Fifteen to Midnight
Now that the reveals are up, I can finally post up my ficathon piece with author notes. Just posting it up here for archiving sake and anyone else who wasn't in the ficathon who'd like to read.
Also, huge mega-thanks to V for saving my ass on this thing and making it possible for me to actually finish it when I was falling apart during practicum. She took what sounded like such a complicated idea in my head and laid out exactly how to make it work. THIS WOULDN'T EXIST WITHOUT HER.
When I first decided on The Six Swans/The Wild Swans for my fairy tale, I knew I wanted the Shitennou to be the swans. Problem was, even though they're male even in the original story, swan stories are stereotypically female. I mean, I picture a swan, and I see something delicate and graceful and beautiful.
So my idea for them was sort of simplistic. They're pretty white birds flying around, and then when they're human they're, I don't know, wearing white shirts or something. When I reread the story, the part that fascinated me most was the fact that the brothers returned to human form every night, for fifteen minutes.
Then I happened to mention my idea to a friend, and she told me to look into Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, which is basically, Swan Lake with dudes. Which sounds kind of campy, right? I mean, I don't really expect a ballet on YouTube to inspire me TOO much. Until I DID and I was met with THIS:
Guh. Bourne portrays his swans as fierce, aggressive, wild, terrifying. So yes, I ripped their half-swan forms straight out of Bourne's Swan Lake, my reasoning being that this is a fairy tale rewrite and it's almost a fairy tale and if I were writing a female swan story I'd have made reference to the classic Swan Lake too. Right down to the black streak on their heads to simulate beaks, even though I knew that would probably make no sense to someone who didn't know what I was paying tribute to. Kunzite with a black streak is HOT so it STAYS.
Fifteen to Midnight
On the second highest tower of a crystalline palace, on a long winter’s night, the King of the Earth surveyed his kingdom, and waited for his visitors. He was ancient, by some accounts, though one would not guess this by looking at him. The previous one hundred years had passed by without marring his handsome face, or weakening his strong figure. His black hair was becoming faintly peppered at the temples with a pale grey that bordered on lavender in a certain light, but this made him appear even nobler, more dignified, belying his years spent on the throne.
He glanced at his watch-eighteen minutes to midnight-and folded his hands behind his back.
His office was the only place where he had escaped the ostentation of the palace. There were no grand chandeliers here or impressive statues. It had been built in the corner of a spire, where three smooth glassy surfaces met at sharp, unexpected angles. It gave him an expansive view of the city, and a crystal-clear diagonal ceiling that rose into a sharp point above his desk.
The interior decorator had taken advantage of the unusual shape, giving him a sleek black desk with more corners than necessary. A few chairs and a discrete bookcase were enough to give him all he needed without crowding the open space.
It was here that he waited for their visit, a single dim lamp shining on the glossy surface of his desk, the twinkling skyline unfolding at his feet, as the clock neared a quarter to twelve. His mask, so long a symbol of power and prosperity among the people, rested on the edge of the desk. His jacket and cape were neatly folded and hung over the back of the chair. Carefully, meticulously, he rolled each sleeve of his pressed shirt up to his elbow, as the seconds ticked by.
As the clock on his bookshelf struck fifteen minutes to the hour, the wind that brushed at the back of his neck was not so great as it usually was, and he realized, without turning around, that only one had come to him on this night. He waited until the wind had silenced before turning from his vigil by the window, having seen the transformation take place hundreds of nights before.
He turned to regard the man behind him, if a man was what he could still be called. The years seemed to have slowly dissolved tiny traces of humanity from his flesh. The uniform he once wore-always crisp and pristine in appearance-was gone. His torso was bare, broad shoulders squared over a solid wall of muscle and tendon. He had removed the white feathers as he would a shirt, but they clung to his hips like trousers. A black mark streaked up the bridge of his nose to his hairline, making his face seem fierce and alien in the dim light. His bare feet made no sound as they padded across the black crystal floor. Even the way he moved was a little inhuman, a little too smooth and too poised for a person inhabiting such an earthly body, and the manner in which he skirted the edge of the darkness instead of approaching the King directly was distinctly animal. But that nearly-human body was only his for fifteen minutes, and the king had to acknowledge to himself, the man before him had spent far less of his lifetime as a man than as something else altogether.
He nodded in acknowledgment of the creature’s deep bow. “Only you tonight?”
The animal rose, long silver hair glinting in the starlight as he twisted his head up to face the king. His voice was soft but powerful, dark and heavy as midnight. “As you will not acknowledge the pleas of all of us, I thought I might better convince you on my own.”
The smile that the King granted him was understanding, but steadfast. A look of pity.
The ghostly creature read the look well, and as he stood at full height, rising to tower over the man he served, an oddly human expression of frustration crossed his features. “I don’t understand your resolve. Or where this decision came from.”
The King turned back to the window, and the glittering city below. The hopes and dreams of all the world lay before him, its steward.
Silently, as if he barely existed, the feathered creature moved beside him. They stood in companionable silence for a moment, the man’s bare arm so close beside the King’s that the heat hummed between them.
“Is all of this truly not enough for you?” The servant paused, awaiting an answer that he knew he would not receive. “Your kingdom is achieved. The hard-won peace stands strong in your land. You have a loving family, a beautiful wife and child. But this plan, this… madness, you risk it all for this. The strength of your kingdom, the happiness of your family. You are the pillar of them both, and by risking yourself, you risk all.”
He expected no answer, and received none. “Will you not even speak of it?”
The king turned to the creature of white beside him, glistening in the light of the city and the stars. “I would confess to you every word in my heart, but this. I will speak to you of anything you like, but do not ask me to break my silence on this.”
“My king―”
“Kunzite.” His voice remained gentle, but the sound of its name moved the creature to silence. “Our time is nearly up. Do not make me spend our remaining moments in argument.”
“Forgive me, my king. I worry…”
Endymion laid a hand on his servant’s head. Kunzite tilted his face into the palm and leaned into his master’s touch like a dog being stroked. “The choices I make are my own.”
Kunzite’s hand slid over the back of Endymion’s. One silver eye opened, while the other remained hidden beneath his liege’s fingers. “As they are rightfully yours, but I wish that you would take more consideration when you make them.”
Endymion’s hand moved behind his servant’s strong neck, pulled him close, bringing his guardian’s black streak to rest on his own forehead. “Never have I considered a decision so long as I have this one. I cannot…” he dared not voice the end of that sentence. He could not risk words that would undo all.
The guardian straightened, standing over his king like a pale marble pillar, and the smell of wind and stars rose with him. The first chime of midnight struck.
If he were a younger man, if he were not so familiar with this nightly ritual, the king would have clutched at Kunzite’s hand and begged him to remain. Such a wish had long ceased to reach his lips, and every chime of the clock thrumming through their bones rang with his desire instead. Kunzite most certainly heard it, because he took the hand that would not reach for his, as the chimes counted down their remaining moments together. “So many times have I wished to remain here with you, my king. But never have I so wanted to bring you with me, instead.”
To become wind, to chase the stars across the ocean with dawn at their tails and the world’s dreams caressing their wingtips. To sail the darkness like pale ships and preside as unknown sentries over the light, as invisible agents of peace. The king knew as well as he did: he was always to be left behind.
“Safe flight,” he whispered, as the final chime struck, as the fingers he squeezed turned to something bristly and dry, and he was left alone in the grand office, holding only a broken feather.
Alone in the night, the words of the priest haunted him. “They have given themselves to darkness, and so in darkness they will remain.”
***
It was just a rose. Not an object of divine power or key to the great door that stood between this life and the afterlife. At best it was a weapon, and not even an especially useful one, in comparison with the massive waves of force that the Queen and her Guardians could produce; at worst it was little more than a parlor trick, a cheap magician’s stunt that he pulled out of the air when his pink-haired little girl needed some cheer.
But it came from him, and that was the value it held. All he had to offer in exchange for a precious gift was this. A deep red rose, formed completely from his own power.
The king lived a life of ritual and ceremony, but tonight he demonstrated neither, as he ripped the petals from the stem in great handfuls, and dropped them on the desk. As he slid his hand over the stem to remove the leaves, a thorn caught the side of his finger. Immediately blood slid to the edge of his fingernail, pooling around the cuticle. It would be the first of many cuts.
***
When the King slipped into the massive four-poster bed that was almost too big for two people to share without both swimming through the sea of bedding to meet in the middle, dawn was only a few hours off. In the starlight, he could see his wife, her golden hair glistening almost white.
All that Kunzite had said was true. Never had a day passed that he loved his wife and child more than he did now. Never had he stopped caring for his kingdom and its wellbeing.
But never had such loving, such fortune, such peace, felt so hollow, as the nights that he spent remembering the ghostly figures who nightly flew the circumference of the Earth and held the darkness at bay. Songs of praise lifted up the names of the entire Crystal Court, while the names of the creatures who saw only night had long since faded from memory.
The Queen, embodiment of justice and mercy, heaved a deep sigh as she rolled over, somehow managing to steal most of the basketball court-sized covers as she did so. She would have understood, if she knew. If only he could tell her.
***
He was organized about it. Lists were what he knew. If he created and mangled so many roses in a night, he had a chance of succeeding.
He was clean about it. No trace of his nightly mission must remain in daylight. The Palace staff prided themselves on their silence, and if the head gardener noticed the heavy increase of rose clippings in his compost, no word of it was whispered.
He was silent about it. And so much did it consume his thoughts that, within weeks, he found so few words worth saying that he hardly said any at all. It was in his nature to be a quiet man, but now, when he asked his wife to pass the salt at dinner, his voice could hardly croak above a whisper from disuse. Her brow crinkled with concern, and she asked the chef to bring out a cup of tea to ease his ailing throat.
***
He soon found that he had been underestimating his ability for a century. His roses had always been single, long-stem darts with razor points. Simple weapons of speed. He had never needed them to be anything else, and so never considered that they could be. Now, inspired by the climbing roses in the gardens below, he produced thick, barbed vines that grew with wild abandon, turning his crystal-bare office to its own untamed garden. The desk was cast off as too small a surface to work on, and so the black crystal floor became his home through the long nights, a nest of vines encircling him. The first abandonment of civilization.
His nights were solitary, but for the precious quarter-hour before midnight. Only they who became the wind could penetrate the locked doors of his sanctuary. At the clock’s chime, a storm lifted in the king’s office, throwing the neat piles of red petals and leaves into a frenzy.
The king was not used to covering his face when that wild wind tore through his crystal tower, but then, never before had it been filled with debris that so easily turned to projectiles in it.
When he lowered his arm, they stood barefoot on the black crystal floor like four slivers of moonlight, a flutter of red rose petals falling around them.
Always the disapproving scowls, the animal-like tensing of their muscles, as though they could somehow intimidate him away from his work. They took turns trying to talk him out of it. Zoisite appealing to his heart. Jadeite’s silver tongue. Tonight it was Nephrite who pushed past the others, and Endymion knew before his heavy feet had stomped the length of the room that he was charging in without a plan, because that was what Nephrite did, and perhaps that made him the most formidable of all.
A thick hand closed around his wrist and wrenched it away from the pile of thorns in his lap. “What are you doing to yourself?”
Nephrite held the king’s hand up between them, sliced and bloodied and scarred with too many hastily-healed wounds. The king looked calmly up into his eyes, unmoved by the hot rage radiating off of his guardian.
His demeanor only seemed to fan the flames. “This bloodletting has to stop.”
“They are only a few cuts, Nephrite.”
The guardian growled, his hand clamping around the king’s wrist. “It’s your blood! Your blood is never to be spilled!”
The ancient king said nothing, but with a soft smile, lifted his finger to his mouth and sucked the blood from his knuckle. When he pulled his hand away, the cuts in that place were gone.
“And what will you do,” the brunette snarled, his dark eyes gleaming savagely, “when you have bled yourself dry, and your wounds will no longer heal?”
“When that happens, you will be here to bind them for me.”
***
His days unraveled first. His features grew as weary as they had been in those first days, the days when a new kingdom pulsated at his feet and responsibility loomed before him. He could not afford to skip the meetings, the ceremonies, the political debates, the press conferences, so he grunted and blinked and shuffled his way through them as would a sleepwalker. He had built the city into too fine a machine for it to fail to run itself if he ceased to pay attention.
But he had always been an overworked man, and so it was not until Jupiter shoved his paperwork aside and set a sandwich in its place, telling him that he was looking too thin lately, that anybody showed signs of noticing. He stared up at the brunette woman in her simple green gown and yellow apron, her tanned skin and green eyes speaking of sunshine in an office the color of midnight. His late night task had made the light sting his eyes, and drapery grand enough to wrap up a limousine now hid the transparent wall from view, casting him into a pleasant dusk. He felt like he had not seen the sun in a very long time, and now here stood Jupiter, mistress of daytime, like an ambassador of another world.
“Eat up. You may be my king, but you are not above the need for a good meal.”
He had not smiled much recently, but her presence almost made him manage it. “A meal so good that the Princess of Jupiter would take the time to make it herself?”
She slid into the chair opposite him, smiling wisely. “Those fancy young chefs have plenty of talent, but sometimes the world just isn’t right without a good homemade chicken sandwich.”
Endymion slid the plate closer, remembering the sort of comfort food that the brunette was famous for. “You’re too good to me.”
“And you are not good enough. What has been keeping you so busy that you’ve been shuffling around like a newly-awakened youma lately?”
He shrugged enigmatically, taking a bite to avoid answering.
“Serenity thinks you’ve been working too hard these past few weeks. I know you’ve got a whole world to take care of, but she’s got a point.”
“I’m alright. We always are, with you watching out for us, Jupiter.” In the frantic days of rebuilding, all of them had gravitated toward particular tasks. Mercury, ensuring there was clean water and proper medical care around the world. Mars, purifying the world of the many dark spirits that lingered among the people. Venus, working with experts and officials to establish order. But Jupiter had always stayed close to home, the acting head of security whenever Venus was away. She ran Crystal Palace with the iron fist of a housewife, making it clean, efficient, orderly. It was because of Jupiter that they were safe, because of Jupiter that the palace was their home instead of merely a political icon.
Favorite aunt of Chibi Usa. She knew all the games, she baked the cookies, she knew all the right things to say. She had long ago become something of a sister to the king, as she had always been one to the queen.
But the Crystal Palace was both too big and too small for a woman like Jupiter. No amount of libraries and halls and kitchens could fill her life completely, and no amount of floral arrangements and linen tablecloths could make it warm enough. When the others wandered away from home, when the royal family put all their energy toward their duties or each other, he felt the abandonment radiating from her strong form, and felt himself helpless to change it. No amount of dinners spent together could make her part of their marriage, no amount of games could make Chibi Usa her own.
He could not tell her of his plans, any more than he could speak to his wife of them. He could not invite her to take part in his secret, though she deserved to be, more than anybody. But there was one who could counsel her, and, perhaps, direct her. “You’ve been locked up here too long, making sandwiches like a common servant. I think you need to make a visit to the priest.”
***
The once-pristine office had been lost beneath the tangled vines. They rolled over the polished black desk and snared around its legs. They corkscrewed up the lamp’s delicate neck in a choking embrace, fingered the books on the shelf with delicate green leaves, and snaked up the windows in their frantic thirst for sunlight. Everywhere, the roses nestled in their thorny beds, like crimson hearts blooming out of the chaos.
They found him in the middle of this unbridled garden. It was unclear whether the vines that snarled around him held him captive in their clutches, or whether his goal was to tame their wild thorns.
When they beheld him, the wind carried their moans of agony to one another. The weary King continued to work, although phantom wings stirred hundreds of loose rose petals from the pile beside him into a red tornado over his head. His hands and arms bled from dozens of cuts, matching the many petals that fluttered to the floor. His wrists looked thin and pale beneath the streaks of blood, as he twisted the thick rose stems together. His hair, once merely peppered at the temples, was quickly greying all over.
His vacant eyes, ringed with dark circles, barely flickered in their direction. If he looked at them, he would see their anxious faces, and he would want to offer reassurance for why he was doing this. He wasn’t sure he had the strength, tonight, to remain mute if faced with such pain in their eyes. His fingers continued to fumble slowly over their weaving, though they felt too weak to even hold the garment anymore.
Every night they reasoned with him, and tonight was no different. He could not bear their words, so he listened instead to the rustle of their feathers, to the soft padding of their feet, as they raced to his side, heedless of the deadly thorns in their path.
They surrounded him with their pleas, but their voices melted together into a blanket of white noise folding carelessly around him. He knitted the thorned vines together, squeezing fresh droplets of blood from his hands with each firm twist.
A hand strayed over his, halting his work. “Please… can’t you see how you’re killing yourself?”
Numbly, his fingers twisted another knot. Kunzite’s hand closed around his, curled his cramped fingers away from the thick vines. He thought about resisting, but his hands seemed more ready to comply with the will of these warm, steady hands. Kunzite’s voice was a soft rumble beside his ear. “If you will not stop, then pause to rest, at least. That is all I ask of you now.”
His limbs turned to concrete at the very suggestion of rest. He turned to his guardian, who had become a pale blur at the edge of his vision. “I can’t,” he heard himself croak. “I need to… I must-”
“Hush, my king.” Kunzite’s hand cupped his face, as the king had held his on that night so many weeks ago. “I would have you break your vow of your own accord, not by fault of a stray word said in weariness.”
His guardian protected him even now. Even when the city lights glistening on the walls turned to a swirl of colors, and he could no longer hold his head up. He was lifted from the floor like a child, the protector who held him so close smelling of wild and distant winds. In his delirium, he dreamed that there were white wings folding around him, powerful and terrible.
***
Kunzite listened to the labored breathing of his king. The bandages snaking up his arms belied a horrible truth: that he was not healing, that he had no strength left to heal. They were helpless. They could lay him on the black couch hidden in the corner of his office, could tend to his wounds and keep him warm, but these were mere tokens of comfort offered to a dying man, and their time was almost up.
Jadeite could not keep still. He could never keep still, as man or beast, but now he stormed around the office, tearing at his hair because he could not tear at the thorn-formed garments at his feet, which he was forbidden to touch.
“What can we do? There must be more we can do!”
“Nothing, that’s what!” Nephrite stood still as a mountain, but he had already shown less restraint than Jadeite: a crystal lamp lay shattered by the desk.
“If we cannot get through to him, somebody must! His wife, we could―”
“Serenity would side with him, if she knew.” Zoisite perched on the edge of the couch, his hand never straying from the king’s wrist, as though willing the pulse beneath it to grow stronger. “They are self-sacrificing, the both of them.”
“And the senshi?”
The room went still, save for Jadeite. Kunzite, seated on the floor with his arm nestled around the king’s head, could not turn to watch the blond’s erratic progress around the room. “They have not known.”
“If ever there was a time for them to know―”
“What purpose could that possibly serve?” Nephrite’s voice was dangerous, his agitation at the king’s state boiling into fury. “They would not agree to it. They would stop him.”
“Are you so sure?” Zoisite’s voice was all too casual, a fact that nobody missed.
For a moment, Jadeite stopped moving completely to look at all of them from across the room, the stars glinting behind the boyish face with the animal black streak stretching up the bridge of his nose into his golden hair. “She would.”
Nobody was certain if they could contradict him, and so nobody did. Only Kunzite said, “We cannot bank on that.” Through the strained silence, the first chime of midnight called out. Zoisite clung to his king’s hand. “We cannot leave him like this.”
Kunzite trailed his hand through hair of a king that was graying all too quickly. “Unlock the door. We can at least make sure that he is found.” In silence, they heard each strike of the clock as a gate crashing down between themselves and the man they served.
Kunzite remained with him, fingers stroking his master’s hair, until the last chime struck, and feathers affixed to his transformed body like scales of armor. Then it was the king who dreamed of a long, downy white neck standing sentry over him through the dark night.
***
He was not alone when he woke to the pale fog of near-dawn clinging to the tall crystalline window. The down blanket that covered him weighed him down in its warmth, urged him back into heavy sleep, but a sound kept penetrating past it, tugging his senses into wakefulness. He turned to the source of the noise and, as he did so, he realized that what he heard was the sound of quiet sobbing.
She sat at the center of the room, as he had, a brunette beauty in a fortress of thorns. The delicate curl of her hair and soft green of her gown spoke of her royal heritage, but now her proud head was bent over her work, bitter tears rolling down her cheek.
Endymion pushed himself to his feet, steadying himself on the arm of the couch. He crossed the room carefully, still dizzy with weakness and mindful of the many vines coiled in his path. When he sat beside her, her hands, already slick with blood, faltered. “I have been to the priest. He showed me…” She took a ragged breath. “All these years. All these years, and I… I never…” She trailed off, and in the silence that followed, an understanding passed between them. He pulled the garment into his bandaged hands, and, side-by-side, the two of them continued their work without a word.
***
The palace medical ward was rarely a necessity anymore. Gone were the days of renegade youma and nightly patrols, of covert missions and injuries that could not be explained to visiting dignitaries. It was quiet here, with only the soft hum of machinery and the steady beep of the heart monitor to disturb him.
When he was at last disturbed, it was by the quiet but purposeful movements of one who was accustomed to moving among the ill and injured. Cobalt-blue hair, electric in the white crystal room, hovered over him as she checked on the IVs that snaked into his arm.
“Your fever is going down,” she told him with her quiet sort of smile, when she saw that he was awake.
“Funny how it takes an emergency for you to make a visit,” he rasped. He could not quite remember when he had limped down here supported on Jupiter’s shoulder, only his wife’s frantic voice when she came running at the news. She had sat with him a long time, and he’d smiled indulgently when their daughter pushed a get-well picture into his hands, but the medication had pulled him away from them both, down into the private shadows of sleep.
Mercury made a few notes on her clipboard. “Funny how it takes nearly collapsing from exhaustion for you to get any help. Serenity said you’ve been looking ragged for months.”
“Sometimes work gets away from me. I think you know what that’s like.”
Mercury seemed not to have heard him, though he knew she had. Too many nights spent at the hospital. Too many weeks going by without anybody catching a glimpse of her. She vanished into the sterilized arms of the city’s clinics and only emerged when Serenity threatened to march down there and make a media-attracting scene that involved a ballgown-clad queen dragging the doctor out by the roots of her blue hair.
Medicine had long been her passion, as it was his, but it had only taken the first decade or so of her disappearing acts for everyone to catch on that maybe she had her reasons for hiding herself in the anonymous corridors of the diseased.
He had never speculated on it, because he valued his privacy, and knew she did hers. But now he had more occasion to shut himself behind locked doors than before, and suddenly he found himself sympathizing with her too-pale form and weary eyes.
He reached out, clasped his hand over the slender one that was busy scribbling notes onto her clipboard. “Listen. Have you been to see the priest recently?”
***
She fidgeted, like a three-year-old forced to sit still in her Sunday best, bunching and unbunching her hands around the gossamer pink folds of her gown. She picked up her work and stared at it for long moments, as if forgetting what she was meant to do with it. When he spoke her name, she startled, as if she forgot he was there. He had never seen her so flustered. When the chime struck, fifteen minutes to midnight, her strong green eyes took on a look of panic, and he wondered if she would run, and if he would have the heart to stop her, if she did.
When the wind lifted and curled around the room, she seemed suspended in time. A tree in full bloom, blossoms rippling with life around the powerful, stable branches.
When the wind settled, she did not startle at the four creatures who had appeared before her, though one of them did.
He had never seen him so flustered.
***
Venus did not know what to say. She had always admired, and envied, the love that the royal couple had for one another, though she could not share in their good fortune. Seeing them together had sometimes pained her more deeply than any wound received in battle. But they had been a hope, of sorts. Something to show her that love, however rare, still existed in this world.
And so she did not know how she was meant to feel, when her queen spoke of secrets, and nightly disappearances. She did not know how to console her when she suggested that he was seeking satisfaction elsewhere. That he would answer no question put to him, no matter how tearfully, not even that one.
Nothing made sense in this world if the bonds that tied the royal couple were unraveling. The sun could just as well not rise.
Shakily, the queen explained how weary her husband had been as of late, as if the very life were drained from him.
It seemed too odd to be coincidental that Venus had been noticing the very same in two of her best friends.
***
Mercury had joined them, wordlessly and without a glance in their direction, and the king knew then that the rare quarter of an hour spent with his Shitennou was no longer his alone. But nothing was ever gained without sacrifice. He knew that now.
She and Zoisite had met each other quietly, and in their own way. It was not the passionate reunion of Nephrite and Makoto, no fingers tangled in hair or crushing embrace. It was retreating to a quiet corner to whisper secrets in the darkness, fingertips on arms, lips on closed eyelids.
He would never know what compelled Venus to join them in the hushed dawn hours a few weeks later. The other girls must have led her here, as he had led them. She stared coolly at him as she sat down, as if daring him to challenge her presence, but the thorned vine in his hands passed into hers as a show of good faith. The nights were growing shorter, and warmer, and they needed all the hands they could get. As he worked, Endymion wondered to himself which part Kunzite would be more enraged by. That he did not stop Venus, or that Venus did not stop him.
As it turned out, Kunzite could not figure out the answer to that question either, and so was furious beyond articulation at the both of them.
***
Rarely did the crystal clock hands in the glistening tower above the city turn to a quarter to twelve and find any Shitennou outside of the king’s office. That time was precious. But the shadows of the cherry trees gave way for one now, as if sensing that he was a shepherd of the darkness. His bare feet slipped through the cool grass and padded soundlessly onto the wooden step. He had chosen to land outside, out of respect to her and her domain. Wind had no place beside the fire’s hearth.
She did not startle when he entered, silent as the air. She turned slowly, as stately and royal as the queen’s throne, her violet eyes fixing on him, dark with memories and understanding. “I believe you have a request for me.”
Jadeite stood at the edge of the tatami mat, resisting the animal instinct to fly away. He had to drag his voice from his throat as though it were lined with sandpaper. “You always did have a way of knowing too much about me.”
Her smile was faint, but sincere. “I have been gathering hints of this night for some time now. I do not need the words of a priest to know of curses. I don’t believe you’ll like the answer I have. But ask.”
The fire behind her made strange shadows dance on the walls, made him feel uneasy, jittery. He shifted. She waited. She always did know how to wait, while he never could.
“Will you help him?”
She nodded, slowly. “Yes. Though not in the way that you intend for me to help him.”
His stomach sank to his feathered knees. “You too.”
“Yes. And now that we have completed the set, perhaps you boys could realize that this task will be completed with or without your permission.”
The walls seemed too close. He longed for the release of the open sky. “You do not… you cannot know the possible consequences of this madness. I may lose both you and my king to this.”
“Perhaps I do not care. Perhaps the king and I have both watched so many sacrifices made in our name that we want it to be our turn.”
“All of our work will have been in vain.”
She shook her graceful head. “No, my sentry of the darkness. Your work will be rewarded.”
“I will lose everything that I hold dear. That is no reward, my lady.”
“You are so certain that he will fail. Why?”
“Because we fly closer to the stars than anyone, and the world looks different from up there. We know that no star has the power to burn away the darkness, without burning itself up in the process. Not even his.”
***
In the second highest tower of a crystalline palace, on the shortest night of the year, the King of the Earth slouched in defeat. Everything he was, everything he had to give, was not enough.
Leaves and petals scattered at his feet. A plush carpet of green and crimson cushioning the black crystal. But not one stem. The stems were spent, the thorns with them. He could create no more.
Four guardian senshi sat in dignified silence. They were waiting, as he was waiting. It would not be long now. Everything he was, everything he had ever been or done, seemed to culminate on this night, and he could afford to be patient a little longer, as the minute hand marched slowly toward a quarter to twelve. When the chime rang at last, it seemed to him a release, a finality.
The four travelers alighted in the room, and sensed at once that something had changed. They beheld their king, a dark figure crumpled against the crystal window, starlight and city light shimmering behind him. They flanked him, his guard, marking that he was alive and breathing, but still, something in the room made them fear.
Endymion smiled wanly as Kunzite dropped to his knees before him. His hair was all but grey now, his features sunken and thin. His eyes were deeply shadowed like purple bruises. But he looked calm, even peaceful, and this was most terrifying of all. “I have failed in my promise to you, Kunzite.”
Kunzite’s hands closed around his shoulders, firm and comforting. “To have you alive and well is all that I ask from you, my king.”
Endymion shook his head. “No. I promised that we would be together again. And now I must break that promise.”
The guardian froze. “What are you saying?”
“The garments are completed in time, save one. But I have reached the limits of my power, as you said I would. I am left only able to save three of you. And I think we both know who would stay behind.”
Kunzite’s hands tightened around his shoulders. “Then save none of us and leave us to our lot. There is no shame, no failure in letting us be as we are.”
“And every night would be my own curse, to watch you fly away from me. No, Kunzite, there is every failure in that. But I am sorry, my guardian, that I must break a promise to break a curse.”
Horrified understanding crept into his steel grey eyes, and for one long, agonizing moment, Endymion felt that he had seized the oxygen in the room and pulled it from his guardian’s lungs. He stood, slowly, a white curtain of hair darkening his face. “No,” he whispered. “You do not trade your life for mine. That is never an option that you may take. You stay here, my king, and you rest, and you wait for me. Do nothing until I am here. There is some time yet before dawn.” He rounded on the rest of the room, addressing the Senshi and Shitennou gathered around him. “And if any of you value your own lives, you will guard his until I have returned. Restrain him if you must. Just keep him alive.”
Venus’s blue eyes met his, and, as if they had not been apart this past century, he knew that he could place every trust in her to carry on in his place. When he raised his arms to the sky, the hurricane winds sent even the other Shitennou ducking for cover, shielding their weakened king beneath them. For a moment it seemed that enormous phantom wings stretched the length of the room, but then they, and Kunzite, were gone.
***
In the royal chambers, a queen slept fitfully, plagued by dreams of terrible beating wings and withered roses. She woke gasping to an icy wind on her face, and beheld a pale figure lit by starlight.
There was something wild, and alien about him. Not only in his faun-like appearance, but in the power he exuded. And yet, the queen looked into his feral grey eyes, and she was not afraid. The creature knelt by her bedside. “My queen. I am sorry to have waited so long in coming to you. Will you help him?”
The queen released her breath slowly, as though she had been holding it for a very long time. “Always.”
***
Guardians of light and dark alike fell respectfully back as a barefooted queen, stately in her flowing white dressing gown, a curtain of white gold hair flowing behind her, tiptoed over a carpet of rose petals. She surveyed the garments woven of thorns and blood, the half-finished one that remained. She regarded the savage beasts who hovered anxiously over her fallen husband, looking fiercely protective and reluctant to allow even her to draw near. But they bowed their heads in respect as she approached, and only tensed a little when she laid a pale hand on his chest. The king took a shuddering breath and raised his head.
“My dear Endymion. I’m so sorry you had to bear this alone.”
“Serenity…” he whispered, faint hope and desperation swimming in his eyes. “Please.” He could not speak the words, but in the silence that followed his voice, she at last heard the question that he had longed to ask her. As the first chime of midnight struck, Serenity placed both her hands on her husband’s chest, and between them, a rose erupted.
***
“They have given themselves to darkness, and so in darkness they will remain.” The priest Helios’ golden eyes were normally tranquil as sunlight filtering through the trees, but now they were sharp as cut citrines. “It will take much sacrifice to summon them back from it, my king. They must be clothed in your power, in your blood. You must complete your task in silence. You may not speak of it to anybody. You must work tirelessly, or your efforts will be in vain, for it is only on the solstice that the light will grant them access. Are you absolutely certain that you are able to endure such an ordeal?”
The sharp snaps of four beaks plucked at his clothing and nipped at his fingertips. Massive wings stirred up a wind so great that it roared in his ears and flattened the wild Elysian grass around him. He could feel their cries within that wind. You can’t. You can’t. We won’t allow it.
They would later realize that, if anything, their pleas had strengthened his resolve. “I’m certain.”
***
In the pale pink hours before dawn, the only sound to be heard in the royal gardens was the trilling chatter of songbirds. Six figures stood in the grass, their shoes and the hems of their skirts turning wet with dew. A king stood supported by his queen. Four ladies of royal lineage, their tangled hair and deeply shadowed eyes belying a long night of work, each held a thickly woven mat of thorns.
When the dawn crested over the sea, turning the palace to shimmering gold, it seemed to everyone present that four pale shapes approached from the dusky west. Then it was the stirring of wind, the rustle of feathers, the glimpses of white out of the corners of eyes. As one, the princesses cast their garments into the wind, and there they floated, suddenly as fine and light as silk. One by one, they folded about the air, which suddenly took shape and gained form, from ethereal swan to solid man.
In the golden light of dawn, four men stood and gazed at the sun for the first time in a century. They wore white still, but now it was crisp uniforms with glistening gold trim. The thorn garments had transformed with them into finely-woven capes, brown above for the thorns that had made them, dark blue beneath for the precious midnights spent.
In the dawn light of the solstice, the Guardians of night and day held one another in joy. The queen’s eyes glistened with tears. Somehow, all that she had wished for her sisters had at last come to pass.
Kunzite broke away from Venus. He tried to assemble something to say, something that would explain what he needed to do, but she already knew. “Go to him.”
They were both beyond speaking now. Endymion, thin and frail as a bird, folded wordlessly into his arms. Kunzite removed the cape that had been woven of his king’s blood and power and wrapped him in it. For the first time in his reign, the King of the Earth submitted without a fight.
***
In the way of children, Chibi Usa accepted without question that she had four uncles now, besides Uncle Haruka, though she was uncertain, just yet, what to make of all of them. But Uncle Kunzie was always to be found in Papa’s special room, the one with the funny machines where he went when he wanted to have naptime all day. She could not conceive of anybody actually choosing naptime over playtime, but her efforts to save Papa from days of endless boredom by bringing him her favorite toys were regularly thwarted by Uncle Kunzie who, instead of sending her away, taught her Quiet Games instead.
And so, when Endymion opened his eyes some days after the longest day of the year, it was to find his guardian in full uniform, silently reading a newspaper at the small table in the corner. The wildness of his previous form seemed to have been muted, contained by his crisp jacket, though even now the way he held himself was dominant, powerful. On his lap perched a tiny girl with sugar-pink hair, coloring in the bottom half of the newspaper with a blue crayon. Nothing else could have made the world seem so right.
Fin
Also, huge mega-thanks to V for saving my ass on this thing and making it possible for me to actually finish it when I was falling apart during practicum. She took what sounded like such a complicated idea in my head and laid out exactly how to make it work. THIS WOULDN'T EXIST WITHOUT HER.
When I first decided on The Six Swans/The Wild Swans for my fairy tale, I knew I wanted the Shitennou to be the swans. Problem was, even though they're male even in the original story, swan stories are stereotypically female. I mean, I picture a swan, and I see something delicate and graceful and beautiful.
So my idea for them was sort of simplistic. They're pretty white birds flying around, and then when they're human they're, I don't know, wearing white shirts or something. When I reread the story, the part that fascinated me most was the fact that the brothers returned to human form every night, for fifteen minutes.
Then I happened to mention my idea to a friend, and she told me to look into Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, which is basically, Swan Lake with dudes. Which sounds kind of campy, right? I mean, I don't really expect a ballet on YouTube to inspire me TOO much. Until I DID and I was met with THIS:
Guh. Bourne portrays his swans as fierce, aggressive, wild, terrifying. So yes, I ripped their half-swan forms straight out of Bourne's Swan Lake, my reasoning being that this is a fairy tale rewrite and it's almost a fairy tale and if I were writing a female swan story I'd have made reference to the classic Swan Lake too. Right down to the black streak on their heads to simulate beaks, even though I knew that would probably make no sense to someone who didn't know what I was paying tribute to. Kunzite with a black streak is HOT so it STAYS.
Fifteen to Midnight
On the second highest tower of a crystalline palace, on a long winter’s night, the King of the Earth surveyed his kingdom, and waited for his visitors. He was ancient, by some accounts, though one would not guess this by looking at him. The previous one hundred years had passed by without marring his handsome face, or weakening his strong figure. His black hair was becoming faintly peppered at the temples with a pale grey that bordered on lavender in a certain light, but this made him appear even nobler, more dignified, belying his years spent on the throne.
He glanced at his watch-eighteen minutes to midnight-and folded his hands behind his back.
His office was the only place where he had escaped the ostentation of the palace. There were no grand chandeliers here or impressive statues. It had been built in the corner of a spire, where three smooth glassy surfaces met at sharp, unexpected angles. It gave him an expansive view of the city, and a crystal-clear diagonal ceiling that rose into a sharp point above his desk.
The interior decorator had taken advantage of the unusual shape, giving him a sleek black desk with more corners than necessary. A few chairs and a discrete bookcase were enough to give him all he needed without crowding the open space.
It was here that he waited for their visit, a single dim lamp shining on the glossy surface of his desk, the twinkling skyline unfolding at his feet, as the clock neared a quarter to twelve. His mask, so long a symbol of power and prosperity among the people, rested on the edge of the desk. His jacket and cape were neatly folded and hung over the back of the chair. Carefully, meticulously, he rolled each sleeve of his pressed shirt up to his elbow, as the seconds ticked by.
As the clock on his bookshelf struck fifteen minutes to the hour, the wind that brushed at the back of his neck was not so great as it usually was, and he realized, without turning around, that only one had come to him on this night. He waited until the wind had silenced before turning from his vigil by the window, having seen the transformation take place hundreds of nights before.
He turned to regard the man behind him, if a man was what he could still be called. The years seemed to have slowly dissolved tiny traces of humanity from his flesh. The uniform he once wore-always crisp and pristine in appearance-was gone. His torso was bare, broad shoulders squared over a solid wall of muscle and tendon. He had removed the white feathers as he would a shirt, but they clung to his hips like trousers. A black mark streaked up the bridge of his nose to his hairline, making his face seem fierce and alien in the dim light. His bare feet made no sound as they padded across the black crystal floor. Even the way he moved was a little inhuman, a little too smooth and too poised for a person inhabiting such an earthly body, and the manner in which he skirted the edge of the darkness instead of approaching the King directly was distinctly animal. But that nearly-human body was only his for fifteen minutes, and the king had to acknowledge to himself, the man before him had spent far less of his lifetime as a man than as something else altogether.
He nodded in acknowledgment of the creature’s deep bow. “Only you tonight?”
The animal rose, long silver hair glinting in the starlight as he twisted his head up to face the king. His voice was soft but powerful, dark and heavy as midnight. “As you will not acknowledge the pleas of all of us, I thought I might better convince you on my own.”
The smile that the King granted him was understanding, but steadfast. A look of pity.
The ghostly creature read the look well, and as he stood at full height, rising to tower over the man he served, an oddly human expression of frustration crossed his features. “I don’t understand your resolve. Or where this decision came from.”
The King turned back to the window, and the glittering city below. The hopes and dreams of all the world lay before him, its steward.
Silently, as if he barely existed, the feathered creature moved beside him. They stood in companionable silence for a moment, the man’s bare arm so close beside the King’s that the heat hummed between them.
“Is all of this truly not enough for you?” The servant paused, awaiting an answer that he knew he would not receive. “Your kingdom is achieved. The hard-won peace stands strong in your land. You have a loving family, a beautiful wife and child. But this plan, this… madness, you risk it all for this. The strength of your kingdom, the happiness of your family. You are the pillar of them both, and by risking yourself, you risk all.”
He expected no answer, and received none. “Will you not even speak of it?”
The king turned to the creature of white beside him, glistening in the light of the city and the stars. “I would confess to you every word in my heart, but this. I will speak to you of anything you like, but do not ask me to break my silence on this.”
“My king―”
“Kunzite.” His voice remained gentle, but the sound of its name moved the creature to silence. “Our time is nearly up. Do not make me spend our remaining moments in argument.”
“Forgive me, my king. I worry…”
Endymion laid a hand on his servant’s head. Kunzite tilted his face into the palm and leaned into his master’s touch like a dog being stroked. “The choices I make are my own.”
Kunzite’s hand slid over the back of Endymion’s. One silver eye opened, while the other remained hidden beneath his liege’s fingers. “As they are rightfully yours, but I wish that you would take more consideration when you make them.”
Endymion’s hand moved behind his servant’s strong neck, pulled him close, bringing his guardian’s black streak to rest on his own forehead. “Never have I considered a decision so long as I have this one. I cannot…” he dared not voice the end of that sentence. He could not risk words that would undo all.
The guardian straightened, standing over his king like a pale marble pillar, and the smell of wind and stars rose with him. The first chime of midnight struck.
If he were a younger man, if he were not so familiar with this nightly ritual, the king would have clutched at Kunzite’s hand and begged him to remain. Such a wish had long ceased to reach his lips, and every chime of the clock thrumming through their bones rang with his desire instead. Kunzite most certainly heard it, because he took the hand that would not reach for his, as the chimes counted down their remaining moments together. “So many times have I wished to remain here with you, my king. But never have I so wanted to bring you with me, instead.”
To become wind, to chase the stars across the ocean with dawn at their tails and the world’s dreams caressing their wingtips. To sail the darkness like pale ships and preside as unknown sentries over the light, as invisible agents of peace. The king knew as well as he did: he was always to be left behind.
“Safe flight,” he whispered, as the final chime struck, as the fingers he squeezed turned to something bristly and dry, and he was left alone in the grand office, holding only a broken feather.
Alone in the night, the words of the priest haunted him. “They have given themselves to darkness, and so in darkness they will remain.”
***
It was just a rose. Not an object of divine power or key to the great door that stood between this life and the afterlife. At best it was a weapon, and not even an especially useful one, in comparison with the massive waves of force that the Queen and her Guardians could produce; at worst it was little more than a parlor trick, a cheap magician’s stunt that he pulled out of the air when his pink-haired little girl needed some cheer.
But it came from him, and that was the value it held. All he had to offer in exchange for a precious gift was this. A deep red rose, formed completely from his own power.
The king lived a life of ritual and ceremony, but tonight he demonstrated neither, as he ripped the petals from the stem in great handfuls, and dropped them on the desk. As he slid his hand over the stem to remove the leaves, a thorn caught the side of his finger. Immediately blood slid to the edge of his fingernail, pooling around the cuticle. It would be the first of many cuts.
***
When the King slipped into the massive four-poster bed that was almost too big for two people to share without both swimming through the sea of bedding to meet in the middle, dawn was only a few hours off. In the starlight, he could see his wife, her golden hair glistening almost white.
All that Kunzite had said was true. Never had a day passed that he loved his wife and child more than he did now. Never had he stopped caring for his kingdom and its wellbeing.
But never had such loving, such fortune, such peace, felt so hollow, as the nights that he spent remembering the ghostly figures who nightly flew the circumference of the Earth and held the darkness at bay. Songs of praise lifted up the names of the entire Crystal Court, while the names of the creatures who saw only night had long since faded from memory.
The Queen, embodiment of justice and mercy, heaved a deep sigh as she rolled over, somehow managing to steal most of the basketball court-sized covers as she did so. She would have understood, if she knew. If only he could tell her.
***
He was organized about it. Lists were what he knew. If he created and mangled so many roses in a night, he had a chance of succeeding.
He was clean about it. No trace of his nightly mission must remain in daylight. The Palace staff prided themselves on their silence, and if the head gardener noticed the heavy increase of rose clippings in his compost, no word of it was whispered.
He was silent about it. And so much did it consume his thoughts that, within weeks, he found so few words worth saying that he hardly said any at all. It was in his nature to be a quiet man, but now, when he asked his wife to pass the salt at dinner, his voice could hardly croak above a whisper from disuse. Her brow crinkled with concern, and she asked the chef to bring out a cup of tea to ease his ailing throat.
***
He soon found that he had been underestimating his ability for a century. His roses had always been single, long-stem darts with razor points. Simple weapons of speed. He had never needed them to be anything else, and so never considered that they could be. Now, inspired by the climbing roses in the gardens below, he produced thick, barbed vines that grew with wild abandon, turning his crystal-bare office to its own untamed garden. The desk was cast off as too small a surface to work on, and so the black crystal floor became his home through the long nights, a nest of vines encircling him. The first abandonment of civilization.
His nights were solitary, but for the precious quarter-hour before midnight. Only they who became the wind could penetrate the locked doors of his sanctuary. At the clock’s chime, a storm lifted in the king’s office, throwing the neat piles of red petals and leaves into a frenzy.
The king was not used to covering his face when that wild wind tore through his crystal tower, but then, never before had it been filled with debris that so easily turned to projectiles in it.
When he lowered his arm, they stood barefoot on the black crystal floor like four slivers of moonlight, a flutter of red rose petals falling around them.
Always the disapproving scowls, the animal-like tensing of their muscles, as though they could somehow intimidate him away from his work. They took turns trying to talk him out of it. Zoisite appealing to his heart. Jadeite’s silver tongue. Tonight it was Nephrite who pushed past the others, and Endymion knew before his heavy feet had stomped the length of the room that he was charging in without a plan, because that was what Nephrite did, and perhaps that made him the most formidable of all.
A thick hand closed around his wrist and wrenched it away from the pile of thorns in his lap. “What are you doing to yourself?”
Nephrite held the king’s hand up between them, sliced and bloodied and scarred with too many hastily-healed wounds. The king looked calmly up into his eyes, unmoved by the hot rage radiating off of his guardian.
His demeanor only seemed to fan the flames. “This bloodletting has to stop.”
“They are only a few cuts, Nephrite.”
The guardian growled, his hand clamping around the king’s wrist. “It’s your blood! Your blood is never to be spilled!”
The ancient king said nothing, but with a soft smile, lifted his finger to his mouth and sucked the blood from his knuckle. When he pulled his hand away, the cuts in that place were gone.
“And what will you do,” the brunette snarled, his dark eyes gleaming savagely, “when you have bled yourself dry, and your wounds will no longer heal?”
“When that happens, you will be here to bind them for me.”
***
His days unraveled first. His features grew as weary as they had been in those first days, the days when a new kingdom pulsated at his feet and responsibility loomed before him. He could not afford to skip the meetings, the ceremonies, the political debates, the press conferences, so he grunted and blinked and shuffled his way through them as would a sleepwalker. He had built the city into too fine a machine for it to fail to run itself if he ceased to pay attention.
But he had always been an overworked man, and so it was not until Jupiter shoved his paperwork aside and set a sandwich in its place, telling him that he was looking too thin lately, that anybody showed signs of noticing. He stared up at the brunette woman in her simple green gown and yellow apron, her tanned skin and green eyes speaking of sunshine in an office the color of midnight. His late night task had made the light sting his eyes, and drapery grand enough to wrap up a limousine now hid the transparent wall from view, casting him into a pleasant dusk. He felt like he had not seen the sun in a very long time, and now here stood Jupiter, mistress of daytime, like an ambassador of another world.
“Eat up. You may be my king, but you are not above the need for a good meal.”
He had not smiled much recently, but her presence almost made him manage it. “A meal so good that the Princess of Jupiter would take the time to make it herself?”
She slid into the chair opposite him, smiling wisely. “Those fancy young chefs have plenty of talent, but sometimes the world just isn’t right without a good homemade chicken sandwich.”
Endymion slid the plate closer, remembering the sort of comfort food that the brunette was famous for. “You’re too good to me.”
“And you are not good enough. What has been keeping you so busy that you’ve been shuffling around like a newly-awakened youma lately?”
He shrugged enigmatically, taking a bite to avoid answering.
“Serenity thinks you’ve been working too hard these past few weeks. I know you’ve got a whole world to take care of, but she’s got a point.”
“I’m alright. We always are, with you watching out for us, Jupiter.” In the frantic days of rebuilding, all of them had gravitated toward particular tasks. Mercury, ensuring there was clean water and proper medical care around the world. Mars, purifying the world of the many dark spirits that lingered among the people. Venus, working with experts and officials to establish order. But Jupiter had always stayed close to home, the acting head of security whenever Venus was away. She ran Crystal Palace with the iron fist of a housewife, making it clean, efficient, orderly. It was because of Jupiter that they were safe, because of Jupiter that the palace was their home instead of merely a political icon.
Favorite aunt of Chibi Usa. She knew all the games, she baked the cookies, she knew all the right things to say. She had long ago become something of a sister to the king, as she had always been one to the queen.
But the Crystal Palace was both too big and too small for a woman like Jupiter. No amount of libraries and halls and kitchens could fill her life completely, and no amount of floral arrangements and linen tablecloths could make it warm enough. When the others wandered away from home, when the royal family put all their energy toward their duties or each other, he felt the abandonment radiating from her strong form, and felt himself helpless to change it. No amount of dinners spent together could make her part of their marriage, no amount of games could make Chibi Usa her own.
He could not tell her of his plans, any more than he could speak to his wife of them. He could not invite her to take part in his secret, though she deserved to be, more than anybody. But there was one who could counsel her, and, perhaps, direct her. “You’ve been locked up here too long, making sandwiches like a common servant. I think you need to make a visit to the priest.”
***
The once-pristine office had been lost beneath the tangled vines. They rolled over the polished black desk and snared around its legs. They corkscrewed up the lamp’s delicate neck in a choking embrace, fingered the books on the shelf with delicate green leaves, and snaked up the windows in their frantic thirst for sunlight. Everywhere, the roses nestled in their thorny beds, like crimson hearts blooming out of the chaos.
They found him in the middle of this unbridled garden. It was unclear whether the vines that snarled around him held him captive in their clutches, or whether his goal was to tame their wild thorns.
When they beheld him, the wind carried their moans of agony to one another. The weary King continued to work, although phantom wings stirred hundreds of loose rose petals from the pile beside him into a red tornado over his head. His hands and arms bled from dozens of cuts, matching the many petals that fluttered to the floor. His wrists looked thin and pale beneath the streaks of blood, as he twisted the thick rose stems together. His hair, once merely peppered at the temples, was quickly greying all over.
His vacant eyes, ringed with dark circles, barely flickered in their direction. If he looked at them, he would see their anxious faces, and he would want to offer reassurance for why he was doing this. He wasn’t sure he had the strength, tonight, to remain mute if faced with such pain in their eyes. His fingers continued to fumble slowly over their weaving, though they felt too weak to even hold the garment anymore.
Every night they reasoned with him, and tonight was no different. He could not bear their words, so he listened instead to the rustle of their feathers, to the soft padding of their feet, as they raced to his side, heedless of the deadly thorns in their path.
They surrounded him with their pleas, but their voices melted together into a blanket of white noise folding carelessly around him. He knitted the thorned vines together, squeezing fresh droplets of blood from his hands with each firm twist.
A hand strayed over his, halting his work. “Please… can’t you see how you’re killing yourself?”
Numbly, his fingers twisted another knot. Kunzite’s hand closed around his, curled his cramped fingers away from the thick vines. He thought about resisting, but his hands seemed more ready to comply with the will of these warm, steady hands. Kunzite’s voice was a soft rumble beside his ear. “If you will not stop, then pause to rest, at least. That is all I ask of you now.”
His limbs turned to concrete at the very suggestion of rest. He turned to his guardian, who had become a pale blur at the edge of his vision. “I can’t,” he heard himself croak. “I need to… I must-”
“Hush, my king.” Kunzite’s hand cupped his face, as the king had held his on that night so many weeks ago. “I would have you break your vow of your own accord, not by fault of a stray word said in weariness.”
His guardian protected him even now. Even when the city lights glistening on the walls turned to a swirl of colors, and he could no longer hold his head up. He was lifted from the floor like a child, the protector who held him so close smelling of wild and distant winds. In his delirium, he dreamed that there were white wings folding around him, powerful and terrible.
***
Kunzite listened to the labored breathing of his king. The bandages snaking up his arms belied a horrible truth: that he was not healing, that he had no strength left to heal. They were helpless. They could lay him on the black couch hidden in the corner of his office, could tend to his wounds and keep him warm, but these were mere tokens of comfort offered to a dying man, and their time was almost up.
Jadeite could not keep still. He could never keep still, as man or beast, but now he stormed around the office, tearing at his hair because he could not tear at the thorn-formed garments at his feet, which he was forbidden to touch.
“What can we do? There must be more we can do!”
“Nothing, that’s what!” Nephrite stood still as a mountain, but he had already shown less restraint than Jadeite: a crystal lamp lay shattered by the desk.
“If we cannot get through to him, somebody must! His wife, we could―”
“Serenity would side with him, if she knew.” Zoisite perched on the edge of the couch, his hand never straying from the king’s wrist, as though willing the pulse beneath it to grow stronger. “They are self-sacrificing, the both of them.”
“And the senshi?”
The room went still, save for Jadeite. Kunzite, seated on the floor with his arm nestled around the king’s head, could not turn to watch the blond’s erratic progress around the room. “They have not known.”
“If ever there was a time for them to know―”
“What purpose could that possibly serve?” Nephrite’s voice was dangerous, his agitation at the king’s state boiling into fury. “They would not agree to it. They would stop him.”
“Are you so sure?” Zoisite’s voice was all too casual, a fact that nobody missed.
For a moment, Jadeite stopped moving completely to look at all of them from across the room, the stars glinting behind the boyish face with the animal black streak stretching up the bridge of his nose into his golden hair. “She would.”
Nobody was certain if they could contradict him, and so nobody did. Only Kunzite said, “We cannot bank on that.” Through the strained silence, the first chime of midnight called out. Zoisite clung to his king’s hand. “We cannot leave him like this.”
Kunzite trailed his hand through hair of a king that was graying all too quickly. “Unlock the door. We can at least make sure that he is found.” In silence, they heard each strike of the clock as a gate crashing down between themselves and the man they served.
Kunzite remained with him, fingers stroking his master’s hair, until the last chime struck, and feathers affixed to his transformed body like scales of armor. Then it was the king who dreamed of a long, downy white neck standing sentry over him through the dark night.
***
He was not alone when he woke to the pale fog of near-dawn clinging to the tall crystalline window. The down blanket that covered him weighed him down in its warmth, urged him back into heavy sleep, but a sound kept penetrating past it, tugging his senses into wakefulness. He turned to the source of the noise and, as he did so, he realized that what he heard was the sound of quiet sobbing.
She sat at the center of the room, as he had, a brunette beauty in a fortress of thorns. The delicate curl of her hair and soft green of her gown spoke of her royal heritage, but now her proud head was bent over her work, bitter tears rolling down her cheek.
Endymion pushed himself to his feet, steadying himself on the arm of the couch. He crossed the room carefully, still dizzy with weakness and mindful of the many vines coiled in his path. When he sat beside her, her hands, already slick with blood, faltered. “I have been to the priest. He showed me…” She took a ragged breath. “All these years. All these years, and I… I never…” She trailed off, and in the silence that followed, an understanding passed between them. He pulled the garment into his bandaged hands, and, side-by-side, the two of them continued their work without a word.
***
The palace medical ward was rarely a necessity anymore. Gone were the days of renegade youma and nightly patrols, of covert missions and injuries that could not be explained to visiting dignitaries. It was quiet here, with only the soft hum of machinery and the steady beep of the heart monitor to disturb him.
When he was at last disturbed, it was by the quiet but purposeful movements of one who was accustomed to moving among the ill and injured. Cobalt-blue hair, electric in the white crystal room, hovered over him as she checked on the IVs that snaked into his arm.
“Your fever is going down,” she told him with her quiet sort of smile, when she saw that he was awake.
“Funny how it takes an emergency for you to make a visit,” he rasped. He could not quite remember when he had limped down here supported on Jupiter’s shoulder, only his wife’s frantic voice when she came running at the news. She had sat with him a long time, and he’d smiled indulgently when their daughter pushed a get-well picture into his hands, but the medication had pulled him away from them both, down into the private shadows of sleep.
Mercury made a few notes on her clipboard. “Funny how it takes nearly collapsing from exhaustion for you to get any help. Serenity said you’ve been looking ragged for months.”
“Sometimes work gets away from me. I think you know what that’s like.”
Mercury seemed not to have heard him, though he knew she had. Too many nights spent at the hospital. Too many weeks going by without anybody catching a glimpse of her. She vanished into the sterilized arms of the city’s clinics and only emerged when Serenity threatened to march down there and make a media-attracting scene that involved a ballgown-clad queen dragging the doctor out by the roots of her blue hair.
Medicine had long been her passion, as it was his, but it had only taken the first decade or so of her disappearing acts for everyone to catch on that maybe she had her reasons for hiding herself in the anonymous corridors of the diseased.
He had never speculated on it, because he valued his privacy, and knew she did hers. But now he had more occasion to shut himself behind locked doors than before, and suddenly he found himself sympathizing with her too-pale form and weary eyes.
He reached out, clasped his hand over the slender one that was busy scribbling notes onto her clipboard. “Listen. Have you been to see the priest recently?”
***
She fidgeted, like a three-year-old forced to sit still in her Sunday best, bunching and unbunching her hands around the gossamer pink folds of her gown. She picked up her work and stared at it for long moments, as if forgetting what she was meant to do with it. When he spoke her name, she startled, as if she forgot he was there. He had never seen her so flustered. When the chime struck, fifteen minutes to midnight, her strong green eyes took on a look of panic, and he wondered if she would run, and if he would have the heart to stop her, if she did.
When the wind lifted and curled around the room, she seemed suspended in time. A tree in full bloom, blossoms rippling with life around the powerful, stable branches.
When the wind settled, she did not startle at the four creatures who had appeared before her, though one of them did.
He had never seen him so flustered.
***
Venus did not know what to say. She had always admired, and envied, the love that the royal couple had for one another, though she could not share in their good fortune. Seeing them together had sometimes pained her more deeply than any wound received in battle. But they had been a hope, of sorts. Something to show her that love, however rare, still existed in this world.
And so she did not know how she was meant to feel, when her queen spoke of secrets, and nightly disappearances. She did not know how to console her when she suggested that he was seeking satisfaction elsewhere. That he would answer no question put to him, no matter how tearfully, not even that one.
Nothing made sense in this world if the bonds that tied the royal couple were unraveling. The sun could just as well not rise.
Shakily, the queen explained how weary her husband had been as of late, as if the very life were drained from him.
It seemed too odd to be coincidental that Venus had been noticing the very same in two of her best friends.
***
Mercury had joined them, wordlessly and without a glance in their direction, and the king knew then that the rare quarter of an hour spent with his Shitennou was no longer his alone. But nothing was ever gained without sacrifice. He knew that now.
She and Zoisite had met each other quietly, and in their own way. It was not the passionate reunion of Nephrite and Makoto, no fingers tangled in hair or crushing embrace. It was retreating to a quiet corner to whisper secrets in the darkness, fingertips on arms, lips on closed eyelids.
He would never know what compelled Venus to join them in the hushed dawn hours a few weeks later. The other girls must have led her here, as he had led them. She stared coolly at him as she sat down, as if daring him to challenge her presence, but the thorned vine in his hands passed into hers as a show of good faith. The nights were growing shorter, and warmer, and they needed all the hands they could get. As he worked, Endymion wondered to himself which part Kunzite would be more enraged by. That he did not stop Venus, or that Venus did not stop him.
As it turned out, Kunzite could not figure out the answer to that question either, and so was furious beyond articulation at the both of them.
***
Rarely did the crystal clock hands in the glistening tower above the city turn to a quarter to twelve and find any Shitennou outside of the king’s office. That time was precious. But the shadows of the cherry trees gave way for one now, as if sensing that he was a shepherd of the darkness. His bare feet slipped through the cool grass and padded soundlessly onto the wooden step. He had chosen to land outside, out of respect to her and her domain. Wind had no place beside the fire’s hearth.
She did not startle when he entered, silent as the air. She turned slowly, as stately and royal as the queen’s throne, her violet eyes fixing on him, dark with memories and understanding. “I believe you have a request for me.”
Jadeite stood at the edge of the tatami mat, resisting the animal instinct to fly away. He had to drag his voice from his throat as though it were lined with sandpaper. “You always did have a way of knowing too much about me.”
Her smile was faint, but sincere. “I have been gathering hints of this night for some time now. I do not need the words of a priest to know of curses. I don’t believe you’ll like the answer I have. But ask.”
The fire behind her made strange shadows dance on the walls, made him feel uneasy, jittery. He shifted. She waited. She always did know how to wait, while he never could.
“Will you help him?”
She nodded, slowly. “Yes. Though not in the way that you intend for me to help him.”
His stomach sank to his feathered knees. “You too.”
“Yes. And now that we have completed the set, perhaps you boys could realize that this task will be completed with or without your permission.”
The walls seemed too close. He longed for the release of the open sky. “You do not… you cannot know the possible consequences of this madness. I may lose both you and my king to this.”
“Perhaps I do not care. Perhaps the king and I have both watched so many sacrifices made in our name that we want it to be our turn.”
“All of our work will have been in vain.”
She shook her graceful head. “No, my sentry of the darkness. Your work will be rewarded.”
“I will lose everything that I hold dear. That is no reward, my lady.”
“You are so certain that he will fail. Why?”
“Because we fly closer to the stars than anyone, and the world looks different from up there. We know that no star has the power to burn away the darkness, without burning itself up in the process. Not even his.”
***
In the second highest tower of a crystalline palace, on the shortest night of the year, the King of the Earth slouched in defeat. Everything he was, everything he had to give, was not enough.
Leaves and petals scattered at his feet. A plush carpet of green and crimson cushioning the black crystal. But not one stem. The stems were spent, the thorns with them. He could create no more.
Four guardian senshi sat in dignified silence. They were waiting, as he was waiting. It would not be long now. Everything he was, everything he had ever been or done, seemed to culminate on this night, and he could afford to be patient a little longer, as the minute hand marched slowly toward a quarter to twelve. When the chime rang at last, it seemed to him a release, a finality.
The four travelers alighted in the room, and sensed at once that something had changed. They beheld their king, a dark figure crumpled against the crystal window, starlight and city light shimmering behind him. They flanked him, his guard, marking that he was alive and breathing, but still, something in the room made them fear.
Endymion smiled wanly as Kunzite dropped to his knees before him. His hair was all but grey now, his features sunken and thin. His eyes were deeply shadowed like purple bruises. But he looked calm, even peaceful, and this was most terrifying of all. “I have failed in my promise to you, Kunzite.”
Kunzite’s hands closed around his shoulders, firm and comforting. “To have you alive and well is all that I ask from you, my king.”
Endymion shook his head. “No. I promised that we would be together again. And now I must break that promise.”
The guardian froze. “What are you saying?”
“The garments are completed in time, save one. But I have reached the limits of my power, as you said I would. I am left only able to save three of you. And I think we both know who would stay behind.”
Kunzite’s hands tightened around his shoulders. “Then save none of us and leave us to our lot. There is no shame, no failure in letting us be as we are.”
“And every night would be my own curse, to watch you fly away from me. No, Kunzite, there is every failure in that. But I am sorry, my guardian, that I must break a promise to break a curse.”
Horrified understanding crept into his steel grey eyes, and for one long, agonizing moment, Endymion felt that he had seized the oxygen in the room and pulled it from his guardian’s lungs. He stood, slowly, a white curtain of hair darkening his face. “No,” he whispered. “You do not trade your life for mine. That is never an option that you may take. You stay here, my king, and you rest, and you wait for me. Do nothing until I am here. There is some time yet before dawn.” He rounded on the rest of the room, addressing the Senshi and Shitennou gathered around him. “And if any of you value your own lives, you will guard his until I have returned. Restrain him if you must. Just keep him alive.”
Venus’s blue eyes met his, and, as if they had not been apart this past century, he knew that he could place every trust in her to carry on in his place. When he raised his arms to the sky, the hurricane winds sent even the other Shitennou ducking for cover, shielding their weakened king beneath them. For a moment it seemed that enormous phantom wings stretched the length of the room, but then they, and Kunzite, were gone.
***
In the royal chambers, a queen slept fitfully, plagued by dreams of terrible beating wings and withered roses. She woke gasping to an icy wind on her face, and beheld a pale figure lit by starlight.
There was something wild, and alien about him. Not only in his faun-like appearance, but in the power he exuded. And yet, the queen looked into his feral grey eyes, and she was not afraid. The creature knelt by her bedside. “My queen. I am sorry to have waited so long in coming to you. Will you help him?”
The queen released her breath slowly, as though she had been holding it for a very long time. “Always.”
***
Guardians of light and dark alike fell respectfully back as a barefooted queen, stately in her flowing white dressing gown, a curtain of white gold hair flowing behind her, tiptoed over a carpet of rose petals. She surveyed the garments woven of thorns and blood, the half-finished one that remained. She regarded the savage beasts who hovered anxiously over her fallen husband, looking fiercely protective and reluctant to allow even her to draw near. But they bowed their heads in respect as she approached, and only tensed a little when she laid a pale hand on his chest. The king took a shuddering breath and raised his head.
“My dear Endymion. I’m so sorry you had to bear this alone.”
“Serenity…” he whispered, faint hope and desperation swimming in his eyes. “Please.” He could not speak the words, but in the silence that followed his voice, she at last heard the question that he had longed to ask her. As the first chime of midnight struck, Serenity placed both her hands on her husband’s chest, and between them, a rose erupted.
***
“They have given themselves to darkness, and so in darkness they will remain.” The priest Helios’ golden eyes were normally tranquil as sunlight filtering through the trees, but now they were sharp as cut citrines. “It will take much sacrifice to summon them back from it, my king. They must be clothed in your power, in your blood. You must complete your task in silence. You may not speak of it to anybody. You must work tirelessly, or your efforts will be in vain, for it is only on the solstice that the light will grant them access. Are you absolutely certain that you are able to endure such an ordeal?”
The sharp snaps of four beaks plucked at his clothing and nipped at his fingertips. Massive wings stirred up a wind so great that it roared in his ears and flattened the wild Elysian grass around him. He could feel their cries within that wind. You can’t. You can’t. We won’t allow it.
They would later realize that, if anything, their pleas had strengthened his resolve. “I’m certain.”
***
In the pale pink hours before dawn, the only sound to be heard in the royal gardens was the trilling chatter of songbirds. Six figures stood in the grass, their shoes and the hems of their skirts turning wet with dew. A king stood supported by his queen. Four ladies of royal lineage, their tangled hair and deeply shadowed eyes belying a long night of work, each held a thickly woven mat of thorns.
When the dawn crested over the sea, turning the palace to shimmering gold, it seemed to everyone present that four pale shapes approached from the dusky west. Then it was the stirring of wind, the rustle of feathers, the glimpses of white out of the corners of eyes. As one, the princesses cast their garments into the wind, and there they floated, suddenly as fine and light as silk. One by one, they folded about the air, which suddenly took shape and gained form, from ethereal swan to solid man.
In the golden light of dawn, four men stood and gazed at the sun for the first time in a century. They wore white still, but now it was crisp uniforms with glistening gold trim. The thorn garments had transformed with them into finely-woven capes, brown above for the thorns that had made them, dark blue beneath for the precious midnights spent.
In the dawn light of the solstice, the Guardians of night and day held one another in joy. The queen’s eyes glistened with tears. Somehow, all that she had wished for her sisters had at last come to pass.
Kunzite broke away from Venus. He tried to assemble something to say, something that would explain what he needed to do, but she already knew. “Go to him.”
They were both beyond speaking now. Endymion, thin and frail as a bird, folded wordlessly into his arms. Kunzite removed the cape that had been woven of his king’s blood and power and wrapped him in it. For the first time in his reign, the King of the Earth submitted without a fight.
***
In the way of children, Chibi Usa accepted without question that she had four uncles now, besides Uncle Haruka, though she was uncertain, just yet, what to make of all of them. But Uncle Kunzie was always to be found in Papa’s special room, the one with the funny machines where he went when he wanted to have naptime all day. She could not conceive of anybody actually choosing naptime over playtime, but her efforts to save Papa from days of endless boredom by bringing him her favorite toys were regularly thwarted by Uncle Kunzie who, instead of sending her away, taught her Quiet Games instead.
And so, when Endymion opened his eyes some days after the longest day of the year, it was to find his guardian in full uniform, silently reading a newspaper at the small table in the corner. The wildness of his previous form seemed to have been muted, contained by his crisp jacket, though even now the way he held himself was dominant, powerful. On his lap perched a tiny girl with sugar-pink hair, coloring in the bottom half of the newspaper with a blue crayon. Nothing else could have made the world seem so right.
Fin