Where is Endymion?

[waterfell]

There's a smell of ash in the air, though there is no crackling of fires or snap of flames. Nothing seems damaged, there is only the reminder carried on the wind. A hush pervades everything, quietly forbidding, mysterious.

At the top of a long set of marble stairs, there is a castle with sculpted columns and domed roofs, a symbol of wealth and luxury - and permanence. It sits against the backdrop of a darkened night sky, where even the stars seem dim and sparse.

Amid all this, at the top of the steps, a girl wearing a sailor uniform trimmed with lace and satin and pearls sits and stares into space as though oblivious to the muted atmosphere or anyone approaching; her face is utterly still. A tiara crowns her blond hair, worn in the signature style of the Silver Millenium royal dynasty.

The princess plays a small lap harp, the only notable sound. Her tune is gentle, but lonely and yearning, a constant ache for a past long gone. A close look reveals that the harp bears the sigil of Mercury.

(ooc: answers coming from nihil_serenitas for icons)

Comments

[one_one_se7en]

"I'm not like most humans."

False prophets, fanatics, and brutes often declared all humans 'weak', powerless, and undeserving of any sort of respect.

And yet they called him 'Demon' for a reason.

"I told you where he was. Where is she."

Signaling with his head at the harp.

[nihil_serenitas]

The princess looks down at the harp almost as though she'd half forgotten she'd been holding it. She? Ah- the sigil. "Mercury."

She speaks the name, and something passes across her face, a vague recognition, but it disappears.

"Endymion must be found before all else," she says finally.

[one_one_se7en]

"Do you even know where to look?"

This princess knows Mercury. He does notice the brief glimpse of recognition... before it vanishes. He remembers the conversations. The princess was capable of rebuilding planets... Just as well as destroying them, from his Mercury's side of things.

[nihil_serenitas]

"I had thought..." she begins quietly, "that if I could search this planet, Endymion would be found." Her words suggest this has not, in fact, been the case.

"However, he may not be here." Something in her expression changes. Her jaw tightens.

[one_one_se7en]

"Not in the palace."

In Earth, as it's always been.

"There are a lot of places on the planet. You know it won't be easy."

Delay it, give her no reason to do anything rash. As the saying goes, 'speak softly, and carry a big stick'.

[nihil_serenitas]

"If he is not on that planet..." The princess moves to the next step: If Endymion is not in the palace, and not on the Moon, and not found yet, he may also not be on Earth.

Then... where?

"If he is not on that planet, what reason does it have to exist?"

There is no violent movement; but the progress of her thinking is the same as it has always been.

[one_one_se7en]

"The chance he might be."

He's faced maniacs before.

"Earth has billions... One of them, could be the prince." Hidden among the populace, so not unlike the senshi of Ami's world. "Would you want to risk it?"

[nihil_serenitas]

Logic in the face of madness sometimes has effect. The princess seems to pause, as though considering this.

"Surely," she says finally, as though musing to herself, "if Endymion were there, I would know it." How could she fail to be utterly aware of him?

[one_one_se7en]

"Magic is fickle."

That much he has learned. Even with entities clearly with the auras of gods, such as the princess... even as he sees something strangely familiar in it.

[nihil_serenitas]

"I knew of it, when Endymion disappeared," she counters. She would know the opposite, if he had appeared again.

"Could it be..." she muses to herself, "like in the past?" She has a flash of memory, one of the few stable things in her mind, of a panicked moment and a sword coming at them both.