[013 ☿] Even if the two of us are ever torn apart, I swear that I will change the world.

[waterfell]

The forest is quiet, and green. A cloaked man heads towards an altar in a clearing, already laid out with candles and, crosswise, his sword in its sheath. He takes a deep, cleansing breath, and picks it up

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[memorywaters]

( mnemosyne isn't exactly sure how it is that she arrived in this place... she hardly ever leaves the place the desert rivers converge. a dream... it must be a dream. but the sound of something pouring in the distance draws her near. behind one of the trees she remains half hidden, peering out at -- a sailorsenshi...? )

[waterfell]

[She doesn't want to be seen. Her hand is in a fist at her side as she struggles for self-control. She swallows tightly, and closes her eyes just for a moment. In another person, it might almost be a gesture of prayer. She's just about to speak.

Then she senses it: someone watching her. Instantly, she's alert and her head snaps in that direction. Only out of respect for this place does she refrain from drawing her sword and leave it gripped tightly in her hand, at her side.]

Who's there?

[All around, the crystalline, icy flowers cast reflections like a thousand mirrors. But they are not of the forest. They are of the senshi in the clearing, this time by a bridge with a taller man with dark hair and deep-colored uniform. They fight, his sword releases a strange dark mist, and Mercury - her uniform still pure and light - fades as she loses consciousness.]

[memorywaters]

( the girl slinks back immediately, her lips frozen and unable to answer. her lips moved -- but no sounds came from mnemosyne. as her eyes caught something in the surrounding, her eyes widened at the scene they briefly displayed. what could she say?? she attempted to back up, stammering -- ) I -- I...!

[waterfell]

[She hasn't noticed the visions inside her ice yet. Instead, she is focused entirely on Mnemosyne, whose collar and dress still suggest the sailor senshi, but who she does not know. She speaks bluntly.]

I don't intend to kill you in this sacred place. But it would be better to answer me, understood?

[Small puddles start to form beneath the some of the flowers, as time wears down all things at least a little. The thousand glimpses of the same moment split into many moments: an argument with him, with her pinned to the wall; a breakfast in a small, bare room when both seem in good humor; cold warnings to obedience; a friendly hand on her shoulder after he looked for her; training together, moving with their bodies perfectly synced.]

[tasercopter]

Yo.

[After this eloquent introduction, Reno makes her way to the grave site where Mercury stands. That's quite an outfit she's wearing.

Reno's not much for the grieving thing, or the comforting thing, but she looks vaguely sympathetic, and she gives it a try.]

Some guy you know stabbed himself? Seems like a dumb thing to do.

But, uh, too bad. Nice--flower--things.

Reno, you fail at sympathy forever rofl. But so does Ami, so. It's all good. XD

[waterfell]

[She needs a moment to compose herself before she can even reply with her voice properly steady and firm.]

This was his choice.

[If she doesn't think much of it, having been left behind by it, she doesn't say so; not here, not with the death fresh in her dream-mind.]

They can be united in being bad at it!

[tasercopter]

A dumb choice.

[Violence, she gets, but not violence against yourself. Maybe she's just too self-involved for that.]

[She's seen a lot of death, caused a lot of it, too.] The dead are dead. Don't do them any good worrying about it. [After all, everybody's gonna die, right?]

reno is clearly the part of her bitter about this... XD

[waterfell]

[Reno sounds like him, when she says that. Make no mistake, it doesn't matter in the end. What's done is done. He'd been talking about her own vengeance back then, saying that her reasons didn't matter nearly so much as the act itself. Done was done, and she'd done right.

Done is still done. Dead is dead. And even if she had the means, she has no intention of trying to revive him. Let him rest, finally, as he should have been permitted to do so long ago. It would have been what he wanted.

But he'd also want his memory to be honored. And so, it is, by her.]

I intend to come here as often as I see fit.

[thatoldthatkind]

The Doctor has learned now, with this shared dreamscape, not to go poking in places that shouldn't be poked in. So, instead, he stands behind her a few feet with his hands in the pockets of his green coat. His eyes go to the memorial tablet. He looks up at Mercury but, doesn't say a word. Not that he would know what to say. He's rubbish at these things.

[waterfell]

Her expression is impossible to read. A blank heaviness covers whatever it might be otherwise. For a moment, she has a childish urge to repeat his own words when he told her to leave once. But instead, she says something entirely different.

"This place is sacred. A soldier is at rest."

Of course. The ice flowers, still not grown properly; this is a dream.

[thatoldthatkind]

"Oh."

Awkward.

The Doctor looks behind him, then back at her. Memorial locations. He's seen enough of those to last him about one thousand regenerations.

"I'll just... go."

[waterfell]

NO. She has to stop herself from saying it. But the truth is, if she understands no one truly wants to be alone, she definitely doesn't want to be alone right now. To be alone with her thoughts right now is to be alone with seeing herself yet again as not worth staying for, yet again incapable of doing good, yet again incapable of making her feelings reach someone anymore. (She used to be able to.

"You aren't required to leave." Of course it comes out stilted and stiff like that. She keeps her face on the memorial marker so she doesn't see the refusal and rejection she assumes will come.

[bishonenbunny]

[Barnaby knows better than to interrupt, than to barge in when someone is tending to a grave. Instead, he simply stands behind her in silence, the way he wants her--and others--to do for him when he's tending to his parents' grave.]

[waterfell]

[There's no reason for her to stay here once she's finished, and yet she does; as if she half expects him to come for her even here, even now. But he does not. There is no answer, no man lazily leaning against one of the nearby trees, deriding her for being foolish enough to think he's gone.

Then she senses eyes on her. It couldn't be...! Her head turns at once.

It isn't. It's a near-stranger. She's guarded, though she doesn't turn him away.]

Why are you here?

GODDAMMIT LJ WHY'D YOU EAT MY COMMENT

[bishonenbunny]

I don't really know.

[It's an honest answer, and he can provide nothing else besides that and sympathy, which is evident in his expression as he glances at the headstone, then at Mercury. He knows the pain of losing someone important to him, of the grief that overwhelms someone in the first few days.

It gets better with time, of course, even if sometimes it never fully heals, and she clearly has him trumped in that category. It's only now that he's managed to move forward, to actually live.]

...I'm sorry if I intruded on anything. If you want, I'll leave.

/kicks lj

[waterfell]

[She'd say she doesn't want sympathy. Doesn't need it. Doesn't have any use for it.

She does.]

This is a sacred place. As long as you remember that, you don't need to leave.

[herlonelystar]

[ Perhaps Usagi coming here was meant to be or perhaps it was coincidence. She's sure that it's not the latter -- across space and the universe, they were connected.

The ice flowers are only a passing curiosity. Her main focus is the woman tending to the gravestone so quietly and so carefully. She steps forward, staying quiet but walking loud enough so that her companion can hear, until she's standing close enough that she can see the stone very clearly but giving Mercury enough space so she's not encroaching on that personal bubble.

Usagi kneels down and claps her hands twice in front of her -- offering but only a silent prayer to the memory of Kunzite. She may not have known this version but he's important to Mercury. As such she's going to give him the utmost respect. It would be rude of her otherwise. ]

[waterfell]

[It's all so ironic in so many ways. She can't help thinking, at this moment, of how amused he'd been to learn Usagi had fought the Entropi under her command in Econtra. He'd be equally amused at this, at a gesture of respect from such a frustrating enemy.

Or angry.

For her part, Mercury finally looks up, straight at the stone instead of her eyes lowered.]

The man buried here is not from my world.

[It's the most tentative of peace offerings, this neutral statement rather than any question or demand.]

We met in Econtra. [The strange world she'd once told Usagi about.]

[herlonelystar]

[ Once done with her small prayer, Usagi settles her hands on bent knees, listening to the words of the dark senshi. Her face is thoughtful once mentioned he's not from the same world, but it makes no difference.

Lives were touched for better or worse. It doesn't matter what time, what planet, what universe one is from.

There's a small spot of water on the marker, so while Mercury talks, she's just going to bend over to wipe it away. She's still listening -- there's no reason for her to interrupt reminiscing right now. ]

[waterfell]

[What else is there to say? She's spent three years trying to understand it. She asked him to at least explain it, to make her understand it if she had to bear it. In the end, she can only go by what she knows herself:

First of all, she was not worth staying for, living for - again. Second, she is incapable of making her feelings reach someone now (and why had she wasted it on saving Tsukino Usagi, another pair of deaf ears her voice can't reach, when she was still capable?)

And she really only has one answer, one thing to hold to and remember, whether this, too, is good or ill:]

He, from the start, intended for me to live.

[Even if he hadn't kept that promise to help her if her future turned as dangerous as he knew it could, they had both kept the promise to change their worlds. They had kept the promise to be united in their common goals. And he had prepared her for the idea of living one once he left