831/Safest

Safest
Date of Scene:	08 January 2016
Location:	The Dark Kingdom
Synopsis:	Kunzite and Dark Endymion and updates, and pretenses desperately clung to.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Kunzite

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Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The youma gossip chain is what it is; Zoisite's girls are all getting in fights with the ones who are laughing at him... and the Dark Prince is in too irritable a mood to actually look at any of them. So theories abound. He doesn't care! But theories abound, and rumors are all sorts of bizarre.

In any case, no matter the flavor of destabilizing frisson that currently sweeps the Dark Kingdom, it's probably no surprise to Kunzite at all that Endymion finds him, wherever he is, and just sort of lurks discontentedly in the shadows in which he's just appeared.

After a moment, "Zoisite'll be fine. I mean, after he yells at you about me." A brief pause. "I almost want to know if you were there, but mostly I don't."

The black-haired boy glances away, shifting his stance, a certain tension about his shoulders and jaw matching a certain restlessness about his hands. The change in position is careful, avoiding a very particular distribution of weight, skirting it. "But there are a lot of things I almost want to know."

Kunzite has posed:
Wherever he is was just discussing something going on in Yemen; but the conversation was drawing to a close, sufficiently so that Kunzite's cutting it off will likely be no surprise to the youma he was talking with - another one that Zoisite's influence is half-perceptible in, part salt and part fire but also part the spiky green-gold-white of barley. The youma was not actually present, is not there to take part in the politics of the caverns; Kunzite dismisses the crystal he was using to speak with it in a flicker of shadow.

"He needed a lesson in where he stands with those girls," he says, turning toward Endymion's voice. "He's missed too much information to be quite so cavalier about an operation of that size. Still useful, though. I appreciate your going out of your way to be certain that the lesson didn't incorporate a maiming." Or worse.

He doesn't address that almost. The failure to do so opens a silence, invites the possibility of discussion, or of working around a discussion. Demands nothing.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Part of the tension bleeds off, the stance stays where it's shifted to, the hands mostly still. There's a wry smile briefly on Endymion's face. "It wasn't out of my way, but if you want, you're free to appreciate that I still would have if it had been." The smile falls away, but he's regarding Kunzite anyway, greyish-red eyes serious and thoughtful and cautious, all at once. "But, ulterior motives. I'd rather he actively hated me than doing things to trigger me scaring him somehow." Another brief silence, and his gaze wanders again.

"The witch-hunting girl didn't physically take sides in a fight I was in. She actually cheered me on. Sailor Mercury interrupted the end of it." Another beat. "There's a little girl looking for magical crystals. I'm going to make a deal with her. I'm going to propose to help her find the ones she's looking for, or take her side in fights for them, if she lets me examine them and take the Ginzuishou if she finds it, since it's not one of the ones she wants."

Kunzite has posed:
Actively hating. "At least you have something in common with most of the rest of the world," Kunzite comments in that brief silence. Even to Endymion, it's not clear if he's joking that time. Maybe it's not clear to Kunzite himself. And --

And it feels almost as if something else should have followed it.

Maybe.

Kunzite himself tests carefully the emptinesses between Endymion's statements. Zoisite. Ulterior motives. Fright. ... The witch-hunting girl. A fight. Sailor Mercury. Nothing clear about the end, or about why Mercury's appearance might have been important. ... Helping a little girl. Winding around the Ginzuishou. A child interested in something other than power.

"There seems no reason not to, if she's skilled enough at finding them to make helping her worth the time and energy you put into it," Kunzite notes aloud. Parallel to the decision made about that meeting. The witch-hunting girl. Testing that parallel, seeing whether it's placing a line that's useful to the structure Endymion isn't building, or anathema to it.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
God help Kunzite, because it's hardly clear to Endymion what he's trying to get out. If it were clear at all, he couldn't do it. Endymion glances sidelong at Kunzite at his first comment, then breezes past it for a moment before addressing the last. "Her ally, much older, was deferring to her; he held back from the fight, and took on a girl who attacked him-- took her on without even trying-- while I was talking with the little one. So I suspect she's skilled enough. I also suspect her ally might be an issue. I'll see when I speak with her privately whether or not it'll be worth the effort."

The Dark Prince reflexively straightens up again, then flinches slightly, and covers it with a wave of his hand. "In theory it's much easier to deal with any of them one-on-one. I just can't always--"

He stops, closing his eyes, then shakes his head and smiles. "Why would the rest of the world not want Zoisite to be afraid of them?"

Kunzite has posed:
The flinch is not unnoticed. Particularly not in combination with the care he took with his posture earlier. It is also not questioned. That's not something one does, here, unless looking to score points. There's only the slight narrowing of Kunzite's eyes, and then the way they flicker up to meet red ones, level, searching. Yes, he saw that. Yes, he's more concerned that it happened than he is with how to take advantage of it.

And yes, that's a very interesting question.

"I was rather thinking," Kunzite says in that tone, the one distant enough to make it clear it's not Endymion who's the source of his any exasperation he might or might not be feeling, "that the common ground was 'being the object of Zoisite's active hatred.' But it's an interesting question, all the same. Zoisite is --"

Quiet, for the time it takes to breathe out and in again, unhurried.

"Zoisite is made of old wounds, in certain ways. It affects his reactions, his judgment. He gauges situations at times not by what they are, but by what patterns he perceives pressure against. He reacts poorly to fear. And rarely stops to try to identify its source, or its object, or any subtleties of its nature."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The level grey gaze searches and finds mixed rue and amusement, very subtle gratitude, faint reassurance. Endymion's coping with it, it's not serious, it wasn't serious, whatever it was.

He listens, he processes. Then he shakes his head. "He's not the only one to react to something of which I'm not aware. I suppose fear is a reasonable response in most of the faces that I've seen show it, but it doesn't sit well with me when..."

Endymion trails off, lips thinning. His posture suggests he'd like to be crossing his arms, defensive against something that's not Kunzite. He closes his eyes again, face set. He keeps them closed. "Do you lose time?"

Kunzite has posed:
Kunzite's teeth show. Like Endymion's posture, it's not a threat - not against the prince, anyhow. "I never had it."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The Prince's eyes flash open, blue and piercing, focused on Kunzite with -- for a split second -- the whole weight of his awareness, blinded and shackled and deafened as it is, ancient and massive as the mountains and mutable and irresistable as the oceans.

I see what you did there.

But the blue must have been wishful thinking; they're that grey-red again, and Endymion is laughing, then laughing and wincing and holding his side. "Ow, ow owwww. Aaah-- fair enough. Sorry to have interrupted you. Call me if you need me for anything, unless Her Majesty wants something I'm going out for the rest of the night."

Kunzite has posed:
For that split second, there's no movement, nothing. Breath stopped. Pinned and silent; broken as the sand, and as persistent. And praying, almost, though to something he's forgotten how to name.

Wishful thinking. Never-was. Safest that way.

The part of him that is certain it was real, that wants desperately to try to claw through the red to find it again, is pushed down with typical ruthlessness. Don't try that again. Not that way. Enough attention might have been drawn.

Kunzite makes an almost negligent gesture with one hand, mostly a stretch of fingers, hardly any movement at the wrist. "I trust 'going out' will include painkillers. Even a partial discussion of Zoisite's nature probably warrants them." Or alcohol. But that wouldn't help whatever actual damage the prince took, that Kunzite is steadfastly not inquiring about. Endymion's not bleeding; Kunzite is not a healer. And the implication that there might be more to discuss is best left deeply, deeply unexamined, just now.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's no response out loud: only a wry, crooked smile over Endymion's shoulder, and the boy turns to walk out through the air, dispersing as he does so.

Laugh and everything will be fine.