BROTHER'S SONG by Amberlin All right, my little Moonies; we know the drill. Neither Sapphire nor Diamond belong to me; in fact, no one in this entire poem does. But then, you're all smart enough to have known that already. After all, you're smart enough to watch "Sailor Moon," aren't you? I. He broods again. My brother, cold and white, like the diamond of his soulstone is brilliant and radiant, shining in the gloom of Nemesis: but his glimmer is hard and cold, all sharp edges and an icy, glacial beauty. My brother's name is Diamond. My brother's soul is diamond. Can it be any plainer to you that my brother is cold, that my brother is sharp, that my brother is the strongest of all of us? And yet I love him, through the memory of shared secrets and mutual revenge; there are tales there are legends of a mighty Empress of the Only Home and her consort and her girl-soldiers who combined to drive us away to exile us to this distant bitter cold dark world, away from the Only Home, away from the light and the warmth of Terra. Diamond it was who told me of this, his eyes shining with a light that only he can ever evoke: white and argent and celestial fire, all wrapped into my brother's vision of light warmth beauty unending and the Only Home restored. Diamond it was who promised me this, standing by my bedside with eyes ablaze, the incandescence of crystal, the icy fire of diamond, and the light of the Only Home mixed and mazed, reflected in the comforting glow of my brother's love. "Sapphire," he told me, stroking my hair, (I loved him even then; my brother!) "Sapphire," he said, "one day we will go back go back in glory go back in power; Sapphire, one day we will go back and we will experience the light and the warmth and the ineffable love of the Only Home." Silence a moment, I worshipped him with my eyes; "Sapphire," he said, eyes softer now, resting only on me, only on his younger brother, and not at all on his glorious visions. "Sapphire, and I promise you this, Sapphire, it is Diamond who promises you this, on that day we will come home proudly come home unashamedly, and on that day, Sapphire, Empress Serenity will be no more; and you and I, Sapphire, will rule the Only Home forever." I believed him - how could I not? For he was my brother He was Prince Diamond, and he was my personal deity. Was, and still is. II. He broods again. This time, it is Wiseman who provokes his contemplation; Wiseman the inciter of my brother's thought. Wiseman is a mystery, wrapped in shadow wrapped in malice; he is the one who urges my brother to pitiless destruction to merciless deaths of the innocents of the Only Home. "See, Sire," Wiseman whispers, "See, my Prince, how the Only Home lies complacent! It is trusting, it is open to our attack." Diamond listens, for my brother is wise enough to accept the counsel of those reputed wiser than he. "See, Sire," Wiseman smiles, "See, my Prince, how the Dark Crystal hungers how the Dark Crystal throbs in wait! It will be our power, it will be our reckoning; against it none can stand, and the Only Home will be yours again." As always, I am at my brother's side, quiet and ready; my brother does not need me, not as I need him, but I am always there, to bask in the pellucid radiance of my brother's white glory. "Diamond," I say, "Diamond, Prince, brother, master, this is wrong, this is not in the plan; Diamond," I plead, "please listen, you have never promised me the slaughter of innocents." Two sets of eyes regard me: one deepset, hooded in shadow and shrouded in malice; Wiseman has ever despised me, has ever urged my brother to set aside my words and one day will urge him to set aside my person. The other pair (trio) of eyes belong to my brother: white and argent and celestial fire, mingled love and affection and, at the last, weary sad disregard for the words of one who is, after all, only a young man and yet untested in blood. "Sapphire," says Diamond, "Sapphire, brother, younger prince and subject; Sapphire, there will be no slaughter of innocents, I shall never consent to kill those who are guiltless, those who had no part in our exile." I smile tentatively, uncertainly; my brother's words ring false, echo hollowly in the Hall of Nemesis, and I am afraid for my brother's soul, dimmed by the shadows and the malicious webs woven by the Wiseman. I am disregarded, my deity turns away from me, and the attack on Crystal Tokyo is set. III. My brother broods again, and this time I know what causes his unblinking unseeing unworthy torment. Neo-Queen Serenity, Empress of Terra, the Lady of the Only Home: she haunts his thoughts, clouds his mind, and casts a golden shadow over my brother's incandescent fire. Among us, among the family of Nemesis, the denizens of the Black Moon, it has always been known that as for love, there is none more intense, none clearer none more radiant than that of Emerald for my white brother, for Diamond, Prince of the Black Moon. She loves him, a fact she hides behind a shattered and shattering laugh, a dancing fan that can fold and slap away all criticisms that she looks above her station. Emerald loves him, and for this reluctantly I love her as well; surely no one who loves my brother as I love him can possibly do evil to our family. But Diamond looks away Diamond looks to Terra Diamond's eyes are set always and ever only upon the golden form of the Empress who exiled us and sent us away from the light warmth security of the Only Home. I can understand his fascination; she is rose and gold, the colors of the sun, the colors that are ever and always lacking from the drear shadows and sere plains of the Black Moon. She is lovely, I freely admit it, Serenity shines with a light that outstrips my brother as the sun outradiates the moon; but Diamond cannot see, can never see, that if he tries to possess her she will burn him with a light utterly unlike his own calm pure fire. This is Wiseman's fault his meddlesome prophecy; his scrying and his foresight may well prove to be the nemesis of Nemesis. He told my brother that Serenity was his, was destined and was fated to be the Lady by whose side Diamond would rule. He told my brother that Serenity would love him, that the golden empress would gladly forsake Endymion, forsake Small Lady would above all surrender the Only Home to be Diamond's golden blessed bride. And my brother, so acute so perspicacious so drivingly intense, my brother believed him and fell headlong into obsession gently nudged by a shove in the back from Destiny and from Wiseman. It torments Emerald, and by Nemesis it torments ME, and above all it haunts and shatters the Only Home. Diamond's love and Diamond's arrogance prompted my brother to send an envoy with the demand of Serenity's hand and the surrender of Terra, the recompense for our long exile away from the Only Home. She did not mock, she did not laugh, but softly told him "Nay;" my brother wept and then he raged and by then it was far too late for my words and my counsel to turn back. "Sapphire," he said, white eyes alight in madness, "Sapphire," he repeated, this madman wearing my brother's pale form, "she rejects me she denies me and still Endymion holds her. Well, if her consort binds her if the usurper of my place binds her then the removal of Endymion will turn the tide." My brother was mad, the pale radiance of his mind clouded and occluded, the facets of his heart buried under a golden shadow. Wiseman counselled him now, not I, and what Wiseman counselled was enough to make even haughty Rubius blanch in horror and in repugnance. But Diamond was mad, stung and enraged by Serenity's refusal, and the attack on the Crystal City, on Tokyo of the Gemstones, was commenced. When the dust settled, when Serenity was hit and encased in dreamless sleep, when the Only Home was irrevocably smote; Diamond awoke, Diamond revived, and was struck to the heart by what he had done. I loved him still, pale brother pale prince pale god, and I stroked his hair as once he had done for me, crooning and softly whispering of the light the warmth the ineffable love of the Only Home. "Be easy, Diamond," I told him, "you were mad, you were not yourself; there is still time to mend this insanity. There are still ways that we can regain the Only Home and -" I hesitated, and said it: "And the love of Serenity; there are still ways that you can show yourself to still be Diamond, to still shine as brightly and as sublimely as the soulstone of diamond for which you are named and which, dear brother, you resemble down to your core." Diamond calmed, his hysterical tears ebbed and faded. For a moment he knelt silent, head in my lap where I could smooth away the rebellious hair from his brow, away from the so-sensitive third eye that now I fear is clouded and blind. At last his reason his dreadful cold sanity returned to him and once more my personal god whitely shining Diamond, Prince of Nemesis, stood before me. This time I knelt, and he dispensed wisdom: "Sapphire," he said, words out of a white aura so brilliant that I could not see its center, "Sapphire, dear brother, only friend, we must find Serenity's daughter and return her. Serenity will laugh Serenity will weep of gladness and surely she will waken and come to me, upon the advent of Small Lady back to her own time and own place." This was wisdom and sheerest folly both; I could not tell him so, for he was Diamond and his soul was diamond and even though there was a flaw in him I could find no way to apprise him of the monumental mistake in his so-kind, so-thoughtful plan to retrieve Small Lady, the rabbit. But Diamond was pleased, and his sanity had snapped back into place; so long as he was pleased, what matter my discomfort Wiseman's perfidy Emerald's tears of love unrequited? Diamond was pleased. And out of that grew all of our troubles; as I gaze down at the Only Home, beautiful ineffably compelling Earth, I cannot help but wonder; diamond is the strongest of all gems. Is Diamond truly the strongest of all of us? Or is the flaw I percieve only in myself?