Author's Note- Sailor Lore is a pet senshi of mine with powers that could, if she knew how to use them, make Galaxia cry. Luckily she's a bookish girl who quite literally doesn't want to fight.
Disclaimer: Sailor Moon is owned by the lovely Naoko Takeuchi - I own any fan characters who appear in this story but if you recognize them they're not mine!
Rating: G to PG
Summary: The Cauldron never meant for senshi to fight senshi so once the Sailor Wars broke out it made two more senshi, Lore and Aether, to understand its own creations. This Lore's, and everyone else that she meets, story.


Long, long ago, when the universe itself was barely born, the ruler of the Cauldron, the source of all life, looked around the vast, empty space; her sadness at being alone caused the Guardian to cry and each tear flew away into space and took on life. When the Guardian saw life spreading into the once-empty void, her heart filled with joy and again she cried but this time her tears transformed into glittering crystals, each one individual and unique in its own way. Taking the crystals into herself, she imbued them with life, duty, and above all love, and sent them out into space; each crystal was born into a being and those beings discovered their powers and duties, taking up the mantle of protectors of the peace which all life existed in.

The Cauldron's Guardian looked around the worlds as time passed and saw a shadow fall across worlds, the shadow born from her fear and sorrow when she was alone. The pain became hatred and confusion but the Guardian didn't despair, for she knew that all life wished to exist in peace. But the pain and hatred grew into a power and force of its own and it called itself Chaos and sought to destroy the peace, for it misunderstood the pains which had given it life. Her heart sad again, the Guardian called each crystal to awake and this time she gave them the powers to fight against Chaos, dubbing them all soldiers of love, truth, justice, and peace.

While her children fought to preserve the fragile peace, the Guardian realized that she was once again alone. Instead of sending her fears out into her worlds again, the Guardian took from herself a part of her heart, which she called Aether, and from her mind, which she called Lore. Aether embodied the knowledge of the Cauldron but with the desire to never use her powers, for fear of hurting ones she loved while Lore embodied her thirst to learn and understand the ways her creations had grown and changed since their birth.

The Guardian charged Lore to travel the universe and meet her beloved soldiers and learn how they had grown, recording all of her travels so that one day, when she had completed her task, she could return to the Guardian and spend forever and a day telling her the tales of her creations. She charged Aether with keeping her knowledge of everything safe from the grasp of Chaos, a duty which she knew Aether would die before failing at; she knew, when she created the two, that they would be drawn to each other for they were one side of the same heart, and they would love each other. But to keep them safe, the Guardian ensured their missions would almost never bring them back to each other; it made her remorseful to think of how she would hurt them, but when she told Lore and Aether, they both agreed that their missions were more important.

And so, before the battles against Chaos approached the Cauldron, and before any other soldiers discovered the creation of Lore and Aether, the two flew to the ends of the universe, each seeking to complete their mission for their beloved Guardian.

Even knowing everything that had come to pass before my birth I still wonder - would the Guardian have made us if peace had remained in the world? I've spent hundreds of years meeting the precious children the Guardian made and sometimes I find myself jealous of them because she made them out of joy while we were made from sorrow.

~Lore

On the very first world Lore had come across, a little sparkling diamond crystal housed inside a soldier who dressed in blues and grays, she discovered what the soldiers had come to call themselves - Sailor Senshi. The senshi she met was called "Inverse," and she protected a small planet hovering on the brink of the rim of space which she called Inversia. The people of Inversia were soft-spoken and looked much like Lore herself did, with two eyes, ten fingers and toes, and four limbs apiece and their senshi protector was a fierce warrior. She remembered when Chaos had passed by her small planet and she told me how she hid her world away, so that Chaos would forget they existed but she confessed it had an unforeseen side-effect.

"I never thought I would see another senshi again," Inverse said softly. "When I hid our planet away we seemed to fade from everyone's memory. None of the nearby senshi visit me, and the trade we had with Illiari's system dried up." A hand brushed a green chunk of bangs from her face, teal eyes looking sheepishly at Lore. She'd never seen a senshi like Lore before - while her fuku was short and allowed easy movement, for she was a senshi tasked to defend her world, Lore was clad in a gown ill-suited to fight at all. Lore's draping clothing would never allow her the ability to move quickly and her demure demeanor told Inverse that in a fight, she wouldn't have any idea what to even do. What kind of world could Lore be from?

Although Lore had been visiting Inversia for more than a week, Inverse had never been able to get any actual information about her home from the inquisitive, tight-lipped senshi. She knew how to be an engaging guest and as polite as anyone could ever want from a visitor but any question about Lore herself had been ignored. Not in a way which Inverse could ever take offense at, for the other senshi also managed to be most contrite about not answering. It's like she has no planet to speak of, but doesn't want to say that. Which can't be right - each senshi has their home, after all. So what is it?

"Lore?" Inverse looked over at her, seeing how the other senshi's attention was so far away, looking across the broken landscape which made up the familiar lines of Inversia's surface.

Olive-green colored eyes looked over at her, the Lore brushing-rust colored bangs from her eyes. "What is it, Sailor Inverse?" Lore smiled warmly at the other senshi, her voice as inquisitive as it always was. Nothing - not the revelation of the reason Inversia was so hidden to the sorrowful admission that Inverse had known of the deaths of the other senshi in the systems nearby. It seemed, from the outside, that Lore was less of a senshi and more of a living, breathing record of existence, except that deep in her heart when she looked at Lore, she felt that understanding which only senshi could possess. Somewhere under those passive eyes and easy smile lies a heart and soul of steel, ready and able to defend what is most important to her heart just as much as I am. We're senshi, we have a common goal, no matter what little differences change the meaning - we're here to protect something important to us.

"Inverse," Lore asked again, leaning forward to peer into Inverse's dark teal eyes.

"Ah!" Surprised, having been so lost in her own mental world, Inverse took a step back once Lore's face came into focus. "I'm sorry, Lore - I was daydreaming." Inverse was more than embarrassed, caught not only off-guard but by such a placid senshi to boot? With a nervous cough, she shot the other senshi a little grin. "What do you say to a bit of a fight? I remember you said you wanted to see me fight - what about against you?"

Lore looked amused, laughing softly at the suggestion. "I'm sorry but I can't fight, not yet at least. I don't know how I'm to fight - you're the first person I've seen." Lore wasn't bothered by it though, and quite obviously didn't seem to think her admission was out of place.

Inverse, though, felt a bit of anger rise at Lore's laughing tone and words - a senshi not fight? It was unheard of! "Really? Maybe the way you need to learn is through a fight. I discovered my powers - and my destiny - when a monster attacked my city." She mock-punched the air quickly, looking like she was battling the air, laughing at the memory. "Come on Lore, set your book and scroll down for a bit and let's have a match. Please?" The one secret she had learned about Lore was that with the right amount of begging, she's crumple and do anything.

Smiling, Lore set her book down but kept a hand on her scroll. "All right Inverse, but I've never fought before so I really don't know what to do." Setting the tome down felt right but when she went to drop the scroll her fingers wouldn't release the rolled parchment. Maybe this is a part of it? She knew that the Guardian hadn't wanted for her senshi to fight but the awakening and birth of Chaos had made them all warriors. But when she'd made Lore and Aether, she hadn't wanted more battles but had wanted them to protect and learn. What if she wasn't meant to fight? What if she was like Aether, not meant to fight unless her partner was beside her? She'd only started her journey and knew without a doubt that Aether was far, far away from her.

Inverse circled around Lore slowly, watching as the demure little senshi lost some of her bookish looks the longer she circled. Suddenly she moved in, punching at the senshi who made a startled "EEP!" and dove backwards. Maybe she's really not cut out for physical fighting. I mean, her fuku is a bit... excessive. Maybe her powers are all magic? She continued to attack Lore, discovering that while she never hit back she was a natural at blocking and dodging, moving quickly and without tripping on her long skirts. So she can move well but still - not a single attack? I wonder why?

Lore was waiting, olive eyes wide as she watched and cataloged how Inverse was moving, the way she fluidly changed from one strategy to another. Something was missing though, something which Lore knew she was waiting for. She felt a change in the air when Inverse stopped attacking and seemed to focus. Her eyes were unnaturally sharp as she studied every action, time itself slowing so that she could read every nuance of her opponent's body. The air glowed as rings coalesced around Inverse's hands, glowing circles of blue and black light with strange symbols around the rings. Inverse clenched her fists and a metal dissected the circles, giving her a grip on them both. Hands swinging in front of her, Inverse fell into a stance which evoked a memory for Lore.

Shouted words, a flash of light - the world faded and twisted, the Guardian seemed sad as another of her children made her cry. Her heart - Lore's heart - wept at the battle. It seemed they were only battling now...

Lore blinked, still caught in a trance of watching Inverse. What was that memory? Was it the Guardian's heart, remembering? I know that wasn't me, I didn't exist then... does every battle her senshi have cause the Guardian such pain? A tear leaked from the corner of her eye; was she making the Guardian cry now, in this mock battle with another senshi?

"Invari Light..." All of the light around them faded, drawn into those two glowing discs which Inverse held. The symbols flared and glowed, pulsing with red and blue and green as Lore felt their power build. "Burst!" The glowing circles suddenly flashed, so bright that Lore shielded her eyes. Against the brightness she could almost make out two whirling discs flying at her, so bright that she couldn't really track them.

I'm going to be hit by them! Lore tried to move but instead of fleeing her hand undid the seal on her scroll, feeling her tome in her other hand before it floated up to her right, a wind flipping pages and a quill floating up between the pages, the tip dipped in fresh ink, ready to write. She grabbed the decorative bar at the top of the scroll and let the clean parchment unroll, hitting the floor with a clatter. Her voice was soft but clear, the words falling from her lips with no knowledge of how she knew to say them. "Arcanae..." The attack stopped, floating in front of her unfurled scroll. "Scientia..." The light of the attack started to fade even while the quill moved furiously over the surface of the tome, a picture replica of the attack transcribed to the pages in intricate, perfect detail. "Scriptor."With the last word, her scroll flashed, forming into a single disc, a mirror of the one Inverse had sent at her.

"Oh!" Lore dropped the disc, forgetting in that instant the sudden influx of knowledge of how to use the attack. She looked across the space to Inverse who was staring at her with a shocked, dumbfounded expression. "I... think I know how I attack now." She bent down, kneeling as she picked up the disc. As soon as her hand closed over the bar across the center of the ring she remembered how to use it as intimately as if she had created and mastered the attack herself. Standing back up she held her disc out next to the one of Inverse's which still floated in the air. She could see differences immediately - the colors of hers were wrong, and it was noticeably smaller than Inverse's but for all intents and purposes, she had a replica of Inverse's attack in her hand.

The quill scribbled the last little bit of information down before the tome snapped shut, Lore instinctively catching the heavier tome in her free hand. With the tome in hand she let the disc go, knowing that the tome now remembered all of the sudden knowledge of the attack she'd been gifted with. The disc faded as Inverse's flew back to the started senshi and when hers hit the ground, it was a scroll with a small glyph on the very top. "I know you're surprised, Inverse," Lore bent, setting the tome down and carefully rolling her scroll back up, feeling like some part of her was now complete with the odd action. Maybe this is how I will accomplish my mission? Isn't there a saying that you learn the true measure of a person when you fight them? If that's true...maybe I just was able to learn what the Guardian wanted to know about Inverse?

Inverse stared dumbfounded at her companion, looking at the incongruous senshi, her eyes remembering the imprint of the attack she had held in her hand. What kind of a power is that? What kind of a senshi learns another senshi's attack and can use it? The battle against Chaos which had reigned in the system came to mind, Inverse changing her position to be more defensive, in case the quiet, bookish senshi suddenly turned tables and changed her colors. She couldn't be too careful now, not against such an unknown. She remembered a few of the senshi which used to exist in the world who, once their starseeds had been taken, were shadows of the senshi they once were. Lore didn't show any of the signs but maybe, just maybe...

Flipping open the tome, Lore's finger traced over an entry in the book, a new one, one which was in her handwriting but she knew she couldn't have entered it in the book; it was about Inverse. Her lips moved to read the words on the page, flipping it once she got to the end of the paragraph and looking at the next section. On the page was every last detail about Sailor Inverse, from how much she weighed in the weight system Lore instinctively knew, to what color her eyes were. And just past the senshi information was a section which caused Lore to almost drop the book.

"Your name is J'ina?"