Hello, this does look familiar doesn't it? Anyway, I originally wrote this for my daughter as a gift. What's funny is I still have a copy of it on my computer. I posted it once but wasn't satisfied with the formatting. Truth is I didn't know how too, but I've picked up a few tricks since then. I am adding a thank you to El Hustino, he explain the right way to do it hahahahaha. I think he should be thanked in as many genres as possible. Read his stuff its all good. So on with the show.

Disclaimer? One time for all times: Yes I own none of the characters of Sailor Moon, the moon kingdom, most of planet earth or the Negaverse, why? Cause I work too much

A Moonlight Legend

by Atchika

Chapter One

Memories

The big day was here at last. At the end of the aisle he waits. His anticipation overshadows his wedding day jitters. His eyes sweep across the room full of happy smiling faces. The music starts, and all heads turn to the back of chapel. His eyes are drawn to the figure slowly making her way up the aisle toward him. Her beauty transfixes him. She has her head turned slightly toward her father. Smiling to himself he realizes he is happy too and at last at peace.

Finally she arrives. Her father places her gloved hand in his. She smiles warmly at him and lightly kisses his cheek. She then turns back to face him, and gently squeezes his hand for reassurance. Anticipation is something they both feel. Lost in the love he sees in her eyes, he leans forward to kiss her...

...DESTRUCTION...CONFUSION...SORROW...PAIN...

He stands helpless as she is torn from his arms. Her calls to him are drown out by a voice he knows but does not recognize. One that haunts him mercilessly.

"...PRINCE ENDYMION YOU MUST KEEP YOUR DISTANCE FROM PRINCESS SERENITY. THE FATE OF THE WORLD, YOUR SAFETY AS WELL AS THAT OF THE PRINCESS HANG IN THE BALANCE..."

Why? He is alone, a vast plain stretching out before him. Leaving him utterly and totally alone, he is overwhelmed by great sadness mixed with a hopeless longing all pulling him further into darkness that threatens to swallow him.

Darien starts awake. Sitting up and looks at the picture of him and Serena. He picks up the picture and gently strokes Serena's face. Every night the same dream, every night for months he has woke sweating in his bed. "What am I gonna do?" He whispers to himself. Closing his eyes, he flops backward onto his bed and it replays itself in his head one more time, pulling him back into the nightmare. He tries to sit up again and clear his head but the memories of the first time he had the dream were still vivid. He was on his way to school and it had all but knocked him over with its intensity. Before this it had only come as a bad dream now it was creeping into the waking hours. At first he had thought it was his fear of the future manifesting in his dreams, but now he wasn't so sure. He knew he had to do something, but what?

As if on queue Serena came around the corner. She threw herself into him. Even with his head feeling as though it might explode he welcomed her embrace, but he needed to think. First though, he would have to deal with Serena and the only thing he could think of right then and there was to stay as far from her as possible. He also knew she would never stay away while they were together. He had to end it. He had had to steel himself for what he needed to do but when she looked at him she was so happy. Glad just to be with him and lately she seemed to smile all the time. He remembered how he had made her smile vanish. He could still hear himself saying the words, becoming angry enough with himself to hold her away. Telling her he didn't think they should see each other anymore. Serena's reply that she knew she was still young, his having to tell her that wasn't the problem; he just didn't feel the same way any more. That it was over. Serena had been so shocked she was speechless.

That afternoon Rini had come by for a visit. Living with Serena, she needed a quiet place to do her schoolwork. He watched her as she worked, he had always liked children, but this kid seemed to pull at him somehow. It was as if she had always been a part of his life. It was real weird. That connected feeling. Sort of what he felt with Serena. When Rini would come over to spend time with him he would end up thinking of Serena, they were alike in so many of ways. It certainly didn't help that they looked so much alike. Rini was simply a shrunk down version of Serena.

Rini had shown up out of nowhere around the same time he had started having the nightmares. He still wondered if the two events were somehow connected. There was a knock at the door he answered it. Opening the door he growled to himself. Serena was impossible and if not the most stubborn girl he'd ever met. She stood at his door and made another attempt to apologize for whatever she had done to make him so angry. She was forcing him to give words to the lie, the ones he had avoided earlier. That he didn't want to be tied to the past. He wanted to be free of her and the past; his cruelty amazed even himself. Unable to endure the look of unbearable sadness in her face, her hope crushed, her composure was quickly crumbling, he said nothing as she backed slowly out the door, apologizing for disturbing him. Seeing her sadness twisted his heart, feeling every tear as if it were a knife cutting into his soul. Shutting out the sound of her unhappiness as she closed the door slowly and was gone. Staring at the closed door he couldn't help feeling like he was shutting the door on his future.

Rini, forgotten for the time being, had been watching the whole episode in silence. She was young but something about the whole thing was just plain wrong. She heard the lie in Darien's words and wondered why he would do something so cruel to anyone. Even if that someone was Serena, this was very confusing for her. Darien was always so nice to her. Shortly she headed back to Serena's house to think it out a little more. That wrong feeling just wouldn't go away.

Later Darien felt Sailor Moon's presence and knew he was needed. He had control over whether he became Tuxedo Mask. Serena had come a long way since they had first met, but she was still Serena. After a moment of internal conflict he went to help Sailor Moon. Once the threat was dealt with he said good-bye, but Sailor Moon couldn't let him leave without asking him one more time. He repeated the lie. Then turned and walked silently away from her. He continued to walk without looking back. Knowing if he stayed even one moment longer he would have changed his mind. Wishing there were another way. Knowing there was not. Why did everything have to be so complicated? At home he could only muster the ambition to lie on the couch and stare blindly at the television in feeble attempt to forget the day. He didn't remember falling asleep.

Darien slowly opened his eyes. Time has gone by he thought and he had managed to keep himself as busy as possible with school and work. Still some nights he would lay awake half the night not wanting to sleep. Knowing that it was there just beyond his awareness.

Leaving the picture on the bed he gets up and goes to the bathroom sink to rinse his face. "I just wanted to live a normal life, marry Serena, settle down and have a family." Looking at his tired face in the mirror he groans. "Why do these things keep happening. Why can't you all just leave us alone." Sighing inwardly he looks back toward the bed and tosses his towel at in frustration.

......something they both feel. Lost in the love he sees in her eyes, he leans forward to kiss her...

...DESTRUCTION...CONFUSION...SORROW...PAIN...

He stands helpless as she changes from Serena to the Moon Princess. She is torn from his arms and disappears from view. Her calls to him are drown out by a voice he does not recognize...

"...PRINCE ENDYMION YOU MUST KEEP YOUR DISTANCE FROM PRINCESS SERENITY. THE FATE OF THE WORLD, YOUR SAFETY AS WELL AS THAT OF THE PRINCESS HANG IN THE BALANCE..."

He is alone. Utterly and totally alone. Sadness, hopeless longing all pulling him farther into the darkness that threatened to swallow him. Why?! Something about all of this was wrong! Just wrong! Liar!! It was just a dream, wasn't it? The same dream he has every night! Why should he believe any of it? In response the voice answers him

"...PRINCE ENDYMION I KNOW THIS IS HARD FOR YOU BUT...YOU MUST BELIEVE ME WHEN I TELL THE PRINCESS IS IN DANGER...I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE, THE DANGER IS REAL..."

For the first time in weeks of enduring this nightmare, a second voice, different but the same as the first, quiet, peaceful, confident, speaks out. "...Be true to yourself and you will never be apart..." The voice repeats those words over and over in his head. On the edge of recognition, blue tear filled eyes shock awake. He sits up slowly and drops his face into his hands. If this keeps up, he thinks idly, I'll never get any sleep. Looking up from his hands Darien tries to remember a peaceful night and realizes there really hasn't been one since the first attack of the Nega Moon and his break up with Serena.

Dreams. They had led him to the Princess. Now they were forcing him away. He shoved the more painful memories aside. He was exhausted and wanted nothing more to do with the NegaVerse, the Moon Kingdom or the Sailor Scouts. He along with just about everybody else had been killed in the fall of the Moon Kingdom, reborn with no memory of who they had been. After a lifetime of wondering who he really was, he finds Serena only to be wounded and taken to the NegaVerse. He's been brainwashed twice, killed and revived again. Apart from his short time with Serena the latest episode had almost taken his life twice and continued to bring him nothing but more pain. There really was a limit to the amount of pain one soul could bear.

He worried about the dream constantly. He just couldn't be sure if he ignored them what would happen. So, when he saw Serena he went the other way. If she came to the same places, he left. In short, avoided her like the plague. Fate though, seemed to have it in for him. There were times he would see her at the park or at the mall with her friends. Other times he would run into her on the street, literally. What a klutz. Hardest of all was helping Sailor Moon. But always, once the danger had passed, he left. It wasn't getting any easier. The need to protect her was so strong the Silver Imperium Crystal tried to split his soul in half. The manifestation of his love and need to protect her had taken on a life of it's own. But the Moonlight Knight no longer existed. He was whole again and that need overcame even the fear caused by the dreams. The only constant in all of this was his love for the Princess. He knew he would always love her whether he was with her or not. Weighted chains forged by fate a thousand years ago bound him to her. She was everything to him.

Still the dream had not stopped. Serena was still in danger; of that alone he was certain. That second voice seemed to contradict his greatest fear that he and Serena would be parted forever. The peril seemed to be centered only on a wedding that had been neither planned nor talked about. But why would their being married cause so much trouble? How could it possibly bring danger to Serena? His head hurt. Lying back he closed his eyes once more and slowly drifted off into a dreamless sleep with that quiet voice crooning its reassuring message of hope.

On the street below a man watches Darien's apartment. He knows the pain Darien is feeling is terrible but its nothing compared to what the future holds if things don't change. He stares at the darkened storefront window and feels the subtle changes in the time lines and watches as his reflection, he knows the future he remembers as the past has changed. He smiles. Scars from battles fought and remembered lose resolution to a new unfolding of his past. The image of the man who has fought too many battles and lost has changed, but one eye still blinded by that past holds all his hope for the future. Looking up toward Darien's still dark window his smile fades. There was still much to be done. He turns and walks slowly up the street toward his hotel.