Latest revision as of 10:32, 9 December 2016

Naru Osaka has posed:
For there not to be Naru text messages for a few hours is not unusual. She is a fairly good student, and that does generally require her to pay attention in class, at least more often than not. Once the lack of text messages has the addition of a lack of Naru stopping by the apartment to paint after school, and a lack of evening text messages, and a lack of ping, it becomes a little more unusual.

There is a time of twilight where the sun has just slipped past the horizon. Enough light to see by, especially if one has been there through the transitionary dimming, letting their eyes adjust naturally to the changes, but the sky is darkening into the richest velvety blue, dotted with the first sparkle stars of night emerging. Naru is laying under the tree, her sketchbook resting on her chest, arms folded behind her head as she watches the stars emerge above, in configurations utterly alien to the earth sky.

Kunzite has posed:
There is, however, one ping that's quietly gone out. Not one Naru would necessarily be aware of; it's been mentioned, but it's never needed to come to her attention. In much the way that the stars above can be alien to her and not at all alien to the Earth, at one and the same time, without contradiction.

It's quiet enough that she can hear deliberate footsteps on the path, all the same. If she turns her head, she can see a glimmer of starlight on pale hair.

Kazuo's voice is quiet, as unconcerned as if he were looking in on her in the apartment, where she'd merely gotten absorbed in her painting too long. "Dinner?"

It is, technically, a question. A question allows for a no.

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru does turn her head, just the barest amount to establish that the familiar cadence of footsteps matches that glimmer of starlight upon pale hair and then return to her watching of the stars.

"I had a protein bar." Naru replies, her own voice quiet in the stillness of the garden. "I might have another one if you wanted to share."

It isn't a no. It's even an invitation.

Kunzite has posed:
"Protein bars will keep." Kazuo crosses a little more of the distance, and crouches down to set a cloth-wrapped package on the earth beside her. He doesn't seem concerned about any further prompting. The stars have her attention. That's enough.

Naru Osaka has posed:
A slow breath, one of those so good at centreing, being mindful and let out in a sigh. Naru's hand comes up to secure her sketchbook from falling as she sits up in a smooth movement as Kazuo comes to crouch next to her. "I've only ever seen it as daytime here."

Kunzite has posed:
"Nephrite keeps his dark more often than not," Kazuo says. His voice stays quiet as hers. "He brings it up to twilight to be polite. Not always. Gatherings win daylight. Makoto does, I'd guess." The words are unhurried, a quiet rhythm that almost settles in with the wind in the leaves.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Now I want to paint the tree again, using all of these colours." Naru comments as she settles cross-legged, her sketchbook in her lap. "There's a different feel to the light at this time of night, the richness moves from the ground to the sky."

"Not that I can do it justice right now." Naru continues after a moment.

Kunzite has posed:
"There will be other nights." Kazuo shifts, lowering himself the rest of the way to the ground. Settling in. "And Saburo will hardly object to your returning with paints."

As if that were the only obstacle.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"If I could do it justice, paints wouldn't be a problem." Naru points out pragmatically. She's quiet again, this time considering the ground in front of both of them, thoughtful. "I never think of him as Saburo. Even less then you being Kazuo."

Kunzite has posed:
"And yet you're still Naru. Granted, we're not sure that Saburo is his name yet. In time."

Kazuo falls quiet for a few seconds, in turn - not long enough, quite, for the baton to pass. "You've seen my stone," he says. "Mamoru showed it to you. Not the same as your opal, but not entirely different, either."

Naru Osaka has posed:
There's plenty of conversation that could be had just upon names, but Naru leaves it for the moment, letting that quiet settle. It's comfortable, the moments of quiet between them.

Naru frowns a little, puzzling that through as Kunzite brings up stones. "I don't follow the similarities."

Kunzite has posed:
That question, too, doesn't receive an immediate answer or a direct one. A little time, in the deepening dark, under the brightening stars.

"Do you have it with you?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru answers by reaching to tug on the chain of the necklace that's tucked under her shirt, well hidden most of the time. A tip of Naru's head to look down at the opal pendant that settles upon her chest, small and elegant, a timeless and simple setting.

Even in the dim of the deepening twilight, the opal catches what little light remains, snapping it into banked fire in the gem.

Kunzite has posed:
Kazuo doesn't reach toward her, or toward the pendant - only watches from his distance. Sits a little while, quiet. And says at last, "When men tame a river - for drinking water or irrigation, for electricity or flood control - the water doesn't spill over into the same places it used to. It floods your house much less often. That doesn't mean nothing of the river is in your house; it only comes in more refined forms, and at your will rather than its whim."

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru is quiet, considering that analogy for a few long moments. She doesn't reach for the pendant either, letting her hands settle in her lap as she considers. "I am, apparently, a terrible plumber."

She considers a few more moments in silence. "I can sense it, I think. A vague hum of potential, but it feels like a closed system, rather than having taps."

Kunzite has posed:
"And yet," Kazuo says quietly, "you've already proven otherwise. Already tapped it."

He shifts where he sits: not much, just enough to let the sound of his movement serve as deliberate punctuation. "I have suspicions about how your abilities work," he says. "Guesses, if you like. If those suspicions are correct, or near correct, then it will be harder for you to access the more direct aspects of your power on an everyday basis. That's not unusual. You've noticed by now that when I need to relocate, or to shield, I need the uniform. I can do a few very small things without it; I can see better than most in darkness, or tell how hot a pot on the stove is. But I can't touch most of my power unless I take up its mantle deliberately. Does that make sense?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Yes." Naru nods in agreement on the question of if it makes sense. "I've seen that with most people. Kyouko doesn't jump without the uniform, for example." There's another pause. "I .. don't know what, if anything, I can do without, now. It feels like nothing."

Kunzite has posed:
"Maybe. You'd be on par with Usagi, then. Or maybe it's simply something you can't trigger with will and intention and analysis alone. Something you have to let go of in order to summon." There's a brief flicker of a pause; perhaps he turned his head in the darkness, or glanced upward. "Not my specialty. Mars might be better able to help you, if so. Or Jupiter, though I'm not sure she knows when she does it. The key to most things, though, is likely to be practicing working with the opal. Directly or indirectly -- it seems to show the most color with indirect light, and that might have some meaning."

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru looks down at the stone again, watching it flicker and sparkle in the dim light, so easily washed out in a spotlight. "It's more comfortable, in a very unquantifiable way, to wear it than leave it behind." She comments quietly. "Letting go is not my stong suit. Not being able to work with will and intention and deliberate is ..." She is lost for words for a moment and then changes tack. "Practicing working with the opal is challenging when I dont know what I should be doing. Or feeling. Or sensing. I know how I felt before, and I can do that anymore and I don't know how to grasp that power again.. or where to look for it. or how to look for it."

Kunzite has posed:
"When you changed, before," Kazuo says. "Was it deliberate? Were you thinking things through, at the time?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"No." Naru shakes her head. "Utter instinct, and emotionally charged situation." She pauses there. "Having to have family or friends attacked to be able to practice my powers seems highly inefficient. Also does not speak well to my emotional attachment to my classmates."

Kunzite has posed:
"Mn. Don't mistake identifying one channel for identifying all of them." Kazuo lifts a hand, a faint blur in the dark. "When you came to find that particular pendant, you weren't acting out of anger, or of fear. You were trying to express something else altogether. And you still connected with it succesfully."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Mmm." Naru muses on one versus all for a moment. "Point." She nods, acknowledging that more nuanced view and considering the art in the middle of the night on a display case. "Creative vision, my own perspective, expressing emotion visually." She muses aloud and nods slowly. "Which had a different connection, with the stone?" The last tips up as a question, but isn't really. She knows it connected with the stone, that was obvious, but how to pull that into her creativity is as elusive as a slick fish. "Hunh."

Kunzite has posed:
He could talk to her about how he does it. How emotion enters into, tangles with, makes possible the magic he works. But his stone is a pyroxene, built of silent chains of pyramids, all straight lines and sharp corners; hers is still silica, but not so rigid, water-filled, built out of spheres that settle into their relations to each other by nature rather than by law. There will be differences.

"Do the two have anything in common?" is all he asks.

Naru Osaka has posed:
That quesiton is met with silence. Not defiant hard silence of dismissal or actively ignoring it, but the soft, thoughtful, comtemplative silence as Naru takes the query and thinks upon it. Thinks upon the elusiveness of colour and emotion in art and the coy fire of the opal. Thinks upon hidden depths and delicate structures, and gentle touches and emotions.

Naru mmms softly, a gentle eddy into the silence rather than shattering it and she looks down at her sketchbook, settled into her lap. "It feels vaguely like I could probably come up with connections to any stone, you know. Kind of like astrology."

Kunzite has posed:
"Like any science," Kazuo says, "you can develop as many hypotheses as you like. Construct a thousand systems in your mind to explain how something works, or why you see what you do. Test them honestly, though, and only those that describe reality in some way will come through."

He does not say the obvious: that Nephrite is an astrologer; that unlike most astrologers, when he asks questions of the stars, they often give him answers.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"How do you test them honestly, when one is working with emotion and largely in the dark?" Naru asks with a slow breath and a sigh as she looks up at him. "I can't even find the edges to have a hope of filling in the middle of the puzzle that didn't come with a box."

From water metaphors to jigsaw puzzles, a slightly better indicator of her frustrations and her head and shoulders droop a little, looking back down at her sketchbook.

Kunzite has posed:
"Consider what you do know," Kazuo says. "What you've already tested. You know what you were thinking and feeling and wanting when you changed. You know what you were trying to express when you found the pendant. You know that it is easier and more straightforward for you to work in dreams. You know what it is also easier to work here, which is in certain ways closer to dream."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"It is easier to work when I'm distracted, although I think that is a byproduct of overthinking it." Naru adds to the list that Kunzite has started, with a little thoughtful frown. "Easier when I'm emotional, or exhausted. The later seems also likely to be part of removing the overthinking it, although before that meant that I also couldn't control it very well. Now it feels too controlled."

Kunzite has posed:
"You said," Kazuo says quietly, "that opals looked alive, to you. That they drew you in into their depths, as if to speak with their own soul and personality and intelligence. As if they had something to tell you."

He glances over toward her in the darkness. "Have you been listening?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"No." Naru has to admit that, after a pause, with a hint of reluctance in that admission as Kunzite quietly provides her words back to her. Presented to her and sounding as if they came from another person. No matter that they are, most certainly, her words.

"I.. I'm not sure I speak its langauge yet." Naru pauses another moment, thoughtful. "Or that we're still at the shy glances from across the room stage of conversation."

Kunzite has posed:
"That sounds like what you need to practice, then," Kazuo says. He nods his head toward the tree, or to the tree's silhouette visible against the stars. "And that sounds as if it might be something to practice with."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"The tree painting.. drawing actually.." Naru comments, as she considers the dark of the tree agaisnt the velvety blue sky, stars sparkling around it. "From memory when I wasn't sleeping after the attack on my mother. After you left. Easiest drawing I've ever done, and the only way I could actually bleed off any of that nervous energy."

Kunzite has posed:
"In your dreams," Kazuo says quietly, "you bring things into existence directly. In waking life, you bring images into existence by creating art of them, and then bring that image into existence. It would make sense that, when you're driven closer to your contact with dreams, you might be able to resolve that by creating art."

Another pause. "But that, again, is only a suspicion."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"It's a good theory." Naru nods thoughtfully. "My theory went on a slightly different tangent. This place is calming, soothing. I use it as a refuge. For me, the tree is part of that calm, and I can't bring the tree into existence, but I can bring some of the emotional calm that goes with it into existence." She pauses thoughtfully. "Another for my list, potentially. I can work in bringing things into existence, I also work in emotion."

Kunzite has posed:
This time, the moments of quiet are still more reflective than usual. "It hadn't occurred to me," Kazuo says at their end, "to think of the two as being different. But that might be a valuable perspective for you."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"It hadn't occured to me," Naru repeats back just as thoughtfully, "that they might be one and the same." She is quiet again, thoughtful through another deep inhalation and slow exhale.

Kunzite has posed:
"Consider the attributes of the senshi," Kazuo says. "Passion strong enough to burn. Courage bright as lightning. Love --" He lets that drop into a shrug, not specifying Venus further. Or perhaps, not specifying Usagi further. "They focus that emotion into a real thing. It's not a precise parallel. You have a broader range than they do; your power works differently. And there are some people the principle doesn't seem to work for quite the same way; the Device users don't often exhibit it day-to-day, for instance, though under sufficient stress it manifests. So I wouldn't take it as certain, for you. But it seems likely."

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru is quiet, thoughtful. There's so very much that she doesn't know about the senshi, if truth be told, and details about how their powers manifest is high amongst those. "They focus emotion into a real thing, which is quite different to my mind, from I can focus emotion into more and other emotions. Somehow the shift feels different than the translation, but I suspect I am over thinking it."

Kunzite has posed:
"I may be wrong about what they're doing," Kazuo says. "I'm not one of them. And I may be right in essence but wrong in detail; Jupiter would likely say 'no, I call upon my guardian planet,' for instance. But I'm not certain there's a difference."

It's half a diversion, for a moment. But there's an empty space in there, somewhere, into which some kind of meaning might go. It's just a meaning he's not -- quite -- expressing.

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru is thoughtful, nodding almost absently at the commentary about Jupiter and planets, and if calling upon emotion and calling on one's guardian planet are one and the same.

There's thoughts. There's thoughts that Naru is struggling to articulate. To any other, Naru would just seem to be thoughtful, even in the dim, Kunzite can see puzzle pieces that are getting reconsidered on where they might fit. "Who else uses stones?"

Kunzite has posed:
"The Puella have their soul gems," Kazuo says, slower and more thoughtful. "Usagi uses a crystal. Devices often have jewels involved. But for the most part -- a good number of Earth Court mages worked with stones. Not all of them; look at Asclepius. But many."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Ami wondered if she could find an artist in the records about the Silver Millenium, wondering if I'd been reincarnated from someone." Naru comments thoughtfully. "I don't think so, though." She pauses again. "Earth Court had lots of mages?" For whatever reason, this seems to surprise her, no matter that it shouldn't.

Kunzite has posed:
"Mn. I should say, rather, that Earth had its share, and most of the powerful ones affiliated in some fashion with the Golden Kingdom by my day. Not necessarily resident, but allied, or at least in diplomatic relation." He gives a sidelong look toward Naru. "We couldn't have populated Tokyo with them, if that's what you're thinking."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"It's easy to think that there was only you guys." Naru explains. "Which is logically silly, but its an easy fallacy to fall into. Or at least easy for me, perhaps. No, not populated Tokyo, but more than five."

Kunzite has posed:
"More than five," Kazuo agrees. He considers that quietly for a few moments before adding, "I don't remember having heard of anyone named Opal. Given our memories, that's no guarantee. But if your magic is that kind -- your variety of it is new."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I thought of that as a name." Naru admits quietly. "It felt presumptuous. There might have been more than five then, but there are only five gem names now." She nods at the mention of it being new. "I know it takes practice and patience, but its frustrating. It was easy before, and now it's not."

Kunzite has posed:
"And the other things that it meant then have fallen away," Kazuo agrees. "And Endymion has no interest in trying to resurrect them. Which is for the good; you can be who you will, without political consequence, and with fewer young fools wanting to make a name for themselves."

He exhales, quiet and slow. "The key is in the lock," he says at last. "It only wants you to notice it, and turn it."

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru considers a moment and then just reaches for her sketchbook. She's quiet now, taking up her pencil to draw. There's not enough light, really. There really isn't, but she doesn't seem to mind. "What does your stone say when you listen to it?"

Kunzite has posed:
He doesn't answer at first. The silence is, as usual for the pair of them, not oppressive; the dark isn't so bad with company, and there's still the light from the stars.

It goes on. The stars are almost palpable, bright gleams of light above -- gentle and patient, somehow in the clear air still not forbiddingly bright, and the blackness of the sky a cool velvet behind them. The summer insects have gone to ground, but there are still rustles sometimes, or the thin faint not-quite-sound that might be a passing bat. The movement of the air from time to time becomes a slight pressure against her skin. Faint scents manage to make their way out of the cloth wrapping the package he brought: chicken spiced and savory, the quiet undertones of rice, just barely distinguishable the crisp sweetness of apples.

The silence goes on; or perhaps he's listening to the sound of her pencil on the paper; or perhaps it's not silence at all, but a natural habitat, an ongoing conversation between tree and soil, air and stone.

And eventually: "That."

Naru Osaka has posed:
Silence, but a rich symphony, all at once, the two not so far apart.

Naru's pencil answers his reply, the scratch upon the paper blending in with the other sounds of the night garden, the drawing engrossing Naru's attention, letting the sounds around them both become part of her narrative.

The dark, combined with the reality of Naru's entirely not-ergonomic drawing position, makes it hard to notice when her skirt changes colour. When shoes become boots, and the night had already claimed the colours of her outfit into darkness, but now lighter again.

More interestingly, is that Naru hasn't noticed, based on her lack of reaction as she works on that sketch.

Kunzite has posed:
'I can see better than most in darkness,' Kazuo said earlier. That holds true now; gray eyes drift down toward her, take in the changes. The nod he gives is small enough that the minimal movement isn't likely to disturb her.

He doesn't say more than the one word. The quiet is allowed to reestablish itself again afterward, unhurried, calm. Letting the pencil take up the conversation -- the conversations, this one and the one about art that they've had in segments and at intervals, off and on, for quite a while now.

Maybe in a few decades they'll figure out whether they've always been the same conversation after all.

Naru Osaka has posed:
The silence that often crops up between them, that comfortable peace, is as much a conversation between them as so many of their conversations with words.

It's a while yet, of quiet focus before Naru's pencil pauses. She considers her page, apparently perfectly comfortable with viewing it in the dark, no matter her usual skills. She just hands it to Kunzite, without any further words.

Only a little while ago, Kazuo asked her what the opal said, if she was listening to it. The drawing of that stone upon the page is illustration of listening in the best way Naru knows how. The page is smooth, but it looks as if one could reach into the depths of the stone, touch the fire that crackles and burns within. The soothing gentle white, the unexpected snap of colour when moved or seen just so. The shadows that entwine themselves amongst the light. The energy and emotion coming off the drawing is palapable.

Kunzite has posed:
The page is accepted, and held carefully for a moment. Long enough for him to begin to look at it seriously; long enough for that regard to meet the little catch she's seen once or twice before, the internal balance marking how long it will take to give something its due, versus something that may need to be accomplished before then.

So he interrupts himself, and reaches over to slide fingers under her hand, then -- if she doesn't pull away from the contact, which is as ever matter-of-fact, not a particular intimacy -- lift that hand so that the sleeve attached to it comes into the center of her field of view.

He doesn't try to demand it stay there. It's only the display, visible even in darkness: something's changed.

Naru Osaka has posed:
The unusualness of the touch prompts curiosity and a glance down rather than drawing away. Which produces precisely the intended result as Naru consider the sleeve that has been brought to her attention. The outfit that rather exemplifies 'slipping into something more comfortable', without any of the extra connotations that generally come with that phrase.

Naru leaves him to consider her drawing, if he wishes to further, as she considers that as always, left to its own devices, her thoughts are often better off without her undue interference.