Chapter 9: The Crescendo of Knowledge
Melaena couldn't shake the feeling she'd had. She'd been getting better at teleporting and yet, Diamond seemed so hesitant to say more than even he was supposed to since he'd been having more meetings with her mother's Mistresses.
Brenna would have to give her her answers. She needed to know more about Prince Endymion and how exactly she was supposed to be with him although rumors had been fleeting about that he'd found muse in the Princess of the Moon.
"I know my mother is sick, she must be using her power for something…setting up something. We only grow ill when the power of the dark crystal is in danger…or being used. It must be precautious. I'm not told much."
"It is a more need to know basis." Brenna said warily as they stood in the hall outside of her room again, masked in the dim black raven feather's shield in the corners of the dark moon castle lair.
"Well what is my own fate? I know only that I'm meant to be with someone that is with another. What fate is that?"
"Well I know part of the story, only because it has some relation to me."
"Relation to you?" Melaena asked.
"Yes…well, you mustn't breathe a word of this. I will be punished and will therefore lack the training to even become your second in command…."
"I oath my own mouth to a mute silence for attaining the knowledge of my fate."
"Well the Earth Prince is actually part Dark Moon. My mother and her brother were once the top spies of the Queen, also like Diamond's mother Amethyst. They all worked on the earth at one point. My uncle fell for the Earth Queen and so the Prince is the debt my Uncle failed to pay in his betrayal to your mother. It was made in stone that you two would marry…"
"Why?!" Melaena found herself less at ease that she would be forced to marry him. Written in stone? Had she no agency over her own life? Why did she care though if she had to marry this prince and not another? Her mind spun.
"Your mother knows the ties between the Earth and Moon have been weak in the past. Until recently there has been no oath of loyalty between them."
"Recently? What does that mean?"
"Well now that the rumors are proving to be true, at least by Beryl of the Earth's words and D-" Brenna motioned suddenly for silence. "Someone is coming. Leave now, and I will make sure the shadows hide us. Please be silent Princess and remember lock your door behind you."
Melaena retuned to her room. Her teleportation had been better that ever. Even Brenna thought she'd been using the key she'd stolen the first time. She couldn't teleport anywhere she'd never been yet.
She had to know. The Earth Prince Endymion… but what ties did he make in concrete to the Moon? Had they decided to marry? It all seemed too abrupt. In that case the Moon Princess was taking something her mother would likely not stand to adhere by. It felt satisfying to know she could steal the little Princess that Diamond had described as sheltered and meek. Was the Prince even aware that he'd been born half of the Dark Moon?
She turned to her looking glass and wished herself to see this Prince. She focused so willingly and hopefully she was surprised to see the image of a man. One only a couple years older than her…and he was rather tall, dark and handsome. His black hair wasn't really as natural for the Earth Royalty. Normally Mars had a reputation for reds or the color of ember soot…but browns and Earth tones were more common. All the same most royalty was born female as well. But hair colors couldn't be much of an identifier after the blurred lines the Dark Moon people, in their scattered origins had caused.
Amethyst clearly had fallen for a Moonling; Diamond and his brother were half dark moon and half moon, yet their Dark Moon emblem was more prominent …that was the life they'd decided to embody. Diamond's white silver hair was less common in her own people and more common of the moon and yet she'd never met someone more like her…or someone she could relate to so well.
She felt a strange knot in her stomach; she hated being governed. The Earth Prince was a catch, but her mind was in a consistent tug a war with the idea of not being able to choose whom she wanted to be with. She liked power. Control.
She laid down onto her bed. Her mind twisted and wondered about. All of it was too much. But she'd rather know these things then be part of this blissful ignorance that the Princess of the Moon clearly embodied. She'd prefer not to be such a puppet on a string.
Yet she was so sheltered that she wondered what other secrets lie in the midst of her own kingdom. Her eyes faltered with her thoughts spinning.
She looked ahead.
The throne room.
The Earth Prince was next to her mother, her powerful and graceful mother, Queen of the Dark Moon.
All of the faces were blurring.
She felt her body move for her.
She stepped towards her fate almost automatically and uncontrollably.
She found herself in front of the tall broad shoulders of her future life.
She looked up and found herself staring at, rather than two dark blue eyes,
A pair of deep violet eyes, with wisps of silver dancing above the eyelashes of-
She woke up gasping.
"Diamond?" She whispered under her breath. She suppressed her breathing when she felt a strange feeling. She wasn't alone.
She looked out to the crystal glass that looked out onto the sky across from her bed. At night black crystal blended into the dark sky as if it was one of the same. She followed her gaze from the small dot that was the Earth to the bright light of the Moon. She questioned her own sanity until her eyes noticed a figured silhouette against this light.
"Diamond?!" She repeated.
"I'd ask if I was the one who woke you, but Id rather say it was a dream of some sorts that may have? Dreams are not so common for our folk I hear, Princess." His voice was steady. It was Diamond.
"No…well…maybe a premonition." She once again was put off guard by this man. She questioned her own words. "How did you…or why did you come here at such an hour?"
"Sleep is such a fleeting thing. My mother taught me all the tricks of the dark crystal and it's power. She knew this place herself quite well before she passed." His white attire didn't remind her of the moon, but rather of power. He wasn't afraid of…or didnt seem to be afraid of the retributions of his actions.
"All the same, what kind of man watches a woman sleep unknowingly?" She countered his declaration of knowledge and power with a slight belittlement.
"A woman?" His eyes challenged cooly. "I was only rather bored and sleep hasn't found me much anymore. This seemed to be the best view of the sky in the castle."
"So it's what is outside this place that amuses you? It's really only a view to me. A far and removed view of that which is outside my boundaries."
"On contraire, I think it's best to be removed from these things." He eyed the two planets almost disdainfully. "What did your premonition tell you?"
She hated being caught off guard. She wasn't about to say it had to do with him. It was more….a inner confliction or confusion of princes. How could she even verbalize such a pathetic notion? "….that my head and my heart, are quite possibly not at the same place….its really a silly and irrational notion."
"Cryptic, but not exactly as pathetic as you put it." He said raising a brow. He found himself relating to her words. He knew his own infatuation for the Moon Princess had been unwise; he would never forgive his own actions, to which his heart had lured him into. "What knowledge did you mind learn that your own heart denies?"
"I know whom I am to be betrothed to, but as you say, he is rather taken for another. I don't prefer to accept a fate so blatant. It's a perplexing notion." Her speech was rather elegantly put, but her voice wasn't so sure. He wondered what she'd planned to do about this. She took him off-guard at times.
"There is an irony in that. Having the one you believe yourself to be made for love another. You may run into problems there."
"What do you mean?"
"I was found out because I was reckless in my own knowledge that the Moon Princess would likely be betrothed to another. I was naive to think the Moon would accept an outsider considered so dangerous. This Prince, like me, was entranced by her beauty and naivety and made an oath to protect her like the other planets had at one point. If he is to be yours…."
"He's half dark moon. His fathers debt is …" She bit her lip.
Diamond smirked. "It was more complex than I thought."
"I shouldn't have said as much." Melaena turned away. "It could be dangerous saying such things to someone so infatuated with the Moon." She did begin to question his obsession. Diamond was so strung up with the enemy it made her feel rather uneasy.
"I don't hope to win her back...not now. I don't hope to return there. I hope to take the pride they have taken from us. Do not think I would ever betray our Queen. My declaration of the side I am on is presented in full, and made well obvious."
She did accept the fact that he had the mark of the dark moon placed between his violet eyes, an oath to her mother. His eyes. Not the blue eyes that somehow had strayed to make things more complicated for herself . "Well I see why my premonition was so...skewered." She hid her words as wisely as she could. "What hope is there now for me? I'll be locked up for a lifetime in knowing my own fate is muddled by the Moon, like my mother's and has lost itself to confliction. I thought for once I could have happiness in knowing my future, but that hope was some light of the end of the tunnel of this confinement that was…rather…too good to be true."
Her words droned with such sincere disdain for her life. For her loneliness. For her confinement and hope for fulfillment. She opened her clenched hands from her bed sheets and turned to the moon before looking away with tightened arms.
Her words came out with such ease she knew she'd said too much. From this moment on, she'd become strong enough to change her fate and correct the mistakes that had been made by the people that surrounded her.
"Isn't it ironic? The people we hope to depend on for a future end up leaving us. They never do see it our way." She muttered. She gripped her dress tight in her hands, in need for control. Her mother was running herself in probably trying to fix this mess, abusing the dark crystal and now this? Always cursed for separating from the Moon? How could her mother be ill? She felt a pit of denial in her stomach. They were supposed to live beyond generations.
He watched her tension. She didn't know the same tricks he did to turn this pain into power. She'd hadn't the need to yet.
"This is why I hide my own emotions. How can another learn your feelings and begrudge you for them if you keep them inside? Even I have begun to believe my own denial." He looked to the Moon. "There are something's that cannot escape fate, but it doesn't mean you have to let the worlds know how it affects you."
Her eyes widened at his words. Bitter but truthful. Realistic. Real. "I haven't known many men in my life so far, but you may have been one of the cleverest I've ever met." She breathed out.
"How many have you known?" He'd begun to think a girl like her had to have known men other than him.
"Only you." She said.
This struck him. The Moon Princess was innocent to ther men's advances but they were consistantly around when he'd been at her side. Now the Earth Prince had taken every bit of that attention. Yet this Princess of Darkness seemed to value hum more because of his loss…because they could relate. That was the charm of the Dark Moon, everyone knew loss.
"If another were to come here, if they Earth Prince did marry you, I'd say you'd have a similar regard for him just the same."
"He is oblivious to his own rejection. Does he even know he's of the Dark Moon? He seems naive to the charms of the Moon. At least you have seen and accepted them as they are. Ignorance is blissful and naïve." She felt a growing anger for the Moon Princess, and a growing want to break the beautiful mirage they had painted for themselves.
"So you hold me above a Prince of a Declared Planet?"
"If I did what would it matter to you?" She turned her head to the side, her back still to him. He took a step forward.
"My brother thinks of me as foolish for pursuing he hearts of those supposed to be taken. Maybe the moon has softened my ideas of romance. Yet I have yet to see my brother fall for anyone so what could he possibly know." He said this more to himself than to her. The universe was dark around them. It felt so fitting.
"I have yet to fall for anyone as well, and yet it seems my own fate is becoming less and less clear at the moment. Yet the idea of falling just seems so…unbecoming." She said trying to hold herself on solid ground.
He took another step forward until he was almost right behind her.
"You know that love is not made for triangles. Triangles only lead to crossed stars." He said his voice close to her ear.
"I think is much more confusing than a triangle. More like a web. What more can you do when its already set in the stars to be unpredictable and conflicting?" She turned to him with rather bitter and conflicted eyes.
His violet eyes met hers; a more delicate lilac and yet he saw more strength in them than he'd expected. Entrancing beneath that Dark Moon symbol.
"Then maybe we should let the stars sort themselves out." He said in a deep slow voice before he closed any distance between them, and kissed her hard on the lips as she fell back onto her bed.