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In response Kunzite's form immediately blinked out again, this time leaving behind the solemn, blue-eyed person of Miriam Jacobs -- sans sword, with school uniform, immediately catching Castor under both arms and piloting him to one of the twin beds. Hers, probably. Unless she had a severe grudge against her roommate. "I have nothing to say to that pun," she informed him as she sat him down. "But if I did I'd say it, because I need you to keep talking. Take off your shirt," she ordered as she went over to her desk.

Her room was sparse and bare -- the other side, probably the roommate's side, had a little more flavor to it, but not much. It looked like she'd just moved in. There was a lineup of books on the wall, an isolated movie poster or two on the other -- a violin case, a bookbag, some kind of diorama -- damn, the world was spinning.

She was back now with a white box with a red cross on it. "Talk to me," she said. "Tell me what happened. What happened?"

"Shut up," said Miriam. Never mind that this directly contradicted her previous instruction. Some things couldn't be helped about Miriam. She scoured Elzo's wounds with peroxide and held him still with her other hand when he flinched, and pushed her finger to his lips when he cursed, nodding meaningfully to the hallway. The meaning was clear: we're in a school. They did not want to get busted by the dorm matrons at just this moment.

She was noticeably prissy about the blood and about the prospect of getting any on her uniform, though not, apparently, her bed -- making it increasingly likely that she had in fact not placed him on her bed. The faces she made when she got Elzo's blood on her were reminiscent of a rich housewife handling a dead mouse. Nevertheless she doctored him with ungentle efficiency and the peroxide made it more or less impossible for him to even dream of unconsciousness.

It was, altogether, an odd circumstance in which to see the inside of a girl's bedroom.

Miriam pushed his chin up and turned his head unceremoniously here and there to check for injury. "Well, it's all right now," she said shortly. "Tanzanite's dead. I'm only sorry it wasn't Beryl."

Following this was a long-ish silence, during which she cracked her knuckles and added, with what had to be a touch of black humor, "If I pick them off they'll run out eventually."

Miriam touched his forehead with the damp cloth, brushing away a smear of blood. She had nothing to say to him for the moment -- her face was impassive, frustratingly impassive, as it often was. She gave no hint that it had troubled her to bring about Tanzanite's death, but then again, she never gave a hint of anything. She wasn't a hinting kind of person.

"We kill because they kill." She set about patting his face dry. "We fight because they kill, and because every time we fight is one more person who might live."

She had an unusually even voice, not awkward: if there was something she was used to discussing, perhaps it was this. With a slight frown she started the same task on his arms, shoulders and chest -- and added, quietly, "We don't always win."

And that was all she had to say about it, apparently.

Miriam was silent a good long while as she dressed Elzo's first wounds. She was awkward the whole time through: scraped the raw skin a little too hard, tied the bandage a little too tight, but she was obviously trying. Her conversational habits appeared the very opposite of Elzo's, though; her default setting was silence, and it took a lot of fiddling to get her to switch gears. From the furrow in her forehead and her pursed lips, it looked like she was trying to switch gears.

"I was fallen before this life," she said, tying and then double-knotting what appeared to be a bow in the bandage. A bow. A bow. Maybe she didn't know any other knots. "Corrupted. Evil. I used to work for Queen Beryl; I rebelled against Prince Endymion to do so. I was her first lieutenant -- I held the position Charonite holds now. That's where I learned that magic."

She slathered on some antibiotic Neosporin before moving on to her next dressing. "In truth, Charonite fell because he was following me. So did the other Cavaliers. That's how it all started. In fact, though I'm fairly certain he'd be infuriated to hear me say so," she gave a wry, humorless smile, "if it weren't for me there would be no Beryl and there would be no Charonite and there would be no problem."

The silence afterward was palpable. Miriam's voice was stiff. "Sailor Venus killed me in my last life and I was reborn without the taint. So you see," she said with an impassive nod, "why I have a particular dedication to putting an end to what I started."

"No." Miriam swatted Elzo handily with a packet of bandages. "And be quiet," she smacked him again, "or if you get caught in here," smack, "I'm going to tell them," smack, "you broke in."

Apparently this was the wrong question.

Miriam gathered her dignity again in the next moment and sat up straight on the bed, one of her legs folded over the other and her nose in the air. She had white stockings on along with white Mary Jane shoes -- come to think of it, it was hard to think of a time when she hadn't been wearing at least one superfluous white piece of clothing. Maybe it was her favorite color. "Beryl was a peasant girl who declared herself queen," she said coolly. "She was a figurehead to me, nothing more. That Charonite has succumbed to her very minimal charms is unfortunate, but unsurprising. If he were strong-willed he would remember where his duty lies and abandon this ridiculous charade."

"Your what?" Miriam's eyes abruptly went from slightly saucerplate to Elijah Wood-esque. Never mind everything he'd just said about, well, Nealite, and Beryl, and Charonite, and everything important. Never mind that. He'd used the dreaded g-word on her. Heaven forbid. "I -- 'freaked on me?' There will be no need for a cover story," she said, pursing her lips and turning a little pink at the centers of her cheeks. "At least, if you keep your voice down there won't. And I assume you will."

Why anyone would make such an assumption was anyone's guess. But Miriam cleared her throat in a somewhat officious manner and returned to what she clearly believed was the proper topic at hand: "I can't imagine that their... union would make either of them more powerful. But it's certainly a breach of his oath, not that he hasn't breached it a hundred times already in a myriad of ways -- well, Charonite always was a slave to others' direction, I suppose."

She crossed her arms primly. "Beryl had hopeless designs on the Prince, and I objected to his betrothal to the Princess for -- reasons of my own." This tripped her up a little; she paused at the word 'Princess,' and again after 'own.' "Misguided and arrogant reasons. Beryl fancied herself Queen of Earth. I made promises I didn't intend to keep."

Miriam rubbed her temples in a gesture the more pop-culture-aware might have recognized as 'the goggles, they do nothing.' She looked like she was considering aspirin, or decking Elzo, or both. Probably the aspirin first. "I am beginning to realize the futility of discussing this with you," she said in lieu of dignifying this theory with an answer. Then, probably as a major mistake, she added, "I was male. I am female. I hope we can forestall any more discussion of this subject."

She daubed at his forehead again, irritable. "You look like death warmed over. And you go to Hillworth. I don't think my hall matron would believe I was dating you."