She was almost too excited to sleep again, quizzing Artemis for anything he knew about that star and its system. Artemis, for his part, could not say much about it – it was too dim to be given its own name, and was not a part of any of their constellations. All he could tell her was that it was what she was looking for – a star with one habitable planet and several inhabitable ones. Luna soon joined them, looking sleepily up at the dark region of space expectantly; although she was happy that Serenity's search was over, she nonetheless insisted that they return home and properly rest.
The park was a long way from Luna's house and as no carriages were available this late, their little group decided to stay with Artemis instead. Once they were inside Serenity stayed close to the eastern-facing window, staring at the empty place where her home would be, memorizing the surrounding stars to help her get her bearings in a few days' time. She tested the crystal fleetingly; so far as she could tell, it would still need a few more days before she could safely leave. She did notice, however, that it was giving more of its energy to the little one and wondered if that would mean her daughter would grow faster as a result. Based on the dimness of her new target, it would take the better part of 6 months to reach her destination, but that was without stopping. If the crystal was accelerating her daughter's growth rate, she'd have to stop and recuperate for longer periods of time. How long would it really take to get there?
"So… are you planning to leave sooner, now that you know where you're going?"
Serenity started, not having heard Luna come up behind her. The blue-eyed Mauan had asked innocently enough, but she couldn't hide the fleck of something that crossed her face when Serenity turned. She couldn't identify what the look conveyed before Luna was able to hide it again. Suddenly her heart, which had been occupied with thoughts of travel and calculations, slowed a pace when the realization struck her anew: Four days. In four days, she would be saying her goodbyes to Mau and Artemis… and Luna.
She felt it again, the sense that in the past few days their friendship had grown at an amazing pace, and though they were not anywhere near as close as she was to Eos or Hy- Hyperion (her mind stuttered and froze at the thought of his name), she knew she would miss the two of them terribly. Perhaps, she thought, her own thoughts were what Luna's expression had betrayed?
She wouldn't leave just yet. She had been given four days by the King, Queen and Senshi of Mau, and she would take them. The difference between days in the upcoming journey was minimal, especially compared to the memories she would share with her two friends right here. "No," Serenity responded, scant seconds having passed since Luna posed the question, "I'd still like to stay longer, if that's alright."
Luna smiled brightly, "My house is open for as long as you need it." Artemis wandered in at that point, carrying an armload of pillows as he sleepily tripped and caught himself. "And, by extension, his as well," Luna added with a wink.
Artemis, having apparently not heard a word, yawned. "Well, ladies, it's pretty early, and while I do enjoy sleeping in, I've found I can't get to sleep with the sun in my eyes. Serenity, I remade my bed for you; there should be room enough on that thing for you both if you don't mind sharing."
"Thank you," Serenity said with a nod of gratitude.
"Actually, Artemis," Luna offered, "I think I'll sleep in here with you, tonight."
Artemis laughed roguishly, if sleepily, "If you insist, but I warn you that this pull-out sleeper is old, springy and noisy."
Luna rolled her eyes and showed Serenity to the bedroom, indicating a loose shirt for her if she wanted to change, and left with a warm 'goodnight.' As the door closed, Serenity shrugged off the cute (if a little dew-covered) dress and laid it carefully over the back of a chair as she tucked herself into the proffered shirt. As she crawled into bed she lay awake for several minutes, reviewing her plan for the future, for the safety of their daughter… and slipped into a dream.
"Serenity,"
She turned around, finding herself suddenly back in the palace on Okeanos. It was remade, the walls, ceilings and floors like new, like they were before Necroma had invaded their home.
"Serenity."
The voice repeated itself, a voice that she knew even better than her own. A sweet baritone that echoed in her heart. Where was he? She turned around again, searching for the owner of that voice, her wings lending rainbow hues to the view behind her. Still, no one was there, anywhere.
Tentatively, she called back, "Hyperion?"
Suddenly arms wrapped around her from behind, holding her in a soft embrace. She reached up and held his forearms gratefully, leaning back into him and glancing up sideways to look at his face. His blonde hair shaded most of it from view, but she could clearly see the tip of his nose, the small scruff of hair on his chin and the faint outline of one deep blue eye. She breathed deeply, closing her eyes and drinking in the feeling of him.
When she opened her eyes again, they were outside in a familiar field by a well-known copse of trees. He stood before her, smiling his irresistible crooked smile, gazing down at her with warm eyes. The stars above lit the world around them so that everything shone with a soft grey light. "What are we doing here?" she asked, only slightly curious.
Hyperion smiled, taking hold of one of her hands and leading her away towards the trees. They lie down together, still hand-in-hand, and looked up through the canopy, watching the leaves rustle in the breeze. "Remember coming here with Eos all those times?" He trailed off, gently squeezing her hand. She squeezed back, wordlessly telling him that she did, knowing that she could never forget those nights. "I miss her," he finished.
"I do, too," Serenity confided, and continued on bravely, "but I know she's in a better place now. I saw it, Hyperion; it's mesmerizingly gorgeous, like a whirlpool made of diamond dust." She smiled, "She would've loved to see it. … but, then again, she saw it well before I did." They were quiet for a moment, and Serenity continued the thought, "I met the guardian of the Galaxy Cauldron. She was sweet, I think; definitely helpful if nothing else," she laughed, "unlike Okeanos's guardian-sprite. The minx."
"I had always wondered what your guardian-sprite was like," Hyperion wondered, still looking skyward.
"She probably looked like me," Serenity teased, and he nudged her with his shoulder playfully.
"I meant what she was really like. The Okeanos-sprite embodied the bouncy-mischievousness of Eos; would yours be full of nothing but grace and elegance, a beauty shining inside as well as out?"
Serenity blushed and bashfully tapped him on the leg with their enlaced hands, "Oh, stop it."
"Or maybe she would fall over her own two feet?" he laughed and she strangled his thumb with her thumb and forefinger.
"Yeah, and I bet if we ever met yours he'd charm the paint off of a building and sell it."
"Only to buy pretty things for your sprite," he finished without skipping a beat.
She rolled her eyes and shook her head with a chuckle, wondering what she would ever do with him, even as her heart raced to be near him again.
Something was off. She rose halfway, using her outstretched arms as a brace as she looked up at the sky in puzzlement. The constellations… they were all wrong. She didn't recognize any stars in the sky over their heads. If the stars were wrong, then… "Hyperion," she asked slowly, "where are we?"
She looked back at him. His blue eyes slid from the stars above to her own eyes. He smiled again, a slow, soft smile, "We're home."
"Serenity?"
She sat upright, "Hyperion?" The reply was automatic, but as she fully awoke she found she was no longer on Okeanos with her golden-haired lover, but in a well-put-together bedroom. Beside Serenity, her arm reaching out as if she had just touched the sleeping senshi, was Luna, her bright blue eyes surprised. "Oh, I'm so sorry," Serenity apologized, shaking her head, "Good morning, Luna," she greeted with a smile for the purple-haired Mauan.
"Good afternoon, you mean," Luna replied with a shadow of a smile. "It's a little past three in the afternoon."
"Oh," Serenity responded in shock. It hadn't seemed like any time at all had passed, but it had been the greater part of eleven hours since they had turned in. How odd, but not totally unheard-of.
"You… we couldn't really wake you up when we tried around noon," Luna offered hesitantly, "I was getting a little worried, to be honest." Suddenly the cat-like woman smiled cheerfully, "But you're up now and that's all that matters. I bet you and the little one are starving!" She stood and bustled about the room, tossing Serenity a new dress for the day, explaining that she had run home earlier to pick it up and thought that it was adorable. Serenity changed, listening to and participating in the small talk with Luna as her head let the vivid dream fade away, to be filed in her memory to never be forgotten. It had been so honest and open, just like how they used to be. Before leaving the bedroom she fished around in the pocket of yesterday's gown and retrieved the faintly-glowing sailor crystal.
They wandered into Artemis's kitchen where Luna scoffed at the lack of cooking equipment, searching deep in the backs of cabinets to find even a toaster. Eventually they scrounged up everything necessary to make a decent soup and set to work cutting vegetables and pouring in a pre-made stock "from last week when I was here," Luna marveled, "but then I guess he always does come over to eat at either my place or his brother's."
They sat together at Artemis's table (after dusting it off) with steaming bowls of soup and some toast to dip and started eating, Luna sharing about her favorite and least favorite vegetables whilst Serenity compared the ones that she had tried here on Mau to the ones she knew from her home world. Though some textures were very similar, the colors were occasionally very different, and some of the fruits Luna had offered her were downright alien in texture, color and taste.
When they tired of food talk, they set straight to eating. Even as she scooped soup up to her mouth, her daughter demanded the taste of cinnamon sometime in the near future and Serenity smiled at the sudden insistence. She was about to ask Luna if they had anything that was spicy-yet-sweet when Luna asked a question of her own.
"So… Hyperion," the blue-eyed girl asked as Serenity's heart skipped a beat at hearing his name, "is he…?"
Serenity's eyes left Luna's and looked instead to her soup as she put her spoon down, gripping it tightly in one hand as a reminder to keep in control. She wanted to scream in anger and cry bitterly in despair at the same time; her heart screaming for some sort of release as his blue-eyed countenance forcefully danced before her, first smiling then suddenly shouting out in pain and defiance, blood pouring out of a gash across his eye. No matter what happened in her dream, no matter what or how she wished otherwise, Hyperion was dead. He wasn't coming back. She wouldn't touch him again. There was nothing she could do now – her time for saving him had long since passed, and though she had destroyed the monster that killed him, it wasn't enough. Cynically she thought that it was probably the added power of her emotions at losing him that had won the fight, yet what was winning worth if he was gone?
And he was gone. He felt like she had to keep remind herself of that, to keep driving the stake farther and farther into herself. Could she have saved him? He was gone. She would never again catch a glimpse of him across a crowded room, or be subtly flirted with while discussing official matters. She'd never watch him practice with his swords and lances, never hear him sing the war ballads he loved so much, or hear the humorously-pitiful attempts at poetry. He was dead, and she had had a hand in killing him. If she had been stronger, if she had stayed by Sailor Okeanos's side when the senshi had used the whistle, he would be alive. They all would be. He died, it was at least in part her fault, and there was no bringing him back. Her heart was thumping in her ears, the shape of the spoon biting in to the flesh of her hand as the need to yell threatened to overcome her.
But then, like a splash of ice-cold water across her face, the baby kicked softly, reminding Serenity of her presence. She was their child, his daughter. … and she was keeping Luna waiting.
"He was the man I loved, and the father of my child." Serenity replied coldly, prying her fist apart to reposition the spoon. Though she had little appetite anymore, she took another spoonful of soup to her lips. "He died."
She didn't see Luna's reaction but heard her hurried apology. They finished their meal in silence, Serenity taking the time to focus on breathing, on pulling herself back into where she was and the person she wanted to be. She thought only of the present and the future. There was nothing she could change about the past, so she wouldn't focus on it. She would keep moving forward.
By the time their toast was gone and the soup in their bowls had disappeared, she was feeling almost normal again. She finally looked over to a guilty-looking Luna, who had drawn her body into as tight a position as she could while sitting; if she had cat-ears, Serenity knew they'd be flattened against her head in shame. She hadn't intended to cause Luna any harm, but knew even as she thought it that a small part of her had meant to sound cold to illicit such a response – that small part wanted Luna to feel a fraction of the pain her question had caused. But now… How could she fix this? Maybe…
"So," she posed in a quiet tone, "Do you happen to have a spice here on Mau that you associate with sweets?" She smiled and cocked her head to the side, "I've gotten a request."
Luna looked confused by the sudden change in atmosphere, but, apparently as eager as she in wanting to move past this, the Mauan girl jumped eagerly to her feet, "I think I know the ticket! Let's head back to my house – do you enjoy baking?" Luna offered Serenity her hand, and the silver-haired woman took it appreciatively. All was forgiven between the two, and they happily collected whatever possessions they had stored at the working Artemis's home, walked into town, hailed a carriage and returned to Luna's house. The rest of the afternoon and well into the evening was spent baking different varieties of cookies, searching joyfully for that missing taste that the developing girl craved so much. Six batches of cookies and a cake later, they found it.
Artemis entered Luna's sweet-smelling house to find two laughing girls covered in flour, their arms up to their elbows flecked with bits of batter and their aprons covered in different colors, the kitchen delightfully messy and filled with nearly one hundred baked goods. He smiled and declared himself the official taste-tester, teasing them about the slightly-burnt appearance of one particular batch and the overly-sweet flavor of another. Very soon, he, too, was covered in ingredients as the two bakers attacked him for his disrespect of their treats.
