Rules Are Meant To Be Broken-Part 10
It was early the next morning when Ami arose from her bed, having had a sleepless and much-disturbed night. As the sun had barely risen, the day young and misty with dew, she took a few minutes to admire the rosy-pink blush of the sky, with its glorious golden rays of sunlight just peeking over the horizon. No one would be up, not even General Zoicite, and she could have some peace and quiet. While the sky, she told herself wryly, would soon be lit in shades of indigo.
Once she was attired in a cool white gown much like yesterday's blue dress, although it seemed as if she were among billowing, puffy clouds instead of melodic trickles of water, she walked her way dreamily through the labyrinth, her mind dwelling on past and recent events. It was so nice to have peace, for once, and her duties had been lightened ever since the Terran Embassy had been here. And because the Inner Princesses had also come, there were also no talks! What luck...what joy...
Sighing quietly to herself, she seemed to float along as she entered her garden, securely closing the door behind her. She was safe here, with all her wards in place, and no one would be able to disturb her, not even the senshi.
Ami let out a wistful little sigh and then closed her eyes, dreaming of a time where she could have peace and rest.
~~~~*~~~~
The senshi were hovering outside the garden, out of patience. Debating whether or not a good blast with electricity would disarm the wards, the Jovian princess fumed, "How dare she close us out like this! Why won't she let us in?"
"I don't think she knows we're trying to get in," Mina said soothingly, trying to placate her angry friend.
"No, she knows perfectly well that we're out here. I know this type of ward. But if she wants to be left alone so much, shouldn't we just go?"
"Oh...all right. Except..." Lita turned around suddenly and smirked at a suspicious bush nearby that was wobbling. It was rather large but not large enough to conceal a gray-uniformed general. "Well, the way is clear for you now, General Zoicite."
Blushing as he emerged, he sweatdropped when he noted their reactions. "Uh....er...I can explain. Sort of."
Sighing, Rei muttered, "Don't bother. We don't want to hear it. Good day, general."
Blinking as they left him, Zoicite examined the guards to the door of the garden in a rather bemused manner. "But of course! My favorite type of logical trap..." A few seconds later, he had succeeded in unlocking the impossible gateway.
~~~~*~~~~
Expecting her friends when the door began to open, the Mercurian princess sighed and readied herself to talk to them. Who came through surprised her greatly, and she snapped at him in frustration, "Why can't you just leave me alone?! I'm tired of being polite. I will ask you once and for all-please. Go. Away. Now."
"I can't."
Feeling a surge of annoyance, the blue-haired princess glared at the general angrily. "Fine. I'll go."
"No, don't."
Exasperated, she asked, "Then what do you want me to do?"
Looking down for a moment to gather his thoughts, Zoicite shrugged. "Can't you just listen to me? For a few minutes? Then you can go, and I won't bother you again. I promise."
"Okay," she said, giving in, "you might as well sit down."
"Why are you afraid of me?" he asked abruptly, startling both of them.
Gazing into the distance, Ami felt old cares and hurts wash over her. "I'm not afraid of you. You're a good person, actually, much better than I am."
"But-"
Cutting of his protests, she continued dreamily, "I've sworn off marriage as long as I could. I'm already twenty-five, did you know?"
This time she allowed him to talk. Zoicite said, "Twenty-five isn't all that old, you know. I'm twenty-six myself."
"It's different for you. For one thing, you aren't a princess. Besides, you're a man. Men can marry at whatever age they want, especially when they're disgusting old lechers. But no, once a woman reaches twenty-five, she becomes a spinster that no one will look at. And you're doubly cursed if you're a princess. It's imminent that sometime soon, my council will make me marry someone, most likely the Prince of Uranus. I don't want to marry; I don't even want to fall in love."
Shocked, the blond-haired gen shook his head. "But...don't all women want to fall in love with some handsome prince and get married? Isn't that every woman's dream?"
Smiling a bitter, small smile, Ami shrugged. "Well...you have to keep in mind that I'm not the average woman. Neither are my friends. But Serenity and Lita want to be married, Rei just doesn't want to be ruled by a man, and Mina...Mina's searching for the perfect one."
"So-so why don't you want to fall in love at all? Love is a wonderful feeling..." he trailed off when he noticed the pain in her deep blue eyes.
"Yes," she whispered, "love is a feeling to be cherished beyond anything else...but love hurts too. It hurts more than anything in the world, more than having wounds cut open. And trust me, I've experienced that, too."
Understanding suddenly, in a quick flash, Zoicite lowered sorrowful green eyes. Gently, softly, he asked, "Who hurt you?"
"No one," she rasped harshly. "I hurt myself, because I was stupid and foolish. I didn't think that anyone in the world would be able to hurt anyone so cruelly, so I let him into my heart." As tears began to trickle down her cheeks, Ami wiped them away impatiently, then whispered, "But I never should have trusted in the first place. Never should have offered forth my heart, because I just got it broken out of my own asininity. I was brainless, silly...dense...bovine...inane, insipid, every single synonym for stupid you can think of."
"No, you aren't!" he declared passionately. "Who was he? Who?"
"I never-I never told anyone except the other senshi. But...his name was Rorick. He was a member of the Lunarian court...and he was, to put it plainly, a shameless womanizer. But I admired him from a distance, because I wished I could be as free and as adored as he was. One day, one of his friends had noticed my interest in him and bet Rorick a large amount of money and his family's sword that he wouldn't have the courage to make the Princess of Mercury, who had never loved a man, fall in love with him. Of course, I had no clue about this, but quite a few of the servants found out. He bribed them to keep them silent; he was rich enough. So, slowly, I began to fall in love with him when he took an interest in me. He told me...that I was pretty, that he had never met a woman like me. But he was only lying. He was lying about everything. My friends were happy for me-Rorick had always acted like the perfect gentleman around them and had even asked them to call him Rory. And then one night, Lita noticed her maid was very distraught about something. Letitia, she was called, suddenly burst out about the whole thing, sobbing and saying how she couldn't disobey her princess. But it was too late," Ami murmured, half of her lost in the memory. "I had already given myself to him that night."
"You mean you-"
"Yes," the blue-haired princess confirmed, "I did. The others don't know what happened. Lita told me the next morning, and suddenly everything fell into place. His strange habits, sometimes disappearing, the way his eyes shifted, and how his lies never seemed to fit. When I confronted him, he attacked me. He wanted to frighten me into telling lies for him. See, his friend had made another cruel wager-that Rorick had to become engaged to me and then break it off. And so...I killed him. It was such a strange feeling, of crushing sadness but immense triumph. I hated myself for doing it. Everyone knew what happened afterwards, even though the Queen and all the princesses tried to protect me. But no one knows that I'm not a virgin. Not even Greg. It's funny, isn't it? You would expect the shy little Princess of Mercury to be untouched by any man. Never even kissed. Well, they're wrong."
Feeling his own heart shatter, as if dropped from a high height down to the hard flagstones, Zoicite's misery increased when he saw the tears flowing down her cheeks. "Please, Ami. Don't cry. I'm sorry you told me."
"I'm not," she said deliberately, surprising him. "I'm not sorry. It's time someone knew the entire truth." Reaching out towards him, her slim fingers turned his chin towards her deftly. "Greg hit you, didn't he? He told me he saw us kissing."
"It's nothing."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Ami, please, you have to believe me. I would never hurt you in such a monstrous way."
"I know you wouldn't." She smiled suddenly, casting a bright ray of light. "I trust you. It's strange, and I never admitted it before, but I do."
Hardly believing in his daring, he blurted out, "I love you."
Eyes darkening sadly, she stood to go. "I'm sorry, Zoicite, but it's just not possible. You have to understand what I ask of you. Please don't ever say those words to me again."
~~~~*~~~~
Mina frowned darkly as she scanned the horizon. Nudging the guard next to her abruptly, causing him to drop his binoculars, she turned his head towards the north and demanded harshly, "Tell me what you see."
After one protesting squawk, the man looked in the direction she indicated. Gulping, he exclaimed, "A humongous black mass is coming towards us!!! It has to be the army of the Dark Kingdom and their witch, Metallia!!"
Grimly, the princess muttered to herself, "Something has to be drawing them towards us...some great energy must have activated that demoness. But what?" Ignoring the sentries around her that were losing their heads, she pulled out her communicator and pressed three buttons. "Everyone, we have a very serious problem...yeah, yeah. I'm positive. You want to look out of your windows, to the north? Rei, make sure that this doesn't leak out to the entire palace. Everyone will go nuts. Lita, ready the shuttles. We have to leave. I'm going to contact the queen."
"Mina, what should I do?"
Smiling distractedly at her friend, feeling the anxieties press on her, the blonde said, "Go and tell Greg to ready the armies. I'm sorry we're all leaving you, Ames, but-"
"I know what you have to do. You have duties to your people, just like me. Will you tell Serenity that I'm sorry?"
"Of course." A few seconds later, she ordered, "Get me through to the queen, right away. No, I don't care what time it is. I want to speak to her NOW. Perhaps you don't know who I am. Tell her the Princess of Venus, also the senshi commander, says that it's an emergency. Good. My queen? A black disturbance has been reported coming through the Solar System. No, I wasn't aware that no communication was going through to the Outer planets. My queen, forgive us all. But we are staying with our people and our planets. If we fall, we fall first. Hopefully their power will be blunted by the time they reach the Moon. No, I won't want to talk to Serenity...just tell her that we're sorry we can't protect her and that we love her dearly. Yes, my queen. Good bye, and good luck." Turning back to the nervous soldiers around her, she snapped, "What are you waiting for? Go and find your superiors."
~~~~*~~~~
"Lita...Rei..."
"It's okay, Ami. We'll go to the Moon now and help protect Serenity."
Sighing as they hugged one another, Mina gazed at her two friends. She would be returning to Venus, and since Mars and Jupiter were already overtaken, Lita and Rei would report to the queen. This would probably be the last time they were all together, unless something miraculous happened.
"Hurry," Ami ordered her friends, wiping away her tears. Tears were signs of weakness, and she had already cried enough over trivial things the past few days. "Go."
"Stay safe."
"Don't forget, Ami, give love a chance."
"We love you."
"And I all of you. Now go."
A few moments later, she was walking away from the port once more, not bothering to stay to watch the two airships leave. A courier ran up to her, panting. "My lady! The Outer planets were overtaken, and everything is ravaged and destroyed! There are no survivors...and the Outer Senshi seem to have perished!!"
Exhaling deeply, Ami nodded, feeling a great sadness in her heart for her friends and what would be coming to her people. "Summon General Zoicite and Commander Greg to me at once. Tell them I'll be at the spire." The spire was the very top of the palace, a very good look-out and thousands of miles above the ground. Nodding back, the messenger left to fetch them.
~~~~*~~~~
"Zoicite, I want you to leave here right away, with your men. They aren't Mercurian, and you aren't bound to protect my planet." Opening his mouth to protest, Ami quelled him with a serious look. "If you won't do this for me, do it for Endymion. Think of your men, Zoicite. Please."
After a few moments of arguing, the general nodded, defeated. He had his men and prince to think of...and he was leaving his heart and his princess behind. "Ami, I-"
"I know," she whispered. As he wrapped his arms around her, her lips met his for a moment of eternity until she shoved him away. "Hurry and go." Sighing as he left at a run, without looking back, the blue-haired woman leaned against the wall. Everyone had left her...and she must stand alone.
"Ami."
Without looking at him, knowing that he had seen everything, Ami asked, "Are the army and the navy ready?"
"Of course. Even though we know it's a losing battle already, we'll fight to the end. It's our planet, our soil, and our princess that we're fighting for."
Nodding, Ami took a deep breath and looked into his eyes. "Greg...I'm-I'm sorry."
"What for?"
"I'm sorry...that we're all going to die. I'm sorry you have to die like this."
"I'm not. I'm ready for my death, Ami. I loved no one in this life but you, and your heart is already promised to another. So it doesn't matter-I'll die defending you."
"Greg!" Her anguished cry sounded in his ears, but he was already gone in quick, steady strides.
It was time to do what he had been trained to do: protect her, protect the kingdom. But he had never anticipated the day when there would be something he couldn't protect her against. Smiling ironically to himself, he thought, ‘But there are two things, this cursed blackness...and the power of love.'
~~~~*~~~~
Ami stared across the darkness of her land, the shadow already beginning to eat away at the edges. She heard cries of pain, clashes of swords, and creatures and people massing everywhere. She never turned away, just watched silently, her heart crying the tears her eyes could no longer produce.
Suddenly, Zoicite startled her, as he always had, placing his hands comfortingly on her shoulders. He had been standing there for a few minutes, watching her sadly. Instead of looking serene, as if she were a cloud-walker, she looked like a tired, beaten angel.
Spinning around, she demanded, "What are you doing here? You were supposed to have left! I saw your airship leave!"
"I did leave," he admitted, "but then I realized that the place I had just left was the place I should have stayed. I teleported back here."
"You stubborn, bull-headed general!! Why can't you see that you don't belong here? You have nothing to hold you here!!"
"I have two things to keep me here: honor and you. And stop protesting. It's my choice to make, not your's."
Sighing deeply, knowing there was nothing she could do, the princess asked dejectedly, "What about Endymion? And your duty?"
"He's on the Moon, anyway. He'll understand. So will Kunzite, Nephrite, and Jadeite-did your friends ever tell you that they fell in love with the other generals?"
"They didn't!" she whispered, shocked. "But they never said anything..."
"No," he agreed softly, "they never said anything."
Shivering as the chill around them grew worse, Ami told him, "I can't do anything for my people. I can't find them. There are too many. And Metallia...she's too strong. I've already exhausted everything I have, hurling raw energy at her. I have no choice but to watch them die! And no can help me..." Finally turning to face him, she looked into his eyes, finding comfort and something she had never seen before: true love. "Why are you here?" she asked softly.
As the darkness inched up the palace, he flinched, hearing the screams below them. "Because I want to be with you. So Ami," he said casually, as if they had all the time in the world, "there's something that I want to know-before we die."
"What is it?" she asked resignedly. "I might as well answer if you put it that way. Besides-a princess can love a general now, because they'll die together. And we've broken all the rules I've ever known..."
Holding her close to him as the darkness began to spread around them, slowly descending, he whispered in her ear, "Do you love me?"
"Yes," she whispered, drawing closer into his embrace, "I do love you, Zoi."
Zoicite smiled, a bittersweet smile. "I'm glad to finally hear it. And now I'll die happy. I love you, Ami." Lifting her chin up lightly, he looked into her eyes once more, making sure that she wasn't looking at the land next to them, just at him. Then, slowly, gently, their lips met and their souls touched as the darkness finally enclosed them.
~~Finis~~