[Regular] Into the Dark (Lucien & Cordelia)

[Skye Starrfyre]

Dinner with Lysander, the whole afternoon with him really, had opened Cordelia up to the side of things she had been avoiding. It had started pulling her slowly away from the hate and the anger, pushing her towards the ache of being left behind; not just by those that she had relied on to hold her back and support her as team mates, but by her friends. She had missed the simple interactions; the flirtatiousness, the laughter. She had missed feeling like she was part of a whole again...

The thoughts had continued on that evening even into dinner with her cousin where she had, amazingly, let him talk. She'd listened to how excited he had sounded about the pictures he had taken that afternoon, finding herself even insisting that he show her some of them once he'd gone through and selected the best. For a moment or two, Cordelia Carden had seemed like a shimmering glimpse of her old self.

For a moment or two...

It had faded later on that evening when she'd been by herself for a bit; settled in for the night, mostly, and trying to sleep. Eventually she had gotten up, tossing her covers back before throwing on a light robe over her shorts and camisole top before slipping outside to flop down on one of the plastic chairs surrounding the pool. The moon was glistening off of the surface of the water; it was a beautiful night... And she wasn't sure she wanted to be alone anymore.

Incommoding message: Hey, Luc. If you're still awake, meet me by the pool? If not, ignore this.  

[TheMadHatter]

When he and his cousin had returned from dinner he'd wandered off to his own room to dig through the photo's he'd taken that day. Cordy had been interested in them and he figured, since he wasn't really tired yet, he could get the bad ones out of the bunch and show her in the morning. It was good that she was actually seeming interested in the vacation finally.

He'd put on a pair of loose pants that Cordy had gotten him a few years ago for a birthday or something and a t-shirt before flopping down on the bed to fiddle with the camera and laptop. He hadn't figured anyone would bother him so his phone chirping at him almost made him toss his laptop.

He frowned slightly at the message before shutting down his computer and grabbing his room key and a pair of flip-flops to head down to the pool  

[Skye Starrfyre]

It was late enough that Cordelia was the only one down there. She had relocated since sending the text to her cousin, pushing herself up off of the chair in order to head closer to the pool. Her toes were dangling just over the edge, arms wrapped around her legs as her chin rested on her knees. With her hair swept back away from her face she looked so young... So lost.

Cordelia wasn't herself when she looked like that; not the girl that so many others knew, at least. She was, on the other hand, the girl that her cousin knew and knew well. This was the Cordelia that had wandered off and gotten lost the one year their family had gone camping; the Cordelia that he had found sitting in one place, waiting to be found like you were supposed to do when you got lost in the woods...

This was Cordelia finally ready to open up about everything to someone, even if she didn't quite know it yet.  

[TheMadHatter]

He'd paused for a moment when he'd pushed open the gate to the pool and saw his cousin sitting out there alone. He had gotten used to seeing her, the new her, since he'd moved back to Destiny City that it was odd to see the little cousin that he remembered from when they were kids.

Tucking his keycard into a pocket he walked over quietly before sitting down and leaning his shoulder lightly against hers. "You know. The last time you looked like this was when we went camping and i had to come find you. I told you back then you weren't suppose to get lost without me again."

It was obvious in his voice that he'd in a way missed this Cordelia, the one who needed him to be her 'big cousin' some times.  

[Skye Starrfyre]

At that she just barely managed to hide a sniffle, bringing her hand up quickly to brush knuckles lightly against her eyes before gazing out over the reflective surface once more. "I'm not so little anymore, you know... And I did the right thing back then. I stayed put until someone found me; I didn't keep trying to get myself lost..." The light pout of her lip would certainly be familiar, if anything. She could still sulk with the best of them when it mattered.

"I hate feeling lost, Lucien... I haven't felt this lost since Nana passed away." Her father's mother, their grandmother, had been one of the brightest, shining points in her life. Losing her had put her on the road to change... Crystal Academy hadn't done much to help.  

[TheMadHatter]

"You know i'm always here for you." He was still one of the most socially awkward people round, he'd never figured out how to relate to people properly, but he did at least try. He'd been off with his parents on some vacation or another when Nana had passed away but he'd stayed up until four in the morning talking to Cordy on the phone. He hadn't known at all waht to say but she'd later told him that what had mattered was that he was there listening to her.

 

[Skye Starrfyre]

"Do you remember..." She paused for a moment as she shifted, stretching her legs out in front of her while her hands slid back so that she could lean her palms against the concrete still warm from the sun's earlier kiss. "Do you remember how I told you that if you ever needed help and I wasn't around that there were three people you could always trust in a pinch?" Cordelia hoped that he did; hoped that Lucien knew that this time she was talking about something other than their general day-to-day lives.  

[TheMadHatter]

He thought for a moment before nodding. "I do. You put their numbers into my phone in case i needed them." Not that he really paid much attention to that phone unless he was specifically tracking something but it did have a list of contacts somewhere.

"Did something happen you haven't told me about?"  

[Skye Starrfyre]

"Two of those numbers..." Cordelia swallowed, trying to find that strength that she knew she had; pushing past the anger and the tears once more so that she could just say what she needed to say. "... The won't work anymore. Gabrielle, Hammie, they were... They were more than just my friends."

Those last words were spoken so softly that she wasn't sure they would be heard; wasn't sure she even heard them herself although she knew it had been her intention to say them.  

[TheMadHatter]

He went still for a moment as he thought about that. He'd seen the injuries others like them got fighting in a war teenagers had no business fighting in. He'd gotten some of those injuries himself. but knowing that there were those on their side that had died for it ... that was different.

Shifting slightly he wrapped an arm around her. He knew it was pointless saying anything. Nothing anyone had said made his parents death any better. There wouldn't be anything to say to make the loss of her team mates any better.  

[Skye Starrfyre]

"... The worst thing? The worst thing about all of this?" She murmured as she leaned into her cousin's embrace, scenes and possibilities playing through on the inside of her eyelids. "I don't know what killed them. They were my friends. She was my best friend... And I don't know if it was really just an accident, or if it was..." Her words were cut short by things she couldn't give voice to; couldn't admit just in case someone somewhere was listening.

"What if it was something I could have stopped? What if I could have saved them, Luc?"  

[TheMadHatter]

He said the same thing far too often to himself about his parents death. He'd been Arsinoe when they died, a visit to DC changing him before his parents moved away again, but he'd never bothered to use his other identity before moving back. "You can always keep looking. I ... have been working on an information network," His voice was quiet. "I can keep an ear open for anything."

It might have just been an accident but two senshi dying? It was unlikely that was the case. There would be something not normal behind it.  

[Skye Starrfyre]

"If you hear anything..." The 'let me know' went unspoken as she nodded slowly, knowing well enough that her cousin would keep his word to keep her informed. She was the Senshi of Vengeance, after all. It was her right, at the very least, to seek out retribution for those she had loved and lost if foul play was a part of it.

"... But at the same time, I can't keep letting the 'what ifs' and 'whys' keep dragging me down. I've... I've been so angry lately. So wreckless. I almost let them win that night I wound up at your apartment, Lucien. If those others hadn't shown up..." Her brow furrowed, eyes still focused on something across the water.  

[TheMadHatter]

".... you have to try to remember some times that you're not Batman." He'd heard her make a joke about that once and it made sense given where her powers were from. "blindly going after things with nothing but anger to go on hurts." He absently rubbed his side where he'd broken ribs. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't make that mistake again. That's why he was trying to gather information for the Senshi. They needed it if they were going to win.

"But you didn't let them win. You know what we're fighting for is right."  

[Skye Starrfyre]

"Batgirl." She managed a soft smirk at that, shifting forward just a bit so that her toes could slide into the water, letting them glide lightly just beneath the surface as she thought. "I am a fighter, though. I can't just sit back and let things happen... That didn't make the offer any less tempting. It is tempting to forget... But it wouldn't make things right. It wouldn't be the 'back to normal' forgetting. It would mean letting go of everything."

Corruption. Cordelia was talking about corruption now; about the dark, sweet promises that the General had made that night. He had offered to give her a means to an end, one way or another, and all she ever had to do was call.

A shiver raced through her as she pulled her feet out of the pool, adjusting her robe around her before glancing over at Lucien. "... We should probably head back inside."