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Crystal Tokyo shone like a beacon in the night, the one place in the galaxy that knew true nirvana in the 30th century. Ever since the cracks in the future had been erased thanks to Galaxia’s defeat, Chibiusa had tried to find some solace in the fact that there was peace. But she had to admit that things had gotten a tad boring, especially since her visits to the past had become a lesson in how time travel in and of itself was often a loop rather than threads that spanned infinity.
Basically, Chibiusa had come to terms that she had to stop dropping in to see Usagi and all of Usagi’s friends in the past.
Neo-Queen Serenity had said it best: “It’s the time to start focusing on your own future, Small Lady.”
And, well, even a benevolent queen like her mother had trouble being teased by her own daughter for the antics she had gotten into as a teenager.
What ended up happening was that Chibiusa fell into what 20th century slang would have deemed a funk.
“Was the past really that fun?” Sailor Ceres would ask her, curiosity brimming in her voice. “I mean, I don’t remember much of it myself, but you must have loved it quite a lot to be so despondent now.”
“Yeah, you would think you had left behind a lover or something,” Sailor Juno would say cheekily. Sailor Vesta and Sailor Pallas may not have joined in the outright teasing, but they too looked on their leader with a mixture of interest and worry.
What her own personal senshi quartet didn’t know - Chibiusa had done exactly that.
Despite being as close to Ceres and the rest as if they were her own sisters, Chibiusa had never mentioned Helios to them. Not once.
The battle with Galaxia had deterred Chibiusa for a time, but she could not forget the day Helios had vanished - not only in body, but in the memories of everyone who had known him too.
Was it simply the price of giving up the Golden Crystal? The question had been lingering in the back of Chibiusa’s mind for too long.
And, with her ban from the past, it was not as if she could freely go looking for him.
Even without Neo-Queen Serenity’s orders, Sailor Pluto would not have allowed it. Ever since the time guardian had been revived with the power of the queen’s power, she had been even more resolute in her duties at making sure no one stretched the laws of time and space.
Another hurdle for Chibiusa, basically, if she ever hoped to find any trace of Helios again.
A sigh escaped her as she considered the ball that would be held in just a few scant hours. Though the queen did not open the palace to outsiders often, King Endymion had persuaded his wife to allow for a celebration after the defeat of Galaxia and the restoration of order to Crystal Tokyo and its past.
Chibiusa, as Princess Lady Serenity, would be one of the first to dance. And she was really not in the mood for festivities.
Even Sailor Saturn was worried about her. “Don’t look so glum,” her closest friend said as she helped with Chibiusa’s hair. “It’s not the end of the world to go to a party.”
Chibiusa shook her head. “There’ll just be another disaster,” she said. “It’s always the same.”
Sailor Saturn lifted an eyebrow. “And? Do you think we should just give up and doom ourselves to a fate of misfortune?”
“That sounds downright hopeful, coming from you,” Chibiusa said, poking fun at Saturn’s moniker of being the guardian of destruction, and the sailor senshi just scowled in response.
“Don’t forget what we all fought for,” Saturn said as she finished with one more twist of Chibiusa’s bun. “Then all hope really will be lost.”
For what it was worth, Saturn didn’t remember Helios either, so she had no idea the scope of Chibiusa’s melancholy.
It wasn’t as if she were alone - but Helios had not seen her as the princess to be protected, to be revered, or even to be obeyed. She had just been a girl to him, a pure-hearted maiden who could have lit up the world with her dreams.
Never mind that Usagi had fit the role for the kind of threat they had been facing at the time, but that did not make Chibiusa invalid or useless. Chibiusa had also awoken Helios with her power, hadn’t she?
To think, everything was back to normal now - and there were going to be parties with crowds of Crystal Tokyo citizens all reveling in peace that had been won once again - after battle upon battle upon threat after threat.
If Chibiusa herself ever became queen, she would probably be more of a warrior queen than the figurehead her mother had become. Or, at least, that was what she told herself.
By the time everyone was assembled in the palace’s anterior, Chibiusa was already exhausted from the process of readying herself to appear before the public. Her hair fell just so, her make-up shone with a glow, and her white dress was the perfect twin to the one her mother had once worn in the days of the Silver Millennium.
It was as if nothing had changed when everything had changed.
Or had Chibiusa just become too cynical and jaded when it came to the fragile perfection of her mother’s reign over what had once been earth? The palace itself glittered, transparent with its glass casing, as if reminding everyone how brittle a thing peace really was.
The first dance blended into another dance - even, once, she waltzed with her father, and she couldn’t even fashion a real smile for him at that moment. More than once, Chibiusa felt her mother’s eyes upon her, as if to say, ”Don’t question it. This is the role you were meant to play.”
Chibiusa was just as chained to the moniker of Princess Lady Serenity, otherwise known as Small Lady, just as her mother had once been locked in as Sailor Moon, earth’s pretty guardian who would ever fight by moonlight and win love by daylight.
The fairy tale seams were beginning to fray from what Chibiusa could see.
“May I have this dance?” a new gentleman asked, his face obscured by a mask, and Chibiusa nearly tripped over her own feet.
The voice was achingly familiar while the smile was just a playful hint of what Chibiusa recalled from her foggy memories.
“Hel-”
The stranger-who-was-not lifted a finger to his lips, and Chibiusa’s voice stuttered to a halt.
As her new yet familiar dance partner led her step-by-step to a nearby balcony door, she had so many questions bubble up behind her lips.
”Why are you here?”
”Where did you come from?”
”Why doesn’t anyone remember you but me?”
”Why do you have to be a secret?”
”Are you really someone I can trust?”
But only when they were outside, breathing the chilled night air, did Chibiusa unclasp her hand from his and say something.
“Where have you been?”
A somber hue replaced the playful glint in his eyes. “Did you really think Galaxia didn’t see to it that allies of the kingdom were incapacitated before her terror began?”
Chibiusa thought back to the early days when everyone with a star seed was either manipulated into submission - or collected as trophies. “I didn’t think you had a star seed,” she admitted, slowly, but Helios shook his head.
“As the keeper of the Golden Crystal, I had to possess one. But my powers had been put into stasis back when my body was snatched from me during Nehelenia’s reign.”
The whirl of the sudden revelations gave Chibiusa pause. How often had others been tricked in the past? “Are you really Helios?” she asked, her voice soft.
He removed his mask, and she saw his open gaze clearly for the first time. “What can I do to persuade you of the truth?”
Chibiusa brought her hands to the familiar face that had haunted her dreams for what seemed like an eternity. But how long had it really been? Months, maybe, if that.
Then she gently kissed him on the lips, as simple as the first time he had kissed her back in the past.
When she pulled back to look at him, his eyes were full of mirth. “If a kiss had been the only determining factor, I would have obliged you within moments.”
You're real.
Chibiusa found her eyes were starting to blur with tears. “I’m so glad to see you again,” she whispered.
“And I you, princess,” he said, his voice just as soft as hers.
Saturn, Ceres, and the rest may have been scouring the palace looking for her at that moment, but Chibiusa didn’t care.
For once, things felt real and truly right, if only for a fleeting moment like a shooting star grazing the night sky.