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It was hot. Like. Hella hot. Like and Indian Summer got drunk with the sun and had a love child that didn’t quite understand that when the leaves turned orange it was time to get the ******** out. It made Acubens feel even more out of sorts. Granted, it wasn’t the same itchy-skin-burning-fuku-psychosematic bullshit she’d been dealing with before, for which she was thankful. Best she could figure, her mind was still reeling. Hell, she looked in a mirror once after Leto brought her home and almost pissed herself. That wasn’t Micah. Micah didn’t have green eyes and she didn’t have that slender nose, and Micah’s lower lip was much thinner than this girls.

Even her fuku, which had forever been the one constant albeit aggravating part of her life had changed. Black bodice, black tights, black sleeves, black, black, black. Even black wings at the small of her back. Darker now, to match her new court…

“My new court.”

Acubens stopped suddenly, eyes wide in her skull. She hadn’t said it before now. It hadn’t crossed her mind to. But now that it had slipped off her tongue, Acubens could help but taste the sweetness of it. The sweetness of her name.

Eternal Sailor Acubens, Dark Mirror Senshi of Velociraptors.

She’d be damned if that didn’t sound like home to her.

The voice sent shockwaves down Acubens’ spine. She knew that voice. She knew it like she had known her own (before it had changed, of course.) She stood with her back to the senshi, trying to decide what to do. Was now really the time to reveal herself? Should she maybe do it later, when Acubens had more of a footing as a Dark Mirror Senshi? Maybe make her reveal grand and wonderful, like coming home after a long journey. To be honest, she hadn’t even planned how she was going to tell Remarque and Lesath how and when she had defected. She hadn’t really even planned asking Leto to take her. It had all just happened to fast and she had been so tired and in so much pain and Leto felt so good holding her so close.

Standing still wasn’t going to help anything, that was or sure. And running wasn’t really an option, not that she was tempted to. She’d never run from Lesath. Not ever again.

“You have,” Acubens’ voice caught in her throat, “just, not for a very long time.”

She turned slowly, more because she was suddenly very afraid of what Lesath would say than for effect. Her yellow eyes had turned green and her face had undergone drastic changes but

“It’s me, Lesath. Dino Baby.” She chuckled a little even through the small sob that choked her.

Well, it wasn’t the warm welcome that Acubens had been expecting. It wasn’t like she’d just joined a school club or tried out a new clothing line. This was a major alteration to her life. Hell, she didn’t even have a name anymore. Micah was dead and without the fuku she was just…

It was best not to think about that now.

Acubens tried to laugh, she honestly, really did. The problem was her heart had dropped to her feet and it sounded more like a yelp than anything. It was just hard to ignore the wiggling feeling in her skull that Lesath would have liked her better in white.

“No, I mean… I didn’t just decide,” her voice countered Lesath’s anger with her own acid. “I decided to try and stay white moon but I ended up killing people…”

Well, now that that was out in the open. Disgust twisted her expression and suddenly she didn’t feel like being touched. Acubens freed her hands and tucked them under her arms, caging herself off from Lesath. Glad to see you. Lesath didn’t seem glad to see her. Glad to see her were tears and smiles and laughter and pet names and kisses.

Acubens’ lips tingled from the kiss from weeks ago, that girl who reminded her so of Lesath. Who smelled like her and felt like her and oh god, what if she kissed like her?

Had she made a mistake? Had defecting through the mirror been a
horrible idea? Not that it mattered.

“Who would take a killer in the White Moon? It’s not like I even killed negaverse officers, I killed people. Normal people trying to bring down a psychopath, and I couldn’t even do that. There’s no room for that in the White Moon, and that was never my home anyway…” she stopped suddenly.

Maybe this was a mistake.

“I have a patrol to be on.”

Is that what they were called in this court? The mirror shards clinked in the little bag at her side and she only just now learned how to use them.

Maybe it was something juvenile about Acubens that transferred over from before, but the show of emotion, however coerced, softened her. She turned towards the hand on her face and smiled, just a little.

“I’ve wanted this too,” she muttered, taking the hand on her face and holding it tight. Maybe too tight. Truth was she’d been crafting this moment in her mind forever, but it was never this hard to tell Lesath what had happened. Maybe not now. It was all too much. Everything with Bischofite, with Lenka, with everyone. Everything that had happened still felt so much like a dream. Even now nothing quite felt real.

Except for Lesath’s hand.

Acubens knew she should have let it go, that the strength given to her by her phenomenal cosmic powers might be hurting Lesath… but it was just… there was one thing real right now, and that was the woman in front of Acubens. And she’d be damned if she didn’t cling to her like a life line.

“I don’t know what to do,” she muttered finally, through paralyzed jaws. Whose voice was that? It was deeper than it had been before, somehow throatier. Every time she spoke, it took Acubens a few moments to remember that it was she who had made that sound, not someone else.

“I don’t know what to do,” she repeated.

Not alone. That wasn’t something she had heard before. In fact she’d heard to exact opposite. Been shown the exact opposite. Hearing what she had always wanted to hear now, from the lips of a woman she loved… every doubt Acubens had prior to this moment evaporated. It was like a physical weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Acubens slumped against Lesath and sighed, hugging Lesath back despite the heat making her body slick and sticky. It didn’t matter. Lesath was here and they were together in black and… everything was right.

And then came the mention of living space. Acubens’ mind flashed for just a second back to her old apartment, with Misha left inside. Would he still be there or would be have moved back in with their parents… his parents… Anyway, Acubens didn’t exactly have a living space. More like an alley that she cleared out with a tarp over head to keep the rain out… mostly.

She was suddenly very aware of the fact that she hadn’t bathed in a while, and shifted a little to try and conceal the scent of her body a little more.

“I couldn’t impose,” she muttered into Lesath’s shoulder. And she couldn’t. Even if her boyfriend brought home strays, Acubens couldn’t shove herself into their home.

Acubens remembered with sudden clarity her previous and sudden visit to her home planet. She’d have to tell Lesath about that sometime. Sometime when Acubens didn’t reek and wasn’t exhausted from sleeping on concrete and had maybe eaten something. She would tell Lesath about how her path to the Dark Mirror Court had been inevitable and now it seemed like history was repeating itself. How they had been so in love in another life and now would be living under the same roof with whoever it was she had taken as a mate. Acubens had to admit, she was a little let down that Lesath was with someone else.

“Hold on, your boyfriend is a senshi too?” Acubens pulled away a little bit, if only to look Lesath in the eyes. She laughed, relaxing into Lesath’s embrace finally. It figured she’d be so deeply entrenched into her court.

“Tonight, huh?” It wasn’t like she was leaving much behind. Just a tarp tent and some cans. “Well I guess since you insisted so much.” She felt around her a little, searching for other powered signatures before she finally let go. Her fuku dissolved around her leaving her in ripped jeans and a dirty hoodie. Acubens was also suddenly very aware of how dirty he hair was.

“I don’t… have a name anymore…” she muttered, tugging on the strings of her hoodie.

It was her. The girl from before, who had kissed Acubens so wonderfully when she was wounded. And Lesath was just going to hold onto that information like it wasn't haunting Acubens night and day. She laughed once, so hard that it sounded like a bark or maybe a cry of pain. She launched herself at Raven the second she finished talking and without wasting another micro millicalorie of energy on thinking, crushed her mouth to the other girls, tears streaming down her face as everything fell int place.

Finally.

There would be a time to worry about the fact that Raven had a boyfriend and they had kissed twice now. There would be a time to face him with the knowledge that this had happened even when Acubens knew that he existed. There would be a time for a lot of things. This time, however, was just for them. For just a moment time stood still and the stars twinkled brighter and marrier than they ever had before. And Acubens was home.

Finally.