Noli me tangere for Caesar's I am.
***
She was pure, wild and beautiful.
Her slender neck was graced with a heavy ruby necklace, each stone more splendid than the next, and probably worth more than entire villages. Encased in heavy gold, the rubies glittered in the candlelight, demanding attention in very much the same way the man beside her did.
It was only the solemn expression on her face that kept the stones from looking garish, and on a lesser woman, not even nobility would have made the piece of jewellery seem anything other than flashy.
But the king neither noticed the inappropriateness of his gift nor the sadness in his mistress' amethyst eyes, all he cared about was having his shiny new toy right here by his side. It was an evening of grandeur, the first time Zoisite's new play was performed at court and everyone who mattered was here. Everyone but the young queen who had taken to her chambers, unable to bear the humiliation. Leaning back in his throne, he watched the actors ascend the stage.
***
As a connoisseur of beauty, Endymion had simply been unable to not hunt Mars. Why yes, she acted coy at first, shying away from him and blanching every time he stepped into her way in the dark corridors of the palace, but eventually, she gave in to him. They always did. Endymion realised with glee that Mars was more beautiful than both his first mistress and his wife. Serenity was lively and luminous, but she lacked the innate elegance of Mars, and Endymion had not yet forgiven her for not gracing him with a male heir. Had it not been for the Silver Alliance, Endymion would have probably send her back to the Moon already.
It was Venus he used for distraction first, but their affair was a short one. Venus was too smart to deny a king, but behind her golden glow, she scorned him, and the sardonic smile that always danced on her lips made her less appealing to Endymion with each passing day. It wasn't long before he asked his wife to send her away, and despite losing a dear friend, Serenity complied, anxious to please her husband. Endymion neither knew nor cared what happened to the wilful blonde that had warmed his bed so nicely during the cold Terran nights, but he assumed that she was now married to a lesser Venusian nobleman. Wasn't that what happened to all discarded mistresses, after all?
Endymion's attentions had moved on to Mars a few months later, and there was no doubt that Serenity knew about the courting of her lady-in-waiting. In fact, the king had not even bothered to keep the affair clandestine, he had only briefed his stone-faced shitennou to make sure that no-one entered his chambers while the Martian girl was in there. So far, he had tried to win her over with lavish gifts and sweet lies, but Mars held on to her virtue.
There had been a security breach once during Jadeite's shift when Mars had almost cracked under the king's onslaught of attention, and Endymion found himself face to face with an unusually irate Serenity who grabbed Mars' hand and dragged her out of the room. But the king had decided to claim his prize tonight, and this time, he wouldn't be stopped.
***
Mars fingered the heavy necklace, hating the pull of its weight on her neck, but hating its symbolism even more. The sound of the actors speaking was nothing more than white noise to her, the fear drowning out everything but the beating of her own heart.
Long ago, she had hoped to become a priestess, serving the gods and praying for a better world. But the better world seemed to arrive without her prayers when Prince Endymion defeated a rebellion on his home planet, and thus won both the trust of the Silver Alliance and that of the Moon queen, who was more than happy to allow the young prince to marry her only child. Her senshi moved to earth alongside Serenity, and for a brief while, they had been happy and Mars found herself falling in love with Jadeite despite everything that stood between them.
But Mars soon noticed that Beryl's bitter taint was not gone from the blue planet. Unnoticed, it lived on in the one man who had fought it with all his soul: Endymion. The gentle prince was long gone, withered from the inside under the onslaught of Metallia's dark forces. Most of his subjects had not yet noticed that their hero had become a villain, not even Nephrite and Zoisite had caught on to it. Kunzite knew; Venus had told him before she disappeared never to be seen again.
The audience clapped and exploded into laughter; Mars flinched.
Feeling her decorum slip under the pressure, her eyes involuntarily travelled over her shoulder to the one person that could calm and excite her like no other. Jadeite stood tall, but not proud. He was here to guard Endymion, but oh, how she wished that he could guard her.
Their eyes met, but when Mars felt her heart shattering and his alongside, she turned to the stage again. All colour had drained from her face, and the intense red of the rubies did nothing for her.
With desperation, she thought that she had only ever wanted to be caught by one man, one who was both more honourable and braver the king sitting next to her, and the fates had been too cruel to grant her that happiness. Fingering the vial containing the deadly poison she hid in the folds of her dress, Mars knew that at least, they were not too cruel to grant her an escape.
***
The End