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Blarney was just winding down for the evening, having completed a blessedly quiet patrol evening; it had been harder than he wanted to admit to go back out, after the incident with the chicken and his head, but he knew that was part of the deal: you had to get back on the horse. Even when it was scary - maybe especially when it was scary.

And Destiny City rewarded him with relative peace and quiet, and he felt like he could move on from it; it was a one-off thing, and he hadn't died. It was about moving forward - and he'd moved forward.

Now, he was having kind of the opposite problem - he didn't want to power down. So he was dawdling, a little bit, hanging out in his little grove, leaning against a tree, watching the meteors above. He loved this time of year - even before he'd powered up, it had felt magical. Now, being actually magical, it somehow felt even more-so. Was it more science than magic? Maybe. But still--he could watch the stars fall and streak overhead all night long and not regret it for a second.

He was, in fact, so relaxed and vegged out that he almost - almost - missed the large, seemingly-friendly blip on his internal radar, getting closer and closer. He noticed it just before the owner announced himself, which was probably the only reason he didn't jump out of his skin at his approach.

"No worries," Blarney said with an easy smile. "Nice to meet you," he said, "I'm Blarney, Page of Earth." He paused, taking in the other man's get-up: it was similar to his own, but it didn't come with the immediate flash of recognition that Joyeuse Garde's appearance had, and as Blarney peered into the darkness, he caught symbols that did not look familiar, or especially Earth-y.

"Where are you from?" Blarney asked, tilting his head slightly. "And where'd you get the awesome helmet?" Blarney asked, realizing the second after he said it that presumably he 'got' it from the same place Blarney got his belts and pouches: magic. "I mean, um," Blarney said, straightening up slightly as he cleared his throat.

"Cool helmet, dude."

...He was so bad at this. But this was the first time he'd run into another male knight, other than the Ida Page he'd met the other day, who was even newer to the game than he was. This was the first guy who did this job that Blarney had met, and he suddenly felt very...

...Young. And, because he had made the foolish mistake of speaking, of opening his mouth, he also now felt deeply uncool.

Well. He never really felt cool as Mason, so in some regards it wasn't exactly an unnatural or unusual sensation, but it was the first time as Blarney he'd felt anything other than completely confident - even with the whole chicken thing. Even bleeding from the head he'd felt like he'd handled it alright, that it was just part of taking his lumps as a new baby Page. He hadn't felt...embarrassed of himself before, as Blarney, and it seemed - it didn't fit, like Knight Blarney should be incapable of feeling the way this guy was making him feel, by doing nothing other than just, like, saying hi, basically. He hadn't done anything wrong or bad or weird, Blarney reminded himself.

He forced himself to take a breath.

Sometimes, it was exhausting to be him.

Blarney blinked. He'd grown accustomed, nearly, to all the strange occurrences his city he'd witnessed since awakening just a few short months ago. So when the stranger - Valhalla, of Jupiter, apparently - reached into his subspace, he fully expected the other man to withdraw...well, something about on par with the insanity that he had grown as used to as it was possible to become.

He was in no way prepared for him to offer to play catch with him. Was this some messed up dream? His subconscious trying to force him into the therapy he and Madeline insisted they didn't need?

Blarney blinked again. In another world, a strange man offering to play catch with a teenage boy in the middle of a deserted park would be enough for a call to the police and a quick flash of pepper spray.

But Blarney didn't live in that world anymore. Now, he more or less knew that he could trust this strange man; his inner radar had only led him astray one time before, and this guy seemed about as different from the angry witch lady that had swiped his face with her pen however many weeks ago as it was possible to be. For all Joy and Halia's talk about how things were complicated, about how good and evil were terms that just didn't apply as universally as he wanted them to, about how being on the 'same side' might not actually mean they were on the same side, how being even the same kind of Knight didn't necessarily mean they were the same--

It was nice to know that, on spec, he could probably trust the helmeted, hero-looking figure that emerged from the shadows like some kind of Viking-age invader from a half-forgotten history. It was, in fact, pretty cool that he could, almost automatically, count this guy as--if not a friend, at least an ally.

...And anyway, he'd never played catch before. Not--not like this. Not even with Mads, really, and there was only so long a boy could throw a ball against a closed garage door and catch it again before it somewhat lost its appeal.

Maybe Jupiter people (Jupitarians? Jupiternese? Jupetish?) were a little bit psychic, because even he hadn't known he wanted this, never mind how much he wanted this, until the opportunity waltzed up and presented itself.

Blarney stood up off the tree and cautiously approached, taking one of the gloves with a shy smile. "Thanks," he said, then jogged a fair distance away and turned to face him, their impromptu ball field illuminated irregularly by the meteors lighting the sky above them.

With a nod to the ball to signify he was ready, Blarney asked, "...Should I be carrying around spare recreational activities in my subspace too, or is this, like, a Jupiter thing, or...?"

It was like this guy was seeing inside the very insides of his brain, of his heart and soul, of all the things that had been hardest for him to reckon with in his short time as a Page. Not so much the two parts of himself - it felt more like turning a corner and discovering a new side to himself that had maybe been there the whole time and he just hadn't known about it. It felt like flying, when he was Blarney. He was Blarney and he was Mason, but there were moments - flashes where he was 0% Mason and 100% something else, maybe Blarney, or Blarney on autopilot. Sometimes he was just pulled along by instincts that he wasn't entirely sure belonged to him, and that was the strangest feeling of all.

"I start college in a couple months," Blarney finally said, after having managed not to embarrass himself with the whole baseball situation, either catching or throwing; it didn't go too far off course when he tossed it back, and he managed not to fumble it on the return, either, even though the glove felt strange on his hand. He held up his hand, the universal sign for 'give me a moment', and pulled off the glove that was part of his outfit, shoved it into his pouch, then put the baseball glove back on. There, that was better.

"It mostly just feels...confusing," Blarney said after a few moments of thought, "not the like--fighting monsters part, that part kinda makes sense even though you meet something absolutely insane every other minute seems like, but--because, like...it feels like if two people are both, say, Knights of Earth, right? It feels like, based on everything I've ever read or seen or watched or played or anything," he said, tossing the ball back, "it feels like they should a little bit be on the same side, right? The same--team? But there's no, like...there's no rubric for what makes someone an Earth Knight instead of a Jupiter Knight or a--a Knight for asteroids, which can apparently be a thing, or whatever, there's no common ground, and there's no, like, captain of the team, anywhere, right? We're all just--" Blarney sighed.

"I've only met one other Earth Knight," he began, "and she said that we're all 'conscripted' into this war and that we're all 'independent operators' who can do whatever we want, or not do. I know of one other Earth Knight, who did some stuff that sounds--" Blarney grimaced deeply, "--that sounds like some stuff I, as an Earth Knight, can't see my way through to thinking was a good idea at all and now it's coming back on me, or almost came back on me anyway, just because I also happen to be an Earth Knight and that doesn't feel fair if we're not even--if we don't even get all the benefits of like, being a team, but get the bad parts where you get blamed for other people on your team's stuff?"

Blarney let out another heavy sigh. "Sorry. You didn't ask. I don't even know if any of that...made sense."

Blarney laughed - the noise surprised him, but it was genuine, and he shook his head. "No, I'm not quitting," he said, still chuckling faintly. "And the helmet is awesome," he added with a big smile.

Married to a senshi was a phrase that rung through his mind, and he turned the thought over. Sure, he and Khaz were just barely dating, but it was already hard to keep his secret...well, secret. He could certainly understand the logic behind coupling up with someone who had the same secret - but he also couldn't help but think of how worried Aruna was about him, and they were just friends! And how much he hoped Madeline would always stay far away from all this stuff - that was just his sister. He couldn't imagine how much more stressed out he'd be if his partner was out here fighting the demon chickens and worse. He'd hate every inch of it, but...well, if he loved the person, that would mean loving the super-powered part of them too, wouldn't it?

It was also - interesting. To know that Knights could date, marry even, a Senshi. That was something that was allowed, right up there with dating literal aliens, apparently. No chain of command meant anybody could get freaky with or matrimonial with anybody, Blarney mused to himself.

"Are you a teacher?" Blarney asked, tilting his head slightly as he tossed the ball back. "I mean, I'm not trying to like, get sneaky intel on your real life or anything, but like. You're...smart. And good at..." he gestured vaguely between the two of them, "like, explaining things and stuff."

...Yes. Explaining things and stuff. Very eloquent, Blarney.