Sailor Mars was waiting for Queen Serenity the next day outside her bedchambers. Having prepared herself for this, the queen wasn't all too surprised to see her when she left at the very earliest hues of Earthlight.
"Now is when you tell me what the fuck you were doing last night," Mars said, arms crossed over her torso. She wore her honored uniform as all the senshi did, falling down her back in waves.
"Walk with me," the queen said, motioning Mars to follow her. The soldier did, falling in step beside her.
"Less chance too much will be overheard if we travel," Queen Serenity said as they headed towards the breakfast hall. "Have you been having any nightmare lately?"
Mars started at the accuracy of the question. "What has that got to do with anything? I have been having nightmares for months."
The queen stopped walking, looking at Mars in dawning horror. "Months? And you thought to tell no one?"
Mars gave a characteristic shrug, ever petulant. "Who cares, they're dreams."
The queen shook her head, blowing out a breath. "Those manifested into the power of Mars are known for their visions and prophecies through dreams. Tell me what you saw." She started walking again, but her slippers were making the same small clinks of the chains from the previous night, and it made her stomach turn. "Maybe I won't need breakfast today after all," she mumbled.
Mars scoffed. "I've never been anything special, we both know that. I was born a slave in the gutter of the worst of planets. You only took me in because I got the power of Mars. If not for that, I'd probably be dead in a hole somewhere right now, or selling my body for a strip of meat. I may have inherited the power of Mars but that doesn't mean I can just magically posses the power of sight. Reality doesn't work like that."
Queen Serenity fought not to strangle her guardian. Even after their many years together the girl was still as stubborn as a mule. "It means exactly that. To inherit the power of a senshi doesn't just mean you get to parade around the palace in a fancy fuku and light torches with your fingers." As they passed the entrance to the library she pointed to it. "You might want to spend some time in there. I fear you might be a bit undereducated."
Mars bit down her rising fury at the insult. Sure she was gutter trash who had never been tutored or raised with a silver spoon in her mouth, but she'd scraped by just fine. She didn't need to bury herself in a pile of books like Mercury to survive. But she'd known the queen long enough to know when she was trying to provoke her to distract her. "You're avoiding talking about last night, and I want answers." Mars stepped in front of the queen, blocking her path forward.
"You're right, I am," Queen Serenity admitted, slowing to a stop before she walked into her. "But your dreams are relevant and I do need to hear about them." When Mars didn't move she let out a sigh. She had a sinking dread in her stomach that she already knew what Mars' reaction would be to this. It was one of the many reasons she had not slept last night. Mars was an extremely devout planet, religious almost to a fault, and they held their convictions above everything. "Fine, I'll tell you everything but please," she glanced around the hall to make sure no one was listening. "We should keep walking."
Mars huffed and threw her hands up but stepped aside to let them continue their stroll. "Neptune had a prophecy of destruction," Queen Serenity said, keeping her voice hushed. "She foresaw the end of the silver millennium, and three milestones between our current time and that future."
"So now Neptune has the power of sight too, huh?" Mars rolled her eyes, disbelieving. The power of sight was extremely rare, so rare in fact that only a handful of individuals gained it during a generation. Of course, several dozen people always claimed to have the ability, but most were nothing by a sham.
The queen gave her a sidelong glance. "The outer and inner senshi are kept separated for many reasons, but one is so that the bearer of the great crystals can compare the prophecies of one side to the prophecies of the other without having to worry about them being influenced by one another. Prophecies are vague and if both the senshi of Mars and Neptune were to combine their focus it could distort the reality of the meaning, especially since the inner senshi are meant to protect this solar system from internal threats, and outer senshi that which comes from beyond it."
"You still haven't even told me what Y- I mean Neptune, prophesied."
The queen dropped her voice to a whisper, her eyes haunted. "Death. She saw darkness destroy this land, consuming all life with a hunger unlike any the universe has seen for over 5000 years. The palace in rubble, everyone you've ever known-dead." The queen shuddered. "It would be the Terrible War all over again."
"That I actually believe," Mars said, tapping her chin. "My dreams have also been of destruction and death. Always the same images, the prayer tower fractured in half, the palace a wasteland, Sailor Mercury's head..." she shook herself free of her thoughts, to afraid to speak of the darkness she'd also seen. "Still doesn't explain what you were doing last night."
Queen Serenity felt a few hundred years beyond her real age as she spoke. "I was killing a mother and her child, both singularly important to this prophecy. They were the first clear milestone, that if allowed to live would push us into that future. There was no choice but to eliminate them."
Mars stared at her aghast, "You killed a child?" She realized she had practically screamed the statement and dropped her voice even though her breathing was ragged. "You killed an innocent child?"
The queen wrapped her arms around herself, repeating the words from the previous night. "I did what I had to do to protect our future."
Mars made the symbol of the Martian deity over her face, glaring and spitting at the feet of the queen. "You have forsaken your vows. You are not fit to bear the title of queen."
Queen Serenity's temper flared, refusing to let her actions be questioned by someone who didn't even know the extent of her own abilities. "You dare question my station? YOU? Of all people? You are my sworn guardian and as such have no right to judge my actions, only to defend me and my throne."
"No," Mars said, stepping away from her. "No, I didn't swear to be your guardian. I swore to be the guardian of Mars. I swore to protect that which is sacred-the innocence of LIFE!" Her eyes were blazing with fury. "You have profaned and subverted the vows which you have taken to wear the crown for this system, and you will be burned for it!" She shook her head, angry tears in her eyes. "I believed in you!"
"What good are vows if your kingdom is gone and the Terrible War starts anew?" The queen could barely contain her rising emotions. "What lives will you save if all of you are defeated and dead? No, I will not stand here and be made the villain in this. To sacrifice two lives for the sake of millions is not wrong. It is what any soldier such as yourself is tasked with should the time arrive."
"You are a fool, Serenity. You murdered two innocent people for...for nothing but a prophecy! They are dead because of a blurry picture in a mirror! Those are not the actions of a soldier defending their kingdom, they are the actions of a power-mad coward! And that boy-the prince of Earth! You may not have killed him but I'm sure you did something equally hideous to him as well. I felt it, the spiritual change you forced upon him and your daughter. You changed the fates themselves for your own ambition. No, you are not justified in this, these are not the actions of someone who is of sound mind."
"You speak of treason for things you do not even understand," Queen Serenity hissed between her teeth.
"I speak of truth! And you are too far gone to even hear it!"
"Then take your lofty morals and begone. I banish you from my kingdom, you are no longer welcome here." The queen stood at her full height, still a full six inches shoulder than the soldier but every bit as imposing.
"That's the first smart thing you've done in a while," Sailor Mars spat, turning on her heel. She looked back before getting very far. "I curse you, and your precious kingdom. May you both be lost to the very darkness you think you've prevented."
An ominous pall fell over them both. Suddenly the air seemed twice as thin, the shadows doubling in length.
"You would lay a curse, a true curse on your home?" Queen Serenity closed her eyes, feeling the tension between them and the curse that had just been bestowed. "You cannot undo what you have just done, and if it comes to pass, it will be your hatred that has destroyed us, not my actions, a prophecy or a living darkness."
"You are more a fool than I if you think this place could ever be a home." Mars made a sweeping gesture to the cold marble pillars and sterile floors. "This place is already dying. Curse, prophecy or demon, whatever comes for it will be picking off the bones because a kingdom cannot stand if those who rule it are unjust. I have no family, no loved ones to lose if the silver millennium does fall." She stared with betrayal written across her face at her former friend, still fighting back tears. "You were my only friend and I don't even know you. Your kingdom will fall, Serenity, maybe through stagnation or maybe through rebellion from its people against you. But life will continue on outside the walls of your little castle. And this world will be a better place for it."
With that, she turned and left, leaving Queen Serenity standing alone in the empty hall.
-
Thousands of miles away, buried beneath rock and dirt a seal mark pulsed to life. Trapped inside it, for the first time in 5000 years, Metallia began to stir. Restless after so many years of confinement, she pushed against the boundaries that sealed her. But they were stronger than the limited strength she had recovered, and the blood of those who had died to seal her kept her contained. She almost had everything she needed for freedom now though, the blood of an innocent sacrificed for her sake, and a divine instrument's curse to unseal her. There was only one more trigger, and she could be free to devour this planet and all upon it whole.
And then, there would be time.
And there were always other planets.
-
Pluto made a rare appearance at the breakfast hall, sitting beside her queen as she refused to eat. All of the inner senshi but Mercury had yet to arrive, and Mercury sat the other end of the banquet table reading a book. She was all but was oblivious to the two who sat at the other end. The servants stood too far away to overhear any conversation from the table, and the open archways on either side of the hall prevented sound from carrying.
With Mars' curse still echoing in her ears, Queen Serenity was beginning to spiral down into guilt and regret and forget herself.
"These are dark days," Queen Serenity said, pushing her food around with her fork. "We may be immortal, but we are not invincible." She put down the fork, giving up on even the pretense of eating. The stifled cries of the baby had haunted her all night and now without any sleep the previous night she found she had no appetite. "It was almost the same age as my own child," she said, leaning back in her chair.
"I cannot clearly see the future," Sailor Pluto said, unbothered by the previous nights events. As guardian of the Hundred gate, she had seen far worse atrocities, and little phased her. She took a sip from her cup, her meal also untouched. "But I can clearly see the past. You are not the first to wear the crown who has taken measures to keep it."
"But killing a child...?" Queen Serenity closed her eyes, filled with remorse. "In the moment it seemed necessary. I keep telling myself it had to be done, but did it really?"
"I cannot say, majesty." Pluto let a moment of silence hang between them. "I can say that none in the past have ever had your benevolence, or ever ruled for as long as you have."
"Maybe its time I give up the throne," the queen looked down at her hands. "I have been queen for over two thousand years, and now that I have an heir..."
Pluto shook her head. "No. Your daughter is too young yet to rule, and it may take her many centuries before she has reached your level of aptitude with the silver crystal and is fit to wear the crown. You cannot abdicate without first passing on the great crystal, or we would all perish."
"Ah yes, mustn't forget the crystal that keeps us all alive and young." The queen sighed, the burden of bearing such a powerful crystal heavier than ever. "I fear that power has corrupted me," she said. "I've been queen for so long, and with so many planets under my rule...even the senshi have been reborn and pledged their allegiance to this system. I have more power now than I've ever had in all the years, and I fear that in my blindness I may have sought to hold onto it too tightly."
"Only a fraction of the senshi have been reborn, majesty. Without Jupiter, Earth, Uranus and Saturn, you could never become the tyrant you fear you are becoming. They would stop you. And I swore to you that I would never speak of what we saw." Pluto took a bite of fruit, swallowing it. She looked the queen straight on. "You are making that rather difficult." The queen gave her an apologetic smile. "I will say that had I been in your position, I do not know what I might have done."
"Sometimes I wish I had never become queen," she admitted. "The days when I was young are such a distant memory now, they slip like water through my fingers. But..." she gave a wistful smile. "I do remember what it felt like to be happy."
"Surely there is still much happiness around you. The princess, for one. She will bring light back into your life."
Queen Serenity smiled, placing her hand on Pluto's. "Your words are true. Thank you, friend. I will focus more of my energy into raising my beautiful girl, and less into preserving this kingdom. Who knows, maybe one day she will rule a greater kingdom than this."
In a rare moment of vision, Pluto saw a beautiful woman not unlike Queen Serenity, standing in front of a grand crystalline palace surrounded by a blue sky, great wings on her back. Beside her stood a man in formal attire, a sunset cape billowing behind him. It looked to her like an angel standing in front of heaven. She blinked and the vision was gone.
Pluto allowed herself a tiny smile, encouraged by what she had seen, even if it was only one of many possible futures. "I think she will become all that you could hope for, and more, my queen."
AN: Procrastination station is where I'm at.