Serenity woke up with a blinding headache. When she made a motion to move her limbs, she heard the clinking sound of chains. She looked around and realized that there was no possibility that these dimensions belonged to the escape pod Shura and she escaped in.
Wait, Shura! Where was her guardian? There was nothing in this metallic room except a simple cot attached to the side, a toilet, and the links that chained her to the room. She started screaming and banging on the doors, pleading for anybody to hear her voice. The chains were designed for her to reach the door but not to go past it.
Suddenly the door opened and the princess almost fell in surprise, but familiar shackled hands held her up. It was Shura!
The guard hastily shoved Shura into Serenity's cell. "You have five minutes."
"Shura!" The princess immediately pounced on her aide and enclosed her in a hug. Upon hearing Shura wince and hiss, Serenity drew back and took a second look at her guardian. Several scrapes splattered across her body. Her lip was cut and she held her side as if she had a fractured rib.
"Shura? What's going on?" Serenity inquired with worry in her voice.
Letting go of the little amount of strength that was holding Shura together, she collapsed on the small cot provided for Serenity. Although it hurt to breathe, much less talk, she explained what happened since Serenity had been knocked out. She told her about the Galra force field, about their capture, and about the deal Shura had made with the officer.
As her story ended, Shura saddened as the tears began to pour down Serenity's face.
"You mean they're all gone...even Mother?" Shura didn't have it in her to nod at the truth.
"Shura, I can't let you fight for me. I can't live knowing that you're putting your life on the line for me like this."
"But you must, my princess. You must live for the both of us. You must live for your mother and for all the Lunarians who lost their lives to make sure that you would live."
"But I never asked for this. I never wanted this," Serenity spat out bitterly. Her eyes hardened. "If you're doing this for me, I would rather not live knowing that my own existence is the cause of your suffering."
Shura's face darkened at the vaguely veiled threat of self-harm that Serenity had just issued. She countered Serenity's look with one set even harder with an unyielding determination.
"Dying is easy, my sweet Serenity. But living is harder."
Without warning, the door slid open and the Galran officer entered. "Alright, time's up!"
Shura stood up with strained, exhausted muscles and left the room without another look at Serenity.
For weeks, Shura fought relentlessly. Day after day, she battled with open wounds and broken bones that never fully healed. All Serenity could do was wait for the brief meetings with Shura after a fight. These meetings were sporadic, though. Sometimes, she would go days without seeing Shura. Unbeknownst to her, whenever the injuries were particular bad, Shura would reject the opportunity to see Serenity. She would continue hiding Serenity from the full brutality and cruelty of this world for as long as she could.
In the beginning Serenity still objected Shura's decision. But during the time when all she could do was wait helplessly for Shura to come back, most likely more broken than the last time she saw her, the princess could not muster any more energy to protest. Instead, she focused all of her energy into mustering what little healing magic she knew to ease the pain. Before she knew it, Shura became her reason for living as Serenity was Shura's reason for fighting. She still did not have the courage to apologize for her weakness that day when she had threatened to commit suicide, but she showed her resolve and belief in Shura by only giving her words of encouragement when she would visit the princess.
Their routine went on until the day she was scheduled to fight the Champion. On the night before the battle, Shura and Serenity discussed the information they had on the Champion.
"From what the others were saying, the Champion's real name is Shiro and that had injured his own friend in his blind lust for battle," Shura stated with no trepidation. She had seen much worse in the battle ring.
Serenity refrained from commenting but couldn't stop the fear unfurling in her stomach.
"He's won many battles," Shura continued, "even among the Galran soldiers, he is known as the most bloodthirsty warrior they've ever seen."
The princess gulped but said nothing. She simply reached for Shura's hand and held it tightly within her own. She brought Shura's hand to her forehead and prayed.
"May the Goddess of Serene watch over you." Both Serenity and Shura held back tears as they did every time before Shura went on to spar. The two were careful to not shed even one tear in front of the other. They had to remain strong as to not worry each other. The sound of the door opening prompted their separation. Unable to shut out the possibilities of horrors to come, Serenity twist and turned restlessly with worry until late hours of the night.
She stood before the door, twenty four hours later, waiting for the sound of Shura's shackles outside the door that never came. Instead of Shura's stern yet beautiful face, the Galran officer who Shura made the deal with was in her place.
"Wh-where's Shura?" Serenity asked shakily, dread pooling in her stomach.
"You can probably figure it out for yourself," the guard said apathetically. "The Champion won. It's too bad. I had big money on her since she was my recruit."
A white, hot consuming anger encapsulated Serenity and ripped through her like lightning. She lunged towards the officer, her nails aimed at his throat. He cutoff her attack with ease by wrapping a hand around her throat. The beastly Galran slammed her against the wall and slowly pushed her up until her feet no longer touched the floor. Serenity willed all the strength she had to not pass out.
"Now, now. I have shown nothing but kindness to you and Shura over the past month. I've prevented you from having to partake in any of the arduous labor the other slaves have had to endure." He sighed in irritation.
"Unfortunately, with Shura gone, that deal is off. You have to start carrying your own weight now. Don't worry. I'll go easy on you since Shura had been so successful in her battles this past month. You can start with being a food server." He let Serenity drop to the floor. The princess coughed and heaved, taking in all the air that she could.
"Now. Let's move you to the servants quarters."
Before he could drag her up by the arm, the sound of the alarms blasted through the corridors.
"PRISONER ESCAPE! PRISONER ESCAPE!"
"Shit!" The officer whipped his head around and reached for his communicator. He yelled a series of angry commands and profanities in Galran. His superiors were going to throw him to the wolves if a prisoner had escaped under his watch.
A garbled voice replied on the communicator.
"What!" he exclaimed. "The Champion has escaped?!" The Galran commander kicked the wall and cursed again.
"I'll deal with you later!" Before Serenity knew what was happening, the Galran commander left her cell.
The orphaned princess waited hopelessly in her prison for her inevitable enslavement. But the officer never came back. Due to his negligence and his inability to prevent the escape of the Champion, he had been demoted or transferred somewhere else. Or worse. The blonde Lunarian didn't spend much time thinking about his fate though; she simply didn't have the energy to anymore. Because he was the only one on the ship who knew of her existence and the one who had been in charge of her meals, she no longer had a source of sustenance.
After almost a week with no food, Serenity felt like her body was caving into itself. The hunger gnawed inside of her like a ravenous monster. She didn't even have the ability to cry for Shura, instinctively desperate to preserve the water inside of her. She was so frail, so weak, so useless. There was no point in preserving her life. Especially now that Shura was gone.
Serenity lied their against the wall, accepting that there was only one path left now. Death seductively whispered its offer of blissful comfort into her ears. She closed her eyes for what she expected, moreso hoped, to be the last time.
When she opened up her eyes to the sight of the Black Paladin, she was at first surprised at the fact that she had woken up at all. Had her body undergone hibernation? But that was not possible for her people. She's never read or heard about such a case.
Looking at the worn down state of the familiar cell around her, she couldn't tell whether weeks or months had passed. Even on the off chance that only a couple days had gone by, there was just no possibility that her body could have sustained itself for that long. When she had closed her eyes that day, she fully expected to starve to death in her sleep. Lunarians' physiology was very similar to that of Earthlings'. They could not survive more than a week at most without food.
She lamented her fate. Even death would not allow her to escape her suffering. Before she could ponder more, she remembered that someone else was in her presence. It was a man fully covered in black and white armor. He had his helmet on so she could not identify any of his features. Her heart dropped. What if this were another Galran soldier who had come to take her away again?
Fortunately, he noticed her discomfort and took of his helmet. For a second when their eyes locked onto one another, she could see that his steely dark eyes were filled to the brim with a kind of sadness and despair that she had seen in Shura and recognized within herself.
However, when he introduced himself as Shiro, her blood immediately curled and all her empathy flooded away to be replaced with hate. Shock, apprehension, and anger boiled up to the surface all at once, but she did her best to prevent this from showing on her face. Anyone who knew her always joked about how easily she could be read. When Shura upsetted her by suggesting she needed to learn to disguise her emotions to become a good queen, her mother had told her: What one sees as the inability to disguise emotions, another sees as honesty. It is up to you to determine which characteristic you choose to uphold. While control is always a good way to handle your enemies, when it comes to the one who you love and care for, it's important to be honest with your feelings.
She winced at the thought of her mother and Shura. She had lost her mother, Shura, friends, and kingdom in less than a month. She was most likely the only Lunarian left. But when the thought that the Champion-Shura's murderer, whether he knew it or not-was right in front of her, she wondered if this was why she continued to live against all odds. Maybe the reason for her prolonged existence was to exact revenge on this cold, blood thirsty killer. She solidified her resolve and accepted the hand of her enemy.
