Off I Go

In the distance, the clock struck twelve. Midnight, the witching hour. The princess of Venus bit back a laugh. Humans were so superstitious, and yet so unaware of the magic holding their kingdom together at all hours of the day. Hurrying through the corridors and cloaking herself in the night, she could feel the magic pulse around her and wondered how much longer she could fool everyone into believing that Serenity managed to sneak away without her guardian's knowledge when in fact Venus was more than aware of what was going on, but chose to ignore it for her own means.

"Well well, if it isn't Lady Venus. Did your princess sneak away again?"

Venus turned to meet the man with a cool smile, cursing herself for letting her mind roam in palace that inhabited a psychic whose talents rivalled Mars's. Jadeite had a habit of sneaking up on her in the hallways at night, which annoyed her for more than one reason. Hoping that he hadn't been reading her mind, she tossed her long golden curls over her shoulders. "Yes, she did. But I do have to wonder who opened the palace's new magical gates to her. She doesn't know how to do it herself, and I'm quite certain that Endymion doesn't know how to do it, either."

Feigning ignorance, Jadeite toyed with a unlit cigarette he produced out of thin air before lighting it with a snap of his glove-coated fingers. "Interesting question."

Taking the cigarette from him after his first drag and inhaling deeply, Venus smirked. She had her guard up now. "It is, isn't it?"

Pretending to look at one of the paintings on the wall behind her, Jadeite smiled. For some reason, it unnerved her.

"I can tell you that Kunzite isn't here tonight, so he is clearly innocent." There was a gleam of malice in Jadeite's eyes and Venus suddenly felt like stepping on a battlefield. So he had been listening in, he knew about her and Kunzite. There was no way Kunzite would have discussed their relationship with any of the shitennou, it was simply too forbidden. Hiding her emotions as well as she could, she offered him the cigarette back, but he shook his head, and watched her intently.

"So who do you think it was, Venus? Who let Serenity in?"

"With Kunzite gone, it would have to be either you, Nephrite or Zoisite."

Leaning against the marble walls, Jadeite shook his head. "Zoisite is travelling with Kunzite." Surprise registered on Venus's face before she managed to slip her customary careful mask back in place. Kunzite hadn't mentioned that he would be travelling with company. He had only told her that they couldn't meet as planned and offered her the night of his return with his typically hesitant smile. It was why Serenity had found it so easy to sneak away tonight.

Jadeite extricated the cigarette from Venus's slender fingers and took another deep drag from it before putting the glowing stump in his gloved palm. A blue flame shot up, and the stump burned into nothingness. Despite the flames, his gloves remained white and pristine.

Almost incidental, he continued. "They are very close, you know?" Something in the way he said it caught her attention, and Venus felt herself growing cold.

Thinking of the effeminate young man in the company of the General, of her General, she bit on her lip. For weeks she'd wondered if there was more to the relationship of Kunzite and Zoisite than the closeness initiated by their duty. There were a few too many lingering looks for her taste. They might have been some sort of boyish admiration that Zoisite felt for his commander, but it might be something entirely different. That Zoisite was the only one of the shitennou Kunzite ever spoke about didn't help to diminish her concern. Kunzite was proud of Zoisite, but to what extent? Her blue eyes sought Jadeite's, and she decided to give in. He had information, but he wasn't going to give it to her unless she asked for it.

Trying to sound non-committal, she asked: "How close?"

"Why do you care?" he retaliated with another damned smile and pushed himself off the wall.

"Mere curiosity," she shrugged, the lie feeling like lead on her tongue. Jadeite laughed.

His tone was playful, and she could tell that he was enjoying himself immensely.

"What else are you curious about? How he likes his breakfast or what his favourite season is?"

Throwing him a nasty look, she asked again. "How close, Jadeite?"

"Kunzite appreciates beauty in all of its forms."

Feeling her heart clench in her chest, Venus paled and took an instinctive step backwards.

"He wouldn't." Thinking of the hours spent in his arms, the weeks thinking about him, the years waiting for him to arrive in her life, she felt her breath hitch in her throat. All thoughts of pretences forgotten, she balled her hands into fists.

"Come on, you knew he would. He likes forbidden things, be it a beautiful princess from another planet or a strong young man from his own ranks."

"But..." Words had left her, and she stood in the dark corridor of the Golden Palace with nothing but pain on her hands and sorrow in her heart. The walls seemed to close in on her and Venus pressed her eyes shut. It was not like her to loose control like this. She was going up in flames just like Jadeite's cigarette seconds before.

"But you thought you were special to him? Oh Venus, I had taken you to be smarter than that. Smarter than the others who looked at him and thought of love."

Lowering her head, she looked at her feet. She felt stupid, shamed and exposed under Jadeite's watchful blue eyes. "Why do you tell me this?"

He tilted her head up with his left hand. "Because you asked. Now, the right question is: how do you deal with it?"

Kunzite and Zoisite were strolling through the deserted palace, having just returned from their journey to the kingdom's border. Everyone was sleeping and the palace was eerily quiet. Kunzite made a mental note to talk to the servants and to remind them to light the torches in the hallways. It shouldn't be this dark.

"Something is up with Jadeite," Zoisite said eventually, fiddling with his sleeves nervously. He had tried to broach the subject for a long time, but it felt like stabbing his comrade in the back and there was a very realistic chance of Kunzite not taking him seriously or worse, being offended by the insinuation that one of his men was behaving less than admirably. Jadeite was impulsive, but fiercely loyal, and Kunzite was not known to tolerate rumours and speculation about his brothers-in-arms.

But tonight, Kunzite surprised the younger man with a nod. "He worked too hard."

"We all do, but you don't see Nephrite shutting himself up in his rooms for hours on end. Before we left, I heard Jadeite shouting at Endymion. Shouting! Do you know what's gotten into him?"

"No, but I know that it started when he returned from Mars and had to travel to the southern kingdom without having had any sort of break. And when he got back, he had to accompany Lady Beryl to Elysian. You would be tired, too." The reprimand was soft, and Zoisite nodded.

"Perhaps I would. Are Jadeite and Beryl...?"

"I do not know, and neither do I wish to." Kunzite's voice turned brisk, inviting no further inquiries, but it was too seldom that Zoisite got to pick his General's brain, so he continued anyway. Kunzite knew all sorts of things, but rarely shared his knowledge.

"Lady Beryl wants to marry Endymion."

"Zoisite, let us continue this conversation tomorrow, the day was long and I still have work to do," Kunzite answered, rubbing his hand over his eyes in a rare display of fatigue.

Zoisite nodded and heeded the dismissal. The conversation could have gone worse, he thought and turned around the corner that would lead him to his own chambers.

Waiting until the younger man had disappeared from his sight and his steps were no longer audible, Kunzite touched the white marble walls until a slim door formed out of nowhere. Few people knew about the existence of the door, and even fewer knew how to to open it. It led to the secret chambers in which he always met Venus. Venus, who might be here tonight. Venus, whom he loved. Venus, whom he wished he could marry, but wasn't even allowed to see. With new-found energy, he whispered the magical password into the darkness of the night, a smile spreading on his lips despite himself.

But it wasn't Venus that was waiting for him in the secret chamber, it was Jadeite. He was sitting on the only chair that was in the room, but shot out of it as soon as he saw Kunzite. The logs in the fireplace were almost completely burnt, and while the room was pleasantly warm, it was too dark for Kunzite's liking.

"Jadeite. What are you doing here?"

"I've been asked to pass a message along, so..."

Arranging his face into an expression of mild interest, Kunzite fought the impulse to search the small room for Venus. It would be just like her to wait in the shadows and then appear out of nowhere, happy to have outsmarted him, a brilliant smile on her face.

"From whom?" he asked, despite knowing the answer already. Only Venus could have told Jadeite about the hidden room, only she knew the magical password he had set to open the door. But that meant that she had also told Jadeite about their relationship and she was more than aware of their need for secrecy. It was then he admitted to himself that she wasn't here. Something was wrong.

Jadeite shuffled his feet, and looked to the floor. He still had dark rings under his eyes, and his skin was paler than usual. Kunzite was momentarily angry with Venus for robbing Jadeite of much needed sleep, but then he remembered that it wasn't like Venus to ask for favours, least of all from his men. Worry knitted his brows together as he tried to make sense of the situation, and failed.

"Lady Venus was here, and... and she asked me to tell you that she wouldn't visit anymore. She said to tell you thank you for the nice time-"

His words registered, and Kunzite did a double take. His voice turned to ice. "Nice? She said nice?"

"Yes, she said nice. Anyway, she said that – God, this is awkward – she said that the time for distractions was over and that she has to focus on her duty to Serenity. She will send Jupiter to retrieve the princess in the morning."

Scrambling all of his self-control together, Kunzite nodded and took his cape off, tossing it carelessly over the chair Jadeite had sat on minutes ago. Coldness that had nothing to do with the actual temperature crawled into his bones, settling there, digging into him until it could go no further because it had reached his heart. He was such a damn fool.

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

"You can leave now. Thank you."

Jadeite crossed the room and made for the door, but stopped briefly to place a hand on Kunzite's shoulder as he went.

"Kunzite, I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

Stepping outside the chamber and closing its door gently, Jadeite broke into a smile. The bell tower chimed once, the witching hour was over, and his mission of separating Venus and Kunzite was complete. Beryl would be proud of him.

The End