Under a Green Moon

Meetings – Part 3

I stared out of my hiding place pushing aside the green branches of the iron wood tree that covered my presence. I was looking for that tiny movement of leaves or the scent of her perfume that she always wore that would show me the location of my foe. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the telltale trace of movement that I was waiting for and with my staff in my hand, jumped and swung the staff in the same motion. The practice staff broke on my adopted mother’s shoulder and the sharp yelp of pain told me that I connected. I stood above her and extended my hand. She grasped it and raised herself to her feet and quickly embraced me, “Lita, you are a wonder. I’m so proud of you.” She gave me a small kiss on my cheek and placed her arm around my shoulder. We stood on the bough of the tree and smiled as the Jovian sun started to set in the north. I felt my heart soar with my mother’s word but I still feel a sharp pain as I thought of my parents that died five years ago. I still miss them every day. I think about them every day.

My name is Makoto Kino but everyone calls me Lita, it was the nickname that my departed mother gave me many years ago. She told me that it was the Jovian spelling of Leda, who was a Spartan queen on the Earth many years ago. She would always wake me by softly shaking my shoulder and calling me her princess. I still remember the fragrance of her perfume as she nozzle her face to mine and give me a kiss on my cheek. We were happy but that happiness didn’t last as long as I hoped.

It was hard after my parents died. None of my relatives wanted anything to do with me because of my extreme height. Even at the age of seven, I stood taller than any teenage boy that I knew and none of my relatives wanted a tall child as part of their family. Jovians are not known for their tall statue because the sun at the midst of our tiny solar system within the larger solar system is gives our home a heavier than normal gravity. It’s much better now since Queen Serenity and her consort installed the new gravity plate twenty years ago. We owe a great amount of loyalty to the Queen for her help but we are allies and not vassals of the Silver Kingdom.

My father was the headsman of this province and everyone tells me that he administrated the villages fairly and we prospered under his term of office. He had held the office for over ten years before I was born and was still there when he was killed in the same accident that took my mother. I was seven years old and they left me with Geran and his wife, Ildera, while they visited one of the outer villages to decide some civil matter that was within my father’s control. Ildera told me five days later that my parents were returning home when one of the men that he ruled against in the matter attacked them and pushed my mother from the bough they were traveling upon. My father jumped to catch her before she felled to her death but the limb that they landed upon didn’t hold their weight and they fell over a thousand feet to the floor of the forest. I wept that night as she held me in her arms but I knew that if the fall hadn’t killed them, the beasts that prowl the forest below our feet would have quickly done the same.

When my relatives rejected me, Ildera took me into her home as her daughter. They ran an inn located on the largest tree in our village and the inn has been in Geran’s family for seven generations. They are not wealthy people but they made a good living and since they could not have any children of their own, the brought me into their home and treated me like a daughter. Ildera was a member of the village police force before she retired and married Geran but she kept in shape and trained every day. She must have saw something in me because she started to train me in the fighting arts on the first day I was under her roof. I feel that they did love me but it was a different love than I felt with my parents but it’s been years since I saw their faces that sometimes I wonder if I was not just holding onto a dream in my mind and not actual memories that we shared.

I enjoyed the cool of the morning when Ildera and I practice. The Jovian dawn was brilliant with the lighter green of the sun blocked the green light streaming from the other moons that surround Jupiter. I always wake before the dawn so I could see the shining orb rise in the sky. I’m happy but it always seems to be one problem after another in my life. I have to work for my adoptive parents, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy helping them run the inn but I would have like to spend time with the other children in the village but they need my help. It’s rough on them. They are barely able to support themselves and let alone a growing girl but we get along. Our inn is located in a small village that is off the beaten path. When it was first built, local traffic was heavy due to the ironwood groves located planet spin from the village. We always had lumbermen and transporters coming in for meals or to spend the night but those days are gone when closer groves were opened up near the capital. We still get by on the support of the local populace stopping in for a meal or a drink after a day in the grove. We still produce the best ironwood on the planet but its price tend to drive most customers away from here and to the larger markets where they don’t care about the trees.

I don’t want you to think that I had an easy life, I have to help my foster parents in the inn but I am happy living with them. They kept me clothed and fed but we didn’t have much extra money for those little pleasure that a young lady would have in her life especially during those years when I started to … develop. I missed out on so many things after my parents died and many nights I cried myself to troubled sleep but I always knew that there was something out there above the green moons of Jupiter that called to me but I never could put a name to it.

It was a bright summer day when I finally realized that name of my dream. I was taking care of the noon crowd because Ildera was sick and Geran wanted to bring her a hot meal so he left me in charge of the two cooks. We have just finished baking the bread for the lunch meal and banked the fire to keep it warm for the next meal when the small bell over the door sounded softly. I wiped my hand and face on a towel and went to greet our usual group of workers from the ironwood groves. Much to my surprise, my gaze feel upon a group of men and three young ladies entering the main room of the inn.

I rushed to greet them and the first one through the door, a tall white haired gentleman, said, “Hello, we are not too late for some lunch?” His eyes froze me in place for a few seconds while I composed myself, “No … no, my lord. We have just finished baking the noon bread so if anything … you are early.” I started to take their cloaks and show them to their tables. A raven-haired girl helped gathered their cloaks, “Here, let me help you with these. Where can I put them?” I thanked her and led her to the cloakroom beside the entrance to the kitchen. As we placed the garments on hooks, I turned to my helper, “Thank you for the help. Eight people with one party are usually more than we have at one time. Oh, my name’s Lita.” I extended my hand to her and she grasped it, “Hello, my name is Raye.” I felt the rough skin of her hands and realized that she worked as much as me. I could tell by her mannerisms that she was not from Jupiter, “You must be a long way from home.” Raye looked at me, “Yes, I’m a long way from home. I’m from Mars but we are gathering materials to build our home on the moon.”

The moon, those two words excited my thoughts. That’s the name that I wanted to call this yearning in my heart. When Raye said those two words, I knew that one day I would look up and see the Earth hanging in the sky. It’s my destiny but … whom am I kidding, I will never travel to the moon. Space travel is expensive and I would never be able to afford it in my life. I quickly cleared my head of those thoughts; I probably never would leave my village. My heart sank but as I looked up, Raye was smiling at me. “Lita, you shouldn’t worry about your future, it all have been decided before you were born.” I muttered a ‘thank you’ before I went to the kitchen to bring some cold water to the table. As I was pouring the pitcher, I started to think how Raye knew that I was thinking about my future. Well, no use thinking about it now, I had work to do.

After I delivered the water to the table and filled their glasses, I took their order. Even though they were all dressed in clothing that could have purchased a house in our village, the seem to have simple taste in their food as they ordered meals from our standard menu and didn’t asked for anything special except the oldest man asked for a local wine for himself instead of the water that the rest of the party drank. The stayed seated at the table throughout the noon meal and after the last of the locals left, the youngest man approached me to see if I had rooms upstairs that the ladies could rest. He explained that it has been a long journey from the nearest city and he thought that everyone needed a little rest but the young ladies in his charge needed rest the most of all. Geran had returned from tending to Ildera and gladly offered the party the use of a large suite of room on the third floor of the inn. He refused to accept any money and told the girls that the only payment he wanted was a hug from them.

My foster father is a secret ‘grandfather’ in disguise. He never could resist a young pretty face and provide many meals to young girls and boys that accompanied their parents to our inn. Geran refuses to accept any payment for lodging of any young person under the age of eighteen. He told me that he was refused lodging in the big city because of his age and the thought that he could not afford their service. “It’s easier,” he told me when I was young, “to offer than to accept a gift. My youth taught me one thing, we must show the young how to give through our actions and they will remember that lesson when they are presented with the situation in their future. Always remember your past and you will try to make the future better for everyone.” I think that Geran would make a good headsman for the village but he would rather help one person at a time so politics are beyond his mental makeup.

I escorted Raye and her friends to their room on the third floor while Geran talked to the men of the party around the large table in the taproom. As I opened the door to the room, the blonde girl rushed past me and took a running jump on the bed. The bed was next to the window and one of the softest in the inn, folded around her slender frame as she gave a sigh as she sank in the bed. I couldn’t help laugh at the sight of her sinking slowly in the bed and I realized that I wasn’t alone in the mirth of the occasion. Raye and the blue-haired girl were laughing with me and collapsed against me, as they were unable to stand up straight. “Well, at least someone can come and help me,” said the blonde from the bed.

I spent the afternoon with three of the most unusual people that I have ever met. It was almost like we were long-lost sisters in the manner that we fell into unreserved conversations. I found out that Serena, the blonde, was actually the Moon Princess, the daughter of Queen Serenity. The blue-haired girl was Princess Ami of Mercury and considered by most learned scholars to be one of the greatest minds of our time. Raye is actually a priestess of Mars, one of the followers of the all-seeing flame, a diviner of great power that can ‘see’ in her mind’s eye any event in the present and the past. I felt out of place after these revelations but soon I was put at ease by the way the girls treated me. They respected me as an equal.

The day wore on and soon Jupiter began to set on the horizon and the green hued moons began to shine and cast the light of the night over the land. The party had decided to stay the night and I was glad. In my heart, I wasn’t ready for my new friends to leave. We have only been together for about six hours but I had finally found people to whom I belong, a similar kindred spirit that bound us together. At the rise of the final moon, Raye gathered us in a circle on the floor with all of us holding hands. Serena was on my right and Ami on my left. Raye sat in front of me grasping her companion’s hands. When they lifted their heads towards the sky, I duplicated their motions. I was startled when I heard Raye’s thoughts join another’s mind in the ether. I heard her speaking to this other voice, “Nova, we have found Jupiter.” There were silence for a second, “I know Raye, and I told you that you would find her. Her name is Makoto but everyone calls her Lita. She is the daughter of the headman of the village where you are staying and raised by her godparents. She is the one that we searched for on this world.”

I felt Serena squeeze my hand and it broke me out of my daze. “Who … who are we talking to?” was all that I could stutter out of my mouth. Raye looked at me from across the circle, “He is our brother and our leader, he is the emblem that we fight for, the exploding star that outshines all others. He is Nova and he will be your brother and you will love him with all your heart from this day forward.” I looked at Serena and Ami and all I saw was their nodding head as Raye drew us together again to contact Nova. I realize with a start that he could only be Prince Nova of the Royal Family and Serena’s uncle but she was the same age as Nova since they were born on the same day. I let Raye take my thoughts to him.

I felt the love that he had for the three girls that surrounded me and I also felt another’s presence. “Lita,” said Nova, “I am please to present my beloved wife to you, her name is Mina and she is your sister as much as I am your brother. You will stand by our side as family.” My mind was confused. Nova wanted me to be part of his family, “Nova, I’m not a princess or a priestess, I can not bring a title or estates to you or your family. I’m just a serving girl on a small moon around a small sun.” I began to state more but the immense power of his mind bore down upon me, “Lita, I have more titles and estates that anyone in the universe. I don’t need my family to provide me with anything else but their love and aid. You haven’t realized your potential but your power will shake the pillars of evil in the galaxy. Lita, you are the defender of nature, the champion of all living things, you are Sailor Jupiter.”

Sailor Jupiter, that name sounded so familiar but I don’t think that I can claim the name just yet. I felt the other mind, the mind of Mina; enter mine, “Lita, I glad that you have joined our cause. Know that all the Sailor Warriors love you and you are part of us. Learn from your sisters during the trip back to the moon.” I felt warmed by their minds inside mine but I heard Serena shout to Nova, “Wait, we still have the outer planets to visit to find the rest of the Sailors.” A silence fell over our small group and I heard a commanding voice, “Serena, you have found all the ones that are to be discovered at this time. Our remaining sisters will be found whenever they are ready but they still have some tribulations to go through before they can realize their future.” A collective mental sigh issued from the group and Serena answered Nova, “Yes, Nova, I hear you. We’ll get started back tomorrow. Kiss Mina for us and get some sleep, you sound tired.” Before they fully broke the connection I heard, “See, Nova, you are worrying your family. Now, you do as Serena told you and you get to bed. I’ll get us some warm milk. That’ll help you sleep.” I felt the unquestioned love from Mina to Nova and wish that one day I would feel the same love for someone.

I slept in the same room as my new sisters that night and rose early in the morning. While we were upstairs ‘talking’ to Nova, the men of the party was informing my guardians of my destiny so I had little to say in the morning except our goodbyes. Ildera and I cried as I departed but I was needed elsewhere and with a hug and a kiss from Geran, I left the life of obscurity behind me. I am Sailor Jupiter and I have to fulfill my purpose and I was ready as I looked up and noticed Jupiter starting to rise over the horizon. I was brown in color, a sign that a storm was coming from and would soon be here. I wonder if this sunrise is a sign of the times, … well, I have to train so I can meet Nova’s expectations when I see him and Mina. I will never forget my life before the Sailors but I will always dream of those unhurried days.

So ends Jupiter’s tale and it was many years before the Sailor Warriors will make a journey to find the others but we are going to cut down the time. Next, Saturn’s tale of her life of riches and sorrow; be sure to stay here for “A Gilded Cage”, the next installment of the Meetings series.