AN: So this is actually a flashback chapter in my long fic AGE OF AQUARIUS. The wonderful Lady-Dragonguardian suggested I should adapt it into a stand alone. This is my take on Sailor Venus Silver Millennium self. It explores Venus customs a bit, but focuses much more on Princess Aphrodite (Sailor Venus) learning about love. Some of the side characters come from my Silver Millennium / Queen Serenity origin story PAX LUNAE. And there is one bit of canon dialogue(from Act 48 of the Manga.) I may post the other flashbacks as stand alone stories too depending on how much attention this gets (so review if thats a thing you want to see).
Disclaimer: Sailor moon is my playground, not my profit venture. none of the characters (except Hippolyte) are actually mine.
Aphrodite
Every night, as she ran the soft brush through her long hair, Mother would tell her the story…
"Once upon a time, in a land by the sea, there was a Queen who lived in a beautiful palace surrounded by beautiful shells. She ran her Kingdom well and had King who treated her fairly and she had everything anyone in the highest caste could ever dream of wanting.
"Except for a child. The Queen wanted one more than anything – and so did the King. So the Queen went down to the Boiling Sea, where it was told in the ancient stories that miracles could happen. And she spoke to the Goddess, and the Planet Venus"
"Lady Venus," she'd sometimes interrupt. Planet was a boring title. Lady suited Venus much, much better.
"Oh, thank you for correcting me, yes:"
"The Queen spoke to the Goddess and to Lady Venus. And she asked them if there was anyway – any at all – that she could have a child of her own.
"And she went and she asked every day for 77 days. And then, on the last day, a golden comet soared through the sky while she was praying by the sea, and it crashed right into the boiling water. And then as she watched the Holy Geyser sprayed high into the sky, glowing bronze. And she watched the water turn from bronze to the bright orange of a sunset, and all the topez shells that circle the geyser float up all around it."
"And then,"
"And then, the orange light shot up above the clouds and she heard all the movement of the morning stop. Everyone turned to look.
"And in the silence, she heard a baby's cry."
"That was me!"
"I'm getting there," Mother would chuckle.
"So the Queen waited on the docks and watched as the orange light faded and the sun rose up high above the sea. And she saw a great big shell breach the surface, and the whole top of it pop off. And when it reached the docks she peered inside and gasped cause guess what she found?"
"Me!"
"Mhmm."
"She found a baby girl with hair like the purest gold and eyes as blue as the skies on the clearest night. And she had the mark of Lady Venus on her forehead, and so the Queen knew right away this girl was very, very special – for she would be the Guardian one day.
"And so the Queen picked up the little girl and knew that she was the answer to her prayers. And since she was the most beautiful child on the whole world, she decided to name her Aphrodite."
"And Aphrodite," Mama would always add after kissing her head. "Is the best daughter I could ever want."
~Venus~
"Planets don't have favorite things," Father scoffed at dinner when she told him so in between a mouthful of scallops.
"Of course she has favorites," Aphrodite insisted
"Alright," Father said, raising one of his dark eyebrows. "What's its favorite animal then?" his voice boomed out one of his big laughs. "Humans?"
Aphrodite frowned. "No. It's horses," she told Father matter-a-factly. "She used to like the phoenixes, but," she shrugged. "Lady said we don't have those anymore. Why not?"
"They went extinct of course," Father shrugged.
"What's that mean"
"It means," Mother said, leaning across the table to put more fish on Aphrodite's plate. "That they don't live here anymore. And there's no new ones of them."
"Oh..." Aphrodite frowned. "Why'd they move away?"
"Cause they weren't well suited to the planet," Zeus said. "Silly things – we had them when I was young. They never could pick a good spot to build a nest."
"Oh," Aphrodite looked down at her plate, feeling suddenly like the time one of the page boys had broken her favorite shell… except she felt as though some one had broken a whole lot more of her favorite shells.
"Now why's she angry?" her father asked.
"Aphrodite?" her mother asked.
"I feel angry," she said slowly, they always told her to explain slowly. "About the birds," she said. "But I don't." she'd felt like this before sometimes: when Nanny yelled at her, or when Father yelled at the servants. She felt other things too. Like when it hadn't rained in a month and a big storm had dumped a whole palace worth of rain on the ground: she'd felt so clean. But not her-her. Just… "It's like I'm angry…and I know why." Aphrodite said. "But I don't know… where it's coming from."
Her father raised his eyebrow at her. "Another strange guardian thing then."
"ZEUS!" Mother shrieked.
"Well it is strange." Father said, cutting into his steak. He waved the slab of meat at Aphrodite. "There's a simple solution here: If you're not really angry, don't be angry."
"But… but I feel it."
"Anger," Father said. "Is a bad thing to feel." He stared at her with his dark-gold eyes "Especially for a high-caste girl like yourself. You'll never get anywhere in life letting your emotions run ragged."
She suddenly felt angry again. A different angry. Not like broken-shells angry, more like when the duke's daughter had told Aphrodite she couldn't have anymore candy and then proceeded to eat all of it herself.
"Don't look at me like that, Dione," Father told her Mother.
"I just wonder sometimes if you can hear yourself talk," Mother told Father back.
Father slammed his fist into the table and knocked over his chair as he stood up.
Aphrodite felt her face growing hot and her body getting tense like she was about to throw a fit over a broken toy or no dessert but there was no broken toy and she'd been promised dessert and she shouldn't have felt so angry…
"I have never," Father said in a calm, cold voice "let my emotions interfere with the ruling of –"
"STOP!" Aphrodite said standing on her chair. "You're making me angry!"
"Why?" Her father snapped and paused, looking her up and down. "We make you angry?"
She sniffed. "Yes," it was going away now. She slumped down in her chair. Anger made her so tired.
"Interesting…" her father muttered. "Well anyways – you should practice conducting yourself in a genial fashion regardless of how else you want to feel."
"So… I can't feel sad? Or happy? Or silly? Or scardy?"
Father groaned and held up a hand. "What have I said about questions?"
"Dear," Mother said. "Why don't I… explain to her?"
"She is your daughter," Father mumbled.
Later that night, brushing out her hair (which had grown a whole three inches since the summer ended) Mother explained.
"We are the highest class," she said to Aphrodite. "That's supposed to mean we are 'above' reacting to certain emotions. The thought is that things like fear and anger and even love cloud our judgement."
"Even love?"
"Mhmm," her mother sighed. "I understand – I didn't grow up in this caste. It is still hard for me." She finished the braid. "You can feel whatever you feel, Dite," she promised. "But you've got to make sure no one can ever tell."
Is she right? Aphrodite asked Lady.
I know only what you do about human customs, My Guardian. Lady answered. I do not feel as you feel. And when I need to express myself, I have no means of suppression. My volcanoes erupt as my needs dictate and my earthquakes shake your surface as I feel fit.
Maybe it's different for people, Aphrodite sighed.
"Now," Mother said. "What was this about feelings that are not your own?"
Aphrodite frowned and looked at her feet, kicking her legs against the chair. "Like… Me-me feels tired. And confuu-fuu –"
"Confused."
"Yeah," Aphrodite pulled away from Mother, half finished braid hanging over her left shoulder. "But… Not-me feels… nervous. Now. And worried… and warm, and happy. How can you be worried and happy and… just now I feel like… surprised. Bad surprised – like… like your face looks!" she decided, pointing at mother. "That kind of surprised."
~Venus~
Being five meant a lot of good things. The Most good of them was that she knew how to get Father to agree to lots more things – like extra dessert and shorter skirts to play in and even time all by herself to wander the beach (since she had finally learned to swim!)
"Go make friends," Mama encouraged her every day when she ran out of the palace. She'd point out one of the groups of kids – all older – who also came down to the beach every day. They always played a ways away from the palace.
Aphrodite tried for a little while to talk to them, but as spring approached, she lost interest in the effort. The kids never wanted to play with her. Sometimes they walked away as she approached. Sometimes they said she was too small. Some of them though, wouldn't let her play for other reasons.
"You're the guardian?" an older topaz boy in the group she'd asked to play said. "You don't look Venesien."
"That's cause I came from the sea," Aphrodite said. "But I am the Guardian – see." She pushed back her hair and showed them the orange symbol on her brow.
"Weird," the topaz kid said. He put his hands on his hips. "Well I'm a Topaz, and I don't believe you."
"But," Aphrodite floundered. "But it's true. Mother said it's true."
"Well Father doesn't believe her," the kid said, glaring his grumpy magenta eyes down at her. "He said if the planet had really made you by itself you'd look like Venesiens are supposed to look." He pointed to her nose. "You're skin burns in the sun for Goddess sake. If you're a Venesien then Granite-caste over there," he nodded to the quiet girl several feet from him. "Gets to be the next Queen."
The other kids chuckled.
"And what's up with these things?" another kid asked, stepping forward and poking her over the yellow birthmarks on her shoulder blades. "Those aren't Guardian symbols."
"Mama said they look pretty!" Aphrodite defended, pulling the hem of her dress up higher to cover them and wishing her long hair was free of its high braid.
"No, just weird." The topaz boy laughed and turned away from her. "We don't play with weirdos."
"But – I'm the princess!"
They all laughed then. And the topaz boy had continued.
"Now you are," he'd taunted. "Wait until the King finds a wife who can actually have kids and you'll be just another weirdo Peat-head out on the street."
"But, but,"
"Get lost," he said. And then they kicked the sand at her.
She didn't want to play even by herself after that. So she slumped down at the end of the jetty and put both hands on her cheeks, staring at the green water of the Boiling Sea. Very far off, she saw the Holy Geyser erupt.
Why so sad, my little star, Lady Venus asked.
"Why didn't you make me look like Venesiens?" Aphrodite asked her. "Everyone says I'm not a real one."
Because they do not know the truth of things, Lady said. It matters not what you look like.
"And what's a 'Peat-head'?"
A human term, Lady said. I know not how they distinguish one.
She sniffed. "Why were they mean to me?" she asked, taking her hands away from her face and reaching out to pick up a crab before the waves could crack it against the rocks.
Some people hurt others, Lady said. Just as people and other beings sometimes hurt me.
"Then why do I have to look so different?"
You are different because I made you, Lady said simply. I and the magic that crashed into me that day.
"The… comet?" Aphrodite asked. She'd never cared especially about that part of Mother's story.
Twas not a comet. Lady scoffed. Twas magic like my own. You look like it – but inside, inside you are like me.
Aphrodite beamed and skimmed her hands through the water, she watched her reflection then and sighed. "But the kids will still tease me."
As they will tease anyone they consider different than themselves, Lady said. Just as I can hear those children you met doing right now.
"What?" Aphrodite asked.
The kids laughter carried over the Boiling Sea and with it the sounds of someone…or maybe more than one someone…crying.
She stood up on the jetty. There they were – their dark hair stood out even as far as they were from the Palace. She jumped into the water. Lady assuring her the current would help her stay on course as she swam very fast to a stretch of beach very, very far from the palace.
When she emerged from the water they didn't notice her, but she could see them.
"Get off the beach!" the topaz boy shouted, along with the other kids in the group.
But clearly that was a dumb thing to shout because the kids had surrounded the two they were yelling at – both of them were kids too and one was as young as Aphrodite. They were Peat caste. She could tell now – They all wore the same grey. She saw them kick sand at the two Peat kids, and they couldn't stop it like she had. One of them fell and screamed when it got in their eyes and all the kids around them laughed. She saw the topaz boy pull back his foot.
"Stop!" she shouted, charging out of the surf and pushing into the middle of the circle. She got between the topaz boy and the two kids just in time for him to kick her in the stomach. She fell into the sand, shouting as it scrapped her elbows and all the other kids gasped.
But not the topaz boy. He felt excited. And mean-happy. Like it made him smile to see her fall. "Well what do you know," he chuckled, stepping forward and raising his fist. "Standing up for Peat kids and she can't even take a hit." She stood up and blocked both the other kids with her arms. She didn't care if Father said Topazes never did anything wrong. This was definitely wrong. "So you're not a good Topaz or a good Guardian." He swung his fist and she flinched, but he held back the punch at the last second. "Psyche!" he cried as the other kids laughed. His magenta eyes glared at her. "Move Peat-head," he told her. "Unless you want me to hit you like I was gonna hit them."
"You shouldn't hit them," she said, keeping her arms wide to cover the two kids still on the ground. "It's wrong."
"Is not," he sneered. "They're Peat-heads. They're not allowed on the beach and they know it."
"You can't hit them."
"You gonna stop me?" he taunted.
"Yeah!" she said. But the nerves were starting to set in. What if he really was right? He'd been a Topaz longer than her.
Trust yourself, Lady said. My Guardian is always right.
She still didn't know much about what being a guardian meant. But she knew this was wrong.
"Last chance," the boy said. She closed her eyes as he pulled back his fist again. She wasn't gonna flinch. She concentrated on Lady's heart, thrumming deep beneath the Boiling Sea, and felt her own sync up with it.
As the boy threw his punch, she suddenly felt Lady Venus power flare up within her, and the Venesien symbol on her forehead grew hot as orange light flooded her vision.
"Venus Power!" she and Lady shouted together.
It was suddenly as if everything was as bright as the sun and as hot as it too! She felt the Boiling Sea water crash against her torso and the sulphur clouds in the highest layer of the atmosphere circle around her.
For a moment, it almost seemed like Lady was holding her, just as Mama did when she used to rock her to sleep.
And then all the light had faded and the Topaz boy was on the ground, scrambling away from her as the other kids ran – even the two she had rescued. She bounced on the toes of her bright orange flats and clapped her white gloved hands together – taking everything in: her orange skirt and the dark blue bow in the front – a colour she'd only ever seen in the mirror – and the yellow bow behind her and the tiara that was gold with an orange gem when she leaned over to look in the water.
"I did it," she whispered. Then she began jumping up and down and shrieking as she threw both hands into the air. "IdiditIdiditIdidit!"
Of course you did, Lady said. It was your destiny. Lady felt so proud.
She needed to show Mother. She even needed to show Father. She needed to show her afternoon Nanny too. She'd never be able to say that Aphrodite was too messy to be the Guardian now!
She swam faster than she had ever swum back to the jetty and ran up the palace steps, stopping at the throne room doors and taking a deep breath before knocking.
"Merchants Audience does not end for another fifteen minutes!" the annoyed doorman said from the other said.
"But I'm the Guardian!" she said. "I transformed! I wanna show Mother and Father. Pleeeease." Maybe if I can transform, Father will like me!
The doorman let her in and she only remembered her manners after she'd skidded all the way across the throne room and to the edge of the dais where her parents sat. Father felt stunned. Mama felt stunned in a good way. Aphrodite bowed to them and then straightened, sweeping her long golden hair behind her and putting both hands on her hips.
"I'm Sailor Venus!" she announced. "Guardian of Love and Beauty."
She expected cheers. She looked all around. The emotions of all the merchants present suddenly shifted from stunned to a whole meelee of others: surprise, and fear, and lots of confusion.
Including from her father.
He looked at his squire.
"Send for the Mother Priestess," he told them. "And get a message to the Moon Kingdom." He raised an eyebrow at Aphrodite. "The Guardian of Love and Beauty aye. Where did that come from?"
She frowned and pointed at her heart. "In here…" she whispered.
Why was that not right? She thought it was right. Lady thought it was right.
Did I do it wrong? She thought as Mother congratulated her and ushered her out of the throne room.
She didn't hear her father's conversation with the Priestess. But she did hear from Mother later.
"Your uniform just didn't look like they expected," she explained as she passed Aphrodite a handkerchief. In the time since she'd de-transformed, she'd started sniffling. A sure sigh she'd have to stay in bed sick all day before she knew it. "In the past Venus colours have been described as dark orange and bronze, and her bow has usually been magenta."
"What about Love and Beauty?"
Mother sighed. "That was… different too." She looked at Aphrodite. "All the records say that Sailor Venus has always declared herself the guardian of Fairness and Fortune."
"So… so I was wrong?"
"No sweetie," Mother insisted. "These things – they can change." She looked out at the sea and then shook her head. "You're full of surprises Aphrodite. None of them are bad. Some of them are just more surprising than the others."
~Venus~
The envoy from the Moon Kingdom arrived the next day, and Aphrodite wanted very, very badly to run down the beach to meet them. But Father was there and Father'd already told her it didn't befit an heir of Venus to frolic across the beach. And he'd also been feeling very smug all morning. And Mother very nervous.
"I'm very eager to see what she'll say, is all," Father'd said when she'd hesitantly asked. "About you're… interesting changes to the Guardianship."
At last the big white carriage pulled by (she gasped) two grey unicorns rolled across the edge of the beach – the wheels and the unicorns hooves sending iridescent droplets spraying out across the Boiling Sea. She lined up right in front of her Father and Mother and made sure the strange orange skirt of her new sailor uniform was just so and then bowed as the doors of the carriage swung open to the sound of trumpets.
"Announcing Her Magesty – Hippolyte of The Moon Kingdom"
She wasn't supposed to stop bowing yet, but Aphrodite really wanted to see. She tilted her head so she could peek through the curtain of her hair.
The Queen was beautiful. She leapt out of the carriage and onto the sand in a sleevless tunic that was an amazingly dark color of green that Aphrodite'd never seen before, and was wearing not a skirt, but pants (Queens could wear pants) as black as coal and tucked into grey boots that looked soft and comfy and were nearly as tall as the Queen's knees. Aphrodite couldn't help herself as she raised her head to see better. This lady looked nothing like Mother. She barely wore any jewellery at all – save the pink flowers in her ears and the one on her necklace that stood out against her rich, green shirt. If it weren't for the crown sitting atop her very curly, dark hair shimmering as the red and pink gems in it caught the sunlight, Aphrodite never would have guessed she was a Queen.
"Good Morning," the foreign Queen's low voice greeted them warmly as she walked up to them. She was so tall. Queen Hippolyte nodded down at Father. "King Zeus," and Mother, "Queen Dione," she addressed them. "Serenity sends her apologies. She's," the Queen was beaming. She felt as happy as Mother felt whenever she told Aphrodite how she'd found her. "Un-fit to travel at the moment."
"Oh we'd never expect her to travel so far in that state," Mother rushed to say. "Though when your response said an appropriate dignitary was coming we certainly didn't suppose it would be you." And Mother bowed again. "Forgive me, we hadn't thought to prepare an appropriate State Dinner."
"That's alright," the Queen smiled. She felt quite embarrassed. And a little confused. Finally: someone else who didn't understand why the special silverware was important. "I apologize for the confusion. I should have had Luna specify – oh but where are my own manners,"and then she looked at Aphrodite and bowed. "Sailor Venus," she was grinning. She bent down so Venus and she were the same height. "I see you've learned how to transform."
"Uhuh," Hippolyte didn't feel like she was going to tell Aphrodite she'd done it wrong, as everyone else had. In fact she felt excited. "Y-yesterday."
"Bravo," Hippolyte said. "My niece didn't manage until she was six."
"Well perhaps Aphrodite should have waited too," Father told Queen Hippolyte. "As you can see she has appeared a bit differently than expected."
"Well then I suppose her powers are as mysterious as the rest of her," Hippolyte declared. She considered Aphrodite. "Have you tried to use your powers yet?"
"No. Can I?"
"Certainly!" Hippolyte grinned. "That's as good a thing as any to start with." She gestured down the beach. "Where's the best place to play?"
"We have duelling ya –" her Father began to say. But Aphrodite cut him off.
"The Jetty!" she announced.
"Then let's walk there."
Father opted not to come, saying he and Mother had things to prepare if they had a Queen visiting. Hippolyte insisted it wasn't important and insisted they call her Hippolyte, but Mother and Father felt absolutely shocked and declared that decorum was always important or something like that. Which was fine. That meant it could be just Venus and Hippolyte, who was very happy to see her and very happy to hear anything she had to say. Sailor Venus talked at her all the way down to the jetty, talking faster than Mother said was intelligible, but she was too excited! That was okay, surely. Finally: one person who had seen her cool transformation and not thought it was strange and not thought she was strange.
"Does anyone in The Moon Kingdom have gold hair?" Aphrodite asked.
"Blond hair," Hippolyte said. "That's what hair like yours is called." She smiled. "They have it on lots of worlds."
"How come I have it?"
"Well," Hippolyte said. "I don't actually know." She looked out towards the geyser in the middle of the Boiling Sea. Lady'd been filling it with bright orange water droplets since she'd transformed. "Mysteries always surround the Guardians, Sailor Venus," she said. "And solving them is often a rewarding endeavour in and of itself."
"What's that mean?"
"It means there's lots about you we don't know. But that's okay," she grinned. "The fun is in finding out."
Aphrodite pouted. "But I wanna know!" then she froze. She'd just whined at someone really important. "Sorry!"
Hippolyte chuckled. "You and I," she said as they turned towards the edge of the sea and towards the jetty that broke through the surf. "Are very a like, you know."
"Really?"
"Mhmm," Hippolyte walked up onto the rocks as easily as Aphrodite. her afternoon nanny always tripped. Then again, Afternoon Nanny always wore very long skirts. I'm gonna be a Queen that wears pants. Aphrodite decided. Pants look more fun. But she focused again, back on what Hippolyte was saying.
"We both want the answers rather than the questions," Hippolyte began. "And traditions are things we sometimes don't see the point of… tell me if I'm wrong."
Traditions… like wearing skirts, and using different plates and different foods for different guests, and hitting clams four times with your fork before you ate them. "You're right," Aphrodite said.
"And we both can't sit still," Hippolyte chuckled as Aphrodite realized she'd been bouncing up and down again.
"Everyone always tells me to sit still."
"Well sometimes everyone forgets what its like to have things to do," Hippolyte retorted. Aphrodite giggled. She liked this Queen.
They had reached the end of the jetty now, and Queen Hippolyte hummed. "You need something to hit," she decided. And she walked around the rocks at the very end of the jetty, toing them with her foot until she found one the size of Aphrodite's head that came loose. She placed it upright at the end of the rocks and then walked back to Aphrodite.
"Now, lets see what these Sailor powers of yours can do," she said.
"What if I do it wrong?"
Hippolyte felt angry for just a second as she looked back towards the palace. "You can't do your powers wrong, Sailor Venus," she said, still smiling. "No matter how different some people find them."
Then her anger was gone and she was pointing at the rock again. "There are books with spells other Sailors have used," she began. "But I want to see if you can think of one on your own."
"How?"
"Well," Hippolyte said. "Think of a few words you think sound good together – they'll probably be the right ones."
"Oh, like how Lady taught me to find the transformation," Venus nodded, immediately picking up Hippolyte's confusion as she explained. "Lady's my imaginary…" She bit her lip. Mother did say to tell everyone that, but… but…
"Friend?" Hippolyte guessed. That was what she was always, always, always supposed to say.
"Lady's the planet," Aphrodite blurted out. She crossed her fingers. Surely she could tell this person.
"Oh – so she is a lady then? Are all planets ladies?" Hippolyte seemed… curious… and amused. Was she making fun of her?"
"Um…" she listened to Lady's response. "Lady doesn't know,"
"Hmm, a shame," Hippolyte said. "I'd have liked another thing to tease my brother about."
"You… believe… me."
"It's hardly the strangest thing anyone's ever said to me – far less the strangest thing a guardian's ever said to me," Hippolyte reassured her. "But we're both getting side-tracked." She gestured towards the rock again. "Lets see what you've got, Sailor Venus."
Sailor Venus she liked the sound of that more and more the more Hippolyte said it. It was really cool to share Lady's name.
She faced the rock and held both hands up.
She was the Guardian of Love and Beauty. Everyone else thought that was strange, but it felt just right to her.
Start with love, she decided. She kissed her right hand for good luck and then curled it into a fist like she had a long weapon to throw at the rock a few feet away. "Venus Love Strike!"
Something long and orange like a rope arced up over her head and slammed into the rock, cleaving it clean in two.
Hippolyte was clapping. "Very nice!" she cheered.
Sailor Venus gaped and looked at her hand. It was empty.
"That looked like a chain," Hippolyte observed.
"Where'd it go?"
"Another mystery I cannot answer for you," the Queen chuckled. "Come on now, see if you can do it again… from farther back this time…"
They spend a long, long time hitting the rocks with the chain attack. And Aphrodite could even hold it for a few seconds before it went poof if she really concentrated. Hippolyte also had her run on the beach, throw punches at the rocks, and see if she could kick. And then jump. And then jump and kick. She'd been in the middle of jumping just one more time to see if she could leap up onto one of the palace towers when she felt all the energy rush out of her and, in a flash of orange, she was back in her normal dress. She nearly crashed into the beach except the Queen caught her first.
"Gotcha," Hippolyte grinned, setting her on her feet. Then Hippolyte felt surprised all of a sudden and she tilted her head at Aphrodite. "Could you turn around for me, Princess Aphrodite?"
She did, twirling her skirt as she moved. Queen Hippolyte crouched down and Aphrodite turned to look at her. She still felt surprised. She moved Aphrodite's blond hair – freed of the braids Mother put it in everyday – aside. Then she pointed to Aphrodite's shoulder blades – right where her yellow birthmarks were.
"Have you always had these?" she asked.
"Um, yeah." Aphrodite said, pulling her hair back, glad it had stayed free of the braids so it could cover her weird yellow birthmarks.
"No don't hide them," Hippolyte scoffed. "I just wasn't expecting to see these on Venus."
So she wasn't the only one with these.
"What are they?"
"How bout I tell you and your parents at dinner."
Dinner was far fancier than any Aphrodite could remember, though everyone said the last time they'd used these plates, the King of Mercury had been visiting. She tried very, very hard to stay awake through all the pleasantries and the icky looking appetizer, but her face hit the table more than once. Thankfully Evening Nanny – her most fun Nanny – was minding her, and Hippolyte was across from her. Neither of them said anything to Mother or Father.
Finally after she'd slurped half her soup and felt a little more awake, they brought up something interesting.
"Now," her father said. "To this 'Guardian of Love' business"
"She's got the powers to match the title," Hippolyte said. "True, there's nothing about a guardian ever changing their designation in the past, but that doesn't mean it is impossible. After all, Aphrodite herself is a bit of a mystery. I wouldn't worry if her powers present a little differently."
"And her… appearance,"
Hippolyte shrugged. "Planets work in ways we don't always understand, King Zeus, as does magic." She felt very, very stern as she looked at her father "If Aphrodite doesn't look like most Venesiens or past Sailor Venuses that's only because she's special."
She'd never seen anyone match her father glare for glare for this long. Not even her mother. Their feelings were interesting. Father felt irritated and more than a little nervous. And Hippolyte felt angry too and calm – something she'd never felt anyone one feel while angry. Then her father started growing more and more nervous until he looked away. Hippolyte felt incredibly pleased, though Aphrodite was sure no one else could tell from her face. Maybe there was something important to this "hiding your feelings" business.
"It's good that she's transformed now in any case," Hippolyte was saying. "We're hoping the other young guardians do soon – my niece and Mars and Mercury's guardians are all around your age," Hippolyte said to Aphrodite. "And we're hoping you'll all be able to transform by the summer – Serenity thinks it would be good for all of you to start your training together."
"Training," Mother worried. "But she's only five."
"I'll be six soon" Aphrodite said. It was only… like 130 something days from now.
"We know they're young," Hippolyte said. "But Guardians have always started their training as soon as they can transform – it's a good idea for them to get familiar with their powers. And considering how unique they are, it would be good for all the girls to train together."
"Would they be my friends?" Aphrodite asked.
"I'm sure they'd love to be," Hippolyte promised. "Though I apologize in advance for Thorunn. She's… very excitable."
"So's Aphrodite," her father muttered. "They'd be best friends."
Best friends. Aphrodite's eyes widened. She didn't even have a friend and now there was someone who might be her best friend.
Her mother looked at her and sighed. "That would be very good for Dite." Then she looked at Hippolyte "Alright – the summer then. Is that when Serenity's due?"
Hippolyte suddenly felt very, very happy. So happy it made Aphrodite grin too even though she was getting much better at not reacting to feelings that weren't hers. She couldn't help it this time. "June 30th," she said. "That's the math's prediction of course, though the seers are all adamant it's impossible to see these kinds of things."
"What things?" Aphrodite said.
Hippolyte chuckled. "The Moon's going to have a Princess by the time you come to train," she told Aphrodite. "We're just not sure when she'll arrive. But," she smiled even wider. "We're hoping you and your parents and all the other guardians can come for her Naming Ceremony. And then perhaps you could stay the whole summer and train with the other girls."
"Okay!" Aphrodite said. "Do they look different too? Do they all have chain attacks? And symbols on their foreheads? And birthmarks like mine?"
"Questions," her father growled.
"It's fine." Hippolyte told him. Then she beamed at Aphrodite and said: "all of them look different than each other – Mercury's hair is as blue as your eyes."
"Woah!"
"Uhuh. And they all have their planet's symbol on their forehead. They all have different powers than you. Or they will. Sailor Jupiter's made impressive amounts of lightning for her age. And Sailor Mars has already started playing with fire even though she hasn't transformed yet."
"I wanna play with fire!" she said.
"No!" her mother and father both groaned
But Hippolyte laughed. "That is a Mars-only power, thank goodness. And Sailor Mercury, when she transforms, will likely have plenty of ice and water to handle any fire," She closed her eyes a moment and felt as though she were remembering something nice. "The perfect team." Then she looked at Aphrodite again. "But to your last question – thank you for reminding me." She looked at both her parents. "I noticed she has a pair of very interesting yellow lines on her back."
"They're normal aren't they?" Mother worried. "She's always had them."
"They're very normal," Hippolyte assured them. "Though rare. You don't see them on many worlds. They're called Wing Marks."
Wing… marks…
"Like a bird!" Aphrodite gasped. And so did her mother. Her father groaned.
"Fantastic," he muttered. Though he felt it was the opposite of fantastic. Aphrodite didn't care.
"The wings themselves will grow in as she ages," Hippolyte said.
"I'll be able to fly!" Aphrodite exclaimed.
"In time, yes," Hippolyte beamed at her. "You absolutely will."
~Venus~
It seems Hippolyte'd barely left before there was a huge amount of changes to her days. She didn't have Afternoon Nanny anymore. Instead, she got an etiquette tutor, Madam Lupe. She was worse than any Nanny, and had warts, and felt very, very grumpy all the time. And instead of wandering the beaches, Aphrodite had to spend Every. Single. Day, with her.
She was never satisfied with anything. Aphrodite never stood quite straight enough, and never sat straight enough, and she never held her long, formal skirts right. She dreamed every night that she'd get to wear pants on the Moon. Clearly Hippolyte didn't follow this many rules. She bet the princesses on the other worlds could slouch if they wanted to.
She couldn't wear her shorter play dresses now. She had to wear the formal ones all the time to practice. And she had to walk with books on her head and then with more books balanced on her hands. And she had to eat meals with the books on her head too. And if the books fell, she didn't eat. That was Father's and Madam Lupe's rule. Mother was nice and often brought her sweet rolls at bedtime on the nights the books fell. They fell less and less as she practiced. After a whole month she could even eat without them falling at all. It only felt like a tiny accomplishment. Madam Lupe still nagged her about how big the bites of food she ate were, and how she cut things with the knife, and how she held the soup bowl, and how she did everything. Madam Lupe even nagged her about how she played. She must stay on the walkways. And she must smile at everyone. And she mustn't get any part of her skirts dirty. She couldn't run or swim. Snd she definitely couldn't roll in the mud.
"WHY?" she shouted one day after she'd seen tons of other kids getting dirty chasing each other through the vineyard.
"Because," Father had explained before Madam Lupe in a much more patient tone than he'd ever used with her. "You are our best representative. It's very important that you show your best manners. All our trading partners will be at the Naming Ceremony. So you must be on your best behaviour – it doesn't matter that the Moon Queens are unnaturally lax about these things. Manners matter." He considered her for a moment and said. "You may do as you please most of the time," and he held up a hand as Madam Lupe squawked. "But please, in front of the Mercurian and the Saturni delegations, please abide by your manners."
He was being so patient she even hazarded to ask his least favorite question. "Why?"
"They're our largest trading partners," Father explained, he didn't even feel irritated. Maybe she was doing so well with the manners he was actually starting to like her. "And Mercurians and Saturnis hold good manners in the highest regard of any worlds in the Silver Alliance," he looked sternly at her. "So I trust you to behave as Madam Lupe is teaching you. You'll be representing the entire world. The guardian has always been the most respected of representatives."
She nodded and bowed to him. And Madam Lupe didn't even feel disapproving. She wasn't even frowning. "I promise I will."
"I know you will," Father said to her. "You've made a lot of progress and you have a whole two more months before the Naming Ceremony. I am sure you will do well."
As it turned out though, she didn't have two more months. In fact it was only two more weeks before she was awoken early, not by Morning Nanny, but by her mother.
"The Moon Princess has come early!" she fretted. She was very nervous. "Oh, we still have to get your new dresses fitted. The ceremony's in barely a week." She hustled Aphrodite through getting ready and through a very rushed breakfast before standing her on a stool in front of the tailor and begging her to please stand still.
"We'll only have time to fit this once," Mother warned. "If you squirm and its measured wrong, you'll be wearing it and the rest like it all summer no matter how uncomfortable they are."
So she held herself very still, noting how strange her mother felt: sort of sad, underneath all her nervousness.
"Is it really a good idea to send all of you there?" the tailor muttered. "Especially now?"
Mother sighed. "Zeus will be remaining here now."
"What?" Aphrodite exclaimed, though she held still. Madam Lupe's training was very effective after all. "Why?" She'd so been looking forward to Father being there to see how well she behaved and being able to feel him be proud of her.
"It's for the best," the tailor said. "With what's happened."
"There's been some criminals causing trouble in the Moon Kingdom," Mother explained. "Nothing for you to worry about. They'd never attempt to go to the castle." She looked worried and felt more worried despite saying that. "But it's a good precaution for one of us to stay here. Your Father's more than happy to. But I promise I'll be with you," she said. Then she sighed. "Unfortunately not through your summer training. Ooh! I can't believe I need to agree to that."
"Begging your pardon," the tailor said to her mother. "But I'd be most happy to have trained guardians if evil is going to start making appearances." He shivered. "Or have you forgotten the old stories?"
"What's evil?" she asked.
Mother felt suddenly very, very sad. "It's darkness," Mother said. "It tries to harm all the good things we have. It isn't like those criminals your father has you judge every week." She shook her head. "And it's not something I can hide you from… not matter how much I want to."
"Guardians are meant to fight it," the tailor said. "Though I wonder very much what chance Love and Beauty stands. The stories say the guardians of fairness and fortune could turn evil to stone."
"Aphrodite will do just fine," Mother said, though she still felt all sorts of sad. "Her Majesty even assured me she's the strongest of any of the younger guardians."
The strongest one…
Am I really strong? She asked Lady. I don't feel strong.
Use your powers more, and in time you will, Lady assured her. You're the strongest guardian I've ever blessed with my powers. Because you are more than just me.
I'm part-comet too, Aphrodite remembered Lady saying.
That must be what it is, Lady agreed.
The two-day carriage journey to the moon Kingdom was the longest days of her life. She spend it with Mother and four soldiers stuck inside a space only as big as her bedroom. And it was fun to sleep in the bunk beds and even more fun to see space and see Sol and get to ask all sorts of questions about space, but it was so boring.
What made it even longer was how grim everyone felt. She'd called it sadness at first. Then she'd heard one of their soldiers say the word "grim." Yes, grim was a much better word.
She was the first to spot the Moon Kingdom approaching. She woke up to the bright, white light shining through the big windows on the front of the carriage and nearly fell out of her bunk as she scrambled across the room and stood on the chess table to see. The bright, white, pearl of The Moon Kingdom glowed much, much brighter than the blue Earth orbiting nearby. She could see the rainbow colors reflecting off the palace dome even from here.
"Still bright," a soldier muttered when he woke and came to stand beside her. "That's good."
"Why wouldn't it be?" she asked
The soldier sighed and shook his head. "No reason, Princess," he said. "I'm being silly to worry. The Silver Crystal and Queen Serenity are as strong as they've ever been."
Queen Serenity. That was whom Hippolyte had wanted her to meet. That was who would be the Moon Princess mother. "Is she a guardian too?" she asked. It would make sense, surely. Everyone always talked about her like she was one.
The soldier shook his head. "Never has been. Moon can't have a guardian anyways, it's not a real planet."
"The rumor is," another soldier said. "That she came from another galaxy."
"That's hogwash," the soldier who stood next to her said.
"Well her advisors are from another star system ain't they? And she's lived what? Eight hundred years now. Only people on the outer worlds ever live that long. Or guardians, and she's never transformed into one."
"So she could be from an outer world then," Aphrodite guessed. And the two soldiers shook their heads.
"Looks nothing like any Juper," the first soldier said. "And she ain't strange enough to be a Saturni,"
"She don't look like she's Neptunese either, or Plutonian."
" I guess she could be Uranian," the first soldier snickered. "Wouldn't that be the irony of it all then?"
"Nothing could match Sailor Uranus for irony – even a… the Moon Queen being from Uranus," the second soldier replied. He shook his head. "The 'Other Galaxy' theory's the most plausible anyway. How else does the Silver Crystal match the gold one for power? It can't be made from just a moon. That'd be ridiculous."
"It's just hard to believe is all," the first soldier said.
"Well the only two that know never say anything… never said anything… wait" the second soldier swore. "That's a hell of an adjustment."
"What is?" Aphrodite said without looking away from the Moon.
"Speaking," the first soldier said. "It's difficult for him."
She laughed a little, even if they both felt too grim for her to really laugh well.
She fidgeted more and more the closer they got, hours ticking by as the Moon Palace grew larger, and the sea came into focus. She could barely feel the feelings of everyone else in the carriage over her own excitement – especially after the carriage jolted when they soared beneath the atmosphere and dove towards the grassy fields on the far side of the Moon Palace's grounds. The Moon Kingdom was beautiful.
"It'd be very good of you to transform," her mother said, once they'd landed. She had to say it loudly too – to be heard over Aphrodite's cheering. "I think it would be most proper for Queen Serenity to meet you as Sailor Venus."
"Okay!" she exclaimed, and she raised her hand and shouted "Venus Power!" and then she was Sailor Venus again, and she felt all the bright power buzzing through her from her pretty flats to her now free, blond hair. She whipped her head back and forth to shake it loose. It was too simple a hairstyle for being a princess, her mother always said. But she'd already tried braiding it when Aphrodite was Sailor Venus and it hadn't worked at all. So Aphrodite got to keep her hair loose in this form at least.
She was the first out of the carriage, barely hearing her mother's reprimands to walk as she raced across the field and to the beautiful, though empty, fountain at the end of the promenade that led to the sparkling, white palace. The tiles on the walkway were smooth, and she could see her face in them! And all around her there were columns that she noticed would also be fountains, but they too were off, the water that would cascade from them was still in the trenches that bordered the promenade.
"Why are they off?" she asked.
"I don't know," her mother said. Aphrodite frowned. She had a hard time telling when it was her mother, but it sure felt like she was lying.
The only reason her mother and their four soldiers could keep up was because she twirled her way down the promenade, taking in the grounds, and the sparking sea beyond the palace, and the sky overhead where she could see a whole other planet looming big and close. They could barely even see the Earth or Mercury from Venus, far less anything else.
As she stared up at it, she saw another sort-of carriage arc across the sky. "Look!" she said.
This one wasn't being drawn by flying horses. Instead it had huge jets of flame spitting out behind it, and it was shiny and black from its pointy front to the tail behind it.
"The Martians brought a warship," the soldiers marvelled. "It ain't that dangerous is it?"
"Don't take your cues from them," the one who'd talked with her that morning said. "Swear they're paranoid about everything. Tragedy, sure, but we've got the Silver Crystal here."
"Hardly a comfort," the third muttered.
"Well it and the Martians comfort me," her mother said. "Wait, Aphrodite, don't run to them," she said, motioning for her to stand still. "It is appropriate that we wait here."
"Why can't we wait inside?" Aphrodite said. "Or greet them close up?"
"Because it would be beneath our station to run to meet others of the same standing," her mother said. "Equally so, it is rude to see anyone, regardless of standing, and walk ahead without them."
"You won't be waiting long kiddo," her favorite of the soldiers said, "Martians move fast."
Indeed they did, and she found she didn't mind waiting outside so much as she minded not running to them. Especially after she spotted the small, bright red person who leapt out of the warship first. She looked Aphrodite's age! And she had long black hair and her skirt was bright red, instead of bright orange. And her bow looked purple the closer she got.
And she had heels. Aphrodite noticed. She hated heels. How could anyone walk in them much less be a guardian in them?
She couldn't help herself once they were close enough for she and the red girl to meet eyes. She broke form and ran to her, holding out her hand before she remembered to bow.
"Hi, Sailor Mars!" she exclaimed. And Mars took her hand and shook it. She was so pretty. So Aphrodite did what she'd seen her father do whenever he met someone pretty. She kissed Mars gloved hand.
"Venesiens," she heard one of the other Martians mumble. "Overly formal charmers the lot of them."
"Is that a common custom?" Mars asked her. Her face was a little red. Was that her fault?
"Yes," Venus declared. There was something odd about Mars. Maybe it was her cool purple eyes or the spear she held in her other hand.
"Hmm," she said. "On my planet it isn't. Anyways," and then she bowed, to Venus and then to her Mother. "Queen Dione," she said. "I'm Sailor Mars, Guardian of War,"
"It is lovely to meet you, Sailor Mars – Aphrodite, have you remembered to introduce yourself properly."
Oops.
"Um – right. I'm Sailor Venus. And I'm the Guardian of Love and Beauty."
"You can… fight with those?" Mars frowned.
"Yes," Aphrodite scowled. She'd thought the other guardians were supposed to like her, but this Mars clearly didn't.
"If you say so," Sailor Mars said, holding her head a little higher and pointing her spear towards the Palace. "Shall we," she said it to Dione more than she did to Venus.
"We shall," her mother said, and their four soldiers fell back to talk with the contingent of Martians as the three of them walked ahead. "Are your own parents with you, Sailor Mars?"
"Unfortunately not," Mars said, and she didn't feel the slightest bit sad about it. That's what's weird, Venus realized She doesn't feel anything. "They were here several days ago, but it isn't a good idea to have them and myself gone from Mars for very long."
"Oh of course it wouldn't be," her mother said, though it made no sense to Venus.
With Sailor Mars along, her mother walked more quickly, and she could walk more quickly too, and she couldn't stop staring at the pure white palace with the great, black banners draped over the doors and off all the balconies. There was a guard in all black standing by the big doors and he pushed them both open as they approached, bowing so low to Mars and Venus that his helmet nearly brushed his boots.
She slowed as she passed him, causing her mother to bump into her as the feelings in the atrium struck her – grimmer than her own soldiers and accompanied by an intense, true sadness shared between all of the men and women who lined the atrium, all dressed in the same black livery.
"I know, what you're feeling, Dite," her mother said. Venus jumped. She hadn't realized her mother'd leaned down behind her. She squeezed Venus's shoulders. "It's okay Sweetie, keep walking."
She noticed Mars too, looking at her with one of her pretty eyebrows raised. She didn't need to feel her feelings to know that look. She looked just like Father when he thought she'd said something dumb and just like the kids who had teased her.
She straightened her shoulders so much it would have even impressed Madam Lupe and held her head higher than Mars was holding hers. Who cared how all the people in the palace were feeling. She wasn't gonna let Mars think she was weak.
She walked ahead of all of them, right up to the herald at the end of the Atrium, dressed in black like everyone else, who was standing beside a pair of white doors with a pink flower painted between the two of them. The herald bowed low just like all the others before straightening and tapping her staff three times against the floor.
"Announcing Sailor Venus, Sailor Mars, and Queen Dione of Venus," the woman said as the doors behind her swung open.
She bounded in, stopping short just as she took in the vision of Queen Serenity at the end of the room. She stood from her white throne as Venus approached and her hair, pure silver, fell nearly to the floor. It was held in perfect tails on either side of her head. It seemed to glow too, just like the rest of her, the same pale white as the moon itself. Even her gold crown shone, and (Sailor Venus stared) she had a symbol on her forehead just like a guardian would. She must really be powerful, the Queen wasn't looking at Sailor Venus, instead she was looking at the bundle of white blankets in her arms, which was cooing – The Moon Princess!
"It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Sailor Venus," the Queen's voice was a bit hoarse, like Aphrodite's after she'd been sick. "Sailor Mars, and Dione," she looked up at last and nodded at her mother. She had such bright, blue eyes. "It has been ages."
"It truly has," her mother said, bowing lower than she'd ever bowed to anyone. "I'm so sorry, Your Majesty,"
"Thank you," Serenity said, and then she finally looked at Aphrodite.
She shivered as soon as she met the Queen's eyes and didn't realize it was her gasp that had made the Queen frown. She trembled. Her hand came up over her heart and she stumbled back, into Sailor Mars.
"Hey watch it!"
She barely heard. And now she could barely see. She sniffed. And then again. She felt so very, very cold and sad. She'd never felt so sad in her life.
It's not me she realized as the strength of the feelings overwhelmed her. She began to sob just as her transformation failed. It's her.
She ran to Serenity, tripping on her long, formal gown and hugged the Moon Queen's legs.
"Aphrodite!" her mother shouted. "Your Majesty, forgive her. Sometimes she's…"
"I'm sorry," Aphrodite mumbled into Queen Serenity's dress. "I don't know why, but I'm sorry."
Serenity placed her warm hand on Aphrodite's head and she instantly felt calm, gentle power flood through her, banishing her tears.
"It's alright," Serenity murmured to her as she stepped back. "Are you okay, Princess Aphrodite?"
"Yes," Aphrodite sniffed. "But you're not,"
"You really can feel other's emotions," Serenity marvelled as she returned her hand to the bundle of blankets in her arms, rocking the Moon Princess who'd begun to cry. She rocked her as she told Aphrodite. "It's an astonishing ability."
"Why are you so sad?" Aphrodite whispered. "Why are you all so sad."
The Moon Queen bit her lip. "We've all had a very bad week, Princess Aphrodite," she smiled a little at her daughter. "With only a little brightness in it," and then she knelt. Which Aphrodite felt startle her mother. The Queen smoothed back Aphrodite's hair. "But I promise what has hurt us will not hurt you here. I have every confidence in those guarding the palace now." And she gestured to the doors at the end of the room. "If you'll follow my advisor." Aphrodite almost thought she was kidding until the white cat bowed to her. "Artemis will show you and Sailor Mars to your rooms. And, Luna," Aphrodite then noticed the purple cat standing at the doors on the other side of the throne room. "Will show Queen Dione and the rest of your delegations to theirs."
~Venus~
Artemis led her to a huge room with the Venus symbol on the doors. It had its own exit onto the palace balcony and it was right across from Mars' and the bed was so big and fluffy that she couldn't resist bouncing on it. She assured Artemis three times there wasn't anything she needed and he said she was free to do as she wished until dinner. "There's plenty of toys in Princess Thorunn's room," he said, nodding to the set of doors with the Juper symbol on them. "And she's staying in her mother's rooms this week, so I doubt she'll mind if you use them."
Her own room had tons of toys too – wooden swords, and puzzles, and balls to bounce and even a rocking horse. And though she was too nervous to knock on Mars door, she did manage to enjoy herself. She played with everything in the room until she'd made a spectacular mess and had just realized she would be in so much trouble and proceeded to try cleaning it up, when she heart Artemis voice in the hall again.
"You'll be here," he was saying. "Right next to Sailor Mars."
"Oh, really? Are we going to start training right away?" a little girl's voice asked. Aphrodite crept up to the door. "Has… has Mars used her powers yet? I've only had mine a few weeks. I haven't tried them much at all."
"That's perfectly fine," Artemis said. "Guardians don't traditionally start their training until their teens, believe me it was a surprise to learn you would all come into yours so early."
"Oh," Aphrodite peeked the door open and caught sight of the tiny, blue haired girl dressed in a blue sailor uniform and looking at everything through the equally blue visor over her eyes. Aphrodite winced, her head suddenly hurt like it did when father came to dinner after long, difficult meetings.
"What sorts of theories are there about that?" Sailor Mercury was asking Artemis as they walked together into her room. She talked like an adult. "Is it just because there's eight of us? Something to do with the re-emergence of dark energy, perhaps. I've read that Sailor energy tends to react to…"
Aphrodite rubbed her temples. Sailor Mercury was thinking so much.
I bet she's way smarter than me, Aphrodite sniffed, watching Mercury's door close behind she and the cat advisor. Just like Mars is way better at manners than me. And I bet Jupiter's better at everything than me. She gets to stay with her mom, after all. Maybe she doesn't need training.
Just as she was about to close her door, the one across the hall swung open.
"You're crying again?" Mars snapped. But she didn't look like Sailor Mars anymore. Instead, she was wearing a red tunic and red pants with black trim around the hems and sleeves.
"Shut up," Aphrodite said, rubbing her head. "I just feel too much, okay? Just cause you think it's weird doesn't mean you can yell at me."
And she slammed the door in the Martian Princess' face and ran to her bed, burying her face in the fluffy pillow.
She was sad, and her head hurt, and she was feeling everyone's feelings worse than usual after meeting the Queen. And everyone else was sad and Mercury thought so much Aphrodite had a headache. And she couldn't talk to Lady, and her mother wasn't here, and she wanted to go home.
I bet Hippolyte wouldn't think I was so strong now, Aphrodite thought as she cried.
She didn't hear her door click open. So she didn't realize she wasn't alone until the Martian princess had sat on her bed and put a hand on her shoulder. Aphrodite froze and lifted her head, glaring up at the Martian Princess.
"You are weird," the Martian princess said. "Everyone here is weird."
"You're weird," Aphrodite muttered.
"I am not," the princess retorted. Crossing her arms. Then she bit her lip. "I'm sorry if was mean to you… They said I should try to be friends with all of you, but everyone knows Venesiens are silly, and air-headed, and formal."
"They're too formal," Aphrodite said. "I don't know about the first two."
"Well they suck at fighting don't they?"
"That's a bad word!" Aphrodite exclaimed.
"Ugh, you are weird. You sound like my tutors." The princess scowled. "Why'd you kiss me?"
"Cause you're pretty," Aphrodite said. "But that was before you were mean."
"I… I am trying not to be." The princess scowled. "I just don't understand any of you."
"Well I don't understand you," Aphrodite said. "I can't even feel you!"
The princess got really quiet. "You really can feel what everybody feels."
"Yes," Aphrodite sniffed. "And everyone's sad. And so I'm sad. And I don't want to be, and it… sucks." She stumbled over the bad word. Mother and Father would be so mad…
The Martian princess was frowning. "Why can't you feel me?"
"I don't know," Aphrodite said. "Maybe you just don't feel anything." That was mean. She realized, and she could tell from Mars face too. She grabbed the princess hand as she slipped off the bed. "Wait! I didn't mean thaaahh!" she fell on the floor herself as the Martian princess threw her over her shoulder. She landed with all the air rushing out of her and coughed. The Martian princess foot was on her chest, pressing down.
Then it was gone. And the Martian princess was kneeling by her, clutching her tunic over her heart as she helped Aphrodite sit up. "Sorry!" she mumbled. "I've never actually thrown anyone before! I was expecting you to fight back!"
"Ow," Aphrodite wheezed. At least she didn't feel everyone else's sadness anymore. Her head hurt a lot more though. She coughed.
"Sorry!" the princess said. "Please don't be hurt…"
"I'm okay," Aphrodite said. She was already getting her breath back. She sniffed again. And again.
"Stop crying!" the Martian princess yelled. Her hand shook Aphrodite. "I don't know how to… fight crying."
"You fight so good," Aphrodite murmured. "I… I can't fight at all." She sniffed again. "And I have to feel what everyone else does. And I'll never be a strong guardian like you."
"I… don't… know what to do…" the Martian princess muttered, grabbing Aphrodite's other shoulder. "I'm sorry…"
She suddenly didn't care if this princess was mean and weird. Her hands were warm like Serenity's, and she had leaned in close to Aphrodite's face, and her hair smelled pretty like flowers. She fell on her, wrapping her arms around the Martian princess and burying her face in her tunic. She sobbed on her as the Martian princess held her stiffly. And then after a very long time of Aphrodite crying on her, she relaxed. And she hugged Aphrodite back.
She ran out of tears shortly after. Rubbing her eyes with her hands as she pulled away from the Martian. "Sorry." she sniffed.
"Um… It's okay… Do people on Venus hug a lot?"
"Not really. Maybe the other castes. Mother hugs me a lot."
"They're nice," the Martian decided. "Are you… done crying now?"
"I think so," Aphrodite murmured. "I think I'll cry when we have dinner though."
"Cause you… feel everyone." The Martian thought a moment. "I think I can fight that." And she grabbed Aphrodite's hand and dragged her over to the fireplace. She pointed her finger at it and Aphrodite's eyes widened – all the wood in the hearth was suddenly aflame.
"Sit like this," the Martian said and Aphrodite copied her, kneeling and clasping her hands in her lap. "And do what I do –" and she breathed in for a really long time, and held it, and then breathed it all out again super slowly. "Now you."
It took her three tries to do it to the Martian's satisfaction. And then the princess said. "That's meditating. It helps me keep my head clear – especially when I do it in front of the fire." She breathed again, in… and out. And it was easy for Aphrodite to copy her. "We can do this until dinner," the Martian said. "Then maybe you'll be calm enough that you won't cry."
So they meditated together. The Martian princess watching the fire and Aphrodite trying it at first, but she found meditating worked much better when she stared at the Martian girl, who was so pretty and still weird and maybe a little bit nice… maybe.
Having her is better than having no friends, Aphrodite decided.
She was a lot calmer by the time Serenity knocked on her door and asked them to come down to dinner. Mercury's mind didn't make hers hurt at least. But Serenity still felt impossibly sad. Aphrodite shivered as they followed her and reached out for the Martian princess hand. The other girl flinched. Oh that was right. She didn't like touching.
"Sorry," she started to say. But the Martian princess hand stayed in hers, and held it… maybe too tightly, but it was calming all the same.
"It's okay," the Martian girl whispered as they walked behind the chatting Queen Serenity and princess of Mercury.
"What's your name?" Aphrodite asked.
"Areisa."
~Venus~
She stuck close to Areisa the rest of the day, and found that everyone's feelings didn't make her nearly so sad if she focused on how Areisa didn't feel like anything. For the first time in her life, Aphrodite found herself trying not to feel anything too.
It was easier away from everyone. The tall, princess Thorunn didn't say much to them except hello, but they got to spend a lot more time with Mercury, Princess Athena, that night. She was weird. She talked more than Aphrodite and used words Aphrodite bet even her father didn't know and she coloured inside the lines.
But she wasn't sad, and after Aphrodite got her to laugh at a picture she wasn't thinking quite so hard either. And then she was really nice – nicer than Areisa by a lot. And she talked about Mercury a lot too, even if she said lots of things that Aphrodite didn't understand (Areisa looked confused too, which made her feel much less dumb).
They talked until her mother and Queen Serenity came up to say goodnight to them and Serenity seemed to feel a bit less sad, or maybe she knew how to hide it like Areisa seemed to. She still held the baby princess in her arms, wrapped up in lots of blankets. Aphrodite wondered if she ever put her down.
She found, despite the fluffy bed, she didn't sleep well that night, and from the look on Areisa's face the next morning, she hadn't slept well either.
"It's nothing," Areisa said. "I had a… bad dream." She shook her head and ran a hand through her still-messy black hair. "But the Queen said we're protected here. So it's not gonna happen."
"What?" she and Athena asked as they went down to breakfast.
"An attack," Areisa whispered.
Maybe it's the evil Mother talked about, Aphrodite thought. She squared her shoulders. "Well even if it did, there's four guardians here – we have guardians of War and Wisdom, and Love and Beauty…and whatever Jupiter is." She looked at the two of them. "We can fight it right?"
"I don't know," Athena said. "I've never fought anything. I've only read about it."
"I can fight." Areisa said.
"See, Brains," Aphrodite said. "We can do it."
She ran to her mother as soon as she saw her at breakfast, hugging her around the waist.
"What's wrong?" her mother said.
Aphrodite suddenly didn't want her to know about the attack. After all, Areisa herself said it probably wouldn't happen. So for the first time ever, she tried to change her face so she was smiling instead of frowning. "Nothing," she promised her mother. "I'm just hungry."
"Well remember your manners," her mother said.
The Naming Ceremony was a whole hour after breakfast – everyone else needed a long time to get ready. The guardians didn't. It took them barely a second to transform.
Everyone bustled about getting changed and putting the final touches in the throne room for the Naming Ceremony. And then it was just the four of them together in the atrium – Venus, Mercury, Mars, and the subdued Sailor Jupiter who held her big hammer in both hands and didn't seem to want to talk to anybody. She seemed sad just like everyone else. All they had was the herald and a lady in waiting named Cornelia to watch them.
Aphrodite looked at the three other guardians, biting her lip. Mercury sorta felt like she could be her friend. And Areisa hadn't been mean to her since they'd met. But she wondered if they'd really be friends. Jupiter didn't seem interested at all. And she was supposed to have been her best friend.
She bounced on the balls of her feet and tapped her pretty orange flats against the ground.
Surely they didn't have to stand here in silence for an hour.
"Hey, Brains," she said loudly to Mercury. "Who do you think can run faster – me or Jupiter?"
Athena might have been as nervous as her, but she immediately started thinking. Aphrodite's head already hurt. "Well, based on her height and age, I am inclined to say Jupiter," Mercury decided. "But you did run incredibly fast yesterday."
"I'm faster," Jupiter said immediately. "I run like lightning."
"Wanna bet?" Venus asked, walking right up to Jupiter. The other girl watched her as she ignored all her manners and rose up on her toes. If Jupiter was going to be her friend, she needed to pay attention to her first. She pressed her nose right up to Jupiter's. The older girl was already irritated. Aphrodite crossed the fingers of one hand behind her back as she poked Jupiter on the shoulder. "Tag, you're it." and she sped off, running to the opposite side of the atrium as Jupiter yelled and chased her, nearly keeping up with her even though she held the heavy looking hammer in one hand.
Venus shrieked as she raced Jupiter around the room, feeling her go from sad to excited as they raced onwards. She even felt the herald and Cornelia get less sad. And when she looked they were smiling.
And when she looked, Jupiter caught her, crashing into her with so much force that Venus "oofed" and the two of them tumbled to the floor in a heap.
"Gotcha!" Jupiter grinned.
"Still faster," Venus said.
"Well I'm faster than both of you." Mars declared, tapping them both on the head with the butt of her spear. "You're both it."
And then she and Jupiter were scrambling over each other to get to Mars who was sticking out her tongue at them as she ran. And Mercury was shouting for them not to smash into the walls, as there was a good chance they would break the stones just… like that. And then Mercury was running too as the three of them chased her for nagging.
As it happened, by the end, they didn't know who was the fastest, but Jupiter was definitely the strongest cause she put two more holes in the walls with just her hands and she lifted Mercury all the way over her head when she caught her.
"APHRODITE!"
"THORUNN!"
There were scratches, dents, and even scorch marks all over the walls and the floor by the time their parents got downstairs. Venus and Jupiter both froze in their tracks when their mothers shouted at them.
They were midway through their apologies when Aphrodite felt someone turn absolutely delighted in the otherwise gloomy Moon Palace and heard someone's laughter, as sweet as music, filter through the atrium.
And there, between her startled mother and an even more startled Queen of Jupiter was Queen Serenity, carrying the baby princess and smiling as Aphrodite had not seen her smile since arriving, and it was her laugh that was so beautiful. Aphrodite realized she hadn't heard that either.
"I clearly can't leave the four of you alone ever," the Queen was giggling, happy despite the sadness Aphrodite could still feel all over her. How could adults be sad and happy at the same time? It didn't make any sense!
"Come on," the Moon Queen said, beckoning them into the throne room. "I've been waiting for you all."
They entered after her mother and the Juper Queen. The Queen announced them herself.
"Presenting: Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury – the four Guardians of the Princess!" And once the four of them had knelt in the center of the room, the Queen held the princess up to the crowds. Venus beamed when she got her first real look at her.
She has hair like mine! Venus thought. The baby princess looked as beautiful as her favourite dolls. And her eyes were blue – not as dark as Aphrodite's blue – but like the Queen's.
She had a mark on her forehead just like the Queen's too – a golden crescent mark. Does that make her a guardian? Venus wondered. No… the Moon wasn't a planet, she remembered. Besides: Queen Serenity had one and she wasn't a guardian.
"We've been eagerly waiting for this!" Jupiter was grinning on her left side. "We will protect her with our lives!"
"She's most precious to us," Venus continued.
"And she will become Queen someday," Mars swore.
Their sentiments were echoed by the other guests and then an older lady in a golden habit came forward and asked the Queen what the child was to be called.
"Her name is Serenity," the Queen announced, looking away from her daughter and towards Venus and the other guardians. Her eyes were shiny. "Soon she'll grow and catch up to you all." She smiled. "It'll be fun, to see what kind of princess she grows up to be."
Suddenly, as she and the others watched all the presents being opened, Venus felt someone very different in the room. Someone hurt, angry, and cold. She heard a giggle and looked in the doorway to the atrium.
"I also have a present for you," The stranger said.
And then the room got very cold. Venus felt the Queen panic, just as everyone else in the room suddenly panicked.
Beside her, Mars whimpered, Jupiter's hammer fell from her hand, Mercury began to cry.
She saw, before her, the white palace burning, its columns crashing towards each other, and the Earth overhead was a sickly, bloody red. Everything around her smelled like sweat and acrid, cloying smoke. She whipped around in time to see a teenager with long, blond pig-tails and a stunning white gown crumple to the ground, sobbing.
She felt heavy and cold, and grabbed her head. It wasn't real. It wasn't real. She could feel everyone else's panic still and she latched onto that. She wasn't here in this burning world. She was in the throne room, and everyone was scared. She couldn't move.
But the only times she couldn't move were in her nightmares.
That's all this is, Venus thought. A nightmare.
And then she didn't see the crying princess anymore, or the burning palace, or the smoky skies. Instead she saw the throne room in the moon palace again, with all the lights extinguished and everyone still frozen.
"For the biggest celebration on the Moon," someone was muttering. Aphrodite darted her eyes towards the Atrium doors. Someone was walking through them, her dark hair and dress looked like shadows in the dark room. "And I was uninvited."
She walked right past Aphrodite, past all the soldiers and the guardians and up to the frozen Queen Serenity. The Queen's eyes stared far away. The lady grabbed her by the chin.
"This wouldn't have happened if you didn't exist," the dark haired woman muttered. She felt very scared, very angry, and very, very dark and cold like whatever magic she'd brought with her. Venus crept forwards. What do I do, she thought, trying to think past everyone's panic. Why were the other guardians frozen? What do I do? What do I do?
She had no hammer like Jupiter, no spear like Mars, and no idea how to fight. And Queen Serenity was still frozen in whatever nightmare Venus had just freed herself from.
The dark lady trailed a long nail across the Queen's cheek, leaving a red cut behind.
"Not so pretty now," she muttered and giggled. Venus shivered. The dark lady really felt absolutely delighted by scratching the Queen's face. "I don't know what she ever saw in you and not me."
And then Venus froze as the dark lady moved, bending over and frowning at Princess Serenity in the Queen's. "She looks just like you," the dark lady scowled. "Wretched, wretched…" she giggled again.
What do I do? What do I do? The dark lady's feelings were so all over the place Venus finally realized what her parents meant when they talked about criminals being "mad." When they laughed through their testimonies.
"No matter," the dark lady cooed. She put a hand to her chin as she considered baby Serenity. "I'm sure you don't have to look this way. And I'm sure I can raise you better. You won't be evil like she is. No, no. You'll be just like My Love. I'm sure." She reached her long, sharp nails towards Serenity.
Doesn't matter! Venus thought as she stopped trying to sneak and charged forwards. Just do something. She raised her hands like they had a weapon again. She needed a good weapon, something to block the mad lady. "STOP!" she screamed.
The orange gem in her tiara glowed and grew hot as she grasped something sturdy and heavy in both her hands. She raised the weapon up between she and the mad lady and her eyes widened when a glowing sword clashed against the mad lady's long fingernails. I have to fight, she thought. She shouted the first words that came to her amid the panic of everyone in the room. "Venus Wink Chain Sword!"
The attack wrapped around the mad lady, lashing her across the face and throwing her back until she slammed into the frame of the Atrium doors.
Instantly, everyone was awake. And everyone was screaming.
Except the guardians. Mars was glaring towards the atrium doors, spear already pointed at the mad lady and Jupiter had lightning rolling through the blade of her hammer. Even little Mercury had both hands before her. Venus glanced at baby Serenity, still crying in her blankets, and at the Queen, who was glaring towards the woman in the doorway.
"Polluter this holy place," Venus shouted, joining the line with the other Guardians. She held the heavy sword in one hand so she could put her hand on Mercury's shoulder. She felt the most afraid. "Who are you?"
The mad lady giggled, standing up and wiping a scratch Venus had left on her face. "I, too, live on the Moon, you know. But I live deep within its depths.
"Liar!" Jupiter shouted. "You don't live on The Moon!"
"That's right!" Mercury stammered.
"You came here without anyone's knowledge," Mars pointed her finger at her. "You're just here to spread your wicked darkness all throughout this planet, aren't you?"
Venus stepped towards Nehelenia, picking up the heavy sword again. The mad lady raised her hand.
"Wait," the Queen commanded. Venus looked back and backed towards the Queen when she gestured to her. The Moon Queen passed baby Serenity down into Venus arms and stepped in front of all four of the guardians. "Nehelenia," she addressed the mad lady. "If you are looking for peace and want to live on this planet, we welcome you here." Queen Serenity didn't feel like she liked that, even if she did mean it. "However," the Queen continued. Venus shivered; the Queen felt as dark, and cold as Nehelenia. "I can not allow you to bring hatred and darkness to this world!"
The mad lady giggled. "That's funny," she said. "Since you, too, came to this planet after wandering the galaxy. Aren't we both just immigrants here?"
Venus held the baby princess closer.
"Queen," Nehelenia said. "Darkness is necessary, if you will simply take my hand, and accept the darkness…We're not so different, you and I – we come from the same galaxy, the same planet. We both want the same things."
Venus gasped along with everyone else in the room when Serenity reached her hand out towards Nehelenia. "She's lying!" she shouted, but the Queen seemed not to hear. She felt empty, all of a sudden, Venus couldn't do anything, both arms still holding baby Serenity. "Queen!" she shouted as Nehelenia's dark power reached towards Serenity.
"Stranger!" Mars shouted, running in front of them all and shooting a fireball from her hand. "Leave here at once!"
It hit Nehelenia's dark power and extinguished it in a woosh of smoke. And Venus felt Serenity's senses return. She recoiled from Nehelenia, feeling sick. She opened her right hand and grasped a short, pink wand that appeared out of the air. It had a crescent on the top, and something shiny nestled in the middle of it. She pointed it at Nehelenia. Her arms were shaking.
"So that's what you tried to do," Serenity whispered.
"You use magic to give others the worst nightmares," Serenity said coldly. "You have caused mine." She pointed the staff at Nehelenia who appeared frozen. For the first time since she'd entered the room, the only thing Nehelenia felt was scared. The gold mirror at the mad lady's back glowed. "Now suffer your own – an eternity of it. I will seal you away! You will be forever banished to the world of darkness!" Then the crystal in the wand swallowed Nehelenia, and the Queen cried out as she pointed it at the golden mirror; Nehelenia's darkness was expelled from the crystal, into the glass.
"I'll give you a congratulatory present," Nehelenia's voice said as her eyes appeared huge in the mirror and glowed red.
Venus felt baby Serenity feel suddenly scared and the girl began to wail. She turned so she blocked the darkness with her back as it whipped around the room.
"This Kingdom will fall to ruins. And your beautiful princess will die before she ever takes the throne! That is my present to you! I shall place you all under my beautiful curse!"
The Queen shouted again, and the light in the crystal grew brighter. Venus watched the last of the darkness rush into the mirror. The glass darkened until she could only see her own reflection in it.
She shivered as the warmth returned to the room. Before the mirror vanished, she thought she saw Nehelenia's shadow.
Queen Serenity rushed back to her, scooping the still crying Princess Serenity out of Venus arms. "Thank you," she said.
The sword was suddenly heavy. She fell as the blade dragged her to her knees, feeling weak as her transformation faded away.
"APHRODITE!"
"THORUNN!" she saw the Juper Queen sweep Sailor Jupiter up in her arms right before her own mother crashed into her. And Queen Serenity banished her staff and walked to Mercury and Mars, holding them both close.
"That was evil wasn't it?" Aphrodite asked her mother.
"Yes," her mother gasped, squeezing her. "You're safe."
"She wasn't just safe," Serenity's voice carried over her mother's. "She defended us all." She nodded to the heavy sword that Aphrodite still clutched in her hand. "You truly must be so strong," Serenity whispered. "That's quite a powerful blade you summoned."
Then she walked to Aphrodite, knelt, and picked it up without any effort at all. The gold accents and the red jewels on the blade sparkled in the lights of the throne room. "Moonlight is the Holy Sword," Serenity explained. "That you're meant to wield it proves what I have suspected." She gestured to the other guardians. "You had the ability to break through that nightmare, where others didn't, and to give strength to your friends." She nodded to Aphrodite. "I'll look to you to lead the guardians," she said. "To keep them together when all seems dark."
Leader? Aphrodite thought, and her own mother echoed her thoughts.
"But," her mother sputtered. "But your majesty – She's not the oldest. And she'd never held a weapon before today. Surely Thorunn or Areisa would be…"
"I want Aphrodite to do it," Thorunn whispered. She'd de-transformed now, and was still in her mother's arms. "I let that evil thing just walk right in."
"We'd still be stuck without her," Areisa whispered, having pulled away from Serenity. "Even Martians know when they're not fit to lead." And then she bowed to Aphrodite, and that felt weirder than anything else Areisa had done.
They took lunch in Aphrodite's room cause the adults had things to discuss, and the Queen had rushed from the palace with Serenity, saying she had people to check on. So it was just the four of them and sandwiches huddled around the fire that no one thought was warm enough.
"She just walked right in," Areisa growled, picking the crust off her sandwich and chucking it into the flames. "I saw it, and even I wasn't prepared for…"
"You thought it statistically impossible that it would occur," Athena said, huddled close to Aphrodite. Thorunn and Areisa both refused to be hugged, though Thorunn felt like she should be.
"That witch got what she deserved at least," Thorunn growled, punching her fist into her other palm.
"She almost got Serenity," Aphrodite whispered, looking at all of them. "The Queen couldn't do anything… what if I hadn't?"
"But you did," Areisa interrupted. "You fought good," she scowled, dropping her mangled sandwich into her lap. "I sucked."
"I sucked too," Thorunn moped.
"I couldn't have broken free without you!" Aphrodite insisted. "Knowing you were all scared – that's what told me it wasn't real!"
She held her hand in the middle of all of them and pointed her finger at Areisa. "Don't bow to me again. We're a team. Got it? I can't be a good guardian without you," she told Areisa. "Or you," Thorunn, "And I'm sure I'll be very bad without Brains."
"I didn't do anything," Athena mumbled.
Aphrodite shook her. "Not today you didn't – but next time. Next time we're gonna put that brain of yours to work." She opened her hand, palm up, between the four of them. "You heard the lady, Serenity might die before she's even old enough to use that Silver Crystal. And she never did anything wrong." She met all of their eyes. "We have to work together and protect her – and this place. You all saw that nightmare."
Areisa was the first to put her hand in hers. "Yes,"
Then Thorunn, and then, shakily, Athena.
"I still don't think I'll be any good," Athena muttered.
"Well Brains," Thorunn grinned. Grins looked much better on her than frowns. "We have all summer to teach you."
~Venus~
Summer came and went before Aphrodite knew it. She didn't summon the sword again, though she started training with a staff, a light one according to Serenity and Areisa though it felt very heavy to her. Areisa and Thorunn could both spar with her, and though, by summer's end, she could match Thorunn on nearly every try, Areisa could always put her on the ground.
"She is the Guardian of War," Thorunn consoled her after the both of them got their butts kicked sparring the Martian. "It makes sense that she's good at everything."
"Martians also begin training with a diverse array of weapons from the time they can hold them," Athena said. "It's important – They're allowed to duel each other from the age of nine."
"No fair," Thorunn muttered. "I'll be nine next year and Mother won't let me duel anyone properly until I'm fifteen."
"I'm not trading with you," Areisa said as she walked up to them. "You'd be dead in a minute. I go easy on you guys."
Aphrodite groaned. She still had the bruises from the first time she'd fought Areisa. This is easy? She thought.
Even if she was bruised all over by the time the autumn wind came to the Moon, she was still dreadfully sad to leave. She launched herself at Thorunn when she saw the Venesien carriage in the skies and felt the taller girl hug her back. She felt so sad that Aphrodite started to cry. It made Thorunn swear a word she'd learned from Areisa and start to cry too. And when they pulled apart, Athena was sniffling and Areisa wrapped Aphrodite up in her own hug.
"Stop crying," she ordered. "You're getting boogers on my shirt."
But she didn't let her go. And then she hugged Thorunn too, while Aphrodite turned and picked up little Athena (whom she'd only found out later was four. And Aphrodite didn't believe it one bit). By the time the carriage had landed, they were all a hugging mess and Aphrodite was jammed into the middle of the huddle. She peered between Areisa and Athena's shoulders and watched the door of the carriage swing open.
It was not her mother who stepped out. It was her father.
She froze up instantly. Aware that her hair was improperly loose and her dress was muddy and she was definitely not taking care to mask her emotions. Areisa noticed her stiffen and stepped back, and the other two followed.
Her father nodded at her. He felt quite tired of her already. In fact he looked about to nag her, but then Queen Serenity's voice interrupted him. She'd emerged from the palace with little Serenity in her arms and it prompted her father immediately to bow.
"Your Majesty," he said. "I'm here to collect Aphrodite."
"You should be very pleased with her." The Queen smiled, beckoning Aphrodite over. She still felt quite sad most days, but now it seemed quite fresh. She's sad that I'm leaving, Aphrodite realized.
"She's shown incredible potential," the Queen said.
Her father nodded. "I look forward to seeing how she's improved."
And with goodbyes that seemed too brief, she was on her way home.
"You've certainly left no chance of salvaging those skirts," her father tutted as he picked up his notebook and began writing.
"I… I made friends with Princess Athena," she said.
He hummed. "Well that's something at least."
Even with Lady back for her to talk to, she missed the Moon Kingdom as soon as she set foot on Venus' surface. There was no Areisa to tease, no Thorunn to laugh with, and no Athena to encourage into making mischief. Even praise from Mother or Madam Lupe didn't make her feel the pride she had when Queen Serenity had praised her stance, or her aim, or her perky attitude. She even missed baby Serenity and all she did was smell and cry!
But, Aphrodite knew, the Princess was one of her favorite people to be around. She was happy about everything. And even when she was crying, it was easy to make her happy. Aphrodite'd never met anyone as happy as the baby princess. And it was a refreshing thing to feel from someone.
So she longed for the Moon, and when she visited her orbiting castle, Magellan, for the first time on her sixth birthday, the first thing she sought on its huge computers was the visage of the Moon Kingdom.
"How many days until summer?" she asked it.
"Three Hundred and Thirty One," it answered. She groaned. She could barely count past a hundred!
It felt like the longest year of Aphrodite's life and not even Lady could cheer her for long. She didn't even get to talk to her very much, she was stuck in lessons all day.
So when at last she made her second journey to the Moon Kingdom, she spent the entirety of the two-day ride bouncing about the carriage and imagining how the others would like their presents. There was wine from her parents, for the Queen, and the necklace of shells from her. She had a potted flower for Thorunn, a rock with crystals in it for Athena, and a pearl bracelet for Areisa, cause it was as pretty as she was.
She greeted Areisa with a kiss to the hand again, simply because she'd missed teasing her more than she'd missed nearly everything else. And Areisa responded by blushing and poking her, yelling "tag" and racing off. Aphrodite chased her all the way to the steps of the Moon Palace (which was no longer draped in black banners) and had nearly caught her, when the splash of cold doused her from crown to toes and soaked through her heavy new dress. She shrieked and glared up at the balcony.
"Nice one!" Thorunn high fived Sailor Mercury. "Check it out, Dite – Brains learned a new trick."
She couldn't even be mad. She tried very hard to be. But Thorunn sounded happier than she'd been the entirety of last year and Athena was beaming even if she was bright red and feeling sorry that Aphrodite was wet.
"You're gonna pay for that!" she shouted. Then she transformed and was finally free of her fancy hairdo and her heavy dress. She leapt all the way up onto the balcony with the love chain ready to grab the first trickster she could reach.
That summer, she learned Areisa could win hide and seek with her eyes closed, Athena could build a computer mostly by herself, and Thorunn was afraid of swimming – something they had to sort out immediately according to Aphrodite. No one should hate swimming – especially not someone as cool as Thorunn.
They managed to break enough things in the normal training yards that the Queen built them their own, and they also managed, with some effort, to turn all Aphrodite's skirts into pants. Thorunn did the sewing, and Athena read the instructions, and Areisa yelled at them all not to be such babies every time Thorunn accidentally stabbed herself or Aphrodite with the needles. They did such a good job that the Lady who minded them and Princess Serenity, Cornelia, only felt the need to redo half the stitching herself.
By the third summer, she nearly forgot to say goodbye to her mother when she dropped her off, and she wondered if that were the reason her mother was so angry and sad when she returned home.
Her fourth summer, Mother didn't even fly with her to the Moon Kingdom. "Your father can't be left alone," she had muttered, feeling the spike of anger that she now always did whenever Aphrodite's father was mentioned.
It was another year, and another summer, before she found out why.
~Venus~
She was eleven at last – and everyone seemed sure this was the year her wings would grow in. They said it always accompanied other changes – like how tall she now was and how pretty everyone said she was growing to be. "You're blossoming into a fine young lady," her father praised. And he wasn't even lying. She was so well mannered; Areisa and Thorunn's latest nickname for her was Miss. Priss.
She'd been trying very hard, the past few years, to please her mother with her etiquette. In fact she was trying to please her anyway she could. Summers on the Moon were growing to be longer and longer – so long that the leaves on its trees had all turned pink before Aphrodite left this past year. She'd almost stayed for her birthday. Areisa, Thorunn, and Athena had wanted to. (None of them had ever celebrated any birthday, but Serenity's together).
But she'd known how important the day was to her Mother. It was the only day Aphrodite ever felt her be truly happy anymore. Her birthdays, the past few years, they'd both gone sailing together, without her Father.
He had done something, Aphrodite knew, or several somethings. And her mother couldn't look at him or talk about him without feeling hurt and angry and ashamed. It made her angry to feel her mother so upset and even angrier to feel her father not feeling guilty about whatever it was.
So she went home for her eleventh birthday, just the day before, and leapt from the carriage before it had landed in order the run to her mother, who cared nothing for propriety when it was just the two of them.
When she hugged her though, she didn't feel happy. She felt tired, and sad, and the more Aphrodite hugged her the more upset she felt.
"What's wrong?" Aphrodite whispered.
"Oh nothing," her mother lied, plastering a believable smile on her face. Believable to anyone else, that was. "I have the best news – your father's joining us for your birthday this year. And he has a surprise for you."
They were having a ball, she learned only the morning of. She was fitted for a new dress as soon as she woke and after nearly four months running free in short shirts and pants it was nearly impossible to shuffle along in the heavy thing. But her mother was pleased and her father was pleased and everyone pronounced her beautiful – a compliment rare from all the Venesiens who looked nothing like herself.
I'm the Guardian of Beauty, she thought. And I don't feel beautiful in this. But she held her tongue. Her mother was happy. That was why Aphrodite'd come home for her birthday at all.
She could barely stand straight in the dress though, or sit up straight, and eating in it was near impossible. The tailor had fitted it incredibly tightly.
When the dancing at the ball began, she danced with every topaz boy and the more daring topaz girls who attended. It was only Topazes in attendance. The Pearls were playing the music and it was all the prettiest squires and pages – not the Granites – doing the serving. Her feet hurt by the fourth song and the sixth person stepping on them.
At last they announced she was to be presented with gifts. She sat in the smaller throne her father'd had built beside he and her mother's last year and put her most genial smile on her face as governors, and senators, and mayors and their children approached her and presented her with wines and jewels and fabric for new gowns.
Her mother's gift made her sit up straighter though.
It was a white cloak with bronze trim, symbols and charms for good luck, health, beauty, and fertility were embroidered along the inside. She'd only ever seen this once among her mother's things. Her marriage cloak!
"For you in a few years time," her mother sniffed. She felt all sorts of conflicted about the cloak in her hands. "When you're old enough to wed. This was the most beautiful thing I owned when I was your age – and it brought me much luck in my own marriage." She shot a look at her father that made him feel the barest hint of contrite. But only for a second "I hope it will bring you even more luck."
She stood, turned, and let her mother drape the heavy thing over her already heavy dress. It was much, much too long on her.
"You'll grow into it," her father assured her. "And now I'd like you to meet my gift to you."
Meet?
She didn't have to wonder long though, she felt her mother's intense flare of anger and shame just before her father's pride as he carried the happy toddler with dark gold eyes and black hair just like King Zeus' into the ball room. He bounced him and Aphrodite felt her own jealousy ignite as her father cooed at the little boy. "This is my son," he told her. "He turned two just this past summer, and he's old enough now that he can live away from his mother. And I can raise him as the Prince he's meant to be.
I won't be Queen, she realized, imagining she and her mother out on the street in the Peat-caste's ugly grey clothes.
"Dione's agreed to raise him as she has you," her father carried on, still beaming at the toddler. "Don't worry, Aphrodite, I'd never be rid of her. She runs things much better than I would."
"And…and me?" she stammered.
"I intend to keep you as the heir. You've been raised to it. You've proven yourself perfectly capable of the decorum required and you're acquiring beauty people desire in a ruler. He stepped up onto the dais and raised the toddler over his head. The child was drooling. Eeww. "What I've chosen to give you today is a legitimate claim to the throne." She still didn't understand. She looked over at her mother, but she wouldn't look back.
"I'd like today to present Prince Hephaestus to the court," her father's voice boomed. Cheers erupted all over the ballroom. "A blood member of the topaz caste, and the next King."
"But…" Aphrodite struggled to string her confusion into a question. "You just said I was your heir."
"You are," Zeus said. "But the people would never find one of questionable birth, as you are, acceptable on her own." He turned Hephaestus towards her. "That's why Hephaestus is the perfect solution. You and he will both be raised to the role. And he will give you the legitimacy you lack. I know that you'll love him," he told Aphrodite. "I declare you both betrothed."
"Betrothed…" she whispered over the cheers of everyone else present.
"When you're of age Aphrodite, you'll marry him."
She'd be of age in only five years.
"He'd be seven!" she exclaimed.
"Well best to marry early – more time for you both to grow accustomed to the idea. And you can always have a proper ceremony and celebration once he's of age."
Proper celebration. Thorunn's cousin had gotten married that summer. She'd heard enough from the older guardian to understand what proper celebrations at weddings were.
Her mother was tired and still quite ashamed, but she was so, so happy…
"As long as he can dance properly by then," Aphrodite quipped. She clasped her hands behind her lest her father get any ideas about her wanting to hold the toddler, the brother, she was meant to marry. "Thank you, Father."
She didn't speak to anyone for days afterwards. She stayed in her rooms. Her father didn't notice. She now knew why he spent more days than not away from the Palace.
She often spotted him playing with Hephaestus on the beach through her window. The boy chased away the birds and threw the crabs and snails against the rocks, and her father was delighted by the drooling idiot.
Do I have to marry him? She thought.
"I know it feels strange now," her mother consoled her. "But he won't be a child forever. Nor will you. And you have years to grow to love him, Aphrodite. Most couples don't even get that."
"I thought love was something you just felt." She said, turning to look at her mother. "I didn't have to try to love you, or Venus, or even Queen Serenity or the princess or the guardians. I just… love you all without trying." She glared out the window as Hephaestus giggled. "I don't love him."
Her mother sighed. "I didn't love your father for the first few years we were married."
She blinked. And turned to look at her mother properly. What?
"We were an arranged match," she said. "I was beautiful, and he thought I was the brightest girl he'd ever met, and he didn't think there was anyone else who'd make a better Queen than me." She picked up the brush and walked behind Aphrodite, beginning to run it through her long hair as she hadn't in years. "And I knew I'd never get the chance otherwise – for an onyx to marry into the Topaz caste was so rare. I jumped at the chance." She hummed. "And I didn't love him for a few years – it took a while to grow accustomed to him. But he loved me from the start and he has always made me happy."
"He isn't now," Aphrodite said.
"Well we've reached an agreement of sorts. He still loves me as a Queen though he needs other things – some people do, it is the nature of any marriage. And he knows his chosen goose is dreadful at maths. So he knows she can't be Queen, and he's trying to win back my favour."
"So this is why you don't sleep in the same rooms anymore," Aphrodite snarked.
"Oh look on the bright side," her mother said, the brush still running through her hair. "You still get to be Queen, don't you? This was the best compromise your father and I could come to."
She knocked the brush away, glaring at her mother. "You agreed to let him betroth me?"
"I offered!" her mother fired back. "Dear, there's nothing I want more than to see you be Queen. It is your right! As my daughter and as a guardian. I have seen you work too hard to have you passed over because of our caste's traditions." She stepped closer to Aphrodite. "You would have had an arranged match anyways – this, I think is the best one: you can teach Hephaestus to be exactly the kind of man you'd want."
She felt so hopeful. And her eyes were watering. And Aphrodite didn't know what to do.
Lady, she asked, straining to reach her oldest friend. It was harder every year to speak with her planet.
Trust yourself, Lady said as always.
"Please try," her mother begged. "I want you to have everything that I have Aphrodite. You could improve this world so much as its Queen."
She sighed. Lady never had understood human customs well.
"I'll try," she muttered.
~Venus~
Hephaestus grew from a toddler into a child before her eyes and once he was old enough to stop drooling on himself, she found him a bit tolerable. She preferred young Serenity by far. That child had never tugged anyone's hair or thrown a crab or kicked sand at the birds.
"Stop it!" she'd hissed to Hephaestus one day when she was twelve and he did just that.
"Aphrodite!" she groaned when her father yelled as soon as Hephaestus began to cry. "Leave him be!"
"He's hurting them,"
"He doesn't know better," her father said.
I'm trying to teach him better, she thought angrily. But she stormed off instead. She hated fighting with her father about Hephaestus. It always made her tired. And it always made Mother sad. And she felt all out of sorts besides that these days anyways. She was moody. And her face was a mess of gross pimples she couldn't scratch, and her wing marks hurt.
They didn't fit beneath her tight dresses anymore, which was the only reason she'd been allowed to trade them in for flowing skirts and low cut tops. It was a small comfort. No one had warned her that growing wings were so painful. She could see them when she turned round, barely poking out from the bulges on her back. They were coming in agonizingly slowly. Not even the thought of being able to fly made it better.
She was a mess when she arrived on the Moon. And Thorunn and Areisa were the first ones there to greet her.
"What's wrong with you?" Thorunn asked when she stepped slowly from the carriage.
"Everything," Aphrodite groaned. The pants she'd changed into did little to improve her mood. She hadn't been this bad the summer before, preferring to ignore everything related to Hephaestus. But now he was always at the palace or on the beach and he was the only thing she could think about in addition to how painful these effing wings were.
Then she looked at Areisa. "You're shorter than me," she realized. And indeed Areisa was, by an inch.
"Well I'm not in my heels are I?" Areisa said, throwing her beautiful black hair over her shoulder. It was shining the purple colour that always caught her eye in the sun. "What?" Areisa demanded, holding out her hand. "Am I not pretty anymore?"
She'd always greeted Areisa with a kiss on the hand every since meeting her. The Martian princess always blushed, but she had offered her hand to Aphrodite of her own accord last year, just as she was now.
"You're always pretty," Aphrodite sighed. "Sorry I'm… just distracted."
And she lifted Areisa's hand to her lips and shivered as she imagined that some day Hephaestus might kiss her hand like that. He's drooled on me, Aphrodite thought. No way is he ever kissing me.
When she dropped Areisa's hand, she wasn't prepared for the other girl to grab it again, stepping in close to her and wrapping her arm around Aphrodite's waist. She stood on her toes and rested her head on Aphrodite's bony shoulder and made her best effort at a hug.
"I think you need a room," Thorunn murmured.
She squeezed Areisa's hand and ignored Thorunn's teasing, resting her head on Areisa's shoulder and clutching her closer with her other arm.
"They'll come in this summer," Areisa whispered to her. "They won't be painful much longer."
She sounded like she's seen it. And her voice sounded as soothing as the Queen's or her mother's ever did. Maybe Areisa's practiced being nice. Aphrodite chuckled. And then sniffled, and then couldn't help crying on Areisa.
"It's not that," she muttered. "It's not that at all."
When Athena arrived the next day, that was when she finally told them all, they had trained very hard that day and she was feeling a bit better. She'd beat Areisa in a sparring match for the first time ever. She had a strong suspicion Areisa'd let her win. But it had worked; her spirits were up. And before bed, the four of them were all leaning over the balcony together, shoulder to shoulder. And Areisa'd put her extra warm hand over Aphrodite's sore wing marks and that was helping some.
The Earth was gone from the Moon's sky tonight, making all the stars shine that much brighter. And she was content, and warm, and calm for the first time in ages, with Areisa on her right, Thorunn on her left, and Athena just on Areisa's other side.
"I'm betrothed," she whispered to them. "My father had a real kid and betrothed me to him."
"That sucks," Areisa said, just as Thorunn frowned.
"What's betrothed mean?"
"It's a form of engagement," Athena told the Juper princess as Areisa and Aphrodite gaped at her. "Where parents traditionally arrange for their children to marry each other."
"Well… I mean that's a lot of responsibility to think about at eleven, but at least they're your age right? And you love them?"
Aphrodite frowned at Thorunn. "I didn't… get to chose him. And he's not my age. He's three."
"WHAT?" Thorunn shouted. "That's… that's allowed!"
"She'll probably marry him when he's older than three," Areisa said. She looked at Aphrodite. "Do you like him at all?"
"Forget that?" Thorunn said. "Back up to your father is ordering you to marry him! My mother encourages me not to date anyone."
"It's different on Jupiter," Athena said. "Arranged marriages are the way Venus caste system is maintained and the way people rise through it. And they're still fairly common for Mars more powerful families"
"Gotta keep the strongest blood with the strongest," Areisa nodded, though she wrinkled her nose. "I'll end up married to one of my competitors for the throne in any case." She sighed. "Unless I renounce my claim to it, which," she scowled. "I'm not keen on either."
"And you'll really marry him?" Thorunn gaped at Aphrodite.
She nodded. "It's a peaceful way to keep everyone happy."
"Everyone, but you," Athena whispered. "I mean… statistically speaking, Venesien marriages are some of the unhappiest."
"Thanks, Brains." She sighed. "I keep thinking if Mother can grow to love Father, I can love Hephaestus. She made a face. "Some day when he doesn't always feel sticky and doesn't kick birds and doesn't put my hair in his mouth."
"Oh he's doing romance all wrong," Areisa murmured. "I prefer my suitors – who dream of having my head on a spike."
"Wait, What?" Athena and Thorunn stared at Areisa.
"Actually," Aphrodite considered. "That might be an improvement on Hephaestus."
And she didn't know how, but Areisa had made her laugh.
~Venus~
She'd been peering at them in the windows of the Moon Palace for a week and a half – the flimsy yellow wing tips that she could move if she just concentrated.
They'd unfurl today, she'd known it as soon as she woke up without pain from them for the first time in a year. And just in time – she and the others were going to be leaving for the season in only two more days.
She'd stayed outside after morning practice and Areisa'd quit sparring with her after one match, declaring her useless. So instead she'd waited with Aphrodite in the field overlooking the moat as she watched her wings in the water – able to move them more and more as the day wore on.
Thorunn, Athena, Serenity, and the Queen all came out to have dinner with them in the grass long before the sunset.
It was Serenity who noticed first.
"They're coming out!" the seven year old squealed in her most delighted voice. And they really were. Aphrodite jumped up and spun and felt them catch the summer breeze. Serenity and her mother grinned and her fellow guardians stared as the wings unfurled behind her.
She could see them from the corner of her eye. They were pale yellow and looked glittery in the sunlight. She shrieked and jumped up, and stayed up, the wings catching the air and moving with barely a thought from her. She screamed once as the breeze knocked her into a cartwheel, but was laughing by the time she'd righted herself.
She could fly. She could fly!
"Do you know how to get down?" the Queen shouted up to her. Everyone looked so small. She could see the whole Mare Serenitas.
Could she get down? It took her several tries and another fight with the wind. But she eventually did, stumbling as she hit the ground at a run. She whooped!
"Who wants a ride?" she boasted.
"Me!" Serenity cheered. She was so excited and so small and what if she dropped her? Aphrodite looked at the Queen.
"She's not flying anyone," the Queen said, picking Serenity up. "You have to let her practice with them first. Besides," the Queen tapped Serenity's nose. "A certain Princess needs a bath."
"Awww."
The Queen and princess waved them goodbye and all four of them bowed and waved as they left the field.
As soon as the little moon princess was out of earshot, Thorunn rounded on her.
"I wanna try!" she exclaimed. "I don't even care if you drop me."
"I won't," Aphrodite said, hovering off the ground and startling Thorunn when she swooped in and picked her up under the shoulders. "You're heavy." She complained.
Working with the sword all summer had made her stronger and she got Thorunn almost as high as the palace roof, and even soared them around the building, before she lost her grip and dropped her in the moat.
Thorunn hardly cared though, and Athena, once they'd pushed her into trying it, was much lighter and less squirmy. Aphrodite managed to fly her for several minutes before setting her on the ground.
"Those are deceptively strong!" Athena marvelled as soon as they landed. "The propulsion required to lift a person your size let alone two…"
"Is going over my head," Aphrodite looked at Areisa. "You wanna try?"
"Are you gonna drop me in the moat?" she asked.
"Not if you're good," Aphrodite winked. And Areisa blushed. The only time Aphrodite ever had any clue what she was feeling. She wondered why seeing Areisa blush made her feel suddenly like there were butterflies in her stomach.
Areisa turned her back to her and held out her arms and Aphrodite flew up and then swooped in to pick her up off the ground.
Thorunn had whooped and shouted, Athena had filled her whole flight with gasps and exclamations about everything they could see. Areisa, Aphrodite frowned, didn't make a sound.
Two minutes into their flight she began to shiver.
"Are you cold?" Aphrodite asked. And Areisa shook her head. "Scared?" another shake. Aphrodite groaned. "I can't tell what you're feeling, you know that right. Do you want to get down."
"No," Areisa's voice was hoarse. She's crying, Aphrodite realized as she tried to lean towards her, but Areisa turned her face away. "I'm fine," she muttered. "Keep flying… please."
So Aphrodite did, all around the palace and over the sea. She even dove down so that Areisa's sandals skimmed across the surface of the water. It gave her the chance to see her reflection in the sea. She was crying… and grinning.
Why? Aphrodite thought.
But when she set her down, Areisa rubbed her tears away before the others could see and she glared at Aphrodite. "You nearly dropped me!"
"Did not!" Aphrodite sputtered.
"Did so,"
"Don't start," Thorunn groaned. "Or I'll toss both of you in the moat."
The last night of their stay, Aphrodite was staring out at the sky when she heard someone walk up behind her and turned. Areisa had slipped into her room.
"Couldn't sleep?" Aphrodite asked.
"Too many dreams," Areisa said. She'd been having more and more of them as they aged.
"Any we need to know about?"
"None that I understand." Areisa bumped shoulders with her and leaned over the balcony with her, staring up at the crescent shape of the Earth in the starry sky. "I don't want to go home."
"Why?" Aphrodite asked. But Areisa shook her head. She hadn't said anything at all about Mars this summer, Aphrodite realized. She sighed. "It's probably different, but I don't want to go home either."
"It is different," Areisa turned towards her. "Can we… go flying again?"
Aphrodite was already in the air. She grasped Areisa's hand. "Here," she said, pulling her up so she stood balanced on the balcony rail. Aphrodite flew up behind her. "Hold on." Instead of scooping her up by the shoulders, she wrapped Areisa in a hug so her back was pressed flush against Aphrodite, and then hooked her legs around Areisa's. This way, she was much easier to carry.
"How's this?" she asked after she'd taken off, flying them higher and higher over the palace. She wanted Areisa to see the entire sea.
"F-fine," Areisa whispered. She curled her warm hands around Aphrodite's arms.
They flew so long that Aphrodite saw the sun peeking above the horizon before she realized she was tired. They were far from the palace now. She swooped in towards a set of grassy cliffs that faced the sunrise and set Areisa down before landing.
Areisa, who had not said anything in hours, collapsed in the grass with tear tracks staining her cheeks and a grin on her face.
And then she laughed. Areisa rarely laughed. And it made Aphrodite so happy she might have hovered off the ground. She folded her wings behind her and sprawled out on her stomach beside Areisa, still laughing as she swept her friend's black hair away from her face.
"Thank you," Areisa whispered, grabbing Aphrodite's hand. "That was… amazing."
"Then why did you cry?" Aphrodite asked.
Areisa thought for a very long time and then closed her eyes. "When we flew… I'd never felt so free." She looked at Aphrodite. "And… I don't ever feel that way at home."
"Why?" Aphrodite whispered.
"I don't want to say," Areisa whispered. "I… I can handle it, I promise."
"Well… you have us if you ever can't," Aphrodite said. But Areisa looked like she might withdraw soon, and maybe ask to go back. Aphrodite squeezed her hand. She wasn't ready to let go. "I don't ever feel free at home either," she confessed. She couldn't believe the summer was over tomorrow. "Ugh! I have to see Hephaestus in two days."
She made a dramatically disgusted face that got Areisa to chuckle. "Maybe he won't drool now," Areisa teased.
"He'll still be gross and mean," Aphrodite scowled. "Mother says I'll grow to love him but… he's drooled on me."
"That is gross," Areisa agreed. Then she sighed. "But he might be nice when he's older."
"The memory would still be there," Aphrodite shivered. "I can't believe I have to kiss him someday."
Areisa nodded. "It's a weird feeling." She looked away from Aphrodite and up towards the stars. "I feel that way about my potential matches," she confessed. "I look at them, and I can't imagine ever wanting to kiss them… my parents say I'll feel different when I'm older but…"
"Well what do they know," Aphrodite scowled.
"A lot, I expect," Areisa said. "They were matched too… but even the girls they want to match me with… I just don't like them."
"At least they give you options," Aphrodite said. "Do your… choices actually want your head on a spike?"
"One of them wrote me a love poem about it," Areisa said.
"Eeew."
"Finally!" Areisa laughed. "Everyone else thought it was romantic." She sighed. "They say the Moon's made me soft… I don't even think they're wrong." She looked back at Aphrodite. "I don't think I'd mind, you know, if I could feel what all the love stories say you're supposed to first… I want to like my first kiss."
Her stomach felt full of butterflies again, and Areisa's face was half-lit by the first rays of the sun, and she had the most ridiculous idea.
"Maybe we can," she whispered. "I mean… if you want to."
Areisa sat up then. And Aphrodite followed. "We don't have to," she said in a rush. What if Areisa hated her for suggesting it? She hated that she could never know what she was feeling. "It was a dumb idea." She laughed and shook her head. "Forget…"
Areisa's hand was on her cheek and she put her other hand over one of Aphrodite's on the grass. She held completely still as Areisa leaned in.
She'd always liked kissing Areisa's hand. She'd never imagined being kissed by her would feel so different.
The kiss was quick and warm. When Areisa darted away, her face a furious red, Aphrodite licked her lips.
"You taste good," she said without thinking. She wondered who was blushing more.
"Did you like it?" Areisa whispered behind the hand she held to her lips.
"Yeah, did you?"
"Yeah…"
They watched each other as the sun rose, barely moving and still holding hands. Aphrodite wondered if Areisa was thinking as many things as she was.
She'd liked kissing her. She wanted to kiss her again.
They were going home tomorrow. She still had to be betrothed to Hephaestus.
And in three years, she had to marry him.
This is bad, Aphrodite decided.
When she noticed the sky had turned completely blue and not a single star remained. Aphrodite released Areisa's hand.
"We have to go back," she sighed.
~Venus~
By her fifteenth birthday, the tailors were already doing fittings for her wedding dress, despite her protests that it would be a whole year before she has to wear it.
"Well it has to be perfect," the chief tailor protested. "And you are difficult – none of the traditional colors will look good with your complexion. Or your hair – and certainly not these," he poked her wing.
"Cut it out!" she snapped. "I can feel those, you know."
"Sorry," he shrugged.
She couldn't even enjoy the flight to The Moon that year, despite the solitude it granted her. All she could think of was the end of the summer: when she'd turn sixteen, and Hephaestus would be seven, and they'd have to officially be married. No chance of her ever getting married to anyone else.
It was always the one with the deeper Topaz caste ties who had the power to sever a marriage. And that was Hephaestus. And that meant that it'd be a whole eight years before he'd even be old enough to make that decision.
She was surer than ever that she didn't want to marry him. He was impatient, and stubborn, and still threw tantrums, and hated reading, and he smelled like old candy. He was even sticky like old candy.
And Areisa was impatient too, and more stubborn, but she liked those things about Areisa. And Areisa was her age, and smelled like smoke and lavender, and she felt warm and soft.
And Aphrodite liked kissing her. They'd snuck many of them the past two years. She liked kissing Areisa better than she liked just about anything. Except maybe dancing with her. Areisa loved to dance and had never learned how on Mars. So now Aphrodite taught her nearly every night in the summer times: step by step, their hands clasped, and (more often than not) Areisa's head resting on her shoulder. Often, she flew them up to the top of the palace tallest spire and twirled them round and round.
Because she knew if there was one thing Areisa liked more than Aphrodite, it was quiet nights full of stars.
She'd arrived on the Moon earlier than Areisa for the past two years. So it was a surprise, when she was fifteen, to arrive and learn from Princess Serenity that Areisa was already there.
"And she won't talk to me," Serenity pouted. She felt so confused and worried for Areisa "She just trains or stays in her room all the time."
"Don't worry, Princess," Aphrodite said, bowing to her. "I'll talk to her."
They didn't end up talking though – that night, or any other. Aphrodite tried, but all Areisa had to do was kiss her and any ideas of stopping that vanished from her head. She only had a little while longer to kiss her after all. She'd be married nearly as soon as summer ended.
Please don't betray him, her mother said in one letter to her that summer. I know Hephaestus isn't your first choice. But don't do what your father did to me.
He's not my choice at all! Aphrodite wrote and then scratched out, and then ripped the paper. She shouted and banged her head against her desk.
"Your mother means well," the Queen consoled her one night when she tucked Serenity in and heard Aphrodite crying in her room. "But they've put you in an impossible place here." She knelt in front of Aphrodite.
"Do I have to marry him?" Aphrodite cried.
She hoped the Queen would say no, but only got a sigh.
"I want to tell you no, you don't, Aphrodite," she said. "But Venus…or rather your father, has stated he's more than willing to pull out of the Silver Alliance if you push against Venus' customs."
The Silver Alliance…
"He'd take Earth's side," Aphrodite whispered. "But… but the planets are stronger together! The guardians are a team. They're my team."
"You'd still be a Guardian," Serenity consoled her. "You'd still have your team." She sighed. "But every planet the Earth has makes them stronger, and divides our star system further. That puts all our futures more at risk."
The whole future… or my future…
"You don't have to marry him," the Queen said. "I would never say you had to."
Aphrodite sniffed and wiped her eyes. "What would you do?" she asked.
"It isn't my choice to make," Serenity said. She was always so hard to read – a maelstrom of sad, proud, and bittersweet whenever she was around the guardians.
Aphrodite sighed. She'd always been told guardians made hard choices. She never imagined this being one of hers.
"I'll marry him," she whispered.
She was stunned when the Queen leaned in to hug her, not usually so affectionate.
"Do not let that stop you from finding love," she whispered. "If you fall in love, don't let your parents choices stop you from making yours."
~Venus~
She was determined after that to commit herself even more to her training as a guardian. The first weeks of the summer she practiced longer and harder than any of the others. And the Queen rewarded her for it.
At the end of June, the Queen came to see her practice with her sword against the best tutor any could hire. She won five bouts, two in under three moves, and hadn't a single scratch on her. She bowed to the Queen when she saw her and when she rose the Queen was standing before her, an aged leather scabbard in her hands.
"Your tutor says you've learned all he can teach you," the Queen felt so proud. "So it's time, I think, that you have this again." And she drew the sword. Aphrodite couldn't stop staring.
"Moonlight," she whispered. She remembered the holy sword – heavy in her tiny hands as it had clashed with Nehelenia's long nails. She shivered.
"I used this myself, very long ago." Serenity said. "I've known since the day it appeared to you that it wasn't mine anymore. It has proven many times to be capable of extraordinary magic," the Queen continued. "A potential I have also seen in you." She pressed the sword into Aphrodite's hands. It was light! She remembered it being so heavy! "You'll train with me from now on," the Queen said.
"I can't accept this," Aphrodite said. Surely someone more honourable than her should wield something so precious.
"You can," the Queen said. "I believe you're meant to have it."
So it was that for the rest of the summer she woke at dawn and found herself matching blades with a woman whom she had never known could hold a sword, let along knock her to the ground with one. Yet Queen Serenity was the best swordswoman she'd ever met.
She felt calm with a sword in her hand too, the way Aphrodite felt when she duelled. She began to believe that meant she really was a natural with the weapon and that perhaps she really could be good enough for the Holy Sword.
She thought she'd never see anyone fight better until Sailor Uranus and Neptune came to stay. The delegations arrived at midsummer and nothing had ever distracted Aphrodite and her fellow guardians more. Half the delegates and even Sailor Uranus had wings like Aphrodite's – though only a few of them had yellow. The rest – including Uranus' wings were bright, sky blue.
They stayed a whole month, during which time, the four younger guardians broke from their training regimen as they hadn't since they were small – all in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the fabled guardians of Outer Sol.
"I heard they live in space," Thorunn said as they hid in the bushes watching the two older guardians fight Martian warlocks. "They don't ever stay on their home worlds at all. They fly around the Kuiper Belt battling evil."
"I read that Neptune can see people's true selves in that mirror," Athena said. "And Uranus sword can create cyclones."
"Well my father says Neptune can drown you with a look," Areisa said.
"I believe him – woah! Look at them!" Thorunn shouted as Neptune created a ball of water the size of the whole moat and Uranus whipped her sword once, turning it into a waterspout. It shredded through the warlocks shields and swallowed them, spitting them out into a tree all the way across the field.
The older guardians watched them too, when they practiced, though they never spoke a word to them.
Of the two, Uranus was the one who most interested Aphrodite – because she was the only other guardian with wings. She moved hers with so much more poise and grace than Aphrodite could. She herself had only just discovered how to keep them tucked in long enough to have a sparring match.
Uranus wings were scarred. None of the others noticed at first, but she'd stared at her own wings long enough to know that whatever had scarred Uranus must have been big, and must have hurt. The blue butterfly wings were jagged around the edges and paler blue had scarred into a large circle on her left wing, spreading out into smaller scars. Had she gotten them in a fight? And fighting what? Had they left her unable to fly?
She admittedly spied on Uranus more than the others, watching Uranus' sparring matches with Serenity at night and flying after she and Neptune when they soared together over the surface.
She thought they might be together. She'd never been close enough to feel for sure. But the ease with which they moved together and the looks shared between them and especially the way they danced, they must be.
Was it hard: loving a fellow guardian, was what she wanted to know. Could they fight as effectively? Did their worlds approve? Had they been matched, or had they chosen each other. Had they always known?
She lost sight of them one night, halfway between the badlands and the Mare Serenitas, and was turning back, when she felt something cool and point-thin skim the length of her spine. She whipped around.
Uranus was frowning at her, hovering overhead and passing the space sword between her fingers.
"If I were an enemy you'd be dead," she reprimanded. Her glare was cold. Her feelings a mix of playful teasing and pity and something that made Aphrodite pause: fondness.
"I knew it was you," Aphrodite bluffed. She hadn't noticed at all.
Uranus snorted. "That cut on your back says otherwise."
She twisted around and frowned, there wasn't a scratch on her.
"Caught you," Uranus said. "You had no idea."
"I…" Aphrodite sighed. "No… I'm a bad guardian, okay."
Uranus snort caught her by surprise. "Not bad – lucky." Uranus said. "All four of you… doing all your fighting for play and never having to watch your back." She crossed her arms. "Makes me wonder what's bothering you so much that you've been following us for weeks."
"Nothing,"
"Neptune's mirror's just as good as your head, kid," Uranus said. "What do you want?"
She gulped. "I just wanted to know how you felt about each other."
"Why?" Uranus raised her eyebrows.
"So I could see if it was the same," Aphrodite confessed. "And… so I could know if I'm making the right choice."
Uranus smiled and looked up. "My father never gave me the choice to side with or against him," she said, and Aphrodite winced as she felt the pent up hatred bleeding out of Uranus. "But if he had… and she'd been the price… I'd still have picked her every time."
"And I'd have picked you," a voice that carried on the wind like music met her ears and she saw someone fall from the sky above, landing in Uranus arms and standing on the toes of the other Sailor's boots. Had she been here the entire time?
"It's always convenient to have someone around to help with the wind," Neptune smiled. The breeze whipped around her unnaturally and Aphrodite realized Uranus must somehow be moving it without a word, keeping Neptune aloft.
"I don't know," Uranus said. The feeling she felt while looking at Neptune was so bright, Aphrodite could feel nothing else."Having someone who can help with the water comes in useful very often."
"And the both of them together," Neptune said, lacing one hand through Uranus' and glancing down at the mirror. "Is better than I ever imagined."
She was crying. She'd never felt any feeling so strong as what Uranus felt for Neptune: years and years of love from the first flutters to its latest confident form woven through each other until the whole feeling was as strong the Silver Crystal's power that remembered from long ago, when the Queen had sealed Nehelenia away.
"You can stop projecting," Neptune murmured. "I think she gets it."
Suddenly the feeling as bright and hot as starlight was gone and she clutched at her chest though it had never been hers. She felt empty, as though a stronger wind than the current breeze might blow her away.
"Does that answer your question?" Uranus asked, feeling now as calm as the eye of a storm.
She nodded, thinking of Areisa, the feeling that was so new and small in comparison to Uranus feelings returned to her swiftly and she held on to it. "Thank you,"
"Can we go now," Neptune asked, whispering something in Uranus ear that made her feel bright and embarrassed and another feeling that made Aphrodite blush to feel by proxy.
"Sure," the sky guardian looked at Aphrodite again. "Stop leaving your sword behind," she chastened. "Practicing with it's no good if you keep it in your room."
"O-okay," she whispered. And they were flying away again, their white uniforms and Uranus sword glinting in the Earth's blue light.
She saw in the dark – Uranus tilting Neptune's chin up and kissing her.
I can't marry him, Aphrodite realized. I can't do it and know that's the feeling I'm letting go. She raced back to the Moon palace, soaring right through her window and through the doors out into the hall and only landing once she was banging her fists against the doors of Areisa's room.
Areisa yanked them open on the fifth knock. "What's –"
Aphrodite kissed her before her door was even all the way open, and Areisa went along with her, kissing her as fiercely as she ever had. They stumbled back into Areisa's room and the other guardian turned her and pressed her into one of the walls so hard a painting fell off.
"I love you," Aphrodite gasped. "I won't marry Hephaestus – I love you."
Areisa pulled away instantly. "Don't," the Martian princess shook both Aphrodite's arms and stared intently at her, her purple eyes the most serious Aphrodite had ever seen them. "You can't love me."
"Of course I can!" Aphrodite insisted. "Believe me – I do!"
"No I mean you can't." Areisa released her and put her head in her hands. "You have to marry Hephaestus."
"I can't," Aphrodite said. "I'll reason with my father… my mother… my people. If they can bring Uranus into the Silver Alliance surely keeping Venus won't be hard."
"But you still can't love me!" Areisa exploded. "It's… I don't want you do."
"Why?" Aphrodite snapped. She tried to read Areisa's face, but it was as cold and closed to her as ever.
"I just don't want you to," Areisa said. "Kissing is fine. I…love kissing you, Aphrodite. But You can't love me. It's a bad idea."
"But Why?" Aphrodite said.
"Ugh! Would you just trust me?" Areisa said. "I can't love you."
Her face burned. "Fine!" she shouted, storming out of the room.
"Fine!" Areisa echoed as Aphrodite slammed the doors of her own rooms shut and sank down against them. She buried her head in her arms.
"Why do you never tell me what you're feeling," Aphrodite cursed. She slammed her head back against her door and sighed. "I'm still not marrying him."
~Venus~
She stayed after the summer that year, along with Areisa and Athena and of the three she was the only one whose problems were known to the others, indeed – they were the gossip of the Kingdom. She turned sixteen to a small party, and her favorite present was the hug from Princess Serenity that was uncomplicated and happy and hopeful. She ached for the days her own life had been as simple.
She had an angry letter from her father waiting on her desk that night. She was late. The wedding had been postponed.
She wrote back. She was calling it off, it wasn't right for she or Hephaestus.
Thus for the next year, she didn't hear her planet's voice a single time, or feel her mother's embrace. All she felt were the blisters on her fingers from long hours scratching out letters to her father, and then new letters when she made spelling mistakes or broke her quills or stabbed through the paper.
Her letters were long, illustrative, and pleading. His replies were curt and always the same.
She didn't speak to Queen Serenity once about her choice, only hoped every night that it wouldn't lead to the division the Queen had foretold.
But it wasn't so. She overheard the meeting between the Queen and her advisors when the Queen cancelled their morning sparring match.
Venus had pulled out of the Silver Alliance.
She transformed and used her own wings to fly there, not even thinking whether they could make the distance. Sailor Venus reached out for the heart of her sturdy, temperate world as soon as she saw the orange crescent of it shining in Sol's bright light.
She couldn't hear Lady no matter how hard she thought, and she beat her wings faster as she soared closer, closer, closer…
She circled the massive planet, hovering right over the vast, green-blue expanse of the boiling sea and diving down towards it.
She slammed into something as hard as rock head on and tumbled back into orbit, groaning as her head spun. She blinked away the spots in her eyes and saw, at once, what had hit her.
A golden sheen had coated the upper-most layer of her world's atmosphere, baring her decent. She tried to breach it twice more and both times was thrown back but the light of the Golden Crystal. She even threw Venus Love Strike, and Wink Chain Sword down against the barrier to no effect.
Heart in her throat, she retreated to Magellan, slamming her fingers too-hard into the computer keys.
There was a message for her.
"Your betrothal is dissolved," her Father said as he stood before the camera. "You have what you wanted – freedom from Venus' age old customs and ways that you never could accept. I have realized a guardian that doesn't represent our values is clearly not one that we need and you have proven it. So, You have what you want, Aphrodite. And I have what I want: I have renounced you. The Earth sought a new trade partner and what they offer is far more than our small place in the Silver Alliance ever did. I had hoped this world was still more important to you than The Moon Kingdom, but clearly that isn't so. One wonders how you can really be its child if you'd abandon it so, and then he looked off screen. "Your Mother insists she say goodbye – I hope you know what you've done to her."
She was already crying when her mother came on screen. She pressed her fingers to the monitor and wished she could feel her emotions through the screen.
"I'm not sad," her mother said with a schooled expression. "I'm not even angry, so don't think either of those things." She smiled. "I was wrong to push you for so long to be someone you aren't… I hope you use this as a chance to be who you always wanted to be, even if I can't be there to see it." She blew the camera a kiss. "I still love you more than anything, Aphrodite… I hope you're happy with your choice."
And then the camera clicked off.
She screamed, collapsing over the console and kneeling on Magellan's cold tile floor.
"Lady!" she cried out over and over. "Lady, Lady?"
But her world had no answer for her, either the barrier had severed their connection or she was too far away to hear.
She cried and screamed until she was out of tears and only when she began to feel hungry did she grab the console and drag herself to her feet. She stumbled to Magellan's bronze doors and took flight, closing her eyes until Venus was far behind her.
Halfway to the Moon Kingdom, one of its white carriages pulled by two large, flying horses pulled up alongside her and the door flew open. The Queen was inside and she held her hand out and caught Venus, pulling her into the warm craft.
She went to her knees and dropped her transformation as her shoulders slumped. She bowed her head. "I'm sorry," she choked out. "I didn't listen to you and I broke the Alliance, andimsorry."
And suddenly the Queen was kneeling with her and she pulled Aphrodite close. Her warm hand combed through her long, blond hair.
"You've nothing to be sorry for, Aphrodite," the Queen said. "I said it was your choice. And I should have known I could not suggest a Guardian of Love chose something else for herself."
"I still broke the Alliance," Aphrodite said as she broke out in sobs. "If evil returns… it's my fault!"
"It would never have been your fault," the Queen said, feeling only calm and concerned and not even a little angry. "The Alliance has been fracturing for many years from many forces dark and not, and none of those forces had anything to do with you. Venus was just one of many splits I am still trying to prevent" She pulled back and used her own handkerchief to wipe Aphrodite's face. "Did you try to return."
Aphrodite sniffed. "I couldn't reach her," she said. "I couldn't even touch the atmosphere." She rubbed her forehead. "It still hurts."
"That blasted book," the Queen muttered. "It's alright," she told Aphrodite. "The pain fades – and you can still transform." She hugged her. "As long as the guardians are whole the alliance hardly matters."
Luna and Artemis were waiting when they returned, and the Queen told them they would meet soon. She saw Aphrodite up to bed herself. "Rest," she said as she closed the curtains so Aphrodite wouldn't see the Earth through the window. "I'm still trying to reach your father – I'll let you know what he says later."
When she slept though, she dreamed of it, of slamming into the golden barrier dividing her from her home and then of watching the ocean dry up and crack, and the cities burn, and the atmosphere flood with poisonous clouds. She felt them swirling up around her, and gasped and choked, until a sharp pain struck her across the cheek. She jolted up, out of the dream and right into Areisa's arms.
"I'm sorry," she said. "You were screaming… and crying." She pulled away and put her hand over the red mark of her palm that was spreading across Aphrodite's face and wiped away the tears as they appeared. "You're still crying." She leaned in then and kissed Aphrodite's tears. "I'm still learning how to fight crying."
The bright fire Areisa stoked in her burned away her father's hurtful words and her guilt over her mother and her planet and the alliance she'd just fractured. She fisted her hands in Areisa's shirt. As she kissed away her tears, Aphrodite turned her head and caught Areisa's lips with hers. She wrapped her arms around Areisa as they kissed, falling back onto her bed and pulling Areisa with her. The Martian princess' top rode up in the back when they fell. Aphrodite slipped her hand beneath the fabric and slid her palm up higher and higher, Areisa's top being pushed up along with it.
Areisa put a hand on Aphrodite's chest, holding her back as she leaned away.
"I still can't love you," she said. "That's not what this is."
"I don't care," Aphrodite gasped. "Please … I need you." She needed to feel more of how she felt for Areisa – more of the bright light that could block the pain of everything else.
And then Areisa's lips were on hers again and the hand on her chest had trailed to the hem of her shirt. Areisa's fingers were hot as they pressed into her skin, chasing away the cold, guilt, and sadness until Aphrodite could barely remember feeling it.
She woke up as the sunlight streamed through the curtains and warmed her eyelids. The rest of her felt too cold. She shivered, realizing her skin was bare as it brushed against her sheets.
She gasped and shot up, clutching the blanket close to her chest and blushing as she recalled everything… including Areisa's whispered words as she'd drifted off to sleep.
"Stay," she pleaded, but Areisa kissed Aphrodite's brow and pulled away.
"I can't… I told you: I can't love you, Aphrodite. Trust me." She pulled the warmest blanket over her. "I'm sorry…"
She suddenly felt heavy and colder than she had when she'd arrived the night before. She'd thought it had been okay when Areisa was here and warm and it felt like she loved her.
"Why won't you stay," she whispered. And then she was crying again, burying her face in her pillow.
You heard what she said, Aphrodite chastened herself. She said it wasn't love… and you agreed! She began to sob.
I thought she'd realize… I thought she'd stay…
I didn't think it would hurt this much.
As she cried, the doubt began to settle in, and she wondered if this were truly better than giving Areisa up. Surely she could have loved Hephaestus when he were grown. Surely that would have been better than this horrid feeling.
She didn't even think of her sparring practice, nor of how long she stayed in bed. But eventually it was well into the morning and there was a soft knock on her door.
"Aphrodite," the Queen's voice carried through the door. "Are you alright?"
"Uh," she sniffed and tried to speak but her voice was lost to her, And she needed clothes! She scrambled out of bed, finding a shirt and underthings. That would do. She could surely just pretend she was sick.
She realized only after she'd opened the door that she'd grabbed Areisa's shirt.
All the Queen had to do was glance once at her messy hair and blotchy face and the red tunic that barely covered her thighs.
"Oh Aphrodite…" she murmured.
"I can… expla," but the words were broken by another sob.
The Queen had told her just yesterday the team of Guardians needed to be strong… and it felt as though she and Areisa had never been farther apart. And it was her fault.
"I asked her…" Aphrodite tried to explain again. "She didn't do anything." She was dizzy from all the crying. Her knees hit the floor and she hung her head for the second time in as many days. She couldn't do anything right. "She doesn't love me!"
"Well now this morning makes sense," the Queen sighed. And then though Aphrodite felt she should have been punished or banished or made to marry Hephaestus anyways the Queen said nothing of the sort. Instead she closed the door of her room, knelt beside her, and put her arms around her, letting Aphrodite cry into her beautiful white gown. "It will get better," she said to Aphrodite. "I know you feel like you have the worst luck in the world right now, but it will get better."
How? Aphrodite hadn't the strength to ask.
"Tomorrow always comes," the Queen said. "Whether we want it to or not, tomorrow comes." She sighed. Aphrodite recognized everything she felt reflected in the Queen's feelings. "And whether we want it to or not, it does get better." And suddenly she could feel the monarch's old pains – numbed after many, many years. And the good feelings tied to them, numbed and faded too.
I don't want loving Areisa to feel numb! Aphrodite thought. How is that better?
~Venus~
The next day, it was Athena who had to tell her the Martian had left, running off to attend to her duties on her own world. Areisa was away a month, and by the time she returned, Aphrodite was done being angry at her, her desk was full of crumpled and half-finished letters, and she'd decided she didn't need to talk to Areisa if Areisa didn't need to talk to her.
The only time they spoke that year was at training, which were limited to Aphrodite giving commands and Areisa following them to a T – no arguments, no suggestions, no criticisms. And it made Aphrodite angrier the more Areisa didn't challenge her – to the point where she began to fill the silence with angry criticisms of Mars, only to get the same frustrating agreement in return.
Thorunn noticed immediately the next time she came to the Moon to train. They had barely been on the training ground for five minutes before Aphrodite sensed her confusion.
"It's nothing," she told Thorunn afterwards, once Areisa'd returned to the palace.
"Since went are you mean to her and since when is she as quiet as a mouse," Thorunn retorted. "This is not nothing." She beckoned Athena over. "What did they do?"
"I believe Aphrodite confessed her feelings and Areisa claimed not to return them," Athena said, her face behind a book. She felt irritated.
So did Aphrodite. "Claimed!" she fumed. "She said she 'can't love me,' that's a statement, not a claim."
"That," Athena said, snapping the book shut. She was glaring at Aphrodite. "Is well chosen diction. And if you were paying a half-wits amount of attention you'd have noticed. She's saying she can't. Not 'she doesn't' which would imply your feelings are unrequited, or 'won't' which would mean she never will. She's saying 'can't,' wherein she's trying to tell you one of a few things if I am interpreting the colloquial meaning of 'can't' correctly:
"First, someone's told her she's not permitted to love you.
"Second, she's decided she won't permit herself to love you.
"Third, she doesn't feel capable of loving you," Athena finished. "But all you're hearing is that she doesn't love you back. You realize she's upset too."
"She is not!" Aphrodite snapped.
"You act like you know," Athena shook her head. "You get lazy, being able to feel our emotions and giving up when you can't feel hers."
"She talks to you?" Aphrodite asked.
"She doesn't talk to anyone," Athena said. "I sleep in the room next to hers. I hear her crying. She's come up with thirteen new swears and twenty-seven combinations of them to call herself since Venus left the Alliance."
"What did you do?" Thorunn asked.
"I didn't – ugh!" Aphrodite slammed her palm into her face. "I'll talk to her."
That night she knocked on Areisa's door. "I'm sorry," she told her when she opened it. "I've been rude,"
"I'm sorry," Areisa snapped. "I'm the one who…"
Aphrodite shook her head. "I'm the one who didn't listen to you. And I'm the team leader. I shouldn't be tearing the team apart because of my feelings." She held her hand out to Areisa. "I need you to start yelling at me at training again. Tell me my form sucks. Tell me the formation needs work. Tell me when you don't like something." She tried to smile. "I still want to be your friend, Areisa."
She didn't get a handshake. Instead Areisa threw her arms around Aphrodite's neck and she stumbled under the strength of the hug.
"Good," Areisa sniffed. "Because I need you too."
And before Aphrodite had blinked, she had pulled away, bid her goodnight, and shut her door.
~Venus~
By the time she'd turned eighteen, things between she and Areisa had improved to nearly normal. Though she devoted nearly all her time to Thorunn now, and Areisa to Athena. And the times they were together, they trained. There was more training now than there had ever been before, Athena could see the sunspots and solar flares acting up across Sol's surface and Areisa confirmed what the correspondence from Sailor Neptune and from the Queen's anonymous seer said – that darkness was brewing on Earth. And it would threaten them.
They trained so much that year that she barely paid any mind to Serenity's crush, though it was obvious. The emotion radiated off the young teenager whenever Aphrodite saw her, and she was always staring dopily up at the sky. "What are you smiling about," she'd asked her once. The innocent, little thirteen-year-old had grinned. She'd simply replied. "Nothing."
And she let it go for a year – a whole year. She heard the girl muttering her love letters to herself through the walls of their adjoined rooms. She'd seen her hide a reply beneath her pillow, and she'd let it go. She'd assumed the Queen knew. Serenity told her mother everything.
She of course didn't realize until the Princess fourteenth birthday (when she found the letter from Endymion on her desk and realized the princess had been staring at The Earth) that she'd been a complete and utter idiot.
She and the three other guardians had teleported down to the Princess, guided to her by the Queen's silver crystal. And just in time to see her in the arms of a tall older boy who wore the armour of an Earthling royal and (Mercury checked the scans twice) the blasted Golden Crystal.
"Get away from her!" she'd shouted, lifting Moonlight into an attack pose and bursting through the trees just as someone else burst into the clearing from the other side.
"Who are you!" a teenager with long white hair was shouting, wielding a broadsword of his own. Her eyes met his.
Oh… she struggled to focus on Serenity under his gaze.
The Earthling knight felt stunned at the sight of her. Stunned and enraptured as though she were something beautiful. She found herself blushing and as she ushered Serenity behind her, she stared after him.
He pushed Endymion back through the trees and turned. And caught her gaze. He stood and watched their retreat, his emotions warm and adoring and, though she'd never believed in it, like love-at-first-sight.
"Come on Kunzite!" someone shouted. And the teenager at last broke her gaze.
Kunzite…
She returned under the power of her own wings later that night, feeling like an idiot as she soared once around Elysion's foreboding palace and then off to the clearing that Serenity and Endymion had been discovered in.
She waited, and waited, and was about to leave, when she heard the sound of something shuffling through the brush.
"I didn't dream it," Kunzite said as he emerged from the trees, sword drawn just like hers. "You really did fly by the palace."
"A precaution," Aphrodite said, feeling even more the fool for not being in her guardian form.
"Against what," Kunzite chuckled.
"Against anyone else making a pass at my Princess," she said.
"And what if it's not her they have their eyes on?" he asked. His eyes were warm as they gazed into hers. "You're very beautiful."
"I'm the head guardian of the Moon Princess."
"I'm the head knight of the Earth Prince," he said. Raising his hands with his sword. "There, see, we have that in common."
He felt hopeful and curious and still so in love with just the sight of her. He is very fit, she decided.
"I'm also a Duke," he said. "And I like cooking."
"Well I'm a… former princess," she said. "And I like walking on the beach."
"So do I," his face was still as wary as her own, but inside he was positively beaming. "And I'm very good with a sword, but I don't want to fight you."
"Why not?" she challenged.
"Because I would hate for the first time I meet you to be a violent one," he said. "And this forest has too much beauty within it to be tarnished by the clashing of blades." He gestured to the trees. "I would very much like to show it to you."
He was telling the truth.
They sheathed their blades at the same time. And she left hers beside his inside a hollow tree. She marvelled at the muscles she could feel under his jacket as she linked arms with him.
They walked the forest for an hour, but she didn't return to The Moon until sunrise.
~Venus~
She was the most hypocritical Guardian of Love there'd ever been, for sure: restricting Serenity from seeing Endymion and, mere hours later, sneaking down to Earth herself to spend more time in Kunzite's arms. Oh, but they were such amazing arms. And he was easy to love. They shared the same devotion to their worlds' royals, the same worries about their capabilities as leaders, and the same fears about the darkness coming.
Best of all, on the nights she dared to stay long enough to sleep in Earth's lush grasses, Kunzite was always there when she awoke. And she never had to wonder about his feelings or wonder how they affected her team. His feelings for her were always within easy reach, he felt them so openly she mightn't have needed to use her ability at all.
Regrettably, though she was able to hide it from the Queen, she had less luck with the other Guardians.
"I know what you're doing." Areisa said one night when she barged into Aphrodite's room. "Or I suppose it's who you're doing."
"Who's none of your business."
"It is when it's the head of the Prince's guard," Areisa said. "Are you trying to get lured in like the Prince lured Serenity?"
"He didn't lure her," Aphrodite said. "Endymion really loves her – and Kunzite loves me."
"There's darkness on Earth, Aphrodite!" Areisa shouted. "You're meant to be fighting it not courting it."
"There's nothing dark in Kunzite," Aphrodite said.
"Then how is it okay for you to go romping around with an Earthing, when it's not okay for Serenity?"
"She's fourteen," Aphrodite said. "I didn't know anything about love at fourteen."
"If I recall, you knew a fair bit," Areisa countered.
Aphrodite snorted. "What are you jealous?" she rounded on Areisa. "I'm not letting this affect Serenity, or the team. And if I feel anything dark in Kunzite, I'll break it off. Okay," she leaned back against her desk. She was already in a cross mood feeling Serenity crying in the next room and feeling guilty about it.
"Not okay," Areisa growled. "It's a bad idea."
"I'm the Guardian of Love here," Aphrodite said, pointing between herself and Areisa. "Love, War. I think I'll trust my instincts on this."
"I don't want you to be with him!" Areisa finally exploded.
Before she could respond she felt Serenity get angry and heard her yelling in the next room. She and Areisa abandoned their argument just in time to see the Queen run from Serenity in tears.
And Serenity was feeling guilty, mopey, and heartbroken – just like Aphrodite.
The relationship between the Queen and the Princess had never been so strained, but it only drove Aphrodite closer to Kunzite. He wrote poems that elaborated on his feelings in ways that even felt fresh to her, and every touch he left on her skin gave her a warmth in her that lingered hours after she'd bid him goodbye.
Love had never been as uncomplicated as it was with Kunzite. And she'd never felt more beautiful than she did with him.
It was a welcome reprieve from the strained atmosphere on The Moon, But it did mean she tried extra hard to comfort Serenity as the Princess fourteenth year dragged on for all of them. Her sadness affected not just Aphrodite, but the whole of the palace.
Areisa surprised her though. For someone who was always so reticent to show her feelings, the way she consoled Serenity gave Aphrodite pause.
"It will work out," Areisa said to Serenity one night, looking over at Aphrodite. "If you truly love him… it doesn't matter what stands in your way. That love will find a way."
She didn't like Areisa's stare, it seemed almost pleading. She can't be talking about Kunzite, Aphrodite thought.
So when they left the Princess room, Aphrodite dragged Areisa back to hers.
"What are you trying to tell her?" Aphrodite asked. "A few weeks ago you yelled at me for seeing Kunzite, and now it seems like you're encouraging her to go back to Endymion."
"Well she's clearly miserable," Areisa said. "And I studied all his letters and I've seen him in the fire – he's a very honourable young man. Doesn't have darkness anywhere near him."
"Neither does Kunzite – and I'm finally happy." Aphrodite snapped. "But you still glare at me every time I come back."
"Well I haven't told the Queen yet, have I?"
"Which only confuses me more!" Aphrodite crossed her arms. "You can't love me, but you don't want me to have love. What is your problem?"
"I still want you to love me!" Areisa said, storming up to her. She was bright red and her fists were held at her sides. "I still need you to love me."
Aphrodite shook her head. "That's not fair, Areisa."
"I know it's not fair!" Areisa snapped, now very close. "You deserve… the most love… the best love." And she grabbed Aphrodite's shoulders and kissed her fiercely. It was so sweet and so strong and she felt so much brighter than she felt even with Kunzite. Areisa broke away quickly. "And I know I can't give you that."
"Why?" Aphrodite pleaded with her.
"I'm too… ugh!" She whirled around and stomped out of Aphrodite's room, slamming the door behind her.
A month went by, during which she saw Kunzite ten more times, before Areisa left again, summoned away for one of her mysterious missions to Mars.
There was no word from her for months, none that the Queen would tell Aphrodite and her friends anyways. She opted not to visit Kunzite as time passed and Areisa didn't return, feeling his frustration growing every time he asked her what was wrong and her only response was "nothing." There was even one night they'd planned to meet that he didn't appear at all. And she visited Earth everyday for a week torn between worry for him and worry for Areisa before he finally appeared again, haggard, irritated, and worried.
"What's wrong," she asked him.
"Nothing," he responded. And she sighed, that was only fair.
The preparations for Serenity's Coming of Age ball were getting underway by the time Areisa returned, not through the palace doors, but through Aphrodite's balcony, leaping up onto it as Sailor Mars and rushing through as Areisa while Aphrodite was in the middle of brushing out her hair.
She had time to register the bruising on Areisa's neck and hands before she crashed into her in a blur of red clothes and black hair.
"Areisa what…" she murmured, shocked as tears began to soak into her shirt.
"I need you," she whispered. "You can love him if you want, but right now I need you."
She smelled entirely of smoke and not a bit like lavender and she was cold and shaky in Aphrodite's arms.
"What do you need?" Aphrodite asked.
Areisa's arms cinched tighter around her torso, and she pressed her face into the crook of Aphrodite's neck.
"Hold me."
And so she did: until well after the sun had risen. She didn't ask another question the whole night.
Eventually she chanced a kiss to Areisa's hair, convincing herself that it was not a betrayal of Kunzite, but something else she could give that Areisa might need.
"I love you," she whispered when she did. "I'll always love you."
Only then did Areisa sleep.
~Venus~
The week before Serenity's Coming of Age ball arrived and she hadn't seen Kunzite in weeks. There's trouble here, he'd written her shortly after Areisa's return to The Moon. I am well, I swear my love. I'll let you know when I can meet you again. She had to wonder if he knew that Areisa'd spent every night that month in her bed. She didn't start out there of course. She'd tried sleeping in her own. But all Aphrodite had to do was wait up an hour after they retired to hear Areisa's sharp knock and then the creak of her door being eased open as the other guardian came in. She'd stopped trying to ask her questions. Areisa's nightmares answered the gist of them. She talked in her sleep. And whether it was nightmares where she muttered "Princess don't," or nightmares where she pleaded with someone: "I don't want to," they left Areisa equally unsettled and Aphrodite equally concerned.
She wondered if the dreams Areisa refused to talk about had anything to do with the trouble on Earth and had decided it certainly did when Athena detected something dark emerging above Earth's northern pole.
"It's an old Earthling Daimon," The Queen said. "It wouldn't ever bother venturing all the way up here." But she carried her sceptre and the silver crystal with her at all times now.
Word finally came from Kunzite just two days before the ball. I need to see you. And she flew right to him, armed with her sword lest he need help with the Daimon on his planet.
She found him in their usual spot in the sacred forest and found his sword already within the hollow tree. Thank goodness, she thought as she de-transformed and set Moonlight down within the hiding spot. Then there's nothing to fight.
And then she saw him, between the trees, in his polished plate armour and the tight shirt that hugged his arms and with his hair flashing as white as the stars despite the moonless night.
"You're okay," she breathed, soaking in the feeling of his happiness at her appearance. "Oh what happened? I haven't seen you in ages."
"We were attacked by dark forces," the knight said. Indeed darkness lingered all around him. "It feels," he shivered. "Awful."
"You should be cleansed of it," she said. "Come with me, please. I know the Queen would permit it just this once, the Silver Crystal could heal you."
He wrapped his arms tighter around her. He felt unusually angry as he said. "That's the problem, Aphrodite – the darkness comes from the Moon."
"What,"
"The Queen has always been the reason the darkness is here," Kunzite said. "And she's been attacking us."
"Queen Serenity would never," Aphrodite insisted. "There's nothing dark about her… is that why your feud's carried on so long? Kunzite," she cupped his face. "You…" she suddenly froze in his arms as her fingers brushed something darker than she'd felt since Nehelenia's attack on the Moon. "You have a new earring…"
It looked like Obsidian, but was cut as sharply as a diamond – narrow and long. She darted her hand up to tear it off of him.
And his large hand caught hers.
"Don't," he told her. "That's what allows me to see clearly – it makes my powers strong enough to fight the darkness."
"It is darkness," she hissed, struggling. "Let me go,"
"No – Aphrodite, listen, you've been lied to."
"No, You listen – Let me go," she suddenly realized his strength was far greater than normal. His arm felt like stone at her back and his grip on hers as tight as steel. "You're hurting me."
"I don't want to – I just need you to listen." Kunzite stared. "The Moon's trying to destroy us, and all who stand with us – Mercury and Venus, it threatens all the inner alliance.
"Is that the rebrand?" she questioned. "To distance them from Silver verses Gold"
"It's never been about that," Kunzite said. "We want freedom – the Moon oppresses us."
"It exists in peace. It exists to protect you."
"That's the lie the wicked Queen's fed you," he said. "Please, Aphrodite. I was away because I was visiting Venus,"
She froze, her struggling ceased.
"I saw your mother," he continued. "And your father, they're both distraught. They want you home. It was the Queen's idea to have them betroth you to Hephaestus. She knew it'd drive you further from them, make them more beholden to the Moon. It's why they joined us. We gave them protection. When they heard you'd come here they begged me to try to get you home. They can undo the lies that have been fed to you there – you'll be able to hear your world again, hug your mother, you'll see reason."
She hated how sincere he felt. He believed it was true. She hated how she wanted to believe him.
"That's a lie," she said, concentrating on her own powers and feelings. "You have to trust me Kunzite that is the lie."
"Then why don't you know where you come from, or why you look the way you do. You're wings are beautiful Aphrodite, haven't you ever wondered where they come from?"
He was trying another tactic. But it was a good one. She could recognize both things. "The Queen doesn't know," she said. "Or if she does, it wasn't important to tell me." The Queen had never lied to her. Not that Aphrodite'd ever been able to tell.
You can't do your powers wrong, she remembered someone she knew had come from The Moon, who'd very kind and very wise, saying to her. It echoed the same words Venus had always told her: trust yourself.
Surely, if the Moon were lying, it would not have told her the same thing.
"You are wrong," she told Kunzite. "It's darkness that has lied to you. Please Kunzite – I know you feel differently. I can feel the light in you still," she tilted her head up towards his and cupped his face in her free hand, feeling him release her other one so he could cup her neck. With both hands, she drew his face to hers. "Please believe me."
His lips were sweet and the love he felt was real. But so was the anger, she realized to late, as his hand closed around her throat. He batted her hands away from his face and lifted her, pinning her to a tree. Her legs kicked uselessly against his armour.
"I won't kill you," he promised. "When you wake up you'll see the truth as I do."
I won't betray the Princess! she thought as she struggled. I won't betray the Queen. I won't betray Areisa!
When she'd been small, Nehelenia's darkness had nearly captured Queen Serenity, and had Mars not intervened, Aphrodite knew the Queen would have succumbed to it.
Would the darkness that had Kunzite now do the same to her?
"Mars Piercing Fury!"
She saw the spear stab through Kunzite's chest, and felt his pain as it surely punctured his lung. She gasped as his hand released her neck and jumped to her feet, transforming and summoning her sword so she could hold it between herself and him.
She saw Mars drop through the trees behind them.
"I'll not allow you to manipulate someone who loves so much into believing such terrible lies," Mars said. "Retreat, Kunzite. Or I will chasten you."
"Don't kill him," Aphrodite coughed. "The silver crystal can heal him."
Mars clenched her fists, extinguishing the fire in them.
"Come with us," Aphrodite begged him.
"I can make him come with us," Mars said
"No… I need him to choose. Kunzite I know you're still in there," she stepped closer to him and raised her free hand. "Surely you love me more than what ever Daimon's seen you?"
He glared, pressing his fist over the wound in his chest, and spit blood at her. "The next time I see you," he said, sword appearing in his hand. "I'll kill you." And in a flurry of rose petals, he had disappeared.
~Venus~
Days later, after Aphrodite'd apologized to her team and to the Queen for as many things as she could think of that she'd done wrong, she found herself on the roof with the first notes of music from the ball room drifting through the air. She hadn't the time to brood or train until she collapsed as she wanted to do. Serenity's Coming of Age ball was about to get underway, and she'd come up to the roof the gather some last minute courage.
"He wasn't your Kunzite anymore," Areisa said behind her. She sat down beside Aphrodite "I've seen that before – it wouldn't matter how much you loved him – he would still have done what the magic wanted him to do."
Aphrodite nodded. "I was a terrible leader," she whispered.
"You were in love," Areisa shrugged. "Leaders have weaknesses too you know. That's why they have their teams to knock sense into them when they do."
"I could have been turned by the darkness," Aphrodite whispered. "I could have destroyed everyone here."
"Overestimating your strength, aren't you." Areisa said. "I'm sure the three of us would be able to stop you well before that."
"Still," Aphrodite hugged her knees to her chest. "I've been messing up for a while now. Loving Kunzite was so easy and I wanted it so much… and today the lies the darkness was trying to use…they would have made everything so much easier. I wanted them to be true."
"That's why it hurts so many," Areisa said. "You didn't do anything wrong. And you shouldn't feel bad for wanting love – you deserve love." She stared out at the Earth. "I won't kill him, if I see him. We'll even try to rescue him."
"Too dangerous," Aphrodite growled, slamming her fist into the roof.
"You love him," Areisa whispered. "There's no better reason to try."
Aphrodite shook her head. "As the leader, I say, it's too dangerous." She looked at Areisa. "Why do you care anyways?"
"I told you," Areisa said. "You love him – I know he makes you happy, Aphrodite. And I said you deserve love."
Aphrodite sighed. "He was fun to love…" she said. "But I don't love him nearly as much as I still love you. I'd never put you or the team in danger for him."
Areisa was quiet for a very long time, save the scrapping of her bare feet against the roof as she pulled her legs up to her chest. "Please don't start this again."
"I'm just confused." Aphrodite whispered. "You come to my bed to sleep every night. You're more in sync with me at training than anybody else. You saved me today. You let someone infected with darkness escape because I begged you to. And now you're offering to risk your life to save him because you want me to be happy." She put her hand over Areisa's, who moved hers away. "You say you can't love me Areisa, but you sure act like you do."
Areisa sighed and swore. She turned and looked right at Aphrodite "I'm not good enough for you." She whispered seriously. "You're so much like Serenity… both of them. You give so much hope and faith and chances." She looked at her hands. "But I… I have blood on my hands – too much. It makes me sick to think of them touching you."
"Please tell me, Areisa," she begged. "What happened to you?"
Areisa sighed. "You'd never look at me the same."
"I'm looking at you now" she grabbed Areisa's hand back and laced their fingers together. "Your hands are beautiful." She lifted Areisa's hand to her lips as she had when they were young and kissed the back. "All I taste is fire and lavender," she said. " No blood. Your hands are beautiful, Areisa. I love them."
Areisa began to cry. "I miss you," she said. "I just wish I was different… I could be someone you deserved."
"You are," she insisted. "Don't think about your hands." She leaned towards Areisa, placing her own hand over her heart.
"I deserve this," she said, leaning in and kissing Areisa. "No matter what your hands have done, your heart's still pure."
And then Areisa pressed their foreheads together and suddenly she felt something she'd stopped hoping to feel – the bright love, searing in its intensity, and the anxieties woven around it and the fresh confidence that had weakened those anxieties enough for Areisa to show her…
"You feel beautiful too," Aphrodite marvelled, dark blue eyes wide as they gazed into Areisa's purple ones. "Could you always do this?"
"Yes – I was only scared of what you'd learn."
She basked in the stunning ability to feel Areisa's feelings at last, wishing there was some way she could feel hers just the same.
I'll make sure you never think you're not good enough again, Aphrodite promised herself. And I'll be the one who bloodies her hands. So you never have to.
