Warning: "Adult" language and "sexual" references. (*sweatdrop). No descriptions.

Preface: (Ami's POV)
I was only twenty-five years old when I met Zoi for the first time ever, but back in the Silver Millennium, it was considered an old age for an unmarried woman, especially a princess. Everyone was urging me to find a suitable prince and get married, even my old friend, Greg, who was my Prime Minister and a trusted friend. I never thought that I'd fall in love with Zoicite, and from the start, we knew such a romance would be doomed. And yet, neither of us could help it, because we were the others halves of each other's souls; destiny commanded it so. Cruel fate, which gave me a love that I had never experienced before, a burning passion that I had never known could exist...and then took it and our lives away in a flash. But even now, looking back on the events that have passed, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I'd rather we had those few precious moments together than none at all. And me, law-abiding, cowering little senshi that never broke any rules...realized that sometimes...

Rules Are Meant To Be Broken-Part 1
"Is there anything we can do?" she asked softly, desperately, even though she knew it was already too late.
The Prime Minister shook his head gravely, earnest brown eyes reflecting sorrow and an aching worry for his princess. "No. Nothing. It's too late, Ami. You've given him enough, staying with him the whole night as if you were the daughter he never had. He was growing old, and the arthritis in his bones was paining him. It's better that he left this way, in his sleep, painlessly."
Wiping away the tears that had fallen and left darker blue droplets on her silken gown, she stood up tiredly, having spent the entire night with her ailing tutor. Feeling as if another person inhabited her body, her weary spirit, the princess ordered, "Then station the guards to keep watch outside and make sure the body is undisturbed. Tell them to prepare the body for burning tomorrow, at sunrise."
Before Greg could say anything, she pushed past him with abruptness that he knew could never have been attributed to rudeness. She was hurting again, and, like last time, there was nothing he could do. Nodding sharply to the various guards in the room, he said, "You heard the orders of your princess. Four guards outside the door, the rest of you back to your normal duties." As they moved to obey silently, dutifully, he sighed and left himself, after covering the old man with the thick comforter.
Once inside his large but plain suite of rooms, Greg walked over the balcony cat-like, his silence imperfect but still good enough to fool most people. Sighing, he looked over the beautiful city of water-washed, riveting sapphire-hued stone. A beautiful marine color that matched the blue of Princess of Mercury's eyes...he cursed and slammed his fist down upon the polished stone. I am an idiot, he thought to himself, a complete and hopeless idiot. It's past time to move on. Yet, Ami's father had died five years ago, and she had been ruling princess ever since. The only reason she still did not hold the well-deserved title of queen was because she was unmarried. It was perfectly fine to Greg, however. He would be perfectly happy if she never married. But then the unselfish part of him reminded that even though she would never love him, could never love him, he still wanted her to be happy, even if he wasn't.
A trickling of warm alerted him that his hand was bleeding, and the brown-haired man frowned, puzzled. The edges of the stone were planed smooth, and no part of it was rough or jagged. And yet, the open scrape on his hand was bleeding, pouring blood with his heart. Shaking himself from his maudlin thoughts, Greg went to rinse off the side of his hand and apply a quick bandage.
~~~~*~~~~
Meanwhile, Ami was back in her rooms, and she sank soundlessly into a chair, closing her eyes. She tried to banish the image that appeared before her, so like another she had seen. Her old tutor, before she had gone to the Moon for senshi training, had received her with open arms when she had returned to her home. He had taught her everything he knew about the Solar System and life itself, lessons that were invaluable. He was a well-acclaimed scholar, having visited all the planets-including Earth. In fact, when her father, the King of Mercury, had died, he had introduced her to Prince Endymion, whom he had met on one of his numerous journeys to Earth. She smiled slightly as she remembered, fondly, the grizzled old man. The light in his eyes was gone now, though, his eyes closed forever to the world he had delighted in discovering. Just like her father. Oh, Ami had loved her father dearly, even though they were two of the same, cut from the same cloth-they didn't show emotion well. But she was perceptive enough to read the fondness and pride in his eyes, even before she had returned from the Moon.
Calmly, coolly, efficiently, she closed the previously-open glass windows of her room. They closed one by one, methodically, inhumanly. Picking up her soft silk slippers, Ami examined them closely and then put them under the bed, just as neatly as everything else in her room was. Neat, organized, precise, everything defined with its own rules. Finding a pair of high-heeled blue shoes, she shut the door without looking back and walked to the communications room with her head held high. She was ice, her element, her power, her nature...and nothing could ever touch her inner self. Or so she thought.
~~~~*~~~~
On the nearby planet of Venus, Princess Mina yawned widely and rather inelegantly, pulling a golden silk bed robe from her chair. She had only gotten in a few precious hours of sleep when the messenger had awoken her, saying an urgent message had come in from the Princess of Mercury herself. Massaging the sleep out of her cornflower blue eyes, she walked down the hall in a stately fashion, but her thoughts began to become more unsettling as she became more and more awake. Ami often communicated with her fellow senshi, but she was careful to calculate reasonable hours. Plus, she never said anything was urgent unless the matter was really important. Flinging back her long, sun-kissed hair distractedly, Mina pushed open the door to the communications room and focused immediately upon the sharp screen. "Ami?"
As the connection wavered, she heard her friend's crystalline voice muffled slightly as the other replied, "We're getting some space particles moving in the way of our connection, that's all. Mina...Leon died this morning."
Feeling a crushing sadness at the core of her being, the Venusian princess immediately knew what had jolted her awake only a few hours before. But being bone-tired, she had sunk back to sleep almost right away, after assuring herself that nothing had happened to any of the senshi. "Oh, Ames...I'm sorry. I knew how important he was to you, and he was a good man. A loved one, too," she added as an afterthought.
"Thank you," Ami replied gratefully. Her friend's powers connected to love assured her that Leon had left quietly, knowing that he was cared for affectionately. "His body will be cremated in a few hours...at sunrise. I should contact Lita and Serenity now."
"All right then. Oh, before you leave, Ami..." She smiled gently, feeling the pain in her friend's heart, and let the words flow softly, "Remember that we're all here for you."
The blue-haired princess felt her mouth curve in an answering smile, but she let it disappear quickly as soon as she had shut off the connection to Venus. Ami remembered how she had first told Rei, who had already known what was coming. The sadness and understanding in the luminous purple eyes had seen what was in her heart, for the fiery spirit of the senshi of Mars had taken many such beatings before. Thinking about Mina's words as she readied herself to tell her Jovian friend, she sighed softly and covered her face with pale, cool, icy hands. Even though Ami treasured her friends more than anything else in the world, she missed them after they had all left the Moon. Busy with their new duties as princesses, they still tried to keep in touch, and had succeeded admirably. But a part of her knew that, while a large portion of her heart belonged to her four friends, there was another sizable hole that they could never fill.
~~~~*~~~~
While the Four Generals were legendary on Earth, they were almost nothing to the rest of the Solar System in comparison to the senshi. However, the four young men meant almost everything in the world to their prince, who was currently contemplating which to send on an extremely important trip to Mercury.
The problem was, relations had been strained recently between their planets, as the Mercurians were tight-fisted and slightly secretive with their knowledge, while the Eartherns scorned them for this and distrusted their closed-mouthed silences. Endymion leaned back in his chair, nervously running a hand through his hair.
Kunzite, Commanding General, was never a bad consort to send. But then again, he was rather cold and stolid-but that made him a level-headed diplomat who could always keep his priorities in order. Too bad he was on Pluto at this moment and would never reach Mercury in time.
Turning to his next general, the ebony-haired prince wrinkled his brow thoughtfully. Nephrite had met the old scholar a few times also, as had all the other generals, but he had not known him as well as, say, Endymion or his last general. Shrugging, the prince wondered whether his stargazer would be a good choice. He was as politically-skilled as Kunzite and had a smoother tongue than the silver-haired gen. Prince of Earth he might be, but he couldn't see the future like Nephrite. Contemplating his second-in-command, he frowned meditatively. Would Ami, sensitive to the slightest things even though one would never know it from her serene and icy mask of politeness, feel resentful that Nephrite had already foreseen the man's death and manner? Probably not, but one should never chance it.
Ah, Jadeite, blond-haired, azure blue-eyed, honey-tongued, and sly as the devil...he was third-in-command but only because he was slightly younger than Nephrite. In truth, the blonde and the brunette were matched in power. Endymion could try and convince Jadeite about the gravity of the situation, and while he knew Jadeite understood, sometimes the general couldn't resist flirting with beautiful women. And the Princess of Mercury was indeed considered a beautiful women...and the prince just couldn't risk having one of his generals being frozen into a block of ice forever because of one of his missteps with the wrong woman.
Shaking his head regretfully, Endymion finally turned his mind to the fourth general. Quiet, cunning, and agile Zoicite was a perfect example for brains over brawn, and although every one of the generals was quite good in the intelligence department ("quite good" was actually quite an understatement), none of them were as good as the strategic, green-eyed one. He had also known old Leon a bit more than the others and respected his wisdom, the gen's own stores of knowledge growing under his brief instruction. Here was the perfect solution-why had it taken him so long to come to it? Endymion shook his head at his slowness and snagged a passing page outside the door and asked him to fetch General Zoicite. The young boy, awed by his royal prince's command and by the fame of the one he was to search for, bowed deeply and sped off in the general direction of the library, where he was sure the gen would be.
~~~~*~~~~
The Prince of the West browsed distractedly among the many shelves, scowling as the desired book eluded him. He knew the contents of all the libraries (there were at least five) of Endymion's palace (not to mention all the other gens's) and had read most of them, but he had a craving to reread a fantastical story that he knew he really should not be spending the time on but just had to read.
It was one of those books that can never be put down, and one that can be read over and over without the reader ever becoming bored of the story. Zoicite always felt excitement at the plot twists and villains lurking around the corners, admiration for the heroic feats of the main character, awe for the female lead who used all her wits, brains, and trickery to keep her kingdom safe...he also experienced pangs of distress when the brave man died, backstabbed, then great gladness when his lady sacrificed almost all of her life-force to keep him alive...and he always hoped, each time, that the ending wouldn't be so upsetting. But each time, Zoicite almost cried with sorrow for the lovers at the end of the novel. They died far apart, longing for the warmth of each other's arms, but not seeking it as their lifeblood seeped slowly from their wounds.
The green-eyed one shook his head at his own folly and smiled triumphantly as his lithe fingers finally located the sought-for item.
Suddenly, a hesitant, shaking voice at his elbow asked hesitantly, "General Zoicite?"
Turning, Zoicite smiled at the youth and nodded. "Yes?"
Executing a neat bow, barely breathing in the gen's presence, the boy murmured, "My lord the Prince Endymion wishes you to attend him in his study."
"Thank you."As forest green bored into chocolate brown, the latter pair of eyes shining eagerly, the older man shook his head regretfully as he tried to pull himself out of surfacing, painful memories. He left the library quickly, attempting to shut away recollections pushed away for too many years. Walking by himself through the cold, empty marble halls that echoed dismally with his footsteps, Zoicite rebound his unruly hair and sighed in frustration as tangled curls escaped the strip of worn green cloth rebelliously. Knocking on the mahogany wood door to Endymion's study, he entered almost immediately, knowing that his prince cared little for ceremonious little traditions, which often included bowing and scraping (which were odious to Endymion). Without batting an eyelash, Zoicite nodded to Kunzite, who was already seated, and executed a short bow to Endymion.
"Zoi...stop that." As the younger man grinned teasingly, he sat casually, as Endymion flicked a glance at his High General. "Have you heard the news from Mercury yet?"
*surprised* "No, has something happened?"
"Leon died last night...or this morning," the silver-haired man said abruptly, too tired from his previous nights' traversing to break the news gently. He had also respected the old man, but he had spent the last weeks journeying throughout the kingdom to find the source and roots of troubling news. "We need to keep Endymion safe here on Earth, and because Sir Leon isn't as exalted as the King of Mercury was, there is no need for him to go."
"So you want me to go? Not Neph or Jade?" he asked curiously, raising an eyebrow questioningly.
Shrugging, Kunzite looked at his prince, who answered, "Well, they didn't know him as well as you did, and maybe you'll be able to comfort the princess better."
"All right, then, when do I leave?"
The Prince of the Earth thanked the gods that at least two of his generals could obey with speed and without unnecessary questions. "This evening, midnight at the very latest."
Checking his watch with an elegant flourish, Zoicite inquired, "And how long of a stay will it be?"
"Indefinite." At his flat tone, the two other men in the room turned to stare at their liege. The ebony-haired man snapped in a rather annoyed manner, almost as weary as Kunzite with matters of the state that they had yet to discuss, "The Princess of Mercury is a very important person, but besides that...I've met Ami more than you two, and once you get to know her, she's not that-"
"Cold?" Kunzite blushed darkly as the other two turned to stare at him. "My apologies, Endymion, for speaking so plainly, but she gives even me the chills sometimes. It's as if she has no feeling left..."
Glaring at them, he ordered, "Zoicite, you will stay as long as need be. You don't come home unless you see fit or I order you to, but make sure you report daily. All these rumors about war, the falling of the Silver Alliance...and you know about the numerous disagreements between our Terran people and the Mercurians."
~~~~*~~~~
As the flames, dancing and crackling, roared high around Leon's body, Ami stood stolidly, Greg by her side. She barely noticed his presence, and even as tears trickled down her cheeks unceasingly, she barely seemed to notice. The princess stood with her head proud and high, eyes fixed upon the fire and nothing else. After a few customary words, the people left. Ami had no idea what she said, but she hoped it was complimentary. If only she could have drawn up the courage to tell the public what he had really meant to her. Leon had not only been a tutor; he was a friend, surrogate father, confidante...the list went on and on. So many parts of her had died already, and among those were her parents, several childhood friends, and now Leon.
"Ami...please..." He was hesitant, almost scared.
She turned to face him almost blindly, wiping the moisture from her face. Oh, she knew very well how he felt towards her, but Ami knew it was kinder this way. Even if she had loved him, which she didn't, the match couldn't even be considered. He was her Prime Minister and would execute her orders, and she would take his advice as she saw fit. That was all. "Yes?"
"General Zoicite arrives this morning from Earth, by the order of Prince Endymion. You must greet him and make him welcome. He carries the condolences from his planet."
"Oh." Ami was quite uninterested, her tone bland and formal. "Anything else?"
Looking down, he whispered unwillingly, "None of the Inner or Outer senshi are currently able to leave their homes. You've heard all the rumors about how unstable the Silver Alliance is. There are couriers from the Moon, along with the other planets, but none are as important as this general. I or some other official can greet them and pass any important messages unto you. But you must see General Zoicite. It is imperative. And...those are the rules of diplomacy and etiquette."
"Very well then. When does his airship land?"
"In a hour."
"I'll be at the ship's docking, then."