DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters of Sailor Moon.

CHAPTER ONE

-Princess-

The bloated belly of the sky rumbled as it began to open up and pour forth its baptismal blessing upon the land of Elysion, drowning away the vivid hues of green, red and purple that stretched across the forested land in an endless winding of canopies and mountains. It was a sight to behold, especially from the highest peak of the Elysion tower, and she thought the forest was weeping for her.

'The weeping forest...' she thought as she willed the brush in her hand to strike with fluid grace. Her brush was a sword and the canvas before her which mirrored her pure and innocent heart, was now cut and stained. She stared out into the forest, its beauty blurred by the brutal downpour, and returned to the canvas in an attempt to freeze her memory with the tip of her brush. Her strokes were wild yet governed by a gentle flow and soon, an eternal representation of a vision that would not last forever was created.

There was a light rapping on the door. Time was unwound. The sound of reality was a creaking hinge.

"Princess? Are you... oh my!"

A pair of feminine hands graced the corner of her fresh canvas. "Is this your newest piece? What's it called?"

"The Weeping Forest," the princess replied, piercing the hands with her blue eyes, willing it to move away. It did not. Instead, the tip of the fingers crept inwards, threatening to leave its own mark on her creation. "The paint is still wet." The fingers curled as if stung by the subtle tone in her voice. The hands then traveled and finally cupped over her own, and ocean-green eyes met hers, stealing her away from the reverie she had been trying so hard to hold on to.

"Princess..."

"Yes, Lady Michiru?"

"Your father and mother wants you to know that it pains them very much by putting you up here. They truly wish that this will be the last time and you will start respecting their wishes by never again venture into the forest."

The princess's eyes fell back to the infinite meandering of green, red and purple. It might very well be a mirage, she thought.

"The forest is a very dangerous place and the last thing the people of Elysion want is to lose their one and only princess to its dangerous bowels," the woman, whom the princess knew since she could remember as Lady Michiru continued. She crooned with a voice as gentle as a lapping ocean wave, her long lush hair cascaded over her slender body and the princess blushed slightly when her eyes fell upon her bosom. Compared to Lady Michiru, she looked like one of the dolls she had in her collection: Petite and small-chested, a small face with big doe eyes that brimmed with gullibility. In all honesty, she hated the way she looked. The only redeeming quality she wanted to believe she had was her smooth golden locks that could, in the complementing words of others, whisk even the most beautiful angel of its airy feet. And because of that, she let it grow till it traced the floor and every year as it grew some more, she would twist it up into two chignon buns on the top sides of her head, like her mother.

Her mother happened to be the queen of Elysion. And her mother was the reason why she turned into a recluse who sought solitude in her paintings. Though she had never found out why, she knew her mother had a strange almost claustrophobic fear towards towers and had hoped that she would cause the same vehemence to sprout within the young princess's heart by placing her in the highest part of the Elysion tower whenever she was caught in some mischief. But, oh how wrong she was.

"I like it here," she simply stated. "It's nice and quiet and I don't mind staying up here for the rest of my life."

"Hush! Don't ever say such things!" Lady Michiru exclaimed through sharp hisses. Her brows furrowed and her hands clamped over the princess's with a tighter grip. "You're a princess and you know very well that your place is not in this tower."

"Then why do my parents keep me here all the time?"

"Why do you keep insisting on venturing into the forest all the time?"

Lady Michiru's question hung in the air like an ominous cloud. The princess's eyes drank the forest in once more. Time swirled backwards and she was back where the leaves of the trees fell over her like soft feathers and the gold-red grass crinkled beneath the trail of her dress. She roamed the forest and felt it close its leaves and limbs behind her back as she continued to wander deeper in the shadows. Something in the forest was pulling her in and though the trees loomed over her like scary looking giants, she wasn't afraid.

She stumbled upon a clearing and right in the middle of it, a ray of sunlight was streaming down from an opening in the canopy creating a pool of golden light upon the earth, and basked in its heavenly glory was a single stalk of rose. She looked upon it in awe, for she had never seen a shade of red that seemed to bleed with such intensity, not even in her most extensive collection of paint. She knelt before it and lightly traced her fingers around the soft velvety petals, afraid the the color would weep at her touch.

She felt someone behind her, watching her. She turned around.

Like the red rose, she had never seen hair so wickedly dark, as if the Goddess of Midnight had decided to take form and settle upon a man's head where she would for an eternity hang over his shoulders, and her fingers were the black tendrils that would any moment come to life, grabbing anything to feed her need to destroy. Such thought chilled her to the bones and her eyes darted desperately around for a way out. But everywhere except for the opening where she came from looked meaner than the man with the Goddess of Midnight creeping over his shoulders, and to her horror, he looked like he wasn't going to let her pass!

Then like a curtain swaying in the wind, the Goddess of Midnight parted her limbs and revealed her treasure. A pair of deep purple gems shone from a face so beautiful and yet strong at the same time. Her eyes traveled around the wide masculine cheekbones, then craddled the nose that had an intimate bond with the forest's scents. They kissed upon the high forehead that seemed to hold a million and one mysteries and finally they swam around the soft mound of those slightly upturned lips that she yearned to touch. The rest of him was enshrouded within a grey robe and before she could catch herself, she wondered how it would be like to be lost inside.

Her heart thumped, no longer with fear but a strange anticipation.

"She rarely has visitors."

She jumped slightly at the sound of his voice. It had a deep resonating tone, as if the forest had spoken through him.

"W-who?" she stuttered and immediately hated herself for it. Not only did she stutter, she had squeaked like a mouse and she felt like a joke. She wasn't very good with strangers. Well, thanks to her mother who puts her away in the tower all the time.

"The rose," he told her, his gentle smile unwavering.

"She's b-b-beautiful." Oh Lord.

There was a sudden twinkle in his eyes, as if he had stumbled upon something delightful. "There's nothing to be afraid of. I'm not going to eat you."

"W-Who said I'm af-f-fraid!" Her sudden outburst was like a needle prick against a well-formed balloon and a flock of birds escaped from a nearby tree. Against the sunlight, they looked like shards of a broken glass.

And right before her eyes, the air of mystery which she had an instant ago felt around the man disappeared. Their encounter took on a different turn as the man clamped both hands against his ears and squirmed on the spot. "Little lady, you didn't have to shout or you'll scare more than just the birds away."

Is this guy serious? "I wasn't shouting! And don't call me little lady!"

His perfectly shaped eyebrows arched ever so slightly, a questioning look took hold of his well-chiseled features. Before him stood a petite girl clad in a frilly pink dress, with smooth golden locks that almost reached her ankle which he noticed had a silver chain with a bell on it. Every little movement she made with her feet, the bell would ever so softly tinkle like a fairy's voice and it was like music to his ears. He drank her face in and tried to read her soul through the pure blue shine of her eyes yet all he could sense was a rushing well of loneliness wanting to overflow and drown him. She was indeed a little lady with the spirit of a wild mare. Since he saw her alone in the forest and trailed behind, he had noticed a constant nagging and tugging at his heart. He hadn't understood it before but now he was beginning to. Hadn't he once upon a time been bestowed with a small fragment of moonlight by the very goddess herself? Is this chance encounter with something so bright and lovely his gift for redemption? He must find out. Of course, all these thoughts were never made known to her.

"What should I call you then?" he asked.

His question caused her time to stop as voices of the past crashed upon her like a tidal wave.

Never share the knowledge of your origin outside of Elysion... No one outside of Elysion must ever know your true name... Never let anyone outside of Elysion know that you're the princess of Elysion.

He waited and he could almost feel the roots of the trees writhing through the forest soil beneath him. He was about to ask again when something darted between them from a nearby underbrush. All he could make out was a blur of white and he thought he could hear a whoosh! as it flew past. He stared at where it landed and saw a pair of upright ears, a twitching nose and a soft white cotton ball of a tail. It eyeballed him, its bulging red eye said: Hah! Gotcha! before it hopped away into a different underbrush.

"Usagi," she said.

He blinked at her as if she was an illusion.

"You can call me Usagi," she told him again.

"Usagi..." he echoed slowly as he took in every syllable of the word, caressed it with the tip of his tongue and hung onto it like it was the remaining rope of life.

The mysterious air was back and it surrounded him with more intensity, like a veil that she cannot look beyond unless he allowed her to. And she did want to. Who is he? Where did he come from? Does he live in this forest? She had many questions and she was about to open her mouth to ask when she heard a horde of voices surmounting her from outside.

"Princess!" It was one of her father's men and they were approaching fast. She cringed as the sound of metal jarred towards her, like the oncoming march of doom. A cold steely hand clamped over her shoulder, almost crushing her on the spot. "Princess! Thank Lord we found you! What in the world were you thinking?"

"I'm sorry. I got lost." It was a lie, but a reasonable one nonetheless and no one would ever know. As she was being escorted away from the forest, hopefully for the last time! was what the soldier said, she turned only to find patches of overgrown grass. There was no rose, no beautiful pools of heavenly light shining upon the earth, and no dark-haired man. There was absolutely no sign of them ever being there and she had wandered back into the forest many times after that searching for the little piece of magic she had seen and felt. But everytime she would be found by her father's men and everytime she would be led away only to be placed in the Elysion tower where she would be lost in her thoughts wondering if...

Maybe it's only a dream. Maybe it was just my imagination getting the best of me. Maybe mother is right, that the forest is dangerous and full of evil magic. Maybe if my father's men hadn't come, I might have been taken away, never to return. Maybe...

"Princess?"

"Yes, Lady Michiru?"

She heard a soft sigh and an air of resignation lingered. "Come back down and grant us with your presence, please?" Lady Michiru waited for a nod before she finally left.

She drew a deep breath and tried for one last time to gather all the sights and sounds and scents she had experienced before she tucked her painting under her arm and went down the spiral stairs that led to the bottom of the tower: temple and home of the divine. Her feet padded lightly upon the temple's stone floor where she knelt and received a sprinkle of holy water from the priestess of Elysion. Behind the priestess was a closed door where the chosen maidens received their training, one of them being her close friend. Maybe I'll visit her later, she thought as she left the temple's floor and headed to Elysion's main palace hall, where her parents would be expecting her arrival.

She stopped at the doorway, bracing herself before she set foot inside. There, her parents sat, her father in his kingly lavender robe and her mother in her queenly pearl white dress. She carried the fineness and gracefulness of the moon, with her long silver hair flourishing like a star cluster all the way to her feet. According to the stories she used to hear, her mother's hair used to stretch all across the land of Elysion and that her father, the then handsome gallant prince had found her trapped high up in the clouds by ascending up her hair and then took her as his queen. Such stories used to enthrall her night after night but not anymore.

"Father, Mother. Your daughter's arrived," she said with a curtsy.

"Serena, Serena," the queen began in her dreamy tone which soon took on a sharp edge when she saw what was jutting from under her daughter's arm. "What in Lord's name is that? And oh your dress!"

"It's my latest painting Mother," Serena said. "It's called 'The Weeping Forest'."

The queen crinkled her nose, a usual sign of disapproval. "Oh, why do you like burdening yourself? We already have many fine artists who are being paid handsomely in exchange for their beautiful art pieces which we decorate our walls with. What are we to do with yours? Surely you mustn't think we'd have that on display, hmm?"

"I'll hang it in my room," Serena replied with a shrug.

"Oh but what if you ran out of wall in your room, hmm?"

Oh mother...

"Serena dear," her father stood up, his royal cane in his hand, the skull glowering menacingly at her. Serena never understood her father's appeal towards the macabre. "As you know, you're no longer a child. You can't just go wandering off like that."

"Yes, Father." They've been through this many times before and there was nothing much she can say. It's not like she can bribe him with skulls and bones in exchange for her to roam freely as she pleases.

"Serena wishes to be excused from your presence." With a final curtsy, and 'The Weeping Forest' hugged close to her chest, Serena skittered off before she had to suffer another earful of her mother's hmm-s? and before her father's skull-cane's hollow brooding eyes started to glow an ember red, which it had been doing a lot lately.

Back in her room, she hung her latest art piece, which she pretended not to care that it was not worthy of display in her mother's corridors, on an an empty spot on the wall right next to her bed. Then, it was as if all the restraints of being a princess had loosen from her wrists and ankles and they fell onto the floor like an invisible heap of shackles. She slumped onto the bed without changing her paint-stained dress and before long her breathing lulled her into a hidden place where the forest wind beckons her, where a certain someone with hair that could send even the darkest soul to quiver in fear, and with a blood-red rose in hand, awaits.