hieroglyphics | | psl — dark kingdom arc redux, electric boogaloo.

Endymion holds her tightly to him with one arm, the other outstretched to catch the silver crystal in his palm. The warmth of its energy is like a soothing balm as it hovers above his hand.

"I've known since the masquerade," he confesses to her. "I awakened then, but I could not force you to remember."

"That must of been hard, having to keep it all to yourself."

But admirable too. He could have tried to force her to remember, confessed everything, but he had kept it to himself, for her sake she imagines. She's grateful for it, but she's even more grateful she remembers.

"It was," he admits, "but I didn't want to burden you. As much as I wanted you to remember, I also wanted you to be able to just live, free from the tethers of our previous existence. You have more freedom here than you ever did back then. I wasn't going to be the one to take that away from you."

The crystal shines, as if to accept responsibility for doing that. For making her remember, for drawing the Dark Kingdom out of hiding in a quest to seize it.

"I started having tethers as soon as I awakened as Sailor Moon. It was only a matter of time."

But she doesn't care, because it led her back to him, and how can that be anything but good? She couldn't stop smiling if she tried.

Leave it to her to find a positive in all this, a positive he can't argue with. Endymion ought to be more cross with the crystal he carelessly drops onto his bed so he can fully envelop her in his embrace, but how can he truly be mad about this when he has her back? She remembers him, as he was long ago. It's not the set of memories he'd been after, but they're memories he welcomes all the same. Memories that tell him so much about himself that had been a mystery before that fateful night at the masquerade.

"I've missed you, Serenity."

Because of how everything played out, she doesn't even know yet that he doesn't have the memories of his childhood as Mamoru. It'll still be upsetting once she does find out, no matter what version of her she is she has a bleeding heart. But there's time for them to learn things about the new versions of themselves, right now, she's just basking in the memory of the old ones. They're finally reunited.

Maybe this time, their story could have a happier ending.

"I've missed you too."

"The last thing I remember, before—"

Before they were reborn. That battle on the moon, Beryl's attempts at striking the princess down and the steps he took to prevent it. His own generals turned against him, his people labeling him a traitor.

Endymion doesn't know what became of his parents or what happened after he was struck down. (He's not sure if he wants to.)

In some ways she doesn't want to tell him. She doesn't want him to know how she took her own life after losing him. She wants to spare him that sorrow.

"Before we died?"

Not exactly a lie, but not the whole truth either.

The knowledge will horrify him, but it will also serve to strengthen his resolve to prevent the past from repeating itself. To keep them from suffering the same fate. Surely they weren't reborn just to do that all over again. Surely they're meant for something different this time.

"Yes," the prince answers. "I remember your tears and then— Then there was nothing. Not until I was reborn in this life."

And even then, his current incarnation was missing his childhood memories. Whoever that child was prior to that car accident, it's still lost to him.

Much as she'd like to spare him the terrible truth, she can't get herself to lie to him. Not about something that important.

"I killed myself shortly after," She says in a quiet voice. "I couldn't stand the idea of living without you, of losing you. My mother must have done something for us to be reborn."

At least, it's the only theory that makes sense.

"You what?"

Endymion lurches back from her, putting space between them, even though his hands remain upon her shoulders. He stares at her with wide eyes, clearly shaken by the knowledge of her desperate act.

It feels like a sharp pain in her chest, the way he puts space between them. She doesn't blame him. She didn't like telling him. Her own eyes well up with tears as she bows her head.

"I didn't know what else to do. And I thought you deserved to know."

It's a blow like no other, to know that she sacrificed herself out of grief, unable to live without him when he had taken that sword in order to save her. To ensure she lived. But it seems no matter what he did, whatever choice he would have made back then, the result would have been the same. The heir to the Silver Millennium dead and his planet at fault for unleashing the forces of the Dark Kingdom. If not for the corruption born of his people, their darkness never would have festered and spread.

Endymion's hands lift from her shoulders so he can cradle her cheeks in his palm, tipping her face up so he can meet her gaze.

"Promise me, Serenity, that you won't do that again. Whatever happens in this life, don't do that again."

"I don't know that I can."

The idea of losing him again, even thinking about it, brings up those old feelings of desperation and panic. Could she really promise history wouldn't repeat itself?

Can she really imagine living on without him?

"You have to. This is yours now."

He leaves her so he can retrieve the discarded silver crystal from the bed. It feels warm in his hands as he holds it out to her.

"This world needs you."

Queen Serenity was no long around to take care of the darkness that threatened to overtake the Earth once more. If history repeated itself, who would stop Beryl and her forces from taking over the world? People would suffer; her family and friends, his classmates, the other senshi...

She takes the crystal from him. It is still warm and pulsating light, as if reacting to both of them.

"Then you better not die on me again, because I need you."

If she's going to make that kind of promise, he does too. Every step of the way he has helped her grow stronger as a scout, more sure and confident in her powers. She needs him by her side.

They're stronger together.

His parents never told him about the golden crystal, perhaps out of a need to protect him and ensure that no one would take an interest in it after seeing how much attention Queen Serenity received from having the silver crystal proudly on display. Had the forces of the Dark Kingdom been aware of it, they might have attacked Elysion before they stormed the Moon Kingdom.

"I don't plan on it," he tells her, "but if it came down to you or me... Serenity, you have a life here. You have a family, friends, the girls, and Luna. I don't— In this life, I don't—"

Oh. Wow. It was surprisingly harder to talk about, now that he knows what having a family is. Remembering his previously life paints a picture of what he's been missing, giving him a glimpse at what that hollow void in his life ought to have been filled with.

"I don't have that," he finally manages, head bowed. His hand grips the pommel of the sword at hip. "I'm an orphan. I dreamed of you, my princess, but I didn't realize that you were the key to my past life and not the memories that have been blocked since the car accident that took my family from me. No one would miss me, but so many people would miss you."

Her heart breaks at his words. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right that she was born with so much and he was born with so little in this life. He's been alone all these years. Her eyes well up with tears at the thought. No wonder he had been so determined to try to find the crystal for himself, he had just wanted the memories of the family he did have back -- and instead he got memories of another life.

"I would miss you. And --" She cuts herself off as something snaps into place. The generals they've been fighting, the enemies -- they had been his soldiers. Some of them are dead again already but two should still be around. Zoisite and Kunzite.

"We have to find a way to save your generals from the enemy." Because she believes whatever swayed them to the dark side could be undone. That ultimately, their loyalty to their prince would override everything, if they could just remember it.

"My—"

Long ago, they'd been caught up in the frenzy of the anti-moon extremism that had swept over his world like a sudden, unexpected tidal wave and had turned against him. They'd sided with the Dark Kingdom and it seems that while they were reborn alongside himself, his princess, and her senshi, they were still enthralled by darkness.

He'd been defending her against his own men.

History was already repeating itself.

"...I don't know how. I don't have the sort of power you and your senshi do."

(Just wait until Kunzite tells you about the Golden Crystal.)

"We'll figure it out, together."

Now that she has the idea of it in her head there is little he or anyone else will be able to change it. There has to be a way to break free of the Dark Kingdom's influence on them.

He deserves to have his soldiers as much as she deserves to have hers.

He wants to believe that's possible. Having his men back would be a (selfish) comfort like no other, but mostly he wants them free of Beryl's grasp. It's cruel and unfair that they're doomed to have their minds warped by her lies and deceptions in this life as much as their previous one. Did they even know who he was? Had Jadeite and Nephrite known before they perished? To think that only two of his generals were left standing, that two of them had already fallen while being used as pawns for the Dark Kingdom.

"First, we need to figure out how to uh..." He gestures to himself, with the gilded armor and sword hanging at his hip.

Try as he might, he can't get this princely visage to fade. He can step into and out of his masked superhero guise with relative ease; he'd only remained in that form out of a need to reassure her that she was safe when she awoke, otherwise he would have dropped the henshin and gone back to being Mamoru.

But he can't do that right now. Endymion can't go back to being Mamoru or Tuxedo Kamen. Almost like his past life has been suppressed for so long it's enjoying the freedom to be out and refuses to go back in again.

With a reluctant sigh, he gives up on trying and beings to unhook the sword belt from his waist. It's set aside as the cap is unclasped from his shoulders and pieces of armor are removed to leave him in just the dark tunic he wore beneath. There were many things he wore in his previous life, but he supposes the reappearing in what he'd been wearing when he died makes sense.

"Right."

It's about this time that she looks down and notices....how much more hair she has, suddenly. It's pooling all around her feet. Her eyes almost widen in panic at the realization.

"How am I supposed to explain this to my parents?"

Because as much as she might remember being Serenity now...she's still Usagi too. And Sailor Moon. It was hard enough hiding one secret from her parents...and now she has one more. But her mom is going to notice if she suddenly has more hair.

"I think you're going to have a harder time explaining this."

Endymion reaches out, brushing his fingers against the smooth surface of the golden crescent moon embedded in her forehead. Something that would likely look like some sort of crazed mashup of tattooing and body modification to those who didn't know that it was a natural feature of those born into (and sometimes in service of, as was the case with Luna and Artemis) the royal family of the Moon Kingdom.

Her eyes somehow become even wider at that. "I didn't even think of that! They already think Luna has a weird bald spot!"

To be fair, she had also thought that when she first met Luna but you know, details. But it brings her back to earth a little. As much as she had a past life...she has a present one. She may be the princess of the moon, but she's also Usagi.

And Sailor Moon.

Man and juggling two identities had been hard.

She's been thrown completely off-kilter by the revelation that she's the fabled Moon Princess they've been searching for, her life disrupted for a second time. He knows this, he can tell that it's getting to her, that in spite of all that she's glad to remember — him, the girls, the queen — that this is the last thing she wanted. That this life has suited her, and she's been allowed to live the freedom of normalcy and anonymity instead of standing in the spotlighted shadow of the throne she had been destined to inherit.

It's not the same for him.

For the first time in his life, he feels whole. He actually recognizes the sound of his own name and isn't questioning the merit of his existence. He may not understand why he was reborn alongside her and her court and still mourns the loss of the memories he's still missing, but he knows who is now. And after years of wondering who he was and feeling like Mamoru was the name of some stranger he was poor masquerading about as, it's a great comfort to finally feel at home in his own shoes.

Maybe Serenity was a completely different person in comparison to Usagi, but Mamoru and Endymion are one in the same.

He's always been Endymion.

"Bandage, maybe? Would they believe you if you told them you fell and hit your head?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject