2527/The King and the Unicorn

The King and the Unicorn
Date of Scene:	13 May 2025
Location:	Crystal Tokyo
Synopsis:	Hinoiri sits in King Endymion's throne. It doesn't go well.
Cast of Characters:	Hinoiri Kirara, Mamoru Chiba
Tinyplot:	Black Moon Clan
Tinyplot2:	BMC: Dimension Future

---

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara was sitting on ENDYMION'S throne.

... Upside down.

And there were notes EVERYWHERE. Scattered ALLLLLLL over the place. And she was... writing something. There were... charts?

... And books? And oh my gosh. Who DID this? And a plate of half eaten food nearby? At least she didn't leave a mess, she made sure to keep the crumbs TO the plate.

But there were doodles, of... Chibiusa? Huh, good artistry.

... And calculations that made NO sense. At all. To anyone. And hey, she wasn't wearing her shoes on the headrest, so... yay?

As she wrote some more notes, a frown on her face. "Uggggggh. This would be SO much easier if you people had proper magic and understood how it worked... what I wouldn't do for a few spellbooks to build off of..." she muttered, her voice filled with annoyance.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Get out of my chair."

King Endymion's voice is quiet, but it's earthquake weather.

"Clean up your mess."

He's properly visible in front of Hinoiri and there is no good humor in his face. There's bottled fury, his fist closed tight around his cane, his shoulders and jaw set...

"It's clear you have no respect for me, but you are also disrespecting my wife and the countless dead outside the doors who believed in us and wanted us there. Just because they're dead and we might as well be is no reason to, to--"

He gestures sharply with the cane at the mess Hinoiri's made, even if she didn't get crumbs anywhere. Then he gestures at Hinoiri herself.

"To act like we are."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara blinked a few times when she heard a voice. She glanced up and... "Huh. Astral projection spell? No... maybe? Huh. I didn't think you could do that. And it's fine," she said, waving a hand off. "You must be King Endymion, right? You're about as tense as I imagined you'd be," she said, though she didn't roll off yet.

"Believe it or not, I have a lot of respect for you. I wouldn't be here otherwise. I wouldn't be working on any of this, either," she said, motioning towards the assorted books. "And I certainly wouldn't be trying to figure out where the intersections of... ohhhhh, that's a thought."

Then she rolled off the chair, clambering over towards one of the papers she'd set out and writing something down. "You're like, sleeping now, right? Oh, if I could get home, ugh, this would be SUCH a good time... darn it. If only I'd thought to bring the book with me. No, even if it worked across our world's boundaries, I doubt it could work across both time AND dimensions."

"Oh, right. Uhhhh. Hinoiri Kirara, unicorn. Nice to meet you. Well, less nice to meet you, I guess. You're more uptight than I thought you'd be."

She started ruffling through the papers, writing more things. "Can you physically touch anything like that, or are you entirely incorporeal? And I chose this room because it's the throne room. Both royals are out of commission, so nobody comes in here. Of our group, I'm the one with the most experience with magic... well. Magic, in general. A student of it, actually. Though, Rashmi is learning a lot."

"I'm trying to learn what I can of this world's magic, to see how it differs from our worlds, mayyyybe use it to fix two birds, one stone. And I figured this was best way to not get disturbed. Apparently I was mistaken."

She glanced over at him again and then paused...

"... Wait. Did you get *taller*? Do humans get taller when they rule too, or is that like... a part of being the 'earth' thing? Or are you trying to like... make yourself bigger to intimidate me? Cause, like... if the latter? That's cute that you think it'd work." She looked back at one of the books she'd procured, flipping through it.

"... Seriously, though, dude? You really need to take like, a break. If you're anything like the you from my world? Your stress levels must be beyond mountainous right now."

"There aren't any other cases like Chibiusa-chan's in this world, are there? I've been going over every record I can find, but I can't find anything."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"My wife is in a giant crystal, I am in a coma, the people left in the palace are terrified, they care if someone is fucking with their cultural symbolism. Do you just not think about what respect actually means? Do you not respect boundaries? Do you not respect this dimension, this planet, these people? You say you respect us, but I can't see it. You think I'm offended on my own behalf, you even think I'm 'trying to intimidate you' -- " He takes another step closer, and he is truly honestly aggrieved. There is actual upset in his face, not just fury. He is legitimately talking from a place of pain, and he is so angry--

He is so angry.

"There are literally private study spaces off the library and all you had to do was ask where you could go for quiet, instead of assuming that since no one was currently using the throne room, you obviously should. If you want to have a useful, helpful conversation about this, you will have to move."

He stalks off. "I'll wait for you in the library."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara blinked a few times and... admittedly... no. She hadn't expected... that... big a reaction. She'd... maybe figured it'd annoy him a bit. She'd expected a bit of a riff. A tease. She'd expected a bit of back and forth.

But this anger? She hadn't expected this. And she genuinely didn't want this. "Wait, I hadn't..." And... he was gone...

... She sighed. Yeah... She was going to... Just... not... do that. She picked up the books and closed them up. Okay, crossed a line. She was going to just... Not.

If there was one thing she was good at, it was avoiding royals she had pissed off. There were probably better things for her to focus her energy on, anyway. Ones that didn't involve her being underfoot.

On the upside, she did pick up everything she'd brought into the throne room.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's... significantly later.

When Hinoiri didn't show up in the library, the King double-checked to make sure she was out of the throne room -- ahh, she cleaned up after herself -- and then he spread his awareness out further, vanished from sight with his consciousness in the blasted and poisoned ground. There she was.

So he retracted himself from his sick world and showed up in the library again, hand waving over the monitor controls, and he left them on with the scanners pointed in her direction, set to track in case she ran into more trouble than she could handle.

And then he dragged his hands down his face and sighed, and sat down, and waited again.

Now, Hinoiri is coming back, and Endymion gives her enough time to get cleaned up after her self-appointed mission that she won't feel yucky physically when he comes to find her.

Which he does.

"Did you want your answers, Kirara-san?"

All the fury is gone, leaving only the fatigue that was already there.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara was not... always the best at making choices. And, admittedly? The throne thing? Not her best choice. She knew her Mamoru and Usagi a bit... though, after this? She was wondering if she didn't know them as well as she thought.

... Funny. she thought she'd been doing better. Thought she'd begun to really understand people better. All it took was one bad read of a situation and all that confidence just went out the window, didn't it?

She'd been yelled out by Sora a few times in the past and her reaction was fairly common then. Teleport out of the castle, leave for a few hours, blow off steam, come back, apologize. And... yeah. She knew what she did wrong. The throne was a big thing to them. She didn't realize that. It wasn't that to her, but she, probably, should have realized it was. She hadn't. So instead, she'd come off as dismissive and arrogant of their feelings.

She'd blown off a lot of steam. Stayed nearby, nothing too risky, but... well... she needed to take SOME risk. If she didn't blow off some risk, she was going to explode.

Once she got back? She cleaned up and then retired to her room, collapsing into it. Okay. She'd find and apologize to him lat... now, it seemed.

"... Yup," she said, sitting up again, before calling out to him and... "Uhhhh. Sorry about that. Where... I come from, thrones aren't that big a deal and you're... yeah. Sorry. I misjudged, my bad. I... yeah. Sorry about that," she said, averting her eyes and rubbing the back of her head.

Her hair was a mess. A senshi she was not.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Thank you for apologizing," the King says frankly, a little wryly. "I was willing to move on, but that does help. And -- it actually kind of would have been funny if the guards found you instead of me, because you'd have ended up in the dungeon."

Is he serious? He seems like he means it. Does he mean it?

"But -- no, I finally stopped growing at about twenty. And I can't touch anything, I'm not telekinetic. I can interact with the controls in the monitor room because they're designed to interface with my power as well as being usable by people who aren't psychic. Also, Small Lady is the only one with her condition," he says, the wryness leaving, his tone now gently matter-of-fact. "Do you want to keep asking questions here, or would you like to come to the library after all?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara didn't comment on the idea of ending up in the dungeons. It was probably better for both of them that she didn't.

"Huh. Good to know. So just an astral projection then... I wasn't aware your powers could do that... A shame I was out of my mind when I... actually, no, I guess that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been out of my mind," Hinoiri mumbled, rolling her eyes.

"Only one with her condition... so I wonder if it's tied to the senshi magic specifically, then... I've only seen a handful of cases like this in my world, but their effects were... not quite as severe, or as long term. And no. I tend to operate best isolated. I'm still getting used to working with other people."

She also, admittedly, still felt a bit raw after the prior tongue lashing from earlier and didn't feel like being near a lot of people.

"Only one other question, actually. The green jacket. *Why*?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The King of Earth, Elysion, and Crystal Millennium... blinks.

"Little me had one too?" he asks, baffled. "I bought it when I was in the orphanage when it was too big for me. I had to make sure I got something ugly enough that no one would steal it, and big enough I could grow into it, and cheap enough that I could buy it without paperwork. It was..."

He squints, looking deep into the distance of history. "600 yen? And I was eleven. It was huge on me."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara gave a small nod. "Mm hm. Though, I don't think he had it from the same place. Grave robbing, from what I've managed to uncover," she said. Even though she knew it was likely untrue.

"... How are you holding up? Considering the powers you have, I know all of this must be absolutely crushing for you. I'd be going bucking mad by now."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Grave robbing...?" echoes the King, blinking again. "That does sound like the kind of thing I'd say instead of 'none of your business.'" At least there's some amusement in there now--

--and at the question, his shoulders finally de-tense. "I'm not going insane because I am one hundred percent dissociated," he admits ruefully. "I'm dissociating so hard that other people are experiencing my out-of-body experience. I'm doing considerably better now that there's hope."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara gave a small nod. "Yeah, sounds about right. That was a rough time loop. I wonder if this means Takashi has one of those jackets hidden somewhere... he'd probably kill me if I tried to find out," she said with a light snort.

"... I'd say something about 'not healthy behavior', but well. I think we are *sooooo* far past healthy behavior at this point. You're free, though. I don't think I have anything else to bother you with unless you want to ask me about the land of ponies and alicorns and your wife as a pegasus."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"... she does have wings," Endymion points out, one corner of his mouth tugging up. "They're more like fairy wings though. Very pretty and floaty like gossamer."

He's silent for a second after the offer otherwise. "When this is over, I'd love to know more. But I won't be able to appreciate it right now. I--"

'I'm sorry I got angry' is a lie. He got angry for a good reason. But:

"I'm sorry I lost my temper at you, and I'm sorry I swore at you. You're right about there being a lot of pressure, and you sort of... you didn't just hit a button, you stomped on it, and when I told you to stop standing on it, you jumped up and down on it a couple of times. That's not an excuse, but it is a reason."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara gave a small nod. "She definitely does," she said with a small grin.

However, when he apologized, she cringed. "Yeah. It's... fine. It's fine. I uhhhh... do that. I probably should have known better. Acting like we're friends when you don't even really know me was probably presumptuous of me. My experiences with royalty just... don't really mesh with a lot of human expectations. So... let's just... not get in each other's way and call it good, okay?"

"I've still got a lot of work to do anyway, so.... thanks. I'll, uhhhh, see you around, okay?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"All right," says Endymion, inclining his head with a faint smile. "We're good."

And then he just ... swiftly dissipates into little motes of light and then nothing. There's no sign he was ever there, except for Hinoiri's jangled nerves.