AN: Another old one I'm just adding in xD THOUGH I like how this one ends up xD What if the world didn't restart itself at the end of the Earth-Moon War? What if life continued on without the important people who died that day?
...
Years and years and years ago, there was a terrible war between the Moon and Earth. Some say it started with jealousy, some say mistrust, others blame the start was misplaced love, but everyone agrees that its end was nothing less than tragic. Both sides suffered heavy casualties; both sides lost rulers that day...
"They say she haunts the castle," the girl whispered, her hand covering her mouth to hide the story. "They say, to this day, if you listen carefully, you can hear her sobbing in the night. Her sighs are the wind that fills the castle walkways, her tears constantly drip down walls in the courtyard, her agony calling thunderstorms up without warning to interrupt romantic rendezvous. They say that if you so much as meet with your lover on the anniversary of the day it happened, she will curse you to be separated from them forever, just as she was from her Earth Prince."
They curled together in the rose-covered alcove, leaning in to hear more of the cautionary tale about their new home. She didn't know where she ended and the others girls began, the urge for closeness and support as the story creeped through their skin and caused shivers in their spine made the touching of skin to skin only natural as they waited with bated breath for the new leader of their group to continue, their hearts bonding now in fear and worry and caution.
"But it's not only lovers that she curses, I heard," the young girl continued, finger to her lips like she shared a closely-guarded secret, "They say the parties are freezing cold in her presence, that only the Queen can start them off or else she will seep the energy right out of your body and leave you cold and numb and hopeless, like you will never feel happy again. They say that there used to be ice skating in the capital, but the rink was permanently closed because of her. And that flower garden on the east side?"
"What flower garden?" asked a quiet, trembling voice.
"Exactly. They say the eastern gardens were once the most beautiful in the entire Moon Kingdom, but even after they rebuilt after the war, flowers have never grown there again. They say that she won't let them grow, that the memories she had with her friends make the gravity there too strong for flowers to come out of the soil, so it sits, desolate and dead, just like them."
"Her friends?"
"What happened to them?"
"They were killed," she sadly explained, pausing as they quietly gasped, "Each and every one of them, in the war. They died trying to protect her and our Kingdom and were murdered to the last for it. They say that if you even mention their names in her haunting presence, your heart will be turned to stone."
"No!"
"Yes!" she said, nodding, leaning in, her voice dropping further, "And should you ever see her corporeal form as she slowly walks her old footsteps in this castle, unless you pray for forgiveness to the Crystal Tower in the Chamber of Prayer, you will be be driven insane by her grief and eventually take your life just as she -" her breath caught, eyes widening impossibly, and the trio of girls quickly turned to see what she saw and screamed, pushing up from the ground and scrambling to their feet even as they ran to the Chamber of Prayer, visions of Princess Serenity standing beneath the covered path through the garden burned into their minds' eye.
But it wasn't Princess Serenity.
As the last of the girls disappeared through a courtyard door, a tall female form stood frozen, her hand curled around a small object that she pressed to her breast above her heart. As the shock wore off, her crystal blue eyes softened and filled with tears that shone in the Earthlight brighter than her silver hair or the linked golden circles that adorned the line of her shift dress. Tall and elegant and cold, she did not well resemble the old Princess of the Moon Kingdom, and it had been long since she was mistaken for her. She was Queen Serenity II, sole ruler of her world, sole survivor of a terrible assault on her kingdom, and she was alive, despite how much she had wished otherwise in the days following the burial of her friends, her family, and her only love. That that part of her had finally gotten its wish and lived on so vividly in the minds of those children as a heartbroken, malicious spirit made her feel like a crossroads stretched out before her: she could either choose to continue embracing the ghost of her past and forever mourn the loved ones she had lost, or lay the ghost to rest and open herself up to the hearts of these new arrivals.
Luna turned a corner and paused, bowing her head slightly, "Your Majesty."
Hope was the one thing she had been good at, and yet now it seemed like the most terrifying prospect. "Luna," she greeted, slowly easing her grip around the object clutched in her hand.
"I apologize, but have you seen them?"
"It has been a long time since you have had to keep up with children," Queen Serenity II replied, her tone thawing. She turned slightly, looking upon her old friend and really seeing her for the first time in a very long time. A smile, foreign to her for so long, tried to shape upon her lips, "Don't be hard on yourself. Venus was just telling them a story in the garden; I'm afraid I must have scared them. I think you'll find them in the Chamber of Prayer."
Luna stared at her with shock, though of a vastly different type than the children had. She nodded and continued on the path, crossing in front of her towards the most direct route to the Crystal Tower.
"Would you mind redirecting them to the solar?" she asked, and Luna paused, turning as though she did not quite believe what she heard. Serenity did not blame her, though that long-lost smile fought harder to appear. "I'd like to play a game with them."
"A game?" Luna replied, almost choking on the suggestion.
Her heart growing warm, she slipped the trinket into a pocket and nodded, her smile finally arriving. "I'd like to take them ghost hunting."