Lacrima was standing in front of the pond. It had frozen over again. The sign warning about thin ice was gone- but she remembers where it was, the posts are still there- though this time it has skating hours posted.
She was standing in front of the sign. With a parasol, like the one she'd had that night and she was staring at the sign.
"I was... here." she says.
"And Alexis comes behind me...." she turns around from the sign.
"And he asks..."
"'I bet you're imagining people not obeying the sign, huh?' or.. something. Like that." she says. "And I say. I am. It'd be silly...." she says.
"Then...."
"Then...."
She grates her back teeth. "Dammit." she mutters.
"We woke up... in woods..." she looks around. There's a wooded area ALL around the park. That doesn't exactly help.
She is looking more and more frustrated.
Jiaying Maki is already out at the lake, doing some investigating of her own. It's too long for her to try and tap a mix of heritage and magic to sniff around. Literally. She's on the far side of the lake and her focus seems to be on attempting to pull up any magical traces at least. She's actually got a few ritual tools out, she's in her robes and she's even got her foxy heritage on full display, relying on the idea that she's also got a camera set up nearby recording it all to count as her cover. It's a geek movie!
The sound of her voice does interrupt her thoughts though and she turns on her heel, spotting Norie. She debates on hiding and observing rather than going over to her friend, but she thinks that's both too mean and too unlikely to actually work. So she raises a hand up and calls out, "Hi!"
Lacrima looks back to the sign. "I was... standing here...looking at the pond...." she's starting from the begining. Like it'll help. "Alexis. Comes up behind me..." she turns around and---
'Hi!'.
She blinks a bit. Jiaying? In. Robes and... fox... ness...
She blinks and looks around and then walks over.
"Hi." she says.
"I still don't.. know." she says. "What happened." she says. "I keep thinking. I'll remember. If I repeat what I know happened prior... but." she says.
"It's not helping. And. So much.. magical garbage happens here... there's too much of a background static for me to figure anything out by sensing." she says with a sigh.
She purses her lips. "I talked to.. Kunzite. He thinks that. Something else may had happened. Something that made me do what I did... besides just. Not being in control." she says quietly.
"Natsumi-chan came by the other day." she says quietly. "It helped. Calm me down enough. So I could go out." she says.
Jiaying Maki watches Norie quietly while she goes through the routine again. That kind of obsession is usually worrying, which means it is worrying now for what it's worth. At the mention of magical garbage, she nods while saying flatly, "I've been here for a while trying to dig through some of it, but the people and magic both are too muddled." She runs her fingers through her hair, the illusion taking hold again.
With crossed arms, she says "What made him think that? You don't remember what happened, which is something we've seen before. Did he hear, see or do something to determine that?"
A brief nod after, "Good. Did you talk to her about the other thing at all?"
Lacrima frowns. "I wasn't starving. Before the blackout. And I wasn't starving. After." she says. "If I drained Alexis. He'd had been knocked out." she says. "--and I..promised you I wouldn't do that... and Ariel belived in me That. I would be able to control it." she says quietly.
"Yeah. I told her. About the thing. But. She always. Belives the best in me. Regardless of what I do." she says quietly.
"I'm trying to. Remember. Where we ended up. I don't----" she says.
"I don't remember the time in between. And I.. took Alexis home. Via a Dusk Step." she says softly.
"So I don't know where we were."
"Kunzite says I should examine that area. But..."
Jiaying Maki rolls her shoulders, then swings her arms out as she tries to loosen up and let her mind wander while listening. "So it was a wooded area before you stepped through that place or after you left it?" She supresses something of a shudder,t hen works her fingers in and out of a clenched hand.
So... I have an idea." She scowls after though, some consideration. "I don't want to do it because it might be dangerous to you and her- I also think that it would make further attempts harder and I want to use that to at least split the two of you apart permanently."
Lacrima head tilts. "Before. I stepped into the manor with Alexis in tow." she says.
"Split. Huh?" she asks. She frowns hard. "Wait. No. I'm not doing that." she says. "I spoke with Natsumi-chan about that too." she says.
"I have theories. And I need time to explore them." she says a little more coldly.
Jiaying Maki shakes her head and turns on her heels, making her way to the camera as she begins to pack everything in. "You spoke to her about things you can't remember, about something you're not sure actually happened and decided you wouldn't do it." She stops where she's at, tense and unmoving for a moment. "Your call."
The tone associated with the last part gets a look from Jia that Norie may recognize, it was a brief flare of actual unguarded anger. "You do that then." as she turns to fully focus on working.
Lacrima frowns at Jiaying's curt response as she frowns. "Look..." she says quietly. "I ..."
"I spoke with. Natsumi-chan" she says quietly.
"We both have a theory about the power." she says quietly. "And I would like time to explore it. Would you like to hear about it?" she asks.
"Or do you not care and are going to jump me with some sort of split spell?..." she asks with a frown. "Someday soon?" she asks.
Jiaying Maki glares at Norie and says, "If I was going to just jump you with it, I would have done so already. I wouldn't have even told you about it." She catches herself, taking a few deep breaths, the magic mist that had been trailing from her suddenly retracting, concentrated around her hands before fading away.
She slowly works her fingers a few times, then says in a tone not at all hiding that she's upset. "You see someone trying to help DESPITE all evidence saying I shouldn't and you're going to do this?"
Lacrima frowns. "Right now. I think everyone is going to come for me. And hurt me Jiaying." she says quietly. "I remember...pitchforks. And fires. From my dreams. I am worried. I don't think people are going to gather on the manor's lawn with pitchforks I mean but...."
"I mean Amu is going to retaliate for sure. I'm surprised Sailor Moon hasn't punched through my window yet because apparently she'd promised Naru she'd /look/ after Alexis." she says quietly.
"and both those people /can/ kill me." she says quietly.
"I just... forget it. Sorry." she mutters.
Jiaying Maki claps her hands together, a burst of pale blue flame flashing between her fingers before she points back at the vampire, "Have you forgotten that already? If I was going to do that, I would have done it already." She taps her foot a few times against the ground, working some frustration out. She even paces a few times, "So? That means you'd better stop accusing me of trying to ambush you and instead help me find out what happened."
She doesn't go to give the girl a huge like she normally would though, probably afraid of herself more than anything at this point.
Lacrima just quietly sulks a bit and mutters. "Fine." she says quietly as she just looks down to the ground. She walks towards the trees a few feet but doesn't make any attempt to reach them in the distance. "Natsumi and I think this power is as confused as I am." she says quietly.
"The last person summoned it purposefully. I know that. They wanted it and controlled it." she says.
"If we assume that it is the case, it could have had prior owners. Who also. Wanted it. This person didn't... accidently get it from the necklace like I did. The necklace was new... a weapon used it against it. Remember?" she asks.
She looks back quietly. "But. I'm potentianlly the first one with this power... who didn't 'summon it' or 'want it'. It just leaked into me because I was convient." she says.
"I think the power is discovering what it's like to 'be free'." she says. "And maybe it's as confused as I am sometimes." she says quietly.
"I know it's.. fond of Natsumi-chan too. It's /told/ me before." she says.
"Natsumi thinks. If this is true. That. Maybe... It can be taught. These things. and that if it can be taught. I might regain some things. And it would be 'happy' and I would be 'happy'." she says.
"But. Maybe it's also playing a long con. I don't know." she says quietly. "But. If that's true..." she says quietly.
"Doesn't it deserve a chance to maybe be something better than... some jerks tool?" she asks.
Jiaying Maki shakes her head and says bluntly, "Then why did your other side insist on not telling Natsumi how both of you felt, what your birthday was or why it buries your feelings? I /know/ what I heard from you. Those aren't the actions of something learning to be free, those are the actions of something trying to crush something's happiness."
As shebegins to pack her things up, she says, "You want to give it a chance, that is your choice. I've given it the better part of a year and all it seems to bring is misery. I've got a family history of similar stories and we began policing it for a reason."
Lacrima sighs. "Maybe it's scared." she says quietly. "For all I know. It doesn't talk to me often." she says quietly.
She just sort of fidgets. "I'm just. Afraid." she says quietly.
"Alexis said he was missing a hairspray can and a lighter from his bag after that." she says quietly. "Which makes me wonder if it /was/ an attack from something else- since I did not wake up singed or on fire." she says quietly. "Since he said he carried such things FOR such use as 'a firebomb'. Since he'd been having to deal with effective 'actual monsters'..." she says.
Jiaying Maki pinches the bridge of her nose and says dryly, "That kind of fire doesn't get that hot and it has a chance of causing-" She trails off. "And what was it that you couldn't defeat it between... that you couldn't defeat it, but that it didn't do anything to you two other than destroy your memory of one specific event."
She crosses her arms and asks, "What was your latest experiment?" She then quickly adds, "I have a hard time believing it's scared. It's trying to get you to make other victims."
Lacrima head tilts. "Kunzite has a theory about what happened. And it's that for some reason.. I was compelled to do that. Not nessacrily forced but for some reason or another, 'I had to do it'." she says quietly.
"He says the evidence points to something else being involved. Alexis doesn't feel I attacked him. He also doesn't hate me." she says quietly. "He doesn't.. blame me. For his current situation."
She head tilts. "Experiment? I haven't been doing any experiments for the past month except traveling to the Dusk Zone and taking notes." she says quietly. "I've been studying the fauna and flora there recently." she says.
She frowns a bit....
"Actually..." she says quietly. "Where I work was hacked recently.. and they specfically stole my research, aswell as one of Riventon-sama's projects...." she says quietly.
Jiaying Maki crosses her arms and says, "Kunzite thinks it was compelled to make Alexis a threat to others rather than just himself, or the part about making you miserable?"
The mention that Alex doesn't think he was attacked gets a shrug from her. "He didn't ask for the power did he? Because that would be another guess. Especially if other you tried."
Then there's mention of breakin and hack. "Well, Riventon is working on it, so I'll probably see it sooner or later. Probably trying to stomp through the city.
Lacrima says. "I don't know." she admits.
She sighs and shakes her head. "No. I'd had told him no." she says quietly. "He didn't even know I could do it to begin with. I don't /tell people/ that. People were surprised that I could even /do it/." she mutters.
"You've seen the work before." she says. "The Magical Girl Copies." she says softly.