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 Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 11:21 am
Before going to find a room to herself, Acubens made a beeline for the room she had seen Remarque vanish into. She had to speak with him. It was an undeniable instinct that she could not deny anymore than her instinct to protect her brood. She could keep calm and maintain her composure all she wanted for the rest of time, but the only thing that would calm her would be Remaruqe's stone-faced composure. And so, like a child running to their parent's bedroom in the middle of a thunderstorm, Acubens made her way to Remarque's, her notebook in hand.
She didn't bother to knock. She didn't knock when she walked into his home. She wasn't going to knock now. If anything, she reasoned, it would be out of character. And what she needed to be was as much herself as possible.
"Hey," she announced as she opened the door for herself, "I must say, that dinner was very informative, in more ways than one." Acubens grinned, holding her notebook out for Remarque to take from her. "And I got it all down. Plus," she grinned, "something very interesting on the last page." Her bravado was convincing, but she also had no doubt that, as well as Remarque knew her, he could see right through her. He wouldn't call her out on it, she was sure, but he would know. And he would work to soothe her nerves in his own way. That was what she wanted. That was why she came. To see that he was calm, that he was collected, and to draw on that composure for those that looked to her for direction.
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 7:48 pm
If Remarque was surprised to see Acubens appear in the room behind him, he didn’t let it show. Wearing an expression that seemed like indifferent calm, he turned to face her. “Did you really need to write it all down?” he asked, plucking the notebook from her fingers and flipping through it. “Didn’t think she said anything that interesting.”
He had been paying attention to a wide variety of things—the information that the Dark Mirror Court had given her, the information she’d exchanged in return. He’d paid attention to her tone, her posture. What her servants were doing. What was on the wall, the quality of the silverware and china. He was observant, but there had been enough going on that he knew he couldn’t have had his eye on everything.
He shifted positions as he read; the crystals he’d filched clinked together in his pocket; he had anticipated examining them in more detail when he was alone but he wondered now if he should really expect to be alone for long.
He spent only a second or two skimming most of the pages before he flipped to the last page to see what Acubens was so excited about.
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 8:02 pm
"Posterity," was Acubens only response to Remarque's concern about the volume of her writing. As he skimmed, she waited, pacing restlessly next to him while she chewed on her cuticles. Acubens interrupted Remarque's musing when he got to the last page and pointed to the only piece of writing not in code. She almost knocked the book out of his hands with the force of it all, actually. "There," she announced. "Right there. Near the end of dinner, Sinope let out a mirror wraith. Don't know why I hadn't thought of it but... it didn't drain anyone." She moved around to stand in front of him, face clearly shining with... something. Not pride, exactly... but not really excitement. It was just... raw, unfocused... energy. She was bristling with it. Everything about Acubens' posture and movements screamed that she was trying frantically to find an outlet for this energy, but failing. At one moment her hands were in her hair, and the next they were pulling at her feathered bracers. Another moment she was fiddling with her fuku. "Bro," she breathed, unsure if she should use his name even now, "not only does she not feel like order or chaos... but the wraith don't react to her. Or her servants." Her voice dipped lower as she spoke, eyes wide and frantic. "And she said that she can mirrorwalk. But she doesn't feel like one of us. But... Ares was born of chaos... which meant that we were born of chaos also... but... is this woman the progenitor of that power? It was simply filtered through the lens of the negaverse?" The questions slipped from her lips unbidden almost as quickly as she thought of them and once they were out and int he air between them Acubens went back to her mad pacing.
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 9:45 pm
Remarque was silent as he skimmed over the notes she’d read, but ultimately he wound up nodding and handing the notebook back to her. “It doesn’t matter that you didn’t think of it, just that one of us managed to do so and get away with it.”
He didn’t want to think about what would have happened if someone had caught Sinope, or if the queen had taken offense to the intrusion. If she’d seen it, they’d have had to explain the wraiths, too.
He watched Acubens with mild concern, though, and raised a brow before crossing his arms over his chest again. “It’s a possibility,” he acknowledged. “But we shouldn’t take stock in assumptions. The wraiths do what they want, they could have been confused that we weren’t on Earth or in Mirrorspace. Or, they sensed the Mirror on her and didn’t register her as an enemy. But, just because they didn’t see her as an enemy doesn’t mean that she’s not. I won’t consider her an ally until I know more about her.”
He wasn’t the sort to put blind faith into something or someone; they had to prove themselves to him.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, though. Theories are fine, but don’t put stock into them until you have some evidence. You’re looking a little…” He paused, searching for a nicer word than the one floating around in his head. “Eager, and I don’t want you to make any bad decisions because you’re getting too excited about all of this. All right?”
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Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2017 9:25 pm
Acubens shook her head frantically, chewing on her cuticles like an addict coming down. No. Eager wasn't the right word. Eager implied a goal that she wanted to reach. And while she did have the ultimate goal of going home, but she didn't even know where to begin. Which, she supposed, was why she felt so... twitchy. She was a creature of action. She needed to be moving, doing something, literally anything. But instead she was consigned to oblivion. "Not eager," she bit out around her nearly bleeding thumb. "Scattered... frantic... Frightened? Yeah, frightened. Frightened not just for myself, hell least of all for myself, but frightened for everyone. Even the ones that yelled at me. Especially those ones. God I wish I knew anything... anything..." As her thumb cuticle began to bleed, she moved on to her pointer finger. She had thought that coming to Remarque would allow her to absorb some of his calm but... it wasn't working. And now she was worried that she was upsetting him... she couldn't do that. He already had so much resting on his shoulders... If Remarque noticed the wild panic in her eyes, he said nothing. For which Acubens would be forever grateful. She did, however, mutter something about needing to go and made a jerky break for the door.
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Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2017 10:43 pm
Remarque watched for only a second longer before he sighed.
His voice was firm and commanding: “Acubens.”
He gave her a moment to let it sink in before he crossed the distance between them and stood in front of her, blocking her from pacing. He reached out to take her hands, holding them in his and trying to force her from hurting herself further.
“You need to calm down. You’re not going to be of help to anyone if you let yourself get so worked up. This might be new to you, but it’s not the first time I’ve been sucked into space with no control over what was happening. I made it out all right before, and we’ll make it out all right, now. Take a deep breath.”
He waited, expectantly, and continued, “We’re in a castle full of answers. We just need to find them. If you’re going to put your energy towards anything, let it be getting those answers, not tearing yourself apart.”
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Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 9:59 am
Remarque's voice cut through the haze of Acubens' distress like a hot knife. She hadn't known when it had happened, but suddenly he was before her, blocking her path. As her tunnel vision slowly cleared, she forced herself to only focus on the man before her and nothing else. Not even the nagging voice at the back of her head that kept whispering nonsense to her. She listened, intently, using his voice as an anchor. Calm down. Right. Never in the history of calming down has being told to calm down ever calmed anyone down, but she tried. She took several unsteady breaths before she was finally able to take one full strong lung full of air. At the very least she could fake it until she made it. After all, she had two strong leaders to follow. Remarque who would question and puzzle and pull things apart to make sense of them and Leto would would take down anyone who stood in their path. They may not have gotten along -- for what she could tell of her conversations with Remarque -- but they were a powerful team. "Finding them," Acubens sighed, smiling slightly at her friend, "will be the trick, I suppose."
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Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 10:58 am
Remarque returned her smile and released her hands, finally. “And we’ve got plenty of tricks up our sleeves, Acubens. We’re a good team. We have a lot of new Senshi with us, so we need to look after them, and we need to be calm, for them. I don’t want anyone getting in an uproar or scaring themselves. This isn’t anything to worry about—people get whisked away to strange, magical worlds in every other fantasy book I pick up right? So this isn’t a new concept. We’ve been there, done that, before. Last time, Ares was partially responsible, and nothing bad came out of that whole ordeal. So this?”
He gestured around the room. “This is fine. Besides,” he smiled again, more reassuring. “Isn’t this just the sort of thing you were looking for? Something new to add to your records? We’re in a whole new world that no one knows anything about. I’d think you’d be in heaven right about now, considering how much information lying around here that’s just waiting to go down in that notebook of yours.”
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Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2017 9:04 am
Except for in the fantasy books, it's not as scary because you know that when you close the books... you're still safe. Acubens had no guarantee of that for any of them. But she had to trust Remarque. She had to. As much as she hated putting this on him along with everything else, at least for right now, she had to. She broke off a piece of her burden and gave it to him. She didn't know how much more he could shoulder, but she could take no more. He had always been the voice of calm and reason in the never-ending storm that had been her life for so many years... And she'd let him down. Acubens kicked herself for lashing out at her court members now more than ever, knowing that it may have caused Remarque some stress. She had to make up for it. She would make up for it. As Remarque gestured around the room, Acubens followed with her eyes. He was right. This was what she wanted. Something to take down. More information. Answers. Or something like them. Acubens hugged the journal to her chest and nodded. Then she'd do what she did best. She'd investigate. "Then I'd better get to it," she sighed, feeling just a little more at ease now. "Thanks, Rem. For just being... I don't know, awesome. Thanks."
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