Character Sketches #1, Sailor Mercury - Part III, "Mercury"
Chapter 1: Exposition in the Performing Arts

Chorus:	He speaks well, sire.  The circumspect should care.
	Swift thinking never makes sure thought.

A few days later found the most powerful women in Japan preparing to attend a special performance of Hamlet at a local playhouse.

"It's going to be great," Minako gushed to David as they made preparations for a night on the town. They had agreed to wait at Makoto's apartment for the limousine. "The director says that this is the best Japanese translation of a Shakespearean work ever!"

"As long as he doesn't go for the Freudian interpretation," said Amy. "I cannot *believe* how anyone could assume that Hamlet and Gertrude had something going!"

"Oh really?" asked Minako. In the last few years she had taken a greater interest in Shakespeare, and at this point she was the intellectual equal of Amy in this category, unbelievable as it may sound. "It's really clear that in the scene with Gertrude in her closet..."

David and the others (Mamoru, Usagi, Rei, and Makoto) simply watched as the two verbally sparred, quoting obscure critics and picking meanings out of the most innocuous lines in the play. He turned to the women.

"Have those two always been like that?"

Usagi, who at the moment was in a formal gown, the likes of which she was wearing more and more as they grew in importance to the government, looked at him curiously. "What? Ah...Amy-chan and Minako-chan?" she asked, deeply embarrassed at nearly letting slip Amy's real name, and by proxy her identity as Sailor Mercury. "Actually, Amy gets along well with anyone."

"Hai," added Mamoru, who was rather predictably dressed in one of his trademark tuxedos, minus the mask and cape. "I've never known her to get really angry at anyone before...before the unpleasantness."

"Hai," answered Usagi, "especially since you weren't even there to help!" There was good-naturedness in her remark, but it was still unmistakably chastising; Usagi still wasn't pleased about Mamoru's not leaving the US during Hastings's attack and destruction of Tokyo.

David decided to pry; it was usually what he was best at. "Um, in exactly what manner could he have helped?"

"Why he could just-"

"He could have just been there for her, and for all of us," interrupted Rei before Usagi could let the cat out of the bag. For their part, Luna and Artemis were at the Tsukino residence, a large villa outside of the city, along with Minerva (as she liked to be called today). Rank, as has often been said, has its privileges, and there were few who ranked above Tsukino Usagi.

"Ah," was all that David would say. There was something going on around here, and he had no doubts that he would get to the bottom of it. But for now, the limousine had arrived, and they were on their way to see Shakespeare's greatest tragedy.

It was a very nice box, surrounded by unobtrusive and redundant security personnel. Unobtrusive because the government didn't want it to look like the senshi required a 24 hour guard. Redundant because Amy, Makoto, Minako and Rei had already sworn to keep that task a thousand years ago.

"So," said David, "what have you guys been up to?"

The curtain had just fallen on Act II, and there was a good fifteen minutes left until the next act. Usagi answered the question with a question.

"What do you mean? Don't you know?"

Amy simply chuckled. "Usagi-chan, you haven't know David as long as I have. He makes it a point *not* to watch the news. He didn't even know that you were Sailor Moon until I told him!"

"Ah. Sticking your head in the sand?"

"You betcha," replied David.

"Great. Well, where do I start?

"Ok, so after the mess, Prime Minister Haruna decided that the nation needed a focus to rally around. I mean, Tokyo had been leveled more efficiently than if someone dropped a nuke on it. Between those grieving for lost friends and relatives and those grieving for the loss of the one city that, above all, personified the word 'Nihon,' you had an entire country of people who were about to go into permanent shock, depression, neurosis, you name it.

"We needed something good, something pure--is there a problem, Rei? Something go down the wrong tube?--something that could unify the survivors. And who better than the girls who had managed to save the world from even more destruction? And thus the Sailor Cabinet was formed."

David nodded. "So you were integrated into the Japanese equivalent of the military?"

"Oh, no, it wasn't because of that!"

"Besides," added Rei, "after everyone saw how *well* the American treaty agreement worked in practice," she said in her most sarcastic voice possible, "it was mutually decided to let Japan out of the old W.W.II agreement that Japan couldn't have a military beyond the bare-bones JSDF. So ever since, we've been working on rebuilding the Japanese military. And let me tell you, there are a lot of small Asian countries that aren't too thrilled about it." Behind the smile there was some hurt; being feared as a nation had its disadvantages.

"But for what it's worth," said Usagi, "we all have the rank of Admiral in the Navy."

"The Navy!?!"

"Well, we *are* the Sailor Senshi, or haven't you noticed?" The women laughed; they had had so many opportunities to say that in the past two or three decades. "Anyway, the real reason that we got into the government is because of my bloodline."

"Bloodline?"

"Geez, Amy, didn't you tell him anything? Oh well, here's the short version. I've been called Usagi, and that's my name. My full designation is...," and here she cleared her throat and took a deep breath, trying to make herself sound as dignified as possible without undergoing the transformation into the Princess. "Her Serene Highness, Serenity, born unto this Earth as Usagi Tsukino, the Second of her Name, Princess of the Moon Kingdom of the Silver Millennium, Senshi of the Moon, Defender of Love and Justice, Lady Protector of the Nation of Japan, and First in the Line of Succession to the Throne of Crystal Tokyo of the Crystal Millennium."

This earned her some impromptu applause from Makoto and Minako; it was only the second time that she'd managed to get it all out in one breath.

"Of course," said Rei slyly, "that's only the official title. The parliamentarians in England are still arguing over whether she should be rightfully addressed as Queen of the Moon. After all, the former queen is dead, and Usagi was next in line." She leaned over to whisper in David's ear. "Personally, I don't think that she'll ever accept the title. I think that she honors her mother so much that she'll stay Princess for a long time. Then again, there isn't a whole lot to rule up there anymore."

She resumed in a normal voice. "And that brings us to another fun part. You see, not a few years after we went public about the whole senshi thing, everyone went crazy about the moon. You have to have remembered the news articles? No? Anyway, we asked NASA to send some more missions to the Sea of Tranquillity, since that was where the palace used to be. But they said no! Can you believe them?"

Minako took over for her. "So we did the next best thing. Using our position as Senshi, we privately contracted for a five person, two cat mission to the moon. It was really too bad that Amy couldn't come, but it was a blast! The weirdest thing was that when we got there, it was like a thousand years ago. The ruins, everything! It's amazing that no-one ever found the stuff!"

Makoto had a question for David. "So, uh, how did you take the news about us?"

"What, you mean when Amy told me that she knew the Sailor Senshi personally?" At Makoto's nod, he continued. "Well, I really wasn't too surprised. I mean, when she comes out of nowhere in a sailor suit and saves your class, you tend to think that there's some connection. Or at least, that's what I'm told. Still haven't regained my memory."

"That's a shame," remarked Rei. "But still, having your wife be on a first-name basis with the Sailor Senshi must be interesting."

"Yeah, I suppose so," he said, leaning back. The house lights were dimming a bit, and people were returning to their seats. "but...then again that's one of the reasons I'm here."

"Really?"

"Hai. I realized that the one senshi Amy never told me about was Sailor Mercury. So I figured that while I was here, I'd dig up anything I could find out about her and my daughter. Good idea, eh?"

By now, it was too dark for him to make out the expressions of the others' faces.

"Yeah. Great idea," summed up Rei.