Pyre
Chapter 1
By Kayla Chavi
Rating: R
Genre: Romance/Angst/Drama
* * *
I look at him as he sleeps, wondering what power it is that he possess that has me completely under his spell. He doesn't know it, but all he would have to do is say the words and I would be his forever. I tried to fight him for so long.
I still fight him.
I think that I always will.
I'm never able to give up the fight. He says that's why he loves me.
It's funny, he never asks me if I love him. I don't even think I know the answer to that question. I don't think I could answer him if he did ask. I don't want him to. He knows this, how, I don't know, but that's why he doesn't ask.
He just tells me that he loves me.
I don't even know what love is. How can I, considering my experiences in the past.
My experiences with him.
I sighed quietly and he stirs, shifting slightly and turning on his side so that he's facing me. Slowly he opens his light blue eyes and just watches me for a second. His fingers gently trace along the sides of my face and jaw before he leans down and kisses me. His lips lightly brush against mine and his fingers run through my long hair.
After a moment he pulls away from me and looks at me with gentle eyes. I never knew his eyes could be so gentle.
"Did I hurt you?" he asks me quietly, worry very evident in his voice and through his features.
I smiled and shook my head, "No Jedeite, you didn't hurt me."
* * *
1995: Six years previously
I had decided that high school was a pain in the ass and not worth the effort. However, my grandfather didn't agree with me, so I here I was, trying to juggle being a Senshi, a Priestess, and a good student all at the same time.
Life sucked big time.
If it hadn't been for Ami and Serena, I don't think that I would have made it through my freshman year with my sanity in tact. Without them and Darien I would have killed myself.
Darien. Mustn't forget the knight in shining armor.
As it is, I barely survived it, with all of their help.
I was hurrying through the crowded halls of my school, trying to get to class. Absentmindedly I pulled at the short skirt of my uniform and wished it was longer. I kept having this feeling that I was giving the stupid boys of my school way to much of a view up my skirt. My legs were longer than most of the freshman here, so the uniform was abnormally short for me.
I hated feeling so immodest, like I was a street walker.
Finally I made it to my class and to my desk. There on my desk was a plain white envelope. On it, my name was written in red ink with a beautiful script. Curious, I set down my books and sat down in my seat. I ran my fingers over the lettering, for some reason it seemed greatly familiar to me. I was almost sure that I had seen it before.
Slowly I turned it over and saw that it had been sealed with red wax. There was an imprint of a single flame, like it had been a signet ring, used to mark documents of ancient times. I lightly touched the wax and was surprised with I felt it burn my fingers. I dropped it onto my desk, looking at it confused.
Tentatively I reached out and touched it again. This time it didn't burn me so I broke the seal. Inside was a letter written in red ink and in the same beautiful script.
~Rei~ I've been watching you from afar and you have come to intrigue me. Fighting so hard to save the world, I wonder if you believe that you're going to succeed. I find it amazing, the things you can do with that body of yours. I wonder what it would do if it was confronted with another strong body. So I wait and wonder. And watch. ~*~
It was unsigned and for some reason it scared me. Just because I was fourteen did not mean that I wasn't naive to what the letter was implying. It seemed now that I had a stalker.
A stalker who knew about my secret identity, Sailor Mars.
I looked around the room, wondering who could have left me this letter, but none of the boys gave of the vibe that I would associate with the thing that had given this to me.
I was about to fold up the letter when the ink began to run. It was too thick, I suddenly realized, to be ink. I gently touched it and brought it to my nose, smelling it. Then I tasted it and wanted to heave.
Blood.
I dropped the letter on my desk and it erupted into flames. I threw myself out of my desk, knocking over my chair and just watching the letter burn. It didn't scorch the desk, just burning itself until it was ash. The teacher looked up at me and gave me a stern look.
"Miss Hino, would you care to tell us what is the matter?"
I didn't hear her at first, just watching the letter burn. It didn't occur to me until later that I was the only one who had seen it.
"Miss Hino!" she snapped and I looked up at her.
"I'm not feeling well," I said hoarsely and then ran out of the room and into the bathroom. I knew that the whole class was probably gapping after me. I never lost my cool at school, I was always controlled, even when I really was sick. What was happening to me?
I braced myself on the sink and breathed in heavily. The letter had scared me, it had scared me beyond control. I felt a wetness on my cheeks.
I was crying.
I never cried, not even when mother died and father left me with grandfather.
Never.
I sobbed quietly, trying to control myself. With trembling hands I wiped away my tears, my violet eyes were slightly red. My cheeks were flushed and my face blotchy. A while later I was able to calm down and look more in control.
"I'm Rei Hino," I whispered to myself, "A Shinto Priestess and Senshi, protector of the world. I can handle this. I can handle a random letter. I can do this. It's nothing."
Feeling much more calm I went back to class, shoving the incident back in my mind, not wanting to think about it.
Not wanting to deal with it and its implications.
* * *
The next gift I received came three days later in the form of a beautiful rose. It was in my locker, just sitting there. There was no note, just the rose.
With trembling fingers I took it out of my locker, wondering who had gotten the combination and placed the present in there without my knowledge. I wasn't a trusting person and had put a simple spell on my locker to tell me when someone other than me opened it.
You would think, considering my alter ego, that I might think that this was from Tuxedo Mask. I'm not an idiot. Tuxy only has eyes for Sailor Moon, even I'm not stupid enough to try to mess with fate. Besides, this rose was different. It had thorns.
Gently I touched the petals and then smelled it. That's when I paled, I had smelt this scent before and it wasn't a rose. I crushed the petals in my hand and then let go.
My hand was covered in red liquid.
Blood.
It got all over the front of my school uniform and I tried to drop the rose. It just stuck to my hand, continuing to melt all over me until there was nothing left.
I panicked and ran out of my school as fast as I could, ignoring the cries of students and teachers. I pushed past the gates and then ran down the sidewalk, not looking where I was going.
Until I was stopped by a very hard and muscular body.
"Can't you ever watch where you're going Meatball Head?" A slightly irritated voice asked me. I flushed, I had just done something that was normally reserved for Serena only.
I had smacked right into Darien.
Later I realized how cute it was that he had assumed that I was Serena, like he was expecting her to do that and had purposely placed himself there so he could. But at the moment I was too panicked.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, picking myself up off of the ground, unable to meet the college sophomore's eyes.
"Rei?" I could hear the surprise in his voice and I actually blushed. "Are you alright? Why are you bleeding?"
"I'm fine," I said and pulled away from him. "I'm not bleeding and I'm not hurt."
"Then why were you doing a Serena?" he countered, "You were running like the hounds of hell were after you."
"I'm fine, Darien," I snapped.
"You have blood all over you. That's not fine."
"I--" I sighed and wasn't able to answer him. I didn't want to tell him about the bloody rose. He wouldn't understand.
I thought he would go away, but he just took me by arm and pulled me into the park. He took a few turns and suddenly we were in a maze of rose bushes. He sat me down on a bench and looked at me.
"What happened?"
I sighed quietly, "It's so dumb," I said quietly and looked away, "You'll think that I'm just an immature, stupid high school girl."
"Try me," he said simply and crossed his arms over his chest. "I doubt that I will find anything that you say outrageous or untrue. And I know you well enough by now that you aren't an immature high school girl."
I sighed and looked up at him and then grimaced as I looked down at my hands. "A few days ago I got this letter from some guy," I whispered after about five minutes of silence. "It said some things that. . .that no one else could possible know about me. Things not even my grandfather knows. And it implied that he wanted to get to know me. . .in the biblical sense of the word." I flushed a faint red.
"Do you still have the letter?" Darien asked gently, his voice calming me somewhat.
I shook my head. "When I was done reading it, the ink ran down the paper, only it wasn't ink," I started to get slightly hysterical, "It was blood, I could tell by tasting it," tears were starting to fall down my cheeks. I never cried, remember? Never. "Then it burst into flame and burned to ash."
I looked up to find Darien kneeling in front of me. He gently took my hands in his, silently urging me to go on, not caring that my hands had blood all over them.
"And today?" he prompted when I wasn't continuing.
"I found a rose in my locker," I said quietly, my voice horse with tears I was trying to control. Gods, he must think that I'm such a child. "It was so beautiful, but when I touched it, it began to bleed all over me," I managed a bitter laugh, "Hence, the red on my uniform and hands. Then it just melted all over me. That's when I ran out of my school and bumped into you," I sighed quietly.
"Do you have any idea who it is?" he asked and I shook my head.
"No."
I was surprised, he wasn't commenting on how impossible this all seemed. We were quiet for a long time before he slowly stood up.
"Let me walk you home, Rei."
I nodded and he drew me to my feet. Unfortunately for me, I didn't stay on my feet, I ended up nearly collapsing from exhaustion. I had been so tense at the beginning of the conversation that when I finally relaxed my body couldn't handle it.
Darien caught me.
Of course he caught me, he's the knight in shining armor, remember?
Gently he lifted me into his arms and carried me home. Thankfully, by the time we got there, my grandfather was already asleep and wasn't awake to question the fact that Darien was carrying me, my clothes were covered in blood, and why Darien had to help me get ready for bed.
Later he told me how nervous he was. According to him, he had never seen a girl stripped down to her underwear, let alone a naked one.
And this is college sophomore Darien Chiba, heart throb of Tokyo. You would have thought that he had no qualms about naked girls.
Yeah, he saw me naked. It wouldn't be the only time that he had to do this for me. But every time it wasn't sexual. Our relationship wasn't based on that. It really truly was a friendship.
So he carefully washed the blood off of my body and out of my hair. Don't ask me how it got there, but it did. Then he put me in some of my pajamas and laid me in my bed. And then he left, all without speaking a single word.
That night something happened. For the next two months he was with me whenever I wasn't with friends or had to go somewhere alone. We were together so much that people thought we were dating.
People like Serena, who would swear to you up and down that she hated Darien. (Whatever, I knew it then for the both of them that they liked each other. They just couldn't admit it. Damn they were annoying at times).
Contrary to the popular belief that we were romantic for a time, we really weren't. We were just friends, incredibly close friends, but just friends. He became my brother and I became his sister, the only real family he had. Both of us needed that. He and I would spend hours on the phone just talking. I finally got him to admit one time that he really liked Serena.
I mean really, really liked Serena.
In the sense that he wanted to loose control and kiss her senseless. He probably had other fantasies about her. Thankfully he didn't share them with me.
And in Serena's words, (almost the exact same day too), "He just makes me want to do things that no one my age should know about."
Yeah, they liked each other way back before the whole Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask thing.
But back to me, this is after all my story.
With Darien I felt completely safe, like I was never going to be scared or hurt again. We confided everything to each other (that's how I found out he was Tuxedo Mask. He let it slip first before I told him that I was Sailor Mars).
I thought that I free of the psycho who had sent me the letter and rose. I had two months of calm.
Then it shattered.
I've never been the same since.
Chapter 1
By Kayla Chavi
Rating: R
Genre: Romance/Angst/Drama
* * *
I look at him as he sleeps, wondering what power it is that he possess that has me completely under his spell. He doesn't know it, but all he would have to do is say the words and I would be his forever. I tried to fight him for so long.
I still fight him.
I think that I always will.
I'm never able to give up the fight. He says that's why he loves me.
It's funny, he never asks me if I love him. I don't even think I know the answer to that question. I don't think I could answer him if he did ask. I don't want him to. He knows this, how, I don't know, but that's why he doesn't ask.
He just tells me that he loves me.
I don't even know what love is. How can I, considering my experiences in the past.
My experiences with him.
I sighed quietly and he stirs, shifting slightly and turning on his side so that he's facing me. Slowly he opens his light blue eyes and just watches me for a second. His fingers gently trace along the sides of my face and jaw before he leans down and kisses me. His lips lightly brush against mine and his fingers run through my long hair.
After a moment he pulls away from me and looks at me with gentle eyes. I never knew his eyes could be so gentle.
"Did I hurt you?" he asks me quietly, worry very evident in his voice and through his features.
I smiled and shook my head, "No Jedeite, you didn't hurt me."
* * *
1995: Six years previously
I had decided that high school was a pain in the ass and not worth the effort. However, my grandfather didn't agree with me, so I here I was, trying to juggle being a Senshi, a Priestess, and a good student all at the same time.
Life sucked big time.
If it hadn't been for Ami and Serena, I don't think that I would have made it through my freshman year with my sanity in tact. Without them and Darien I would have killed myself.
Darien. Mustn't forget the knight in shining armor.
As it is, I barely survived it, with all of their help.
I was hurrying through the crowded halls of my school, trying to get to class. Absentmindedly I pulled at the short skirt of my uniform and wished it was longer. I kept having this feeling that I was giving the stupid boys of my school way to much of a view up my skirt. My legs were longer than most of the freshman here, so the uniform was abnormally short for me.
I hated feeling so immodest, like I was a street walker.
Finally I made it to my class and to my desk. There on my desk was a plain white envelope. On it, my name was written in red ink with a beautiful script. Curious, I set down my books and sat down in my seat. I ran my fingers over the lettering, for some reason it seemed greatly familiar to me. I was almost sure that I had seen it before.
Slowly I turned it over and saw that it had been sealed with red wax. There was an imprint of a single flame, like it had been a signet ring, used to mark documents of ancient times. I lightly touched the wax and was surprised with I felt it burn my fingers. I dropped it onto my desk, looking at it confused.
Tentatively I reached out and touched it again. This time it didn't burn me so I broke the seal. Inside was a letter written in red ink and in the same beautiful script.
~Rei~ I've been watching you from afar and you have come to intrigue me. Fighting so hard to save the world, I wonder if you believe that you're going to succeed. I find it amazing, the things you can do with that body of yours. I wonder what it would do if it was confronted with another strong body. So I wait and wonder. And watch. ~*~
It was unsigned and for some reason it scared me. Just because I was fourteen did not mean that I wasn't naive to what the letter was implying. It seemed now that I had a stalker.
A stalker who knew about my secret identity, Sailor Mars.
I looked around the room, wondering who could have left me this letter, but none of the boys gave of the vibe that I would associate with the thing that had given this to me.
I was about to fold up the letter when the ink began to run. It was too thick, I suddenly realized, to be ink. I gently touched it and brought it to my nose, smelling it. Then I tasted it and wanted to heave.
Blood.
I dropped the letter on my desk and it erupted into flames. I threw myself out of my desk, knocking over my chair and just watching the letter burn. It didn't scorch the desk, just burning itself until it was ash. The teacher looked up at me and gave me a stern look.
"Miss Hino, would you care to tell us what is the matter?"
I didn't hear her at first, just watching the letter burn. It didn't occur to me until later that I was the only one who had seen it.
"Miss Hino!" she snapped and I looked up at her.
"I'm not feeling well," I said hoarsely and then ran out of the room and into the bathroom. I knew that the whole class was probably gapping after me. I never lost my cool at school, I was always controlled, even when I really was sick. What was happening to me?
I braced myself on the sink and breathed in heavily. The letter had scared me, it had scared me beyond control. I felt a wetness on my cheeks.
I was crying.
I never cried, not even when mother died and father left me with grandfather.
Never.
I sobbed quietly, trying to control myself. With trembling hands I wiped away my tears, my violet eyes were slightly red. My cheeks were flushed and my face blotchy. A while later I was able to calm down and look more in control.
"I'm Rei Hino," I whispered to myself, "A Shinto Priestess and Senshi, protector of the world. I can handle this. I can handle a random letter. I can do this. It's nothing."
Feeling much more calm I went back to class, shoving the incident back in my mind, not wanting to think about it.
Not wanting to deal with it and its implications.
* * *
The next gift I received came three days later in the form of a beautiful rose. It was in my locker, just sitting there. There was no note, just the rose.
With trembling fingers I took it out of my locker, wondering who had gotten the combination and placed the present in there without my knowledge. I wasn't a trusting person and had put a simple spell on my locker to tell me when someone other than me opened it.
You would think, considering my alter ego, that I might think that this was from Tuxedo Mask. I'm not an idiot. Tuxy only has eyes for Sailor Moon, even I'm not stupid enough to try to mess with fate. Besides, this rose was different. It had thorns.
Gently I touched the petals and then smelled it. That's when I paled, I had smelt this scent before and it wasn't a rose. I crushed the petals in my hand and then let go.
My hand was covered in red liquid.
Blood.
It got all over the front of my school uniform and I tried to drop the rose. It just stuck to my hand, continuing to melt all over me until there was nothing left.
I panicked and ran out of my school as fast as I could, ignoring the cries of students and teachers. I pushed past the gates and then ran down the sidewalk, not looking where I was going.
Until I was stopped by a very hard and muscular body.
"Can't you ever watch where you're going Meatball Head?" A slightly irritated voice asked me. I flushed, I had just done something that was normally reserved for Serena only.
I had smacked right into Darien.
Later I realized how cute it was that he had assumed that I was Serena, like he was expecting her to do that and had purposely placed himself there so he could. But at the moment I was too panicked.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, picking myself up off of the ground, unable to meet the college sophomore's eyes.
"Rei?" I could hear the surprise in his voice and I actually blushed. "Are you alright? Why are you bleeding?"
"I'm fine," I said and pulled away from him. "I'm not bleeding and I'm not hurt."
"Then why were you doing a Serena?" he countered, "You were running like the hounds of hell were after you."
"I'm fine, Darien," I snapped.
"You have blood all over you. That's not fine."
"I--" I sighed and wasn't able to answer him. I didn't want to tell him about the bloody rose. He wouldn't understand.
I thought he would go away, but he just took me by arm and pulled me into the park. He took a few turns and suddenly we were in a maze of rose bushes. He sat me down on a bench and looked at me.
"What happened?"
I sighed quietly, "It's so dumb," I said quietly and looked away, "You'll think that I'm just an immature, stupid high school girl."
"Try me," he said simply and crossed his arms over his chest. "I doubt that I will find anything that you say outrageous or untrue. And I know you well enough by now that you aren't an immature high school girl."
I sighed and looked up at him and then grimaced as I looked down at my hands. "A few days ago I got this letter from some guy," I whispered after about five minutes of silence. "It said some things that. . .that no one else could possible know about me. Things not even my grandfather knows. And it implied that he wanted to get to know me. . .in the biblical sense of the word." I flushed a faint red.
"Do you still have the letter?" Darien asked gently, his voice calming me somewhat.
I shook my head. "When I was done reading it, the ink ran down the paper, only it wasn't ink," I started to get slightly hysterical, "It was blood, I could tell by tasting it," tears were starting to fall down my cheeks. I never cried, remember? Never. "Then it burst into flame and burned to ash."
I looked up to find Darien kneeling in front of me. He gently took my hands in his, silently urging me to go on, not caring that my hands had blood all over them.
"And today?" he prompted when I wasn't continuing.
"I found a rose in my locker," I said quietly, my voice horse with tears I was trying to control. Gods, he must think that I'm such a child. "It was so beautiful, but when I touched it, it began to bleed all over me," I managed a bitter laugh, "Hence, the red on my uniform and hands. Then it just melted all over me. That's when I ran out of my school and bumped into you," I sighed quietly.
"Do you have any idea who it is?" he asked and I shook my head.
"No."
I was surprised, he wasn't commenting on how impossible this all seemed. We were quiet for a long time before he slowly stood up.
"Let me walk you home, Rei."
I nodded and he drew me to my feet. Unfortunately for me, I didn't stay on my feet, I ended up nearly collapsing from exhaustion. I had been so tense at the beginning of the conversation that when I finally relaxed my body couldn't handle it.
Darien caught me.
Of course he caught me, he's the knight in shining armor, remember?
Gently he lifted me into his arms and carried me home. Thankfully, by the time we got there, my grandfather was already asleep and wasn't awake to question the fact that Darien was carrying me, my clothes were covered in blood, and why Darien had to help me get ready for bed.
Later he told me how nervous he was. According to him, he had never seen a girl stripped down to her underwear, let alone a naked one.
And this is college sophomore Darien Chiba, heart throb of Tokyo. You would have thought that he had no qualms about naked girls.
Yeah, he saw me naked. It wouldn't be the only time that he had to do this for me. But every time it wasn't sexual. Our relationship wasn't based on that. It really truly was a friendship.
So he carefully washed the blood off of my body and out of my hair. Don't ask me how it got there, but it did. Then he put me in some of my pajamas and laid me in my bed. And then he left, all without speaking a single word.
That night something happened. For the next two months he was with me whenever I wasn't with friends or had to go somewhere alone. We were together so much that people thought we were dating.
People like Serena, who would swear to you up and down that she hated Darien. (Whatever, I knew it then for the both of them that they liked each other. They just couldn't admit it. Damn they were annoying at times).
Contrary to the popular belief that we were romantic for a time, we really weren't. We were just friends, incredibly close friends, but just friends. He became my brother and I became his sister, the only real family he had. Both of us needed that. He and I would spend hours on the phone just talking. I finally got him to admit one time that he really liked Serena.
I mean really, really liked Serena.
In the sense that he wanted to loose control and kiss her senseless. He probably had other fantasies about her. Thankfully he didn't share them with me.
And in Serena's words, (almost the exact same day too), "He just makes me want to do things that no one my age should know about."
Yeah, they liked each other way back before the whole Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask thing.
But back to me, this is after all my story.
With Darien I felt completely safe, like I was never going to be scared or hurt again. We confided everything to each other (that's how I found out he was Tuxedo Mask. He let it slip first before I told him that I was Sailor Mars).
I thought that I free of the psycho who had sent me the letter and rose. I had two months of calm.
Then it shattered.
I've never been the same since.