Haruka shifts in her sleep in the hotel bed, disjointed dreams that don't quite make sense but for some reason call to mind the rooftop where she'd met Mamoru and Usagi. She dreams of roses, more than were ever capable of growing on a space that relatively small, enough for a whole kingdom. She wakes up, blinking blearily as she tries to figure out what time it is. She still has her phone in her pocket, and carefully, so she doesn't cause herself too much pain, she starts texting Mamoru's phone.
TXT to Mamoru Chiba: You know that awful storm? I overdid it helping and EVERYTHING hurts. I'm at the Hotel Agusta with Kanata, if you're not busy... if you are I have ibuprofen and diphenhydramine. -Flora
After the responding, much shorter 'omw! :)' from Mamoru, she sinks back into a half-doze. It's nice knowing people, even if she'd rather not have to ask for a favor like this.
Kanata slept on the couch. He is not a /spoiled/ Prince. And also. A couch is better than 'Hope Kingdom Bramble City'. Haruka has the big ol' Hotel Bed. It's comfy. Pafu is still in the middle of doing her BEST MAID. BEST MAID. /BEST MAID/ routine and everything is being dusted by the tiny spaniel fairy with a feather dusty. Where did she get the feathers?
They're purple so it's better not to ask!
Aroma isn't here. He's probably trying to find more tea.
Kanata right now, is making sure Haruka is okay! She's using her phone. And also. She texted someone.
She's talked about Mamoru before. But he's coming /here/ and that's also why Pafu is in full BEST MAID mode.
Aroma comes in with tea bags. Tea immediatly begins being brewed.
Kanata is sitting there and looks itchy.
Shamour's teachings demand he get ultra dressed up- maybe henshin into frilly prince get up. Haruka told him to knock that off before.
So he's just in his usual boring clothes trying not to look itchy and failing.
He's made sure Haruka's got her meds. It was easy to find 'a giant bag of medication'.
He reads this as 'Haruka's mom cares about her a lot'.
'OMW' apparently means 'took the rooftops then decided to enter in a civilized fashion (read: don't know which room is which from the outside)', because there's a knock at the door. It's a pretty cheerful knock, as knocks go.
While he's waiting for the door to be opened, Mamoru hooks his thumbs in his pockets -- he's certainly not dressed like a prince, he's dressed like an Infinity High School student with an anorak over his uniform, and his glasses have stopped fogging up -- and glances at Kazuo. "She got hurt helping Sakura in that ice storm," he says, shifting a little uncomfortably. "I couldn't get out of tutoring. I thought it was just as well when I heard what happened there, but I didn't know anyone got really hurt."
"Since Sakura was able to be there because you made sure she didn't have a concussion," Kazuo notes back to Mamoru, "I'd say you prepaid that one." He's dressed the way he's always dressed, in turn -- white shirt and blue jeans, less reputable than Mamoru's outfit; the military-styled black wool coat helps, but it's not going to overcome the jeans. Even if he's standing straight enough to emphasize it. At least the Augusta is not one of those buildings in which standing straight is actually a health hazard in itself for him.
Hope Kanata IS SO ITCHY. It doesn't help when the doors finally knock. Nope. It's okay. He'll stop being so itchy when he actually meets these people and he can stop worrying about formalities and whatever the hell Miss Shamour taught him when he was like seven.
He opens the door. He clears his throat. "Hello! You must be Mamoru and-----" face fault. He has no idea who this other guy is. Like. Haruka just said she was going to text Mamoru. "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware of any other names coming. You're welcome in regardless!" he insists. SO INCREDIBLY formal. He welcomes them inside.
The door is opened. The hotel room is relativly room, spacious fancy. The Augusta sort of is upper class.
Pafu flys by. "Hi Mamoru-san" she says. "Hi Kazuo-san!" she says as she goes about dusting.
Kanata says. "She belives she is showing up housekeeping. Housekeeping belives I am a neat freak now." he insists.
"Haruka-chan is resting. On the bed. We. Were. Drawn to that tower. In downtown?" the tower in downtown. He isn't from around here. Nope.
"She---" he tries to find the right words. 'Overdid it' is one description but it's also sort of insulting. "---Over-exerted herself. Unexpectedly. To contain the storm that had hit." he says. "It hurts for her to move very much. She's doing better. But not very much."
"She says. You can help with that?" he asks.
"Right.. um. Tea. Is being made!"
"Hello-roma!" says Aroma from the kitchenette.
Look, when you have a fairy maid and butler, you let them do thier things.
"Would you like to si---" there's still a comforter over the couch. He sort of skeedadles to take care of that mid sentence in a tiny fluster.
Still itchy. It's clear he's trying to keep cordial though. In some weird way.
Itchy with awkward formality despite jeans on one and a school uniform and an anorak on the other. Mamoru's slightly bewildered, but shakes it off as he comes in. "And you're Kanata, I guess! Hi! Relax," he says with a crooked grin, shrugging out of his coat and casually dropping it over the back of an antique wingback chair. "I wasn't raised as royalty in this life, and even when I was, I was a pain in the neck. Hi Pafu, hi Aroma-- Kanata-san, this is Kazuo Takeba, he's my..." He glances back at Kunzite. His eyes sparkle. He turns back to Kanata and finishes, "right-hand man. And I'm his pain in the neck."
Instead of sitting down, he heads straight for the bed where Haruka's laid out like Princess Aurora in jimjams. "I can definitely help," he agrees, "so why don't I do that first? Also, that was Tokyo Tower; it's a twin of the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, which is another beautiful city, in a different country."
He reaches out and puts a hand on Haruka's forehead, like he's going to take her temperature, but his hand glows a gentle gold-- if Kanata's capable of sensing the 'taste' of magic, as it were, then what's going on right there, plain as you like, has the taste of this whole planet-- what it feels like in comparison to the world that Kanata's from.
Kazuo bows to Kanata gravely as he's introduced, and nods back to Pafu's greeting only afterward. These things have an order in which they must be done, after all. Eyeing Mamoru back for a moment is also one of the obligatory things, but he lets some things never change simply hang unspoken in the air rather than going to the trouble of voicing it.
"Tokyo Tower is an occasional magnet for these things," he says to Kanata. "It's almost tempting to arrange a warning system, in case there's ever something there that doesn't announce itself properly." A couple of steps put him unobtrusively in range to catch Mamoru in case of any unexpected overdraw and collapse, and also permits him to carefully not-see the fluster over the comforter. "Hello, Pafu. You look like you're doing a very good job." Possibly Aroma will be greeted upon entry into the room.
Haruka's eyes slide open and she blinks groggily. She knows this feeling, recognizes it from when she had that awful gash on her arm healed. She smiles as the feeling of her all of her being stressed to the point that nothing wanted to work, that her body didn't even want her to move dissipates.
When he's done, she takes a moment to catch her breath and sit up straight, not moving at all like it pains her, like she would rather not be moving. "Thank you... I didn't want to be caught flat-footed in case something happened again." Because Kanata is good at barriers, but she hasn't seen him use a whole lot more magic. She blinks at Kazuo's presence, nodding to him. "And thank you, Pafu, Aroma, Kanata-kun," she adds, cheeks turning a bit red at her boldness there. "For taking care of me."
Hope Kanata didn't even REMEMBER to SAY HIS NAME. "Y--yes. Kanata. Hope Grand Kanata. But. Just. 'Kanata'. Is fine. And easier." he says politely. "For most people." he suddenly adds. Comforter gets shoved into the closet. There. Spic and span.
Hopefully Shamour is pleased. Wherever the heck she is.
"Hello then, Mamoru-san, Hello, Kazou-san." he says politely. "Yes. I understand. A lot happens here. I'm not sure why that happened there- really. There were these. Cards. At the end...."
Then. "This life?" he asks quizzically. He doesn't understand.
But Mamoru is off and he's healing and--that feels. Odd. Familiar, but not. He can feel it prickle, on the back of his neck.
And Haruka wakes up and sits up without much pain.
He breathes a sigh of relief. That was. Fast.
"Thank you." he says politely. "I was worried." he says.
And he was.
Yeah there's a clatter in the kitchenette over the -kun. It's Aroma. Yes.
"/Kanata-sama!/." he insists.
Kanata wilts. Really?
"It's fine Aroma."
"NO IT ISN'T-ROMA!"
Pafu daintly floats over and baps Aroma with the duster- then daintly flys past him and dust around the counters. Even though there's no dust there at all. This entails a small chase around the hotel room in the background now about the proper use of formalities.
About pain in the asses. >,>
"Are you feeling much better now?" he asks.
"Aroma, at the moment you're not in the Hope Kingdom," Mamoru says before he says anything else at all, and he straightens up and -- very subtly -- okay not so subtly, but it doesn't look entirely like overextension on his part, just nearly so -- leans on Kunzite a little. "And since mundane governments don't recognise magical royalty, it's generally a good idea to blend in. Sticking an honorific like that on a name isn't blending in. I let Sailor Mercury get away with Mamoru-no-kimi in very specific circumstances, but that's not when anyone can overhear it -- and it's not a habit she has, so there's no danger of it coming out randomly where it might be noticed. What I'm trying to say is-- when you're on here, follow these rules, and when you're there, that's when you follow those rules. It's proper. Diplomatic."
Then he reaches up and takes his glasses off, rubbing at the sides of his nose. "Kanata, then. Mamoru is fine for me, or Chiba, or Endymion, or honestly even 'yo' if you're tonguetied, I'll answer to it." Then he folds his glasses and puts them in his shirt pocket, and snap-points at Haruka. "And you. Thank you for calling. There is literally no sense in being walking wounded when there's someone who's happy to fix it, and it annoys me when I have standing offers and people don't call because they don't want to impose."
Haruka bristles a little at Aroma, and decides to stick her own oar in. Usagi's pep-talk did wonders for her confidence- it's not that she's not a princess, it's that her dream is to live up to the title, at this point. "On top of everything Mamoru-san just said, I have one more thing to add: Am I a princess or not? Because if I am, doesn't that make Kanata-kun and I equals in rank?" Her not-inconsiderable eyebrows crawl up her forehead.
"Because the last I heard from Miss Shamour, I am one, and I'm making up for lost time to be a better princess." And she's getting really, very sick of Aroma being such an irritating stuffed shirt. "If Kanata-kun has an issue with me calling him that, that's one thing. But someone standing on another world's protocol while here? All that does is cause problems, and if it weren't for the fact that I've made friends that'd really cut at my confidence," She shakes her head, as if trying to shake away flies.
"...I... kind of figured. I mean, it's like what I did for Sakura-chan. I offered to help her, and even though she didn't ask... she kind of didn't need to."
Pafu doesn't so much as care about protocol in so much as she cares that /SHE IS BEST MAID/- and sort of lets herself be chased around in the air by Aroma for a good few moments.
Aroma gets talked down to and he doesn't like this. "W--well!" he insists. "Protocol is important-roma!" he insists. "Even in another land you should do you best to be presentable an----"
Pafu circles around and bamfs into Aroma's backside and the two go tumbling to the ground somewhere in a pile on the corner of Haruka's bed on the comforter.
"Get off me-roma!" insists to Pafu. Pafu gets up, gives Aroma a raspberry and gets back to work.
Aroma sits there with a sour grapes look and his wings crossed in front of him.
Kanata looks away from this and clears his throat. "That's mostly correct." he says.
He moves closer to Haruka. "I'm glad to see you moving again." he says with a smile. "Kanata-kun is.. perfectly fine." he insists.
He head tilts. "Shamour is wise." he says a little wryly. "She's taught plenty, going back a long time."
He then frowns a bit. "I wasn't aware that- you were taxing yourself so heavily so soon." he admits.
He seems to think on this a moment as he looks between the three and then stands back up more straight as he says. "Excuse me a moment." he says.
He walks over to a portrait of the Tokoyo skyline and then swings it to the right revealing a pretty boring safe that all the Augusta rooms have.
He uncermoniously puts in a combination- and he opens the safe.
He sort of stares at the contents. (It's glowing? Primarily. Pinkish. Bluish. and Yellowish.) and he touches a pink glow and he pulls out. He closes the safe and he puts the portrait back carefully.
In his hands is a small rod. More something like a wand- but it also looks less like that- a glass rod with designs etched into- and a flowerly shape at the bottom and two gold hearts, center- and a thin gold band.
"You're probably ready for this now." he says-- offering it to Haruka. "Here." he says.
"These were the only other artifacts I--- was able to rescue. When I ran away." he says.
"The Princess Crystal Rods. They belonged to the original Princess Pretty Cure." he says.
"You should be able to use it with the Dress-Up keys." he says.
"There's two others- for the other two. When you find them." he says.
Mamoru smiles lopsidedly at Haruka's answer, and he nods firmly. "Right. We help each other, or what are we even for? And that means accepting it too. Spread that around, will you? No one listens to me anymore," he finishes with a laugh-- still leaning on Kunzite, because this prince comes with an ambulatory wall.
And then ... there's fairy fighting, and he's grateful that Luna and Artemis don't fight. Like that anyway. And there's apparently a power upgrade going on, and Mamoru reaches up to scratch at his nose and looks uncertain. "Uh-- why don't we let you get to work, then? I'm sure we'll see you both soon. Kanata, you're welcome to stop by our place too -- if you're okay by Haru-chan, you're okay by me -- there's always something happening, and it's usually quite loud."
Kazuo was, alas, not capable of greeting Haruka's waking in proper formal fashion, largely because bowing to her would mean dislodging the leaner. An inclination of his head to her had to serve, rather deeper than the more casual greeting that Pafu received -- and that Aroma did, before Aroma devolved into a cloud of dust and feathers, and then a ball of feathers and sulk. "Perhaps you might be willing to stop by as well, when your schedule and the weather permit," he says to the fairy. "Adapting protocol to circumstances it was never designed for is always difficult; it might do us both a service to compare notes."
(Whether the service it might do Kunzite is 'getting Aroma to bother Haruka less often' shall go utterly unmentioned.)
Haruka notds in agreement to what Mamoru says- that's completely right. Even if they're not fighting the same enemies, even if they're not from the same group, they are all still in this together, and that means giving- and getting help from people.
Haruka takes the rod and nods. She's not sure what to do with it, but... "I still have the other two Perfumes in my room," she says. "In case the other two show up." She smiles a little at Mamoru, crookedly. "I'll show him where it is, next time I'm out and about." There's a brief flash of gratitude thrown Kazuo's way, a small smile and a brightening of green eyes. "I think... it'll be a little bit before I use this, unless I really need to." She looks down at it- no sense 'running' after just recovering, so to speak.
Hope Kanata looks to Mamoru and nods. "Right." he says. "There. Were things I heard. That bothered me. When I met Haruka shortly after arriving." he says. "Things like... a girl. Who's dream it is. To 'not be attacked by monsters' or.. that her friends wouldn't need to put themselves in danger, to protect her." he says. "Things like these. Bother me. Dreams-- that is. Hopes--- are important. Where I come from." he says.
"But.. some dreams. Dreams like that." he says. "Dreams are not silly. But sometimes you do wish, that someone didn't need to dream such a thing."
He nods to Mamoru and Kazuo. "I will have Haruka-chan show me where it is then, and I shall visit soon. Thank you both, for coming. On short notice. I appreciate it." he says.
Aroma gives Kunzite a speculatize by cautionary look. "Maybe-roma!" he insists as he goes back to tea making.
He helpfully makes sure Mamoru and Kazuo get to to the door just fine, as it's polite- even though it's just all big one rooms and the door is clearly there.
Yeah he might not had stopped itching this entire time.
Mamoru just ducks his head slightly, smiling -- at both Haruka and Kanata -- then starts for the door, escorted by both Kazuo and Aroma, and nods politely in thanks to Aroma as he pulls his jacket back on. "See you soon, then -- and thanks aren't necessary, but are also appreciated." Maybe he's a little more tired than he was when he came in -- maybe this is the part that's not an act. Maybe none of it is. The smile's real, though.
If he takes Kazuo's hand once they're out the door, if he leans his head on his shoulder in the elevator, no one's watching.