No Title Set

Lacrima has been puttering about her house for the past few days. She'd occasionally peek out a window. Now. She knew, deep in her heart, that Ariel's momma wasn't gonna come bursting through the wall like a Kool-Aid man. But she still was worried about other forces. Maybe she was hoping someone would come by a visit her too.

......

Why doesn't she just ask that?

So Lacrima sends out some 'feelers' to others via texts. 'Hey wanna come over. For cookies. and tea. and talk? Stuff happened. But some of you already know that. Just walk in, doors open. :D'

She's laid out a spread of various packaged cookies.... some have a halloween theme? Sugar Cookie Bats and Pumpkins coated in black and yellow crystal sprinkles.

And Tea, and lemonade, and milk. She has cups laid out and is mostly wait patiently for people to come.

She has a stack of various horror movies stacked up. Look it's Halloween season. You watch spooky movies!

Miho was absolutely down for visiting Lacrima. Apart from anything else, she was getting ever-so-slightly worried, but that smiley at the end was rather reassuring. So she heads on over on her bicycle; it's still warm enough for her to wear her green T-shirt, black skirt, and shorts under the skirt.

She frowns as she stops at the front door, as she realizes she's sensing a darkness which is noticeably different from the kind she's used to sensing when she visits the manor. She knocks twice, then gingerly steps inside. "Hey, Lacc--" She does a slight double-take at Lacrima. "Lacchan?" she says cautiously.

Riley's text response was very typical of her. She had sent a most excellent, well timed, and most certainly dank meme with an appropriate spooktober motif suitable for the finest art galleries in all of the memedom. That being said though she made sure to translate it after, mentioning that she was well and truly on the way.

She arrived shortly after, flying in with her Prism Keeper brass powers and as per her usual, touching down with a strong three point landing, which... she ended with a gratuitous dab for good measure.

After all this though, she walked up, her "supersuit" smouldering away to reveal her usual attire which in this case consisted of a rather plain hoodie, jeans and sneakers. "Yoooo. I'm here, wassup?"

Lacrima gets up. "Huh?" she asks curiously at Miho. "OH----" she says says placing her hands to her mouth. "I... hadn't... told you yet. Yes. Riley..." she says looking over Miho's shoulder at the arriving Riley. "Already knows about this. She was there... and stuff." she says with a little mutter.

"Miho-chan. I thank you for hunting with me the past months." she says. "And making sure the people are okay. But I won't... be doing that. Anymore." she says.

"We... restored the heart of the Prince of Ni---" she says. "Well the former Prince of Nightmares. Now The Prince of Dreams again." she says. "Ariel and some others, along with myself worked to do that. When he restored his heart. Well. That dark power had to go somewhere. He chose me." she says.

"I guess.. I'm a Nightmare now? I dunno. I don't need to eat people energy anymore." she says. "I need to eat.... Dream. Energy." she says. Unsure of the exact terms. "Like.. eating people's... dreams..." she says. "I mean in the um. 'Sleeping' sense. Not the... idyllic sense." she says as she scratches her head.

"He called me The Princess of Nightmare now." she says.

"I dunno what exactly that means yet. I need to speak to some people. Ariel. Her mom. Akashimaru." she says quietly.

"...I dunno if that's an upgrade or not." she says. "I mean. In theory. Just... eating someone's dream that they're flying just wakes them up startled?... while eating their energy directly always left them indisposed..." she says rubbing the back of her head.

"Erm. I'm not feeling much different. Emotionally. I mean. If that helps. I still feel. Like me." she says.

Pause. "Also that meme was horrible Riley." she says whining.

Miho glances back at Riley, and nods in approval at her entrance.

She turns back to Lacrima as she gives her explanation. She tenses up visibly when Lacrima says she won't be needing her help anymore, but she immediately settles down with obvious relief when she gets the explanation, especially when Lacrima gets to the 'still feel like me' part.

She considers this a moment, and grabs a packaged cookie. "Okay, cool," she says, fiddling with the wrapper. "I mean, like ... insofar as you don't have to hurt people anymore to the extent that I can help with 'em, I'd say this is a pretty straightforward upgrade?" She shrugs. "Also, yeah, Sailor Mercury mentioned that she'd heard something was up with Ariel-chan, and I guess it must've been all that stuff."

She looks between Lacrima and Riley. "... Do I wanna know?" she asks, before taking a bite out of the cookie.

Riley grinned, walking up to the two. "Nightmare Royalty totally sounds like an upgrade, yeh. So basically you're no longer "The Count"?" She cleared her throat, aheming a little. "Ha-one! One! cookie! *Ah ah aaaaaah... nom*"

All in one bite! What a monster!

Her tone and facial expression turned a little more serious after that though, Riley taking a moment to swallow it down before continuing. "So right, you just fly around in nightmares messing with people's heads now? Damn. That sounds like a dream job there, uh, no pun intended. Seriously I could think of so many things to really screw people up. A lot of them involving really angry geese."

"... I guess that's why I didn't get the job."

She sighed, shaking her head. "Ah well. We're good now though right? No sign of that seal breaking or Lovecraft's gigantic snot bubble messing us up some more?" *twitch* "What do you mean my meme was horrible?"

Lacrima ughs! "The Minidoot!? What about the classic." she cries at Riley as she looks towards Miho and breaks a small smile. "It's just a bad joke is all." she grins. She sighs a bit. "I dunno. At least. My reasons for taking the power is... different than his was. He wanted revenge and to stop hurting. I... just wanna be closer to Ariel--- be a part of her world. Wanted to... make a choice to be like this. For once. Rather than have it thrust upon me." she says softly.

She settles over to the movie pile and gently wonders. "Any choice? I got some classics here. Even seen... Young Frankenstein? It's a movie my dad introduced me to... it's strange- but a horror comedy. Stars Gene Wilder." she says.

She gently sighs a little. "How I look right now, is how I look in my dreamscape." she says softly. "So I guess that passed on." she says. "to my current form." she says.

"Still an.. energy construct. By the way. Still need to be careful of.. the stuff." she says. "Purification stuff."

Miho nods slowly, considering this. "Y'know what, Lacchan," she says dryly, "I'm pretty sure if anyone was gonna be able to take 'going from one creature of darkness to another completely different kind of creature of darkness' and make it into something you were doing out of straight-up actual love, it was gonna be something you could do."

She hmms at the selection of videos. "I haven't seen Young Frankenstein, no," she says. "How about you, Hunter-san?"

She frowns, and nods. "Yeah, I could sense that much in the Life Blessing," she says. "You're still 'creature of complete darkness', it's just a completely different kind of darkness. So, like, yeah, still no minty business if I'm too close to you, got it."

"The classic is DEAD Lacrima! Which... makes it spookier! Hence the M I N I D O O T. The spookiest rapid fire doot of them all! Do not cite the meme magic to me, uh, vampire? Not vampire? *I was there when it was written*." She pondered that for a moment. "Maybe. No idea when the spooky memes started actually."

Riley nodded at the mention of purification stuff though. "Right, careful aiming, got it. How does that whole "energy" thing even work? Would I uh, would I be able to charge my phone off you?" Another smile started to creep across the girl's face as she said those words, eventually cracking up just a little.

"Huh? What's that? Oooh, Young Frankenstein. 1974 movie, uh, Gene Wilder as the doctor and Peter Boyle as the monster. Yeah that's a total classic."

Lacrima snorts. "I can do some things Ariel can do. Can enter people's dreams and offer rides to another dream. I'm still figuring out the... object... creation stuff. So far. All I can make are. Um. Sandwiches." she says with narrowed eyes like this explains everything when she says that.

"Maybe I need to think spookier or scarier, rather than useful since... Nightmare and all." she says with a sigh.

"--and yeah. I'm not sure if... 'giving people nightmares' is part of the gig." she says to Riley. "But... if 'Princess of Nightmares' is an actual.. title I might be in charge of making sure other smaller nightmares are doing that..." she says.

"I mean... Nightmares are a natural part of dreaming. Right?..." she asks. "I mean. Like. Once in a while. I think it's ridiculous to always live in nightmare."

She picks up the DVD and puts it in the player. The movie will play in the background as she nibbles.

She smirks at Miho. "... well. It's... It's not like he forced it on me? He asked. He gave me a choice. I could had said no but... if someone like Icela sucked it outta him or something..."

"I'd like to think I'm a reasonable person and don't think myself godlike." she snorts. "Like her..." she says quietly as she looks down "Besides. There was evidence it might had been destiny for that choice to be made. Me and Ariel found a mosiac in some dream Aztec temple that showed me and the prince. I have a picture. I'll show you sometimes." she says.

She looks over to Riley. "-and..."

"Please... remember. No fighting. On my property. Or in my dreamscape." she says. "I.. understood why you punched him. smacked him. But.." she sighs. "He deserves a chance to right wrongs." she says.

Miho just lets Lacrima and Riley snark at each other over memes while she munches on her own cookie, grinning. She gets out her phone, and pokes at it a bit ... "Ah, 'Dancing Baby', that was the first viral thing, looks like," she says.

She nods. "Well, you and Ariel know all about that dream-stuff better than I do," she says. "The first time I actually came into contact with dealing with it was, like, that thing where we beat Poderoso." She grins at Lacrima. "But yeah, like, basically you're the best one for the job."

She looks between Riley and Lacrima, but doesn't comment on the mention of violence. Instead, she turns to Lacrima and asks, "So are you still working for Eclipse?"

"Yeah but he also deserved that sock to the jaw. I nearly died in there Lacrima, and I'm still not sure if it's Matrix rules where your mind makes it real or somethin'." She shook her head at the mention of Icela though. "Seriously, what is her problem? Can you like, uh, inception into her head or something to figure things out?"

The movie starting caught her attention for a moment, Riley giving an approving nod to the good ol' classic flick that was starting its intro. "Oh uh, is Ariel okay by the way? That was quite a trip and all that."

Lacrima gently looks to Riley. "I know. I mean. I kinda... slapped him when I got a chance. I... shouldn't had done that. But we left Ariel in that... that place and... I was just angry. I slapped him twice." she says quietly. "It's just. Not.. again? Please?" she asks. "Unless... like. Someone causes problems first. If someone hits you with intent here please... hit back? This place has been the target of a youma before." she says dryly. "He tried to kill me personally in the past here. It didn't work but only because... Ariel..." she shakes her head. "It isn't important."

A pause. "Ariel is okay. She's resting with her mommas." she says softly. "I'm giving her time to recuperate, beyond that. She needs it. I wanna go.. swim with her. In her home dream soon..." she says.

She looks to Miho, when she mentions Eclipse and she visibly cringes as she watches the movie and she looks down. She sighs. "I don't know." she says softly. "The only reason I'm staying is because they would be able to help me in the case of a bad scenario. I needed help... keeping my energy in check but now..." she motions to her arm. She isn't wearing the 'Dampening' bracelet anymore. Paige is still on her other arm though.

"I don't need that anymore. My energy isn't...." she says. "...a crazy, static wave form anymore. It's very stable. Predictable. According to my tests." she says quietly.

"...I'm.. taking a month. To think it over. If I ... try to 'break off' my employment. I'm gonna need help from the eventual most likely reprisal this forces." she says even quieter.

"The.. shadows don't like it when you leave." she says softly. "-and I'd rather not be Princess of Nightmares and beholden to... a group that... has good intentions. But suck at being good people." she says dryly.

At the news about Ariel being in a good situation, Miho relaxes in a way that only now calls attention to the fact that she'd been tense a moment ago. She still isn't clear on the whole deal with Icela, but, it's easy enough for her to deduce that it's a dream-world-specific issue.

She nods to Lacrima. "Okay," she says, smiling easily. "And, like, I probably don't need to say this, but like, I'd be completely willing to help out with being, like, your first line of defense if they try to come after you for bailing on 'em." Truth be told, her first impression of ECLIPSE was, well, Lacrima. Still, Hulda Raskoph and Tarnished, and technically Sailor Earth, have done more than enough to make things clearer.

She glances at the movie, and then gigglesnorts at a particularly silly gag. "Excellent choice of movies, by the way."

The swim comment got a raised eyebrow from Riley, but she left it there rather than making a snide comment. Instead, she simply yoinked another cookie and turned her attention to the movie for a little, laughing at the same gag that got Miho gigglesnorting.

"Who are those ECLIPSE guys? If they're after you though, I'll kick their ass. I'll kick anyone's ass. I'd even kick my own ass!" *snort* "Heee... That was stupid, why did I find that funny? Seriously though, are we going to have to face off against some other terrifying traumatic monster thing already? We only just dealt with the last one."

Lacrima sighs. "ECLIPSE would be my current actual employer." she says bluntly. "ECLIPSE is... a shadow organization that works behind the scenes. Many non-magical people and magical people and beings working the government and all that. I don't know names, so don't ask please." she says softly. "Think less terrifying monster and more specialized youma black ops team coming to retrieve me." she says.

"If someone described ECLIPSE as 'The Illuminati' I'd say it's an apt description, but not terribly correct." she says.

"My offical rank is... Vice-Director of a Division called UMBRA." she says. "I um... study beings. Creatures. I still do. I can still go into the Dusk Zone. I catalog them.. name them if they've never been seen before." she says softly.

"I also work with Crystaline Magic of the Dark Kingdom. The Dark Kingdom doesn't exist anymore. But I learnt enough to be useful with it." she says.

She sighs a little.

"I'm hoping I don't upset Riventon-sama..." she says softly. "With this. I know I will but..."

Miho blinks at Riley's question. "Oh, right," she says. Lacrima, though, has a very clear explanation. "I've never actually had to fight UMBRA before, now that I think of it, unless you count Her Worshipfulness Mirai, now that I think of it," she remarks. "The Raskoph Conglomerate and, and whatever Tarnished's deal is, yes, but, uh, not UMBRA."

She looks at Lacrima for a moment. "Lacchan," she says, "I want you to know that whatever happens, I trust you to do the right thing. Like, you've earned that trust, for one thing. Both since I met you at the beginning of school last year, and like way beforehand." She shrugs. "Uh. You know what I mean, basically." She shakes her head. "But yeah. I definitely trust you, and all that."

She doesn't have any comment about upsetting Riventon. She just reaches over and ruffles Lacrima's hair. Practically the same gesture Alex did, when Miho first met him and learned who Lacrima was.

"So uh, they and *you* are like... CIA spooks or something? Hah. Literally in your case I guess. S'pose it makes sense, all these youma running around. Illuminato confirmed. Hey, do they pay well at least?" She looked around, taking in the large and fancy house. "Who am I kidding, you live in this place, of course they do. Man, that's cool though."

Riley eyed another cookie for a moment, before deciding against it. "So the goverment's going to go after you if you quit then? Damn. Yeah this is why we have a second ammendment. Literally, actually. I mean sure the founding fathers didn't know about Youmas but if they *did*..."

Lacrima frowns. "They're not the goverment, but some members are with them. They do.. bad things." she says. "My division is technically research." she says softly. "So we don't... engage often. But we do sometimes. When their is science to be had. or stolen." she says dryly. "So just to make that clear. Not the official government, but a shadow organization that has members in the government." she says.

"I have done... bad things. With them." she says softly. "I um..." she says. "I'll go get some water." she says as she stands up and leaves the room a moment. She looks back to Miho and bites her lip. "I know.. Miho-chan." she says with a short smile.

But it seems she needs a moment away from the movie and her friends. Just for a second.