disclaimer: disclaimed.
dedication: to sleep, or lack thereof.
notes: happy thanksgiving, all other people living in Canadaland. :)

title: fit objects for our tears
summary: The Queen loves them with a bright-edged, sharp love that pierces deep down. They are so young. — Metallia/Selene/Pluto.

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Selene will remember it like this:

Her empire is crumbling.

She'd often wondered when it was going to happen, and that time seems to have finally come. All empires crumble. All empires fall.

But Selene is not prepared to let it happen today. Her daughter is safe with the Senshi and that boy—he does love her daughter an unspeakable amount, and that is enough for Selene at this moment.

The Fire Senshi is gleeful in her destruction, and Selene smiles. Mars is a delight, she thinks, a little ball of wrath and flame packaged up in beautifully somber wrapping. there are not many men who would dare to approach such a girl, and as said girl is devoted to the last family Selene, she knows that there is nothing to worry about.

Her daughter's Senshi will die before they allow Serenity to come to harm.

The Silver Palace is over-run with demons, but the barrier the Moon's monarch has erected around the throne room is impenetrable to all who bear ill will to the Silver Alliance. She'd briefly considered putting one such barrier around Serenity, but her daughter is powerful and would have broken it with a flick of her wrist. One day soon, she is going to be ready to take the crown.

And what a beautiful Queen she would make, Selene thinks.

There is, of course, the problem of the Terran boy. Serenity loves him fiercely, and nothing in the universe can change her daughter's mind once it has been set.

Selene smiles fondly. Sadly.

Just like her father.

Serenity is going to change the Silver Alliance in a way that hasn't been tried in a millennia simply because of who she is. If her husband is Terran, logically, Terra would be inducted into the Alliance. Heirs of either blood would only be a deeper bond—if a Moon child of born, she would take her place as Queen of the Silver Alliance in turn; if the babe is of Terran blood, the child would be returned to his or her own planet to take his or her own rightful throne. Better to have both, and keep the ties between the two planets secure.

Eithere way, there are no downsides, Selene thinks.

Terrans live short and violent lives.

Serenity's husband is no different.

Her daughter would age as those of Moon blood do; she will still be little more than a child when the boy dies.

And Serenity will move on.

Yes, the Queen can be satisfied with this. It is the only logical procession, her own Mercurian Senshi would have said. But that dearly beloved girl is long dead, and Selene does not dwell on the past.

It is the present with which she is concerned.

She does not know how long the barrier will hold, and there are things she must set in motion. First, the Outer Senshi.

The COM link flickers to life beneath her hands. It does so reluctantly, because the Moon's computers seem to favour the Mercurian touch, but they do as she tells them because she is Queen, and that is no small measure of authority.

"Guardians," she says, "hello."

The screens focus in on four different girls. Uranus and Neptune stare at her in awe, and Pluto—Pluto simply smiles that mysterious smile that Selene has always loved so very much. Saturn sleeps, young and helpless in a glass case. There is no need to awaken her, yet, and so Selene does not release her. The Silver Millennium will not fall this night.

"Your Majesty," whispers Uranus. Her voice comes out crackling and low with static over the link, and Selene wants to sweep the girl up and cling to her—she looks so like her father. Neptune echoes the statement. There is raw emotion in them both, need and an unquenched loneliness.

They will be good for each other. This Selene knows with a certainty that tingles deep in her bones.

"Selene," Pluto says. "Why have you called us?"

Both Neptune and Uranus gasp at the casual way their elder addresses their monarch. Selene hides a smile behind her hand. Pluto is older than she is—Pluto has earned the right to call her by her first name.

"The Palace is being attacked," Selene states as calmly as she can, which is decently calm, given the gravity of the situation. She keeps her tone light. "I need you three here as soon as is possible—Chaos has made its move, my Guardians. It's our turn, now."

Pluto's eyes have gone as cold as the farthest reaches of the orbit of the planet she guards. Selene can count on her haste. She stares at the other two guardians. They look fearful but stubborn. The Queen loves them with a bright-edged, sharp love that pierces deep down. They are so young.

"Are you prepared, little ones?"

Uranus straightens, short blonde hair curling around her face. "Always, my lady."

"And you, Neptune?"

Neptune bows her beautiful, ocean-coloured head. Selene is struck with a sudden memory of white sand beneath her toes, laughing loudly as she played in the ocean as her own guardians looked on.

It has been such a long time.

She's missed Neptune's answer entirely, but it bothers her little. The girl will have answered in the affirmative, either way. A Senshi's life is lonely, Selene knows, and all of them—all of them will do anything to avoid being alone forever.

"Pluto—" Selene begins.

"I am on my way," says the Senshi of Time. Her screens goes black, and this time Selene cannot hide her smile. Neptune and Uranus stare boldly at her for another moment, before they, too, nod and allow their screens to flicker into darkness.

Selene stands there for a moment, a dripping ray of silver light on silver keys, and she stares at the last screen for a long time. Saturn is as tiny as ever; she does not age within her glass capsule, and she is nothing but a pale little girl with dark hair and tiny hands.

No one would believe that such a small child wielded the power to turn the universe to ash.

Selene will wake her for the coronation when the time comes, but never until then. Every Senshi must be there to see her Queen crowned, even the Senshi of Silence.

For now, though, she will allow the little girl to sleep.

Selene flicks the screen off, and something hisses through the door.

She remembers then that nothing keeps Metallia out when she wants something, and massive cloud open an ugly gash for a mouth and makes a sound deep in her throat that feels like lust.

"My darling Selene," Metallia rasps, and reaches for her. The longing in the way the evil creature says her name makes Selene's skin crawl but also breaks her heart. "It has been so long."

This creature took her husband (the only man she'd ever loved), her friends (the only people she'd ever trusted), and even her mother.

And yet, Metallia hungers still.

Selene cannot even pretend she does not know what for.

"Hello, my love," Selene says simply.

"To whom do you speak?" the question spills out too fast, too eager, too harsh, too hungry, too wanting.

Selene's answer is already at the tip of her tongue. "You, beloved. It has been so very, very long."

She can tell that Metallia—Chaos—Metallia eyes her with distrust and lust, two sins that oft go hand in hand. And it is true: the evil thing should be wary, because Selene could send her back into the center of the sun with a single wish on her Silver Crystal, and it would be the end for a long time. Serenity's reign would not be troubled, but there would be others, and Selene would not be there to stop Chaos from crushing the Moon's defenses.

And Selene is very, very tired of this game.

They've been playing it for far, far too long.

The only thing that Metallia can take from her now is Serenity, and Selene will never, never allow that to happen. Not in this lifetime. Not in any lifetime.

Metallia curls closer, shifts around her and Selene can feel arms all around her; it is all the people that Selene had loved that Metallia had eaten to keep her attention.

The sad thing was that she'd never needed to take anyone away to keep Selene's attention, because Selene had loved Metallia once, too.

The ruler of the Silver Alliance reaches up, and cupped some of the dark cloud in her hands. It shifts solid, and Selene holds a face that is ethereal and wretched all at once, neither man nor woman and constantly shifting except for the eyes; eyes like burnt-out holes in the world, they are.

"I'm tired, Metallia. I don't want to play anymore. Tell me what you want."

"You know what I want—what I've always, always wanted, but was never allowed to have. You know!" it hisses.

Selene laughs soft and gentle. "So the crystal, then?"

Metallia hisses again, louder this time, and hurt. "You, Selene. I take your mother and your friends and your husband—husband, why did you marry when you promised me—!"

Selene sighs. "We were children from two different planets, Metallia."

"You were mine, and they took you away!"

Selene leans into the smoke-monster, and rested against the solid mass of evil. She turns the words over and over in her mind. Yes, her mother took her away from that place, but with good reason. Nothing that loved the light had lived on that planet, and Selene's mother had ruled against allowed it into the Alliance.

"Yes," Selene says. "Yes, I was."

"And you will be mine again," Metallia murmurs, now, curling into Selene's ear canals. Her words are sweet poison, searching to find a way in.

"No," Selene says. "You will be mine."

Metallia snarls an incoherent noise that might have been a question. Selene's hands feel like ice and she is afraid, sweat dripping down the back of her neck, because this is it, this is her last chance to end this.

"I'll keep you inside of me. We'll be together. The same body, Metallia, my love. When we die, we die together."

"Inside?" Metallia murmurs the question.

"Inside."

Metallia curls ever close. "Forever?"

"Forever," Selene repeats automatically, and prays to every god she knows that she isn't making the biggest mistake of her life. It's looking to be one of them, but she doesn't know for sure yet. Her life will end considerably sooner. Serenity will be an orphan. Selene's heart aches.

Metallia is silent for a very long time.

Selene prays and prays.

"…Yes," Metallia hisses. "Yes."

And Selene opens her arms and her mouth wide, gaze calm. the game is over. She's won. She's won. She's won.

Metallia cloaks her like a second skin, and then sinks beneath the surfaced. Selene can feel everything she has ever been crying out against this invasion. It hurts. It hurts. She clenches her jaw shut and then her eyes and forces herself not to scream. Everything goes black, and Selene fights for her body, fights for her daughter, fights for her life.

When the blackness recedes, Pluto is at her side.

"Selene," she says gently, eyes soft.

Selene reaches up and touches the planes of her only remaining Senshi's face. Pluto is the last, the only, the untouchable.

Selene loves her so much that it causes physical pain.

(Or maybe that's just the demon in her chest.)

"It's over, Selene sighs into Pluto's shoulder. "It's done."

"It's never over, Selene. Never," Pluto replied, and cradled her fragile monarch in her lap. Selene appreciated the gesture, and pressed her mouth to Pluto's lips in reply. Metallia hisses, and is ignored. Selene's body is her own to do with as she pleases, and it pleases her to kiss her last, beautiful Senshi.

"No, my darling," Selene said. "This time, it's done for good."

—

Later, Selene hangs a Medal of Honour around her daughter's Mercurian guardian. The girl is more melancholy than any creature Selene has seen in her life, and that includes herself. No one should ever be as sad as this Mercurian girl is.

Selene knows the story. Selene knows what this girl did.

Selene does not judge her for it.

"You bear a heavy burden, little one," Selene says quietly.

Mercury looks up at her, and blinks only once. Her eyes are bluer than any sky Selene has ever seen, but there is a knowing in them that she cannot ignore. She bows her head, and says "Your burden is heavier than mine, Your Majesty. Thank you."

With that, the girl bows from her waist, and then walks away.

She'd been perfectly polite. Selene isn't going to question how the girl knows what she does—it does not matter, truly. What is done is done.

Inside her chest, Metallia purrs.

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tbc.