Okay, if you’re reading this, you probably already know what I’m like…this is another fic designed to make you ‘think’ (I know it hurts, I hate it too – blame my muse), and it is based on a short story I wrote about two years ago, by the same name. I’ve twisted it to suit my Dark Kingdom needs, plagiarising my own work, so to speak, and it is one of the very rare times I use first person narration…mainly because I can’t think of anything worse than being one of the members of the Dark Kingdom…what a way to make a living…

This is set – surprise, surprise – after Zoisite’s death, the narration is Kunzite’s, and, funnily enough, I am NOT going to let him get ‘horizontal’ with the first lonely girl/guy he comes across. I have nothing against the clever people who matched the distraught Kunzite up with assorted others, but I just believe that he was never that desperate. Just…lonely.

Sailor Moon is the property of Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha Comics and Toei Animation.

Endymion.

Curse that name. Curse that man…for if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Floating to nowhere on a current of hidden pain…

Hidden pain. Deep within myself, I hide my pain…no one but I alone know the true depth of the wound to my heart.

I can never allow Beryl to know how badly she hurt me, by one simple death. One energy blast, and another face crumbled in the face of her wrath. And that dear face was once mine to look upon with love and admiration.

I tried to offer a piece of myself. Sometimes, I think that she did take that pound of flesh, even though she took the one I would have bargained for, too. For there is an aching void in my life – every time I turn around, when I think I hear that silvery laugh, when I think I hear the approach of that delicate form, it grows. My pain, my loss fuels that void…Beryl took my only love, and when Zoisite died, he took with him my heart.

I had never cried before that night. Before the final minutes I shared with him, cradling him in my arms, as he whispered those words to me.

Even now, they make my stomach curdle – with guilt. Zoisite told me how much he loved me, how much he had always loved me…and I didn’t even have the strength to mirror that affection back to him.

That was how I ended up in the Tokyo store of curiosities, the antique store, just wandering around, lost in my own world of pain. I was looking for help in a place I didn’t understand. That’s when I saw it. The framed picture that had been hidden in the back room, as the shopkeeper brought it out to show me. She had told me about the picture briefly, and I requested to see it.

The second I saw that photograph I just knew I had to really see it for myself. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing – it was truly extraordinary. The city by the lake...well, the reflection of it, anyway. That’s what made this seemingly ordinary photograph so unique. Looking at it, at first you would only see a lake and a bunch of normal looking hills, maybe a few clouds. But once you actually looked into the deep, calm waters of the shadowy lake, that’s when you saw it. There was a city down there...a beautiful reflection of crystal towers and spiralling pinnacles...the city that existed only as an image in the water. This realisation was what had caught my breath in my throat, what had made my heart beat faster.

Naosuke-san smiled at me. She knew that I had thought she’d been having me on, when she saw the expression on my face when she told me about the city. But now, holding the evidence in my hands... I continued to stare fascinated at the picture as Naosuke-san told me about the lake and its mysterious city. Legend had it that the lake was enchanted, it reflected the past, which was what the city was. The people of the small township by the lake said that the city had been the home of a great civilisation that had disappeared one night. There had been no explanations, no warning. As the sun set, it had been there. When it rose, it had vanished. The only thing left was the reflection, the only living evidence of the city by the lake. These days, it was said that if you walked down and stood on its shore, looking into the waters, you would see the one person who could change your life. Standing in front of the glorious buildings amongst the mystical power of the impossible reflection. The strangest thing about it was, though, nobody who had looked into the crystalline waters had ever said what they had seen there.

I decided instantly that I had to go there myself, to discover the one person who could change the course of my life. I figured I had nothing left to lose, I seemed to be in a world where everything could and would go wrong. I had already lost the only person who could make the darkness of this life vanish, when he would smile at me in that sweet, shy way, only looking into my eyes for a second before dropping them bashfully. He knew how to make me love him, even if I never realised that that was the way he made me feel. It took me so long to realise just how much he meant to me…and it was proven to me in the most vile of ways.

Someone once said that you can tell how much you love somebody by the amount of pain you feel when they are no longer with you.

If that were true, then my love for Zoisite must have been so great, it should have eclipsed all the evil that Metallia and Beryl poisoned us with. But sometimes, not even love is that strong.

The clickety-clack of the trains wheels lulled me into a restless sleep. I was finally on my way to the village that was the only civilisation anywhere near the mystical lake, in a human-like way. It was like this tragedy somehow reminded me of my own mortality…or the resemblance I bore to the humans of this strange world that felt familiar, somehow. I wore a black shirt, black trousers, black blazer, black overcoat...it had become the only colour I would now wear, when I wasn’t on fruitless business regarding the Dark Kingdom. To me, it was like someone else had died the day my little seito had. I had died, an indifferent man who discovered through the charms of a child that he did have a heart. A heart which could be broken.

The cobblestone streets were silent, and I was amazed by the town itself. It was like a village out of time, a page from a history book that had been ripped out and carefully pasted into the future.

I looked around, my leather tote bag, once again, black, dangling from my gloved wrist. I clutched the single pink rose even tighter, a constant reminder of my greatest love, and made my way to the hotel, following the directions I had been given by the guard on the train. As if in a dream, I drifted through the rituals of checking in and going to my room. I then wandered downstairs to the tiny bar, which was crowded with happy, cheerful people. I sat down at a barstool, and the bartender wandered over after a few minutes. "And how can I help you, sir?" he asked slightly uneasily. I suppose I often had that affect on humans – I was, after all, a peculiar figure. I must have stood out, a tall, silent man dressed completely in black, the only colour the stark contrast of my shower of platinum-silver hair.

"Vodka on the rocks," I replied tonelessly. He nodded, and returned with the drink moments later. I looked at it with distaste. I wasn’t actually a drinker, that was more Nephrite’s style…but thinking of that late king only brings my thoughts to another, more painful memory.

"Something wrong, sir?" he asked, as if he didn’t really want to know, like he was just being polite.

I sighed restlessly. "No, not really..." My voice trailed off, like a leaf on the wind.

"Is there anything I can do for you, sir?" Once again, he sounded more like he was only doing this because he felt he had to.

I looked up at him, startling him with my pained eyes. "Yes, actually, there is. Can you tell me the best time to go and see the city by the lake?"

He looked taken aback. "Are you sure you want to see that? Many people have, and they obviously didn’t like what they saw there."

My eyes filled with desperation, the pain of the last few weeks coiling like a boa constrictor around my aching heart. "Yes," I whispered vehemently. "Tell me, please!"

He nodded slowly. "Go now. It’s a full moon tonight. That’s the best time, so I’m told."

Leaving my untouched drink on the counter, I left the bar like a dazed zombie. I knew that somehow this could change everything that had ever happened to me, but…

The night was dark and cold, and although my thick overcoat kept out the physical cold, the chill stayed with me on an emotional level. I stepped carefully with my thick boots through the long, misty grass, stars giving me my only illumination. Within ten minutes I had reached the spot described to me by Naosuke-san, the only spot where the city could be seen. Shakingly, I stepped forward, my eyes watering, hands trembling. I no longer wanted to go on, but I had to know, I needed to know the only person who could change my life, the person who could take control of this sinking ship, and float me again...

My eyes looked down, I saw the towers spiralling to the sky, bright in the sun of another world – it was the city! The City in the Lake! The impossible reflection…to prove it to myself, I turned to look behind me, seeing only dark, empty, rolling hills. So much like the wasteland of my heart…turning back, I then hesitantly lowered my gaze to the figure staring calmly out at me, from amongst the impossibility of a reflection of nothing.

My breath caught in my throat.

It was me staring out of the calm waters. Just me.

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Do you get it? Hmm? You know what I mean by all this queerness? I hope so, otherwise it’s back to the drawing board for me…

Got a question for me? Or just wanna chat to a completely INsane author? Then you might want to try the address of luna_dreamscape@hotmail.com…if you dare…