**********
I'm afraid my story takes a downward spiral from here. Neptune and I should have seen it all coming...or paid more attention to it, anyways. But we were imersed in each other and the novelty of being in love and being loved. So, it snuck up on us, caught us off guard. If only we could have...no. Even as I begin that sentence I know it's not right. It wouldn't have mattered how ready we were. Nothing could have prepared us for what lay ahead.
Everything started on one sunny afternoon, a little over a month into our training time. After a strangely solitary lunch, Neptune and I were walking across the ballroom, heading for the privacy of either my room or hers. Our hands were clasped together; right now, I would give anything to feel her fingers entwined with mine. I took it for granted...one of the many things I took for granted at the time and now, lament.
We were starting up the staircase, when Neptune stopped suddenly.
"Everything all right?", I asked, moving back down a step to be at her level.
Her smooth forehead was crinkled; it was the look she had when in deep thought. "Do you hear something?"
It only took a second of concious listening before I did. Somewhere nearby, someone was crying. "I think it might be coming from the Moon Garden", I guessed.
We didn't have to say anything more. Together, we backed up and made our way under the staircase, through the salarium and into the garden to investigate.
As soon as we were inside the glass enclosement, Neptune put her free hand to her mouth. "Oh dear."
On the island, Venus lay curled up under a tree. Her fire colored dress spread across the grass; her shoulders shook under the weight of her sobs. She didn't hear us cross the bridge, or if she did, didn't pay attention to it. As soon as we were across, Neptune kneeled down next to the despondent girl.
"Venus", she said softly. "Venus...what's wrong?"
The Princess of Venus slowly lifted her blond head. Her eyes were red and puffy, indicating that she had been crying for quite sometime. She didn't say anything in reply, just continued to sob. Neptune gently put her arms around the girl and pulled her into an embrace. "It's all right, Venus. Whatever it is...it'll be all right."
I joined them on the ground. "You can tell us", I said awkwardly. These heavy emotional moments weren't my forte; Neptune was much more suited to help the girl. Still, I couldn't just stand by and watch Venus in such obvious pain.
She buried her face in my lover's aquamarine hair. "It's Kunzite", she said between sobs. Her voice was muffled.
Instinctively, my fist balled up. Neptune noticed and raised an eyebrow at me. "What about him?", I asked as calmly as possible.
"He..." She hiccuped. "He's vanished!"
Neptune cupped her hand around the back of Venus' neck and lifted the girl off her shoulder. "What do you mean, he's vanished?"
"He's gone", Venus restated. Another sob racked her body. "I don't know where...but it's been a week. I've written him every day. And..." Tears welled up anew. "He's not written back once!"
"Venus...dear", Neptune smiled and tucked a wayward lock of gold hair behind Venus' ear. "He's a very busy man...he and the other generals. I'm sure he's thinking about you and wishes he could write, but..."
Venus cut her off with a shake of her head. "No. You don't understand. They're all gone. Jaedite, Nephrite, Zoisite...Kunzite. They're gone"
I was confused. "Are they on some sort of mission? A field assignment?"
"No...Endymion doesn't know where they are either", she informed me. Her forehead lowered to Neptune's shoulder again. "Oh gods...what if something's happened to them? What if they're stranded on some planet or something, waiting for help? They could be starving to death or...I don't know what else. And we just don't know!!"
"Wait." I scratched my temple, confusion growing. "Endymion doesn't know where his generals are? How is that possible?"
Neptune stroked Venus' hair soothingly. "If they were sent on an assignment and got stranded, it should be fairly easy to find them."
"That's just it." Venus sat back up. "There was no assignment."
"At least not one that anyone knows about." It was Jupiter's voice, approaching us from behind. I turned to see her walk across the bridge. There was no life in her step and she drew closer, I could see no warmth in her eyes. She looked, in some ways, worse off than Venus.
"How long has this been going on?", I asked. "And how come we haven't heard anything about it?"
Jupiter shrugged and crossed her arms over the bodice of her pink dress. "We wanted to wait, at least I did, to make sure it was anything to get upset about. When Nephrite stopped writing, I just thought he was busy. But then today..." She looked up at the glass ceiling. "When Endymion sent a message asking if we knew where they might be..."
"We couldn't ignore it any longer." Mercury entered the Moon Garden quietly.
I thought quickly. "Have you talked to Pluto? Maybe she has some idea of what's going on."
Mercury shook her head. "We can't ask her that. For her to tell us would be a gross infraction of the rules of Time. Something that could cost her her life."
"Endymion has sent out a search party", Jupiter said dully. "But it's a big universe."
"We'll just have to wait", Venus continued. She covered her face with one hand. "And hope that they come back to us." Neptune embraced her again.
I stood up. "Where's Mars?"
"She locked herself in her room", Mercury answered. "Serenity's trying to get her to come out, but so far, no luck."
I exchanged a sorrowful look with Neptune. It didn't seem as though there was anything we could do to help the girls. Anger built up inside of me. It was mainly directed at the absent generals...the four men who held my friends hearts in their hands. But a little of that anger was directed at myself. I put the responsibility of keeping the girls safe onto my own shoulders. And it looked as though I had failed them.
Neptune, ever the mystic, felt what I was was thinking. She looked up at me for a long moment, then slowly shook her head as if to say, don't. Don't do that. My shoulders relaxed a bit, but the anger didn't dissipate entirely.
And it wouldn't, I soon realized. Another day slipped by with no word from or news about the missing generals. Mars did eventually rejoin the world, but she might as well have stayed locked up in her room. She was withdrawn, sullen and non-communicative. It seemed to hit her worse than the other girls, but she refused to talk about it with anyone, even Serenity.
A few more days passed and nothing changed. Endymion joined us at the end of the week, but only for a day. He was, understandably, in a panic. With his generals gone, the Earth was vulnerable to attack. It seemed unlikely that it would be, but one never knew. Queen Serenity promised the Prince that should the unthinkable happen, the Moon's army would be at his disposal, and that seemed to reassure him. I got the feeling that it wasn't so much the vulnerability of his planet that upset Endymion, but the loss of his closest friends. The search party had turned up nothing in our solar system.
When a week had passed, things seemed to return to normal. After all, what could we do? Life couldn't just come to a screeching halt. Queen Serenity gently, the only way she did things, urged us to return to our training. But something had gone out of each of the four Inner Senshi. I tried to imagine how I would feel if I were in their position, if Neptune just disappeared one day. The mere thought created a huge, gaping hole in my heart. My patience with the Inner Senshi was abundant after that.
**********
Another week went by. Our time together was coming to a close. I didn't want to think about it, but Neptune, being both the sense and the sensibility in our relationship, needed to know what would happen after our last week together.
We were lying in my bed on our one day off from training when she brought it up. "You know...next week is our last week here", she began the hateful conversation. She was nestled in the crook of my arm, holding my hand in hers. She ran her index finger over my palm, creating invisible designs on the flesh.
I sighed. "Do we have to think about this now?"
She set my hand back onto her stomach. "It's not going to go away if we don't think about it."
"I don't know", I kissed her hair. "It might."
Neptune laughed for a brief moment, then grew quiet. "What are we going to do?"
"Run away to some planet that has ocean and open ground?", I suggested. "Let's see...that'd be..."
"Earth", she supplied. "And I'm trying to be serious here."
"Why do you think I'm trying not to be?"
She sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest. "So, we should wait until we're both about to board seperate transports bound for two different planets before we bring this up again?"
I put my arms around her and laid my cheek against her bare back. "I'm sorry. I just..." I stopped, not trusting my voice. "I can't imagine being apart from you."
"It hurts, I know." She twisted her body around. I lifted my head so that we were face to face. "I don't want to be without you either. But what can we do?"
"Write every day? Transport back and forth every weekend?"
She smiled. "You'll have to learn to swim if you want to get into Benten-san Palace. It's underwater, remember."
"And you'll have to...." I thought for a moment. "Nothing. You don't have to do anything to come see me." I traced the perfect line of her lips with my finger. "Just show up. Anytime. I'll be waiting for you."
Her eyes closed as she gave me a soft kiss. "I love you."
"I love you, too."
********
I don't know why I'm doing this to myself. It would be much easier to tell this story without including these things, these moments we shared together. I don't know...maybe I don't want to forget. A silly thought; I don't have enough time left *to* forget, after all. But maybe I don't want you to see me or Neptune or anyone in this story as a name. A title. I want you to see that we were people with real lives. It will make you understand just how devasting it was when it was all ripped away from us.
Queen Serenity announced that in honor of our final week of training together, she was going to throw us a ball. Unlike the ball seven weeks earlier, this ball was to be entirely in our honor. Preparations were in full swing by the middle of the week and Neptune was in a quandry.
"The lavender dress or the silver?"
I was sprawled across the aquamarine brocaded silk cover on her bed, watching her dig through her seemingly limitless wardrobe, searching for the perfect dress. I had no idea how she had amassed such a huge amount of clothing in a mere seventeen years of existence or why she had felt the need to bring it all with her to the Moon, but every piece was thrown about her room as she continued her search.
"Didn't you wear the grey one to dinner when Mercury's mother and father visited?", I asked.
Her head peeked out from the closet door. "Silver. And you remember what I was wearing that night?"
I sat up and crossed my legs. "Well...it was pretty low cut..." A corset cover came flying at me from the general direction of the closet. I caught it before it landed. "I hope this is the one you put on today..."
She stepped out from the closet, wrapped up in a sheer, navy blue pegnior. She had taken her hair down and it flowed around her shoulders. The two blues were in perfect contrast. I smiled appreciatively. Neptune had been holding the pegnoir closed at her chest, but now let it go, exposing the pure, white curve of her breast. "Come here", she beckoned, crooking her index finger.
I shook my head as I reached for the top button of my shirt. "You come here."
It was fortunate that the door swung open just then. Even a minute later and it would have been a far more embarassing situation. Jupiter stood in the doorway, a look of panic in her deep green eyes. Neptune quickly brought her robe together and I jumped up from the bed. "Jupiter?" Her hand grasped the door's frame as though she needed the support to remain standing. "What is it?", I asked. A ball of fear formed in my stomach.
Jupiter looked at Neptune, then back at me. "Oh god...I interrupted something, didn't I?"
Neptune crossed her arms to cover her practically nude body. "It's all right, Jupiter. Just tell us what's going on. Is it the generals? Have they been found?"
"No." Jupiter paused for a second. "We've lost all contact with Narisah."
Narisah was the most remote colony of our solar system, lying many light years futher out than Pluto. The star's only inhabitants were a hermitous sect of monks, but they were our most important link to our neighboring solar systems.
"Lost contact?", Neptune repeated. Her eyes were wide, with good reason. As Outer Senshi we knew that if something were to invade our system, the first warning sign would come from Narisah. "Lost contact..."
Jupiter nodded. "They missed their weekly communication and when the Queen tried to establish contact, she recieved no reply. She thought it might be our communicator, but she didn't have any trouble contacting Pluto."
"Why are we always the last ones to know about things like this?" I ran a hand through my hair in frustration.
"Well..." Jupiter looked at Neptune, then looked back to me again. "It could be nothing. The monks could be in a period of silence. Or their communicator could be broken."
It was possible. But I don't think any of us believed it. "So...what does the Queen want us to do?", I asked, holding back a rising lump in my throat. "Does she want Neptune, Pluto and I to return to our planets and prepare for...whatever?"
"Actually, she wants you all to stay here." A small smile appeared on Jupiter's lips, the first I could remember seeing there in a long time. It disppeared as she continued. "After all...we'll all be parting anyways in a few days."
Neptune looked down at the sea colored rug. "That we will", she whispered.
There was a pause. "I'm going to go now", Jupiter said abruptly. "Carry on you two." She flashed another, sadder smile. "We're all so very glad that you two...you know, have each other. It doesn't make us feel quite so..." She stopped. "I don't know. See you at dinner." With that, she closed the door and we were alone again.
"If you were going to invade a solar system, what's the first thing you would do?", I asked after a long moment of silence.
She sighed. "I'd conquer their out-lying, defenseless star as a warning."
"It was in the water and it was in the wind. And now it's here." I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at her dressing table. "But what is it?"
I felt her sit beside me; her arms wrapped around my torso as she rested her chin on my shoulder. "What was your philosophy? If you don't think about it, it might go away?"
"Neptune, this is serious and you know it."
"Why do you think I'm trying not to be?"
I lifted my arms to return the embrace, but didn't reply.
We were silent for a moment as we held each other. "Well, if Queen Serenity isn't worried, why should we be?", Neptune finally asked. "We worry too much, Uranus."
I found myself smiling. "It's our responsibility to."
"How about giving responsibility a rest for awhile and just enjoying our last few days together?", she innocently suggested.
"You could do that?"
"No", she admitted. "But I could pretend to. For the sake of the others. They have enough to worry about"
"True." I was suddenly so very tired. Lifting my bare feet up onto the bed, I let go of Neptune and lowered my head until it rested in her lap. As I lay there, my knees drawn up to my chest like a child, she gently stroked the hair on my temple. "Don't you ever get tired of being right?", I asked.
She laughed softly and bent over to kiss my cheek. Her sweet smelling hair tickled my nose. "Go to sleep, darling. And don't worry about anything." I was already half-asleep, so I could have imagined her next words. "I'll always protect you."
**********
I'm afraid my story takes a downward spiral from here. Neptune and I should have seen it all coming...or paid more attention to it, anyways. But we were imersed in each other and the novelty of being in love and being loved. So, it snuck up on us, caught us off guard. If only we could have...no. Even as I begin that sentence I know it's not right. It wouldn't have mattered how ready we were. Nothing could have prepared us for what lay ahead.
Everything started on one sunny afternoon, a little over a month into our training time. After a strangely solitary lunch, Neptune and I were walking across the ballroom, heading for the privacy of either my room or hers. Our hands were clasped together; right now, I would give anything to feel her fingers entwined with mine. I took it for granted...one of the many things I took for granted at the time and now, lament.
We were starting up the staircase, when Neptune stopped suddenly.
"Everything all right?", I asked, moving back down a step to be at her level.
Her smooth forehead was crinkled; it was the look she had when in deep thought. "Do you hear something?"
It only took a second of concious listening before I did. Somewhere nearby, someone was crying. "I think it might be coming from the Moon Garden", I guessed.
We didn't have to say anything more. Together, we backed up and made our way under the staircase, through the salarium and into the garden to investigate.
As soon as we were inside the glass enclosement, Neptune put her free hand to her mouth. "Oh dear."
On the island, Venus lay curled up under a tree. Her fire colored dress spread across the grass; her shoulders shook under the weight of her sobs. She didn't hear us cross the bridge, or if she did, didn't pay attention to it. As soon as we were across, Neptune kneeled down next to the despondent girl.
"Venus", she said softly. "Venus...what's wrong?"
The Princess of Venus slowly lifted her blond head. Her eyes were red and puffy, indicating that she had been crying for quite sometime. She didn't say anything in reply, just continued to sob. Neptune gently put her arms around the girl and pulled her into an embrace. "It's all right, Venus. Whatever it is...it'll be all right."
I joined them on the ground. "You can tell us", I said awkwardly. These heavy emotional moments weren't my forte; Neptune was much more suited to help the girl. Still, I couldn't just stand by and watch Venus in such obvious pain.
She buried her face in my lover's aquamarine hair. "It's Kunzite", she said between sobs. Her voice was muffled.
Instinctively, my fist balled up. Neptune noticed and raised an eyebrow at me. "What about him?", I asked as calmly as possible.
"He..." She hiccuped. "He's vanished!"
Neptune cupped her hand around the back of Venus' neck and lifted the girl off her shoulder. "What do you mean, he's vanished?"
"He's gone", Venus restated. Another sob racked her body. "I don't know where...but it's been a week. I've written him every day. And..." Tears welled up anew. "He's not written back once!"
"Venus...dear", Neptune smiled and tucked a wayward lock of gold hair behind Venus' ear. "He's a very busy man...he and the other generals. I'm sure he's thinking about you and wishes he could write, but..."
Venus cut her off with a shake of her head. "No. You don't understand. They're all gone. Jaedite, Nephrite, Zoisite...Kunzite. They're gone"
I was confused. "Are they on some sort of mission? A field assignment?"
"No...Endymion doesn't know where they are either", she informed me. Her forehead lowered to Neptune's shoulder again. "Oh gods...what if something's happened to them? What if they're stranded on some planet or something, waiting for help? They could be starving to death or...I don't know what else. And we just don't know!!"
"Wait." I scratched my temple, confusion growing. "Endymion doesn't know where his generals are? How is that possible?"
Neptune stroked Venus' hair soothingly. "If they were sent on an assignment and got stranded, it should be fairly easy to find them."
"That's just it." Venus sat back up. "There was no assignment."
"At least not one that anyone knows about." It was Jupiter's voice, approaching us from behind. I turned to see her walk across the bridge. There was no life in her step and she drew closer, I could see no warmth in her eyes. She looked, in some ways, worse off than Venus.
"How long has this been going on?", I asked. "And how come we haven't heard anything about it?"
Jupiter shrugged and crossed her arms over the bodice of her pink dress. "We wanted to wait, at least I did, to make sure it was anything to get upset about. When Nephrite stopped writing, I just thought he was busy. But then today..." She looked up at the glass ceiling. "When Endymion sent a message asking if we knew where they might be..."
"We couldn't ignore it any longer." Mercury entered the Moon Garden quietly.
I thought quickly. "Have you talked to Pluto? Maybe she has some idea of what's going on."
Mercury shook her head. "We can't ask her that. For her to tell us would be a gross infraction of the rules of Time. Something that could cost her her life."
"Endymion has sent out a search party", Jupiter said dully. "But it's a big universe."
"We'll just have to wait", Venus continued. She covered her face with one hand. "And hope that they come back to us." Neptune embraced her again.
I stood up. "Where's Mars?"
"She locked herself in her room", Mercury answered. "Serenity's trying to get her to come out, but so far, no luck."
I exchanged a sorrowful look with Neptune. It didn't seem as though there was anything we could do to help the girls. Anger built up inside of me. It was mainly directed at the absent generals...the four men who held my friends hearts in their hands. But a little of that anger was directed at myself. I put the responsibility of keeping the girls safe onto my own shoulders. And it looked as though I had failed them.
Neptune, ever the mystic, felt what I was was thinking. She looked up at me for a long moment, then slowly shook her head as if to say, don't. Don't do that. My shoulders relaxed a bit, but the anger didn't dissipate entirely.
And it wouldn't, I soon realized. Another day slipped by with no word from or news about the missing generals. Mars did eventually rejoin the world, but she might as well have stayed locked up in her room. She was withdrawn, sullen and non-communicative. It seemed to hit her worse than the other girls, but she refused to talk about it with anyone, even Serenity.
A few more days passed and nothing changed. Endymion joined us at the end of the week, but only for a day. He was, understandably, in a panic. With his generals gone, the Earth was vulnerable to attack. It seemed unlikely that it would be, but one never knew. Queen Serenity promised the Prince that should the unthinkable happen, the Moon's army would be at his disposal, and that seemed to reassure him. I got the feeling that it wasn't so much the vulnerability of his planet that upset Endymion, but the loss of his closest friends. The search party had turned up nothing in our solar system.
When a week had passed, things seemed to return to normal. After all, what could we do? Life couldn't just come to a screeching halt. Queen Serenity gently, the only way she did things, urged us to return to our training. But something had gone out of each of the four Inner Senshi. I tried to imagine how I would feel if I were in their position, if Neptune just disappeared one day. The mere thought created a huge, gaping hole in my heart. My patience with the Inner Senshi was abundant after that.
**********
Another week went by. Our time together was coming to a close. I didn't want to think about it, but Neptune, being both the sense and the sensibility in our relationship, needed to know what would happen after our last week together.
We were lying in my bed on our one day off from training when she brought it up. "You know...next week is our last week here", she began the hateful conversation. She was nestled in the crook of my arm, holding my hand in hers. She ran her index finger over my palm, creating invisible designs on the flesh.
I sighed. "Do we have to think about this now?"
She set my hand back onto her stomach. "It's not going to go away if we don't think about it."
"I don't know", I kissed her hair. "It might."
Neptune laughed for a brief moment, then grew quiet. "What are we going to do?"
"Run away to some planet that has ocean and open ground?", I suggested. "Let's see...that'd be..."
"Earth", she supplied. "And I'm trying to be serious here."
"Why do you think I'm trying not to be?"
She sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest. "So, we should wait until we're both about to board seperate transports bound for two different planets before we bring this up again?"
I put my arms around her and laid my cheek against her bare back. "I'm sorry. I just..." I stopped, not trusting my voice. "I can't imagine being apart from you."
"It hurts, I know." She twisted her body around. I lifted my head so that we were face to face. "I don't want to be without you either. But what can we do?"
"Write every day? Transport back and forth every weekend?"
She smiled. "You'll have to learn to swim if you want to get into Benten-san Palace. It's underwater, remember."
"And you'll have to...." I thought for a moment. "Nothing. You don't have to do anything to come see me." I traced the perfect line of her lips with my finger. "Just show up. Anytime. I'll be waiting for you."
Her eyes closed as she gave me a soft kiss. "I love you."
"I love you, too."
********
I don't know why I'm doing this to myself. It would be much easier to tell this story without including these things, these moments we shared together. I don't know...maybe I don't want to forget. A silly thought; I don't have enough time left *to* forget, after all. But maybe I don't want you to see me or Neptune or anyone in this story as a name. A title. I want you to see that we were people with real lives. It will make you understand just how devasting it was when it was all ripped away from us.
Queen Serenity announced that in honor of our final week of training together, she was going to throw us a ball. Unlike the ball seven weeks earlier, this ball was to be entirely in our honor. Preparations were in full swing by the middle of the week and Neptune was in a quandry.
"The lavender dress or the silver?"
I was sprawled across the aquamarine brocaded silk cover on her bed, watching her dig through her seemingly limitless wardrobe, searching for the perfect dress. I had no idea how she had amassed such a huge amount of clothing in a mere seventeen years of existence or why she had felt the need to bring it all with her to the Moon, but every piece was thrown about her room as she continued her search.
"Didn't you wear the grey one to dinner when Mercury's mother and father visited?", I asked.
Her head peeked out from the closet door. "Silver. And you remember what I was wearing that night?"
I sat up and crossed my legs. "Well...it was pretty low cut..." A corset cover came flying at me from the general direction of the closet. I caught it before it landed. "I hope this is the one you put on today..."
She stepped out from the closet, wrapped up in a sheer, navy blue pegnior. She had taken her hair down and it flowed around her shoulders. The two blues were in perfect contrast. I smiled appreciatively. Neptune had been holding the pegnoir closed at her chest, but now let it go, exposing the pure, white curve of her breast. "Come here", she beckoned, crooking her index finger.
I shook my head as I reached for the top button of my shirt. "You come here."
It was fortunate that the door swung open just then. Even a minute later and it would have been a far more embarassing situation. Jupiter stood in the doorway, a look of panic in her deep green eyes. Neptune quickly brought her robe together and I jumped up from the bed. "Jupiter?" Her hand grasped the door's frame as though she needed the support to remain standing. "What is it?", I asked. A ball of fear formed in my stomach.
Jupiter looked at Neptune, then back at me. "Oh god...I interrupted something, didn't I?"
Neptune crossed her arms to cover her practically nude body. "It's all right, Jupiter. Just tell us what's going on. Is it the generals? Have they been found?"
"No." Jupiter paused for a second. "We've lost all contact with Narisah."
Narisah was the most remote colony of our solar system, lying many light years futher out than Pluto. The star's only inhabitants were a hermitous sect of monks, but they were our most important link to our neighboring solar systems.
"Lost contact?", Neptune repeated. Her eyes were wide, with good reason. As Outer Senshi we knew that if something were to invade our system, the first warning sign would come from Narisah. "Lost contact..."
Jupiter nodded. "They missed their weekly communication and when the Queen tried to establish contact, she recieved no reply. She thought it might be our communicator, but she didn't have any trouble contacting Pluto."
"Why are we always the last ones to know about things like this?" I ran a hand through my hair in frustration.
"Well..." Jupiter looked at Neptune, then looked back to me again. "It could be nothing. The monks could be in a period of silence. Or their communicator could be broken."
It was possible. But I don't think any of us believed it. "So...what does the Queen want us to do?", I asked, holding back a rising lump in my throat. "Does she want Neptune, Pluto and I to return to our planets and prepare for...whatever?"
"Actually, she wants you all to stay here." A small smile appeared on Jupiter's lips, the first I could remember seeing there in a long time. It disppeared as she continued. "After all...we'll all be parting anyways in a few days."
Neptune looked down at the sea colored rug. "That we will", she whispered.
There was a pause. "I'm going to go now", Jupiter said abruptly. "Carry on you two." She flashed another, sadder smile. "We're all so very glad that you two...you know, have each other. It doesn't make us feel quite so..." She stopped. "I don't know. See you at dinner." With that, she closed the door and we were alone again.
"If you were going to invade a solar system, what's the first thing you would do?", I asked after a long moment of silence.
She sighed. "I'd conquer their out-lying, defenseless star as a warning."
"It was in the water and it was in the wind. And now it's here." I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at her dressing table. "But what is it?"
I felt her sit beside me; her arms wrapped around my torso as she rested her chin on my shoulder. "What was your philosophy? If you don't think about it, it might go away?"
"Neptune, this is serious and you know it."
"Why do you think I'm trying not to be?"
I lifted my arms to return the embrace, but didn't reply.
We were silent for a moment as we held each other. "Well, if Queen Serenity isn't worried, why should we be?", Neptune finally asked. "We worry too much, Uranus."
I found myself smiling. "It's our responsibility to."
"How about giving responsibility a rest for awhile and just enjoying our last few days together?", she innocently suggested.
"You could do that?"
"No", she admitted. "But I could pretend to. For the sake of the others. They have enough to worry about"
"True." I was suddenly so very tired. Lifting my bare feet up onto the bed, I let go of Neptune and lowered my head until it rested in her lap. As I lay there, my knees drawn up to my chest like a child, she gently stroked the hair on my temple. "Don't you ever get tired of being right?", I asked.
She laughed softly and bent over to kiss my cheek. Her sweet smelling hair tickled my nose. "Go to sleep, darling. And don't worry about anything." I was already half-asleep, so I could have imagined her next words. "I'll always protect you."
**********