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Sailor Cosmos smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes. A sad smile, a fake one-- she certainly was not happy seeing the raw pain, but she was satisfied. Everything was to change from this point, but it was easier to have a comrade at arms that you could always depend on. She hadn't expected Linarite to agree to it, she had thought that the blue haired lieutenant was satisfied with her lot in life, but humanity always surprised her. Love always surprised her-- it had been too long since she had felt it herself, and even she had to admit at this point that her one foray was infatuation, a whisper of a chance of love but never blooming.

Linarite's corruption felt like a wall between the two of them, hiding her real heart but still cracking all on it's own. It would make things easier on her that she was willing to try to stop Metallia in her own way.

"I can purify her," Sailor Cosmos said simply, standing up from her crouched position, "I can purify but I cannot corrupt, and I can choose not to purify. Purifying Beryl, say, would be an influx of power to Chaos that we would have a hard time handling. Endymion doubly so; but that is neither here nor there."

The glow became slightly brighter, and she slammed her suddenly longer staff in to the concrete as if it were soft ground.

"Cosmic Harmony Swell."

There wasn’t just a mere force to the words the white haired woman said. There was power. Power that echoed around Linarite, and tore into her, Castor only holding her as it carried Linarite through the purification, until it pulled her away to complete the processs. And that was just what it was. The purification, the banishment, the removal of that wall, the ocean of darkness that had stood between them for so long. Now being brushed aside by the very forces of the universe. By Cosmos, but more importantly, by what Castor would later say was love. That was what he felt as she glowed and shimmered and changed in front of him. He felt love. It radiated around them all, inside of her, inside of him. It was love. It was power.
It was all they needed.
As tears rolled down his beloved’s face from reasons he did not know, Castor whispered to her. Watching the powerful whirlwind of magic he was unsure if his words reached her. “I won’t leave you. We’re going to do this Lina, we’re going to do this together.”
Her eyes tore into his and he felt a tug in his heart. He loved her so much. To see pain, sorrow, regret filling her eyes he still could only feel an overwhelming sense of love. As she reached out, Castor had no hesitation. Pulling her into his arms he embraced her like he would take her into his very body if he could. “Don’t be sorry Lina.” Lina. His Lina. His Knight. “Never be sorry for being who you are.” His Knight. His Wife. His future…and his past. The sound out wardrums echoed in his skull as he felt the song of his star cry out to him, calling him. It was a hammer of force in his mind, in his heart, in his very starseed. She was his wife. She was his knight. And he?
He was her prince.



Lips crashed into hers, harsh and demanding as raw power flooded his body, filling him up, changing him. It was not a painful thing. It was like waking up from a dream. Like having mist removed from your vision, the smoke gone, and all was clear. He wasn’t just Eternal Sailor Castor senshi of Hail. He was Prince Castor. Royal. Hail was his weapon, his medium. He was the strongest of his kind. And he was her’s. Prince Castor, senshi of Hail, married over a thousand years ago to the Knight of Mercury. To the same woman in his arms now. Lips parted and he knew it. This was how they should have been. How they always would be. Always and forever. For eternity.
The Prince smiled.
“It took us a few thousand years Lina…but I keep my promises.” He just held her, what had once been a beaded charm in his hand now a crystal. His crystal. “My beautiful nymph. My Daphne.”

Sailor Cosmos was already shaking her head at their thank-you's, wanting already to disappear in to the darkness once more; too much had happened for her to feel thankful for the moment of happiness that she had brought them, instead of despair. Her own personal balance outweighed this one act of good.

Lina touched on the issue at hand, the reason Cosmos was unable to flee from a moment that should have just been between two people.

"I'm sorry, Lina... Daphne. I can only give you a choice, and I regret not telling you of the consequences of this choice. Your civilian identity is compromised; Your own mother will not recognize you. Think of it like this, maybe-- Audrey Collins died here, and you are not her. You must understand that I would take away the memories of family if only to stop the pain that will come, but that would effect the balance as well. It was not my decision, but I do not consider myself absolved because of it. Those who believe you've made the ultimate betrayal against their kingdom will try to come for you, if you meant anything to them, and will find only your family. It is better they never see you, never make the connection with their daughter and you," Sailor Cosmos looked devastated, and spread her wandless hands in a gesture of helpfulness, "I can only give you a chance, the choice; to live or die, together. Your choices in the past were under corruption, under duress, and you must not consider yourself wholly responsible. If you had taken genuine pleasure, even for a moment, during your corruption, I would have never been able to purify you."

Cosmos turned to Prince Castor, and put her hands on his shoulders, making him look her in her eyes.

"You are a Prince. You will remember that once you were taught to purify, as you just saw me do. I caution you, I caution you most strongly, from calling on that power to turn people to light once more. Times have changed, and it could very well kill you," Cosmos shook him lightly, as if this would make him retain the knowledge more, "I am only standing because I am more of an idea than a person, at this point in time. You have forged a bond with Lina, you two are bound and forever will be bound-- she will need you. I can stand on the precipice and choose to stay my sword-- but can you do that? Can you just let someone die because their living will effect the world over? I once made the wrong choice, once intervened when I knew I mustn't. For that, I pay every day of my life."

Turning around swiftly, Sailor Cosmos faded, replacing herself with Sidra Winters.

"I run a teen help hotline. It's not at school anymore, but I cannot disclose the location," Sidra pulled a card out of her saddlebag, and presented it to Lina, "I'm barely a teen anymore myself, the name just stuck; if either of you need anything, anything at all, just call. It's sort of like calling the cavalry, Astraea's there too... but I banned her from answering phones last week, what a nightmare."

Sidra had bags under her eyes, looked too thin, and coughed lightly under her breath whenever there was a pause in her little speech. It sounded practiced, and she looked like hell.

"Just a cold," Sidra smiled weakly, and turned to walk away. She needed to get home and crash in to bed for a week-- when she had left her apartment she had been in the pink of health.

What Cosmos had done was something Castor would never feel he would be able to repay her for. When he had been claiming to fight for Serenity, for something he didn't understand, he now knew what he had really been fighting for. He had been fighting for her. For Lina. For them. That was why he was willing to die. Why he would risk his life. Lina was his everything, and without her, he would have nothing to drive him, to push him. Cosmos had done more then given him a chance to be with his love. She had given him his very reason for being.

Wings moved and enclosed them, holding her near as the wind blew, cape flapping. A cape. God. It was real. This was who he was. This was who he had to be. Prince. Dayum, even the title made him feel good. Looking down at his beloved, Castor chuckled at the question. "Yes." Closing his eyes, he rested his chin atop her head. This was right. This was his purpose.
"Everything will be alright. I'm here now, by your side." He could hear them, the war drums of Castor, like a faint echo in his skull. "I'll always be here Lina." Circling his lips offered a tender kiss. "I will always be by your side. Forever."Wings opened to the world around them. "Let's go home Lina." The echo was a touch louder, a touch more demanding. Holding her hand he looked into the night sky. "You ready?"

As wings enclosed around them more, the wardrums pounded not just in his heart, but in his veins, his blood, his star seed. In his very soul. Castor was calling him. No- It was calling for them. She was his Knight. The woman he loved. His star wanted it's prince. But it wanted more then that, it wanted her. Star and senshi were connected. A promise of eternal love was not something taken lightly. Not when made to your love. Not when made to your true love. The one whole your soul, your starseed, was tied to. Prince Castor was tied to Lina Knight. Both 2000 some years ago, and in that moment. They were tied together. Forever.
And so his star was calling out for their return. Not only his return, but their return.
"Yes." He let the magic fill him up, no cellphone required. "Let's."


The street lamp flicked for a moment, but when light filled the area the two where gone. The bench was the fixed from verious broken states. Blood still lingered from an old stain. And flowers were still wilted from spring chills. Yet as they vanished a new grow had broken from the earth surface. In a few days, it would bloom. Two daisies, intertwined. Rooting going deep into the earth, but pure white petals facing the sky and the stars above.