Some Things Never Change

[makotes]

Serenity has been up to something.

The Moon Princess might believe that she's kept it hidden from her guardians up to now, and Jupiter's princess, at least, hasn't seen fit to let her know otherwise or press her for a confession that Serenity doesn't want to give. Whatever it is that Serenity's been stealing off on her own for, it's clear to Jupiter that her princess is happy. The last thing that she wants is to cast a shadow over that happiness.

But that doesn't mean that she's just going to stand by while Serenity might be in danger.

The others each have their own ways, she knows, more subtle and better suited to managing this kind of situation. The princess of Jupiter, however, moves in straight lines. She can't keep Serenity protected if she doesn't know where she keeps sneaking off to, or why - what better way is there to find out than to go herself?

It has occurred to her, as she walks the silent halls of the Earth King's palace, that being found here without invitation could probably cause a serious incident. The knowledge isn't enough to stop her. Jupiter's already committed to her course; she has a duty as the Moon Princess' guardian, and she won't retreat until her questions are answered.

She doesn't know at first quite where she's found herself when she pushes open the door and finds the room beyond spacious and dark, the great domed ceiling partly open to the sky. Gathering her skirt with one hand to quiet the sound of moving fabric, she ventures across the shadowy floor with soft, careful steps.

It's only when she makes out the shape of the telescope that Jupiter realizes where she is, and standing still, she looks upward, eyes unconsciously seeking the moon whose light lies in silvery patterns across the far end of the room.


-----

There has been a very grumpy Shitennou marching around the halls of the Earth Palace today. This is not terribly unusual; the Shitennou in question is not known for his cheerful air.

However, said Shitennou is also sporting a white cape that is sagging unevenly from one shoulder, undecorated by the deep red and gold epaulet that usually fastens it in place. This is highly unusual, for Nephrite is quite possibly the strictest among his brethren when it came to uniform detail and upkeep.

He doesn't specifically say what happened to any of the passersby he meets in the corridor, but when he gruffly asks if they have seen the Prince running around anywhere, most can put two and two together.

In truth, this is not the only indignity the young royal has inflicted upon him today. Oh, no. To add insult to injury, when Endymion advised him to look at the stars for his missing epaulet, he found the word 'gullible', spelled out in the sky by the twinkling lights themselves. In script. With flourishes. Heavens know how the boy managed it, when Nephrite spent the better part of his day meditating in that very room. Perhaps he was improving at magic after all -- or perhaps he enlisted the help of one (or more) of his comrades. Either way, when he turned around to give the trickster prince the what for, he had all but disappeared.

And, after close to an hour of searching the castle, the young man is starting to believe he did disappear: all the usual haunts were empty, and the manservants swore up and down that they hadn't seen him anywhere. Fine. Just fine. See if he likes the difficulty of his next astrology exam multiplied tenfold. Then they'll see who's the real master of the stars.

With a final huff, though trying to calm himself all the same, Nephrite steps through the open door of the observatory, as dark as he'd left it after dispelling the guilty starlights -- and his eyes zero in on an undoubtedly human shape. It is difficult to make out, with the moonlight casting itself closer to the back of the room, where he stands, but given the height and the fabric billowing behind in the breeze...it certainly seemed as though Prince Endymion had returned to the scene of the crime. Better yet, he seemed wholly unaware of his own arrival.

('Revenge' is an awfully strong word, isn't it?)

Summoning every ounce of stealth training in his body, the Heavenly King steps as quietly down the steps as possible, until he is in arm's reach of the shadowy presence. Then, like a viper strike, he shoots out his gloved hand and grasps its shoulder, unable to suppress a quiet, grumbly, "Found you!"

If he realizes that the shoulder he holds is much too narrow to be that of a young man, or that a ponytail brushes against his forearm where empty air should be, he does not have time to react.


-----

In the precise second at which Nephrite puts his hand on the heretofore oblivious Princess Jupiter's shoulder, a light glows from behind them both, warm and gold and bright, and then the lights proper come on.

Endymion stands in the doorway, silent as a ghost, eyes wide; he's holding an epaulet in one hand and a lantern in the other, and his mouth is open to start to say something, but...

Nephrite's in there with a GIRL.

And. Oh. Oh, no. Oh, NO.

Endymion is pretty sure that that's the princess of Jupiter. Before anything even has a chance to happen, the Crown Prince's mind has already run through a million worst-case scenarios, not least of which is 'well damn, where IS Serenity, did I somehow manage to miss her, oh no what if someone else found her'; the best of them is probably just 'oh no, they'll try and stop us'.

He doesn't even have a chance to call out, but he's already got an unhealthily pale cast to his normally golden-dark face. He can't even breathe. This could go so very, very poorly in so very, very many ways--


-----

It all happens in a split second, too quickly for rational thought to have any say in the matter. A hand grips her shoulder, a threatening presence behind her that she was too preoccupied to notice, and Jupiter reacts on reflex; both hands snap up to seize the offending arm and her whole body twists with the ingrained muscle memory of a finely-trained warrior and the effortless strength of a native Jovian. In the next instant, she's heaved Nephrite over her shoulder, sending the no doubt very surprised Shitennou flying across his own observatory.

The moment after that, she realizes what she's done, and her green eyes go wide and utterly appalled.

"Oh, sacred oak," she breathes, the phrase 'interplanetary incident' drumming through her mind. In a flurry of green silk she rushes to kneel by the side of the man she just tossed like a ragdoll, leaning over him with brows drawing together in anxious concern. "Are you all right?" Please be all right. This is already going to be hard enough to explain away; if she's actually injured someone--

It takes her several more good seconds before Jupiter realizes that the light coming in from the direction of the door means that someone else is here. She glances up distractedly, long enough to take in the sight of Endymion standing there--

--looks down at Nephrite again--

--parses exactly the nature of the situation she's in, and looks thoroughly appalled again.


-----

Nephrite is not totally incapable in the area of physical combat -- but there is a reason he focused much of his prior training on arcane matters. When up against the strength and skill of a soldier, he is truly no match.

The Heavenly King barely has time to blink before he feels his body lifted off the ground and hurled several feet forward, addled mind not grasping what exactly has happened until his spine hits the ground with an audible thud. There's pain, of course; that dull, throbbing ache from a particularly harsh impact, though he does not believe himself to be truly injured. But, more than that, the man is simply bewildered. If Endymion was capable of something like that, he had not been aware of it. But why would the Prince do such a thing in the first place? Physical attack seemed like an odd follow-up to an (admittedly successful) prank, especially for a boy who he knew had a gentle heart.

The gears in his mind stop, though, when he hears a woman's voice echo in the great dome. A voice that he has heard before -- somewhere. Not familiar, but not the voice of a total stranger either. Eyes creaking open from the pained grimace that had taken his face, Nephrite sees a swath of green fabric through the blur, slowly matched by a head of thick, brunette hair. By her concern in her demeanor, he infers that she had not meant to react the way she did. Or, if she had, that she regretted it now that she saw who he was.

"I'm...alright," he manages at last, slowly bringing himself into a sitting posture despite the protest of his back. "Fret not, I should not have approached you so. In the dark, no less. It is conduct unbefitting of a Shitennou. I apologize."

More of his vision clears now that the worst of the pain is subsiding, and after a few more blinks, a surprised statement of recognition springs to his lips.

"Princess Jupiter?"


-----

"Oh thank the gods," comes the Prince's voice from the doorway as he lets out the breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding. "Uh. I mean--"

The young Terran heir takes a step forward into the large dome of a room, holding the lantern up; the lights of the room are dimmer than the bright glow of that which he carries in his hand, and the matching one that his personality can, at times, exude. At the moment, it's just the cut-crystal facets glittering on the walls and the floor and the three young people.

"This seems to be going a lot better than I expected. Highness," he says to Jupiter, sketching a slight bow. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence?" And then another step forward, and then Endymion's just walking toward them, his steps light and his bearing reserved and graceful. It's his court mask, pleasant and confident and faintly amused. He holds out the epaulet to his guardian on the floor. "I found it for you, by the way. It'd come off by the lake in the bottom hundred."


-----

"Ah good," says Jupiter, the words leaving her on a sigh of relief. As Nephrite sits up, she sits back to give him room, reaching out automatically to help steady him with a supporting hand at his shoulder without pause to consider whether he needs it or not. Now that she's thinking again, she recalls who Nephrite is almost immediately - he'd stood out among the Crown Prince's guardians, she remembers, the one dark head among the fair ones - only to realize with dismay that she can't for the life of her remember how she's meant to address him, if 'Heavenly King' was an honorific title or if Prince Endymion's Shitennou, like Serenity's own guardians, are also royalty in their own right.

For now, she dodges the issue entirely, inclining her head slightly in a gesture of respect and acknowledgement of one equal to another. "I apologize as well, for reacting so rashly," Jupiter says, with a small smile of genuine contrition. "It was thoughtless of me. I'm glad that you're unhurt."

As Endymion comes nearer, she looks up to his face, but Jupiter can't read his expression at all. He doesn't seem angry, but he might simply be hiding it behind court manners, and how would she know the difference? Kneeling there on the floor of the observatory as she is, Jupiter is all too aware that she's at a disadvantage: alone in the heart of Elysion, facing the Crown Prince of Earth and one of his closest guardians and supporters, with no possible reasonable excuse for her presence even if excuses were in any way in her nature.

Jupiter's princess considers her options - and chooses to take the offensive.

In a smooth and graceful motion, she rises to her feet, taking a moment to brush her skirt back out of disarray before she extends a hand toward Nephrite to help him up, poised and gracious as if they were all in the great reception hall of Io Castle instead of on Earth. "I came to learn what might be so interesting as to keep Princess Serenity sneaking off without her guardians," she answers Endymion, meeting his composed and faintly amused regard with a straightforward look of cool speculation, the faintest hint of challenge. "I don't suppose that you might have some idea of what it might be, Your Highness?"