The party more or less broke up not long ago.
Senshi went this-a-way, shittenou went that. Mamoru went off to probably cuddle a rock-shaped Kunzite Teddy Bear, which is totally something she would do. (He probably isn't, but Usagi still thinks he should, never mind that the mental image is just too adorable.)
Sailor Moon should be resting herself. It would be the smart thing to do. She should find Jupiter or Mars (or both, preferably) and just pile on them and sleep until the last possible second.
But there's nerves she's trying to shove down and hurt she's trying to bury.
If Venus had just said why she didn't want to join them instead of just...doing nothing, it wouldn't hurt so bad.
No. Squash it down. She needs to be tough in a few hours, and crying about it won't help matters any!
She finds herself in a clearing of sorts. A garden? There's a bench, and flowers, but telling to how she feels, she's not sitting and not enjoying. She's...fidgeting.
A bench. Flowers. Shrubs even. There's sunshine and warmth as well. Peace, tranquility and gentle breezes and soft scents. A well tended and well loved garden, and one whose floral self esteem can stand up to a bit of distracted fidgeting rather than proper admiring, at least this time.
The sound of a gentle bit of laughter settles on that warm sunny breeze, a very familiar sound to Usagi at least. Naru comes around a shrub, backwards at first, watching where she was coming from, rather than where she's going to at least until she turns and her laughter is right here, and just unapologeticly delighted. "I have no idea how that worked, but it did." She notes to the restless and fidgeting Sailor Moon. She's not in her own clothes, no matter how good Zoi's taste in clothes in, they aren't Naru's.
Her smile brightens on seeing her beloved bestie and she hurries over on bare feet to where Usagi is, intent on wrapping her up in a hug. "You ARE alright!"
It's that first giggle that stops Usagi's fidgeting. She waits with baited breath, because even though she knows Naru is okay, she hasn't seen it first hand.
Then she's there and giggling still and just so Naru. Even knowing the things she does now, she's still just so her. And that's the best thing in the world right now.
(The part of her that isn't stressed out beyond belief lets out the obligatory 'huehuehue' at Naru's current wardrobe!)
Sailor Moon doesn't wait for the hug. She meets Naru halfway, nearly bowling her friend over in a style much similar to one she uses for her boyfriend.
She's careful, though, because Usagi can be blown away by the wind. Sailor Moon is more like a brick wall when one isn't careful.
"So are you!" And she's crying and hugging and for this moment, she's just Usagi who is very much happy and relieved to see her best friend is okay. "Naru-chan!"
A soft ooof at the ferocity of the hug and Naru returns as good as she gets, in terms of happy and relieved. "Usagi-chan." Her voice is utterly affectionate, quiet and relaxed. "It's okay. It'll all be okay."
She might have no way of knowing that, and no possible way of ensuring that, other than utter absolute and blind faith, but it doesn't stop those quiet words.
Naru leans back just a little, still holding onto Usagi as she does and there's a little almost giddy wriggle as she looks Usagi over. "You look so .. awesome when you're like this." She gives Usagi's hands a bit of a squeeze. "You get a little pause now? Before whatever comes next?"
It's true the words have no logical weight, but they hold all the emotional weight in the world. She doesn't cry for long, but that she doesn't force herself to stop is a good sign!
And she's more relaxed and far less fidgety when Naru pulls away. (She's still fidgety, of course, because Usagi.)
She blushes a pretty pink at Naru's assessment of her outfit and covers it with a preen. "Don't I, though? Look at these boots!" She looks down and twists her leg to give the best angle for them, side view to better see the upward curve of the pointed top. "Leggings would be nice, though! Especially in winter."
Her shoulders slump a little, only just, and she nods. "Yeah, a little pause. I need to get some sleep before hand, but if I try now I'll just flop around the mattress. So I'm gonna pester my best friend!"
It's hard to look both impish and shy, but Usagi does it now. "Wanna see my new shiny?"
It's a conspiratorial tone, and the way she pulls out her wand is a bit exaggeratedly 'discrete.'
The wand's newest addition, a brilliant faceted crystal, floats freely in the crescent setting. "I haven't really even looked at it yet."
"Eeee!" Naru admires the boots with a suitable noise that would make most canines in the area wince, if there were any canines in the area. She nudges Usagi towards the bench, to at least fidget and gush while seated which is closer to resting than bouncing about. Closer. A teeny bit.
"Pester 'til we both crash for a nap. I didn't /do/ anything and I'm tired." Naru points out, even if it's not strictly true, but perhaps if she rests, Usagi will too, or at least make the attempt.
"Of COURSE I want to see your shiny!" Naru's tone is full of 'well /duh/' at that and she oooohs at the wand itself. While its been present at the same time as Naru, she really wasn't in a mental state to admire it, let alone the extra new shiny that's been added to it.
"Oh wow." Naru's voice is a suitably awed breathy whisper as she looks at the floating crystal. "I can't even begin to think about how one sets a floating stone, but the clarity.. the facets.. just /wow/."
Usagi follows Naru's guidance with no complaints. She is tired, and doesn't quite realize how much until her rear hits the bench.
"Of course you did! Or I think so!" Naru gets a mothering hen look from Usagi. "Are you okay? Was Zoi-kun good to you? You're not hurt, are you?" And with mother henning comes mothering fingers gently poking and prodding to make sure.
Satisfied, she joins in on the study of the crystal. "I think the floaty setting thing is magic. Actually, yeah, that makes sense. Moon Mama says its part of my soul or something? Which makes the bad guys wanting it weird because how can they use something if they can't use it?"
Oh, wait!
Heh.
Moon Mama.
Usagi clears her throat and when she talks she's steadfastly looking at just the crystal. "So, I was an alien in my past life."
"Not a thing. I sat on my butt, I ate cookies and drank coffee.. I dont think I like coffee.. and I listened to Zoisite tell me stories." Naru leaves out the whole hypothermia and energy drain and teleporting out of a glacier bits as not strictly relevant to the reassurances at hand. "I am perfectly fine. I landed a little weird on my ankle, but it was just twingy, and Endymion fixed that up without even blinking.
Naru settles to looking at the crystal and there's a little laugh at the mention of magic. "I'm pretty sure the floaty setting is magic, yeah. Or Mom really needs to update her skills. I think magic seems more likely." She tucks her legs up under her on the bench, settling cross-legged, as further proof that her ankle is just /fine/ now.
"Souls are powerful things, it makes total sense why bad guys would want it. I mean.. didn't you /listen/ during any of the mythology modules we've done in school?"
A little lean from Naru to lightly bump shoulders with Usagi at that announcement post throat clearing. "I know. Zoisite told me. And about Endymion. And your guardians. And his guardians." She pauses there, just a moment, possibly just long enough for Usagi to worry. "It is SO COOL."
Usagi scrunches up her nose. "Yeah. Coffee is for emergency use only. Unless you're Mamo-chan, then you practically need it in an IV drip or something to function." It's weird hearing her friend refer to Mamoru as 'Endymion,' maybe a little, but she's too busy gushing for it to register completely. "He did? Good! Aren't his hands so warm? My gosh! And you can feel how kind he is when he heals you, and eeee!"
Okay, okay, enough gushing! (...for now!)
It's the crossed legs that assures Usagi even more that Naru is fine. (After all, no wince!) "Well, I think if anyone can figure out how to make a floaty setting without magic, your Mama could!q She's really good."
She clears her throat, though, and shifts a bit. "Well, sometimes they get the myths a bit wrong..." Heh. "I suppose you're right, though. But if I'm the only one who can use it, what good is it to them?" So confusing!
And of course, Usagi is worried. After all, even though this is Naru, accepting that your friend isn't technically from this planet originally is a tall order.
But then, Naru, and one of the internal knots over Usagi's crisis of identity slowly unravels and loosens the ones that remain.
Her grin is brilliant. "Remind me to poke Zoi-kun really hard for tattling."
And then, because Usagi, she's hugging her friend all over again. "The dress is really pretty. My hair turns silver, though. But it's a pretty silver!"
"His hands are so warm and it was weird in the nicest way." Naru agrees on the Mamoru healing oddities and she giggles easily, nodding in agreement all the way. "Teleportation weird though.. that's weirder. I'm not sure I'm ever really going to get used to that one."
Naru quirks her head. "Bad guys don't always care if they can use it, though. I mean.. it'd be useful to them just to stop you from having it and using it against you. I mean.. its like bullies. They dont /want/ your book, they just dont want you to have it either, because someone else being happy makes them stupid." She snorts, her opinion on bullies clear.
"He wasn't tattling!" Naru protests on Zoi-kun's behalf. "I think he just felt it was easier to explain things to me at that point than try and pretend that things weren't really weird and confusing. It was nice of him!" She hugs Usagi tight and laughs. "Oooh! You get to look different as the Princess too? Oooh! Silver sounds nice. Maybe I'll get to see that one too!"
Usagi begins giggling at the mention of teleportation. "Mamo-chan can do that, but he's so bad at it. We came in at like a billion feet in the air and almost splatted. Not really, he lands like a cat, but oh my goodness!"
It's awhile before she can stop giggling!
When she does, she listens to Naru's theories on whys. "You know...that makes a lot of sense. My Naru-chan is so smart!" A happy hum!
Then she's giggling again. "I know he wasn't. I'm glad he told! I would have made it all confusing, I don't remember a bunch about then. I know Kunzite was still scary, but in a totally different way. Like, until now, right? He's been 'grrr, I could probably kill you with a look!' but back then it was more 'you can't tell if I like you or not, live in unintended fear that I'll convince your boyfriend to break up with you because he respects my opinion a lot.' I don't think he would have, though. He was just a grumbly, scary teddy bear." She nods. After all, only grumbly, scary teddy bears would arrange a funeral for a cat to make a heartbroken princess feel better!
And she seriously considers dancing really badly just then, just to get in her dress. But there's a click, and it won't always be this easy outside of battle, but she wants Naru to see her.
So, one moment she's Usagi, and the next she's still her but her skin is only slightly darker than her suddenly silver and longer hair, her eyes are a more pale blue, and the only splash of color is the golden crescent mark on her forehead. Even her dress is impossibly white.
For a moment, she doesn't even realize it. The first thing she notices is the sudden lack of dappled shadows and she sighs at her glowing skin.
"You know, if I could figure this out, I could totally read Manga under my covers withought a flashlight."
"Zoisite is good at it.. and I think Melanite is good at it. I dont really remember it with her, that's all super hazy, but Zoi? We arrived pretty much exactly where he planned, and it made my stomach a little fussy. Like the top of a roller coaster fussy." Naru considers the teleportation thing a few times before she is distracted by the whole Kunzite as a teddy bear notion.
"Kunzite is super creepy." Naru declares with a solid nod. "Although I think he's currently a rock, which makes him at once both even more weird and creepy and sort of cool and kinda odd and not quite so intimidating."
"Ooooh. Oh /wow/. That's gorgeous!" Naru hops up to her feet, utterly proving the healed state of her ankle and reaches her hands out to draw Usagi/Serenity to her feet so she can see better. "Eeeee!" She looks delighted, encouraging Usagi to do a ltitle twirl, because princess dresses fairly demand little twirls. "You look like a Princess!" The capital P is clear upon that and she starts to giggle all the more at the notion of reading manga without a flashlight. "Your wand can probably do that too, y'know."
She wrinkles her nose a bit. Melanite. That's...a topic she's not wanting to look too carefully at at the moment. It's easy to hide, though, under what she says. "Yeah, it does weird tummy things. But it's better when it's not fueled by Dark Energy. The one time that happened it was kind of...like Dark Cooties were trying to nom my soul. Yeuch!" Shudder! "But it's better now! I think Zoi-kun has more practice? Or just isn't as allergic to it? Or something!"
She giggles a bit. "He really was creepy! Though right now I think the worst he can do is tell Mamo-chan long, boring stories." Okay, maybe not, but it's an amusing thought! And amusing thoughts are important things right now!
She, of course, accepts Naru's hand and follows the tug. At first, she does a simple twisty sway to floof the skirt a bit. Then she grins and takes a few steps back. Then another, because right now she's about ninety-percent skirt and twirls.
Skirts fly up and out, and there's a noticeable touch of grace that isn't exactly Usagi at the feet.
When she's done, she staggers a bit because dizzy.
"I can actually dance like this! I don't stomp on toes!"
Poor Naru-chan. How many times has Usagi stomped all over her toes?
Naru happily just flat out ignores the reminder about how Dark Energy eating her soul feels like, cause she's starting to actually remember such details. Yuck.
"Eeeeee!" It's a noise of utter delight as Naru watches the skirt twirl and floof and do all sorts of delicious skirty dress things wiht grace! "You? Not stomp on toes? That dress really IS magic!" Naru declares as she twirls herself, utterly not the same in jeans and a t-shirt. Not even /her/ jeans and t-shirt.
As Naru flops back on the bench with a happy little sound. "You in that, and Endymion looking .. like Endymion. You two would be just beyond gorgeous together!"
After returning from the North Pole, preferabley, you know, alive, Usagi will be completely available and totally willing to hug through any bad Naru Brain times. Because, yuck.
She laughs at Naru's comments and giggles at the mutual twirling.
"Mamo-chan's already beyond gorgeous!" So much unbias! "But you're right! He does look dashing in armor!"
This time, she's the one to hold her hands out to Naru. "Come on, I'll show you how not foot-stompy I am right now!"
"I can only imagine him in armour! He'd be all knight to your Princess and .." Naru just sighs in delight. She reaches out to accept Usagi's hands, getting pulled back off the bench with a laugh. "At least there's no cardboard trees for you to knock over here." She giggles softly, remembering a fateful dance recital in the kindergarden era.
Naru gets Usagi to twirl again, to savour the eternal fun that skirts are. "Zoi's right, girls /do/ get way better fashion."
"And sometimes for funsies, I'll be the knight to his prince! Though he does it better!" Still totally unbiased, yep.
She almost stumbles at the Reminder. Almost. Instead, she gives an indignant squawk! "How many times must I tell you, Naru-chan! That tree was out to get me! It even had a scary face on it!" It didn't. It just had unfortunately painted tree knots in all the wrong places.
She twirls, because yay skirt floof, and continues to sweep Naru up in a waltz. "We do! Though I have absolutely no complaints about a nice white oxford shirt!"
So utterly and adorably biased. Naru laughs softly as she waltzes with Usagi in a magical garden with no music. It would be mind blowing if she paused to think about it too long, but she doesn't. She just /enjoys/ it.
"You were just miffed because you weren't allowed to play a tree." Naru accuses with a little laugh. "It wasn't /scary/." She isn't terribly good at waltzing, although she's more likely to get tangled than do much stomping at least.
"Yep. This dress. Magic. No stomping! A nice tailored shirt is good too. There's some boys clothes that are good. Just there's more variety for girls." Naru nods firmly.
"The tree was easy! When the tree danced, all it did was sway and go in a circle! And that's with people carrying the tree! I would have made an excellent tree!" A good natured harrumph! "And that tree so was too scary. It kept looking at me wherever I was!"
The good thing about actually knowing how to dance, even if one doesn't remember how she knows, is its far easier to solve tangles almost before they happen. Foot stomps not so much!
"I still stomp outside the dress, though. So I think you're right! Or maybe its the hair." She giggles. "So true! We get skirts and cute stockings and floofy dresses! I do want to steal Mamo-chan's jacket one day, though. It's comfy!"
She will one day have a collection! A MamoLine of fashion to choose from! Muahaha!
"I think it is your solemn swown duty as his girlfriend to steal some of his clothes." Naru declares with a sage nod and a firm note to her voice. "Duty." She then laughs, shaking her head a little as they waltz and as /her/ Usagi shows different skills spending on the who of her. That's odd and kinda cool too.
"I think its the dress. I think the swish of the dress just counteracts any stomping." Naru decides with another sage nod and then finally, after a bit more waltzing, twirls her way to flop back on the bench. She watches Usagi, in her Serenity self, and there's just a quiet smile, thoughtful and private, really.
"Are all your guardians alright too?" Naru asks after a moment, the thought occuring to her that her Usagi wasn't the only one fighting.
"An unbreakable oath that has existed since the dawn of clothing." Her words are just as firm, and her nod just as sage. "Though if I had a choice, I'd steal more than 'some.'"
A few more twirls, and she's done as well. She plops gracelessly on the bench beside Naru, and as her skirts settle she's Sailor Moon again. "I'm still not used to her yet."
Yes. Her. Usagi still has yet to accept completely that she is Serenity.
Naru's question gives her pause. "Well...for the most part? It's been rough on them the past couple months. And I'm not sure one of them even likes us." She picks lint from her skirt. "I hope she comes with us, though."
"Why?" Naru asks simply enough, settling on the bench and then dragging Usagi closer to sprawl with her. Casual, comfortable, more like a pair of puppies than anything. "What's happened that you think she doens't like you.. the collective you.. any more?" She is curious, her tone gentle as she nudges at peeking into the other half of Usagi's life.
"Was that why Ami was off school?" Naru asks after another moment or two. "Because something happened?" Cause seriously. The world almost ending is just about the scale that would be required for Ami to miss school.
Usagi shrugs, not quite sure how to answer that. Mostly because she doesn't know the answer herself. "She's always been...distant from us. And then she just..." She waves a hand through the air before curling against Naru's side with a heavy sigh.
It's all Naru's fault, of course. It's because of her best friend that Usagi doesn't know what deep betrayal feels like.
Darn your awesomeness, Naru-chan.
Then she blinks. Oh. Right. Ami-chan. "Yeah...she got hurt pretty bad." She curls even more tightly against Naru, nuzzling, adding very much to the puppy pile effect. "She's better, but I was really worried about her."
Naru Osaka leans back against Usagi as she listens to that sigh and echos a gentler version of it. "She probably has her own things she needs to work through. If she was distant, and then just.." She trails off, just as Usagi did. Gentle touches of Usagi's pig tails, playing with the end of it and there's a little incongruous laugh as she teases with the end of the blonde hair.
"I'm glad Ami-chan got better. I'm sorry that she got hurt badly. I'm sorry I couldnt help you with the worrying. I can now.. well. I hope none of you get hurt. That'd be even better." Naru points out with a half smile.
She thinks for a moment before she nods. Very good points. Still, it hurts.
She does, however, giggle a bit in response to Naru's. "No, that tickles!"
She's relaxing a bit more now, and she says something she's wanted to say for such a long time. "You've always helped me, Naru-chan. Even when you didn't know it. Just you being you, I--" She sits up and looks at Naru, not a trace of teasing in her eyes. "I couldn't have gotten this far without you. You're my...anchor."
Naru Osaka lets go of the end of Usagi's hair to lean the tiny bit and hug her bestie tight. "I know I can't help.. not /really/ help." She comments softly as she leans into Usagi.. Sailor Moon. "I can't teleport, or change into other people or heal people or anything like that. But.. I got thinking a bit about that, after that whole /thing/ when you guys had to rescue me." She smiles a touch. "Y'know how on tv, you see race car drivers and they're all by themselves in the car, being all amazing.. but they have a whole crew who keeps the car running, and makes it all go. That. That's me." She pauses a moment. "Although. I dont know how to change a tire. Or any of that. But y'know. That /idea/."
Usagi tips her chin in thought, arms tight around Naru as well. "My very own one-woman pit crew! You'd look so cute in those coveralls, oh my goodness!"
She sighs happily. "You've always been that, but at least now you know! And if I ever get to be too big for my britches, you can always threaten to tell the Noodle story!"
Naru Osaka giggles softly. "I can tell the Noodle story. Or any of a whole lot of /other/ stories, not to mention all the ones you are going to make all along, cause you're you. Reincarnated mythical princesses aside, you're still /you/." She grins and then wrinkles her nose. "I am not wearing coveralls. Those little overalls with a skirt.. maybe." She declares with a laugh and a squeeze.
There's just a little pause and then Naru adds. "Although if there's more big surprises, could you wait on telling me? I'm okay with knowing, but I think my brain is full just trying to keep everything straight at the moment."