New Scene!

Perhaps it may have been the obvious thing, but good warming food has always, *always* made upsetting talk easier, and few know that better than the daughter of a spice expert and a professional chef. If your belly is pleasantly full, and your face is warm and flushed, it's so much easier to ignore any creeping chills running down your spine.

So the day after Halloween, Rashmi sends a text out to Riley, Maria, and Mamoru; join her for dinner at the Korma, her treat, and discuss the previous evening's nightmare scenario.

And really, who can turn down bottomless lassi?

Riley certainly couldn't turn down bottomless lassi, whatever that was. Turned out it was a yoghurt drink thing. The more you know. She made her way down there as quickly as she could, making her excuses to her parents and taking to the air all henshin'd up just to save time. Sure, pulling such a stunt could be considered risky or reckless but really she just wanted to push herself out of the house and out of the funk that had befallen her ever since last night.

She hovered on down, landing much more softly than she might have usually done in a spot where she wouldn't have any onlookers seeing her magical superpowers and immediately shifted back to her "normal", her every day clothes smouldering back over the top of her "suit."

Stepping into the building, she took a moment to look around, taking in the decor and letting her eyes scan across the tables for the others.

Maria Hanazawa... many names... but mostly 'Lacrima' walks into the Korma Chameleon and fixes her glasses by pushing them up her nose and walks over to Rashmi's table and smiles. "Hey~" she says. "Right. Before. People come in. I'll make this quick. I don't wanna..."

"Dominate the discussion. But. Basically. We saved the Prince of Nightmares from a horrible fate. Returned his heart. Then I inherited the title he had. By choice." she says. "I... had reasons. But... good ones. I mean.... mostly.... being a part of... Ari's world. As opposed to. Something else but-- uhm..." she trails off. "Look, it's better with me than. Someone else that might just be a big jerk prince again." she says sternly.

"But all that involved fighting the Eater of Dreams and ... I don't really wanna talk about it." she admits. "We can talk more later just... Princess of Nightmares, now. Less vampire." she says. "Easier to keep myself fed. I'll also talk about that later." she says softly.

She settles down and says. "I hope Riley's okay... things last night we're...." pause. "Stressful. Of course. I... have some experience. With ghosts. But..." she says. "Overwhelming. I needed to be alone for a small bit last night I think to get completely over it." she says. She looks up, and waves waves Riley over.

"Riley-chan~ We're over here!"

"...I will bring over five pounds of chom chom if it means getting to hear that story," Rashmi pledges with the utter sincerity of the fantasy-lit otaku she kind of is.

But yes, necessary business first.

Riley gets a big, encouraging smile as she enters, and the redhead pours a tall glass of something pastel-pink and smoothie-like, setting it on Riley's corner of the booth as invitation. And indeed, it seems Rashmi even put thought into seating; the moment Lacrima showed up she scooted to the wall side of the booth, and with Lacrima across from her and talking, both corners are open for the two most likely to want/need to make hasty exits.

"Have a sit, Riley-chan, the menus'll be over in a little. How're you doing?"

Riley did her best to flash a smile over to Rashmi and Maria, walking on up and sitting down at the booth. It was safe to say that she didn't exactly look herself right now, nor did she really sound it. Instead of a usual joke, one liner or jab she just said a simple "hey" as she arrived and looked at the uh...

What even was this? She tilted her head looking at it. Looked like a smoothie.

S I P P

Hey, pretty good nonetheless. It wasn't like Riley was ever going to turn down free food, despite dodging Rashmi's question there. "Thanks. So what even was that last night?"

"I got filled in a bit," says Mamoru, who's somehow managed to manifest with Kyouko without getting noticed at the door, despite the bell, and who is dragging a chair over to sit at the end of the booth. "It was yet another thing that was after my power, so I'm really sorry about that, and thank you all for giving it a good kicking."

He gives Riley a slight smile. "I'm still not John Madden."

Tall-- maybe 6'1"-- and wiry-slender, Mamoru's a barely-in-his-20s hipster with a shock of floppy black hair and wire-rim glasses, wearing skinny jeans and a leather-elbow corduroy blazer over a JAXA t-shirt. His shoes probably cost more than his college textbooks. He's got the kind of friendly confidence of Viktor Nikiforov, but with regality behind it instead of boundless energy, and he's certainly got the aesthetically pleasing face to get away with it.

He's kind of ruining it by being this weird combination of aloof and sheepish. He drops himself in the chair and tells Riley, "I'm Chiba Mamoru, this is Sakura Kyouko, and the guy I missed you all facing was Silenus, who's from before recorded history. So were those kids. And the trees."

    Kyouko has indeed manifested with Mamoru. Much like last night, she sort of lurks by his side, much shorter but if anything more threatening because of the way she glares around at everything suspiciously. Part of that is just Kyouko, but the events of the previous night certainly don't help. When 'being the Prince's bodyguard' is your job, nearly having the object of your bodyguarding be dragged into the mud and consumed is not exactly a good day at work.

    She is sans-faux-goth makeup today, opting for her usual short-sleeved black t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Her hands are shoved in her pockets, her collection of bracelets rattling slightly as she moves, a faint frown on her face that has nothing to do with the present company. When Mamoru introduces her to Riley (the other two already being more than familiar with her), she inclines her head in an acknowledging nod but says nothing. Likely she has nothing to add that's worth interrupting the explanation, anyway.

    As Mamoru pulls over a chair and sits, she opts for leaning against the end of the booth and crossing her arms, head turned to listen to the conversation but facing out towards the shop and the door, one foot idly tapping.

Maria waves at Mamoru. "Yeah I spoke to Kunzite. Don't worry. The Prince is... okay as he's gonna be. He's dealing with... you know. Being able to feel remorse again and him having... done all he's done." she says with a little grim tone. "He'll be okay thou. He knows where my dreamscape is. He always has a room there if he needs to be around anyone." she says.

She looks over to Riley. "Um. Riley helped with that whole mess!" she smiles. She nods at Kyouko as she arrives. She gently listens to Mamoru as she frowns and purses her lips. "So.. all that was from. Time before time?" she asks. "That's strange but...." she says softly. "But Kunzite said Silenus used to..... be a friend?" she asks softly. "Or something alluding to that. That he was looking for him..." she says softly, tapping a bottom lip.

She sighs a bit and looks over to her. "Are you gonna be okay?" she asks quietly. "You seemed... bothered, heavily."

"I... did not know that," Rashmi says quietly, frowning. "That... makes it even worse for those poor kids... Have they been around all this time, or was.... he... keeping them there?" Her eyes unfocus for a second, and she looses a full-body shudder, as though to shake off the horribleness of the previous evening.

"Thanks, Mamo-kun... Knowing the why kind of helps." As Maria talks about the Nightmare fallout, then turns the conversation back to Riley, and gives an affirming nod. "That's why I asked, Riley-chan. Because we've all had moments where the crazy and the horror are just too big to handle alone. So if there's anything we can do to help... Just talk to us. That's important, y'know? Knowing you're not alone?"

Riley returned the nod, though she was still listening to the explanation from Mamoru. She actually cracked a little smile at the mention of not being "John Madden", despite how everything turned out. She sat back in the booth a little, still quietly sipping on the, uh, rose milkshake? Seriously, she had no idea what this was.

It was heckin' good though.

s i p p p

"I was going to ask who they were. How they died. Some of them didn't look much younger than me, hell, might have even been my age. It's hard to tell because y'know, I'm tall and they were made of leaves. What even happened to them?"

She looked to Maria after that after she dropped the "are you gonna be okay question". She searched around in her head to that one for a little, not exactly sure on how to answer it. "I'm still breathing." Riley eventually said. "I'm sorry, I just, how did that Silenus guy *know*? That smell, that damned smell, it caught me off guard completely." She sighed. "It brought back some things I wanna forget but can't."

"Uh," says Mamoru to Lacrima, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. "Yeah. He was our vintner and did half of the party planning, basically. In Elysion. Which still exists, it's just... it's sealed off. It's been sealed off since back then. I guess with all the dream business going on, some of the parts that were shaken loose three and a half years ago have kind of been bubbling up?" He shrugs uncomfortably. "I thought he for-real died, or went home. Maybe he did this time."

The prince slouches a little in his chair, then pauses, and leans over to pick up one of the lassis already on the table and offer it to Kyouko. "Makoto said they went with the trees. And the trees and the ground were all from back then, too, so what I think happened is that they've *been* where they belong, and were so confused because suddenly they weren't? But they were all-- from a very, very, very long time ago. It's possible they even all died when the world ended."

Then he blinks. "What smell?"

    Kyouko accepts the lassi with all due ceremony from Mamoru, sipping it as she remains where she is, one ankle crossed over the other though she's uncrossed her arms in order to sip the drink. "There was some kind of weird smell, with the vine and the wines and stuff." She confirms, with a small shrug of her shoulders. "It was.. well. Reminded me of home." She doesn't go into details. "I think it was part of.. whatever the whole deal was. It certainly wasn't natural." Sip.

    "Nothing worse than getting attacked by your goddamn party planner." She mutters, mostly to herself, clearly still in a less-than-sanguine mood after the previous evening. But the drink is helping. Food is always the best solution where Kyouko is concerned.

"Also, Mamo-kun? You can stop apologizing for what happened," Rashmi says with a small, gentle smile. "Thinking back, it was pretty obvious it was a trap set for you, and nobody ever needs to apologize for being taken out of action when a trap springs like that."

Leaning back in her chair, she sips at her lassi for a moment, mulling over what's said. "Vintner... so he made wine? That... actually tracks," Rashmi says quietly, looking between Mamoru and Riley. "He'd summoned these grapes that burst open, and all this wine just flooded the place. But it didn't smell like wine." Here, she turns to Riley. "Sometimes magic kind of... gets into your head, uses your own memories and feelings against you. Like... I was smelling home, all the spices and things that Mami and Papi use to make just the best kind of comfort food, and it made me want to... sort of... relax? Stop fighting? Which is pretty bad by itself, in the middle of a huge terrible fight like that. But it sounds like that's the kind of magic he was using... memories attached to the concept of 'home' to throw you off your game, mess you up so you don't want to fight anymore."

Maria nods. "If I see him again, I'll try to... talk then rather than hit unless he gives me reasons to act more heavier like last time." she says curtly. "That information may help." she says softly. She softly. She sips as Kyouko explains the 'smell'. "Yeah there we're grapes that burst and they smelled like...." she says. "...Dad's Gumbo." she shifts uncomfortably. "But then also rancid wine." she says softly.

She frowns. "...I... died. I don't like talking about it either. I really only... talked to... Ariel about it." she says. "But. That's not really a unique fact. Around here. I mean. 'Having Died'." she says a little tersely. "If I've heard things right." she says, sipping on her lassi.

"I don't want to talk too much about what I smelt." Riley said. She looked as though she was staring into the middle distance, her eyes not really focused on anything. "It smelt like "home" but uh, my *old* home." She placed the lassi back down upon a coaster. "It was like it knew, it was like it knew everything. The whole ghost thing wasn't easy either. What do you mean that they died at the "end of the world" though? World's still here. We're sitting in it."

She sighed, shaking her head. "God. I'm sorry, I know I'm usually all jokes and stuff but it hit harder than it should have. That might be bothering me more than the thing itself actually, the fact that I'm "letting" it get to me like this."

"The world doesn't have to blow up for it to be an apocalypse," Mamoru says very quietly, holding the last lassi in both hands, not sipping it yet. He offers Rashmi a small smile. "Extinction events and sudden-onset deep-freeze ice ages count. A demon eating the energy of nearly everyone on Earth and using parts of it to burn the cities, and parts of it to send them all mad, and parts of it to invade the moon and kill everyone there too--? That counts. I don't know what fraction of world population is necessary to remain in order to repopulate the whole planet, but obviously they remained, and within a couple of generations, all the knowledge was lost. The world as everyone living on it knew it? It ended. The reason it's before recorded history is because writing had to be re-invented." He pauses, but not for effect, just for looking really abstracted, not entirely there. "And yet, pieces of it remain. Some of them are heaven, and some of them are hell, and some of them are ghosts..."

The med student smiles into the glass held in his lap and shakes his head. "I know Rashmi doesn't want me to apologize." Then he looks up and he's not smiling. "But I don't think he would have been able to yank my power and use it to do those things if I hadn't taken that toddler's hand when he reached up to me, and in that, I was risking the living for the dead."

Maria Hanazawa remembers one particular drunken night in the ECFH where Mamoru had to be 'brought back to life' and she thought the world was gonna end because of a bender or something and that was pretty silly. It causes her to snarf on her lassi inappropriately during the talk Mamoru is giving and she has to recompose herself. "Down the wrong tube." she claims, politely.

She clears her throat. "As long as..." she quietly says. "...those kids aren't being held anywhere against their will like.... that..." she says quietly. "I mean. Yeah." she says softly.

"Yeah there's something about your energy that makes everyone want it Mamoru. I dunno what it is, having..... um. Been totally one of those jerks. At least once." she claims. "Only once!" she claims to the rest of the table, before she clears her throat again.

"R--right Mamoru. Your... place is..." a pause. "Still a... safe place. I can go to. If I need help... right?" she asks a little sheepishly, as she stirs her straw in her slowly emptying lassi glass.

    Kyouko listens with a passive face to Mamoru's story of the previous end-of-the-world. It's all stuff she knows already, of course, so she just sips her lassi and sees no reason to add to the tale. "It's the kind of thing we really want to prevent happening again." She does put in, when he falls silent, her tone mildly sardonic. Her lassi is just about gone already.

    She asides to Maria, "Well, being royalty has always had that sort of effect, ain't it? Everybody wants you or everybody wants you dead. That's the price of significance." She reaches out and lays a hand on Mamoru's shoulder absently as she says it, as if to say, 'don't worry, they'd have to go through me first'.

"He could do it because you're kind, Mamo-kun, and you care about everyone. 'Do no harm,' right? What harm would it have done to help a scared ghost kid on Halloween?" Smiling gently, she raises a hand to a nearby waitress, and the menus are duly distributed. Once the waitress goes back to her work, she looks up. "Mamo-kun... there was a lot you missed last night, but I still stand by what I said. He was ranting about how you'd forsaken them all, and not a single one of us believed it. You may have been the prince of the entire planet, but you're still just one person. Don't make yourself any less yourself just because there could be consequences, okay? There were consequences. We all dealt with them. It's done, now, and I want some dimer jhol to celebrate."

Raising her head, she gives Riley a considering look. "For you, I'd suggest having beef samosas. It's about as close as Indian food gets to a burrito, and goes pretty good with rosewater."

Decisions made, she settles back, and hands her menu to Kyouko. "Don't know if Mamo-kun told you, but, my treat."

Riley started to scan her eyes through the menu, peeking over it occasionally to keep up with what the others were doing. "Honestly-" She said, cutting herself off with another weird rose tasing milkshake yoghurt thing sip and looking towards Mamoru "-I probably would have done the same there if it looked like a ghost kid was in trouble. It's weird though, I think that's what's hit me hardest."

She ended up picking out a balti, pointing to it. "Wait, this is goat? Never tried that before but y'know, I like to live dangerously."

"It's always a safe place, as much as we can make it, Maria, and like anybody else, you're welcome as long as you follow the rules."
\
Just the smallest of smiles again. Then he leans his head toward Kyouko's arm, bonking it lightly against her wrist while her hand's on his shoulder. Yes. He knows. "I won't be less myself. I just don't know how unseal Elysion yet. I mean, for really real. I know I haven't forsaken anyone." He glances at Riley and finally sips his lassi, briefly closing his eyes, then returning his attention to her. Suddenly he grins, and it's lopsided. "Yeah. I mean, kids are kids. We've all been kids. It sucks to be scared and alone, especially when you're small and everything's huge." He leans a little to look at what she's pointing at. "I... think so?"

Mamoru doesn't touch his menu. "Ra-chan, can you get me your favorite?"

    Kyouko twists her mouth just a little bit when Mamoru says he knows he hasn't forsaken anyone. "Even when they really, really deserved forsaking." She grumbles, clearly thinking of a few people in particular, though she has the good tact not to bring up old arguments at the current time.

    She takes her hand back off of Mamoru's shoulder to accept the menu from Rashmi, glancing down at it. "I was never scared, even when I was small and alone." She lies, with a haughty expression. "I'll just take some curry, Rashmi-san, if you don't mind." She says, with a smile, handing it back. "Spicy, but not deadly, I think."

Raising her hand to get the waitress' attention, Rashmi smiles. "Dimer jhol for me, two star please, Two-star doi maach for Mamo-kun, and chicken tikka for Kyouko-chan," she says, smiling at the 'unafraid' bodyguard. "Three-star. Riley, if you're getting the goat balti, you probably want two or one-star spicy. Three's pretty much the limit of being able to taste anything but hot, so you know where the line is." Maria, she lets order her own food, but jumps in to add another round of lassi -- cardamom, this time -- and two orders of sandesh for dessert, to be split by the table."

Rashmi does, apparently, not kid about when providing food.

"I don't scare easy." Riley said, looking up at the much taller Mamoru. "I wasn't even scared last night it's just, I-" She trailed off, before giving a little shrug. "I dunno, I don't have words for it. Not in English, not in Japanese, not in anything." She folded the menu back up, placing it on the table and taking yet another sip of the mystery delicious rose juice. "I don't think I've actually been proper scared, like, not just startled but actually honestly terrified since I was what, five?" She thought on that, scratching her head. "Yeah that's probably not normal thinkin' about it."

Her attention though was soon taken up by the talk of food, and wow, that sounded like a lot of it. She reasoned that there were a lot of people but free dessert and another round of weird mystery rose drink? Heck yes. "I'm pretty good with spicy, uh, guess I'll go with two star?"

"I was scared all the time," Mamoru says with a shrug, "of being found out, of turning out not to be a real person, of finding out I had relatives who just didn't want me, of foster care, of where I lived, of doctors and needles... and after a while, I just stopped caring. Then it turned out I could be scared again, but only for other people, and now they dangle me off the roof of our building and threaten me with crying tears of whiskey if I ever scare them with recklessness again." He sips his lassi, then beams at Rashmi. "Excellent. Thank you. I'm still not in any shape to make any decisions that aren't life or death."

    "You'd think," Kyouko says with lazy nonchalance, "That dangling the person you've sworn to protect off the roof of a 47-story building while threatening him would be counterproductive." She pauses. "You'd be wrong, though."

"I'm scared all the time," Rashmi says quietly. "But I'm a worrier, and I have a really really good imagination, especially after the whole magic thing. Now I get to worry about politics, climate change, poverty crises... and also the erosion of reality, dimensional barriers just failing like bricks made of soggy cardboard, and the death of hope and love by monsters who eat color!" Her smile becomes purposefully brittle as she chirps this last bit out, then leans back and shakes her head. "...But it turns out, bravery's just what happens once you've gotten so afraid you end up on the other side."

Riley looked away for a moment, her voice quiet as she spoke up again. "I guess I get scared after. I dunno. I don't even know how this all ended up happening. I mean, I'm twelve. Why have I been pulled in by magic sparkly... whatever the hell, to fight giant monsters? Why didn't they call Arnold Schwarzenegger?"

She sighed, shaking her head. "Truth is I didn't even think about it before. When that leaf ghost looked at me it just sorta hit home that hey, I could totally end up dying doing this. It's been bugging me. It's not like I can stop though, even if I just hung up my cape things have been put into motion. Things are still going to end up coming after me and people I care about."

"Believe it or not, most magical girls dying isn't that common," Mamoru says, then glances briefly sidelong at Kyouko before continuing, "but-- just be as careful as you can, right? We do this because we value things that are bigger than we are. We value other people, we value justice and love and making sure that the people getting their asses kicked are the ones that deserve it."