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The crystal that Acubens had recovered from Mirrorspace had done nothing but consume her waking hours and given her nothing in return. It had no taste. It did nothing when buried despite smelling like grass, didn't hover, didn't sing, didn't do anything except sit there and taunt Acubens. Why then did Mirrorspace cough these things up? Had it even coughed them up, or had they all just been in the right place at the right time? Or the wrong place. For all Acubens knew, these were homing devices for something big and terrible. Remaruqe's warning about Mirrorspace rang constantly in her mind now, warning her that they didn't know anything about the place, only what they could see.

Had she been wrong to take the crystal that had called out to her?

She turned the green shard over in her hands, running her fingers along its surfaces for the millionth time. At this rate she was going to wear down the barky texture and turn it into a worry stone... god knew she had things to worry about. Kiuchi was out with Remarque exploring Mirrorspace now, and even though she was proud of his striking out on his own, when she couldn't see him she worried.

And then there had been Lesath's proposal... Acubens hadn't reacted at the time -- didn't have the attention to spare... but she heard it. And it broke her. But why? She and Remarque were already engaged? Hell, they had a kid. A perfect, awesome, adorable, ******** kid... and each of those revelations broke her in turn as they came to pass. And now this. Was that why she had kissed Chione? Not that she hadn't wanted to for a while... but had that been the trigger? Needing... something...

Acubens scrubbed her eyes and forced the thoughts from her mind turning her attention back to the task at hand...

"What are you," she whispered to the shard in her hands.

Acubens looked up as the senshi that she'd been tracking made herself known. She had known that it was dark mirror from the sticky sweet flavor the aura left in her mouth, but she hadn't been expecting it to be Laverna. It was impossible to determine the senshi's end game from the mask that covered nearly half of her face. Acubens just had to trust that her snipping and short temper had been left in mirror space and was caused by the stress of the situation. And by Sinope. Acubens hadn't after all, forgotten that the younger boy had started the majority of the friction.

"I wouldn't be surprised, honestly," Acubens confessed, turning the crystal over one more time before returning it to the messenger bag at her hip, replacing it with her ubiquitous composition notebook to note that nothing had happened with the crystal today. Just like yesterday. Even if notation was redundant, Acubens told herself, it was important. "Problem is that I'm stubborn and love puzzles so... those two things work in tandem against my ability to sleep," she finished with a smile, slipping the journal back into her bag.

"Laverna, right? I'm glad that we have a chance to meet in earnest."

She pushed her arm out to Laverna like an olive branch, opening herself up for civility or attack, which ever the other chose.

Oh...

Acubens didn't deflate -- though the strike to her pride may have made her want to. She had to be better than she used to be... and that meant standing tall in the face of (admittedly warranted) criticism. She only stood and waited for Laverna to stop circling her like a vulture -- an intimidation tactic, Acubens guessed. The only thing that scared her anymore were midnight wings and that wicked laugh at sometimes filtered through to her reality.

"I admit," she began slowly, choosing her words carefully, "that it was a lapse of judgement. The larger picture obscured my judgement and could have cost the people whom I adore their lives." Laverna, she noticed, did not take her place before Acubens as an equal, but rather chose to stay in her periphery. Well then, Acubens would turn to hold her eye if she would not take hers.

"I am blessed and truly lucky that those boys have decided to stay by my side. But don't pretend to care about them. You seem to care more about shaming me. Do you know how I know? Because you weren't with them at the hospital. You didn't walk them home. And before you asked about them you accused me of not caring." Acubens was silent for a long moment, face drawn tight with irritation that she was trying hard to mitigate into something more productive. "They are fine, by the way. Minor cuts, problem is that those areas bleed forever and can give a scare. Kiuchi -- the little dark haired one since you seem to care so much about them -- slept soundly that night. I should know, I put him down. Crocus is my other student. He went down pretty easy too. And so did Chione -- the one I kissed."

Acubens took a step closer to Laverna. "You're young, so let me offer you some free advice. This war is hard enough without infighting. Remarque may disagree with me on this, but I believe that in order to form a more perfect court we cannot have competition. There cannot be bad blood. So air your grievances with me now, there is nothing you can tell me that I do not already know. I will not defend that choice to you because there is no defending it. I was prideful, stupid, and callous. I can and will always choose to lay down my life for this court, but I cannot make that choice for others like I did that night." Acubens took a deep, shaky breath, calming her nerves, but never breaking her hold on Laverna's eyes. "And I apologize to you. You and all of the younger senshi need to see that we are a unit. A community. A family. you need to be able to trust all of us. And I did not live up to that. I'm sorry."

Acubens had invited the criticism, she supposed, but she hadn't really expected the woman to be hell bent on destroying her sense of worth. It was, if Acubens was being honest, a little boring. As though there were anything Laverna was saying that she hadn't already told herself. Besides that, Laverna only saw what had happened that night. She hadn't seen Acubens working on her own, she hadn't seen her team training together. She hadn't seen jack s**t. Acubens irritation at her bruised pride transmuted into irritation over wasted time. She didn't want eye contact, fine. Acubens had better things to do anyway.

"I really don't think that Remarque wants to be the end all be all of this court, kid, and I've known him since before you were awakened." she sighed, pulling her notebook and the jewel out again. She had puzzles to solve after all. Next, we summoned a mirror wraith to see if that would react with the jewel in some way. Despite her hopes to the contrary, nothing. Her face fell in disappointment as she made her notes and dismissed the wraith. God damn thing jewel had to do something, right? Other than smell like grass, that was.

"You're assuming that I intend to continue on the trajectory that I was on that night. You're wrong. It's true that if I learned nothing then, I would end up killing myself in the best case situation and everyone with me in the worst." She turned the jewel over in her hand for a moment, judging the weight and making a mental note to use her kitchen scale at home to see if that might give any answers. She let the silence spread out between them like a stain, in every action ignoring the girl who had come to pick a fight with her.

"What's your purpose for being here tonight, Laverna," she finally sighed, tucking everything away once more. "If you don't care about my team which is fine, then I have to deduce that you are here only to pick a fight with me. You won't find one. I've done enough fighting with my court mates in another life, I think. I have no intention of fighting with them now. If you want to work in dissonance with the others, then that's fine. I can't change your mind and trying would only cause a fight which, again, I'm trying to avoid. But what I cannot and will not abide is you spreading this acid to newer senshi. You want to try and hurt me, that's fine. There's nothing you can do or say that I haven't said and done to myself. But someone more impressionable? Do you intend to break us apart with your vitriol? I can't say Prince Remarque would be very pleased with this either." Prince Remarque. It almost made Acubens giggle. She only ever called him that when she was teasing him, after all. For all of her respect and reverence for the man, he was still her brother by every account but blood.
"What's your purpose, Laverna? What do you want? And try to make it quick, my room mate will be home soon and I need to get dinner started."

Acubens let the kid speak, brows raised only slightly in her boredom. Pride? Acubens did a quick look over Laverna and wondered whether she was projecting her own avarice onto Acubens. Well fine, if that was how she wanted to be, then so be it. But Acubens would be lying if she were to say that she wasn't officially interested in Laverna. She spent the whole conversation saying that she had been in the wrong and was working on her penance and Laverna had called her prideful? Where on earth had that come from? And darkness? What? This women spoke in poetry that she made up to fit her situation without any evidence to support her claims... it was absurd.
Acubens actually laughed. Out loud. Not one of malice or anger, but a musical kind of giggle that bubbled from her lips. She offered her address back at Laverna and added "come on over if you like pasta. It's italian night for us."

Until the day that she died, she would never know what possessed her to advertise where she lived to someone like that, but there she was. But it was more than that. For all of the walls and veils that Laverna put up, Acubens worked just as hard beating her own down. Hell, one of the first things she did when she met someone new was she powered down to show them Rhona. But not this time. This time it was where she lived. Was it to prove that she wasn't as prideful as Laverna had judged her? Was it to try and stick her hand through the first veil?

"Maybe you can drop by and let me know what I'm so blind to. Try and get better, you know?"