Talk:Makoto Kino
http://mahoumush.com/scene/index.php?id=1832 MAKO IT'S YOUR POSE :D ~~
What Mamoru is saying brings Makoto's eyes back up to up again, listening; he brow creases slightly. Oh. Her lips form the word without quite making the sound. It takes her another moment or two to come up with any more of a response.
"...I didn't know that," she admits quietly, faintly troubled now for a different reason than before. "About Usagi-chan. I didn't realize... it seemed to me like she was doing it really easily. Maybe too easily. Like at the skating party, towards the beginning of the year - she kept falling and then, poof! Princess." Mako's eyes have gone a little out of focus, remembering. She draws in a breath and lets it out again. "To be honest, it kind of creeped me out. Now that I'm thinking about it, though, that was quite a while ago."
A beat, and then Makoto cracks an apologetic half-smile, and reaches across the table to place her hands lightly in Mamoru's where he's holding them open in front of her. "Maybe I've been part of the problem, without realizing it."
"The henshin," Endymion says, just putting his thumbs lightly over the backs of Makoto's hands. "The henshin is easy. The memories, the idea of her, the idea of her being the same soul -- that's not. She uses the transformation when she can't help it -- like when she takes out the Ginzuishou -- or for reasons like skating better or having any tolerance for alcohol at all; it seems like she's showing off a pretty dress and then putting it away." It's not that his tone is sad, or resigned; his face is maybe a little pained, but it's not disappointment or disapproval.
He laughs a little uncomfortably again and glances away, and his hands don't let go Mako's, but there's no intrusion of his thoughts or feelings: there's only the warm glow there always is at the back of his presence. "I'm not pressing her. I accidentally did, when Flora was here. Because Flora called her Serenity, and-- I thought-- she'd introduced herself so. But she didn't. And she felt like she disappointed me. And I was disappointed, but not in her."
Then the black-haired upperclassman, blue eyes earnest and warm, and maybe still a little more Endymion than Mamoru but clearly in the process of equalizing, looks steadily back at Makoto. "You're not part of the problem," he says firmly. "But you can help better than I can. You knew her when she was small, you grew up with her, laughed with her, protected her, played with her. I think she's afraid of Serenity being a real person. I think she's afraid of being also-Serenity, because her clearest memory is the Fall. If you can remember more than that-- share it with her. You and the other girls. Make Serenity real, make her not scary."
"I can try," Makoto says, but she looks and sounds uncertain. "I don't remember all that much, though. Just little bits and pieces, and a couple of dreams now and then."
Her hands remain resting in his, but she ducks her head a little, shoulders hitching as though she's trying to draw in on herself. "It's not the same as what it's like for you. You're Mamoru Chiba and Endymion both, but... the Jupiter from back then is someone I don't know. The princess, either. It's not that I'm afraid of her, but I don't really know her."
