[Thread] - Lovely day for a walk, eh? (OPEN!)

[waterfell]

Characters: OU: Mizuno Ami [PGSM], OPEN
Where: the park, a swingset
When: after Mercury is shot down
Summary: Mercury is ordered to take a hike walk, and does so. She winds up in the park on a swingset.
Azula visits
Pharaun visits
Usagi (OU, PGSM) visits
Kunzite visits
Warnings: emo? dramaz? but moderation in all things.

Comments

[waterfell]

People who don't know someone is watching them act freely. People who always know someone is watching them, at least in this case, offer the watcher a brief smirk. Mercury slowed her swinging and eventually stopped, and she was just sitting on a swing dangling her feet now.

"That's true," she told him, and somehow, somehow she managed to keep up her usual breezy, airy demeanor. "Want to catch up on old times? You can start."

Actually, she didn't mind seeing him, she supposed. One person was as good as another, anyway. Drow, in this case. She'd thought of him twice over that day and night and morning with Kunzite, she realized now, and that was strange. Once when she had remembered Pharaun saying love was irrational as she had tried to answer why she'd saved that man, and once when she had remembered Pharaun shouting at her that he'd thought she had wanted him not to love her.

The innocent and naive - as Kunzite would call her and had called her in such matters - senshi did not even remotely consider that these thoughts might apply to her situation with that man.

[berranyrmizzrym]

Pharaun wasn't about to say anything about how much he'd been thinking of his sisters lately. He shrugged. "Things have been fairly dull lately. I presume you know your friend... his name was Nephrite, wasn't it? Nephrite has apparently been turned into a rabbit. He seemed quite upset about it."

[waterfell]

No, it did relate. Oh, not love, but, Kunzite did not want her to care for him. Mercury was still digesting that thought, finding it heavy and leaden and unpalatable. Because of the strange connection they'd almost started to form, she'd hoped she and Kunzite would have built something, well, something similar to a friendship.

What nonsense.

She focused on Pharaun now. "A rabbit?" she echoed skeptically. Did she remember him saying something about that? She remembered him telling her the ginzuishou was here, and she remembered knowing it meant the princess was nearby. "Nephrite should become something a little more useful," she suggested.

[berranyrmizzrym]

"It's certainly hard to think of something less useful he could have become." Pharaun smirked. "I believe his words were 'I'm a fucking bunny rabbit', although I'm sure he didn't mean it literally." Hopefully, anyway. "I understand we've had some recent arrivals from your world."

[waterfell]

"Kunzite is here, and the master, and the princess," Mercury confirmed. "That means all of the shitennou are here to greet those two!" Her tone suggested plainly that while some of the 'four heavenly kings' might make that greeting respectful and subservient, one at least would not.

The princess, Mercury would take care of herself.

She'd checked her communicator messages after Kunzite had ordered her away, and learned about those very arrivals. She had nothing else to motivate her right now, and the old thrill of her quest to destroy Usagi - Serenity - was strong at the moment.

[berranyrmizzrym]

"Ah. An important occasion, to be sure." It was, Pharaun reflected, rather as if the entirety of the little expedition he'd been part of had been there to welcome Ryld and the Melarn woman. "Perhaps I'll have to meet Kunzite, now that I have the opportunity at last."

[waterfell]

"We ought to plan a banquet," Mercury mused. It was a cross between sarcasm and honest amusement at the idea of all of them in one room long enough to have a dinner together. She grinned impishly at Pharaun as if at a co-conspirator.

Perhaps I'll have to meet Kunzite. She ignored that part, outwardly. And, truthfully it didn't make matters any worse than they already were, but it did make her realize just how many people were going to want to meet him, and how much and how often they'd be talking about him. Of course, she fully expected to still be fighting alongside him, and so it was not as if she were thinking she wanted to avoid him, but she did not feel like having this part of her life on display as it would suddenly be pressured to be.

Well. Pressure. She had never liked that anyway. She could ignore it. Reject it.

[berranyrmizzrym]

"I think I'll skip dinner that day. I'd hate to intrude on the reunion." Or be caught in the crossfire. It was liable to end up looking like Ched Nasad, and Pharaun had no desire to go through that again. It occurred to him that much of the trouble he'd had on that little outing had started in Ched Nasad, come to think of it - after all, most of it had come from the presence of Danifae and Halisstra. "So, apart from the new familiar faces, how have you been, Mercury?"

[waterfell]

She grinned. She'd probably decide to fast that day herself. She had seen what could happen when all four shitennou were in one place together.

A faint shrug. "Econtra is always entertaining," she allowed. A little quirk of her lips upward. "But new arrivals seem to typically be getting less intelligent, and I don't just mean the familiar ones."

It was her usual derision of the Drafted, but she was serious. Rarely, lately, had she seen anyone stand out so that she felt compelled to contact them. One or twice, perhaps.

[berranyrmizzrym]

"Perhaps it's simply a coincidence. The way people are brought here, it isn't really surprising that things like this would happen. Which would mean that eventually we're due to get a group or so composed mainly of intelligent people." He hoped that wouldn't include any drow, especially none he knew; he was coping quite well without any interference from home.

[waterfell]

She gave a derisive smirk at that idea. A group of intelligent people? In Econtra? What nonsense.

But no, not being a typical Econtran, and having some intelligence, Pharaun was right to a point, by simple probability alone. Amusing.

"When do you suppose that will happen?"

[berranyrmizzrym]

"One would assume we're due one fairly soon now, but that doesn't mean much." Pharaun smirked. "At a guess, I'd say when the Keepers and the Entropi start negotiating trade routes and you fall madly in love with me without some sort of chemical aid."

[waterfell]

He was making her almost relax. Even the joke made her smirk but although amused it was not derisive.

"Trade route discussions are next week," she told him. "But you'll have to wait a little longer on the rest."

[berranyrmizzrym]

"I'm fairly young as drow go. I can wait." Of course, most drow died fairly young, but that's one of the perils of living in a society whose denizens are well aware that they're evil and enjoy every moment of it. "Remind me to ask you again in a century or so."

[waterfell]

A century or so. She could think of time in centuries, but not a future in centuries. But, if the princess was destroyed, there would be that many years after all, wouldn't there?

She didn't bother driving herself mad wondering 'why', or telling him all the reasons he shouldn't, or even becoming defensive. They were joking about it, after all, like the joke it was. Love? A drow, love? Mercury, involved in love? What nonsense.

"In a century or so, I'll be even more superior than you," she cautioned him.

[berranyrmizzrym]

"Some people I know," Pharaun remarked, "would object strenuously to the idea of any human being superior to a drow." Not to mention that he wasn't quite that certain that that would be the case.

Pharaun reflected that the problem with trying to stop being in love with Mercury was that it held an element of narcissism that he was rather vulnerable to.