268/You Don't Question the Cow

You Don't Question the Cow
Date of Scene:	20 August 2023
Location:	Radiant Heart Academy
Synopsis:	Naru and Darien try to define 'mythological beings' for Himeko.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Pyrite, Naru Osaka

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I really, really liked your speech," Darien tells Himeko, grinning. "I didn't really have a chance to enjoy it at the time, but I keep running through it in my head and it was fantastic." He takes a sip of his milkshake, then squints a little bit, looking sidelong at the murderghost. "But the rest of the time-- were you just bored? I thought you'd go with Hotaru."

They're on campus, and Darien goes to deposit himself on the bench under the big tree. He looks up at Himeko. They're talking about things that happened when they were Pyrite and Hematite, but they're in campus, and Darien isn't even in his school uniform. Just jeans and a white button-down shirt, mostly buttoned but not tucked in. He's talking about apprentice stuff with his imouto.

A beat. Here it comes.

"And just. I don't know what to tell you not to do in order to keep the elephincident from reocurring with other animals," he says a little helplessly. "That was such a stretch. You started out not ripping anything's soul out unless I explicitly said it was okay. So, please ask in the future. You can also ask Hotaru or Takashi if either of them is there instead of me."

Pyrite has posed:
    "Am I not to defend allies?" asks the little girl. She has definitely grown to match her age since she has started eating energy and youma and other things. She was a tiny child, undersized, now she looks like she's verging on becoming a pre-teen. Immature facial features are becoming more angular, she is taller (or maybe that's an illusion), she speaks far more clearly than when they first met, and despite some hiccups like the unicorn thing--err, elephant thing, she is gaining more of an understanding of the modern world by the day. It really is like watching a little sister grow up.
    In ways.
    Himeko is learning far faster than most others with her limited initial skillset and outdated knowledge. It has been less than two months and she has gone from extreme isolation and abandonment to 'able to pass as a human in public'. She learns by watching, mimics those around her, and so gradually blend into human society. So it is, understandably, distressing that she keeps lapsing unexpectedly like this.
    At least she can dress herself, so that's a plus. She's wearing a white button-up shirt and a black skirt, with a hair-tie wristband around her right wrist, and red and white sneakers over black socks. The shirt may be a bit too big for her, but that's okay. It just adds to her cute appeal. Despite the greater maturity of appearance she shows as Pyrite or the Other Himeko... She has scaled that down for her civilian, semi-living Himeko form. It's part of her social camouflage after all. She can't just juggle around the age of an incomplete body all willy-nilly. That's just basic science!
    She ran down the dorm stairs >so excitedly< when she was told they were going out to do something or at least spend some time together. A genuine, happy smile was spread across her face, like a real human child, not the barely-there Mona Lisa smirk.
    Since she was invited out, she is on her best behavior.
    She feels another fetter latch onto her at Darien's command, though, now that they've reached their destination. 'Ask first'. That is a pretty solid rule. She feels it snap shut on her actions and her mind. She is reminded of her place, and what she is, and what she's supposed to be.
    It's important to remind her occasionally. Whatever she might be turning into, right now, regardless of form, she is a ghost. A ghost is something that repeats itself over and over, because the Dead Can't Change. She will, eventually, revert to her base, true state if there isn't regular maintenance done to anchor her.
    She doesn't know how to explain that, or if she should, or even if that's knowledge she can act upon. There's so much knowledge that she can't access, act upon, or even acknowledge she possesses, because she hasn't reached the point where she would know that yet. It's a confusing system that ghosts operate under. Even if she has five centuries of experiences, she only exists within the moment she keeps repeating, so the rest of her that exists in that other time is cut off.
    She seats herself next to Darien on the bench. "Ask first. Hotaru-senpai and Takashi-san are proxies if you aren't present." she says out loud, nodding her head.
    "Does this mean all mythological beings are invalid, or just unicorns?" she asks after a moment.

Naru Osaka has posed:
There's not a ton of people on campus between terms, but even though Naru is going home more often, the freedom of living in the dorms is hard to beat. Clearly she's been back to her mother's, or at least /somewhere/ on an overnight visit based on the bag over her shoulder.

Naru equally isn't in a school uniform, although she's mostly in the uniform of teen girls everywhere, a t-shirt declaring that she loves coffee a latte with adorable cartoon cat snuggling a coffee cup paired with a swingy little skirt.

Naru spots Darien and Himeko sitting under the tree and she waves in their direction, catching the edge of conversation, but not the details. "Hey you two."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"What do you mean by invalid? --Osaka-san, hello!"

Darien bows slightly, but even as he gets up to do so, he puts a hand lightly on the back on Himeko's shoulder, a grounding and an acknowledgement. This is not a situation to be jealous of, you're not going to be ignored. He does that, talks with gestures. Himeko can even tell how he's feeling sometimes: when he does that, if she looks.

If she looks, he's calm, he's a little amused, he's pleased. He's warm, but it's summer.

"This is my sister, Himeko Soryuu. Himeko-chan, this is Naru Osaka. She's a good friend, and also a friend of Usagi's." The introductions are made with the milkshake in hand, of course. Then Darien sits back down, but further along the bench, and he half-tugs and half-gestures for Himeko to move closer to him again. "Here, scootch in, let's make room."

Then he looks to Naru again and gives a crooked grin. "So, if you hang in there, maybe you can help with our puzzle. We're talking about mythological creatures." Darien glances down at Himeko once more. "So what do you mean by invalid? There are several ways your question can be taken."

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko orients on Naru after she appears, like anyone would. Not because she couldn't smell the newcomer's approach, but because, again, that was knowledge she couldn't act upon. It doesn't fit 'Himeko, the little sister', so it's inaccessible. But she certainly bows her head respectfully before scooting over. She has no problem with being close to Darien. He is wasps that she gobbles up like candies, she is the sweet dark nectar they crave and consume in turn. They're devouring each other. And it somehow just works. Neither being diminished, but instead growing in tandem, in a circle of life and death whose end can only be gussed at, if end there is.
    From the outside, it just looks like a little sister who loves her big brother very much snuggling up to him and rubbing her head against the side of his chest with a pleased expression as the reassuring hand on her shoulder helps maneuver her to leave space for a newcomer.
    She does, however, point at Naru with the hand not trapped between herself and Darien, and look up at him inquisitively. 'Can I eat her?' Oh, she's going to follow that rule that was set, but she's going to be asking it a lot from now on. Little sisters, man. So lovable but so annoying.
    However, she is being asked a question. Remembering that this is the same question she was just asked, she returns to reality and says, "The consumption of mythological creatures is what I was referring to. They are neither person nor animal. They are not even objects. They are concepts. Fictional entities. They do not exist. So if I encounter a thing that does not exist, I had wondered if it was allowed for me to eat them, or if only unicorns were forbidden. Things like kami, demons, and ghosts. You know."
    She gestures in a 'you should already know this' kind of gesture, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world to seriously consider eating something that doesn't exist.
    Maybe in some subreedits it is, but not here and now.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I don't mean to inturrupt." Naru protests lightly, although she smiles warmly as she's introduced. "Pleasure to meet you, Himeko. Did you ever get your swimsuit that you were shopping for at the mall?" She asks, clearly having seen both of them on that fateful 'explosion' riddled day.

Naru settles herself on the bench, digging out her own bottle of iced coffee from her bag. She comes with her own treats!

She opens up her drink, considering the questions about consuming mythical creatures. "Are we certain the unicorns don't exist?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
He's not tired yet, but with the very first application of the rule, Darien knows exactly how tired he is going to get. He shakes his head. Do not consume Naru.

"But ghosts and kami and demons do exist," says Darien warily. He looks at Naru like 'please help', then back to Himeko. "Don't you think that if you meet something that doesn't exist, we were mistaken and it does exist, after all?"

Finally, he tries to be helpful to poor Naru. Darien explains, "The hypothetical situation is, if a murderghost has been told not to rip the living essence out of humans or animals, can that murderghost nonetheless rip the souls or whatever out of mythological creatures? And this is a tricky one, because if I put a flat-out 'no' then the murderghost won't be able to kill in self-defense or the defense of an ally unless I explicitly say so, and that could be a problem."

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko balks at the assertion that ghosts and demons and whatnot exist, and that if she encountered one that would mean it does exist. "Why would you assume that they exist just because you met one?" Cog wheels turning. Give her a minute, she predates cog wheels. "Are they people? Are they animals? Are they objects? If a god appeared before you, would you assume it to be a god, or would you question its existence, and your own perception of it? When one encounters a dog, or cat, or duck, or human, they do not wonder if it is what it is, they just accept it. Whether they are mistaken or not is irrelevant, such as in mistaking a shadow for a person, or a black and white cow turned length-wise lying in the road at night so that the optical illusion is presented of a half-creature of some kind. The mind rejects such an existence, seeking to assert some type of reality over it, inspiring fear. If the cow then stands and turns so that you can see the other half of it, you are relieved, you immediately accept 'oh, it was a cow the whole time'. You do not question the cow."
    She folds her arms, feeling this is a suitable 'mic drop' moment, and lets the other two be enlightened by her explanation.
    Her logic is infallible.

Naru Osaka has posed:
There is question about just how 'helpful' the murderghost explination is, but Naru takes a drink from her coffee as she listens. "I can infer from this that we need to define things specifically and not leave the wiggle room of 'use your best judgement', as I can imagine that 'best judgement' is different depending on the murderghost."

Because these are the conversations one has at school.

"So can't there be a 'self defense' or a 'defense of an ally' clause?" Naru suggests. "Or does it need to be more cut and dried than that?"

At the step back into questioning the very existance of things Naru quirks her head. "Yes, actually. I do tend to assume that things that I've met do exist. Which has little to do with accepting them necessarily as what the present themselves to be, but their existance isn't in question even if their label might be." She holds out her bottle of coffee. "I can mistake this to be something its not, but that does not make it not exist. I can call it lemonade all I want, but it doesn't make it not iced coffee."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
And Naru is an incredible help here! Darien's shoulders relax slightly. "No, because then the murderghost might think that, for example, an elephant spraying mud at an ally was an attack, and murder the elephant, which is a less than optimal outcome. There can't be blanket allowances when it comes to potential murder," he says, earnest but perhaps slightly overwhelmed. No, that's not quite the right word.

"I mean, right now, there's a really strict rule in place, with precious little wiggle room," he continues. "It's not ideal, but it'll work until there's a better set of definitions and limited exceptions in place. So at the moment this hypothetical situation is even more hypothetical, since the current restriction is staying in place for now."

Finally, he finishes off his milkshake as Naru extols the virtues of the extant, and then nods very firmly. "Plus, it's better to be safe than sorry! In other words, it's better to err on the side of 'thing i encounter might exist and could be alive, therefore do not kill without permission' than to err on the side of 'oops I killed something I shouldn't have'."

Pyrite has posed:
    This is apparently a sticking point for Himeko. Her brow furrows and her smile disappears completely as she frowns. Yes, this is the part of the conversation she is fixated on, because, you know, ghosts. Those things she is insisting do not exist. "But without any verification method how does one confirm its existence? A thing that does not exist being determined to exist would require for it to be a thing that exists, which it is not, because it does not exist." She squints at Naru and turns with a look of betrayal towards Darien for agreeing with her.
    "This does not make sense to me." she finally asserts, though she doesn't elaborate any further. She can't. Because her experience is spending 513 years in a single location with a fixed boundary and nothing outside of that existed. If it existed, it was the same as it was when she first died, 513 years prior, because the perception of change was beyond her. Memories, moments, wishes, all of it, just sprinkled across time in disconnected pieces, repeating and interacting across eternity.
    Like confetti.
    She has been taken out here, where she must behave as a human on campus -- as one of her fetters -- and that is already bending her not-sane mind because she is now in the space and time and existence that did not exist for her for so long. And it's all different.
    Sometimes she looks around and sees rice fields, and villages, and peasants working and passing each other on the road and giving polite greetings. Other times she sees a university campus. Yet other times she sees everything is on fire, fire spreading faster than people can run, flames so big and strong that they become a flame tornado, and suck in air from all around, becoming a self-feeding fire. People running by burning houses, only for the strength of the vacuuming effect to suck them inside to burn.
    And sometimes she looks around, and all sees is her shrine, and she can't tell how much time has passed, or when she got here, or if she has always been here, and she just falls back into her routine of sitting and waiting for someone to come for her.
    Right now she just shakes her head. "If kami are real, then why is everything burning." she mutters as she buries her face in Darien's side while turning to hug him.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Ahh, there's no gradient, and recognition of intent. That is more challenging." Naru mmms thoughtfully, letting the situation chew around in her mind.

At some of the admonishments, there's a little quirk of her brow, as she gathers some thoughts about just how hypothetical all of this hypothetical is, but she doesn't comment. She takes a drink of her coffee instead.

"If I have met it, or chatted with it, or have it in my hand if it's an inanimate object, then I have faith that it exists. I do not need further confirmation. I exist. This coffee exists. The bottle exists." Naru holds it up, she looks at Himeko burrowing her way into Darien's side. "Darien exists. You exist. I have faith in both of those things. Kami also exist, because of faith." She quirks her head again, thoughtful about the muttering about burning, but not asking in specific.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Things can be brought into existence," starts Darien, and then Naru's answering even as Himeko burrows into his side and brings her misery with her, the impressions of things she's seen, and Himeko can feel Mamoru's heart hurt for her. Again, like before.

Darien pulls the little ghost into his lap and wraps his arms around her, holding her closer. "And Osaka-san is right. You exist. And no one kami is strong enough to put all the fires out, Hime-chan. Without enough belief, without enough strength, no one anything is enough to put all the fires out."

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko has no verbal response to that. The mention of faith immediately shuts down her thought process as she is trapped in memories again. People believing in something or someone strongly, and it not doing anything to help, or not doing enough. It's painful. And she can't believe in something like that. Because she wasn't able to help when she was the one people believed in.