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It had been almost like a dream come true! Black Lady was at the highest of her euphoria, which for a normal person, would be akin to the feeling after a generally ok day. Her range of emotions, unfortunately, no longer ran to ecstasy and joy, but tonight. Tonight! It wasn't just any night! They had achieved yet another crystal. Wiseman had called her 'fair', which even with her limited English had her believe that it had something to do with her being quite wonderful.

And then, he'd put his arm around her, lifting her away into the sky. Yes, he'd brought Chronos too, for a time. But she wasn't here now, was she? No, she was dropped straight onto her Captain. The girl who had so easily thwarted that dark beam. Suddenly, her mood shot back down off the precipice it had tottered on so precariously and the former princess sank to the couch with a bit of a sigh. The sparkling wrap was discarded and almost childishly, the Lady curled her legs up under herself, visible only through the high slit in her gown.

"I would hate to sound unhappy over your effort, but did you really have to let them be? Would it not be...better if they were dead? They said, and I heard clear, Serenity isn't here." With no princess to lull into false security, the high voice had been abandoned and had given way to a more mellow, yet still fairly sharp tone. "The longer they live, the harder it will be." And she was determined.

There were some things that dark power couldn't prevent. One of them was blushing. No matter how many times she told herself that blushing was a sign of weakness, the light pink always delicately spread over her cheeks any time Ray genuinely complimented her. It was easier to resist when he was high and dry with his humor, but never when it was sincere.

A soft sigh, a glance out the window, and Black Lady's dark glamor had faded behind nothing more than a young human woman who looked heartbreakingly sad and pretty. The black crescent had faded along with the swinging crystal earrings, but the buns remained - her iconic hairstyle. There was almost nothing in her current outfit to reflect her alter ego, and was decidedly more casual than that of her companion. A pale blue men's dress shirt was buttoned only halfway down, clearly borrowed and covering a white tank. Thankfully, sweatpants stretched universally and didn't even slip! Unlike the shirt, which had embarrassed both of them when it had burst open when she first put it on. Thankfully, he'd had the sense to take her to some strange store with a red bullseye for undergarments, or it might have been much, much worse. Black Lady had now become nothing more than one Ms. Blanche Williams, certainly nice, but nothing horribly interesting or arresting. Perhaps because in this form, her assets were all firmly covered?

This brought a smile to her face, and breaking the silence, assented. "It would be a change from the oven pizza the past two days. But Ray," she all but crawled to the other side of the couch and leaned over the arm, eagerly gesturing to prove her point, "what are you hoping for? I did not think there were any left, but there is Chronos here. Do you think they will not find the dream stealer? She was not well done." Time had passed, new crimes were being committed, and her opinion of Queen Nehelenia had not changed over time.

Sometimes, he talked far too fast. Blanche, for she had mentally even stopped referring to herself as 'Chibiusa'; didn't mind though. At least he was talking to her, and with every word she learned something new. Unless, of course, the words were large and she would have to stop him, make him repeat and explain. Then the original topic was usually entirely lost to the cosmos.

At the mention of her family, things started to get very muddy. Deliberately she picked up a strand of hair and began to meticulously braid as she searched for the proper words. It really would have been much, much easier if he'd spoken her language. Things wouldn't seem so impossible to convey. "I didn't even know there was Chronos until I was ten. Then, I was still too much Chibi to be told why. But Crystal Tokyo is not really big for the Queen's court, my court. Plus her court, it was too full of senshi tempers and senshi powers." Her smile was soft in memory, and it was all too easy to see the Maiden that Helios had once spoken of so reverently.

Reality came back as her speech died off, and she dropped the small braid back into the mass of hair pooled around her body. "I never knew why. Just like why we didn't live on the moon. It was all just how it was." Unhelpful, that was her! But it was to be expected. For the most part, Crystal Tokyo was an Eden. Whatever problems that cropped up were simply not large enough to warrant involving an heir that would likely never inherit.

"As for Chronos, she does not seem changed from what I see. She was always like mam - like the Queen." She caught herself again, using familiar terms for people that no longer existed. To distract them both, she hopped over the arm of the couch, and started to idly steal chicken off the plate where he had shredded it. "She is simply nice."

If she'd been stronger or perhaps even phased into her true form as Black Lady, the counter would have cracked beneath the stress her fingers were now putting onto it. Fingers drummed once, twice, three times before she spoke again and her voice was almost entirely dead, void of any emotion. Her eyes were similar, a sure sign that she had retreated again behind the cracked shell of her memories.

"Twice I held in my hands her crystal. Many, many hands have touched it. Also took her pure heart. My pure heart." This caused a grin, at the idea of her having a pure heart. "But always she won...until the end." Red eyes closed as she spoke her next words, limpidly, as if they meant nothing. "Only once has my mother been defeated. Yes. She would have fought harder." Only her hands showed the pain that this was causing her as she gripped the counter, fingers almost totally white from the pressure.

"As well, the princess does not fight. The princess is never alone. She was alone. That is why it was so easy. She did not know to fight and then there was no reason. They are warriors because she is not. Like in Crystal Tokyo. Like on the moon. Not like Tokyo." And that was that. Even now, after they were long dead in this time, Usagi's daughter still held to the ideal that Sailor Moon could not die. Would never die. She would always fight, for she had always fought. No one but Small Lady herself knew the true extent of what it cost her to live day after day, knowing that never again would she go home.

This was her home now. Destiny City, with Ray....with her Wiseman. They would find who killed her mother, and destroy them while assimilating their power. Then one day, it would end in a glorious shower of stars. At least, that was her hope. He was never really forthcoming with his own private details, after all.

Had it been any less of a serious topic, the closeness of Ray and the glorious blue of his eyes would have undone the little princess entirely. Instead, it only helped bring her back to level, and the tension flowed from her body as their foreheads touched lightly. There was something about his smell too, that reminded her of nights she'd been tucked into Mamoru's bed while outside the door the senshi talked late into the night about their newest enemy. She'd always felt safe there. It was one of the reasons she'd gone straight for his everyday shirts when given a choice.

As he pulled out of the hug, before he could pull away fully, she grasped his wrist and held it up. With her other hand, she linked their pinkies and smiled in an almost happy way. Had he been able to understand Japanese, he might have been worried about what she said next in her native language: "Just us, together until the very end." Or perhaps, even encouraged that it was easy to cheer her up with nothing more than a quick hug and a statement of eternal companionship.

Releasing him and then striding into the kitchen, she pulled open the refrigerator and stared inside almost dismayed again. "Ray, you have no cheese? Little tomato, much lettuce, very much cheese." Firmly, she tried to pull them both out of a situation that she had learned her boss decidedly avoided and into dinner. After all, they were celebrating!

"Lots." She pondered over this word for a moment, moving it through her mind and trying to insert it into her magical grasp of basic syntax. Similar to much, but not quite? As she picked up the silverware, she clearly made sure to note that she was rolling her eyes quite a lot before easily moving over.

"So is it 'lots of lazy' or 'much lazy' by only putting this by me?" Out of all the people, Blanche supposed that it was probably quite useful to be paired with a teacher in a new place. He'd already showed her much of Destiny City and she'd explored even more by herself. It wasn't too dissimilar from Tokyo, it even had a large tower in its city limits! But it was certainly everything you could expect from a Western city, right down to its language.

The light quip made her feel quite happy that finally she was able to joke with him in his own language. At first, it had been nearly impossible! She'd had to blather at him in Japanese, and then make exaggerated gestures while pointing at pictures of things on the internet to make sense. He would then tell her the English word, repeating it over and placing it into life for it to make sense.

It was incredibly ridiculous, but nonetheless fun. Because when he was teaching her, it meant they were spending time together. Much preferable to the days she spent, sleeping alone in the apartment while he taught across town. Or nights, when she was certain he was not out as Wiseman. "Please bring the red. The salsa?" She tried this word as well, and found it quite an interesting word. English was, of course, much more interesting when there was someone to impress with it!

Yet another endearing quality about Ray Gordon was that she was not his maid, and he never expected her to be. Blanche had no gentle aspirations as her mother did, to simply be a wife and mother. Ironic, as she'd ended up the queen of the Solar System at the tender age of twenty-two years old and not married long before that. He never asked her to do the dishes, or his laundry. Certainly, she would have tried to do these things. But she wouldn't have been very good at them.

After all, Ikuko had done those things in Tokyo for the most part, and in Crystal Tokyo the Princess did not do anything for herself past pick up her things and put them back in their rightful places! So yes, sometimes the food sat out a bit longer than it should have, and the cooking was never gourmet quality. But he did the best he could, providing for them both. It was one of the varied reasons she adored him, and why she strove so hard to learn English. Maybe one day she could tell him these things, instead of flounder helplessly and point at pictures online for word meanings.

With relish, she clinked her can against his lightly and returned his smile with a wide grin of her own. "Very bad for them. Very good for us!" Red eyes warmed and all but melted at the idea of the power that now resided between the pair of them. "Soon the real work starts." With this confident statement, Blanche turned to her food and tucked it away in a fashion that would have made Usagi proud, satisfied again in the knowledge that one day soon, everything she'd been hoping for would come true.