~Innocence Lost~ Chapter 1

By: Meatball Head

E-mail: pomprincess@hotmail.com

Rating: PG

Hihi minna!  This story was the special project I was working on for Hamham… most of you will have heard of it from me, except you, Hamham, of course.  While I am hard at work on the story about Ai, I did have a rather… intense urge to write another Pluto/Dimando fic.  Still, I know perfectly well that I could never do as well as “The Tears Behind the Mask” again.  That story is the crown jewel of my works.  But, as you well know, I am not one to easily give up.  And so, after much consideration and mental torture, I produced this.  I have a feeling you’ll all like it-a lot.  It’s a fair mix of “Dandelions”, “The Tears Behind the Mask”, “Saying Goodbye to Dorothy Smith” (by Alicia Blade, of course), and even a little bit of the flavor of “A Christmas Carol” (by Charles Dickens, if you care).  Ano, I know that sounds odd, but you will see it all in here, rather messily mixed up, with a few tears and a few laughs mixed in to make something altogether new and different.

This story takes place when Dimando is seven years old, so Saffir is two, and Esmeraude would be… oh, I guess three or so.  Rubeus would be seven too, then, I’m not sure if he’ll be IN this (I don’t like him much… kinda like Esmeraude… maybe he should just WEAR his dumb jacket), but if he appears in the future chapters, there you go.  Setsuna is, as usual, 4.8 billion or so… her age is rather irrelevant in this, since it is not a romance, per se.  Oh, just read, and you’ll see.

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the Sailor Senshi but Sailor Nemesis, who’s not in this.  The members of the Black Moon family in this story, other than Dimando, Saffir, Rubeus, and Esmeraude are also mine.  The characters who are NOT mine belong to Naoko Takeuchi, Toei, Kondasha, etc.  Don’t sue me, I’m broke.

            It’s dark here.  It’s not that big a planet, but all over, it’s always dark.  It rains a lot too.  It seemed to me that would mean we would have a lot of plant life, like a rainforest.  I read about rainforests in a book once.  But here, it’s gray, all the time, the grass is gray, the sky is gray, and only if you’re lucky will you see a pale blue flower.  They are rare, a national treasure.  I got to see one all the time, my parents kept it in the royal gardens.  If I didn’t know where my brother was, it was always easy to go to the flower in the middle of the garden and, nine times out of ten, he’d be there, staring at it.

            “Dimando?”

            “Yes, Father?”  I didn’t remember ever calling him Papa.  I was never sure if he even loved me at all, I was only his heir, nothing more.  He was the White Prince of Nemesis, Alabaster, unbending, cold.  Someday I would be like him.

            “Were you paying attention?”

            “Yes, Father,” I lied, keeping a blank face.

            “What did I just say?”

            “You were talking about Earth, Father.”  It was something he talked about all the time.  Saying this, it would look like I had been paying attention.

            “Yes, Earth… you may go, Dimando.”  I bowed to him, observing the formalities, and walked out of the obsidian throne room, leaving the cold, milky-white man alone on his green throne.

            I would be the White Prince of Nemesis someday, I had been told so by my father.  Someday I would sit on the throne, and it would be my son who bowed to me.  But, whenever had a son, I would show him I loved him.  Not like my father, who didn’t care about me at all.  Someday, I would change everything, I would go to earth, I would give my brother all the flowers he wanted, my mother the sunshine she needed so desperately to get well.  Someday.

            But today, I was only seven year old Dimando, prince-heir of Nemesis, eldest son of Alabaster and Iolite, Prince and Queen of Nemesis.  And so, today I could change nothing.

            I decided to go see my mother, I usually did every morning, she would be worried if I didn’t come today.  I would rather have died than made my mother worry, even for a second.  Checking to see there was no one in my way, I ran through the halls and burst through the door of her room, jumping up on the covers of her bed, and gave her a small kiss on the cheek.  This made her smile, and her smile made me happy.

            My mother was pale, and ghostly thin.  We all knew she was very sick, but I loved her more than anyone in the world.  While I took after my father, my little brother, Saffir, took after her.  She had long, wavy blue hair, and blue eyes, and once she had been very beautiful.  I still thought she was, even though she looked so frail, as if I could lift her up with one hand and carry her.  Her eyes never lost their sparkle, even in this dark, dreary palace, with my untouchable father for a husband, she always had a cheerful smile for her children, a kind word for anyone who needed it, a shoulder to cry on for anyone who wanted it.

            “How are you today, Mama?”

            “I feel much better, thank you darling.”  She smiled at me, and smoothed the shoulders of my jacket.

            I smiled back.  “Good.  Any day now, you’ll be all better, and we can go for a walk outside.”

            “Yes, you can come and see my flower.”  The clear voice from the doorway announced my little brother’s presence.  At two, he already spoke carefully and as well as my parents.  My mother had explained to me that Saffir was very special, and that someday, he would do great things.  I loved my brother almost as much as my mother, although he seemed her complete opposite.  Although he looked like her, he was always quiet, and always sad.  Making my brother smile was something that only the flower in the garden could do, but he always claimed that he was perfectly happy and content just the way he was.  If he wasn’t in the gardens, he was reading.  He had taught himself to read almost as soon as he learned to talk, I often saw him with huge books that seemed bigger than him.

            “We’ll go outside tomorrow, Saffir,” my mother said, giving him a hug and helping him climb up onto the bed.  We sat in silence for a few moments, but then I realized her eyes were unfocused, and she was deep in thought.

            “What are you thinking about Mama?” Saffir asked

            “I want you boys to promise me something.”

            “What, Mama?”

            “Make sure to love someone at least once in your lifetimes.  And promise me… promise me that you will always, always stay together.  Never let mistrust drive you apart.  Will you promise me that, my boys?”

            I was confused.  “All right, I’ll promise, Mama, but why?”

            “Just promise me.  And you, Saffir?”

            He regarded her carefully.  “I promise too.”

Suddenly, my little brother began to cry.  My mother hugged him and whispered to me, “Take your brother and go.  I am tired, and I need to sleep.”  And then, louder, “I love you boys.  Never ever forget that, all right?”

“Sure, Mama.  See you later!”  I picked up my wailing brother and left the room, shutting the door behind me.  I set him down only once we were in his room.  “Otootochan, stop crying.”

Instantly, Saffir’s eyes dried, and he looked up at me.  He had always looked up to me, and it didn’t surprise me in the least that he listened to me.

“Now, Saffir, why did you cry?”

He looked at me carefully.  “Mama is going to die.”

I gaped, not knowing what to say.  Finally, I settled for, “Don’t lie like that!  How could you say that?  She’ll always be here for us!  Forever!”

Saffir shook his head, stood up, and walked out the door.  “She’ll always be here,” I whispered, and sat down on the floor.

That night, my mother died.

It was a week now, since my mother had died.  The funeral had been big and expensive, the entire planet had mourned, and through it all, my father had stood silently, his face looking etched out of marble, and he didn’t cry.  I hadn’t cried either, maybe because I had realized it was time to grow up, maybe because I had wanted my father to be proud now that I had no mother, or maybe just because I had realized crying would get me nowhere.  Saffir had stood, unblinking, unmoving, just like my father and I, and he had not cried.  He looked as if he had been expecting this for a long time.  Sometimes, my baby brother scared me.

But the funeral had been three days ago, by this time the palace was back the way it had always been, the black-clad servants hurrying around with their heads bent respectfully, my father in the throne room, my brother in the gardens.  The only one who seemed different was me.

I walked into my room, and stopped in confusion.  A beautiful green-haired woman was sitting in my armchair, waiting for someone.  She was not Nemesian, I noticed.  Her forehead was not marked, and not only that, she was also very tan unlike all of the people of my planet.

My father didn’t approve of people from other planets.  His advisor, Wiseman, despised them even more.  Deep in my heart, I believed that my mother had had parents from somewhere else, because Wiseman had never liked her.  Still, this woman was a stranger, a stranger from another planet, and she wasn’t my mother.  I didn’t know enough magic to consider myself safe in her presence.  Yet, when I tied to move, I realized I could not.

“Hello, Little Prince.  Did I scare you?”

“Who are you?”

“Your friend, Dimando.  Don’t worry.  Come over here, sit down.”  She gestured towards another chair, and I felt my stiffened body relax.  But now I was curious, and instead of leaving the room like I had initially planned, I settled into the big chair and looked at her from across the table where I usually had my breakfast.

“Why are you here?”

“Because you need me right now.”  Suddenly, it dawned on me.

“Are you here because my mother died?”

“I suppose… yes, I am.  Because your mother died.”  So, she was just here to oversee my mental state, then.  Had my father thought I was that unstable?

“I’m fine, you know.  I don’t need help.”

She shook her head.  “Of course you don’t.  I’m not here to make sure of your present emotional well-being.”

“Then why are you here?”

“To make sure of your future emotional well-being.”

“Huh?”

She thought a moment.  “All right, you have Terran books here, I know that.  Have you ever read ‘A Christmas Carol’?  Charming little story.”

“My mother read it to us last year.  Why?”

“Think of me as the ghost of past, present, and future.  YOUR past, present, and future.”

I stood up, walked over to her, and poked her arm.  “You’re not a ghost.  You’re solid.”

“I’m not a ghost am I?”  She smiled slightly.  “Let’s just see.”

And at that moment, my cousin bounced into my room.

Now, while she was moderately cute, and extremely attached to me, I never had like the little girl much.  The last time I had been alone with her, she had decided to put on a pretend wedding, and I had only gotten away under the pretense of my mother calling me while she yelled at Saffir for noting that marriage at such a young age was illegal.

My brother had no sense of humor.

Then again, at the time, I hadn’t thought it was very funny either.

So, this little curly haired child had just run in, and given me a huge hug that almost made me fall over.

“Let go, Esmeraude.”

Pouting, she let me go and plopped down on my bed.  “What’sh wrong, Dimando?”  Her lisp was very apparent, and she tilted her head and widened her eyes, trying to appear even more sickeningly cute than she usually was.

I gestured towards the tall woman in the chair.  “Can’t you see I have company?”

She looked at the chair.  “No.”

I began to get angry.  “What do you mean no?”

“There’sh no one there.”

I looked again to the chair.  The woman was still lounging there, a slight smile on her lips.  “She’s right THERE!”

Esmeraude’s adorable face screwed up and she began to wail.  “DON’T YELL AT ME DIMANDO!!!!  I WANT MY MOMMY!!!”

I calmly stuck my fingers in my ears and waited it out.  As usual, her burst of temper was violent, but short.  Finally, when she realized I wasn’t listening, she stopped crying.  I took my fingers out of my ears.

“Wanna play a game Dimando?”

“No.”

“Wanna draw a picture?”

“No.”

“Wanna take a walk?”

“Wanna go away?” I asked, mimicking her.  Her eyes began to fill with tears again, but she did leave the room.

“That was a bit harsh,” scolded the woman in the chair.

I turned to her and narrowed my eyes.  “What would you know anyway?”

She shrugged.  “So, am I a ghost?”

“Are you?”

She laughed softly.  “You are a very intelligent young man, Dimando.  No, I am not.”

“What are you then?”

“A friend.  That’s all you really need to know.”

“All right, you’re a friend.  Does my friend have a name?”

“Setsuna.”

“Hi Setsuna.  Now, one more time, what are you doing here?”

She smiled again.  “Remember that Terran book?”  I nodded.  “We’re going to take a little trip.”

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