[012 ☿] Mer-cury

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

She's a mermaid, slipping through the water even faster than her normal body could do, darting beneath the waves and breathing her element. Her tail, shimmering blue and silver scales, flickers to speed her along. Sapphires adorn her ears and neck. When she surfaces, finally, she rests on a small rock outcropping, and plays her harp.

The music is clear and lovely. When her voice joins it, lilting and enticing, it becomes irresistible. Nothing like it belongs to this world. Ships divert their courses, heading straight for the rocks, heedless and helpless.

The inevitable wreckage causes chaos. Men shout and struggle to keep themselves afloat. A black-haired soldier determined to reach Mercury finally comes close, only for the mermaid to grab him with unnatural strength and drag him beneath the water with her in a grasping and clinging embrace. She laughs coldly, stirring up a cloud of bubbles that entangle themselves in her hair that wavers with the current. She likes luring them to her.

These sailors and soldiers are far from the first. In the background, the remains of several ships pile up against the misty horizon, notably one marked as the SS Senshi.

[ooc: join in the mer-cury's mischief, be drowned or wrecked (or spared if you're a friend!), just swim together, anything goes. can tell me what you'd prefer.]

Comments

:| he thinks differently. the hypocrite.

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

Sacred is sacred, even if it's cursed. It's just sacred in a different way.

no being a hypocrite about emotions. said the pot.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[She swims up towards what would be the ceiling if the word could be said to apply here at all. Mosaic tiles form intricate designs, and painted frescoes fill most of the rest of the space.]

Do you believe that? That holy and cursed can be the same?

he'll be a hypocrite if he wants to. said the kettle.

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

[ he follows dutifully, the edges of his fingers still grasping onto his dagger in case of danger. he knows she's powerful. he knows very well, but he would still like insurance. ]

They're two sides of one coin.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

Two sides of one coin.

[She repeats the words thoughtfully, almost to herself, as though thinking out precisely what the metaphor can mean.]

If that's the case, they can't exist side by side. One is always covered by the other.

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

Depends on how you look at it.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[Don't look for the holy in her anymore, Riku. She's well aware she's heading for Hell instead. She snatches for his hand anyway to drag him along; the dream makes her so much more comfortable with this type of thing, after those deadly embraces with the sunken sailors.]

Weren't you still deciding about that?

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

[ he pauses in effect as she takes his hand, not tensing, not flinching, but unsure about it. but after a minute, he falls into a place. and he lets his palm fit with hers as she guides them. ]

Past tense. I was still deciding. I have decided.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[It's a strange combination, that statement and the touch of his hand, unless he means precisely what she could never believe he means: He's almost calling her 'friend'.

He's a fool if he is; she knows that. Oh, she knows it after all that's happened in her waking life, the lives and worlds that were never the same after she met them and not in a way anyone would look for.]

You decided?

[She could be teasing him for that very idea, she could be asking what the decision was.]

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

[ he doesn't call anyone friend.

calling someone a friend is foolish. he is too dangerous for friends. allies, perhaps. acquaintances, maybe.

he keeps his eyes forward, before he floats to a stop. ]

Yes.

[ only then does he look at her. ]

It's classified.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[She doesn't call anyone friend. Calling someone a friend is foolish. She's too smart to fall for the lies of 'friends'. Allies, perhaps. Acquaintances, maybe.

She hasn't called someone a friend in years, since she was the foolish and naive girl who thought she'd finally, for the first time, found people to call that and was proven so completely, thoroughly, wrong.

She swims away from him without answering, ever onward through the center of the hall, in and out among the tall columns and pillars.]

Hurry or be left behind!

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

I'm hurrying!

[ he hasn't called someone a friend in years, since he was unburdened with the sight of time, the sight of future, the sight of death.

he swims after her. ]

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

[She's being unfair, of course; how could a human swim quicker than her? But it amuses her to pretend he's being slow instead.]

What do you think is buried inside this place?

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

Treasure?

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

Of course. The sea is practically a vault for the jewels and gold humans have lost to their own foolishness in challenging the water.

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

History has a tendency to repeat itself.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

It's because humans don't learn from what went before.

[She darts away again, always challenging him to keep up, it seems.]

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

Some of them.

[ he doesn't seem to mind at all, keeping up with her as well as he can. ]

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

Humans follow the same path. [This seems important to argue right now, for some reason.]

Even if they start over from the very beginning, they'll head towards the same ends. The same progress. Their history, their technology, their civilizations, will grow in the same ways.

[She's seen it.]

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

But different people will further come to those ends. There are still differences in the same timeline.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

Only if acted upon by an outside force. [Timelines and inertia. There's a thesis statement somewhere.]

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

Not true. But you'll argue against it anyway.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

If I didn't believe it strongly enough to argue it, I wouldn't have done what I did.

[But she changes the topic anyway as she skirts another hallway, staying near the 'ceiling'.]

What jewel do you like most?

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

Opals.

It's my birthstone.

[waterfell.livejournal.com]

Did you know uncut opals are often stored in water?

It reduces crazing, unpredictable cracks that can occur if the opal is exposed to intense light.

[She's pretty sure he gets the point. And she heads straight towards a column laced with opals.]

[curepotion.livejournal.com]

[ relish the look on Riku's face, Ami. it's of true, unbridled surprise, not minute surprise from a timeline switching to an offshoot. not surprise at his thoughts of human morality being proven wrong.

sincere surprise of someone who didn't see this coming. ]

These are...