'And when we get behind closed doors
Then she lets her hair hang down,
And she makes me glad that I'm a man.
Oh, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors...'
"Have you seen the Princess Serenity?" the Prince of All Terra asked a maidservant who was busily wiping down one of the long dining tables in the Great Hall.
The startled maid spun about, then dropped an awkward curtsy. Her face was flushed with excitement at being, for the first time ever, face to face with the handsome prince, not to mention his men. It was disappointing then, that she did not have better news for her lord the one time he deigned to speak with her personally. Slowly she shook her head as she tried to find her tongue.
"I'm sorry. I don't work that wing of the palace, your highness."
She noted the prince's dark expression and thought quickly. "But if I may be so bold, I think I saw the cook's assistant taking a fancy tray of tea upstairs not long ago. With five cups. So at this hour she's most likely in the Queen's Solar with the other ladies, I should think."
The prince nodded. "I see. Thank you." He flipped a coin to the little maid who stared at it in disbelief for a second, then bobbed another wild curtsy. The small gold piece was more money than she'd ever held in her life.
"Thank you, your highness…"
When the men arrived in the South Wing, the maid's prediction proved most correct. They hesitated outside the door, not sure if they should intrude. It had been a long time since the sound of a woman's voice, let alone several, had been heard in the Queen's Solar, but it was still a room for ladies only. Within the room, which had once been Endymion's mother's special hideaway before she passed, though, they could hear the clink of china cups and the sound of feminine voices raised in conversation.
"Oh, I just love him!" Verity Lita, the crown princess of Jupiter, was gushing at the moment. "His long hair is so silky and he's got the most soulful eyes, don't you think?"
Nephrite pushed a long, wavy lock of mahogany hair behind one ear and puffed out his chest, proud as a peacock. She loves me, he mouthed in silent satisfaction. It felt good on his lips.
"It's rude to listen. We should announce our presence at once," Kunzite, ever mindful of the proprieties, whispered. He reached for the door handle with one hand, his other upraised to knock.
Four sets of hands immediately shot out and dragged him back from the portal. "Hell no!" Jadeite objected, shooting him a lopsided grin. "Now's our chance to find out what the ladies really think of us. To hear what they say when nobody else is around."
When Kunzite continued to look disapproving, he shrugged. "Consider it a form of reconnaissance."
"Shhhh…" hissed Prince Endymion. "I can't hear."
"Those who listen at keyholes never hear any good of themselves," warned Kunzite, looking somber as he crossed his arms over his chest.
"Not true," Nephrite reminded them, looking smug. His lips were quirked in a grin that reeked of cockiness. "I did."
His chest deflated a second later when they heard the Jovian princess add conspiratorially, "Pity he doesn't seem very bright, though. Silly thing. And he's so clumsy when he tries to kiss me. He's earnest, but it just feels so…odd." She giggled as if that confession was the funniest thing in the world.
Nephrite's mouth dropped open and he gasped as if he'd been punched in the belly. He'd actually taken the blow square in the ego instead.
"Ouch." Endymion winced, feeling the hit to his Shitennou's pride as if he'd taken the shot himself. Under his breath he muttered, "Sorry, old man."
"That's okay," a voice that could be identified as Princess Felicity Minya's said brightly. "He's pretty and that's what counts."
Zoisite and Jadeite stared at the floor, shoulders shaking, not daring to look at one another after seeing the outraged look on the North American king's face. They'd have surely both burst out laughing if they had. "My kisses are NOT odd," hissed the brunette defensively. "She told me she loved my kisses."
"Sure she did, Nephrite." Jadeite smirked. There was a mischievous gleam in his azure eyes that was not to be trusted. "Sure she did. Guess the lady wasn't so impressed with your…prowess. At least not as much as you thought."
Nephrite let out a soft growl and lunged for Jadeite, but the wily blond man squirted away, ducking behind Prince Endymion and using him as a human shield.
"Your silver one is awfully handsome, Minya," announced Princess Amity, out of the blue.
Zoisite immediately stopped snickering and shot a dirty look at his commander. Kunzite merely stared back, though he cocked his head to one side, listening intently. Evidently even the mighty Middle Eastern King was not completely immune to the lure of eavesdropping.
"Yes," agreed the Venusian royal with a cheerful chirp in her tone, "He's stunning. And when I stroke his belly, he just purrs. But I don't like it at all when he's naughty and tears my dresses."
"Oh ho," whispered Jadeite under his breath as a curdled red color that on anyone else might have been deemed a blush spread across the normally unflappable Kunzite's cheeks. "What wicked things have you been doing when you were supposedly showing her around the castle and grounds?"
Kunzite glowered icily at the blond king who was still hiding behind Endymion's back. "It is better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to open's one mouth and remove all doubt. I suggest you be silent, Jadeite. Now!" The whiplash of his words came out just above a whisper, but lost none of their threatening quality for their softness.
Even Prince Endymion couldn't help snickering at that. In a low stage whisper he said, "Kunzite told me he was opening relations with the Silver Alliance planets. I didn't know he meant that kind of relations."
"Kunzite," he turned to the man and wagged a reproving finger, "I'm shock…"
He cut off abruptly as the Lunar Princess' voice peeled out. "I just adore mine. Sweet thing."
Holding up his finger, now for silence, Endymion crept closer to the door, a smile on his face. "His hair is so thick and gorgeous and absolutely black as ink. It even makes up for his flat nose."
The Terran prince's hand flew to his face, pressing against the aquiline feature in question. It wasn't really too flat, was it?
"His nose is so flat that it gives him really high B.E.F.," sniffed a lofty dismissive voice that could only belong to Divinity Raye, the princess from Mars.
"B.E.F.?" asked Serenity, sounding utterly confused.
"Beady Eye Factor. B.E.F."
"Well, I think it makes him look cute, but I suppose you're right, Raye." mused the Moon Princess softly as she considered the matter. "His eyes are kind of on the beady side. A little, anyway."
At that the prince's midnight orbs shot wide and he bolted away from the door to peer into a massive looking glass which hung from a decorative carved gold frame on one wall. He kept turning his head, looking at his face from different angles and lifting his eyebrows, first one, then the other, then both together, trying to see the problem.
"Vanity, thy name is Endymion," sighed Kunzite, shaking his head in dismay. "I warned you all."
"And here we always thought that was Zoi's besetting sin," added Jadeite. "Guess not."
"Well, mine has lovely intelligent eyes. Green and without a hint of beadiness at all. You can tell from the look in them that he's the clever one." That was from the Princess Amy.
The European king grinned, twisting the end of his copper colored queue around one fingertip. It was nice to know his lady recognized his mental prowess. He was going to have a word with her, though, about what she'd said about Kunzite, he thought a bit jealously.
"He's the runt of the litter." It was Raye again, blunt as ever. Zoisite scowled as he heard himself compared unfavorably to a shrimp. That rude Aresian might be a princess and a priestess, but she certainly didn't have the mouth of a diplomat.
"He is delicate," agreed Amy, making Zoisite's scowl deepen. "More so, anyway, than the others. He just needs someone to look after him, though, and care for him."
"Well, as long as he's bright, you really don't mind having the puny, spotty one, do you Ames?" asked Lita. She started laughing a second later.
"Puny? And spotty?" fumed Zoisite with a glare at Nephrite, as if it was his fault that the Jovian princess was so opinionated. "I'm not spotty."
"Nope," chuckled the Mercurian princess in answer to her merry friend's question. "I don't care what he looks like so long as he's smart."
The implied slur on his looks from his own woman was too much for Zoisite. He raced over to join Endymion in front of the mirror, checking his skin carefully for any blemishes. "What is she talking about? I'm not spotty. Do you see any spots, Endymion?"
"Shut up, Zoisite," groaned Jadeite. "How are we supposed to hear over your bellyaching?"
As it turned out, there was no chance he could have missed hearing what came next, for Raye's voice was, as usual, more than strident.
"I don't care for any of them. Collectively they're fickle and they seem dumb as milch cows." She paused for a moment, considering, then amended her response. "Well, except for Amy's, perhaps."
"But don't you think he's cute?" inquired Amy.
"No. He's noisy and obnoxious and he's most probably flea-ridden."
"You're entirely too harsh," chided Minya, clucking her tongue.
"He's deaf as a post. It's like talking to a brick wall. When I told him to get away and stop pawing at me, did he hear me? No, he did not."
"But you have to admit he is handsome." The Moon Princess insisted on truthfulness. Facts were facts, after all.
"I admit to nothing."
There was a squabbling like hens from the princesses as they scolded their friend. In spite of everything, Jadeite found himself grinning like an idiot. She'd said the same thing when he'd asked her how she liked his touch. His princess was a sly one, and she burned with a fire that was unmistakable. But though she felt it, she'd never admit to it.
It was for that reason his smile faltered a moment later when he heard her sputter, "Alright…alright. I give up. I admit his eyes could be considered by some a pretty shade of blue." She couldn't resist tagging on a defiant, "But that doesn't mean I think he's cute."
Something was very wrong there. Jadeite knew that a herd of wild horses couldn't have dragged any sort of romantic confession from the Aresian princess' lips in a group setting like that. Not from his Firebird. Not ever.
Probably not in private either, he thought, since she wouldn't want to pamper his vanity that way. He knew that as sure as Gaia brought forth little green apples in springtime. So what in the heck was going on?
Unable to control his curiosity any longer, Jadeite abruptly shoved open the door before any of the other men could raise a hand to stop him.
Jadeite froze in the doorway as he spotted a pair of pale blue eyes and understanding hit him, but was then shoved forward into the room as the other four men plowed into him from behind. "Uh…good day," he said uncertainly as stumbled in and glanced around the room.
The ladies were perched on brocaded chairs and seated in a semi-circle around the fire, save for the Princess Serenity, who was unceremoniously sprawled belly down over the arm of a settee, her rump in the air as she dangled down a piece of pink yarn over the side. A tiny paw shot out from beneath the sofa and whapped at the dancing lure.
At the sound of their less than protocol entrance, however, Serenity let out a soft cry and shot upright, promptly overbalanced, and then fell, tumbling to the floor in a tangle of flailing limbs and airy angel-white silken skirts. She looked shamefaced at her clumsy display and tried surreptitiously to rub her sore backside. How embarrassing!
As soon as she hit the ground, however, she was pounced on by a roly-poly black kitten which had shot out from under the couch. Though it was just a common house-cat, its adorable push-face appearance and long, luxuriant ebon hair proclaimed a regal Persian somewhere in its background, and it was from that ancestor that it had inherited its large, round, marble-like, albeit slightly beady eyes. It, one of the cook's best kitchen mouser's latest litter, nuzzled her cheek and purred, trying to comfort her.
Because gentlemanly behavior had been drummed into him since infancy, somehow Endymion managed not to chuckle as he reached down to give the winningly klutzy princess a hand up. He did, however, enjoy the pink flush that spread across Serenity's cheeks as he eyeballed the little black cat and murmured, "So it seems I have a rival."
Endymion enjoyed Serenity's flustered denials as well.
The Shitennou, save Jadeite, took one look and suddenly felt mortified. Each of the other ladies had a kitten as well.
On Raye's plum velvet covered lap rested a happy-looking, pure white kit with eyes of pale blue. It was looking adoringly up at the scowling Aresian princess and purring extremely loudly, apparently unable to hear itself. Deafness aside, however, it was a handsome feline and Jadeite couldn't help but smirk as he realized how it was that they'd all gotten the wrong idea about the princess' conversation.
He looked so smug that the Princess of Mars couldn't help herself. "What are you staring at, you daft man?" she snapped heatedly, unconsciously stroking and soothing the animal in her lap when it started, feeling her tense.
Jadeite looked from her perturbed red face to that of the kitten, which was now purring with even more gusto and looking content to stay in his warm, soft perch for the rest of his days. He couldn't blame him. "Just envying the fortunate," Jadeite answered Raye.
Her irate sputter was music to his ears.
Sitting on Lita's shoulder was a tiny, long-haired, cinnamon and ginger tabby with wise golden eyes, lapping at her face as though her skin was every bit as creamy as it looked. And every time it licked at her cheek with its sandpaper tongue, the Jovian princess giggled helplessly.
She glanced up at Nephrite in desperation, begging, "Please save me! I think someone replaced the rosewater in my scent bottle with extract of catnip. Cardamom won't stop kissing me."
The North American king burst out laughing. "I know how he feels, m'dear."
Hot color flooded Lita's cheeks and she squirmed, letting out a little squeal as the puss abandoned her cheek and laved the sensitive spot just behind her ear instead. "But it tickles so…"
"Really," was Nephrite rumbled interestedly, filing that little tidbit of enticing information away for future use and not making a single move to save his sweetheart from her fuzzy, spice colored assailant. His tone was ever so faintly predatory as he added, "How very…interesting. Sounds exciting."
"Nephrite!" she wailed, her voice pitching dangerously high as the kitten's tongue rasped over sensitive nerve endings. Evidently the sound hurt baby ears because the tabby flattened them, let out an aggrieved mew, and then began licking the Jovian's princess' cheek once more dragging more weak giggles from her.
Jadeite came out with a very male chuckle of his own. "I bet she hits that note again later on in private."
"Count on it." Nephrite waggled his eyebrows with restored humor as he finally chose to save Lita by plucking the overly affectionate kitten away and replacing its kisses with one of his own. "Mine," he warned firmly as he removed the cat.
"Naughty, naughty Silvertip. I'm going to need a whole new wardrobe if you keep this up."
A sturdy silver-point kitten, the largest of the lot, was twining around Minya's ankles like a puff of smoke, stalking and playing peek-a-boo beneath her skirts. As the Shitennou watched it snagged the fine, hand-stitched trim of her skirts and she scolded it lightly, patiently unhooking little barbed claws from the point lace.
She scooped up the little creature, nestling it against her bountiful bosom, which was well showcased in a rather tightly laced, low-cut, apricot gown, and smiled up winningly at the somber-faced king. "Good afternoon to you, Lord Kunzite."
To her amusement, his cheeks went red at the simple greeting and he seemed hard pressed to tear his eyes away from the sight of the kitten snuggled against her chest.
"Are you blushing?" she demanded as her golden eyebrows shot up to meet her honey blond bangs.
Kunzite harrumphed and said not a word. Inwardly, though, he cringed as she crowed triumphantly. "You ARE! You are blushing! Who knew you had it in you?"
Deciding to give his commander some privacy in that most ignominious moment, Zoisite turned away, coming face to face with the Mercurian princess. In Amy's lap a petite calico, visibly smaller than its littermates, was settling down to sleep and kneading her thigh like the cook did bread dough.
The little cat's pattern of vibrant red and black spots on white marked it as entirely unique amongst its larger, single color siblings. It mustered one curious glance up at the men, then dismissed them as vastly unimportant in the way only a cat could. Giving an enormous (for such a small creature) yawn, it closed its sleepy grey-green eyes, lowered its head, pillowing it on Amy's thigh, and took up its catnap.
"Looks like he knows where it's most comfortable," mused Zoisite aloud, making Amy blush painfully. "You're were right. He is the smart one."
Zoisite was the sudden recipient of four very male glares as four feminine heads whipped up, eyes kindling with sudden accusation and some with no little bit of rage. "You all were SPYING on us?!"
Amy turned a gentle smile on him and unlike the others, her lazuline gaze was calm and serene…almost eerily so. Stroking the sleeping kitten with one finger, she never disturbed it as she spoke. "Zoisite…if you have half even the sense that your Gaia gave this kitten, I think you'd better start running."
He made as far as the stables before they caught him and dumped him in the icy spring-fed waters of the moat.
