Sorry about the long wait. (Long! That was nothing compared to some of my other stories.) Thanksgiving promises plenty of time for me to write. Hopefully I will finish over the break.

By the way, the poem in the previous chapter was my own creation. Please don't steal it – that's just not kosher, man, not kosher. The poems which are not mine will always be stated, even if I don't know the original author.

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"The Sick Rose"

O Rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm

That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy,

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

~ William Blake (1757-1827)

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Chapter 14

She had taken of the seed of Nemesis, and the seed would not be silent.

Mars kept her word. No one else knew.

But as the time passed, the princess agonized over her secret. It could not be kept silent for much longer. Serenity knew that she would have to reveal it to her mother, and even worse, to Prince Endymion.

She had been selfish and a coward. The right thing to do would have been to admit her secret upon her discovery of it, but she was afraid. She feared the pain it would bring herself and her loved ones.

Many a night she lay awake thinking of this one thing: how now she could never be with Endymion as she had dreamed ten months ago. It was not that he was unforgiving and harsh. Also, she knew that she could easily lie and say the secret was un-willfully gotten. But that would have been wrong. And what was more, even it the Prince did find some way in his heart to forgive her betrayal, Serenity herself felt that she could not allow herself to be forgiven. She could very well go on with life and marry Prince Endymion as she had intended. But in her heart of hears, she knew it would be a lie. She loved Endymion. That was undeniable. But that young, inexperienced love had never been given the chance to blossom into its full potential. If Demando had never come, indeed if Serenity had not been abducted, her life would have taken a very different course. But alas, fate was not so kind. Love did not take requests. And Demando had her heart by pure default. There was no altering it.

There was a lull in the battles with the Dark Kingdom. Serenity wisely saw this as the best time for revealing her secret.

Mother was first. Serenity went to her early one morning, before anyone else could come to her, and when the queen would be awaking refreshed for a new day.

Still dressed in her nightgown, Serenity knocked softly at the door. After speaking her identity in answer to the Queen's question, the elder woman instructed her to enter.

The room was warm, large, and breezy, the windows having been flung open to allow the early summer air in. Serenity the elder flung her arms around her daughter warmly, but the younger shied away from full frontal contact.

"What is it, my pet? You're up so very early this morning." She stroked the young one's cheek concernedly.

"There's something – I have to tell you something important," her eyes downcast.

"What is it? You know you can tell me anything, Serenity, without fear," the Queen whispered, not bothering to sit down. She held her daughter's hands supportively. They stood in the center of the low-ceilinged marble chamber, mirror images.

In a voice so low her mother could barely hear, "I'm afraid I can't marry Prince Endymion."

The Queen kept her composure and replied calmly, humoring, "Why ever do you think that, dear?" She smiled, obviously assured that this was some trivial thing, a silly worry that she need only put to rest.

"I know, Mother," Serenity corrected her. "And I will be telling Endymion shortly. But I needed you to hear it first."

Queen Serenity frowned. There she was again, that mournfully refined young woman who had at one time been her daughter.

Serenity looked sadly at her mother, pleadingly. She needed her to understand, to be her support, as she had always been. Directly, so the queen could not mistake her meaning, she stated, "I am with child . . . and . . . the sire is the White Prince."

The Queen at first showed no outward reaction, though the room seemed to immediately drop in temperature. Then horror took hold of the regal woman, and she clutched at her daughter fretfully. "My child, oh my child, how could this have happened?!" She fell into weeping.

"No, Mother!" Serenity pulled her away so she could look directly at her. "It's not as you think. The child was conceived willfully."

The horror was gone only to be replaced by utter disbelief.

But the moon princess would not falter. There was no denying her veracity.

The Queen, composing herself, resumed her embrace. Her daughter held her in turn, this time willfully.

"I see," the mother said, eyes far away. "So the seed of Nemesis is to continue our line." The Queen sighed. There had been worse errors in the royal history. But each time they had made do, and become all the stronger for it. "Yes, love, I am here for you." Her tears were dry, but her chest still hurt. It was not the future she had intended for her child. How she wished to heaven it was not so.

But she gave her support, and it was all the Princess Serenity needed.

* * *

Endymion had not been so easy.

When she told him, he was still as death, and turned away from her in icy rage. He had loved her, oh yes, he had loved her. But these emotions now flowing out of him could not be confused with love: anger, embarrassment, betrayal. There would be no hiding it. Soon the entire kingdom would know. He hated Demando most of all. That cursed, damned prince had seduced his own fiancé. Now she would bear him a child, and he would never even know.

Serenity cried, but he felt no pity for her. She had brought this upon her by her own doing.

The Prince Endymion left the Moon Kingdom and took up exile in the kingdom of Mars. He was escorted there by the Princess of Mars herself, who, unbeknownst to the prince, was doing so upon request of the Princess Serenity, her friend and sovereign.

"Look after him, be his comfort; just don't leave him alone," Serenity had made her promise. "Do this one last thing for me, my dearest friend."

All Serenity could do was pray that someday he might forgive her.

* * *

The Flower Festival was not celebrated for the first time in a millennium. It would have been much too dangerous to allow such a distraction, and the Moon Kingdom could not afford to let down its guard.

In the fifth month of her pregnancy, the evil struck again. In full force it attacked the Moon Kingdom, and was barely fended off from its capital. It had been resting, regaining its strength as before.

By this time, most knew of Serenity's secret. No one spoke of it directly to her, and in her presence they sent her furtive glances. Was it true what they said – that the child was a product of rape? Yet others claimed the union was consensual. After all, anyone must admit how close their princess had been to the Prince of Nemesis last summer. But what was to happen after the child's birth? Was it to be sent back to the dark moon, banished there for all eternity? Did the White Prince even know he had fathered a child? If so, would he come for it? Would there be conflict? Would there be war?

The truth of the matter was that Prince Demando did not know of the result of his union with Serenity, and the Moon Queen made no mention of intending to inform him. Indeed, the location of the tenth planet was still unknown. Serenity only knew that it was somewhere near the Moon, and she did not bother sharing this. As he had been so cruel to her and so intent on their never seeing each other, the poor mother-to-be turned aside her intense longing to inform her child's father. Those who knew the facts, including the princesses and the queen's advisors, agreed that it would lead to only more conflict with Nemesis once a child was thrown into the equation. And the people of the Solar System were already over their head fighting back the Dark Kingdom.

Throughout the whole ordeal, Serenity held her head high and carried her living burden with a maternal dignity.

* * *

She started having dreams. In her dream, there was a deep, red rose. A white butterfly came and rested on the rose, took the sweet glistening at its core*. When it left, the rose appeared to become ill. Its petals blackened. There was a worm growing inside it. It seemed like the worm was feeding off of the rose's very life force. Yet the rose would not expel the supposed parasite from its golden heart.

There was more to the dream, but upon waking it could not be recalled. Nor could Serenity decipher the meaning of the dreams.

* * *

At the end of summer, something changed. The Dark Kingdom tapped into the Princess's current weakness and prayed off it and the ginzuishou's vulnerability. The attack it launched against the Silver Millennium was by far the most powerful and most heinous it had ever attempted.

Queen Metallia adopted a new strategy. Instead of aiming straight for the Moon Kingdoms, she first attacked the weaker planet-kingdoms. The Moon Queen was forced to give up a large part of her forces to aid the other kingdoms, including the forces that had originally been sent from there to help her.

While the solar system was distracted, a separate but equally strong attack was launched on the Moon Kingdom: it was the timeless divide and conquer approach. But the wise Queen had not foreseen it. She had assumed that the Dark Kingdom was not great enough in power and numbers, but each time it had seemingly subsided and drawn back, it had only been gathering its might.

The Kingdom of the Moon received a terrible blow.

The surprise attack had caught all off guard. The Princess Mars was still on her home planet with Prince Endymion. The two were involved in aiding the Jupiter kingdom which was currently under attack by the forces of Metallia and Beryl. Most of the other senshi had also departed to see to their kingdoms in their time of need. Only Pluto, Venus, and Mercury remained, and the former was seldom seen in public.

The Queen was not so foolish to have completely let down her guard. Fortunately, the element of surprise did not act as a trump card for the enemy. On the other hand, it certainly didn't help. It was the sudden force with which it struck which proved so fatal.

Countless lives were lost.

In a swirl of activity, the Princess found herself being swept away amidst the sinister sounds of war into the underground fortress beneath the palace that was all but unknown to the people of the Moon Kingdom. It was a precautionary procedure, still kept intact during the long time of peace. It was from here that the Queen and her most trusted advisors launched their counter-attack. Sailor Pluto was at the head of the charge.

Princess Serenity was shut up in the secret fortress for two in a half days.

She watched Pluto and her mother as they directed the battle from safety. Only when it was absolutely necessary did they go out into battle. It was important right now that they stay alive so as to command the forces from below.

Serenity was frightened. She wanted to be of help, but whenever she approached the elder women she felt as if she was just getting in the way. She was in no condition to fight: she knew this. But there had to be something she could do.

In hushed voices she heard the senshi of time and her queen mother conversing.

"If we can only hold them off for a couple more months. When Serenity is recovered, she can join the battle as Sailormoon as our last resort," the royal moon lady confided. She never mentioned her daughter's pregnancy directly: it was always "Serenity's weakness" or "Serenity's condition." "Though I wish for all the world she did not have to."

"If we even last that long," the solemn senshi said morbidly. "We've been fools, Serenity. We let our guard down after the millennia of peace. I should have known better. Evil never dies. It can only be subdued."

The worst was yet to come. One afternoon, the shielded doors to the fortress burst open and Mercury, along with three other soldiers, came in, dragging a bleeding Venus in their arms.

The sight was horrifying. All this time Serenity had been shielded from the horrors of war. It was what Demando had been talking about. She was so sheltered.

She ran to her beloved friend's side and would not be sent away.

Mercury, with her knowledge of healing, was doing all she could for the soldier of love. But it was not enough.

Serenity followed every order precisely. She brought the physician's tools Mercury sent for. She cradled the blonde's head in her lap. She held her down when the Mercurian saw to her wound. At the end of the day the moon child's hands were covered in blood and the pretty gown she wore was ruined.

"There's nothing more I can do for her," Mercury bravely kept the tears from breaking free.

Serenity concentrated hard on the face of her lady-in-waiting, twisted in agony. "Will she die?" she asked, but she was strangely calm.

Mercury didn't answer, but turned her face away, biting a quivering lip.

Regaly, "Where is my mother?"

"She is with the Time Guardian. Serenity . . . there is nothing she can do."

"Go to her," the golden princess ordered. "Tell her I send for the ginzuishou."

The aquatic woman grew startled – the woman before her was different that the childish, laughing princess she had known. She looked regal, determined, and sadly jaded; a woman beyond her years, not the friend she had always known. Mercury nodded and arose without bothering for an explanation.

In a short time the Queen arrived. When she saw her loyal warrior in a state of near death, she knelt down and hung her head mournfully. "Oh my child," she breathed. "I'm so sorry you have to see this."

"No," Serenity chastised her. "It is important that I understand . . . you have the ginzuishou?"

In response, the Queen held her hands before her and called for the mystical gem from within. The jewel manifested itself and illuminated the entire room with an eerie, yet dazzling glow. Cautiously, unfamiliarly, Serenity reached out for the gem. The ginzuishou immediately responded to her call and came into her hands of its own inanimate will. Testing herself, the young mother experimented with its power and her role in guiding it. She let the light fill her entire being. The child in her stirred in response to the warm energy. Serenity gathered that energy and focused it within her into a single powerful point. Then, she shifted her focus from herself to the wounded princess. Concentrating she willed with all her might and instinctively guided the ginzuishou to heal.

Everyone in her presence started. As they saw the healing properties of the silver crystal manifested through Serenity, they were awed. Never before had the ginzuishou been used in such a manner. Their logical conclusion: the Princess was truly the master of the jewel, as no other had been before.

That night as Serenity slept near beside the recovering Venus, the ginzuishou resting within herself for the time being like the baby, she completed her dream. It was the same as before. The secret love of the graceful white butterfly resulted in the parasitic caterpillar. Only this time, when it seemed all was lost, the worm changed. She saw it for what it truly was: a butterfly with scarlet wings. It ascended from its rose mother and the petals bloomed crimson again.

She woke up to the inner pulsing of the ginzuishou. It was weakening, she could feel it. She leaned over Venus and placed a cool hand on her forehead. The fever had left her. She would be well in the morning.

Rising, Serenity mentally calculated what she must do. She stroked her stomach consolingly, thinking of the myth that had come to her from Earth. The goddess had taken the pomegranate seed from her dark lover, and it was the very seed that demanded she return. Serenity had twice the reasons.

It would be very dangerous. And there was the fear of failure.

As she had hoped, Serenity found the senshi of Pluto alone. The Time Guardian rose to meet her, and the young princess moved foreword. She was imperially slim (but for the bulge in her middle), and stood tall as her mother, no longer the lost little girl of times past. She was the same loving, optimistic, untainted soul; that would never change. But to say she had grown would have been a drastic understatement.

* * *

The following morning, the Moon Princess was nowhere to be found.

Princess Pluto would only say that Her Grace knew what she was doing and that the others should not worry, but to go forward with their plans as usual.

"She'll be safe," the warrior assured her Queen. "She sought my aid wisely, and I have given it to her . . . you should be proud of her, you know. She is taking responsibility, she is taking a stand, and she is taking all possible precautions – a true queen."

"Won't you even say where she's gone?" the majestic woman pleaded. Then, catching herself, she straightened. "No, you're right. She is no longer my little girl. I must leave her to make her own decisions. I can only pray that I have fulfilled my duty in raising her. Kami, she is stubborn, isn't she?"

Pluto smiled wryly, "Much like another Moon lady whom I know."

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Suki *clutching Endymion*: Don't be sad!!! You've still got me . . .

Endymion: Hn! I'm only your second choice now that Serenity's with Demando.

Suki: And your point?

Endymion: That's it! I'm swearing off women forever!

Yeah . . . I hope everyone understood my explanation of how Serenity could choose Demando over Endymion. The only way it would make sense would be if she hadn't been allowed to deepen the puppy love she felt for him into what we know of in the existing series. Think about it: our Usagi is just too loyal. If she had given her heart completely to Endymion to begin with, then Demando would have no chance with her. Goodbye plot.

Also, I'm not a firm believer in fate (even though I use fate through the thoughts of Serenity to make a point in the beginning of the chapter) even if fate does play a strong role in the original. In this story, Demando wins because Demando got there first. Think about it – it makes sense in real life too. There could be several people who would make a good potential mate for you, but it's more a matter of "I met this guy and fell in love with him first." How else do you explain how a widow can remarry? It's not that she didn't love her first husband, but that she has room in her heart to love someone else now that he's gone. She loves both husbands equally. Only one was first, the other second. So in this story, our Serenity is not "meant to be" with Endymion – or anyone for that matter. It was all a matter of chance. Hope that helps.

Poor Endymion . . .

* from May Swenson's (1913 – 1989) "Four-Word Lines"