Scene #8582: I Was A Teenage Magical Girl

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Angela	Okiniobaeru Island has three hundred limestone caves and the cavern network there is the largest in Japan. It is within one of those caves that the Magical Girl of Love--or the Queen of Hatred if you prefer--has holed herself in. She didn't pick one of the caves where tour groups tend to go in either, rather she picked an isolated cavern, far from where any interloper was likely to visit, and laid her head down there to rest. The Queen of Hatred had a lot on her mind and a notebook in her claws, a precious memory she is not willing to let go of. And like a dragon hording treasure, she holds her treasure close to her serpentine body. She is hidden, but mostly from casual looking. Dysnomia shouldn't have trouble finding her psionic resonance and tracking her down once she gets close enough to feel it. She hasn't opened the notebook again, rather she seems to just be treating it as a memento rather than a source of knowledge.
Dysnomia	There was no point pretending. It was thrilling. Wispy tendrils of dust were her herald, teeming with will, like long fingers drifting through the cave, filling it with her violet-silver light, testing it before her core body arrived. And arrive it did, pouring in in an indistinct spiral, her head marked by two burning lights. It would be difficult to imagine her body touching anything of substance, but, somehow, it did. From her body emerged two...No, four five-clawed limbs, resting against the stone. The curling of the dust narrowed into a snout, as she looked down upon the Queen of Hatred. "Sentimental still, I see." Her voice echoed between thoughts, without speaking. "Do you not appreciate what your liberators have done?"
Angela	"I love and hate it," The Queen of Hatred says, which, well, is a sign of her nature if anything. "Bitter and sweet in equal measure. The roads are before me but I haven't flown down them." The Queen of Hatred would normally be berserk and immediately try to kill Dysnomia, but she is so struck by her freedom that she isn't sure what exactly to do with it either. She might be closer to person than Abnormality now and that's new for her. Very very new. "You don't seem happy with your freedom. Does not the idea of an empire of darkness to swallow up the emptiness not delight you at all?" The Queen of Hatred puts the notebook... Somewhere. Blackness obscures the Quetzacoatl's eyes, like a bottle of eyeliner poured itself out on those eyes.
Dysnomia	"You think I haven't ripped and torn?" Dysnomia asked, dust speckled with twinkling lights circling around the liberated Queen. "That I haven't tasted it? That I haven't wrapped my claws around the ones who hurt me?" She lifted a spectral claw, gleaming with plasma, as it clenched. Claws that could have cleaved through flesh as easily as open air. "And I'd do it all again." She growled, a rumble like distant thunder, as the claw dissolved, vanishing into the thin mist that had filled the cavern. "But you...It was never about being hurt, was it?" She lowered herself to the cave floor, eyes taking in newmade person with interest. "What you were was an 'Abnormality.' A story. A fable. You fell, and you forgot, because that's how the story goes." Her head loomed up, and a violet pulse thrummed in her chest, like a heartbeat. "A cautionary tail, about being devoured by your own ideology. Doesn't that chafe?" She offered. "Don't you hate it?"
Angela	''You think I haven't ripped and torn?'' "Maybe you have, maybe you haven't." The Queen of Hatred says. "What about your thirst, Mia-Chan?" That Mia-Chan is maybe one of the small signs that the Magical Girl of Love hasn't wholly been subsumed by the wyrm. Ultimately despite the draconic frame, The Queen of Hatred is still a magical girl. This is just her henshin. ''It was never about being hurt, was it?'' "There was no hurt in the kingdom, but we could hurt ourselves. Only Courage was harmed by another." A cautionary tale and a cautionary tail. Doesn't it chafe? Doesn't she hate it? The Queen of Hatred doesn't answer. They don't seem to have one. Devoured by her own ideology. Maybe that is what happened, or maybe the ideology distorted, or maybe it ... inverted. The Queen of Hatred isn't sure. Her heart has been pried open and a sneaky rogue slid some ambiguity inside. "But I can hate a lot of things. I can love a lot of things too."
Dysnomia	"What about your thirst, Mia-Chan?" It takes a while before Dysnomia can muster an answer of her own. for a moment, the lights of her eyes wink out. "What I wanted..." "...Wasn't possible. I hate them so much for that." Her voice broke on a word full of...Something stretched and taut and pained. The former magical girl of Love, if anyone, might recognize that spark of yearning. Perhaps heartbreak? Perhaps love? "Hate and love." Dysnomia repeated, cirling around the magical girl. "You have both, now. Like we all do. What deserves your hate? What deserves your love?" "Which will you give the girl who gave you that notebook? The girls who you called 'sister?' Who believed in you?" A pause. A correction. "Who believe in you?" "For the first time, you get to decide for yourself. Isn't it precious? Isn't it perfect?"
Angela	''ht I wanted... Wasn't possible.'' "You do, don't you?" The Queen of Hatred is not without sympathy. "And yourself, at least a little. But..." Her ink covered eyes peer at Dysnomia. "But it wasn't possible for our future to change either. And yet...here we are, Mia-Chan. You aren't a story, unless...you want to be one." The Queen of Hatred doesn't argue that she has both now. The Queen of Hatred isn't really a name or a title, it's the tale of the story but if there's to be a sequel--what should she call it? The Queen of Hatred II: Hate Harder? Love more? Or maybe both, somehow. If she makes a choice, it's a choice--and that's terrifying. She didn't ask for it. ''Isn't it precious? Isn't it perfect?'' "I didn't ask for this..." The Queen of Hatred isn't sure if it's a blessing or not, really. Not even Tammao seems o think it is. "I could have only hurt others, no I have to hurt too." But what of the girl who gave her the notebook? The girls who called her sister? Who...somehow believe in her? No, not her. All of them. "I wonder why...Meika-Chan... Kayoko-Chan..." The dragon sinks to the floor, laying on he limestone floor.
Dysnomia	"But it wasn't possible for our future to change either. And yet...here we are, Mia-Chan. You aren't a story, unless...you want to be one." Dysnomia's eyes turned to the side, away from the Queen of Hatred. "We can pick our own futures. But, no matter what we do, we can't control other people's choices. Those kinds of futures..." Mia trailed off. The mist began to settle, drawing inward with the pulse of her violet heart. "It does hurt." She admits. "To look out over the future. Picking one for yourself. Easier to be what you're supposed to be." She was near solid now. Tangible. The sheen off of her body was like scales. "Would you rather have been mad forever?" Dysnomia asked, her telepathy gentler now. "Living in your own world, where nothing mattered? Where you couldn't ever know what the world really was?"
Angela	''We can't control other people's choices.'' "You mean you won't...?" Then the Queen of Hatred says, "...Gomen nasai, that was mean." She curls her tail around her body and exhales a heart shaped plasma bubble that dissipitates shortly after leaving her mouth. She's not someone who is exactly thrilled to know of her own bodycount. ''Would you rather have been mad forever?'' The Queen of Hatred listens to all of that. She doesn't have a strong answer. She thinks ... maybe? Maybe she does? She can tell Dysnomia is reaching out to her--or rather, is encouraging her to not just lie down here in an endless nothing until she loses her mind and evaporates a tourist. It's easier to be what you're supposed to be. "I can still choose. The Lovers Arcana is about choice." The Queen of Hatred says. "You came, even though you knew it could be a trap. Was it just...sympathy?" Those two head arms cross over the eyes.
Dysnomia	"You mean you won't...?" "No." One of her claws carved into the stone. "Sometimes, making someone...Ruins the point." Something exhausted crawled into her voice. "Even if you can." She looked down into the pools below them, saw her reflection as she considered her answer. It took her a long time. "Beings like us, that don't always fit into what humans think are worth standing up for...Who'll stand up for them? Humans won't. They'll cage us, or use is, or 'tolerate' us, as long as we don't cause enough trouble..." A low growl. "It pisses me off. Someone should be there. Someone should listen. Someone should care."
Angela	Even if you can... The Queen of Hatred says, "Humans stood up for me." She does consider the two magical girls as human, after all. Maybe Dysnomia isn', but the Queen of Hatred knows many more humans than she does ether wyrms--or Abnormalities ofr that matter. She has been pulled out of that inability to see outside her own tale. ''They'll cage us, or use us, or tolerate us'' "I wanted the cage... Or, perhaps, that was also the story." Somone should be there, someone should listen, someone should care. The Queen of Hatred's physiological makeup right now won't let her smile but she uncoils and approaches Dysnomia. "There are those that love you." The Queen of Hatred says. "It's harder to be totally alone, it takes some serious effort, Mia-Chan."
Dysnomia	"There are those that love you...It's harder to be totally alone, it takes some serious effort, Mia-Chan." Dysnomia's answer to that is a low rumble, leaving the traces of dust around her stirring of their own volition in the eerie light. She sat a little taller, that indistinct face of her staring down at the Queen of Hatred, in the moment seeming to have no mouth in its shape at all. It was a cruel joke. That word. Either they used it to keep her in line. Or-- "--Enough." The water below rippled outward. "...Enough. There's almost a 'condition.' Always something else they'll put first...!"
Angela	The Queen of Hatred stares at Dysnomia. 'Enough,' The ether wyrm says. Enough. The Queen of Hatred's nature has been changed in one specific way. She remembers now. She remembers the cycle she's been in an. Both, really. The Quetzacoatl feels the notebook against her body. Will her sisters from another world come? What will she do if they do? Fight? Or maybe worse...Talk? She can walk down any path but once she does... "What condition...was given to us?" It is getting strange. Dysnomia came here to convince the Queen to care for the sisterly mahous, but it is easier to give such advice than it is to take it. "You can't hide your loving heart from me by hiding it under a blanket of wounds." She says softly, but firmly. She isn't trying to be unkind but she can't be untrue to her nature anymore, not without a choice.
Dysnomia	While she might not be able to hide her loving heart from the Queen of Hatred, Dysnomia could certainly hide it from herself. Fuck them. How does she think she knows better than me, anyway? There's a thrum in Dysnomia's chest. The impulse to lash out contests with her actual goals in coming here, and for a moment she considers just casting it away. All it would take would be to collapse the cavern... "There wasn't any condition. I felt like it." She contradicted herself."From inviting me to a kingdom of Darkness, to this." Dysnomia stood, her wings ruffling like translucent curtains at her side. "I care about what I care about. I don't need to hide that." She huffed, releasing a small nebula, like breath-fog in winter. "What do you want from me?"
Angela	The Queen of Hatred cannot be killed so easily, but it is certainly a way to end a conversation. The Magical Girl of Love is fundamentally incapable of giving up on Love. At least from this position in life. "I mean they fought to help us even at their own expense. You too." But the Queen elects to ease up here. She has the capability to choose now so she can hold back, just a bit. What does she want from her? "I thought we might be kindred spirits. Even like this I don't want to be alone." She is quiet for another moment before adding, "Do they ever remark how beautiful your form is?"
Dysnomia	"I mean they fought to help us even at their own expense. You too." The sound that Mia made could have been construed as agreement. At the very least, she didn't protest, or didn't manage to think of any protests that seemed convincing to her in time. "I thought we might be kindred spirits. Even like this I don't want to be alone." "...Ah." Her eyes met with the Queen of Hatred's for a moment, then, as though going on a tangent, she began to speak. "I live in a cave too. Far away from anyone else. Sometimes, I like the quiet. But sometimes, it's just too...boring, stuck there. It's why I spend so much time planetside." The Queen's last compliment takes Dysnomia by surprise. "--Well. Mostly. They don't know about it. I don't trust them."
Angela	"But you trust me to understand." The Abnormality(?) murmurs before making her own way to the pool and crouches down by it. They can't exactly see their own face like this but they don't exactly need to. They know what they look like. If you look carefully, you can see the twisted form of the Magical Girl of Love within her. Is this an evolution or a Distortion, a monster or just an unusually shaped human? Even she doesn't have that answer anymore. But she does say, eventually... "Meika-Chan and Kayoko-Chan... will they give me the battle I seek?" "...Can they accept what I need?"
Dysnomia	"I do." She said, and found, to her surprise, that she did trust her. Her body, fluid and ever-changing, remained draconic only in tendency, in outline. Vibrant, colorful and empty inside. She sat by the pool alongside the queen, her claws folded over each other. Mia hadn't laid like this with anyone since-- --She chased the thought away. "I can't see as clearly as I once could. I don't know." "But. I think they'll try."