sm_monthly January Theme 01: In Vino Veritas [Sailormoon Anime/Manga: Silver Millennium]
Important note for January readers:
All characters in January will carry these names. If you wish to know why, feel free to ask, but I don't feel a need to go out of my way to explain their origins or why they are the way they are. Needless to say, they are culture based and I hope the stories in this month would go about showing it.
Niko-Lysandra of Cressida - Sailor Mercury
Kasra Kadri - Sailor Mars
N. Apollonia Sca. Triaria - Sailor Venus
Folami Adaeze Ekundayo - Sailor Jupiter
Serenity - Princess of the Moon
Earthlings names will be based on Japanese
Title: I'm just a girl
Author: bjfactory
Theme: sm_monthly 01/2008 Day 1 : In Vino Veritas
Genre: General/Drama
Version: Manga
Rating: G
"What made you think of coming here?" Kasra Kadri said in her most reassuring voice as she sat elegantly onto her velvet cushion. In the corner, she eyed her companion, figure obscured by the gauzy white curtains.
The woman in the shadows laughed bitterly, long hair falling off of one shoulder. Distraught, Kasra Kadri observed, but neither moved to comfort or spoke to acknowledge it. "Even off the battle field, you remain so callous, sister?"
"Why so informal now, N. Triaria," Kasra Kadri answered, colder this time. "You're outliving the hospitality of others so easily these days."
"Not a peacock enough, tonight? Is that what makes you so suspicious?" N. Triaria entreated, pushing her blonde hair away from her face. And she had a face, one said to enchant any race of any origin. Before her though, stood one who looked to her with eyes unclouded by admiration or lust.
"It must have gone to follow your usual arrogance," Kasra Kadri said without lifting even one elegant brow.
"It must have gone wherever you have sent your slaves," N. Triaria replied darkly.
"Am I a barbarian, once more?" Kasra Kadri sighed, her coldness seeping away into weary amusment. "That is more like you, I suppose. Simply because we do not veil the chains of human bondage with rhetoric, would hypocrisy have made us more like sisters?"
"Religious barbarians," N. Triaria corrected her with a shudder. "I have seen--"
"You have seen enough to be judgmental but not enough to understand," Kasra Kadri interrupted, though her voice neither rose nor displayed any form of urgency. Her ruby hair glowed golden beneath the lamp light as she shifted, eyes turned to the large windows that displayed the balcony.
"It's so very dark in here," N. Triaria whispered softly into the uncomfortable silence that settled uneasily between the two women.
"Are you afraid of the dark?" Kasra Kadri asked, but did not bait further. When it came to N. Triaria and her people, Kasra Kadri has always been taught to be cautious, that what was shown to be weaknesses are usually traps for those poor of sight or of mind - though the latter fell into these far more easily. If N. Triaria had been anyone else, perhaps Kasra Kadri would not have been so guarded. But Kasra Kadri had also never met anyone quite so good at this game of hiding, of half-truths and carefully guided emotions. She had never met anyone so intent on finding the weaknesses of others, either.
"Long ago," N. Triaria confessed, hesitantly. She was a wonderful actress, even if Kasra Kadri could smell the perfume of too much wine, it was prudence that made her all the more aware. "I'm not used to confessing such things, it is... not of our tradition," the blonde stuttered, trying to explain, or to speak around a laden tongue. It did not matter which, for the careless are the ones who must pay the price of their own carelessness.
"Fascinating," Kasra Kadri replied, her tone flat and conveyed little of such an emotion.
N. Triaria groaned loudly then, pushing herself to her feet with determination though she wobbled in disorientation. "We are Senshi now. Sisters, if in nothing else, in arms. Will the years not teach us to see eye to eye? Are we not above conflict, the things we accuse those Earthlings of - the inability to settle their differences?"
"You feel that way only because you think that we see them as a common threat," Kasra Kadri calmly replied. "It is true, my planet does feel that the Earthlings are far less advanced than any of the planets, that their words cannot be held with full honesty when their people are too fractured to unite beneath a common consensus. But if we are to speak of philosophy, of culture and equality, we are not so different than they are. No planet, not even the Moon, is without opposition within their midst, no matter how much more advanced in everything else they appear to be."
N. Triaria opened her mouth to argue, but Kasra Kadri simply looked to the blonde. "Why do you not use the Crystal's power?" N. Triaria finally asked instead, turning her eyes away from those ruby eyes. "These lamps create too much shadows."
Kasra Kadri was silent, and when N. Triaria looked back and met those contemplative eyes, she felt herself being measured. Then the look disappeared when Kasra Kadri blinked and sighed. "Go back to your room, N. Triaria. Whether or not you like the outcome, the Earthlings will be visiting us in a fortnight of Earth-time. As the leader, it would not do to seem so uncertain, even if it is simply a game to you."
"I do not--"
"Do you not?" Kasra Kadri asked, eyes sharpening like knives and piercing into N. Triaria's soul.
The blonde bowed her head, her eyes shadowed by long bangs. To anyone else this motion might have seemed charming or even seductive in its blatant uncertainty, that air of vulnerability. But Kasra Kadri remained unmoved, until N. Triaria's lips parted with a sigh in the revisiting silence. A smile made from steel and cunning smoothed a much more prominent curve upon her pale, perfect face. A laugh trickled out of her as she tossed back her golden hair in the lamp-light, the ends of those long, curled strands disappearing into the dark corners she stood near. "Did you know all along, sister?" she asked. "Did the scent of wine not put you at ease and make you a fool? Were the truth I speak unable to move your stony heart when I pretended such vulnerabilities?"
"That you would do such a thing and ask such a way afterwards, why should I have expected anything more?" Kasra Kadri asked no less directly. Her expression remained unchanging and showed neither triumph nor anger. N. Triaria was disappointed that the other still seemed so mysterious, so untouchable, where others have been defeated with far less. Four years they have trained by each other's side and watched each other grow, and yet, of them all, only Kasra Kadri never let down her guard, especially not to her leader and commander. No matter what mask N. Triaria wore, the Martian born never fell for even one trick nor trusted the blonde with one secret.
"I am not disappointed," N. Triaria purred with a grin. "If you were a man, I would have fallen in love with you instantly!"
"Pity the fool who thinks that a compliment," Kasra Kadri replied evenly, her beautiful features glowed with that phantom tan that once adorned her features when they had first met. At that time, she had seemed no less regal, no less certain of herself, despite the fact that it was the first time she had been to another planet and greeted with such foreign faces. "You would destroy such a man," she added with certainty. If Kasra Kadri was ever naive, it was not something she let on to anyone.
"I must have bedded him already, it is so hard to remember all their names and faces," N. Triaria commented arily, her gaze never straying from the woman before her. "But a girl can dream."
"A girl?" Kasra Kadri inquired, but did not laugh as heartily or as incredulously as Ekundayo had done when she had used the same line on the other woman. But they were not the same. Ekundayo had taken the comment personally and made it her own, as most people do, especially those who needed to connect with others. Kasra Kadri simply took this as another piece of a lie that told the truth about herself, or a truth that spoke of lies. N. Triaria had always admired the other for seeming to need no one at all.
The blonde woman's features barely twitched at the tone she was treated to. No one else could ever affect her the way this woman from Mars could. She knew in her bones that even if she did not show it, Kasra Kadri would not cast out such a comment without knowing the effect it would bring. This was her equal in the games, even if her equal refused to play it the way the games were meant to be played. "Was I being careless when you found out?" she asked nonchalantly.
"If there was such a chink in your armor, I doubt anyone would use it. She or he would not live to see the day," Kasra Kadri answered. It was as much a reassurance, a promise, as N. Triaria would ever get out of her.
"But you have found it, sister," N. Triaria pointed out smugly, despite it being her own weakness that she was confirming. And, you have already used it, she added silently. Though, in reality, Kasra Kadri did not. The other had only fingered the edges. It was a simple warning telling her not to be careless for not everyone were fools or would act the part.
"But I do not move to guess about your enemies," Kasra Kadri said with a thoughtless shrug. "And we are, fated," she stressed ever so lightly, "to be allies."
"Only you," N. Triaria finally whispered with such ferociousness that her companion eyed her as she approached. Blonde hair burned with an orange tint as N. Triaria leaned in close, white hands reaching and caught at the wrist by Kasra Kadri's own. Those hands were calloused, unlike her own. The Martians alway did deem the scars of war to be things that needed to be treasured, things that need to be worn with pride. It was these little things that made them so different that made N. Triaria catch her breath everytime they touched. "May the Goddess bless me to find you in every life-time, mea Kadri." N. Triaria promised with her accent deep in her voice and her heart in her throat, pounding like it has never before pounded for anyone. At that time, she had thought it could never be so with anyone else.
Then Kasra Kadri laughed, loud and hearty, as she pushed N. Triaria away from her. "You are our leader by birth, but you are just from another planet in this small universe." Kasra Kadri said with a smile that was not quite a smile. "I do not deal in hypocrisy as easily as you, nor enjoy lies as much as you. We are sisters in arms, I will never deny this, and I will also fight by your side as dictated by those before and after us. But do not think we are the same because of such similarities. That is only politics to me, it is not a way of life."
"And giving your life away, your destiny, to the Moon child is so different?" N. Triaria asked slyly with her own secret smile. Venusians were always more comfortable striking than being struck, though that may have been true with many races. Still, it had seemed like a rejection without the words. It had struck but N. Triaria was used to it. After the years that have already passed between them, and even if it stung, the sting would fade. Such certainty made it easier for her to strike without pausing, as she once had. If anything, this she did indeed learn when it came to her Kadri.
"That I do what you fear does not make such a decision illogical," Kasra Kadri answered, rising from her blood red cushions. "Nor does it make it any less political," she softly added. "That you put so much emotions behind the things you choose... We are so different, after all."
"My Queen," Phobos' muffled voice could be heard after the brief knock at Kasra Kadri's door. "The child of Selenity requests an audience with you."
"My hour of duty has come once more. You can see yourself back to your chambers without help, I'm sure." Kasra Kadri said, her eyes moving from the door to her current audience.
"We are equals," N. Triaria declared, teeth gritted. "I am your leader!"
"Only on the battle-field, when I wear a uniform that I was born into and did not choose," Kasra Kadri answered with a bit of an ironic smile that she did not let seep into her voice. Her blonde companion could only see her back then, it was more still than Kasra Kadri had shown anyone. "And please," the Martian Queen said as she put her hand upon her chamber door. "Refrain from trying to seduce my slave if you do request an escort. I would hate to have to retrain her because of you."
The threat was not without basis. It had happened before, and Kasra Kadri had been kind enough to invite her everytime it happened. These experiments, N. Triaria could count on one hand, even if the number of lovers she had taken were enumerable. Her Kadri knew all the things to say and do to make her think twice.
"We could be friends, if not confidants, sister." N. Triaria spoke softly to the empty room, her bravado falling away now that she was alone. "Why won't you trust anyone, mea Kadri?" No one would hear of such things, which made her braver in the speaking. Kasra Kadri's perfumed room dimmed at its mistress' departure, veiling N. Triaria's features all the more into shadows. For even wine would not be able to pry such a question out of her if Kasra Kadri were to stand before her again. Even if that was the only thing she wanted to confess, the only thing she wished to know the whys and the hows. N. Triaria was not a fool, after all. Speaking such things would get her nowhere and would degrade the little confidence that Kasra Kadri had in her to be a leader, her Kadri's leader.
In the warm glow of laterns and the darkness of shadows, N. Triaria put her arms around herself and tried to imagine her name on her comrades tongue. Maybe then, the day they were all born to face would not overshadow her life so much to make it all seem like a dream. Maybe then she would know what it was like to be the girl that only Kasra Kadri knew to be her weakness.
Maybe then she would know what it really meant to live, if not to choose.
---
* The reason why Venus call Mars "mea Kadri" is a play of words and endearment. "Mea" in Latin means "my" and when used with the name of another is a term of endearment. It also, in this case, means "my Destiny".
Kasra - Root word for to break, to fracture
Kadri - Destiny
Numeria (N.) - Personal name
Apollonia - Family
Scaptia (Sca.) - Tribe
Triaria - A type of soldier (Every Venitian Senshi borne is named this name)
N. Apollonia Sca. Triaria
N. Triaria
From the tribe of Scaptia, of the family Apollonia
I will output the meaning of names for the main characters of each short. Hope you enjoyed!
All characters in January will carry these names. If you wish to know why, feel free to ask, but I don't feel a need to go out of my way to explain their origins or why they are the way they are. Needless to say, they are culture based and I hope the stories in this month would go about showing it.
Niko-Lysandra of Cressida - Sailor Mercury
Kasra Kadri - Sailor Mars
N. Apollonia Sca. Triaria - Sailor Venus
Folami Adaeze Ekundayo - Sailor Jupiter
Serenity - Princess of the Moon
Earthlings names will be based on Japanese
Title: I'm just a girl
Author: bjfactory
Theme: sm_monthly 01/2008 Day 1 : In Vino Veritas
Genre: General/Drama
Version: Manga
Rating: G
"What made you think of coming here?" Kasra Kadri said in her most reassuring voice as she sat elegantly onto her velvet cushion. In the corner, she eyed her companion, figure obscured by the gauzy white curtains.
The woman in the shadows laughed bitterly, long hair falling off of one shoulder. Distraught, Kasra Kadri observed, but neither moved to comfort or spoke to acknowledge it. "Even off the battle field, you remain so callous, sister?"
"Why so informal now, N. Triaria," Kasra Kadri answered, colder this time. "You're outliving the hospitality of others so easily these days."
"Not a peacock enough, tonight? Is that what makes you so suspicious?" N. Triaria entreated, pushing her blonde hair away from her face. And she had a face, one said to enchant any race of any origin. Before her though, stood one who looked to her with eyes unclouded by admiration or lust.
"It must have gone to follow your usual arrogance," Kasra Kadri said without lifting even one elegant brow.
"It must have gone wherever you have sent your slaves," N. Triaria replied darkly.
"Am I a barbarian, once more?" Kasra Kadri sighed, her coldness seeping away into weary amusment. "That is more like you, I suppose. Simply because we do not veil the chains of human bondage with rhetoric, would hypocrisy have made us more like sisters?"
"Religious barbarians," N. Triaria corrected her with a shudder. "I have seen--"
"You have seen enough to be judgmental but not enough to understand," Kasra Kadri interrupted, though her voice neither rose nor displayed any form of urgency. Her ruby hair glowed golden beneath the lamp light as she shifted, eyes turned to the large windows that displayed the balcony.
"It's so very dark in here," N. Triaria whispered softly into the uncomfortable silence that settled uneasily between the two women.
"Are you afraid of the dark?" Kasra Kadri asked, but did not bait further. When it came to N. Triaria and her people, Kasra Kadri has always been taught to be cautious, that what was shown to be weaknesses are usually traps for those poor of sight or of mind - though the latter fell into these far more easily. If N. Triaria had been anyone else, perhaps Kasra Kadri would not have been so guarded. But Kasra Kadri had also never met anyone quite so good at this game of hiding, of half-truths and carefully guided emotions. She had never met anyone so intent on finding the weaknesses of others, either.
"Long ago," N. Triaria confessed, hesitantly. She was a wonderful actress, even if Kasra Kadri could smell the perfume of too much wine, it was prudence that made her all the more aware. "I'm not used to confessing such things, it is... not of our tradition," the blonde stuttered, trying to explain, or to speak around a laden tongue. It did not matter which, for the careless are the ones who must pay the price of their own carelessness.
"Fascinating," Kasra Kadri replied, her tone flat and conveyed little of such an emotion.
N. Triaria groaned loudly then, pushing herself to her feet with determination though she wobbled in disorientation. "We are Senshi now. Sisters, if in nothing else, in arms. Will the years not teach us to see eye to eye? Are we not above conflict, the things we accuse those Earthlings of - the inability to settle their differences?"
"You feel that way only because you think that we see them as a common threat," Kasra Kadri calmly replied. "It is true, my planet does feel that the Earthlings are far less advanced than any of the planets, that their words cannot be held with full honesty when their people are too fractured to unite beneath a common consensus. But if we are to speak of philosophy, of culture and equality, we are not so different than they are. No planet, not even the Moon, is without opposition within their midst, no matter how much more advanced in everything else they appear to be."
N. Triaria opened her mouth to argue, but Kasra Kadri simply looked to the blonde. "Why do you not use the Crystal's power?" N. Triaria finally asked instead, turning her eyes away from those ruby eyes. "These lamps create too much shadows."
Kasra Kadri was silent, and when N. Triaria looked back and met those contemplative eyes, she felt herself being measured. Then the look disappeared when Kasra Kadri blinked and sighed. "Go back to your room, N. Triaria. Whether or not you like the outcome, the Earthlings will be visiting us in a fortnight of Earth-time. As the leader, it would not do to seem so uncertain, even if it is simply a game to you."
"I do not--"
"Do you not?" Kasra Kadri asked, eyes sharpening like knives and piercing into N. Triaria's soul.
The blonde bowed her head, her eyes shadowed by long bangs. To anyone else this motion might have seemed charming or even seductive in its blatant uncertainty, that air of vulnerability. But Kasra Kadri remained unmoved, until N. Triaria's lips parted with a sigh in the revisiting silence. A smile made from steel and cunning smoothed a much more prominent curve upon her pale, perfect face. A laugh trickled out of her as she tossed back her golden hair in the lamp-light, the ends of those long, curled strands disappearing into the dark corners she stood near. "Did you know all along, sister?" she asked. "Did the scent of wine not put you at ease and make you a fool? Were the truth I speak unable to move your stony heart when I pretended such vulnerabilities?"
"That you would do such a thing and ask such a way afterwards, why should I have expected anything more?" Kasra Kadri asked no less directly. Her expression remained unchanging and showed neither triumph nor anger. N. Triaria was disappointed that the other still seemed so mysterious, so untouchable, where others have been defeated with far less. Four years they have trained by each other's side and watched each other grow, and yet, of them all, only Kasra Kadri never let down her guard, especially not to her leader and commander. No matter what mask N. Triaria wore, the Martian born never fell for even one trick nor trusted the blonde with one secret.
"I am not disappointed," N. Triaria purred with a grin. "If you were a man, I would have fallen in love with you instantly!"
"Pity the fool who thinks that a compliment," Kasra Kadri replied evenly, her beautiful features glowed with that phantom tan that once adorned her features when they had first met. At that time, she had seemed no less regal, no less certain of herself, despite the fact that it was the first time she had been to another planet and greeted with such foreign faces. "You would destroy such a man," she added with certainty. If Kasra Kadri was ever naive, it was not something she let on to anyone.
"I must have bedded him already, it is so hard to remember all their names and faces," N. Triaria commented arily, her gaze never straying from the woman before her. "But a girl can dream."
"A girl?" Kasra Kadri inquired, but did not laugh as heartily or as incredulously as Ekundayo had done when she had used the same line on the other woman. But they were not the same. Ekundayo had taken the comment personally and made it her own, as most people do, especially those who needed to connect with others. Kasra Kadri simply took this as another piece of a lie that told the truth about herself, or a truth that spoke of lies. N. Triaria had always admired the other for seeming to need no one at all.
The blonde woman's features barely twitched at the tone she was treated to. No one else could ever affect her the way this woman from Mars could. She knew in her bones that even if she did not show it, Kasra Kadri would not cast out such a comment without knowing the effect it would bring. This was her equal in the games, even if her equal refused to play it the way the games were meant to be played. "Was I being careless when you found out?" she asked nonchalantly.
"If there was such a chink in your armor, I doubt anyone would use it. She or he would not live to see the day," Kasra Kadri answered. It was as much a reassurance, a promise, as N. Triaria would ever get out of her.
"But you have found it, sister," N. Triaria pointed out smugly, despite it being her own weakness that she was confirming. And, you have already used it, she added silently. Though, in reality, Kasra Kadri did not. The other had only fingered the edges. It was a simple warning telling her not to be careless for not everyone were fools or would act the part.
"But I do not move to guess about your enemies," Kasra Kadri said with a thoughtless shrug. "And we are, fated," she stressed ever so lightly, "to be allies."
"Only you," N. Triaria finally whispered with such ferociousness that her companion eyed her as she approached. Blonde hair burned with an orange tint as N. Triaria leaned in close, white hands reaching and caught at the wrist by Kasra Kadri's own. Those hands were calloused, unlike her own. The Martians alway did deem the scars of war to be things that needed to be treasured, things that need to be worn with pride. It was these little things that made them so different that made N. Triaria catch her breath everytime they touched. "May the Goddess bless me to find you in every life-time, mea Kadri." N. Triaria promised with her accent deep in her voice and her heart in her throat, pounding like it has never before pounded for anyone. At that time, she had thought it could never be so with anyone else.
Then Kasra Kadri laughed, loud and hearty, as she pushed N. Triaria away from her. "You are our leader by birth, but you are just from another planet in this small universe." Kasra Kadri said with a smile that was not quite a smile. "I do not deal in hypocrisy as easily as you, nor enjoy lies as much as you. We are sisters in arms, I will never deny this, and I will also fight by your side as dictated by those before and after us. But do not think we are the same because of such similarities. That is only politics to me, it is not a way of life."
"And giving your life away, your destiny, to the Moon child is so different?" N. Triaria asked slyly with her own secret smile. Venusians were always more comfortable striking than being struck, though that may have been true with many races. Still, it had seemed like a rejection without the words. It had struck but N. Triaria was used to it. After the years that have already passed between them, and even if it stung, the sting would fade. Such certainty made it easier for her to strike without pausing, as she once had. If anything, this she did indeed learn when it came to her Kadri.
"That I do what you fear does not make such a decision illogical," Kasra Kadri answered, rising from her blood red cushions. "Nor does it make it any less political," she softly added. "That you put so much emotions behind the things you choose... We are so different, after all."
"My Queen," Phobos' muffled voice could be heard after the brief knock at Kasra Kadri's door. "The child of Selenity requests an audience with you."
"My hour of duty has come once more. You can see yourself back to your chambers without help, I'm sure." Kasra Kadri said, her eyes moving from the door to her current audience.
"We are equals," N. Triaria declared, teeth gritted. "I am your leader!"
"Only on the battle-field, when I wear a uniform that I was born into and did not choose," Kasra Kadri answered with a bit of an ironic smile that she did not let seep into her voice. Her blonde companion could only see her back then, it was more still than Kasra Kadri had shown anyone. "And please," the Martian Queen said as she put her hand upon her chamber door. "Refrain from trying to seduce my slave if you do request an escort. I would hate to have to retrain her because of you."
The threat was not without basis. It had happened before, and Kasra Kadri had been kind enough to invite her everytime it happened. These experiments, N. Triaria could count on one hand, even if the number of lovers she had taken were enumerable. Her Kadri knew all the things to say and do to make her think twice.
"We could be friends, if not confidants, sister." N. Triaria spoke softly to the empty room, her bravado falling away now that she was alone. "Why won't you trust anyone, mea Kadri?" No one would hear of such things, which made her braver in the speaking. Kasra Kadri's perfumed room dimmed at its mistress' departure, veiling N. Triaria's features all the more into shadows. For even wine would not be able to pry such a question out of her if Kasra Kadri were to stand before her again. Even if that was the only thing she wanted to confess, the only thing she wished to know the whys and the hows. N. Triaria was not a fool, after all. Speaking such things would get her nowhere and would degrade the little confidence that Kasra Kadri had in her to be a leader, her Kadri's leader.
In the warm glow of laterns and the darkness of shadows, N. Triaria put her arms around herself and tried to imagine her name on her comrades tongue. Maybe then, the day they were all born to face would not overshadow her life so much to make it all seem like a dream. Maybe then she would know what it was like to be the girl that only Kasra Kadri knew to be her weakness.
Maybe then she would know what it really meant to live, if not to choose.
---
* The reason why Venus call Mars "mea Kadri" is a play of words and endearment. "Mea" in Latin means "my" and when used with the name of another is a term of endearment. It also, in this case, means "my Destiny".
Kasra - Root word for to break, to fracture
Kadri - Destiny
Numeria (N.) - Personal name
Apollonia - Family
Scaptia (Sca.) - Tribe
Triaria - A type of soldier (Every Venitian Senshi borne is named this name)
N. Apollonia Sca. Triaria
N. Triaria
From the tribe of Scaptia, of the family Apollonia
I will output the meaning of names for the main characters of each short. Hope you enjoyed!