Ex Astris Scientia

It's not until about half an hour after Mamoru figures Nephrite should be awake that he unerringly knocks on the right door. Due to concerns of gravity and coffee and superjump-in-tuxedo mixing, the coffee the prince has brought is in a thermos. Due to concerns of self-consciousness, by the time he knocks he's out of henshin and wearing a NASA t-shirt and artfully distressed skinny jeans that probably only cost three hundred dollars.

The knock is heard, or at least sensed in some way. The door swings open for Mamoru of its own accord. Though it may be daylight in Jadeite's palace, here it is deepest night. If Mamoru had time for his vision to adjust, he would see that a crystal-clear sky causes the entire forest to be lit up by a cascade of stars. But Nephrite, apparently, realizes that the walk down from Jadeite's palace is mostly made up of rope swings, and therefore perhaps requires a bit of light as a courtesy. After a brief few seconds, the sun nudges the horizon, enough to create a dazzling array of golds and pinks, but not quite enough to crest the trees and blind Mamoru in a different way.

Nephrite is not waiting for him near the blue sandstone crossed circle. Instead he is at a far corner of the palace, lying on his back in the grass of an open clearing. Of course there would have to be parts of Nephrite's realm that have a clear view of the sky.

The far side of the clearing ends in a rocky cliff, where an enormous totem pole, as big as some of the largest trees, silently perches. It has its back turned, as it stares out at an ocean that seems to fade into the sky.

It's been a couple of days since Endymion's been here, and this time-- this time he has the time to let it take his breath away. He stands in the doorway for a moment, oddly possessed of the impulse to take his shoes off and leave them neatly to one side of the threshold. He thinks about walking in sock feet on forest floor, then follows through and takes his socks off too.

So it's barefoot that he pads across rope and plank, across leaves and topsoil, across blue sandstone and grass. It's barefoot that he comes to a halt about ten feet from Nephrite, uncertainly carrying the thermos and an extra cup. He's silent for a long moment, looking at the sky, at the cliff-- at the back of the sentinel totem pole. And then he says, no elaboration, "Yo."

If Mamoru thought that Nephrite would be annoyed at the intrusion, that fear should be promptly squashed when his face splits into a grin that mirrors the bright sky. "There you are. I knew it was only a matter of time before you got bored of zen gardens and decided to come hang out in a /real/ forest."

He sits up, and his cinnamon brown eyes briefly look Mamoru over, assessing him the way that they assess the patterns in the stars. Perhaps because, though Mamoru is undoubtedly better than he was in the Dark Kingdom in every single sense, he has hardly been the picture of physical health. But the moment is quick, and brought to an abrupt end when he catches sight of the thermos. "Heavens, is that coffee? Please tell me that is coffee."

A tension the black-haired boy didn't even realize was was there drains from his shoulders, and he lets out a laugh. "People know where to find me, there. But most of my friends are in school right now-- the girls are in school-- so nobody should be looking for me."

Sounds vaguely familiar, probably, though once upon a time, he wouldn't have been so concerned with being findable. Maybe it's just because he's been so long in the dark, with people worried for him.

Mamoru's got, strangely, an almost shy expression for a second as Nephrite considers him, assesses; he's self-conscious. It's not something he displayed before, months before, when he didn't know who he was and before Nephrite was sidelined for so long by the witch; it's not something Dark Endymion displayed, either. He looks, otherwise, like he's in reasonable health: all the damage he took when he was rescued is long since healed, and his motion is unrestricted and graceful. He's pale, is all. Paler than he should be, but a lack of sunlight and too little exposure to his planet will do that.

When Neph sees the thermos, Mamoru gives him a brief and crooked smile, padding the rest of the way over to hold both thermos and cup out. "Yeah. I don't have anything to put in it, since I'm the only one who drinks it and I take it black, but it's really good coffee."

The shyness is new. It doesn't fit the dark prince who lurked in the shadows, or the high school student who made a point of being obnoxious to interfere with his preying on Makoto. It certainly doesn't match the dim memories Nephrite has of a prince in another lifetime. He tucks that bit of information away for now. "It can be any color it wants. I haven't had coffee since I was too drunk on dark energy to appreciate it."

Nephrite pats the patch of grass beside him. He, too, appears to be barefoot. "Come sit down. I'm afraid I have nothing to offer you except the view. And the sheer joy of my company, which I am told is a delight."

It's a funny thing. Mamoru was standoffish and arch for so long, Endymion was gregarious and casual and carried an easy authority-- he has made friends in this life, finally-- but his experience with his guys is weirdly limited, here and now. He's been looking for them for such a long time, and he knew them when he met them, and Kunzite practically held his hand through the Dark Kingdom, and Zoisite and Nephrite made sure he wasn't alone, but...

...he hasn't seen much of Jadeite since before he was taken, and every second of Kunzite's presence has been a rollercoaster, and Zoisite is, well, Zoisite, and he really doesn't know what to do. He's so used to knowing what's expected of him. But here's Nephrite, right here, himself, loud and full and real, and Mamoru doesn't know how to act.

He's pretty grateful for a little bit of direction, though he'd never admit it in a million years.

Sitting down beside the bigger teenager readily, Mamoru unscrews the top of the thermos and pours out a cup and the lid. "Good, because it's your company and the view I wanted," he finally says, handing over the cup, keeping the lid for himself. "I didn't want to bug you and Mako-chan. Oh-- sorry about being a pain in the butt about her, by the way, but you were evil and kind of smarmy and I also thought you were like thirty."

It is a very good thing that Mamoru has not poured the coffee yet. A very good thing. Otherwise there would have been coffee spluttered all over both of them. Instead Nephrite throws his head back and lets out a booming laugh that echoes off the trees. "Thirty! Yeah, I guess I deserve that. I've been dressing the part, after all."

The subtle sheen of his suit trousers is significantly less prominent now, after all the time he has spent laying around in the dirt. The sleeves of Nephrite's formerly white shirt are rolled up to his elbows, and the collar is undone and the tails are untucked. Like this, he looks more like a teenage rock star wearing a second-hand suit ironically than a genuine adult. He shrugs. "It makes sense, right? Nobody is going to believe that some 18-year-old kid is a trustworthy businessman no matter how much cash he has. I used remarkably little energy making people do what I wanted because I had such a credible persona."

"Also I /was/ evil. But smarmy? Really?" He sighs dramatically. "You wound me, Endy."

Now Mamoru's just grinning at Nephrite, his toes digging into the dirt and both his hands leaching heat from the thermos lid of coffee. He glances away and says carelessly, "I might have filmed you. Maybe. Probably not, but maybe." Then he relents slightly. "Look, I'd probably come off as smarmy if I were pretending to be thirty and macking on a fourteen-year-old, too."

Sipping his coffee placidly, the blue-eyed boy stretches his legs out in front of him in the grass, looking over the cliff for a second as he falls silent with a slight smile on his face. Endy. A couple of seconds later, he notes cheerfully, "By the way, Usa's been picking stuff up out there. If you want to give her-- or me or Makoto-- your clothes sizes and some preferences, she can get you some stuff to wear that isn't beat to hell. Or if it is, it's because it's supposed to be."

There are so many things he could say, he wants to say, he should say-- or ask. But he can't make himself. This feels fragile. He feels selfish.

Nephrite relents with a small grunt. He'll give Mamoru a pass, only because he brought coffee. It really is good coffee, too. Just as he predicted, everything tastes different when not consumed through the filter of dark energy. It's fuller, more real. He sags a bit at the first sip, practically melting in euphoria. "Oh yeah. That's coffee," he sighs.

The mention of clothes gets his attention. "Oh? That's awfully kind of her. It seems like a lot to ask, with everything else on her plate." He sighs, leaning his chin against the cup just to smell the aroma. "All that time I spent stashing things around the city, and it never occurred to me that I might be in a position where accessing them might be inadvisable."

"She likes shopping," Mamoru says with a little shrug, watching out of the corner of his eye as Nephrite just about coffeegasms next to him and then smirking a little into his thermos lid. "And she loves buying stuff for other people. Especially things that'll make them happy. The reason you've got fresh coffee right now is because she went out and got me a kettle and a french press." He lowers his coffee and looks down at it, shoulders gradually picking up tension again. "But hey, not much longer now, right? And you can un-stash all your stashed stuff. Uh, and if you're looking for a place to live, since I don't think you're mountain's going to stick around for too long, I have-- space."

A beat.

"For you."

Another beat.

"I mean don't feel obligated to take it or anything, I just--" Wanted you all close. Before I even knew who you were, before I knew you existed. "--have plenty of space."

Mamoru's not looking at Nephrite, especially, but he's doing a damn fine job of-- no, okay, he's doing a spectacularly poor job of pretending he's not avoiding looking at the older teenager's face, of pretending he's not bricking up a wall in his head because he doesn't want to feel a 'no' before he hears it.

He sips his coffee again and studiously looks up at the sky at the horizon.

Nephrite looks down into his cup. "I have her to thank for this? Well then. If she actually enjoys this sort of thing, I may need to take her up on that."

He is still looking down into his cup when Mamoru haltingly offers him a place. So it is not until Mamoru is finished, and he looks up, that Mamoru can see the grin splitting his face. "Space enough for me? Are you sure? You've seen where I used to live, right?"

It's not even until he can hear the grin in Nephrite's voice -- and then his head jerks around in surprise, and he stares at Nephrite, and his eyes shine. "I got space for all you guys. I did. It should be enough. I don't know if you've seen my place, but it's big-- and I bought out the whole floor. It's four penthouse apartments, forty-seventh floor, all connected. I didn't know why I got them, but I do now, you know? Jadeite and Kunzite can share-- I have a girlfriend and they're both ascetics--"

His sentences are all chopped up, tripping over each other in a combination of enthusiasm and speed and a bizarre sort of bid for approval. He pushes up his glasses and finishes his coffee and sets the Thermos lid down, still talking, animated and gesturing. "I knew I was waiting. I knew I had to be good at a lot of things, I had to know a lot of things and keep a lot of things reserved, stashed away-- I didn't know who I was, Neph, I didn't know what I was for, why I could do things nobody else could. I forgot everything in the accident. When I was six. I remembered I used to know who I was-- a few days after you told me I wasn't alone. It was when Zoi got hurt-- but I was supposed to meet you all, and--"

Odds are pretty damned good he hasn't ever talked about himself like this before. It's certainly more words than Nephrite's ever heard Mamoru Chiba say all in a row. He stumbles to a halt at the last, and he can't help it; reflexively he reaches out to Nephrite and hesitates mid-gesture, frozen. And then there's an obvious moment of defiance resolving on his face and he neatly reaches to take Neph's coffee from his hand, then lunges sideways to hug him.

The hug catches Nephrite off guard, nearly knocks him back onto the grass. He laughs, and for Mamoru, he's an open book. Years of hiding, of escaping into dark rooms, of locking himself away, overlapped with flashes of something more distant, warmer, of being part of something, for something, with people who he always relied on. How much he'd craved that. If Mamoru is still fragile, then beneath all the posturing and the grins are all the fresh cracks in Nephrite, the places where the terror and uncertainty are still fresh.

He only really caught half of what Mamoru said, but bits of it stand out to him, and he has to pull away to look at Mamoru incredulously. "Wait--six? You... how long? I didn't think... all those years." He has only known about anything for a short while. He is only just beginning to realize his role, here. What he is for Mamoru. But still the horror is on his face. "We left you alone all that time."%

"It wasn't your fault!" Mamoru insists, pushing himself up to look down at Nephrite, eyes wide and earnest. "It wasn't your fault. There was some kind of plan and it went wrong, and then She got you, and that really wasn't your fault-- and I have you now. And half the city's been bent on helping me get you back! I met you and it took a while, there was so much darkness obscuring the truth, but after I healed Jadeite and he said I belonged with you guys, the Senshi and I figured it out. I was afraid maybe I was part of the Dark Kingdom, back then, but that didn't make any sense when for so long I was dreaming about the Princess and she wanted my help -- and we figured out I didn't belong there, you belonged here, with me. And you didn't know, you didn't even know I existed, not really, how could you have known I was alone?"

He's practically babbling, he's so determined to reassure Nephrite and mend those fresh cracks, to help, to shore him up. He finally laughs and just rests his forehead against Nephrite's chest. After a second he has to take his glasses off because for some reason they're getting foggy and salty. It must be the ocean spray. "It's going to be okay," he tells them both as he lifts his head again, less firmly but no less determinedly than he'd like. There's relief and worry, but there's a certainty there -- he was just as missing from Nephrite's life as Nephrite was missing from his. There really is a place for him that's not just a tagalong, not just a helper, not just Sailor Moon's boyfriend, not just a prince to rescue or a friend to go to for advice or a networker or a terrified kid that half the magical girls in the city need to bodyguard.

Nephrite can feel the relief, the overwhelming joy. Usagi reminded him he was a person, Usagi made sure he knew there was someone he could depend on, someone who depended on him; Usagi was the first to show him that it was okay to open up by bits and pieces, fits and starts; Usagi was the one to make sure there would always be a light he could find his way by. But his family, his brothers, the parts of his soul that something in him always knew were out there--

More firmly now, Mamoru pushes himself back up to sitting and says to Nephrite, "It's all finally going to be okay. There are promises to keep." He scrubs at his eyes with the back of his hand and laughs again, and it's a breathless thing. "Which-- one of them is Kunzite, Neph. Mercury has a plan if we can't get him out, if something goes wrong, if he ends up getting his stoic ass killed in this stupid mess. It's a backup-backup, because the Ginzuishou is supposed to be able to restore life as well-- but hell, last time it got used, there was a really long time gap before we came back, and I don't feel like waiting. I need your help with it, you were always the one who understood mysticism and symbolism best..."

Kunzite. Of course, Kunzite. And Nephrite has promises to keep, too. Old promises. Promises that run bone-deep and are more of a feeling, a conviction, than words anymore.

Nephrite grabs his coffee and downs the last of it. "Alright, Endy." The sky shifts again, sun streaking across it to vanish again, just beyond the totem pole's view. The stars emerge from the darkness, patterns blinking into place, waiting to be read. "Apparently I don't recognize the area of a circle divided by four, but if you give me a starting point, we can try to start working it out."

Endymion matter-of-factly leans over and punches Nephrite in the arm, giving him a 'seriously?' look followed up by a grinning 'you jerk' look. "Your head was being messed with. I was teasing you," he informs him, as if Neph didn't know. Maybe Mamoru doesn't think he does.

Then the black-haired boy resettles in the grass, hugging his knees and looking up at the stars. "Okay. Basically, Mercury's proposition is based in some seriously ancient mythology based in the general region Kunzite's from. It's called an Osiris Bed, it's a method they used to resurrect the god every year. They'd make his likeness from clay, fill it with earth, and plant flowers in it-- and when the flowers bloom, Osiris would come back to life. She did a bunch of energy research and figures if we make one shaped like Kunzite-- which Jadeite can do-- and plant roses in it? First she thought mine, but mine don't grow, so I suggested roses from Zoi's palace, which do, and are the same kind as mine... and put his soul stone in it, and then I keep just shoving energy at it and making the roses grow faster and stronger-- then we'll be able to grow him a new body. I mean, also if we put it in his palace. But we have no idea how long it should take, or if we're missing anything, and I figured you'd know best when to start it..."

"That's... wow, really? Alright." Resurrection with clay figures? Planting roses? He doesn't like how convoluted this sounds. But Makoto did use rose petals to awaken some part of Nephrite, so maybe that's not such a far-fetched idea.

The sky darkens further, the stars rotating, and suddenly a bright white disc emerges. "Full moon tonight," he says aloud, though this certainly doesn't need pointing out. It's like a spotlight in the sky, lighting up everything around them. "There's a lot of romance stuff involved that I won't get into. What you might need to know is, a full moon represents the culmination of everything you've started. And it looks like... " The moon quickly soars upward, overhead. "Yep. The moon crosses Leo. That's your constellation. Which can mean victory under the right circumstances. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that those two things close together is a very good thing. We're looking good so far."

The sky shifts again, Nephrite moving it this way and that like a scientist peering at a microscope slide. He points, leaning into Mamoru so he can look up the length of Nephrite's arm, at a very bright star that seems to be both blue and gold at once. "And that right there is Kunzite's star, Almach. What we need is to make sure it avoids Saturn at all costs. And probably Mars. And most likely any stray asteroids."

"I'm kind of thinking of it as a circuitboard, like, you make sure it's wired right to get the energy to the right places at the right times and in the right quantities. Because hell if *I* can bring someone to life, I'm not some kind of walking miracle or something-- but Mercury does need me to shove energy at the thing," Mamoru says, mostly absently, as he watches the stars wheel above them. "It's just that the circuitry is made of correspondences and representations and links between souls."

He falls silent as the moon appears, and he can't help but let one corner of his mouth twitch upwards. He stays silent, though, listening and watching, and thinks of Iron Man flicking holographic screens around in the air, of all things. But then Nephrite leans in and points, and Mamoru's gaze follows the line of his arm and finger, and he grins crookedly. "Those are the colors of his palace," he notes. "How do we make sure of that? I mean I have an app, but this is obviously better than an app... do we just make sure we start it when none of that is going on?"