"Unending Sorrow"
By Theresa Ann Wymer
 

Neptune. Silver Millennium. Dark. This story is set after "Castle Triton", although it is not a direct sequel. It can be viewed either as a secret history or an alternate universe. Comments and critiques are deeply appreciated. Thank you.

Dispatches, transmissions. I continue my work as per usual, monitoring space, keeping eyes and ears open for disturbances. But it's not the same. Instead of turning outward, as is my mission, I'm only half-aware of what I should be. My true thoughts are focused on Luna. Of the reports of chaos. Of the war.

For the first time for millennia, the structure of our worlds may be forever altered. This Beryl--who is she? A Terran rebel who, it is said, subverted the Earth Prince's own Generals. Someone who should have been suppressed before she became this troublesome. Her Majesty could have, might have, but didn't. And now, it may be too late.

We have no part in these quarrels. We three guard the borders. Domestic disputes are handled by the Inner planets and their Senshi. So it was, so it has been.

But now?

I can't make this tension go away. This fear. What will happen to all we have known?

I start as Queen Serenity's face appears in front of me. She looks so cold. Her voice crackles like ice.

"Emergency bulletin from Her Majesty, Queen Serenity, the Ninth of that name. As of this moment, the Sailor Senshi of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are commanded to leave their Castles. The above Senshi are to assemble on Saturn, there to carry out such orders as may be issued at that time. On no account are these orders to be disobeyed or reinterpreted. The Queen commands it."

Her image vanishes.

No. No. The Queen cannot...I cannot have heard what I did.

"Emergency bulletin from Her Majesty..." The message repeats. I force myself to take action.

Poseidon, Castle Triton's AI, tells me, all too soon, the shuttle is waiting. I have not troubled to pack. Everything I may need is on Castle Triton, waiting for me to return. If not...well, that is why I am a Senshi. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always knew this day could come.

Grasping the Deep Aqua Mirror, I depart. I do not look back at my Castle. My prison, my refuge, my home. I will not think of it.

Saturn. The unnamed planet. We of the Lunar Hegemony do not go there, do not speak of it, or of the one who lies there. Even now, my thoughts slide away, frightened of what will come.

I am Senshi. I must not be afraid.

Oh, but I am.

And Saturn looms in my vision. Nobody told me it was so beautiful, a jewel set in those stunning rings, moons circling like pearls around it. The shuttle flies closer in, approaching one in particular.

Titan. And I step on Titan's soil, the first representative of my planet in millennia to come here. I am not alone. My sisters in all but blood, my fellow Senshi are here. Uranus and Pluto.

Ironic. This is the first time for several years I have seen the two people in all the worlds who mean the most to me, and it has to be for this reason.

Sailor Uranus holds her head as high and proudly as ever. She carries herself like a warhorse, ready for battle, the Space Sword at her hip. But I have not seen that look on her face before, lost, wary. I do not think a stranger would see that expression in her eyes, only the battle light of the warrior. But I, who love her, and know her better than any else alive, can see it.

Sailor Pluto is cold. She holds the Time Key Staff before her, as though to fend off attackers. There are no attackers here. Only us. And this was never supposed to happen to us.

With no word spoken, we walk toward the one structure on this flat, featureless plain. There is a palace, cold, grey, and desolate, as everything is here. This is no place of life that awaits us. We do not look at one another, do not touch. Hyperaware of one another's presence, we do not need to. We mount the steps, and push open the great gate. It swings open silently at the touch of a fingertip.

The palace knows us. And that, in itself, frightens me more than anything else so far.

Deserted halls echo to our footsteps. We have no map, but instinctively we know the way to our meeting place. And she is there, on her throne. I had thought to find her asleep, but she is awake. The Unawakened has been Awakened. And waits for us.

With a cool nod she greets us, equal to equal, and we bow in return. So slight she is. With her reputation, I had somehow thought her a brawny woman, whose fist could shatter stars. But she is no more than a child. No older than our Crown Princess, a young maid. But I know she is immeasurably older.

Ananke Titan. Queen of Saturn. Queen Death.

"Welcome, my fellow Queens of the Alliance." Her accent is archaic, and she speaks in our Outer planetary language, not the tongue of the Lunar aristocracy and Inner worlds.

Sailor Uranus laughs, an odd, echoing sound in this place. "With due respect, Queen Saturn, there have been no rulers of our planets since..." Her voice trails off, in an abashed way I've seldom heard from her.

A glint of humor, very faint, in those dark eyes. "I have slept, yes, but I am not unaware of what has passed in the time since I fell. True, there are no longer queens or kings addressed as such, but you are 'Senshi'," she gives the word an ironic twist, "and stand as representatives and leaders of your peoples. If the title 'Queen' does not please you, I will address you as you prefer."

Uranus' voice is firm. "We are Senshi." Pluto and I nod.

"Very well," she says curtly. "As per the terms of the Treaty, I have been Awakened by the Lunar Queen Serenity. In my dreams, I have seen her world overrun by her enemies--which are naturally our enemies as well--and chaos threatens the realm. I have been charged, also as per the Treaty, to destroy all the worlds of the Lunar Hegemony, rather than see them so defeated. I shall, of course, carry out this task, and you are to bear witness that it has been so performed."

She says all this in a completely neutral tone of voice. Clinging to my professional bearing, I suppress a deep shudder. I fantasize that I see the bones beneath her skin, and the image of the skull momentarily overcomes the actual sight of her face.

She rises and descends the steps of her throne, the Glaive held point up in her hand. Having seen her Talisman, I can hardly look away from it. Then something in her words hits me abruptly, leaving me stunned.

"I believe you said '*all* the worlds of the Lunar Hegemony'?" I say.

"That is correct."

No. The meaning of Her Majesty's command trickles slowly into my brain, past the frozen stupor. She can't have meant it. No. Terra, if she wishes to wipe out the insurrection at its source, Luna if she must leave no prize for invasion. But our worlds are far away. How could Beryl reach them easily? Before she got as far as the asteroid belt, our peoples would be able to fight her off, if we massed together. Battle, yes, massive casualties, yes, but this? To wipe us out before we even had an enemy near our worlds?

"No!" Sailor Uranus cuts the horrified silence. "We can fight together, we can repel Beryl! We could..."

We could have our freedom again. Our Outer Alliance would not have the riches gleaned from trading with the Inner planets, but we would survive. We would live, and while things would never be the same as before the Unification, or even in the ancient days of the Alliance, we would have our worlds to call our own. What is, after all, a quarrel of Luna and Terra to us?

"We are Senshi." Pluto's voice is calm and steady as ever.

And there is the crux. We represent our worlds, but we are Senshi, sworn to the Queen. Our Queen. Our vows extend beyond death, and if we betray those vows, everything we have ever stood for, ever believed, will prove rotten at the core.

Merciful Guardian. How am I to make this choice? Our Queen Serenity asks no less of us than we obey our orders. To commit genocide on our own people, and to approve it, in the name of loyalty.

Damn Serenity. Damn her to the coldest fringes of the Ninth Hell for this.

Scarcely aware of my own actions, I hold the Mirror in front of me, held out in my arms to Saturn, reflecting side facing her. As though in a trance, Uranus and Pluto, one on each side of me, extend their own Talismans, the Sword and Gem. As they resonate, Saturn's eyes widen ever so slightly, and she extends the tip of the Glaive forward, so all four Talismans almost touch. Reunited.

I feel the whole palace tremble with our massed power. We can do it. We can join together, and the Outer Alliance will have its old strength. We will be free, and never kneel to another's rule again. Only us, the Four together, as we should have been all this long while. So close....

But the moment passes.

"We are Senshi," I whisper. And there is nothing more to say.

We teleport to Luna.

Luna, fair Luna, the White Rose of the Hegemony. The Serenities have ruled here since before the Dawn of the Silver Millennium, when all of our worlds banded together in a treaty of peace. Once the towers of the Crystal Palace ascended to the heavens. Now they lie shattered, broken. The royal enclosure reeks of death. Even without our instruments, we know there are no survivors. No breath stirs.

We step slowly. Beryl is not here--we would know if she were--but she has left the marks of her presence. Uranus and I walk side by side, our shoulders almost touching. We say nothing.

Here, in the rose garden, she and I met for the first time. In these broken walls are rooms where we played together, fought, studied, made love. The most wonderful years we would ever experience were lived here. This was our utopia, and the place where our thoughts went when we remembered our happiness together. All shattered.

Then we come across the bodies we know. This sorrow is too great for tears.

Jupiter. Venus. Mars. And Mercury. Mercury, my little sister, the one I was closest to, after Uranus and Pluto. All that massive intelligence and lightning-quick thought packed into that tiny body. Her delicate face still holds that determination I knew so well from before. I do not think that many got by her before she fell.

I reach forward gently to close her eyes. Then I hear a small sound from Uranus, and see her suddenly run forward.

She cradles our Crown Princess Serenity in her arms, her head bowed. The Princess is barely marked by her clean sword wound. Uranus looks up as I come forward. Her eyes are too frozen for tears. Reverently, she settles the body back on the ground, folding Serenity's hands together. Endymion lies closely beside her, protecting her to the last. He still grips his sword, now rusted with the blood of others. Looking at them resting together, I bite my lip with renewed pain as I remember who else will grieve.

Pluto stands behind me, and I move away to let her pay her last respects to the Terran Prince. I try to think how I would feel if it were Uranus lying there, and I can't bring myself to conjure up that image. How deeply Pluto loved Endymion, though she never spoke of it. Once I hated him for breaking her heart, all unaware of what he did. Now I can only feel pity.

Beryl has wreaked this destruction, and Beryl must pay.

And then with another pang, I think, but not with the lives of my people. Never that! I owe responsibility for their well-being, and I cannot let Neptune experience this same suffering for cruelty they did not deal! They are MY people! If I have to fight Saturn, Pluto, and Uranus, then so be it. I will not let anyone touch Neptune. Ever.

Sailor Uranus touches my shoulder gently, and I turn to her. "We cannot let this go unavenged," she says quietly.

I nod. "But the price. No. Not Neptune. Not Uranus," I say, and am unable to continue. We reach out to each other, and our hands grip together so tightly that we leave marks on the other's skin.

Pluto approaches, her face calm and free of tears. "Are we resolved, then?" she asks.

"I am not relinquishing Neptune," I tell her.

"You will be forsworn," she says.

"I don't care. I won't stand aside and let my planet die. We were to be the New Senshi of Princess Serenity, am I right? We all know our Princess would never have commanded this!" My voice rises to a shriek before I know it.

Uranus stands unwaveringly by my side. "Sailor Neptune is right. We have a responsibility to our planets, and our people have done nothing to deserve this sentence." She stares directly at Pluto. "If you fight Neptune on this, you will have to fight me as well."

"And will you fight me, sister, as well?" Saturn's voice is cool and unruffled as ever.

Instinctively, Uranus and I spring together, back to back, in our old fighting posture.

"If we must, we will," Uranus answers.

"Then you will die," Saturn says, with no change of expression.

We knew that. How can we fight Death? But if we must....

Pluto abruptly lowers her Staff between us and Saturn, cutting us off. "No," she says. "I have seen enough of the future to know that we must act together on this, and it is the time for us to bring an end to the Silver Millennium. Neptune, Uranus, if you struggle against this, I will strike you both down where you stand. This is why we were born. We were born to come to this place and moment together. And we will not fail."

Uranus abruptly whirls around and runs off. I know her too well to follow her. This is ever her way, to relieve pain by moving as fast as she can, whether piloting a shuttle or simply running alone. I simply turn away from the locked gazes of Pluto and Saturn, to give myself time to think, and to grieve.

We will all die. All of us. And not just our planets. I will never see Uranus, my beloved Rin, again. Pluto, whom I once knew as Proserpina when we were children together, will no longer give me one of her rare smiles while making some enigmatic remark. Rin and I will never wrap our arms tightly around each other and gaze into each other's eyes, forgetting all else. There will be no one left to know we ever existed, that Luna existed. That there were such beings as Senshi, who quarreled and served together and loved each other for millennia.

Our Queen decreed this. Or perhaps Fate or Causality, working through her. Perhaps Pluto would know. I do not, and I do not care.

Neptune. Rin. Must I lose you both?

"Damn Serenity. DAMN her!" I say through clenched teeth. Rage bubbles in my throat, scalding me with my own hatred. Serenity called Beryl evil, but she is as much a monster, destroying her own realm like a spoiled child breaking a doll another covets.

"Try not to hate her," Saturn says softly. "Hatred is a drug, one too easily abused. Use it as a tool, but do not let it control your life." A ghost of a smile. "I have some experience in these matters. I know."

How can I blame our Queen? There must be something I can do, could have done. I want to curl up on the ground and never move again. I am the true monster, standing aside while my own people die. Curse the nonexistent gods, curse the Queen. It makes no difference, when I know where true blame lies. With me.

"Do not force me to this choice," I whisper, my voice cracking.

Uranus--Rin--has returned in time to hear these last words. She gently rests her hand on my shoulder once again, this time with a mate's touch, not a fellow soldier's. I take what comfort I can from her.

"At the least," Rin says, "we can give our people time to...to say goodbye. We owe them that."

"There could be riots," I say. Would I be happier knowing that my death approached, able to share my last moments with the ones I loved most? Or would it be more merciful to be snuffed out quickly?

"We can speak to our Families through the Talismans," Pluto says, thinking. "Perhaps they can break the news better than we can."

"Or we can speak to all our peoples," I add. "It would be a greater expenditure of energy than we have used before..."

"...But what use would we have for it after?" Rin concludes, finishing my thought.

Saturn says, "I shall give you a few minutes to say farewell, to your people and to yourselves. Then I will fulfill my duty. But there is one more thing to do first. Your Talismans must be returned, as you are their last bearers."

I had not thought of that. Will our Talismans be destroyed with the planets that created them? Perhaps hearing my thought, Saturn shakes her head, again with that faint smile. Once more she extends the Glaive, and our Talismans resonate in consort. As the energy rises to its peak, she rests the Glaive in her left hand, extending her right to Uranus's heart.

The Space Sword glows with unearthly light, then shrinks to a tiny, beautifully formed crystal. Shimmering, it floats to her chest, then fades into her body. Uranus shudders, gasping, and stares at her hands in disbelief. Then her expression changes, closes in.

Now my turn. I hold out the Deep Aqua Mirror, as something in me cries out in pain. Saturn touches my heart, and I feel an odd wrenching inside. The Mirror, my Mirror, the Soul of Neptune, also becomes a crystal and slips inside me.

I barely notice Pluto receiving her Jewel inside her heart. The sensation is so strange. In a very real sense, I *am* the Mirror. Faster than I can count, the previous holders of the Mirror flicker through my mind, looking through my own eyes for instants of time. The greatest heroes of Neptune, and a few of her greatest villains, sung and unsung, become a part of me. And my soul will join them soon.

I am the Mirror. Without effort, I reach out to Neptune and my people. I cannot ask for their forgiveness. I tell them that our doom has come on us, and tell them to curse me for it if they wish. Whatever they feel cannot be worse than what I have called myself in these past hours. I am a murderer, and I have my own people's blood on my hands. I feel some of my people accepting fate, some crying out against it. I brush minds with my Family, and we hug and kiss and mourn all in a moment. I do not curse Serenity anymore for our deaths. I believe some forgive me. I pray that I am right, but I will not hope for it.

When the timeless moment is over, I open my eyes and feel myself rejoin my fellow Senshi, those living and those dead. The spirits of the Inner Senshi, of Princess Serenity, of Prince Endymion, I know are all present. I cannot see them with my eyes, but their ghosts cluster around, giving us strength and their love.

My friends. I will join you soon. Forgive us, if you can, for not sharing your deaths.

Pluto nods. "It is time, then. Our mission is officially dissolved, and I must go to my new calling."

Uranus and I had not expected this. "Pluto, what will happen to you?"

Pluto's face seems older as I look at her. "As there was one Unawakened Senshi during the time of the Silver Millennium, so there must be one Awakened Senshi afterwards, to stand guard. Queen Serenity will send all of you forward in time, to incarnate in new forms and once again become the Senshi of Princess Serenity of the Moon Kingdom. When the time comes, I will meet you. Until then, I am to stand sentry at the Gate of Time, awaiting your return."

"Oh, Proserpina!" Uranus whispers. I can say nothing. Our friend will be alone. Unimaginably so, for an unknown length of time.

"When the Glaive strikes Luna, Proserpina Charon will be dead. Do not think of me as the one you knew. You will all have different lives and names, and while Pluto may not die, I too will be different from my current self. Until then, I will wait for you, and keep watch as I have done until now."

"And will Rin and I know each other?" Childish though the question is, I have to ask.

Proserpina's expression lightens. "It is not given to me to know such details of the future yet, but I would be greatly surprised if you did not. I know you two. And I would also lay considerable odds that the greatest forces of the Universe could not keep you apart against your formidable wills." She laughs, an amazing, merry sound in the stillness surrounding us. "Don't you dare disappoint me! The future would not be the same without you two kissing each other shamelessly in the Queen's palace."

With one move, Rin and I rush forward to her. Proserpina embraces us fiercely, and we cling together for a long moment. Then we step back and bow deeply to her. With equal dignity and grace, she returns our salute. Then she lifts the Time Key Staff, now without the Garnet Gem, and with a last wave, she is gone.

Rin, once Sailor Uranus, and I, once Sailor Neptune, turn to each other.

"Thetis." She murmurs my name, tracing my cheek with a light fingertip.

I gaze at her, memorizing her face, her voice, her eyes. How I love her. "Rin."

After a long moment, we nod to Saturn. Her face is oddly wistful at this moment, like a child's. Under the cloak of the Queen of Death is a little girl.

I wish we could have known each other. It is too late now.

Once more, Rin and I reach out to each other.

The Glaive descends, point downward.

Rin and I embrace, as our bodies dissolve to nothingness.

Theresa Ann Wymer twymer@efn.org
July 17 and 18, 1998 10:30 PM to 2:30 AM.
Minor revisions July 4, 1999.