2045/Art Installations and Occam's Razor

Art Installations and Occam's Razor
Date of Scene:	18 October 2016
Location:	Kunzite's Palace
Synopsis:	Naru goes looking for Kunzite, and finds a lot of fangs.
Cast of Characters:	Kunzite, Naru Osaka

---

Kunzite has posed:
Pinging the cellphone brought no results, this time.

There is no figure lurking in the common areas of the commingled apartments; there is no answer knocking at a certain door.

Even checking whether Motoki's seen him brought no luck.

But Mamoru gave Naru a certain alternative to the park, and explained some of the simpler things about its nature. He was right. It's a lot of stairs down. But the door at the bottom opens into a shrine she's seen before, and is watched over by a pair of amiably wrangling guardians she's been introduced to. The garden itself is peaceful.

The doorway surrounded by stained-glass charms and flowers is probably not the one she's looking for.

The door of carved redwood and glittering dark rock is, similarly, probably not it.

But back at the end of one shadowed path is an archway out of place among the greens of the shine. Sandstone stark and white, reinforced by steel. It seems to be an open thing leading into the cliff face, but if one looks at it just the right way, one can see instead a closed door.

Naru Osaka has posed:
It really is a lot of stairs.

There is grave temptation in that garden. To settle and relax, and do some drawing, and enjoy the peace and relaxation. Instead, there are other doorways.

Naru moves quietly down the shadowed path, found by a fair bit of exploring and poking and nosing about. She stands in front of the white sandstone, the glint of steel, watching it. As if the silence of it will somehow provide insight, or magically open simply for her being there.

Naru lifts up a hand, reaching to feel the door that she cant' always quite see, and in a moment of courage gathering and politeness, knock upon it.

Kunzite has posed:
The sound of the knock is swallowed by the stone, as if she were knocking on the cliff face itself. It does not open at the touch like something out of a movie, or a fairy tale. But there is a curious certainty from the contact: the door is closed, but it is not locked. There is nothing to absolutely ward her out.

Naru Osaka has posed:
Obligatory politeness accomplished, Naru glances back the way she came and then forward again. She has her school satchel with her, she's even still in her school uniform.

Naru pushes at the door, to open it and step inside. She's wary, a touch uncertain, but there's very little fear mixed in with that awareness.

Kunzite has posed:
The door yields upon the antithesis of the garden. Rather than dappled sunlight, greenery, open air, amiable warmth, there is cool and dry shadow, a hall of that same white stone. Jadeite's garden embraces nature. Kunzite's fortress stands in defiance of it.

Not entirely barren, though. High upon the wall, a strip of mosaic tile runs -- a blue vivid enough to be clearly a color even in the shadows, decorated with images in gold. Flowers. Birds. Vaguely catlike creatures. Sometimes, writhing dragons. At regular intervals, the simple clear figure of the quartered circle.

Sometimes, here and there, the walls yield to half-hidden carvings as well: a winged figure high in a corner, arms stretched as if to hold up the ceiling; a faint intricate design of intersecting circles, in just enough relief to cast a strange and lovely pattern of still-deeper shadows.

That's something it will take a little longer to notice than it does to notice one other thing, though. It takes three entire steps within (into that hall, with its feeling of deserted emptiness, the feeling that Jadeite's palace with its birdsong and its garden cat does not have) before Naru has the sense of being watched.

Naru Osaka has posed:
The first step into that hall, Naru eyes track over the white stone. Settling upon the pops of blue, the muted opulance of the gold against the coolness of white stone, following the strip along the wall, marking the creatures, the quartered circle.

The second step into the hall finds Naru's attention settling upon the carvings, noting them, their positions, if any of them are armed and attacking her, or perhaps just for the artisitic apprecation.

The third step takes in the quiet isolation as a whole. The little stiffening of her shoulders, the slight lifting of her head is the main sign that Naru has marked upon that sense of being watched. She calmly looks around, pausing where she is to lift her eyes up, and around and slowly turning on the spot to see if she can mark the who or what of her observation.

Kunzite has posed:
The slow turn is timed. Not just by her. She catches the source of that watching just as it moves --

-- which is to say, just as the reddish cat, all long legs and tufted ears, lunges for her. Eyes narrowed. Fangs bared. All of which would be nothing to be concerned about if the thing weren't so big it has to lunge down -- Kunzite himself wouldn't be on eye level with the thing. Might not even be on eye level with its shoulder.

Which means that there is a snarling ton of muscle mass coming for her, points-first and fast.

Naru Osaka has posed:
At least it didn't leap on her back, which is something.

Naru is at least quick, if perhaps not quite as quick as a giant cat who is determined to make her into lunch. There's not a chance of jumping back, so Naru takes advantage of her petite stature and instead ducks down into a roll to ideally go right under the feline of doom and pop up behind it, prepared for its next move. "Wait!" She calls to it. "I just have a question."

Because of course she's operating on the assumption that the cat can understand her and reply, the question is if it's willing to or not.

Kunzite has posed:
This is an excellent method of being thwacked in the head by a surprisingly short tail on her way up. Given everything, though, that's probably the part of the immense cat that's the least problem to be smacked by. It curls around, ears laid back, and starts to dart forward again, paw raised and claws bared --

-- and halts, very suddenly, at her call.

Eyes widen -- well, narrow a lttle less, till they only look ominously lazy, like something barely roused from a half-sleep and thinking murderous thoughts about the one who woke it. Ears come forward, the tufts of black hair at their tip flicking through the air with an audible little crack.

"It can talk," the cat rumbles. "Who knew?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
Oof. Naru gets smacked by a tail, but that's at least not a terribly pointy bit. Feature.

"I did." Naru points out as the cat rumbles its comment at her. "And now you do as well." She pauses a moment and then gives the cat a little half bow. "I am sorry for disturbing your rest."

Kunzite has posed:
"Don't be. I haven't had the prospect of a snack in a very long time. Except once, and then the senshi wouldn't let me. And I would've had to spit him back out, anyhow. Disgusting parody of meat. There are lizards that would've tasted better. Bugs. Grass."

The cat settles down warily, to the extent that 'down' means 'still half prepared to spring.' "You had a question."

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru pauses to consider that a moment and then notes. "I wouldn't be much of a snack, I'm fairly small. Still. Better than grass." Naru declines to point out that there is a rather prevelant lack of grass surrounding them. The cat has probably already noticed.

"I do." Naru nods in confirmation. "Which may have a follow up questions, depending on the answer to the first question."

Naru considers the cat a moment and then asks. "Is Kunzite here?"

Kunzite has posed:
There's a long slow blink of those heavy eyes. "That's an interesting philosophical question," the cat muses. "What is existence? Is there continuity of identity when there is no continuity of consciousness? Is a place like this one even a location, let alone a 'here'?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru considers these questions, quiet and thoughtful. A far better prospect, really, than immediately being a snack.

"Yes." Naru decides after a few moments of silence. "I think there is a continuation of identity even without a continuation of consciousness. One does not cease to be when one sleeps, for example, as any who have sat vigil over a sleeping peron can attest to with the confidence of an independent third party."

Naru pauses only a moment, letting her thoughts gather upon the next return query. "It is both a location, and a here. You, and I are present in it, and our presence defines it both as a location, and as here. In hindsight, it was too specific a designation for the query I was hoping for."

Naru even smiles a bit, clearly rather enjoying the verbal give and take. Someone isn't in the Debate Club just for the cute boys.

Kunzite has posed:
The cat considers these things, and as it does, slowly settles down further. That might possibly be the largest catloaf on record. Sabertoothed tigers only managed about two-thirds the size. "Well. I'd have to take your word for it. Since you're the species that actually goes unconscious when you sleep. Given all the fuss about sleeping, I'll agree that you've got supporting evidence on your side, too. But ..." It leans its head to one side, peering over one shoulder, then swings it around to the other. "I don't see him in here. He must be being annoying somewhere else." Yep. Definitely too specific. Or possibly too nonspecific.

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru smiles a touch further as the cat calls Kunzite 'annoying'. She watches him settle more comfortably, although without losing her wary. Cats are not noted for their predictability.

"Is he within this realm?" Naru asks further. "Why do you find him annoying?" She can't help but add on that second query, utterly curious.

Kunzite has posed:
Eyes narrow to an almost colorless gleam. "He broods." Ears flick back, then flick again as if irritated that they have a limit. "He wastes time worrying about what he might do, or think, or feel, instead of just doing something about it. His priorities are insane and he can't even get basic maintenance finished, let alone the complicated part. I keep telling him, there is no problem that can't be solved by biting the right heads off. Does he listen? No. No, he does not. Humans." The low rumble is ... definitely not a purr. "If you didn't taste so good, there'd be no excuse for keeping you around. He's in the courtyard. Because you people go to all the trouble to put together furniture to sleep on, and then sleep on the ground anyway."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"He /is/ very good at brooding." Naru has to agree on that point and she manages not to grin her way through the rest of it. "He's getting close to perfecting it, I think."

"I can't speak for him, but /personally/, I think that sleeping is far better on something soft, rather than on the ground. Furniture is a nice bonus, but a mat or a matress is where its at." Naru nods in firm conviction upon the comforts of sleeping.

"Is the courtyard in that direction?" Naru points without letting such things as 'overthinking' enter into it, towards a direction that she isn't quite certain where it goes. Or if there's a hallway down amongst those shadows or not.

Kunzite has posed:
"He'd better be. He gets enough practice." The cat heaves itself back up to its feet -- well, its paws -- and shakes its head. "If you want to talk to the statue, he's this way. You're responsible for bringing your own mat when he bores you to sleep, though." It paces its way -- the direction Naru pointed, in fact. But turns off partway through.

The courtyard in question is not a small one. It's golden-lit, that hour before sunset when the light transmutes everything it falls upon; the walls higher above gleam like stripped bone, but the ground level is still cloaked in cool shade, the sun itself hidden by the mass of stone. And the place is empty. Some of it is paved; some of it garden beds, their soil dry as sand; there is a long channel down the center, meant to hold absent water. One small patch beside it is the rich red-brown of the inside if the Shitennou's formal capes, and from that one bit of living earth a handful of seedlings are putting up a struggle -- several of them are more or less wilted, but not yet beginning to brown.

The white-haired figure stretched out on the ground a few feet from them is, at least, not still in uniform. Not the formal one, anyhow. Just the jeans and white shirt that might as well be an informal one for him. One arm is pulled over his face; if the shaded eyes beneath it blinked open at their approach, or at Naru's entrance to the fortress, it's impossible to tell.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I will somehow make do if he bores me to sleep." Naru assures the cat as she hefts the strap of her satchel more firmly upon her shoulder and follows him.

There is no less avid watching and curiosity and awareness in the travels of girl and cat than there was when Naru stepped into the initial room. She pauses at the entrance of the courtyard, aware of Kunzite stretched out on the ground, even if she's not looking at him.

It is a brief sweep of the area, noting the major landmarks. The drought. The few colours. The lack of blue. Soon enough, Naru's eyes lift up, to where the golden sun gilds the white stone, almost as if in turning her face up towards it, she can feel that potential sunlight, even in the shadows where she stands. It's long moments that she just drinks in that glorious and delicious light.

Kunzite has posed:
The halls they traverse are the same: bluntly functional on the surface, with notes of quiet beauty when that surface is looked past. In a few places there is even furniture, though not, at present, many. And in the courtyard ...

Even the reflected sunlight gives her the sense of heat on her face. Something beautiful, yes, but beautiful enough to be terrible, brilliant enough to kill. Not the friend that it is in Jadeite's garden -- a necessary enemy, welcome and hated at once.

There is abruptly a nose between her shoulderblades, a sudden sharp little push. "Sure you're actually a human?" the caracal inquires. "Not a funny-smelling bipedal cat? Not enough jaw for a crocodile..."

Naru Osaka has posed:
There is something about that edge of dangerous, the thread of the terrible that makes the warmth all the more fascinating. Much as a fire holds such fascination to poke at and play with, even with the prospect of being burned.

Naru rocks a little with the nose between her shoulder blades, and she turns without having startled to consider the caracal. "Yep." Naru assures the feline. "All of the evidence points towards human, and I'm willing to accept occam's razor and acknowledge my humanity." She doesn`t hesitate to smile at the cat and asks him quite plainly. "Are you evaluating my humanity to determine how tasty I will be?"

Kunzite has posed:
The caracal considers this, then answers by opening its jaws and leaning in as if to engulf Naru's shoulder --

"Stop that." Kazuo's voice is muffled by shirt, flesh, and distance, but still audibly annoyed.

A huff of hot breath, and the caracal's tongue rasps across the side of Naru's face. The wet-sandpaper feeling is familiar from every other cat in the world. "No," it says after, "that's how I determine how tasty you are. The humanity part is just curiosity."

"The palace is already halfway broken," Kazuo says, still without moving. "I could convince Endymion to break it and you down for parts and start over."

The caracal snorts. "No, you couldn't. He likes me better than you."

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru didn't flinch away from the teeth that were aimed at her shoulder and she doesn't even try and hide her smile as she gets licked. Even if a feline tongue of that size is roughly the size of her head, and cheeks are sensitive, there's a smile.

Naru turns her attention towards the unmoving, but yet speaking figure upon the ground, tracking back and forth in the tennis match of their conversation.

It's not doing anything to help the smile.

Kunzite has posed:
A heavy chin comes down on top of Naru's head, and rests there, possibly crumpling any interesting ribbons in so doing. "There. You've seen the art installation and had evidence he hasn't died of starvation. Yet. Happy now?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru leans into that chin upon her hair, accepting that the ribbon that is holding her hair back is solidly crumpled indeed. "Moderately." Naru acknowledges on the notion of if she's happy yet.

"It /is/ a rather good art installation, though. The different shadows and colours are brilliant. The colour of the earth makes me particularly happy, and that light. Mmmm." Naru comments absently to the caracal using her as a chin rest.

Kunzite has posed:
"Bet you he's trying to kill you with his brain." The caracal considers this for a moment. "Irritate him a little more? If you can get him mad enough to actually try, I get to eat him, and then we'll both be happy."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"How does him trying to kill me, with his brain or otherwise, mean that you'd get to eat him." Naru asks as she lets her attention slide off Kunzite to take in more details of the courtyard, the subtle things that one doesn't get to appreciate on the first glance past. The set of the stones, the details of the seedlings, the play of shadow.

"I should think that I'd be dead in that scenario, and you'd get to chew on me." Naru is utterly unconcerned about discussing her own potential death, or Kunzite's potential role in achieving it with his mere thoughts alone.

Kunzite has posed:
The seedlings stretch upward, their little leaves a dark green, not quite glossy, smooth-edged and gracefully shaped. The outermost ones have only one or two; one at the center is a little cloud of leaves already, and that and the distance between them suggest a bush or a spreading tree to come, rather than individual flowers.

The caracal stretches, and gives Naru her ability to move back by taking his head off of hers. Granted, that involves scentmarking each of her shoulders once roughly, but it's the sides of his jaw that are involved, not anything less human-acceptable. "Rules," it says. "That blue and gold? The blue says 'you can find hospitality here.' The gold says 'under the laws of the Golden Kingdom.' The lazurite says 'and if either of us breaks our end of the deal, they're dead.'" That tongue lashes out again, but only to lick around the cat's mouth this time. "To get anybody to come here and treat this like someplace that could arbitrate disputes, it had to bind him too. And I get to enforce it."

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru braces against the marking, to keep herself from getting buffeted by the gesture. There's a soft noise of understanding at the mention of rules and symbolism being baked right into the very stone itself.

Naru asks after a moment's consideration. "When was the last time it was used as such?" Another small pause and then she adds, "Although I suspect time is a fluid construct here."

Kunzite has posed:
"Back before he came back here with Venus," the caracal answers, "and they both took turns annoying me. Back before we came loose from one side of our moorings." It considers that, and adds, "A long time ago."

"In the Golden Kingdom," Kazuo provides (perhaps unnecessarily), still not moving. "If Mercury has evidence for exactly how long it's been, she's never told me."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"A while, yes." Naru accepts those markers on how long ago thoughtfully, tucking tidbits and niggles away to be chewed on in her own time, thoughtful then.

Naru is quiet now, thoughtful as she returns her attention to Kazuo as he speaks and then back to her consideration of the courtyard as a whole. There's a certain look to her expression, possibly envisioning it as it once was, probably only barely resisting pulling out her sketchbook.

Kunzite has posed:
Quiet seems to be endemic here, except for the sound of the wind. And, after a minute or so, the sound of the caracal pronouncing, "Boring me again," and turning to pad its way back into the fortress's protective walls. It doesn't bother to turn its head, relying on the echoes of its voice to carry the words. "Get something started here so we get some birds, or rats, or something."

Kazuo stirs in its wake, propping himself up on an elbow and squinting across the courtyard at Naru, as if the indirect afternoon light were already too bright. "You wanted something," he says. The irritation is not so present in his voice now that its inspiration has retreated, but there's still enough to give it more flavor than it had last time they spoke.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I possibly should have warned him that I am very good at boring." Naru comments thoughtfully as those echos carry back, her own voice really only loud enough for herself and Kazuo.

Naru looks over at the now lounging Kazuo, in position if not in temperment and she nods as she looks at him. There's no sugar coating her reason for visiting. "I wanted to see how you were."