Author's note: Thank you so much for your reviews and continued support. This is my favourite story and I needed to update this ASAP! I'm thrilled to welcome you back and I hope you enjoy this update. Please do continue to leave your thoughts in the reviews! - R

Side note for background: The Dragonfly were revered for their lightness and association with joy, the dragonfly is the national emblem of Japan. In Japanese culture, the dragonfly symbolizes not only light and joy, but also serves as the protector of children and samurais. Dragonflies are often used in Japanese artwork, and because they were frequently seen flying around rice paddies, they became known as the "rice spirit." For Native Americans, the dragonfly symbolized the souls of the dead.

Chapter 16

It was the lack of movement that woke her. There should have been a breeze, no matter how subtle in the air but there was nothing. Her eyes fluttered open to rest on the eery sky above her. That wasn't what she was expecting. She sat up, resting on her elbows on the ground and she looked around at the looming trees. She got to her feet and felt the lightest of materials fall around her legs. She looked down at herself and found a pure white chiffon roman drapery sleeve gown where she usually wore her princess attire. Her waist had the most delicate of lace patterning showing the skin underneath, enhanced by the deep v neckline that came from the shoulders. She frowned, stepping forward to come out into the clearing and stopped in her tracks. The sight before her reminded her of a conversation she once had with Hotaru.

"I remember it coming to me in a dream," she told Usagi. "In the early days of the Silver Millennium, before the sailor senshi were born to protect the royal family, there was me and Sailor Pluto. The universe needed life and death and everything that flowed in between. So, we were born. Our awakening was always different from the rest of the solar system senshi because our purpose is different, even from Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune. Just as Uranus and Neptune are two sides of the same coin to be each other's perfect partner, so are Pluto and I. Uranus and Neptune awaken as guardians when one needs the other or they foresee when they will be needed. I had no idea what it meant to be Sailor Saturn. Pluto learned of her purpose the day she was stationed at the door of space-time. One day, I fell into a deep sleep, and I met him."

"Who?" Usagi asked impatiently.

"The ferryman," Hotaru answered.

"Wait, I think I read about him," Usagi recalled. "Doesn't he take the souls of the dead to the other side down a river?"

"If you pay his bounty, he will carry your soul down the River Styx," she nodded. "If you don't pay the price, you will remain in limbo forever and you'll never move on."

"So, why did you see him in your dreams? Did you die?"

"No, I didn't die," Hotaru shook her head. "I am the only person he can speak to. Even Pluto, with powers associated with the underworld can't communicate with him. I am the only person able to send souls to him. He taught me what it meant to hold power over death and rebirth… and nothingness. He is the gatekeeper between life and death. The first time I gave up my life to save the universe, he told me that I can never cross the river. That was when he gave me the title harbinger of death. That's why so many fear me, even Uranus and Neptune for a time. The only way for me to come back to this life is by jumping into the water when I am called. Otherwise, I remain in limbo."

"Have you watched lots of souls be taken down the river?"

"I've felt every death pass through me," Hotaru told her. "I've seen many pay the bounty, but I've seen many be turned away."

"How does the ferryman decide who can ride the boat?"

"It's not his decision," Hotaru said. "The death of a person decides their fate. Peace or judgment isn't an option for everyone. Some souls will linger."

"And what happens to them?"

"They fade away."

The tall, skeletal being glowing a dim blue with sharp facial features, empty eye sockets but somehow still seeing, a crystal crown upon the top of his skull and pointed teeth that line his jaw bones stood next to the boat at the end of the dock. His bony hand gripped a staff with a lantern hanging from it, glowing the same blue that he was. It looked like a smile was on his face, but it was menacing, almost daring. His long dark robes hung to the ground, his skeleton obvious where it hung open at the front. She noticed how heavy they were when he gestured towards the boat, motioning for her to join him.

"Am I supposed to go there?" she asked.

The ferryman only gestured again at the boat, then behind him where the water flowed towards a bright light. She glanced down at herself, the pure white of her gown.

"Is that peace?" she asked.

He nodded once.

"There has to be a catch," she said in disbelief.

He raised his hand towards her, his palm face-up, waiting.

"And there it is," she sighed. "I don't have anything to give you," she said, almost apologetically.

He pointed at her, and she looked down at what his outstretched finger was guiding her attention to. She gasped at what hung around her neck: the space-time key. She clutched it in her hand.

"No, I can't," she objected. "This is priceless to me."

He stared at her with those unnerving hollow eyes.

"If you can prove to me that that is peace, I will go with you," she said.

She didn't know why, but she was craving peace. The idea of it felt warm, safe. She knew she would have everything she'd need there. There would be no more pain, uncertainty, pressure. It would be easy. She craved easy. Anything she knew didn't matter.

The ferryman pulled back his hand, holding both hands on his staff and waited. She breathed out and pulled the necklace holding the space-time key from around her neck.

"I guess I can't go back to the land of the living, and I can't stay here," she mused, gazing back behind her at the dark woods. "Let's make a deal."

She stepped forward to drop the key into the now outstretched hand but before she was able to let go, she felt fingers wrap around her wrist. She turned her head to look into a pair of eyes of liquid gold. Honey.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he smiled.

"What is it, Endymion?" Serenity asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I just don't understand," he admitted, brushing his bangs back from his eyes. "I've been trying to understand but I realised that I can't."

"What are you mumbling about?"

"Why did you allow Mnemosyne to join them on their quest to the underworld?"

Serenity gaped at him for a moment and put her pen down on the desk to give him her full attention.

"I thought that was rather obvious, honey," she replied patiently. "Mnemosyne is right: she has a lot more to offer than we even considered and that's why I had no hesitation in allowing her to go. I trust her. Out of Lethe and Mnemosyne, Lethe was the more… ferocious and impulsive one. Mnemosyne only does as she feels is right. I know her intentions to be good because I can feel it. If she can help our little girl, then I'm not going to deny her request to accompany Usagi to the underworld."

"Do you know of the secrets Mnemosyne spoke of in the underworld?" Endymion pressed.

"Now that is a mystery," Serenity mused. "But if it is a secret that is kept in the underworld, then I can only imagine it's important."

"So important to keep secret?"

"There's usually good reasons why people don't reveal their secrets," Serenity replied. She gave him a small smile. "We would know."

"I will never forget the first time I knew that little blonde teenage girl was the sailor soldier of mystery," he smirked.

"You never told me how you knew who I was," Serenity pointed out. "I never had the chance to tell you my secret."

"I didn't know it back then, but it was my ability to use psychometry," he explained. "The first time I touched your skin, I immediately saw her: Sailor Moon."

"So, you could make associations from objects or people by making physical contact?"

Endymion nodded.

"Did you not know that I was the Moon Princess?" Serenity frowned.

"That's an interesting one because no, I didn't," he shrugged. "I'm presuming that must have been the power of the moon. Queen Serenity would never have allowed you to be discovered before it was time. I just knew you were more than Sailor Moon, more than someone I had to protect."

"How?"

"I loved you unconditionally," he confessed. "I didn't question it. I just knew deep down that you were the reason that I joined the battles and kept fighting. You were the reason we always beat them back. You were the light to all of the dark in the world. You were the reason I wasn't alone, even if you didn't know that. You were the reason I loved."

Serenity left her seat and crossed the room to wrap her arms around Endymion's neck, resting her head on the top of his. She closed her eyes, breathing in the delicious musky smell of him.

"This is precisely why Usagi will be fine," she murmured into his hair. "Helios loves her and that is precisely why he will keep fighting."

He pulled back to look at his wife and smiled.

"You were always so optimistic," he praised her. "I always admired this about you."

"It has always been easy to be optimistic while I have you," she said. "This is why I knew I didn't need to panic. Usagi will get through this, though we know it won't be an easy road. Love may have killed more than any disease but love also gives us the greatest strength."

"I thought that was hope," he responded.

"With love, all things become possible," she declared. "We cannot truly love without hoping but love is inspired by putting up with all things, trusting in all things, enduring all things. Hope can be disappointing, and love can crush you, but when you have one, you will have the other and there is no stronger motivation to keep fighting."

"Helios can give her that," Endymion smiled. "I know that because you give me that."

Serenity smiled, pressing her lips firmly against his own.

"Helios?"

He smiled, taking her outstretched hand in his, pulling the space-time key out of her grasp. Pulling her away from the ferryman who continued to patiently wait beside the boat, they walked off the dock and sat in front of the water. Usagi exhaled, glancing at him and turning back to look at the water.

"I'm surprised you would be willing to part with this," he murmured, dangling the key from the necklace chain on his finger.

"It's the price he asked," she replied.

"But this?"

Usagi looked at him, biting her lip uncertainly.

"Pluto would do anything for me," she stated, sadness falling over her face.

"She misses you," Helios told her. "She would never forgive you for getting in that boat."

"What are we doing here exactly?" Usagi asked.

"You're in limbo," Helios answered.

"Are you not, too?" Usagi wondered, confused.

Helios shook his head.

"You shouldn't be here," he sighed. "We lost you on our way down here. The ferryman is persuasive, tempting. Saturn was afraid you'd find your way here. She's anxious to know how you managed to get here."

"I thought this his boat was how we got into the underworld," Usagi frowned.

"Sure," Helios nodded. "If you're dying. If you got into that boat, we never would have got you back." He considered her expression and narrowed his eyes gently. "Were you tempted?"

"If I don't, I'll never reach peace, will I?"

"Why would you think that?"

"Because I'm a daughter of the white moon," she pointed out. "There is no end of time for us. It stands still. Frozen. Never moving forward."

"Is that why you stopped dreaming?"

Usagi faltered and stared at him, her mouth agape.

"Come on, maiden," he nudged her gently. "How else could it be that I found you and not Saturn, Cosmos or Mnemosyne, the very people who have a better chance of navigating down here than I do? There's a glimmer of hope in you, deep down. I can still feel it. Even though you were one movement away from giving it all away to the one person who literally will, I can feel it. The air around you is silent, but not dead. Not yet. It would have been if you stepped foot onto his boat."

"Why would you come here?"

"You really have to ask?" He chuckled. "Of course, you do. You don't remember that I would do anything for you." She made to open her mouth and he shushed her gently. "Don't worry. It's also my reason for existing: to preserve the dreams of those who dream. Yours is one light that ignited my strength all those many, many years ago."

"That's what scares me," she confessed. "I'm this great legacy of the two people in this universe who people admire, fear and hold this great ancestry that I have to carry with me. What if there is never any peace and the silver crystal's power is just a mirage of peace? Underneath the light, there's a chaos just waiting to break through."

"What makes you think that?"

"Look around," she exclaimed, gesturing at their surroundings. "Look at him. Does the ferryman look like the epitome of peace to you? He looks like the embodiment of all the pain and sufferings of living before you can reach the desired end goal. But we'd be willing to ride in that boat with him just to find it."

"If you go down that river, there will be many more to follow you," Helios said softly.

She looked at him, her brow furrowed.

"What do you mean?"

"If you cross the bridge, so to speak, the power of the golden kingdom will fade and with it, the power that protects the new Silver Millennium."

"How does my existence have such sway over the lives of the people?"

"You were the one person who can activate the golden crystal's full strength and power."

"But my dad…"

"The king was the ruler over the Golden Kingdom," Helios went on. "He was the protector of the kingdom and the crystal. Through union with the queen, the golden crystal is the bridge to combining the kingdoms to form Crystal Tokyo. You alone can access the power to strengthen the kingdom. As Neo-Eternal Sailor Moon, you can continue the legacy of the white moon."

"What if I don't want to?" she said so softly, her words were but a whisper.

Helios looked at her in shock, but in truth, he suspected her unrest before the unthinkable happened when the water from the river of Lethe passed her lips.

"You don't mean that," he assured her.

"That's the problem," she said defeatedly. "I think I do."

"What do you think you'll find when you go beyond that light?"

"I think it will be warm," she pondered.

"Is that enough to cross the bridge?"

"My grandmother is there," she said.

"That's true," Helios nodded. "But is that enough?"

"I've always wanted to know more about my grandfather," she mused. "He was always shrouded in mystery. Even my mother hasn't talked about him, ever."

"What about Pluto?"

She looked at him and watched as he clasped the space-time key back around her neck. She looked down, putting her hand over the key on her chest.

"What about Saturn? Your senshi? Your parents? Me?"

"I haven't spent time with my parents in many years," she laughed. "I'm wasting away, Helios."

"Because you let go of your dreams," he insisted, putting his hand on top of hers. He scooted over to sit closer to her s that they were touching. "I touch you, and I can feel the warmth returning to you."

"I can feel it, too," she whispered.

"Isn't that enough to not let go?"

She considered him quietly and gazed at their interlocked hands, deep in thought.

"Your family is eternal, maiden," Helios reminded her. "The king and queen will always be there for you. You are a product of their love. And they couldn't love anyone more than you." He reached up to cup his hand around her cheek, stroking his thumb down her jaw. "I can assure you that nothing is as precious to them as you. They couldn't come to the underworld, so they sent the only people who could."

"There will always be someone who wishes to disrupt the peace that they continue to maintain," she said. "We can never change that. I just want it to stop. Living in peace… it felt hollow."

"You can change that," he promised her. "And you will. But going with him," he nodded towards the ferryman, "he can't promise what you will find the other side. But I can promise that you can do what your mother, her mother and Queen Serenity's mother before her did: fight back, inspire hope and maintain peace."

"What about you?"

Helios cocked his head to one side in question.

"What can you promise if I walk away from that boat and go with you?"

"We will find the peace that was taken from you," he said.

"What piece was taken?"

Helios smiled, pulling his hand away from her face. Peace or piece was irrelevant. The water from the river Lethe took both from her.

"Was it you?"

"Sadly," he said regrettably. "A life with love will have some thorns, but a life without love will have no roses. How else could I lend my warmth to you?"

"Like my parents," she mouthed to herself, recalling how her father was able to lend her mother the strength she needed when she had none of her own. She exhaled. It wasn't about her. She had a legacy and as terrifying as that was, her mother had many moments when she was terrified and alone, yet she came out on top. The messiah. She had the potential to love and be loved, just like her parents. "Do me a favour?" she asked. Helios nodded, his brows faintly pushed together. "If my grandparents pass by, tell them not to wait for me."

He watched as she got to her feet, and with no hesitation, walked down the dock, straight past the ferryman who turned to watch her dive into the waters. Helios smiled to himself. He knew she was in there. He got to his feet, closed his eyes and the Pegasus flew over the head of Charon who remained standing next to the boat waiting for the next soul.

A single bronze coin with an imprint of a dragonfly pushed into the piece on either side appeared in a glow of blue ethereal light and landed in the palm of the reflexive hand that caught it. The figure that caught the coin looked at their company and clenched the coin into their fist. The princess didn't take the bait. A moment later, a charred piece of parchment flew behind the twosome, the fiery blue embers of the fire glowing at the edges. The second figure caught the parchment in mid-air, casting their eyes over it and murmured the words back to their partner. The Pegasus found her, and Charon didn't get the payment. He needed that bounty. They looked at each other but they kept the worry from their face. They needed to go to plan B. If there was anything they learned from the past, a plan B was always needed when it came to the moon family.