...all for nothing...
Prompt: Laugh - written for fic_15
Fandom: Sailor Moon (Silver Millenium)
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13
Jadeite wandered down the hall, keeping an ear out for Beryl's voice. He had something to tell her. Endymion's armies had decided to join the shitennou. Surely that meant being able to sway Endymion. After all, he wouldn't-
Jadeite's thoughts were interrupted. He heard laughter coming from behind the door Beryl usually held meetings in and operated out of.
A chill swept over him and he crept toward the day cautiously, not knowing why he felt the need to do so.
He opened the door a sliver, and when no reprimand came, he pushed the wood far enough to push his head through.
A man – Jadeite could not tell who he was or where he was from – sat tied to a chair. Thin trails of blood made their way down his naked torso. His head lolled to one side and his mouth parted as if he were moaning.
Beryl wore pants and a loose shirt, sleeves rolled up. Her hair hung from a high ponytail that swung with each movement. She evaluated the seated man, adjusted his head, worked out a kink in his pants, and with a knife, with the careful, careless precision of an artist, marked him where she deemed fit.
She watched the flow from a particular wound momentarily before moving to a another part of the man's body. Slashing him across the back, she laughed when he screamed, delighted that something had finally gotten him out of his moaning stupor.
Her laugh rang clearly and pleased. And in that moment, Jadeite knew that she was lost.
They had all suspected the Metallia could not be trusted, but they had believed that Beryl would manage and that Beryl was good, true to Earth.
Now, Jadeite had seen Metallia's influence on Beryl. Metallia had not been in the room, but Jadeite had. And it was not that he had seen Beryl toy with another being, just for the sake of doing so. He had done worse.
It was that her laugh had not been crazed or maniacal. It had not been vengeful or stilted. It had been purely joyful.
Most times, it was easy to enjoy paining someone else because they had done something, because they were about to do something, because he needed something from them.
But Beryl. Beryl was enjoying the pain. Delighting in torture. Enchanted with hurting.
She stroked the man's hair tenderly, looking up and seeing Jadeite in the doorway. She smiled at him. Not caring that she was caught. Simply…
Happy.
Jadeite backed away and ran. Beryl was lost. And with Beryl lost, the shitennou could not stand to Metallia.
For the first time, Jadeite understood the flaw in their great and noble rebellion. He understood that they, if not the kingdom, were doomed to fail. And it was then that he was able to grasp:
He had betrayed his prince, and it was all for nothing.
end