For Secrets and Miracles, I am the pretty sailor-suited soldier, Sailor Astarte. In the name of the Planetoid 672 Astarte I… I…
It sounds a lot less intimidating when you can't end your speech with the name of an actual planet. I suppose that, unless you are a lot into astronomy, you don't know a thing about my home world. I don't blame you. It's a big asteroid or a small planetoid in the Asteroid Belt you can find between Mars and Jupiter. It was discovered by some German scientist in 1908.
An uninhabited, unremarkable piece of rock. My Star Seed is linked to that astronomic body, so we are as one. As a Sailor Soldier, I had a palace there ages ago. It was called the Ishtar Palace. A long time ago the whole Sol System was inhabited –well, not my asteroid, but there were some nomadic settlements in the Asteroid Belt- but I suppose you are probably wondering why in the world I know this. Perhaps you don't even know what a Sailor Soldier is, if you don't read the newspapers really often. For clearness sake, I am not talking about the people in the navy, but well, a long time ago we were, in fact, an army.
I want to tell a story, because everybody is too busy nowadays to tell it. I have prophesized that the Silver Millennium will soon be reborn. And my prophecies always come true, for I am a Goddess. Some parts of this story are just legends. I don't know what actually happened before the Silver Millennium, but I will try to tell you what I was taught millenniums ago.
A long, long time ago the universe originated. Some Soldiers say that it began when two of us, Sailor Cosmos and Sailor Chaos started fighting each other. I don't know. Then we appeared: the first living beings. At first, we were just sentient stones in the center of the astronomical bodies we were linked to. That stones would be later named Sailor Crystals or True Star Seeds. We later developed bodies that let us interact with the world, with forces that you could call magic powers, powers linked to our planets. And we are supposed to be the ones that created life. As I said before, I wasn't yet born when that happened.
The other life forms called us goddesses, heavenly warriors, daughter of the gods. It was the logical extent of a simple reasoning: their life spans were short, and they didn't retain the memories of their past lives when reincarnated. But Soldiers did. They were able to travel from planet to planet, for their star seeds didn't deteriorate in the absence of an atmosphere. They started to transport people from settlement to settlement, to act as messengers. And since they sailed, they became Sailors. Modern sailor uniforms from Earth are supposed to be a reminiscent of the clothes we adopted to mark ourselves like a different chaste. When I was born, I already had the ability to transform, so I can't know it for sure.
The kingdoms of a System, your system, the one called Sol System prospered like no system had ever prospered. Mercury, the sunny planet of the shiny watercourse and the beautiful libraries became the technologic capital of the Galaxy. And our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is huge.
Moon, a little satellite orbiting Eath who possessed the best magic schools in the nearly Systems thanks to their Silver Crystal and therefore was a rich kingdom, invested in that technology and became allies first with that little sunny planet, then with all the planets in the system, while maintaining a healthy rivalry with the Queen Cybele of Earth, Sailor Earth of the Golden Millennium. She and Serenity, the Queen of Moon were actually friends with not on their duties.
Around this time I was born, my Star Seed took root in the womb of an inhabitant of the Asteroid Belt. I opened the eyes to a peaceful world under the rule of the Moon. The planetary symbol of Astarte was shining in my forehead, and I thus I got crowned sovereign of that part of the Belt. Queen Serenity sent masons from the Moon Kingdom to build a palace for my mother, my servants and me. It was a happy time.
I want to describe you the worlds I saw. I want to tell you about that time. I have already told you about Mercury and their libraries, their wonderful technology. I visited all of that worlds, Queen Serenity wanted the Sailors to learn everything they could offer. Venus, the merry planet of the golden skies, land of the music, the pleasures, the beauty. Mars, the spiritual capital of the system. The inhabitants of the read planet had made a deal with the gods of their twin moons, Phobos and Deimos, and ever since they made the deal, they only went out at night. The planet got to be known as the Planet of Eternal Flames, and their priests became famous diplomats and warriors. But speaking of warriors I just will never forget the inhabitants of Jupiter's moons, the race of Courage. Unstoppable honorable soldiers with a total dedication to both war and art, their Hanging Gardens were extremely beautiful, and made them the favorite neighbors of Venusians.
The Outer planets were almost uninhabited, but some of the Asteroid Belt nomads sometimes established their homes in their moons. It was a happy time. And then things suddenly became… how to say it? Fucked up. Slowly fucked up. First, the guardian of Sun, a lone Soldier became an evil monster. Then the sovereign of Earth got sick, and she had a son. She died by the childbirth of the little prince.
I suppose that in this point I'll have to explain something about the Soldiers' sexual lives. If we ever get pregnant the Sailor Crystal part of our Star Seeds allow our daughters to transform. In that case, we get to be civilians, to reintegrate to the normal circle of reincarnations, to truly die and forget about our past lives. This can be both a curse and a blessing. But Cybele, queen of Earth, gave birth to a male. It had never happened before or after. That boy had a Sailor Crystal, but his lack of two X chromosomes would never allow him to be really powerful. He could get to be a great magician or a great warrior, but never a Sailor Soldier.
And thus the perfection of Sol System started to crumble. Then Queen Serenity got pregnant too, the whole kingdom rejoiced for the little girl, and so us, the Soldiers, were called to be servants of our newborn Empress Princess. The guardians of the Inner Planets became her bodyguards, and us, noblewomen but not nearly as powerful as them, became part of the biggest army in the System. Queen Serenity, the cheerful, calm, serene ruler, was secretly in fear for the destiny of her sole child, and asked her to never visit other planets, specially Earth.
And all Hell broke loose. There was a civil war, a giant eldritch monster that came from the Sun, a Romeo and Juliet reenactment (several millennia before the birth of William Shakespeare), Saturn awoke and the Sol System became a wasteland.
A few of us survived: Queen Serenity; Phobos and Deimos, two servants, who came from planet Coronis; Luna and Artemis, counselors of the Princess from the same System, but from the bigger planet Mau; Sailor Cocoon, who was a goodwill embassador; and two of the Asteroid soldiers, my friend Sailor Flora and me. The queen asked us to return to our respective worlds. Flora and Cocoon did, and the crows promised to watch the Earth but the Mau servants and I refused to leave the Queen alone. The former Sailor Moon cried for two days and two nights, and then she took a decision. She would send all the souls of those who perished in the war (civilians and Soldiers alike from every planet on the System) to Earth, the less damaged of the planets at the cost of her life. Before doing it, she asked me to guide the Star Seeds to the planet, to be the protector of the History of both Moon and Earth. Tearfully I agreed.
In my final flight to Earth I was surrounded by hundreds, thousand, millions of important shines that longed for life. I would never leave that planet again. I, the Soldier of secrets, the living memory of a lost Kingdom, just a little princess from a little rock, witnessed how humanity started again in Africa. At first, they were born without a language; they didn't have any memories of the past, after all. But they longed for life and they restored their civilizations in a few millennia.
I inhabited the Fertile Crescent for centuries, and I was called a goddess again. People asked me questions, and the law codes of Mercury came back, the music of Venus came back, the faith of Mars came back and the beautiful hanging gardens of Jupiter also came back. Little a little I could feel that some day, in the near future, I'd be able to see my friends, the other Soldiers from the Asteroid Bell, and my seniors the Inner Sol Soldiers, even the Princess. I got to see my mother reincarnating age after age, with no memories of me and I took care of her.
Years after that happened I moved to the East. And I fought an Enemy that lurked in shadows. His name was Cain. I could defeat him, but I had to seal him inside me. Years, centuries, millennia. My memory became blurry and some times I couldn't remember who I was, some times the Enemy took control after me. I couldn't control my different Civilian and Sailor forms anymore. I had to take refuge in Europe, in the dense forests of the Carpathians.
But then I saw it, I saw them coming back to life. I found my mother again and we traveled to Japan. And I found the Princess. I, who took duties in Earth as a Moon Goddess, since the Silver Millennium was my home, got killed in front of the actual sovereign of the Moon. Not even the power of that Princess could resurrect me. But I am a Sailor Soldier. It took a couple of years, but my Star Seed generated a new body for me.
For Secrets and Miracles, I am the pretty sailor-suited soldier, Sailor Astarte. In the name of… who cares? I am back. I have dreamt of a new Moon Kingdom, of my old friends, of the Princess becoming a Queen. The dreams of Goddesses are prophecies, and I know it will come true.
I am Shiva Shingetsu, high school student. I am the pretty sailor-suited Soldier, Sailor Astarte. And I am alive.