Just a quick intro into where I'm dropping this fan fiction into the Sailor Moon timeline. Pluto finds the Moon Kingdom at the height of its power – but also the height of its turmoil. Queen Serenity is a recent widow and has a young daughter with bright yellow hair and two buns just like her mother.
When Pluto starts existing as a singular, whole being on the moon the part of her that existed through space and time all at once is pushed from her and manifests as the Time Door. So essentially Pluto brought the Time Door with her and holds the key that opens it.
My story starts not long after Pluto has begun living in the Moon Kingdom. The Time Door has never been opened because Pluto holds the key but, as a door that is open to all times and corners of the universe, is there a force out there strong enough to force it open?
Home
The Scouts were training again while the Princess leaned over the outer fence watching, face drawn in admiration. Even standing a fair distance away I could hear her little noises of excitement every time one of the Scouts launched an attack at the rows of dummy soldiers lined up in various positions.
She seemed especially moved when the Scout from Mars conjured the bow and arrows, burning with bright red flames, and clapped when the girl hit her targets dead center.
My heart gave a small jolt when someone put a hand on the top of my head. "Your hair is almost as long as mine Puu," Queen Serenity said stepping up beside me.
I looked over at her and smiled despite the feeling of hesitation at her use of the nickname. Queen Serenity had been the first being with a body like mine that I had ever seen and when she had asked me who I was I could not answer. It wasn't for lack of understanding her speech – I heard her language through a thick veil as though I'd known it once – but because I didn't have a name.
In that moment I had been afraid. Did I really even exist here without a name? But Serenity had extended a hand to me then, her pale skin such a contrast to my dark brown, and had laughed shyly. "We should probably go find your name then," she had said.
With her hand draped around mine she had led me into her life at the Palace and encouraged me to find a name that felt right, one that I wanted, and it was in the Palace's library that I saw the charts of this solar system and the small, dark planet that stood almost like a sentry at the edge. Its name was Pluto.
"I can't sit on mine yet Queen Serenity," I said back to her. The ridiculous smile I had on my face wouldn't flatten out so I turned back to the training scene in front of me.
"Puu," she said taking her hand from my head. "I told you there's no need for formalities when we're alone."
The missing weight and warmth from her hand sent chills down my back and a memory of the cold, lifeless void of space ripped through my mind. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a slow, quiet breath in thankful that Serenity was looking out toward the Scouts and not at me.
When I was sure that the feeling had passed I opened my eyes and stretched my arm out to indicate the arena in front of us. "But we're not alone."
I smiled and looked over at her but she was lost in thought, staring out at the girls training but not really seeing them. "I don't suppose we're ever alone," she said finally.
The memory of never-ending emptiness threatened to snake its way into my mind again. My spine started to go stiff with the frozen memory but Serenity turned toward me and once again put her hand on my head. This time she ran a hand through my hair and lifted a section that was covering the side of my face.
"Can I fashion your hair again?" she asked. There was a smile on her face now but no wrinkles graced the corners of her blue eyes. They were still filled with thoughts of something else. I could never blame her for being somewhere else when she was with me; the kingdom needed her to always be their leader no matter what she was doing or who she was with.
"As long as it's not dual buns," I said sitting down. Somehow the Queen and her daughter made the two spheres of hair look regal so the first time I agreed to have my hair put up I had foolishly asked for the same.
Afterward, when Queen Serenity had handed me a small mirror I almost choked on the sip of wine I had taken. Unlike Serenity's soft, fine hair that flowed in waves down from the buns my thick, coarse hair almost stuck out straight behind me in wide paddle-shaped swaths.
Fuzzy-headed and warm from the wine we had burst into a laughter that we couldn't control. Even when the General had knocked on Serenity's chamber door she couldn't stop giggling long enough to tell him to come in and report.
She laughed for a moment before moving behind me. "Of course not," she said.
Another excited noise came from the Princess as the Scout from Venus flung her chain at a target so fast I couldn't actually see the movement until it wrapped around the fake foe. Then, with one skilled yank, she ripped it clean out of the ground.
The girl was around the same age as the others and was shorter than the Scout from Jupiter but the way she carried herself seemed older and at times it was almost as if she stood taller than all of them.
"The Scout with the long yellow hair," I said as Serenity's ran her fingers through my hair, attempting to get the knots out. "She's the leader?"
Her hands stilled for a moment before she answered, "Sailor Venus was the first soldier to arrive after I sent the plea to all the planets within our system."
"Who was the last?"
A hand brushed past my face to gather the thick hair in front, hitting the heavy glass earrings Serenity had given to me only a few weeks after I had arrived. She'd had them made to match the color of my eyes, a deep red with scattered flecks of purple.
The difference between the cool earring and brush of warmth from Serenity's hand sent a jolt down my neck. It was quick like the lighting during eclipse storms but rippled down through my arm like moonlight does on water.
"Mars I believe," she said. Another hand swept up the hair on my left side and it suddenly seemed brighter, the hair that had shielded the sides of my face lifted. I couldn't help but smile then as the shorter pieces in the very front started falling free.
"What about Uranus and Neptune?"
"I never sent them requests," she said. I felt a pin slid against my head, heavy with hair but secure. Then she mumbled, through the pins that must have been in her mouth, "they're too volatile. They would surely send soldiers but they deal in outer-defenses, not usually interested in the inner workings of the galaxy."
One of the pins pinched the sensitive skin underneath all my hair. "Pluto is a part of the Outer Planets," I said. There was a smile on my face even though she couldn't see it, to make my words seem lighter, but the weight of loneliness in my own words pulled at the corners of my mouth.
"You are a part of the Moon Kingdom Puu." She must have finished my hair then because she put her head on my shoulder and leaned into my neck. "You may not have come from Pluto or even from this galaxy but I feel like you belong here."
It was in that moment when the terrifying abyss I had known for so long was the farthest away I'd ever felt. I looked at the Time Key on the ground next to us and placed my hand on the cool metal.
Could I not control the time that had slipped out of me when I became a singular being? It wouldn't take much energy to stop our forward progression and step outside of our flow through it.
All at once the emptiness that lurks at the edges of my being came crashing back over me and I had to squeeze my eyes shut against the dizziness that followed. I hadn't ever stopped anyone's movement through time before. The consequences for even a few moments could be irreversible no matter the outcome.
"Four soldiers just for the princess," I said to deflect the conversation and feelings it was evoking in me. I opened my eyes and looked at the girl, who was now sitting on the fence surrounding the arena, a huge smile on her face.
"Five," Serenity said in her ear. Her cool breath rustled the hair at the nape of my neck, which sent another jolt down my side. "Haven't you been training as well?"
I felt my face get a little warm and I smiled but deep within my chest something tightened and then seized, my breath almost catching with it. When the Sailor Scouts arrived months ago I had joined them. Curiosity had got the better of me.
Relations with Earth were becoming increasingly strained and I could see the toll that negotiations had on Queen Serenity every time she came to my chambers. She'd gotten into the habit of coming to my room when the negotiations finished at all hours of sleep and pace at the foot of my bed, going over her strategies and concerns. As a result I had gotten into the habit of waiting for her and having strategies of my own and answers for her worry.
It was during one of these sleep hours that she'd first told me about her plea for their allied planets to send one soldier each to help protect her daughter from the attack she knew would eventually come. She didn't know from where, but there had been an increasing number of assaults from faraway galaxies as well as the frayed ties with Earth.
"It's not just for the princess," Serenity finally said. Her hands dropped from my hair – the weight from my hair had shifted from the ends to a knot or bun I could feel on the top of my head.
Then Serenity draped a hand on each of my shoulders, pressing her fingers into my skin for a moment before releasing. The knotted thing in my chest unraveled.
"I want to protect you Serenity."
"I don't need protecting," she said. Her voice seemed farther away now and there was a sudden rush of cold air from the absence of her body behind me.
I turned to see her striding down the path that led away from the Palace and regret over my words took hold of me. It seemed the more I spoke my mind at Serenity's insistence, the more trouble became of it than good.
Plucking the Time Key from the dusted ground beneath me I stood and gave one last glance at the Princess who had abandoned the fence to talk with the four Sailor Soldiers. The Princess was talking with her hands and smiling so much that her mouth never really closed all the way – I could see that from here.
Sailor Mars was standing with the group but she was brushing her hair with closed eyes, a pinched look on her face. The Soldier from Mercury was laughing at whatever the Princess was saying, a hand on her cheek while Sailor Jupiter elbowed her in the side. The leader, Sailor Venus, looked as though she was trying to memorize everything the Princess said but whatever it was must have tested her tact because she kept glancing at the Scout from Mars, who didn't look up even once.
Then I started after Queen Serenity who, despite the quick pace she'd started out with, was not very far ahead on the path.
And she must have told the guards to stay behind and watch over the Princess because they didn't move or look at me when I walked past them. The two of us moved alone down the path with me matching the Queen's pace only a few steps behind.
It wasn't until she stopped at the edge of White Lake that I noticed she must have taken the pins out of her own hair.
...
