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 Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2024 6:45 pm
Asking Yuki to pretty please make cookies for somebody who was still with Chaos—somebody who wasn’t going change that allegiance anytime soon—always made him feel a certain type of way. Honestly, Reiki couldn’t even blame him for that, especially when the person in question was somebody Yuki really hadn’t heard that much about before. Ever since meeting Remarque that first time, Reiki had cycled through all kinds of feelings about the Mirror Prince that had had very little to do with Remarque himself. The two of them hadn’t seen each other between that first meeting and that mission that Remarque had led into Mirrorspace, so how could anything he’d felt have actually been about Remarque?
Since Reiki’s feelings about Remarque had had less to do with the Prince himself than with, in retrospect, Reiki’s feelings about being a Dark Mirror senshi, he hadn’t made a point of telling Yuki much about him. The Mirror Prince existed. He was a senshi, like Reiki, though they had very different kinds of magic and Remarque was considerably more powerful. He looked like a vivid technicolor younger brother to David Bowie’s Jareth from out of Labyrinth. Three truths and one opinion, hardly enough for Yuki to go on as far as it went for forming an opinion about Remarque—and, more importantly, about whether or not it was safe (by his standards) to let Reiki go off and meet Remarque over in North End Park. Yes, Yuki knew by reputation (read: because Reiki had told him) that Kerberos was also over in North-End Park a lot of the time, but Yuki also knew (again, because Reiki had told him) that Chaos did some nasty things to people, warped their perspectives, and sometimes made them exceptionally temperamental and very actively on fire.
“Gorgeous, come on, I promise that Remarque’s not like that,” Reiki had insisted, while draping himself across Yuki’s lap to please, please, please request Yuki’s help in the form of cookies. He’d curled his arms around Yuki’s shoulders and done the big, sparkly pleading eyes and everything because dignity, frankly, was for people who hadn’t found themselves in Reiki’s current position. “No, I don’t know him very well, but I’m pretty sure that he’s not a violent person like that.”
On top of that, Reiki didn’t really think that he mattered enough to Remarque on a personal level to inspire him to such a reaction. It probably remained to be seen, since he didn’t know enough about Remarque to guess one way or the other. But either way, an argument that fundamentally rested on logic like “Meeting with me doesn’t mean that I’m important enough for Remarque to choose violence, because I’m not” definitely wouldn’t have gone over well with Yuki.
At least assuring him that Remarque seemed generally decent and reasonable as a person got him to make the cookies. So, when Reiki—powered up as Murikabushi—arrived at North-End Park, it was with a large tupperware container full of chocolate-chip cookies. Even accounting for the time Yuki had needed to bake them and the time the cookies had needed to cool off, Reiki arrived ahead of the time he’d sent to Remarque via compact. Later evening but hopefully not too late. Reiki didn’t have a show tonight, so he didn’t need to get anywhere else and get himself painted, wigged, and corseted. Sure, he didn’t know Remarque’s life, but Reiki figured that Remarque was likely old enough to be established, with a career and maybe some kind of family that possibly involved kids. Hopefully, if Reiki was right about that, he’d picked a time after said hypothetical kids would’ve gone to bed without being so late that Remarque wouldn’t have enough energy for whatever he did by daylight.
Maybe it was a bit cold, but Reiki didn’t mind. He settled atop one of the picnic tables with the cookies in his lap. Thanks to the lamp over on the nearby path through the park, Reiki wasn’t entirely without light. He could’ve taken a book out of his subspace, and part of him itched to get back to either rereading one of the books he’d recommended to Kaifeng as homework before Reiki would put him in drag for the sake of Youtube (maybe Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History), or working his way through The Husky and His White Cat Shizun.… Another part of Reiki, which thought itself quite sensible, thought that digging a book out of his subspace might have given Remarque the wrong impression, when he got here. But yet another part of him pointed out that he didn’t rightly know what sort of impression anything he did would give Remarque or not.
Unfortunately, Reiki itched to do something with his hands other than pointlessly drum them on the tupperware. Ultimately, he did reach into his subspace for a book, but he also decided that the third volume of Mo Dao Zu Shi would probably be easier to explain if Remarque asked about it, when he got here. Heather Love’s central thesis in Feeling Backward built on too much other scholarship to be concisely explained on its own (at least, not in the way that Reiki explained things). And trying to explain Husky felt like a surefire way to make Remarque think he was all the way out of his entire gay mind. Either way, Reiki opened up to the middle of the book, where he’d last put in a bookmark, and decided to just read quietly until Remarque got there.
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Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2024 10:46 am
Murikabushi might not have minded the cold, but Remarque did.
Not that he intended to say as much; he let Murikabushi pick the time and place to ensure he was as comfortable as possible, but Remarque hated winter. It was too chilly, snow everywhere, so dreary...
He felt cold and stiff and cranky, usually.
At least it wasn’t windy, he had that to be grateful for.
Remarque arrived early, though not so much as Murikabushi. Typically, he liked to do a little patrol around the area, or at least feel out if something seemed wrong. He could skip it for tonight, it wasn’t like there was much for him to be worried about, anyway. There were plenty of mirrors around the park if they needed a quick getaway.
He felt Murikabushi’s aura before he saw him seated below the light, and by then he’d already picked up his pace. It would have been rude to drag his feet, even if they were both still technically early.
“Murikabushi,” he greeted. His eyes dipped to the book he was reading but it was nothing he recognized. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting for long.” Especially in this weather. “Do you want a minute to finish up that page?”
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Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2024 12:43 pm
Feeling the approach of another Dark Mirror aura, Reiki had started pulling his attention back out of the book and into reality. Although he’d opened it up and let himself enjoy some of it, he’d been careful not to get too fully immersed in the story. “Pay attention to the environments and the auras around you when you’re out in your magical girl geish” seemed like some of the most basic, commonsense wisdom imaginable, so much so that it almost shouldn’t have needed to be said. By the time Remarque got close enough to ask if he needed a moment, Reiki was already wrapping up.
“Nah, I’m good, thanks,” he said easily, without immediately looking up. “I’m rereading anyway, and if my brain needs to start the scene over again later……” Reiki shrugged, nestling his bookmark between page 190 and page 191. As he lifted his gaze to properly meet Remarque’s, he explained, “I really don’t mind. The girlies are fiiiiiightiiing~ 🎶,” probably came out more sing-song than was entirely necessary, “and it’s completely brilliant. Never a dull read…… ‘Girlies,’ here, meaning the main character and his future husband, but that’s beside the point.”
“Beside the point” or not, Reiki held up his book so Remarque could appreciate the cover art regardless. While naming “the main character,” Reiki pointed to Wei Wuxian in the foreground, playing his flute and rocking the dramatically billowing sleeves of his Yiling Laozu fit. Likewise, he pointed to Lan Wangji looking sad and wistful in the background as he named the “future husband.”
Unfortunately for Remarque, and for most of the magical people in Reiki’s life right now, he’d soon be losing his ability to gab about his danmei novels with his Obaasan. While no one could ever replace her, he’d taken to sharing the books with anyone who gave him enough room to do so. Maybe he couldn’t talk to Obaasan, but he could hopefully still get somebody to read his novels and talk to him about them. In all likelihood, not enough people had told Reiki to just shut up while he did this, or maybe he would’ve just slipped the book back into his subspace like a normal person, without edging so close to giving Remarque a sales pitch.
At least the paperback did end up back in his subspace. “Thanks for coming out to meet me tonight,” he said, and with his hands freed up, Reiki proffered the tupperware of cookies toward Remarque. “I got help making them for you.… By which I mean that someone else did it all for me. Reality making me both the senshi of hunger and totally helpless in the kitchen is honestly such a gag, right? Like, come through, painfully appropriate but unexpected juxtaposition.”
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Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2024 2:55 pm
Murikabushi was always a lot.
Remarque could see why he and Acubens got along.
Maybe it was just that over the years, Remarque had learned to offer the face and demeanor he assumed would best compliment whoever was standing in front of him. He was a businessman, though. It was just good practice.
He nodded, perhaps in understanding, or more likely, appreciation for the explanation. Murikabushi read books he’d probably never even see. The cover didn’t tempt him, nor the summary, but he was patient all the same.
Nothing about Remarque should have outwardly indicated he had a sweet tooth, and really–he didn’t, but he accepted the cookies with a soft word of thanks and draped himself on the too-cold bench next to Murikabushi. Even if he had no taste for sweets right now, he opened the tupperware and appreciated the aroma before nodding approvingly.
“I didn’t bring you anything. Are you trying to butter me up for something?” he teased, but these days one could never be so sure. He didn’t think Murikabushi would have attempted to poison him, though. That didn’t seem dramatic enough.
“If it makes you feel any better, I hate puppets. I don’t get the appeal. I’ll give Sesame Street and the Muppets a pass, but that’s it. If we’d gotten to choose our magic, maybe I’d have picked something else.”
Maybe.
He half turned to face Murikabushi, like being better angled would let him really see him.
“How are you holding up?”
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Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2024 8:24 pm
“Why, can you get me in with Billy Porter or Mana-sama,” Reiki deadpanned playfully, knowing full well that there probably wasn’t any way for Remarque to do something like Reiki was suggesting. “Having two divas in a relationship can be, like, a lot to manage, I know? But I’ve been down bad for Mana-sama since middle school, and if Billy’s taking sugar baby applications, I’ll take all the help I can get.”
Every word was, in Reiki’s opinion, a patently ridiculous suggestion. For starters, not even Mana-sama’s fans knew his real name, so why would Remarque? For another thing, last Reiki had heard, Billy Porter and his husband had only separated, not properly divorced, so why would he be looking for a sugar baby? Then, again, what exactly could anyone expect Remarque do about it when he had actual important things to worry about, like protecting his people from either getting killed or rousing the organized ire of the Negaverse or the White Moon? Besides, being the only active royal in the Dark Mirror Court probably didn’t translate to influence and social capital in the way that Reiki was joking about.
Also, finally: if Reiki ever wanted a sugar daddy, then yes, he could’ve gone out and gotten one, but he’d very firmly made up his mind that he was Not That Kind Of Girl.
Giving up on the joke, Reiki rushed to shake his head and clarify, “In all seriousness? Didn’t expect you to bring anything, and I’m not trying to get anything out of you. I just figured that I’m the one imposing on your time after unintentionally making a mess out of Telesto’s party. Seemed appropriate to bring something. My only other idea was a book but then I thought we probably have different tastes in pleasure reading.”
To say the least. Remarque didn’t really strike Reiki as the sort of person who was into gay supernatural romance, queer histories and ethnographies, the umpteen-dozenth round of combing over stuff that George R.R. Martin had already published to fill the void until he finally released The Winds of Winter, or Anne Rice, like, just in general. No shade, just an observation on Reiki’s part: they seemed like different people who liked different things, and that was okay.
“I dunno, though. Even if you don’t like puppets, nobody deny that the prince magic you pulled out on that mission into Mirrorspace was phenomenally useful, especially for saving people,” Reiki pointed out, his tone falling somewhere in between casual s**t-shooting and a hint of how impressive said magic was (in retrospect, since Reiki hadn’t been in the mindset to appreciate it that night). “Mine mostly seems to trigger people or make youma tear themselves apart, which sure creates some fun situations. Nothing quite like coming off a huge, stressful battle where a White Moon senshi popped her princess wings and learning that the ‘demonstration’ someone asked you for a couple months prior? Directly led to him falling off the wagon, and oh, yeah, his specific strange addiction is starseeds. All of which happened a while ago, but, like……still.”
It had happened a full year-and-a-half ago, by now……but Reiki hadn’t really, per se, dealt with any of how he felt about it. How could he, when: most of the people in his life refused to see the problem because they hated Faustite; bringing it up with Faustite had seemed gauche even before the purification plans because he’d already absolved Reiki of any self-flagellating guilt about the situation; Reiki had probably ruined everything forever with Elsa; it wasn’t fair of him to ask for help from Soya-hime or Tama-sensei when he was leaving but it also wasn’t fair to ask for more help from Viatrix or Mr. Sparkles the Death-Dealer when he wasn’t an Order cat’s problem to handle yet; and Albite, bless his heart, was a very kind person who made the average box of rocks look like a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature?
Sure, there was therapy, but Reiki couldn’t just tell either his groups or his one-on-one therapist about the magical girl s**t. What if doing that put them in danger? What if one of them already hated Reiki as Murikabushi and running his mouth put his family in danger?
The one person, out of all the hundreds if not thousands of magical weirdos in town, who Reiki thought would probably understand how he really felt……he’d only met back at Christmas. But Helene seemed like he would Get It……like he’d understand that Reiki’s previous feelings of being a monster (misplaced dysphoria about his Mirrorseal, he realized in retrospect) and his lingering feelings of guilt about having hurt a Boy who’d already been hurt enough weren’t nearly as powerful as the sense that maybe, Reiki’s magic was, like Reiki himself, too dramatic, too big, and #Too Much. Sure, nobody else in the universe could handle the responsibility of wielding it because none of them had the Murikabushi starseed—but what if Reiki couldn’t handle it either? Maybe he wasn’t strong enough, or good enough as a senshi, or just generally enough for a task like this.
Even if Helene didn’t have answers, Reiki felt like he’d at least understand that Reiki’s upset hadn’t been about guilt, or self-loathing, or any <******** *Boys* for a while.
—None of which translated into Reiki providing an immediate answer to the question Remarque had asked him. Instead, he wound up thinking silently, not really turning his body away from Remarque, but bowing his head and turning it in different directions. Not all of those directions involved looking at Remarque.
“…I’m not ignoring your question,” he said after a few moments. “I’m just sort of torn here? Like, on one hand, there’s the impulse to tell you I’m fine because, meeting me or not, none of my bullshit drama needs to be your problem. Like, you’re a busy man with actual important things to worry about, so where do I get off, right? But on the other, there’s the feeling like I don’t really get to cause a scene at Telesto’s party and offhandedly mention something horrific about my magic, then act like everything’s fine? Which, if I did do it? I’d be thinking about protecting myself and not being a burden on people, but nobody would blame you if you maybe felt like ‘Do you think I’m stupid’ about being pretty blatantly lied to by somebody who doesn’t currently have any plausible deniability.”
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Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2024 12:23 am
Who…?
It didn’t matter, Remarque wasn’t going to try and rack his brain to find faces for names he was sure he’d never heard of anyway.
“If I wasn’t willing to hear about your bullshit drama, I wouldn’t have asked.” It didn’t matter how busy he was, or what else he had to worry about. “I’m not going to lie and pretend like I get you,” he admitted, “But I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t care.”
He’d already talked to Telesto and the others but this seemed like it was about more than just the other night.
“If it makes you feel any better, you don’t have to lie to me. If you told me you were fine, I wouldn’t believe you anyway.”
It sounded like things had been building up–for a while, now, if he had to guess. Murikabushi talked a lot, not always in a straight line, so wherever a story started, he wasn’t sure where it would wind up.
Better to be blunt and just ask.
“So tell me what’s going on, all of it. If you want. I’ll listen.”
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Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2024 6:10 pm
“I mean, it’s safe to say that I don’t get you either,” Reiki pointed out, all simple and straightforward because he was only pointing out an obvious fact. “If you ever want to get me like that, my therapist says that I am often uncomfortably self-aware, and you’ve seen how easily I can talk. So, it would not be difficult to tell you in excruciating detail how I work and what I’m all about. But given it probably wouldn’t make for a constructive talk right now, I’m working very hard to restrain that impulse.”
Quirking his shoulders, Reiki reached into his subspace. When his hands reemerged, they came with two bottles of water. For Reiki, his metal water bottle, perpetually refilled and almost always on hand. The sealed, plastic, “not for individual resale” bottle, though, he offered to Remarque. Maybe they’d be here for a while, maybe not. Either way, it didn’t hurt to stay hydrated.
“For what it’s worth, I’m not that complicated, really,” Reiki said, after taking a couple drinks and a moment to gather his thoughts into something that he could hope to share with another person. “What’s going on with me has felt complicated, at different points, but……eh? That probably just comes from it being my story. My life only feels interesting to me because I’m the one living it. In the grand scheme of the universe, I’m nothing special. Irreplaceable to the people who love me, yes? But there’s only one thing I could do that nobody else can, and I can’t actually do it.”
Because Mirrorspace was a ******** liar. Because Mirrorspace stole its senshi from their worlds with pretty lies and promises that it could never make good on. Because <******** Mirrorspace ripped away what actually made their starseeds shine, and in exchange, it gave them straitjackets of Chaos.
But Reiki kept that to himself. Better not to lay into Mirrorspace like that when it could too easily come across as an attack on the Court and the people in it. That was one of the last things Reiki wanted to do. He didn’t want bad blood with the people in the Court, not even the bitey, snarly senshi from the party and his passive-aggressive, deeply insincere little boyfriend.
“I almost didn’t get a chance to Awaken,” he made himself say, trying to resist the urge to discuss literally anything less vulnerable than the mess he was in. “A Mauvian didn’t find my starseed and Elsa didn’t take me to the Black Mirror until I was twenty-six. A different Mauvian was helping me out once, and he said I wouldn’t have been able to Awaken at all if it had waited much longer—which might’ve been pretty nasty. One of my White Moon senshi friends knows some alien who should be his world’s senshi, but he went unawakened too long. Kerberos hasn’t told me all the details? But not getting Awakened has had horrible effects on his friend’s starseed.”
Personally, Reiki doubted that he would have lasted as long as Caedus had in even vaguely similar conditions. In all likelihood, Reiki would’ve unknowingly taken matters into his own hands and let Miss Sparkling Rainbow Supermodel of the Cosmos try to find a better senshi to put the Murikabushi starseed into. If the people in his life didn’t let him go that far, then he could only imagine himself shutting down entirely because anything else would have hurt too much.
Caedus had to be impossibly strong and resilient to carry on with an unawakened starseed, Reiki felt without ever having met him.
“Part of me is kind of glad that I didn’t Awaken earlier,” he went on. “If you think I’m exhausting now? I was so much worse when I was a teenager. The details of that sob story aren’t relevant? Point is, I was ******** awful to deal with back then. Giving me magical girl powers back then would have been an absolute S-tier ******** disaster. But on the other hand?”
The deep breath that Reiki paused for should have done something to calm his nerves, but it didn’t. Not even heaving the dramatic sigh helped that much.
“As much as I benefitted in some ways from Awakening late, it really ******** me over in other ways,” Reiki explained. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this feeling like I was being called to do something with my life. Only I didn’t know what that something was. When I was younger, I didn’t think much of it. Of course I wanted to be a magical girl; all my favorite manga had magical girls in them. Of course I wanted to be a princess; the Princesses were The Main Characters of my favorite Disney movies. Of course I wanted to be a magical space princess; it combined all of my most favorite things. Honestly, why couldn’t reality be as cool and magical as all that?
“Except nobody stays six years old forever. And as I get older, I keep trying all sorts of different things, trying to find what’s calling to me. Some of them work, like workshopping each other’s fiction with my grandmother, and sewing, and getting extremely invested in men’s singles figure skating? Other things don’t. My drag, I can’t live without? But it was the only thing I tried that felt like a calling to me, and it didn’t resolve. Drag makes my soul sing, but I still felt like something else was waiting for me.
“And after so many years? After so many rounds of trying and never finding what I’m looking for? It starts to feel like……maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there is something fundamentally broken with me.”
Sighing, Reiki carded his fingers through his bangs. “Worse than that, it feels like……where do I even get off? I already have my drag. I have my research. I have a loving, unconditionally supportive, extremely queer bio-family, which is even more remarkable because a lot of Japanese-American families aren’t like that. So, where do I get off feeling like I need anything else so badly? What kind of entitled, selfish brat am I? Does this feeling like I need to be doing something else make me just the worst? ‘Nice going, Angelica; he was right, you will never be satisfiiiiiiied……’”
Reiki sang the last line softly, because……uh, what else was he supposed to do with a line from a musical? He wilted once he’d finished, though. When his bangs flopped into his face, part of him felt like he ought to move them? But Reiki left them alone, too focused on wanting this godawful vulnerability to please be over now.
“Then, I got Awakened,” he said, his tone. “For a while, it felt like that was the answer. Some misgivings existed? I don’t think anyone in the Court has bad intentions with energy-draining, for instance? I know at least one person is wildly irresponsible about how she does it? And she won’t listen to me about it, but she needs a serious reality-check before she gets herself killed?” Reiki considered whether or not to dwell on Lete’s habits or not, but…… “Lete isn’t the point, though. Point is: I believe that no one in the Court really want to hurt anybody with the energy-draining. But the math about it isn’t mathing in my head, for me personally. I can’t justify it to myself, so I just don’t do it.
“For a long time, on a moral and ethical level, I’ve wanted to just……stay as I am, trying to help people out in the real world but still a Mirror senshi. I wish I could stay like that. Too many White Moon senshi and Knights will act like they’re the good guys when they’re trying to stop me from getting medical help for some civilian in crisis. Somebody should be out here, actively proving them wrong so they can maybe stop being sanctimonious pricks and taking their trauma out on random Chaos senshi for no reason. Not all White Moon senshi or Knights are like that, but the ones who are? They’re actively hurting people. Somebody has to hold a mirror up to them about their actions and ******** tell them ‘No.’”
Curling one leg up onto the table, Reiki propped his chin on his knee. “But my personal ability to be that person? It’s all ******** up. Because I’m not in the right place for me, and I get that Mirrorspace wants to be that right place? But it’s just not. Trying to force it with each other is only making things worse. The malaise about it is spilling into my personal life, too. Making a mess of everything, getting my family worried sick.…… Sometimes, all I can think about is how Mirror-Coating on my starseed feels like a cage……like ‘What do you fear, my lady?’ ‘A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them, and all chance of freedom has gone, beyond recall or desire.’ Like, that kind of cage.”
He sighed, hugging himself around the shin and letting his gaze drift down. “In case you’re a Tolkien purist: I know that Eowyn says ‘valor,’ not ‘freedom.’ But conceptually, ‘valor’ isn’t really appropriate right now and I don’t much care for it anyway.”
The war didn’t seem to have any valor in it for anybody, either, only places where one might have been able to mitigate any potential harm being done. Right now probably wasn’t the time to try and litigate that, though.
“For the record,” Reiki added, “all of this would’ve been true even if things hadn’t exploded between me and those two other senshi at the party. None of this is their fault, and no hard feelings against them for not liking me. How I’m feeling, everything I’ve been going through? It has nothing to do with the people in the Court. Can’t avoid having bad blood with Elsa, but that happened months ago—before I even knew anybody could leave the Court—and the fight we had was my fault anyway.”
He stated that assignation of self-blame as an obvious fact, because as far as Reiki was concerned, nothing else could have possibly been the truth. The understated tone, however, did nothing to make Reiki’s chest feel less tight, less like he was being strangled by his stupid heartache.
“Stuff with me and Elsa is whatever, though,” he said, very tired of talking (very tired in general, if he were honest). “Needing to leave doesn’t mean that I’m judging anybody else for staying. How can I judge them? In light of everything I’m giving up for this? The fact that I’m gonna have to start my entire life over? At twenty-eight? Ugh. Jesus. No—staying makes perfect sense. Going White Moon doesn’t mean I think anyone in the Court is a bad person, either. They’re just trying to find their bliss when a lot of people in this war don’t want them to. I’ll still look out for them if any of them get in trouble out in town. I’ll try to keep others with the White Moon from picking on Mirror senshi. I’ll let them Wraith me for energy if it proves that I’m not trying to come for anybody, I just……?”
Uncurling his leg once more, Reiki concluded, his voice soft but certain, “I know what’s been missing for me now. And it’s killing me to keep faking like I’m happy with a Mirrorspace dupe when I could have the real thing instead.” Kyuseisha no Hikari ………remarque, sweetie, i am so sorry for this loquacious a** drama queen,
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Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2024 12:00 pm
Murikabushi had a lot to say.
Remarque let him speak. He didn’t open the water bottle he’d been offered but he held it in his hands and listened. He let Murikabushi talk until the words stopped coming, and then he mulled over the extensive amount of words he had to sift through.
It was more than Remarque expected of him, but he knew he’d be getting a lot of information. Now he just had to file away the important parts.
Like Lete; he didn’t know her personally, nor did he know who was involved in her awakening and who let her run amok without a clear understanding of their intentions or purpose.
He didn’t know Elsa, but he wondered how much influence he’d had on guiding Murikabushi when he’d first joined the Court. Obviously there were things he was going to disagree with, but Murikabushi seemed stubborn and set in his ways and it didn’t seem like Remarque’s perspective was going to have any great impact on him at this point, anyway.
“No, I suppose it would be difficult for you to come to terms with what we do. You awakened in a better time than I did. Maybe you’d be surprised to learn that there’s a sort of easiness about things now that we didn’t have when I joined.” But then, when Remarque had awakened, he’d been held captive in a faraway place with no chance to return home until they made one. He could see how Murikabushi could make enemies among the White Moon. He had a loud persona, and he didn’t always seem to be able to step back when he should have. Remarque could imagine a number of reasons why he'd laid them out in the backstory he’d just given.
In the distant part of his mind, Remarque wondered if the constant reliance on pop culture was just some mask he’d adopted–hide behind quotes or songs or references to avoid the sincerity of his own thoughts or feelings. Masquerade as someone else, borrow their carefully crafted and performed messages to a new audience. In some ways, it felt like he was humoring one of his children, prone to their bouts of energy and eagerness to share a new song or spontaneously recalling something interesting they’d encountered earlier in the day. It might mean more if he understood the source material, but he didn’t have enough time in the day to dedicate to such things.
Murikabushi was performative. Maybe to everyone. Maybe to Remarque. Maybe to himself.
Maybe he was just stalling–ah, there it was.
Leaving the Court.
For a few seconds, there was silence. Remarque wasn’t willing to let it grow into something uncomfortable.
He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and nodded.
“Well. If your heart isn’t in it, I’m not going to force you to stay.”
It wouldn’t do anyone any favors. He didn’t want someone who resented being in the Court. They were a danger to themselves, to the others, and to Mirrorspace.
“I won’t pretend like I’m happy about it. And I wish we could have talked about this before it sounds like you made up your mind. I think there’s a lot of information I could have shared with you a long time ago that might have given you a bit of perspective that I don’t think you have right now.”
Murikabushi had spoken in great length, and Remarque had given him the time to say what was on his chest. So, Remarque thought it only fair that it was his turn now.
“So far as I know, no one in the Court wants to hurt anyone. Even draining energy. Are you very good at math? No offense, but I am. And the math maths on my end, but I suspect I’ve got a lot of information you didn’t have to factor in. Do you really think Earth is safe? Do you have any idea what the Negaverse is capable of? You talk about how the White Moon ‘takes their trauma out on Chaos Senshi for no reason’–You know what the Negaverse will do to you when you leave, right? I’m not trying to scare you. But do you have a plan for how you’re going to navigate having them for an enemy? Because,” he shrugged. “They don’t really care for a traitor. And I’ve met agents that killed, or worse, for much less.”
He didn’t think Murikabushi had the ability to keep his head down. He wouldn’t have long before someone had a target on his back.
“One day, they’re going to destroy Earth. And if they don’t get the chance to do it, something else will get to it first.” He nodded up to the sky, though he could hardly make out any stars against the glow of the city. “That ‘real thing’ you’re looking for might not even exist. You don’t know if you’ve got a world up there that’s safe, or has anything to offer you. The Mirror did its best to awaken you with the blueprint on your starseed. You might not agree or understand, but it saw something in you that it thought was worth investing in. And it got to you before a cat lost the chance. So no matter what, if you’re out there living your best life–‘with the real thing’–you remember that you’ve got a chance to do that because Mirrorspace did it for you. So don’t waste that. I’m not worried about the White Moon. I think they’re dangerous, but they’re not a threat to us as long as we stay in our lane. I get along pretty well with a lot of them. Let me know if you need me to put in a good word for you. But.”
He looked at Murikabushi. His expression was solemn. Patient, but weathered. “You’re going to make enemies with the Negaverse. You’re not going to be safe. And if they succeed in tearing the Earth apart, we’re going to have Mirrorspace. And it’s okay if you can’t stomach draining energy. I’ll do it. I’ll do it all myself, if I have to. But I’m not going to let the people I care about die because they got stuck in the middle of a war they didn’t ask for. Mirrorspace is safe for us. For anyone we want to share it with. And I’ve seen what the Negaverse is capable of. I know what they can do.”
He remembered a prophecy, of a world torn apart by Chaos. Of people stripped down to nothing. He wouldn’t let that come to pass.
“And if it means we have to make people a little sleepy, or need a little extra meal once in a while, it’s a good tradeoff to know that when the s**t hits the fan, we can save them. I’m not doing this just for me. Not just for the Court. I’m doing it for the people I care about. My family. My mother, my children. My friends. Mirrorspace is a fortress.”
There was a lot they didn’t know about it, but he felt safer there than he did in the great, unknown expanse of the universe. They could control Mirrorspace–could control what came in, what came out. It had untapped potential, if they could just invest enough time and energy to harness it.
“Do you have a plan for what you’re going to do if you’ve got some great cosmic evil waiting for you on your world? Or if something just as awful makes its way to Earth? The White Moon can’t come together for anything. Do you have a support system or are you going into this blind?”
Kerberos was familiar, but that wasn’t any guarantee. He seemed like a good enough person, he’d helped others to get out. Murikabushi had mentioned him in passing and not with any great significance so he didn’t know if he was looking too much into it. Remarque pressed his lips together and exhaled softly. He hadn’t seemed agitated or annoyed at any point during this conversation. He had a good poker face, but more than that there just wasn’t anything to be incensed by. As long as Murikabushi had really thought about this.
His intention wasn’t to scare or dissuade him. He was an adult, and committed to following his own path. If he’d made up his mind enough to tell Remarque, what was there to change? He already seemed like he had one foot out the door. What was Remarque going to accomplish if he tried to force Murikabushi to stay? He’d make him more miserable and it would accomplish nothing.
He wasn’t the first Dark Mirror Senshi to idolize the White Moon and dream it might fix all his problems. He wouldn’t be the last to be disappointed.
“Look. I’m not trying to tell you how to find your happiness and I’m not trying to get in the way of it. If the Dark Mirror Court’s not for you, it’s not for you. Nobody’s forced to be here. Most of us understand what we do and why we have to do it. No hard feelings that it’s not clicking with you. I hope you get the chance to be the princess you dreamed of when you were six. But tell me you’re going to be safe about this. Tell me you’ve thought everything out, you’ve got somewhere to stay, tell me you have a plan to stay safe.”
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