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 Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 5:33 pm
Zirconia had been very clear, when prodded by Order-aligned allies, that she could not access Mirrorspace. That it was a place for Chaos and danger and she had no place there.
She pondered this lie as she stood in front of her full length mirror, staring back into her own yellow eyes and daring to wonder what possessed her to say such things. As much as she preached and crowed her firm placement on 'their' side, her resolve waffled. Just here or there, when it felt like the slightest wind would push her over the line drawn in the sand and she would have to stand up and pick a side permanently. No more babying and lamenting or secret keeping.
She didn't want to, though. She wanted her precarious agreement with Birhan to simply have all the privileges of an alliance with none of the burdens of secrets and trust to remain true not just for the Blood Moon Court, but for everyone.
She was weak. She couldn't stand total separation with her adopted girls, which meant the separation of Ares was absolutely destroying her from the inside out. So that was why after several long, contemplative moments, the lilac forest cat fluidly leaped through the mirror and landed in the misty, gray space of existence known as mirrorspace.
There was no tension in her movements as she padded along. She didn't know if there should've been. She didn't even know what she was looking for, if she was dreading seeing a corrupted parallel face to face or actually hoping for it.
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Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 5:41 pm
It had been months since Princess Ares had laid eyes on her guardian cat. Yes, her guardian cat. For everything that had happen, Ares still felt the same bond to Zirconia that she felt to the rest of the parallel court. The fact that they currently stood on opposing sides of the battlefield had no effect on that. Ares reasoned that, in time, Zirc would see her error and join Gaia at Ares' side. Once Zirconia laid eyes on all the new parallels standing side-by-side, how could she possibly resist?
If anything, Ares had become frustrated at her own inability to track down the guardian cat. There was so much she wanted to talk to her about, to show her. Did she know of the new recruits? Did she see how Ares was rebuilding their family? In a lot of ways, Ares sought the approval of the guardian cat, even if that was not something she would ever speak out loud.
Still, Zirconia's access to mirrorspace was a security concern. Important business was discussed in these hallowed halls, and it would be a problem for anyone not on the side of Chaos to overhear. Ares had taken certain precautions against it, including barring the cat from ever entering her throne room where the bodies of senshi and civilian alike hung in her mirrors, slowly draining energy into the Dark Brimstone Crystal.
It was that very throne room where Ares was standing, her torch in its holster, licks of energy flowing steadily into it, when she sensed the presence of a parallel cat. Her heart pinched in her chest. The Princess threw herself from the chair, scooped up her torch, and hurried out the door and into the misty gray hallway. It didn't take long before she came across the tiny, furry form of her guardian cat.
"Zirconia," Ares said, a smile warming her lips. "You finally came to us."
Ares assumed, immediately, that Zirconia was here to join them.
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Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 6:37 pm
Zirconia's quiet padding came to a soft end as soon as she felt the Dark Mirror queen near, just moments before she could see her with her own two eyes. All the logic in her head told her this would give her the sense of joy she'd been missing in the last few months. That suddenly she would have this gut wrenching, rotted feeling of emptiness repaired and things would be okay again.
But it wasn't. All of the anticipation fell flat as she looked on with bewildered disappointment in the fact it wasn't the Ares that was imprinted in her mind. She looked different, she felt different, and she was not the remedy the cat had been secretly hoping for despite all common sense telling her it was universally impossible.
The smile that formed on Ares' face was painful and stirred a strange mix emotion in her chest. On the one hand, she was bitter and angry and wanted to wipe any trace of that familiarity into oblivion, but on the other was a twisted knot of grief that the choices she had to make had the potential of ever jeopardizing that happiness.
But mostly it just made her tired.
So tired, that the fluffy animal sunk to her belly until she resembled a beaten doll and stared up at her once upon a time ally with all of the fatigue visible in her eyes, with just a hint of accusation.
"How could you do this to me?"
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Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 7:44 pm
This wasn't the long overdue reunion that Ares had pictured in her mind. She had thought of this moment many times before. Mostly it involved Zirconia lowering her eyes and saying something about how Ares had been right all along, how being apart from the court had been painful, how together they would right all the wrongs of the universe. Ares knew Zirconia as a proud, supportive cat -- not the type to deflate in the face of... what?
The Princess of the Parallels stiffened. This was not the merging of two like minds. This was something else. Disappointment tainted the smile on her lips. "I have done nothing that you have not done previously," she said simply. In the past, Zirconia was the first to stride into the sway of corruption, awakening Nehelenia to it afterward who then spread it to all of them. More than anyone, Ares hoped she would see the truth of the new parallel court. To hear otherwise was beyond disappointing. It was heart-breaking.
"How could you leave us?" she countered lowly.
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Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 9:05 pm
"But that was a long time ag--" Zirconia had started her tired little, halfhearted mumble, but froze, and then shifted up, not just to her paws, but to her full on humanoid form. Her tail flicked behind her and she looked invigorated... but not in an especially positive way.
"I left you?"
Ares' last five words were absolutely infuriating. "I wasn't the one who changed! I didn't use old mistakes to just go and... and..." She found herself stunted and ended the falter with a quick flail of her arms, "Well whatever you're doing here!" She honestly didn't quite understand it. Corruption and serving Chaos was obviously a cut and dry thing, but the twisted Dark Mirror parallels and the how and the why were mysteries she hadn't bothered to solve for fear of the answers.
"I stayed right there with your Blood Moon Court while you went and twisted everything Nehelenia strove for and completely tore down everything that was good. And for what? You're nothing but a usurper!"
It wasn't the first time she'd referred to Ares as 'the usurper', but for some reason it cut her to actually yell it to her face, and she regretted it the second the words were out. She didn't want to do this. She didn't want to fight, she wanted everything to be happy and safe and familiar again, but it wasn't like she could exactly gather it all up and brush it under the rug.
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Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2011 5:07 pm
Ares' face flickered with hurt for an instant, but then flashed hotly into rage. Before, this would have been enough for her to fly off the handle, but Ares had changed in more ways than just her affiliation of choice. She took one breath before responding to the rash things Zirconia threw in her face, each word barbed and cutting. "You weren't the one who changed? I remember when we fought Serenity through the mirror. I remember you beside us. I remember all of us, united, much more united that we ever were after that time ended. Now look at us -- broken, scattered. None of this would have happened if that damned child princess didn't curse us," she said flatly. It was the only thing that kept her from screaming it.
"Look me in the eye and tell me how united the Black Moon Kingdom is. Nehelenia is dead. Alexandros is dead. Hector -- dead. Aphrodite -- dead. Laocoon, disappeared. The rest? Lost to us through an impenetrable dimensional mirror. And what I see now is Gaia and I standing as comrades in arms surrounded, absolutely surrounded by the new heartbeat of the parallel kingdom." One arm slashed the air. "Don't come into our haven and tell me I am a usurper. I am a SAVIOR. I have SAVED the DYING PARALLEL KINGDOM." Despite her best attempts at resolve, Princess Ares shouted the ends of her sentence. Resentment boiled in her gut. She had done everything, everything to bring back the parallels. Zirconia had seen fit to watch it all die.
"I destroyed nothing. I am building a kingdom. A kingdom for us." Emotion wavered in her voice. It was the most sensitive topic in all of the universe to her, and someone she cared about deeply was attacking her for it. "And you belong in it."
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Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2011 12:39 pm
Zirconia repressed a strange noise in the back of her throat. and grit her teeth in an effort to stay strong, composed. To not whimper and fall to her knees. "Don't say that," It still sounded like pleading, as much as she wanted it not to. "You can't tell me that. I can't follow you to where you've gone, I just can't."
One hand gripped the side of her head and her feet twisted in a strange, distressed half pace and back.
"Nehelenia believed we could've found a way back. You didn't even try, you just... you..."
She didn't know what was left to say. She didn't know what she wanted to say as she felt her gut knot and twist with the ongoing battle tugging her in various directions of perceived possibilities.
As firmly set against the tainted force of Chaos her beliefs were, there was more at play here. Her years old friendship with Ares and Gaia, her final mission from Nehelenia, and ultimately these and more asking where she would find herself at the end of today. Alone with nothing but her values and a memory for comfort or corrupted and surrounded by kinsmen?
"I just... How are you even making them?" A question, admittedly, brought on by the fact that Zirconia wanted none of this, but nursed a small, ill advised little glimmer of hope regarding home.
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Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 8:44 am
This encounter was not what Ares had imagined, and it bothered her. She knew that Zirconia was resistant to this. She had known since the cat had not immediately rushed to the side of the new parallel court. But she had always firmly believed that Zirconia would come to her senses and join them. When the aura of this cat appeared in the sanctuary of mirrorspace, Princess Ares had allowed herself to assume that this was the long-awaited merging of one of the last loose threads of the court.
Now, Ares had no idea what to think.
Her stance remained strong, unflinching, but her eyes burned with a smattering of emotion: rage, sadness, loss, fear, hope, betrayal.
You didn't even try.
The words pounded against Ares' skull.
You didn't even try.
Her gray eyes hardened to stone, locked on Zirconia's face. She would answer no questions for this cat. "I didn't try, Zirconia," she said, words tipping with bile. "I didn't try." A sharp bite of a cackle burst from her lips. She imagined all those months of sitting in front of her mirror praying, pleading, begging, crying for the rest of the court lost back in the Black Kingdom. To have someone who was so important to her say something so dismissive... it burned.
"You have no idea what I did, Zirconia. The question is -- what did YOU do? You are our guardian cat. You were supposed to protect us, and instead, we came here to die. We came through this mirror in splinters, and now our old leaders are dead, the crystals gone, the doorway back home shattered. We don't even know if this Space Cauldron will accept our souls. Nehelenia could be dead FOREVER." Emotion cracked Ares' voice. She paused to swallow it down before pressing on. "Your mission was to guide us and keep us safe -- but you know what? There were more dead bodies of parallels in this universe than live ones until I -- me, myself -- did something. So don't come to this place and tell me that I didn't try." A clawed finger stabbed out into the air at Zirconia, eyes narrowed in fury.
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Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 9:12 am
Zirconia stood, frozen, unblinking, at least for what seemed to be for a very long time inside the confines of her own mind. Until a quiet and shaky voice finally managed to force itself from her throat. "You're right."
It took a breath or two to gain any sort of volume and momentum, but her shoulders squared and she looked at the Dark Mirror Queen with the utmost seriousness and an unflinchingly solemn disappointment, the way the old lady had a tendency to do back in older, more normal days when an enemy had crossed her path on more civilized grounds.
"You're right. I didn't do enough. I know my fault in this. I let Nehelenia go off to die, I let you fall into this darkness. I blame Wiseman and Black Lady for bringing us here, and I blame myself for my incompetence, but you, Ares, I blame you for this final nail in our coffin. We will die here, torn apart and broken. Tainted and hated, and the memory of Queen eclipsed by this evil forever. And you did that. I used to swear with all of my heart I would follow this court to hell and back. And I did. But that oath was for Nehelenia, and you aren't her."
She took a few steps back and just at this final moment did that hard face break to show the overwhelming grief behind her eyes.
"You can rot in this hell alone, with your abominations, Ares. I look forward to when we both find our redemption in death," And with those final words, the cat vanished from mirrorspace.
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Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 4:55 pm
Princess Ares was so struck by the words of Zirconia that she made no move to stop her from leaving mirrorspace. Even if she had wanted to, Ares wasn't certain that she could. Gray eyes remained locked on the place where the cat had been standing, as if she had hallucinated the entire encounter. It had spoken so clearly of the things that Ares often saw in her nightmares: Nehelenia turning away from her, the rest of the parallels dead and rotting at Serenity's feet, Ouranous crying out her name, and the worst -- the entire lot of them, standing side by side, chanting at Ares, "You are not our Queen, you are not our Queen, you are not our Queen." She squinted her eyes against the memory, tried to force it out.
Redemption in death, Ares thought. Redemption in death.
And in that tiny, cold room, the Princess of the Dark Mirror thought: But you will find it first. Then, freezing the pain in her chest, she turned on her heels, marched back to her throne room, and began draining energy so quickly, so fiercely, that three of the civilians suspended in her mirrors died instantly.
Blood for blood.
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