Baryl was in a temper as she tossed herself down on the lacy, delicate bed in her own rooms. Her attempt had failed; Jadeite was in the palace dungeon- something that had never happened before among the chosen Imperial Guard. She couldn't bear this. Disrespect of someone she commanded was disrespect of her. That Venusian bitch had made her look like a fool, because her servant had looked like a fool!
The anger got to be too much. Baryl, with a mal-tempered shriek, got to her feet and began hurling everything breakable in the room at the walls. It was only when she picked up her scrying ball that she froze. Forget the embarrassment to herself! What would happen when Metalia discovered what had happened? She needed to do something- quickly!
The crystal ball gave her the answer she needed. As she looked into the ball, she saw Zoicite watching Kunzite walk towards the rooms of the ill Venusian princess with the most poisonous look to cross the face of any man...
Baryl smiled, and once more sent a thought twisting into the mind of one of the four generals. Friendship could easily become lust- and lust was a powerful agent.
*&*
Zoicite was pissed. This- female!- had come out of nowhere, and within hours of her arrival, his best friends were warring in the halls! And Kunzite! Hovering over that pale waif as though she were the princess of Earth! He had spent the last several years trying to subtly get Kunzite's attention, and when that had failed, he had turned to flirting with Nephrite to try to make Kunzite jealous. Nothing had worked, and this Venusian bitch had come crawling out of the woodwork like an insidious little termite and had taken Kunzite in one afternoon!
Abruptly, he turned on her heel and flounced off down the hall towards the dungeons. He would go to find out what had happened between the two generals. If they thought together, he and Jadeite could surely find some way to bring Kunzite to his senses... and then, the problem of the prince could be addressed.
*&*
The sun had set. Kunzite was glad that this interminable day was over, but somehow he found himself as uneasy as a child who was afraid of the dark. Somehow this darkness seemed to be the cause of all of the problems of recent times. His eyes strayed north to the black monolith. He shuddered and turned away.
He carried the tray to the girl's room himself, afraid someone may try to poison her. At her answering call, he pushed open the door and approached her with a gentle smile. She was sitting up in bed, the chain lying next to her on the bed. She was very pale, and the dress she wore, while good quality, did not seem to be the garment of a goddess, or even of a princess. She looked vulnerable, and thoroughly mortal.
He placed the tray on the table beside the bed, and asked softly,
"Is Aphrodite a name or a title?"
The girl, reaching for the spoon, stopped and tilted her head, looking up at him quizzically.
"It's just that we've always called the Goddess of the Moon Selene, but the princess- whom, you have assured me is the lunar heir- is called Serenity. I wondered if that meant she would someday be Selene, or if the name of the Goddess would change. Then you appear, and I find the questions coming to the forefront again."
The girl was picking at the broth, taking the smallest possible sips. She looked up at him, and placed the spoon aside.
"Her friends call her Princess Serenity. It was the name she was given at birth. After she is married, she will become Selene II, and her daughter will be Princess Serenity until she in turn becomes Selene III- though, with the life span of those born in the Nine Kingdoms, Selene III may not come about for nine hundred years. Naming is a very subtle expression of power. When I found her married, I started automatically to refer to her in my head as Selene II. When she uses the Crystal, she is Serenity. When I'm in uniform, I'm Venus. My mother, technically is Goddess of Venus and Aphrodite, but I carry the title when acting in her stead- such as being a liason to other courts."
"Then you are the Princess-" Kunzite trailed off, leaving her to fill in the answer, watching concernedly as she picked up the spoon and toyed with it rather than eating it.
"Princess Minako," She supplied. "I don't hear it often. Even among our friends, it's usually 'Mars, could you' or 'Jupiter, do you want to'. We're usually on duty when we're present at a court other than our own. My own mother calls me Ishtar to get me ready to assume Aphrodite. I'm never Minako."
"You sound bitter," Kunzite noted, subtly pushing a roll towards Minako. She picked it up and started to shred it. She looked surprised.
"Well-" She trailed off, and then spoke in a very soft, very intense voice. "Jupiter longs for power and to prove herself. She loves being the Princess of a planet of storms and tempers and the energy of storms. Mars is the mystic; she uses her powers to help people and takes her duties very seriously. Mercury sees her time as Mercury to be a chance to learn everything she can before she becomes Athene. Me..." She looked out over the dark palace garden. "I wonder if I'm the only person who wants to be free. I mean, I treasure my friendships with the others, and I take my duties to the queen very seriously. But I wonder what it would have been like to have been born a normal woman, to have a life and to be able to have dreams to pursue. I have no dreams, no ambition. I've known since I was very little that I was a Goddess of Love and Defender of the Princess. I knew I was the emotional crutch for a woman who controls the fates of Nine Kingdoms. My entire life was mapped out the moment I was born. I hate fate. I hate destiny. I want to wake up each morning, roll over, and sleep in. I want to have lessons and chores, and then be able to work to become good at something I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to have a choice of what that rest of my life is. All of my friends are so wrapped up in the life that was mapped out for them that they never look at what the other possibilities are. All except the Princess. She was curious about the Earth, and secretly I was glad that she broke the rules. It meant I could break the rules by coming after her."
Minako abruptly turned and looked back at Kunzite. "I loved watching the Earth. It's so blue and green and vibrant and alive! Nothing is alive on the moon; it's stagnant and a world of ritual and formalized beauty. I-" She paused, then spoke the deepest secret of her soul. "I wanted to be a normal girl living on a beautiful planet where things were alive and new and changing with a future, not a gameplan."
Kunzite swept her off the bed. She wasn't going to eat, anyway. Minako's eyes flew open wide with shock, but she didn't struggle. There was no evil intent from him. He carried her out onto the balcony of her rooms.
"Look up," He commanded softly. Minako's eyes rose to the moon, shining brightly overhead. She had never seen it from offworld before, and she gasped softly at it.
"We see that brilliant crystal overhead every night," He murmured to her. "My whole life, I've been sick of petty court gossip, and brainlessness, and our damned traditions. It's tradition and tradition and tradition because if we're not all carefully polite with one another, it's war. I hate tradition. I hate having a peace dictated to me rather than allowing nature take its course. All my life I've looked up at that diamond shining overhead and wanted nothing more than to go and see it; to put the Earth in its place beneath me as a pretty little bauble for studying and then going about more important matters. I wanted beauty and the stars and all of eternity at my fingertips."
"Then we both wanted-" She looked at him, and realized they were a handspan apart. She gasped again, softly, her pink lips parting in the moonlight.
"Each other," He murmured. "Or what the other had, rather."
She nodded, mesmerized. He set her down and took both her hands between his. "Minako," He whispered. "Stay here! When the Princess comes back, become the ambassador permanently. That will give you an excuse to stay. You can be free, like you've always wanted. You won't have to protect anyone else's emotions or body- be protected."
She blinked in confusion at the last. Kunzite's eyes were scorching her now. "You're so vulnerable, and no one else seems to be able to see it. Let me protect you."
Before she could recover from her shock, he was kissing her. Not with deep passion and a forceful determination as she had been kissed by Ares- gently, tenderly, as if she were something fragile that would break with too much force. She trembled and found herself wishing for a moment, desperate, frantic, longing-
When he ended the kiss, she stepped back away from him. "I can never turn my back on my duties. I only said I wished to, not that I would."
Grandly, she turned on her heel and swept back into the room, closing the balcony door behind her. Kunzite leaned against the rail, his eyes cast down on the darkened garden. He told himself it had been impulse and moonlight, nothing more. He turned regretfully-
-And found himself staring at her closed door. A wry expression crossed his face, and he knocked. She opened it, her eyes confused and a little embarrassed.
"I'm sorry to intrude, madam," He said, with no small amount of grandeur. "But your room is the only way off this balcony."
Minako flushed and stood aside to let him back into the room. With a bow, he swept across the room and out through the other door- but for a moment he left it open a crack. He watched her carefully close and lock the balcony door, and then walk back across to the bed. She stood beside it a moment, and then jumped on the bed, hugging her pillow. After a moment, she sat up, placed the pillow back where it belonged, and turned her attention to the cooled meal tray. She picked up a spoon, tasted the soup, made a face, and began to eat in earnest.
She would recover. Soon.
Kunzite smiled, closed the door behind himself, and walked off down the hall, unaware that he himself was being watched.
