Cri Du Cœur
As the Bastille falls, the clock towers herald the fall of the crown. The blood fest begins as the revolution sweeps over the lands of France. The world waits and watches.
History lays its foundation for another shift in the course in human affairs. Where the seeds of democracy are conceived, so too is its possible demise. But one stands in readiness to defend all that is good and just, to defend her princess and future ruler of the Crystal Kingdom, Sailor Pluto. But is she too late?
Death’s Epithet
Legacy bequeathed, roses unfurling,
For summer blossoms and little hands clutching the loving hand of their mother,
Secret notes, cruelty of fate and the blade of the guillotine,
The wheel grinds the grist for the mill,
The churchyard ravens and doves watch in stark neutrality,
The fallen laid finally to rest.
On the morning of October 16, 1793, a guard arrived to cut her hair and bind her hands behind her back. She was forced into a tumbrel and paraded through the streets of Paris for over an hour before reaching the Place de la Revolution where the guillotine stood. She stepped down from the cart and stared up at the guillotine. The priest who had accompanied her whispered, "This is the moment, Madame, to arm yourself with courage." Marie Antoinette turned to look at him and smiled, "Courage? The moment when my troubles are going to end is not the moment when my courage is going to fail me."
The Invisible Page
For Serenity, her anonymity had protected her during those days when France fell into bloody revolution. She, the forgotten princess, lived in exile. But in the light of the declining situation in Paris, Serenity had returned.
Serenity’s mother, the queen of France, Marie Antoinette told her that her father, the king, was not convinced that she was his daughter and refused to have her birth officially recorded. The irony was, that Serenity’s birth, having taken place just before her mother’s fifteenth birthday would have ended any speculation concerning her father’s suspected impotency. Nonetheless, the pregnancy of a fourteen-year-old child-bride would have lifted more than just a few eyebrows. Moral questions would have emerged. Whispers behind closed doors would have been rife, all this despite Marie Antoinette’s status as his bride and queen. The blessing of the church would have failed to ameliorate this reaction.
Everything was hushed up and discretion the order of the day. Louis could live with the rumors and slurs on his manhood, but a pregnant girl in her early youth, no way. On top of that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, he refused to listen to reason in respect to his paternity regarding their first born, Serenity.
“Antoinette, do you not see the disparity? I know you were smitten with that young scholar who tutored you in our native tongue!” she rolled her eyes and shook her head. He went on with his cruel invective despite his children being in earshot, “I should have put a stop to it when I had the chance. But my dear; you breeched my trust.”
“I had no relationship other than that of student and teacher with Simon Reynaud. But no, you refuse to even consider for one moment that Serenity is your child and denounce me as a whore, if not publically, in private by implication is no lesser shame. I am a shell after losing so much and you believe I am unaffected by all that has befallen us, dearest husband?” she hissed.
“Enough woman…”
They argued incessantly and it became like white noise to the princess who preferred the name Charlotte instead of her full title, it felt like a weight on her young heart and shoulders. A poisoned cup, and no good could come of it. Oh, how she envied the farmers and the people living on the land, a land going bankrupt because of her family’s excesses: her mother’s once puffy hairstyle she hated, the jewelry and renovations to buildings and other acquisitions, it made her blanch. She was young, but she was nobody’s fool. She sighed, rolled her eyes, and kept reading her book of faery tales.
Charlotte loved her eldest sister and wrote often. But she was bound never to speak of her and only years later would she dare. She grew tired of her father’s insistence that Serenity’s blond hair, blue eyes and unique bone structure was unlike any member of the royal family. This had been her mother’s private shame, and thus her determination to stand by Serenity no matter what. Charlotte too would stand by her eldest sister.
For Marie Antoinette, it wasn’t enough that she had shed all she knew and loved in Vienna. She had left that part of her soul adrift upon the sea of recollection and wistful nostalgia behind on that island on the Danube. But to suffer this slur by her husband regarding Serenity was untenable, to capitulate and accept his assessment anathema to her. She was flamboyant, yes, but soon her compulsive behavior had tempered markedly. She knew why, having locked herself into a self—imposed prison without bars.
She had given up so much: her homeland, her cultural and personal identity and now her eldest daughter. She often asked herself, ‘Where will this all end?’
Towards the end of her life, Marie Antoinette became somewhat of a philanthropist, ‘The Shepherdess’ she was sometimes called due to her dressing down. After all this time she finally realized she had been grieving, not just for her family and herself, but the difficulties France must endure due to its funding of the American Revolution and other external campaigns. Antoinette’s extravagances weren’t helping matters, so she stopped these; hence the changes. Then there were her children. One child, her first cast into limbo by her husband, followed by the sickness and death of two others. Baby Sophie’s death almost destroyed her. But she had her son and two daughters, even if Serenity must remain in obscurity.
Jacobin Blade
Paris France 1793
Everything was about to go to hell. Serenity wanted to say good-bye to those she loved. Charlotte sat slumped on a sofa beside her mother looking back at Serenity with both shock on her face and tired eyes. In a matter of hours, her fate would, by this act of compassion go awry. But as her mother held her children one last time, a flash of silver light flared around Serenity and her mother as they embraced and the women gasped.
“The ancient gift! You have it my child; it is alive in you. But alas, you are not skilled in its magic and use. Save yourself. Call upon the Ginzuishou and it shall come to your aid in ways you might not expect. Now go before it is too late! The men are coming!” her mother cried, shocked that the ancient legend concerning the Ginzuishou came to fruition in this hour of dire need, after countless ages, reemerging in her eldest daughter. But the how’s and the why’s were unimportant at that moment. Serenity had to survive at all costs, for not only Paris and all of France, but the entire world. That, she knew with absolute certainty.
“Mother! I cannot leave you this way and father,” she looked over her mother’s shoulder to her stone-faced father the king. “I know we’ll never see eye to eye, father. But know this, as this realm falls, some day we will find each other, all of us in another time and place. I know it. The Ginzuishou has spoken to me, in my heart,” she said, knowing he’d not reply nor even look at her. It saddened her, yes. But alas, what could she do? Even in the face of imminent death would he not open his heart to his first born, fool that he was. She shed a tear, hugged her mother one last time, and stood up, brushing her skirts.
“Oh Sere, please, you must leave. I love you! I won’t see you sacrifice yourself needlessly, now go!” Serenity’s mother said, hugging her and pushed Serenity towards the door as her sister embraced her for the last time. As Serenity wiped away the tears.
“I love you Sere, take care of yourself… live woman, don’t you dare die on me!” Charlotte said, crying now as she let go of her sister’s gentle hand. knee s
“I’ll do my best, I love you all, good-bye!” she said, crying herself now. “We will all meet again one day, I know it, deep in my heart!”
“Use the palace exit, you know, the secret one.” Charlotte said in a low tone in case soldiers or spies were in earshot.
“Right…,” Serenity nodded, and began to run down the cold stony corridor. She took in the sight of the palace’s portraits running back generations.
Then she heard them. “You! Halt, in the name of the revolution!”
“What do we have here? A wench for me pleasure?” The leathery faced soldier declared, ripping away Serenity’s bodice in one swift motion, exposing her teardrop shaped breasts of sugar pink as the icy cold morning air chilled her skin. Serenity crossed her arms over her chest.
“Ah a peach ripe for the plunder. Let’s see what lies under the rest of those refined garments, whore!” the man growled as his companions stood guard. Both men nervous and almost embarrassed by their over zealous leader, they shifted uneasily on the balls of their feet as the sound of torn fabric and the screams of the girl continued as the captain attempted to pull away Serenity’s skirts and rape her. “Shut up!” he said, slapping her.
Serenity spat at the man, “Vile pig!”
Incensed, he grabbed her breasts and squeezed tight until Serenity screamed and began to cry. “That’s more like it… I don’t want to bruise your fine fruits milady, so be good and I will have you serve as my housemaid and bed companion. If you behave!” he laughed.
“I would rather die!” she said, a dark bruise forming on her cheek.
“If you don’t comply, milady I’ll cut your throat. That is, after I’ve done with you…” He dragged serenity to her feet by the hair and she kicked him as hard as she could in the shins and launched another kick at her attacker. “Bastard!” she growled, giving her assailant a menacing stare as he crouched low to the ground cupping his manhood.
After recovering from the blow he panted and rose to his feet and glowered at her, “Oh feisty are yee, lass, well I likes a little wild child,” he cackled and produced a pistol and pointed it at her chest. Serenity backed away, but he was upon her in a second. She froze as the cold barrel of the weapon pressed against her ribcage between her breasts. “Will yee come quietly into the queen’s chamber and shed the rest of your ruined dress milady, and be a good little lover for Bertie, or shall I-“
“No, leave her alone!” her mother screamed, hurling a knife so hard at the neck of the man about to kiss the kicking and screaming Serenity that the point of the blade protruded through the would-be attacker’s throat. Blood spilled over Serenity’s bare chest, the hot sticky substance making her faint and everything went black after that.
