Chapter 1 ~ Unexpected
A bright light broke through the misty barrier of sleep Kousagi had been hiding behind. Groaning, the white-pink haired teenager pulled the rabbit printed comforter over her head, refusing to let the day ruin a perfectly good dream about eating mochi on the moon.
"Up and at 'em Naruko!" the peppy voice of Berthier chirped, "We're already packed! Even Petz limited her luggage to 5 bags!"
"I dun wanna go…" The princess rolled over and squashed her bubblegum pink cat.
"Kousagi… can't… breath! Get off!" Selene wiggled out from under her friend, "You need to stop eating so much! You're going to become a blimp!"
"Selene, you're so mean to me!" Kousagi mumbled, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at her cat.
"Common Naruko…!" Berthier grabbed Kousagi's arms and dragged her out of the bed, dumping her on the granite floor.
"It's freezing!" The white-pink haired girl wailed, "Is that any way to treat your princess? Whom you have dedicated yourself to protect from the harshness of the cold?"
"Girls, stop playing around," Petz –the eldest of the four sisters who had cared for Kousagi since birth– entered the room carrying a white dress made out of a bunch of floaty, puffy material, "Naruko, NeoQueen Lady requests that you were this dress when you come to the Event."
Kousagi groaned; the Event was the Twits birthday. It was going to be the party of the century. According to the rumors anyway, it wasn't like she was actually allowed in the planning of her niece's birthday, not with the bitterness between Chibiusa and Kousagi.
"Do I have to go?" Kousagi whined, "It's not like Chibiusa actually wants me around for her 'precious' daughter's fourth birthday!"
"Yes, you do," Petz pulled Kousagi's nightgown over her head, "And don't call –Berthier tighten Naruko's corset! – Your sister 'Chibiusa', she's NeoQueen Lady."
"Pfft. She'll always be bratty Chibiusa to me," Nowadays if anyone even mentioned NeoQueen Mother Serenity's pet name for her daughter their fate was certain doom and a lot of shouting.
The green haired caregiver thumped her mistress on the head, "Show more respect for your sister missy, if it wasn't for her you'd of been sent somewhere farther away than the moon once NeoPrincess Luna was born." That shut Kousgi up, she hated being reminded of the one favor her older sister had ever done for her.
After Berthier had finished tightening Kousagi's corset, she grabbed the gaudy dress and slipped it over the princess's head. The bodice was tight and appeared glued to Kousagi's curves, which didn't exactly make her feel the most comfortable. The worst part though was the skirt; it was a like a fluffy monster that erupted from Kousagi's waist. It was several layers of white, frothy material that fell to her ankle and when she moved the dress would ripple; it looked like she was just a torso connected to swirling vortex.
Koan clapped her hands as she walked in, "Hair time!" The youngest sister giddily started untangling Kousagi's hair and proceeded to put it up in four rabbit ear odangos, two on each side.
When Kousagi looked at herself through the mirror, she had to admit she did look kind of, sort of nice. Her moment of thinking she might be pretty was interrupted by Calaveras who announced that the Luna Moth was here to pick them up and take them to Crystal Tokyo.
• • •
The Luna Moth was the crown jewel of Crystal Tokyo's navy. Kousagi remembered from her studies that the ship was constructed from the wood of 200 hundred poor trees, and insulated with a lightweight metal that was currently escaping her mind. It had the longest wingspan of any ship in the universe, a whopping 200 meters of green papyrus. The inside of the ship was well furnished, with fluffy shag carpets, and puffy chairs that seemed to swallow whoever were sitting in it.
"Oh wow!" Berthier's mouth became a gapping hole. The blue clad women scurried over to the nearest seat and sank into it, literally.
While Berthier was busy giggling and guffawing over the ship, Calaveras was looking at it rather skeptically, she ran a manicured finger along a windowsill and looked at the coating of dust with disgust, "The finest ship in all of Crystal Tokyo and the cleaning crew can't even keep its hygiene up to regulation!"
Koan giggled, "No one can keep up with your standards Calaveras." The youngest sister peered out the window, "Do you suppose we'll make it on time? It's getting rather late…"
"We're arriving fashionably late," Petz assured her sister, "No one will care if we're missing for a minute or two. Naruko! Hurry and buckle up before we escape the Moon's atmosphere, I don't want you messing up your and dress by floating around in zero g!"
Disappointed that Petz had noticed that she had yet to buckle in, Kousagi huffed and puffed over to a chair with lesser puff and fluff than the others and strapped herself in. As zero g kicked in as the left the Moon's atmosphere, years of dust and crumbs rose into the air, the white-pink haired princess giggled when she saw Calaveras rip her ceremonious fan in half and start eyeing her whip (which was attached fashionably to her golden dress) with a mad woman's look on her face.
"Why do you think NeoQueen Lady sent such a nice" –"It's not that nice Koan…" Calaveras grumbled– "ship for us?" Koan asked while trying to grab Selene, who was floating haphazardly through the air, "I thought they'd send a much lower grade ship, like The Caeli or something."
"It's to show Mom that we're not having, and I quote , 'relationship problems,' " Kousagi grumbled, "But I'm pretty sure just showing up in such fancy ship won't convince her."
"Well it might…" Selene said, the bubblegum pink cat was floating upside down and just out of reach of a very frustrated Koan, "You know the NeoQueen Mother is sometimes very easily persuaded…"
"Selene!" Petz cried, "Don't talk about our noble NeoQueen Mother like that!" The green haired woman flapped her fan at the cat, her long arms just allowed her to tap the cat with the emerald fan and allowed her youngest sister to grab the cat by her tail and pull Selene out of the air.
• • •
The Crystal Palace glittered in the morning sun as the Luna Moth pulled into the port. As the white-pink princess and her ladies-in-waiting exited the grand ship, they were greeted by a tall, thin woman with magenta hair in rabbit-ear odango's like Kousagi's, but she had only one on each side instead of two. She wore a floor-length light blue gown with a pair of angelic wings sprouting from her back.
"Greetings NeoQueen Lady," Kousagi said without emotion as she bowed with Petz, Calaveras, Berthier, and Koan
"And greetings to you Princess Harmony," Though Chibiusa had a large smile on her face, the queen's cold red eyes were examining her sister as if trying to find every fault, "Don't you look… ravishing!"
Kousagi forced a plastic smile on her face as the queen lead them down the hall of the Crystal Palace. Selene had taken up residence on Kousagi's shoulder and was peering around every corner and into every nook and cranny, trying to find her parents.
"And this is where you and your companions will be staying," Chibiusa gestured to large door, "Unpack your things and outside in ten minutes, we have a birthday to celebrate."
The room inside the large door had been Kousagi's when she was a child, It's wall were still a light yellow and the rocking chair where Petz, her mother, and occasionally her father would read to her at night was still in the corner by the window where the blue-eyed princess had fallen out of in an attempt to catch a butterfly when she was six. Kousagi rubbed the scar on her ear from the incident absently, this had been her home, a place where she could seek comfort, but now it was a rabbit hole where she had to hide from the dangers of her sister and the rest of the court.
"Common Kousagi!" Selene had hopped off Kousagi's shoulder and was tugging at her monstrous skirt, "It's time to go to the party! You can think about you room later! Let's go!"
"Coming Selene," Kousagi said, still in a daze, "I'll meet you guys down later," She added to the sisters, they were too busy unpacking and complaining about the small space they had to sleep in tonight.
• • •
Even at seven (ten in Standard Moon Time (SMT)) in the morning, the party was huge! Various tents, food stands, and what-not had been set up in the dewy gardens, the silver material they were composed of was rippling in the wind; from the top of the staircase it looked like the monster in Kousagi's dress had taken over the gardens. Children and their parents in bright clothing were running around from tent to tent, holding sparklers or firecrackers or food in their hands; when Kousagi walked past them they would stop and bow, but the princess could hear the muffled whispers of the Crystal Tokyianites when they were behind her.
As Kousagi drew nearer to a large table near the end of the garden where the party was she started to recognize people that she hadn't seen for so long; there was Queen Venus, her husband, Kunzite, and their white-haired daughter, Princess Minako, who was the oldest and the ringleader of the other three princess. Queen Uranus and Queen Neptune were standing with their fingers intertwined near Queen Pluto and Queen Saturn, the newest queen in the court of NeoQueen Lady. Kousagi's blue eyes scanned the table; her eyes passed the purple-haired Twit and her parents, Chibiusa and King Helios, Princess Makoto and Princess Ami arguing about something, and JunJun and PallaPalla eating something purple and gooey. Finally she found the pair she'd been looking for; a woman with long, blonde hair fashioned in the odango hairstyle unique to the Serenity clan and a man with black-purple hair. When King Father Endymion saw the thin girl walking towards them he nudged his wife and pointed, the queen mother looked up, paused for a moment, then caught up her skirts in her hands and ran down the staircase that lifted the table above everything else and gave her daughter a suffocating hug.
"Oh my little Kousagi! I've missed you so much!" The teary eyed mother held her daughters face in her hands and studied it, not wanting to miss a single detail of the face she hadn't seen for five long years.
"I missed you too," Kousagi wished she could stay in the comfort of her mother's arms forever, "You too Dad." The king father had hurried down the staircase to wrap his arms around his wife and daughter.
Kousagi was lead up the staircase by her parents, the Queens formed a circle around the white-pink haired girl and poked, prodded, and hugged her to no end. Selene hopped off her mistresses shoulder and onto her older sister, Diana, who was sitting at the feet of Queen Jupiter along with her parents, Luna and Artemis, whom Kousagi looked upon with unease, Selene might be okay, but three more cats? No way! NeoQueen Lady's ladies-in-waiting were quick to hop in and started excitedly examining the princess; they hopped back out of the circle, while CereCere whispered something in Chibiusa's ear. Even the four princesses, who had tormented Kousagi as a child, were nice enough to smile and shake hands with.
"You'll have plenty of time to catch up later," Chibiusa got up from her seat at the table, "Princess Harmony will be staying here for the next month or so."
"Why –" Princess Ami started, but was then stopped by a look from her mother, Queen Mercury, "Oh yeah…" She and Minako and Rei started giggling about something Kousagi obviously wasn't apart of.
Chibiusa sat up and called out to the entire party, "Today we celebrate Princess Luna Small Bunny's fifth year of living!" The crowd below cheered loudly, everyone at the table was clapping and Kousagi was just rolling her eyes, "In honor of this spectacular event your princess Harmony Naru Usagi has agreed to visit!" Kousagi noticed that Chibiusa's smile grew wider as the applause was peppered with barely audible whispers. Princess Rei started snickering, but was kicked in the back of the chair and got her hair in a bowl of cereal in front of her.
Kousagi turned around to see who had done the kicking; it had been loyal Berthier (the four sisters must have just come down) who had impulsively swatted down the person that insulted her princess. Koan and Calaveras were silently giggling, and Petz was giving her younger sister a stern look, but winked when she saw Kousagi looking at her.
"Turn around Kousagi," a soft voice whispered into Kousagi's ear, "Your sister is talking." Sure enough, the magenta haired queen was giving a speech about "How Crystal Tokyo wouldn't be affected by the mysterious spiky ships that had been detected in the dark regions north of Pluto" and "Now is a time for rejoicing!" Kousagi rolled her eyes; if there were "spiky ships north of Pluto" Chibiusa should send someone to investigate.
Finally the NeoQueen's speech ended with a "Time to eat!" and the tents shed their silver walls and under each tent was a table and each table had an abundance of breakfast foods. There were about one hundred tents and about eight chairs per table, so around 800 guests. Kousagi's eyes widened, she was impressed her older sister had managed to let herself be heard with that many guests and no one was hurt yet!
• • •
The feast carried on for about three hours, then for the next hour or so citizens of Crystal Tokyo came up to present their present or good wishes (sometimes both). Finally at noon (three in the afternoon in SMT) the party ended, but would be continued in an hour or so. Kousagi proceeded up the giant staircase with her family and the other royalty and into the palace. Once inside NeoQueen Lady shooed away all the husbands and the Kings guard (except Fisheye who counted himself as a woman), so the women could have a pleasant nap without the men around.
The room was a circular and had purple wallpaper with a grotesque flower pattern on it. As Kousagi predicted instead of taking a nap, everyone sat around on the cushions and sofas that had been provided by some unseen servant and started gossiping. Kousagi soon grew bored with the old wives tales and blathering about Lord So-and-so and Lady Whatsit.
"I have to use the bathroom!" Kousagi announced while standing up dramatically. Princesses Minako. Rei, and Ami started to giggle hysterically, Makoto jabbed Ami with her elbow and shut them up.
"Oh… ummm very well Princess Harmony, be back quick!" Chibiusa looked suspiciously at her sister as she grabbed Selene and ran out the door.
"Kousagi!" Selene whined as she held onto her white-pink haired owner shoulder for dear life as she sprinted down the corridor, "I have the feeling you don't really need to go to the bathroom!"
"Of course not Selene dahling!" Kousagi giggled as she flew down to her favorite part of the entire Crystal Palace: the kitchens.
• • •
The kitchens were too busy to notice a young woman creep inside and snatch a tray of cupcakes that was unattended. Giggling, Kousagi tucked herself into a cozy nook and started munching on the pink frosted cupcakes.
"Oh, Kousagi!" Selene mumbled, "You're going to get fat…"
"Shut it Selene!" Kousagi popped a cupcake into her bubblegum pink cats mouth, "Want us to get caught? Anyway my skirts make too comfortable a cushion to stop eating and get up!" The princess took a bite out of her third cupcake as daintily as a hippo would.
"I FOUND HER!" A shrill voice pierced the air an hour later and caused an unsuspecting Kousagi to choke on her last cupcake.
Looking around the white-pink haired teenager saw Rei triumphantly walking towards her. A light blue and daffodil yellow joined the princess of Mars's wine red dress as Ami and Minako flanked Rei down the hall, like three lionesses approaching a herd of zebra. Kousagi dropped the platter that used to hold cupcakes, grabbed Selene, hopped up, and tried to run as fast as she could to the left, where, she remembered, was a hardly noticeable staircase that lead to the third floor where her room was.
"Not so fast!" Ami commanded as the three girls closed in on their peer.
"Where the hell were you!" Minako growled, "The NeoQueen Mother was freaking out and our mothers were wasting their time looking for you! And Petz and her sisters were pulling out their hair in worry!"
"I think they were more worried about you than your own mother," Rei scoffed.
"Only NeoQueen Lady remained calm," Ami, said admiringly, "She knew we'd find you and was smart enough not to send CereCere and her sisters to inform our fathers, you can only have so much attention anyway."
"Why was everyone so worried about me?" Kousagi asked curiously while restraining Selene from attacking the girls.
"Well NeoQueen Lady would never be forgiven if she lost you." Rei stated, "King De–"
"Rei-chan shut up!" Minako cried as she put her hands over her friend's mouth.
"Anyway as we were saying," Ami said sarcastically, "When you "use the bathroom" don't go off and eat our NeoQueen's food! Fatty…" The three girls laughed cruelly when they saw a tear roll down Kousagi's face.
"I think she's had enough Ami-chan," Princess Makoto rolled her emerald eyes at her friend, "By the way your mothers want to speak with you, something about a reward I think…" Ami, Minako, and Rei looked at each other excitedly and hurried down the hall, back to the purple room where Kousagi had been an hour ago.
"Common Kousagi, those girls don't know what they're talking about," Selene purred.
"Your cat's right Princess Harmony," Makoto knelt down next to Kousagi, who had sunken the floor with tears pouring down her face, and gave her a pale yellow handkerchief with the green symbol of Jupiter stitched onto it, "You have a pure heart, and a nice smile; don't let your tears wash it away."
Kousagi looked at the yellow piece of cloth for a moment before taking it in her hand, "Thank you Princess Makoto," she gurgled.
"Call me Makoto, no need for formalities anyway," the brown haired princess giggled, "Now let's get back to the break room, before Ami-chan, Minako-chan, and Rei-chan realize that their mothers planned to reward them and they can't beat us up." Makoto grabbed the white-pink haired princesses wrists and pulled her up. The princess of the Jupiter was a full foot taller than Kousagi, which frightened her a little bit.
The two princesses walked down the hallway with Selene padding along behind them. When they reached the purple break room they were greeted by five desperately worried parents, four maids-in-waiting, three angry girls, two grown cats, and a very bored looking queen. Chibiusa was sitting on a couch made of some fuzzy, purple material with Queen Saturn (the newest addition to the NeoQueen's entourage), who was redoing the Twit's heart-shaped, purple odangos.
"Very good, everyone's here now," announced Queen Uranus, lazily tugging at a curl of Queen Neptune's sea-green hair, "Now shall we get this meeting done with?"
"Meeting? When did this become a meeting?" Kousagi stretched up and whispered in Makoto's ear.
The green clad princess shrugged, "I dunno." She did; Kousagi could see written across her face. The princess in the monster dress narrowed her eyes; it appeared that everyone knew something she didn't.
Chibiusa got up and motioned for the rest of the room to follow her as she exited the. Curiously Kousagi followed with Makoto, the two were ignoring the angry stares from the other three, and they appeared to have figured out that there was no reward.
"Serves them right," thought Kousagi bitterly, before tripping over Luna and falling into Queen Saturn, nearly causing her to drop the Twit.
"You really are worse than you mother Princess Harmony," Luna said shaking her head.
"Silence Luna," Chibiusa commanded as she opened the doors of the main meeting room, "And Princess Harmony please be more careful. A clumsy woman makes a clumsy bride."
Kousagi looked at her older sister. 'A clumsy woman makes a clumsy bride' that was rather random, and it made now sense to her. But those thoughts were soon lost as the white-pink haired princess stepped into the crystal meeting room. It was the size of several whales and made of pure crystal, which shone and glimmered in the most mesmerizing way. On the farthest wall from Kousagi was a large silver throne, with a slightly smaller golden throne next to it, circling the room were nine other thrones, each seat was made of crystal and each of them glowed different colors; the colors synchronizing with the queens who sat in them, gold for Venus, deep red for Mars and etc. Kousagi and the four princesses were led to sit in some crystal pews lining the wall of the large room. In front of them were the four girls' fathers: Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite, and Kunzite, the NeoQueen Mother and King Father were sitting next to them. Berthier, Koan, Calaveras, and Petz filed in the seats behind Kousagi, while the king and queens guard filed in behind their respective seats (JunJun and her sisters behind the silver throne and Hawk's Eye, Tiger's Eye, and Fish Eye behind the gold throne).
As the queens sat down in their seats and NeoQueen Lady settled herself in the large silver throne, with King Helios beside her in the golden throne, there was a large bang, and four figures walked through a beautifully painted door. At the lead was a tall man with white hair and a suspicious, untrusting look on his face. He wore a white suit with and intricate blue design on the chest, he also wore a navy blue cape that was adorned with diamonds. Behind him was another man with deep blue hair and a shirt and gloves with a similar color, beside him was a woman with a large forehead, green hair, a skimpy forest green dress, and a fan that looked like cotton candy when she folded it up. Finally there was a man with red hair, camouflage pants and a brown shirt on. The last man appeared to be of a lower status than the other three. All four of them had a crescent moon on their forehead, much like the one Kousagi and her mother, sister, and niece had on their foreheads, only the newcomers forehead moons were black and upside down.
The four walked confidently to the end of the room and bowed before the NeoQueen and King. "We of the planet Nemesis are honored to be in the presence of the queen and king of the prosperous Crystal Tokyo," announced the man at the head of the group.
Behind her, Kousagi's guard tensed; they recognized these four people. Calaveras started rubbing her forehead where a flipped crescent moon would have been.
"Welcome King Demand, Prince Saphir, Lady Esmeraude, and Lord Rubeus," Chibiusa's voice echoed off the domed ceiling of the crystal room, "I hope you feel welcome in our halls."
King Demand looked around the room, his gaze rested on the NeoQueen Mother for a moment before quickly flitting away and resting on Kousagi. He grinned, flashing a pair of perfectly straight, white teeth. Kousagi forced a flicker of a smile on her face to awkwardly return to the mysterious prince. Her clear blue eyes caught Lady Esmeraude grimacing and shooting balls of fire out of her eyes in Kousagi's direction.
"Princess Harmony, please come forward," the NeoQueens voice rang out, startling the girl.
Kousagi shakily got up, she could see the entire rooms eyes on her. They knew something what was going to happen, it was written all over their faces. The walk to the end of the room was seemed to take forever, the white-pink haired princess wasn't sure she wanted know what was at the end of the walk and she was thankful her white monster skirt was covering her shaking legs. When she arrived before her sister and brother-and-law she was aware of how oddly close King Demand was standing next to her and how the rest of Nemesis nobles were taking their seats near the other husbands and retired queen and king.
"King Demand, Princess Harmony step forward please," Chibiusa stood about three steps above them, Kousagi and Demand stepped up to the second step, "Before me stands two humans who are to be linked for eternity."
Kousagi's eyes shot up. Did she hear that right? 'Linked for eternity'? Surely Chibiusa couldn't be thinking of… of… Kousagi couldn't bring herself to even think the dreaded word.
"Princess Harmony you have reached the age of 16, the age at which you become a woman, " Chibiusa said, "Ready for marriage and, if you were the older sister, to rule." Kousagi could here the princesses of Venus, Mercury, and Mars giggling hysterically, "King Demand you are ruler of the far away planet Nemesis, your people need salvation from the gloom that hangs over them, and you are in need of a young bride."
Kousagi nearly fainted as her older sister finished her announcement, "You two shall be wedded before the eyes of our ancestors before three years are through."
To officiate the betrothal Chibiusa made the pair hold hands as she tied a white string around their hands. The string sunk into Kousagi and Kind Demand's skin and left a binding tattoo where the string had touched the skin. As if that wasn't enough, King Demand produced a silver band with a moonstone set between two smaller diamonds and slipped onto her left ring finger. Suddenly the name 'ring finger' became something of significance to Kousagi.
As Kousagi's pale blue eyes met violet a sudden fear gripped her stomach; she was betrothed and it was certainly unexpected.
a/n: Kinda a confusing first chapter in my opinion, but I promised it will get better!
Just some things you should know: I only know what wikipedia's told me about arranged marriages and stuff like that, so don't expect me to get every single detail right. Example: I just made up Chibiusa's vow thing.
And I'm trying to fit in every villain that's ever been in Sailor Moon, and not all of them are going to be villainous.
Also Kousagi had many names: Kousagi is what her parents and people close to her call her, Princess Harmony is her official name in Crystal Tokyo, Naruko is her second name "Naru" with the suffix "-ko" meaning child (at least that's what people have told me) and is what her maid/guard/ladies-in-waiting call her since they've cared for her since she was little, it's a pet name and as stated in the above story her full name is "Princess Harmony Naru Usagi".
And one more thing: Since the Silver Crystal make all inhabitants of Crystal Tokyo basically immortal it's kind of useless being a second princess if the first has become queen and has a daughter, since they're both going to live forever. The new queen or kings parents step down from the thrown when their child reaches the age of 16 (which since ,in my mind, the Silver Crystal also slows down the growth of the children makes the child about 25-30 in our aging time, so basically Kousagi's been around for 25 years our time, but only 16 her time and she has the looks like a 16 year old etc.)
Sorry for the long authors note!