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 Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 3:16 pm
Zirconia was caught between a wave of emotion and sympathy and the fact that she was really bad at releasing her emotions in an appropriate way. Her tail had stopped it’s caual flicking about with her thoughts, though. And the sad yellow cat eyes stared at the poor girl as she told her story. It was a story she could understand, at least somewhat. But Zirconia had many years and endless time to process her tragedies, and Aquarius was so young.
In the same way she had done with Ares in her grief, the fluffy cat pressed the top of her head against her arm. It was really all she could do. Well, for the time being it was all she could think of. “If it helps,” She murmured, taking the liberty of trying to forcefully wriggle her way into the zodiac senshi’s lap. “There’s more to it than that.”
She continued trying to maneuver around until she could put her paws against Aquarius’ chest. “As long as you protect this... this starseed in your chest. It’s so precious, you know. Even in death it can live on. Go to the cauldron, be reborn. It might take years and years, but no one’s gone for good. Not often.” Her maternal instincts took over and she attempted to nuzzle the senshi a bit, in spite of her ears pinning back at dreadful thoughts of what would become of her own starseed in death.
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Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 4:19 pm
Age was relative. Tara Kavanaugh was nineteen years old, but Sailor Aquarius felt much older after everything she had experienced. Not wiser, just older and a good deal greyer. Even though she berated the other senshi and knights for being silly and ignorant, she didn’t feel particularly smart for arriving at the conclusions she had. Anyone in that situation would have to see what she saw. But why couldn’t they see it before? Did they all have to die before they stopped fighting amongst themselves and actually did something? And if so, would they drag her down with them?
She allowed Zirconia into her lap, petting the cat’s head repeatedly, as if the movement soothed her. If they knew each other better, she might have gone in for a hug, but they were practically strangers. Strangers bound by common tragedy and painful destinies, but strangers nonetheless. Her arm curled around her leg and Zirconia’s tail, a sort of half-hug compromise, and she let herself breathe and revive.
“I want to protect it.” Her words came more slowly now that she wasn’t in a hurry to get everything out, and she was choosing them with more care. “But I’m a soldier. It’s my job to fight- to put myself in dangerous situations- in order to protect other people. It’s not a job I ever wanted or asked for, but I’m stuck with it. How am I supposed to do both? Is it even possible to do both? So far I’ve had to choose, and neither choice has worked out well for anyone involved. Isn’t there some third option I’m missing? Why do they insist on fighting when it doesn’t work?” She was near hysterics again, angry at people for being blind to what she saw as the truth. A few more deep breaths helped. Continuing to stroke Zirconia’s fluffy fur helped even more.
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Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 6:07 pm
Zirconia had become a fluffy, cuddly, nuzzling machine, but she still let out an audible sigh. “I’m not the cat to ask,” She admitted after a very long time. “It was my duty to protect my senshi. And now? My queen is dead. The prince is dead. The captain is dead. Ares... I saw her slowly descend into darkness and wanted to ignore it. Now she’s turned to Chaos. She corrupts and kills because I couldn’t pull myself out of the mire and do the one thing I was entrusted to do.
“I’m afraid you might want to relay that question to a more successful cat. I’m the epitome of failure on that end. But...” She patted her paw over that space on Aquarius’ chest she knew a starseed was residing in. “They don’t realize...” She sighed again, shaky movements in her chest. “Chaos is such a sickness. It twists your head, you lose yourself. It’s worse than dying. It kills the self and uses the body. They just don’t understand it’s not a disagreement about ideas.” She was rambling, but she couldn’t say it enough. Suddenly very seriously she stopped moving her head into the stroking and looked at the senshi dead in the eye, even moving up so they were nearly nose to nose. “Please tell me you understand. Letting Chaos in you is a whole different kind of death. Someone needs to understand that. Even if you can’t do anything else!”
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Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 6:26 pm
“You’re not a failure.” It didn’t matter that Aquarius didn’t know all of the circumstances behind the claim. Anyone who actually listened, rather than ignoring her or telling her to stop whining and get back to work, couldn’t be a failure. “Zue died along with the rest of us; he wouldn’t have come back if not for Eon’s sacrifice.” She didn’t mean to belittle Zue, though considering how he’d treated her at the Surrounding the previous year, she wasn’t totally avoiding it either. It was more an attempt to show Zirconia that there were other guardians who weren’t all that great at guarding.
The sorts of losses that the Black Moon had suffered made the Zodiacs’ problems seem tame in comparison. Eon and Aries were gone, but they still had Chronos to guide them. None of their members had fallen to Chaos. And now Chronos had knights to protect her, bolstering their dwindling numbers. Which made Aquarius wonder what her job really was, but this wasn’t the time for that sort of question. This was the time to be comforting, in return for what comfort she had been able to find in the answers.
“I was never corrupted like... like that. When I was a youma, I was still me. I wanted to find out what was happening, and I experimented with what zombies were able to do, personally.” She smiled wryly; those experiments were the only proof she had that she was still herself during that time. “But sometimes I would be overcome with the need to do things. Bad things.” Like eating her fellow classmates, or if she couldn’t find anyone living, their corpses. “I didn’t want to do them, I needed to. There was no choice. If I tried to resist, I’d black out and wake up next to a body, and I could only hope they’d died before I found them.” Not that it would make much difference to the dead person. “And that was when I still could feel like myself sometimes, when I knew that what I was doing was wrong, even if I couldn’t always stop it. If the chaos was stronger, enough to completely take someone over, I can’t imagine they’d be able to hang onto that. Bits and pieces, maybe, but not enough. They’d stop being the person they were, wouldn’t they?”
Was that what happened? Aquarius wanted to know, but couldn’t bring herself to ask. She just nodded once and hoped her answer was good enough.
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Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 6:40 pm
The mention of Zue got a slight reaction from Zirconia. Where had she heard that name before? However, hearing tales of being Youma-tized made her nuzzle against Aquarius’ hand again. She couldn’t imagine being a youma, or corrupted. Both sounded devastating. At least when corrupted you still had your mind somewhat intact, but as it becomes more and more twisted that prospect sounds almost more frightening. But Aquarius understood, and that was enough. Not just about Chaos, and corruption, ut about dying and past mistakes and so many other things that Zirconia wished she didn’t. On an obvious level it was remarkably said and the cat just wanted to snuggle her and make it all go away.
On another, misery does love it’s company.
“They would,” She finally answered her question. “They don’t know it at first, they just feel this power. But then... it gets worse. I meant what I said at that meeting; I wasn’t trying to use scare tactics. It is a sickness. And it advances.”
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Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 7:05 pm
DivineSaturn
Was this what she had been searching for all this time? Someone to commiserate with? No, that wasn’t quite right, but it didn’t hurt either. Aquarius was so full of emotion from remembering, and from knowing she had finally found someone who could understand in ways nobody else could, that it was hard for her to speak. She had to clear her throat twice before any words would come out. Then she paused, needing to make sure that the words were right. Her friendships with certain people had made her more mindful of the effect words could have, but she was still not the best at putting them together coherently.
“I didn’t think you were.” Using scare tactics, though she wouldn’t have blamed Zirconia for trying. Short of knocking heads together, she wasn’t sure what would get through to some of those people. “And I think you’re right. Chaos is a disease. Which leads to the obvious question: how does one treat it?” Speaking about science was much more comfortable, and her voice began to lose its choked quality. “I don’t think it’s like a cold- it won’t heal on its own if left alone. But is it possible to treat the disease itself, or just the symptoms? Is there a way to make a vaccine, to prevent people from being infected?”
She couldn’t be the first one to have these questions. And she wasn’t, come to think of it. Some time ago, Aquarius had met another senshi who’d expressed an interest in developing a cure, but her memory was lacking and she only recalled a face, not a name. Thinking back further led to Aquarius Outpost. With all of the books there, surely some were treatises on chaos and its effects. “So many people are focused on fighting, or talking, when it’s clear that neither of those things work. There must be an answer out there, but nobody’s taking the time to look for it!” At least, nobody she’d heard of, which didn’t mean much, but it was a bit late to put a lid on her whining now.
“Wait, you were at the meeting?” Aquarius had seen many people there, but couldn’t remember seeing this particular cat. Then again, it had been rather crowded.
Carneli ”It’s a sickness of the soul. I only know how to prevent it. Never let it in, never let it grow. A cure is possible. I was cured, after all. But I know it is something that takes incredible power,” The cat said with a determined little nod punctuating her own words. And she was quiet right up until that bit about being at the meeting. “Yes,” She snorted, hoping her assumption of Aquarius being such a smart girl wasn’t off course. Wasn’t she paying attention? But then, she remembered that this wasn’t the form she had used to stand up and call attention to herself.
In order to explain, she simply shifted forms, which was entirely inconvenient since she was in the senshi’s lap. Making no move to get off, though, the cat lady simply swung her legs over to a much more comfortable position and held up her arms in a ‘ta da’ sort of pose, expecting awe and wonder at her prettiest form. DivineSaturn
“You make it sound so simple.” And maybe it was that simple, but it sure wasn’t easy. If it was, nobody would succumb to chaos in the first place. “It can take people by force- we know that from some of those who have crossed over.” Not that Aquarius had met any corrupted senshi, but she’d heard stories of the ones who were friends one day and enemies the next. And if Zirconia had corrupted before, that probably hadn’t been by choice. She wouldn’t have chosen to become a youma either, when it came down to it.
Unless it was a choice between youma and death, in which case, it was a tough call.
It was a shame she hadn’t noticed Zirconia at the meeting. She could have used someone to talk to, and was about to say so, when suddenly there was a woman in her lap where the cat had been. Someone who looked kind of familiar. Why hadn’t she thought that the cat might have been there in her other form? “Oh,” she said, feeling rather silly for not thinking of that. Not for having a lady in her lap, but for glossing over the obvious. To her credit, she at least stopped with the petting once she realized what was going on.
“Oh. Oh!” This wasn’t just any cat, this was that cat! “You’re the one who actually shouted at them! I wanted to thank her- er, you- for doing that. If not for you, I might have hurt someone.” Or she might have left the meeting early and missed the battle entirely, which wouldn’t be a bad outcome. “I’m sure you heard about how it ended, then? That trainwreck?”
Carneli Zirconia heaved a heavy sigh at the thought of those forced into corruption. There wasn’t really a simple answer, but she also hadn’t delved too deeply into the mind of someone who had turned to Chaos entirely at the will of someone else. Just plenty who had reasons. “In the end we all make some choices,” Was all she had to say on the matter.
She climbed off of Aquarius and shifted again, this time to her fully human form just to avoid emitting an energy signature after carelessly spending a minute or so in an energy leaking liability body, and for the sake of conversation having become one being had between two human faces. It made sense in her head.
“Oh I heard,” She said with a snort. “A stupid knight decided to try and battle Ares and got cut up for his troubles. And then felt the need to wake me up afterwords.” Seriously, Niflhel was so rude.
“You seem like you fared the battle okay, though!” DivineSaturn
That was less than helpful, but Aquarius wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. Clearly she had to do more research on the subject. It wasn’t an exciting prospect. Unless the Destiny City Library had a Chaos and Corruption section, she only had two options. She could go back to Aquarius Outpost and hope she cracked the code and that there was relevant material, or she could collect new material. Personally. From corrupted beings who wanted to smash her head in, or worse. When had research become so dangerous? She was used to it being arduous, not outright hazardous.
Having a humanoid cat in her lap hadn’t bothered her after the initial moment of shock, but she didn’t object when Zirconia got up. Her leg was starting to fall asleep, and all that energy would draw a research subject to them right then and there if they weren’t careful. She wasn’t surprised when Zirconia shifted again, but what she shifted into was another story. “Wow, you’re more like Zue than I thought. He can do that trick ‘cause he died. Is that why you can do it too?”
Death as a word wasn’t so scary anymore, now that she’d been able to talk about it a little. As a concept, it still bothered her, and as a possibility she didn’t even want to think about it. Aquarius stood and stretched, considering powering down. Zirconia must have trusted her, to shift like that, and she wanted to reciprocate. But there was still an overpowering feeling that if someone knew who she was in her daily life, they’d come after her and make her fight. It was silly, and she knew that- the Zodiacs knew who she was, and they didn’t bug her unless it was her turn for Surrounding duty- but she was scared nonetheless.
If she admitted that she’d escaped unscathed because she’d spent most of the battle elbowing people out of her way and lugging around a stranger’s unconscious teammate, it might make that fear a reality. “I’m not dumb enough to fight someone so out of my league. I’ve learned my lesson. Why’d he wake you up, anyway? Not to complain, I hope.” There, crisis averted, subject changed. Or so she hoped.
Carneli ”Oh, no,” Zirconia laughed with a dainty wave of her hand, even though her shift in form had changed her attire from her own outfit to her human host’s undignified tank top and cupcake print pajama bottoms. “In order to get to your world, this girl allowed me use of her body as a host. Don’t worry, she’s still in here! I didn’t push her soul out or anything. But since she’s letting me use her body I don’t have to be a cat all of the time. It’s preferred, but it also makes it hard to move about in the city. I don’t know how any of the other’s do it!” Back when she first came into a position of power in the Black Moon kingdom, her reception among the people there had been icy. But here where magic was hidden it was hard to get from point A to point B without being treated like an animal. It was enough to make her want for the days when she was simply unpopular.
“Oh. He thought I’d be proud or something, that he nearly got himself killed trying to make her slightly uncomfortable. I don’t think he really understands...” She pursed her lips and sighed again. “Not that most people would, I guess.” DivineSaturn
It was hard for Aquarius to stay away from speculation for long, if not outright impossible. She was still feeling emotional from their previous topics of discussion, but she couldn’t resist a good scientific enigma, and thinking about other things helped her to function. “So you’re here mentally but not physically? Like astral projection, where your body’s back in your universe? How did you do that? Is it possible to do the same thing in reverse to go back? Or, like, an exorcism or something?” She frowned as she made that last suggestion. Exorcism sounded silly, and Aquarius had never been one for paranormal studies. Then again, she’d never been interested in magic before she discovered she had some. Maybe it was just a matter of relevance.
Her eyebrows flew up as Zirconia explained about the knight. “He thought you’d be proud of him for... provoking a threat like Ares?” And people thought Aquarius lacked logic. She almost wished she could introduce her doubters to this guy, so they could see what real crazy behavior looked like.
“I don’t think most of them understand. If they did, the meeting wouldn’t have ended up the way it did. Not just the arguing, though that was bad enough, but what came after.” She’d spent most of the battle running and avoiding combat, but she’d witnessed a few things during her escape efforts. “They didn’t play fair with their entrance- the Negaverse, I mean, and the others. And that surprised a bunch of people, and they whined about it. During battle. Anyone with a clue about what was at stake wouldn’t waste time crying to their enemies about cheating while fighting.” In her opinion, anyone with a clue wouldn’t fight in the first place, but that night there hadn’t been a surplus of options.
Carneli ”No it’s not asteroid projection!” Zirconia shifted so she was sitting a little more turned towards Aquarius and started talking with her hands, almost, in full force. “See, there’s my universe, and then the queen opens up a way... and my starseed... and... um...” She frowned a little as she tried to organize the words in her own head. “My own body is encased in crystal back in the inner sanctum. But my starseed is in here,” She said, trying to simplify things and placing both hands over her chest. “But without the queen to open up a portal, there’s no way back.” A bit of grief, or maybe it was more like worry, flashed across her face.
“When you die, your starseed goes to the cauldron to wait for rebirth. But... I don’t know where mine will go.” Permanent death without the possibility of reincarnation was such a new, terrifying concept to her, that she still couldn’t quite process it.
She made a derisive little noise at Niflhel’s act of ‘bravery’, though. “Well, he’s a knight. And they’re not a bright group anyway. Poor earthling.” Zirc prejudiced? No, never. “I wish they’d learn. It’s war, not... model UN class,” Zia had assisted with that reference, like all modern references Zirconia made, but she still clapped for herself with a small laugh. “I made a reference!” It was almost alien to actually feel an emotion other than disdain or grudging hope for bad situations, but it was like once the dam broke, she had gotten downright giddy. DivineSaturn
Asteroid projection, riiiiiight. Aquarius liked Zirconia, but she couldn’t help but feel that the cat hadn’t really assimilated into the world she now inhabited. She wasn’t sure she would be able to either, if she were in the one who was away from everything she’d ever known. Sympathy was called for in this situation for a handful of reasons. That didn’t stop her from being amused by the things that Zirconia said, even if they weren’t meant to be amusing.
The next subject made her slight smile fade. It wasn’t exactly astral projection, but it definitely sounded like some form of possession. Zirconia claimed that it was voluntary, and Aquarius believed her, but it was still a lot to take in, even without the clinging despair. She knew that it was possible for someone to be removed from the rebirth cycle from Eon’s sacrifice, but that had been voluntary, and this case was decidedly unique. There were no precedents for her to compare it to.
Forgetting her own worries, her fear, and the fact that they were practically strangers, Aquarius moved in for a hug. “You’ll be okay.” She had no facts to back up that claim, but she had to make it. “You’ll make it back. I’m sure of it.” How, she had no idea. Now Zirconia’s request last year made much more sense to her, and she made a mental note to double-check some of the books for pictures of mirrors. If the answer was up there somewhere, it was her duty to find it.
There was nothing else she could say without information, so she backed up again and tried to look collected. “I guessed that from the way some of them were behaving, but I don’t know any that well, even Chronos’ knights. It’s a shame. My mental image of knights used to be so noble and powerful, and it’s been torn to shreds.” She pantomimed a dramatic swoon, following it up with a burst of mock applause and a chuckle that was only slightly forced at Zirconia’s reference. “Getting used to our crazy plane of existence, I take it?”
Carneli She shrugged and smiled with the faintest twitch of a nod at the assurances, even going so far as to daintily return the hug Aquarius moved in for with a small pat on the shoulder finishing off the gesture. She didn’t especially believe them, but she felt it would be rude to dismiss them entirely with such outright cynicism, and it was a sweet attempt nonetheless.
“Oh, knights,” She said with a laugh. “Poor babies don’t even know what they’re doing. Even less than senshi. I can’t imagine working with them.” Not that in the coming months she’d have to imagine.
“I am... coping. I suppose. I don’t really have much interest in it, no offense. My host, though, I can see her memories and her thoughts and it makes it much easier, though she has said she’s not very... very, um.... good at popular culture?” But better than Zirconia. There was a large distance between being in another universe and just spending most of your teen years on studying instead of media consumption. DivineSaturn
Even though Aquarius had made her assurances with no scientific evidence to back her up, she felt oddly confident about them. Maybe because she had decided to do a little research into it. Of course, the place she planned to do said research was what she sometimes referred to, with varying levels of affection and annoyance, as the Unintelligible Library. She definitely had her work cut out for her, but having a more concrete goal than “learn stuff” might help in the long run.
The subject of knights was also kind of awkward. Aquarius probably should have known more about them than she did, since the addition of Chronos’ knights to the roster meant that she would be working with them. In theory. In practice, she avoided partnering up, avoided patrolling, and even avoided Surrounding duty when she felt she could get away with it. So as little as knights may have known, she wasn’t doing a whole lot better. Not that she was going to confess the extent of her failure to the one person in ages who understood where she was coming from, so it was time to drop that subject.
“Pop culture.” That was a safe topic, in a manner of speaking. If by ‘safe’ one meant ‘safe to ridicule.’ Aquarius rolled her eyes. “The importance of pop culture is vastly overrated. People put so much stock into being ‘current,’ but it’s a futile endeavor. If all you care about is what’s popular, you’ll never find something you truly enjoy. And anyway, most of that stuff isn’t worth the megabytes it’s encoded in.” She paused and made an amendment to that statement. “Except Star Wars, of course. Have you seen Star Wars?”
That was a surprisingly dangerous question. If Zirconia wasn’t careful, she might find herself suffering through a movie marathon in the near future. But Aquarius was having fun, an activity that had somehow become almost unheard of, and maybe she was even making a new friend.
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