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A Farewell to the Kings
By Silver Sailor Ganymede

The darkness seems thicker than it ever was as before as I sit in my palace. The main room has a fire burning in the hearth, but the fire brings no warmth, merely enough light for me to see as I read or write. Enough light for me to see the shadows on the walls writhe and screech as though they were not simply shadows. Then again, shadows are usually not shadows in our kingdom; they are our victims, our prisoners, those whom we have damned to suffer eternally in the darkness.

It is at times like this that I find myself thinking. I rarely used to think; I merely acted upon my orders and formulated plans for the downfall of the White Moon. Now, however, I find myself sitting in the dark and thinking more and more often. I have nothing else to do now; Endymion, Beryl's 'king' and favourite lapdog has taken over the scheming now. I, however, do not care; I have lost the will to fight since his death, since my beloved Zoisite departed from Earth, the Dark Kingdom and all other realms besides.

I often find myself thinking of Zoisite now that he is gone. The humans are right on one thing, I will admit, and that is that you never realise how much someone means to you until they are gone. I never realised my feelings for Zoisite until he died: no, that is a lie, I realised my feelings, I simply never acknowledged them. I loved him, I know that is the truth, but I refused to believe it; I was a Shitennou, the highest ranking of Metalia's warriors under Beryl herself, how could I feel any positive emotions? I was convinced, in my foolishness, that one of such dark powers should only have the ability to feel negative emotions, not positive ones; alas that that is not the case and I, fool as I am, realised that too late.

There were few in the Dark Kingdom who retained the power to feel any emotions other than hatred and anger. Nephrite, the second king, the third most powerful of Metalica's warriors, was one of these few. He almost was as cold-hearted and emotionless as I was at one stage. He played with the emotions of humans with no regard whatsoever for them and then left them wallowing in misery, just as we were supposed to, but he was so arrogant that he even dared to challenge Queen Beryl herself whenever possible: the fool. However, one human girl changed all of that and Nephrite became weak and soft hearted. At the time I still believed that emotions such as love were nothing more than a waste of talent, and it was under my orders that Zoisite did away with Nephrite. However, now I realise that I was wrong; Nephrite was simply the most human of us and so he was the only one to see sense. I almost wish I too could have done that, but it is too late now. Were Beryl to find out of my true thoughts on what we are doing she would not kill me as she did my beloved Zoisite; she would place me into an eternal sleep and I would suffer the same fate as the third of the kings, Jadeite.

At this my mind drifts to thoughts of the third king. I knew little about him compared to Nephrite and Zoisite, for he was probably the most distant of the kings. Jadeite very rarely mixed with any others apart from when it was of the utmost necessity, such as when he was attempting to gather energy in order to awaken Metalia-sama. I think that he was less human than even I am, though he may not of appeared to be. He was only human in his fear of death, for everything else, all other fears and emotions, had been taken from him by the darkness of the Dark Kingdom. However, he failed too badly and too soon for Beryl's liking and so he sleeps for eternity. Jadeite has suffered far worse a fate than either Nephrite or Zoisite.

I blink, remembering where I am. Such melancholy reminiscence is unbecoming of one of my power and status… and yet it is all that I have left. I lift a glass of wine from the table in front of me and raise it in a toast, a farewell to my fellow kings and, in truth, to myself as well. I know that Beryl will soon think that I have outlived my time and am now useless to the Dark Kingdom. Yes, I raise my glass in a toast and a farewell to the kings, for we are all doomed and damned to death even if the Dark Kingdom triumphs. Yes indeed, farewell to the kings and farewell to our souls, for all of us are damned.