She watched idly as he transported from the control room,
a frown crossing her delicate features as he disappeared from sight.
This, she decided, would be the longest twenty-four hours
of her life.
===================
"Business as Usual"
A Sailor Moon Fanfiction
Written by Kate "SuperKate" Butler
===================
Esmeraude was bored.
It wasn't often that Esmeraude managed to bore herself so
thoroughly that she stooped to the all-time low of wandering about
the control room in her skirt and high heels, fanning herself idly
with one hand and waving the other about in sheer, unending boredom.
When push came to shove, actually, Esmeraude considered herself a
fairly easily amused person. She enjoyed watching Demando sip his
strange red-orange vintage of wine, for example, or watching him
study the image of their target - that bratty, blonde queen of
Crystal Tokyo - in the holograph for long hours at a time. She enjoyed
watching him brush the hair from his gorgeous, dark eyes, and
enjoyed witnessing the rare times when he stood to his magnificent
full height long enough to stretch his long legs and sit back
down. She enjoyed peering through the doorway on his private pow-wows
with the Wiseman, even if she could make little-to-no sense of
what exactly their conversations were about in the first place, and
especially enjoyed watching as Demando, the prince of the Dark Moon
and leader of their siege on the city of Crystal Tokyo, began to
nod off in his enormous throne when he was convinced no one was
looking. She was just not the type of person to be easily bored!
Unfortunately, Demando had been called away earlier that
morning on urgent business to one of the other large command ships,
which left her unbearably, unmentionably, and undeniably BORED.
"Mou," she groaned, collapsing onto the stone steps that led
up to Demando's abandoned throne, her knees together as she cupped
her chin in her hands and gazed off across the control room. Her
complaint hung in the air, echoing away until it was nothing more
than a distant whisper against stone. "Where IS everyone? Right about
now, I'd even put up with SAFFIR!"
Her pleading, however desperate, was also futile, and she
sighed miserably. With Rubeus and the four strange sisters off
Rabbit hunting in the twentieth century and Saffir out cavorting
God-alone-knows-where with God-alone-knows-who - she had the oddest
suspicion that boy was constantly up to no good, what with his
constant lapses into virtues such as honesty and nobility - she
felt oddly alone and abandoned, a feeling she had managed to avoid
since the war with Crystal Tokyo had began, thanks to the efforts of
their wonderful Prince Demando. And it was a feeling she really
didn't like, especially since a lonesome Esmeraude happened to be a
BORED Esmeraude and no one really needed one of THOSE, now did they?
She frowned and leaned back, moving to stretch her long
arms...and hitting stone with her knuckles. "Itai!" she screeched,
jumping to her high heeled feet and spinning about to shoot Demando's
throne a rather nasty glance. The mass of green stone, unsurprisingly,
remained stagnant as she glowered at it, and she scowled further
and crossed her arms, fan and all, over her chest. "Oh, what do you
know, anyway? You're just Demando's stupid throne, anyway, you...
stupid..."
She froze in mid-sentence, her green eyes no longer lowered
but rather wide and studious as she took a single, testing step
towards the throne. This throne was Demando's sacred, favorite
throne, the throne that he had polished daily and allowed no one
other than himself near. The throne he spent a good eighteen hours
of his day in, plotting, planning, and staring at the image of
Neo-Queen Serenity in. The throne that he would undoubtedly be seated
in when the Rabbit was captured and Crystal Tokyo fell into their
hands.
But more important than its future as a potential historical
landmark, this was DEMANDO'S throne. The throne his attractive,
shapely rear-end spent eighteen hours in every day... The throne he
touched and embraced like he would any lover.
And suddenly, Esmeraude was no longer bored.
"I'm sorry, throne-san!" she apologized softly, her high
heels clicking against the stone steps up to the throne as she
spoke. She reached forward and slowly ran her fingers along the
arm of the stone throne, smiling flirtatiously at it. Her long
eyelashes batted as she slid slowly into the seat, reveling in the
feeling of the cool stone against her long legs. "I didn't mean it,
and you know I didn't. Forgive me?" She crossed her legs and
leaned back, smiling. "I'm so glad."
Now comfortable in the throne, she managed to put on her
most devious, determined expression, one she had often seen crossing
Demando's attractive features. "Rubeus," she commanded in a low
voice, "find the Rabbit or I will exterminate you." The tone of
her voice, gravelly in the back of her throat, made her chuckle
and she tossed her head. "I'll make a wonderful queen!" she decided.
"I already have the commanding voice down!"
Sliding sideways, she kicked her long legs over one arm of
the throne and leaned her back far over the other, her pale green
curls sweeping against the floor as she opened her fan and shyly
covered her face with it. "Nani yo, Demando-sama?" she questioned,
batting her eyelashes into the emptiness in front of her. "You
want to take me right here on your throne? But what of Saffir?"
She fanned her face lightly. "You don't care if he sees? Oh, you
daring man!"
Her chuckle became a full-out laugh as she hopped onto the
seat of throne and placed her hands on her hips, her expression now
one of a strong-willed, determined matriarch of a household. "Clean
faster, imbeciles!" she commanded, pointing invisible maids in
the direction of invisible laundry and dirty dishes. "Your lives
are forfeit if you don't do my bidding!"
She guffawed loudly, her laughter echoing across the empty
room and bouncing off crystal and rock into the air. "When I am
queen of the dark moon, I will sit in this throne and ponder all the
important questions of the world," she stated plainly, sinking down
into her chair, her feet against the back of the throne while her head
lulled off the seat and allowed her to view the control room
upside down. "Here, I will plan how to decorate our bedroom, what
new planets to take over, and...and...what to make for dinner!" She
laughed again, her head thrown back and eyes arching shut. "I shall
rule the world from this throne! Ahahahahahaha! AHahahahahaha!
AHAHAHA - "
"Esmeraude, what on Earth are you doing?"
Green eyes flew open to reveal Saffir, his arms crossed over
his navy blue uniform jacket as he stood on the ceiling, glowering
down at her. Esmeraude felt her face turn bright pink as she
scrambled to sit up properly and, after three unsuccessful attempts,
failed, falling out of the throne with all the grace and dignity of
a toddler. "I can explain!" she announced loudly, scrambling to her
feet and readjusting her short skirt as she did. "Really!"
"You can?" questioned Demando's brother and second-in-command,
his eyebrows arching as he stared at the blushing, frantic Dark
Moon executive. "Because, from here, it looks like you were playing
in onii-san's throne, and you know how he feels about that throne.
However, if this is not the case, enlighten me. I would love to
hear a more rational explanation."
Esmeraude froze as Saffir finished his lengthy verbal essay
on her behavior, her mind reeling for a likely excuse for what she
was really doing. After all, Demando was, as his brother had
suggested, very...peculiar...about other people sitting in his throne.
Admitting to his little snitch of a brother that she was, indeed,
playing in the nigh-sacred seat would undoubtedly land her as a
scullery cook in some unimportant medic ship...if she was allowed to
live to tell the tale, at all. No, Saffir's sudden, unexpected
appearance had thrown her, face first, between the proverbial rock and
hard place, only in this case the hard place was a glowering prince
and the rock was green and shaped into a throne.
Her mental rolodex for possible excuses flipping to its final
entry and coming up blank, she tore open the filing cabinet for
actions to take and began furiously flipping through the folders
within. Fighting Saffir tooth-and-nail would do no good, considering
the fact that Saffir was not only much stronger than her, but that
either of their deaths would take a lot of in-depth explaining when
Demando returned the next day. Running away solved nothing - Saffir
would still rat her out - and lying meant nothing when she didn't
have a good lie. No, desperate times called for desperate measures,
and it was high time she showed just how desperate a woman she was.
She closed the file cabinet in her mind, the "blackmail"
file firmly gripped in her hand.
"Saffir-sama," she cooed, striding down the steps to stand
face-to-face with the younger prince, "I just don't think you want
to tell your brother about this when he comes back."
Navy blue eyes blinked at her, nonplussed. "Oh, really?" he
questioned dubiously, eyebrows raised and expression devoid of any
and all emotion. "And why, pray tell, is this?"
Placing one hand on his shoulder, Esmeraude gave it a slight
squeeze, glad she had her glove and his shirt between the layer of
slime she was convinced dripped from the brat's every pore. "Because,
my dear Saffir, I happen to... To..."
She hesitated a moment. Blackmail was all well and good, but
only when you had material to work with. Saffir, the little snake,
kept his private life as far from the office as humanly possible, and
she knew absolutely nothing about his personal affairs other than the
steamy little affair he'd had with Petz a few months earlier. Time,
she decided, to make something up.
"To?" he prompted, staring.
"...to know about that time that you and Petz... Well...
You know." She nodded her head towards the throne subtly and smirked,
as though they were sharing a very intimate, personal secret. "There
are ears just everywhere in this room. Do you REALLY want me to
spell out exactly what it is I know?"
Saffir, who was by all accounts of a rather pale complexion
naturally, paled even further as he glanced over the green-haired
woman and at the abandoned stone throne. His Adam's apple bobbed as
he swallowed audibly. "You... You know about that?" he hissed
through clenched teeth, meeting her gaze incredulous.
Esmeraude resisted the urge to shudder and shout "ew!" from
the rooftops before running away and burning her dress for touching
the very stone where the miserable leech of a prince had... She
smiled and regained her composure, patting his shoulder lightly. "Of
course, Saffir-sama," she replied quietly, running her fingers down
his chest before allowing her hand to return to her side. A flick of
her wrist later, her fan covered half her face. "So, shall we pretend
today's festivities just... Never happened?"
He frowned, nodded, and then disappeared before she could say
anything more.
And she, triumphant, smirked and enjoyed her victory for a
full ten minutes before rushing off to her chambers to peal off her
clothes and take a nice, long, soul-cleansing bath.
===
Demando returned early the next morning, just as promised,
his long legs crossed at the knee and glass of wine already in his
hand when his two subordinates reported to the control room, Saffir
clothed in his normal uniform while Esmeraude was garbed in the
black dress and red denim jacket she normally wore to go poke around
Tokyo. Her normal clothing, she was ready to explain when and if her
leader asked, was simply in the wash.
Her leader, however, did not ask about her garb or much
else as he took a sip of wine, smiled, and leaned back in his throne.
"I hope you two were able to function without me here," he addressed
the duo, his dark eyes flitting from his brother to the young woman
and back to his brother again. "Tell me, did anything worth talking
about happen while I was away?"
Esmeraude glanced at Saffir.
Saffir glanced at Esmeraude.
"No, nothing at all," they answered simultaneously, and
business in the Dark Moon continued, thankfully, as usual.
===
Fin.
Author's notes: I've been watching too much SMR. This, my friends, is
what happens when I watch too much SMR. Just some Dark Moon fun for
you all. Hee hee hee. I can just see Esmeraude, upside-down in
Demando's throne, wide-eyed and staring at Saffir as he looms over
her. Good times.
Thanks to Yume and May, yadda yadda, you know the routine.
May 30, 2004
2:25 a.m.
a frown crossing her delicate features as he disappeared from sight.
This, she decided, would be the longest twenty-four hours
of her life.
===================
"Business as Usual"
A Sailor Moon Fanfiction
Written by Kate "SuperKate" Butler
===================
Esmeraude was bored.
It wasn't often that Esmeraude managed to bore herself so
thoroughly that she stooped to the all-time low of wandering about
the control room in her skirt and high heels, fanning herself idly
with one hand and waving the other about in sheer, unending boredom.
When push came to shove, actually, Esmeraude considered herself a
fairly easily amused person. She enjoyed watching Demando sip his
strange red-orange vintage of wine, for example, or watching him
study the image of their target - that bratty, blonde queen of
Crystal Tokyo - in the holograph for long hours at a time. She enjoyed
watching him brush the hair from his gorgeous, dark eyes, and
enjoyed witnessing the rare times when he stood to his magnificent
full height long enough to stretch his long legs and sit back
down. She enjoyed peering through the doorway on his private pow-wows
with the Wiseman, even if she could make little-to-no sense of
what exactly their conversations were about in the first place, and
especially enjoyed watching as Demando, the prince of the Dark Moon
and leader of their siege on the city of Crystal Tokyo, began to
nod off in his enormous throne when he was convinced no one was
looking. She was just not the type of person to be easily bored!
Unfortunately, Demando had been called away earlier that
morning on urgent business to one of the other large command ships,
which left her unbearably, unmentionably, and undeniably BORED.
"Mou," she groaned, collapsing onto the stone steps that led
up to Demando's abandoned throne, her knees together as she cupped
her chin in her hands and gazed off across the control room. Her
complaint hung in the air, echoing away until it was nothing more
than a distant whisper against stone. "Where IS everyone? Right about
now, I'd even put up with SAFFIR!"
Her pleading, however desperate, was also futile, and she
sighed miserably. With Rubeus and the four strange sisters off
Rabbit hunting in the twentieth century and Saffir out cavorting
God-alone-knows-where with God-alone-knows-who - she had the oddest
suspicion that boy was constantly up to no good, what with his
constant lapses into virtues such as honesty and nobility - she
felt oddly alone and abandoned, a feeling she had managed to avoid
since the war with Crystal Tokyo had began, thanks to the efforts of
their wonderful Prince Demando. And it was a feeling she really
didn't like, especially since a lonesome Esmeraude happened to be a
BORED Esmeraude and no one really needed one of THOSE, now did they?
She frowned and leaned back, moving to stretch her long
arms...and hitting stone with her knuckles. "Itai!" she screeched,
jumping to her high heeled feet and spinning about to shoot Demando's
throne a rather nasty glance. The mass of green stone, unsurprisingly,
remained stagnant as she glowered at it, and she scowled further
and crossed her arms, fan and all, over her chest. "Oh, what do you
know, anyway? You're just Demando's stupid throne, anyway, you...
stupid..."
She froze in mid-sentence, her green eyes no longer lowered
but rather wide and studious as she took a single, testing step
towards the throne. This throne was Demando's sacred, favorite
throne, the throne that he had polished daily and allowed no one
other than himself near. The throne he spent a good eighteen hours
of his day in, plotting, planning, and staring at the image of
Neo-Queen Serenity in. The throne that he would undoubtedly be seated
in when the Rabbit was captured and Crystal Tokyo fell into their
hands.
But more important than its future as a potential historical
landmark, this was DEMANDO'S throne. The throne his attractive,
shapely rear-end spent eighteen hours in every day... The throne he
touched and embraced like he would any lover.
And suddenly, Esmeraude was no longer bored.
"I'm sorry, throne-san!" she apologized softly, her high
heels clicking against the stone steps up to the throne as she
spoke. She reached forward and slowly ran her fingers along the
arm of the stone throne, smiling flirtatiously at it. Her long
eyelashes batted as she slid slowly into the seat, reveling in the
feeling of the cool stone against her long legs. "I didn't mean it,
and you know I didn't. Forgive me?" She crossed her legs and
leaned back, smiling. "I'm so glad."
Now comfortable in the throne, she managed to put on her
most devious, determined expression, one she had often seen crossing
Demando's attractive features. "Rubeus," she commanded in a low
voice, "find the Rabbit or I will exterminate you." The tone of
her voice, gravelly in the back of her throat, made her chuckle
and she tossed her head. "I'll make a wonderful queen!" she decided.
"I already have the commanding voice down!"
Sliding sideways, she kicked her long legs over one arm of
the throne and leaned her back far over the other, her pale green
curls sweeping against the floor as she opened her fan and shyly
covered her face with it. "Nani yo, Demando-sama?" she questioned,
batting her eyelashes into the emptiness in front of her. "You
want to take me right here on your throne? But what of Saffir?"
She fanned her face lightly. "You don't care if he sees? Oh, you
daring man!"
Her chuckle became a full-out laugh as she hopped onto the
seat of throne and placed her hands on her hips, her expression now
one of a strong-willed, determined matriarch of a household. "Clean
faster, imbeciles!" she commanded, pointing invisible maids in
the direction of invisible laundry and dirty dishes. "Your lives
are forfeit if you don't do my bidding!"
She guffawed loudly, her laughter echoing across the empty
room and bouncing off crystal and rock into the air. "When I am
queen of the dark moon, I will sit in this throne and ponder all the
important questions of the world," she stated plainly, sinking down
into her chair, her feet against the back of the throne while her head
lulled off the seat and allowed her to view the control room
upside down. "Here, I will plan how to decorate our bedroom, what
new planets to take over, and...and...what to make for dinner!" She
laughed again, her head thrown back and eyes arching shut. "I shall
rule the world from this throne! Ahahahahahaha! AHahahahahaha!
AHAHAHA - "
"Esmeraude, what on Earth are you doing?"
Green eyes flew open to reveal Saffir, his arms crossed over
his navy blue uniform jacket as he stood on the ceiling, glowering
down at her. Esmeraude felt her face turn bright pink as she
scrambled to sit up properly and, after three unsuccessful attempts,
failed, falling out of the throne with all the grace and dignity of
a toddler. "I can explain!" she announced loudly, scrambling to her
feet and readjusting her short skirt as she did. "Really!"
"You can?" questioned Demando's brother and second-in-command,
his eyebrows arching as he stared at the blushing, frantic Dark
Moon executive. "Because, from here, it looks like you were playing
in onii-san's throne, and you know how he feels about that throne.
However, if this is not the case, enlighten me. I would love to
hear a more rational explanation."
Esmeraude froze as Saffir finished his lengthy verbal essay
on her behavior, her mind reeling for a likely excuse for what she
was really doing. After all, Demando was, as his brother had
suggested, very...peculiar...about other people sitting in his throne.
Admitting to his little snitch of a brother that she was, indeed,
playing in the nigh-sacred seat would undoubtedly land her as a
scullery cook in some unimportant medic ship...if she was allowed to
live to tell the tale, at all. No, Saffir's sudden, unexpected
appearance had thrown her, face first, between the proverbial rock and
hard place, only in this case the hard place was a glowering prince
and the rock was green and shaped into a throne.
Her mental rolodex for possible excuses flipping to its final
entry and coming up blank, she tore open the filing cabinet for
actions to take and began furiously flipping through the folders
within. Fighting Saffir tooth-and-nail would do no good, considering
the fact that Saffir was not only much stronger than her, but that
either of their deaths would take a lot of in-depth explaining when
Demando returned the next day. Running away solved nothing - Saffir
would still rat her out - and lying meant nothing when she didn't
have a good lie. No, desperate times called for desperate measures,
and it was high time she showed just how desperate a woman she was.
She closed the file cabinet in her mind, the "blackmail"
file firmly gripped in her hand.
"Saffir-sama," she cooed, striding down the steps to stand
face-to-face with the younger prince, "I just don't think you want
to tell your brother about this when he comes back."
Navy blue eyes blinked at her, nonplussed. "Oh, really?" he
questioned dubiously, eyebrows raised and expression devoid of any
and all emotion. "And why, pray tell, is this?"
Placing one hand on his shoulder, Esmeraude gave it a slight
squeeze, glad she had her glove and his shirt between the layer of
slime she was convinced dripped from the brat's every pore. "Because,
my dear Saffir, I happen to... To..."
She hesitated a moment. Blackmail was all well and good, but
only when you had material to work with. Saffir, the little snake,
kept his private life as far from the office as humanly possible, and
she knew absolutely nothing about his personal affairs other than the
steamy little affair he'd had with Petz a few months earlier. Time,
she decided, to make something up.
"To?" he prompted, staring.
"...to know about that time that you and Petz... Well...
You know." She nodded her head towards the throne subtly and smirked,
as though they were sharing a very intimate, personal secret. "There
are ears just everywhere in this room. Do you REALLY want me to
spell out exactly what it is I know?"
Saffir, who was by all accounts of a rather pale complexion
naturally, paled even further as he glanced over the green-haired
woman and at the abandoned stone throne. His Adam's apple bobbed as
he swallowed audibly. "You... You know about that?" he hissed
through clenched teeth, meeting her gaze incredulous.
Esmeraude resisted the urge to shudder and shout "ew!" from
the rooftops before running away and burning her dress for touching
the very stone where the miserable leech of a prince had... She
smiled and regained her composure, patting his shoulder lightly. "Of
course, Saffir-sama," she replied quietly, running her fingers down
his chest before allowing her hand to return to her side. A flick of
her wrist later, her fan covered half her face. "So, shall we pretend
today's festivities just... Never happened?"
He frowned, nodded, and then disappeared before she could say
anything more.
And she, triumphant, smirked and enjoyed her victory for a
full ten minutes before rushing off to her chambers to peal off her
clothes and take a nice, long, soul-cleansing bath.
===
Demando returned early the next morning, just as promised,
his long legs crossed at the knee and glass of wine already in his
hand when his two subordinates reported to the control room, Saffir
clothed in his normal uniform while Esmeraude was garbed in the
black dress and red denim jacket she normally wore to go poke around
Tokyo. Her normal clothing, she was ready to explain when and if her
leader asked, was simply in the wash.
Her leader, however, did not ask about her garb or much
else as he took a sip of wine, smiled, and leaned back in his throne.
"I hope you two were able to function without me here," he addressed
the duo, his dark eyes flitting from his brother to the young woman
and back to his brother again. "Tell me, did anything worth talking
about happen while I was away?"
Esmeraude glanced at Saffir.
Saffir glanced at Esmeraude.
"No, nothing at all," they answered simultaneously, and
business in the Dark Moon continued, thankfully, as usual.
===
Fin.
Author's notes: I've been watching too much SMR. This, my friends, is
what happens when I watch too much SMR. Just some Dark Moon fun for
you all. Hee hee hee. I can just see Esmeraude, upside-down in
Demando's throne, wide-eyed and staring at Saffir as he looms over
her. Good times.
Thanks to Yume and May, yadda yadda, you know the routine.
May 30, 2004
2:25 a.m.