289/Welcome Home (First Take)

Welcome Home (First Take)
Date of Scene:	23 August 2023
Location:	Starlight View Mansion
Synopsis:	Bombshells and shots in the Starlight View Mansion.
Cast of Characters:	Nephrite, Pyrite, Mamoru Chiba

---

Nephrite has posed:
    Hematite teleports the three of them back to the Starlight View Mansion. Nephrite is still drained as all hell, especially after whatever that was that happened in the hallway before. He feels sick. He feels like someone has had their hand in his soul, rooting around in it. It's a violation somehow even worse than someone perusing his thoughts. But he doesn't show it. Just as he can read Hematite's body language, and Hematite can read his, and all the Shitennou can do so for each other, the fact Nephrite barely standing despite not a single sign of weakness, nor a single tremble or bow of his shoulders, says, 'This man needs to sit the hell down and rest'.

    He proceeds to do this, while still acting as though nothing is wrong, taking his time to wander around after he has lost physical contact with Hematite, going to his personal bar and making a show of his bartending skills by fancily getting out three glasses and sliding them along the counter to the exact right places, then snatching up some drinks off the shelf. "Is a Shirley Temple for the munchkin fine?" he asks Hematite casually. Alright, now his hands are trembling a little, but he keeps the facade going for as long as possible. For himself, he mixes several drinks together, along with a fermented pear slush that was freezing in the mini-fridge. With his stirring stick he mixes it up, and then pours it into two of the glasses. It looks green and muddy, like monster blood or swamp ooze. It does not taste like either of those. It's more than a little bit strong, but it's a fine drink to have on a summer's eve. Cooling, refreshing, and drowsiness inducing.

    He's trying so hard not to drop anything as he rests his arms on the counter and gestures for Hematite to pick whichever he likes.

Pyrite has posed:
    Pyrite still lacks a stomach at this point in time. She doesn't have the capacity to taste things either. Whatever she drinks will just float around until it becomes ghost slime and gets spat out. She does feel a bit more complete after sticking her hand in Nephrite's soul, but there was another presence in there, bigger than her own, so she retreated with the knowledge gained and the insight into her own soul's construction. That was enough. She does not let go of Hematite after the teleportation unless there is cause to. She has no idea what a 'Shirley Temple' is, nor a 'munchkin'. What even is English? Who knows? Not her!

    So she just mostly just looks around blankly at the new environment, and then focuses on Hematite when she finds nothing that interests her. She looks to him for cues on how to act, and what to do.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Sure, if she wants one," Hematite says, not making a show of his concern for Nephrite -- Neph knows it's there. And Neph explicitly didn't mind Pyrite coming, so Hematite's not questioning him or his ability to fake like everything is fine.

Instead, he lets Pyrite keep holding on to him bodily until it's time to sit down in front of the counter, and then, he pats the seat next to him again and ruffles the little murderghost's hair again. "A Shirley Temple is a sweet fizzy red drink," he explains to her, "without alcohol in it."

Oh my god does he ever want to tell Neph to go to bed, they'll talk later, but he knows how fast things can be forgotten.

Picking one of the two drinks up and sipping it cautiously, Hematite blinks. "I have no idea how you made strong alcohol taste almost like a juice box, but this is really good." A beat, where he weighs the pros and cons of acknowledging the weakness Neph is currently suffering while they're in his own house, but with also Pyrite there, and he glances at Pyrite. "Don't tell anyone else what gets said in here tonight, okay?"

Then Hematite looks at Neph and reaches over to put a gloved hand over the other man's, warm and solid, and his head's tilted a little to meet that gaze. "Do you need some energy? I mean, before anything else. Would it help?" That, at least, is safe to ask since it's what he'd admitted to being short on, back at the Tower.

Nephrite has posed:
    Unsurprising that Pyrite is disinterested in drinks. He still isn't sure WHAT she is, but Hematite knows, and the trust shown -- misplaced or not -- is good enough for Nephrite. So he waits a moment as he considers the pros and cons of accepting energy. Then he says, "I think it would be better if I recovered it on my own. An infusion of Dark Energy right now might be..." He considers his words carefully. "...Turbulent." Okay, probably not the adjective most people would have gone for, but that's fine. He does make his way around the counter and sits himself down on Hematite's other side. He makes sure to take a swig of his drink first before saying anything else. It'll help calm him.

    "I'm thinking of calling it something like, 'Deceptive Appearance', but that might be too subtle. It's not very catchy either." He holds his glass in hand and swishes the think drink around. The hand holding the drink has his elbow planted on the counter, while his left is hidden away out of sight, and gripping said arm to keep it from failing him. Then he grins. "Disguised Magic. That's what I'll call it."

Pyrite has posed:
    Nephrite may be dancing around whatever it is he wishes to discuss, but Pyrite is barely even paying attention. When she is spoken to directly, she climbs up onto the bar stool to Hematite's left, and holds her empty glass the way she sees that her senpai does. "Naruhodo." is her answer to the explanation of what a Shirley Temple is. "I understand completely." She then continues to sit there with her empty glass and stare vacantly into space. Then she's addressed again. Not a fetter, but something that tugs at one of the already-extant restrictions of obedience. She nods her head slowly and says, "Yes, Hematite-senpai." She is just an observer to this then.
    Like she has been for so many other things.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Hand back where it belongs, Hematite nods. "Turbulent makes sense. If whatever happened drained you all of a sudden, then putting it back just as quickly sounds like a recipe for rollercoaster stomach." Hangover stomach, even. He sips his drink again, then pushes his hair out of his face and sets the glass down. "Disguised Magic," he repeats, and snortlaughs into a hand.

He holds up a finger. "Hang on a second, I just had an idea--"

And then Hematite is gently taking Pyrite's glass and sliding it over to himself; he holds a hand over it and just. Puts dark energy in. The same way he'd animate a glass into a youma, but without actually putting it inside the actual glass -- just filling it as if it were liquid. It acts like it's a cup of black dry ice in water, and he nods firmly and slides it back to Pyrite. "There."

Then he blue-eyes blinks back at Nephrite and grins, and then settles himself back down. "Sorry. She can't drink anything liquid yet, or taste anything yet. Anyway, with your Disguised Magic, you aim to take over Tokyo, then the world--"

Nephrite has posed:
    Nephrite shakes his head. "This is about a cat. The same one that almost got Jadeite killed by Sailor Moon, possibly. A black cat, with a crescent-shaped bald patch on her forehead, named Luna. Owned by a girl, named Usagi Tsukino. And, it seems, a trained attack-cat for Sailor Moon." He continues swishing his drink, for a bit while casually watching Hematite's reactions. He's not trying to provoke a reaction, but he wants to see if he's crazy or if someone else sees what he sees.

    Then he drops the bombshell. "I ran over this cat with my car a few days ago."

Pyrite has posed:
    Oh-hoh? You're approaching me?
    Pyrite looks intrigued as her empty glass is taken out of her pale hands rather easily. It passes right through them, in fact. Then there's Dark Energy inside, straight from the tap, so to speak. A viscuous form of it. Pyrite is not trained for proper bar etiquette (obviously), so she just gulps it down to the best of her ability as soon as the glass is returned to her. Almost immediately she feels more... Present. Less of a 'presence' in the room, haunting the place, and more physically there. She might still be a ghost, but she's a more solid one than if she were allowed to just keep sitting there forgetting herself until she's back to just repeating the same memory over and over.

    "Thank you, Hematite-senpai~!" she makes sure to say. You have to thank people when they help you. That is polite. And she needs to be polite and also not be impolite. Two skulls with one rock.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"You're welcome!" Hematite tells Pyrite, smiling, and then he turns to listen to Nephrite, and--

"You... what?" he asks blankly.

"Sailor Moon, you can't trust him! That monster calls him a traitor, that means he was on her side -"

Luna the tiny little black cat with the teenaged girl's voice, Luna the fuzzy little cat with the cast ohhhhh--

"Wait. But she was at this barbeque I was just at, with Usagi," Darien says, losing his henshin in a heartbeat, clutching his tumbler full of Alcholic Ecto-Cooler With Black Raspberry Syrup Stripe, looking really knocked for a loop. "You ran over her? She's so fuzzy though... she must be okay if Usagi was taking her out to a barbeque?"

He seems to be focusing on the wrong things, here. After some effort, he adds, "Maybe Luna's two-timing Sailor Moon and Usagi."

Nephrite has posed:
    Nephrite nods. His own Henshin reverts to match Darien's. "She survived." He turns back to his drink and downs half of it, letting the cold of the previously-frozen pear slush slide down his throat, painful but tasting so sweet and swallowed so smoothly, and he's distracting himself. "I used one of my Constellation Avatars to guarantee her survival. A single-use summoning. I still don't recall why I would do such a thing. It should have been saved for Her Majesty's sake, or yours, or one of the others. But I burned the only chance I had to summon Phoenix the Firebird, on a cat, belonging to the Enemy."

    Masato shakes his head slowly as he closes his eyes tiredly. "Something is wrong with me. But there was no way I could admit that in front of Jadeite. Or--Gods, Zoisite would have slit my throat in my sleep if he thought I was compromised. Let's not even get into what Her Royal Highness would do if she thought I was a traitor."

    He opens his eyes and downs the remaining half of the Disguised Magic. Smacking his lips a bit and letting out a sigh, he lets the glass sit on the counter for a while before taking his hand off of it. "I don't know what else happened. I can't remember. But there's a price to be paid for using the Phoenix, even once. Being drained and weakened? That isn't the prescribed cost. That's separate, and I've yet to figure out why I'm so low on energy."

    He doesn't say anything else just yet. He still has to process all of this.

    He looks towards Pyrite, the little horror consuming Dark Energy like it's nothing at all. Her presence is stronger. What will happen if you keep feeding her, Brother? he wonders to himself, half-asleep already but doing his damndest to stay sitting upright. Will the day eventually arrive in which she wants to consume the source?

Pyrite has posed:
    The wraith feels herself being watched, so she turns and watches back. Something about a cat. And Enemies. And magic. Bringing a cat back to life? What a strange, stupid thought. Why wouldn't one just make it into a ghost instead? It's just going to die again eventually, right? Honestly, people are so foolish.
    Pyrite is presently making a pair of drink umbrellas fight each other on the countertop in front of her.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Darien watches Nephrite distract himself with melting pear and memory from cats and constellations, and his own hands are tight and cold around his glass. It's tempting to fall into the same comfortable haze that Masato is aiming for, but his heart's beating in doubletime and he has to pay attention.

He keeps the dark energy at bay only because he doesn't have an external enforcer, and he's tired, and it hurts, but this is his Nephrite. He doesn't know what to do.

He doesn't know.

"I... forget things," Darien finally says, carefully. "On purpose."

Nephrite is half-asleep, Pyrite is doing the kind of thing bored kids do, Nephrite is half asleep and Darien's going to talk about this, at least a little, because it might help.

"If something seems like it would get me in trouble, or get you in trouble, or Jadeite or Zoisite-- or if it seems like it might start the kind of trouble we aren't ready to handle, just knowing it--? I forget it. If I want to keep something safe from all the machinations and backstabbing that goes on in the rest of Obsidian, believe me, do I ever forget it."

Darien takes a drink from his glass, bigger, and then pinches the bridge of his nose hard and screws up his face. Brainfreeze. He talks through it; this is important. "I don't want to know anything that could hurt anyone else if something went digging around in my head. I don't want anything to forget important things for me, where I can't get to them, where I can't rebuild in the empty space left behind because there's nothing to rebuild from. I forget things on purpose, so that I can get them back someday. So if there's ever anything you want me to know that you don't think is safe..."

A glance back up. "You can tell me. You're important to me very much beyond Obsidian, beyond the Dark Kingdom, beyond Her Majesty and her boss, and I want you safe. If you do get in trouble-- come to me first, okay?"

Darien sounds like himself, sounds like he did when he recruited Masato Sanjouin, sounds like and looks like-- himself, but different. Himself, but somebody else, and not in the way the others do when something is talking through them. The different, the someone else, is still him.

"We'll get through all of it, no matter what's wrong with who. Whom?" A beat. "Whomst."

Nephrite has posed:
    Masato nods along. It's familiar territory. Unpleasant in regard to forgetfulness, and the reminder that Masato isn't always himself. But also the comfortable familiarity of knowing someone down to their soul. Even if their faces had been completely different from what they once knew, that bond would still be there. If they had been reborn as girls, or dogs, or demons, he would still know Darien on sight. Maybe not by that name though.

    "I appreciate it. But you should talk to me too, alright? Don't forget everything. You might forget something important." He pauses and then smiles and nudges Darien with his elbow. "Like grammar, or your passwords." The smile drops away completely as the teenager who looks like a man in his early 20s, with long, luxurious brown hair, handsome features, wealth, power, and everything else speaks in a hollow, far-away voice...

    "The price for using a single feather of the Phoenix is a year off the end of my life." He puts both hands around his empty glass and just stares straight ahead, blankly. Like it's an idea too big to wrap his head around. Like it still doesn't feel real. His own Constellation Avatar, consuming him from within for an act of good. Like there was so much filth in his soul to burn away first that it couldn't be done without a greater sacrifice.

    "It took ten."

Pyrite has posed:
    Pyrite perks up at this. She hasn't reverted to Himeko. Why would she? All of her swords are in this form. "Will you soon die then?" she asks hopefully.
    The green umbrella won by the way.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"... not if I have anything to say about it, Pyrite," says Darien, firm-- more firmly than he'd been trying to, possibly, but it bears emphasizing. "Obviously now you'll only live to 2990. While that's going to make the last ten years of my life unbearably miserable, it's still a long way off."

Unworried and breezy is how he's trying to sound, but there's an unsteadiness under it that betrays the fact that this isn't easy, there's nothing easy about any of this, and worry is a Strong Force. "I'll tell you things," Darien says, and it's quiet, but it's insistent too, "if I don't think something will find them in your head and take them away." He sounds apologetic, he looks apologetic. "And someday, I'll be able to tell you everything."

But this is also still about what happened with Luna. And the feather. "So-- it took ten to heal a cat from the brink of death?" he prompts, trying to figure this out. "Shouldn't the price be the same no matter who you're saving?" A beat. "Is there such a thing as thaumaturgic currency inflation?"

Nephrite has posed:
    They're trying to make this light-hearted. Even Pyrite. Even if she's actually just literally hoping for his death, Masato can pretend that the awful beast is joking. To her, after Darien admonishes her, the answer is, "That depends on how much longer I have to live. My fate is written in the Stars. By changing my position among them with the Firebird, I may have just greatly abbreviated my lifespan. If I was originally fated to die a year from now, and it only took one year, I would have died there in that animal hospital on that day." Masato sighs heavily as he puts his head in his hands and just rests on his elbows for a bit.

    He takes Darien's words as more than a promise. They are an oath of certainty. This will' happen. He will tell his brother someday what's going on and what the whole truth is. Hopefully, either Masator or Nephrite will be around to hear it. Otherwise that truth will be told at his grave.

    "The capacity for survival and whether we will actually achieve it are two different factors. Both are prescribed by fate. Either way, I hope that what you say is true, Darien. I hope that I live to see that far off day. Her Majesty has promised us immortality. I will probably stop aging in my twenties." Then he raises his head, folds his hands, and turns to rest his cheek atop them as he looks at Darien and smiles sadly. "But someone is only immortal until they aren't. I'm not a fatalist. I'm not planning my own funeral. But I felt it was best to warn you. For a non-Astrologist, it might as well just be gibberish, since neither you nor I can know what day will be our last. But it took more from me than it should have, not because of who or what was healed, or even due to the scale of healing, but because of who was summoning it."

    He closes his eyes. "I don't think such purifying flame is fit for the likes of me, who is so stained in darkness."

Pyrite has posed:
    The ghost quiets down. This isn't the time for her to be encouraging an early end. After all, clearly Darien-onii-chan is still attached to the Nephrite. If the latter were to die now, then he would live in her big brother's heart forever, and that would mean she couldn't have her eternal companion. At some point, she became Himeko again. No henshin needed. Ghosts, I tells ya'.

    "Perhaps you could gain more years from another." she suggests. She has no idea how that would work, but it's better than having lasting attachments to some guy who's going to die some day. He can rot when he's in the ground, but for now Himeko needs more time to separate the two. The connections she can see between them are not figurative. There are polarities, threads of destiny, balances of power, and keys. So many keys, hanging all around and between the two, each belonging to a lock somewhere.

    If she can just find the right key, she can start severing the connections.

    She already has scissors for doing just that.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Even if everything goes wrong," Darien says with utter conviction, "the Maboroshi no Ginzuishou can perform miracles. It can bring the dead back to life. And if you die, Brother, and I still live, I will stop at nothing to pull you back from that eternal dark, stains or not."

A beat. "You may end up a ghost. If so, you'll have to tell me your ghostly dietary needs because I'll expect you to haunt me, too." He glances at Himeko. "If he turns into a ghost before I can Silver Crystal him back to life, don't bully him, okay? Teach him how to do the thing with all the hands, it really alarms people. --oh, getting more years from someone else?"

It just clicked. Of course it did. He looks interested. Of course he does. "Could I give him some of my years?"

And then he reaches to lightly push Neph's shoulder. "Also, next time I'm over, do you have a chalkboard? I've been doing astrophysics over break since I finished all the calculus and physics stuff for the year already, and I wanted to ask you about some of the equations that are screwing me up."

It's such a bizarre segue that there's got to be something related, however tangentially, in what they've been talking about. Maybe it's something he doesn't want to talk about in front of Pyrite, after all of this.

Maybe it's astrophysics.