Chapter Two
“Caring Lies”
“Call me that again!” The challenge rippled through the air with the static feeling that they had all come to associate with the electric Princess Literi. With an irritated gesture, Luna smoothed the hair on the back of her neck once more, her cat-slit eyes looking over the five girls scattered about the room. Lessons had started slowly and now they were at naught but a crawl; Luna was nearly ready to break them into separate study groups if it meant they might actually have time for real work. For the moment etiquette lessons had turned into snapping lessons; sewing was now miniaturized fencing and history simply didn’t happen. If the girls hadn’t given her silver hairs in the first few hours, they most certainly had by the first week in. At this point Luna was certain her hair was as silver as her mate’s and she dared not check with a mirror.
“Call you what?” Miran asked. For all the sugar in her voice the smile she turned upon Literi was nothing less than caustic. The embroidery she had been diligently working on was finally folded down upon her lap and Luna got a look at the messy, jagged stitches and knots over the fine linen surface. Her eyebrow twitched even as a laugh tore at her throat–it seemed the Venusian wasn’t as unaffected as she pretended to be! Miran had never been a Goddess at embroidery, true, but even her first efforts certainly hadn’t been this horrendous! “I simply said, Literi dear, that a little lotion could go a long way with those… calluses of yours. Certainly, it must be hard to hold such fine cloth with your skin ripping at it so.”
“Whereas with all the lotion you use, Miran, the cloth must be slipping through your fingers.”
Luna’s gaze turned even as Miran and Literi jumped at the interruption. All three sets of eyes went to the dark-haired princess whose violet eyes remained trained to her work. Luna was proud to note that, though it wasn’t perfect by far, it certainly was improving. Slowly Rayna’s eyes rose to quirk a finely shaped brow at her cousin. Pink sparked on the Venusian’s cheeks, her lips setting into a small, pursed line. Luna couldn’t help a faint wince; the last thing she needed was these two fighting as well, but it seemed soon to happen. In fact, from the other two faces in the room, it seemed liable that an all out war was on the horizon.
Glancing towards Amiru and Bunny, Luna noted that both were doing their best to ignore the growing problem. Serenity was babbling about... something. Luna felt a hard knot of shame for it, but she hadn’t a clue what Bunny was saying and really couldn’t pick up the energy to try and tune her in. Amiru seemed to be listening to her at first glance, but a stolen look at the Mercurian told Luna a different story; Amiru was annoyed. Whom it was directed towards wasn’t easy to speculate, however, and Luna gave up trying even as Literi and Miran seemed to recollect themselves.
Rather than seeing Rayna’s comment as helpful, Literi seemed to be more aggravated than before. Her eyes narrowed at the Martian now, a derisive snort breaking the air between them. Luna winced again before Literi even opened her mouth, already knowing how this was going to end. “Keep your snooty nose out of this, Matches,” she scowled, flipping her tailed mass of brunette braids over her shoulder as she turned her attention back towards the Venusian.
The blonde met Literi’s words with an indignant shriek. Regardless of the fact that she had already opened her mouth to berate Rayna herself, the attack on a family front by the ‘heathen’ was more than enough to redirect her ire. “She was trying to help you, and that is how you repay her?” Miran’s lips twisted into an ugly sneer. “I really don’t see why you even bother to pretend at civility; clearly you haven’t the slightest sense of honor—“
“Honor?!” Literi roared. All pretenses of actually working upon her embroidery now vanished completely. Needle, thread and material in frame hit the ground at her feet as she stood up to tower over the sitting girls and the quiet chatter of Serenity dribbled to a halt. “You’re one to talk you brazen harlot! If you and yours had any sense of honor they’d keep their noses out of another’s affairs!”
“And if your self-righteous, hypocritical people were keeping their noses in their own business, what call would they have to label us as whores?” Miran shot back. Luna had to bite her lip at that one—the Venusian had a point. No matter, it was more than obvious that they needed to be separated, and fast. “It isn’t our fault your women are so masculine they have to look to one another for lovers!”
The shade of red that spread across Literi’s face was one Luna didn’t think she’d ever seen before. She nearly outshone the sun she was so bright, but “Matches” had now entered this feud well and truly broiled. “Miran stop it!” Rayna snapped, embroidery frame gesturing widely as she stood to join the fuss. She nearly hit her cousin, who dodged at the last moment and turned wide blue eyes upon the other girl. “This is insanity!”
“I can’t believe you’re taking her side on this!” Miran’s voice hit astronomical pitches without really being a shriek. Luna gave a full body twitch, both her hands rising to rub her temples in slow, tight circles.
“YOU BITCH,” Literi roared. It seemed she’d finally recovered from Miran’s insult. Luna’s eyes opened in time to see the Jupiterian’s fingers turn to claws. Serenity gave a little gasp of horror as Literi attempted to launch herself across them to get at the Venusian. Her leap fell a little short, as Mars tried to intercept herself between them, and the whole gaggle of princesses fell upon the floor with a crack that heralded a few chairs being broken. Luna stared down at the mass of brocade, hair, and embroidery thread now writhing upon the sitting room floor and could only sigh. How much worse could all of this get?
~~**~~
It had been four weeks since the girls had arrived on the moon and Bunny had expected things to go a lot more smoothly than they were. Her face puffed a little as she pouted in the silver gilded mirror hung upon the bathing room wall. This was a communal area built beneath the girls’ tower but for the moment it was empty of all save the moon princess. That afternoon’s trial had ended with more than a few scratches on each of their parts and the others were, she supposed, sulking in their own rooms. Bunny sighed out her held breath and once more fingered the single red line running down her left cheek. It wasn’t bleeding, but it was whelped up a little and Artemis had spent half an hour trying to talk her into allowing him to pull a splinter from it. Who would have thought that five slight girls could crush a chair so easily? Then again, it had been a delicate sort of thing.
The slight girl settled back upon her stool and picked up a brush to run through her hair. She used to have servants to do this for her. Before the girls had arrived her mother had made it quite clear to her that things were going to be different from now on, a fact which Bunny had been rather excited about. This past month had worn that excitement away and replaced it with a sick longing for the way things had once been. The thing which had enticed her most to this idea of her mother’s was the idea that she would again have playmates; some playmates these were! Every day was a hassle now. There was bickering over the breakfast table, so much so that she could barely eat, and yelling matches always erupted during classes. When she’d talk one of the other girls into playing a game during their evening quiet time it’d always be interrupted by some tense or awkward moment that Bunny couldn’t seem to dispel. More than anything she just wished the others would learn to like it here.
The fact that they might blame her for being stuck so far from their homes hadn’t missed Bunny, though she pretended that it had. As she dragged the brush slowly through her silver locks Bunny allowed herself to contemplate this. In the months before the court had formed she’d wished and prayed fervently for friends; for these girls to be her friends. They were kind to her, and patient, and had even made friendly gestures towards her… but not towards each other. Had it been her thoughtless wishing that caused all of this? An idea crossed her mind that made her smile. Yes, she would attend the temple in the morning and begin to pray that they would like one another again! Surely that would do something.
“Oh—! Bunny,” A voice from the stair gasped out. It was familiar enough and Bunny looked up at the black cat paused upon the stairs. Her face broke into a brilliant grin and she found herself giggling. “Hello Luna!”
“Hm… No one is with you?” The cat crept further down the stairs and peeked her head about the corner of the door frame the stairs exited into. Her sapphire eyes darted quickly about the room and when she was satisfied that they were alone she gave a curt nod. “Good, good.”
“Did you want to talk to me alone?” Bunny ventured, her brow furrowing in the mirror she’d returned her attention to. It was odd for Luna to be behaving in such a manner; certainly she’d never thought so much about prying ears before this! Yet another odd change brought about by the Court.
“It isn’t that, exactly,” Luna replied with some hesitation. The cat moved further into the room and jumped upon the wall-length counter at which Bunny was seated. She settled herself without much fuss amongst the makeup and cream-jars and other various instruments of beauty the girls kept there. Each girl had her own colour coordinated space to work in with a matching mirror and stool to accompany it. But even with all their things upon the dresser it wasn’t hard for Luna to find space for herself—each of them save Bunny kept her things so neat that nothing crossed over any other girl’s space. Indeed it looked, and was, quite deliberate.
With a frown Bunny considered her own silver-adorned space. She had a host of make-ups and jewelry boxes and other various supplies that were jumbled together greatly out of order. Ever since her servants had been ordered to stop picking up after her things had become quite a mess. She didn’t much mind it but Raye, who held the spot to her left, had begun to make pointed attempts at keeping Bunny’s mess off of her side, mostly by rather scathing remarks. Bunny didn’t understand what was so terrible about her brush being on Raye’s dresser—or her accidently using Rei’s once. So what if there had been tell-tale silver hairs left in it? She didn’t have cooties.
“Actually,” the cat continued momentarily, having paused to study herself in the mirror. Luna had a vain spot, much like every other cat Bunny had ever known. She smiled as she thought that; she didn’t mind it. “I was sent to tell you that you’ll be having your lessons alone again, for a time.”
“What?” Suddenly all of Bunny’s happiness vanished. The girl dropped her brush upon the dresser, lips pulling themselves into her accustomed pout. “Why? I’ve been trying really hard at them, honest! It isn’t my fault history is so boring!”
“Bunny! Bunny, please!” Luna’s left paw landed upon her own muzzle and her ears flattened back against her skull. Bunny knew that look, and that tone of voice. The girl settled almost at once, no matter that the pout still dug moodily into her cheeks, or that she was trying her best to make “pity me” eyes at her teacher. One of Luna’s eyes peeked open at her, the sapphire iris dark with uncertainty. “It isn’t you. Artemis and I have been talking over what happened this afternoon and… well we just believe it’ll be better to try a different approach with the rest of the girls.”
“But why can’t I try it with them?” Bunny whined. Her hands formed fists upon her knees and she sucked in a deep breath. Her best argument would be needed for this, she knew! “I won’t favour any of them, I promise! I like them all a lot, anyway, so I could just split my time between them and no one should be able to point fingers—“
But Luna was shaking her head. “It isn’t that, either… though I’m… surprised… and very proud of you for thinking so politically, Bunny.” The praise went a long way, even though Bunny tried her hardest not to show it. It wasn’t often that Luna thought she had done something right! She tried in vain not to smile. “No, I… well. I’m not sure how Artemis would feel about that…”
Luna trailed off and stared into the mirror. Impatiently Bunny began to fidget in her seat, and for once Luna didn’t correct her for it. It was then that Bunny realized how very upset and worried Luna must be. Poor Luna was out of her depth here and struggling to catch up! That thought left Bunny feeling breathless in a strange sort of way. All her life Luna and Artemis had been pillars of strength and certainty. It was as if her very world had flipped upon its head. “I-it’s okay, Luna,” she offered, feeling a faint squeeze upon her heart. “I’ll take my lessons alone… you can get them to stop fighting, huh?”
The grateful look in Luna’s eyes was more than repayment for the sadness in Bunny’s own heart. The way that Luna’s fur relaxed and shoulders dropped conveyed a lot of tension melting off of her shoulders in a way even the young Princess could read. Luna nodded and reached a paw out to place it softly upon her future-monarch’s wrist. “Thank you, Bunny. I’ll come and collect you in the morning. The other girls will be taking their instruction with Artemis from now on…”
She gave a pause, her ears twitching this way and that in the otherwise silent room. “Don’t mention this to them, either, would you? Or try not to at least… and perhaps you and I will pay them a visit during their lessons in a few days time, after we see how it goes.”
“O-okay.” Bunny smiled a little more broadly. With great daring she reached forward and scratched the fur behind Luna’s ear. It wasn’t often Luna allowed herself to be treated as a, well, cat—not by anyone other than the Queen—but today Luna let her. Feeling suddenly grown up, Bunny’s smile turned into a grin. She’d never been trusted with a secret before either! She only had to keep it for one day, but Bunny vowed that she would do her best not to let it drop.
~~**~~
“You haven’t said two words to me since this morning,” Raye finally snapped, mouth closing upon the final note even as she slammed shut the history book she’d been pretending to read. Mina knew her cousin had been pretending because Raye had been staring at her for the past two hours, whenever she’d thought Mina couldn’t see her. It was sad, really.
She ignored the blank diary page before her that had been mocking her for those same two hours. Instead she turned the page, in pretense of there having actually been something on it, and began to write. When she was done she turned it towards her cousin and smiled innocently at her shoes.
“That’s right I haven’t,” Raye read aloud, slowly for she’d had to translate it from Veserite. Though Mina wasn’t looking at her she imagined that she could feel Raye’s eyes rolling. The Martian gave a contemptuous snort. “Very mature, Mina.”
Mina turned the book back around and happily stuck her tongue out at her. The two were currently holed up together in the common room of the Princesses’ tower. Thus far that evening none of the other five had made an appearance, something both these Princesses were quite happy about. Mina could have done with one less. She returned to pretend-writing in her diary, thoughts far too scattered to actually bother putting them to page. The pen she was using twirled idly in her long fingers, the ink spotting the page and her old silk nightgown carelessly.
“You’re getting ink all over yourself,” her cousin interjected again. Mina merely arched one golden brow in Raye’s direction. That gleaned another eye roll from the dark-haired girl for Mina had gotten that very same, pointed look from Raye. “You could have a little more consideration Mina! That shift cost enough to feed a village for a month.”
“Oh not this again!” Mina snapped finally and slammed her diary shut much the same as Raye had the much abused history book. The pen that had been caught in the book made a strange popping noise and ink dribbled down the sides of her diary before being absorbed into the paper there. A little more of it spilt down the front of her nightshift and leaked through to the skin beyond. “Ugh! See what you made me do, Raye?”
Violet eyes narrowed accusingly. “I didn’t make you do anything, Mina. Besides, you’d already ruined it on your own. Venusian silk isn’t cheap, you know that!”
“I was talking about my diary!” The offending object was then thumped upon the desk with enough force to jar it. The glass ink well that had been perched rather precariously beside Mina’s elbow wobbled upon the desk. In another second, too fast for the blonde to react, it toppled over the edge and landed open-end down upon her lap. Little more than an irritated, muffled shriek left Mina’s tightly closed lips as she stared down at her black-stained and very damp lap. In the padded chair across the room Raye giggled.
That tore it. With a single fluid motion Mina grabbed the bottle up before it’d completely emptied itself and lobbed it with deadly accuracy towards her cousin. Caught off guard, the Martian’s skull gave a rather surreal sort of ‘thunk’ when the jar collided with it, and Raye jerked back against her seat. The book she’d still been holding hit the floor and quite suddenly there was a rain of deep black ink staining her dress, the chair, and her face. It quite matched the red mark carved into her forehead. Yet somehow the only thought that Mina really registered was the fact that her marksmanship was a lot better than she’d thought it was.
Then the shock wore from her cousin’s eyes and the Martian clapped a hand to her forehead. “WHAT THE HELL?” Raye roared, all pretenses of dignity and maturity dropped like an autumn leaf. She surged to her feet, free hand balled into a tight fist at her side. “I can’t believe you just did that!”
“I can’t believe you took that tramp’s side over mine!” Mina retorted and found herself quite suddenly on her feet as well. She didn’t quite know how or when she’d gotten so close to her cousin, nor did she care. With all her might Mina willed Raye to go up in flames for real. All the rage she’d been trying to hold in since that morning’s mishap finally found itself roiling out of her gut and out her mouth. Nothing had been right since they’d gotten here! Nothing! “I’m your blood, Raye! Me. You’ve seen how she’s been treating me!”
“Is that what this is about?” The Martian laughed, a single clipped note so mocking that it made Mina snarl. “Oh come off of it, Miran. You’re not even trying to get along with her! I’m sick and tired of you two going off at each other all the time. Some of us would like to do our work.”
Mina could hardly believe her ears. Her nose wrinkled, though she knew how ugly that made her look, and she couldn’t help the scoffing noise which erupted from her throat. Betrayal made her stomach roll as surely as if she’d eaten week-old ham or curdled milk. “Aren’t we high and mighty today? I’m sorry, Raye, we can’t all be as mature and forgiving as you and Amiru.” Mina gasped suddenly, eyes widening to affect an innocence they both knew was a lie. She covered her mouth partially with her hand and felt a great smile threatening her cheeks, “Oh, wait, that’s right. You don’t acknowledge her existence. How silly of me! And here I thought you two were actually—“
A stunned silence followed the crack that rang out through the room and echoed upon the walls as if it were an empty chamber. Or maybe that was the sound in her head. Whatever the case, Mina watched in numb bemusement as her cousin’s eyes went bright and cheeks turned red even as she felt her own face mirror it. Her left cheek had quite a different reason than anger or hurt for turning red, however.
“Girls,” a calm male voice interjected into the disquieting silence that hung upon the room like a shroud.
Both Princesses turned as one towards the white feline paused just inside the doorway to their chambers. Mina’s fingers brushed her stung cheek slowly, the soft pads causing her to wince. Even with the pain it didn’t quite seem real. From the corner of her eye she noted Raye’s hand dropping loosely to her side and the curiously dead expression upon her cousin’s face. “… Go to bed,” Artemis’s voice remained steady. Mina had no doubt he’d witnessed what had just happened and she knew that Raye, too, realized that. Yet there was no lecture. “I’ll see you in the morning.
Without pausing to consider what that meant, Mina took the chance to grab her diary and run for the stairs. Tears beginning to drip down her face, she didn’t care or even notice when Raye didn’t follow.
~~**~~
Black rain dripped from a purple sky. Lightning blazed across it, silent and bright, illuminating the strangely hued clouds. In the distance something roared but it was not thunder. She looked down and the ground dropped from beneath her. She was falling and in her mouth she tasted metal.
~~**~~
The rolling hillside of Sevil was actually quite beautiful, Endymion reflected from the back of his bay-coloured mount. This wasn’t his favorite stallion, the handsome piebald Marthos that he’d raised from a colt, and his backside was telling him quite loudly that the next time they took a trip like this he wouldn’t leave him behind. Marthos was in Chihana, half the world away, and they’d had to make do with whatever Jadeite’s family kept in their stables. Half of the stables were empty this time of year, the pick of the crop gone to market up north, and what was left was either too old to keep up, too young to be ridden, pregnant, too precious of breeding stock, the familie’s personal beasts, or geldings kept on for more mundane purposes. With most of the family out on this hunting trip, all the personal beasts had been taken, breeding stock wasn’t meant to be ridden by anyone other than their handlers (they were very particular about that). That had left the four geldings they’d been stuffed onto. Jadeite had tried to offer Endymion his own mount but Endymion knew as well as the others did how attached Jadeite was to Principe de Viana. But the gait on this horse was going to leave him with bruises so widespread he’d have a black and purple backend for the next week.
Well, it wasn’t as if anyone was going to look at that anyway.
In a vain attempt to ignore the jarring his hide was getting, Endymion attempted to take in the view of the countryside around them. This was the northern part of Castilla y Aragon, the southernmost kingdom of Pangaea. Most of the country was interspersed desert but the north and eastern most sectors were brilliant green farmlands, much like the Jade their son was named for. Sevil was its capital, for all that it was not the sprawling city Endymion was accustomed to calling to such governmental areas to be. Things were quite different in the south than they were in the rest of the country, however. The large majority of the residents here were compiled of two quite different nomadic groups in the desert. The first were the Romani, dark of hair and eye, who loathed intruders and whom no one save the ruling family of Castilla had any real knowledge of. The second were the Harasites. This people were by far friendlier and more inclined to allow strangers to into their midst, as long as they behaved by the people’s rules. And listened to at least one sermon, Endymion couldn’t help but add with something of a sour note. He didn’t know if the Romani were as fanatically religious of the Harasites and it didn’t seem as if Jadite were inclined to enlighten him on the subject.
Either way, both of those groups were far out into the desert sands at this time of year. Endymion’s party had only just missed the trading caravans that had come in each autumn and they wouldn’t return for anything short of an emergency until late spring or early summer. Jadeite hadn’t been the only one among them disappointed to have missed them and today’s hunting trip was an attempt at reclaiming some of the time lost that they might have spent at trading fairs as much as it was an attempt to find something for tonight’s table. In the distance angry storms rolled through the heavens, signaling the coming winter.
It was cheery where they were, though, and Endymion trusted Jadeite’s knowledge of his own country to tell that they wouldn’t get caught in a downpour.
This was the third “type” of people that populated the South; Jadeite’s people. Ironically, it was Jadeite that was an oddity here in his own homeland. The indigenous people to the area were dark of skin, hair and eye—if not as dark as some of the people to the southwestern islands. Brown seemed to be the major theme, with true-black hair being the epitome of beauty amongst them. As many of them were born with brown it was the fashion in these parts to dye one’s hair darker or else shave your head and opt for a wig of some sort. The most common were made of goat hair and worn by the averagely wealthy commoners; the least were made of human hair sold to the cause and seen only among the nobility, for they were the only ones rich enough to afford it. Only a few blondes had ever been born naturally here, and mostly due to foreign “contamination.” The Fuegojoyan family was certainly known as just that in more than a few circles.
Endymion shook his head, chuckling faintly at his own thoughts. Since their spat on the Moon Kingdom Jadeite had been moody and… well, frankly he was sulking. As much as Endymion truly loved his friend, there were times that he was tempted to agree that he was as much a virus as any of his power-hungry relatives. Such thoughts weren’t kind, friendly, or diplomatic and it was times such as this that Endymion was quite grateful that none of his friends were mind-readers.
“You’re awfully quiet today,” Nephrite noted after awhile. The novelty of the Crown Prince riding among them had long worn off with the nobility here. Most of the ones who had agreed to this venture were either far too old for him, or too “well bred” to speak to him directly without an expressed invitation to do so. Endymion was quite happy with this as it meant he’d not have to casually flirt with yet another girl he’d rather not hold company with. He could have hit the idiots who envied him his position. As it was, he had been allowed to drift away from the main group; though he wasn’t lagging behind, for such a thing would imply disfavor to Jadeite, he also wasn’t close enough to encourage conversation. This was fine, as was Nephrite’s gentle interlude.
“Woolgathering,” Endymion shrugged lightly as the Prince reined his own mount in beside Endymion’s. The two carriage horses whickered at one another, perhaps in recognition for they were a matched set, but otherwise didn’t seem to mind much. Thankfully these were carriage beasts. Even though their gaits were horrendously painful, which wouldn’t matter a wit when pulling vehicles, they were well trained at working in close quarters with all sorts of other arrangements, the least of which being their own kind. It was no stretch of the imagination to think that had these been any other sort of work beasts he and Nephrite might even now be on their faces in the dirt. He could see by the look on Nephrite’s face and the tender way with which he was sitting that the other gelding was just as poorly paced as Endymion’s was.
After a covert glance about to make certain that no one was in hearing distance, Endymion continued, though he made certain to keep his voice pitched now enough that no one was likely to hear. Certainly Zoisite was being loud enough for all of them near the front of the group, helping Jadeite harass a few of the Ladies of the court; the girls were being quite good sports about it, and, Endymion couldn’t help but notice, giving back as good as they were given. “It’s customary for us to attend King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella this time of year, yet I can’t help but feel that we should be doing something… more. There are council meetings to attend with the High King, public hearings to judge…”
“Homeless to shelter, diseases to cure, earthquakes to prevent,” Nephrite replied slowly. Endymion’s shoulders straightened slowly, dark eyes glancing towards his friend. The brunette prince wasn’t looking at him, however, instead gazing at the dull moon peeking through the blue of the evening sky. It was early, wasn’t it? Endymion had no way to judge… but it certainly seemed as if this hunt was going to end with empty hands. “Endy, even Princes, even the Crown Prince must rest sometimes. Yes, you have a duty to your people as we do ours, but our lives are not all fun and games. Even we deserve a holiday.”
Endymion considered that for a long moment, eyes trained upon the path before them. In the long grasses of the fields that stretched beyond their hunting party he could just see the waving river trails the hunting dogs were leaving in the grass. He thought it looked more like broiling pot of snakes untangling itself and each going about their separate way for you could see nothing of the true animals underneath. Riding horses into that length wasn’t going to be good for any of them—or easy. He pulled his horse back even as the leaders began to do the same. “I’m sorry, Nephrite,” Endymion said presently, watching the Royal Hunters confer with Jadeite at the front. “I know this is a break that you all have been looking forward to. I wonder, though, why we didn’t stay with the new court. Wouldn’t it make more sense for us to be there… doing something?”
“I’d considered that,” Nephrite shrugged, “But it seems to me that we’d have been in the way. While we four have rank, true, we don’t have enough to be properly included in that court without causing a stir amongst the Moon’s own nobility who share rank with the four of us. It would be unseemly to ask you to leave us behind, for you are our High Crown Prince, and thus we are your court and sworn companions. Our lot at your side has different connotations than either the Moon Senshi or a host of mere guardians.”
“I suppose so,” Endymion agreed with some reservation. Nephrite had always understood people and protocol better than he had, and it was one of the greatest reasons why Endymion was thankful to have him around, barring their friendship. Without Nephrite’s quiet intervention he would have made a fool of himself a thousand times over by now.
“Well there are other factors as well,” Nephrite gave a shrug of one shoulder and made a wide, pointless gesture with his hand. “You’re male, though Senshi, and thus they couldn’t cluster you together with the Princess as they were the rest of her Inner Court. Hoku wasn’t staying, either, for matters of urgency, and thus you would have been treated differently than the other Princesses. While it may not have mattered to you, it could easily have mattered to your parents, to the ambassadors, or even to the Earthen public were rumors to be circulated—and rumors always circulate. It might have even mattered to the Princesses, for I’d wager that at least one of their ranks is upset with being put into so close of quarters with the others. Even if it is meant as an honor.”
Through all of this Endymion nodded, feeling more the fool the longer Nephrite went on. In order to attempt saving a little face, he interrupted, “And then there’s the fact that another tradition between our planets is that the denizens of the Earth and Moon do not mix. … But really, Nephrite, how outrageous is that? The moon can hardly sustain its own population; they can barely grow crops there. If it weren’t for the light crystals…”
That elicited a laugh from the brunette and Nephrite shook his head slowly. Amused, he gave a helpless shrug, “All of these things have their explanations, Endymion, but as the Queen herself has been saying for some time now, all things must change. What was good and true for past peoples may not necessarily work so well in modern times. Without change things stagnate and die.”
Unable to help himself Endymion laughed as well. The laughter relieved some of his tension even as Nephrite’s words managed to negate some of the guilt he’d been feeling. He’d never been able to justify a moment without work in it, a fact that Nephrite knew only too well, and once again he’d fallen upon his comrade to be lifted back into security. A part of him thought that he should be scared to think that he’d be lost without them, and yet the rest of him swore unwaveringly that it was right he feel this way. They were his bulwarks, and he theirs, against anything that might come to pass. His brothers, always.
The dogs had returned and were now milling about the horses’ hooves, and some of the ladies’ high strung palfreys were making a bit of a fuss about it. Nephrite and Endymion shared a look of understanding before each went to settle down the ladies and their horses, both. It wouldn’t do for any of them to be tossed and none of this lot was of the simpering sort toward whom you could, with a fair amount of guilt, be happy such a thing had happened to. Soon it was announced that the game was sour for the day and the entire party returned empty handed to the castle, though the Royal Hunters stayed behind. They would continue on, alone and mostly on foot, until they’d found something for the supper table.
The rest of the evening passed with an equal amount of boredom. Dinner was light of heart, conversation and true intelligence, and the various social gatherings they were required to attend afterwards were tedious at best. Nephrite had never been one for the court, despite having been born to it. Here in the Castle Aragon nights were long, and getting longer as the year dragged ever towards its end, and its population insisted that the nights were meant for dancing, or singing, or card games, or any other number on a list of pleasures that could, should you have a mind to do it, cover the walls of the entire palace in its paper. That was what he had never understood about his social class—the sheer amount of persons with nothing greater to devote their time to than amusing themselves.
This outlook wasn’t very sociable of him, a fact which he’d been well lectured over, and Nephrite had given up the idea of changing it.
Certainly there was a degree of effort that went into the lives of the rich. Some of them worked, but very rarely. Others pretended to work, often jostling for positions upon entirely useless “councils” of this, that, or the other, according to which one was said to be more prestigious at that point in time. In order to play at this game one had to be able to keep up with the level of intrigue which went into divining what councils were actually prestigious and at the proper moment, a skill that was very hard to develop as the running tally on the nonexistent score board changed from minute to minute. Furthermore, one also had to keep track of which councils had fallen out of favour, and make certain that when the crucial moment came you were no longer a member of said council, had politely severed all ties to it long before the situation had blown up, and most importantly that the blow up was absolutely not your fault.
Even these poor, and quite possibly insane, individuals could be overlooked so long as the councils they played with had very little to no power whatsoever. In his own homeland there had been one rather embarrassing incident of a Council for the Preservation of Butter-fried Chicken. How exactly that made sense, or why anyone would admit to being a part of it Nephrite would never know. Nor did he think the cook would ever look at him the same way again. Nephrite shuddered and downed the last of his wine before handing it to a passing servant girl.
If anyone thought this odd no one mentioned it, nor did they stop him as he rose and slipped quietly from the over-crowded drawing room. It had been filled quite early on that evening with those persons who made up the worst of the nobility, as far as his tastes were concerned—the youth and the sham-youth.
He was not an old man by anyone’s count, barely into his seventeenth year, but he had always fit in as well with this sort as did a goat fit a kid glove. These were the ones that lived for nothing save fashion, popularity and their own amusement. Even their council-seeking counterparts had pretenses of a life doing something, which was probably the saddest part to that lot. These children did not. The girls warbled their way through sugar-sweet songs of purest love, hoping to impress males of higher status with their ability to warp music beyond all recognition and then males doted on them, praising their tuneless clucking in hopes of blinding one of these girls to the fact that his parents no longer had money, or that he was a trifle lower in rank than she.
They played at flirting as other splayed at rummy but with far more on the line than a handful of coins. No, the chips that this sort were so happily bargaining with were themselves or, occasionally, their sons and daughters. Nephrite detested it. The entire ordeal made him sick to his stomach, but there was no getting away from it.
Growing up with or within the nobility wasn’t the easiest thing for any child. Certainly he hadn’t met a single one of them who acted as anything resembling their age, not the same way that a commoner’s child would. Unknown by his parents, Nephrite had made a habit early on of donning stolen page’s clothing and slipping out amongst the common folk of their land. It was there that he’d learned to play, to laugh, and to be a... child.
By comparison the “freedom” of riches was stifling. Too easy was it to fall into the trap of thinking that money or power could somehow buy you the happiness and affection that every human needed. And here it was amongst his peers, the fully realized version of that. Rather than trading their money and power for the sake of love, they traded their bodies for money and power; it was all that mattered to them anymore. Prostitutes and whores in gilded clothing, the lot of them. It was no wonder that they looked down upon the women in the brothels—they saw too much of themselves in those jaded, haggard eyes.
Alone in the corridors, Nephrite allowed his feet to wander even as his mind did much the same. Built high upon a cliff overlooking the rich, fertile farmlands below, Castle Aragon sprawled the “hillside” like a great white dragon bathing itself in the moonlight. Hills; Nephrite scoffed and stopped before one of the many large, open windows that overlooked the single-story of the palace’s eastern wing far below. It stretched out into the night, the head of his imagined dragon, to cradle the hill’s slope between the spears of its forked tongue. Surely this was what the architect had in mind when he’d built it so many eons ago; there was nothing else that would account for so easy an illusion.
Gaze following the crest of the hills, he slowly guided himself up the hills on the other side of the valley. These were not hills as he knew them—he, raised upon the plains and easy, rolling land of the west. To his mind these were mountains, surely, for all that their peaks did not reach into the sky as did the ones now a purple haze in the distance. Though he had seen mountains, and even been amongst them, here and now these “hills” still seemed too high. Nephrite preferred the ground, the solid earth beneath his feet. He would never get used to these heights, even if he did have a head for them.
A flash of light along the northern border attracted his attention. Nephrite’s eyes arose to the distant heavens where, as if perched upon the precipice of a hill as mountainous as the one upon which he was standing, the moon hung resplendent in the night sky, cushioned by a dark skirt of clouds. A spot of thunder echoed in the distance, betraying the source of the flashing. He’d spotted the clouds when they were riding, all of them had, but the weather witch had told them it wouldn’t be until tomorrow that they saw any of it. It seemed she had been wrong in her estimations and Nephrite felt his heart drop a little further. He hadn’t brought his observation equipment with him for it was too delicate to withstand such speedy of travel as they’d made. Regardless of that, he had thought to find his way to the roof for a few hours of speculation of the heavens before he’d gone to bed. The nobility of this castle were all late risers and the Shittenou were no exception when they were here for courtesy visits such as this.
The speed at which the clouds were moving told him that it would be pointless to attempt it. Instead, he leaned upon the window he was at and allowed the gradually rising winds to seize his hair. Soon enough the servants would be up to close the shutters but until then he was free to stand as he pleased.
Somehow the moon remained bright though the clouds swarmed about her. Lightning struck faster now as the thunderheads built. He mentally called to mind a map long since memorized of all Pangaea; the clouds were from the north, so it would be a storm brought in by the great Blood Sea. There wasn’t much that came from that place save a wonderful assortment of skin products and tempests. Nephrite sighed to himself. If it chose to pause in the valley, as these sometimes did when they were low enough to be blocked by the “hills,” it would be an interesting day or two in Aragon Castle. But for now the lighting danced circles around the moon, as if the brilliant light show were somehow a part of her.
~~**~~
Truly happy moments in this forsaken place were rare and when did they occur Lita had learned to savor them. Just as she was savoring the succulent flavor of the light, fluffy and sweet strawberry tarts the cook had made up for them that morning. The Jupitarian Princess smiled to herself as she inspected one such miniaturized tart in her hand.
It was well done. The pastry was light and crispy without being overcooked, the glaze chipping off of it in a way that managed to be artful without being too terribly sticky, and the berries held within were brilliantly red and perfectly in their prime. Lita had never heard of strawberries before this and the cook had confessed to her, when she’d dared to sneak into the kitchen to ask, that they were from Earth originally. He kept a small number of the plants in the greenhouse and had thought the girls would enjoy them. He was right, Lita giggled to herself.
The strange, reasonless laughter went unnoticed in the uncommonly empty room. Since their bodies had adjusted to the Moon Kingdom’s standard time she’d been eating alone less and less; today she hadn’t a clue what everyone was about and didn’t at this moment care. Instead she bit into the tart, eyes closing and a small moan of pleasure echoing from around her mouthful of pastry and fruit. Amazing; simply amazing. Lita only wished she knew how to make something as fine as this.
The table had already been picked over when she’d gotten downstairs to it. Every morning the five, supposedly, had breakfast together. A small buffet was laid out on a side table in the common room and their main table, which also tended to serve as a desk when one felt the need to study in company, became their breakfast table. Assuming the girls were already up and elsewhere, Lita had taken up whatever she saw fit, and gone back for a trifle more once she’d discovered a new morsel she particularly liked. That was one of the greatest wonders and joys of this palace—the variety of foodstuffs was unmatched.
Some small voice, which had the nerve to sound like Luna, whispered in the back of her mind that there was a political reason for that. There was always a political reason. Lita didn’t know why that bothered her, just as she’d never managed to pinpoint why it had always bothered her back home. Life was politics—that’s simply how things were when you were born royalty. Of course, her younger sibs didn’t have to worry about that.
Lita stared at the tart accusingly, as if it were somehow the pastry’s fault that her jealousy had ruined the previously happy moment.
She sighed at it just as another girl came stumbling down the stairs in a comically sleep deprived fashion—comical because Miran tripped over the last stair and nearly took a tumble. The girl caught herself, rubbed one bleary and somewhat swollen eye with a grubby fist, and continued to stumble her way to a chair. All of this Lita watched with mouth hanging open to the air, tart poised before it as she waited with bated breath to see if Miran would fall. When she didn’t, Lita’s jaw snapped closed into a disappointed frown. It then reopened to inhale the last of the strawberry tarts, but not before Miran had gotten a good look at what she’d been holding.
“… Where did you get that?”
Miran was not a morning person in the slightest and Lita could tell that without knowing the girl. It was written in her poof-ball hair, which looked as if someone had wet it, tied it in knots, and then taken it back down when it was dried to leave kinks. …and then tossed the Venusian through a hurricane, for good measure. Between that and the curiously ink blotted silk shift, ink stains all over her arms and face, and red eyes Miran looked like hell warmed over. Against every fiber in her body resisting it, Lita couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the other girl.
That pity broke easily. Before Lita had even the chance to respond, Miran had continued on. Her accusing eyes glanced over the yet-plentiful remains of the breakfast table to find that the only plate completely empty was the one the tarts must have been on. There was even a sprinkling of tell-tale crumbs of pastry and fruit. “You ate them all.”
Dumbstruck by the flat statement, Lita could only stare at the other Princess as hard, bloodshot blue eyes turned upon her. Miran glared, a glistening coming to sparkle in her eyes that Lita had the sense to apply to the fact that her eyes were likely dry and needed it. Yet there remained a quiver in Miran’s accusing words which begged to be examined. “You know some of us have the manners to share with others, rather than be such a fat, selfish pig.”
What was with this girl? All thoughts of pity or even tolerance once again flew out the window as that hard knot of hatred that had been loosening recoiled into Lita’s stomach. “How do you know it was me?” she replied, indignant that Miran would lay her losing out on a treat at Lita’s feet. Didn’t she always, though? It didn’t matter in this moment that Lita did the same to Miran and she wouldn’t have listened had anyone been there to point this out. Before she could continue with her retort Miran interrupted her.
The blonde’s hands pressed against the white tablecloth covering the table and stood. The chair scraped the tile beneath it without care to the damage it could cause. “Because I know you, Literi! You’re a fat, selfish little snob! I saw you eat the last one!”
“Because I had already bitten into it, you stupid, inconsiderate, bratty… bratty… BLONDE!” Literi stood as well, though she’d already been at eye-height with Miran while sitting. The beads in her ever-braided hair clacked about it, a sound not unlike the thunder that accompanied winter rains. “Just because you’re too lazy to drag yourself out of bed at a decent hour—”
“Don’t start with me, you don’t know one thing—”
“Oh I don’t know, you don’t know! You never even—”
“—about me or my life, I’ll have you know I had a very upset—”
“—attempted to get to know one thing about—”
“Girls.”
“—ting day yesterday and I’m tired and you’re fat just—”
“—my life! Like I should bother with yours after everything you—”
“GIRLS!”
The shout made its way through their arguing the second time it was given and both stopped midsentence to throw identical glares towards the door. Artemis leaned in the doorway, fully human and glaring at the two of them in return. His long silver hair trailed down nearly as long as Miran’s, but it was much, much neater than hers at the moment. Lita huffed a little, her eyes boring into his. Eventually, though, she had to give in and was pleased to note she’d lasted longer at the staring game than the Venusian. That pride didn’t last for long.
“Well I see you’re awake.” The heat of Artemis’s gaze did not let up in the slightest. Nor did he invite himself into the room as he might have another time; instead he remained with the door propped open that the servants, who moved in the halls beyond, as well as an idly passing courtier, might catch sight of them. Miran’s cheeks went red, for she obviously knew what she looked like, but to Lita’s surprise the girl’s back straightened and shoulders squared. It was as if she were proud to be seen so bedraggled!
Lita filed that thought away for later study. Right now, her attention needed to be on their overseer. It was odd that he saw them this early in the morning. Artemis’s abilities as a teacher laid more in tactics, weaponry and diplomacy than any of the skills they were concentrating on at the moment. Though each girl had a practice session with him in the afternoon, individual study, there were currently no other lessons scheduled from him for anyone but Miran. What exactly Artemis was teaching her Lita didn’t know, only that she went to see him for an hour after dinner each night. A distant part of her wanted to believe that the Venusian was sleeping with him on the sly… but no. Artemis had more taste than that and he was very obviously in love with his mate.
“Miran, go upstairs and dress. Make certain you eat something, but make it fast,” He ordered. Before she could run off to do as he said, Artemis held up a hand to stop her. “You’ll both be meeting me out in the salle. Don’t ask questions, just come, and dress for a work out.” With that he dropped his hand and waited until Miran had disappeared back up the stairs before leveling a look at the Lita. It wasn’t just “a” look, as such, it was “the” look. The look that fathers knew very well, though Artemis claimed to not have had any children. This look was one designed to make you feel at least three feet smaller than you were and twice as insignificant. This look stated, wordlessly, that “I’m disappointed in you,” and “you can do better than this.”
A flash of indignation told her that he should have been giving that look to Miran, who had started this! Saying as much would only make the man even more angry… and it would label her as a coward and a tell-tale. Lita wouldn’t have any of that and so she kept her mouth shut, guided her eyes to the floor and waited until Artemis had left before she punched the table. One of the china plates tipped off of it to break upon the floor. Lita didn’t care.
~~**~~
The morning sunshine broke through the large, windowed ceiling that covered the salle. Unlike most ceilings of its nature, which would have been formed of various panes of glass inside a lattice work of iron webbing, this ceiling was born of a single pane which looked as if it had once been half of a giant glass bubble, now perched upon the rooftop. It was quite a bit sturdier than it looked, of course, but that had never stopped students from worrying that it would blow away in a wind the first few times that they saw it—at least not in his long memory. Artemis smiled fondly at the room about him, wooden walled unlike much of the palace. Here there was still colour, though very little of it. Light had long since begun to bleach the golden-yellow from the planks in the walls and floor, and even if it had not, most of the wall space was already taken up by enormous floor-to-ceiling mirrors. A light dusting of sawdust covered the boards beneath their feet, to better help the traction. It also threw up a lovely cedar wood smell each time a body moved, a personal delight to Artemis’s nose. Otherwise the place would have reeked of sweat, blood and leather far more than it already did.
The greatest wonder of this room was not the glass bauble ceiling, the mirrors, or even the oddity of wood construction material in the Moon Palace. No, the most miraculous thing of all was the sight of four young girls (no, women, he had to remind himself. Though they weren’t acting terribly mature at the moment they were still, each and every one of them, considered to be adults in this world) so different from each other, so hateful of each other, standing before him looking sufficiently miserable. Perhaps the lesson would stick this time.
Artemis wasn’t a sadist by nature. Neither was he a sadist by design, really, but the past month had worn upon his already shot nerves as nothing else had. The two fights from the previous day, and the one he’d walked into that morning, had been the proverbial straw which broke the camel’s back, as it were. They had originally planned to put this part of the Court’s duties off for another year or more, but Artemis knew now that it couldn’t wait. There was too much here, too much between them, that wasn’t being aired sufficiently.
The pacifists at court were going to have his throat over this.
“So,” he continued, eyes roaming slowly over the line of them. As he tried to meet her eyes, each girl turned them away somehow. Rayna simply slid hers to the side, Literi closed hers to a degree that he could not tell where they laid, Amiru’s cast themselves upon the floor and lastly Miran’s, still vaguely bloodshot from crying, remained fixated in his direction. They were so unfocused he had no doubt that she didn’t truly see him and was only making pretenses of paying attention. Well, he hoped for her sake that she’d tune him in soon enough. “You girls have been screaming at each other like barnyard animals? Then you can settle matters as they do, I’d wager.”
That certainly got their attention. One by one their heads rose; bewilderment and, yes, a little trepidation now showing upon their young faces. They were scared. Well… good. They should be.
Artemis turned and walked to the double-doors at the side of the salle leading out into the gardens. This was the only entrance or exit from the room and he planned to stay there until they were done. Once he reached the doors, he turned about on one heel and leaned against the doorjamb. “Well? Begin.”
One by one the four Princesses ceased their staring at him and turned to face their true enemies—one another. It was amusing in a morbid sense of the word to see each pair pick one another out, though they’d spaced themselves by silent consent apart from one another in line. Miran and Literi sized each other up with looks that could be termed as nothing short of predatory. Shock was still there, of course. It wasn’t every day that Princesses of the Blood were encouraged—nay, ordered—to beat upon one another! But underneath that shock was raising the very hatred and animosity that had kept them going at one another verbally for the past few weeks.
Between them and around them Amiru and Rayna were doing the same to one another. This part Artemis felt a shade guilty about. Though Rayna and Miran had been having problems of late as well, the pair of them had managed to keep out of the most trouble. Their solution was an easy one, even if it wasn’t the one that Artemis and his co-conspirators had hoped for; they simply ignored one another. So long as they avoided directly answering one another’s comments or questions—and remained as distant and polite as they could when there was no option but to address one another—the two got along perfectly well. This sort of fake “tolerance” wasn’t what they needed, however. That attitude was only a battle-dressing, not meant to serve as a bandage for the long run.
A light breeze whipped into the salle through the open doors, stirring Artemis’s hair as it did. All three Princesses had their hair quite wisely bound, of course, and so they felt it in little more than the tug on their clothing. He wondered how much was really getting through the hatred that each of them was broiling with. So far they’d done nothing but stare at one another and yet the tension in the room was livid and growing more so by the moment.
Just as Artemis was beginning to believe that nothing would actually come of this the first punch flew. And, much to everyone’s surprise, it was Amiru that threw it.
Completely catching Miran off guard, the Ice princess whirled in step, tiny fist compacted with rage, catching the blonde squarely in her chin. Artemis winced at the sound of it, watching wordlessly as Miran fell to the ground. Standing above her now, hot tears running down a strangely frosted face, Amiru broke the astonished silence. “Lay off my sister you opprobrious skank!”
Trust the Mercurian to use ancient vocabulary in her insults. Artemis couldn’t help the amused thought as “Matches” grabbed Amiru by the scruff of her shirt and dragged her backward. Literi intervened, of course, and then they were off. After the first few motions it was hard to tell whose limbs were going where in the pile of hair pulling, eye clawing, kicking, screaming, biting mess of females tumbled across the salle floor.
Insults flew as harshly as any fist, but Artemis only caught bits and pieces of that as well. The end result was something akin to “You two timing, backstabbing I ought to rip your backbone to pieces and stuff you like a monkey’s could have done a better at grade school whoring slut you ride your grandfather’s dick.” The last piece made his eyebrows rise to his hairline. Fortunately, or unfortunately, for the girls he couldn’t tell which mouth it had come from. Ten minutes ago he would have said that it couldn’t have possibly been Amiru… but then again, he also wouldn’t have pegged her as the type to go along with something like this.
Eventually they wore themselves out. The sun had moved a little higher in the sky, and the girls each laid upon their backs, staring up into the glass dome above them. There were a few traces of blood among them, four counts of black eyes, a bloody nose (though it didn’t seem to be broken, Artemis was happy to note), bruised and battered limbs under torn garments, and all of them had had their hair escape their bonds at some point or another. If at least one of them wasn’t nursing a fine headache at the moment Artemis would be damned.
With carefully measured steps he reentered the salle, stepping over arms and legs and hair until he stood in the middle of it in a position where he could survey the lot of them. Again, none of them could meet his eyes and Artemis sighed. This was a start, but it wasn’t going to be the end of it, as he had hoped. They weren’t sorry, none of them. “So be it, then. Gather yourselves together and see the healer, then go to your quarters. You’re each confined there for the evening. Tomorrow morning you’ll report to me here, again.”
There was a shuffling noise as they began to move. Artemis shook his head, “Stop right there, I’m not done.” Each stopped in place and none of them dared to groan, which pleased him. “Your classes are hereby cancelled indefinitely. Each of you has had sufficient schooling that I doubt you really need a teacher anymore. Instead, I expect you to keep up with a lesson plan I’ll give you at the beginning of each week and study in your own time. You’ll have a short exam every week to make certain that you’re keeping up with your work. Those who fail will cause the entire group to suffer.”
Treasonous glares were given aplenty. That was when Raye finally sat up. “On whose orders are you doing this? You’re not a Senshi and you never have been. You have no right—”
“I am your guardian, by order of the High Queen,” Artemis returned with a snap. He put as much force behind his words as he could, hoping to drive it into her skull without further incident. “What I order for you is law. I can guarantee you that everything I say has been approved by the High Queen; if you feel the need to ask her yourself, you may apply for an audience with her in your free time.”
The Martian’s mouth closed with an audible click but her eyes… oh, her eyes were still rebellious. So too were Literi’s and Miran’s. Only Amiru’s would no longer meet his and for the life of him she did not seem at all angry. This didn’t mean that she wasn’t, by any means, and Artemis earmarked for himself that he should watch her more closely from now on. “As I was saying.” He paused to cast his eyes once more about the group before he went on. “There will be punishments for not keeping up with your studies as you should. Do not be the girl who causes the others to suffer. Rather than study your lessons during the day you begin to further your skill in the art of war. This will include weapon work, rudimentary tactics, training with your Senshi gifts, and, the most important of all, teamwork.
“It is absolutely essential that you four learn to work together in a reasonable and well organized manner. I do not care if you learn to like one another, but you will learn to respect each other and keep civil tongues in your heads. What happens in this salle will stay in this salle. That includes today’s performance, Ladies.”
During his speech he had paced across the salle back to the door. There would be no questions, not today, and he stopped by the doors to wait as they picked themselves up and filed out. “Now, get yourselves cleaned up. Use your own intelligence to deal with the servants and healers, but remember—each and every rumor going around this palace, every little story you come up with… I will hear it.”
With that note they had left his salle, each looking even more miserable than they had been when they came. Artemis shut the heavy wooden doors behind them, to emphasize that they were dismissed and then turned to clean the salle by himself. After today the girls would be helping him do this, but for now…
The cat-man sighed and shook his head. He hated lying to them and yet… sometimes lies were what was needed most.
“I care,” He whispered to no one.
~~**~~
The smell of rain still hung heavily in the air, though the storm had dissipated sometime that evening. Nephrite had laid a blanket down upon the shingles but the damp still managed to soak in through his back; he didn’t mind. Two days the storm had laid over their heads, locking each and every one of them into the Castle. Or the stables, if you had a mind to run through the tempest for the haven of a barn filled with horseflesh and grubby stable boys. Their company, however “lowly” was certainly a lot better than that of the courtiers after the first few hours of being trapped with them. Nephrite took a deep breath full of the thick night air, the cold of it rushing down his throat and into his belly. He never minded the cold; compared to the northernmost reaches of his own realm this chill was nothing at all; it hadn’t even left a frost upon the ground. Finally he could look at the stars and get away from the noisy, self-indulgent noise of the castle below.
Settling his hands behind his head, long hair spilled out beneath him like an amber halo, Nephrite smiled up at the heavens hanging before him. He’d traveled the stars up close many times and yet there was nothing quite as satisfying as the view of them from a distance. So far as he was concerned he never needed to board a ship again. Were he to be completely honest with himself Nephrite didn’t want to board a ship again; ever again. He hated them, though the vessels journeying through space were far easier to bear than those which rocked to-and-fro in the planetoid waters.
No, gazing at the stars from a distance was more than enough for Nephrite’s taste. He smiled up at the familiar constellations, ever faithful in their voyage across the night sky. No matter where he was in the world, Nephrite knew that he only had to look up once the sun went down and he would have at least one familiar friend. Quickly he let his eyes find her, his constant, his beloved… the North Star. It was strange to have a love affair with what he knew, from close observation, was little more than a pocket of intermingling gases. The scientific part of his mind warred with the romantic, wanting to envision that there was something more to her beauty and vigilance than mere coincidence of positioning could account for. A sigh escaped his lips and upon its note thunder roared.
Thunder. Nephrite frowned when the thought registered and he sat up, unsure for a moment of what he’d heard. But the sky was clear! It wasn’t hot enough to be heat thunder, or so he thought…
Slowly the Prince climbed to his feet, cautious as always of standing upon the gently sloping (and currently quite wet) rooftop. The feet didn’t slip upon the shingles, however, and he turned to take a full survey of the sky around him. Black on black was never easy to differentiate, even for someone as used to watching the night sky as he. Ten minutes later he had still not spotted any clouds or signs of an electric storm and he had just begun to wonder if, perhaps, he hadn’t heard anything at all when the noise sounded again. It was a distinct rumble, much like thunder but with an undertone of fire to it which he’d never heard before outside of a bonfire. Nephrite found, turning towards the East… and that was when he saw it. Tumbling from the sky, tiny balls of light from the darkness. At first they seemed as stars, moving at a strange speed across the night sky. Then he thought that they might be ships, skimming too close to the planet’s atmosphere. The flight pattern matched no ship he had ever seen, however. A frown crossed his face as the gold and red streamlets of fire began to multiply in the night sky. They weren’t big, these things, but they were certainly no laughing matter, either. It was then that one hit, right against the Eastern horizon. Even this far away the ground shook and he witnessed a brilliant flash of light. Twice more this happened, and then night fell silent.
Nephrite’s knee dug into the hard shingle and he realized he’d fallen to his knees to steady himself. His left arm had grasped a nearby chimney, the brick scraping against his palm, as a further stabilizer. Slowly, testingly, the Prince rose to his feet and began to make his way down off the roof. He didn’t care how late it was, he was going to tell Endymion about this! Only one thing further registered with him before he slipped back inside his open bedroom window; the air tasted like copper.
