Rini heard her mother and the other Scouts come running up behind her. "Sailor Earth, are you all right? What's going on?" Sailor Moon asked.

Rini felt her Rose-Thrower pull away suddenly. "I, um, have to go." He backed away, eyes to the ground.

"Wait," Rini held out her hand.

"No, it's, um," he stammered. "I'll just, I'll see, um, yeah," and he took off into the woods.

Rini debated for half a second whether she should chase after him or get angry at her mother. She chose the latter.

"Was that really necessary?" she snapped.

Sailor Moon frowned. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. And to find out who your Rose-Thrower was."

"As if I wouldn't have told you!"

Serena was not in the mood to have anyone else yell at her. "Would you have?" she shot back. "You've been awfully secretive yourself."

Rini pursed her lips. This was ridiculous. What the hell did she know anyway? She pushed a stringy, wet lock of hair out of her face. "I'm going home," she announced. She was thoroughly soaked and dirty and she desperately needed a shower. She marched off in the direction of the Palace.

Sailor Venus took a last stab at diplomacy. "Is it far?" she asked. "You could come back to the Palace and clean up."

Crap. She couldn't very well go home if they were all going home. Now what? "Thank you, no," she replied, and veered off in another direction.

*

Rini stood on the sidewalk debating whether or not to knock on the door. She was glad no one else was out in the downpour. It just wouldn't do for some random person to see the princess standing soaking wet and muddy, dressed in sweats, in a completely different district from the Palace. Rini had taken the precaution of taking her meatballs out, but, well, pink hair was pink hair. She sighed. "Nothing for it, I guess."

Rini knocked on the door. Please let it be Randy who opens the door. No such luck.

Marguerite Ester, a tall lithe woman with straight black hair pulled back from her face, opened the door and frowned at first, not recognizing the soaked teenager in front of her. "Can I help you?"

"Hi, Mrs. Ester," Rini said as innocently as she could muster. "Do you mind if I borrow your shower?"

"Rini! Good heavens child, come in out of the rain!" She ushered Rini in and shut the door. "Randal, go get the young lady some towels," she said to her son, who was just coming downstairs. Randy threw Rini a confused look, but said nothing and jogged back up the stairs.

"Thank you," Rini said in advance of the towels.

"Of course." Mrs. Ester eyed Rini suspiciously. "What exactly were you doing in the rain? And all alone, no less?" Princess or no, Rini was still a teenager. Being on her second, Mrs. Ester knew some questions had to be asked.

"I was at the park," Rini said. "I got caught." Not exactly a lie.

"Isn't the park much closer to the Palace than here?"

"Uh, it was a different park." Rini pretended to pick a wet hair off her shoulder.

"I see." Marguerite Ester was not a woman easily fooled. She didn't buy this any more than her son's story of having acquired several bruises when he "slipped in the rain." In the park, incidentally.

"Just the same," she continued, deciding, as she had with her son, to let that particular detail go, "I'm going to let your mother know where you are."

"No wait! Um..."

"Now listen, young lady, princess or no, I'm sure your mother's very worried about you, being out in the rain all alone. Especially with monsters running about the city. Understood?"

Rini nodded and didn't argue again. It occurred to her that if her mother thought she had been in a park in this district, then there was no way she could have been in the park near the Palace. She let Randy wrap a towel around her and as they walked upstairs, Rini could hear Mrs. Ester's voice floating through the hall.

"How old do kids have to be before they realize parents just want to know what's going on, good or bad?"