Makeweight Guardian

Prologue

"Wandering Star"

(Estimated to take place in the 30 years before the fall of the Silver Millennium)

A small girl walked along the parched ground of a ledge that overlooked the vast expanse of faded land. Large boulders could be seen dotting the slate grey plains. Dust blew across the rocky tundra and faded into the foreboding sky on the horizon. Storms were coming. How many was anyone's guess. They came and went by night and day. The storms on this particular satellite of Jupiter were devoid of rain and moisture of any kind. They were dry, heated monsters that rumbled through. They brought with them their flashing bolts and pounding thunder that could shake the moon itself. She was used to these sorts of things. The storms were a normalcy, a calming to her weary soul. It was this feeling she now had that shook her. Not the growing rumbles hailing from the east. The feeling was like nothing she had experienced before in her nine years on this barren waste she called home.

Turning her head she regarded what lay behind her on the high peek from which she had descended to this makeshift observation deck. The dark high-towered Jovian castle loomed over her, a testament to who she was. It was hers now, from the chipped limestone statues of long dead warriors that resided at the bottom of the great fortification, to the smallest ornaments that adorned the highest tower. Every stone, every casement, every part of it belonged to her.

She returned her gaze to the abyss of the angry sky. 'So small she thought. 'Why do I feel this way? I don't want to feel this way anymore.' Sitting on the cold, hard ground she continued with her train of thought.

'It has been a fortnight since they were taken from me, so why does it still hurt?...Because they've been my life. Always there when I needed them. Someone was always there. Now what? Who will be there.' Some stones were strewn about the dirt on which she sat. Picking a few up, she began to stack them and put them in rows while her mind persisted in its queries.

'Father. You should have been able to come back. Weren't you strong enough? The King of Jupiter...slain by a mere lackey of that bitch queen of the Negaverse. How could you let this happen?' Angry tears began to form in her dark green eyes. 'And mother. How could you go with him like that? If you had stayed behind as you were supposed to, I would still have a mother.' She ran her arm across her eyes violently. Wiping her wet arm against the fabric of her dress, she looked through blurred vision at her little stack of stones.

'Why did you have to leave me? What will I do now? How do I go on? I loved you both so much.' Yelling out a curse she hit the stones, scattering them. Some flew to the edge of the cliff, others went over completely.

'I just want this pain to go away. I'll make it go away.' Looking at what remained of her stones, she saw that she had three left. She gathered them up into her small hands and crawled the distance to the edge of the outcrop. Sitting there she took two of them in her right hand and, looking past them to the horizon once again, she clenched her fist around them as hard as she could and effectively crushed them. Blood began to run down her thin arm as she revealed the dust that now resided on her palm where there had once been two stones. She let the wind carry it away from her.

'Let my pain go with them then, these will be the only memories of this kind that I will ever bear. For what are memories but burdens of the past. Go, and return to the place from which you came. I will not be weak anymore, I will grow strong for you both and rule over our people. They will not know this pain that I carry.'

When most of the dust was gone from her palm, she wiped the remaining bit onto her dress. Then her attention was on the stone in her other hand. The third stone. It was a different kind than the other two, and she noticed that it was not dark grey as she had originally thought, but actually a rather mirky green. Scrunching up some of the cloth from her dress, she began rubbing the rock vigorously, trying to removed some of the loose dirt. When she finally lifted it from the cloth for inspection, she was surprised to find that it was really an emerald. The small spot she managed to get clean was still dull, but an unmistakable glitter shown through.

'I wonder where it came from.' Closing her hand around the object, she gripped it tightly as she had the previous stones, but this time it would not break. Rising from the spot where she was sitting, she slipped the emerald into her pocket, intending to finish her ministrations on it later.

'Just you wait and see,' she thought, 'I will persevere. I will not dwell on such abstractions as love again. Revenge is what I seek now.' She began to make her ascent of the steps to the Castle Jupiter. On her way up she tripped, accidently ripping her dress in the process. 'Dammit, no more of these either.' Reaching down, she tore the remaining cloth of her garment away. 'I can't fight in something like this anyway. For myself and my people, many sacrifices will have to be made...and I must be ready.'

"You'll see," she said aloud this time, "I won't give myself a reason to feel this way again." In the distance the thunder gave a rumbled reply.

Continued....