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Sailormoon is owned by Naoko Takeuchi. All licenses belong
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Note: This is in the same timeline as "Catnap", an earlier fic.
Also, any complaints about continuity can kiss my ass. This
is my timeline and I know damn well enough when things go.

This is more like a vignette if anything else, a little scene.

Maybe after a few years I'll tell the entire story.

****************************************

A End and A Beginning

A Vignette from before the Silver Millenium

by

Elsa Bibat

****************************************

Approximately 800, 500 B.C.E:


    The beautiful woman in white looked up at the ancient structure before
her. A tall figure in armor stood by her side, also looking up.

    She was dressed in a voluminous robe of white trimmed with gold,
accented by silver and gold shoulder plates. Shining metal bracers
were set on her forearms. In one hand, a staff of argent topped with a
multifaceted crystal supported her as she stood, proud and majestic.
A little necklace that had only a tear-drop shaped red crystal hung from
her neck.

    She had obviously been from a recent battle. The robe was
singed, slashed at certain places, dirtied in some. The staff was similar
in condition, burned and scorched at odd places. The bracers were
dented and blackened.

    But, if anyone were here they would not see the flaws. They would
see the power and pride in the woman's stature. They would see those
clear, blue eyes, so much like the skies of Earth on a clear summer day.
They would see the long, luxurious hair bound into twin ponytails like two
golden waterfalls. They would see the beauty and they would see the way
she carried herself as a warrior, the way her hand clasped around the staff
and the steel in those blue pools that were her eyes.

    She was Serenity, whom the people called the White Queen, and
she had just fullfilled a promise made millenia ago when Atlantis fell.
Within her veins flowed the blood of its survivors and of those who came
even earlier. She was a child of the Defiance, those who fought against
them that brought down an empire that had once ruled the stars and
would destroy humankind.

    Beside her stood a figure of awe-inspiring presence. Black metal
covered it from head to foot, an obsidian collossus seemingly without
flesh, it towered over even the tall Serenity. A wolf-face was set instead
of a face in the head piece, eyes burning with a reddish light, face cast
in an eternal snarl. A large broadsword was held in between those
hands of metal in a relaxed position before it. No one would guess that
underneath all that metal lurked a living man. The metal was cracked
and dented, melted at certain parts, torn with ugly rents across the chest
and a particularly nasty one across the left arm. This rent marked the
presence of life underneath that titanic bulk of sable iron, for blood
dripped there, painting a scarlet brushstroke which still dripped with wet
liquid.

    One hand reached up and tapped the side of the headpiece gently
and the wolf-face folded, bent, seeped back into the collar of the
armor to reveal the sweaty face of its occupant. Long black hair like
a mane flew about as he shook his head. A few stray locks stuck
tenaciously to his forehead. Blue-gray eyes peeked from under
unruly bangs as he gazed up at the structure before them. The face was
ruggedly handsome, all planes, no curves, hard and unforgiving as a
stony cliff. The man's thin lips were set into a grim smile as he nodded
with satisfaction.

    He was Endymion, the one that men and women called the Dark Knight,
a terrible warrior and possessor of the Armor of the Black Wolf, an artifact
from the Empire of the Stars that once spanned several galaxies. He was
also brother to Serenity and fought by her side and sought to protect her
from all harm. His sword was known on all the worlds of Sol and he had let
blood in all of them, from the caves of Mercury to the icy wastes of Pluto.
A child of the Defiance, all that he had killed were servants of the Black
Pharaoh, enemy of his bloodline since the fall of Empire.

    Before them was the palace of the Black Pharaoh. Done in the style of
the Atlanteans, those whom He fell with his deception and tricks, it was
a darkly beautiful thing. Impossible curves, spiral pillars, walls designed
on the principle of five, it was an incredible achievement of engineering.

    It also housed an incredible evil, for here the Black Pharaoh dwelt, the
one called Nephren-Ka who led the people of Atlantis to their destruction,
taking them to heights of knowledge unheard-of and dashing them from
these heights. After this the Black Pharaoh took all their knowledge and
conquered the worlds.

    As for the Atlanteans or the Draconians as they had called themselves,
some fled to some mysterious hiding place far beyond the reach of the
Black Pharaoh and his servants. Others stayed to fight, severing their wings
as penance for their stupidity. They fought and they bled with those who
called themselves the Defiance, warriors and scholars that had waited for
the coming of the Black Pharaoh's evil to this world. For generations, they
fought and they lived, reaching this point in time, this moment where
brother and sister stood before the palace of the Black Pharaoh, after
having fulfilled their bloodline's promise of vengeance.

    A promise paid for by many, as evidenced by the ruined city around the
palace, some of them still smoking, some still on fire, some already ash
and blown to the wind. The siblings also paid in full, for they had come
here with close to a million troops and now they only knew of that they were

the only ones left alive.

    They were silent as they surveyed the scene of their final triumph. It
was Endymion who broke the silence.

    "We have fulfilled our blood's promise, sister." His voice was like
the sound of grating rocks as he looked to his sibling.

    "Not yet, brother. There is still one more thing." Serenity's voice
compared to her brother had an almost musical quality to it.

    With a fluorish, the White Queen raised her staff of argent, the crystal
foremost to the dark heavens of the night sky. The red tear-drop glowed
a scarlet so bright that the world was awash with crimson, a promise
of vengeance completed.

    Then she slammed it down in a wide arc to the ground, like a hammer
of justice, like lightning from the skies.

    It was a terrible and beautiful sight to behold. The earth screamed. The
winds roared. The sky was came crashing down and the fires of heaven
and hell seemed to be in that eternal moment when the palace of Black
Pharaoh was destroyed.

    After that moment, nothing was left but the ground, scorched, shattered,
cracked, broken, annihilated.

    "So easy it is to destroy for you now, little sister." Endymion said
sadly
as he looked at Serenity.

    "I am different now, brother. I am steel where I once was silk, hard in
what once was soft." Serenity whispered moroesly as she surveyed her
handiwork. "With this power, I sometimes wonder whether I be better off
dead."

    Endymion put a metal-sheathed hand on her shoulder and tried to force
a smile. "Do not worry, it is over and we may-"

    "It is not over, brother. You heard what Nephren-Ka said. With His
defeat,
we have attracted their attention. With my power I can feel them and I know
this to be true. Even now, I sense the Slumbering Lord of R'lyeh stir. No,
it is
not over. It will never be over."

    Endymion bowed his head in assent. He was silent as his sister
continued.

    "He mocked us as he died, brother. His defeat would herald the end of
all that we had fought for. They will come, with Their hordes of Things. I
saw
them, He showed me the swarms of winged creatures that flew between the
gulf of worlds, drinking the blood of the living. I saw the worms that could
burrow through rock like it was water. I saw things of living fire, of winds
with
eyes, of thing that I thought I would only see in the Book of the Traveler
and
my nightmares."

    Endymion shuddered, for he too had read the Traveler's Journal and knew
what his sister was talking of.

    "Then after these would come their Masters. I with all my power cannot
stand
up to them, for they are like unto gods and only a god would be able to
match
a god." Serenity stopped and looked up into the starry, night sky.

    "Then what are we to do, sister?" Endymion asked as his sister's gaze
left the
heavens and looked into his own eyes. Her eyes were like pools of blue ice
and
a cold, light fire burned bright in them as she answered.

    "Then we shall make our own gods."

****************************************

Thanks for reading. C&C is welcome.


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