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Some Things Never Change
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?"
no subject
This look doubles in intensity when the trickster Prince comes and hands him his epaulet. It takes every fiber of self-discipline in his body to hold back the lecture.
But Jupiter speaks again, and the Shitennou eases back. He knows he should be outraged -- an unscheduled visit from a Silver Millennium territory, in the palace no less, violates just about every diplomatic sensibility that he holds. Had it been anybody else, he would have gotten back to his feet in an instant, demanding their immediate removal from the castle grounds. Seeing as she is so straightforward, though, so genuinely pleasant...he lets the righteous anger slide.
After all, a guardian of the Moon Princess would never have cause to do the Earth harm.
"Are you certain your Princess has been coming here?" Nephrite asks, slowly pushing himself back on his feet. The muscles of his back protest somewhat, but he keeps it hidden, so as not to embarrass Jupiter any further. "I have not seen Serenity at all on Earth."
Endymion, on the other hand, ''is'' actually innocent of the initial loss of the epaulet -- inasmuch as the scuffle in the bottom hundred wasn't actually intended to lose Nephrite his decoration -- so feels zero guilt, and that, too, is evident (if only to Nephrite). It's not at all his fault that his guardian is so very easy to troll.
He stands straight and tall, and his court game-face lasts exactly as long as it takes for Jupiter's pointed question to hit. Even as Nephrite's disavowing knowledge -- and rightly; Endymion's pretty sure Nephrite couldn't lie if he tried -- the Prince's eyes start sparkling tellingly, and the corner of his mouth begins to twitch.
"I'd be surprised if you had," he tells the King of the Heavenly Brunet Locks gravely. "She's been very careful."
Then he looks back to Jupiter and gives a half-apologetic little shrug, spreading his hands. "Any truthful answer I could give you would sound very conceited." There's a pause, then, and he's suddenly somewhat strained, eyes no longer sparkling, but worried. "Please don't stop her."
Endymion, Crown Prince of Earth, is asking. No: entreating.
Nephrite answers first, and the full focus of Princess Jupiter's attention swings toward him as he speaks. It's a stare far too direct to be polite, but she doesn't seem inclined to doubt the Shitennou's words - rather, she seems to be weighing his words against some kind of internal measure, giving his question serious consideration.
She's hardly the best at reading the hidden meanings beneath another's words... but when he says he hasn't seen Princess Serenity on his world's soil, she feels as though she can take it as truth.
Then, of course, Endymion speaks up, and for a moment Jupiter's mouth turns up a little at one side into a wry half-smile of something like commiseration, before her regard turns back to the prince.
She folds her arms in front of her chest, meeting his entreating look with a much graver expression. "Your Highness must know," she says firmly - almost sternly, as greatly daring as it may be to take that kind of a tone with him in this situation - "as Princess Serenity's guardian, and as her friend, I can't simply leave it at that." A breath passes; the look on her face doesn't soften, but her voice does, a little. "Even if I were to return to the Moon with no more questions asked, it'll be Mars asking next, or Venus. And I can assure you that they're less easily convinced than I."
Nephrite's eyes narrow at his Prince's apparent lack of remorse for taking a piece of his uniform, but once again, he says nothing. The boy will regret the prank when his next astrology assignment is to craft a natal chart for each and every servant in the castle. Oh, yes -- the regret for the slight against his dignity has yet to come.
But he pushes the thought away, for now. There are more important matters to discuss.
For instance: how Endymion is being so very blase about keeping a secret of international importance away from his personal bodyguard.
The Shitennou stiffens visibly at his words, face falling into an expression of somber disbelief, with just a hint of confusion. "Endymion," he says, low and serious. "I pray you are not implying what I think you are. If the Princess were to be found wandering this palace -- and it were to be pinned on us..."
The man closes his eyes, the theoretical political tempest hitting him full force. "I needn't tell you how serious the consequences would be."
Consequences that he still must face, in some sense, for the Guardian of Jupiter had already made her way here. Summoning all the diplomatic skill he can muster, given the situation, he turns to face her, then bows his head. "Forgive us, Princess Jupiter. The Prince can be rather fanciful at times, but he means no harm."
Endymion had already begun to formulate a response to Jupiter, but then Nephrite speaks up and echoes Jupiter's apparent stance, and he stiffens. It's not often that he's cold, but when he is, it frequently has something to do with his being undermined or otherwise rendered voiceless, especially in front of a relative stranger. Even here, he's not quite ''cold'', as such: chilly, certainly, but more flatly authoritative than anything else.
"Don't apologise for me, Nephrite," he tells his guardian, his tone falling into that of his father's son, so very rarely used. The look he gives Jupiter has an echo of that peculiar bent of royalty on its home ground, but his words might surprise her.
"I suggest you ask Her Highness directly; her secrets are her own. What I am willing to tell you is that she loves this planet as much as I do, and that experience of it was what she sought when first she visited," he says-- and despite the decisiveness of his tone and stance, despite the firm reminder that Serenity outranks Jupiter and he, Endymion, outranks Nephrite, the look in his eyes when he talks about the Moon Princess is impossible to interpret as anything but that of a man completely in love.
Then he huffs slightly and turns away, cape swirling out behind and around him. "Besides, Venus probably already knows. I'm sure Zoisite does as well." He's offended. That much is also clear.
What a mess this could become, with only another careless word or two, and words are not among the tools that Jupiter's princess uses to best advantage. She's quiet for some moments, those clear green eyes grown opaque as she looks between the two men and tries, for the sake of the girl who isn't here, to choose her response carefully.
Her folded arms relax, and she shifts her stance a little, settling into something that is less remote that the poise of the princess and less guarded than the stance of the warrior. "Thank you," she says to Nephrite first, and her voice is soft in contrast to the chilly authority of Endymion's command; she lifts one hand, palm outwards, in a gesture that asks for a moment of patience. "But it remains to be seen if an apology is needed."
Then her gaze turns back to the prince, and she hesitates for a moment, looking at the back he's turned toward them.
A moment more, and a quiet sigh escapes her. "...Serenity is happy," Jupiter says quietly. "More than anything else, I want nothing to stand in the way of that happiness. But it's also my duty to keep her safe." She glances toward Nephrite, briefly searching his expression as though seeking his understanding, before she looks back to Endymion again.
"The rest, as you say, I'll hear from the princess herself," she says. "But there is one thing I must hear from your mouth, and no one else's."
It's a question that she's already seen the answer to in his eyes, but a look isn't enough of a foundation to make her decisions on. She has to hear him say it.
"Prince Endymion... what are your intentions toward Princess Serenity?"
Occasionally, the Heavenly King of North America forgets that Endymion outranks him. Never consciously, of course -- it's not as though Nephrite presumes his title to be higher than the Crown Prince of the Earth. But emotionally, it can be difficult to separate the boy he watched over as he grew from the political figure that he is, by rights, beholden and subservient to. So when the young Prince turns cold and full of admonishment, he is hit by many emotions all at once.
Surprise that his attempt to smooth things over actually made them worse. Frustration that Endymion still didn't seem to grasp the consequences his actions could have. A touch of anger at being talked back to -- that is the one most deeply buried, for the Shitennou does not like himself when he's angry, and chooses to overwrite the emotion with others whenever he can. These are all the reactions of a brother to the Prince.
But there is also trepidation at having overstepped his bounds. Anxiety that the Princess among them will react badly to his manner. Shame that he had presumed to speak for his liege. These are the reactions of an advisor and bodyguard; one who has wronged his lord, at that.
It is tiring to separate them from each other, and for a brief second, Nephrite has to close his eyes and center himself once more. As much as it feels like it, disaster has not yet come. And there is a way to settle this with no one walking away feeling wronged. It feels like it is up to him to find it.
Jupiter, however, speaks up before he can string the right words together -- and he is struck by how collected she is. How sincere, even in this situation where his own sincerity earned him a reprimand. He holds her gaze for a moment, then nods his understanding, though his eyes convey immense gratitude for not escalating the situation. That's twice, he supposes, that she has bested him today.
"We mean no offense, my Prince," Nephrite says, his tone about as docile as he can manage, though the shift in his vocabulary from brotherly to politically formal is a kind of passive indicator of his own displeasure. "Surely you understand that the both of us seek only your safety. I, yours. And Jupiter, Serenity's." He nods towards the untransformed Sailor Senshi. "This is a dangerous path you tread, with far-reaching ramifications, beyond any of us." His eyes flash, but he falls as best he can back into the facade of secrecy. "Speaking purely in hypothesis, of course."
Truly, it's a testament to his upbringing that even though Endymion pulls rank when offended, he's also a reasonable, rational, and unfailingly good-natured Crown Prince of a planet. He lets out the smallest of sighs, turning back and pinching the bridge of his nose. "There won't be any interplanetary incidents because of either of *us*. She doesn't 'wander the castle'. If she's here, she's with me."
Then, maybe slightly defiantly, "And if I'm there, I'm with her."
He glosses right the hell past that, quick like a fox, and--
--and his face brightens without any input from him when Jupiter says Serenity is happy. He doesn't even bridle at Jupiter's question regarding his intentions: it's her job, and it's also clearly her personality. Plus, she just said Serenity was happy-- visions of her going home after a visit and smilingly full of secrets and the brilliance that shines from her soul, a quiet perfect glow in that perfect, peaceful place, and her thinking of him...
His dark, proud face shines too, and his voice is a little thick as he takes a step forward, places a hand on Nephrite's shoulder and a hand on Jupiter's. "I love her with all my heart. I hope that we might find a way to bring our peoples into alliance, that Earth can join the Silver Millennium -- I hoped I might find a way to do this even before I met Serenity. But when she found me-- her bright soul and endless curiosity and enthusiasm and love--"
He shakes his head, smiling and closing his eyes, and the shivering warmth of his happiness flows gold through his touch with the power of the Earth itself before he drops his hands. "--she is as much my heart's home as the ground beneath our feet."
Jupiter was very much *not* expecting Endymion to come close enough to actually touch her. She's not affronted by it, certainly, but she blinks in surprise, not quite certain how to take this sudden outpouring of unvarnished feeling. She definitely can't claim any remaining doubt about Endymion's sincerity - it's almost overwhelming, the way that golden warmth pours out of him.
For a moment there's really nothing she can say; she ducks her head a little, a hand coming up to cover her eyes, and she laughs quietly low in her throat.
When she lets that hand drop some moments later, it's to smile over at Nephrite, eyes lit with a distinctly rueful but nonetheless genuine amusement. "I'm afraid we're in for it now," she tells him - almost apologetic, for having managed to drag him into this as a co-conspirator in spite of his own reservations.
Letting out a sigh that shivers with a hint of restrained laughter she looks back to Endymion. "All right," she says, words heavy with the weight of a decision made. "If those are your true feelings, I'll do what I can."
Although really she can't help thinking that in many ways this would have been so much simpler if Endymion's intentions *had* been dishonorable.