Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
The Second Story

AN: So I was talking Sailor Moon with my friend Midnight, and we were bitching about the general lack of PGSM outers fic. So we decided to write one. Enjoy.

Two Years After the Special Act, Six Years After the Dark Kingdom's Defeat

The Princess of the Moon and heir to the Silver Millennium slept inside the body and consciousness of one Tsukino Usagi. Someday, she would awaken once again, but that time had yet to come to pass, and as time progressed, the awareness of the princess seemed to fade entirely out of memory and time, leaving only Tsukino Usagi behind. She was a bright, cheerful girl that no one expected very much from, as she had a reputation of being lazy and somewhat self-centered, not to mention extremely childish when it suited her purposes. None of these things were true, but rather remnants of a glamor put upon her long ago to make sure, once and for all, that she would never be discovered to be the princess before her time. On a whole, Tsukino Usagi was a very well-rounded person who was finally starting to grow up into the person she had to become sometime in the not-so-distant future.

After all, the time of their battles had passed a long time ago, leaving them to finally follow their dreams. The Princess' guard was finally starting to let go of their old mannerisms and protective natures, forgetting, as time often forces us to, that they were the senshi that had guarded the Princess of the Moon. That they lived and died by her whim, and that protecting her was paramount in their consciousnesses. It was better that way, really, because no one wanted to remember the pain of that time in their lives - where friends were lost and alliances were forged at the drop of a hat.

Their newfound peace, however, was only temporary. They were servants to their queen, and they all knew that fact to be true on some level of their consciousness. They knew on some level that it was only a matter of time before they were once again called to pick up arms and stand once more at the front lines. Their princess was a peaceful person, it was up to them, her guardians, to provide her with the sort of protection that she needed in order to create the world they all dreamed of.

-
Kyoto, Summer, Four Years Ago

The bookstore's air conditioner was a welcome reprieve from the wet heat of the day. The clouds above were heavy with rain that they would not release, and the temperature was far too warm for anyone to be comfortable out of doors for any prolonged period of time. The wet, suffocating heat was so unlike anything that she'd ever experienced, and she'd decided that she simply was not equipped with the genetic capacity to sit calmly by and let this awful heat press down around her. Half of her parentage came from this country, it must have been her mother's genes that made the heat so unbearable. Yes, she nodded, that had to be it.

As the newest addition to the bookstore's patrons shoved her umbrella into her purse, she glanced around for the store's directory; looking for a section where she could rest for the precious few minutes that she had herself today. The directory was hand-written and clearly hadn't been updated in some time, but she could read it without a problem - she'd never had any trouble learning Kanji. The sign pointed her towards the back of the store, where a lone open doorway seemed to lead into only blackness. Stairs, perfect. She headed up a rickety flight of stairs towards the contemporary art section, hoping that if she stayed away from the classical music section, she would not run into any fans. That was the last thing that she wanted today, for she'd already dealt with enough of them over the course of the past few hours.

She reached the top of the stairs and paused to catch her breath, for the stairs had been a lot steeper than she'd originally thought. This was an old building, she'd reasoned, built before the Japanese had a strong grasp on western architecture - the stairs were steep and the ceiling was low on this floor. She frowned, annoyed that she felt winded after just a few stairs, and gathered up as much of her curly hair as she could from the nape of her neck, hoping that having the unruly curls off of the back of her neck might actually help to cool her down. The coolness of the room dried the sweat there in a matter of seconds and she exhaled happily as a wave of coolness swept over her.

There was almost no one on this floor, considering that most of the store's manga and magazines were on the floor below. She dropped her hair and headed towards the long rows of low bookshelves, housing everything from antique car manuals to a rather impressive collection of art books compiling many of the contemporary artists that she, herself, was so fond of.

She found a book that was too her liking, a little out of place and wedged rather tightly between a book on Chegal and another one of those old car manuals - this one on the inner workings of a Ford-model transmission from the seventies - that she could not understand the value of. She supposed that someone must buy them, but she couldn't think who would want to waste their money on such a thing, considering that gasoline was so expensive and the world was running out of oil at such an alarming rate. She sighed and wiggled the book out from between the others that were holding it in place.

"Do you need a hand?" a low, somewhat amused-sounding voice asked from directly behind her.

She jumped and spun around, her skirt swirling around her knees and her eyes flashing something dangerous. She should have known better - she should have expected it here. She was famous in some circles after all, and her presence never went unnoticed for any length of time. She tried not to frown at the figure before her, masked as their face was behind sunglasses, and plastered a bemused smile on her face that felt more like a grimace.

"I'll manage, thank you," she said curtly. She turned back around and pulled the book out with no problem, and proceeded to make a rather large show of heading over to one of the completely empty sections of the large show room. She didn't know why she did it, perhaps she was just too on edge from being around so many pushy people all morning. Either way, she supposed that at some point, if the tall androgynous figure remained in the store, that she should say she was sorry for for her sudden rudeness.

There was something else, a strange pull towards that tall figure as well that she did not understand; like the feeling of being pulled back out to sea by the undertow after riding a wave in to shore. She frowned and tried to instead return her attention to the book before her.

She stared at the title page, wondering what could possibly cause her behavior to be so odd. She had no connection what so ever to this city or this country. Her father was Japanese, but she'd lived and worked in England most of her life, the idea of returning to the 'mother country' seemed a little lost on her, really. She'd learned the language from her father and had taken lessons in school to make sure that she could read and write Japanese as well. She'd done well so far with the intricate nature of polite interaction while she was promoting herself here - but it was just so oppressive.

She missed the scenery of her home. Her brow twitched.

That annoying person was staring at her again.

She put on her best smile and asked over her shoulder, her face partly hidden by a curtain of hair. "Did you want something?"

The woman who'd been staring at her removed her sunglasses. It was a shocking change to her face, for the removal of the hard lines of the sunglasses seemed to emphasize just how femine a face it really was. Clear gray eyes stared down at her as she tried to mentally name the color of the woman's hair. It was somewhere between the reddish brown that many Japanese women dyed their hair to be and the sandy-brown colored hair that one of her closest friends had back home. She clearly wasn't Japanese at all, but her features suggested that she must have some Japanese heritage, and her speech was close to perfect.

"Just wondering if there was a reason you were making all those adorable noises," The tall woman said, her voice gentle.

She frowned, she hadn't been aware that she was making noises at all. "I'm sorry, you must have me confused for someone else." She said sweetly, smiling even though she was mentally going through all the ways that she could have this annoying person arrested for harassment. Surely it was a crime to invade another person's space on such a hot day.

"No I'm quite sure it was you," the tall woman laughed, and it cut through the room like one of the graceful arias that she'd been playing earlier had filled the room with a sweet beautiful note. She didn't think that she'd ever heard anything so beautiful, and the woman took her sudden accepting look as a sign to come even further into her personal space. It made her want to scream, but she couldn't very well think of a way to get out of the situation. "You bite your tongue when you read, it is really quite adorable."

She knew that she bit her tongue. Her father had been lecturing her about it for years, and she'd always thought as though it was a far better habit than say, biting her nails. She just looked a little silly while doing it. She put a hand to her mouth to cover the small smile that was forming there and commented, completely changing the subject, "Your accent, it isn't Japanese."

The tall woman leaned back, her hands clasped behind her head as she stretched. There seemed to be something of a challenge flickering across her face before she retorted, "Neither is yours."

"I'm not from around here." She said, adding a little hastily. Perhaps this annoying woman didn't know who she was, for that would make her life so much easier. She didn't look the type to be a fan of classical music, but then again, she knew better than to judge anyone by their looks alone. This person seemed genuinely interested in her, and not the music that she could coax out of her violin. It was a rather refreshing experience, but she still felt the need to clarify, "I only came here for work."

"I can relate to that."

She felt bold. "Care to talk about it over something cool to drink?"

"I think that I'd like that very much."