This is being written rather quickly. I blame the end of daylight savings time and the resulting chaos to my daily schedule. everything is 1 hour off? how do i function? better shut down completely and write fic all night.

Chapter 5

It was a while before I recovered enough to speak to Endymion again, but I didn't stop my observations. If anything, I watched him closer than ever. For the rest of the week he still seemed bright-eyed and wired, going through the motions of his daily life under a haze of anxiety and dreaminess I felt like only I could recognize.

But within two week's time he slipped back into his usual habits, no longer retiring early, no longer running late in the mornings. His agitation lessened measurably and his mood became more withdrawn.

It wasn't difficult for me to make the connection with the phases of the moon - I was already very familiar with the measured waxing and waning since my childhood. The night I first saw her, the moon had been almost full, it filled the room with the sickly pale glow.

Because I was watching, I saw her a few more times, and confirmed my hypothesis easily.

She visits him on the week leading up to the full moon - when it's waning to full. Then she's gone while it waxes and shrinks to nothing in the corner of the sky, leaving the night sky to the stars.

The week as the moon grows and begins to take over the sky again, Endymion becomes anxious and wound up again - the brightening sky heralds her arrival as sure as if it was announced throughout the kingdom.

It only took three months for me to figure this out, and I didn't even have to watch that closely. I wondered how everyone else is so blind. They have a schedule, for hell's sake.

During those months, I swallowed any ill feelings and resumed my friendly conversations with the prince, when I could.

I mostly concentrated on my position in court. Whenever I needed to use magic to get my way, I made sure to time it with the week of the full moon - I figured I might as well use Endymion's distraction to my advantage. I was not sure if Endymion was keeping an eye on that sort of thing, but just in case. My quick rise in influence had caught the eye of a few political rivals, and I wanted to keep Endymion as an ally. He was still my conquest.

Which meant I needed more information on my unearthly rival as well. I had to know what sort of spell she had on him.

And how to break it.

To gather the necessary information, I had a simple spell in mind.

However, for the spell, I needed one item each from both of them.

I found Endymion and an unfamiliar young blonde gentlemen looking out over the gardens one evening. Endymion was leaning against a pillar, tossing a coin and catching it absentmindedly.

I made a lighthearted comment as I walked between them, I forget what. Both of them started, and quickly bowed and greeted me properly. I returned the greeting.

Endymion blinked at his hands.

"Looking for this, my lord?" I smiled, brandishing the coin I had plucked from mid-air. I flourished my hands, and then the coin was gone.

They both looked impressed.

"I believe you just stole from the Crown of Earth," Endymion said, only pretending to be serious.

I sighed. Gestured prettily to my form-fitting bodice and flowing skirt. "Fine, your highness, then please come and retrieve it from me."

The blonde man laughed, and Endymion simply shook his head with a withering smile. "Never mind," he said, "I have quite a few more in the treasury."

"I'll go after it, your majesty," the other man said, stepping toward me eagerly.

"Jadeite," Endymion said warningly, putting his hand on the other man's arm.

I tossed my hair. "You should think about raising his salary, Prince. He seems quite eager to go after a mere coin."

It was then that Endymion properly introduced me, this was the fourth and final Heavenly King, the one I had not yet officially met. He was younger than I expected, and much less shrewd than the others - at least he seemed so. Why, he was only a boy! Younger even than the prince!

I, of course, acted the part of being thrilled at meeting him, and feigned embarrassment at acting so causally in front of him.

I decided to leave then, having gotten what I wanted. And more besides.

The coin was hardly something personal, but he had been tossing it for nearly half an hour - it was still warm from his hand when I stole it. Besides which, it was a symbol of his kingdom. It would do just fine.

I still needed something of hers.

The moon was growing every day, in its arc across the darkening sky.

It was too much to hope that I could confront her, speak to her. The first thing she would do is tell him about it - not that he could do a damn thing about it, of course. What could he do? She was wasn't even supposed to be here in the first place.

But he would know, and know that I know. And it would put me a disadvantage.

But someday soon - when I was ready - I would face her, speak to her, demand an explanation from her - why she felt she needed to come to my home, to destroy my plans, this girl who - according to the stories - already had power and riches and everything everything anyone could want. Why did she need this too?

I wanted to ask her. I wanted to take something precious from her, to rip it away, and use that in the spell along with Endymion's coin.

Instead I settled for a lock of her hair.

One thing is always the same: from the moment she arrives, she isn't alone. He is right there with her, and never leaves her side. But sometimes her eyes dart out to the gardens, to the forests beyond, to the expanse of sky, and I know- I know- that she's come here before without him. And that she will again.

I hated this part.

Watching Endymion during the day in the crowded, bustling castle was easy. Spying at night in a deserted garden was much harder.

Besides which, it's an understatement to say I didn't particularly enjoy seeing them together. After that first night, I never stayed around after she arrived. But that night I wanted to see if I had a chance to gather my item.

I conjured memories of Endymion laughing with me at some joke Nephrite made, smiling at me when I 'stole' the coin, giving friendly greetings to me in the halls of the castle, and held them up in my mind like shades through which to stare at the sun. To protect me from the pain of watching him with someone else.

I shifted my eyes to her, when the adoring look in his eyes got too much for me to stand. She talks softly, laughs in murmurs and smiles in delight easily. Sometimes, when responding to something he's said, she seems almost human. But I was not watching her to determine her character.

I was watching her to try to figure out what, exactly, she'd done to him.

They are always touching - a hand on his wrist, her fingers around his elbow, his arm around her waist, tugging at her hair, fingers entwined. Maybe that's something to do with it...

He pretended to push her into the fountain and she cried out, maybe a little too loudly.

Light from a lifted torch floated down, and voice cried out from above where I was perched along the eaves of the rooftop.

They both gasped and he pulled her quickly into the shadows. I also panicked, but all three of us remained undiscovered.

It was lucky, though. I was watching for something to be left behind and it was.

In her panic, the branches of a tree had caught the princess and she had simply pulled through them violently. She left behind some shimmering white strands of hair, which I collected a few minutes later.

I wondered to myself, if I hadn't needed the hair for a spell, would I have left it to be discovered?

The next night I performed the spell. It told me nothing.

Either her magic was too strong for me to detect it, or she wasn't using any at all. Maybe he just loved her.

The idiot.

I pressed my head against the wall, feeling exhausted from the preparation and eventual failure of the magic I had conjured.

And the sheer hopelessness as my dreams seemed to fall all around me.

Then my eyebrows knitted together and I sat up straighter, looking out the window. Even the light from the full moon couldn't mask the sparks and dances of a meteor shower unlike one I've ever seen before.

I watched it as a giant light fell to Earth in a dazzling display, feeling something strange inside me I hadn't felt in a long time and didn't try to identify.

But I felt much less hopeless as I cleaned up my failed spell.

I would return the coin to Endymion tomorrow.

AN. so that happened