715/Lost & Found: King And Lionheart (First Take)

Lost & Found: King And Lionheart (First Take)
Date of Scene:	06 November 2023
Location:	Apartments
Synopsis:	Zoisite watches a lot of movies, okay. Also, heartfelt discussions, worries about the future, and a promotion is floated by the least likely person.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Zoisite
Tinyplot:	Lost & Found

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's a text first, because due to Prior Incidents, Hematite knows not to actually just show up in Zoisite's apartment without any warning at all, but the warning's about ten seconds. The texts is just 'I'm coming over!' No preamble, no clarification, just the usual--

--and then Hematite teleports in, just inside the door, and drops his henshin before toeing off his shoes. He's wearing jeans so worn that they're soft, a black t-shirt, and a black hoodie over it, and he looks...

...very unhappy.

"Zoi?" he calls out, kicking a little at the carpet. "I need your help really bad, I fucked this up so hard... I didn't even mean to post it yet, it was just in reserve, and then She accidentally posted it because she was being weird about replaying a bit or stopping it or whatever--"

Zoisite has posed:
    Zoisite, even if he is 'Yoshimitsu Zaibatsu' right now, is still always Zoisite. There's no real separation like there is for the others. He is always there, present, in command of himself. He is, more than any other save Kunzite, in control. Even when that awful darkness is inside of him, he is a fine instrument that requires finesse to wield properly. He cannot simply be used as a bludgeon, and even Metallia must know that. Which is why he is her knife, for cutting deeply in just the right place.

    Frequent possession, as a result, is less likely. However, it also means that, when the right moment comes, that possession will come fast and with all the viciousness that can be drawn out of the soul of the Third of the Four. And that can mean doing something very bad at the worst possible moment for everyone around him.

    Jadeite is a ticking time bomb. Nephrite is a noose. Kunzite is whatever the hell he is.

    But Zoisite is most definitely a knife.

    He is also sitting in the hot tub he had built into the floor of his apartment. There are mood lights, and a huge TV screen he's watching something on, and tiger fur drapes, and all manner of other useless human garbage that he has deigned to allow into his living space. He is still looking at his phone in the mostly-dark, aside from the neon lava lamps scattered around in place of actual lamps, when Hematite appears and becomes Mamoru.

    Zoisite looks up at him, raises his sunglasses to rest on his forehead, and tries to parse what's being said to him. Eventually, he interrupts. "Is this about the ClickClock or whatever?" He then puts down his phone, grabs another huge shrimp (being an oxymoron does not make it less tasty), dips in cocktail sauce at the center of the platter, and munches on it while waiting for an answer.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Useless human garbage: all these earthly trappings that make it easier for a heavenly king, for Zoisite, to live in his skin with that thing. Things that serve as distractions, that exist as something -- like diet cola -- for Zoisite to drug himself with.

Mamoru barely notices them anymore. He comes over, shrugging out of his hoodie and draping it over the back of what's probably a couch. "Yeah," he says, taking his socks off and starting to roll up his trouser legs. "It wasn't even remotely ready. I wanted to talk with you and Jadeite about it before coming up with a plan to set it, or something like it, loose. I showed it to the boss as proof of concept and she fuckin'... posted it. With her creepy long fingernails. On accident."

He sits down on the floor and scootches closer before putting his legs in without asking. "I definitely need your help with that. With cleaning up my mess. Again." And then he grasps the edge of the tub and closes his eyes. "Zoi she's also looking for a prince. She told me. She told me out loud with her words that she's looking for a prince. And that he probably goes to my school."

Zoisite has posed:
    Zoisite listens, and gets through a second jumbo shrimp (Still an oxymoron, still delicious) before Mamoru is done. "Okay." That's the entirety of the response. Perhaps realizing that may be insufficient, he finishes chewing, gesturing at his mouth and rolling his eyes for why he isn't talking. Once he swallows his seafood snack, he says, "Well, I already saw it, so I started coming up with ideas. I'm already ahead of you on that, so don't worry. It can even be used to our advantage. As for the prince thing... Like... Just kidnap a prince? It'll get her off your case at least." Simple solutions for simple problems. Direct, to the point, critical hit, hemorrhaging commences, clean your knife and put it away for next time.

    "I hate to break it to you, but we are not nice people, Mamoru." Zoisite says sincerely, rather than flippantly as is his usual. "Means to an end. If it satisfies Her Majesty, it means we can do our work in peace. Give her what she wants and she'll go away. Like... Linoge from that made-for-tv Storm Of The Century mini-series. Who made that? Stephen King? Someone? Whatever, it's a good bit of horror and drama."

    Hey, guess what Zoisite is watching on the big screen tv, right now?

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I already threw someone under that bus," says Mamoru, shoulders turning in as his eyes open, and he glances toward the television. "And I've got another lined up after him when he doesn't pan out. And another after that one. And I'll keep doing it until I run out of princely kids at my school. And none of them will be right. And if you don't know why none of them will be right, I don't know what to tell you."

He's silent for a long moment, and then he exhales. "Look, I thought you said you were going to seduce the hot one. I admitted it hadn't worked when I tried. He didn't want to go corporate. Why haven't you chased him? He was even at that stupid ball and you weren't anywhere around. So I danced with him and I bet it pissed everyone off. But he was right there and you could have asked him."

Zoisite has posed:
    The blonde squints at Mamoru. He squints so hard. "Because I was following your sister because she was wandering around with a cat and I didn't want her to fuck everything up. Again. And for the rest of the time, I don't know. I've been busy." Big dramatic 'sorrrrryyyyy' shrug. "Anyway, you actually want him recruited then?"

    He turns around to rest his arms on the marble floor, and put his head down on them. "You danced with the blonde and you danced with snowy-haired hottie. Do you want either of them on this side of things?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"No," Mamoru says sulkily. "I want them out of this horrible mess of horrible." He reeeeeaches his leg out in the water to try and poke Zoisite's knee with his toes. "If it's the best I can do for anybody, it's the best I can do. But I also don't want you to cry because snowy-haired hottie is nowhere nearby."

He squints back, eventually. And then gives up on it and takes off his glasses, hooking them over the collar of his t-shirt. They get foggy over the hot tub. "I'm sorry. I miss you and then I get cranky when the internet yells at me and then I come all the way over here and interrupt your prawn-fest with my complaining instead of complaining a little tiny bit and letting you pat my head over it."

Tiny sigh. "Are you mad at me? You seem more easily irritated with me than usual."

Zoisite has posed:
    Zoisite rolls his shoulders in another shrug as he lightly and without any real malicious intent makes as if to splash water on Mamoru when the knee-poking is attempted. "I really, really, really want to meet him. I can tell that either he belongs with us or we belong with him. It's a connection, like I have with you, and to a lesser degree the others." He gestures off in the distance in regard to 'the others'. "But, for all of your many positive traits, you remain a terrible liar, my dear. You said you tried to convince him to join us, right?" Zoisite tilts his head and smiles up at his leader. "That isn't what you did when you recruited me."

    He lets that hang in the air for a bit. He doesn't need to point out it also wasn't how he recruited Nephrite, or Jadeite, or even Pyrite for Gods' sakes. "If you actually wanted him to join us, you know how to do it. You have the means. That you just 'didn't convince him' and gave up and waited for me to seduce him, instead of saying he was too powerful, or someone interfered, or something else even sort of plausible told me everything I needed to know about your intentions."

    He sits up enough to reach for another prawn. Shrimp? What's the difference anyway? "If I was angry at you, you would know, believe me. I thought I was actually being rather cavalier. Anyway, brainwash someone into thinking he's the prince she's looking for, dump him at her feet, and let her be distracted for a while. If you keep failing, she's just going to get pissy about it, and impatient, and neither of those are good things for Her Royal Highness to be. Shortens life expectancy, so I hear."

    Munching thoughtfully, Zoisite flips his wet hair, unbound and hanging down across his bare back, and says, "Also, I was there as Sailor V. You didn't offer to dance with me. So I chased down Pyrite, who fucked off to who knows where after drawing Senshi aggro, and Sailor Moon had some kind of... White... Moonlight Knight with her, and also a schoolgirl, and the schoolgirl decked me in the face with her elbow while I was trying to run past to lead them away. She hits like a gorilla, don't tank her."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"... a schoolgirl? That hits like a gorilla. Okay, duly noted, and I thank you for your noble sacrifice," Mamoru says solemnly. "I did see a Sailor V cosplayer, who I knew wasn't sailor V, because I'm pretty sure actual Sailor V was there in a disguise I saw through, so that's gonna be fun because I think she lives in my dorm."

He's quiet for a little while, and the first real thing he says is, softly, "We belong with him. I feel that connection, too, and obviously you're right. When I got you, I didn't-- I just wanted. And I was me, but I wasn't myself, not like I am now, and I'm still not myself the way I should be. But I gave him the worst possible recruitment spiel I possibly could, and--"

Mamoru leans in closer, clearly wanting contact but not wanting to get in the water. "And he would still have done anything I asked him to do. He'll follow me. He wants to protect me. But I want him safe, not like us. I want one of us to be okay."

And then the black-haired boy's just looking at the dimness of the room, and lets his eyes unfocus on one of the lava lamps. "She wants a prince, and all of us belong together, but there are four Shitennou-- and you know his name. You know his name. Fortunately for me, what she wants isn't always what that thing wants. Or I'd really be fucked, wouldn't I?"

Zoisite has posed:
    Zoisite pat pats Mamoru's foot, and gets up out of the water to sit on the edge alongside his guest. "You know what to do then. The same way you recruited us. Command us. Make us be who you need us to be." He kicks his legs slowly in the hot tub, under the water, while looking at his feet. "Though, I would just like to make sure I understand your intentions. What exactly do you want to get us out of? And where will we go afterwards? You don't need to explain what being on 'his side' means, but... Interpreting your will isn't always going to work. I can read subtle things. Nephrite a bit too. But Jadeite? Pyrite? They're going to get stabby as soon as you point them at something."

    With a flourish, he puts a hand with fingers splayed to his chest, just touching with his fingertips. "I, on the other hand, will evaluate and make my move at the appropriate moment. If I am not on the same page as you, then things like that ball happen. We move out of synch, in opposing directions, and that weakens us considerably." Zoisite drops his hand and leans on Mamoru despite the latter's lack of desire to be wet. "Also, I elbowed Sailor Moon in the solar plexus pretty hard." Siiiiiigh. "On that note, what the hell was happening that night? The plan was not going according to plan, and I don't know if it was Pyrite's fault, or the Senshi, or someone else entirely. There's so many of them."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Jadeite said there wasn't a plan. The same as you said. That we'd just wait until it was unveiled and come back later if it looked likely. But Nephrite had a bright idea, and I think he still has a headache from the feedback the senshi gave him." It's a little irritated, and a little bit laughingly rueful, and a little bit regretful.

But ahh-- Zoisite leans on him, and Mamoru relaxes. There are some times, for some things, where he's almost pathetically easy to read, and he's terribly easy to reassure-- much too easy to be the kind of leader Beryl has always expected him to be. He's always been a different kind, one that they cover for, even as he covers for them.

He's not like the leader they still all expect to be there, not like their very own missing piece of flooring, their very own missing plank in the rope bridge over the abyss. They know his name. They know his name.

"Months ago, you said you really needed to know what your leader was leading the rest of you towards," he murmurs, not answering, quite. Not answering the query on his intentions. And he doesn't at all mind the damp when it comes from Zoisite leaning on him. "If I said I didn't think it was safe for you to know, but that it's for the benefit of all of us-- all five of us and Pyrite-- above anyone else, would you still follow me?" A beat. "Do you still trust me? I can't command that."

Zoisite has posed:
    Zoisite just loftily replies, "Did I say something like that?" He looks over to the television, as the protagonist (or one of them) is in a pre-school or kindergarten or something and rearranging alphabet blocks while explaining a Bible story to whomever is in the room with them. Because 'Linoge is an anagram of Legion' is such a difficult thing to figure out without the visual aid and background story. Booooo. Hiiisssss. Excellent bad TV. Just the worst.

    "If I told you that you'd be better off killing me and bringing me back at a later time than trusting me not to betray you, would you understand why I told you such a thing?" he asks, not answering the question posed.

    "Also, I never know what anyone is doing or why anyway. So just shut up and let me follow you." he tacks on playfully as he reaches up to ruffle Mamoru's hair.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru closes his eyes, since they're suddenly hot and stinging with a grief he wasn't ready for. His hair is ruffled, and he hides his own face from the world in Zoisite's cloud of humidity-floof, just long enough to get himself under something resembling control.

He exhales from his very soul.

I need a miracle. Won't you help me?

"We're much better at navigating than a bunch of sailors who get elbowed in the solar plexus way too easily," he finally says. "I'll never shut up, but you can follow me anywhere but the bathroom."

His laughter sounds like it's suffering from humidity, too.

Zoisite has posed:
    Zoisite closes his eyes as he feels Mamoru's face in his hair. "Ah, you know me so well," he jokes about the bathroom. "You saw through my cunning plan to steal all of your bath towels so that you are forced to run about with a hand towel, like something out of a dreadful American comedy." He then goes quiet for a while, allowing the voices of the characters on the TV fighting to be heard over the soothing sounds of a raging, devastating storm, to fill the room. People caught in a storm beyond their comprehension, struggling just to communicate to each other, being pushed to and fro, threatened by sudden disaster at every turn.

    Some seeking shelter on their own, others refusing to find shelter without the others in their group. Zoisite thought that he and Mamoru might be like those characters, in their overwrought drama and horror. But none of them picked the option of just reaching someone they care about, and staying in the storm. That is what Zoisite and Mamoru chose.

    Taking shelter in each other, and letting the storm do what storms do.

    They may wind up dead where they stand, or separated by force, or face any number of tragic fates. Especially with a monster stalking through the storm around them, picking off targets of opportunity.

    But maybe, by some miracle, they will even outlast the storm's fury, and see it all through to the end.

    "Have I ever mentioned," he starts up suddenly, "How annoying symbolism is? Like, in literature? It's incredibly lazy. Tolkien despised it too, but keep trying to say crap like the One Ring represents nuclear weapons or something. Man must be rolling in his grave every time some puffed up highschool English teacher starts trying to talk about how Sauron was symbolism for, like, Hitler. Anyway, just thought I'd mention it, apropros of nothing." Pause. "Metaphors are alright though."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I'm also," Mamoru says quietly against Zoisite's hair, "incredibly lazy." Then he kisses Zoisite's head, a benediction.

It's a warmth and a pocket of safety he doesn't want to let go of, selfish as he is, impossible spoiled prince that he was, is. He wants Zoisite safe, wants them all safe, all with him, and he wants her, too. He wants his planet safe. He wants, wants, wants.

"And I'm a terrible fence-sitter," he says more conversationally, lifting his head but putting his arm around Zoisite. "When it comes to metaphors and symbolism. I like both."

Zoisite has posed:
    "Hm." Zoisite says only. He moves his hand from Mamoru's head, draws it close to his chest and then reaches out in front to take one of his friend's hands, and start examining his fingers. Tracing them with his own, as though trying to memorize them. Then he begins to speak. It is a harsh, dark language he speaks in. All sharp edges to it, and curled fingers wrapped around bone pen to write them.

    "Shre nazg golugranu kilmi-nudu
    Ombi kuzddurbagu gundum-ishi
    Nugu gurunkilu bard gurutu
    Ash Burz-Durbagu burzum-ishi
    Daghburz-ishi makha gulshu darulu
    Ash nazg durbatuluuk
    ash nazg gimbatul,
    ash nazg thrakatuluuk
    agh burzum-ishi krimpatul."

    He pauses. The room seemed darker when he was speaking. Shadows bending like trees in a storm to listen. But it all goes back to how it was afterwards. "That is the 'Black Speech' of Mordor, from The Lord of the Rings. It is also very, very similar to youma'shak, the language spoken by--Well, you know. There are other languages, made up by humans, that sound similar. Klingon, for example. Youma'shak itself, I am told by Nephrite, is a corrupted variant of another tongue from... Before. Yet, even with thousands of years separated from this world, the youma of the Dark Kingdom and the humans of Earth developed a language along similar lines. More than one, even. I find that fascinating."

    He overlays his left hand and Mamoru's, comparing the two. "Something else interesting... Sailor Mars, Sailor Mercury, and so on... They had those titles even in the distant past. Silver Millennium. Somehow, the people of Earth wound up using those same names for the same planets. I asked Nephrite about it, and he said, 'Must be some form of mythic resonance.' And I just went, 'Ah, yes, mythic resonance, very good.' because what the fuck does that even mean, right? But here we are. So many things from the distant past that should have been completely lost... Popping back up, independently. Almost like the world is readjusting itself somehow to, albeit over thousands of years, return to a version of how it used to be."

    Then Zoisite turns to look at Mamoru next to him. "And so, I wonder: What else from the ancient past has reappeared at some point during history... Who else might be reappearing here, now? And what if the poem I just recited for you, which bears elements of a language, according to Nephrite, that was once used for spellcasting and summoning rituals, refers to something outside of the fictional work it was presented in? For example..."

    Then he recites it again, in English this time, because they both totally speak English, right?

Zoisite has posed:
    "Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
    Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
    Nine for the Mortal Men doomed to die,
    One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
    In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
    One Ring to-rule-them-all
    One Ring to-find-them,
    One Ring to-bring-them-all
    and in-the-Darkness bind-them."

    No weird shadow nonsense happened this time, and nothing continues to happen when Zoisite finishes. Then he asks very, very seriously, "What is it that Takashi's crew are looking for, and how many of them? How many Shitennou are there, counting Pyrite, you, and Kunzite? What if there's one more somewhere we've not remembered or found yet? How many Senshi are there? Who sits on a throne in a land of darkness, taking orders from a Shadow? What treasure is it you are seeking that could give you a miracle?"

    He waits a few more seconds. "What if that poem is some sort of mistranslated or misremembered or corrupted version of a prophecy? A prophecy about what will happen if the 'One Ring' isn't retrieved by the right people or person?" Then he turns back to the television, grabs the remote and clicks it off, plunging the room into silence except for the hot tub percolating and the hum of all the electricity being wasted on lava lamps, and the breaths of the two of them. "I'm not the mystic who can see the future. And honestly, all of this speculation and mythology is Nephrite's thing. But I'm seeing similarities I'm very unhappy with. Symbols and representations that are setting my teeth on edge. And I should very much like to stop noticing them."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's with affectionate patience that Mamoru lets Zoisite take his un-callused protector's hand and examine his scholar's fingers, a hand that should be rougher than it is, shouldn't it? Mythic resonance that echoes through Anatolia, through Caria, and ends in fingerprints that couldn't possibly be the same.

A soul that's the same even coated in dark energy like a hard candy shell, resulting in a boy that's sometimes so much older and tired and grieving than he should be... in the middle of being more of a jerk than he should be, and occasionally much more thunderously imperious than he should have any right to be. Some orphan from Juuban, lost in and then lost from the system.

He listens with a grave aspect and silent attentiveness, the weight of that attention a thing as solid as bedrock and as heavy as gold, the depths of the vasty ocean's floor still and strange enough to withstand the darkness bending in.

"You," he eventually says at the end, softly, "are an enormous nerd. I understand your worry, but I also think it's safety in displacement. Certainly there are echoes; how many times in between might we have been reborn and failed? How many times might we have almost remembered, and spread what we knew? Who were the Seven Sages, what is Gobekli Tepe? There's plenty of corrupted mythology and there are plenty of inexplicable things to go around without bringing modern invented mythology in, no matter how spooky youma'shak is. Even the first time, Zoisite... I know the language Nephrite was talking about. It sounds so pretty. Humanity both corrupts and purifies. It's never only one or the other."

He reaches to flip Zoisite's ponytail in the exact same annoying way that someone else did, in a time before recorded history, in the silence between their breaths and the bubbles.

"There were only four Shitennou. And I wasn't one of them," he says briskly. "Neither was Pyrite." He doesn't repeat Kunzite's name, he doesn't have to. "Do you think I should promote her? It would probably topple Jadeite over the edge again. I'm barely keeping him together, and I'm increasingly getting the feeling that I've already failed."

A beat. "Can I sleep over? I need hugs."

Zoisite has posed:
    Zoisite, ever the contrarian, sits through the rejoinder to his big, creeped-out, over-elaborate fearfest based on pattern recognition, that thing that humans literally evolved to be really good at to the extent that they see patterns where there are none. Then he grumpily mutters, "I liked my explanation better."

    Then he sighs, pulls his legs out of the water finally before they turn all pruney, and goes to turn off the water and drain it so it can be cleaned the next day. He also says, "We're both nerds, darling." and bends down to put a little kiss on Mamoru's cheek. "Of course you can stay. A little known fact is that I give excellent hugs."

    All's well that ends well.

    As long as that Shadow doesn't get what it wants.