

On the tip of her tongue was a plea but it was as soundless as her unfinished gasp for breath.

---

Lady Jupiter did not like her assignment. For the twentieth time that week, Venus was visited with the other's complaints about the Earth King that Jupiter was responsible for. "Why could I not be escorting the Lord Kunzite instead, for example? You don't like him, do you, Leader?" Jupiter asked suddenly, her verdant eyes glittering with mischief instead of irritation while her pale cheeks pinked at the ideas forming behind her inquiring gaze. "He's very handsome!"

Venus rolled her eyes at this. Jupiter had said similar things about Lord Nephrite when the Kings first arrived. This was, of course, before he opened his mouth. The Jovian was a sucker for strong men, no matter their origins, their manners, or how emotionally stunted they were. This was probably the reason why the other was always having so much trouble with the opposite sex. Lord Kunzite would be difficult for Jupiter, in every way imaginable. Where Lord Nephrite spoke of whatever was on his mind, Lord Kunzite would speak very little, if at all. With Jupiter so eager to please and never too comfortable in the silence of strangers, the secrets of the Silver Alliance would flow out of her like wine at a bacchanalian. Of course, Lord Kunzite would undoubtedly be deliciously distracting eye-candy for everyone while this was happening, but he knew this perfectly well without Venus having to provide the unnecessary opportunities.

"It wouldn't work for you, Jupiter. He can't speak two words without reverting into silence," Venus answered reasonably though her tone remained disapproving as she crossed her arms. "He leads them you know? I'm sure he has a very good grasp of Lunarian too, but do you see him saying a word of it in our presence? If you're having trouble with Lord Nephrite's views of the Moon, think about how much worse the prejudice of their leading commander must be to encourage the behavior! You know that Prince Endymion is the only decent one of the lot, but the Queen and the Counselor Luna are seeing to him themselves." Most of that personal escort service was to soothe whatever insult that might have cropped up due to a lack of introductions to the crown Princess. They were already pushing it with the warnings from every god or goddess from every planet imaginable, no need to jump off a cliff with the prophecy at stake.

Jupiter made a face. "At least I wouldn't have to hear about his prejudices if you switched yours with mine," the other grumped. "Lord Nephrite can't go on two minutes without complaining about the latest thing Counselor Luna has made us show them. I've plain given up pointing anything out in the room. If he wants to complain about it, at least he'll be the one giving new names to the things he's never before seen!"

"I doubt that would deter him," Venus answered drily.

"It makes him think twice," Jupiter replied in a supercilious tone. "I don't want to help him make my life more miserable when his very presence does the trick! At least now I can point out his follies right away when he's being so blatant about it," she said with a bit of malicious intent. Jupiter paused and frowned at her own words then, her previously malevolent expression melting into worry. "Oh dear, he will totally ruin my reputation as being the most amiable one!"

"Not enough compensation with the tomfoolery you put him through?" Venus asked wearily, deciding not to address the last part of her friend's complaints.

"No!" Jupiter answered immediately. The other's eyes suddenly hardened again as she met Venus' steady gaze. "You don't want me to ruin years of difficult negotiations by strangling an ambassador now, would you?" the other suddenly threatened sweetly. Venus stared at her subordinate incredulously, doubt in her unwavering gaze. "I will do it." Jupiter said with her fist hitting her opened palm for emphasis. "I've thought about it a million times already, training myself with visual simulations. I admit, cutting out his tongue was a bit of a distasteful thing even when I was only imagining it but I'm definitely imagining it. Don't you think that's a bit... dangerous?" Jupiter wheedled.

Her blonde leader snorted. "I'm not switching you to Lord Kunzite, period, or any of the others, for that matter. You can threaten but if you've still got a head to think about ruining the negotiations, you can still keep your hands off of him I'm sure."

"You make it sound dirty," Jupiter said dejectedly, slouching into her seat for the first time in years. She had stared at her commander a good, long time, but she knew Venus was quite serious about everything the other had stated already. The sparkle in Jupiter's eyes diminished again, knowing that she would not be trading in her ambassador for another's. "Here I am, suffering, and all you can do is telling me I won't kill him, so it's alright? Why, if the Queen could hear you now--!"

"No need," Lady Venus cut in with a bit of jaded humor. "I'm sure even she's been in earshot of you disparaging the Lord Nephrite by now, or at the very least, I'm sure she's heard of it more than once from our Counselor Luna. I don't think there exists a single person in the whole palace who has not been made aware of your sentiments for him."

"It's not like the feeling isn't mutual," Jupiter said in a huff. "You make it sound like it's all my fault!"

Venus forced herself to not roll her eyes again. "You two will just have to learn to get along. Part of the training, you see? We have to learn what and how to get around the road-blocks of negotiating with Earth on a basis of a permanent alliance. You too bring up the most interesting of biases when you're together and we could learn something from that. You can see that your service is for the greater good, can you not, Lady Jupiter?"

The green-haired woman straightened at her title with a proud air before making a face at her commander when the implications set in. "You're an unsympathizing, sacrificial priest, that's what you are!" she told the other, rising with emphasis. "You just want to keep Lord Kunzite all to yourself!" Jupiter tried one last time with an accusing tone, her hands on her hips as she gave her last stand. Venus remained nonchalant as the other began to study her nails on one hand and entirely ignored both the comment and the look being shot at her. Jupiter snorted as this and turned towards the doors when it was the only reaction she got. "Pretend all you want," Jupiter tossed over her shoulder, waving one finger at the ceiling. "Even if I'm not the Goddess of Love and Beauty, I know you want what's in his pants!"

Venus suppressed the irate twitch of her eyebrows at such vulgarity, even if Jupiter couldn't see it. Apparently, the Lord Nephrite was having more influence on Lady Jupiter than just her temper. "We're meeting in an hour to finish the tour of the palace," she said instead to the stiffened shoulders of Lady Jupiter. "Don't forget to bring Lord Nephrite along, this time. We wouldn't want you to accidentally lose him again in the halls like that unfortunate incident before the welcoming ball."

"Just count on me," Jupiter said with a forced laugh before harshly slamming the door behind her. If the material hadn't been Lunarian steel, the door wouldn't have been much of a door anymore.

Venus grimaced after a long silence before she put her head to her hand. Why did she let Jupiter provoke her? She knew the other was under a lot of stress, but there was just no way to switch the Kings to new escorts without insulting their guests. She hadn't lied, after all. Everyone knew Jupiter and Nephrite did not get along. Venus sighed deeply and got up to look out her window. Sometimes, she was sure that friends were far worse to deal with than enemies.

---

Perhaps it was the parasol, a crescent smile of night-time lilies on a midnight sky, which caught his eye. Perhaps it was the golden spill of hair along her back and the line of her cheekbone, pale but shadowed, against the sparkling waters. Or maybe it was the sound of the wind through the grass and the scent of living things, moving and alive, a sense that almost made this artificial world real while she had stood as if she were a part of that flow of life. Whatever it was, he had noticed her immediately in his wonderings through the lower sections of town, on the edges of the great capital of the Moon, and she had looked natural and at home when he had never been able to think of her as any more real than her alien world until that moment.

He had thought that Lady Mercury would be the one more inclined to visit the cliffs beside the Mare Serenitatis, had been prepared to run into the blue-haired Hermesians, but it was the sight of glittering Venus that greeted him. She was quite like a golden statue beneath the sun. The only thing giving her away had been her pale skin and the rise of her chest from her breathing. These half-hidden nuances belied his impression.

She came to life that day by the sea. There had been more in that moment than the sum of the flow of her words or her careful attentiveness when they had walked side-by-side within the palace. There existed more in her presence than her graceful, dancer's motions whenever she left his side to go about her duties. He found that there was even more to her than her manners or her scent or her breath within those manufactured walls. Here, at the edges of the Moon's capital, the edges of their grand civilization and their grandiose illusions, the lines of her untensed body finally caught his attention.

The city did not sparkle in the day, not like it did in the darkness of evening, but its gleaming walls were still an impressive sight. He had wondered down the winding streets, wanting to see what Lord Zoicite had spoken about in his earlier reports. Much of his time was spent with either the Lady Venus or the Counselor Luna. When there was any free time at all, he spent it with his Prince and sometimes in the private sparring halls with the other Kings, who he only saw late in the evenings on some days and not at all on others. This was the first chance he had of surveying what lay outside the palace, something he had looked forward to with both anticipation and reservation.

She did not acknowledge him as he approached, but they both knew the other was there. "How do you do, Lady Venus?" he greeted as he approached.

"Lord Kunzite," she acknowledged in return with a nod and the same secretive smile that worked on much of the men, and some of the women, at court. "What a surprise to see you, here."

"Hn," he answered and fell into silence as they watched the waves gently caress the rocks below. Some time passed in silence, a surprise in itself since Lady Venus was rarely quiet. He did not feel the need to speak and was not sure what to say to her. There was much more he could learn from the things she told him and Earth was not a topic he wished to divulge unless directly asked. Yet, her stillness and her thoughtful expression was something he was witnessing for the first time.

She was a rather alien creature herself. Not just because she was from Venus but because she was usually so alive and vivacious that this sudden change of temperament was unsettling. "Have you enjoyed yourself, Lord Kunzite?" she asked him at last. He held back a sigh of relief at her voice, before thinking of his answer.

"It is... different," he conceded.

"From Earth?" she inquired but her smile was playful. She was teasing him again about his reticence.

"Yes," he answered without his face showing how much enjoyment he was getting out of her shooting him a look of fabricated impatience. She blew at her bangs childishly and wrinkled her nose at him. He had heard often that her status at court was to be the Princess' shadow, and had often wondered what the duty entailed. If the Princess looked like Venus, then there was little doubt of the rumors concerning the Moon-heir's beauty. Yet, he had trouble imagining another as lively as the woman beside him.

Perhaps the rumored heir had more of the Lady Queen's silver and white colorings than the glittering gold of this Venusian woman. There was a lot of perhaps that followed that particular thought. He wondered if they were related by blood and if so how she was related to the succession of thrones. He had heard rumors of the ancient female warriors called the Sailor Senshi, and wondered if she knew more about them than the terrifying tales that so rarely appeared in the text of ancient monastic libraries and even more ancient temples dedicated to forgotten gods.

She reached forward from the corner of his eye and he stiffened as she touched his hair. A gentle tug and in her hand was a prickly seed. Her cheeks were pink as she finally looked back up at him with a playful smile. She told him its origins before pursing of her lips and blowing it into the sea. "Now it can grow, and you can make a wish," she said with a grin. "Children on the Moon like to call them Falling Stars, because of its shape."

It was strange that despite the years that they had spent, traveling to the Moon, this was the first time she had ever touched him. He smiled, ever so faintly at her explanation instead, turning away from the fleeting feeling that visited him too briefly to acknowledge. He thought of the sun instead, and how it brought such warm light to the living things in the daylight hours, even with the Moon that only showed her face at night on Earth and the barren lands she was sovereign to here. They were, perhaps, not as different as he was used to assuming. "I always wanted to ask you," he finally said. "Do the Venusians worship snakes?" He eyed the golden bracelet that encircled her forearm with some speculation. He had seen her wear many gold and intricate jewelry featuring snakes, and it was rumored that the Lady Venus had real ones as pets.

She blinked at him before bursting into laughter. "Ah, if the Counselor Luna could hear you now!" she exclaimed between her stifled giggles. He shot her a curious look, for she was a creature full of laughter, even though, once in awhile, he saw the deference shown to her by the other Ladies representing their respective planets. Once, he had even caught a far away and solemn expression flit across her face, but it was rare that she showed the thoughts that raced behind her eyes. He often wondered if she wore a different face to the court and the rest of the universe, one that only fell away in the presence of the Lady Queen and the highest circles of the inner court.

"Is my question very funny?" he continued, after her laughter died away.

"Very," she agreed. It was a few moments before she answered, as if trying to decide what to tell him. "I like them," she said, opting for the simplest of explanations. "They do not survive on Venus, but we have many stories about them and they are considered very wise. I have heard that some cultures on Earth see them as evil," she said with a frown.

"They are rather dangerous," he conceded.

"Only when provoked," she defended, her voice rising as if she were the one being insulted. She broke into a smile at his impassive stare, the only reaction he had to her words. "Oh, but they are such interesting creatures! Most people don't even realize what wonderful companions they are depriving themselves of."

"I take it that Counselor Luna does not share this interest with you then?" he finally said instead.

"Oh, she's from the Planet Mau and, even if you can't tell by her manners she's, what's the term? She’s a cowardly cat!" Venus exclaimed childishly with a laugh, her parasol shaking in her hands at his rather incredulous expression.

"I don't think I have heard of such a term," he ventured carefully.

"Well, that's what she is!" Venus told him. "One time," Venus continued without pause. "Lady Mars threatened to burn them when I compared them to her planet's dragons. She is so very uptight about her dragons, why I've never seen her so insulted since!" Venus gossiped.

Kunzite suddenly had a strange vision of a very irate Lady Mars, though he had never seen the Lady as anything but calm. "I don't think--" he began.

"Oh, everyone thinks she's not like the stories concerning Martians and how warlike they're still rumored to be," Venus cut in without notice at him closing his mouth in amusement. "But if you pull on just the right levers, she can explode on you. She's very good at keeping her temper in check and she's never slipped in public, but--" Venus stopped herself and glanced at him, twirling her parasol guiltily while pouting. "I shouldn't tell you this, she would never forgive me."

"I'm sure you have many stories to tell," he said diplomatically, unsure if he wanted to hear and goaded into curiosity nonetheless.

"Many," Lady Venus laughed, her expression clear once more. "I admit though, that I never thought Lady Jupiter had such a short fuse either until your Lord Nephrite showed up."

Kunzite gave the sea a rather weary look instead of his companion. "He has his moments," he said drily.

"What do you think of the Moon?" Lady Venus asked after only a very short pause. He was surprised at the sudden change of topic, though he should have been used to it by now. He was also even more amused when she didn't continue and waited for his reply.

"I think it's a beautiful place," he answered at last, half expecting her to cut him off again.

"But you miss Earth, don't you?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied honestly.

"I miss Venus, too," she told him. "It is barren and I am not allowed to visit the cities beneath my home when I do go back, but I had watched out that window many times in my life. I had spent my whole life wondering what the people there, my people, are like. Sometimes, I walk these streets and wonder how different it is from the home I left behind."

"When did you come here?" Kunzite inquired. He had been surprised by the confession but unwilling to push her towards the slow, spreading melancholy in her voice.

"In Earth years? Perhaps I was the equivalent of nine or ten when I was here permanently," she answered. "I had trained my whole life to be here, and I have loved the Princess since her birth," Venus said the last part with a faint and genuine smile, so unlike her usual smiles. It was a small movement of lips but her expression was suddenly full of soft affection and lacked a lot of the effusive warmth that came naturally with her other smiles. "Did you know, it is so rare to meet people who love their duties and their masters," she finally said without a hint of humor. All of a sudden, he could sense all her attention upon him, even though she did not turn once to look his way. "Yet, I see it whenever you and Prince Endymion are in a room together," she turned her head to him at last, her gaze like a soft caress upon his face. The wind blew by with the strange scent of a foreign sea but the moment did not pass like so many moments between them. "Are you very sad that one day he may fall in love, find someone he cares for more than life itself?"

"I hope he finds the greatest of happiness," he answered automatically, refusing to dwell on the slight pang in his chest. He dutifully evaded the look in her eyes at his own refusal to lay bare a small piece of himself, and how she knew what he meant even though he had not been entirely forthright. Down that road was complications he preferred not to dwell upon, no matter how easily he was drawn to wonder at its possibilities since meeting her.

Venus turned her head away, her face the same warm mask she had worn upon greeting him earlier. "Yes," she agreed, and yet it sounded so much like resignation. Her hand only tightened ever so slightly against the handle of the parasol and her lips were curved back into a smile that was full of fleeting, untouchable happiness...

"So do I."

---

"You like him!" Lady Jupiter pointed at Venus with an accusing finger as she stormed into the meeting room.

"Why don't you say it a bit louder so everyone else in the palace knows," Lady Mars replied steadily as she looked pointedly at her peer. Despite the disapproval in her tone, she was obviously amused by the whole ordeal nonetheless.

For the last few years, a silent battle of wills has started in bursts of guerrilla warfare between Venus and Jupiter. Mercury and Mars stayed away from the conflict as much as possible, but they did begin a betting pool on what started the ordeal to begin with. Mars was sure it was when Venus not-so-accidentally joked to Lord Nephrite that Lady Jupiter threw a vase at his head as a type of Jovian ritual for a marriage proposal. She had said it in such a convincing manner that when she airily added, "Just kidding!" no one who lacked the knowledge of Jovian marriage customs would have believed her. Unfortunately for Jupiter, Lord Nephrite certainly knew no more about Jovian marriage rights than he did about Venusian trickery and it certainly only made an already awkward situation worse.

Mercury, on the other hand, was certain it was something entirely different. She had overheard a conversation between an embarrassed Jupiter and the Counselor Luna earlier that year. She had, of course, been the only other Senshi present for the incident, but she had not realized the all it entailed until this particular conversation enlightened her. Jupiter had thought about how Venus was hiding her passionate affections from Lord Kunzite when Lord Jadeite was about. She had been apologizing to Luna when the other chastised her about it. The man, after all, had turned a rather pale shade of grey at whatever loud thoughts Jupiter was airing that day and Lady Jupiter embarrassedly blurted out in front of Kunzite, and half the court, that she was only thinking of a conversation she had with Venus.

Jupiter added oil to the flame when she mumbled guiltily about affections and dreamy while underhandedly glancing shyly, but pointedly, between the ground and a rather perplexed Kunzite. Mercury had not heard entirely all that Jupiter had said at court that day, but she did hear Venus and dreamy while Jupiter had looked at Kunzite. The only indication of the lasting effects of that particular conversation was the fact that Lord Kunzite had walked away from that incident rather more stiffly than usual. Well, that and Prince Endymion and Lord Nephrite liked to revisit the subject in as many ways as possible whenever they saw Lord Kunzite walking far more rigidly beside Lady Venus than ever before for the rest of the visit that year.

Venus never did find out, though she suspected it right away, until Lord Kunzite had left the Moon. To say she was upset with the spread of "lies", as she called them, was the understatement of the century. Counselor Artemis had expressly forbidden Jupiter and Venus to spar with each other for the remainder of the season, or until they got a hold of their manners (and themselves), whichever came first. The destruction they left in the Northern Wing of the Palace was still something that was whispered about at the market place, though everyone wisely kept those episodes from the ears of the Princess.

It was not even that Serenity didn't hear about the destruction of the wing, but Counselor Luna diplomatically told her a half truth of what had happened.

Lady Mercury didn't even bother to hide her expression anymore and just looked down-right amused. "If only everyone would have this type of enthusiasm for their research and studies," she lamented but no one listened to her on this. Mercury sighed to herself, and if she wasn't already so used to the treatment she got whenever she mentioned their studies, she would have been insulted.

"Who?" Princess Serenity demanded with urgency. The pale princess had already leaped onto her feet, face full of excitement while her hands were on her hips as she swung her full, demanding stare onto Venus.

"Lord Kunzite!" Lady Jupiter supplied with too much relish for Venus' liking. The Jovian was obviously still not over the fact that her commander had denied her turning Lord Nephrite onto someone else, anyone else (or her later suggestions to just strangle him, period). It had been years since that conversation but the feud was still not over.

Princess Serenity looked outraged at this. "Ishtar, why did you not inform me of this?" the girl demanded. The Princess’s eyes were sharp and her already mouth set in a frown. Serenity quickly changed as she clasped her hands together, as if in the midst of a prayer or the middle of a day-dream. "It's just so romantic! I mean, forbidden love! Clandestine meetings behind our vast numbers of pillars and gardens! The palace is practically built for this type of thing!" Then, tears formed at the corners of the pale girl's eyes as she turned to Venus full force, once more accusing. "Did you not trust me with this terribly important news?"

Mars looked like she was holding back exasperation and Mercury turned away to the window, unable to witness the scene with a straight face anymore and not wanting to face the full wrath of Venus' unforgiving stares. The blonde glared at them both nonetheless before turning back to the expectant Princess, refusing to even spare Jupiter a look. "I think you're mistaken," Venus said slowly and carefully, trying to soothe her agitated charge. "I am not in love with anyone--"

"She's in denial," Jupiter butted in quickly.

"Valli, I have it on good authority that you are the one in denial," Venus bit back viciously. Mars made a rather suspicious noise at this and Mercury clutched her shoulders hard.

Jupiter snorted at her commander's words before thrusting out her hands, as if to show evidence. "See?" the Jovian demanded. "She obviously likes him!"

Princess Serenity looked suddenly perplexed, unsure who to badger first for information on the love lives she was obviously not partial to hearing about or observing with her own eyes. It was a shame because she didn't think the others would appreciate it half as much as she would. Serenity straightened and with great fortitude, quickly making up her mind and turning to Venus with a determined look on her face. "Are you going to get married in secret?" she requisitioned, eyes fiercely serious. Venus just stared, slack-jawed at the Princess who seemed to have lost her mind. "Because if you are, I just want you to know that I won't stand in the way! I won't allow it! In fact, I will never stand in the way of true love and I will fight against anyone who tries!" Serenity stated imperiously, her index finger pointing to the ceiling as she shook it threateningly at the unseen heavens above. The other girl's usually quiet voice rose to a crescendo on true love and was forceful for much of her impromptu speech. In case anyone, including the gods, disagreed with her on this.

Mars coughed harshly into her hand in a spasming fit and Mercury started shaking by the window so hard she gave up holding onto them, hands clamped over her mouth instead. Jupiter just looked down right smug. "You're very virtuous, Princess," the Jovian said with sycophantic sweetness in the silence of Venus being too busy gaping. Jupiter, after all, was more than willing to fan the flames of Serenity's already overactive imagination. "What with all those unscheduled and secluded meetings between the leaders of our two parties, who knows what might happen next?" Jupiter supplied shameless, adding it all with delicious, theatrical emphasis. The Princess gasped, hand to her parted lips, torn between looking scandalized and fascinated, and ready to burst with thousands of questions concerning this secret courtship going on beneath her very nose.

Four pairs of eyes turned to Venus then while she contemplated between wiring her suddenly unhinged jaw shut and murdering her friends.

---

"How did you know?" Venus asked quietly, facing a familiar ceiling from where she was lain.

Mars stilled her hands, her silver brush gleaming as she stared at her leader through the glass. Her face was expressionless as she studied the other, though all that was visible was golden hair and the straight line of her nose. "Sometimes you acted like a child, and sometimes, you were serious," she finally answered as the quiet settled. "I have never seen you want to pretend so hard to be something you weren't and unable to decide what mask to wear."

Venus rolled onto her stomach and studied the other through the mirror. "Why did you make me look back? Wouldn't I be less effective knowing this?"

Mars smiled a very small smile, and yet it was full of bitterness. "No," she answered. "Who wants a leader to find her true feelings in the midst of a war?"

"He's never coming back, you know?" Venus mentioned instead, remembering the visions that Beset had spoken off. She would rather be cruel now, after being forced to face her own feelings, than dwell on the emotions she had discovered.

"I know," Mars answered without sadness or pain or weariness. Her face was blank of weariness and her body straight and alert. "At least, not the way I want him to," she added cryptically, in between one breath and the next.

"Was it unavoidable?" Venus asked, still unwilling to delve into how or where her feelings had gone without her consent.

Mars set down her brush and ran her hand through the silken strands. She studied them in silence before looking out her window at the empty sky. "I don't know," she said softly.

Venus understood that look now, but she wished back the ignorance of her denials. Unlike the others, she had always known, long ago, what her answer would be. There had never been any doubt and her treacherous heart changed nothing. Only on quiet evenings, alone in the darkness and her solitude could the lament of her decisions approach without consent. Those moments were shadows in the growing light of her growing Princess, and it was an anguish that she could bear without complaint.

The Senshi of Love and Beauty, Venus thought bitterly as she rested her cheek against the familiar coverings. It was cruel of fate to give her such a mantle, she thought. She would never be able to freely pursue one, even if she wore the mask of the other so well. Perhaps there, was where her tragedy laid.

---

Lady Beryl gave out a tired sigh as she stepped back into her shadow realm. Revolution was hard work, and even if she was corrupting many of her new minions with dark powers, she couldn't very well flaunt it too openly. At least, not until Lord Kunzite was in her grasps and Prince Endymion was close to falling into the trap she'd set for him. One must practice patience if one was to succeed, contrary to Queen Metallia's beliefs. Now, there was a being that was obviously too powerful to care about the nuances of success or even consider the possibilities of failure.

She often wondered what the witch would do without her, though she was careful not to think such thoughts in the other's presence.

Her dark hair faded into crimson and her peasant dress turned into a gown of royal purple as she entered the long hallway. Rags turned into jewels and plainness to beauty, and that was how Lady Beryl saw herself. The universe viewed Earth like the men in her armies viewed her, a symbol of change but no more than that. Beneath the fragile facade, however, was a treasure and a power unknown, waiting for her to wield it.

The Kings were talking amongst themselves, but their conversations quickly ended at her entrance. They bowed their heads and dared not watch her approach. While she ascended to her throne, they gathered at the bottom of the staircase and knelt in reverence and obedience.

Lady Beryl smiled as she seated herself, pausing in her thoughts of conquest to admire her recent prizes. Of course, her quiet campaign to win over the other Kings had been going very successfully with Lord Jadeite's help. He was so very good at manipulating the minds of others, something she always had an inkling of, but never guessed at the extent of those untapped talents. He had been too ethical in the past, so it had been hard to tell where he could go with what he had, but such habits had made him very discreet. It was a bonus, for Lady Beryl doubted that favor would be on her side completely until all the Kings were hers. Of course, to ensure their future loyalties, Lady Beryl bided her time on how to best bind them to her even more so than they were now.

"Lord Kunzite will be the hardest," Lady Beryl mused to herself, while admiring her own accomplishments. She tapped a long finger against the arm of her chair and watched with curious distrust while Lord Jadeite knelt at her feet as did Lord Nephrite and Zoicite. They were splayed before her, a tally of bodies now in her possessions. Still, there was something she could not put her finger on. A restlessness that visited her whenever she looked at them, it made her uneasy. Until the binding with all four Kings were done in oaths of blood, at the very least, she would not be secure in their devotions.

It had taken some refining to her technique, but she was able to convert the other two without having to resort to bringing in outside help. In the end, their hearts weren't so corrupted and she could trust them to be a bit less likely to remember unpleasant memories. This time, she had whole bodies to work with instead of just parts, though it was always the most important part that mattered.

"Soon," she promised with an anticipatory smile, "my collection would be complete."

Still, Metallia's impatient suggestions could not be fully trusted. To ensure her current Queen didn't betray her with her new subjects, Lady Beryl needed to make sure these men could never betray her. Lord Kunzite, the last of Endymion's supporters and the most challenging, he would be the last piece to the crown she would prepare for Endymion's rise. They would all be hers soon, though she must ensure their loyalties were absolute, as would be her powers when this was all over.

It had been a risky gamble with Lord Jadeite, especially when he had gotten quite a bit further than she had thought he had any powers left to do. He was rather an accident, stumbling upon her when she had been aiming for Lord Zoicite, the youngest and least experienced King. Yet, because of that incident, the Moon had closed off all communications with Earth because of what it had found. Perhaps she should be glad, for now she had one more reason to use against them and it didn't appear they were sharing the intelligence needed to set anyone against her.

And who was to say she was lying? The Moon could very well be planning an attack on the Earth and stealing their resources once oppositions were out of the way. They could very well be threatened by powers they had never thought the Earth could possess.

"Show me the last man standing," Beryl said with an indulgent smile as she trailed her nail along the crystal ball. "All of his weaknesses," she purred. "Hadi, the Middle Eastern King of Earth."

Beneath her, the Dark Generals waited, as still and as silent as marble busts.

TBC.

sm_monthly January Theme 7: Wink

2009-01-31T08:46:25Z

Mneme - Lady Mercury
Emmerich - Lord Zoicite
Beset - Lady Mars

the feel of her name

2. the soundless

My lover's gone
I know that kiss will be my last
no more his song
the tune upon his lips has passed
I sing alone
while I watch the ocean
--My Lover's Gone by Dido

3. the searching

Mercury shut the screen and sighed deeply. She put her hands to her face and rubbed her eyes with her fingers. The night seemed to stretch before her in a languid sprawl, but she had no time for sleep. She had been charged with the task of finding what had caused the death of the late Lord Jadeite, and though she was one of the many looking into this, she was probably one of the very few with the much needed clearance to access the Alliance database. Time was short and there just wasn't enough of it for what needed to be done.

"Until this mystery is solved, we cannot open communications with Earth," Counselor Luna's face had been hard and no one argued with her on this. Mercury found herself often disagreeing with the policies they were using to deal with the latest tragedies, but she had nothing to support her except a feeling of dread. Unlike Mars, who relied on her intuitions, Mercury could not speak without hard evidence to present. As much as she hated the decision, she could not ask the Counselors or anyone else to support her when all she had to go on was a feeling.

After all, the gods did not touch her with the unseen powers, but with a sharp cut mind that could discover the truth so that all could see it for what it was.

Yet, she was so exhausted that time seemed to move so much slower for her, even though she knew this was not so. The sands were slipping through the glass and even if she felt, in the darkness, the hours seeming to stretch like years, it was all just an illusion. A sometimes dangerous misimpression that was much like the world they lived in, here on the Moon. She had experienced how ephemeral her feelings and her perceptions were. Often times, she found herself once more in the light that spilled out into the skies. The sudden realization of mornings when she had been sure that she had only put one hand down next to the pages of knowledge, trying to delve and decipher into contents that were as fascinating as it was arcane, was something that was disconcerting at best.

For the last few hours, she had been visiting the ancient writings from the people of Mars. There were many stories, legends and myth and prophecies they had recorded of what they foresaw in the future of the Silver Alliance. Her own planet had soon followed with detailed analysis of the consequences of the actions of her Lady Queen and the political machinations driving the negotiations at the time. There were the stories from Uranus and Neptune, Pluto and Saturn, but they were mostly more of the histories that people took to heart as lessons of what could happen if peace did not reign supreme. One or two of the text were even from the lost Solarian civilization. Those stories gave her a headache just to translate, but luckily, she had hers and the main computer working over time to get her much of the information she needed.

There were even stories of Venus, thought to be the origins of the Queens Selenity.

Pages upon pages of text that she had never imagined, even in all her wonderings through the books of the Alliance Libraries, or the random inquiries she had made to the Alliance database before this debacle had left her with just enough excitement to keep awake. The wings of texts and ancient scrolls lay waiting for her to read and she wished that her search was not so filled with dread. Yet, even she took note of the ancient texts from the Sun, for their astronomers have noted its findings that had only had a small section in the daily reports made to the Queen. They had been observing the sudden spike of activity there, even felt an ancient evil stirring, but these things had been so brief and there had been so many other things that needed their attention that only now did they truly take notice. But negotiations with Earth was at its most crucial moments too, and soon, they would finally be able to bridge the last long-standing gap between them and the people of Earth.

Mercury sighed as she shifted through the notes. Her eyes focused on several details in the growing document with increasing unease. Her index finger tapped against the curled pages in her hand before she turned away to flick open her small computer. The keys came alive at her touch as she highlighted the passages she wanted analyzed with her own findings.

The specific aspects that the Councelors have given her concerning the death of the King and the conditions of his corpse were just the tip of a long list of worries she had already found. She had hesitated several times over certain parts of the passage that filled her with both curiosity and dread. Turning the page absent-mindedly, she suddenly winced as the sharp edge of the page cut open her finger. She raised it to her lip, pausing at the last second as she looked down at the small wound, turning into a line of red beneath her observations.

"Let me give you the magick kiss," Lord Zoicite's voice rang in her ear. Mercury blinked, a blush coloring her cheeks at the memory. It had been so vivid. For a moment she even thought she had faintly smelled leather and soap, and felt the phantom warmth of his hand grasping her own.

"I didn't know you had the healer's touch," she had remarked naively, surprised by his actions and his words. She had been much redder then, for she was so rarely touched by anyone much less the opposite sex. He had, after all, also mentioned a kiss...

Lord Zoicite had shot her a wink and a slow, smug smirk. She was about to pull her hand away, suddenly suspicious that he was only teasing her. But he had already caught her wounded digit with his lips and at her wide-eyed surprise, he had gently nipped it. Mercury remembered snatching her hand away as if it was on fire, clutching it to her breast and nearly slamming herself against a wall in her effort to put more distance between them. In the process of all this, she had knocked over a stack of books but was too shocked, if not a bit frightened, to straighten the mess she left.

"Oh!" she had gasped. She was unsure whether it had been due to the kiss or to her own clumsiness that made the air seem to have escaped from her lungs and refused to return. The gravity of the Moon was certainly less than that of her own planet, and sometimes she underestimated her own strength.

Lord Zoicite had laughed at her, delighted by her reactions. He ended up being the one to bend down, cleaning up the scattered disarray as she continued to edge away from him as if he were a dangerous beast that had escaped into the library. She didn't think he understood then, and not until much later, just how uncomfortable he made her. With any other Senshi, perhaps he would have had more success with his flirtations.

Granted, Mars would have had no problem with coldly rejecting him flat out, and the woman had her aloof disdain down so well that the men at court feared her as much as they admired her. Venus would have out done him, seeing Lord Zoicite's teasing as a goad or a challenge to see who had more charm. As suave as he was, Mercury would have side with her leader when it came to the game of hearts. Of them all, it would be Jupiter who would have been flattered by the attention, and Lord Zoicite would have stopped rather quickly in his advances because of the lack of resistance. Her friend was also exceedingly serious about such things, easily falling for a pretty face and a strong set of shoulders. Mercury was glad it was not Jupiter. After all, the Jovian had the worst luck with men and she didn't need to add Lord Zoicite to that list of disasters.

She didn't enjoy being the victim of his vanity either, though he must have thought himself exceedingly charming due to her violent reactions to him.

Mercury was a bit annoyed with herself, but she had never been very good with people, especially men. The other Senshi got along with her, and she called them friends, but she rarely interacted with anyone outside of the Lady Queen's most trusted circle. The only one she could really talk to was the Counselor Luna, and even then she had to watch herself because of protocols. They were still friends, though the relationship had started from a case of mistaken identity. Mercury had, at first, discovered Luna in her feline form. The counselor had been scouting the young children that were to be sworn in as Senshi, and she had immediately taken a liking to the cat.

She always did do better with animals than humans.

Mercury rubbed at her eyes again. She was so exhausted, but she forced herself not to think about it as she set down her visor. Venus had been wired since they took note that Mars had not shown up at their usual meeting, and her commander had forced them all to stay up with her as they had scoured the palace when Mars remained missing for the rest of the day. By the second day Venus had ordered her to scan the Moon for the missing Sailor Senshi, and when the day gave way to night any thoughts of sleep had fled her. Her leader was the one who finally checked the Observation Room, when they had exhausted all the possibilities concerning the local areas. To say she was surprised to discover Mars had travelled to the Earth would be an understatement. She had always thought of Mars as one of the more reliable and level-headed of the group, and though they were not the greatest of friends, she trusted the other with her life. To have made such a reckless decision so suddenly, Mercury wondered what had caused such a thing.

She did not understand it all too well herself, at least that was what she told herself. She was logically worried about the Kings, and if Lord Zoicite in particular came to mind more often than the rest these last few hours, it was simply because she knew him better. They had become friends, after all. Since the time they had caught each other off-guard outside of the palace walls, they had started a tentative relationship of sorts.

It had been one particularly slow afternoon that had led her to find Lord Zoicite out in the market place. She rarely went into the city, but she sometimes travelled there without informing the other Senshi. Mercury didn't really enjoy company, but sometimes she missed the cramped spaces of her own planet and the market place was a great place to find rare books that were not even available within the great Library. They were books mostly on travel and adventure, battered and dirt cheap. Mercury loved them and she had a hard time confessing such an interest to anyone she knew, but then again, no one had ever asked.

She couldn't travel to the places she read about at her own leisure, so she would go to the bazaar whenever her duties slackened enough to allow her the time. The trip itself had become a hobby, the process of looking for beat up journals detailing these rare, long journeys to other planets were all picked up with eager hands. It was, of course, much more difficult to locate the outer planets now that they were reduced to mere outposts on the edges of the universe, but sometimes she would find old, worn books that no one had looked at for decades or centuries, waiting for her to find them. It was what made these stories so fascinating and fantastical, and it made finding them her own little challenge. The gruelling voyages detailed in cramped handwrittings of every imaginable language was a treat to be savored. They were not always great writers, these travelors of far and distant places, but they didn't always need to be.

Unexpected things were out there, waiting for her to discover them, and the market was full of such things. That day, it ended up being Lord Zoicite that she found, carrying Lunarian street children on his shoulders and having a few hanging around his waist. He had passed her by just as she had turned away from a stall of mewling Martian cats, but they recognized one another right away. "You!" they had spoken at the same time in surprise, fingers pointing accusingly.

Her one hand had tightened around her treasured journal (this one said to be from a travelor to Pluto!) and she had feared he might have found her out, while her mind was curious about why he was even there. "What--" they both started and then she cut herself off with a blush and he had pulled back, his face also slightly pink. Perhaps they were both found out by the other.

"Who's the pretty lady?" the child on Lord Zoicite's shoulder asked curiously.

"Is she your betrothed?" another inquired.

They both turned red at the very idea. "No!"

The children didn't look very convinced at the unified denial. And despite their protests, they both ended up spending the afternoon on the outskirts of town, playing Lunarian children's games. Some of those games were reminescent of her own childhood games, but most of them were more similar to the games the children on Venus played than anywhere else.

For the first time, Mercury saw the arrogant features gentle into warm smiles and gay laughter. Lord Zoicite had a very long and feminine face and most cultures would probably have called him beautiful, but to Mercury, he was all sharp edges and sharper words. His eyes seemed like a reflection, very much a verdant mirror of the world, though what it reflected may not always be accurate. He was cold and many times, when she gazed into those eyes full of jagged things, she wondered what it was that he trying to keep away.

Mercury had spent her whole life with beautiful, powerful women, be it on the Moon or back home on Mercury. She knew that beauty, many times, was like an icy wall. It kept out the world and isolated the one who wore a face that only the outside could appreciate. It could ugly the soul, and break hearts without trying. It did not move her as much as it would have in her youth, when she had been fascinated with all things rare and different, exotic and pleasing.

Yet, with these children, he never hesitated to get down to the ground and play with them until dirt smudged his skin and mud ruined his clothes. Only then, with a brown stain beneath his cheekbone and a smile that left fine lines in the corners of his eyes did Mercury think that she could no longer ignore his radiance. His smooth face had told her before that he was not a man accustomed to smiling, but when he did his visage became one that she could not look away from.

For all the time she has known him, he had seemed like a lifeless sculpture that she couldn't relate to or appreciate outside of its fine craftsmanship. But here, he was a man who seemed to carry more than the same cold disdain that all the Kings had radiated when they had first come to the Moon. It must have been at the young Prince Endymion's urgings, for he was the only one opened himself to the ideals of the Silver Alliance and the people that lived there.

Even then, their Lady Queen had deliberately kept their Princess out of sight for fear of the prophecies she was bringing to life. She had been warned before of the fate of their young charge since Princess Serenity's birth. If they could solidify these negotiations, then Princess Serenity would be able to set foot on Earth without fear of persecution or the terrible curse put upon her as a babe. They would no longer have to hide or be forbidden from studying a world more alive than any other in the universe. Finally, with curious hands and hungry eyes, she may be able to see and touch and smell and taste the things she had only read about in battered journals and forgotten excerpts. She would be able to do more than just meet the men of Earth and experience the many wonders she had only been able to view through the screens of the Observation Room.

"You look like you are in the middle of discovering a treasure," Lord Zoicite observed, his eyes on the book she clutched to her, interrupting her thoughts. She just continued to look at him, not quite sure how to respond, before looking down at her hands and quickly pulling the journal out of sight. She wasn't sure why but she was suddenly afraid of what thoughts he could see on her face. "I'm not Lord Jadeite, you know? I can't hear what's on your mind," he spoke in her silence. He sounded quite irate with her, though she admitted that she was acting a bit more rude than usual.

She blinked and continued to stare at the ground, this time feeling a bit guilty. "You don't need to read minds to guess at someone's thoughts," she said softly, thinking of Venus with her knowing looks and Mars with her inuitions.

She wasn't sure how but awkwardly they ended up together. Perhaps it was the laughing children who begged her to join them, or the fact that she had already been more than a bit graceless in dealing with this meeting. It was some time past before she needed to speak to him again, but eventually, even she couldn't ignore the fact that her unsociable skills might have insulted his easily smarted ego. He was rather sensitive to the social nuances that she had always been so terrible at. At first he asked all the questions, about the Moon and its social structures, about Mercury that made her happy and homesick, and eventually about the people at the palace. She ended up speculating a lot about Earth as she listened to his inquiries and watching his reactions to her answers, but she tried her best to always speak the truth of her own observations, at least with as much honesty as she could afford.

"I think it is you, my Lord, who has found a treasure," she said at last, quite out of the blue, observing him this time. She remembered the look he had on his face while he watched the children. He did not act like their meeting in the market when she noted his presence, there was not a trace of that unease at being discovered from earlier. She remembered his questions about poverty and the homeless, about those who lacked families and those who were enslaved. She had seen and read about the wars of Earth, and the orphans of those conflicts. She had heard in the meetings concerning the path that the Earth should take cover information on the conflicts that lived there, sometimes so very quietly in the hearts of her people. Perhaps, there were indeed things that even clever Lord Zoicite had not envisioned possible until now.

Or perhaps, there had been a lack of hope in him until now.

Lord Zoicite did not laugh this time, he had turned to her and reached across the distance that had always separated them and touched her cheek. It was the first time he had touched her since he kissed her injured finger in the library. This time though, his touch was more intimate and his face more vulnerable than any kiss or any words could have been. "Whatever you think of me, Lady Mercury, I mean what I say when I'm around you. You have already earned my deepest respect and I hope you never doubt that," he told her with his voice so earnest that she could not help but continue to look. In those eyes, she saw herself. His eyes, they were green and clear, unlike anything she had ever seen. From the reflection in them, she saw something essential that was him and could hide nothing in return. "You do not need to read minds to know I tell you the truth, either, Lady Mercury."

For the first time, she found him truly charming. She smiled at him and felt his hand tense against her skin, surprised to find that she had forgotten the intimate touch for a brief second as she looked up to him. She had seen him catch his breath, uncertain why she was sure that she was the cause of this. Unsure why this thought had pleased her.

"Definitely a mistress, at least!" one of the boys boasted, causing Mercury's cheek to overheat beneath Lord Zoicite's hand and her head to instinctively pull away. He let her go without any resistance, though it was she who regretted the loss. Instead, he had turned to give a devious wink to the children who squealed at this display, errupting into loud gossip and even louder speculations.

The children then tugged and pulled her to her feet, grasping onto her reluctant hands and parting her from Lord Zoisite. The girls had already started a game of tales and songs. The sound of their clapping hands, along with their childish voices, floated over grass and water. She was embarrassed but she joined them in their songs, remembering when she had been too young to be officially named a Senshi yet, and not invited to join the games of her peers. The songs and the optimism of the children surrounding her quickly allowed her to relax, forgetting her awkwardness as they continued. Soon, Lord Zoicite did as well. He had a surprisingly strong voice, lower than his features seemed to hint at. They laughed and sung allowing the wind to carry the enchanting sounds of joy over the fields, until the sky turned dark blue and the air turned cool. Their voices mingled with the distant sounds of waves from the sea before fading into retrospection.

Mercury blinked back the memory, hand on her own cheek. At the end of the evening, he had grasped her free hand tightly and kissed it while looking into her eyes with his unwavering and piercing gaze. It had only been a soft brush of lip against skin, despite the fierceness of his stare. Yet, there had been nothing friendly in his gaze and her breath had caught as she gazed back. For the first time the red on her cheeks were not from embarrassment or shame, but a different type of self-awareness. Her heart had skipped a beat as she clutched the book she discovered to her heart, feeling it flutter. The journal had ended up traveling with her on her own little adventure, unrecorded as it was and far more personal. Till this day, she treasured it not just for the story it told but the memory it held.

Only later, when she had dazedly stumbled into her room, did she wonder if this changed their relationship somehow. When she saw him again, he had been his usual self with teasing words and playful actions. She had been disappointed but it was short lived, for when their eyes had met, his held a softer look than ever before. Sometimes, when they spoke, she felt like she was being wrapped up in the secret of that meeting.

Now, she wondered, dread in her gut and eyes strained from the long hours of research, what he could be thinking of concerning Lord Jadeite's disappearance. She had seen how easily he was at jumping into conversations with his cutting wit, how much quicker he was at being angered for the injury of a fellow comrade or a bullied child. He was forever running to conclusions too, and his impatience was perhaps what made his company so unpredictable and even more exciting. She thought he was a somewhat clumsy King and an even clumsier protector, and perhaps that was why she had liked him beneath that thin veneer of pride and hauteur.

They were, after all, his effective shields against those who might discover how soft his underside really was...

Mercury thought of Mars then, of the pain in those eyes that had once held a happiness she recognized but had not had the courage or the thought to tell anyone else about. She had seen that look starting to show in her own eyes and had been afraid to trace its roots passed the reflection in the mirror. In the end, she had not been wrong when she told Lord Zoicite that one did not need powers to guess the thoughts of others. She silently moved away from the dark window with a view of the rising Earth. She thought of the pieces of herself she had recognized in Mars and shuddered, fearing the out-come of her own unknown future.

Fingers traced her bottom lip as she thought of Lord Zoicite's goodbye. A bittersweet smile lingered there as she turned away from the window, eyes falling on the painting she had started. She had been taught but only until she met Lord Zoicite did her childhood passion raise its head again. It was still unfinished, the vision of the future they had discussed that day by the edges of the Mare Serenitatis. She had never been exceptionally good at it, passed music and her artistic skills were rather limited. Since their meeting in the market and their impromptu meetings throughout the palace, she had suddenly been filled with a desire to try to put her imaginings on paper again, ones that were not yet memories but of the future.

"My name means memory," she had told him beneath the great archways. He had been unusually hesitant, his expression dubious when it had often been her expression and her role in their relationship. It was her answer to his question, when he had asked her if she would think of him when he was gone. She couldn't fathom why he would look so when he asked her such a thing, especially since they had said many goodbyes before this and would continue to say many more goodbyes for as long as she was Senshi and he was Shitennou. Still, she wanted him to know that it was not possible for her to forget. "Our people were the great recorders of histories and facts. We learn so that we may better the world one day. We remember, because that is what we do best and what we enjoy. No race than our own have been so good at looking back. And I wish..." she paused and sighed deeply. The foolish wish in her heart that she thought she had calmed and quieted seemed to come alive whenever she looked at him.

"You wish?" he asked, but did not push more than that, which was unlike him. He had been so much more humble that day than she had ever seen him. She wasn't sure if she liked it, for him to be so unsure.

She weighed the consequences in her head, and then the words she would say to best convey what she wanted. "I once wished," she amended, "that I would be able to help." She turned her face to the sudden warm breeze blowing through the grass, carrying the echo of lost moments on invisible wings. "More than just remembering, I want to help people now and gain the ability to create hope for the future. My powers are not great, but with these small powers that I have been blessed with, I wanted to be of some use to this world, to your world." Her voice faltered as the same doubt that always plagued her assailed her again.

How? How could she help? What could she possibly do? All she had ever been taught was to record the passage of time. All she had ever been good at was but to delve into the past and rewind the hands of time. She had the command of water and ice, but they could not be used to water the crops when their purpose had always been to drown an enemy.

"Mneme," he said slowly, trying out her name for the first time. "So long as you remember this promise to yourself, as your name implies, it can be achieved. On Earth we believe we are given names to represent who we are in this world at our birth, but life is there for us to be more than the limits that names haven given to us. You have a gift, but it is not the only one you possess," he told her, his voice growing stronger with each passing moment. She had looked at him startled. It was the first time she had ever spoken this desire out loud, the first time anyone had asked, but he still surprised her with his confidence. He was brash, one of the many things she admired about him as much as it annoyed her to admit it, but his words gave her warmth and a view from a window she had never had the courage to look through. Perhaps, it was the same for him. Perhaps he got as much hope out of her as she did out of him.

"Yes, Emeric," she replied. Her hand flew to her mouth then in embarrassment, "I don't think I said that correctly at all," she admitted at last, hand still hovering over her mouth.

He had tilted his head at her with a clever twist of his mouth before he succumbed to chuckling at her expression. "No," he agreed through his laughter. "Not at all!" That was, perhaps, the first incident of many more heart-warming goodbyes to come. Yet with each passing farewell, she found it to grow harder instead of easier.

Wasn't that... a little strange?

Lady Mercury poured over the notes, letting go of the memory filled with warmth and a kind of sadness she could not yet understand. She instead searched through the writings concerning the decaying body of Lord Jadeite, trying to trace backwards in time. She despaired at how little they had gleaned from so much evidence still in tact. There was nothing that told her more than what they already knew. He was killed when his heart was taken out, and if a picture was worth a thousand words, it had been done with someone's bare hand while he still breathed. She could find nothing else that was any help to anyone other than that. She wanted to bang her head against the table, but it would only give her a headache she didn't need right now. If she couldn't find anything more, soon...

"Emmric," she tried again and grimaced. The sound of her own voice was cutting in the empty library, only slightly muffled by the books surrounding her. She could never get his name right, no matter how many years she'd practiced or how many times she'd tried. Certainly, he too had tried to correct her, but usually Lord Zoicite found this more amusing than insulting and would burst into laughter at her attempts.

And now, the man who had always had too much pride and too little patience had lost a dearest friend and comrade...

Mercury found herself looking out the window again, perhaps searching for morning and the light that came with it. She wondered but did not know what expression Lord Zoicite would wear but she knew in her heart that he would want vengeance. He was a prickly man full of cynicism and he was still so young in Earth years. He really wasn't very skilled at controlling himself like the other Kings, not even when compared to the hot-tempered Lord Nephrite who was all too easy to rile. Sometimes, Lord Zoicite reminded her of the untamed stallions she had once read about on a traveler's guide to Earth. They were noted to be proud, wild and spirited, and that was how Mercury saw him.

A bit unruly and ill-tempered but full of life.

She often wished she had his courage, but all she could give to her friends and fellow Senshi was the knowledge she could gather and layout methodically like the knives one used to cut open flesh. She hoped she had enough of the knowledge she needed to find the disease. Whatever and wherever it was hiding.

"Mneme, you can do this if only you believed," his voice whispered memories into her ear.

Yes, Mercury thought, bowing her head in concentration. If nothing else, I must believe! Everyone depended on her now, and she just couldn't let them down. He had believed in her and now it was time for Mercury to believe in herself.

"You made me believe," he told her the last time he had been on the Moon. His voice had been full of something she was afraid to hear and his eyes had bored intensely into her own. His hands had been almost painfully hot as they held her cheeks and forced her to look at him.

They had been saying goodbye again. It was only to be a year more before the official meeting on Earth would commence. She would miss him, but it would not be the first time that she felt this way and she doubted that it would be the last. He had been unusually quiet for the last few days, and she had wondered what had been bothering him. As if gathering his courage to him, he had grasped her arms and then her face. And when he was done admitting such an intimate thing that made her dizzy with its implications, he had bent his head much to her horror and kissed her.

It was still a very innocent kiss, just a brush of lips, but without waiting for her answer he had gone.

She remembered the press of his lips against hers, but it was the heat of his breath that made her forget how to breathe. Now, she wondered, if she would regret that moment when her shock had rendered her mute. Her inability to speak could have been the one things she would forever look back on with doubt for the rest of her life. It could have been the last goodbye, but she had always taken these abrupt partings for granted. She had been embarrassed and filled to the brim with the possibilities that he had opened to her with his reckless actions. She had hated him and been afraid of what it really meant when she found she was only using such rhetoric to soothe the nerves he had frayed in his wake.

She remembered his disappearing back and hoped it was not the last sight of him she would have.

Lady Mercury touched her fingers to her throbbing temples and wished the memories away. She had to concentrate on this current problem and not on the personal plague of thoughts that had not left her alone since he had set foot off the Moon. She was afraid in which direction and which road she had gone down without consciously choosing her course. She was terrified of what and who she was becoming.

The emotion ate at her, goading her with the visions of Mars. The other had, not long ago, been a woman who had been reasonable, dignified and respected. Now, that same woman who had been filled with fire had passed by her in the halls, her presence cold like black ice and her eyes forever unseeing and just a little bit mad. She had often found the other lost and wondering, at times going and stopping, uncertain at doorways and in the midst of halls, and other times, striding purposefully towards places forgotten and unknown to anyone else. Hatred was black in the shadows of Mars, stale and encompassing in the air around her. Apathy followed, always closely by with quiet footsteps. And then, the aimless anger and heavy lethargy flew in attendance behind. Mercury feared the woman who now stalked the halls like a pale ghost of her former self, seeing in the faded colors a version of her future self looking back.

She feared that unlike Venus she was not as wise with her heart and that in the end, no matter what she had tried to prevent from happening, it would not be on Jupiter's list of mistakes that Lord Zoicite resided on, but her own.

---

The soft breeze of the starless night rustled the leaves of the Lunar Willow. In the dark, the bright red foliage were no different from the color of the bark or the duskiness of the grass. The long strands of the shivering branches quivered against the invisible caresses of an unseen wind. The garden seemed to sigh and the sound traveled up, past the vaulted cieling.

Beneath the umbrage of leaves, the rising and falling of the still adumbration was the only movement to be seen. Light tried to stretch out warm fingers into the garden but could not reach the tree at the heart of it all. The empty sky overhead peeked in, starless and infinite, guarding the draped silhouette of a girl who slept upon the marbled bench.

Her hair was indistinguishable from her flesh and the stone that she rested on. The strands trailed down to the ground, mingling with the fingers of the willow's branches and its discarded folioles curled like small snakes upon the ground. Her long hair wrap around her, tangling around her limbs like a thin web that melted her into the scenery. Her deep breathing was the only thing that could distinguish her from the other inanimate things in the garden around her.

In this peaceful alcove, away from watchful eyes and loosened lips, Beset dreamed.

In her dream, the shadows danced against the walls of her mind. It was a play of sorts, the type where the actors' lines were always too far away to distinguish and where the act itself was a mystery. She dreamed of a black sun and falling stars, equally black. The ink blots zoomed across the red outlines of tree tops, splattering dark splotches like rain on a pond. She dreamed of a fire that did not burn and a heart that did not beat. She dreamed that she entered a chamber, deep and dark and filled with things she did not want to look at or to learn about.

She dreamed of an alter, where a body lay waiting to be awakened. Onwards she went but she did not want to go. Her feet moved against her commands and her left hand burned hotter and hotter as she approached. She stopped at the ledge and opened her painful hand to watch a beloved's name become red with her blood upon her palm. In her dream she screamed, the harsh sound vibrated in her throat but her voice would not echo past her lips. She fell to her knees as the pain spread to her heart, clutching her arm to her chest in a futile attempt to protect herself.

She felt the familiar feeling come over her once more, as if all the things she held dear were lost and that she would never be able to have them back again...

Then, as she knelt there, tears falling from her eyes and wishing she never had to remember or experience again the agony of it all, she felt the air move. She blinked against the hazy veil of tears but the world was still a blur of melting blacks and greys. Before her, when her vision finally cleared a little, were a set of shining boots, dark and gleaming and flat. It was as if someone had put a scroll of art before her. Her eyes would not obey her feeling of dread and sudden fear as they traveled up trousered legs that had no dimension, and hands, so familiar that she bit her lip to stop herself from crying out. They were long and strong, elegant fingers clasped to each other loosely between the knees. They rested, as if waiting for her to acknowledge their owner. A shadow hovered and a heated breath ghosted her ear as the picture before her shifted into life...

"I didn't tell her my name," the familiar voice spoke to her in unfamiliar tones. His legs were beginning to look more real by the minute, as if the picture of the man before her was rising from the sheets of a white page and draining the colors around him to make himself real. She squeezed closed her eyes and did not know what she wanted to see before her now. The small, treacherous hope burned at the heart of the ache inside of her from the sound of his voice. "It was you, darling, who gave her power. It was all you." He accused her, softly and sure, in the same charming manner that once she had hated.

Beset opened her eyes and saw darkness. Her breath stilled as she remained upon the bench as unmoving as a statue. The edge of the Earth could barely be seen from where she lain, unable to respire from the forgotten words that still echoed inside of her silently. She felt as if she had been dreaming of falling and woken up just in time before hitting the ground. The paralyzing fear finally left her and she was able to raise her left hand to look at it. She didn't know why but she wanted to retrace the invisible name that had once had been written there with another's calloused finger. She blinked and touched her temple, where the tears had disappeared into her hair, surprised and annoyed at having found herself crying again in her sleep.

What had that dream...?

She rose into a sitting position, putting her head in her hands and wishing she didn't feel so out of control. Sometimes she found herself forgetting what she had been doing in the middle of a task or where she was headed in the middle of the hall. One day melted into the next and she never slept well, never knew at what particular time she was at in the midst of the disaster that befell her. She hated being so unsure of when she was seeing visions and when she was facing reality, neither of which was ever pleasant but she had never shied from either before. She hated not knowing what day she had wakened to, and when she inquired, hated that she forgot the answers she sought.

Most of all, she hated feeling as if the world had lost its colors. It was a rather ridiculous notion all together, people don't just become color blind in the midst of their lives. She hated all this, but could not find the strength in herself to change the state she was in. She knew why she felt this way but even she was surprised how this was all really happened because of the passing of a man, one who was not even a citizen of the Silver Alliance.

How could she have tied herself so intricately to him? The question called out to her in her mind, always beneath the clicking of her heels against stone and would only quiet a little when she stood completely still. Slowly, hour by hour, she was beginning to believe that she hated him too. She hated him for giving up and letting fate have its way with him, for not fighting back when he should have fought with all that he had, for not calling out to her for help in his (and her own) hour of need... For reducing her to this.

Beset felt so tired. She wanted to lay down against the cold rocks and sleep forever. She did not wish to ever dream again, or see another vision of the future when it was always bleak and full of destinations without choices. She was tired of speaking and not being heard, for now the healers and even the Lady Queen would not believe the visions she saw. No, they believed, but she had seen the heavy fear that closed their minds to truth she spoke.

She no longer had the desire to face her friends who had seen her as she had once seen herself. She did not want to witness the disappointment of dashed expectations on another's face, not when her own had been painful enough to look at in the gathered pools of still waters. If only she could remember other things than just what she dreamed these days, then maybe she would not feel as if she was going out of her mind. She felt often that she was withering away into nothing, and when she spoke her voice was like a breath that people forgotten the language to. Yet, suddenly she realized that she couldn't remember the dream she just had. Had she been dreaming? She cursed under her breath for her dreams had never been a problem before, but now she suspected that she had been purposefully forgetting some of them because her consciousness couldn't handle what laid in waiting for her in the dark of her mind.

Perhaps, she was not so different from those in the palace, after all.

Am I going mad? Perhaps it would be better to go mad than to become too weak to handle visions of the future. Perhaps it would be better to just lie down now and die now that she had become so useless. After all, she had just discovered that she was not as strong as she thought she had been. The Lady Queen did not need such a weakling to watch over her beloved child or the Alliance. Their ruler needed devotion that went on passed time and distance. If she died, another would be born in her place, forgetting these painfully debilitating moments and carrying the lessons she had learned here, as this Mars.

It was an important lesson, after all, to never give her heart to anyone.

Slowly, she raised her head and rested her cheek against her knee. Some time, long ago, I had been like this before, she thought to herself dreamily. I had watched a man shape wood with steel, and I had let that man shape my heart and my thoughts. I had thought he was worthy, that he would become eternal. I had thought that perhaps he had the power to change my destiny, but all that he has shown me in the end, all the possibilities he had placed before me, had only crumbled to nothing from its own brittleness. I was stripped and now I'm but bones, like the fallen dragons of my homeland. I was made for only the Queen and her child, so why did I wish for more? Why and how did I forget these lessons learned? Have I not learned them before in some previous life that my father have spoken of so fondly? Have I still not learned it well enough to carry it to the next life that awaits me?

She could not answer these questions that burned behind her eyes whenever she closed them. She wanted to kill her heart but was afraid to cut the veins that fed it. She had wanted to die, now and again, when the pain became too much but was a coward when it came time to act upon it. And she abhored herself for becoming like a shadow on the walls of her dreams and the palace of her reality.

Beset opened the hand she could not see and perceived that she now regretted wishing to become like the wood beneath the hands of a mortal man.

---

"Lord Jadeite!" the servant exclaimed as he saw the approaching man stride into the hall. "Where have you been, all these days? The Prince Endymion had been most worried as have your other comrades!"

Lord Jadeite paused in the hall, puzzled as he glanced around at the stone works. He pulled a hand through his hair, disheveling it, as if to clear the golden strands of cobwebs. "Forgive me," he said softly before reaching over and touching the startled servant. "But, where is the Lord Nephrite currently?" he inquired.

"The north wing," the servant answered obediently, face suddenly slack.

"Oh good," Lord Jadeite answered cheerfully. "I have need of a word with him. Be so kind as to forget this conversation all together, would you?" the servant nodded his only answer. He did not even watch the Lord Jadeite pass into the shadows, humming a strange little tune.

The servant simply stood a long time beneath the dancing torches. When he finally blinked out of his stupor, he had found that the night had wore on for quite some time and it was now early morning. "What was I doing again?" he wondered out loud to himself, touching the top of his balding head in confusion. Slowly he turned to look down the hall, as if he was expecting to see something there. The emptiness greeted him and he thought better of it and turned toward the servant's quarters instead. He tried to remember the thing that woke him in the middle of the night but couldn't recall getting out of bed.

Perhaps he had been sleep walking. He had heard of the ailment and feared that he may have been possessed by a demon in his sleep. How strange, thought the servant, I hope I'm not getting so old as to forget myself. And, if I was possessed, he thought with a shudder, I best not tell anyone about this incident...

TBC.

4. the memories

I'm kind of sick of rereading this chapter. Please let me know if you see any errors, thanks!

sm_monthly January Theme 13 - Betrayal

2009-01-29T04:24:55Z

Beset - Lady Mars

the feel of her name

1. the forest

I've been so lost since you've gone
Why not me before you?
Why did fate deceive me?
Everything turned out so wrong
Why did you leave me in silence?
--Forgiven by Within Temptation

2. the soundless

"How is she?" Lady Venus asked as she closed her hands over Lady Jupiter's trembling fingers.

"Better," the brunette said with a sigh. "The healers have taken off the restraints now that they are sure she won't hurt herself, but..." Jupiter blinked back tears of helplessness while Venus led them to a sofa. They both sank down onto it, and a look of relief came over Jupiter's face at no longer having to support herself while recalling such terrible things. "It's awful!" the other finally confessed as a whoosh of air escaped out of her lips at finally admitting it out loud.

Venus frowned, her eyes hard. "It's alright. It's not your fault." The blonde looked away, overcome by irritation, but she did not stay silent long. "She shouldn't even be like this! She was made stronger than this--" At that moment, Lady Mercury came in, interrupting their conversation. The other closed the door quietly behind her, but there was a start in her when she looked up to see them. "Her highness?" Venus asked the surprised woman when Mercury did not move from her place by the door.

The other only blinked at them before she caught herself, and Venus realized just how on edge Mercury must have been to be in such a state. "Asleep, at last," the blue-haired woman answered, a bit more chilly and blunt than usual since she was still trying to compose herself. Mercury crossed the room swiftly before sinking onto a cushioned chair, a bit closer to the window and a little further away from where Venus and Jupiter sat. Mercury never did like to have others observe her, and she liked it even less when she was in no state to deal with any company but her own. If she could choose to remain apart and in shadows, she would.

They all sat in silence then. It was uncomfortable, but nobody wanted or had the energy to speak. It had taken them three days and three sleepless nights to find Lady Mars. Three days had passed entirely before a fatigued but unhinged Venus stormed into the Observation Room, demanding to see the logs of teleportation. This had only happened because she was so sleep-deprived and desperate that she would have gone teleporting herself if she hadn't thought to check the logs first. Of all the places, going to Earth was probably the very last option she would have ever associated to a choice that Mars would have made. And, even when she had looked through the logs, she did not suspect that the last place Mars had looked herself was an isolated forest, on Earth.

She had obviously been wrong about a lot of things from that moment on. The relief of finding Mars was now completely overshadowed by the feeling of absolute betrayal. After all, they only found the other because the Observation Room remembered the Senshi's last entry three days prior, and only because she had been crazy enough to check. She had not known, had not even been afforded the courtesy of a note concerning the plans Mars had of leaving the Moon - the other's post! - and now she could only speculate that Mars had not trusted her enough to tell her this.

And the state they had recovered her in...

"Do you think she's fit enough for me to speak to her?" Venus finally asked Jupiter, breaking the silence in her restless agitation.

"I don't think that's a good idea right now," Jupiter informed their leader with a weary and skeptical look in her eyes. The Senshi of Jupiter had not had the energy to be angry with Mars since she found her superior on Earth. Her fellow Senshi was certainly breaking numerous laws and treaties, but the other was also utterly broken herself. Jupiter had been at a loss, really. She had never thought, of all of them, that Mars would be the one to do something as foolish as this, and certainly never over a man of Earth! Once upon a time, if someone had speculated on such similar happenings, Jupiter might have considered herself or Venus to be the most likely of candidates, they were far more easily overcome by emotions, after all. Even cold and shy Mercury would have been chosen, because the woman was more shy than cold, before she would have thought to pick steadfast, rule-abiding Mars. And yet, here they were. "The healers were adamant that she rest, Venus," Jupiter cautioned. "Not that I can tell you what to do, but I don't think it's a very good idea to right now. We're all very distraught over this and I understand--"

"Why ever not?" Venus interrupted. Her tone was as sharp as a blade. "We're all distraught, but she's the reason we're like this now." Her eyes was hard and unforgiving, but Jupiter and Mercury were the only ones who could see this. They both knew Venus had been avoiding Mars since the other's retrieval. No one was more shocked to discover Mars on Earth than Venus, even if she was the one who thought to look. Of all the people in the universe, Venus and Mars had always been so close it was hard to imagine the second-in-command not telling their leader what she had planned to do. Laws and treaties, fate and destiny were not what bound those two, but friendship, trust, and habits drilled into them since they were foretold to take their posts.

The two women had always been as close as sisters, and dearer than friends. It must have been harder for Venus than for anyone else that this had happened. The way it had happened had certainly not helped anyone cope. Jupiter knew this but thinking of how complicated the next few days were going to continue to be just wearied her. No one dared to raise any questions or worries they themselves had for the Kings of Earth, much less the Prince. Luna had already scheduled back-to-back meetings, debriefing and analyzing the events that had led up to this debacle. They were only given brief times of rest while the Counselors of the Lady Queen gathered intelligence. It rarely even felt like rest at all. They were certainly waiting for Mars to recover, so that she may be a somewhat useful witness to the incidents that occurred, but they weren't going to wait around to start making decisions. The meetings had only abraded their already raw nerves, and this was not the time for confrontations before everyone was forced back into the closed quarters within the Hall of Acients again. Nowadays they always seemed to be operating with too little information and even less respite.

A part of her was glad though, for repose left her to her thoughts.

She shouldn't, but every time she had too much time to be still, Jupiter found herself worrying. Sometimes, when she wasn't careful, she thought of the Kings of Earth. She even thought of Lord Nephrite, who she had rarely ever had a fond thought for. He was down there and they had parted on better terms than they had started, which was something... unexpected. She was only beginning to like him a little, so it was only natural that she worried... a little.

He had always been such a churlish and prickly man. Most of the time she couldn't stand him and only sometimes did she see the loyalty and warmth beneath the disdain he'd shown her for quite some time. It had been so exhausting to deal with him at first, and despite being known as the most amiable girl in court, she had once been so irate with him that she had hurled a very expansive vase at his head. Well, at least her aim had always been rather deadly and even Lord Nephrite, bleeding head and all, could not deny that (even if he denied the fact that he absolutely deserved it).

Lord Jadeite certainly had been the most approachable of the four, and now he was also very certainly dead. The man had once helped her locate a missing glove after she had a rather unfortunate altercation with a very rude princeling from her own planet. It had been the most trivial of things to bother an ambassador of Earth, but he had suddenly appeared at her arm and asked if she needed aid. He was rather good at that.

She had already been distressed that evening. It had all been such a horrendous ordeal, especially after having her nerves worn thin already by an argument concerning Lunarian court politics with Lord Nephrite earlier. At that moment, when Lord Jadeite had come to her aid, all she had wanted to do was to just sit down in the middle of the ballroom and give herself a good pity cry.

Venus and Mars had been waylaid with the often appalling responsibility of fending off all too-eager suitors from the Princess Serenity. Mercury was off duty that evening and had already wisely slipped away, at the very first opportunity the other could. Jupiter had suddenly found herself rather alone in that ballroom, unexpectedly not enjoying it the way she had assumed that she would. And then Lord Jadeite, quite like a rather bright and dashing knight, had appeared at her elbow and alerted her that perhaps he could be of service. He had been a rather attentive escort, and though the ordeal had been short, she was in far better spirits after it was over.

She might have even called him a friend, despite her rather nasty luck with men.

Lord Jadeite, of course, had long proven his worth to her in other ways. She had known him mostly through the long, droning hours of negotiations that she was forced to stand through with the others. She knew he was good at reading the minds of others, a skill that certainly hadn't sat very well with her for quite some time.

Of course, this was not public knowledge, and their leader, Venus, was so good at reading people that she might as well be able to read minds - and Mars was not that far behind on intuition alone. Yet, there was something very disconcerting, if not downright embarrassing, about finding Lord Jadeite giving her several very private smiles during the middle of a few especially boring meetings and catching her in the middle of day-dreaming. They were mostly innocent ones about running through the wide-opened fields from her childhood or a rather delicious recipe she was rehashing in her mind to try out. However, during the very first week the Kings and their Prince had arrived, she had quite a mortifying experience with his rather obscure talent.

She had been imagining which of the ambassadors of Earth had a nicer set of buttocks, considering that Venus had slyly insinuated to her earlier that she thought Prince Endymion's was the nicest (and the most firm). Jupiter hadn't dared ask Venus how she knew this, though she was certain she didn't want to know anyway. She was being rather diplomatic about the whole thing really, trying to imagine how they had looked walking in front of her earlier, before she concluded that the Kings all had very nicely shaped behinds and she just couldn't decide from the information that she was given whose was better.

This pleasant train of thought was brutally derailed, rather quickly, when her wondering eyes met Lord Jadeite's own. Jupiter didn't think she had ever turned so red in the middle of a meeting in her life (and possibly never again, if she could help it) when she realized what exactly she had been thinking (and who exactly had heard it!). She had felt all the blood rushing to her head so fast that she literally felt faint and even swayed a little on her feet. Mars had shot her a rather nasty warning stare for the obvious state of embarrassment she was in while Venus had smiled at her with such indulgent smugness that Jupiter, having really done nothing wrong at this point, vividly imagined herself being impaled by a very nice and long Jovian spear to end her misery. Well, that thought just didn't end well for her either, and she turned even redder as time went on. All three of them had ended up witnessing Lord Jadeite's quirking eyebrow, an amused stare that turned into a rather difficult expression - where upon he looked like he was in quite a bit of pain (probably from trying hard not to laugh at her in front of everyone else!) - during the whole ordeal.

Needless to say, from then on, Jupiter learned to recite many things in her own native tongue and to picture absolutely nothing. Long poems about brave gladiators and even longer treaties about the Silver Alliance were always being recited in his presence in one of the three official Jovian languages, no less. She even cornered Mercury in her desperation to memorize things that made absolutely no sense to even herself, like the difficult classes of astronomy and alchemy that she had never paid much attention to in her youth. Hence forth, only when she was very careless, was she even able to think of anything remotely understandable to an Earthling during those long meetings.

Since discovering Lord Jadeite's rather violent demise, Jupiter found herself remembering these inconsequential meetings long ago. She remembered how she had been sure he would share her humiliating moment with Nephrite and that she would end up hating both of them (right after she poisoned them, that is). Naturally, since Nephrite didn't like her in the first place, he would never let her live this one down! Yet, when Venus had laughingly dragged her to their meeting place, while Mars scolded her and pushed her all the way there, she found herself confronted by a surly King who treated her no different than with his usual high-handedness. She had been wound up so tight that even Lord Nephrite had barked at her with an exasperated sigh, "Just what the hell is wrong with you now?"

Only then did she realize that Lord Jadeite had not spoken a word of it. She was quite bewildered by this, and for quite a few private interactions she's had with him after, she had not been able to think of anything else except that he would bring that horrifying moment up again. She knew he could hear such worries as clearly as if she had shouted to the world her anxieties, but she couldn't help but think on it more and more the longer she spent time in his presence. Yet, not even in passing, not even to acknowledge her insecurities, or tease her about her imaginations did he make one passing remark about it. And slowly, slowly Jupiter learned that Lord Jadeite, with his rare smiles and courteous actions, respected the privacy of other's thoughts, whether or not he could hear it was not something he could help.

Jupiter thought about all that she learned about the Kings and their Prince Endymion when they had come, she thought about the hot-headed man who had a cutting wit but a warm touch. She thought about how Lord Nephrite would react to the news of one of their own passing, if he didn't already learn of it. Jupiter was only starting to like him when he left, and even if she understood nothing about the man she was forced to escort for a few weeks every year (for the last several years), she did understand loyalty and friendship. She didn't know why she cared, not when the two of them argued more than they got along, but she could sympathize even if she rarely liked the hot-tempered man. Lord Nephrite and Lord Jadeite had been very close too, they were all very close, like the Senshi were close to each other. Yet, those two seemed not just comrades in arms that trusted each other with their lives on the battlefield, but genuine friends that laughed together and fought each other, sometimes ribbing one another with private jokes and knowing looks.

Jupiter shuddered to think how she would have reacted if Mars had been the one they had found dead beside Lord Jadeite's corpse instead. Selfishly, even though it was nothing to be happy about, she was glad it wasn't Mars. She was glad it hadn't been one of them down there in that unknown place, dead for an unknown reason. She was glad it wasn't really her in Lord Nephrite's shoes, or any of the shoes of those who had to say goodbye to a loved one when Lord Jadeite passed on.

She was glad that the small pang of loss at Lord Jadeite's passing was a pang and not a wound she couldn't close...

Beset's eyes had glowed like burning coals on her hollowed face, as if all the life lived only in those eyes now.

Jupiter shuddered again at the memory. She had never really witnessed death before. At least, not so close. She had been the one charged with the task of bringing Mars back, and having seen it in the midst of her task, she never wished to see it again. She had always assumed that she would die in her sleep, like the last Senshi to hold her post, and the one before that. She never thought there was another option, another choice, really. She knew being a Senshi entailed danger, and it had always been a thrilling concept before - risking one's life for love and honor. It had never been real. And now, seeing and smelling the terrible thing was an experience she never wished to repeat again.

Of course she'd read about it. She had read about wars and strategy, learned and listened to bloody ballads and watched illusionary plays about the fall of the Solarian civilization, and the devastating wars that had killed much of the outer planets, turning most of them into deserted and uninhabitable posts that only Senshi could watch over. But there was something very different between the abstract concept and the actual evidence. Only now did she rethink the fact that she may have reacted too harshly to Lord Nephrite's criticism of them when they had first met. She had just began a tentative truce with him before his departure too, and Jupiter had always thought him rather good-looking - that is before his big mouth ruined the effect. But now she wondered if he had not been right about them. They would not be prepared to go to war with anyone, really, even if it included a race as technologically and as magically ill-equipped as Earth.

Venus shifted and her actions caused Jupiter to look up sharply, abruptly coming back to the dead silence in the room. She studied her leader and grimly made no protest when Venus released her no-longer trembling hands. She could not say anything to that clenched jawed look on Venus' face. She wanted to protest but it would only fall onto deaf ears. Jupiter knew this, for she was quickly learning a lot more about her friends from the last three days than she'd ever learned about them in the last decade spent in their presence. She opened her mouth to protest, out of habit, wanting to warn Venus of the fleeting and alien madness that had flitted across a familiar face, but stopped herself at the last minute. Venus would fail to understand it unless she saw it for herself. It was a sad realization, but no less true. And she foresaw her leader's reaction should she push for the other to stay, a reaction that terrified her enough to still her tongue.

"I will go talk to her," Venus announced, voice hard as granite, in case someone else decided to advise her otherwise. Jupiter could not look at her leader then, for fear of what her own face would reveal. Mercury did not even turn her head. Venus didn't notice any of this, she had already moved towards the doors that Mercury had entered from earlier and didn't turn back to observe the defeated slump in Jupiter's shoulders or the absent, vacant stare Mercury was giving to the view outside the window.

"Don't," Jupiter finally said weakly after the doors had closed and silence fell upon the two remaining. She had not watched Venus leave and she regretted that she only had the courage to voice the word lodged in her throat once it could no longer be heard. Yet, even in her own ears, they lacked conviction.

----

Whatever Venus had thought she would face, this was probably not it.

Mars sat regally at her dressing mirror, brushing out her hair and humming a song. The familiar long strokes she utilised to straighten her locks were the same graceful movements Venus often remembered waking to see when they had been younger and prone to sudden urges of slumber parties in each other's rooms. Once, the four of them had crammed into Mars' large bed because the Martian had been adamant not to comply with her suggested sleeping arrangements, period.

"Well," Venus remembered commenting to her friend then, "if the Martian won't come to Venus, Venus will go to the Martian!"

Venus certainly regretted her decision later on, when Jupiter had accidentally kicked her out of bed early that morning and rudely awakened her from her sleep. She remembered groggily struggling to sit up from the floor and the amused face that greeted her at that very vanity, years ago. It was first time she had heard Mars laugh, and it had been... enchanting.

"Beset," the red-haired girl had told her while handing her a sword, months later. They had just started learning to handle the weapon, having moved on from throwing knives. There had been a party to celebrate the coming of the New Year and it had been her first present, ever really.

"You named the sword?" Venus remembered asking incredulously, after unwrapping the surprise. She couldn't picture Mars as someone who gave out pet names to anything, not even to sharp and pointy killing things. She had just been so overwhelmed and touched by the gift, for she had read that Martians took gift giving very seriously, especially those concerning weapons.

It had been the first sword she had ever owned.

"Idiot," Mars had said fondly through a chuckle but didn't correct her. It took her a week to figure it out. It had stopped Venus dead in her tracks, right in the midst of training. She was hit by the sudden epiphany that the strange name was not the name of her new sword but the name of her friend. Jupiter, seeing an opening, had promptly followed that example with a rather painful and well aimed punch. She was given a rather nasty black-eye to go with her bruised pride.

Of course she was pissed. She hunted Mars down for not being straight-forward about such an important matter and then promptly got into a brawl with the other in the west wing of the palace. She was more than annoyed for being distracted during practice and she wanted someone else to pay for the glaringly obvious sign of her inattention. By the smug smile Mars had given her at the end of that fight, even though they were both in no shape at all for smiling, Venus thought the other may have used those powers of premonition for a far less noble purpose than anyone suspected.

Good thing Martians didn't mind a good fight, especially if it proved something...

They were truly friends after that. It was a new and strange experience for the both of them. They had pledged their loyalties to each other beneath the Lunar Willow that Mars loved and Venus admired.

She had trouble thinking of Mars as a Beset for the longest time though. She was so used to the other just being Mars. Yet, once in awhile, like this moment, for example, she couldn't bring herself to use the title they all went by. Not when it hit so close to home.

Mars paused for only a moment when Venus walked up to the other's only sitting chair in the room. The red-haired woman didn't bother look up however, or even acknowledge her friend was there. Only when Venus looked through the mirror did she see the white bandages that bound the hands of Mars. The other woman had always been pale, but the red of her hair was gleaming and it made the bandages stand out more. Venus thought that Mars must have bathed, despite her own expectations to see a very disorderly and disturbed woman from the reactions she had seen on Jupiter's face. Yet, here was the Mars that she was used to, this was who she had wanted to see and who she remembered the other being before this whole fiasco.

For a moment, Venus wondered if she had simply dreamt the whole thing up. She felt the hope fill her up, that she had simply experienced a nightmare and she was there again to tell Mars what she had trouble telling anyone else. They would laugh about her crazy imagination and Mars would cross the room, touch her cheek, and promise her that she could stay the night if it would soothe her.

And yet, while Venus watched her friend, she knew that was not it. Knowing this, she felt even more betrayed by the seeming disguise. The languid strokes that used to soothe her when she watched now irritated her to no end. The soft sounding hum of a whimsical song was just another facade of a lie already exposed.

Did Mars not trust her with what the other really felt? Even Jupiter had seen the other's falling apart but why was Venus not allowed? Were they no longer friends? Could she no longer think of this woman as one closer than a sister?

All along, had she been the only one who thought this way?

The white bandages around the other's hands seemed to mock her silently for her ignorance. Venus clenched her own into fists and blanked her face. "Why did you go?" she asked quietly, forcing herself to stay calm and raising her chin slightly. Mars didn't even pause again, didn't even bother to answer her. "You know we can't go to Earth right now when the negotiations are so tentative. Even the Princess has been following the rules." No reaction. "What the hell were you thinking?" Venus demanded, losing her cool when the tune of the song got on her nerves.

Mars pulled the brush slowly through her hair one last time. She stopped humming to look at it with a curiosity on her face that was strange considering Venus was still panting angrily in the mirror behind her. Then the very soft song on her breath resumed. Venus opened her mouth, her anger and annoyance fueled by the other's obvious lack of care, but Mars glanced up again.

Venus froze. For all the time she had known her dearest friend, she had never seen the other look at her in that way before. She comprehended the sudden burning hot rage that now lived in a stranger's face, one that overshadowed her own devastated feelings. Mars rose and turned to her then and slowly, in her usual stately manner but far slower, she drifted to Venus. Mars had never walked like that before, as if she was half falling and half gliding, stopping so close to the blond that they just looked at each other for a very long time. The red-haired woman's cheekbones looked sharper than ever. The shadows beneath was dark and her whole face looked drawn. And yet, her eyes glittered. The rage was now a shimmer and not the burning wild-fire that had the ability to seal her lips like hot wax. "You shouldn't have come," Mars finally told her. "I'm not ready to see you."

"But--" she dared to try.

Her words were cut off as the other turned away. She had barely caught a glimpse of the silent snarl, but the expression was as foreign as the current situation and no less deadly than the insanity that Mars had carried earlier in the sparks of her eyes. With one smooth, practiced motion, the red-haired woman lifted her arm and then hurled the brush at the mirror with such a force that it was impaled into the wall behind it. The crashing sound of shattered glass made Venus jump in a start. Slivers of their reflections rained down to the floor, showering the ground. She could see her friend's shoulders shaking with another force now, as if the other was trying to draw in air after a long, hard run. Then those shoulders tensed once before smoothing into a relaxed line of skillfully suppressed emotions that she had only glimpsed a terrifying moment of.

A burning enimity lit those eyes into rubies and made them gleam mad and flat like a monster's. She had only ever seen that impassive face and those expressive lips scowl at her or thin in displeasure, but never quite like this. Not even in passing. There was also a hint of a cruel twist there she had never before encountered until today. She was tempted to step back, but she felt as if she was rooted to her spot in that familiar room that was suddenly more alien a place than Earth could ever be, or any other planet for that matter.

"You should go," Mars said quietly. "I don't want you to see me like this," she added, almost absent-mindedly, as if her thoughts had already moved on. Venus nodded slowly, afraid her voice would break the calm as she turned to go and knowing Mars would not be able to see her agreement. She paused at the door, only then noticing the dents by the entrance. The bloody streaks had darkened already along the jagged edges and Venus felt her hand shake as she reached for the lever to let herself out. This must have been why Mars had her hand bandaged and, perhaps, it would explain why Jupiter had been so rattled.

There was a madness that lived inside of her friend that had never been there before. It was an aimless bitterness, black and abysmal. It burned cold into the night and made those warm, kind eyes glitter hard and lifeless. It looked out through Mars with a quiet hatred that seemed bigger than a body could hold. It leaked out like poison and vibrated the very air around the Senshi that stood so alone and still in that room.

Venus couldn't look back. She was half afraid she would say something wrong and more afraid she would say what she felt. "I'm sorry, Beset," Venus finally said softly before she closed the door. She still hesitated on the other's name. Still was unsure of the foreign syllables that once brought amusement into those eyes that were no longer familiar.

It was her apology for not being able to do anything in the face of a pain she had never realized could live so vividly in the eyes of someone she loved. It was her apology for having thought she knew all there was to know about Beset, the girl who had once cut her own hand on their first blade and clasped their wounds together to bind their destinies. It was her apology for never realizing how hard Mars had tried, had held her when she had felt most alone, and how she wasn't able to return the favor now.

Venus walked a few feet from the closed doors that separated her from her closest friend and collapsed against the wall when she could go no further. She knew she needed to call the healers or the servants, someone to clean the mess she's left behind. Yet, her legs felt like liquid and would not obey her, while her voice felt as if it had fled her completely. She had thought she understood grief and pain, had understood the meaning of being a leader and the strength needed to be a friend. Venus slid down that wall and clutched her hands to her useless throat that couldn't produce any noise of comfort or sound any alarms of pain. She felt the silent, helpless tears slide down her cheeks, tears that she had not the courage to shed in that room full of edges and blood already spilt. She had wanted to say that it was over now, that they couldn't go back in time, and that there were other, more important things they needed to focus on...

And yet, she had not been able to utter a single word of it.

She had been wrong and Jupiter had been right. It had not been Mars who was not ready to face her, it was she who was not yet ready to face Mars. It was not over now, it was just beginning. They could not go back in time, and there were other, more important things they needed to focus on, but how could she say it to Beset's face that had looked at her with such bleak intensity. How could she say it when she could not understand even a small sliver of the pain that the other was going through, when she had not even realized how much Beset must have felt for Lord Jadeite to bring this about...

All this time, it was really she who had turned into a friend in name only.

"Even knowing the future, we can still hope." Beset herself had told Venus once. Mars had touched their hands together, mingling their blood while Venus kissed the other's cheek. She wondered then, if that girl had known of the heartbreak that awaited her in the future or the uselessness of promises made beneath magical wishing trees. "What are you afraid of? You're the Goddess of Love and Beauty, and if not that, at least you are her defender, her champion. Shouldn't you be a bit more of a romantic?" her friend had teased her when she had been too adamant to admit even liking the Lord Kunzite. Usually she would have jested about his physique or his prowess as a lover, usually she would have played seductress or bragged of her conquests - in a non-vulgar way, of course. Even then, perhaps Beset had already seen what her heart had truly wanted, better than she had been at facing the treacherous truth of its desires.

If she had been true to herself, or to her friend, would Mars have told her? Would she have known that she was not the only one the other cared about? Would she have been able to deal with knowing that another may have been gifted with the knowledge of a dear friend's name?

Venus silently cried, trembling hands against her neck and her arm. Tears soaked her dress as she hunched over her knees, unable to soothe the pain beyond the wall that supported her now. Unable, really, to even help herself. In the end, all she really wanted was to help the person who had held her hand, who had told her a true name beyond titles and duties, and had once laughed, pulling her close and calling her sister.

To that woman, far from the reaches of her arms and her words, Venus felt utterly defeated.

---

Lady Beryl scowled rather unbecomingly at her black orb. The child had obviously gone insane, from what little she had observed, but that uncanny intuition... The mirror had been a rather nice medium, she had even contemplated using it and tormenting the alien girl with images of her dead lover. After all, she couldn't be known to treat her enemies with mercy now, could she?

And yet, when that girl had so accurately hurled that silver brush...

Well, perhaps she should be a little more careful. After all, she shouldn't underestimate them, no matter how inexperienced and unprepared they were for the war she would bring to their doorsteps. There really was no other way to get to the powers she sought, and it was rather unfortunate that she would have to stomp on the hearts of a few star-crossed lovers and inexperienced children to get to what she really wanted.

At such thoughts, she thought of the little bitch who so easily waylaid the wondering attentions of her Prince. Lady Beryl snarled, her beautiful face turning rather ugly as her nails clutched at the arm-rests of her throne. Why was she even bothering to feel pity for these despicable beings?

She sighed, letting the intense jealousy pass. It wouldn't do to make herself too much of a villain, after all. She hadn't set out for that, only to be strong enough to take what she wanted. What she deserved, actually.

She rose instead, spilling red and purple down onto the floor as she crossed it to the stone slab that nursed the shadow of a man. He would soon be her own, as all the others would. But he would be the first, a ripe prize that had not been too easy to pluck. Lady Beryl's lips smoothed into a seductive smile as she trailed one finger along the cocoon. She was a very patient woman, she had to learn to be one to get where she was now and, of course, where she will be later.

The power Metallia promised her was only a part of her own plans, for the old witch that bestowed her with an amplifier to her own gifts was a rather nasty creature. She wouldn't want to turn out like that, so besotted with power that she would fail to enjoy it when she got her hands around it. She would not turn a blind eye to life, or to love, for that matter.

She smiled playfully, turning away as she went back to her orb and called upon the face and figure of a Prince. "Soon," she promised him. It will not just be a glass ball that I get to see and touch your lovely features, or imagine your hand on my cheek. Soon, it will not just be a small miracle beside a lake, your strong hand around my weak ankle.

Lady Beryl glanced at the cocoon behind her. She will make sure Prince Endymion was not alone, for he loved his Kings so well. She would build him a kingdom and rule by his side, always surrounding him with the most trustworthy of servants. They would be equals and they would be able to bring peace to the people of Earth. She would do all this for him without the help of alien beings who would never understand or love their planet the way they love their planet. She would do all this with no strings attached, for that was the meaning of love.

Ah, but the Moon would only trap the Earth with their talks of peace and their demands for alliances. They would not be able to make Earth all that it could be. Instead, they would forever live only in the shadows of the clossus that was other alien civilizations. They would lose all that made them the people of Earth, and only for a few fancy trinkets such as the fragile promise of peace. All that the Moon offered them were ephemeral things they could live without, and Lady Beryl was wise to the ways of promises and treaties. She had seen them broken countless times, and had, in fact, broken a few of them herself.

It was all rather easy when you were the stronger.

No, she would never allow Earth to fall victim to such an uneasy truce. They had everything to lose to such deals with the Silver Alliance, but what she wanted was that they have everything to gain. "I can promise you that, my love," Lady Beryl vowed with her velvet voice of reason as she smiled into his unseeing eyes. "After all, my darling Endymion, someone must make sure that you never betray your true heart."

TBC.

3. the searching

sm_monthly January Theme 14: Forgiven by Within Temptation

2009-01-24T01:20:31Z

If you have time, please let me know: Was this too melodramatic? Too angsty? Too different? Too out-of-character? (Why the hell did you pick those corny/awkward names?! - that type of thing) Thanks!

Khariton - Lord Jadeite
Beset - Lady Mars

the feel of her name

Couldn't save you from the start
Love you so it hurts my soul
Can you forgive me for trying again
Your silence makes me hold my breath
Time has passed you by
--Forgiven by Within Temptation

1. the forest

Beset woke up and immediately she knew something was wrong. Her dreams had been full of shadows these days but they had not been frightening, at least, not compared to the visions that visited her at the oddest hours in the day. Yet, with an acrimonious taste in her mouth and her head feeling off (when she had not part-taken in any drinks of revelry the night before) she wondered what it was that disturbed her enough to call her out of bed. It was too early, even for her.

A restless settled in her limbs and she rose reluctantly from the warmth of her bedding with jittery legs. She threw on some robes that were somewhat more decent than her nightgown before venturing breathlessly into the halls. Not many people were up at this time of morning, but the night-shift guards and a few servants still wondered the halls. The Earth was a detailed globe in the harsh light of the bright white sun, still not yet at the peak of its dance across the heavens. The shadow spells still spilled weak darkness onto the floors of the opened hallways and the servants in charge of dousing them when it was late enough out had not risen themselves to the task. It was warm but Beset shivered as her legs moved her towards a destination she wasn't quite sure the directions to herself.

And when she finally stopped, she was even more unsettled and slightly annoyed at herself. The pressure in her chest finally subsided a little, but the great doors did not invite her. Her eyes narrowed as she looked up the gold intricate details and tried to will herself to turn around and walk away from the Observations Room. Yet, disturbingly enough, despite her usual self composure, this morning she remained unmoved before the great doors. She was rooted there with indecision. A part of her wanted to turn right around and go back to her room, it swore colorfully about losing sleep for such ridiculous, childish, and womanly issues. Another part of her, the part that left her finger tips tingling with dread and anticipation was even stronger.

She knew something was wrong.

No amount of denial or bluster could deny the part of her that had always known these things that were to come to pass. Her hands, like an alien appendages, moved on their own and the door opened beneath her dry palms. Her lips thinned but she had made up her mind before she took her first steps into the room. Her eyes took in the empty chamber, the screens mounted on the walls were on, but the observatory table itself was black and sleeping (as she should still be). Here was where they had often caught their Princess sighing dreamily at images of the Earth Prince but days ago.

Beset suppressed an irritated sigh, this time it was aimed at herself. She had often scolded the Princess for such foolish behaviors. The child was longing for something that could - and probably would - tear their worlds apart, if the prophecies were correct in their warnings. If they could only cement this alliance, perhaps soon she could speak with gentler tones when those hurt eyes turned to her. Yet, now, now was not the time for kindness when kindness would betray her duties to her people, even if it won her favors with her Princess. The prophecy warned them of it, her disturbingly more frequent visions confirmed it, and the omens, the bloody shadows that hinted at a war without the same overwhelming images of disaster settled inside of her dreams where her visions couldn't always reach her.

Beset swallowed the bitterness still on her tongue. It almost tasted like blood. She strode over to the observation table and it came to life at her touch. When the Earthian ambassadors came, this was an off-limits room and, for those months, the Counselor Artemis would seal off their memories concerning this section of the palace. The precautions were expected for their guests were not ready to know just how easily it was to monitor the planet that stood so prominently in their Lunarian skies, not when they were already quite uncomfortable. Until peace talks were more solid, Luna had advised the Queen to cut off the meeting place entirely for all who could not protect their minds from eavesdropping. This was, of course, not the only place not to be mentioned, but it was certainly not something they needed knowledge about.

Her eyes glittered from the lights of the floating screens. Beset punched in the clearance code and only when wilderness filled the screen did she let go of her breath. No, nothing here, but why did it show at all? "The Lord Jadeite," she repeated herself, perplexed on whether or not the machine had misunderstood her. She never trusted technology, and though she considered Lady Mercury a sister, the Hermisian's toys always made her uneasy. She was just being paranoid, after all. The scene before her didn't change and Beset began to shake her head. Perhaps, I was wrong? She thought this with a bit of relief.

Even though she has never been wrong...

Beset stilled as she reached to tuck away a stray strand of red hair. She was almost ready to switch off the confounding Hermisian automaton but stopped to stare with growing dread as the sunlight on Earth reflected off of something unnatural. There, in the shadows, was that a glint of gold? Her hand trembled as she maneuvered the screen to zoom in on that speck of dust. It had to be dust... or those strange rocks that--

She frowned, annoyed at the rising panic inside of her. What was wrong with her? He was a grown man who could take care of himself. He was, in fact, far better at it than many men she'd met in her life, but...

It wasn't dust or rock or metal. It was hair. His hair.

Beset's breath shuddered to a stop in her throat and in that moment, in that heart stopping moment, she made a decision.

---

Lord Jadeite was having a very pleasant dream. In his dream, he was quite dead. This might not be some people's ideal dream, but all his pains had stopped aching and it was such a relief that he was rather apprehensive about death being over (and only a dream, for that matter). He had been having terrible luck lately, after all, and who's to say he won't go back to haunt some annoying person or other because of his rather violent death? He dreamt that he was in Elysion, which was apparently darker than he thought it would be but he couldn't complain too much as long as it continued to be absolutely peaceful for a little longer. After one's been tortured for what felt like years, dark Elysian was a rather nice change of scenery.

In fact, maybe it's dark because his eyes were closed?

Well, Lord Jadeite thought to himself, I could open them. He hesitated on this part and decided that perhaps, it was better to just keep them closed. Who's to say that Elysian wasn't as pretty as it was rumored to be? It would be a terrible waste to dash expectations when he could continue the pretense. After all, it was the resting place of warrior men, and as much as he longed for peace and could appreciate picturesque scenery, Warrior Men were not particularly known for their decorative tastes. Valor never chose a man due to his sense of the aesthetic, and the battlefield usually didn't help much in a sector that required more of an appreciation for fine living, and not so much just being alive in general. From what he experienced with his own men, even with the other Kings or Endymion for that matter, they tried to live very minimalistic lives for practical and cautionary reasons. Well, Lord Zoisite perhaps was the only one who had any sense at all, and he wasn't sure he always understood what was going on with the other, even when he could read the other's intentions clearly.

Then again, nothing quite made one as uncomfortable (aside from the usual hang-over) as waking up to orange, harry rugs and another warrior's idea of art.

In fact, one drunken night, Lord Nephrite and he had passed some very bad wine between themselves and speculated on what might wait for them in Elysion. Suffice to say that from what he remembered of the tawdry night contained images from Nephrite he wished he had been too drunk to even recall. Alcohol impaired his control and of all nights, that was not the night he wanted to recollect.

He almost got his palm read that night too, but he had enough wit not to extend his hand at least, which probably explained why he remembered what he did.

Why was he still feeling so fuzzy? Lord Jadeite wondered and sighed inwardly. He had tried sighing out loud earlier and that hadn't turned out very well for his ribs. Then again, he hadn't been in Elysian then and--

It was the presence. He felt suddenly alert. Well, this certainly must be Elysian. Why else would he feel her here? She would never set foot on Earth until the negotiations were packed down solid. She followed the rules almost as strictly as he did himself. And the Moon, what a strange place still after all these years...

"My Lord!" her voice reached his ear and then her hesitant fingers brushed against his hair. Ah, heaven. Lord Jadeite thought and began to grin. The grin turned into a wince when his lips felt like they were being split by the very action so he went back to not grinning. Well, so it was not quite heaven, he amended. And was it just him or did he feel a bit crusty? Did warriors feel crusty in Elysion? And 'My Lord'? he wondered. Elysion needed to learn his preferences better before this whole death thing continued.

"Ow!" he exclaimed then swore. "What did you do that for?" Well, at least he tried to say it, with great outrage, though it just came out very garbled, even to his own ears.

She raised a brow at him when he tried out his most intimidating glare on her with his bruised features. An earlier flash of annoyance left no more evidence on her face than her concern had. Instead, she wore the mild look of amusement as she stilled his movements, this time with a better placed touched. For someone who had just poked at his bruised face, she was enjoying herself a bit too much! He winced at the throbbing pains making itself known after he had been so blissfully unaware of them before. He stopped only because wincing hurt and he didn't need any more pains, he decided disagreeably. This whole death thing was rather overrated too, like dungeons, he concluded. "Just didn't want you to break anything else with all that shifting," she told him artlessly.

"Bloody Mars," he swore again, or tried to. His lips felt like they were also sealed shut with wax, or just from a total lack of moisture, every time he closed them. The blood from my bleeding lips will certainly change that, he thought gloomily as he tested to see if he were missing any teeth with his tongue. Hey, I have a tongue! he realized belatedly and with all too much triumph for his own liking. Well, that's not very fair, he thought to himself ironically. The woman of my dreams comes after me in death and I still look like Death just picked me out of the gutters!

Jadeite winced more successfully this time and finally cracked open an eye to see her face, her beautiful face. Well, at least one of them is pretty, and it's not like I even have to look at myself! he added to soothe the slight smarting of his pride. She was certainly not at all gentle, not even when that was all he wanted from her, that's for sure, he grumped to get his mind off the previous topic. However, he was wise enough to keep that particular afterthought to himself so he wouldn't be killed a second time. In case he could be killed a second time, that is.

"Am I to haunt you now from the dead?" he finally croaked. He thought that wasn't so bad, he had a voice after all and he was no longer using it to swear at her or the gods or the ghostly body that wasn't quite so nerveless as he had hoped. It didn't sound any better than his previous attempts, but if he was the haunting type of ghost then maybe he wouldn't be supplied with a pleasant voice. If he was to haunt his lady, even if he looked bad, at least he would be able to keep looking at her lovely face and listen to her lovelier voice forever. He could peek into her baths too, and scare away future suitors who thought just because he was dead and she was heartbroken, they could save her or some such none sense! Perhaps it wasn't so bad he looked and sounded like he got dragged out of the gutters, after all. Protruding ribs and a rotting limb here or there tend to be more of a visual deterrent than his normal, put together self. Not that he wasn't intimidating when he wanted to be while he had been alive...

If he had competition in Elysian that is, or was forced out of it for some reason, he was prepared.

"Well," she finally said after a pause where she just stared at him in disbelief. "Apparently a near-death experience have left you with a sense of humor," she commented dryly and quite a bit of disapproval. Then her eyes turned sharp and he thought it wasn't very fair that he was dead and her first real words to him were all in jest or chastisement.

Where was her grief?

Lord Jadeite felt cheated. He wondered if he could keep his title even though he was technically dead. He thought, maybe he could convince Endymion to retain him at least as an advisor, if he was ever to get out of Elysian. Sure he may not be able to defend the lad anymore, but he could still watch over the other. Loyalty to the bloody end, and beyond! He was starting to like the sound of that.

"Bloody hell, I hurt," he finally groaned when he tried to shift to get up. No use lazing around when there was a whole slew of things he still needed to accomplish, dead or alive.

His lady's steady hands stopped him from squirming as she glared at him. "Stop that," she commanded him. Her eyes wondered their surroundings. "I don't know where we are, but I'll get us out of here."

He wanted to point out to her that people didn't really leave Elysion once they got there. After all, dead people just didn't come back to life. Unless, of course, there existed some secret Lunarian spell for just such things. He wouldn't put it past the Lady Queen, but he thought his own lady was just a bit too grim looking for someone who was about to bring him back to life, so most likely there was no return-to-life spell waiting to revive him. "Can you stand?" she asked him and then frowned. "Never mind, you don't look like you could sit up," she concluded without waiting for him to answer.

He was about to protest that dead people can handle these inconveniences, such as physical discomforts. They're not really supposed to have physical discomforts, after all. And he was a man, a dead one, but still a man, the last time he checked. However, all protests quickly became more of a groan of pain when he tried to utilize his neck to lift his head after her retreating fingers. His skull thudded against the soft ground for the effort and he was thankful no more pains made themselves known to him for the moment.

Death, apparently, was less forgiving than the ballads suggested. Though, come to think of it, what the hell did those bards know about death, anyway? They were quite alive when they sung about it and, from the few bards he knew personally, they had an uncanny knack for disappearing in the face of oncoming danger.

She was rising away from him. Despite the utter pain, he lifted his hand and grasped at her skirt. His hand burned, his fingers burned, and he was unsure whether or not he wanted to inspect the damage of his hand, but he didn't want her to go. "Don't go," he voiced his thought. His voice was getting hoarser and despite the sudden vulnerability he was exposing to her, he couldn't dredge up his earlier pride to care. He was far more afraid she would go and lose her way, or never come back. He didn't want her to disappear when he finally got her next to him, when her presence finally told him things her eyes and her face and her words never had and never could.

Or perhaps, it was his own feelings that he was truly confronting for the first time. Not Endymion, not Kunzite, not Nephrite nor Zoisite. Her. It was her face, framed by the black-green shadows of tall trees and the grey light of the cloudy skies that he had wanted to see. It was her surreal beauty and vivid, other-worldly colors that he had prayed to witness one last time before death took him from the world. It was her red, tempting lips, now thinned in displeasure as she reached down that had kept him alive through every vaguely remembered pain of the past few weeks or years or days. It was her hot and gentle touch, encircling his wrist as she tried to loosen his weakened grip that made him want to rise from the ground, despite his pains. "I must find you help, my Lord," she told him firmly. Then her eyes fell on his hand and there was an expression that came over her before the white, hot rage that lit her face and all the colors he felt that was her inside of his mind. The rage blanked everything out, but before that was a moment that could have made any hell heaven to him.

He had seen it at last, the look of horror and concern and grief. He had felt it, the utter, bone melting warmth of pain that was close to pleasure. It infused his battered body till he felt for a moment ready for the darkness once more. The exhilaration overrode any worries he might have had for his own appendage. A spark of her feelings for him on her face could light an answering fire inside of him. Then he watched, transfixed and fascinated as she lifted his hand to her lips and kissed his cracked knuckles with a tenderness he didn't know she could possess. It was so soft it felt like the caress of a breeze, something he had always thought would only ever happen in his dreams. "I'll get you out of here, Khariton," she promised him softly.

A twinge of forgotten worry came and went beneath the warmth settling over him at her touch. She had told him years ago that her people's gift was one of fire and it ran through their blood. She would have left him a cloak but she had never needed one, no matter how cold it had been for anyone else. "I am protected by the sacred fire of Mars," she had explained to him once when he had offered his jacket to her one cold evening. He had been surprised by the heated touch of her hand on his cold cheeks and her warm breath mingling with his. "I am fire, my Lord," she told him with a surprising spark of mischief in her eyes. He often thought it was the influence of Lady Venus that made her able to smile those surprising smiles he so rarely caught, the smiles that were so unlike her character.

She had wanted to build a camp fire but he had resisted her efforts while she quietly inspected any other his wounds he had, other than his hands. "It will draw attention," he warned her. "I do not remember how exactly I ended up here," he admitted. There had been a helplessness in her eyes, a surprising anguish as she had smoothed his hair and nodded with great difficulty before turning away slightly. Her rage had abated slightly. The fleeting expression earlier seemed to have been a catalyst, and a dam seemed to have broken inside her as the weariness settled in. He had never seen such honesty on her features for she had always been so reserved, too self-conscious at even the worst of times to let go of the tight control she had over her features.

"Alright," she had finally agreed, unable to look at him with a shame that colored her brightness with shadows. "I will go get help," she promised and finally set his hand gently back to the ground.

Then she was gone, taking all the warmth and happiness of the world with her. His name from her lips had been as soft and as ephemeral as the kiss she had placed upon his hand. He ached after her. If he could, he would have crawled after her. Like the moths that lose their wings to the fire when they approached too close to the flame, only to crawl towards the warm brightness pathetically in the dirt when they were not able to fly.

A breeze rushed through the trees with the promise of a storm. He watched the grey clouds move across the sky like waves in a turbulent sea. Beset, Beset, he whispered her name in his mind, reaching for her familiar presence. He could still feel it faintly, further than he would like, but still close enough to sooth him. Every part of him searched out for her, worrying that she would lose her way or run into something unpleasant. He would not be able to help her and the helplessness he had seen in her eyes when she looked at him was worse than the physical discomforts he was having trouble ignoring.

"Pathetic," said the familiar voice when the breeze settled. Purple silk silently settled beside him. It was warm despite the coldness of the voice that greeted him. The woman's perfume was pleasant though he regrettably discovered that he would always associate the smell of hyacinth with evil from now on, despite having liked the flower quite a bit in his youth. The woman leaned down. Her flowing, curling hair brushed against his skin as she skillfully unbuttoned his shirt. Red nails trailed along his cheek-bones as he tried to turn away but he had been unable to move since she had stopped beside his prone form. "The child promised to get help and come back for you, Khariton," the woman said with a mocking purr. "We must not keep her hopes up forever, must we?"

"That name is not for you to use," he hissed through clenched teeth and wished he could rise to strike her. He was so weak and the spell was so strong. Now that she knew his name, it bound him to her and to the ground. This villain had been there all along, searching for his Achilles heel. He wondered how he could have forgotten, but that was also the effect of such spells.

Her green eyes were not angry as she looked at him. "You wouldn't tell me, so I had to resort to such petty tricks," she admonished him instead. "You are a coy man, to have become such a tease! You were so honest and serious once, Lord Jadeite. But now, that child has reduced you to no more than a court jester. And like all the other failed heroes of your time, you can no longer seem to think outside of your breeches."

He gritted his teeth and would have fisted his hands if he could have moved.

The woman's warm hands were not the same as the small ones that had moments ago held his. These strange hands could have been called elegant for those fingers were even longer than Beset's, but he could only feel disgust when her flesh came into contact with his naked chest. He had always hated to be touched by others, flesh-to-flesh and the feel of a person came like smell or a sound or a color in his mind.

The Lady Beryl smiled down at him reassuringly while her red nails became like claws, but to him she had always been a smell that was too strong to be pleasant and a color that was too deep to not fear. Her thoughts were like poison in his mind and he could not get her out, for she was a tainted being that was at once too bright to be lovely and too black to be light.

She traced a teasing pattern on his skin that left him breaking out in a cold sweat of dread. "You managed very well, I must say. You had almost gotten away, but I have finally found your most precious thing," she said with a sigh of pleasure. The dark spell she had engraved into his skin once again revealed itself as she shifted the runes over to his left breast, just over his beating heart. "It is good I had waited for her arrival. For otherwise, how could I have known this wish? Ah, and what a foolish wish it is that your heart whispers so treacherously in our ears! Good thing the Prince would never know of it, hm?"

Beryl smiled up at him from where she had lain her ear, as if to listen to the organ that pounded beneath muscle and bones. Slowly then, with a cold and knowing smile, as if they were conspirators in a despicable crime, she lifted herself up and away. Yet, there could be no relief for now it was her hand over his exposed left breast.

Lord Jadeite could not move, could not answer anymore, and could not scream. However, even though he could have closed his eyes, he never looked away even as he watched Beryl take out his heart with slow, agonizing movements. Gracefully she parted his flesh, but it was too painful a process to acknowledge.

When Lady Beryl finished, she licked her hand clean of his blood with solemn gravity, like a cat savoring the last of a rare and delicious meal. She looked down to the glassy eyes on a slackened face at her feet with a small hint of disappointment. "Defiant to the end," she said with reluctant admiration. "Don't worry my brave general," she assured him with a gentle smile as she caressed the heart in her hands before her lovely face turned into a malevolent leer of triumph. "I will bring you back and wipe this filth from your pure desires, my Lord Khariton."

---

Beset stopped dead in her tracks. She had not left Khariton for long. The idiot would not listen to her and be still, despite his wounds and she only had enough time to check for the most obvious ones. She bit her lips the first chance she had, as soon as she was out of sight, and felt as if her lungs were collapsing. He had been tortured! Sure, she knew already he had been beaten to an inch of his life but... tortured? And though she had read about such things extensively, she had never beheld it, much less on someone she... cared about.

His hands...

Beset felt weak for wincing and had tried to hide the tremble in her own hands when she had held onto his, but she had been so angry. She felt the tears gather in her eyes at the utter helpless rage that filled her heart at the unknown beings that did this to him. For a moment, she thought she wouldn't have minded to see his world burn, but then came the dark, cold calm. It had been more terrifying than her anger, the hatred that came to her so easily and settled like a hard lump of stone in her gut.

So she had to do something because the thing she most wanted to do, to heal him and take him away, was something she had not the power to do on her own. She had to get away and gather herself up so that he would not see the blackness in her eyes that increased with every wound uncovered. She wanted to do more for him than just leaving him there, but she was afraid what she might do if she discovered anything else on him she had not already noticed.

At first she thought she would go and locate some sturdy materials, something she could fashion to carry him away on, straight out of this gods forsaken forest that is. She even entertained the thought of finding a good place for teleportation and waiting for the moon rise to take him off this gods forsaken planet! Yet, something drove her to search so she wouldn't start destroying things with her aimless rage, or worse, cry because of the utter uselessness she felt welling inside of her. She would even deal with the people of this horrible world if she had to, if it would secure his safety and comfort. If it would stop her from burning everything down in her path.

Ah, Earth! She had wondered at the world the Lunarians based their own world upon, but not a moment had she savored the arrival. The grey skies were too dim and foreboding, unlike the warmth of the rose skies of her home or the crystal blue that was supposed to be an Earth-like illusion on the Moon. The trees were too many, dense and still, they stood in her path and caused her to stumble, always unsure of her footing here, on unfamiliar grounds. It was too foreign for her, and she did not want Khariton to die here. Without the honor or the glory of battle how could he possibly fade so obscurely in this unknown place? It was what she had always imagined his end whenever she looked at him. He was like a golden sun, much like her friend and commander, and she had always thought he would blaze out suddenly from this world when he was at his brightest hour.

It was what drew her to him, until the shadows wrapped tighter and tighter arms around his form. Sometimes she was afraid to look at him, at the darkness that waited not only in his shadows but all around him. And with each passing tender look he gave her, with each longing glance he tried to hide and each touch that lingered longer along her arm or her back at the end of a dance, she saw the shadows grow around him and multiply.

Since then, she had started to pray, desiring for the first time that her eyes were lying, that it was no longer the truth she saw but the a fear of the future prophesied. It was the gravest sin to be committed by any Martian born who carried the sight. To deny one's ultimate gift from the very hands of the gods themselves was to live for all eternity for shame of such denials. It was to take the path of destruction, to ultimately lose the things that mattered most...

Her fists were clenched so tight she could have drawn blood at such thoughts, but she couldn't relax nor hope for anything else. She was going to save him. Whatever it cost her, she would protect him from the fate that awaited them all. The restlessness was upon her again as her resolve grew from her faithless decision, and then, suddenly, as if all the air around her had vanished, she was stopped. It had felt as if she was being suffocated. It had been a moment of pure panic and utter disorientation, and before she knew it she was on the ground. She couldn't even remember collapsing gracelessly or hitting the forest floor, but that was where she found herself.

A sharp pain had shot through her chest as she laid there, panting, lacking the breath to scream. Then it was gone, and emptiness invaded her senses. Beset laid on the forest floor afraid to draw in air, afraid to think. Her eyes blinked at the black spots as she tried to absorb the pain that spread throughout her dully, starting from the palm of her left hand. She laid there and knew.

Khariton was gone.

She wanted to cry but no tears would come. She wanted to move but her limbs felt like they were made of lead. Minutes or hours or days passed before she could finally move again, but dread made her even clumsier. Her arms shook, but she started a slow crawl back, one arm before the other as she clawed at dirt and shoved her body forward. She turned towards the way she came and began the slow, torturous journey back. She had plenty of time already to try to assuage her fears and more than enough time to decide what needed to be done as she laid there in a daze. Mud and dirt clung to her hair, thorns from shrubs and sharp branches ripped at her dress and scratched at her skin. Beset ignored all of these things and she crawled, slowly rising a little higher each time till she was finally able to stumble drunkenly onto her feet.

He was gone. She could feel it. She could feel what wasn't there anymore. She just couldn't face that it was happening. He was alright when she had only been there so short a time ago. She shouldn't have gone. She should have taken him with her, she thought accusingly to herself. The anger and hatred was there again, but this time aimed at herself. Beneath all of these clamoring thoughts was pain. It was a feeling of loss so intense she staggered, now and again when it surfaced unexpectedly through the rage and the grief. She thought to herself then that she would rather feel anything else in all the worlds except this.

She shouldn't have left him.

But he was not gone. He cannot be gone! She repeated these thoughts like a mantra in her head. Her sanity felt a bit frayed around the edges and the world seemed a little hazy. Damn the man, he can't just up and go that easily. The gods knew how often she thought about strangling him herself when they got into an argument. When he first touched her hand, skin on skin, when he first brushed his mind intimately against her own, she had thought it strangely wonderful, at the same time, discomforting. She knew him from that touch. He was just too damn stubborn to... to...

She couldn't think it.

A tree root made itself very well acquainted with her foot when she stumbled over it and nearly twisted her ankle in the process. She also nearly impaled herself on another out-stretched limb but caught herself just in time. It felt like years, but with dread she finally broke through the low ferns and saw his boot sticking out innocently enough from the shrubs that obscured his body. "Lord Jadeite," she rasped, hating the desperate way she sounded as she stumbled to a stop beside his prone body, just the way she left him, except...

Except it wasn't so.

She expected, wanted, despaired for an arch reply. She searched desperately for that tilted chin and the mercurial smile that so rarely appeared on his lips. She wanted to see his eyes, for they always looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first and last time, as if he was drinking her in but was never fulfilled. It was that look he had tried so studiously hard for her not to see the first year and much of the next. Yet, one evening, in the midst of a grand celebration, their eyes had met across the ballroom and there had been no more hiding--

The first thing she smelled was hyacinth.

Beset stopped and swayed as she looked and found his perfect face among the greens and browns. His slightly golden skin was now ashen beneath the light tan. His eyes that had seemed so amused and so hungry when she had first found him lying there were now flat and empty. There was blood, but he had already been bloody and bruised and incredibly dirty when she had come upon him earlier. And then there it was, unable to be ignored and the one thing she didn't want to acknowledge, a ragged hole in his chest made her feel as if her own chest was being emptied as she stood there unmoving.

Beset didn't even remember turning but she was already stumbling into a tree when she had an inkling of what was to come afterwards. Then she vomited. She would have felt disgraced if she wasn't so occupied with trying to stop herself from the wrecking sobs that shook her while she was expelling the few contents of her stomach. And just a moment ago she couldn't summon the tears. Now they poured out of her like the blood pooling around his body. She would have felt utterly shamed if it wasn't so hard to breath, to stop the sight that made her see the empty future that no longer held the warm light that had been his life. To know that she would always see this whenever she looked back into the past, this very moment, of him lying in a forest with a hole where his heart had been...

She gagged.

Her legs shook and she slid to the ground. Slowly, very slowly, she turned. She didn't want to go but because she couldn't deny herself despite the sickness in her stomach and the acid in her mouth, she crawled back to him. She was a woman of Mars. They were women used to fighting on the deserts of their world against both men and dragons, used to the wide skies and the blood beneath their feet. Her foremothers and forefathers had let go of loved ones, had lived with the knowledge of a future without a beloved ever passing through the sight again, and survived it with only songs to remember them by. Yet, as she gathered him to her, hands slipping against his blood and the gore of his wounds, she could not summon the strength to be as strong or as untouched as those who had passed before her.

Her pale arms closed around him as she whispered her apologies, and then, she felt the tides of reality brush against her soul. She smelled hyacinth on his skin and she thought of the first time he traced the line of her palm. She thought of the warning she spoke to him as she placed her hand on his chest, right over the hole that now resides there--

"Don't ever speak your name to them. It gives your enemies Power."

She remembered the serious look in his eyes when he had closed his gloved fingers over her own and promised her he would take care of the advice she entrusted to him. He had spoken her name under the unerring blue lights of Earth, his home planet, and his eyes had silently vowed other things that they had not the right to promise with words to each other.

She remembered delicately tracing the characters of her name into his palm, the warm roughness beneath her finger when she touched the scars of his labors. She had laughingly corrected him many times on the pronunciations of her alien name on his foreign tongue, tracing the patterns again and again against his skin in emphasis. She remembered the feel of his name engraved into her own skin, warm and familiar, his breath ghosting her ear with syllables she had never heard of. She wished it didn't hurt so much now to remember the feeling of his warm, calloused hands encircling her own. She never imagined that she would be haunted by the memory of discovering how small her hands seemed in his. Her shoulders shook against the once happy past, as if she could shed them like the snakes Venus loved, those creatures that shed their skins when the seasons changed. She wished she were strong, but she could not even subdue the shudders that came with her sobs or dam the deluge of the intense and unfamiliar wreckage of the feeling called Loss.

Then, slowly, the noises that worked up her throat, passed her clenched teeth, loosened her jaw and finally her lips. Beset couldn't even recall when she started, but the low sound wrapped around her tighter and tighter. The slow, building echoes of pain in her throat gained volume as they tore through her. And once she started, she didn't know how to stop. But no matter how much the tears fell, no matter how loudly her voice rang, Khariton would only continue to stare out into the trees...

No longer would he be able to ever hear her thoughts again.

---

"Two birds with one stone," Lady Beryl gloated as she trailed one perfect nail down the cold heart in her hand. She was immensely satisfied by the screams she could hear from her place in the forest. She was surprised how fast the child got back, for the sounds were still fairly close, but such alien beings would probably have powers she couldn't imagine. Well, soon those powers would be hers, and that was all she was really concerned about.

Beneath her, even the youma was moved enough by what it heard to pause. In its utter stupidity, it dared to look behind it in wonder. She hit it over the head with her whip to teach it a lesson for such idiocy, her face no longer pleasant. "What are you stopping for? Did I tell you to stop?"

The youma cowered before hulking down on four legs and starting to run again.

When they were moving steadily once more, Lady Beryl sat back and allowed herself to smile again. Soon, she promised herself. Soon, I'll have the rest of the four, and the Prince Endymion's heart would be the final jewel to my lovely prize. Lady Beryl smiled to herself as she gently cradled her new companion's heart to her breast.

Next time you two meet, child, I wonder what your screams would sound like then?

To such thoughts, Beryl laughed a sweet, appealing laugh, as her shadows became one with the forest.

TBC.

2. the soundless

sm_monthly January Theme 1: Resolution

2009-01-22T04:25:32Z

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
- T.S. Eliot "The Waste Land"

Losing Grip

There were many things that Lord Jadeite thought he was passed only to find that age and experience had not aged him as much as he thought it did. He had not thought he would be overly surprised by the Moon, jaded by its beauty and opulence perhaps, by the ignorance of peace even, but not enough to be awed.

He was awed, though, by the wealth that was not garishness and the cool that was not cold. He was intrigued by the plants that were grown in their gardens and the hot-houses that were like jungles. He was amazed by the strange foods they ate and what they offered to them in plates that gleamed like pearls and cutlery unlike any he had ever seen. He had heard songs beautiful enough to weep at, from the strings of instruments never introduced on earth with voices never before heard. And what strange accents they spoke in when they tried to speak in Earthian tongues! How frightfully knowledgeable they were, as well, in everything there was to learn and to know, and how little were the things he himself knew. He was most fascinated with the sight of his own planet rising to meet his eyes in the evenings, instead of the blue moon he had seen all of his life. For the first time in human history, he and the other Kings saw his planet so small in so dark an emptiness.

The Moon people called the blackness Space, and there were plenty of that. There was also the fragility of his planet, whose vastness had long impressed upon him its grandness when he had walked on its surface, never knowing how singularly small it was compared to the rest of the universe. How little the people of Earth truly comprehended of the vastness that surrounded them. He could see more clearly now what his people feared from the Moon, for that fear had never found so much ground so easily or so quickly.

Ignorance was blissful in its own way.

There were other things he had only thought of in passing and was quickly discovering in reality: The fact that the Moon was only a small satellite and that there were Mercurians - who were cranky if one did not call them Hermesians instead. Venusians, too, with sweet faces and sweeter tongues! Jovians who were not just hulking Amazonian women of fables but women who loved the wilderness and the hearth. Jovians were indeed taller than most women on Earth, but they were also slender and agile athletes that the rumors he had heard all his life had never hinted at. There were also Martians, once said to be brothers and sisters of Earth, who broke their own warring ways to join the Silver Alliance. His people had often described this as a "taming" (which happened to be the less derogatory term used).

The Martians were also practitioners of magick and sorcery. They were able to witness the passage of time in their visions and saw beyond the veil of time in their dreams. He had heard of that too, the fear in the voices of his people when they told their children about how Mars strayed from them and into the blackness of the overhead skies. How they defied the Gods who ruled the Earth to heathen places unknown. Martians worshipped once at the very altar of War, but discarded their old ways so easily that Earth soon believed the people were brain-washed and their rulers mere puppets on strings, dancing to the tunes of her Lady Queen.

Now he wondered at the legends his own nurse had told him in his youth. He had met the Lady Mars, whose eyes were innocent but so clear and piercing that he felt as if all that he had ever been and all that he ever will be were laid bare before her. He feared what it was that she saw within him because she did not fear looking, or to let him look into her in return. He was used to baring others to the core, to hearing what they truly thought instead of what they said or how they acted. He was not, however, used to exposing himself, and the sudden equilibrium was startling at the very least in its utter newness.

He also discovered that he could not always read her thoughts. It was not as clear but Lady Mars was not afraid to show the thoughts he could not read through the expressions upon her face. She did not always speak but she did not always need words for telling or deceiving. She did not mask the emotions that flickered in her, not the way the Lady Venus could. The leader of the Sailor Senshi, though not experienced in combat or war, would easily smile at him while shutting the doors to her mind. There was a fearsome leader of the legendary Queen's guards, and Lord Jadeite was glad how little these women had in experiencing the wars that Earth experienced from year to year.

Martian thoughts though were foreign on their own and they did not always think in pictures or emotions, and rarely with Earthian words or even in the familiar language of the mind. Songs and ballads from home, the Lady had told him through a smile once at the puzzled expression on his face when he had unintentionally heard more foreign musical sounds in the silence of her thoughts than he had been expecting. The Lady Mars had a mind that was at times so clear it burned with its candor and at other times like a labyrinth, but it was times when her mind went completely silent that frightened him the most. It was as if someone was suddenly muted in the middle of a sentence, abruptly cut off from him. There was none of the coyness or walled off enclosures that was Lady Venus' defenses against his eavesdropping. It was, perhaps, like what Nephrite had once tried to describe to him as the sound of the chattering stars going unexpectedly silent in the heavens. Or, perhaps it was like Fate had come, shutting her lips to his ears when she had only been gently whispering in it but moments ago.

She was not afraid of him. She was not the only one, but there was no bravado in her eyes, or defiance, or knowing, but understanding. She had a touch of the gift herself, but her eyes looked forward always. Sometimes though she seemed unable to look at him, as if she were seeing the future on a face that laid over his and that seeing was physically painful in itself. The sorrow and, at times, disappointment in her eyes were like a heavy hand pressing onto his chest. He could not breathe around her at times, and it was one of the sadder ones.

The first time he had seen her in the great halls, he had been awed by her beauty. He had thought he had outgrown that too, for he had met and seen many beautiful women before her. Yet, perhaps it was the vividness of her coloring, a vibrant red that was not the color of blood, against a pure white pillar. She stood out like a brilliant motif against the paleness of the Silver Palace, the shades of her flowing gown and hair drew the eyes to her. It made her seem like a blazing flame in a white room. He had been stunned by a great many things that day, but she came to mind in cutting angles and more clarity than any other.

They were formally introduced the next day in the Hall of Ancients. Yet, it was the image beneath the ancient pillars that enchanted him. He had accidentally caught a glimpse of her with the Lady Venus that evening, gold and red mingling like a warm, inviting campfire while their heads were close to each other as they spoke. He remembered how her face was relaxed, highlighted in pale blues by the over-hanging Earth as he had paused in the archway. He recalled how his presence felt like a shadow, thrown onto the wall by the light emitted by these women who seemed so untouched and untouchable, so innocent and yet, so very old. They did not seem real, these women of the Moon. And if they had been more seductive or less forthcoming, he might have thought they were trying to lure them in like siren songs sung to passing sailors.

Even the stoic Kunzite seemed to stiffen a bit more in the presence of these women. He doesn't know if any of the others have noticed their own behaviors, but Jadeite wasn't just good at reading minds. He wondered why he was drawn to this woman in particular though. Sometimes she acted like a child, and other times, as if a hundred thousand years have passed and she had seen all there was to see. She made his hand itch in his gloves when she was near, and despite his aversion to touching others, his fingers longed to touch the skin on her cheek and trail down to grasp gently along the back of her neck. He was not afraid of what he would see and what he would feel should his hands close over her own, and that knowledge alone kept him feeling caged within his very skin when she was just out of reach. Her eyes were terrifying at times, but he still wished to look into them, like a man fascinated with the abyss beneath his feet.

He had never been so aware of another person in his entire life.

Lord Jadeite was uncomfortable with the emotions he had suddenly lost all handles on. He struggled to suppress the irrational reactions he had with the Lady who sat by his side on long evenings and spoke to him like a familiar. She was not afraid to share her thoughts or her opinions or her convictions with him. She treated him like he was a friend already. Yet their worlds were not only so far apart, but on Earth, the name of her people and the ruler she served were slandered and viewed with contempt. She did not desire power from him or wealth or even loyalty, but sometimes she looked at him in such a way that made his heart shudder in his chest and his loins awaken to a hunger she does not seem to comprehend. There was sometimes a curiosity and a question in her eyes, as if she were discovering something new in herself, and how he reacted to that was terrifying. He had always known so well what others expected or wanted from him, what he wasn't used to was the sudden desire to fulfill the questions in her eyes, to find that there lived a selfishness in him he had never known was there until now.

He hated himself for how easily he was losing his grasp of the situation, and resented her for bringing this into light without effort. He needed to keep a clear head and the others depended on him to read their possible allies and even more likely enemies, to be sure that they were not being used or being put at a disadvantage. However, for the first time, Jadeite felt vastly disadvantaged in the Lady Mars' presence. He was not inexperienced, nor was he the youth he had been when every skirt wearing vixen was interesting, but how he saw himself was changing. He was unsure what to say to her at times and she did not seem to mind his silence. He had never met a woman so comfortable in his stillness, either. Reticence had never made him want to turn his head so much to look at the visage of the one who sat next to him, watching him work away at frustrations that were inspired by her mere presence. He never desired anyone's attendance so much, and for the first time in his life, Lord Jadeite felt the small, swaying fear for loyalties he had never questioned.

This woman would be his undoing.

The thought was treacherous and dark. In his dreams, her long, silken hair would spill over his burning chest and the soft, enticing strands would meld past his skin and grasp onto his heart. In his nightmares, she would lay her head on his shoulder and he would say yes to her request to stay. In the deep, dark place that was slowly coiling around the woman making a space for herself inside of him, he felt the loosening of his tight control and forgetting, at times, the promises he had long ago made to a world that, for the first time, seemed too far away.

Rationality gave way to obsession.

He could feel it slipping like sand in his hands when he had been so sure it was made of stone. Resolutions that in his youth had been so easy to keep, to never let a woman rule his heart the way the new Prince and his old home had always done, were crumbling beneath the spark of fire lighting in her eyes. She asked nothing of him, but what Lord Jadeite feared was that one day those lips that were rose red and those eyes that were glowing embers in a bed of coal would ask him. She need only to request him for himself with that same curiosity in her eyes he had seen when they had met in the gardens beneath the ancient tree. He feared for that time and knew that he would go to her like a moth to the flame, burning out in the conflagration of her innocent grasp...

All that he wanted and asked for was to look upon her beautiful face, one that could turn his distant dreams for Earth to dust.

sm_monthly January Theme 3: Ashes

2009-01-22T03:29:25Z

Beneath the Lunar Willow

Mars loved Lord Jadeite's hands.

She had caught him in the garden alcove one late afternoon, beneath the ancient Lunar Willow - a lush, white-barked tree with deep red leaves. She did not sneak up on him, suspected it to be an impossible task at that, and speculated that he knew she was approaching before she stepped away from the pillar. He had not cared to put away his tools as she walked up to him. He might not have deemed her presence threatening. It was a good sign for the negotiations proceeding in the Great Hall of Ancients, but Jupiter had not taken it well that they had been called "decoration" by the bluntly candid Lord Nephrite. The meetings for trade negotiations had been postponed temporarily due to troubling security problems they had been experiencing, and for a few hours, they were allowed to leave the enclosure of the halls. She found him, on her wanderings to locate Venus, but surprised herself for the curiosity he inspired.

He had found the willow, quite on his own. It was a rather deserted area of the palace. His hands were bare. The white gloves she had seen him always wear were laid carefully beside him. In his hands was a long piece of pale wood that he carefully worked on, shaping with skilled knife strokes. She thought perhaps it was because it had reminded her of home, of bone carvings and red sand that made her go to him that day. She saw the ease with which he worked and knew those hands was calloused not just from weapons training but from day-to-day wear.

The ornamental swords the Kings of Earth wore did not belie the fact that they walked like men who fought. She had been raised by warriors, and though the Moon and the Alliance had long cast off the ancient rituals of war, Mars had not forgotten that once her people were infamously known as the People of War. Their Gods were no longer sated by only blood and fire, but it still rang through their veins, that not unfamiliar pang and admiration for champions and heroes that were only spoken of or sung about from poets in ancient ballads.

"What is it you are making there, my Lord?" Mars asked, hoping her voice did not sound to him so curious and childish as it did to her own ears. He had not risen at her approach, so she did not feel the need to greet him as court customarily dictated all beginnings.

Lord Jadeite paused only for a small moment before answering. "I do not know yet," he answered. His voice was gentle, as if he was talking to a child and for a brief moment she resented him.

"Do not know yet?" Mars inquired again when he did not elaborate and her impatience got the best of her. She sighed at the sharpness of her tone and looked away to gather her composure. Her eyes came upon the tree looming over them and when she was sure she was in control of herself again, she looked back to his bent head. "If you don't mind me asking, what do you mean by that, my Lord?"

His hands stopped again momentarily, causing her to frown. She suspected he was thinking he did mind but was too polite to say it. "Martians," he said instead. "Your minds are strange."

She tilted her head at him, sure that he had not meant to give himself away like that. "Were you trying to read my mind?" she asked, this time she did not try to hide her curiosity. She had been briefed already on the main abilities of their Earthian ambassadors, though she was sure there were still much they did not know.

He did stop this time, and it was because of surprise. She could tell, because though Mars could not read minds she had long learned to read people, and she always had a good instinct about these things. "What do you mean?" he asked her instead of answering. She felt he had chosen his words very carefully, as if he was about to startle a scared animal or as if a secret was close to being spilt unexpectedly.

"You have the gift," she answered. Word games were not her strong point. Mars only knew to be honest or to stay absolutely silent, which sometimes was more telling. This at least was what Venus told her often about the art of deception and her lack of skill in deceiving anyone who knew her well. It was a good thing not many did then, she had retorted, but Venus had only laughed at her gaily for saying so. "I don't mind," she told Lord Jadeite with a smile on her lips. She met his eyes when he looked up at her and his expression was blank and seemed chiseled from the yellowing bones of dragons. He did not answer her implicit question but Venus never lied to her either, no matter how good her friend was at it, and silence was sometimes more telling then words. Even if his face was blank she was not afraid to look into it or afraid of what he could see on her own face. She didn't feel a need to explain herself, but his impassive features made her speak because he seemed to need to hear her say it. "Martians are prophets," she said softly and stopped, hesitating on how much she was allowed to tell him and was sad that there were still such secrets lying in wait. "May I sit beside you?" she asked him. "It's perhaps going to become a long story," she explained, though she did not need to.

"Please, Lady Mars," he finally said and rose, indicating the empty space on the other side of him. His manners were no better than hers, she mused and sensed he was a bit amused with her in turn.

"Thank you," she bowed only slightly. When she was comfortable, she set a hand on the Lunar Willow. It was once her father's favorite tree, even though they would not grow in the harsh environments of Mars without the aid of a lot magick and care. "My father's favorite," she told him before she could stop herself. Then she thought it rather strange she was checking herself around someone who could hear her thoughts, even if it only came to him in scraps. "Sometimes you won't hear me think," she said as she looked to him, knowing that he was possibly thinking that himself. He did not hide his surprise this time. "It's only true for some Martians, not all," she told him. "You must have noticed that you can't read Venus at all but that the others are... easy to hear." She smiled at him, "Venus learned it on her own, she learned many things on her own. Mine, it is a gift of our Gods. My father often told me that it's to show I have lived more than one interesting life, but the priests tell me that it is the sign of the Gods in my blood."

"You must be wise then," Jadeite said, speaking in the same gentleness as one did to frightened animals in her silence. She was not irritated this time with him for treating her so delicately. That was, at least, what she told herself.

"No," she answered. "I think, if what he said is true, then I only had the chance to live many opportunities. I don't remember them, but maybe there are gifts I have yet to learn I possess because of them. It is more believable, you must think, then having blood from the Gods."

"You are not afraid of the pieces of your thoughts that I do read?" He asked instead when she was silent for a long time again. It was the question that must have been there since he first found her thoughts so broken to his mind's ears. Since he first discovered she knew he could listen even if she did not want him to hear.

"You think I will be afraid, that I will give myself away somehow in ways I do not wish you to know? You think that I should be afraid, that you could easily use what you learn from me against me some day?" She half asked and half stated, elaborating on what he did not wish to say. "I am a subject of her Lady, Queen Selenity, I would be a fool not to worry about it. But, I cannot be angry at you for something you are born with or fear you because of the thoughts I think to myself." She gathered her legs to her and looked at him with her cheek pillowed against her knees. She wondered why she felt so comfortable with him there, maybe it was the tree or the garden or how easy it was for her to read him with such clarity at times that he did not feel like the stranger that he was. She didn't know why, but she caught herself in the midst of acting like she was only spending time with an old friend and not an ambassador of Earth. Maybe that was also another of his powers or from one of the lives she never remembers living before this one, and despite hating how he spoke so kindly and so softly to her, as if she were fragile and easy to scare, in its own way it was irritatingly charming. "I do not fear my thoughts. I do not fear what you glean from them either. Your Lord Nephrite was not wrong to call us... decorations. He meant us... figure-heads, wasn't it his meaning?" she stumbled a bit on their Earthian language. Tutors and Mercury could only make a language less foreign by degrees. It was still too recent that she had the chance to use it for the first time with natives of the planet. "We are what we are, symbols of peace. At times, when it was needed, we were also symbols of strength, of wars that could be won in the name of the Light. Is that not what you are also searching for, Lord Jadeite? Peace."

He had returned to carving his little figurine. He did not answer her right away, as if he was giving her question some thought. "We are searching not just for one thing," he finally answered. "All answers cannot be found on the Moon." Mars smiled at this. "Now you are thinking I have passed a test," he told her without emotion in his voice.

"You have passed one," she replied with a serious nod. "I am not wrong though, in saying you are also looking for peace," she added with a small smile. It might have started as a question but it changed into a statement. She sensed him change beside her too, an imperceptible change.

"We won't succeed, as the prophecy foretells," he finally said. "Lord Nephrite," he said this with some degree of mockery in his voice. "He says the stars are ominous about this whole attempt and our people are restless. It is never good when all of us come to the Moon and leave our armies without leaders."

"I have seen it, too," she agreed. "To have the blood of the Gods is to be able to see what is to come," she explained, even though he had not asked. She thought of her visions then but they were no less gruesome than her dreams. Despite all that she had been taught about the truth and about the future, she could not help but shudder a little and turn from the memories. She wasn't always brave enough. Sometimes she thought the Gods asked too much from her, that they gave her too much and that she would break from bearing all the expectations put upon her.

"You are thinking that I am a... murderer," he said at last, a little hesitant at the end.

She blinked, surprised. Then, relief washed over her at what thoughts he had heard, reassuring her that it was not what she thought he had heard at all. "I am thinking you are a warrior," she answered. Martians did not disdain or fear death, and perhaps that was what made them cruel sometimes in the eyes of races more gentle than their own. "Perhaps in your language it is easiest to translate it into murderer?" she stumbled a little at this particular word that she was not all that familiar with but knew vaguely the meaning to be more criminal than what she was thinking. "Warriors kill people, yes? In peace times, we sometimes call them other names because we do not need to kill anymore and they do not always know how to live in such a world."

"Earth, it is not a part of that us or a part of the we when it comes to peace or the Alliance," he said. She did not reply to that, he was not wrong. She felt her jaw clench but forced herself to relax.

"Not yet," she answered softly. She watched him work when he did not reply to her murmurred words. Despite the discomfort, she was easily distracted by his long fingers and the sureness of his movements. She knew those hands could make the weapons sing, and it was something she had admired in all the Kings and Princes of Earth, the thing that she feared and admired were one and the same. War sat comfortably upon the shoulders of these foreign men, like cloaks thrown carelessly over their shoulders, and she knew it well even if she had never experienced one herself. The people of Mars, no matter how tame they are now, had once lived and died by that hunger for power and the glory that came with it on the battle-field. "On Mars," she began again, the story she knew he wanted to hear from her lips since the start. "We use bones. It does not decide what it wants to be, we decide for it what it will become. Men, women, children, animals, weapons, and all manner of things, we force it to be what we want it to be. The dragons, it is their gift to us in their passing. We would dishonor them not to know what we make of their remains. Yet, you say that you do not know what you shape with your hands from the limbs of something that once lived?"

"On Earth," Jadeite answered her. "We do not ask it to be anything more or less than what it was born to become. You cannot ask wood to become metal or a bear to become a lion, they are different but it does not make them weaker or stronger."

"You think peace is a weakness, don't you?" she asked him, a slight proud tilt in her chin. "Even though you desire it, do you think that's how it will turn out? There are those who do not fear to trail after the threads of fate only to find the path cut off."

"Even the people of Mars, your people, have forgotten the ways of war. You have seen it, haven't you? What Lord Nephrite sees in the stars, you must have seen it too," Jadeite spoke. He said it with such certainty, even in his questions, even in her broken thoughts, that she knew he too could read people and not just minds. They were both, rather stubborn. She thought of the blackness that was impenetrable, the part of her mind he could not access even if she asked him in. She thought of how dangerous this man was, not just on the battle-field, but at court and before ambassadors.

It was a disquieting thought, but she was more than intrigued. Here was a hero. She could sense it off of his skin. Men like him were men her ancestors were, and what she had long strived to become since she had been a child weaned on tales and histories. Here was the type of man who ancient ballads sung about. She was a Senshi, but what ran in her blood has become no more than a symbol, a memory of power. Yet, Earth has not forgotten that power, and perhaps that was the danger they were in. Perhaps it was the eternal struggle between forgetfulness and remembering that brought tragedies about.

This man, she thought sadly then, he would one day be an enemy if they, the Moon and the Earth, could not meet in the middle.

"On Mars," she told him instead. "Our world is very red. My tutors, my father and my mother, they tell me stories. The bards, they have travelled to our doorsteps to sing of our land, when it had been lush and green, blue and brown, like your world is now. We only have dragons there now. Have you heard of them for more than the tales of terror I hear of when they talk of Earth's stories? We have magick and priests that can read the past and priestesses that can see the future. At home, I am not so special."

"Except that you are also a Sailor Senshi," Jadeite pointed out, though without a hint of mockery in his voice.

"We are only symbols, your Lord Nephrite did not need to so blatantly point out what we have known since we took our posts," she said with a wistful smile. "As a woman of Mars, I have always wanted to be a hero. Martians are born with the desire to save the world and be bigger than what we were born to be. The people of Earth are not so different from us, are they, my Lord? Even if you do not wish to change the elements you were born as, do you not also desire to change into a greatness that a title alone cannot offer?"

"No," he said grimly. "We are not so different." He paused to study the small figurine in his hand before turning it over to continue. His work was a steady progress towards an unknown destination. She wondered why he was so afraid to look at her, but dismissed such thoughts of vanity when she was started at the realization of having them at all.

Still, even as she watched him work, she could smell the fires in the approaching distance. She could almost faintly hear the cold clashing of swords and the dreams of the ancients crumbling. She could see the ashes on the winds and feel it in her lungs and in her hair, the pieces of the dead and dying clung to her with their phantom fingers. She did not know whether to dread it or to be exhilarated by what was to come, like a hawk hovering at the open door of the cage it had known all its life, she was unsure how to proceed.

She was also a warrior, with the blood of ancient warriors in her veins. Yet, she could not help but wonder, was a tamed hunter still a hunter in the wild? Or will it become like the hunted, as all the weak are to those who are stronger? She felt a sudden, inexplicable fear and held back the questions that seemed to scald her mouth.

Mars watched and Jadeite worked in the silence that came upon them. Beneath the great and ancient tree her father loved, in a garden that seemed in another world. She wondered in the muteness, beneath the shadows of the crimson leaves, at the desire she had of telling this man her name.

----
Can you tell I'm not in the mood of making up names? On top of which, I'll make the excuse that if ever there were those who might have made duty their lives, the Senshi and the Shitennou certainly did. And maybe I'll just fib that sometimes they forget who they were before duty itself, well, at least until life reminds them otherwise... In peace or in war.

sm_monthly September Theme 29: Sailor Princesses by ~Dmarie

2009-01-06T05:17:28Z

Based on the picture: Sailor Princesses

Adventures at Disney Land

"I said okay to going to Disney Land, but that did not mean we get trapped in something like this just to sneak in for free!" Hino Rei grounded out unhappily, her arms crossed over her over-exposed bosom and then moved down to her stomach area and then again they moved. She was trying to inconspicuously cover herself up to the best of her abilities but failing since there were so many different places to cover up all at once.

"I think it's pretty neat!" Aino Minako beamed. "I've always wanted to be a princess!" she sighed dreamily, doing a little whirl in her pink dress.

"You are one, you idiot," Rei snarled back, irritated by the vacant expression her friend wore. She was even more irritated by the fact that she got the least decent costume of the lot. "Makoto, talk some sense into that--"

Kino Makoto, however, could only beam back at Minako. "I feel so pretty!" she exclaimed, swishing her large, yellow skirt before putting her hands to her blushing cheeks.

Rei squinted at Makoto and then she turned her considerably murderous stare onto Minako again before going back to Makoto and the hands the two girls were clasping each other with. Fire could have been coming out of her ears, and Ami feared smoke may soon rise from Rei's head. "You're both idiots!" the dark-haired girl grounded out with so much force, despite the lowness of her voice, that Ami shrank back from her, unsettled by the black atmosphere that hovered over Rei like a storm cloud.

Minako and Makoto remained clueless to all this, though Ami could not fathom how anyone could miss the absolute ominous airs that surrounded their priestess companion. The blue-haired girl briefly wondered if the rumor she heard about curses could be cast by a shinto shrine maiden. Pure and chaste as the image was usually portrayed, Rei did not fit the bill at the moment.

"A-ah," Ami stammered, trying to add a suitable distraction. "It is a-a bit embarrassing," Ami confessed to her friends, though only Rei heard her while they watched the other two twirl about happily. Ami watched and felt decidedly more pity for her dark-haired friend (despite her apprehension at the other's current temper), and gratitude that it was not her stuck with that particular... outfit? Scrapes of clothes? They really should get out of it as quickly as possible (they've already broke numerous laws, like trespassing, and whatnot). She had tried to warn Minako earlier, but the blonde was quite happy in her dress and promptly ignored any attempts to change back to their normal clothes.

This was not really turning out to be any bonding time that the trip had earlier promised. Usagi would have come but she was detained that summer vacation and dragged to visit relatives. Their princess had tried to get out of her obligations for this trip, but in the end, Minako just couldn't pass up the opportunity to sneak and to dress up, of course.

"You look very sexy, Ami-chan!" Minako sing-songed, beaming at her much to Ami's chagrin. "Just go and strut your stuff and let the fan boys have their day!" Ami's only reply to that particularly vulgar suggestion was to turn even redder and deciding, for her own good, not to bring it up again.

"I can't believe we got in for free!" Minako squealed, not even pausing to wonder at the silence of her friend. "Think of all the money we saved! I am a genius! In fact the first place we need to go to is--"

"Hey!" a voice suddenly interrupted them. "Are you guys just taking a break? Get back to work!" A short, balding man was quickly approaching them. Minako and Makoto froze, Ami took a step back in panic, and Rei just turned her considerably formidable glare onto a new victim. He looked stern enough to be a principle but he wasn't fast enough to reach them, despite the fact the girls hadn't budged since he called out to them.

"Look, it's Belle!" a sudden gaggle of youthful voices and youthful faces swarmed in front of the man and rushed toward the four young women. Cameras flashed and video recorders were opened. Minako had not lied that they probably looked more like the princesses in Disney movies than actual employees there.

Ami couldn't decide if that particular comment was a compliment or a curse.

"WAH!" another cried as his ice-cream fell on Minako's dress at the precise moment he reached her. His own delight at finding a princess, or actually, a group of princesses, was overridden by the grief at the loss of his ice-cream. Makoto tried to sooth him, while they were overrun by children. Minako tried to tell a horrible joke to calm the gathered crowd, her start and the man struggling to reach them through the tourists making her nervous enough not to enjoy her limelight as much as she would have otherwise. Yet, despite Minako's waning efforts, there was just too much going on for anything she said to be heard over the den of voices. Rei continued to silently fume and was unsure once more what to cover first from out-stretched, sticky little hands.

Curse! Ami decided with rising panic while she looked desperately for an escape route.

Minako had been warned in the end. There was just no such thing as a free lunch. It was, however, too much to ask for Minako to repeat the saying correctly. After all, she hadn't been listening when Artemis had cautioned her from the start.

sm_monthly September Theme 24: Sailor-V beta by !utilizator

2009-01-06T05:05:13Z

Based on the picture: Sailor-V beta

Another Brilliant Idea from Aino Minako (and side-kick)!

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Artemis asked and then regretted the question as soon as it left his mouth. Not that he wasn't skeptical or that the question had not already been asked for the hundredth time as he eyed her costume, but voicing such things were always preludes to worse things to come.

Sailor-V grinned as she struck an imposing pose. "Don't I look so much cooler?" she effused, ruining the earlier stern expression she wore. Artemis almost wished she could wear a serious expression longer than two seconds, but thought better of it. The Sailor fuku itself would remain a hindrance to the "stern and serious warrior" image he had always thought she should inspire. The uniform was no help whatsoever for such an image, even if someone who lacked V's flighty personality wore it with all the sternness in the world it would remain on the side of ridiculous. Youma just didn't seem to run away at the sight of a Senshi, not like the way they used to. Back then the Senshi had a tougher looking wardrobe, but it was not like he could take it up with the Silver Council about it anymore (after all they no longer existed!).

He had once tried to hint about changing her wardrobe in the best manner he knew how, or at least, the best way he understood how. His charge worked in mysterious, and often baffling ways. His best efforts eventually cumulated in him shoving a variety of wrestling and fighting magazines wherever Minako may look, when she had not been in the house. She did have the compact after all, and it could compensate for the current fuku if she chose. But she didn't take it seriously at all, not that he should have expected otherwise.

Then again, bulging muscles would never look good on her, but the idea was there...

"What kind of costume is this?" she had exclaimed incredulously as she went through the magazines. She had also laughed, loud and unladylike, as she flippantly went through the contents. "This one looks like a human youma!" she had commented colorfully and repeatedly, throughout the night. Artemis didn't appreciate it, but couldn't argue the fact that, yes, some of the men and women were rather ghoulish. It was also the end of that particular idea, but perhaps not the end of the matter.

Now, after watching a ninja vs. samurai movie that her friend had dragged her to, Minako was sure that this was going to be the new costume she wanted to sport. Artemis had been skeptical at first (Minako's ideas were, at best, only eccentric), but at least she looked like she was prepared for a fight. At least she was giving it some thought, even if she had mocked his own attempts. "Onwards, Artemis!" Minako said authoritatively, her finger pointed out, over the city. She looked like she knew what she was talking about, which usually belied the fact that she had no idea what she was talking about. Well, she sounded like she knew and it was the best he could hope for currently. Artemis tried to assure himself with these thoughts as he played his own part in her dramatized moment with all the enthusiasm he could muster.

"Alright," he agreed, trying to be more optimistic. "Where to?" Artemis asked.

"Uh... patrolling!" Sailor V answered, greatly satisfied with her quick thinking and the ultimate of improvisations.

Artemis just looked up at her skeptically as the wind blew violently by them. "Well, by all means, we should patrol," he assented finally, reluctant to support her in this sudden inspiration to do her duties (it never ends well when she was in such a mood) but even more reluctant to dissuade her of it. He knew her better now, even though he wished, at times, he had a better warning of what laid in wait for him when he took her up as his charge. It would have... prepared him better for what was to come. "By the way," he then nonchalantly added, his words remaining ever crisp and precise, "I think the bystanders can see your panties."

Sailor V blinked before choking on her own spite in the process of screeching indignantly, loud and long. Her hands automatically pulled down at her skirts as she scrambled to get away from the edge of the roof. The place she had presided over quite augustly but moments before had suddenly became a dangerous place indeed. Artemis thought in the deafening wake of her outraged and embarrassed shouts that, at the very least, she had the lungs of a warrior, if nothing else.

sm_monthly September Theme 16: Kitty Hotaru and Tired Setsuna

2009-01-06T04:44:18Z

Based on the picture: Kitty Hotaru and Tired Setsuna

Halloween

"Happy Halloween!" Hotaru cheered while jumping up and down on Setsuna's nice, warm bed.

Setsuna groggily and unwillingly reentered the world of the living and wondered for the hundredths time that year why Michiru felt the need to teach the young girl cultures and holidays from foreign lands. Last Christmas Hotaru decided to dress up as an elf and make toys for all the children of Tokyo (Setsuna was glad that the project got abandoned early on, but she wasn't sure she could ever stand seeing stripped socks or wrapping paper again for sometime). The summer after that, Hotaru had spent buying cow figurines and touting their sacredness. Haruka's ears were probably still ringing from the time the other brought home stake for dinner, because the shriek had been bad enough to deafen the dead and anyone in proximity to where the slab of meat was introduced. This evening, Hotaru had obviously decided to wake Setsuna in the middle of a very pleasant dream, while wearing her kitty pajamas that Setsuna had bought her for her birthday. The PJs obviously became an inpromptu costume and Setsuna wished that knowing the disasters of the future would include small, unforeseen consequences like these. The cuteness of the PJs when Setsuna chose them were quickly losing out to the annoyance of its wearer. The little imp was cheerfully screeching about Halloween with eeriely clear english and Setsuna started to contemplate hair-cutting.

Yes, she thought with more conviction as the bouncy, hyper child trampled over Setsuna's prone body: Michiru needed a haircut. Maybe a shave. It was definitely soon to become a new fad, wasn't it? And wouldn't it be nice for Michiru's far-seeing friend, with fabulous fashion senses, decided to help Michiru get ahead of the fashion curve? Letting the other spark the much needed desire for well-shaped, and very bald, female heads was certainly a privilege that not everyone had the opportunity to accomplish.

It was destiny, really!

Setsuna savored the imagined look of horror on Michiru's face upon waking to unexpected hair-loss. It almost, -almost-, made this current moment bareable. Then, when she could hold on to the pleasant imagery in her head no longer, Setsuna mulled over, very briefly, the idea of tossing a little cat-girl from her bed and rolling into a ball afterwards. But, young children were strangely impervious to hints like that. They were either made of rubber or broken record players, currently Setsuna had trouble distinguishing between which was which and what was what.

"Trick or treate! Trick or treate! Trick or treate!" Hotaru chanted, again and again. As if repetition could rouse her reluctant companion.

"Trick," Setsuna announced from behind her weary arm, while the other hand blindly made a grab for the bouncing cat-girl that fell upon her with an "Umph!" and a giggle. Setsuna groaned when the little devil rolled out of reach and continued to torment her, sharp elbows and knees bumping and digging themselves against sensitive areas, like her liver and her chest!

"No trick," Hotaru protested, "I want candy!" she declared vehemently. "Treate! Treate! Treate!"

"Well, I want the trick," Setsuna retorted. "The one where a little kitty mysteriously disappears and poofs into her own bed!"

"Not fair!" Hotaru answered quarrulously. Setsuna could hear the pout the girl was obvious shooting at her, the one Haruka always caved to. The damn woman was spoiling their child! Setsuna thought to herself then, if I don't open my eyes, pouting has no effect on me! Some people - Haruka - just didn't know these very obvious tricks of the trade. She grabbed onto that belief firmly and trudged on determinedly.

After all, feeding Hotaru candy at this hour was like feeding a rabid dog blood and expecting it to go on with its life as a vegetarian. The owner who did that deserved to be eaten! The foolish, after all, deserved no mercy!

Half an hour later, Setsuna wearily escorted a cheery Hotaru to her room. The bag of sweets were clutched to the little girl's breast like a stuffed pillow and the little cat-girl grinned from ear-to-ear at her guardian. If the tail was real, Setsuna thought it would probably be twitching right now in triumph.

"How the mighty has fallen," Haruka commented, stepping from the shadows after Setsuna closed the door to the grinning, girlish face of her adopted daughter. "I thought you weren't going to cave, Setsuna. That's why Michiru sent her out of our room. I'm rather disappointed at your lack of conviction," the blonde said with a hint of mocking cheer in her voice. The other's blue eyes sparkled with amusement as Haruka casually shot a glance at the firmly closed door. "That was some trick alright."

"You lost a bet, didn't you?" Setsuna asked pointedly instead, unwilling to admit her own defeat at the hands of a seven year old. Haruka's face, for a very, very fleeting moment, turned sour at Setsuna's words, and that was the only satsifaction Setsuna got out of it. Then the nonchalant look returned and if Setsuna had been anyone else, she might have believed Haruka when the other shrugged.

"Well," Setsuna told Haruka with her arms crossed and her tone imperious, "I want you to know that Michiru's about to start a very famous and daring fashion trend," the dark-haired woman declared. Her face was very serious, though Haruka raised a perplexed brow at the sudden change of topic, not to mention the unusual gleam in Setsuna's eyes. It was times like these, Haruka thought, that she was reminded just how arcane Setsuna could be. Sometimes the Guardian of Time and Space made absolutely no sense to her - or anyone, for that matter.

Feeling gleefully childish now herself, and rather daringly clever, Setsuna allowed herself a small smile, not wanting to give herself away completely. It was such a disarming smile that Haruka took an involuntary step backwards, unsettled by the look on her housemate's face. "Yes," Setsuna nodded to herself more than the blonde, a bit of her glee seeping into her voice. "A great and daring fashion trend! Oh so very trendy!"

Haruka tried to very nonchalantly rub her temples, though she needn't have worried considering how preoccupied Setsuna was at the moment. The blonde very wisely realized that her abode may very soon turn into a war zone. After all, she was no Guardian of Time and Space, but she had faced the Messiah of Darkness and she knew foreshadowing of doom when she saw it. Doom and her were well acquainted, after all. Sometimes, though, Haruka wished it didn't make itself so at home around her just because she happened to be a Sailor Senshi.

Really, and once upon a time, Haruka had naively thought that the only dangerous things in the world were monsters. She also had once thought that a harem of women was a great idea too. How wrong, she was quickly learning, she had been on both accounts.

sm_monthly September Theme Eleven: Ghost by ~spec-

2009-01-06T04:39:02Z

Based on the picture: Ghost

Spirits

Sometimes Rei saw things she wished she didn't have to see. The man by the street corner who looks and looks but never sees. The glowing children in the air who turns to firefly lights in the dark. The bright, white woman who never stops dancing around the lamp-posts of deserted streets. The wondering shadows in the park that detaches itself and moves like water across the grass.

When she was very small, she used to stare at them with wonder. Then, it had not been so strange to her, ghosts. There was the time her hand went through a lady's sleeve when she had rushed passed, trying to inconspicuously touch the red silk that had look so vivid and bright to her eyes. There was the chill of a passing man who she tried to avoid bumping into too late, only to realize he was not a man at all. There was the crying girl on the playground she had tried to comfort, only to be teased about talking to air by the children who watched.

When she got older, she learned not to stare as much. She learned the hard way that she only looked like she was only staring into space to those who saw her do it. So she cast them glances as she passed by and only surprised herself when she was too preoccupied to watch where she walked. When her mother died, she had wondered for days why everyone was so sad when mother stood for the first time in months and look so lovely and radiant by her father's side. She had been angry at him for a very long time for never looking, for making her mother cry even after passing. Yet, perhaps it was when her mother's shadow faded and her father's back disappeared under the red torii that she really hated him. She was still alive, and yet her own father treated her like others treated her ghosts.

Nowadays, there were only frightened, hesitant people who asked for her Grandfather's services. They came solemn and grave, stressed and perplexed, requesting that he exorcise the would-be phantoms and weeping voices from homes and offices. She never went with him on any of these exotic excursions though, not even when he asked it of her. She could not make herself go. It was the one aspect of temple life she never participated in. Somehow, no matter how malevolent, it had seemed one of the saddest things she would ever have to witness. A helpless tragedy that was painful to watch. Strange how she thought that, even after becoming a Senshi. After youma and monsters, and especially after her own death at the hands of Beryl, that she could still feel an overwhelming sympathy for the small menaces and unnoticed specters that preyed and lived off of the superstitions of the Japanese people. She feared Death a little more and understood it a little better than she ever wished to. The memories of their lingering, living selves were something she had always felt a great melancholy for whenever she thought of erasing these shadows and phantoms that lived on the sidewalks of her life.

She had crossed that threshold once. She had been on the edge of an eternal farewell, one she had once thought she understood when her mother died, but realized she never understood at all. Somehow, it always reminded her of the day Mother truly disappeared from her sight and from her life...

sm_monthly September Theme 09: Hanami by *lemon-lime

2009-01-06T04:34:43Z

Based on the picture: Hanami

Visit

Rei knew it was spring when she found a cherry blossom petal in her tea. The next morning, when she stepped off of her shrine steps, she saw the ancient trees that lined the sidewalk outside the Hikawa Jinja laddened with blossoms. The flowers nodded at her in the still brisk breeze, weighing down the branches. They were heavy and grey in the pre-dawn, a time before the sun could peak out over the rooftops of her neighbors' houses. It looked like they were drained of all vibrancy and life though Rei still took a tentative whiff of the closest blooms. She blinked, discovering the smell sharper than the dull colors that greeted her, something the absence of light could not take away.

Minako had been bugging her to join the rest of the girls for a picnic when they had the chance but Rei was reluctant to agree. Hanami had been her mother's favorite time of year and Rei liked to spend the first day alone to visit her mother's grave. It wasn't obligatory for her to do so, but it had been awhile since she could spare the time and this year was less busy than the last. For once she wasn't bogged down by shrine duties, school work or senshi battles to miss it. It had been awhile since she had been able to leave a blossom on her mother's grave and, as much as she knew how excited Minako was about the whole thing, Rei wanted the time for something too morbid to share with her friends.

They would worry, Rei thought. They wouldn't understand.

At least, Minako and Usagi wouldn't. But Ami might, and she thought it might bring up sad memories for Makoto. Rei didn't want anyone's pity or sympathy, she didn't want to dredge up more ghosts than her own. She just wanted a gift for her mother.

Grandpa had been his usual cheerful self, much to her annoyance. He speculated she was sneaking off on a date when she was leaving the shrine that evening, after dropping off her sachel and homework. The perverted old man then started turning red and sputtering things that were altogether too embarrassing for her to linger on. She had eventually given up correcting him, since he didn't look like he was going to (or even wanted to) believe her anyway. She had told him instead that she was going out, and he could believe whatever he wished, but she wasn't going to stick around to listen to him. She hoped her brusque tone would end the subject but suspected that she would be hearing leery hints and dirty jokes for some time to come. Since Grandpa was the last person she wanted to explain her visits to her mother's grave to, she thought she would bear it just so she could see that ruddy smile on his face, undiminished by the memories that haunted her foot steps and the visage she wore.

She took the train and by the time she got to her destination, the sky had already darkened and paper latterns lit her way to the cemetery. She walked and watched them sway in the balmy breeze, though the wind still had the slight linger of surprising chill. Rei sighed and watched her white breath melt into the darkness before heading onwards, leaving behind couples and gatherings of friends, the crowded onlookers and admirers of the flower festival. In her hands she held the branch she had snagged earlier from a sakura tree she passed by, pulling it out when she was relatively alone.

She startled to a stop when she came upon the grave stone and saw what waited for her there. White lilies, her favorite, were laid there rather innocently, as if fate had accidentally dropped them onto the grave. Rei knew better and looked around suspiciously, hope and anxiety choking her up. Not even a shadow moved and she let out her breath, unsure if she was relieved or disappointed. Father? She wondered. No, he wouldn't dare, but who else...

She shook her head again and set hers down beside the casablancas. Maybe a friend mother knew brought the flowers, though she had never met any of her mother's friends. Surely there had been others who had loved her mother as much as she had and missed her still after all these years. Rei clapped her hands together, dispelling her unease and prayed. When she was done she looked down a bit embarrassed. "It's been a while, mother. I'm sorry I wasn't able to come earlier," she apologized softly to the grave stone. "School's fine, and you don't have to worry about me being alone anymore," Rei smiled weakly at her own words. "I met many people this year, friends and enemies, but mostly friends. I wanted to tell you about them and... and let you know to not worry about me anymore."

Rei clutched her hands together nervously and her smile turned wistful. "Mother, sometimes, I still feel like I can sense you. You always seemed so sad before. But I'm alright now, on my own. I came to tell you that I have friends who I have known longer than this life time, ones who love me and care for me as I am. Grandpa takes care of me too, even though sometimes I don't know how you handled him the way he is! But, I know he loves me too, so much that sometimes it's painful... I can feel it, once in awhile it's so palpable it makes me remember you. I wish... I wish you could be here to see him, to see me grow up. I really hope that I'm--" Rei broke off, surprising herself at the gushing of words that spilled forth, at confessions she had not the courage to even face when she was alone, and when she felt the moisture on her cheek, wind cooling the trails they left behind, she was surprised she could still cry over gravestones. She rubbed her eyes a bit, feeling rather childish and silly. She thought she was too old for tears now, tears that were empty and useless. She hadn't even cried at her mother's funeral, not for years afterwards, but the pain of the loss seem more poignant as the years passed. Before she had only had room for anger and disappointment at her father's actions, but now it was different. Even if there was no one to see them being shed, Rei found that she had finally found enough room in herself to really grieve for and miss the woman who had gone on into the other world, the woman who shared her face but had laughed with more joy than Rei had ever felt in all of her life until now.

Perhaps it was the joy, friendships she would never have believed in until she found them, that brought her here.

"Mother," Rei said softly when she had better control of her faculties. "This year the flowers, I could finally hear them laughing. You always told me I was a horrible listener, but this year, I think I heard them. It sounded just like you told me it would." Rei squatted down and touched her cold hands to the colder stone. "I miss you," she confessed at last, after years of never knowing what that really meant. "I don't think I can ever stop now that I've started."

She looked up to the sky and couldn't see any stars, not with the lights of the city so close. This year, she heard the cherry trees laughing in the breeze, and it was as surprising as it had been when she first found the lost kitten in the park, hiding from the shadows and wanting to return to a home it couldn't remember. It was like hearing something leading her along, a memory or an instinct or a song, she was never sure which it really was. She had always been good at finding things, though her mother told her she wasn't so great at hearing what they had to say when she did find them. But she was learning, and in learning, she thought she was closer to her mother than ever before, even when she had told herself that all the anger in the world she felt for her father was because of the woman who was no longer there.

The flowers, they had been so artlessly cheerful, unlike the still and lifeless objects wanting to be rediscovered nor like dreams wishing to be found. "Mother," she whispered to the dark, wishing for that far away voice to call her name once more. "I think I'm happy." There was no reply but the wind through the trees, it rustled the floating lanterns until all she could hear in the darkness was the swaying red paper on the branches while the flowers laughed and sung as they fell the ground.

sm_monthly September Theme 05: Glamorous Boko by ~alvinokey

2009-01-06T04:27:58Z

Based on the picture: Glamorous Boko

Ruins

Ruins, Hotaru thought with a bit of sad amusement. People didn't seem to tire of seeing the wreckage of past lives, past civilizations. They took none of the lessons that the ruins stood for, but they beheld the majesty at least, and some appreciated the linger of doom impressed upon the remains. She could not dredge up the same awe or admiration or even fear (for she had created so many herself, after all). She only felt regret when she saw them. Yet, she still went yearly, touring the world of the ruins that remained and remembering the ones that left no traces at all. It made her sad to realize how effective she had been in her duties, that she had erased their memories so thoroughly and so easily that not even mementos were left behind in their wake.

When she had been old enough to travel by herself, she would often ask Michiru or Haruka for tickets to ancient places when they inquired what she wanted for birthdays and holidays. She thought it might be a bit masochistic of her to desire it, no good memories came from these outings after all, but the desire to see drove her. To remember, it was all she could do for the past, even though she never had good memories. There was always a terrible fall, she concluded, in her vague and abstract thoughts of the past. There was always a crisis to be faced, strangers with eyes lined with agitation and worry, stress and despair. It was, perhaps a sense of nostalgia, a prayer for the dead that so often goes unsaid at their passing or in the wake of their memories that kept her longing to see more. She may never have this chance again, she reasoned, and despite the discomfort of remembering she continued her travels when she could.

Hotaru was long aquainted with disasters, with destruction and despair. She was not used to living and waking to a world so peaceful. Of building relationships with people whose very lives she may one day have to take, and if not theirs then their children's or their children's children. Queen Selenity, for all who must have thought her cruel to banish the one Senshi who only knew of destruction, was in her own way very kind. Loneliness caused pain in its own way, life that was made only to destroy was but an empty one, yet she was not made to become like an empty glass in her previous ignorance. She did not know that she could contain anything but emptiness, and in its own numbness, in its own way, it was the less painful choice. She had not been so naively filled with emotions she had never confronted before, had never been threatened with the possibility of shattering, had never realized that shattering was not as terrifying as being emptied - of losing everything she had built with hands that never knew they could build anything at all. In the end though, she was made to destroy, and it was a fate she could not escape.

She can sometimes feel those same feelings resonating in the stones she visited, in the star that held her heart and her soul. The powers within those stones had faded with time, as all things fades with time. But their memories allowed Hotaru a companion in this world that perhaps only Setsuna could understand, and even the other could only do so to a degree. Even if Setsuna could understand, Hotaru did not wish to speak of these things with the Guardian of Time. Setsuna, after all, was not just Sailor Pluto to her anymore. She was almost a mother, almost a sister, almost a teacher, and almost a friend. Still, Hotaru dared not name the other out-loud by any of the other labels that would make Setsuna more precious and more real to Tomoe Hotaru. It was always Setsuna-mama or Michiru-mama or Haruka-papa. Never Okaa-chan, never Onee-san. Not when she knew better, when she grew older and remembered more often of a past that was forgotten by everyone else. Her nature, she could not forget even if all the world remembered her only as Hotaru.

In another life, she remembered her companions' faces as she drove the glaive (and all her latent, slumbering powers) into the earth. She knows well that she had sent their worlds and their dreams into oblivion, time and time again. Had crumpled their hopes into dust, and whittled their sacrifices to nothing. It had been the planet Uranus first, then the despairing Neptune world followed, and long, too long ago to remember, before even Setsuna took post, she had decimated Pluto. They do not know this, or at least, not all of them remembered. In another world, she had killed one of them or both of them to fulfill her duties when they could not stand by to fulfill their own. In another life she didn't understand their feelings, didn't understand their desperate, tear-stained faces as they betrayed their post. And now? Now she wished she never did, and for penance for these thoughts, she visited what ruins she could find. She solemnly remembered what others could not, and took it upon herself to understand when others would fail to understand the gravity of remembering (despite the price of remembering).

It was her only penance for duties she had never questioned until now.

One day, she thought, the Neo-Queen, or her daughter - who was Hotaru's most precious friend - would ask of her the same thing Queen Selenity had. If not them, then their line or another line that lived and loved and was good and kind, or was terrible and human and desperate to survive. And in their terrible kindness, in their encompassing compassion, they would realize too late the price they will ask Hotaru to pay. Hotaru hoped the House of the Moon would be too ignorant to realize this, but whatever kindness Queens held in themselves, Selenity's line had always been keen (even when it was too late to change what was). Kindness dulls the edges of brilliance, and sometimes in its place is a terrible price to be paid. Sailor Saturn opened her hands and looked at the opened palms, Tomoe Hotaru's hands. They were unobstructed by those belying white gloves of her Senshi fuku. She had killed so many, had put away despair to reborn hope anew at the cost of lives unimaginable. She had restarted history, and in a sense, reality and time. She had rewound progress, and in the process, the civilizations she had laid waste were forgotten, erased from memory as new ones were born in their shadows.

People today, she faced them, sometimes wondering: 'In another life, did I destroy your world once before?' But their blank, vacant faces were empty houses to pasts that only she recalled. That half-finished picture of a world about to implode, she wished she had happier memories to testify their existence, and yet was glad she never knew how happy it had been.

The ruins lay before her and beneath her feet, like a welcoming lover. Hotaru saw herself in its skeletal remains, tattered by time. Time, the thief, who had took her apart, layer by layer, but still left the bones to remain. Bones that were too strong to crumble altogether. She wished then that she knew herself only as Saturn, like she once did. She wished that she had not been filled, had not become more than a shell with another name but a container of other countless hopes. She wished that she did not have to learn to pity or remember the dead so well (for it was one burden she had never bore until now and feared she may not be able to in the future).

Sometimes, Saturn wondered, if it was better never to have found a heart at all.

end.

How like me to write something so melancholy.

sm_monthly September Theme 03: she is looking for a heart. by ~amelieee

2009-01-06T03:56:48Z

Based on the picture: she is looking for a heart.

The Apartment

Makoto, sometimes wonders her apartment aimlessly. She likes to open doors, instead of closing them, and part curtains instead of shutting the world out. When evening draws near, the urge comes upon her in waves. She lets in the dying light of the sun, watching the colors seep into her furniture and she walks, from room to room, admiring the orange fire that dances upon her floors.

Makoto hates sitting still. Yet, sometimes she finds the one corner in her entire apartment not touched up by a rug or a stuffed toy or pillows or keep-sakes from friends and long-ago gifts from parents she now have trouble remembering... She hates that corner and for most days she ignores it as one ignores a ghost haunting one's house. Sometimes she finds herself in that corner though, as if she cannot help herself, and her cozy apartment is suddenly foreign and so empty she cannot escape the terrifying feeling of Alone. Sometimes her ghosts refuse to stay shadows on the floor and they rise like dark monsters, creeping across the empty places along her walls. Those days, she leaves the drapes closed and shuts all the doors to her empty rooms. She can't help but bury her head into her knees and clutch at herself so tightly, the fabric of her sleeves strain against her fingers. She's always afraid then of falling apart, and yet the feeling that builds inside her like an insufferable storm refuses to abate.

Makoto digs herself into that empty space in the corner on those days, and hopes to absorb herself into the walls. She wishes this with all that she has left so that she doesn't have to think of how cold the night is, or how hallow her arms feel. There is an emptiness at the end of the day, when her friends have retreated to their homes and their families, taking with them their warm, familiar voices. The sound of company fade like thunder, leaving easy space for the unease to creep in.

Makoto thought, at first, that meeting Usagi was like scaling a wall and finding what she had been searching for on the other side. She wasn't sure why she thought that, when her last boyfriend tossed away her heart like garbage and her previous friends had betrayed her without a tear. Yet, Usagi's smile had been so warm, and Ami's gentle hands had surprised her. Even Rei, with her quiet aplomb and austere mannerisms, had a kindness in her eyes. There was something else in Rei's eyes that Makoto recognized but dared not name herself, a familiar expression on a stranger's beautiful face.

For awhile, Makoto's apartment was alive with orange sunlight and she wasn't afraid of the quiet that sometimes sits so heavily there, at least, not anymore. Still, after a while, she found herself in that corner again, face turned to the darkness between her arms and lips pressed against one knee. There, the ache she thought forgotten, rose from within her and bloomed from the heart she had so little trouble giving and so much trouble protecting.

In the emptiness of her arms, Makoto thought of love and friendship, of laughter and voices that couldn't fill the void that had been there since her parents' passing. She wondered, despairingly, when would she ever stop hoping that the next knock would leave those half-remembered faces of family at her door. When would she stop hoping that the emptiness was just a dream and the corner not filled with phantoms? If Serenity, her beloved princess, could not fill this void then who could possibly accomplish this impossible task? Her parents would never return from the grave, no matter how much she wished it differently, but Makoto could not stop hoping, even if it meant losing everything else that has taken its place.

Yet, the smallest things makes her remember them. Out of the blue, the smell of lilies on Rei's hair that reminded Makoto of her own mother's favorite perfume - she had spilled that once onto the carpet and cried in fear of being chastised. The book Ami surprises her with to be the other girl's favorite, one that once sat forgotten on her father's small bookshelf that he never got to finish. The chocolate ice-cream Usagi reluctantly offered her on a rainy day, like a half-remembered outting she once had, if she could only remember if the large and heavy hand on her head was her father's...?

Even so, she could feel those memories slipping away. Like how her father had really sounded like when he had been angry or the length of her mother's hair when they had last said goodbye. Memories were like dreams to Makoto, surreal and unreliable. They were silken and slippery, made of gauzy fabrics that she tried to clutch to in her mind while they dissolved in her desperate grasps so quietly she never knew they were gone until it existed no more.

In the darkness behind her lids, Makoto wondered her apartment, searching for something she couldn't quite name and had always had trouble holding on to. Carefully, with soft fingers, she would examine and categorize every object and every memory she dared to touch, savoring them while she could. She would weigh the fleeting, happy moments and shy away from the heavy, somber tears, always, always lingering like rain-water on the cieling of her dreams.

And sometimes, she dreamed the wall came down around her battered heart.

sm_monthly May Theme 5: Song [Sailormoon/Sailor V manga: Artemis/Minako]

2008-05-19T03:04:58Z

The italics below is lyrics from "The Last One Standing" by Ladyt.

one night of lonely

Climbing the floors
and I'm not running
Through revolving doors
and you're not driving

* * *

"Minako..."

Her blonde hair moved slightly in the soft breeze. The humid evening settled once more though the buzz of the cicadas continued. She didn't even move to acknowledge that she had heard him, but he knew she did. Sometimes, when he was least expecting it - her birthday, or during a shopping trip she was especially cheerful about going on - she'd get really quiet half-way through. As if, at the happiest moment, she stumbled on a crack in her mask or a shadow had passed her, a memory of something missing or gone or lost.

He was never quite sure what triggered them, despite having spent over a year by her side.

"Are you.. alright?" he hesitated in asking. His voice didn't quiver, but the uncertainty lingered in the silence. This time there was no breeze, and for a moment, she seemed like a statue of a long ago woman he barely remembered.

Sometimes, she got a far away look. He wondered, in those times, if she remembered that past life in the far off distance; or maybe, there was something in this life she never told him about, before he had met her. Yet, it was hard to picture this solemn quiet, even in the aftermath, when he was so used to her frivolous and fickle attitude about life and duty and anything attached to the word "Responsibility." Even when she was commanding, every once in awhile, it was like holding your breath. Sooner or later, she would come up for air and she would be normal again. Laughing, smiling, happy, dancing and half singing her life away. Sometimes she would get angry, at a teacher who'd lectured her about a low test score, again, or she would maybe shed a tear, in a small moment, for the boy who didn't accept her confession on the roof-top. Sometimes, she seemed so normal it hurt and yet, none of those times were like this moment.

It wasn't hard to imagine them. She was Aino Minako, even if her face was different when she frowned from when she smiled, even if it was different from when she cried, he always knew who she was. Looking at her now, he wondered: Is this Venus? Is this the Senshi and princess of long ago? Or, was this Aino Minako, the side he just wasn't familiar with? Or was this a stranger that was born when Aino Minako became Sailor Senshi? Someone who wasn't quite the past or the present, someone who might be the future.

Most days, she bounced through both the good and the bad like a ball that didn't stop moving, couldn't stop moving. So, he would forget to wonder what was going on behind her eyes. Most days it was easy to forget these moments that were awkward and so out of place. Moments like this one. The stillness that was only broken by the slight rise of her back to indicate her breathing, the flutter of an eyelash beneath the shadow of her bangs, the only indications that she was alive. These moments, when he felt the distinction between friend and guardian so keenly and watched, at the same time, the line blurring...

Moments when he was more helpless than when an enemy attacked them out of the blue.

The grass prickled his paws as he hesitated. Rising and sitting, and rising again. Wondering if his presence, if he were nearer, would comfort her or irritate her. It was so unlike the bright girl he knew. More like... a woman she would one day be. Though, he wished that she would never become a woman this sad, not even for a moment, not even if it meant she would be more responsible or listen to his instructions better.

Not even for that.

She exhaled a sigh that seemed to deflate the picture of sorrow or, was it, thoughtfulness...

"Artemis," she finally acknowledged without turning her head. "When will it come?" she asked softly, almost too softly for even him to hear. His ear flicked. This tone, the quality of her voice and the softness she employed. Sometimes he wondered if he walked to her side, to see her face, would she be the person he had discovered? The one who yelled at him and denied him help, the one who thought talking cats were a fantasy and had laughed loudly, with so much spirit, at his annoyance that he never quite appreciated the memory. Was this the same person who told jokes that may not always have been funny to begin with and teased him till his fur turned pink?

"When will what come, Minako?"

She paused for a moment, something she only did on days like these. Then, as if arriving somewhere more foreign than the present, shook her head at his echoed answer and the silent abyss that once again rested between them. "Never mind," she said, in a voice that seemed to grow more distant and out of reach by the second. Her bangs covered her eyes while a smile came upon her lips, a rare, patient smile that was out of pace with who she was. She angled her face as if she was turning to see where he was, but their eyes never quite met. "Do you know which star is Venus?" she asked instead. "Show me, hmm, Artemis?"

Relieved by her invitation, an end to his own indecision, though puzzled by the change of subject, Artemis still complied. His movements rustled the grass before he ambled beside her, not willing to show the anxiety growing inside him. "There," he nodded his head and grinned in her shadow. "The brightest star, do you see? Sometimes they call it Lucifer, for the King of the Devils who fell from the heavens. But, most people know it as the star of the Goddess of Love and Beauty. The Greeks spread far, their gods. Either way, it is always one of the brightest stars." Artemis turned his head with a teasing smile, trying to change the somber mood. "A star like that, even Minako-chan will--" he paused to see that she had not followed his gaze. The back of her head was turned to him, resting in the arms she used to draw her knees up closer to her chest. "Minako?" he asked more firmly this time, seeing evidence that worried him. Evidence he could no longer deny as her back was no longer his only view.

"Mm.." she shook her head. "I like the sound of your voice, Artemis. It's really, very soothing. Sometimes, I think it's the only one that I can really hear." Her own voice was muffled in her arms and her small confession felt like an arrow into his heart. "I want to know more about Venus, Artemis... please."

Artemis looked down and wondered for the hundredth time if he should have ever asked this girl to become a Sailor Senshi. Even if, in another life time, she had been that warrior of glittering gold. Was the time in between enough, or had it been too long for her as well? Did it make such a difference that she was reborn as a normal girl before she met him, or had he just never noticed until now, even in that other life? Even though he knew it was necessary, that the world was worth the sacrifice of one girl's innocence and happiness and whatever else it would take from her... Even if he knew he couldn't remake that decision again...

Nights like these, he regretted it. He regretted, at least, that he wasn't able to be a human being by her side. Lay a hand around her shoulder and tell her things would be alright when she needed it. Hug her when she looked so in need of a hug and comfort her when she needed a shoulder to lean on, someone other than the Earth girl she was reborn into being. He wanted to do all the things that a guardian, the person he had always been and would always be, couldn't do. Even if he had hands and arms, even if he was more than a cat... he would always be more than a cat to both of them.

Everything wasn't alright anymore. Even with the other Senshi slowly appearing across Tokyo, even so it was already too late. It hurt, knowing that he was a part of the fates that took away something from Aino Minako that she would never be able to get back. He would never be able to give it back to her either, because he was just a guardian in the end.

He was just a cat when it mattered the most.

Artemis squeezed his eyes shut and turned away to the sky. "Venus," he finally said in a voice stronger and surer than he felt. "Philosophers have looked to her for thousands of years. She shines so brightly that stories about her have endured the test of time..."

In the lull of the humid summer night, Artemis put to words all the things he could not act upon. He decided then that he would endure the pain of watching her suffer. It was all he could really do for her. So he told her, told her what she needed and wanted to hear when he could, and watched her when she refused to look at him. He watched her silently turn into a woman in the tattered moments of her remaining childhood, between her uncertain laughter and crude, awkward jokes. He watched the thorns appearing beneath the scent and the petals of the first rose to bloom, by the window of her soul.

The barrier stands
between your hands and me
Sorry
--"The Last One Standing" by Ladyt

Currently watching: Bokura ga Ita