Mornings in the Dark Kingdom, even those in the relative opulence of their spired home, were always torturous affairs for Zoisite.

First, the darkness. There was, of course, no dawn light coming through the high-paned windows, only the purple glow and white flash of the perpetual storms. And though Zoisite had never, to his recollection, awakened to a proper dawn, there seemed to be some lonely crevice within his soul, one that, for every morning of darkness, was all the more bitter and melancholy. It whined at him as he struggled out of bed, making him irritable as he stood.

Next came the cold. In his early days as a resident of Kunzite’s household, Zoisite had had a dreadful time getting to sleep. His difficulty was all part of a disillusioned fantasy he’d had: that making love and falling asleep in the arms of his lover would be the perfect way to end an evening. However, he’d discovered quite quickly that this was not the case; lying there in Kunzite-sama’s embrace made him feel unbearably hot and sticky. Not one to conceal his fussiness in the face of insomnia, he’d requested that Kunzite (who seemed unfazed by the furnace that was their bed) lower the ambient heat of their room before turning in. And while this ensuing coolness was ideal for pre-slumber snuggling, it would attack Zoisite with physical cruelty in the morning.

Kunzite would already be up and about; though almost always the first to fall asleep at night, he rarely stayed that way longer than a couple of hours. By the time Zoisite rose, the silver king would already be off attending to some duty or another.

So Zoisite would pad naked and shivering from the bedchamber, immediately opting to draw himself a steaming bath. And while the hot water offered a pocket of gratification in his otherwise dismal mornings, the bath itself was punctuated by yet more instances of displeasure. Always one conscious of his looks and health, he’d be reminded every morning of the toll love took on his body. And of course, cleaning off in the bath gave him the perfect opportunity to sourly catalogue the damage done the night before. While he had cautioned Kunzite early on about leaving hickeys higher than his collar, that didn’t count for the rest of him. Moving lower, he’d acknowledge that what had been a joy but a few hours ago had turned into focus of bruises, constipation, and streaks of dried come.

After his bath, he’d struggle grim-faced and noodle-limbed into a clean and pressed uniform, sitting down to stuff his pant legs into his uncompromising leather boots. Then dressed, he’d descend to the lower levels of the tower, not bothering to waste his sleep-fettered energy on a teleport.

Yet here, as he always forgot but as he was always pleased to be reminded, was when the blackness of his mornings came to an end. For as he arrived in the youma-vacated sitting room, Kunzite-sama would be there, waiting for him. Zoisite would enter to Kunzite’s back, and stop silently, standing, watching the way Kunzite’s long, white hair shifted on his shoulders as the elder poured tea. Tea which was for Zoisite. Kunzite-sama, as much aware of Zoisite’s arrival as he had come to be in this well-practiced ritual, would turn around. And suddenly, just as suddenly as every morning, Zoisite would be furious with himself for waking in such a perpetually foul mood. How could he be, under that pale, silent stare, watching him as the tea was offered from those hands to his own? What was it within him that caused him to forget, upon waking, this moment?

Heart softer, Zoisite would curl up next to his lover and drink from the cup that was given to him. The dark windows would be open, bringing in the humid storm air and the scent of thunder blossoms. He’d cast covert looks at Kunzite, watching his profile, his hands as he raised the cup. Was this the same man Zoisite had cursed in the bath? Yes, the very same.

“What have you been doing this morning, Kunzite-sama?”

Someone had re-hung the lantern, so now only a narrow strip fell into the cell.

Hatsumomo shifted uncomfortably, crossing and uncrossing his legs, ignoring the pains in his bladder as he watched intently his companion. Zoisite was lying in the light, illuminated from his nose to his midriff. Hatsumomo himself was sitting to the side, in the darkness, as he had been for quite some time. He reprimanded himself for not taking care of his water earlier, for what he beheld now wouldn’t allow a trip to the corner for relief.

The young king was waking. Slowly, too slowly for Hatsumomo, he was beginning to stir. The long, dark eyes would crack open, twinkling in the lamplight, and to Hatsumomo’s frustration, slide shut again. Judging from their indifferent rate of opening and closing, those eyes were seeing nothing at the moment.

Hatsumomo couldn’t bear it any longer. Limping up from his crouch, he scurried to the opposite end of the cell, where the floor dipped into a crude drain. He opened his pants and pissed as fast as he could which, like Zoisite’s waking, seemed not nearly fast enough.

Hurry up; might miss something.

He tried to turn around and look, once, but that made him lose his aim.

Can’t stop, of course.

And perhaps he didn’t hear, as he was making water, the sound of fabric scraping against rock. Perhaps he didn’t see, as he tucked himself back into his pants, the shadows move on the wall. This was likely why the next few moments scared him as they did.

Hatsumomo turned, and gave a soft, sudden cry. Zoisite was no longer prone of the floor. The young king was sitting up, cross-legged like an idol, right in the lantern light. He was facing Hatsumomo, his front half in shadows. But even in those shadows, his eyes sparkled darkly, very awake. Neither party moved.

Finally, Hatsumomo, his heart racing with the kind of terror usually reserved for dispatching large, hairy spiders, edged very slowly, very cautiously, towards the figure before him. Much like he would towards a large, hairy spider. Though it was most likely, he reminded himself, that Zoisite would be far more dangerous.

The latter remained still. His posture was alert, his head up and watching, the light catching his hair in an orange halo. Strange hair, that. Like melted gold teased into wild, curling wisps.

Hatsumomo crawled in a slow circle behind Zoisite, trying to coax him into facing the light. Hatsumomo knew it was not the proper thing to do; he should be kowtowing before his cellmate, padding his speech with all the finest honorifics. After all, this was Zoisite-sama, right down to the grey officer’s uniform and the still-gleaming leather boots.

Yet something forced Hatsumomo to maintain his silence, creeping around Zoisite as he would around something nameless, alien. Besides, did Zoisite’s title matter here?

Anywhere?

And suddenly the young king turned, very fast, to face him in the light.

Sir sat high and looked down, something he’d wanted to do for a very long time. The polished dais was cool and solid beneath his bare feet, and the knotted throne, though it gave little accommodation for his fat tail, offered him a luxuriance no other youma would experience.

“This used to be the throne of Queen Beryl-sama,” he said.

A more obvious elocution had never been uttered to that date. Nevertheless, it was justifiably profound. For there, sitting where but a fortnight ago Beryl had sat, was the new crown of the Dark Kingdom. A self-proclaimed sovereign, and a youma.

Much larger than Beryl had been, he veritably spilled from the seat, huge slabs of grey flesh, horns, claws, and tail. Not at all like the brittle females Beryl had sent to face the Senshi, this youma was seasoned by the furnaces of Metallia’s holding chamber. He had been a shoveler, years of hauling the ash waste exuded by Metallia, hauling them up out of the Dark Kingdom, and on to the crater rim at the D-Point. Thankless, hard work, and it showed.

He had no name; no youma in the Dark Kingdom had a name until summoned by Beryl. And those summoned by Beryl were all dead. And so, the pretender simply called himself what everyone else called him.

“Perhaps he doesn’t think you worthy of a reply, Sir,” said one of the guards, a youma as well. As were the rest of them, the hundreds of multicoloured demons that filled the citadel, save one.

Sir smiled. Not worthy of a reply; he liked that. It filled him with the same sweet loathing he’d felt when he had ceremoniously sat himself down on the dead queen’s throne. He decided to push it a little further. “Not worthy, Kunzite?”

Kunzite watched him and said nothing. They had made him kneel, for he was taller than all of them and would have continued to look down his long nose with that remote, disdainful expression of his.

Obviously not impatient to receive a reply, Sir studied, for a quiet moment, Kunzite’s crouched form. They had stripped him of his uniform, and he knelt quite naked, studied from all sides by the youma filling the chamber. Particularly Sir. He found Kunzite fascinating; everything of the former warlord bespoke of the things that he loathed the most. Kunzite’s broad shoulders, laid flawlessly over with dark skin, were alien to the youma chieftain. That skin, so smooth, so easily cut, was not the tough leather and scales of a demon; no, it was the hide of a human-born indolent. And that silver hair, though now disheveled and limp, had once shone with an immaculateness that made Sir fill with rage. What good leader would waste such time keeping his hair in such fine organization? And those hands, long-fingered and sharp-knuckles, and those lips, now pressed hard together, had once occupied themselves on the body of another man. A boy. How disgusting; a final insult to the Dark Kingdom’s dignity.

And so Sir’s face twisted as he regarded Kunzite, finally settling on some silent, appalled awe. For kneeling before him was, as he assured himself and all the youma left standing, the reason the Dark Kingdom had fallen. Degenerate humans, the greatest monsters of them all.

“You can stay as quiet as you like, Kunzite,” he said, relishing the absence of the honorific, “for I will explain everything. Do you know where Queen Beryl-sama is?”

Kunzite’s mouth remained shut. This time, Sir didn’t savour the silence.

“Dead. Dead by the ginzuishou. By Sailormoon. And do you know why you can no longer feel the warmth and hear the heartbeat of Metallia-sama?”

Silence.

“It is dead, too, all its precious, hoarded energy blighted. And do you know where you have been up until now, Kunzite?” Sir didn’t even allow for a reply. “Why, dead too, of course.”

Kunzite’s eyes stared up at him.

“I remember you dying. I heard about it; we all heard about it-“

There were nods and chatter among the surrounding youma.

“- but now that Metallia’s gone, you are here once again.” Sir straightened himself in preparation for the next segment of his speech, clearing his throat excitedly. He had practiced this bit again and again; it was the same speech he had delivered to the youma hordes when he had taken the throne. “But the Dark Kingdom has changed. Its halls remain, as strong as stone. But Metallia and Beryl are gone forever, destroyed in the same fashion as the youma they sent so frivolously to die. So many good youma.”

These words were exciting the guards; a speech of this nature was still a novelty. Glory of the Kingdom, they had heard it before. Glory of Metallia, glory of the Shitennou. But glory of the youma….

Suddenly, Sir lunged forward, and in a gesture yet unprecedented, reached out and seized Kunzite by his silver hair. Kunzite didn’t fight him, didn’t pull back or raise his hands, and his gaze didn’t waver. And so pale eyes met the black cabochons of the youma; their skins, so different, were only inches apart.

“That’s right, Kunzite-sama,” said Sir, “I can do this to you now. Your magic went with Metallia, and your legions.… I was your legion. We were your legion.”

Sir released Kunzite and rose, turning to his audience.

“The flesh of the Dark Kingdom is its youma!”

There was cheering for this.

“And now that Metallia is gone, Kunzite and his kind can be seen for what you truly are!”

More cheers.

“Layabouts! Fornicators! The shitennou would send us to die, while they sat at home and buggered each other!”

The crowd was loving this. Sir was beaming, and he stood in front of Kunzite, his dark eyes moist with elation. He raised his arms and, for the sixteenth time that week, cried,

“The Dark Kingdom is ours!”

And for the sixteenth time that week, the entire citadel, save Kunzite, exploded into uproar.