disclaimer: Totally not mine.

-slanted moon-

And when I feel like I'm lost, something tells me you're here with me-
And I can always find my way when you are here.
-When I Look to the Sky by Train

He watched her, silently sipping delicately (if he were someone else it would be almost femininely) at his punch. His long tapered fingers were pressed tightly against the lead crystal of the punch glass, the only outward sign of his high state of perturbation. His face was a mask of calm; the epitome of cool patience and easy deliberation. His stance was relaxed as he leaned lithely against the doorframe. To an outside observer, he was simply an ordinary guest who was content to view the grounds—as well as the girl within them.

He'd only come because he knew she'd been invited through her father. He'd convinced Beryl that if he could just observe her, he may find a chance to kill her. Quietly, of course. With no observers. It wouldn't do for Beryl's future mindless subjects to realize that she had been behind the murder of their only savior.

He wondered briefly why he'd sold his queen that story. Surely Beryl, with all her willing minion spies, should have noticed his more than passing interest in their objective.

Their all too beautiful, too human, objective, he noted wryly.

He set his glass down on the railing of the verandah. Pushing himself away from the doorframe with almost feline ease, he assumed his most charming mask. Slowly, deliberately, he descended the steps, silently calculating the best way in which to approach the girl who was currently engrossed in a flower.

"Usagi! Your father says it's time to leave!" Scowling, he turned back to see he girl's mother silhouetted in the doorway he'd just recently vacated. The girl glanced up from the flower she'd been admiring and saw her mother in the door.

"Coming, mama!" she called back. He watched her gently release the branch of the flowering bush she'd been holding and start up the cold marble stairway. She was nearly on top of him before she looked up from her feet to notice him.

"Mamo-chan." The name was barely even a whisper, but it was enough to send a cold fury through him. Damn it, he was Endymion, the prince of Earth, not this simpering fool Mamo-chan.

"Serenity," he hissed, fixing her with a cool look before continuing his descent down the shallow steps. He dared not look back. He did not know why, but her eyes could do more to him than even Beryl's most expert caresses.

He registered her retreating footfalls, but still withheld from watching her leave. He would wait—for now. He knew where she lived—had followed her once before. He knew that it was possible to see into her room courtesy of a well-placed tree branch—of which her future suitors would no doubt take advantage of. But tonight only he would climb that tree.

He wandered around the gardens for an hour, idly playing with the sprig of the bush she'd been observing earlier. He did not know what it was—only that it was small and a shade of the palest pink—and therefore probably highly interesting to a female.

When he felt that he'd allowed her enough time to arrive home and ready herself for bed, he quietly left the ball and traveled to her home—her two-story, front-doored, frustratingly familial house-that-was-a-home. It bothered him, for some reason, that she lived in such a house. He resented the fact that she belonged to a home, to a family—but not to him.

But at the same time he envied and mocked her situation. He envied it with some desperate, seeking part of his heart that he kept trying to squash. He envied the front door, the curtains in the windows, the mother in the kitchen. He wanted those things with the most basic desire, and he, for all the water in the world, could not fathom why.

He laughed mirthlessly at the picture, though, too. He laughed, because in his mind he knew that Beryl and Metallia would triumph, that such perfect pictures of familial bliss would be obliterated, only to last in memories. Memories that would eventually fade, leaving behind only the blind acceptance of Metallia's will.

And he wondered how one simple house could make him feel hate and longing and humorless mirth all at the same time.

And he wondered why he wanted her to belong with him.

The moon hung full and bright in the sky. No, not quite full, he decided. It was waxing yet, and just short enough of full to give it a lopsided, rather slanted appearance. Feeling that the odd shape of the white satellite fitted his odd mood (never minding that he was from Earth, and not the moon), he slid through the shadows to the tree and easily swung up its branches to the one outside her window. He peered in through the open window to see her, dressed in her pajamas, sprawled across the bed chattering away happily on the phone. And for the life of him, he wanted to chuckle, although, he surmised, there was nothing truly amusing about the scene.

He watched and listened for a moment, briefly wondering where her nosy cat was. But he grew impatient, and could not stop himself from shifting slightly, causing the branch to creak ominously. She looked out the window and spotted him. She froze momentarily.

"Minako-chan? I'm going to have to call you back..." she trailed off.

She turned the phone off and gently lowered it to her bed. Then she rose and approached the window.

"Mamo-ch—"

"Endymion," he growled. She winced and her eyes were that of a chastised child. "Endymion," he repeated, more gently this time.

"Endymion," she murmured, rolling the name in her mouth, experimenting slowly with its taste and texture.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"To see you," he answered bluntly, enjoying her look of bewilderment. "Where's your cat?" he asked.

"With Artem—with a friend," she amended, flushing lightly. He bowed his head and restrained himself from furthering that line of questioning.

"Why are you here?" she asked again. He didn't answer, but merely held out his hand. She took it—all too trustingly, he frowned—and allowed him to help her onto the branch.

Her toenails were painted pink, he noticed.

"You were at the ball," she finally said.

"Yes," he nodded.

"Why?"

"You were there." She started suddenly, then frowned.

"Surely there was more to it than that," she reasoned. He shook his head.

"No. There wasn't," he assured her. She stared into his eyes, her blue orbs—the color of a warm, tranquil ocean—colliding with his own—the troubled blue of an approaching storm.

"I do believe you're telling the truth," she finally declared. He was amused by this pronouncement, and did not stop himself from smiling.

"I am," he agreed.

"Why are you here?" she asked a third time.

"To see you," he answered again.

"Why?" He was silent a moment, before reaching out to softly touch her lips with his cold fingertips.

"You belong to this world," he began, "of happiness and beauty. You belong to your family and this home. You belong to your friends, to Mamo-chan. But Serenity," he paused, "someday I will make you mine."

She heard the slight masochism in his voice, but was not offended. She heard the pleading of a little boy, but did not yield. And she heard the simple resignation of a man, but did not gloat. Instead, she reached out to mirror his gesture of a gentle touch on the lips.

"No, Endymion," she whispered. "You belong to this same world, too.

You've simply lost your way. I will lead you back to it," she promised, touching his lips once more. They stared at each other for a brief second, the blue of their eyes fading and darkening to match each other, and then he quietly, gracefully, rose and jumped nimbly to the ground. She watched as he retreated back into the cool shadows. When she turned back to return to her room, she spotted the small flower she'd been admiring at the ball, resting lightly against the dark brown of the tree branch. She reached for it.

"Oh, Mamo-chan."

-end-