Forbidden
Chapter 1: First Sighting
To him, "forbidden" meant "must-have."
As children, in the Golden Palace, he would be the one with his hand in the cookie jar, or setting up complex traps in the garden for the visitors to "find". Maybe that's why he was also the infiltration specialist – he was just so good at doing things other people didn't want him to.
But this time, perhaps his goal was just a little too high.
Two weeks ago, they had made special arrangements for the ambassadors of the Silver Alliance's arrival. Two of the almost mystical Sailor Senshi would be visiting Earth on diplomatic terms, to talk about interplanetary trade. In his opinion, that was boring with a capital B, O, R, I, N and G. Then they arrived.
Of course he was there at the welcoming session. As a member of the planet's shitennou and the High Prince's personal guard, he had a duty to be at these formal things, especially the interplanetary ones. Not only were they to protect their own prince, but also the ambassadors – diplomatic visitors had to be given all the protection due to royalty, because any mishap could cause breaking of ties, and at worst, war. But he didn't expect to, well, be glad he was there.
When they arrived, his mouth had nearly dropped open. Only his training had kept him stoic and unmoving, like a true warrior. He had met one of the legendary senshi before, when he was young and his parents had taken him to Jupiter on some other boring meeting. The Jovian senshi had been a good playmate for him then. They got into trouble together, but she was so good at getting them out! She just had to open her emerald eyes really, really wide, and they were instantaneously let off to make trouble again. They had become good friends, and still communicated by letter. He was happy when she told him she would be one of the senshi visiting Earth this time; he had already been plotting mischief they could commit together.
But it hadn't been the green senshi that had attracted his attention. Rather, it was the senshi walking next to her – one dressed in red, expression cold, eyes burning. He liked it.
After the welcoming was over, the shitennou escorted the two ladies to what would be their rooms for the duration of the visit.
"Milady Jupiter, how be-eth thee on this lovely day?" Jadeite asked, eyes twinkling, as he offered an arm to the tall brunette.
"Jadeite, you're still such a kidder," she giggled, taking the arm. "But in any case, I'm doing well. Slightly tired after the trip, though. Now I know why you fell asleep over dinner the first day you came!"
"What was that? Jade actually slept through dinner once?" Nephrite popped up, suddenly on the other side of the senshi. Jadeite was slightly peeved at finding the American general a full head taller than the woman he was escorting, while he was only half a head taller than her, but before he could say anything, Jupiter responded.
"Not exactly. He fell asleep when the salad came. Fell asleep onto the salad, to be exact."
"Jupiter! You didn't have to say that! And I was only ten, what did you expect? It's a long trip!" Jadeite frantically tried to explain himself, while glancing at the Martian senshi out of the corner of his eye, in hopes that she hadn't heard her companion's comment. Whether or not she had, he couldn't tell – she was wordlessly (and emotionlessly, he noted) following Kunzite. Fitting that the laconic two were walking side by side.
"Hrm, looks like Jade thinks someone's cute," Nephrite observed, fully aware of any and all of his best friend's thoughts.
"Hrm…" Jupiter shared a mischievous smile – the very one the two of them had shared before! – with Nephrite. Jadeite panicked.
"Well, Jupiter-san, this will be your room," Nephrite directed her at a door.
"Thank you for walking me here. I'll see you later this evening. Jadeite, it was good seeing you again." Before Jadeite could insert any word, she had entered her room, closing the door behind her.
"What was that all about? NEPH!" Jadeite chased his best friend down the corridor they had just come from.
"Huh? Jade! Neph! WAIT!" Zoisite called. "We need to discuss –"
"Give it up for now, Zoi," Kunzite said, cutting off his friend. "Let them go release some energy. The welcoming ceremony probably took a lot out of them – if they don't let it out now, it'll only be bottled until a more inopportune time."
"Jade, you mustn't fall for the Mars senshi."
"What?" He was confused. There were times when Nephrite joked with him, but there were also times when he was dead serious – and this seemed like serious business.
"Much as you visited Jupiter seven years ago, my parents and I visited Mars."
"And?"
"And, well, the Mars senshi is out of your reach. She's out of any man's reach."
"Why? Do you have a secret affair or something going on with her?"
"No! It's not like that. But Jadeite, that woman is scary! I'm serious. She's not your type. I mean, she's your complete opposite! So serious all the time. She's got the same curse-blessing I do."
"Really."
"Yes! Jade, be careful. She's like a flame – beautiful, mysterious, deadly. Don't be the moth drawn to it."
The blonde general fell into a rare silence. Don't be drawn to her? Don't be a moth… "Neph, when the moth sees the flame… can he pull away?"
"No, the moth's innate sense cannot resist –"
"Likewise, when I have seen her, I cannot resist."
"Jadeite…"
"Nephrite, have you seen me serious about many things?"
"I can't say I have."
"I think I just might get serious about her."
"Jadeite…"
"Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go prepare for dinner. I've been asked to escort the Sailor Mars tonight." Jadeite left his friend staring at his retreating back.
Jadeite paused outside the ornate double door, common in the palace. "Sailor Mars, I have been asked to escort you to dinner… Sailor Mars, I have been asked to escort you to dinner… OK Jade… you can do this…" Before his poised hand could knock, however, the door was opened.
"I'm assuming you were sent to escort me to dinner?" Jadeite froze. His practiced speech flew, his normal eloquence escaped him, all suaveness and calm disappeared when he lost control of the situation – to her. She was powerful indeed. "Well?"
"Ahh… ye – yea, dinner. Right. Um…" She raised a slim, elegant eyebrow. "Ah, sorry. I'm Jadeite, third general of the Golden Kingdom, prince of the Far East. I was asked to escort you to dinner?" She took his arm without a word. The entire conversation that Jadeite had dreamed up evaporated, as he found himself incapable of speech, thought, and only instinct got them to the banquet hall without getting lost in the palace he called his second home.
"Dinner was terrible," Jadeite moaned about his complete failure at charming the raven-haired beauty.
"Interesting…" Nephrite muttered, staring into his telescope and not paying a whit of attention to his despairing friend keeping him company on his balcony. His – uninvited – despairing friend, that is.
"I mean, I could barely get a word out! I'm not usually like this… I can talk my way out of any situation!"
"Mmmmm… I see…"
"She must think I'm mentally challenged!"
"Hrm… that can't be… something must be wrong…"
"Something must be wrong indeed! How come I can't seem to get rid of the other women, but I can't even get her to look at me! Compared to me, KUNZITE even seems charming!"
"Ah I see, the positioning was slightly off."
"Neph, were you even listening to me?"
"Hmmm? Jade? Oh, I didn't even realize you were there. How're you feeling? You didn't seem very talkative at dinner tonight."
"Some best friend," Jadeite muttered, leaping off the second story balcony onto the garden their rooms faced. Maybe a walk would remind him how to speak in front of women…
Closing his eyes, he just let his feet carry him wherever they pleased. He was sure he wouldn't get lost – how could he, when he had been doing this for years? Even without sight, he still knew the gardens by heart, and with a little concentration, would know exactly where he was.
A few minutes later, he realized his concentration wasn't as good as it usually was, as he walked right into a wall. Opening his eyes, he realized he was at the old shrine that he and Nephrite had once discovered in their childish exploration. Except back then, it was cold and empty. Today, it seemed to glow from the inside. Curiosity always getting the better of him, he quieted his aura and slowly approached the shrine. Peeking in the open doors, he immediately heard a chant and found himself spread out on his back with some sort of scroll attached to his face.
"Well, well, well, it would seem the Lord General Jadeite is neither very good at spying nor at defending," a disdainful voice thinly veiled by a tinge of amusement chided from above.
Removing the anti-evil scroll from his face, Jadeite raised himself up on his elbows to face the senshi of fire. "Sailor Mars, what a surprise." He spoke with the smoothest voice he could muster. "I was just taking a walk and was surprised by there being someone here."
"Really now. And if I had been an enemy, you'd be dead by now."
"Ah but Sailor Mars, you underestimate yourself. I may not be able to hide my aura from you, but any common youma would not be able to have felt my presence and attacked." He smiled charmingly at her, hoping that perhaps some praise would get him into good graces.
"You're right there, General."
"So, if I may ask, what brings you out here so late at night? This shrine has been unused since long before we were born; you could've used any of the shrines in the palace." In his mind, he was thinking about making the most of this opportunity to get closer to the senshi.
Mars kneeled before the fire in the center of the one-room shrine, gazing deeply into its orange-red flames. "The flames are best when fed open, pure air, from the gardens and the forests, as opposed to the air that circulate throughout the palace." As if to testify to that theory, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
Jadeite stared at her, the way her face tilted up slightly as she drew in air and the long, white neck it exposed, slightly flushed by the heat of the flames. The light wove patterns around her face, the shadows danced through her long, long hair as it fell back from her face and shoulders. He whispered a single word under his breath, "beautiful." He immediately snapped back to attention as the senshi opened her eyes and sat up straight again, staring into the fire.
"You are uneasy, General," she said, eyes seeming to follow movement within the flames. "You should meditate. It helps calm one's nerves."
Jadeite was slightly taken aback by her ability to sense his emotions. "Uh… yes, yes, that's a good idea. I'll leave you then, and go meditate somewhere." He stood and was about to leave when her voice stopped him.
"Stay," she said. It wasn't a command, but an invitation. "You can meditate here too, no?"
"I… yes, yes, I can," he stuttered. Moving closer to the fire, he kneeled down opposite the senshi. He closed his eyes and, taking slow, measured breaths as he had been trained to do, he felt everything clearing from his mind. Everything, that is, with the exception of one red senshi of fire sitting across a large spiritual fire from him. After several minutes of trying to force her image from his thoughts, Jadeite realized that it wouldn't be happening anytime this year. Instead, he opened his eyes to slits to gaze at the real thing. He noticed several moths flitting around the fire.
Suddenly, the fire raged upwards, white smoke turning a black color. Two moths were caught in the flames, and fell, consumed by the flames. Jadeite leaped backwards from his position, but Sailor Mars didn't move an inch, though a frown had replaced her serene expression. He wanted to run to her, hold her, protect her from whatever was in the fire, but before his outstretched hand could grab her, her aura extinguished – no, absorbed – any tendrils of fire that reached her. Pulling back, Jadeite watched as Sailor Mars made a series of seals with her hands, and seemed to calm the fire.
Acknowledging her superiority in her connection with the flames, he slowly backed out of the shrine. The cool night air soothed his overheated face as he headed back to the palace. Halfway there, he realized that Sailor Mars hadn't stopped him from leaving, even though she had asked him to meditate there, and that he hadn't said anything before leaving. "Stupid Jade," he muttered. "Not only are you dumb and inferior, you're also impolite." He stretched, sighing. "I should train some more."
There was also another reason why he never knew the meaning of the word "forbidden" – Jadeite certainly was flippant more often than not, but when he found something forbidden to him, he became serious. A serious Jadeite was a formidable Jadeite – someone to be reckoned with. He barricaded himself in his personal meditation room for the rest of the week, refusing even food. No one would've been able to break down the door, had Nephrite and Kunzite allowed them to try. They'd declared that even prince generals needed time alone sometimes for meditation and mental training, and that they and Zoisite would all work overtime to make up for Jadeite's absence.
When he finally reemerged, the planetary delegates had already left. He was well scolded by Kunzite in private and Endymion in public, but his gaunt face showed no expression during those scoldings. Even when he was first offered food, the usually boisterous general only picked at it, nibbling on the edge of bits of food.
One dawn, Jadeite opened his eyes to Nephrite's concerned ones. Apparently, Nephrite had sat in his room for several hours, watching him sleep and trying to read the stars guiding him.
"What's wrong, Jade? Did something happen?"
Jadeite faced away from the other general, opting instead to stare at his wall. "Neph, we're not strong enough," he replied.
"What? Even if we aren't, your not eating certainly doesn't help anything."
"Neph, you've seen it, right? The future. Something's going to happen. The senshi… the senshi are stronger than we are. We need to be just as – no, even stronger – than them."
"Jade, you're scaring me. Did something happen between you and the Mars senshi?"
Jadeite related the events that had transpired at the shrine that night to Nephrite. "I can't do what she did, Neph. She's become one with the fire; I can only control it. That's what I was trying to improve with the fasting and meditating."
Nephrite's brown eyes flickered a moment as he stared into his best friend's glowing blue ones. Jadeite's face was definitely looking feverish, though whether his words were in earnest or delusional was quite questionable. "Jadeite… that night, Sailor Mars was in a meeting with the Queen until long past midnight."
Notes: So what next? If our dear Rei was with the queen.. then who did Jadeite see? o.0 C&C? It makes me happy. And helps me write. :