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It was the fabled, mystical Day After Tomorrow. Blanche had been thankful for the day between meetings, it had given her time to prepare and ready things so that maybe she might finally gain an upper hand in things. She'd been shaming herself with her behavior up until now, acting like a child. It wouldn't do! So the princess had taken it upon herself to provide the snacks this time in a bit of a trust gesture. Things like tiny strawberry daifuku, mini eclairs, and in half of the bottom bento, a small chocolate cake with buttercreme icing. Ray had been lightly inquisitive, but not really, especially when she pressed a bento of his own into the teacher's hands before waltzing out of the door at almost eleven pm that night.

She had been conservative in her choice of bento for the mirror prince, it was a simple black one with koi on the top. She might have bought it specifically for this purpose, but would never admit it. There was a certain hilarity about taking a bright pink, rabbit-shaped bento box into Meadowview High on Thursdays. The one packed for herself, however, fit this stereotype to a tee. It even had her name, Usagi, written on the top in kanji. Nobody could read it but her, but that was just fine, since wasn't it her bento? Blanche didn't walk far before phasing into her other form, and teleporting straight over to the playground. There was only one straggler there that night, and he was dispatched quickly with a blast from her mirror and a giggle.

It wouldn't do, not at all, to have someone intruding on her private time with her new friend, now would it? Setting the tightly wrapped pair of boxes down at her side, the Lady simply reclined upon the slide and stared up at the stars to wait. Hector would be there when he wanted, she wasn't about to watch the time.

When Hector had gone straight for the package, she'd been incredibly dismayed. There was a presentation to this! She was supposed to smile, talk a bit, and then surprise him with the bento to much adoration! Not this! But the prince was too quick and had the lid off his own meal in no time, joking and holding out a tester for the young woman.

Slowly red eyes looked from the eclair, to Hector, and back again. Was there a polite way to refuse without arousing suspicion that she might have poisoned the food? Black Lady hadn't done anything but put her best work into it, desserts was where she excelled. After all, the princess and queen loved them so much that it was entirely impractical to not learn to make some of her own! However, in Japan there was quite an importance to sharing a bento with a boy your own age, or anyone in general. It meant something, and Hector was probably unaware of it. Chibiusa knew, however, and it slowly warmed her ruby eyes before she clasped her hands together with a quick itadakimasu and leaned forward to take a rather hefty bite from the tiny pastry.

Of course, it was delicious! It was Makoto's recipe, and nothing that the Senshi of Thunder had ever concocted tasted bad, unless it was Usagi herself cooking it. That woman could sour a meal faster than she could eat it, and that was an almost legendary feat! "See? It is safe, but that one is not mine." Fingers reached and picked up the second little container, opening it to reveal a slightly more personalized meal. Her eclairs were just a tad bigger, and the icing on her cake was just a bit thicker. "It's a dessert bento." The word dessert was clipped, as if she had painstakingly learned how to speak it for this purpose. She had, in fact, done just that. "You bought before, is my turn." Fingers popped a small daifuku into her mouth with a wide grin. "I did think that if you did not come, I would have more, but I am happy you did come." Guile? She had none.

It always seemed like Black Lady never caught when he stopped mid-sentence, she always pretended like he was simply leading her into another thought. It was hard, living two lives, and she could sympathize readily. Sometimes keeping things together as Blanche was almost impossible, and more than once she had found herself almost pulling the mirror out of subspace while wearing her human glamor. Really, she didn't want to know who Hector was. Human guises were troublesome and incredibly cheap. It would always be the princess that would be coming at Hector, not some unknown boy being taken down by a woman that nobody knew.

Watching the eclair vanish, she blushed just a tad, almost invisible in the darkness. Maybe he didn't know it, but it meant something to her, and warmed the girl to him as nothing previously could have done. They were a pair now! "Mm, Makoto. She shows me how, I do it all from scratch, like you say." Showed, though the past tense wasn't in her vocabulary. A pale hand slapped at his dusky one when it dipped into her pile of treats, and she shot him a warning look. "No fair!" In retaliation, she reached for one of the pieces of melonpan across from the cake and popped it quickly into her mouth with a giggle. After that, Chibiusa carefully guarded her own treats as his vanished, though there wasn't much left to guard. Sweets had a way of vanishing exponentially!

The question at the end caught her off guard, and almost absently, her thumb rubbed at the skin of her left ring finger. It was where her wedding band would be, had Blanche Williams come to this place. Really, she'd never met Ray's family. He seemed content to talk to them over the phone from a distance and never meet. Everyone had been shocked to find out that he had a 'brother', let alone this strangely pretty 'sister-in-law' that looked nothing like a Blanche, let alone a Williams. But what could be said? Silence stretched, and then, a casual shrug. "They are not my family, but very nice. But I am very nice too." Black Lady put on her best smile and aimed it right at the cavalier, showing him just how nice she could be. "I have good manners. I am quiet. They do not mind me." How could they? They never met her.

"Not mine. I want my family back." It was a wistful sigh, and the last melonpan slipped into her mouth for sugary comfort. "You are very much happy, having your brother?" It was a safe topic, something that they could talk about. "You like the queen?" Not so safe, but a topic nonetheless.

That was heartbreaking to her, the idea of no family but what you forced yourself into, standing by and watching the brother born barely before you have everything. It made her angry. At him, for him, at those who had put him into that position and given her friend no choice. Her choices had always been superficial ones. She was the only princess, the only heir, the only one able to wield that special Moon power of cleansing and rejuvenation. No one had ever asked, ever wondered, about her father's Golden Crystal power when he no longer walked the Earth. There'd simply been no child to pass it onto. One day, she would marry, and create an heir to continue an unbroken line of Princess Serenities. With Helios, or with some other man, it would always come down to providing an heir and securing the crystal power for their Solar System.

She'd been angry for herself then, too. Now, Black Lady would have taken any restriction, would have married Chaos itself if it meant she could return home to her family and friends. "Why is that okay, Hector? To swear this?" It was a question that she didn't expect an answer to, and simply exhaled with a healthy bit of exasperation, then laughter with a sly, sideways glance at her companion. "I have my duty, even if there is no Crystal Tokyo. I need a prince. You are a prince." Lashes batted playfully in the boy's direction, not even bothering to hide the grin on her face. "That would make Nehelenia very happy, yes?" At heart, she was still a child, and a fairly naughty child at that. Chibiusa might actually have meant it, if for no other reason than it would irritate the woman she saw as her nemesis on this Earth.

"I wanted anything, you see. Sister. Brother. Did not care. But I am the only child, can only be me." Her eyes touched with sadness, and a bit of relief for a life spared the destruction of her home. "I will only make a girl. She will only make a girl. Moon Princesses are lonely, it is why they give us senshi. Sisters. You have brothers like this, more?" It was a probe and a genuine question, all at once. Cavaliers were an almost alien concept to the futuristic princess, the only one she'd met was her father and was unaware of his title as such. It made her mind seek for answers that no one knew. The bento had been surrendered to Hector, her stomach knotting just a bit at the memories and ideas in her head. Fingers knotted lightly at her sash, pale in the moonlight and bony. She wasn't entirely at ease with him, not yet, but the word friend had been used. It was hopeful!

It didn't seem the proper time to inform Hector that all of Endymion's cavaliers were traitors and worse, one of them currently wed to the Queen of the Negaverse. What had happened to the rest of the Shitennou, she could only guess. But that thought was abruptly banished as one of the ichigo daifuku was peeled apart, and the innards were smeared across her cheeks with a casual manner indicating that Hector found nothing off about this. Chibiusa had somewhat of a different opinion, and when her mouth dropped open in shock, a strangled noise sounded in her throat.

"What are you doing?! That is not...is not..." At a loss, her mouth flopped about, and then closed. Jaw set, the princess stared down the cavalier steadily. She picked up one of the carefully prepared and frosted wagashi remaining from where the pair had ravaged the desserts and weighed it in her palm. Without even batting an eyelash, she reached up, and smashed it against his forehead. The frosting and even some cake stuck when she removed her hand, letting it brush down over his nose before falling to the ground. They were even now, and she found her words again.

"You do not know my age. Do you accept?" It was, strangely, familiar. In Tokyo she and Usagi had often flung food at each other, though it had never gone to waste. Tsukino Usagi saw wasting pastry as a cardinal sin, and only truly bad people in this world ever wasted a cake. Black Lady tried to hide her giggle as she smeared at the red paste on her face, but it wasn't easy. Apparently, she and Hector were both sinners!

Eyes crossed to try and inspect, and without further ado, the last eclair was picked up and held to her mouth like a trumpet. A quick blow, and white cream splattered all over the front of Hector's uniform. Chibiusa'd been aiming for his face. The eclair shell was lightly slicked against her nose, popped into her mouth, and she stuck her tongue out as soon as the food was gone.

"I am older than you!" Why didn't he believe her when she said that? She was just as tall as he was, and her body was certainly more developed than that of a high-school girl! But her voice, her mannerisms, and her giggles were unconvincing at best, and the willingness to fling food at her companion were altogether damning. "I am not a worm, I am a bunny. Usagi!" Her fingers pointed at her hair, as if this was obvious, and more giggles burst through as she looked again at the prince covered in cake icing and eclair cream.

Thinking of Helios sobered her just a bit, and she started to again rub at the paste on her cheek almost distractedly. "No. That was future. This is other. Helios is not a boy now, I cannot marry the Priest. So you are my only hope!" There was no harm in saying that she'd met, and spoken with, the Dream Priest. Nehelenia was being lax indeed if she hadn't met with the upper echelon of the current White Moon court, and the princess didn't believe for a moment that her old nemesis was anything but thorough.

After all, she would do the same thing.

Of course she warmed to the topic, it was all that Black Lady lived for, these days. Seeing Ray smile at her, and planning the destruction of the world, those were her goals in life. It was sad that at fourteen, all a girl had to live for was the idea that soon, very soon, there would be nothing at all. Just a vast silence in the cosmos where Earth had been. Wiseman would do it for her when his mission was completed, she'd already asked. Of course, he'd also asked her if she wanted to be a princess again. Her answer kept changing, so Black Lady stuck with her favorite - 'As you wish.'

It was obviously a mistake to have ever introduced her to The Princess Bride.

Giving up on getting the paste off with her fingers, Chibiusa sacrificed part of her wrap and finally smeared the red off of her face and dried frosting off her nose. Leaning against the bulk of the slide, red eyes went up to the stars and she sighed dramatically. "Smash the crystal." It was abrupt, and flat. "Put all my power in it. Smash it. Goodbye Earth. Goodbye lonely. Goodbye senshi." Turning, with a bit of a forlorn look and a quieter, much more heartfelt sigh, she tacked on the end quietly. "Goodbye Hector. That is how I die." Doing that, there would be no rebirth. Sailor Moon would be reborn again, Endymion, their whole courts would be reborn. But there would never be another Small Lady Tsukino Usagi, and that was exactly how she wanted things. She wanted no parents but her parents.

"Battlefield is not a bad way to die. There are ah...Spar...Spartians?" She mangled the word, but it sounded right to her so she continued. "Papa told me. With your shield or on it. That is you?" This romantic ideal appealed to the princess, and she smiled again, though it was still tinged with sadness. The idea of Hector dying was not something she welcomed, even if he was supposedly her enemy. If he died, she wanted to be the one to kill him, to make it fast and painless. Suffering wouldn't do for this prince, not at all.

That was a hard concept for Black Lady to swallow. Not the conquering, since they had done quite a bit of that. The clan whose symbol she wore on her brow, for example, had been an indigenous peoples of Earth once. But they had revolted against the Utopian rule of Neo-Queen Serenity and King Endymion, violently so. That had been Wiseman, though at the time none of them had been able to see the Chaos in their midst. They'd been defeated, expelled, for all intents and purposes - eliminated. But they always came back, didn't they? Certainly her Wiseman had persevered, maybe that meant that he was right after all? It was something to think on later.

No, what boggled this young lady was the idea that a father could be disappointed and disapproving. Endymion, Mamoru even! had never been anything but supportive and encouraging of his child. Strict, absolutely! After all, she was a proud senshi and a princess, there were lessons that needed teaching and expectations that she'd had to meet. But if she fell short somewhere, there was just a small lecture that always had the timbre of 'you have to do better next time, but thank you for trying'. "So you will die in your sleep, very old, yes?" Chibiusa was lightly swishing her head back and forth, before making up her mind and nudging Hector over before sitting next to him.

"I will get what I want. I am a princess. They always get a happy ever after, in the end." The question was, would he try to stop her when it came to that point? She hoped not. For their friendship, she wished him back into the mirror again. "But you will not be here, so it is not your worry." It was the only way she could tell him that, without showing her weakness. Her massive, gaping maw of a weakness, something that Gene Baskov would have called her heart.