The sun rose, like it did every morning, spreading white, brilliant light across the landscape.
Endymion slid out of bed and crossed the room, still naked, and threw open the heavy drapes, much like he did every day. He wanted was to let the light in, to greet the new day, which seemed much newer and cleaner and awake with fresh possibility now that she was there, with him in a way that had only been hinted at before. The sunlight drove into the room, illuminating the pale form sprawled across his bed.
The young woman screamed and covered her eyes as the light pierced her eyelids, and rolled aside frantically to shield herself with the bedcovers.
He dropped the drape and rushed to her side. “Serenity? What’s wrong? What is it?” His panic took ten years off of his voice as it cracked with fear. What had he done wrong? How could he have hurt her? “What did I do?”
She buried her head under a pillow and moaned. “It’s too bright! Dimi, please, cover it back up!”
He did, reluctantly, the wind escaping his sails at hurricane force. The daylight was supposed to be his ally. Today, he wanted going to show her everything.
How the bright light would sparkle on the peaks of waves in the churning blue ocean.
How the leaves on the trees would seem a fresher green when held against the cobalt sky.
How the flowers, especially the deep velvet ruby of the roses she loved, would pop with electric color in the full sunshine.
How it looked to live in a world where darkness retreated in eleven hours instead of stretching into one endless night.
She poked her head out from under a pillow, her eyes still fixed into half-squints. “It hurts my eyes.”
Endymion sat on the bed next to her, feeling gut-punched. The rays piercing through the cracks between the drapes highlighted just how pale she actually was: thin blue veins snaked up her wrists and below the surface of her breasts, with one trailing up her neck to disappear into her hairline. Her eyelids were thin and tinged purple, the lashes fanning against her cheek so pale they were practically colorless. He reached out and trailed his fingertip against her lips, the splash of gentle pink the only color in her fair face. She shuddered against the light touch; when last night she had been insatiable, grabbing and squeezing with desperate need. This new shyness was different, but still intriguing. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss on her mouth, pushing a little to taste the inside. She lifted her head and returned the kiss.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice catching. “I won’t hurt you like that again.”
She exhaled a sigh of relief when she returned to the Moon, letting go of the breath that she didn’t even know she was holding. It wasn’t him, at all; she craved his presence like a physical need, when only minutes separated them. It was the blasted daylight; the hard, piercing arrows of shining sun so intense that it tore through her eyes and burned into her brain mercilessly.
She needed to get away from that light. It never got that bright on the Moon; the white kingdom would shift with the rotation of the satellite so that it always faced away from the sun, keeping its residents in a comfortable blanket of constant night. The globes hanging indoors and along the streets emitted a soft white glow: a soothing, forgiving light bright enough to see. During the rest hours they were dimmed and tinged blue, and the kingdom would appear even more serene.
White, blue, silver: the colors of her life were gentle and soothing, and she had thought that Earth was the same way, until Endymion had pulled that curtain back and let in the stabbing sunlight.
She bathed and changed hastily, making sure to cover the marks that Endymion had left on her skin, and sought out the only person who would know what to do: the only one authorized to make an extended trip to Earth, who had seen it during the day, even if it was only for a short time, and hadn’t had much to say to the Princess about it, despite giving the Queen a lengthy debriefing that had them locked in her chambers for hours.
She passed Venus in the courtyard. Her guardian gave her a long, suspicious look, but didn’t say a word. Serenity suspected that she was hiding something herself.
Mars and Mercury were at the edge of Mercury’s lake, their heads pressed together in intimate conversation.
Artemis was licking a paw on a garden wall, oblivious. Luna was nowhere to be found.
Undaunted, the Princess hurried along.
Where was she?
She found Jupiter in Mercury’s study, of all places. “What are you doing?”
The Jovian lifted her head, her auburn curls falling around her face in delicate waves. Serenity felt a pang of jealousy, and not for the first time; silver hair was so painfully common on the Moon, even counting the mix of refugees from the Earth, who came in every conceivable variety. Even then, not many had a crown of perfect spirals that were feather-soft to the touch, and a deep reddish-brown hue that complimented her golden skin and deep green eyes. Jovians were dark and beautiful, and her gentle guardian was no exception, although she seemed to be unaware of her own beauty, eschewing jewelry and adornments unless Venus was particularly persistent.
At the moment, she looked slightly guilty as she dusted white powder off of her hands. “I’m trying to make something.”
The smaller girl clambered onto a stool and leaned in. “Make what?”
“A cake.”
“A cake?” A short laugh escaped between her lips. “Why are you trying to make it? Just summon one, if you’re hungry. Here, I can do it for you. What do you want on it?”
“No!” Jupiter busied herself with another grainy white substance. “I want to know how to make it myself.” She bent down to read something scribbled on a sheet of wrinkled paper. “I have to combine different ingredients in certain quantities and then heat it.”
“That’s terribly time-consuming,” the Princess said. “Isn’t how they do it on Earth? Without magic?”
The taller girl brushed a stray curl off of her forehead, leaving it streaked with the white powder that hadn’t been entirely clapped off. “Yes.”
“Speaking of…” The Princess stuck her finger in the goopy brown mixture and licked it clean; it tasted of sugar and something else she couldn’t place. “Can you tell me about it?”
Jupiter stuck a spoon in the batter and stirred. “About the Earth?”
“No, about your cake. Yes, about the Earth!”
She didn’t look up from her stirring, and when she spoke, her words came slowly, as if she was thinking of the meaning of each one, even though they were all commonplace. “What do you want to know?”
Everything, about every corner of it: the people, the sights, the sounds, the smells, but she chose the question that had been hovering in the forefront of her mind since that morning. “What does it look like in the daytime? When the sun is out?”
“What part?” she said mildly.
The Princess gave her a long, questioning look. “How much of it did you see?” She had only been gone for three days, and that was over a month ago.
Jupiter tossed her hair over her shoulder and brought the bowl in closer so that it was pressed against her waist. A smear of brown batter was left across the front of her white gown. “I saw enough.”
The Princess watched her closely, wondering why she was being so evasive over a simple question; after all, she had told Venus about her trip, and Mercury, too. Why was everyone always keeping these things from her, especially about the Earth? She wasn’t a child; she had as much right to know as the others. “Why don’t you want to tell me, Jupiter? I just want to know. What’s the harm in telling me?”
The bowl hit the table with a loud clunk, causing her to jump slightly on her perch. The taller girl’s eyes were focused at some point across the room, and never moved from that distant point as she spoke. “You want to know? Fine. I’ll tell you.
It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful and brilliant and there is nothing, nothing, which you can imagine that even comes close to how truly breathtaking it is. It’s not just a sight; it’s an entire experience. You can feel sunlight on your skin, and it feels different at different times of the day. The wind—“
“What’s wind?”
“It’s the air moving, on its own. It can cut you or caress you, depending on how hard it blows. Everything is growing and alive, and the sunlight lets you see every detail on everything, and the colors—“ She paused and let out a long breath. “The colors are incredible; they’re so bright it hurts to look at them, at first, and then after you’ve seen how they really look, nothing will look the same to you, ever again. And all you’ll want to do is go back and be there with—to be there again.”
The Princess risked a bold move. “Is that what you want? To see it again?”
Jupiter shook her head, snapping out of her reverie. “It’s not up to me.”
“But you do!” she exclaimed
She poured the batter into a shallow pan. “Princess, it’s not up to me,” she said, her voice weary. Suddenly, her back straightened as she lifted her head and smiled, although it didn’t quite reach her eyes like it usually did. “Finished. Now I just have to heat it.”
Serenity remained silent as Jupiter positioned her hands on either side of the pan and concentrated. The brown mixture started to steam, then bubble, and finally boil furiously, tossing off flecks of batter onto the girl’s arms. The Princess watched, entranced, and then noticed with a start that there was a strange stripe of deeper colored skin across Jupiter’s wrists. Tan lines, like Dimi had…but she hadn’t been to the Earth in months, how could it be…? She speculated on several possibilities before drawing it together.
The cake batter boiled furiously and then deflated into a thin layer of char on the bottom of the pan, instantly hardening into a smoking black brick. Jupiter’s face fell.
The Princess couldn’t hold back her giggling. “What happened?”
“I don’t know!” She grabbed the battered recipe and perused it rapidly. “’Heat at high temperature until done.’ I did what he—I mean, what the instructions said exactly!”
The Princess poked at the charred brick; it had the consistency of a block of marble, and was definitely not appetizing in the least. “Maybe you should ask him the next time you’re not on Earth.” Without another word, she slipped off the stool and scurried away before Jupiter could catch her.
Sometimes, Endymion surprised himself with his cleverness.
The revelation that Nephrite could only concentrate on one thing at a time came to him when they were still fairly young; for years he had thought that Kunzite had some weird voodoo mind control over Nephrite before he realized that he was just taking advantage of traits that were already there. It had taken some practice before he got his technique down, and then he was careful not to be too obvious, lest his guardian caught wind of something and refused to unwillingly participate. He wasn’t stupid, after all.
Just easily distracted. And when he was distracted, he forgot to watch what he said.
Endymion worked to keep him that way before asking. The wire frames bent and twisted under Nephrite’s careful fingers as he popped out the lenses. He gave one an experimental tap, and the glass went from clear to dark gray.
“Lighter,” the Prince said. “I want to still see her eyes.”
Nephrite didn’t even glance up as he fitted the lens back into the frame. “Do you want to see her eyes, or do you want them to be effective?”
He settled back. “Fine. Just not too dark. I want her to still be able to see.”
“Who is this for again?” He had asked this question five times already, and Endymion had given him five different vague answers.
“A friend. When did you learn to make glass darker? I’ve never seen you do that before.”
Nephrite’s answer was equally vague. “Someone showed me.”
Endymion plundered ahead. “Make the ear pieces smaller, too, so they don’t slip off. Why was your door locked yesterday?”
“I was sleeping.” He plucked the second lens out and darkened it.
“That one’s darker than the other. If you spent all day sleeping, why are you tired now?”
“I’m not tired,” Nephrite lied. He had been yawning intermittently since Endymion had burst through his door and twisted his arm into fixing an old pair of spectacles to fit a smaller head.
“Right, sure. Now that side is too dark.”
“Who are these for, E?”
“Someone. Do you think it will block out enough light for them to be comfortable? I mean, let’s just say the person that’s going to use them is not used to sunlight. Really not used to sunlight.”
Nephrite shrugged. “Should be.”
This was critical. “Are you sure?”
He gave Endymion another cursory glance. “If she’s not used to direct sunlight, it might help if she had a hat, too, and probably a veil or something like that. It’s better to be covered and warm than uncovered and sunburned.” There was a light scritching noise as a small screwdriver slid across the table of its own accord into Nephrite’s waiting hand.
Endymion didn’t dare speak, lest he interrupt the flow of information. Nephrite continued as he tightened the tiny screws.
“Try to stay indoors during the middle of the day, at first, when the sun is directly overhead. And if she does get burned, keep her out of the sun, and make sure she stays hydrated. You know that spiny plant that Zoisite’s growing?”
“The one we use for burns?”
“Yeah, it works on sunburn, too. But it’s best to avoid it in the first place.” He held up his handiwork in the direction of the dying afternoon sun and squinted through them. “Here, finished. Have her try them out. Who is it for?”
“A human being. Who were you having sex with yesterday when your door was locked? I could hear your bed frame pounding against the wall.”
Nephrite stood up to leave the room, clunking Endymion’s head with the handle of the screwdriver as he passed. “Your mother.”
Endymion fumed for a while, furious with himself for not thinking of comeback to the easiest insult in the world.
She had never worn so many layers in her life, and part of her felt like she was suffocating in the folds of thick fabric. He had outfitted her with a new dress, one that had long sleeves, and delicate white gloves that came almost to her elbows. Gloves: she had never heard of them before, and the feeling of material stuffed between her fingers was rather unpleasant. Somewhere he had found shoes for her, flat little slippers of silk with leather soles, and a wide-brimmed hat with a chiffon veil wrapped around it that was to dangle across her face. The finishing touch was a pair of dark spectacles fixed to fit her head that darkened the room even further as she slipped them over her eyes.
“Are you ready?”
She nodded, and the hat with its layers of veil slipped slightly off her head. She reached up to fix it, her fingers thick and clumsy under the gloves.
He threw the curtain open, and she didn’t scream.
Slowly, she tiptoed out to the balcony, feeling the warm light through her layers of clothing, her mouth dropping open when she realized how big the sky could be when it wasn’t blackened with night. A breeze wafted through her veil, and Jupiter was right; there was a cool, fresh woodsy scent on the air. The leaves of the trees were impossibly green, like Jupiter’s eyes, and the rushing sound they made as the wind tossed them about was music from another world. She turned to Endymion.
“I want to go outside.”
They didn’t go far: just to the lake nearby, which was down a gravel path lined with more trees, but the Princess held them up, running to each tree to feel the difference in temperature in the shade. Tiny white puffs wafted in the air from the seeding brush, and she giggled and chased a few before spotting the water.
He had wanted to show her a rainbow, or a crashing waterfall, or at the very least, gentle waves lapping against sparkling sand: one of Earth’s breathtaking majesties she would fall in love as hard as he had fallen in love with her, and she would never leave.
Instead, all she saw was his backyard.
It was enough.
She ran through the grass and danced in the sunlight, and fell in love and never wanted to leave.
