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 Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2021 5:12 am
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Late summer was feeling deceptively like early fall, but Beira couldn’t find it in his heart to complain. Now that the sun had gone down, the temperature had fallen quickly. His uniform was neither cool nor hot, but it reminded him that he didn’t think he was ready for more cold.
He’d been alone for most of the evening but didn’t trust the stillness of the night, so when an energy signature appeared on his radar he felt inclined to seek it out. He wasn’t particularly social or looking for company, but sometimes this whole thing just felt a little…
Overwhelming.
His friends--he thought he could call them that--were all so much stronger than him, and while they had never made him feel like he wasn’t worth their time, he felt like he was slowing them down.
Despite their history together, he didn’t really feel like a piece of the puzzle. He’d been chosen, but it always felt like a mistake.
He wasn’t looking for answers but he didn’t know what he was looking for.
He found Cybele in the park while he was trying to figure it out.
“Hello,” he greeted; he knew she’d been close, but seeing her nearby still surprised him. She was a Senshi, that much was easy to tell--and stronger than him.
He’d been the one to approach her, so he assumed it was up to him to initiate proper social etiquette. “I hope you don’t mind me passing by. Sailor Beira,” he introduced, trying to at least be polite now that he’d accidentally arrived in front of her.
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Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2021 4:21 pm
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The youma dust swirled around Cybele's feet. She stared at it for a moment that edged into a minute, trying to decipher her feelings. Recent events had driven her back to aimless hunting, trying to find something to throw her fists into, as if that would fix things.
The hunt had kept her attention for a bit, but now that she'd found and killed the youma, she wasn't sure if it had helped.
She still felt sad, she decided. Sad and angry.
The voice caught her off guard.
She hadn't sought out any Order auras recently, short of the one Transcendent Eternal. It seemed almost risky to be around anyone of a lower power level than that, when she had such a target on her back. She didn't want someone getting caught up in the violence that followed her.
Not again.
If she'd been paying more attention to auras, she might have wandered away before he got too close, but she hadn't noticed, and now he was talking to her. Leaving at this point would be rude, so instead she turned to him, smiling despite everything.
"I'm Cybele," she said, and then she looked over his outfit and that smile widened just a bit. "Oh, you've got antlers, too." She hadn't seen anything like that before, and she'd made a habit of meeting as many people as she could for a while after her purification.
"What's your sphere? I'm the Senshi of the Hunt."
She took half a step forwards, brushing dust from her skirt.
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Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:13 pm
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Beira blinked and reached up almost instinctively to feel the antlers. He knew they were there, but it was a distant thought; his fingers brushed against them for only a second and then lowered back to his side.
“Oh, I suppose I do. Not as impressive as yours,” he said, but he wasn’t sure that really even mattered. He didn’t spend enough time in front of a mirror to think about how he must look to others, not like this.
“Loneliness,” he answered, without much enthusiasm. “And I can’t say it’s been doing much for me. Can’t seem to get a grip on my magic, so I wind up doing more damage to myself than anyone else most of the time. Not sure what I’m doing wrong, but.” He couldn’t help but notice the dust as she brushed it off. “Have I interrupted your hunt?”
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Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2021 4:18 pm
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It would have been nice if she’d been able to say that her antlers had not been impressive back when she was a basic senshi, either. She could have reassured him that he’d improve over time, tiara and frustrating magic and all.
She didn’t remember being a basic senshi, though. She didn’t know what her antlers had been like at that point. She didn’t even remember what it was like to get stronger, only weaker.
Instead of guessing about her past, Cybele simply glanced at the pile of youma dust behind her that was slowly dispersing in the breeze. “You’re not interrupting. The hunt’s over,” she said, waving a hand at it all. If there had been more Chaos auras around, she probably would have gone after them by now, but things seemed quiet for the moment. If something did show up, she supposed she could tell him to leave.
“Would you like help with figuring out your magic? I’ve been a senshi for a bit.” Technically that wasn’t a lie. “I could try to give you some pointers.”
Perhaps even some extra focus.
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Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2021 8:07 pm
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Beira found himself contemplating, and then nodding. “I don’t run into many Senshi. I seem to have better luck finding Knights. But, their magic is different. When I use mine, it’s like…”
He considered for a few seconds and then said, “I don’t know. I feel like half the time I use it, it does what it wants. It hits the wrong target, or me. There’s no consistency to its strength so I can’t even gauge how useful it’s supposed to be. I’m sorry, I hope I don’t sound like I’m whining. I’m just not getting better.”
He exhaled, and planted his hands on his hips like that would help ground him and keep him focused.
“I’m practicing, but I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. And I don’t want to keep trying to target people--not when I don’t even know what it’s going to do. I don’t want to hurt an ally, and in the middle of a fight, I can risk that my magic is going to incapacitate me.”
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Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2021 3:35 pm
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It wasn't a problem that Cybele had heard about, before, but then again, most of the people that she was in contact with were already fairly established in the war, and comfortable with their powers. There were her parents, who had awakened around the time she'd purified, but they were pages and did not really have magic.
This felt like one of those times when having more of her memories would have been very helpful.
She pursed her lips. "I don't remember much about the time when I was learning my own magic, which is a long story, but," she went quiet for a moment, putting her hands in front of her and going through the motions of drawing a bow and arrow before she nodded.
"You cast it with focus and conviction, from what I can tell. You have to say the words, and mean them. I think I can help with that. My abilities strengthen focus."
She made the motion again, whispering Hunter's Grace this time, and with the words, an ethereal bow formed in her grip. "I could use this on you and then you could try your own magic?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2021 9:27 am
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"It won't hurt or anything," she told him, because she was very aware of how all this looked, but everyone that she'd used her magic on so far had seemed grateful for the focus it gave.
She'd have dropped the magic if he asked, but he said that he wanted to try, so without farther hesitation, she aimed at him and loosed the ethereal string.
She gave the magic a second to kick in, and then added, "Try to target me with your magic. Then I can try to see if it works, or, if it doesn't, what seems to be going wrong."
Cybele wasn't the type of senshi who thought magic was everything. She liked to rely on her fists over anything else, and if this failed, she thought that he could find a way anyway, but, for his sake, she hoped it worked out.
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Posted: Sat Nov 27, 2021 6:57 pm
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Beira trusted, perhaps too easily sometimes, but he nodded when she said it wouldn’t hurt. He’d stood there while he let her fire her bow at him. He stood still while it hit him. Almost immediately, he could feel the rush of clarity but just as she asked him to cast his magic, he shook his head.
“I don’t want to do that to you,” he said, and he was firm in this. “My magic makes people cold, and miserable.”
He couldn’t control how hard it hit them, or what they’d think about, but he didn’t want to hurt her and make her leave here with something that could keep hurting her.
He could think clearly, he felt invigorated. He thought, maybe his magic might work if he were to use it.
...So, he really didn’t want to. Not on her. Not when she’d been so kind.
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Posted: Sun Nov 28, 2021 4:35 pm
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He'd been so determined about fixing his magic, and then, all at once, he was hesitating because he didn't want to hurt her. She blinked. That was such a strange concept. Of course in recent months she'd slowly learned to accept gentleness from her friends and her family at home, but when she stepped back into the role of a serious, experienced, senshi, as she was doing right now, things snapped back to being a bit harsher, a bit more desperate.
Everything came down to survival, and pain and discomfort meant she was still alive. They meant she was still fighting. In situations like this, it meant she could help others learn to fight and survive, as well.
"I've been cold and miserable before," said Cybele with a small shrug. "I'm fine with it."
Although she did not push the issue farther, because she did not want to make Beira do something that made him uncomfortable. That was completely different. He deserved to have as good of a senshi life as he could.
With that in mind, Cybele glanced around, looking for potential targets. "Is there any way to just do target practice with it, then? You should really try to see if it works outside of an active combat situation."
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Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2021 2:33 pm
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Cybele wasn't sure if she was actually the best one to be testing out this magic. She was already cold. She wasn't freezing, exactly, but the thinner, summery skirts of her Super outfit did not exactly provide much warmth now that the temperatures were plummeting.
She was already miserable in a way that came back to loneliness. If she was still for too long, her thoughts went back to replaying the image of her friend's starseed being pulled from his chest, or of his body slowly shutting down after the General had teleported away.
All of that very much came back to her when she was squinting at the park bench, actively trying to figure out if she was sad or not.
"It's been a rough few days," she admitted to him, because the heaviness in her chest was undeniable, "As a disclaimer, I think I'm lonely, but I don't think that made it any worse?"
She still did not sound completely sure as she added, "Which means it worked."
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2021 3:11 pm
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"No, it's all right," said Cybele, when he asked to leave.
She was wary of spending too much time around kind strangers, these days. The Negaverse could come after her at any moment, and she did not want someone like Beira getting caught in that crossfire.
Not that she really wanted to tell him about that, so she nodded deeply and said, "I should be getting home soon, as well. I'll be around, though. Let me know if you want to try again."
It seemed her magic had helped, and she wanted people to be as productive as possible.
For now, though, she turned and continued on her way, only turning over her shoulder for a moment more to call out a, "Goodnight!"
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