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 Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:55 pm
Ever since that ******** Negaverse senshi had taken away his ability to deny what he felt and what he really wanted, Reiki had powered up more out of obligation than anything else.
Simple ethical mathematics, utterly straightforward. By whatever stroke of fate or hilarious whim of the great ineffable Alpha-and-Omega magical girl in the sky, he’d wound up with a starseed infused with a senshi’s magical destiny. This gave him powers normal people could only dream of. Nightmares lurked everywhere, lying in wait to harm those people. As a senshi, regardless of specific flavor, he needed to do something with his power; wasting time to mope because he wanted to be a White Moon senshi meant he wasn’t doing everything he could for the people who needed senshi to fight for and protect them.
At least accepting that he wanted out meant that he could hardcore phone it in while ******** around in Mirrorspace. Show up like he was supposed to, collect a couple crystals please and thank you, wander around a little while and amuse himself with some Stephen Sondheim (“But how can you know what you want ‘til you get what you want and you see if you like it?… When you know you can’t have what you want, where’s the profit in wishing? He’s a very nice prince……”) before progressing on to the Encanto song that none of his drag siblings wanted to believe he could feel as deeply as they knew he felt “Surface Pressure” (“I just made something unexpected, something sharp, something new. It’s not symmetrical or perfect but it’s beautiful and it’s mine…”)
Then, before waiting for the feeling like Mirrorspace was tired of him or he was tired of it or maybe they’d just exhausted each other, Reiki threw himself through a mirror, determined to ******** off back to somewhere real. Somewhere with all the pain and the ugliness that made the sweet things in life actually matter. The horror that gave the beauty its power and made it possible to hear “What are we holding on to?” and answer, “That there’s some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”
Tonight, Reiki found himself spat back out into the real world on a rooftop that he didn’t immediately recognize. Somewhere up a bit high, he guessed, but not quite high enough for him to tell if he recognized any landmarks. Still worth it to look around, he guessed, and without stopping to register that he felt another powered aura around here somewhere, Reiki swished over to the rooftop’s ledge, the song still hot on his lips. “I wanna feel the shiver of something neeeew,” he sang, hopefully quietly enough that nobody would complain. Even glancing around the nearby buildings and the street below, he didn’t think he recognized where he’d wound up.
Ah, well. He’d gotten himself home from worse than this before.
Looking up at the nearly full moon, at the vast ocean of space where somewhere, there was a planet that should have been his to care for like Kerberos did for his moon, Reiki let the next line come out like a prayer, “I’m so sick of pretty; I want something true—don’t you?”
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Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2023 7:53 pm
Persephone was not often found out on patrol. Or, at least, she hadn't been for several years. There were myriad reasons for that, though she'd lay a lot of the weight on the backs of raising twins, even with an entire polycule to help, finally getting a college degree, getting a really nice job teaching in DCU's media studies department, and generally making the life for herself that she'd thought she'd never have.
But the twins were turning seven in a few months, her first class had just started, and her students, so far, were bright, eager, interested kids. She had decided, finally, to be Persephone again, for the first time since the strange incident in Mirrorspace a year and change ago. Her once-a-year patrol, or whatever, to pretend that she was still decent at being a Senshi.
As much as it counted when she was sitting on the edge of a rooftop, snacking on some donuts from her favorite mom and pop donut shop, and pondering how long she ought to be out before she went back home to check on the kids and curl up in bed. But the mirror she had used to get up here spat someone out, and she quirked her eyebrows.
It was never a surprise when she didn't know someone. Most people she had known were long gone. But this one was particularly striking, and as a parent of two first graders, any song from a Disney movie lived essentially rent free in her head.
"You just seem like your life's been a dream since the moment you opened your eyes," she sang, picking up Mirabel's part. "Hey there. Lost?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2023 8:26 pm
Although Reiki continued the song in his head, he didn’t sing Mirabel’s part nor expect anyone else to pick it up. So, the sudden interjection startled him out of his own head quite effectively. Got him to really process that……oh, okay, there was indeed another aura nearby. Looking around, he found the source: another Mirror senshi, one who looked to be about his own age, give or take, but instead of sporting black feathery tramp-stamp wings like Levi and Acubens, she looked like she was still at first level.
Probably gonna stay there for a while if she keeps up like that, mused a part of Reiki that he regularly wished he could just beat to death and have forcibly removed from his personality. How was that a fair thing to think about this senshi he didn’t know? How was it fair to think such things about her apparently loving herself enough to munch on donuts while sitting on a roof, doing nothing in particular?
Gross—on Reiki’s part, for taking his personal garbage out on this girl, even only in his own head. If not for the existence of people like Angelica and everyone who talked s**t like Faustite being half-youma made his life worth less than a human’s, Reiki might have wondered if having gross thoughts like that (even if he knew they were gross and hated it when they flared up) would have somehow disqualified him from being eligible for leaving the Court to join the White Moon. No doubt they could easily find much better candidates who didn’t pretty regularly judge people and talk s**t instead of looking in the mirror.
Shaking his head, Reiki moved closer to her. Easier to talk, that way. “No more or less than usual,” he said, combing his fingers through his bangs. “Also, I don’t know if you’re out with anyone right now? But please be careful if you’re out alone. There’s a White Moon super who’s been running around recently, all dressed up like a reject from the North Pole School for Elf-Girls. Miss Thing’s got a special hate-on for Mirror senshi. Thinks she’s doing magical girl Inglourious Basterds or something. Her magic’s more annoying than anything, but she’s vicious and she attacks whether you’ve got a wraith out draining anyone or not, so……”
Reiki shrugged, glancing out at the cityscape and feeling around. No nearby White Moon auras, so at least Angelica wouldn’t burst out of nowhere like a xenomorph from someone’s chest. “Like I said, be careful?”
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Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 4:29 am
Persephone considered the warning. Nodded, slowly, and let out a hefty sigh.
"Ugh. Annoying, moralizing assholes. Think they know everything, when they don't know s**t." She smiled, wryly. "Good news is, I don't really have to be afraid of anything. Got a Princess on speed-dial. Leto doesn't like powering up much, these days, our kids run her--and me, really--ragged, but she'd show up if her wife called."
Was she bragging? A little bit, yeah.
"Anyway, I'm Persephone, and I really do appreciate the tip. I am so over getting punched just because of what side I'm on. Like, I've been on all of them, I probably know more than you do about the pros and cons, please grow the ******** up." A brief pause. "Want a donut? They're great."
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