[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

[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.]

[waterfell]

[He's not gentle, and there's a lot she hates about how he treats her, but she owes Kunzite a lot.]

Kunzite. He was the one to bring me to the Dark Kingdom. [Even in the face of Beryl's angry disapproval. Only Kunzite had ever believed in her.]

[decaying]

[Kanda didn't like hearing that bastards name. Sure, he didn't know a thing about him but any man's name coming out of his woman's lips that wasn't his own made him anxious. It was just out of principle. He needed to stab him in the face.]

Why did he do it?

[waterfell]

[Why? She thinks of Kunzite, telling her he wanted her, telling her she was fascinating, telling Beryl she could accomplish everything they set out to do and was a worthy replacement for Zoisite, a general.

She thinks of reporting information about the senshi to him. That thought is less pleasant.]

It was because he believed I could do what I set out to do.

[decaying]

And that was destroy the scouts? [He's trying to piece things together.]

[waterfell]

[Here, she's on much surer ground.]

I wanted that. I wanted my revenge. Then, when I learned about the past life, and what she did, I knew they were the enemy anyway from the beginning.

[decaying]

But it goes against what you are, you can actually do that? [It was a concept Kanda had never really known considering how easily he could die by so much as thinking negative thoughts.]

[waterfell]

It doesn't go against what I am. [She was always hateful, she believes. Then she realizes what he means.] It's not like that. It's not like Innocence.

[decaying]

I can tell. Are you sure killing them is what you want? Other than the fact they betrayed you, I don't know if that's worth their death. Doesn't the world need them?

[waterfell]

[Kanda. Don't keep going in that direction. Don't make her look at these things. Don't make her look at how none of it makes sense, it's excessive, it's rash and spiteful.]

There's no need for them. [The words come out too fast, quick, harshly.]

[decaying]

Tch. [He was just trying to understand the reasons behind what you do. He should have known women were complicated and the girl of his dreams would be no different.]

[waterfell]

[She takes the sound for disagreement.]

They would have allowed the princess to repeat the past. They wouldn't have understood until too late to prevent that.

Besides, I wanted this from the moment I left them. I wanted to finish breaking them apart. I wanted a world that wouldn't remember them at all.

[No fury like a lonely girl scorned.]

[decaying]

I still don't know why you had to join the idiots to do it. You could have done it by yourself.

[waterfell]

[She could have. She could have shown up to the battles she chose (which she did anyway), and she could have fought for her own goals (which she did anyway). There were only two things in the way of that.

Since it's Kanda, she tells him the truth and those two things.]

The Dark Kingdom gave me even more power.

And I didn't want to be alone.

[decaying]

I can understand that. Being alone sucks.

[waterfell]

[They hadn't seemed to mind it, as far as she could see. Then again, why should they? They were the ones leaving because they had more: more to do, more to investigate on their own, more to worry about, more friends. It was just Ami who ended up sitting alone with nowhere to go, always calling after them, never persuading them to turn around.

Well, it's her turn now.

But she catches something else in Kanda's answer.]

You, too? [He also feels alone like that?]

[decaying]

I won't exactly admit it but my life is lonely.

[waterfell]

[She's not good at this. She doesn't know what to do, what to say. She wants to say the right thing, to let him know that she doesn't want him to be lonely, because she knows what loneliness can be and she knows what it can do to a person and seeing it in him is a haunting reflection of herself and she doesn't want him to feel that way.

She takes a breath. There's something comfortable about their closeness that makes it just a little easier, as she presses his hand. Her expression is entirely serious.]

Not anymore.

[decaying]

[He turned to look at her as she took his hand and he heaved a sigh.]

I know what it's like. It's terrible. I'm glad I can at least find some comfort when I close my eyes.

[waterfell]

[It's the same for me.

Sometimes, she prefers what she's found in dreams so much that it frightens her. It's too tempting, too appealing, to stay asleep forever, to look at everything she's gained and realize she's tired of letting it slip through her fingers every morning.

To not want to wake up. She has these thoughts most of all when she's with Kanda, when she realizes she doesn't feel the press of all the weight she's taken on her shoulders, that she feels lighter.

She can't quite dampen the mood with all of this, but she does ask:]

And when you wake up?