[OPEN] Valentine's Mingle

[passingmod]

Who: Everyone! Open to All
What: Valentine's Day mingle logs
When: any time generally around the holiday
Where: awkward cupid / conversation hearts / repay the gesture

Love is in the air, from chocolated Japan to cherubic America, from Victorian times to the far-off future. There are dreams of romance, candy, timid (and bold!) love confessions, and hearts everywhere.

(ooc: This is a post to keep threads together for Valentine's Day. Separate posts or additional subthreads are also fine, and this one is optional. Since some of the affects have potential to force a character's reactions icly, it may be best to discuss between the players or note your preferences/anything you'd rather avoid.)

Comments

[decaying]

Good. [About time you said something positive. He was starting to worry about you. He pulled her a little closer.] It's the only way to really be a couple. If we can't trust each other, then what are we doing here in the first place?

[waterfell]

[She let him draw her near without complaint. She even ran a hand along his shoulder in a tight caress. Her eyes followed her own movement.

She didn't tell she thought she was starting to trust him. Just in case. Instead, she kissed him. A pledge.]

[decaying]

[A kiss was definitely accepted as he turned his head towards her, his free hand caressing her cheek.] Glad you like it here.

[waterfell]

[If she was admitting it to herself, there was nowhere she'd rather be. She felt less tense. Less guarded. Like with someone else she could trust, she didn't have to be so rigidly vigilant about whatever might happen.

She closed her eyes, as if that could hold the moment while letting her escape from what she was about to say.]

I told you a little about the past life; but I didn't tell you how it ended, or about this time.

[decaying]

[He pulled away to watch her, keeping her close by his side as he turned on his own side to watch her.]

Go ahead. Tell me.

[waterfell]

[Now? Well, it had been coming for at least half a year, really. Her smile ebbed, and while she didn't move away from Kanda, she stared overhead at the stars instead.]

We were an immortal race living on the moon, watching over Earth and its evolution. [She tells the start of the story like anyone who knows it would.] However, the prince of Earth and the princess of the Moon Kingdom fell in love, even though it was forbidden. [One of the many origins of her wariness about 'love'.]

When they broke the laws, war broke out between the two kingdoms. Even though she was considered the enemy of his people, he protected her. When he died for it, she used her power to destroy the Earth and Moon both, and everything on the. Evolution started again from the beginning. [One of the more admitted reasons for her enmity towards the senshi and especially the princess - though it hadn't been the first.]

[decaying]

[Holy shit. This story.]

Wait, the moon princess? Usagi? That blond idiot can destroy the world?

[waterfell]

She did. [Not can. Did.] That girl hates the world, except for him.

Tens of thousands of years later, we were reborn. The princess' advisers took our memories of that past and her identity, and told us to search for her and to protect her again instead. [This is her version and she's sticking to it.]

That was a mistake. [For so many reasons.] Because she was protected, she was kept safe until she could awaken to do it again. [Which, she implies, was clearly the point of hiding it and the memory tampering - which Artemis had admitted to.]

I took her life before that happened.

[decaying]

What an idiot. Blowing up the world over some guy. [Women.]

People die all the time. Except for people like you, of course....

[waterfell]

[Kanda could pronounce it idiotic, shrug, and move on. That was harder when you devoted a year, two years of your life to ending it. She wanted to say more. She wanted to say something closer to the full truth, as if Kanda were truly a priest, and her confessor.]

I left the sailor senshi anyway, before that. There was no reason for me to stay with them. My comrades now were their enemies before.

[decaying]

So you left them because you killed the princess?

[waterfell]

No. There was no place for me with them; I left before that.

[decaying]

Why? [It's an honestly curious question.]

[waterfell]

Because.... I saw they were falling apart anyway. It was better to leave that behind.

[decaying]

Why didn't you help them?

[waterfell]

[Those first answers came so easily, like a practiced school lesson recited by a star pupil. But this one...

She shakes her head.]

I changed that world's fate a different way. [It still doesn't answer why.] Staying with them, there was no chance of that. There was no point.

[decaying]

I don't get it. I know you were upset that they were holding you back, but I thought they meant more to you than that.

[waterfell]

No; it was just sort of fun for awhile.

[Something's wrong about that. In her mind, it's mostly the fact that the 'truth' was she didn't mean more to them.]

[decaying]

I don't believe that's the only reason you left. [He got a little closer.] Tell me.

[waterfell]

[She could say all the old reasons, but the memory of Kunzite stops her, of him refusing to allow her to pretend to be noble and reminding her that she was nothing more, would be nothing more, than the girl he found on her knees, pathetically lonely.

Maybe it didn't sound as good as 'protecting the planet'. He'd said that didn't matter; her reasons were enough. But lying to herself about them would change nothing.]

It really was as I said: There was no place for me there. We all fought alone anyway.

[decaying]

[If Ami didn't want to tell him, because he knew she was keeping something, he wouldn't pry. In time it would come out. Things always did.]

[waterfell]

[The silence feels like a prompt to continue, but she had told the truth. (Hadn't she?

Yes. She'd admitted there was nothing to the senshi so-called friendship, that she hadn't been wanted. Her true reasons for turning her back.)]

So I left. I have no intention of fighting for them now. Why should I, just because of a past life?

[decaying]

I can relate. Past lives shouldn't be the reason to do something, but what's making you side the way you are? You could have gone your own way but instead you went with the enemy. Well, your old enemy.

[waterfell]

[There is no good answer to that. Not at all. Because being asked makes her realize...

It's a blank. There's nothing in between 'leaving' and 'enmity' that makes sense, and she hates that all-too-familiar sensation of missing something, something very important.

One thought comes to help her.]

Because, when there was no one for me, one of them was the one to take me in, the only one who thought of me.

[She wanted to be needed, wanted. She wanted someone to want to be with her. The rest mattered so much less.]

[decaying]

Kunzite. [No, that is not dislike you hear in that voice of his.]