A stab at the Silver Millennium. I felt like using English names,
except, of course, for Serena and Darien, who are now Serenity and
Endymion. To tell you the truth, I like the generals' names in English better.
Please don't hate me or skip this fic because of that. No golden crystal,
even though the story's more reminiscent of the manga than the anime.
Zoycite's a hetero male, as in the manga. Spelling is "Zoycite" (I think
that's the correct English spelling). Oh, and I'm making the general's
ages what I want them to be. Lalala.
Please enjoy.
-Lianne (liannesentar@hotmail.com)
http://Lianne_Sentar.tripod.com
*Blue Planet, White Moon*
Part 1
Rated PG for slight language, and, well, feeling like a PG story. Some
of the psychological concepts may go beyond that, though.
I met her on my first trip to the moon, during the Earth's
annual visit. The magic transport required to travel there can be
hard on the body, so my parents hadn't let me go with them while I was
still young. It was the first time I was deemed old enough to go. I distinctly
recall the moment mother told me: in her bedroom, she sitting on her bed,
I in a padded chair, my eyes on the window and the perfect white
snowflakes that fell beyond the glass. I wanted to go out in the snow. The
smell of baby powder in mother's room made me want to run out in the snow
and let it hold me. Perfect white. Soft white to disappear in my dark hair and
touch me and fall on my lips. Then mother said I was coming to the white
moon, and I turned to her. I was fourteen years old.
I still remember a lot of it, I think. To transport to the moon, my parents,
the generals, and I had to stand in the center of this ring of odd crystals.
Malachite held my hand. I told him I wasn't scared and tried to pull away, but
he gripped me harder and smiled in a way that was half sarcastic and half
sympathetic and told me to trust him. So I frowned and let his gloved fingers
entwine with mine as the technicians in the room set the transport. Nephlite
stiffly rubbed my hair.
Transporting was like being in a room that shot into the air at the
speed of light and spun like a demon. My stomach dropped and whipped,
and I couldn't breathe. The five seconds it took to reach the moon were
some of the longest of my life.
I spent the afternoon throwing up.
I assume mother was probably horribly upset that her little
boy was spending hours making God-awful puking noises in the
bathroom, but I don't think I ever saw her. Zoycite probably kept her out,
because I don't think I saw him, either. Jedite held my hand. Nephlite
patted my back. And Malachite, damn him most of all, wiped my mouth
with his handkerchief between the bouts of vomiting. I yelled at them
constantly to get out and leave me alone, but, as always, they didn't listen.
Malachite even offered to get Zoycite to sing and make me feel better. If
I hadn't been so sick, I doubt he would've been able to dodge my fist so easily.
By the time my body gave up on vomiting, I was hardly conscious;
I don't remember Nephlite carrying me to father's quarters, though I know he
did. When my senses started working again, I noticed father wasn't
there, and the only two figures in the room were Zoycite and an attendant, who
whispered quietly by the closed door. I closed my eyes and frowned. Even
though my family had only been on the moon for a short while, the room
already smelled like father's leather and spiced perfume. My heart dropped
a bit. Still shaken from the vomiting, I didn't want to be surrounded by that.
Zoycite noticed I was awake and set the attendant on me almost
immediately. We were running late, apparently. I had a minimal time to get
ready before meeting the moon's royal family. Between Zoycite and the
attendant, I was bathed, groomed, and dressed in record time. Zoycite even
unashamedly started slapping my cheeks to try and get color back in them.
I tried to deck him, but, as always, he easily avoided it. He gave me a quick,
affectionate rub on the top of my head and shoved me out the door.
Several guards snatched me and brought me down the hall. The next
thing I remember is being pushed at a small group of guards and my
parents, who all stood by a pair of huge, fancy golden doors, and my mother
hugging me and telling me how worried she'd been and kissing my cheek
and wiping lipstick from my skin and setting my shoulders back and telling
me to make sure I stood straight.
And then the door was flung open, and my parents, arms linked,
walked through. I dizzily tried to follow them, but a guard gripped my arm
and told me to wait. My parents had reached the center of the long, furnished
reception room before I was released. My mind still spinning, I walked through
the doorway.
And passed out.
**********************
I met him on his first trip to the moon, during the Earth's annual visit.
He was so far away in the throne room - by the door, really, only a few steps
in - that I couldn't make out his features, but his appearance still struck me
hard. I felt the breath catch in my throat and my heart do an odd little jump.
He was *dark*.
Never in my entire life had I seen such dark hair. The Earth's king had
chestnut-colored hair, true, and the general Nephlite had dark brown hair,
but the prince's hair was like a midnight starless sky. Not like Mars' hair at all,
with its purple sheen that made it shimmer and dance in the light. The prince's
hair was black, black like coal, black like darkness. It hardly caught the light. It
didn't have magic to it, like the glimmering hair of Mars or the shining hair of
the moon people; his hair seemed to absorb light, like ... well, like a black rock
that barely shone under the magical pearl lighting in our castle.
Dull hair.
Earthian hair.
His skin, too, was shades darker than that of anyone else in the room.
His parents weren't nearly as bronzed; an effect, I'd been told, of the dangerously
powerful sun on Earthians. Some skins absorbed more sun than others, Venus
had told me. I faintly remembered someone telling me the prince was famous
for turning dark in the summer sun and remaining nearly as dark even through
the winter months, but I hadn't paid attention at the time. Skin darker than that
of Zoycite wasn't something I could picture.
Yet there he stood, dressed in beautiful silks of navy blue and black,
silk that shone and shimmered under the pearl lights that only bounced dully
off the flat darkness of his hair and skin. I was dumbstruck. I was amazed.
I was eleven years old.
And then he crumpled to the floor, and I gasped, and my mother
blinked. Attendants rushed to the prince, as did his four generals who stood
on one side of the room; I watched the prince's mother whip around and
stay where she was only because of the very obvious grip her husband kept
on her arm. The King of Earth bowed apologetically at mother and said that
the prince had not reacted well to his first transport, and mother nodded
understandingly. I saw one of the generals bring the prince around with
smelling salts, and a lot of lifting and straightening and patting later, the
prince stood on his own once more. Everyone left him save Malachite, who
took the still wavering prince by the elbow and nodded to the queen.
The queen took a breath, swallowed, and turned back to mother
with a shaky smile. "Allow me to introduce my son, who has yet to be graced
with the presence of the moon's people." The queen waved her arm out
toward him. "I present to you Endymion, prince of the Earth and heir to the
throne, and the only child of my husband and I."
I could see Endymion's legs try to buckle, but the grip Malachite
had on him was so strong *I* could see the general's white knuckles. The
general slowly walked Endymion up the room, through the king and queen
and right up to mother's throne. The prince, with a bit of help, bowed.
"I'm honored to meet your Majesty," the prince said in a young male
voice that was quite melodic - but his words were a bit slurred. I felt my
heartbeat quicken as he turned to me.
Good God.
He had *ocean* eyes!
The only water we had on the moon was clear or tinged with a
touch of pearl or baby blue. I had seen pictures in books of the dark oceans
on earth, those dark navy waves that churned and crashed, and I often stared
at the Earth and its swirls of dark navy and white cloud from my balcony.
I had even met Earthians - quite a few actually - that had blue eyes darker
than the crystal blue eyes so frequent on the moon.
But never had I seen a pair of eyes of such a dark, heavy, unglimmering
blue. I felt like I was staring in the oceans of that blue planet, staring deep into
that endless expanse of dark, opaque water. Well, with a bit of haze over it.
His eyes clearly showed that he was still very dizzy and quite possibly delusional.
I found myself getting nervous, probably for a lot of reasons.
"Allow my to introduce my only daughter," mother announced. "The
crown princess Serenity, heir to the Moon Kingdom and all of its timeless
magic."
Automatically I raised my hand, as I had been drilled over and over
to do. I found myself holding my breath, my eyes unwavering from Endymion's,
my fingers trembling slightly as Malachite helped the prince go on one knee.
Endymion slowly reached up, took my hand, and brushed his rather rough
lips against it.
His eyes suddenly flickered with a lighter shade of navy. "An honor,"
he said, his voice suddenly a touch higher. To my surprise, he rested his
cheek on my hand and closed his eyes. "You smell good," he mumbled,
before collapsing at my feet.
I screamed.
I didn't mean to, really. It was just ... everything. My shock at seeing
the dark prince, my surprise at his first collapse, his sudden reduction to a
pile of silk and teenaged boy at the edge of my slippers, and the way my
heart was thudding in a very unusual and rather frightening way. I covered
my mouth and turned bright red. I quickly looked to mother, but she wasn't
disappointed in my rude reaction, in fact, she wasn't even looking at me -
she was staring, surprised, at the fallen prince.
Malachite kept the rushing attendants back with a single, hard
glare. Then he looked at mother, bowed his head, and said, "Forgive my
ill prince." Then he glanced at me and winked.
**********************
I obviously don't remember the rest of that day because I spent it
in a feverish, dizzy sleep. But Zoycite loved to tell me over and over
afterwards, explaining in detail how Malachite picked me up in his
arms like I was a fainted damsel and walked out of the room, past all the
murmurings of the moon's elite and the dead, unsure silences of the
Earthians in attendance, and didn't look back. How mother bit her lip
and mumbled worried motherly things, how father sighed and tried to keep
up a formal indifference to the embarrassment, how the moon queen's eyebrows
creased in concern, how the other generals followed Malachite out and
Jedite, after bowing to the assembly, pushed close the massive golden
doors behind him. And how the little white princess, perfect and beautiful,
watched everything with her hands pressed to her lips and her crystal blue
eyes wide.
And so I met Serenity.
**********************
Even as Malachite carried him away, the murmurs of bystanders filling the
air with a steady buzz, the Earth king shaking his head and the Earth queen
rigid with concern, my mother silently puzzling in the throne by my side, I couldn't
look away. The prince looked so odd being carried like a girl, his long arms and
legs dangling limp in Malachite's hold, his dark chin tipped all the way back and
exposing his throat and young adam's apple. But more than that, more than
anything, I was perplexed at what he'd said. I was always being reprimanded
by attendants for not wearing the formal perfumes I was supposed to wear. The
scent I always chose was not fitting for my wealth, my position. Yet the big
dark prince, dull and beautiful, had kneeled at my feet and put his cheek to
my hand and said he liked the smell of my baby powder.
And so I met Endymion.
To be continued ...
-Lots of anime, manga, and fanfic references and influences in this fic.
Big fat medley. Fun fun fun. ^_^ Part 2 will be out mid-August (check the webpage
for details). Hope to see you there!
-Lianne (liannesentar@hotmail.com)
http://Lianne_Sentar.tripod.com
*Sailor Moon and all its characters copyright © Naoko Takeuchi/Kodansha
Ltd./Toei Animation, Co., Ltd. This story part copyright © Lianne Sentar,
July 2001.
(
geocities.com/element_sprite)