Three years later, things remained peaceful within the castle walls, but in the outside world, rumors flew of impending war. The Silver Alliance of the Nine Planets was crumbling, and no one knew the exact cause. The senshi guardians of the Outer Planets had begun to become conceited in their power and successes, especially Princess Uranus, and they began to believe they did not need the assistance of the Inner System princesses.
The princess of Saturn's power had been sleeping her entire young life, but after her 16th birthday, she had begun to have disturbing nightmares of a force swallowing the entire star system and corrupting the planets to lifeless rocks surrounded in poison gas. The idea of this outcome had frightened many people, but the Outers had sworn they would keep it out, so the calm had quickly returned to the public. For those burdened with crowns on their heads, however, worries still existed. What if the two soldiers were not enough? Pluto could only do so much to assist and Saturn had yet to awaken her powers, and if she did, there were legends that she herself would destroy them all.
Earthians had begun clamoring for their own solution. The other planets had soldier princesses to guard them with special powers. Earth had a single prince with four guardians, and none of them had abilities to match those of the sailor-suited senshi. The humans of earth saw themselves as helpless, and grew jealous of the benefits the other planets had. To make matters worse, the Lunarians themselves who lived on Earth's moon had a special tool that gave their people extra long lives full of health and peace. Sparks of unrest were beginning to fan into full flames. Factions of insurgents had begun to question Endymion's tactics of peaceful co-existance, stating that there could be no chance of that so long as the other civilizations selfishly refused to teach Earth how to train senshi and allow them the powerful gifts of the ginzuishou.
Endymion tried to let the factions exist to prevent being called a 'traitor to humanity', so long as they did not exercise their protests violently. Those who did were promptly arrested and, if they had taken lives, usually beheaded to teach the rest a lesson not to attempt to spark a war over petty jealousies. The planets with senshi guarded them, why did they need senshi of their own? As for desiring the ginzuishou, that was foolish, the power was rumored to only be wieldable by the goddess of the moon herself, so what good would it do Earth to possess the gem? Thoughts like this had turned most of the factions against not only the Silver Alliance, but Prince Endymion himself. They were rallying to destroy his court and make war on the entire star system, regardless of the immense power the other eight planets and their moons held.
The palace grounds were kept under heavy security, no strange faces were allowed to enter without leaving all weapons or devices that could be used as a weapon at the gatehouse. It wasn't just for his own safety that Endymion set up the regulations, he had innocent lives to protect within those walls, people who were loyal to him and shared his beliefs that the denizens of the other worlds were not evil, selfish beings. There was also Kunzite's adopted ward and the other children of the court to think of, all too young to be able to form their own opinions about the situation yet. If the castle fell, they would be slaughtered or brainwashed to fight against their own families. He shuddered at the consequences if they happened to discover what lurked in the blood of the youngest of the children.
'Lady Alexia' had grown to be a very precocious and abnormal child in her two years of growth, taking to wrestling with the older boys in mud puddles and climbing trees rather than study her early lessons of ladyship. Her satin dresses were constantly in need of mending and she lost an average of three slippers a day, much to the chagrin of her assigned servants. The Prince and Kunzite had never reprimanded her for her behaviors, for they knew there was a perfectly valid reason the girl had an instinct to fight and explore. Her mother had been a soldier from one of those distant planets, who was too needed in her duties protecting her princess to raise a baby. In fact, Kunzite had adopted her for a good reason, but only he and Endymion knew it.
As the girl grew older, Jedite's dislike of her seemed to grow as well. No one had been able to discern why he was upset over the existence of the girl, some thought it was jealousy that the commanders were both enthralled with her care instead of training.
Indeed, most of the castle seemed to be swooning over the pretty child and her laughter, even the young squires who had never shown much interest in spending time with younger children. Nephrite had gotten over his initial worry over the child and begun teaching her how to read, and the names of the constellations. Zoisite taught her how to use the mechanics of Nephrite's telescopes and basic physics using the simple machines of the era. Her adoptive father taught her to fight even at her young age, to 'work out some of her destructive energies'. Endymion, on the other hand, had allowed and encouraged her wild side and put her on his favorite, fastest horse to teach her to ride. It went… less than smoothly.
The horse had seemed to like the girl just as much as any other denizen of the castle did. However, he had a wild streak, like her, and suddenly took off in a burst of speed, jumping the corral fencing and tearing across the meadow. It only went a few dozen yards before turning and returning to his master's side as calmly as he had begun the ride, shaking his mane in what could be deciphered as a laugh. Alexia had been anything but upset by the speedy and unplanned adventure, she demanded to be allowed out again as soon as Kunzite lifted her off the horse with such haste and worry, one would think it was about to bite her. She protested immediately when he refused and told her to go inside for the day.
"I don't wanna!" she squirmed and thrashed in his arms, she worked her way loose and dropped to her feet, straightening her dress and pouting with a slight stomp of her foot. Her protests fell on deaf ears, Kunzite picked her back up and carried her inside.
"You obviously need a nap, young lady." he sighed bitterly.
"She's not a lady, she's a demon in human skin…" Jedite muttered to himself after his commander passed out of hearing range.
Late into that night, after the slivered crescent moon had set, the entire castle was quiet and dark. Nephrite was still awake, studying what he deemed to be an ill omen, the sun had been overactive during the dusk hours, as if a force was causing it to writhe in pain. A streak of light had passed the sky a few hours later, unnoticed by most of those who had not yet gone to bed. Endymion and Nephrite had been among the few who hadn't been so naïve, and that was why Nephrite had stayed up tonight, studying the stars for any hints of what was to come.
An ominous shadow passed silently over the open doorway of his observatory room as Nephrite was consulting a large book full of sketches of star positions and odd symbols.
"Who's there!" Nephrite snapped, sounding more gruff than his usual demeanor to cover up his surprise and fear.
Light, dangerous laughter came from just inside of the dark room. "You're so jumpy and restless, Nephrite. You should sleep, tomorrow's a big day"
"Jedite?" Nephrite blinked in disbelief and sighed. "Shouldn't you be asleep yourself?" The older man frowned to himself, what was special about tomorrow? No one was having a birthday, there were no balls planned for at least a month…
There was an odd glow in the whites of Jedite's cold blue-steel eyes. "I'm not tired. I thought I'd patrol the hallways, something feels off in the air"
"Fancy that, I'd never suspect you out of the four of us to be upset at something in the air. I would have figured Zoisite to turn superstitious before you." Nephrite narrowed his eyes to near slits.
Jedite's behavior was always a little 'off', he was probably the least stable of the Shitennou. Nephrite and Endymion were constantly in agreement that there was a darkness in Jedite's soul, there was a constant glint to his eye that had begun to become more apparent ever since Alexandrite had come to the castle. Most had passed it off as jealousy, but some of their inner circle had begun to suspect worse of Jedite.
"Be careful, Nephrite… the nights are getting longer and colder." Jedite smirked mysteriously and headed off into the hallway and towards the main entryways.
Where was he going so late at night? It wasn't unlawful for the Shitennou to leave the castle, even for days at a time, but it was certainly suspicious to do so when it was long after midnight. Nephrite made a note to himself in the back of his mind to alert Kunzite and Endymion about the odd occurances of the night when they awoke, and returned to his studies.