Author's Notes:
The Price To Pay
Um... well... where do I start?
This story is divided into three parts of three, four, and four chapters apiece, respectively, plus a prologue, epilogue, and two interludes. And, of course, the author's note.
The most important thing I feel I need to mention is that the first section was intended to be an entire story. It does have a different feel to it; different characters, different writing, different mindset.
I wrote it in November of 1998 and was pleased at the completion of my first multi-chapter fic. By mid-December, I had realized that it was far too cut-and-dry, too warm-and-fuzzy, too perfect and easy to be believable.
So I threw in a little twist, a little angst, a little trouble to it. Where it was first intended to be a happy, nice little Kunzite and Zoisite romance, I expanded it into more than that, adding a prologue (which was the very last thing written, by the way), two more parts, and an epilogue. I also put in some more grown-up material -- some occasional violence, some innuendo (very mild, I might add), some language (not so mild, but not very often). I'm sure you've seen worse, but I'm sure you've seen better.
Still, a warning.
And a little background. I told you this so you don't ask, "Why the hell are the first three chapters so happy and mushy-gooey and the rest so freaky?".
Or maybe you won't ask, and you never would have even thought it, and you think I'm being dumb now.
If so, apologies offered.
I'd also like to apologize for the setting -- it is supposedly based on the original version of Sailormoon, but the first few chapters were written before I'd seen anything but the DiC dub. Now that I'm familiar with the original, I notice that all my online research was not enough to keep this story pure -- to my eyes there are several glaring errors, continuity- and terminology-wise. If you're not an expert on the Japanese Sailormoon, chances are these are undetectable; if you are, I apologize -- I know they're there, too. But I'm not going to fix them. They're not that important.
This was a tough story to write, if only because I made several mistakes with it on a number of levels in a number of places that I regret very much ever doing. However, I'm not planning on rectifying these errors any time in the near future. Darn it, I got it done, after completely throwing out the original ending and struggling for months on how to end it in a different way, and that's going to be good enough for me. It was a learning process, my first real fanfic that didn't completely suck and/or fizzle out. There's a lot of things that I think I could explain about it, but I don't want to take up any more time with the note. I don't want to detract from the story. But if anyone has any questions about something I did here, what my reasons were for saying something or how exactly the original ending went, feel free to ask me via e-mail. I say that often around this site, and in every case, it's true. I love answering questions and responding to comments. ^_^
Okay, on with the fic. It may not be my best, but it's my oldest work, and so though I go through periods of strong dislike towards it (I think it's required that practically every author feels the same way about his/her first works...), it's still an important part of my writing. As such, I hope you like it.
-Gita