[Thread] - Snow Cones! (OPEN)

[waterfell]

Characters: OU: Mizuni Ami [PGSM], OPEN
Where: The park, near the pond
When: in the afternoon
Summary:
Mercury is enjoying snow cones to beat the heat (and giving some out). Flavor syrup courtesy of Indigeo, crushed ice courtesy of Mercury herself. Made while you wait! &hearts
Warnings: You might not get one if she doesn't like you?

Comments

[flipping_bird]

Between apologising, fussing over his friends who all seemed determined to neglect their injuries in favour of feeling guilty and just trying to catch up with everything he'd missed, Robin was in need of some downtime. He'd chosen the park, hoping (despite all experience to the contrary) that he might find a ball game in progress or someone looking for a training partner.

He wasn't expecting this.

"Are those -- sno-cones?" he asked, hardly believing his eyes.

[flipping_bird]

Energy signatures? Robin nodded. "That makes sense. How did you find out about how the consulo works? Was that the warden?"

Robin looked with interest at the weapon. "I'm guessing it's more ice in the same way a glacier is ice then?" he asked, impressed with the repertoire Mercury had at her disposal.

[waterfell]

"Yes. What we all have that this world lacks is life. Even the fact of our presence here will change this place." She glanced towards the pond again. "That pond was completely stagnant, before." There was little of the cheerfulness and playfulness now; she was quite serious.

Mercury's eyes returned to her sword with Robin's question. She wasn't sure what properties he was getting at exactly. "It was an icicle," she told him. Perhaps that explained what he wanted to know, perhaps not. She had made her sword back in her world, in her first fight with the sailor senshi, shaping the icicle - such a fitting weapon, cold and glittering and sharp - into this tool.

[flipping_bird]

Robin nodded slowly. He'd thought along similar lines before. "That was your doing? Or Belldandy's?"

"An icicle," Robin repeated. It looked cruel and sharp, and he had a feeling it would be a very effective weapon. "How does it stand up against metal?"

[waterfell]

"The one who purified it was me, along with Sailormercury." The work had been done well. The pond was clean, moving, lively again. Ripples and wavelets crossed its surface. She could hear - more, she could sense - its flow again.

This person, Robin, was asking the relevant questions instead of the obvious ones. She had to admit she liked that. "It's fine against metal," she told him. It had met Kunzite's sword, which was metal, often enough and had not been at any disadvantage for being ice. "I wouldn't keep it otherwise."

[flipping_bird]

"Sailor Mercury?" Robin asked, considering the pond. "It's really good to see something around here the way it should be. The park is getting there, thanks to Persephone and the others."

"Nice," Robin said, already considering the possibilities of a weapon like that. "And that makes sense. I have to say, I'm fine not having any powers, but yours are ... well. Worth having." He realised he'd been neglecting the sno cone, and hastily bent to catch up with it -- but was startled to realise it hadn't melted. With what he knew about Mercury fashioning herself a sword from an icicle, it didn't take much to work out why.

[waterfell]

"My counterpart." A girl with the same heart as her, but very different choices, so that they'd always understood each other and always disagreed about that most important thing: how to view their world, the war there, the sailor senshi, and Kunzite.

It could have even been referring to their strange situation. That girl was her past. She was that girl's past. A paradox. Mercury said no more aloud on the subject.

She'd been eating her own snow cone in occasional licks or bites the entire time, and so it was nearing its end. She glanced towards Robin's and saw its fuller state.

Worth having, he'd said. Yes, they were. "That power is what I'll use to make sure that world continues," she said simply.

[flipping_bird]

"You've got one of those two?" That was one aspect of econtra Robin actually liked. Not only did he have Nightwing to compare notes with, but the Robin that had replaced his older self. "It's definitely different meeting someone that's you but not."

The world continues ... Robin frowned at the girl's words. "Its in danger then? Your world."

[waterfell]

"That girl is wholly gone, now," Mercury told Robin. She meant it figuratively just as much as literally; she had even less intention of returning to her former life with each passing day.

"I told you I'm a senshi," she started to explain the rest. "That's a guardian soldier. Each of us were born under the protection of a different planet and ruled it as its princess. We served the princess of earth's moon, Serenity."

"Because back then, a forbidden love started between the princess and Earths prince, calamities occurred one after another. Finally war came, and when he died, she destroyed that world with her own power. Earth was restored, but none of those other civilizations on those other planets. We were reborn there, and so were those two. They're already close to each other again, and that fate will repeat if it isn't stopped."

[flipping_bird]

Wholly gone? Her phrasing was hard to parse exactly, but Robin guessed that was deliberate. "Sorry to hear that," he responded, imagining how he'd feel if Dick vanished. It wasn't hard to imagine -- not with Tim currently missing.

"So Mercury isn't just a name then -- it's a title?" Robin considered this new information carefully, trying to imagine it. "Sounds like you've got a heavy destiny along with those powers."

[waterfell]

She nodded. "We all take our names from our guardian planets. They're the source of our power. Those powers are given to us to protect our civilizations, as well as earth and its people." She believed in many of those ideals again, had come to understand that there was value and beauty in that world and in its people. That many important people existed there. That it should be the most important thing.

"When I'm not transformed, I grew up on Earth as Mizuno Ami."

[flipping_bird]

"You remember your ... civilisation then?" Robin asked curious. Through Starfire he'd had some experience of life on other planets, but Mercury's world sounded very different.

"Transformed? So you don't normally ... that's a stupid question, sorry." Robin grimaced. "So -- you prefer to go by Mercury?"

[waterfell]

"I remember all of the past life. But, when we were first reborn on Earth, none of us did. Even when I was brought here, we were only starting to. I learned most of the truth here."

Preference? "It's not like that. With this appearance, I'd look strange at school and around other people. But it's my former appearance, and it's how I fight."

[flipping_bird]

"Do you remember it like a memory? Or is it something that happened to someone else -- like a dream?" Robin asked, wondering. "And learnt the truth here -- how?"

Robin frowned. "I'm not sure I get it -- unless it's like my costume." He motioned to his mask and uniform. "I'm Robin in these -- I don't go by my civilian identity at all anymore, really."

[waterfell]

"It's a memory now. But it's a distant memory. It's like remembering something from when you were very little, but it's very clear." Those memories were impossible to lay aside if you had them at all. The court of the Moon Castle. The war. The ground itself split. Fire. Panic

[flipping_bird]

Robin nodded slowly. His own memories of life before Robin seemed like they belonged to a different person, but he had a feeling Mercury spoke of something very different.

"I guess it's true then. There could be things we learn here that we can take home with us," he said. "That's hopeful. Even if that person isn't here any more."