Lita's New Year's Cookie Scramble Chapter 12: Epilog, a sailor moon fanfic

Lita's New Year's Cookie Scramble
By Douglas Helm and "Tuxedo" Will Wolfshohl

This story and our other Sailor Moon stories reside at our Shoujo Fiction .com domain. Comments are welcomed and encouraged.

Epilogue

Reenie Tsukino stared up into the darkness of her bedroom and listened to the late night sounds outside her bedroom window. She could hear her next-door neighbor's dog barking at something. She also heard a warning beeper as a truck backed up as well as a far distance siren.

When things grew calm again, the seven year old sat up and quietly climbed out of bed. She felt wide-awake despite the lateness of the hour, probably because she'd been put to bed almost as soon as she'd arrived home with Serena.

Reenie crept to her bedroom door, slowly opened it, and peered through it. Making sure no one was about, she slipped out and padded down the dark hallway to the bathroom. After using the facilities and washing her hands, she came back, pausing momentarily and staring at her fourteen year old cousin's closed bedroom door.

'Auntie would kill you,' the child told herself, 'She told you to stay in bed unless you needed the toilet. I'd be in Serena's bed.' The temptation passed. She didn't want to get Serena into trouble if her aunt caught her out of her own bed. Going back into her bedroom, Reenie closed the door, sighed, and crawled back into bed.

'Serena was right,' the pink-haired girl mused as she tried to will herself back to sleep, 'Auntie did take a chunk out of my hide.' She grimaced at the painful memory. 'She didn't have to spank me in front of Serena though. And Auntie's dragging me around to all the girls tomorrow to apologize and tell them about my punishment.' She groaned a little and pulled her pillow over her face. 'And I'm grounded for a month!' That meant little time to play with her friend Melissa. It was not Serena's fault. The teen had argued for only a week but Ellen had been very firm.

Reenie gave a guilty start as she heard her door open. Holding her breath, she listened wondering if it was her aunt coming in to check on her. After a few seconds, she felt the bed sink slightly as somebody sat on the edge.

"Can't sleep, huh?" came the soft voice of Serena.

Reenie pushed her pillow away and looked at up her cousin sitting in her pajamas. "No, I slept lots this afternoon."

"Want me to stay with you?"

Reenie moved over to make room and smiled a little as her pigtailed cousin got under the covers then hugged her. Reenie returned the hug. They lay like that for a few moments before Reenie asked, "Serena, are you still sore at me?"

The teenager was quiet for a long time. "No." There was a pause and then the blonde continued, "I'm actually rather proud of you."

"Really?"

"Sure," her cousin replied then explained, "You knew you did something wrong and tried to correct it by helping Amy when she needed it and by telling Mom the truth." Reenie's mood lightened. The seven year old snuggled closer to Serena and closed her eyes.

"Tell me a story?"

Serena grinned and hugged her little cousin before starting to rub the little girl's back soothingly. "All right, kiddo, but you need to go to sleep right after." Reenie made an agreeable sound. The teenager thought for a moment and then began softly to speak, "A long time ago, there was a kingdom on the Moon. That kingdom was ruled by a wise and beautiful queen who had a daughter..."

Outside Reenie's bedroom door, Ellen Tsukino stood silently listening. Shaking her head, she made her way back to bed. 'Serena will make a good mom someday. Now if we could only get her to be this responsible all the time...' She gave a mental snort. 'But then Serena wouldn't be Serena, would she?' And with that, the mother of two, and unknowing grandmother of one, went to bed feeling a little more content with the world.

The End

Authors' Afterwords

This story changed quite a bit since the first chapter was laid down last year. The biggest change was the shift from the original Sailor Moon universe to the DiC® universe. Various chapters went through some revision of one extent or another. In other words, it was a tough story to write.

One of the more fun challenges to write was a story focused on the other characters rather than just Reenie or Serena, as many of our other stories tend to do. The trick was to get Reenie to do everything she needed to do without making her seem like a major brat that needed to be hauled onto the carpet at the first opportunity. Yes, she ïs in trouble but that was never our intent.

Lita's view is probably the key one. Each girl has their own vision of what happened. How each will perceive it (bad or good) in the long term is a matter for debate. Lita, however, started the entire thing by wishing to be younger, to have the carefree life of a child with no responsibilities and a loving family. In the final analysis, she believes that what happened to her and the other Sailor Scouts was a good experience. Nevertheless, as she told Reenie, even though she liked being younger, she wouldn't want to grow up all over again.

We have been writing for quite a while now. We know many authors who were active when we started who have since have left the community of fanfiction or moved onto other series. We've started writing in other anime series as well, but we've also created our own new worlds, e.g. World of Valeria™. And if we write all the stories we've talked about over the years, we'd be here for quite awhile to come. ☺

Cheers,

Douglas Helm and Will Wolfshohl
August 2007