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Dahlia watched Brielle go through the process, both to seem like she was being attentive and also out of curiosity. Having so many memory holes included simple things like how to take these things off, if she ever had. Movies usually involved just splashing water into one's face and feeling amazing afterward, but she imagined that didn't capture all the need to scrub and peel and flake off those small portions that got stuck in the crevices--

It did make a good metaphor for purification, and she found it quite apt and fitting that it was perhaps something they were both doing. When Brielle was done, Dahlia stepped toward the sink, looking at herself in the mirror.

She laughed, quietly, at how ridiculous she looked with the charcoal mask all over her face.

"I think I'd like to have good skin too. It feels," she pursed her lips, or went to, before she realized the mask was so dried onto her face that it was difficult to do that, "right. It does sound like self-care, at least, and I feel like the ghost that was Delilah would have done it. She seemed to like beauty things. She left me a bunch of thrifting tips."

Dahlia fell silent for a moment as she worked through scrubbing at her own face, feeling the way the mask lifted and peeled -- sometimes unpleasantly -- and the lighter feeling it felt on her skin afterward. She found herself quietly marveling at a few pieces of the mask, where she could see the crevices of her skin or where a blackhead might have accidentally gotten stuck--

As she scrubbed off a few remnant pieces, she noted, "And it feels right. Not that this is my hobby now, but I like it, at least."

The rest of the mask was washed off, and she stood up, looking at herself in the mirror again.

Much less goofy.

"Maybe I'll like the nail polish just as much then, right? Feels like self-care and beauty."

It was a funny thing to ponder as she plucked off a stray piece of mask, letting it fall into the sink. She then turned on the sink and splashed some water around, careful to drain some of the masks down and not leave a bunch of black remnants in Brielle's sink -- she was a guest, and even if they were both doing this that felt rude --

Didn't want to be an intrusion, didn't want to make herself unwelcomed, didn't want to destroy what little grasp she had on friendship considering it had so often seemed elusive to her or fleeting--

"I don't know," she responded, quietly, as she hurried after Brielle and out of the too-fancy-for-Diana bathroom. "In some ways I do? It seemed like the ghost that was Delilah had figured something out. Some people seemed to believe her, at least. She had a friend named Waru, for example, that was always bringing her to new experiences and being kind to her. And another friend named Jade, who had brought her to secret hideouts and lesser-known restaurants. She was lonely but she also had figured out how to wear the mask."

A mask that Dahlia in part wanted to pick up because at the very least it was a mask she had a loose understanding of. It didn't feel like hers, and from what Delilah had talked about, it had hardly felt like hers either, but at least it was something.

She went back toward the two nail polishes she had picked out, deciding that she would alternate fingers.

"I'm not sure if Delilah really thought it was her either, but at least it's a place to start, right? But I do want to try new things too. I've only functionally been alive for ... three and three-quarters years? It's something like that, and half of those memories are gone yet again--"

Her fingers tapped against the glass of the polish bottle.

"I think I'm going to journal more. At least if I forget again, there will be day-by-day records."

Delilah had figured things out a bit, and it was nearly all she had.

She found her grip on the nail polish bottles was getting perhaps a bit tighter than it should. She eased it back, took a quiet, deep breath, counted to ten in her mind as Brielle began to work on her own nails, and opened up the first nail polish--the blue one--to begin working on her idea of an alternating pattern.

Her gaze snapped from the nails to Brielle's face, her eyes wide with surprise before it lessened to something more quiet and affectionate. It was something she had gathered similar from via Loren -- Loren seemed to understand Dahlia understanding who she was would be a discovery over time, and he seemed to be patient and willing to stick by her wherever that went -- but to hear it reaffirmed in a clear statement and not left clear via actions was something nice. Something warming.

She chuckled lightly under her breath, looking back down to her nails and looking over the blue carefully.

"Thank you," she murmured, as she lifted up her fingers. She blew on them, seemed satisfied for the moment, and then continued on after another dip into the polish. "It's good to know you'll be here for me. It's hard to be like this -- honestly, coming up with a definition of who I am is such a strange trick right now, and I'm not entirely sure I'll ever have one -- but to know there are people who will stick by me no matter what that becomes is ... good."

Something was wry in her voice as she noted, "Well. So long as I don't find a way to resume taking starseeds or something obscene, I imagine."

Nembus--Dahlia--had no interest in returning to life in the Negaverse, even if she had grown attached to some of those within.

Dahlia's touch with her nails wasn't quite as good as Brielle's, but it was going on evenly enough. She did have to shift to clean up a couple of the spots as she watched it settle-- She might have watched Brielle for a moment or two, mimicking her motions in the way she mimicked a lot of people.

It was a good way to learn, too.

She nodded in agreement with the concept of defining herself again -- and again, and again, and again, and it felt like her whole life was nothing but finding that definition, and she wondered if there was a definition or if she was grasping at straws attempting to understand humanity. "That sounds right," chuckled she, quietly, as she resume working on her nails. "Throwing darts at a dartboard, trying things, seeing what you like, seeing what sticks. I think Delilah noticed the thrifting thing stuck, for example."

Transcend...

She had heard that term. Mostly in reference to the Negaverse attempting to figure out how to break it, because they did want to drag people back, even those who insisted they didn't want to be. The Negaverse could never stop, could never just go away-- "I've heard of transcendence. Not in a good light. Kind of an eternal Negaverse annoyance, right?" She chuckled quietly. "I'm curious about my world. It's been the only thing that's always been mine, right? Because I've always been Nembus. They didn't give me one of those mineral names."

She moved to start with the purple polish, next.

"Maybe I can transcend, too. I'd like that." She bit her lip. "Would make it easier to try and talk to some people, too, if I don't have to fear them gripping me and bringing me back--"

Marked for death and useless tracked with what she heard. If transcendence was unbreakable, then they were unwinnable. If they were unwinnable, then the only thing they could be was murdered. They couldn't even take their starseeds from them, which came with a strange twinge of disappointment in her chest even though she never wanted to be part of an organization like that again. A twinge of habit. A twinge of all she had ever really known until just a few weeks ago--

"It sounds like Ganymede has a lot of good and hope in her heart." And Dahlia liked the sound of that. That was the impression she had gotten from Cosmos. To hear Ganymede was the same -- they were not leaders, but it helped Dahlia feel reassured that this decision had been the right one.

Good. Hope. Something she wanted to show to others, something she wanted to encourage-- And something she held for her old team.

"Maybe..." she leaned forward, paused, realized she might have been pressing her hands a bit too close to her body, and leaned back. "You said dead forest -- might it help to make more sense of it if you don't call it dead?" It was definitely dead; from what she had been told over and over again, those worlds were dead. And the aliens wouldn't just go back to their dead worlds, instead draining the resources of the Earth -- and it was silly now, when she thought about it --

She glanced over her nails and moved to fix it. "Do you know who I can talk to about it? I think I want to see if I can find Kurma again, at least..."

"Was I the next person?" asked Dahlia, partially as a quiet joke, partially as an acknowledgment of the truth. "Either way, it sounds like you've done well with that, right? You've helped me, at least, and you seem hopeful to me."

A few more adjustments with her nails made her determine that everything looked like it was good enough, and she put the cap on the secondary color before following Brielle's lead on setting her fingers splayed on top of the comforter. Now just to keep them still.

Ganymede, Valhalla, Encke. Alright. Those were names she could potentially follow up with-- the mention of the Connections app that came next made her pause, and she found herself worrying over her lip as she wondered if she should pursue the small app she had seen on her senshi phone when the guardian cat had given her one. It was probably a way to get in contact with people, but was it worth it...

Was it worth the risk?

"I'm trying to be cautious with those apps-or really extensive contacting, I guess--for now. I know Chaos has informants, on our side. Had a whole section for them," Nembus resisted the temptation to fiddle with her fingers, knowing that she needed to let them sit and dry for the nail polish to go on correctly and not immediately have flaws, "and I'm trying to keep under the radar until the Negaverse is relatively convinced I'm dead. Because that's what I'd rather. I don't want to end up like,"

She swallowed and didn't finish that thought.

"I know once they know, they'll know, and I'll be wanted dead just as much as every other former member of their organization, but -- I'll stick with meeting the people you and Phaethon know directly for now."

Maybe Whisler, if she ran into him... Though she was a bit concerned about his connection to Ashanite.

Eventually, Dahlia knew, she couldn't keep just hiding. It wouldn't work, long-term. She'd feel too guilty. Her life had been saved by Cosmos, but hundreds, thousands, millions more on Earth were still at risk from the Negaverse. Dozens were still within the Negaverse who could be saved from it. She couldn't stay away forever.

But for now.

If anything, what Brielle said was a solid reminder of what Dahlia was worried about, as much as she appreciated and desired the honesty. Brielle had been betrayed by someone who was planning to corrupt anyway. Who was to say the same wouldn't happen to her? She knew she could trust Phaethon had no interest in corrupting -- not after that reaction at the battle, knew she could trust Brielle had no interest in corrupting, could be fairly certain anyone they knew was similar--

"Seems about right, that they'd find a way to not only switch to the Negaverse, but betray someone else in the process," she frowned as she bit the inside of her lip to stop herself from wringing her hands as what felt so instinctual. Brielle had a point -- they were going to find out about Nembus eventually. There was nothing she could do to stay away forever. If General Faustite was as good as she thought he was at his position, he was no doubt already suspicious, already suspecting her of wavering. Nembus didn't know if she had taken part her house well enough to look like she had simply left for some kind of long break, but...

"I think I'd like to lay low a bit longer," Dahlia said, and it was with a heavy breath that, to her, felt like it required breathing around an anvil. "I don't know if I'm ready to face them yet. Ready to defend myself if I have to. Because a part of me still seems myself as part of them, part of their team especially, and I still so badly want to be friends with them..."

But she wasn't sure if she could be.

Dahlia knew some of them would see her leaving as the ultimate betrayal and the reason why she needed to be as headless as another senshi-- "But I agree, too. I think it's easier to talk to people who at least have that experience. We know it's awful, right? And we have the experience of being part of it..."

Her smile was weak. "I presume there's more of us too, then."