The Other Moon Princess

by Lady Dawson

Chapter One: Dreams of Past

She could see the beautiful kingdom crumbling as she scrambled out of the way to avoid a piece of debris that was falling. Her beautiful kingdom, the one that she had been born into and had grown up in, was being destroyed. And all because of the forces of darkness.

"Annalise!"

Turning, she saw her true love, her beloved fiancé, racing towards her, his green eyes wide with fear and relief as he saw her.

"Chris!" she whispered, clinging to him as he reached her at last. "Why is this happening?"

"I don't know!" he cried, holding her tightly. He was looking paler than his usual pale. "I don't know, Anna . . ." She could feel him trembling as they held on to one another. "Great stars, Annalise, I thought that I had lost you," he whispered, "I couldn't find you anywhere."

She didn't need to tell him that she had feared the same thing. The redheaded woman was destroying everything in her path with her army of the Negaverse. So much had already happened . . . and she knew that the Moon Kingdom would never again live to see the next sunrise. In her heart, she knew that everything would soon be destroyed.

Shivering slightly, she whimpered slightly when she saw a blast hit the palace, the very heart of the Moon. "No!" she shouted, her heart skipping a beat as she saw it. Her fiancé's head jerked towards the sight, horror rising into his green eyes. Ignoring his cry to stop, she hitched up her skirts and raced towards the scene. "Serena!" she shouted, trying to find the other moon princess and the queen. "Mother!"

Just as she managed to reach the remnants of the palace, she heard a shout of alarm coming from Chris. As she turned, she saw her love rise through the air before dropping onto the ground, motionless.

"NO!" she screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks. Not him, too, she thought in horror as she raced towards her fallen sweetheart, kneeling down beside him. "Chris, please," she whispered as his green eyes looked up at her, filled with pain. "Don't leave me. I need you."

"Whatever may happen," Chris gasped, his voice strained and forced. "Know . . . that my heart has always belonged to you . . . and always will be, Anna, my love . . . my life . . ."

"And mine will always be yours," she choked, burying her face into his chest. "Always and forever." Chris nodded once, his hand becoming limp in hers as she held it.

She sobbed even harder as she clung her dead love's body to her. Even before the evil queen's minions hovered over her, she knew that she was going to join him. But she had one last thing to do.

Clutching the glittering necklace that she always wore around her neck, she held it up to the sky, closing her eyes. "Whatever happens," she wished, as the evil beings stood behind her, raising their weapons before the eldest princess, "let us find a way back to each other. Let us be together once more, in our future life, so that we may find a way to be together."

But Princess Annalise didn't even flinch as the weapons were brought down upon her and she was hit in the stomach by the evil energy that came from dark magic. All she did was hold on to her love, praying that they would find a way back to each other . . .

With her teeth gritted tightly together to prevent herself from screaming, Anna Ryder sat up straight, looking wildly around her as she gasped in fear of the dream she'd just had. It was only when she had seen that she wasn't in any danger, that she was safe in her own room, that she lay back down, relaxing somewhat.

Running her hands through her light brown hair, Anna tried to calm down so that her heartbeat would return to normal, but her mind kept flashing back to the dream.

For all of her fifteen years, Anna dreamed the same dream every night, always the same. A kingdom on the moon being destroyed . . . a young man being killed before her . . . herself being slain as she wept at the young man's demise . . . but what did it mean?

Anna had tried to discover the true meaning of her dream, what it meant, and why she was dreaming it, but she didn't know what to look for. Whatever that kingdom was only existed in her dreams. There were theories, certainly, that people had lived on the moon, but none had ever been proven. Many scientists disagreed that anybody could live on it, being that there was no atmosphere on the moon.

All the same, she knew that her dream meant something. After fifteen years of having the same recurring dream, it had to mean something. The only question was, what did it mean?

She was certain that she was about to stumble on something important. The dream had never been this vivid before, in all of her life. Which, to Anna anyway, meant that she was going to figure something out, something important. It was only a question of when.

"Anna!" her mother called up the stairs. "Better get a move on! You're going to be late!"

The short brunette girl glanced down at the clock and silently chided herself for daydreaming so long. Or was it morning-dreaming, this early? she thought humourlessly as she climbed out of bed.

Climbing into the school uniform for her first day at the new school, Anna quickly brushed out her hair, letting it hang free as her usual hairstyle, only kept back by a headband that didn't stop her bangs from hanging into her sky-blue eyes. With a quick glance in the mirror, Anna hurried down the stairs, taking two at a time, before heading towards the breakfast table.

"Morning, Mom," she said, glancing around the table. "Where's Ben and Will?" she questioned, noting the absence of her elder two brothers.

"They've already gone ahead," her mother answered with a sigh. "You're running unusually late this morning, Anna, dear. Anything the matter? Are you having strange dreams again?" Her mother looked worried as she said this.

When she was younger, she used to tell her mother about the dreams, but that had only resulted in her being taken to a shrink. Not something that she wanted a repeated of. Which was why she kept her dreams to herself nowadays.

"No, Mom, I just had trouble getting moving this morning," she answered, helping herself to a piece of toast.

"Well, I'll just have to drive you on my way to work. I don't want you late on your first day in a new town. Just promise me that you won't make this a habit of yours," she added warningly. Anna nodded, her mouth full and not wanting to make a spectacle of herself. "Good girl."

Anna ate as fast as she could and five minutes later, she was in the car, heading towards Crossroads Junior High. As soon as she climbed out onto the sidewalk, her mother took off without so much as a goodbye.

With a small sigh, Anna turned towards the entrance, heading inside. Ever since her father had left, it had been one thing after another with her mother. Now she rarely even paid attention to her children, when she was even home, anyway.

"Well, here's day one on the alien planet," she sighed as she headed inside, explaining to the teacher who she was.

Ms. Haruna introduced her to the class and said a little about herself, before looking around the classroom. "Now, Anna, where shall we seat you?" she said, more to herself than to the new student standing awkwardly beside her, frowning around the full classroom.

Anna noticed the door open slightly and someone snuck into the class, her blond pigtails giving her away. Biting her lip to hide a smile, Anna saw that the teacher immediately scowled.

"Late again, Serena?" she asked. The girl—Serena—jumped and winced as she pulled herself into full view, revealing herself to be a short girl around Anna's age of fourteen with long blonde pigtails that fell all the way to her knees. Her eyes were a wide, sky-blue colour. If Anna had looked any closer, then she would've seen they were in the exact shape and colour as her own.

Shaking her head in exasperation, Ms. Haruna sighed. "As much as I hate to do this, why don't you sit behind Serena?" she told Anna. The brunette girl smiled vaguely before heading to sit in the vacant seat behind Serena, taking her books out for the day.

But she had the distinct feeling, somewhere in the back of her head, that she had, somewhere and someway, met Serena before. There was just something about her that made Anna feel like she knew her, but couldn't remember where from.

Anna suppressed a sigh as she turned her attention from the blonde girl and towards the lesson. She always learned things when she was ready to hear them. And she had no doubt that when she was ready, she would learn the truth about Serena and her dream.

But she had no way of knowing that the two were connected.

--

She was on her way home that same day when she headed into the diner where her brother was working at, ordering a soda. Ben brought it to her before asked, "So how was the first day?"

"As usual," Anna said with a shrug, running her hands through her light brown hair, tugging on it absently. "What time did Mom say that she was going to be getting home?"

"Around seven, which means that we'll be fending for ourselves tonight," Ben responded, rolling his eyes. "You know, I think ever since Dad left, we haven't had a proper meal. By the way, it'll just be us tonight. Will has some dates lined up later, so he'll be out on the town."

"Dates? As in plural?" Anna questioned, arching her eyebrows. "When is going to stop that multiple dating thing and settle down with someone?" Her older brother was the king of the multiple dating scenario and hadn't dated one girl for almost four years. It drove Anna crazy and from what she could tell, Ben wasn't too thrilled with it either.

"I don't know, but the sooner that he gets out of this phase, the better," he said now. "Anna, I'd love to talk more about our brother and his lunacy, but I got to get back to work. See you later."

"Bye," Anna said lightly as he disappeared around the corner to go clean the tables out in the diner. She shook her head, wondering how she had survived living with two brothers, and headed out of the diner through the arcade.

As she was leaving, she heard voices talking in the corner and saw a group of five girls chattering in the backyard. Actually, four of them were chatting, one of them was playing away on the video game next to her friends as they talked quietly.

The sole member of the video playing Anna recognised immediately. Serena Tsukino, from school. The other four girls were undoubtedly friends of hers, but she only recognised two of them. Surely the other two went to different schools. Anna had a habit of recognising people and she was sure that she hadn't seen the two today at school.

Almost as if she sensed Anna's gaze, the dark-haired girl looked around, her dark eyes narrowing slightly as she met Anna's sky-blue ones. Shaking her head, Anna headed out the door, running into a little girl outside.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there!" she exclaimed as she helped the pink-haired girl up. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," the girl said, looking up at her. She smiled up at Anna, who couldn't help but smile back. "It's okay, I wasn't paying much attention either. I'm Rini, who are you?" Her brown eyes were studying Anna, as if trying to place her.

"Anna Ryder, nice to meet you," Anna answered with a smile. "Rini, that's not a name that you hear too often."

"I was named after my mom," Rini explained just as the arcade doors opened and Serena Tsukino appeared.

"Rini, where have you been?" she asked, getting hold of the little girl. "I thought you were supposed to be here a half an hour ago."

"No, I just told you that so you would be here when I got here," Rini said with a mischievous smile. "Otherwise, I would've been waiting for half an hour for you to get here."

Serena glared at her before looking up at Anna. "Sorry if she caused you any trouble. It's Anna, right?"

"Yeah, you're Serena," Anna answered. "And don't worry, your sister wasn't any trouble." She assumed this was her sister because the two girls looked so much alike, right down to the bun hairstyle.

"Cousin," Serena said weakly. The two girls exchanged looks and then looked back at Anna. "She's my cousin."

"Oh. Sorry," Anna said, biting her lip in embarrassment.

"It's okay," Rini said, grinning. "You won't believe how many times we get that a day."

"We don't look that much alike," Serena scowled at her, placing her hands on her hips.

Rini only grinned and Anna chuckled slightly. "Well, I'd better get home. It was a pleasure to meet you, Rini. And I'll see you tomorrow, Serena," she added to the blonde girl. Turning on her heel, she headed down the street, leaving the other girls behind.

But she could shake the feeling in the back of her head that somewhere, somehow, she had known Serena Tsukino from somewhere. And she felt like she knew Rini, too, but it wasn't nearly a strong as it was with her cousin.

Suppressing a sigh, she glanced up towards the sky, shielding her eyes from the sunlight. Who were these two girls and why did she have the feeling that they were connected with her dreams?

Only destiny would tell.