This story and the characters of SailorDís, Isis, Cyrus, Shai and Mayet belong to S. Patrick.
More credit information and other legalese can be found at
http://www.iguananet.us/rmwerx/DS

The Weight of Duty

‘This must be how Father felt, before each battle. This must be how he felt before the last one,’ Isis thought to herself.

She sat before her dressing table, silently and methodically removing various royal accoutrements, staring at her reflection without really seeing it. Reaching up to remove her crown, she paused for a moment to appreciate how light she felt without it, thoughtfully running her fingers over the etchings on the heavy gold, tracing the lines and symbols there.

“There is something I must tell you, my daughter,” Shai had said, his face set in uncharacteristically long lines, looking at Isis gravely. She faced him across his massive desk and nodded seriously, curious but saying nothing. Steepling his hands on the wood before him, her father sighed.

“I feel you are still too young for this, but our times are changing, and our world with them. It should be your mother who tells you this-“

“Then where is she?” Isis interrupted.

Shai’s lips tightened for a moment, and he pressed his fingertips together, the flesh under the nails whitening with the pressure.

“One of the Ohai has gone missing,” he said simply.

Isis tensed, fists clenched at her sides. She thought she was close to her mother, almost friends at times, and the young princess had felt abandoned since the start of the Queen’s prolonged and unexplained absences.

Her father’s tired voice brought her out of her reverie.

“Believe me, Isis, I know what you’re thinking, but as Queen it is also her duty to oversee the well-being of our home. The Ohai are directly linked to Charon, almost as much as your mother is. What affects them affects her, and impacts us all. As she is attending to that business now, it falls to me to tell you that you will begin your Senshi training on Pluto one week from now.”

Isis frowned. “Why can’t you do it? Surely you have the experience, Father.”

Shai laced his fingers together and leaned back in his chair. “The compliment is appreciated, as is the faith you still place in me, child, but I am not a Senshi. There is another, greater reason for this decision, one that gives both your mother and I reason to believe that your aunt Andrade would be the best teacher you could have in this matter. Your mother also feels it is past time for you to learn about Sol firsthand and get to know the rulers of our neighboring planets.”

“Father, I already know about all the history and the lineages,” Isis started, thinking back on years of history lessons. Exciting as the prospect of travel was, she knew from her cousin Setsuna’s accounts that Aunt Andrade was very, very strict. The thought of Senshi training, not to mention “finishing”, under her aunt’s tutelage was unappealing.

“What is this ‘other reason’ you mentioned?”

The King closed his eyes, a frown briefly wrinkling his forehead. “There is a distinct possibility that you will be receiving a more specific duty than simply that of a Senshi. Your mother feels that there is someone better suited to the task, but I’m not so certain, and I believe you will need extra preparation…”

An ache in her hands brought her back to the present, calling her attention to the metal circlet clenched in her fingers. Placing it on its stand on the table, Isis recalled the day she had received the Guardianship; the unfamiliar weight of the Spear in her hands, its cold length wholly different from the wooden staff she’d practiced with. Her mother’s serious injunctions against using certain of her powers in a specific way still chilled her heart.

Later, she had discussed her misgivings with her father, away from Mayet’s eagle eye and sharp ear. He, too, had warned her of the dangers of the Guardianship, and of the need to keep her duties a secret from the world at large, adding the comment that haunted her now – that duty weighed heavily on those who must bear it alone. He’d looked grayer and older than she’d ever remembered seeing him, something in his deep voice sounding as though he’d lost his little girl that day, his eyes sad.

That face, she had later come to realize, was the face of a man who had been told that his time was short, and precisely how that time was to play out, and hadn’t found it to his liking. Had she known that expression for what it was then, Isis reflected, she would never have allowed her parents to send her away that last time.

‘Coward,’ she thought, meeting the eyes of her somber reflection, scowling forbiddingly at the young woman in the mirror, passing judgment on her as surely and as damningly as she would have on the girl she had been, if she could be called to this place and time.

Catching sight of a traitorous tear slipping down her cheek, she swiped the offending bead of wetness away, hardening her heart against the lost, pleading look in the mirror-girl’s eyes, against the sorrow and loneliness she still felt.

A Guardian was not weak.
A Guardian never gave in to pain, or to fear.

Better not to look at the mirror.

Isis discovered she’d shed her veils and garments, and was now sitting clad only in her shift. She bent to gather her hair, to remove the decorative beads that contained its last few lengths, watching with detached interest as her long, brown fingers deftly stripped the strands of their burden.

Brown fingers. Brown hands. Dark skin keeping the Darkness at bay.

Setsuna’s sure brown fingers had been the last things she’d seen that awful day. The uneasiness, the sudden pain like a ball of white-hot metal lodged in her gut, the terrifying vision…
Then Setsuna had been there, as always, steady, cool and all-knowing, much more the image of a Guardian than Isis felt she herself could ever hope to become. Setsuna, who had led her firmly from the scene of her people’s final stand, led her safely to her own familiar bed, had urged her to sleep in that sympathetic yet no-nonsense way of hers, and who had stayed until she finally did tumble into welcome oblivion.

Isis tumbled through clouds laced with fingers of hungry purple lightning, knowing somewhere deep in her mind that she was dreaming, the sensations so real they overpowered her reason.

Her father's figure materialized from the shadows, tossing her laughing five-year-old self high into the air, tickling her neck with his nose. No sooner had he faded away than her mother appeared, small Isis perched on her lap, reading a story, making the facial expressions of the various characters.

She wasn't sure if it really faded or if the tears in her eyes blurred her vision.

The clouds turned a bloody red, and she heard that fatal chanting rising again on the wind, saw Mayet, mad with grief over her husband's death, raising her arms above her head to crush the rising Darkness with Charon's very soul. Isis cried out and the illusion ripped, torn asunder by the dream-lightning.

She fell, tears whipped from her cheeks by the vicious wind, hearing a voice thundering through the clouds around her.

"Destined, Queen! Destined, Guardian!”

A strange and yet somehow familiar young man appeared, suspended within the slender circle of a golden crown, arms reaching out to her and lips forming words she couldn't hear. She held out her hands, tantalizingly close, reading the smile in his deep red eyes, the golden symbol of Charon blazing on his forehead for a moment, then fading, brushing fingertips, his skin so pale, more like her father's than her own, and his hair a dark, rich blue...

"’Sisu..."

“Ini!”

‘Who are you?’

Somewhere a mirror shattered, the shards tearing her apart, and from three pairs of eyes she watched the young man similarly torn, spinning out into the storm helplessly…

Weak and disoriented, the first thing to meet her bleary eyes had been brown hands. Large, strong brown hands, lightly callused, that folded around hers perfectly…

‘Cyrus...’ Her rock, her strength.

He’d held her as she wept, had stayed at her side through the days that came after in a ceaseless, cruel march with no regard for the faltering of those forced to follow their pace. Dark and yet shining, he was the one thing between her and sure madness. He’d disappeared after the coronation, and no word sent to Sigma Librae had produced even an echo of an answer.

‘Where are you?’ The memory of him was as warm and bright as the short time they’d had together.

Isis shivered and stood slowly, wrapping her arms around herself, trying to imagine they were his arms, his hands. For a moment she could almost feel that warmth again, as if Cyrus were suddenly there with her, gently turning her to face him, his lips in her hair, on her face…

‘Cyrus.’ Another tear, scalding hot against her skin; the act of removing it almost a slap.

A Guardian did not allow herself to drown in sorrow.
A Guardian did not rely on the strength of others.

She would stand alone between the Light and the Darkness.

‘Into that Darkness…’ Isis thought, and shivered again.

Unconsciously, she had fallen back on an old childhood habit of toying with her hair, and the shiver had tangled several strands around her fingers. Stopping to untangle her hand, she pondered the Darkness she was charged to keep back at all costs, that her parents had died to rout, the Darkness to which they said her dear friend had sold herself and her people so willingly.

‘That can’t be true,’ she thought, and briefly saw a familiar impish face reflected over her shoulder in the glass.

Lillis had been dark, yes, but that was a warm darkness of spirit quite unlike the deathly chill that had tainted the killing ground left behind on Charon. It was certainly different from the sickening blackness that had blanketed Ceres during its last days.

“Was there something you wanted?” he’d asked, his back to her.

Startled, she jumped back – she’d been so sure she was quiet enough to escape notice – and collided with something quite solid and cold, but human.

“Ah! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-“

“My, who is this, Cyrus? What a lovely little morsel you are…”

Isis stood trembling, blushing furiously, on the edge of panic. This was too much. Where was Setsuna? Here she was, trapped between a stranger she felt unaccountably drawn to and another just as unaccountably repellent, with nowhere to run and no friendly faces in sight. Oh, what had compelled her to follow him here?

“Caspar, stop being so intimidating. Can’t you see she’s nervous?” the first man chided, “Be civil.”

Despite the reassuring tone of his voice, Isis closed her eyes and shrank back against the parapet, wishing she were somewhere, anywhere else but here.

“Feh,” the second man, Caspar, snorted. “A Guardian never shows fear.”

Isis’ eyes flew open. ‘How could he know?’ She saw the first man raise an eyebrow and glare at the second sharply. Her blood pounded in her ears.

“Caspar, darling, there you are! I see you’ve hunted Cyrus down at last. Who is that you’re tormenting there?”

Her heart leapt at the sound of the familiar voice even though she’d only met its owner a few hours ago.

“Lillis, thank Heaven!” Isis was about to bolt to her rescuer’s side, but the short, dark-haired girl moved to take Caspar’s arm first.

“Really? You wouldn’t say that if you knew me better,” Lillis replied, winking mischievously.

Caspar gave a dark chuckle. “You do make the most amusing friends, pet,” he said, casting a loving look down at Lillis and a menacing grin over at Isis, “Won’t you introduce me?”

“Oh, of course. Where are my manners?” Lillis pointed at Isis, who jumped. “Caspar, Cyrus, this is a new acquaintance, Isis…Princess of Charon.” The finger swung to each of the men in turn. “Isis, this is Caspar, Consort Royal, and that is our friend Cyrus.” She leaned over to whisper loudly in Isis’ general direction, obviously meaning to be heard, “I’m so glad you followed him out here, he’s in desperate need of female companionship.”

“Miss Lillis..!” Cyrus started; sounding stern, but she cut him off, laughing.

“Don’t even try to take that tone with me, sir. You spend entirely too much time in that tower of yours. Life isn’t all meetings, mortal peril, and saving the universe, you know…”

Isis smiled a little at the memory of that night. She’d been shocked at the distinctly un-royal behavior of the Princess of Ceres and yet had secretly admired the girl a great deal for her daring and extraversion. Isis herself could never have been that open, that self-assured, taken that much obvious pleasure in the world around her. They’d become friends, yes, and Isis would have gone so far as to call Lillis her best friend if she hadn’t felt as though she were abandoning her cousin. Setsuna had been her dearest friend since they’d been small, but now she’d become distant and brooding.

‘Why wouldn’t you talk to me?’

She’d grown worried, not having received word from Lillis, and had journeyed to Ceres to seek her out. Surely the stories couldn’t have been true, she’d thought, surely this was misinformation. But the state of the planet had alarmed her. Like Charon, it was failing, but unlike her home, Ceres was rotting from within.

Its surface lay shrouded in a darkness that seemed to prey on the mind somehow, instilling feelings of hopelessness, of rage. The citizens were a sullen, violent lot; she’d barely managed to keep her head and her belongings long enough to reach their Palace, and once there, she’d been turned away.

Isis had returned to her empty castle, her dying planet, and her lonely post sick at heart.

Later, she’d heard the news of Ceres’ attempted coup against the Moon Kingdom, and of the sentence passed down on its Princess. She hadn’t quite been able to accept that a Senshi would condemn her entire world to that fate, knowing in advance what would happen. Dark of nature she’d been, yes, but never of soul.

Closing the Gate on Lillis' Starseed had been the final blow.

Isis drew herself up before the mirror, rising to her feet, standing tall. She raised her arms and slipped the sheer undergarment from her shoulders; it pooled around her feet with a whisper. She met her reflection’s red-rimmed eyes with defiance.

‘I know you. I know what you were, and I know what you are now, and I won’t let you be that girl any longer. I know now what I have to do.’

Oh, yes. She knew exactly what the cause of all this heartbreak had been, and she knew where it was waiting for her. She’d heard that name on many lips, seen it scratched in clotted ink on many a piece of parchment, scrawled on ruined walls, splashed invisibly in blood on battlegrounds. ‘Metallia. “Queen” Metallia.’ A queen only in name, a name without a body, merely a façade for a much greater evil.

A Guardian did not feel pain.
A Guardian did not feel sorrow.
A Guardian did not show weakness or fear.

She would take her sorrow, and her pain, and her fear, and strain them from her spirit. She would make of them a weapon, and would cast them from herself into the heart of the Darkness. Let the greatest blow be struck by the return of all that the Darkness had wrought. She would be alone then, but would draw strength from her solitude, and she would endure. Yes.

A Guardian endured.

She knew her duty, and it was indeed heavy.

Isis raised her hand to the sky and drew a deep breath.