Hour IV
By Spirit-hime
************
Ethereal gardens. Gardens of crystal and roses. Gardens so rich with the pungent aroma of flowers of every color imaginable that it swept you up, embraced you in its thick blanket so that you grew giddy with the oppressive splendour of it all. It was beyond intoxicating. It was downright inebriating.
She didn't know how long she had been standing there, drunk with the scents and dazzling lights that flared off of the towers of crystal, sending minute rainbows dappling across the lawn. A soft breeze stirred her dark green hair, bringing a sobering moment of fresh air from beyond the garden walls. She welcomed that moment, breathing it in for all it was worth.
Above her, a crescent moon shone down from a velvet sky, casting its warm glow upon the crystalline buildings. There was the faint sound of music drifting on the breeze.
Meiou Setsuna cast her crimson eyes around her. Crystal Tokyo, without a doubt.
She could think of no logical reason as to why she was here, among the flowers outside the Crystal Palace. Nor could she understand why she was wearing a black satin gown that brushed her bare toes, high heels digging into the spongey lawn beneath them. Her mind felt as though it was stuffed with cotton, and the overwhelming smell of too many roses blooming in too close proximity certainly didn't help.
"Puu! Puuuuuuuuuu, get in here!"
Setsuna would have recognized that voice anywhere. A soft smile played across her face as she followed it to its source. Princess Small Lady Serenity stood at the top of a staircase leading into the Crystal Palace. Light trailed through the open door behind her, creating an angelic glow around her sugar-pink hair and gown. "There you are!" She cried, in a voice unbecoming a princess. "Would you get in here already? You're missing out on the fun!"
"Do forgive me, Princess," Setsuna replied, easily slipping into her old role as the little girl's best friend. She mounted the stairs gracefully, joining her small friend, who was more than happy to take her hand and lead her into the awaiting ballroom. There they were met with a flurry of gowns of all colors, shapes, and sizes, prancing across the dance floor and gossiping in misshapen circles. If there was any difference between the many gowns of the women and those of the flowers outside, it was only that the flowers had the courtesy to stay still. Instead, the crowd boiled and churned around them, so that Setsuna felt as though she was at the center of a great whirlpool composed only of liquified rainbows with their irridescent spectrums.
This was the very thing that Setsuna usually avoided. Oh, she hardly minded chatting with friends, or even getting dressed up once in a while. But centuries of isolation behind the Gates of Time had made such crowded gatherings distasteful to her. The drama and the gossip, the battle to outdo one another, was really quite exhausting. Men and women pasted on their smiles, as flat and sparkling as a sheet of tinfoil. Setsuna had no patience for tinfoil smiles.
The child, whose hair looked rather like a dessert platter, clung to her hand as she wove through the crowd, searching, it seemed, for someone or other. More than a few of the beautifully dressed guests turned to look at Setsuna as she passed. Many women eyed her critically. Many men just eyed her.
"Daddy!" Suddenly Chibi Usa released Setsuna's hand as she was swept up into the folds of a violet cape, her arms wrapping tightly around the neck of her father.
Setsuna could not help but smile upon the scene of the violet-haired King and his energetic daughter. This was the King she knew. Suddenly she could not imagine why she thought such an odd thing, nor why she should feel such a sense of relief when she did.
"How nice to have the pleasure of your face again, Princess Pluto," he said warmly, his arm lovingly supporting Chibi Usa's back as she clung to him.
Setsuna returned his smile, relieved at a friendly face among the sea of transluscent rainbows. "The pleasure is all mine, my King. I'm afraid that had I not bumped into you, I may have fled the scene."
"Never one for crowds, are you Pluto? Would you do me the honor of allowing me to escort you to a more secluded location?"
Setsuna glanced around. Anything would be better than this. Especially if it meant talking to an old trusted friend. "I would love that, your majesty."
Endymion allowed his daughter to slide back onto the floor. "Small Lady, why don't you go find Hotaru? I'm afraid she may have flirted with one too many teenage boys again and may need you to avert another disaster."
"Okay papa!" Her important mission assigned, she hurried away.
King of Earth and Princess of Pluto watched as the bob of pink hair disappeared into the crowd. Such an energetic thing, Setsuna thought. I'm glad she has stayed young for so long. So sweet, cheerful, naive... she's everything I'm not.
"Well," Endymion said briefly, breaking her reverie. He offered the crook of his arm. "Shall we?"
She slid her hand around his arm, amusement playing in her otherwise dark eyes. "Why, your majesty, surely you don't show such kindness to all the ladies of your court? What ever would your wife think, seeing you escorting women, left and right? Look, already you've got people staring."
He payed no heed to the men and women who turned to stare, passing whispers behind cupped hands in an odd game of telephone. Endymion and Pluto, pass it on. Annie May and a Fluto, pass it on.
The King made a vague gesture towards the far end of the ballroom. "My wife's over there, being the social butterfly that she is." Sure enough, Setsuna could barely make out two silver-white odango, twinkling with the silver crown that adorned her head. Even from this distance she seemed to radiate a warm glow that cast itself upon the faces of all who looked at her. It was a radiance that could be rivaled by no star. Setsuna knew very well how far that light could cast its shine. When one lives on the most distant, lonely planet in the solar system, sometimes that light is the only thing that brings hope and meaning into an otherwise desolate life. "She'll be there for a while," he continued. "At these kinds of parties she seldomly even knows I'm there."
Setsuna made a sort of grunt to assure him she was listening, but wondered why he had bothered to say such a thing. Surely they preferred being together, even among so many other people? The dark soldier could not help but think of the young Usagi and Mamoru she had come to know so well, how she would often hang on him, no matter what the situation, and he in turn would hold her in his protective arms, preferring the comfort of her warmth to anything else. No ordinary party could seperate them in such a way.
But then, the Usagi and Mamoru that Setsuna knew were new lovers. They had not yet slipped into the comfortable stability of married life. They did not wake up together every morning, eat their meals together, share those intimate, yet brutally ordinary, parts of their life. The King and Queen had come to know each other in this way, after all. So it should not be too surprising that they did not mind splitting up for a few hours in the evening to visit their friends.
This was what she told herself, anyway. Yet why did she still feel uneasy?
The hallways of the Crystal Palace were no less spectacular than the exterior. Great chandeliers dripped from the ceiling, scintillating prismatically. The spectral light reflected off of the opalescent walls, shifting and changing as one moved, so that it was like walking through a great tunnel composed only of aurora borealis. The music and chattering faded to a pleasantly dull hum behind them. As they mounted a winding staircase in which the walls curved away, making it impossible to see more than ten feet in either direction, Setsuna finally relaxed a little.
"The atmosphere was a little stifling, wasn't it?" Endymion asked, noticing the change in the girl's composure.
Setsuna made a noise of agreement. Relief was flowing in her veins; she couldn't put her finger on it, but she knew there was a reason why. There was a reason that this Endymion was different than the last one she had seen. But when was the last time she'd seen Endymion? And why did she get flustered thinking about it?
The milky pearliness had faded from the wall to her right, so that the crystal created a see-through window, through which one could see the twinkling lights of the city below. Crystal Tokyo sprawled as far as the eye could see, shining more brightly than the stars that smiled down upon it.
"They're beautiful, aren't they?"
Pluto started, not realizing she had been staring. "King?"
"The lights. They're certainly beautiful." He moved closer to her to get a better view. Now he was standing so close that she could feel his breath on her face, could feel his body heat tingle along her skin. A violet cape brushed the back of her hand. The scent of his breath was overpowering. "They say you can see them from space. That even out there, isolated in endless emptiness, Crystal Tokyo shines like a star."
"That would certainly be a sight," she replied vaguely, beginning to move away from him.
But then his arm was around her shoulders, and suddenly that same heat she had felt radiating off him was so close to her, breathing down her neck, shivering across her skin. "Is Crystal Tokyo a star to you, Pluto? Is that why you always return here?" Another arm snaked its way around her stomach, trapping her. Now his lips brushed her earlobe. "Are you just... lonely?"
Setsuna rounded on him then, her garnet eyes tainted with anger and confusion, but even as she did so, strong hands pushed her shoulders up against the transparent wall, and before she could utter a word of protest his mouth was pressed to hers.
It was such a sudden, forceful movement, that for a moment all Setsuna could do was splutter a few half-words, her eyes wide in shock. He pushed his mouth so hard against hers, that her head was forced back against the window, her lips bruising. She stood, uncomprehending, his weight leaning up against her.
Suddenly she came to her senses and shoved Endymion off of her with all her strength. "King, what--"
He stumbled back, but seemed not the lead bit perturbed, as though this was all merely a part of the game. "Oh come on Pluto, you can't tell me that you haven't felt it all these years. I've seen you, the way you gaze at me, the way you blush whenever I happen to glance your way. You've been more obvious than a lovesick teenager."
She took a breath, nearly shaking with fury. "How dare you," she hissed. "How dare you even suggest such a thing! My feelings for you have never gone beyond respect and admiration! To me you have always been my King, husband to my Queen, nothing more! But you, how could you do this to your wife, your daughter? How could you even imagine such a thing?"
He laughed at her then. It was a cold, hollow laugh that reverberated throughout the deserted stairwell and chilled Setsuna to her very soul. "My wife and daughter, you say? A flippant woman whose idea of fun is a hot fudge sundae and a spoiled brat who has lived several centuries and can't even hit puberty? You think I have any emotion left for that tiresome hag and her snotty child?"
Setsuna gaped at him. This could not be true. This could not be real. The Endymion she knew would not, could not, ever say such a thing. The Endymion she knew could not ever do such a thing.
A single thought surfaced in her mind with bitter clarity. This is not the Endymion I know.
Mismatched memories tumbled into her mind. A king with eyes of black, his two lovers crooning over him. A room of stone, with candles flickering around her. The icy sound of a sword leaving its sheath. The cold, stale sound of laughter.
Suddenly Setsuna knew that if there was any difference between this king and the one in her faded memory, it was that the other Endymion had been imprisoned by some greater power, forced to become the horrible creature that he was. The Endymion that stood before her now, his eyes filled with lust and desire, had become this way of his own accord. Somehow, the one that she now faced seemed infinitely more sinister.
He again began to advance upon her. "C'mon now, Setsuna," he whispered, addressing her in the most informal way possible. "It's just a little fun. No one ever has to know."
An overwhelming sense of disgust rose in Setsuna's throat, until she felt as though she would choke on it. The Time Key materialized in her hand. Before King Endymion could move any closer, she shoved the Garnet Orb against his temple. "So sorry, King," she snarled through gritted teeth. Her voice was dark and dangerous, her eyes alight with a fierce fire. "But my loyalty rests with Neo Queen Serenity. So help me, I would sooner blow your brains out than betray her."
"Princess Pluto?" A voice echoed up to them through the hollow stairwell. Setsuna and the King exchanged embarrassed glances. By the time the newcomer mounted the stairs and came into view, both were turned towards the window, a good three feet of space seperating them. Setsuna knew that she herself had nothing to hide, that by protecting Endymion she became equally suspicious. She knew this, but she also knew what Serenity would feel if she ever found out what had happened just now. She could never do this to her Queen, no matter how sickened she now felt about the Queen's husband.
But then, in a bizarre future where King Endymion, once Chiba Mamoru, was not the loving and devoted husband that Setsuna had come to know him as, what was this Neo Queen Serenity truly like? Did she choose from among the circle of friendly cortiers she had been chatting with, lead them into the dark, hidden corners of the Palace, bid them to do the unthinkable? She shuddered to think of it.
"Ah, forgive my intrusion your majesty. I was hoping I might have a word with Miss Pluto."
"It's really no problem," Setsuna remarked, turning to face the newcomer. "I was just..." Her words froze in her throat. Just below her, a man stood on the crystal steps. His short hair was tinged with dark green, save for the white stripe that extended down the center, like a skunk's tail. Though he wore an ordinary black tuxedo, Setsuna found herself picturing him in a shirt of dusty purple, holding a great double-bladed oar. "Leaving," she finished flatly, feeling rather breathless.
"Well then," he replied, a small smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. She knew that smirk. And oh, how she knew that mouth. "Would it please the princess to have someone accompany her?"
"Please," she replied, perhaps a little too fast.
Without a second glance at the King who stood behind her, trying to catch her eye, the Princess of Pluto hurried down the steps and joined the person whose name she was sure she knew.
-"--'--{3
After the stifling party and overwhelming presence of the King, Setsuna welcomed the cool night air on the balcony. The man at her side watched her bemusedly, his light eyes filled with an expression that made it seem as though he read her thoughts. "Lovely night, isn't it?"
She inhaled the sweet starlit air, gazing out at the evening. "Spare me the small talk, Charon. The last person who talked of such things was trying to get down my dress."
He chuckled. "Ah, I was wondering if you'd caught on to him. But then, it seems that few things surprise you anymore, princess. For instance, you don't seem the least bit surprised to see me."
Her deep red eyes regarded him, taking in the welcome sight of his face. "Should I be? I've just woken up in a timeline that I don't belong to, wearing a dress that I sure as heck don't remember putting on, and I've just been hit on by the one man who I've always held in the highest respect. And what's more, I've got an odd feeling that I just saw you not too long ago, which in itself is enough to make my head spin. Right now I feel as though I'm either swimming through a neverending dream that I just can't wake up from, or I'm most definitely not in Kansas anymore. Given the circumstances, seeing hallucinations of a lover who died a couple of millenia ago doesn't seem all that unusual."
Slightly exasperated at her own outburst, Pluto again turned to gaze out at the skyline. From here she could see the crystal-shaped buildings, rising in every direction, shape, and color. One obelisk in particular rose high above most others. At its peak, it was cheerfully illuminated in shades of blue, green, and violet, so that one could see that it was not just a tower, but a clock tower. From her position on the balcony, Setsuna could just barely make out the wide hour hand, its tip pointed towards the Roman numeral that was made up of an I and a V.
And why shouldn't it be unusual, she thought hotly. Everything else felt so disconnected from reality, so distant from the world she had come to know, that she half-expected Sailor Galaxia to trot up to them and ask if they'd like to buy some Girl Scout cookies (half-price for Chaos Caramel Delights). She had a vague sense that she had been feeling this way for a while, but for the life of her could not figure out how long. Imagine, the soldier of time unable to calculate time.
"Although," she continued more softly now, "even if you are a hallucination, it sure is nice to see you again, Charon."
He stepped forward, his tender eyes, the color of the sky, gazing down at her. "I assure you Princess, I am just as real as I was the day we parted."
"How can I believe that?" She whispered.
"Believe this." And with that, he pulled her towards him, wrapping her in a tight embrace. They stood there for a long time, locked in each other's arms.
Setsuna felt as though she could no longer breathe. She leaned into him, feeling that wonderful warmth that she had longed for over so many centuries. She didn't dare break that exhilerating moment, but finally she could bare it no longer. "How?" She asked breathlessly.
"I guess it was just meant to be."
Setsuna blinked a few times. Her mouth felt dry. "Like destiny?"
"Yes, I suppose it is."
She stared hard at the ground, her mind churning. A lump had settled into the pit of her stomach. She heard her voice ask lightly, "when did Charon become so eloquent?"
He shrugged. "Guess things change."
"Mmm." She closed her eyes, taking a calming breath. "Then can you tell me..." At this she looked directly up at him, her expression frozen. "When did Charon get blue eyes?"
There was a long, vacant pause, in which both regarded each other, unblinkingly. Then it was as though the imaginary magic in the air had snapped, giving itself a good case of whiplash.
The person before her growled low in his throat. His grip around Setsuna's waist became tighter, more desperate. She felt a stinging pain in her back - claws. His fingers were becoming claws.
"Guess I can't fool you," he said, smiling dangerously. His teeth were changing into rows of tiny little daggers.
Setsuna leapt away from the false Charon, her eyes widening at the thing that he - or rather, it - was becoming.
"Who are you?"
"Why Princess, don't you remember me?" As he spoke, he seemed to grow, his limbs contorting in ways she would not have thought possible. His skin was changing, too--a cobalt tint began to seep into it, and it somehow began to look transparent, so that if she watched closely she could see the veins pulsating within his clawed hands, before they too seemed to take on a bluish transluscence. She had no time to inspect such things, however, being that he had now doubled in size, and had grown sizeable ears on the top of his head. Whatever clothes he had been wearing were pretty much scrapped by now. By the time the grotesque transformation had finished taking place, any resemblance it had once bore to the Charon she had known was pretty much nil.
It towered above her, this strange being. The balcony was overflowing with it, threatening to allow it to spill over the side. She huddled in her one empty corner, several stories above the ground, staring up at a pair of vacant blue eyes. It was amorphous, both in looks and in power, so that one moment it seemed to be the size of a housecat, and the next, seemed to fill all the world with its great bulk. Setsuna realized the irony of her comparing it to a feline--for that was exactly what it appeared to be. But this was no ordinary domestic pet.
This was a lion.
Or rather, a lioness, she thought dimly, noting the lack of mane. Heck, it could have been a pink butterfly, for all she cared. Instead, it was a great blue beast, its translucent flesh crackling with unspent energy. Stray bolts of electricity chattered manacingly to themselves as they skipped across the smooth surface of the building and disappeared over the crystal peaks. Setsuna found that looking through the creature was like looking through a glob of Jello. A great big living glob of Jello. With teeth.
"I don't know you," she answered cooly, sounding much more brave than she felt.
"Don't you?" Its voice was somewhere between a growl and a whisper. The sound was unsettling. "Surely the sailor senshi of time does not have so short a memory. Why don't you look back a little, my dear? Do you not remember that day, the day we struggled on the cold beaches of Neptune? Do you not remember how you abandoned your duty for the sake of what you call comradeship? Do you not remember the day you made a fatal mistake that cost someone else's life? Do you not remember the day HE died?"
Bile rose in the back of Setsuna's throat, and she felt as though her knees would give way. All blood had drained from her face, so that she was uncharacteristically pale. Nothing, no launch through the reaches of time, no perverted king who'd had one too many, no stumble through worlds not her own, could have ever prepared her for this. "No..." she was shaking, though not from the cold. "You can't be..."
"Oh, but I am." The low feral voice sounded almost cheerful as it said this, deeply enjoying the look upon its pray's face. "Once I was known as Oroszlan, to a highly civilized people. Unfortunately, these people met an untimely demise. In the outskirts of Orion, many called me Leijona, and trembled at my name. You and your kind, however, took a much less subtle approach, and gave me the unfortunate title of Akuma Neko. But, my dear, I am so much more than a devil cat. So very much more."
"But..." Setsuna's voice was so tiny next to the massive creature. She was a child again, hiding beneath her blanket. She was a teenager again, hiding behind her Time Staff. "But you died with him. I... I saw it!"
The thing leaned forward, so that its great muzzle was inches from Setsuna's face. Its breath, charged with electricity, caused her skin to tingle and the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck to stand up. "You, who has spent so much time in the Underworld. Do not take for granted who is dead and who is not."
The world was beginning to swim around her. Setsuna struggled to keep herself steady, clinging to the railing with trembling fingers, her knuckles ghostly white. "You couldn't have been..." she stammered, "you couldn't have been alive... here... in the outer reaches of time... I would have felt it... I would have known..."
The great beast threw its head back and emmited a roar so terrible that the ground shook beneath them, and she was sure the balcony made a few alarming cracks. But then she realized that the lion was not roaring, but laughing. "You were too busy trying to forget, trying to leave it all behind. Even now I appear before you, and still you need someone to tell you what you're seeing. Dear, dear Pluto. So ancient and wise, yet so naive. You've withdrawn into yourself, curled into a ball of perfect misery, hidden within your perfectly constructed shell. You've become so seperate from the rest of the world, it is a wonder that you can still get out of bed in the morning.
But this is my territory now, little princess. I've been here for millennia, riding the Winds of Hades like my own personal subway system. I have seen the worlds you yourself are too scared to visit. I have stretched across the great expanse of time, touching both Beginning and End with the tips of my claws. I can fill the greatest galaxy, or drift through the tiniest keyhole. I am everywhere, and I am nowhere."
It laughed again; a shuddering, echoing din that surely must have been heard by all of Crystal Tokyo. "Seal me away this time, little one!"
Setsuna was paralyzed. I can't, she thought wildly. I can't do it. I could never do it. I wish I could wake up and find out that it's all just another bad dream.
I wish none of this was real.
The roar was replaced by a dreadful silence so complete that she thought she'd gone deaf. Somewhere between Oroszlan and herself a chilling, familiar glow of soft purple light took up residence. A dark object, miniscule against the backdrop of the beast's face, materialized within easy reach of Setsuna's hand, the dark red jewel shining like a Garnet Eye. The lioness's cobalt lips drew back in a snarl to reveal dagger-sharp teeth. It reared its mammoth head, as though the sight of the thing had rendered her blind. Setsuna could clearly feel the balcony lurch beneath her this time, as she reached her hand out to snatch the key from where it remained, suspended in space. As she closed her fingers around the cold stone surface, she swore she heard the faintest of whispers in her ear.
"Don't give up yet, Princess!"
And she was sure she knew that voice...