Kotomi realized after she woke up (which, she's sure Riley will agree, is still a strange train of thought as far as she's concerned) that she never actually got Riley's contact information. So, the next time she visited the Manor, she asked Ariel to make arrangements.
(Time to make arrangements to talk about dream business for her own sake: the better part of half a year. Time to make arrangements to talk about dream business for someone else's sake: two weeks. This tells you everything you need to know about Kotomi's ability to ask people for favors.)
Now, she's riding her bicycle up to the manor, wearing her pink striped dress like she had in the dream, with the addition of a flag button pinned to the top, with horizontal stripes in the pattern of skyblue-pink-white-pink-skyblue. And, of course, a pink bicycle helmet. Even though she comes here very often, she's still more nervous than usual as she walks up to the door, takes a deep breath, and knocks.
Asking Ariel to make arrangements? Well Ariel is a pretty dutiful girl who tends to things quickly once requested. Somehow she managed to find Riley by description, either at school or during some weird dream shenanigans involving a giant bald eagle and a mighty hamburger-- we're not going to get into that, we'll just go with whatever is more convenient, as she tends to tidying up the manor a bit.
She's already set out some snacks and drinks. Lemonade and donuts as per what usually can be found in the manor on any given day.
Lacrima has donuts and lemonade mix on hand always. Aswell as milk. Tea. Various other snack cakes. And when there are new guests or guests that are not regular, she always makes these little tiny finger sandwiches with cucumber, tomato and mayonnaise and a thin slice of lettuce leaf, sliced into perfect triangles, no crust.
That is, she tries to be a good host. She's mostly hanging around near Ariel in her super fancy dress as she 'ahs!' and walks to the door to answer it. "That must be them now."
"Hello!...." a pause. "Kotomi-san. Wasn't there supposed to be someone else?" she asks.
Riley had been looking forward to this all day, although, it wasn't just the answers she might be able to glean from Ariel and Kotomi that was keeping her distracted from such trivial matters as her schoolwork. No, nope, it was just how she'd make her entrance. After all, a superhero's only as good as their flashy arrival!
The kid had left nothing to chance. She had checked and double checked the location, trying to find the best path on google maps though really, that didn't matter too much considering her magic included the ability of flight.
She waited for just the right moment, blasting an MP3 of a rather recognisable AC/DC number as loud as she could... and dropped in almost a freefall, trailing flames behind her.
Yup. It was coming.
Superhero landing!
PSHWOOM!
Riley appeared in a ball of fire, landing in a crouched position supported on one hand and one knee with her music still blasting.
Now to finish it off! She stepped up, brushing herself down and pausing the soundtrack as she walked up to the others, her normal school uniform fading back in over the top of her "super suit", crackling and smouldering back into place as though it was always there, the faces of the others she had arranged to meet up with reflected off her almost mirror like aviators.
Yup, kiddo was feeling pretty damn awesome right now.
Kotomi bows. "Ah, hello, Lacrima-san!" she says, smiling nervously -- generally the only kind of smile she usually has. "Um, yeah, I guess I got here first, she should be --"
She blinks and whirls around at the sound of sudden music!, and jumps in surprise at the Prism Keeper's sudden superhero landing! Not recognizing her due to henshin-magic, she quickly slips behind Lacrima and peers nervously out from behind her.
And then Riley actually de-henshins, and Kotomi almost wilts with relief. "... here ... soon ..." she mumbles weakly. "Um! Hello, Riley-san!" she calls out.
... and then Kotomi remembers that she's standing inches away from a vampire to whom she smells delicious, and she hurriedly steps away.
An arm slides around Lacrima's arm as the vampire goes to open the door, and Kotomi is greeted by not just Lacrima, but Ariel as well. "Hello~. Ah if we're going to be waiting come on inside, there are donuts and drin--" She doesn't get to finish that thought. Not with AC/DC blaring from out of nowhere and...
She points a finger up at the figure trailing flames from the skies. That finger follows Riley down until she lands and Ariel is just... Kind of staring in bewilderment.
"Um. Knocking would have sufficed." She points out gently.
Lacrima gasps and gently holds her hands up in front of her, folded over one another. "Oh that was so awesome." she says with wide eyes as she watches Riley arrive. She manages to shake it off though as she stares at Kotomi. Oh. Right. She does smell delicious. Luckily. Lacrima has self control at the moment because she made it a point to make sure she was 'well fed'' as not to try to feed her sneakier darker nature by accident with 'delicious donut smell'.
"Oh..." she says as she turns back to the new arrival. "You're the.... girl at the dance I met. As Maria." she says softly. "Come in." she says, motioning her inside. "I have refreshments. Ariel is.. yeah right there." she says.
She has a seat next to Ariel as she gently steals a donut. Well not steal. THEIR HER DONUTS. But she's stealing one anyways. Because she really wants a donut right now. Thanks Kotomi. At least real donuts exist! Nom, nibble.
"So. Something... dream-like?" she asks. "Is what this is about or did I mis understand?" she asks. "Just curious!" she asks with a smile.
The kid tried her best to try and hide the grin that was forming across her features, yet try as she might there was no way for her to play that off as though that was just "normal" and something she did all the time. In fact, it was all she could do to stop herself from saying "Yeah, I'm awesome" in response to Lacrima.
She looked over the various refreshments, but, decided not to partake in them, or, at least not partake in them for the time being. Sure, the planning, the timing, even the song choice for her had been somewhat taking precedent over her important and burning questions about just how her dream was invaded by a "spirit of vengeance", (one who clearly wasn't Batman, she might add. Freddy Kreugering wasn't in Bruce Wayne's usual repertoire as far as she was aware), but those questions were still extremely important indeed!
"Well uh, nice to see you again! Yeah. Dreams. Mine got invaded by some magic bullshit and I was like a damn zombie runnin' on caffeine and caffeine alone for the rest of the day, anyone got any explanations about what the hell happened there?"
Kotomi giggles nervously at Ariel's comment, and nervously steps in after Lacrima, glancing between her and Riley. "Oh! You know each other!" she says, sounding relieved as she picks a seat which is strategically a fair distance away. "Um, yes, Lacrima-san. Riley-san ... I mean, Hunter-san ... Lacrima-san is the one who I, um, learned from that I smell delicious to monsters." Said very awkwardly.
She just nods to Lacrima and Ariel after Riley gives the lowdown. "It was this 'eidolon' named Icela," she says. "I've fought her once before, she pulled my classroom into a nightmare that tried to kill me and all my classmates."
Ariel settles herself down, indeed, right next to Lacrima, once everyone is inside and settling in. Though she's still a little baffled by Riley's bombastic entrance, she rallies well enough to have an understanding of what's going on. After all that's-- that's the girl from the dance.
It sinks in a second later after Lacrima brings it up and Ariel lets out a little "Ohhhhh..." As pieces start to fall into place.
"Wait, you smell delicious to monsters?" That... Has nothing to do with what this is all about, but she is furrowing her brow at Kotomi. Ahem, moving on though.
"O-oh. ... Oh... This is about Icela. I've met her in the past. She makes friends with Nightmares."
Lacrima pinches her nosebridge. "Icela." she says bluntly. "Thinks she's sacrosanct. A god." she says. "Seems to know Mamoru and Kunzite." she says as she looks over to Ariel and then back to Kotomi and Riley. She sighs. "Right." she looks to Riley. "I'm an energy vampire. I'm a monster. It stinks. Please don't smack me. I try to be helpful." she explains as plainly as possible.
She looks back over to Ariel and then between Kotomi. "She smells like a delicious energy donut. I ignore it." she says. "I mean. I can ignore right now. Harder when I don't feed." she admits.
Riley folded her arms, looking at Lacrima. "I can't say you look all that monster-ish. Just don't try to go all Dracula on my ass and we'll get along just fine. Right..." She turned back to the others. "So that's a name I guess. "Icela"." She scratched her head, trying to put all the pieces together from what the others had said. "Delusions of godhood while apparently thinking they're Batman with the whole "spirit of vengeance" crap and can Freddy Kreuger themselves into other people's dreams. I never get a damn break, do I? Just who is this guy, and what do they want?"
Kotomi nods to Ariel. "It was ... apparently something from that catgirl that attacked me," she says delicately. Argh, no, she doesn't want to derail this with her own things, one thing at a time! She nods along with Lacrima's explanation, relieved that she's taking the initiative with answering questions about it, although she doesn't know who 'Mamoru' or 'Kunzite' are.
She shrugs at Riley's question. "I think Hunter-san needs help understanding, um, how the dream world and Nightmare-youma work," she tells Ariel and Lacrima. "I, um, well, you know about all that better than I do."
There is a moment. A long beat in which Ariel looks back and forth between Lacrima and Kotomi, before she just kind of stares at her girlfriend, befuddled.
"... That is kind of a really specific taste."
But back on track, Ariel folds her hands together in her lap. "Icela is a girl. I don't know what kind of dream you were having-- or who Freddy Kreuger is, but it sounds like you ran into her or one of her Nightmare friends. ... I don't quite know her full story. I know she went to middle school before she got her power. And she mentioned being worried about if people could hurt her by finding her body. ... I think she may be a dreamer..." She murmurs more to herself than anyone else, before she's back on track. "Oh. Yes. I can explain that a bit." She says when prompted. "Nightmares are a kind of youma from the dream world. They feed on energy from people when they sleep and are most vulnerable."
Pause.
"Please don't call my girlfriend Dracula."
Lacrima nods. "Nightmare. With a capital N. Primarily. 'Nightmares' aren't... 'nightmares' with a lower case 'n'." she says softly. "If that makes sense. There's a difference between the 'youma' and 'having a nightmare'." she says with a curt nod.
She gently leans over and squeezes Ariel's shoulder softly and gives a short smile and then looks to Riley. "Right. I prefer. 'Lacrima' please, though I understand what you mean. Don't worry. If I AM going like that, please do actually try to stop me because it means somethings wrong with me. Just..."
"If you use purification magic be careful? That stuff can kill me." she says.
She looks to Kotomi. She does look over to Ariel. "I seen her with a sketchbook a few times..." she trails off.
"I guess they're too scared of a proper fight. Makes sense, but how are they getting in my head? Is there any way to just uh, well, block them out? Or am I going to have to be on guard when trying to *sleep* now too?" She sighed, shaking her head. "So no leads at all on who's responsible for all of this? I shouldn't have to smuggle Red Bull into school just to get through the damn day."
Riley looked back to "Dracula". "Lacrima. Sure." She nodded. "So how do I stop you if you go all like that then without accidentally blowin' your head off with magic stuff? Crucifix? Garlic? Van Helsing? Crossbow with silver bo- oh wait no, that's werewolves..."
Kotomi giggles nervously at Ariel, and just shrugs. She tenses up slightly at the 'girlfriend' comment, but settles down just as quickly. She nods to Lacrima, deciding not to mention that she also posited to Riley that nightmares and Nightmares are different things, although Kotomi considers her own explanation to be greatly inferior.
She looks over at Riley uncertainly, not sure what kind of answers to give. It's not like she can do anything to fight off Lacrima, at least in the waking world. She idly picks at some of the refreshments. "A-also," she stammers. "What, um ... remind me what happens if you ... 'die' in a dream?" She visibly tenses up as she asks this, and her voice is slipping towards sounding a bit less feminine; actually, her voice is subtly different in the waking world in general, a little less girly while still being obviously feminine.
"Unfortunately, it means yes you'll need to be on guard when you go to sleep." Ariel admits. "Nightmares tend to gravitate towards people with strong magical potential. They feed on anyone, normally, but." She trails off for a beat and tilts her head at Kotomi's question.
"Everyone knows if you die in a dream you just wake back up."
Okay with that out of the way she returns to focusing on the main point. "But I wouldn't avoid sleep if I were you. You're just going to exhaust yourself that will leave you weaker and weaker, and then you'll be prime fodder for any hungry Nightmare. It's really best to just face them." No red bull for you, Riley.
Lacrima gently looks to Riley. "if you need to fight me. use physical attacks or use lower power 'purification'. If it's a big and a light show, it'll probably kill me. Lighter stuff only stings or it's stuff I can come back from." she says softly.
She looks back to Kotomi and blinks. She head tilts. "Well...." she says. "...probably nothing good..." she says tapping her chin a bit in thought....
She looks to Ariel. "Oh. Really?" she asks curiously. "Huh!"
"You know. I wonder if Icela is in league with the Prince of Nightmares. She seems to have a lot of Nightmare friends or things under her control and he doesn't seem to care...." she says softly.
"But.. I mean. Conjecture. There."
"A Prince of Nightmares?" She asked, fairly flatly. "Nightmares have uuh, royalty now?" She gave a somewhat exagerated, and certainly exasperated shrug. "You know this makes no god damn sense right?" She thought on that for a second though, just what *had* made a lick of sense as of late?
"... I'm saying that while talking to dream hopping superheroes and an extra from Twilight. Yeah I guess sense has gone out of the window by now. I always thought dreams were wibbly wobbly brain chemistry... stuff. I dunno, I flunked biology."
Kotomi mostly just looks relieved at Ariel's assessment about dying. She does find herself nodding along with Lacrima's theory about Icela being related to the Nightmare Prince, right up until Riley cuts through her thoughts, and her expression settles on: yeah, this is kind of weird, isn't it? "I'm ... more of a magical girl than a superhero," she says in a quiet voice, and immediately realizes she isn't entirely sure what the technical distinction is. She's considerably less familiar with superheroes than with pop cultural magical girls, aside from the difference in typical gender and age.
But then she looks back at Ariel and Lacrima. "Um. I ... sort of had ... a question," she says. "Have either of you ever found anything out about ... that catgirl who attacked me? Yasumi Yumeji?"
"He wasn't always a Nightmare." Ariel notes in regards to the prince. "He became one when he lost someone dear to him. I think to the Eater of Dreams." Murmured a she draws back on events from far back, before frowning a little. "It makes perfect sense. The dream realm has princes and princesses and knights and stuff. It's more like a whole other world than anything else. I would know. I used to live there and--..." She pauses. "Twilight?" But then she frowns.
"I found Yasumi once-- I can't believe I never told you about this." She says, lightly smacking herself on her forehead. "... I should look into visiting her again, she seemed so... Hopeless last time I saw her."
But then she holds up a finger. "... I'm not a superhero, I'm a unicorn."
Lacrima huhs. "Catgirl...? OH you mean.... no. No I haven't. I'm sorry. I don't... dreamhop? I mean I don't even dream.. technically just. Something close enough to count." she says quietly. She does raises her head a bit. "Twilight... is a novel. About vampires. That sparkle." she says bluntly and frowns at Riley. "It's at least more politer than 'Dracula' at least." she says flatly. She does smile.
"I'm a vampire. Technically. I'm a monster. OH! I know. ANTI-Hero." she says pointing a finger at Riley.. then she ahems.
"So..sorry. My Dad. I mean. Norie's... Dad. Maria is a construct. My real name is... 'Norie Okana'..." she says. "Is Japanese American. From Oaklahoma. So. I um.. know stuff. I mean. I grew up here but...."
"Lotsa... American Cartoons and Comics and stuff and learning about that growing up. I make a pretty good gumbo." she says.
"Whaaaat? Dracula's way cooler than anything from Twilight." She shrugged. "Ah what the hell, we're gettin' off topic with that. So right, we got bad guys that can hop from dream to dream like a cheesy slasher character, a royal family, a catgirl and a uh, "spirit of vengeance" with delusions of godhood."
She went ahead and finally yoinked a donut, after all, it seemed that everyone else had at this point anyway and took a big bite and swallowing it down before speaking up again. "Right so what's our next move then? How do we stop these guys?"
Kotomi can't quite hide her surprise at Ariel's description of Yasumi. "Hopeless?" she murmurs. She frowns, taking another bite of snacks as she stares off into space, right until she's startled by Lacrima's 'antihero' outburst and nearly chokes. She isn't sure what gumbo is, but she suddenly wants to taste one of Lacrima's creations. Too bad she'll never work up the nerve to request them.
She swallows her snack. "Usually, we're kind of ... reactive, I guess?" she says. "We've been. Sort of. Looking for these 'shards' of ... probably the Nightmare Prince's heart." She suddenly deflates, as if she's worried she's said too much, or said the wrong thing.
Ariel's lips purse. "We um. Yes. We've been usually caught flat footed more often than not so there's no real plan. Usually I try to patrol the dream world though, and keep tabs on things and deal with Nightmares where I can, because that's my job as a Dream Defender." She muses, taking a sip from her own lemonade that she totally grabbed earlier. "Oh right, that. I should check and see if that book has any further clues about those." she says in regards to the shards of the Nightmare Prince's heart. "It's been quiet for a while now.
Lacrima nods. "...I mean. Not always the case. There was Skyjack after all." she says bluntly. She sighs a bit. She frowns at Ariel. "If... you need to send her to talk to someone who knows what it's like to be this... dark thing. You can invite her to my castle." she says quietly. "But... no pushing." she says gently. She looks towards Riley.
"I mean. If you wanna be proactive... please do just... take people along, you know?" she says. "Going out alone is how you kinda end up Bucky." she says, in a manner Riley can understand.
Riley took another bite of her donut, thinking on what Lacrima said for a moment before giving her response. "I'm not sure how much good I'll be there. I ain't specialised in this dream stuff, I hardly even know what's going on. Surprised no one else has dealt with this though. I guess it's gotta be a big problem right? Still, you got these people going around messin' with people's heads while they're trying to sleep for uh, seemingly just the hell of it. That can't end good.
She finished up the last of it, wiping down her hands on her uniform for a moment and licking her lips to clear off the last traces of donuty goodness. "How would that even work? Shards of the Nightmare Prince's heart, how is he still alive if his heart's in "shards"? Guess the plan is to gather 'em and destroy the things so this prince can't cause anyone insomnia again?"
Kotomi picks at and munches on snacks. Now that the question of Yasumi has been settled, her anxiety is trying to tell her that she's fairly useless in this conversation. She nods when Ariel comments on the book, but she just hesitates when Lacrima mentions 'Bucky', who she's never heard of before.
She blinks at Riley, and swallows. "Y-you were great at fighting the Nightmares in your dream!" she protests. "You ... it ... your lucid dreaming is great! Even better than mine was, I think." There, she tells her anxiety. That was certainly useful. She hopes.
She ... has no idea what to say to what Riley thinks the plan is, though.
"Bucky?"
But then Ariel raises her hand. "I have dealt with this. Dealing with this is my job." She points out to Riley, before lowering her hand. "He's still alive because he's a denizen of the dream world. Sacrificing his heart was just like cutting out the best part of himself. He powerful enough that he doesn't need it to live, but he needs it to fully be who he was." If anything, Ariel looks horrified at the idea of gathering and destroying the fragments.
"Well. We've been gathering them. I'm not quite sure what the plan is after that..." She does admit. "But maybe if we reunited him with them he'd be less of a bad person." Ahem. "It's not just 'the hell of it'. Nightmares feed to grow stronger. If they grow strong enough sometimes they get the ability to break into the waking world, too. I don't know what Icela is up to either, but she doesn't seem like much of a 'for the hell of it' type, either."
Lacrima frowns. "We need it... to help him remember. I think." she says to Riley. "He wasn't always 'The Prince of Nightmares'. We know that much." she says softly. She fidgets a bit. "...I don't think he's a bad person. Just..."
"....Stuff." she mutters as she hunkers down with a finger sandwich and begins eating- quieting up suddenly. Yeah, the jerk tried killing her once. Complicated feelings here. She bites her lip.
"Bucky is a character in an American comic that gets captured and becomes a brainwashed weapon for the badguys." she says helpfully.
She sighs a bit and takes a deep breath.
"I almost died in there Kotomi. Sure I wasn't really at risk but that ain't a good indicator. Right, uh..." She eyed the array of refreshments again. Seeing them, and seeing pretty much everyone else chowing down was making her feel a whole lot hungrier. Perhaps it was the flight here? She swore Reiko mentioned something about getting hungrier quicker when using powers in the past and well, she *did* fly here as fast as she could without making herself a nuisance.
Ah what the heck?
Sandwich yoink.
"So who was this "nightmare prince" before then? Any leads, any clues? Not gonna lie, the regicide option sounds a whole lot safer if we manage to get the shards but if we got a chance to end it without causing that kind of uh, dreamland power vacuum I guess as well as actually help out a guy who's not really actin' themselves? Yeah, that'd probably be best."
Kotomi nods, somewhat relieved that Ariel seems to share her anxiety over destruction. This is pretty much where she already knew things stood. She nods in understanding to Lacrima at the Bucky explanation, but gives her a sympathetic frown at 'stuff'. Yeah, it's pretty obvious even to her that Lacrima's not happy to be a creature of darkness.
She does recoil slightly from Riley's rejoinder -- okay, nope, not gonna do that. She swallows, takes a deep breath, and nibbles at another sandwich. She has her anxiety under control, it's just ... y'know ... still there.
"Oh." Ariel says. "Don't be Bucky."
But then her lips purse into a thin line. She's staring flatly at Riley.
"Before he was the Prince of Nightmares he was a prince of dreams. According to the old stories, he was good, and kind, but then something changed. Something that hurt him. Something the Eater of Dreams did to someone he loved." She explains. "In spite of everything he has done- to me, to my family, and even to my friends, I'm willing to gamble that reuniting him with his heart will return him to what he used to be. This isn't about a power vacuum, this is about fixing a, literally, broken heart and returning it to where it belongs."
Regicide does not seem to an option on Ariel's table. But she takes a breath- and then a sip of lemonade to cool her own agitation. Everything has clearly been weighing on her, considering her glamour drops just enough to reveal a fussy swishing tail as she loses her focus.
Poor Lacrima is probably getting doused in so much glitter right now. Ahem.
"S-so right now let's focus on finding the last pieces of his heart and figure things out from there."
Lacrima exists in glitter, she has become glitter! Okay, not really, but she's gotten used enough to it that she doesn't mind it. And also makes her sparkle like a Twilight vampire. She sighs a bit. "The Eater of Dreams and it's Nightmares are the 'real' thing you need to worry about." she says. "I dunno much about it. Except... really bad news." she fidgets. "Ariel or Akashiramu would know more..."
She frowns a little and gently scooches a little closer to Ariel and slips an arm around her far shoulder and rests her head on her closer shoulder. Comfortpire. She knows Ariel got frustrated for a moment there. She doesn't like it when her unicorn is too frustrated. Nope.
Given the Poderoso stuff is still in recent memory even.
Riley held back from making a joke about that. In fact, she didn't even bring up the sudden unicorn tail, instead just nodding. "Right. No French revolution then, got it. Option's off the table. So we got any ideas on where these last shards are? Not gonna pretend I know anything about how this works but, well, is there a chance this is just gonna make him unstoppable without changing the, uh, psycho stuff?"
Kotomi is entirely oblivious to the Poderoso subtext, but she does smile faintly when Lacrima leans against Ariel. She giggles nervously at Riley's 'French revolution' remark -- she knows just enough to get the reference, but she does wince slightly at the use of the word 'psycho'. "Um. Also. How many do we have already?" she says delicately.
No French Revolutions indeed. Ariel takes a moment to calm her nerves, lacing her fingers together on her lap with a slow breath.
"The Eater of Dreams is still sealed away, but I don't know how much longer that will be. Whether it breaks out tomorrow or in three hundred years from now, only time will tell." She says. "But the Nightmares that serve it are very much a real and present problem. The issue is we know that the Nightmare Prince hates the Eater of Dreams. If we can turn him back to who he was, he may end up becoming a valuable ally." She considers, whilst counting on her fingers.
"There was the shard from the Christmas dream. The singer. And Yasumi gave me the shard that was in her possession. So we have three."
Lacrima nods. "Three. We have three." she says softly. "One from when we saved Christmas... did I mention that? We saved Christmas and it was totally awesome." she says with wide eyes. "I mean dream Christmas, but still." she says. "I'll need to tell you about Surly, The Rude Reindeer someday! Though I'm sure everyone knows Surly's tale, I mean there's a song about it, I'm sure---" she says.
"One from a creepy circus where some demonic singer like thing performed and we got that and... yeah. One... Yasumi gave Ariel but only after we chased her." she says.
She shifts a bit. "So yeah. Three." she says with a smile. She nods.
"No French Revolution."
"Or American Ones. For that Matter." she says.
"Okay then." Riley seemed to calm down a little, the situation to her seeming slightly less dire with the stories of recovering the previous shards and the possibility of having to axe a prince being thrown out of the window. Sure, she might have been the one to suggest that, but that didn't mean she would've been looking forward to it. "So, find the shards, put 'em together, nightmare prince turns back into a "normal" magic thing of dreams, then he can help us deal with this "eater of dreams"." She paused. "Those are words I just said. Words I just said as though this was a completely ordinary thing to do and an ordinary situation to be in rather than completely bonkers. Yup."
Kotomi now giggles in response to the American Revolution comment. "I, I missed the Christmas one," she says. "And ... the Yasumi one, sort of. I didn't know she had a shard."
She smiles faintly at Riley. "If it helps," she says, "I can't get over this, either."
Up comes a fingertip, right to Ariel's lower lip. She looks from Lacrima to Riley, to Kotomi and blinks slowly.
"I don't understand what the issue is. This is all totally ordinary to me."
Says the girl who was born in a dream.