Disclaimer: Sailor Moon doesn't belong to me.

Once upon a time, darling

Sometimes Usagi will catch herself thinking – the taste of the food is strange to her. The sunshine hurts her eyes. She will open her door and expect a balcony. She thinks – her Mother will be disappointed if she doesn't finish her lessons, if she spends all day in the gardens again.

She doesn't have a garden, Usagi will realize, and then Princess Serenity retreats again.

It's not like she doesn't remember her once kingdom, or her Moon Queen Mother or the brilliant light of the stars above her. She is Usagi and those memories also belong to Princess Serenity, and she is Princess Serenity and the memories linger in a special place she has subconsciously created inside of her mind in which she even remembers the smell of her flowers. But the memories are separate, after all, and Usagi is Earth born and Princess Serenity is a beautiful moon child and the two don't fit well together, or at least not at first, not until Usagi can touch the flowers and easily remember her moon roses while smiling at their Earthern counterpart's beauty. Not until she can switch between the two lives easily with barely a thought.

Sometimes she is Usagi thinking of Mamoru and she finds herself missing Endymion. Serenity misses him but Usagi can be happy and it doesn't make sense, because the two are one and the same and Serenity is always so sad. Usagi often feels sad, in those first few days after she remembers the dress and tiaras and ballgowns and it takes her a while to attribute it to the Princess, and it scares her because it feels like her life is not her own anymore.

She will look at her mother and see the Queen and she will pause, almost as if broken, because this woman's smile is different and the hands are familiar but strange. She will look up at the sky and see the moon and look away, because it should be reversed and the Earth is the one she used to gaze upon.

Serenity loved the Earth but it is somehow different than how she imagined it to be, and there are no trees or wind but car exhaust and crowds and colors. There are so many colors and sometimes Serenity is overwhelmed because she is used to her palace of silver and white and the dark sky above her. It is too light here, but at the same time the sunshine is beautiful.

Usagi will realize that she is standing in the middle of a sidewalk, lost, staring at the sun and she wonders how she got there. Because sometimes it's Serenity and Usagi but sometimes it's Serenity, and Usagi finds herself seemingly moved through time and in places she has never been to before, feeling loss like she never has before.

Usagi is Princess Serenity and Princess Serenity is Usagi, and they are one and the same but on those first few days – weeks – it feels like it can only be one or the other and Usagi simply doesn't know – sincerely doesn't know – for minutes or hours or seconds who she is anymore, a normal school girl with a mother and father and brother or a dead Princess from a dead world who all of a sudden is awake, staring at this brand new life with awe and sadness.

Help me, Tuxedo Mask, she will think before she falls asleep and at the back of her mind she will catch herself thinking,

Endymion and her dreams turn to nightmares of fallen ruins and blood and laughter.