Hi, I'm posting this for my friend, Lunari.  C&C is very welcome.  :)

Sincerely,

Megane 6.7  



Disgust
by Lunari

"Non omnis moriar."
I shall not altogether die.

- Horace


     "I've never bothered with the affairs of the universe."

     Not before, anyway.

     That was all I had to say to the panel of well-dressed,
black-robed men and women.  I tried my best not to fidget with
the manacles holding my wrists tight together.  The prison-issue
shirt did very little to warm my arms in the drafty courtroom,
and I suppose I looked very guilty standing there; playing with
my 'cuffs, shivering, staring at my feet.

     The distinguished-looking woman at the center of the panel
made a disgusted noise and leaned forward in her chair.

     "Young lady," she said in a withered voice.  "It is obvious
to this court that you have no idea of the ramifications of your
crimes against both the royal house of Venus and the Kingdom of
the Moon.  It is just as obvious by your lack of remorse that you
care nothing of the royal view of your homeworld of Terra."

     I wanted to shout at her then, but the voices told me to be
silent.  After all, what the royalty thought of my home or my
actions really didn't matter anymore.  I remained silent and
cold, allowing the desires to tear out the Matriarch's eyes fade.

     "It is the judgement of this court that Miss Vashtari be
executed without delay for the murder of the Aphrodian Princess
Shajai," the matriarch stated with more than a little bitterness
in her voice.

     "Unfortunately, Madame Matriarch," came a voice behind me,
lilting with a soft Lunari accent.  The grey and white robed
representative bowed at the waist as he stood.  "As you said
yourself, Miss Vashtari's crimes were committed on Lunar soil,
and the justice department of the Moon desires her execution to
take place there."

     "But that would delay her punishment by more than a spatial
month, Mr. Arit," the matriarch said, removing her spectacles
from her bright blue eyes.  "The people of Venus will not stand
for it."

     "Madame Matriarch," the Lunari said again.  "The ruling
powers of the Moon understand the Aphrodian princess's
importance.  But Miss Vashtari's crimes were committed on royal
Lunar ground, and therefore jurisdiction goes to the Lunari
ruling class."

     The Matriarch was not happy, I noticed.  Aphrodians were
beautiful when they were angry, and the matriarch, for all her
age, was stunning as she glared at the Lunari delegate.  "Mr.
Arit," she nearly spat.  "A member of the royal house of Venus
has been brutally murdered.  The Kingdom of the Moon will have to
understand that if they expect to continue an alliance with
Venus."

     Venus and the Moon did not get along well.  Even before I
came into the picture their diplomacy was wearing thin.
Especially since Mercury's new trade routes to the Moon through
Aphrodian airspace caused feathers to be ruffled.  The voices
were right, if I sat tight and waited I would have plenty of time
to save myself before the courts decided who would kill me.

     "Madame Matriarch," the Lunari began, his grey eyes glinting
a bit as he played his ace.  "It is the will of her Royal Majesty
Queen Serenity that Miss Vashtari return to the moon for formal
trial and execution.  Thus all will know that the Kingdom of the
Moon is a powerful force, all those allied with her are protected
within, and all those that come against them are destroyed."

     I marveled at Mr. Arit's speech.  The voices didn't seem to
care, they knew this would happen.  For a moment I felt scared
that the whole universe was against me.  But the voices assuaged.
A kingdom like that of the moon has enemies, large enemies.  I
would be protected if I allied myself with them.

     And the real sparks had yet to fly.

     ***

     From my transport cell I could hear the protestors.  I
listened in amusement and tried to translate the Aphrodian
phrases being hurled at the poor Lunari soldiers who hustled to
board.  I'd never studied Venus's language until the voices told
me I would need the knowledge for the act.  The act, after all,
was what would set all into motion.

     I can't blame everything on the voices, of course.  I was
the one who summoned them from their world and channeled them
into me.  Black arts were forbidden around the solar system, so
naturally I took them up when my parents were killed.  They took
care of me, kept me company, educated me, and showed me the
truth.

     That's when we decided to take over the universe.

     "May the Lunari be damned for robbing Venus of it's pride"
was the primary chant, or something along those lines.  In the
Aphrodian tongue it sounded more threatening, and it rhymed.  Of
course with hundreds of angry voices lifting the phrase, anything
sounded threatening.  No shots were fired, at least not by the
Lunari.  Some idiot in the crowd pulled a magickal firearm and
tried to down one of the guardsmen rushing Mr. Arit into the
ship.

     I noticed, as the crowd folded around the gunman, that the
shots bounced harmlessly off the shields protecting the group.
Lunari magick was more powerful than that of Venus.  The voices
gave an affirmative.  That was why I had to go to the Moon for
the plan to work.

     ***

     It took nearly two months for me to get to trial.  But that
was fine by me.  I was much too busy to be bothered by the world.

     Every night, the voices would teach me how to pull my spirit
free of my body.  I was never able to attempt this before coming
into the Lunari palace; I wasn't exposed to enough magick.  But
every moment I spent waiting for trial in that palace, I was
accumulating magick and storing it.  The voices taught me how.

     The magick of the Lunari palace was created by the most
powerful weapon in the universe; the Silver Imperium Crystal.
The voices told me the crystal's original name but I could never
pronounce it, not in this world at least.  The crystal had come
into existence shortly after all the universes had, and whichever
universe contained it would rule all the others.  Therefore, the
voices concluded for me, the crystal must not be in the hands of
the moon kingdom but that of the dark kingdom in the universe the
voices hailed from.

     I admit, this confused me at first.  But the voices told me
the tales every night as I collected the energy emitted from the
crystal.  One night, I had gathered enough energy to pull myself
from my body and explore the palace.  I not only was able to
"see" magick on this plane of existence, but I could see the
voices as well.  They were beautiful creatures the pulsed with
colors that no one had ever seen in our universe.  Magick was a
wondrous thing that spread and collected in tendrils and tasted
of its user and origin.

     I was able to collect more energy this way; by being closer
to the source and take it into my spirit directly.  I grew weary
of returning to my physical body with it's limitations and
ailments.  I wanted to be free, like the voices.  They told me I
would be, as soon as I was strong enough, as soon as I could
bring them into my world.

     But after the months of deliberation, it was time to go to
trial.  I hadn't really been looking forward to this, but the
voices calmed me and gave me strength.  They told me not to lie,
not to defend myself, but to not tell of their existence else the
plan would be exposed.

     I hadn't realized the Lunar Queen would be in attendance.
She was a beautiful creature, thriving on the magick of the
silver crystal.  I wanted to be her in that moment.  I wanted to
exist in the crystal's magick, I wanted to wield it's power and
feel it in my physical body as well as my spiritual one.

     And I hated her for the fact I wasn't her.

     The voices told me I would possess the crystal one day, but
it would take a long time until that day came.  I would have to
become more powerful than I was now to defeat the Kingdom of the
Moon, and I couldn't do it alone.  Right now, all I had to do was
bring them into this world, and to do that, I had to release all
my collected magick to them.

     And to do that, all I had to do was die.

     Queen Serenity asked me to defend myself.  I told the court
the tale of my guilt in an emotionless monotone, all the while
drinking up on the magick spreading through the courtroom from
the crystal.

***

     It had been seventeen years since the wars on Terra had
ended, taking with it my parents and two brothers.  I lived in
the back storage closet of a local brothel, taking care of the
bastard children and stealing more often than once from the
drunken clientele before the whores could.  The money I procured
went to feeding the children before they succumbed to the current
plague or froze to death in the wintry climes.

     A member of the Terran Royal House was on a fully-televised
tour of the area, showing the planet and the Moon Kingdom how
much he cared for the poverty-stricken of his world and how
perfect a candidate he was for the Silver Millennium's senate.
The night he spent in the posh hotel across the river, eight of
his guardsmen visited the brothel.  A fight broke out when they
refused to pay the Madame and the brothel was reduced to cinder
by that morning.  Of the whores that weren't killed, five were
taken to prison and the remaining three were carted off for the
house-member's own harem back at the capitol.

     I was one of the three.

     And when the Terran royal was elected to the senate, I went
with him to the Moon.  The Lunar Palace threw a huge celebration
for the newly elected officials of all the planets.  I was, of
course, left behind with two other whores, locked in the cellar
of his mansion.  I smothered one of the girls in her sleep and
was forced to strangle the other when she awoke before I
suffocated her.  The servants heard the screams and came running.
I broke the first one's neck and used the sleeve of my shirt to
cut off the other's air and left him to die as I escaped.

     I stole through the night onto the grounds of the Aphrodian
palace.  The Royal House of Venus's princess Shajai was readying
herself for the ball when I broke into her room from the
celestial fountain.  I tried to drown her in it but she escaped
my grip.  So I broke the empty bottle of wine left on a her
dresser and tore her throat out with the sharpened edges before
she had a chance to run.  By then, her screams had alerted the
guards and I was overtaken.

***

     The court was appalled at my testimony.  Of course, I hadn't
told them that the voices had instructed me on how to channel
magick into the guardsmen back on Terra, causing them to pick a
fight with the Madame and eventually to chose myself to be carted
off to the Moon.  The voices were also the ones to teach me how
to murder the other whores and the servants, and had shown me the
way to enter the Aphrodian palace without being detected.

     But most importantly, the voices helped me to craft my
testimony to horrify the court and the Queen.  I made the entire
story sound like I had broken into the wrong palace in an attempt
to kill the Lunari Princess, which of course made the Queen angry
that I would try to kill her beloved daughter.

     And if her royal majesty Queen Serenity was angry and wanted
my death, so did the entire kingdom.  I was sentenced for
execution at the hands of the Aphrodian senshi the next day.

     The voices took my spirit from my body as the Venus Senshi
unleashed her most brutal attack on me.  I felt nothing but joy
as I was freed from my physical constraints.  The voices were
with me as I pulled myself away from the moon.  They had come
into my universe with me, and I could see them for what they
really were.

     I should have been frightened of their true forms.  But I
embraced them as my servants, just as I embraced the name they
gave me.

     Metallia.

     And together we waited, growing stronger and wiser as we
watched the affairs of the universe that would soon be ours.


End

C&C Welcome Lunari@Sprynet.com

Other stories by the author:

-- Dying Fire
-- Justification is in Order
-- Torn: A Tale of Tuxedo Mask
-- Cling: A Tale of Tuxedo Mask