Beset - Lady Mars
the feel of her name
I've been so lost since you've gone
Why not me before you?
Why did fate deceive me?
Everything turned out so wrong
Why did you leave me in silence?
--Forgiven by Within Temptation
2. the soundless
"How is she?" Lady Venus asked as she closed her hands over Lady Jupiter's trembling fingers.
"Better," the brunette said with a sigh. "The healers have taken off the restraints now that they are sure she won't hurt herself, but..." Jupiter blinked back tears of helplessness while Venus led them to a sofa. They both sank down onto it, and a look of relief came over Jupiter's face at no longer having to support herself while recalling such terrible things. "It's awful!" the other finally confessed as a whoosh of air escaped out of her lips at finally admitting it out loud.
Venus frowned, her eyes hard. "It's alright. It's not your fault." The blonde looked away, overcome by irritation, but she did not stay silent long. "She shouldn't even be like this! She was made stronger than this--" At that moment, Lady Mercury came in, interrupting their conversation. The other closed the door quietly behind her, but there was a start in her when she looked up to see them. "Her highness?" Venus asked the surprised woman when Mercury did not move from her place by the door.
The other only blinked at them before she caught herself, and Venus realized just how on edge Mercury must have been to be in such a state. "Asleep, at last," the blue-haired woman answered, a bit more chilly and blunt than usual since she was still trying to compose herself. Mercury crossed the room swiftly before sinking onto a cushioned chair, a bit closer to the window and a little further away from where Venus and Jupiter sat. Mercury never did like to have others observe her, and she liked it even less when she was in no state to deal with any company but her own. If she could choose to remain apart and in shadows, she would.
They all sat in silence then. It was uncomfortable, but nobody wanted or had the energy to speak. It had taken them three days and three sleepless nights to find Lady Mars. Three days had passed entirely before a fatigued but unhinged Venus stormed into the Observation Room, demanding to see the logs of teleportation. This had only happened because she was so sleep-deprived and desperate that she would have gone teleporting herself if she hadn't thought to check the logs first. Of all the places, going to Earth was probably the very last option she would have ever associated to a choice that Mars would have made. And, even when she had looked through the logs, she did not suspect that the last place Mars had looked herself was an isolated forest, on Earth.
She had obviously been wrong about a lot of things from that moment on. The relief of finding Mars was now completely overshadowed by the feeling of absolute betrayal. After all, they only found the other because the Observation Room remembered the Senshi's last entry three days prior, and only because she had been crazy enough to check. She had not known, had not even been afforded the courtesy of a note concerning the plans Mars had of leaving the Moon - the other's post! - and now she could only speculate that Mars had not trusted her enough to tell her this.
And the state they had recovered her in...
"Do you think she's fit enough for me to speak to her?" Venus finally asked Jupiter, breaking the silence in her restless agitation.
"I don't think that's a good idea right now," Jupiter informed their leader with a weary and skeptical look in her eyes. The Senshi of Jupiter had not had the energy to be angry with Mars since she found her superior on Earth. Her fellow Senshi was certainly breaking numerous laws and treaties, but the other was also utterly broken herself. Jupiter had been at a loss, really. She had never thought, of all of them, that Mars would be the one to do something as foolish as this, and certainly never over a man of Earth! Once upon a time, if someone had speculated on such similar happenings, Jupiter might have considered herself or Venus to be the most likely of candidates, they were far more easily overcome by emotions, after all. Even cold and shy Mercury would have been chosen, because the woman was more shy than cold, before she would have thought to pick steadfast, rule-abiding Mars. And yet, here they were. "The healers were adamant that she rest, Venus," Jupiter cautioned. "Not that I can tell you what to do, but I don't think it's a very good idea to right now. We're all very distraught over this and I understand--"
"Why ever not?" Venus interrupted. Her tone was as sharp as a blade. "We're all distraught, but she's the reason we're like this now." Her eyes was hard and unforgiving, but Jupiter and Mercury were the only ones who could see this. They both knew Venus had been avoiding Mars since the other's retrieval. No one was more shocked to discover Mars on Earth than Venus, even if she was the one who thought to look. Of all the people in the universe, Venus and Mars had always been so close it was hard to imagine the second-in-command not telling their leader what she had planned to do. Laws and treaties, fate and destiny were not what bound those two, but friendship, trust, and habits drilled into them since they were foretold to take their posts.
The two women had always been as close as sisters, and dearer than friends. It must have been harder for Venus than for anyone else that this had happened. The way it had happened had certainly not helped anyone cope. Jupiter knew this but thinking of how complicated the next few days were going to continue to be just wearied her. No one dared to raise any questions or worries they themselves had for the Kings of Earth, much less the Prince. Luna had already scheduled back-to-back meetings, debriefing and analyzing the events that had led up to this debacle. They were only given brief times of rest while the Counselors of the Lady Queen gathered intelligence. It rarely even felt like rest at all. They were certainly waiting for Mars to recover, so that she may be a somewhat useful witness to the incidents that occurred, but they weren't going to wait around to start making decisions. The meetings had only abraded their already raw nerves, and this was not the time for confrontations before everyone was forced back into the closed quarters within the Hall of Acients again. Nowadays they always seemed to be operating with too little information and even less respite.
A part of her was glad though, for repose left her to her thoughts.
She shouldn't, but every time she had too time to be still, Jupiter found herself worrying. Sometimes, when she wasn't careful, she thought of the Kings of Earth. She even thought of Lord Nephrite, who she had rarely ever had a fond thought for. He was down there and they had parted on better terms than they had started, which was something... unexpected. She was only beginning to like him a little, so it was only natural that she worried... a little.
He had always been such a churlish and prickly man. Most of the time she couldn't stand him and only sometimes did she see the loyalty and warmth beneath the disdain he'd shown her for quite some time. It had been so exhausting to deal with him at first, and despite being known as the most amiable girl in court, she had once been so irate with him that she had hurled a very expansive vase at his head. Well, at least her aim had always been rather deadly and even Lord Nephrite, bleeding head and all, could not deny that (even if he denied the fact that he absolutely deserved it).
Lord Jadeite certainly had been the most approachable of the four, and now he was also very certainly dead. The man had once helped her locate a missing glove after she had a rather unfortunate altercation with a very rude princeling from her own planet. It had been the most trivial of things to bother an ambassador of Earth, but he had suddenly appeared at her arm and asked if she needed aid. He was rather good at that.
She had already been distressed that evening. It had all been such a horrendous ordeal, especially after having her nerves worn thin already by an argument concerning Lunarian court politics with Lord Nephrite earlier. At that moment, when Lord Jadeite had come to her aid, all she had wanted to do was to just sit down in the middle of the ballroom and give herself a good pity cry.
Venus and Mars had been waylaid with the often appalling responsibility of fending off all too-eager suitors from the Princess Serenity. Mercury was off duty that evening and had already wisely slipped away, at the very first opportunity the other could. Jupiter had suddenly found herself rather alone in that ballroom, unexpectedly not enjoying it the way she had assumed that she would. And then Lord Jadeite, quite like a rather bright and dashing knight, had appeared at her elbow and alerted her that perhaps he could be of service. He had been a rather attentive escort, and though the ordeal had been short, she was in far better spirits after it was over.
She might have even called him a friend, despite her rather nasty luck with men.
Lord Jadeite, of course, had long proven his worth to her in other ways. She had known him mostly through the long, droning hours of negotiations that she was forced to stand through with the others. She knew he was good at reading the minds of others, a skill that certainly hadn't sat very well with her for quite some time.
Of course, this was not public knowledge, and their leader, Venus, was so good at reading people that she might as well be able to read minds - and Mars was not that far behind on intuition alone. Yet, there was something very disconcerting, if not downright embarrassing, about finding Lord Jadeite giving her several very private smiles during the middle of a few especially boring meetings and catching her in the middle of day-dreaming. They were mostly innocent ones about running through the wide-opened fields from her childhood or a rather delicious recipe she was rehashing in her mind to try out. However, during the very first week the Kings and their Prince had arrived, she had quite a mortifying experience with his rather obscure talent.
She had been imagining which of the ambassadors of Earth had a nicer set of buttocks, considering that Venus had slyly insinuated to her earlier that she thought Prince Endymion's was the nicest (and the most firm). Jupiter hadn't dared ask Venus how she knew this, though she was certain she didn't want to know anyway. She was being rather diplomatic about the whole thing really, trying to imagine how they had looked walking in front of her earlier, before she concluded that the Kings all had very nicely shaped behinds and she just couldn't decide from the information that she was given whose was better.
This pleasant train of thought was brutally derailed, rather quickly, when her wondering eyes met Lord Jadeite's own. Jupiter didn't think she had ever turned so red in the middle of a meeting in her life (and possibly never again, if she could help it) when she realized what exactly she had been thinking (and who exactly had heard it!). She had felt all the blood rushing to her head so fast that she literally felt faint and even swayed a little on her feet. Mars had shot her a rather nasty warning stare for the obvious state of embarrassment she was in while Venus had smiled at her with such indulgent smugness that Jupiter, having really done nothing wrong at this point, vividly imagined herself being impaled by a very nice and long Jovian spear to end her misery. Well, that thought just didn't end well for her either, and she turned even redder as time went on. All three of them had ended up witnessing Lord Jadeite's quirking eyebrow, an amused stare that turned into a rather difficult expression - where upon he looked like he was in quite a bit of pain (probably from trying hard not to laugh at her in front of everyone else!) - during the whole ordeal.
Needless to say, from then on, Jupiter learned to recite many things in her own native tongue and to picture absolutely nothing. Long poems about brave gladiators and even longer treaties about the Silver Alliance were always being recited in his presence in one of the three official Jovian languages, no less. She even cornered Mercury in her desperation to memorize things that made absolutely no sense to even herself, like the difficult classes of astronomy and alchemy that she had never paid much attention to in her youth. Hence forth, only when she was very careless, was she even able to think of anything remotely understandable to an Earthling during those long meetings.
Since discovering Lord Jadeite's rather violent demise, Jupiter found herself remembering these inconsequential meetings long ago. She remembered how she had been sure he would share her humiliating moment with Nephrite and that she would end up hating both of them (right after she poisoned them, that is). Naturally, since Nephrite didn't like her in the first place, he would never let her live this one down! Yet, when Venus had laughingly dragged her to their meeting place, while Mars scolded her and pushed her all the way there, she found herself confronted by a surly King who treated her no different than with his usual high-handedness. She had been wound up so tight that even Lord Nephrite had barked at her with an exasperated sigh, "Just what the hell is wrong with you now?"
Only then did she realize that Lord Jadeite had not spoken a word of it. She was quite bewildered by this, and for quite a few private interactions she's had with him after, she had not been able to think of anything else except that he would bring that horrifying moment up again. She knew he could hear such worries as clearly as if she had shouted to the world her anxieties, but she couldn't help but think on it more and more the longer she spent time in his presence. Yet, not even in passing, not even to acknowledge her insecurities, or tease her about her imaginations did he make one passing remark about it. And slowly, slowly Jupiter learned that Lord Jadeite, with his rare smiles and courteous actions, respected the privacy of other's thoughts, whether or not he could hear it was not something he could help.
Jupiter thought about all that she learned about the Kings and their Prince Endymion when they had come, she thought about the hot-headed man who had a cutting wit but a warm touch. She thought about how Lord Nephrite would react to the news of one of their own passing, if he didn't already learn of it. Jupiter was only starting to like him when he left, and even if she understood nothing about the man she was forced to escort for a few weeks every year (for the last several years), she did understand loyalty and friendship. She didn't know why she cared, not when the two of them argued more than they got along, but she could sympathize even if she rarely liked the hot-tempered man. Lord Nephrite and Lord Jadeite had been very close too, they were all very close, like the Senshi were close to each other. Yet, those two seemed not just comrades in arms that trusted each other with their lives on the battlefield, but genuine friends that laughed together and fought each other, sometimes ribbing one another with private jokes and knowing looks.
Jupiter shuddered to think how she would have reacted if Mars had been the one they had found dead beside Lord Jadeite's corpse instead. Selfishly, even though it was nothing to be happy about, she was glad it wasn't Mars. She was glad it hadn't been one of them down there in that unknown place, dead for an unknown reason. She was glad it wasn't really her in Lord Nephrite's shoes, or any of the shoes of those who had to say goodbye to a loved one when Lord Jadeite passed on.
She was glad that the small pang of loss at Lord Jadeite's passing was a pang and not a wound she couldn't close...
Beset's eyes had glowed like burning coals on her hollowed face, as if all the life lived only in those eyes now.
Jupiter shuddered again at the memory. She had never really witnessed death before. At least, not so close. She had been the one charged with the task of bringing Mars back, and having seen it in the midst of her task, she never wished to see it again. She had always assumed that she would die in her sleep, like the last Senshi to hold her post, and the one before that. She never thought there was another option, another choice, really. She knew being a Senshi entailed danger, and it had always been a thrilling concept before - risking one's life for love and honor. It had never been real. And now, seeing and smelling the terrible thing was an experience she never wished to repeat again.
Of course she'd read about it. She had read about wars and strategy, learned and listened to bloody ballads and watched illusionary plays about the fall of the Solarian civilization, and the devastating wars that had killed much of the outer planets, turning most of them into deserted and uninhabitable posts that only Senshi could watch over. But there was something very different between the abstract concept and the actual evidence. Only now did she rethink the fact that she may have reacted too harshly to Lord Nephrite's criticism of them when they had first met. She had just began a tentative truce with him before his departure too, and Jupiter had always thought him rather good-looking - that is before his big mouth ruined the effect. But now she wondered if he had not been right about them. They would not be prepared to go to war with anyone, really, even if it included a race as technologically and as magically ill-equipped as Earth.
Venus shifted and her actions caused Jupiter to look up sharply, abruptly coming back to the dead silence in the room. She studied her leader and grimly made no protest when Venus released her no-longer trembling hands. She could not say anything to that clenched jawed look on Venus' face. She wanted to protest but it would only fall onto deaf ears. Jupiter knew this, for she was quickly learning a lot more about her friends from the last three days than she'd ever learned about them in the last decade spent in their presence. She opened her mouth to protest, out of habit, wanting to warn Venus of the fleeting and alien madness that had flitted across a familiar face, but stopped herself at the last minute. Venus would fail to understand it unless she saw it for herself. It was a sad realization, but no less true. And she foresaw her leader's reaction should she push for the other to stay, a reaction that terrified her enough to still her tongue.
"I will go talk to her," Venus announced, voice hard as granite, in case someone else decided to advise her otherwise. Jupiter could not look at her leader then, for fear of what her own face would reveal. Mercury did not even turn her head. Venus didn't notice any of this, she had already moved towards the doors that Mercury had entered from earlier and didn't turn back to observe the defeated slump in Jupiter's shoulders or the absent, vacant stare Mercury was giving to the view outside the window.
"Don't," Jupiter finally said weakly after the doors had closed and silence fell upon the two remaining. She had not watched Venus leave and she regretted that she only had the courage to voice the word lodged in her throat once it could no longer be heard. Yet, even in her own ears, they lacked conviction.
----
Whatever Venus had thought she would face, this was probably not it.
Mars sat regally at her dressing mirror, brushing out her hair and humming a song. The familiar long strokes she utilised to straighten her locks were the same graceful movements Venus often remembered waking to see when they had been younger and prone to sudden urges of slumber parties in each other's rooms. Once, the four of them had crammed into Mars' large bed because the Martian had been adamant not to comply with her suggested sleeping arrangements, period.
"Well," Venus remembered commenting to her friend then, "if the Martian won't come to Venus, Venus will go to the Martian!"
Venus certainly regretted her decision later on, when Jupiter had accidentally kicked her out of bed early that morning and rudely awakened her from her sleep. She remembered groggily struggling to sit up from the floor and the amused face that greeted her at that very vanity, years ago. It was first time she had heard Mars laugh, and it had been... enchanting.
"Beset," the red-haired girl had told her while handing her a sword, months later. They had just started learning to handle the weapon, having moved on from throwing knives. There had been a party to celebrate the coming of the New Year and it had been her first present, ever really.
"You named the sword?" Venus remembered asking incredulously, after unwrapping the surprise. She couldn't picture Mars as someone who gave out pet names to anything, not even to sharp and pointy killing things. She had just been so overwhelmed and touched by the gift, for she had read that Martians took gift giving very seriously, especially those concerning weapons.
It had been the first sword she had ever owned.
"Idiot," Mars had said fondly through a chuckle but didn't correct her. It took her a week to figure it out. It had stopped Venus dead in her tracks, right in the midst of training. She was hit by the sudden epiphany that the strange name was not the name of her new sword but the name of her friend. Jupiter, seeing an opening, had promptly followed that example with a rather painful and well aimed punch. She was given a rather nasty black-eye to go with her bruised pride.
Of course she was pissed. She hunted Mars down for not being straight-forward about such an important matter and then promptly got into a brawl with the other in the west wing of the palace. She was more than annoyed for being distracted during practice and she wanted someone else to pay for the glaringly obvious sign of her inattention. By the smug smile Mars had given her at the end of that fight, even though they were both in no shape at all for smiling, Venus thought the other may have used those powers of premonition for a far less noble purpose than anyone suspected.
Good thing Martians didn't mind a good fight, especially if it proved something...
They were truly friends after that. It was a new and strange experience for the both of them. They had pledged their loyalties to each other beneath the Lunar Willow that Mars loved and Venus admired.
She had trouble thinking of Mars as a Beset for the longest time though. She was so used to the other just being Mars. Yet, once in awhile, like this moment, for example, she couldn't bring herself to use the title they all went by. Not when it hit so close to home.
Mars paused for only a moment when Venus walked up to the other's only sitting chair in the room. The red-haired woman didn't bother look up however, or even acknowledge her friend was there. Only when Venus looked through the mirror did she see the white bandages that bound the hands of Mars. The other woman had always been pale, but the red of her hair was gleaming and it made the bandages stand out more. Venus thought that Mars must have bathed, despite her own expectations to see a very disorderly and disturbed woman from the reactions she had seen on Jupiter's face. Yet, here was the Mars that she was used to, this was who she had wanted to see and who she remembered the other being before this whole fiasco.
For a moment, Venus wondered if she had simply dreamt the whole thing up. She felt the hope fill her up, that she had simply experienced a nightmare and she was there again to tell Mars what she had trouble telling anyone else. They would laugh about her crazy imagination and Mars would cross the room, touch her cheek, and promise her that she could stay the night if it would soothe her.
And yet, while Venus watched her friend, she knew that was not it. Knowing this, she felt even more betrayed by the seeming disguise. The languid strokes that used to soothe her when she watched now irritated her to no end. The soft sounding hum of a whimsical song was just another facade of a lie already exposed.
Did Mars not trust her with what the other really felt? Even Jupiter had seen the other's falling apart but why was Venus not allowed? Were they no longer friends? Could she no longer think of this woman as one closer than a sister?
All along, had she been the only one who thought this way?
The white bandages around the other's hands seemed to mock her silently for her ignorance. Venus clenched her own into fists and blanked her face. "Why did you go?" she asked quietly, forcing herself to stay calm and raising her chin slightly. Mars didn't even pause again, didn't even bother to answer her. "You know we can't go to Earth right now when the negotiations are so tentative. Even the Princess has been following the rules." No reaction. "What the hell were you thinking?" Venus demanded, losing her cool when the tune of the song got on her nerves.
Mars pulled the brush slowly through her hair one last time. She stopped humming to look at it with a curiosity on her face that was strange considering Venus was still panting angrily in the mirror behind her. Then the very soft song on her breath resumed. Venus opened her mouth, her anger and annoyance fueled by the other's obvious lack of care, but Mars glanced up again.
Venus froze. For all the time she had known her dearest friend, she had never seen the other look at her in that way before. She comprehended the sudden burning hot rage that now lived in a stranger's face, one that overshadowed her own devastated feelings. Mars rose and turned to her then and slowly, in her usual stately manner but far slower, she drifted to Venus. Mars had never walked like that before, as if she was half falling and half gliding, stopping so close to the blond that they just looked at each other for a very long time. The red-haired woman's cheekbones looked sharper than ever. The shadows beneath was dark and her whole face looked drawn. And yet, her eyes glittered. The rage was now a shimmer and not the burning wild-fire that had the ability to seal her lips like hot wax. "You shouldn't have come," Mars finally told her. "I'm not ready to see you."
"But--" she dared to try.
Her words were cut off as the other turned away. She had barely caught a glimpse of the silent snarl, but the expression was as foreign as the current situation and no less deadly than the insanity that Mars had carried earlier in the sparks of her eyes. With one smooth, practiced motion, the red-haired woman lifted her arm and then hurled the brush at the mirror with such a force that it was impaled into the wall behind it. The crashing sound of shattered glass made Venus jump in a start. Slivers of their reflections rained down to the floor, showering the ground. She could see her friend's shoulders shaking with another force now, as if the other was trying to draw in air after a long, hard run. Then those shoulders tensed once before smoothing into a relaxed line of skillfully suppressed emotions that she had only glimpsed a terrifying moment of.
A burning enimity lit those eyes into rubies and made them gleam mad and flat like a monster's. She had only ever seen that impassive face and those expressive lips scowl at her or thin in displeasure, but never quite like this. Not even in passing. There was also a hint of a cruel twist there she had never before encountered until today. She was tempted to step back, but she felt as if she was rooted to her spot in that familiar room that was suddenly more alien a place than Earth could ever be, or any other planet for that matter.
"You should go," Mars said quietly. "I don't want you to see me like this," she added, almost absent-mindedly, as if her thoughts had already moved on. Venus nodded slowly, afraid her voice would break the calm as she turned to go and knowing Mars would not be able to see her agreement. She paused at the door, only then noticing the dents by the entrance. The bloody streaks had darkened already along the jagged edges and Venus felt her hand shake as she reached for the lever to let herself out. This must have been why Mars had her hand bandaged and, perhaps, it would explain why Jupiter had been so rattled.
There was a madness that lived inside of her friend that had never been there before. It was an aimless bitterness, black and abysmal. It burned cold into the night and made those warm, kind eyes glitter hard and lifeless. It looked out through Mars with a quiet hatred that seemed bigger than a body could hold. It leaked out like poison and vibrated the very air around the Senshi that stood so alone and still in that room.
Venus couldn't look back. She was half afraid she would say something wrong and more afraid she would say what she felt. "I'm sorry, Beset," Venus finally said softly before she closed the door. She still hesitated on the other's name. Still was unsure of the foreign syllables that once brought amusement into those eyes that were no longer familiar.
It was her apology for not being able to do anything in the face of a pain she had never realized could live so vividly in the eyes of someone she loved. It was her apology for having thought she knew all there was to know about Beset, the girl who had once cut her own hand on their first blade and clasped their wounds together to bind their destinies. It was her apology for never realizing how hard Mars had tried, had held her when she had felt most alone, and how she wasn't able to return the favor now.
Venus walked a few feet from the closed doors that separated her from her closest friend and collapsed against the wall when she could go no further. She knew she needed to call the healers or the servants, someone to clean the mess she's left behind. Yet, her legs felt like liquid and would not obey her, while her voice felt as if it had fled her completely. She had thought she understood grief and pain, had understood the meaning of being a leader and the strength needed to be a friend. Venus slid down that wall and clutched her hands to her useless throat that couldn't produce any noise of comfort or sound any alarms of pain. She felt the silent, helpless tears slide down her cheeks, tears that she had not the courage to shed in that room full of edges and blood already spilt. She had wanted to say that it was over now, that they couldn't go back in time, and that there were other, more important things they needed to focus on...
And yet, she had not been able to utter a single word of it.
She had been wrong and Jupiter had been right. It had not been Mars who was not ready to face her, it was she who was not yet ready to face Mars. It was not over now, it was just beginning. They could not go back in time, and there were other, more important things they needed to focus on, but how could she say it to Beset's face that had looked at her with such bleak intensity. How could she say it when she could not understand even a small sliver of the pain that the other was going through, when she had not even realized how much Beset must have felt for Lord Jadeite to bring this about...
All this time, it was really she who had turned into a friend in name only.
"Even knowing the future, we can still hope." Beset herself had told Venus once. Mars had touched their hands together, mingling their blood while Venus kissed the other's cheek. She wondered then, if that girl had known of the heartbreak that awaited her in the future or the uselessness of promises made beneath magical wishing trees. "What are you afraid of? You're the Goddess of Love and Beauty, and if not that, at least you are her defender, her champion. Shouldn't you be a bit more of a romantic?" her friend had teased her when she had been too adamant to admit even liking the Lord Kunzite. Usually she would have jested about his physique or his prowess as a lover, usually she would have played seductress or bragged of her conquests - in a non-vulgar way, of course. Even then, perhaps Beset had already seen what her heart had truly wanted, better than she had been at facing the treacherous truth of its desires.
If she had been true to herself, or to her friend, would Mars have told her? Would she have known that she was not the only one the other cared about? Would she have been able to deal with knowing that another may have been gifted with the knowledge of a dear friend's name?
Venus silently cried, trembling hands against her neck and her arm. Tears soaked her dress as she hunched over her knees, unable to soothe the pain beyond the wall that supported her now. Unable, really, to even help herself. In the end, all she really wanted was to help the person who had held her hand, who had told her a true name beyond titles and duties, and had once laughed, pulling her close and calling her sister.
To that woman, far from the reaches of her arms and her words, Venus felt utterly defeated.
---
Lady Beryl scowled rather unbecomingly at her black orb. The child had obviously gone insane, from what little she had observed, but that uncanny intuition... The mirror had been a rather nice medium, she had even contemplated using it and tormenting the alien girl with images of her dead lover. After all, she couldn't be known to treat her enemies with mercy now, could she?
And yet, when that girl had so accurately hurled that silver brush...
Well, perhaps she should be a little more careful. After all, she shouldn't underestimate them, no matter how inexperienced and unprepared they were for the war she would bring to their doorsteps. There really was no other way to get to the powers she sought, and it was rather unfortunate that she would have to stomp on the hearts of a few star-crossed lovers and inexperienced children to get to what she really wanted.
At such thoughts, she thought of the little bitch who so easily waylaid the wondering attentions of her Prince. Lady Beryl snarled, her beautiful face turning rather ugly as her nails clutched at the arm-rests of her throne. Why was she even bothering to feel pity for these despicable beings?
She sighed, letting the intense jealousy pass. It wouldn't do to make herself too much of a villain, after all. She hadn't set out for that, only to be strong enough to take what she wanted. What she deserved, actually.
She rose instead, spilling red and purple down onto the floor as she crossed it to the stone slab that nursed the shadow of a man. He would soon be her own, as all the others would. But he would be the first, a ripe prize that had not been too easy to pluck. Lady Beryl's lips smoothed into a seductive smile as she trailed one finger along the cocoon. She was a very patient woman, she had to learn to be one to get where she was now and, of course, where she will be later.
The power Metallia promised her was only a part of her own plans, for the old witch that bestowed her with an amplifier to her own gifts was a rather nasty creature. She wouldn't want to turn out like that, so besotted with power that she would fail to enjoy it when she got her hands around it. She would not turn a blind eye to life, or to love, for that matter.
She smiled playfully, turning away as she went back to her orb and called upon the face and figure of a Prince. "Soon," she promised him. It will not just be a glass ball that I get to see and touch your lovely features, or imagine your hand on my cheek. Soon, it will not just be a small miracle beside a lake, your strong hand around my weak ankle.
Lady Beryl glanced at the cocoon behind her. She will make sure Prince Endymion was not alone, for he loved his Kings so well. She would build him a kingdom and rule by his side, always surrounding him with the most trustworthy of servants. They would be equals and they would be able to bring peace to the people of Earth. She would do all this for him without the help of alien beings who would never understand or love their planet the way they love their planet. She would do all this with no strings attached, for that was the meaning of love.
Ah, but the Moon would only trap the Earth with their talks of peace and their demands for alliances. They would not be able to make Earth all that it could be. Instead, they would forever live only in the shadows of the clossus that was other alien civilizations. They would lose all that made them the people of Earth, and only for a few fancy trinkets such as the fragile promise of peace. All that the Moon offered them were ephemeral things they could live without, and Lady Beryl was wise to the ways of promises and treaties. She had seen them broken countless times, and had, in fact, broken a few of them herself.
It was all rather easy when you were the stronger.
No, she would never allow Earth to fall victim to such an uneasy truce. They had everything to lose to such deals with the Silver Alliance, but what she wanted was that they have everything to gain. "I can promise you that, my love," Lady Beryl vowed with her velvet voice of reason as she smiled into his unseeing eyes. "After all, my darling Endymion, someone must make sure that you never betray your true heart."
TBC.
Theme 13 - Betrayal
