1843/Petite Etrangere
From MahouMUSH
Petite Etrangere | |
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Date of Scene: | 21 August 2016 |
Location: | Uminari City - Juuban Avenue - South |
Synopsis: | WELCOME TO TOKYO, CHIBIUSA! HOPE YOU SURVIVE THE EXPERIENCE! |
Cast of Characters: | Usagi Tsukino, Mamoru Chiba, Chibiusa Tsukino, Zoisite |
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usually Usagi does pretty well covering how much something is bothering her. At least, she believes she is. Either way, she's usually able to clamp things down to where beaming brightly at strangers doesn't feel forced, at least.
Today is one of those days where she's horrible at the covering. And today is one of those days where she really needs to be good at it. Even on a good day, this would have the potential for a woeful chorus of 'poor Mamoru.' Considering how his brain is still smooshing back together after Lacrima Fallout and then Naru's Brain Maze, it should be more a 'why t he heck didn't that guy just stay home today?'
But Usagi is determined. Between guiding him around by the elbow, being his seeing eye bunny so he can capture Eevees that are so not as cute as she is and holding him back because 'you can get that Pokestop across the street after the light turns green, Mamo-chan' and periodically dragging him toward coffee places because coffee and so she can shove food down his throat, she likes to think she's doing okay despite that agitation.
Heck, if she's lucky, he'll let her help him again after the next snafu!
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Pokego is an excellent substitute for the ability to actually be social. When pressed, Mamoru is capable of assuring whoever's doing the pressing that he'll be okay, and he actually doesn't seem upset except for when other people start getting upset on his behalf; he's not irritated about being dragged around, he just needs to be doing something relatively mindless that indicates clearly that he's not listening without actually being rude.
He's thoroughly wrapped up in his own head, patiently playing 52 Pickup. It honestly isn't upsetting to him, because he knows nearly all the parts are there, and the ones that aren't will grow back in relatively short order. All in all, he just seems to be calm and preoccupied, readily steered, not at all averse to touch, and partly quite scattered and partly quite focused inward, if Usagi prods at their link or his emotions.
"Do you," he asks absently, "want a Clefable or a Wigglytuff named after you? Or something else, but those are the pink adorable ones, and Wigglytuff even has rabbit ears..."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi gives a soft, self depricating snort. "Depends. Do either of them go around slapping people?"
Okay, she doesn't feel guilty about slapping Lacrima, but she feels guilty about slapping Lacrima.
Then she sighs and stops her walking, probably getting dragged a step or two if it takes Mamoru a second to realize she's no longer moving. "Which one's the cutest? I've never seen a Wigglytuff before."
She hasn't done any prodding, her own end frazzled as it is. She's very much of the belief that if she prods, he'll get bleedback. And Pokemon Go is nice and brainless and very much easy to talk about!
"I have three-hundred and seventy-six Magikarp candies. I'd have more, but I keep getting the cute sea horsies and those gold fishes. I wanna see what the Magikarp evolves into! But no spoilers! Is it cute? No don't tell me!"
And this is an effective way of Usagi distracting herself from her own brain.
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru doesn't drag Usagi, but he does sort of stumble a little when she stops, then backs up a half-step to show her the Wigglytuff. "It's grown-up Jigglypuff. Supercute. But the Clefable I just evolved has an attack called Moonblast..."
And then there's a crooked little smile. "Where are you even getting all the Magikarp? I've only got just under two hundred candies. I named my Seadra Jadeite. And look, here's the caracal..."
Yes, he's leaning to show her; yes, now he's leaning his chin on her head with his arms around her to hold his phone in front of her.
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
It's very weird how one little thing can just...make everything better.
A grumpy, grousy fog that only got more foggier the grumpier one got. Then click, after trying hard and hard and hard, Mamoru just leans his chin on her head to show her pixels on his phone, and she's almost positive she'll float away with how light and fluttery her heart is all of a sudden!
There are still grumps and grumbles and grousing, of course. It's just, well, MamoChin and pixels.
"You know that tiny little pond thing not far from my house? It's like...a big puddle? Well, it's blue on my phone and Magikarp apparently likes it a lot!" She shifts and tilts up her head, her hands settling on his wrists. "But shhhhh. It's my secret karping spot. I'll show you next time you come over."
- Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
It's cold. It's grey and cold, and the wind knocks her backward with each step. The tiny pink light of the Key guides her onward, but even so, she doesn't know if she's going to make it. Time and space do not want her here. Puu doesn't want her here, and that's almost worse than the storm that keeps sweeping her off her feet.
She wouldn't have -- if she'd had any other choice -- she *never* would have tricked her like that --
But she did, and it's done. There's only one thing she can do to make it better, and that means getting up and pushing on, against time itself if she has to.
She's been five for nine centuries now, and never has she felt so small. Never has she wanted more for someone to hold her, to tell her it will be okay, that they'll take care of the mess she made and she doesn't need to cry anymore. And never, in her life of loneliness, has she been so alone.
A fresh gust of wind buffets her, and her tiny legs can't hold against it. She goes flying forward with a sharp cry, her Luna-P ball rolling ahead of her several feet, beeping in concern as it tries to find its master. But she doesn't go to pick it up. Not yet.
Mama...Papa. Puu...
Her hands ball up into fists against the incorporeal ground, trying vainly to summon the will to stand again. A broken city flashes through her mind -- buildings dilapidated and earth upturned -- the Crystal Palace dull against the sickly green skyline. People lying in the streets, unmoving and silent. Everything silent.
I'm so -- I didn't mean to -- I promise!
Her body starts shaking. She said she wouldn't cry. She has to be big, she has to be brave, she can't cry now. She *can't.*
But she's so little, she has no one, and this is all her fault.
Mama...I'm so scared, Mama... Two tears dribble down her face, onto the ground beneath her --
And suddenly she's falling into a bright blue sky, too stunned to make a sound.
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
And Chibiusa's not the only one falling--
It's Luna-P that hits first, bouncing off Mamoru's head and jarring Usagi's slightly, and the first thing Mamoru can think of while he's straightening up and putting his hand absently atop Usa's head where his chin dug in, hand glowing faintly, is 'but I'm not a pokemon, Zoisite is!'
He looks around for the apparent pokeball and thrower, and spots only the grey ball with cat-ears, pinging away as it rolls on the sidewalk, then looks at him. He looks back at it, trying to parse what he's seeing. "Hey--" he starts, trying to snap his brain into cope mode, the autopilot persona that's so good at taking over when he's kind of a mess. He even almost gets there!
And then a five-year-old falls on them both, and five-year-olds are a bunch heavier than Luna-P balls, and the sidewalk is hard, and Mamoru has literally zero idea what's actually going on, but the least he can do is try not to let head-shaped objects hit the concrete--?? Except no this is really confusing-- especially since he automatically started watching from the spindly little street tree ringed by wrought iron and it thinks there's a pine tree there? A pink one.
Muffled, his voice, "Is everyone okay?"
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
OW! Getting bludgeoned by a chin isn't condusive to feel good grumpy chasing! "Fine, you can tell people, shee--!"
His hand is really, really warm and she's feeling really melty and--
There's a confusing jumble of limbs and sidewalk, and Usagi's pretty sure she's bitten her tongue. And bonked her head good on some hard surface.
When the dust settles, she just lays there with a long, drawn out groan, mostly because of course something like this would happen. "I'll let you know when there's not five of you."
- Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
Blink. Blink. Well, she's on the ground again, at least. The hole had opened up so fast, she hadn't even realized she was falling -- probably for the best, it would have been quite a while before she could throw herself down a gaping portal in space-time. It's a good thing she landed where she did, too. Concrete would have really hurt, and she can't swim so good, so water would have been a problem. Right here is nice and soft -- and warm. Almost like...
She tilts her head up from where it was buried against a shoulder. Oh. Yeah, she landed on a person, didn't she? Any other day, she might have thought to apologize, but today, with everything going on inside her, with a goal that she can't ever lose sight of --
Today, she spies Luna-P just behind this person, rolling around on the sidewalk.
"Luna-P!"
She pushes herself off the poor man, not caring if she tramples him a bit in the process, and gathers the little ball close to her chest.
"Phew. Don't roll away like that, Luna-P. You really scared me, you know," she says, wiping some dirt off of it with her sleeve. Never mind that she was the one who dropped it in the first place -- it's glad to beep at her, reassuring, the little ball at the end of its antenna glowing green.
The mind of a five-year-old is a strange thing; the mind of a scared one even stranger. For now, as the pink-haired 'pinecone' fusses over her robot friend, it seems for all the world that she's forgotten anyone else is there.
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
That... was probably a kidney, something clinical in the back of Mamoru's mind observes as he rolls onto his side, clutching it. "Owww..." he mumbles, almost not hearing Usagi's answer-- but then he does, and come to think of it, he heard some definite skull-against-pavement sounds, and those were the opposite of what he'd been aiming for.
Dragging himself somewhat upright, he blearily looks around, spots a pink-haired little girl with rabbit-ear odangos, thinks 'oh, ok, Wigglytuff, and that must be the pine tree, okay cool' and then sort of oozes over to Usagi.
It's pretty easy to tell exactly how generally out of it he is, even with Cope Persona trying to coax him through being a normal human being, by the fact that he doesn't even try to hide the healing glow of his hands on Usagi again. "Little girl. Fell out of the sky. On us," he explains. "She's over there. That's not normal, I don't think. Cotton candy doesn't grow from pine trees, does it? She's like five, she's talking to her toy, we should probably-- find her parents, I think? Oh dammit, did I land on my phone--?"
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Purr! And Usagi, for her part, unabashedly leans into that glowing hand like a very happy kitten. When he's done and there's only one Mamoru left (darnit, missed opportunities...) she takes her turn looking him over, fingers fluttering and soothing over skin and cloth.
Her eyebrows raise. "Oh, nope! I broke its fall." She holds up his phone, which had fallen in her lap shen she staggered more or less upright, more or less sitting. "Don't worry, your Eevees are all safe."
But then she's blinking over at the pine tree and the cotton candy girl. "Um."
Okay, this is a weird city. But little girls falling from skies is weird, even by Tokyo's standards.
Standing up, she brushes off her knees. There's bits of red where it'd once been scraped and bleeding. Odds are good she'll brush out a few red flakes later that night from her hair.
She peers over at the girl. "Hey, little girl? You okay?"
She's cautious.
After all, Tokyo's a weird city.
- Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
"Don't cry, Lady! Don't cry!"
The little girl perks up, hearing Luna-P's words even as they're muffled by her shirt. She'd sort of forgotten that she'd been crying -- it's hard to pay attention to that kind of thing when you're falling through the sky -- but there are a few tear tracks on Luna-P's head, and her eyes still feel damp and puffy.
That's no good. She's never gonna find what she came for here if she acts like a baby, and those strangers she landed on will bug her for sure if they think she's a little lost kid. She already hears mention of 'parents' float over from a few feet away -- her hands tighten around Luna-P.
Time to get out of here. Before they ruin everything.
Rubbing furiously at her face to hide the evidence of crying from the girl, she turns to look up at her, ready to lob her toy in her face for a distraction -- but then she gets a good look at her. A really good look.
And something is *wrong.*
"Hey!" She unfolds herself off her knees and stands up, not that it helps much. Her head just barely clears this girl's waist, and that's with the help of her odangos. "Why are you wearing your hair like that? That's *my* hairstyle!"
Hers -- and Mama's, of course. It was annoying enough seeing everyone in Crystal Tokyo wearing Neo Queen Serenity's signature hairstyle better than her own daughter. Does everyone *here* have to steal it too?
(So much for getting out of here in a hurry.)
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru's finally brushing himself off, and gratefully takes his phone from Usagi. He sticks it back in his pocket, then trails after her toward the little girl.
'Startled' is definitely a word that fits his expression when the little girl gets mad at Usagi-- for her hair?! "Hey, no-- she's a fan of Sailor Moon, too. Isn't that why your hair is like that?" he asks, kind and friendly. There's not many people who can get their hair to do that style-- good job!"
Mamoru crouches down by the pink-haired tiny, smiling; his blue eyes are preoccupied, and he doesn't-- he doesn't seem to be completely all-there, but that almost seems right, somehow. Almost. In the part that doesn't, it's very wrong. But there aren't any lies to him. "You didn't get hurt, did you? If you did, can I see? I'm studying to be a doctor, and I definitely have a bandaid if you need one. It's got little moons on it."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
While Mamoru's being all nice to the little twerp, Usagi's voicing her annoyance and displeasure with an indignant squawk! "And besides, you can ask anyone! I've had this hairstyle for ages!" She thrusts her hands at Mamoru. "He saw them what I was three!"
Her cheeks puff out in Great Annoyance as she protectively pats her odango. "They're signature Usagi Tsukino odango! I bet Sailor Moon got the look from me!"
- Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
This guy may be friendly, and he may have broken her hundred meter fall onto the pavement, but she is not having any of it. Even the mention of Sailor Moon goes over her head -- that one track mind of hers is very, very one track. She hugs Luna-P close to her again and pouts.
"No!" she says, as matter-of-fact as a girl her age can be. "Mama puts my hair up like this. It's special. Just for me." Or it *should* be. It feels like every other girl she saw in Crystal Tokyo made a go at the odangos, and most of them didn't end up pointy and dumb like hers always are. But still. The Queen is her Mama, and this is her hair.
It shouldn't matter that this screamy blonde girl wears them so much more like the Queen than she does. Speaking of which -- *Usagi*? Seriously? She stole her *name* as well as her hair?! And insulted Sailor Moon at the same time?
The little girl's face goes nearly as pink as her hair.
"You can't be Usagi!" she yells, voice climbing in pitch as she winds herself up in a telltale tantrum. "I'm Usagi! And Sailor Moon would never steal anything, especially not from a meanie like you!"
(Well, technically, her name is only sort of Usagi. Papa says that had been her first name, but these days, everyone calls her some variation of Serenity -- or Small Lady, if they're close enough to her.
If they *were* close enough to her. No one's calling her much of anything, at the moment. But she's not gonna let someone who already stole her hair steal her name, too.)
All questions of whether she got hurt go unnoticed, though her standing comfortably on two feet and yelling at Usagi may be answer enough.
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru sighs, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. His other hand reaches up to touch Usagi's arm, fingertips lightly on the skin above her wrist. Humor her, please. She's five and literally fell out of the sky and it's pointless to argue with small children at the best of times. God knows what her story really is, but we're not going to find it out by yelling at her. Isn't the important thing that you know what your name is? And that that's your hair? Like literally this had to happen today, but...
He's still crouched, which means he's still taller than the little girl but not towering over her. He doesn't notice when he switches from talking in Usagi's head to talking out loud. "...I think I've got enough of my mind reassembled to focus, at least for a little while." Seamlessly, he switches to addressing tinypink. "Nobody's questioning your mama's special hairstyle for you. And that's nice that your name's Usagi-- your Mama had good taste naming you that; that's my favorite name. Mine's Mamoru."
He gestures at the Luna-P ball. "Is that your friend? What's its name?"
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi huffs, but when Mamoru's hand is on her arm, she deflates and relents. Still, she sticks her tongue out at the small girl when Mamoru's focus is shifted back toward her.
And then she's all blushes and giggling, because she knows Mamoru isn't just humoring the kid! "Oh, Mamo-chan. Heehee!"
Then her focus is on the toy as well, head tilting in confusion. She turns to see if her cat followed her today to see if she could make sense of the likeness, but either her feline friend is a master at stealth (she is) or she's back curled up on Daddy's lap (probably).
- Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
The poser Usagi's stuck out tongue is met with one of her own. Of all the problems she thought she'd face, running backwards through time to find the Silver Crystal of the past, she didn't think she'd have to deal with people ripping her off like this. Oh, everyone wants to be like the Queen and her little Princess, but when they actually meet her, it's all insults and shouting. Even here, whenever this is.
Well, she knows how to deal with bullies. She has lots of experience.
A word from the dark-haired boy catches her attention, though, and the raspberry aimed at Usagi loses steam as she turns her head towards him, outrage fading into curiosity.
"Mamoru...Mamo-chan?"
That was familiar, somehow. Mama must have said it before, because the name rings in her voice, a memory that she can't place in her head. Papa's name is Endymion -- she knows that for sure, because her parents are King Endymion and Neo Queen Serenity. But something is wrong.
Fake Usagi is using a name that belongs to Mama. This Mamoru -- Mamoru that isn't Papa -- is asking about her Luna-P. And he mentioned Sailor Moon not two seconds ago.
Maybe it's time to get what she came for. After all, she did ask the Time Key to guide her to the Silver Crystal.
Little Usagi turns all the way toward Mamoru. Frowns. Puffs out her chest, hoping she looks braver than she feels. And she throws Luna-P at the ground.
"Luna-P! Change!"
Smoke billows out from where she's standing, thick enough to disguise the transformation -- when it clears, something cold and metallic is pressed right between Mamoru's deep blue eyes.
A gun, much too big for a five-year-old, too weighty not to be real.
"Tell me where the Silver Crystal is," she demands, much more serious, whining no longer. "You know Sailor Moon. I know that you know, so don't try to lie."
She presses the barrel into his forehead, bracing with her other hand so she doesn't falter.
"Tell me. Now."
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru's hand hasn't strayed from Usagi's arm. It doesn't move now, either. From him, she can feel the strength of bedrock, the fluidity of the ocean, the calm of a still pond deep in the forest primeval, the warmth of a sunlit meadow. She doesn't feel the cold of the metal barrel against his forehead, but she can see it. Unlike the other night, she feels no panic from him. The taste of his teleportation -- what she tastes when he moves them, not the bile he tastes after the fact, thank you -- tickles at the back of her throat, and the crackling feeling of imminent change dances along their link.
I won't die. You'd kill me.
He doesn't move. "Sailor Moon has it," he says truthfully, immediately. He doesn't move. His voice is calm. His blue eyes meet the little girl's red ones; his blue eyes which are so heartbreakingly familiar and so terrifyingly incorrect -- missing, so much is missing, too much -- at the same time, and too many things are different, behind them. "I'm friends with her. Do you really think she'll let you anywhere near it if you kill me? I make a better hostage than a corpse."
His tone doesn't change. Usagi can feel him sending out the pull, quick and businesslike. "Zoisite...?"
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Things Usagi Wasn't Expecting Today:
The weather forcast not predicting a rainshower of five year olds.
Temperamental five year olds.
Temperamental five year olds with guns.
Mamoru, of course, feels her panic. Her fingers are tight and her knuckles white where ever she can grip on him.
Kill you so hard you're alive again just so I can throttle you.
"She loves him." This is her addition to Mamoru's commentary, her voice a touch thick and eyes never straying from that thing in the young girl's hand. "If you kill him, she'll never forgive you. She'll hate you. Always. No matter what you do, she would. And you'll never see the crystal. Ever."
And Usagi legitimately hates how that isn't a lie, especially since the child is five frikkin' years old.
Can I have a drink after this?
- Zoisite has posed:
It doesn't take all that long for Zoisite to appear at his Prince's call- one beat. two beats. three. There is no heralding swirl of flowers as Zoisite appears-- it simply takes a moment for him to appear at his Prince's side, a half-second more for him to see the danger, and another half-second to react. While he is not ordinarily a close-range fighter, it certainly doesn't take a genius to realize a physical response is quicker here than any of his usual arsenal.
He takes care of the threat to his Prince and the Princess with the simple expedience of picking her up and throwing her as hard as he can, gracelessly, by her clothes. It's dismissive and furious, and is definitely followed by the feeling of Zoisite gathering energy for something, interposing himself between where he threw the pink-headed brat and his Prince. "You would be very wise to put the gun away, little girl." His voice is a menacing purr, green eyes full of something dangerous and entirely unfriendly.
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Somewhere in the middle of all this, just as Zoisite's hands are grabbing hold of the little girl, Mamoru's voice cuts through the air with a command backed by the power beneath his feet. "DON'T HURT HER!"
- Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
She'll never forgive you. She'll hate you. Always.
(-- "You musn't ever touch this, Small Lady. There would be terrible consequences." --
-- Papa's lying there in front of her --
-- he's not breathing --)
Those words hit her like a punch to the gut, her eyes flickering wide with what can only be terrified sadness. For a single moment, at least, before she can take a deep breath and pull herself back together, pushing those images back behind the door in her mind. The face that Mamoru sees afterwards is harder, like it was before, but she can't disguise her trembling fingers.
"I - I don't care. I don't," she says. She doesn't care -- it's not like Sailor Moon has to like her, after all. She only has to do what she says. "I don't know what a 'hostage' is, but if you don't wanna be one, you better tell me where Sailor Moon i --"
There's a shadow at the edge of her vision, enough to pull her eyes away from Mamoru for one second, and then the world is pulled out from under her feet.
(-- something grabbed at her on the streets of Crystal Tokyo, a golden beam shot it away, missing her by nanometers --)
(-- "Small Lady, get down!" --)
The shriek that tears out of her is beyond fear. It is piercing, animalistic, as instinctive as breathing. It is the shriek in the face of death, and it is not a sound a child should ever make.
She squeezes down the trigger in blind terror before she goes flying, leaving a trail of confetti and rose petals as the gun's 'ammunition' discharges around the three of them. A bouquet of flowers sits in Mamoru's lap by the time he shouts at Zoisite to stop, but a shout alone will not stop her momentum. A second later, the ground rushes up to meet her, and she bounces against it once before scraping to a halt several feet away.
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Zoisite is there.
Usagi likes Zoisite. He is cuddle and full of purrs even though he pretends to be claws.
Not that his claws are pretend right now, mind you.
She gasps and jerks when the tiny girl is thrown, and gives an indignant squawk at the bouquet. "A toy? That thing is a stupid toy?!"
Even as she says this, Instinct takes over and she's dashing toward the little girl.
Unfortunately there's no catching her.
Still, Usagi grabs for both her arms and gives her a little shake. "What were you thinking, huh? A toy? What if we had been someone dangerous? Never do that again, do you hear me?"
This isn't Mother Queen Serenity, sadly. This is more terrified barely-teen Usagi chasing after her brat of a brother who just dashed out in front of traffic.
And though there's a shake, it's only once, but anything after could be taken as whatever else as she checks her for injuries. "Of all the stupid...darn little bunnies, too big for their britches."
- Zoisite has posed:
Blood drains from the strawberry blond's face-- if that had been a real gun, his Prince would be dead. The thought is not one he wants to entertain, but it needs to be, as much as he wants to ignore it. The sense of gathering power drops at his Prince's command, but he still stands there, offering his Prince a hand. There's no His face reassumes its somewhat dangerous mask after the briefest of drops, and he even tilts his head up, haughtiness in his voice covering just how shaken he is.
"You're lucky he likes you," Zoisite starts at the girl. "Or else you would be in a lot of trouble from someone who is dangerous." That scream disturbed him, reminding him that the threat to his Prince is a child who sounds very scared-- but she may still be a threat, and he is treating her like one.
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Zoisite," Mamoru says quietly, taking the hand up -- bare hand to bare hand; the light-side uniforms the boys have only have gloves if they think about it -- and with the contact comes a wash of golden calm. There's such a scattered mess of Mamoru behind it, confetti and rose petals, but Endymion is rock solid, just as he was in the Golden Kingdom, just as he's shined through before, just as he's been whenever the situation called for him to be that way. There's just-- be at peace. Everything else can wait.
And then he comes over, hands open and out and visible and empty, and he kneels down beside Usagi and Chibiusa; there are still flower petals on him, and they fall away in the breeze that picks up. His smile's apologetic as he reaches to place his hand on the little arm. Usagi's holding her; his other hand goes on hers. No shaken baby syndrome.
That sense of peace is there for the little girl, too. Peace and safety, warmth and shelter, calm steadiness -- so very like Papa's, but also not. And that warmth seeks to take pain away, to mend injuries, to offer solace.
"I'm sorry. You scared us all very badly. That shouldn't have gone like that -- but Usa is right, that was a very dangerous thing to do. Listen -- we want to help you. If you need to talk to Sailor Moon, that can be arranged. If you need her help, I'm sure she'll be willing -- that's what she does. So let's start over, okay? She's Usagi, and you're Usagi too -- since she's older, do you want to be Chibi-Usa? It's a cute name, isn't it?"
- Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
So that's what the ground would have felt like if no one had broken her fall.
The tears are nearly immediate -- shock and gasping for air can only hold them back so long. She didn't hit anything important in the landing, from what she can tell. If she'd just taken a bad fall and scraped up her arms and legs like this, she might not have cried at all. But she didn't fall down -- she was *thrown.* And this is anything but an ordinary day.
In fact, after today, nothing may ever be ordinary again.
The little Usagi curls into a ball on the pavement, her cries shuddering out of her like any frightened five-year-old's. Gone is the malice of moments ago, and gone is the gun that was just as fake, poofed back into her little toy, which has bounded back to her side with the others who have come to check on her. She ignores them all.
Why can't she stop being this scared? Why is she such a stupid *crybaby*?
It's only when Mamoru starts speaking again that she feels her tears slow -- because he's put his hand on her tiny shoulder, just like Papa always would, or because he's the only one not yelling at her. She can't say why, exactly. But her tear-heavy eyelids flutter open at his words, the stab of fear dulled by the peace he instills with his touch. For one moment.
And then there is no more peace. There is only the deep terror of a man being attacked and falling apart, traces of someone who *is* this Mamoru, but who *isn't,* the haunting echo of a woman's laughter -- it's too big, it can't all fit in her head at once.
-- it's all my fault --
Chibiusa jerks away with a gasp, kicking her feet into the waiting Usagi as she wobbles back upright, and in seconds she has torn away from them, following the pavement path as far as it will go into this huge and unfamiliar city of steel. Luna-P bounds along behind her moments later, its plaintive beeps and whirs fading as the two of them get further and further away.
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
And the reason the peace is broken, why the last of the words Mamoru says break off in a cracking flutter of wrong, is because that hand on the little arm -- while his other hand is on Usagi and she's gripping him -- means that despite the strange sense of rightness and connection Mamoru feels with the little girl, something from her mind smashes through his walls like they're not even there. Maybe it's because of the connection; maybe it's because of the connection and her being so frightened and despairing--
--the sense that everything is her fault--
a vast landscape of ruin, crystal buildings blasted and shattered, bodies littering wide avenues and places that were once, maybe, parks and green spaces and pools; a poisonous miasma floating over the ground as the bodies start to crumble; a noxious black crystal on the horizon sending pulses of wicked dark energy through the ruined city-- and a pristine white crystal palace nearby it, standing tall above the ruins, somehow giving the impression of frozen emptiness and death despite its purity
--and the shock of the vision, the strength and emotional depth of it, is enough to shatter the rest of his walls. He can feel them coming down but it's too late--
It's too late. The growing panic from the other night, the sensation of his sense of self being ripped away and devoured, of his being terrified of losing himself all over again, the excruciating pain of the attack on top of it, the sense of him shoving what was left of Mamoru into the ground and leaning on Endymion using the planet as a shield-- it pours through his tattered defenses, gets on Chibiusa. Gets on Usagi. Just like the vision that Mamoru got from Chibiusa's mind...
He stares after Chibiusa's tiny running form in shock, and his heart's beating too fast. "A... APB... lookout-- Zoi-- home-- please--"
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
And to think. Usagi used to be jealous other people got to see these things with Mamoru...
But that questionable future. That lack of self from yesterday that hits far too close to home for her comfort.
By the end of it, she's failing at not leaning against Mamoru, trying to catch her breath.
Her first instinct is to run after the little twerp. Not to shake her again, but to...something. Why does she want to read her bed time stories?
Augh, that girl's so annoying! And getting a cute nickname for Mamoru to boot!
(Not that this is bravado or anything.)
Usagi looks up at Zoisite, still looking a little dazed as her fingers run through pitch black hair. "So um. If I ever complain about not seeing some things. Remind me of certain annoying pink-haired children, okay?"