crystal sharp

Author: amaryliscemetery

Rated: G

Usagi's fingers are laced and twisting together, betraying her anxiety. Behind her, Luna sleeps peacefully, curled in a circle at the end of Usagi's bed.

She stares at the moon. It feels like the moon is staring back.

The ginzuishou hangs heavily on her neck from the delicate chain her father bought her for her thirteenth birthday, like an albatross.

She stares at the moon and thinks, stop. Everything, please, stop.

The moon stares coldly back.

Tsukino Usagi is not Princess Serenity.

She tells herself this again and again, reassuring herself. She is her own person. She is Usagi. She is fourteen and human and doesn't do well in school and sometimes fights evil.

She is not Princess Serenity.

She shuts her eyes and presses the heel of her palms against them as Serenity's memories batter at her mind. She remembers a stark white, gleaming palace. She remembers the earth in the sky. She remembers the Queen and the prayer room and the heavy weight of responsibility.

But these are not her memories.

She wants to cry out at the unfairness of everything. She wants to throw a fit and act out and rail against this thing in her head called Serenity. She wants to be who she was before they took Mamoru, before the ginzuishou materialized, before her hair grew several feet overnight and her body changed into something it hadn't been.

Usagi stares at her hands and sees Serenity's hands.

Her friends wouldn't understand. Their memories returning didn't change them like hers did. Their memories are faded and misty, like an aged photograph, and they don't feel who they used to be grinding along the edges of who they are now.

Princess Serenity is crystal sharp where she rubs against Usagi, leaving parts of her raw and bleeding.

Usagi does not want to become Princess Serenity.

Usagi wants to go to school and see her friends and waste time at the arcade and get into fights with her brother and save the world.

Princess Serenity wants to rule it.

Usagi can feel it, nudging the back of her skull, that knowledge of power and control and entitlement. Princess Serenity was made to rule. She was molded to be a queen. She was taught to be a benevolent, kind monarch. She was formed with the love of her people and the love for peace.

But Princess Serenity is dead.

Usagi stares at the moon.

She stares at her hands.

Her fingers grip the ginzuishou tightly.

Princess Serenity had her chance at life.

It's Usagi's turn.