Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Chasing the Moon ❯ Chapter Three: Difficulties ( Chapter 3 )

Chasing The Moon

By Kuroi Koneko

Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon :: grumbles :: I DO own Lana and her characterization though, as well as this plot. You like it or them, ask to use please. That is all.

Chapter Three: Difficulties

Poor Luna, a seven-year-old girl sprawled out at her paws and with a reputation of being a very heavy sleeper. And she has to wake the girl up. Poor, poor Luna.

Luna tried very hard to wake up Serena. She really tried, but as it was it took Luna nearly three hours to get Serena to wake up. Getting rolled onto, kicked and slapped halfway across the room, several times in the process. By the time she accomplished this feat she was almost too exhausted to continue.

Struggling out from under the sheets that had been dumbed on her when the girl finally sat up. Luna sighed as she saw Serena looking around the room dazedly, wondering what had woke her. Oh well, might as well get this over with.

"Serena . . ." Luna coaxed gently and watched as the childs eyes grew to the size of saucers as she looked down at the cat. "It's alright. Nothing's wrong but I need you to do something for me," she paused as the dumbstruck girl nodded. "Keep your voice down, we don't want to wake you parents."

"Th-this as a dream, right? I mean cats don't talk except in fairy-tails." Serena asked shakely, though she did remember to keep quiet.

"I assure you I can indeed speak and this can't be a dream because you know the rule is you never mention dreams in a dream. Anyway that's not important right now, the important thing is that I've been looking for you for quite some time. It is your destiny to do great and miraculous things and I'm here to teach you." Luna explained.

Serena laughed softly. "I get it. This is a joke isn't it? Mum and Dad are probably hidding in the closet right now, saying these things to make it seem like you're talking. It's a game they they want to surprise me with for my birthday." And Serena continued to babble on about this was all a trick or a really funky dream.

Luna sighed, she decided that subtle techniques would be lost on a seven-year-old, especially the 7-year-old that she was dealing with. Now she just had to think of a way to get Serena's attention without alerting the rest of the household . . . . . Suddenly Luna's eyes lit up.

Bingo!

Luna eyed her new charge a bit warily before deciding to speak again. "I have a present for you Serena."

Serena immediately became silent and turned her eyes to her pet. Her blue gems sparkled with anticipation at the thought of receiving another gift. Luna chuckled inwardly at the site the child made, a small upturning of her lips (1) the only outward sign of her amusement. Luna leisurely walked along Serena's pink-bunnies-and-stars (AN - on a white background, the stars are gold) bedspread, gracefully jumping to the cleared dresser top, before sitting down on her haunches and turning her attention to Serena once again.

"What I am about to give you is very special, Serena, and will prove to be most invaluable to you in the future." Well, a little mystery never killed anyone, Luna thought. "Do you think you can handle it?"

"Yes yes yes! Please let me have it!" Serena squealed in excitement. She had never gotten anything that sounded so magical before.

Luna secretly smiled at the girl's antics before putting on a more serious train of thought. Without a word Luna silently did a backflip and in midair a pink colored locket (2) appeared and dropped on the bedspread. It had a gold crescent moon on it surrounded by eight gemstones; aquamarine, yellow topaz, emerald, ruby, onyx, sapphire, a dark purple amethyst, and a turquoise colored gem (3). For a moment each gem seemed to glow with its own colored light before it faded, leaving Serena to wonder if it was just her imagination or not. And then she got over her shock and surprise.

"OH WOW!!" she cried out. She quickly toned down her voice when she saw the reprimanding and cautious look on Luna's face. "Hehe, sorry Lunakins." Serena turned her attention back to the locket that rested on her bed. "This is so beautiful, thank you so much Lunakins!"

"Just remember, Serena, it's not only something pretty. It is also very powerful and very valuable so take very good care of it, all right?"

"Uh huh, whatever you say, Lunakins! I'll take good care of it, I promise!" Serena flipped on her small table lamp, quickly looking over the locket more thoroughly before searching for a way to keep it with her. I would not like to keep such a pretty thing hidden in my pocket if I could help it, she thought absently.

Luna sweatdropped and threw a slightly worried look at her charge before sighing resignedly. Gently nudging the seven year old's hand toward the lamp switch she said softly, "Come now, Serena. Turn off the light and go back to bed. It's late and we can discuss this more indepth at another time."

Almost on cue Serena's eyes drooped a little bit and she suppressed a yawn from behind her hand.

"'Kay, Lunakins," she mumbled sleepily. "Night night. Don't let the flea-bugs bite!" she giggled. Luna mock glared at the half-asleep child even though the expression went unnoticed. Serena clumsily climbed back into bed, belly-flopping onto her pillow and then snuggling it. She was asleep within moments of closing her arms around the feather-stuffed case. Luna smiled fondly at the child from her vantage point on the dress. She pounced lightly on the captive pillow before walking towards the comforter's edge, gripping it with her teeth she slowly and steadily pulled it up to Serena's shoulders being careful not to rip any holes in it with her sharp teeth.

"Good night, little one. Sweetest dreams." Luna curled up on the pillow, softly purring as she eased her ward into a deeper sleep.

The next morning was a Saturday, and since her parents knew how late she slept in on weekend mornings, Serena was quite surprised when she was awoken by a constant rough surface skimming across her cheek and nose. She absently swatted at the offense, startled by the furry feel of a soft thump, a resounding yowl, followed by another soft thump as said offense fell off the bed. She sat up and blearily looked down on her floor to find Luna sprawled across her carpet with a slightly more-squashed-in face, her slit blue eyes narrowed up at the girl.

"Mornin' Lunakins." Serena looked at her bedside clock. "Any particular reason you woke me up at 7:30 in the morning on a Saturday? I get to sleep until at least noon you know," she glared at her innocent-looking cat.

"Yes, Serena, I know. Which is why I woke you up so early. Because you are not expected to wake up until at least noon we will have about 3 hours to train before anyone suspects your absence." She sighed at she caught sight of Serena's blank face. "Serena," she said calmly, "you will get dressed, we will go to a hidden place in the park that I scouted out a few days ago, I will answer whatever questions you have that I can, and I will begin to train you to be a Sailor Senshi. All right?"

Serena's face remained blank. "What's a Sailor Senshi?"

Luna groaned. "Serena, just get dressed, grab the locket I gave you last night, and let's go."

Serena pouted for a moment before complying with Luna's demands. She quickly got dressed, locked her door just in case her parents decided to come in and found she wasn't in her room, opened the window, grabbed Luna and carefully began to climb down the old branchy tree a short distance away. Her bare foot stepped lightly onto the first branch, her arm reaching out to secure her grasp and leverage herself off the windowsill. She brought her other foot onto the branch pushing slightly until she was balanced on the tree branch. With her remaining hand inconveniently occupied with carrying Luna, she quickly deposited the feline onto another branch. Luna looked up at her questionably.

"You're a cat, you have claws, you can climb your own way down." Serena looked innocently at Luna, a bright smile upon her face.

Luna grumbled the whole way down.

As the duo entered the park, Luna leapt forward a few paces effectively taking the lead as she followed obscure paths that twisted and turned. Serena almost began to get dizzy from all the near-circles she was walking around in until she realized she had lost sight of Luna!

"Luna! Lunakins! Lunakins, where'd ya go?" Serena grumbled under her breath for a few moments before trying the old-fashioned attempt. "Here, kitty kitty. Nice kitty, come on out now. Here kitty kitty." She kneeled down in her spot and held out her hand, twitching her fingers sporadically as she swept slowly in a half-circle before said `kitty' jumped out at her. "AH!" she shrieked, jumping and falling on her rear.

(1) Um, just outta curiosity, but does Luna even have lips? In the manga and anime all she had really were a few lines for her mouth.

(2) I know that the description following is incorrect according to the versions given in the manga and the anime since the locket only had four stones around the crescent moon, but this has a purpose for later in the story. Besides, not everything is going to be the same now.

(3) Merely what stone represents whom:

Aquamarine - Neptune

Yellow topaz - Venus

Emerald - Jupiter

Ruby - Mars

Turquoise -Uranus

Onyx - Pluto

Amethyst (Purple) - Saturn

Sapphire - Mercury

Some people use garnet for Pluto and purple amethyst for Saturn but since the garnet is my personal stone and I'm not very fond of Pluto (Saturn is one of my 3 favorites) I rearranged some things. Onyx is closer in color to Pluto's uniform, and the same goes for Saturn (besides, purple seems to be her trademark color).