Chapter Two: Dreams

 

            The grass was waist-high and the delicate blades bent around her  legs  easily.  She waded through, laughing and half-running, stopping  only  to  pick  wildflowers  to  add  to  her  colorful decorations.  She was only eight and three months, and considered the  three months an important part of the total.  The sun  shone warmly  on  the scene.  She laughed and waved her flowers  toward it,  and  it  glowed  with affection.  It  was  her  friend,  her guardian.

               “Gwyn!” The voice stopped her romping and the smile  turned to face the woman, dark locks swinging around in the breeze.  She smiled.  “Come in, now.  Someone is here to play with you."

            "Who is it?"

            "Her name is..."

            The image faded.

            The  door  opened.  The queen entered court  and  began  to speak.  “On the evidence that has been presented to my person  on behalf  of  both  parties disputing this incident  and  with  the discernment granted me by God and nature, I have deliberated  the matter  at  hand  and  have  reached  the  conclusion  that the defendants  are  at fault according to  the  grievances  brought against  them in this court....” The rest of the speech was  lost to  her ears.  It was over.  The punishment came next.  “…and  by the  royal right invested in me and the position I hold, I hereby sentence  the  defendants  to  be  stripped  of  all  rights  and privileges   as  members of my court.  They will also….”   Again, Gwyn  stopped listening.  The rest was fluff, thrown in to please the  dignitaries.   They  did not realize  that  the  former  was enough.  She glanced over at her friend, and saw her gripping the table, white-knuckled and full of rage.

               The two of them looked at each other.  There were no words. The mute anger and bitter betrayal  burning in her golden eyes were enough.

 

            The image faded.

            The  blackness swirled slowly into color,  a  twisted  and blurred  image  that  resolved and widened.   It  became  readily apparent  that she was lying down in a dark place; nearby flames crackled, drums beat, and over her head shadows danced  across  the coarse and jagged stone.  She  realized,  if belatedly, that someone else was in the room.  She rose,  and  he turned. His  hair was tied in a braid that fell nearly  halfway down  his back.  He grinned at her.  “I found you in the  forest. Are you all right?”  He asked, a touch hesitantly. She nodded and thanked  him  for his concern.  He crossed the room and  extended his  hand, which she took uncertainly.  “My name is Corbin,  from clan McLaine.”

 

            The image faded.

 

            She  was three when her father died.  Her mother had always been  distant, but while he was around, she was sweet and kind, would sing and play and hold her at night.   With  her  father’s  death,  the  delicate relationship  with her mother broke.  Her mother  stopped  loving her.  Gwyn never knew why anything she did was  wrong,  but  she seemed  to  mess up often enough.  She learned never  to  cry  in front of  her, though, because that always made it  worse.  Saved that  for when she was alone in bed, and every  night  she cried for the next day.

 

               The  image faded, but the feeling of loss and  abandonment remained.

 

               She was five.  The bowl fell and shattered.  Her mother was displeased  with that, and worse so at her crying.  “Don’t  think that  you  can win my sympathy by crying!  You know you shouldn’t mess  with that.  If it’s too high for you to reach, then there’s a reason for it.  Why did you do that Gwyn?  Why?”

               “I—”  she  struggled to stop the stream of tears  cascading down her face.  “I was just—”  Her mother cut her off.

               “Never  mind.   I don’t want to hear your excuses.   Go  to bed.”  She emphasized the last statement by pointing Gwyn in  the direction  of her room.  She walked over the delicate  shards  of glass spread around her, and watched the color seep into them,  a rose-colored trail in her wake.  Her unfinished statement rung in her  ears as she let the tears come.  I was just trying  to make you love me again…

               In her mind she screamed because she remembered what it was like  to  be a child, to feel so completely, inexplicably  alone. She was used to it now, she had a hard shell covering the part of her that still desired so strongly to have love of any kind.  But reliving those early memories, she felt again the incomprehension and the vulnerability that she had as a child.  She wanted to see no  more because she knew the next ones were worse.  And now she had no protection.

 

 

               When  Gwyn  awoke the feeling lingered,  haunting  the recesses  of her mind as she tried to shake the images  from  her head.   Sitting,  she  tried to control her shaking  hands.  The dreams  had faded.  She couldn't even remember much of the  first part  anymore, only a feeling of belonging that she  could  never remember having had.

               Gwyn  stretched her legs over the edge of the bed that  she had  found herself upon, and blinked at the darkness.  The events leading to her arrival at this place were slightly confused,  and as  she sorted them out she realized that very little of it  made the least  bit  of  sense.   All  she  could  derive  from  her experiences  and  somewhat battered present  condition  was  that somehow,  she  had  ended  up  in  Japan.   And  that  there  was absolutely no way her mother would believe a word of it.

               She  sat  in  the  darkened room,  unbelievably  still  and focused,  trying  to  find a solution to her situation.  Eventually, her concentration was broken by a voice. She turned to see the Japanese girl standing in the doorway.  Now in a clearer  state of mind, she noted that the  girl was probably about a year older than her, and  she  had amazing black hair that literally cascaded down her back.  Gwyn almost found herself envying it, and for Gwyn, envy  did  not  come  naturally.  Although she  was  speaking  in Japanese,  Gwyn gathered that she was trying to ask her something and  in return tried to convey that she didn't have the slightest inkling  what  that  was.  Apparently it succeeded,  because  the other then spoke in a slow, unusually punctuated form of English.

"You are okay?"

"Mostly."  She saw confusion. "Yes.  Yes I am.  Thank you."

"I am Rei."

            "Gwyn."

            "I...if is..." Gwyn realized that she was having a temporary communications breakdown.

            "I can understand some Japanese.  If you speak slowly."  In the  laborious  half  hour  that followed  this  statement,  they established the events pertaining to Gwyn's arrival in Japan.  Oddly, Rei seemed unbothered that she had been abducted by superpowered mutants and transported halfway around the world.  It was if she heard this sort of thing all the time.  "We will talk more, but  now you must have a bath." 

            In the bath, Gwyn thought about what had happened.  She was in a foreign country with little control of the language, no money, no passport, and no way home.  Then it struck her.  I don’t want to go home.  Of course she didn’t.  She hated home.  She had no friends.  Her family despised her.   I can’t go home.  There was no explanation for disappearing.  As far as anyone there was concerned, she ran away.  They would believe it.  Gwyn smiled.  She would learn Japanese, find a way to stay, even if it meant forging papers to let her.  I won’t go home.  Gwyn left the bath.  There was nothing to wear except temple garb, so she figured it out.

            And so another half hour passed, and Gwyn found herself being introduced to a diminutive man who smiled like the Cheshire cat and turned out to be Rei's grandfather.  Then four other girls--Rei's friends—showed up, and she was subjected to another round of introductions.  The group was incessantly cheerful and talkative, except for one of  them—a shot-haired computer nerd dressed in pastels. Gwyn  felt a bit out of her depth, and shied  from  her armory of jokes.   They  probably wouldn't have gotten them anyway.

 

 

 

               Rei contemplated.  She had asked the girls over to talk  to the  American,  but  not for purely jovial reasons.   She  had  a feeling  that  there was something more to this girl  than  there seemed  to  be.  Over the past several years Rei had become something far more than a simply high-school girl.   She had  discovered extraordinary  powers and connections to long dead monarchies that nobody even knew had ever existed.  She had been, at  one  point,  princess and heir to the  throne of  Mars, and protector of  the Princess of the Moon...who had turned out to be an unfocused, clumsy  girl who had discovered also a  strength  and  power of her own.  And her friends--Ami, Makoto, and Minako--they  had each come into her life, most of them as lost as she, all of them the  holders of an extraordinary secret and responsibility.   And then,  after  facing waves of evil, off and on,  they  found  the future, and the others--Hotaru, Michiru, Haruka, and Setsuna.

They had developed an awareness at this point, and she felt a strength in Gwyn comparable to Usagi’s, Sailor Moon  herself.  It troubled her and shocked her.  When they met again late that night, they talked.

            "Did you feel it?" she asked them.  They had.

            "I've never felt anything that strong," said Venus.

            "It  was hard to characterize,” Mercury added.  “It seemed very untamed,  at first, but then I also sensed...control.  It makes no sense."

            "She could be an enemy," warned Jupiter.  "We must keep her here at all costs."

            "We will need to find the others," Mars said decidedly.

            "Do you think they might have the answer?" Sailor Moon asked, frowning.

            "Maybe Pluto...." Jupiter suggested.

            Sailor Venus laughed shortly.  "Time.  That's what we need.  In every sense of the word."

 

 

            The  night did not pass quietly.  Rei slept, and  then  was awakened, her senses tingling.  Attack.  Aware  that this was not a normal crisis,  she  moved quietly  and cautiously.  Concentrating, she was able to pinpoint the  disturbance and put a name to it.  It surprised her.  These forces had been inactive for a long time....

            A moment of focus showed her the energy centered around...Gwyn’s room.  So she is the enemy.  Rei waited  until  she was out of the  window  before  she transformed.  Newly costumed in red and white, Sailor Mars called quickly for help and  proceeded  to creep along the wall toward the source of the disturbance. Soundlessly, she positioned herself at the window and moved slowly, peeking around the corner. 

            The situation  at  hand  was somewhat different  from  what  she  had expected.  Gwyn had not transformed into anything diabolically miscolored--something else was attacking her.  It was a nasty monster: its arms and legs looked as if they were made of jagged blades, and its whole body was the color of steel. Mars was surprised.  Maybe she shouldn't have been, but she had apparently convinced herself that Gwyn was one of the bad guys. 

            Maybe she still  was.  Gwyn obviously wasn’t helpless, after all.  She was defending herself—no, fighting back.  She  watched in fascination as Gwyn returned  every punch  the  youma  threw at her. Most people ran,  screamed,  or fainted.  Sometimes all three.  But Gwyn...who is this girl? Rei saw fear in her face, but she never gave into it.  Even when the youma knocked her aside with one scythe-like arm and she crashed hard into the wall, she pulled herself up, fury in her eyes, and stood her ground.  When it shot one of its arms out at her again, she ducked it and knocked away the limb with her forearm.  But she never saw the other blade that shot out to her right, and it caught her across the arm, slicing her shoulder to elbow and slamming her to the floor. Triumphant, the monster pulled Gwyn into its grasp, struggling futilely.  In that instant, Mars shook herself of her doubts and prepared to leap to the rescue. 

            But a burst of energy and a flash of  light spoiled her entry.  Mars squinted and sought the  source. As the light began to fade, she saw the residue of a fait symbol on Gwyn's forehead.  Shocked, Mars did not notice for several moments that Gwyn  was  unconscious.  With a deep breath, she jumped into the room and attacked.

            The beast  died  quickly, in one shot from her fire  sniper.  When she came back a few minutes later—yawning sleepily and in pajamas--the ashes were still smoldering.  Grandpa was helping the American to her feet and trying to understand her rapid English. Rei made a spectacle out of a confused translation, until they gave up on the story.  Rei helped Grandpa bandage Gwyn’s cuts and bruises; she never looked the American in the eye, afraid she would be recognized.  Then they cleaned up the mess and went back to bed.

 

 

 

            Rei, of course, didn’t wait for morning before consulting the leading scientists of her field—with included Sailor Mercury and two small cats by the names of Luna and Artemis.  The rest of the gang looked on—all four soldiers and Mamoru, also known as Tuxedo Kamen, the reborn Prince of Earth, and Bunny’s once and future king.

            “Tell me again what the symbol looked like," Ami said.

            "It was a circle with a dot inside. Like this."  Rei drew it on the table with her finger.

            Ami's face gained that distinct quality one always gets when one  has a revelation.  "Oh yes," she exclaimed. "That's the sign of  the sun!  I  can't  believe I didn't think of it before  now.  That would mean she's the sailor of the sun, wouldn't it?"

            "There is no sailor of the sun,"  Luna pronounced.

            "But she must be,"  Ami insisted.  "It's the only thing that makes sense.   The same thing happened to us before we were awakened.   It  has to be...unless it’s a trick, of course, and she’s an enemy."  Rei could tell the thought bothered her.  For all her oddness, Gwyn was likeable enough.  “Oh, Luna, are you sure?  You could have forgotten about her, like you forgot that Sailor Moon was the Princess, and like Artemis thought Minako was.”

            “I’m certain about this,” Luna said.

            Artemis nodded.  “Even if we were wrong, Setsuna would have known about her.”

            "But we can’t be sure she’s an enemy,” Rei said calmly.  “So the best thing would be to try to get to know her. If it turns out she’s against us, it might still give us leverage into her plans."

            Usagi agreed enthusiastically. "After all, she  could  have  some association with us, couldn't  she?  We’ve always gotten allies from unexpected places.”  She leaned into Mamoru’s arm.  “It'd  be awful for her to turn out bad, even if she doesn't  talk much."

"That's because she doesn't speak our language," said Makoto, laughing.

"Nothing else to discuss,” said Minako.  “We’ll do nothing but keep our eyes open until we know more.  So let's get some sleep already.  I have school tomorrow."

            "I  hope  she's not an enemy," Rei said to herself as they left. "She feels like a friend.  I hope she is.  I really do.”