Just Love Wasurerarenai
She had known many men before, likewise, she had known women before also, by her reckoning she was the oldest living creature on Earth, and yet for all those men, for all those women, and for all those years, none of them inspired in her the feelings she felt now for this man, resplendent in his uniform of silver and blue, a streak of white artificially added to his dark hair to suggest experience.
There was something that she recognised in him, some whisper of her own longevity that leant both a weight to his actions, the decisions he made, but also provided a delicacy in the manner in which he handled the jewels of the island, tenderly handling rubies and sapphires, kyanite and haematite, solemn garnet and glittering moonstone.
Moonlight, Loof Merrow thought. Yes, that was it, the streak of white in his hair was like moonlight.
The cloth she held before the sword hung there for a moment, the act of polishing the steel momentarily forgotten.
She sighed, lovelorn like a teenager, unbecoming of the last of her people to survive the devastation of the planet, 5,000 years ago. If only it wasn't moonlight, she thought, the association causing her lips to twitch unhappily.
It had been Serenity of the Moon Kingdom who had set in motion the flood that had ruined the great lands of Artuqa, the waters rising so violently that all was shattered and submerged, a tiny fragment remaining in the shape of what was now Kaguya Island in the Sea of Okhotsk.
For centuries, she and her crew had patrolled the waters, protecting the remnant of the land that once she was heir to, the scattered jewels submerged in the dirt and dust of their lost civilisation representing all that was left of their people. They were loyal servants even if they were not Artugan, solid fighters each, Kern, Serpen, and Kraken, and yet none of them, her included, were truly cut out to be pirates.
She had been a child when, with the power of the Silver Crystal, Queene Serenity had displaced the Earth from its orbit, causing the waters to rise and consume Artuqa. Those that had not perished in the upheaval had died from the plague that followed. Now, 5,000 years later, she was an adult, burning with resentment and desire. She had thought the people of the Moon Kingdom extinct, wiped out by the darkness beyond the cosmos, the shadow out of space that had been brought to bear upon them following the coup of the Four Heavenly Kings, staged in order to prevent the Earth's prince, Endymion, from eloping with Serenity's daughter.
Kunzite had been of partial Artugan descendent, she had later discovered, but by then it had meant nothing, Artuga had fallen, the waters had rose up and crawled back, new landmasses had taken their place, and Endymion had been both enthroned and dethroned before she had been able to intervene.
Now, however, it was different, Serenity's daughter had been reincarnated, the Silver Crystal had been restored, and once that old magic had been wrested from the child's hands, Loof Merrow would awaken sleeping Artuga and bring back both her lands and her people from the mists of oblivion.
Except now there was this man with moonlight in his hair to contend with—and now there were her feelings for him to content with also.
Space Knight, he called himself, an obvious and laughable alias, and it infuriated her that he would not trust her with his true name, his real identity. Clearly, he had his own agenda, his own reasons for involving himself in the unfolding events around Kaguya Island, it would have been foolish to imagine otherwise, and yet when she had been in danger, he had put that agenda aside to come to her rescue, and that was something… unexpected.
She had forgotten the kindness of others. For 5,000 years, she had burnt with resentment, suffering the terrible indignities heaped upon her by the descendants of those peoples who had flourished following Artuga's fall. She had learnt not to trust, had learnt not to believe, and now here was this man, that streak of white glistening in his hair like moonstone, like moonlight, and despite the long, long years, Loof Merrow found that she wanted to believe again, that she wanted to trust once more.
Looking down at the blade she was polishing, she caught sight of her own reflection, and, much to her alarm, found that she was smiling like a child.