Unbroken By You

Kousotsu Renjiro held out his hand, intending to ask Seijoutai Priire if she would waltz with him. The excited - and at the same time, half shy - smile on her face told his that she was more than willing to let him lead her in the classic Alderaanian dance.

Her fingertips were almost brushing against his and Kousotsu had just opened his mouth to say something touching when a swish of prohibitively expensive shimmersilk and Calamari pearls wedged between them.

"I would love to dance with you!" Kirei exclaimed, grasping Kousotsu with five perfectly manicured claws. "You can dunce... oops, I mean dance another time!" the Princess informed Priire.

Kousotsu was far too much of a gentleman to knee Miss G like Priire was hoping he would. He gave her a desperate look as the banshee pulled him farther away. Under her breath, Priire began muttering as she reached for a blaster. "I put on a dress. I wear high heels. I even put on make-up! Just to have that -" Priire spat out several unsavory terms for streetwalkers. "- make off with Kousotsu!"

Somewhere across the room, someone tugged on Ippin's dress sleeve. "Uh, Ippin? Priire's turning funny colors."

Ippin, who had just informed Riku of how much of an idiot he was, rolled her hazel eyes. She glanced over at her twin and did a double take. Priire had produced a blaster from somewhere in her little red dress and was aiming it at an unknown person. "Annika!" the redhead hissed. "Who is Priire aiming at? Can you see?"

Looking worried at the thought of someone getting hurt, Annika tried to see who was the target of Priire's wrath. When the pink-haired senshi caught sight of the perfectly straight dark brown hair of the woman with her tentacles around Kousotsu, she shrugged. "No one important."

Ippin groaned. "It's Miss G, isn't it. Has that woman got a worst-possible-moment sensor or something?!"

"Huh?" Annika looked confused, then disappointed as one of the Masters took Priire's blaster.

"You mean you - the senshi of love - don't know??"

The other woman shook her head as she smoothed a wrinkle in the fabric of her pink dress.

"It's their anniversary!" After that rather loud exclamation, Ippin lowered her voice. Annika - and several other senshi lured by the promise of "mushy stuff" - could still hear her. "They were going to go somewhere nice, but then this padawan party came up... so they decided to celebrate here."

Annika glared at Miss G, who still had her claws around Kousotsu's arm, even though the song had finished. "The nerve! Ooo, I could just...!"

The pink-haired senshi looked like she was about to make good on her unfinished threat when Obi-Wan took her arm. "I have something to show you," he told her with a smile.

She didn't take long to change her mind about causing bodily harm to Miss G. "Coming!" Annika responded, managing not to trip over anything as she followed him.

"Priire-sama!" Falcon exclaimed, running up to her. "Help!"

The blonde, who had been just about to walk over to the impossibly beautiful princess and "convince" her to let Kousotsu go, rolled her eyes. "What?" she sighed, looking around to see if the boy had angered Nom. Priire half-expected the Dathomirian warrior witch to be chasing after him with a rolling pin.

"It's Kleppa," Falcon explained, frowning. "She won't go to bed."

"What did you tell her?"

Falcon blushed. "I uh, told her that everyone else her age was already in bed..."

"Let me guess. And then she 'grew up'?" At Falcon's nod, Priire shook her head. "All right. I'll go get her to bed." Priire cast one more longing glance back at the dance floor before following Falcon out of the ballroom. She sighed, rubbing her neck with one of her gloved hands. Unfortunately, the blonde didn't realize that the motion unhooked the clasp of the necklace Kousotsu had given her. Neither of the pair noticed the silver chain decorated with little stars lying where it had fallen on the floor.

"Hey, sweetheart," Priire said, putting a smile on for the dark-haired little girl. Unfortunately, Kleppa wasn't so little anymore.

The blue- and yellow-eyed child crossed her arms. "I'm as old as Kairiku, and she's at the party," Kleppa protested, putting her hands on her hips.

Priire shook her head. "You still have the attitude of a little girl," the blonde commented, sitting down beside her daughter. "And you're going to bed."

Kleppa looked almost ready to argue the point, but instead she began to age backwards. The apparent five-year-old held up her pudgy little arms to Priire. "Pick me up and tell me a story," she demanded.

"Once upon a time, there was a girl who went to bed on time..."

"A real story," the child amended, snuggling into Priire's lap and grabbing a handful of dress.

Unable to resist such specific instructions, Priire let a grin slide over her face and wondered if - someday - she'd be telling stories to her and Kousotsu's children. "Once on Earth there was a little boy named Arthur..."

Listening to Priire weave the story of King Arthur that one of the Earthborns had told her, Falcon grew sad. He remembered his mother telling him Earth fairy tales when he was younger. Fairy tales were fascinating to the senshi born in the Snickers Galaxy, if for no other reason then that they had grown up with the same kind of lore; only in their galaxy, such things were considered fact. There really were dragons, wizards, witches, and knights. Falcon could remember Priire telling him the reactions of her friends from Earth to Myra, Tashita's dragon, or the other fantastic beasts they happened to find in their travels. But remembering the past made him wish he had it back... so the black-haired boy stood and smiled at Priire as he walked out. The ex-mercenary gave him a nod as she kept talking to Kleppa.

Priire had hoped that the girl would fall asleep quickly... but it took the entire history of Camelot for Kleppa to fall asleep. Sighing, she gathered the girl and tucked her into the bed. "Night, sweetheart," Priire said softly, prying her tiny fingers off of her dress.

After making sure that Kleppa was asleep and checking on the other chibi senshi that were supposed to be in bed, Priire went into the bathroom to check her makeup and dress. Neither was in good shape.

It took only a few minutes for Priire to fix the slightly smudged makeup... the dress, on the other hand...

She groaned. Kleppa had put a fist-sized set of wrinkles in the red fabric. Tugging on the fabric only alleviated a few of them. The rest she didn't think she could get out unless she was willing to miss the rest of the party. Which she definitely wasn't.

Stepping in front of the floor length mirror, Priire evaluated herself. She spun around once, the little red dress flaring out around her. The dress came to her knees, above the boots that seemed to lace at the top like leather ballet shoes. Her gloves were like her boots, lacing to her elbows. Priire had gone to great pains to look especially pretty and she thought she'd succeeded, from the high-heeled boots right up to her rarely-applied makeup.

Then her eyes went wide as she put a hand to her neck. Her eyes weren't deceiving her; the necklace was gone.

Priire sighed and sank back against the wall. It had not been the best of days. Despite it being their anniversary, she and Kousotsu had hardly spent any time together. Three different senshi had begged Priire's help on their ships, Kousotsu's time had been monopolized by lightsaber duels... and that was before the party. They'd had to cancel reservations at the Ritz, then Miss G and her sticky fingers, and now Kleppa...

After a few moments, the girl stood, swept her long bangs out of her eyes and headed back for the party. Unfortunately, when she got there, she was disappointed again. Some master had asked Kousotsu to help him with something and he, of course, had agreed.

However, the lack of Jedi masters did present one option for the ex-mercenary.

Ippin nudged Annika, who was wearing a new bracelet from Obi-Wan. "Hmm?" the princess asked.

"Check Aster out," the Time Guardian said, with a grin. "This is going to be good!"

Annika casually turned to where Ippin had indicated. There was Priire, moving among the padawans, apparently aimlessly. But from her point of view, it was obvious where Priire was heading. "Go get her!" Annika giggled.

"Who?" By now, several of the other senshi were interested. Annika pointed just as Priire arrived at her destination.

"Kirei," Priire said with a faux smile. Her entire demeanor seemed to be one of polite conversation. "I was just thinking about you."

The woman looked down her nose as best she could at someone taller than she was. "Really?"

The mercenary nodded enthusiastically. "Really. I wanted to tell you something."

At first, Kirei had been unsure of the blonde, but now she seemed to warm up to her. "Why, what did you have to say to me?"

Priire moved a little closer and gave her drink to one of the padawans fawning over Princess Pretty. "Thank you for ruining my anniversary," she said sweetly, then hauled back and...

"She hit her!"

Annika's statement of the obvious rang out in the suddenly deadened room. No one moved, no one breathed, and no one even looked at Priire. All of the senshi and a good many of the padawans knew about being on her bad side and had no desire to incur her wrath.

The blonde smiled at the fallen princess and took her drink from the padawan. "Thank you," she said sweetly as she turned on her heel and walked away.

"That'll teach her!" Annika said triumphantly as the room resumed partying.

Ippin grinned, trying not to laugh. "I don't know... Kirei doesn't seem like the person to give up easily. Or at all."

Yuki, who had joined the conversation late, shook her head. "I can't believe Priire did that."

"Well," Annika said, sticking up for the hard-hitting pilot, "it is her anniversary and Kirei did deserve it."

The blue-haired girl seemed about to protest, when Kousotsu walked up. "Has anyone seen Priire? And who gave Miss G that shiner?"

Without looking at each other, the three pointed and answered in unison. "Priire!"

Kousotsu winced. "She went outside?" Inwardly, he cursed his luck. He usually tried to keep Priire from doing things like punching princesses... although he wasn't all that sorry that she had.

They nodded, and he walked through the doors. As he did, a little bit of white fluff shot through under his feet. She wasn't usually one for loud parties, but Riko had been promised some of Nom's pastries and was eager to get them. However, this seemed a little more important. I've got to do something, she thought to herself.

The fox could move faster than the human any day and found Priire first. Walking up to the blonde, Riko shook her head. Priire was trying not to show it, but Riko knew that the girl was sad. Riko is sorry that Yuki-friend's friend is sad. The little fox pushed her head under Priire's hand. Riko is sorry.

Priire sighed and scratched the little fox's head. "It's all right. It's just been one of those days."

She looked indignant. No! No it is not all right that Priire-friend is sad. Riko would go bite the mean one's foot... but Yuki-friend might get mad.

The blonde's mouth quirked up in a smile as she decided not to comment.

Having gotten the response she wanted, Riko nodded. Riko brought a treasure for Priire-friend. She dropped the silver chain into Priire's hand and sat back on her haunches.

Priire looked at the fox for a minute before examining the treasure. "Hey... isn't this my star necklace?" she asked, holding up the necklace made of silver stars separated by short lengths of chain. It was a rhetorical question; Priire knew it was her necklace.

Riko grinned at the return of the light in Priire's green eyes. Priire shook her head at the image of the little ghost-like shadow bounding off. She started to clasp the necklace around her neck and thought, At least something's going right tonight.

Suddenly, she felt someone else's hands taking the necklace clasp from her and brushing against the back of her neck. "Want some help with that?" Kousotsu asked with a smile that Priire could hear in his voice.

She sighed, releasing all the tensions that the night had built up in her. She sank back against Kousotsu, and he wrapped his strong arms around her. "I wish we could have danced," she said, almost wistfully.

The simulated wind in the simulated night seemed to agree with her as it twisted around the seated lovers. With a smile tugging at his lips, Kousotsu stood off the bench, startling Priire. He bowed to her like an old-fashioned gentleman and took her hand. Putting his hands on her hips, Kousotsu pulled her close to him. The blonde smiled in the shy, almost innocent way that he knew was only reserved for him and their heartfelt moments together. "We don't have any music," she murmured, resting her head on his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Then sing something."

The obvious solution made Priire's lips twitch up in a smile. "Okay," she agreed. She started to logically run through the songs she knew and liked best to pick out the one that would fit the mood... but stopped. Priire closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and let the words come. "I fall to be uplifted, I wait to be redeemed, close my eyes to be enlightened," she sang, her voice soft and clear in the night. "and hunger to be frozen in the moments that mean the most to me. Oh, there has to be a reason for all that I've been through and maybe my heart breaks to be unbroken by you..."

Her voice trailed off before she could even start the second verse. Kousotsu hugged her closer and she just breathed in his scent...

"...You smell like flowers," he breathed. She cocked her head to the side and looked up at him with a smile on her face. Kousotsu stroked her face gently, making the smile on her face blossom. "You are so beautiful."

"And you're incredibly handsome," she responded, twisting her fingers in his hair. "Oh, there has to be a reason for all that I've been through," she sang quietly, her voice barely audible above the wind, "And maybe my heart breaks to be unbroken by you..."

"I love you," Kousotsu murmured as he tipped her chin upward and kissed her lips.

I love you too, she thought to him, luxuriating in the moment. Oh Force, do I love you!