Scene #8886: Beautiful Princess Duo

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	<B-anter> Petra Soroka says, "... Love, do you need a shower? You can come by-- you can come by Quicknest if you need to." <B-anter> Petra Soroka unmutes after a minute, "Okay. I'm literally building a little shower, area, thing, right by the warpgate plaza. You can get in and out in fifteen minutes. You don't need to jump in the river." Petra swore that she would be a good friend to the Magical Girl of Love, and unlike every other magical girl, Love makes it easy. From the moment they made contact, Petra resonated with Love's admirable skills in saying that she wanted Sarracenia dead without flinching, and she's also adorable, and holy shit it's a breath of fresh air to have a magical girl who isn't the most emotionally draining person in the sector. All that, on top of Love's familiar troubles with homelessness and particularly accessible showers, means Petra is anxiously excited to meet her, and actually put aside a little girl time for them to hang out, with no goal besides getting to know her and taking care of her a bit. And that does mean no goal. Petra feels guilty about it, but she's quietly hoping that Meika's issues don't come up for once, and that she can selfishly spend a second day this week being fond of the younger magical girls rather than grimly supportive. This is a normal thing to feel-- emotional burnout-- but Petra, of course, interprets it as a sign of her ontological evil and antipathy bubbling up against unacceptable targets again. Petra instructs Love to 'Shower before coming. You'll feel better. My secretary's there to wash your clothes when you do,' because there's some part of her that's already moved beyond 'making friends' and into 'pampering'. The place that Petra actually invites Love to is a mall! Trending slightly more towards the grungy end of malls rather than the ritzy type, the mall she directs her to is comfortably busy, with enough of a burble and flow of conversation and activity to feel practically buoyant when drifting through it. It is also American, of course. Skewed towards a relatively teenage population, by the aforementioned grunginess, the pair fit right in-- even Meika would, if she slouched to one of the many graffitied concrete hidey-holes frequented by other maladapted teens with weird hair and nicotine addictions. Love gets looks, but not unbearably many; teenagers are much more prone to assuming that people who wear odd clothes with confidence have a reason for it, anyways. Girls walk in twos and threes, laughing louder than appropriate, people stream in and out of the arcade whose sound balancing is just a little too loud so that it breaks the nearby ambiance, black and white tile patterns the food court and neon accents splash color throughout the space. Petra is waiting on the edge of a large fountain in one of the central areas of the mall, overlooking the crowd. She's not technically supposed to be up there, but if any of the mall cops look her way, that'll be a problem she deals with when it happens. Wearing a beanie and flannel, denim shorts exposing the tapestry of scars on her legs, Petra at first looks right at home among the mallgoers, but the more Love watches her, the more that the distance created by propping up her knee on the fountain marble seems intentional. When she spots Love, Petra hops off and scurries over to her, clearly excited. She puffs up a bit and puts one hand on her hip, gesturing to the expanse of somewhat retro commercialism with the other. "Alright! Love! We're going clothes shopping. Maybe we'll get some lunch if you want after, too."
Angela	Connecting to others through the power of wanting Sarracenia dead! This may be the path to world peace but, of course, the Magical Girl of Love only really wants to kill Sarracenia because she seems senselessly cruel to her and also hurt known teammate and pal CHEVALIER VERMILLION by just ruining a day for her (Love doesn't think about how between the various day ruiners, Sarracenia may have done the least damage--but that's because Sarracenia ruined the day intentionally in a way Love could understand!). Love has no goal either beyond getting to know Petra. She knows Petra and Angela get along because she's noticed that Angela tends to pop onto the radio when Petra's on the radio and seems to act certain ways that aren't quite what she remembers of the AI. And as far as Abnormalities go, Love probably pays the most attention specifically to Angela. Love ... has also felt like a burden to Meika as of late and is increasingly feeling uneasy about the gifts Meika has been giving her. The hairband might not have been so bad if she hadn't been shoved as part of that. But she's going through tough times, she knows... But handing off that mp3 player... Now she's not just worried. She's scared. So Petra Time ... maybe that will help clear her head. And maybe it'll be less scary with company that also cares about what happens to Chevalier Vermilion. Love cannot cleanse herself with celestial light. Before becoming 'human', occassionally Agents would perform Works that involved cleaning but they certainly didn't let her go to a shower. Speaking of, there's probably a whole series of shower misadventures that take place because Love also hasn't showered before in actuality she just has backstory showering in her mind, but since she's a girl now instead of an anime it's mostly just embarrassing rather than comical and she doesn't want to dwell on that either. She actually brought her usual outfit with her to try and get that cleaned too but she isn't wearing that now. What she is wearing is a pair of jeans and a white shirt with a set of red outlined earts across it. A not-quite-right red hairtie is wrapped around her arm. It looks to still be in excellent condition and there's no fraying. It's handmedowns but Love is increasingly uneasy about wearing her 'usual' outfit when she's not doing magical girl work even though her actual magical girl form is considerably more serpentine. Some part of her thinks about how she could just slip into the crowd and keep walking and never return anywhere ever again (the level of look she's getting today is considerably lesser). She wants that, but mostly doesn't want that. The people she loves are here--she just hasn't found the world she loves (she is still wearing the heart hairclip and the shoes and the large pink ribbon so it's still a pretty eyecatching outfit.) She sees the scars but that's normal so she doesn't think too much about it. Instead, she waves to Petra with a big smile, recognizing her. "Hi Petra! It's me, Love! It's wonderful to meet you! Wow, lunch too? You're spoiling me, Petra...! Oh I like your beanie, it's so cute."
Petra Soroka	"Oh! You've got normal clothes too!" Petra looks Love up and down approvingly-- really, a t-shirt and jeans is plenty good of a wardrobe sometimes, in Petra's opinion, but some girls are meant to aspire to more than that, and Love is definitely one of them. "And with the matching heart theme too. That's good. It's clean." Petra nods, eyes closed. It's important to have thematic resonance, and Love's theme is really obvious. Petra doesn't recognize the red ribbon, though, and not just because she's temporarily cleared her mind of Meika's spiral. An object with emotional tie-ins to an outfit only exists as the object when assembled in the outfit-- once it's removed from the outfit, it becomes a different, but related object. Upon approaching Petra, though, another potential reason for the space around her becomes clear. Even without any psychic activity, her presence is surrounded by a web of buzzing needles, pricking into subdermal nerves in a way subtle enough that the civilians don't recognize it as magic, but painful enough that they subconsciously avoid her anyways. That automatic distance given to her, along with the subtly off-kilter way her gaze slips past and through people until landing on Love, triggers an instinctual sorting of her into the schema for serial killers rather than merely a delinquient teen. She's happy, though! Petra leads Love through the crowd, ambling her way to the floor map to scan through it. "And it's not spoiling. Or maybe it's just normal spoiling, I don't know. I used to be kind of homeless for a long time, too, so I just-- know, sort of. What it's like, a bit. Okay, how about just a, normal Forever 21?" Petra herself is... surprisingly not too experienced at clothes shopping. She's done it plenty before, of course, and even as a group activity years ago, but she's pretty clearly not innately savvy with it. Love might not be able to tell the difference, but Petra's wardrobe is a psychotic mishmash of milsurplus thrifted garbage, and some of the most expensive clothes available in the entire multiverse, and the latter wasn't purchased by her. So while she's comfortable with dragging Love behind her into the store, she doesn't seem to have a goal she's particularly efficient about completing. Browsing through womens tops, Petra turns to Love with a critical eye to assess her figure against the ruffly pink crop top she's holding up. She's picked out a random mishmash of cute tees, particularly beelining towards ones with hearts-- she understands the theme-- and promising that skirts and dresses are next, despite her own aversion to them. "So, like, if you've got at least a set of normal clothes... why not get out of the, uh, secret base more? Like, get out into the city and do stuff? Are you just sort of inexperienced with it all?"
Angela	Chevalier Love says, "Oh! Um. I mean. I don't ... really have 'normal' clothes because...these are actually Meika's. She gave me some handmedowns and I forgot about them because I hadn't been going out much a-and, they're not really mine so...")] She rubs absently at that totally meaningless cord around her wrist. Love is basically a serial killer if you think about it. Well, actually maybe serial killer is too gentle a term since she's actually a mass murderer. It's said that the difficulty of mass murdering isn't the murder but the pace you have to keep--but she's still a pretty recent retiree from the career. Love blinks twice and says, "Forever 21..." She dwells on this for a moment. She isn't 21 years old, but she supposes she could be forever 21 years old. Except not really because she's still kind of got that teenage build. And personality (still significantly shaped by anime's perception of what that would be). Love's understanding of clothes shopping is walking arounud and gushing at outfits that are too expensive to buy and then maybe there's a hidden demon who is trying to absorb everyone's soul energy through their clothes. She looks through dresses. While she doesn't immediately pull anything out, it's pretty clear Love knows her style. Her colors are pink and magenta (like her uniform), she loves heart patterns, she prefers short sleeves and likes ruffles---yeah, she has her theme--Petra understanding this will only help--just like her preference towards skirts and dresses than jeans. Courage was the sporty one. ''Why not get out of the, uh, secret base more?'' "I guess ... Yeah! Inexperienced is a good way to put it! Kagoshima is really pretty but I guess ... I don't really have a lot of reason to leave that's not Temptation-centered?"
Petra Soroka	Petra is vindicated by Love's affirmations of her tastes. It makes her feel clever, like she's getting good at reading people and intuiting traits about them in the seemingly effortless way that Lilian does, with the added benefit of making her look like a cool mentor to the girl she's decided to take under her wing. She's operating on level zero difficulty, though: Love is wearing a heart shaped hairclip and literally radiates cartoon hearts when talking. "Mhm, yeah, it's pretty important to have stuff that feels like 'yours', or you'll always be kind of uncomfortable using it. I get it." Petra says absently while picking through the rack of dresses. Pulling one out and murmuring, 'It's almost summer, maybe this would be good? Oh, but it's kind of kiddy-looking... how old are you actually?' while holding it up to Love to compare the shades of pink. "Don't have a reason, hm... you know, Love, you're kind of just getting started on your life. However old you are, you sort of... you've got a lot more freedom to figure out who you are than you did before." Petra collects up the stack of (far too many) clothes and dumps them into the shopping cart, briefly looking at it and considering that she's never picked out so many pink clothes in her life. "There doesn't really need to be a reason for you to go out and do stuff besides figuring out what you like and don't like." "You're, uh... how would Lilian put it. You can't make your whole life about just fighting the Temptations and doing Elite-- or, magical girl-- stuff. You've kind of got it hard, since you're starting from scratch when you're already grown up, but... like, that happens." Wheeling all of it to the outside of the dressing room, Petra shoots the bored-looking employee waiting outside a look to silently ask if it's empty, but he looks away and takes a few steps down the aisle to give the pair privacy. Petra mutters something about needing to use concealer. "So what kind of stuff is there that you'd be interested in doing? Like, when I was your... when I was... when I was younger, I tried a ton of hobbies, and most of them didn't stick. Some of them did, at least for a while, though." Petra gestures Love towards the changing room. "I'll be waiting out here."
Angela	Chevalier Love has two sides to her but one side is very well advertised. The other side, well, Petra knows all about that too--odds are that Love is happy to wear clothing that is more akin to the opposing element too but ... odds are that she's also probably a little bashful about wearing that stuff. She is sincere both with love and hate! But sometimes she's not sure what to say and one of those times is when Petra asks how old she is. As she's become human, her memory is both less and more reliable--but her time within the facility has become a little vaguer, a little tougher for her to recall. If one were to maybe restyle her hair and she put on a labcoat instead she'd probably look not unlike Angela--would Angela's memory of that time fade too if she could forget events normally? This is absolutely a question that isn't on Love's mind here. "I'm..." She hadn't thought of this before either. "...I don't know how old I am. I don't feel like I just was born the day I became human, since I remember a lot of things before that. But I also don't really feel that all that time counted. And does time I recognize as part of my 'story' count as real? Those events didn't ''really'' happen, they just happened in someone's narrative. I didn't exist until after the whole story was summoned forth as an Abnormality." Love looks between the two shades of pink and then points towards the darker one. She thinks darker pinks work for her better in a slight way. "...That's true, though. It's hard to know if ... If um... Like those Magical Girl Lessons I do, are they ''me'' or am I just copying what I was before? I don't really know, but I still enjoy doing them. And being a magical girl is still important to me." She looks a little guilty after saying it--knowing that Meika can no longer transform. Meika never seems to want people to know what's going on with her though so she's not sure how to broach that topic (she isn't aware that Petra is trying to avoid it). ''There doesn't really need to be a reason for you to go out and do stuff'' Love raises her head up and then nods a little numbly. When Petra says she can't just make her wole life about fighting Temptations, she doesn't nod though. "...Fighting bad guys is my reason for living." Love says. "If I don't fight, I start feeling lonely, I start hating myself, I start thinking... 'What is even the point of me if there's nothing to fight?'. I don't ... I don't think I should only fight but..that's still my primary reason to exist." She overhears something. "Concealer?" She looks Petra over as if trying to find what she'd need to conceal and then gives up. "Oh--I go inside... Yes, there was a time we did something like this--" She steps inside, but pauses at the entrance to look back to Petra. "I really had fun ice skating. And I'd probably like the zoo too. But maybe I'm just getting that stuff from Chevalier Vermilion? Oh--um--be right back!" She ducks in. It'll be a bit as she's trying each item individually and then setting aside stuff that doesn't fit or she doesn't actually like on her and then sorting outfits that she does like into a pile too along with Meika's clothes before stepping out again. The base of the shirt she's wearing is actually black but it has a pink heart in the center composed of various pink snakes curling around, ultimately forming that heart-shape and is wearing a darker pink pair of shorts as well as her usual heeled shoes. "How's this? I like snakes." Then she giggles. "Sneks!"
Petra Soroka	"But I also don't really feel that all that time counted. And does time I recognize as part of my 'story' count as real?" "It counts as much as it needs to count." Petra says with sudden intensity, leaning across the shopping cart to stare directly into Love's eyes. "It's messy, right? I think I-- I think I understand you a bit better than I thought I did. It doesn't feel right to even think of it in 'years' at all, does it." Petra stays leaning forwards, but backs down her intensity and lowers her voice some, folding her arms across the shopping cart handle to rest her chest against them. She hesitates, and when she starts talking again, her tone shifts in an indefinable way, vibrating with some subtextual private dialect between the two of them. "... I practically died and was reborn thanks to Lilian, less than a year ago. That's kind of dramatic, but... I mean it completely. And you get it. You understand." Petra isn't exactly shy about expressing her devotion to Lilian anymore, but it's still rare for her to casually expose someone to the extent of the near religious reverence that she holds for her. Something makes her trust that Love will get it. "I've been... remaking myself ever since then. I'm not a 'new' person, but I'm a basically unrecognizable one, thanks to her. So I sort of had to figure myself out from scratch again too." "... So, like... how much of the time before that matters? It happened, but now it's just records of stories, right? But people are all just made up of their own lore... it matters in the ways that it still affects the world now, I guess. How you see yourself as a construction of your own backstory, and what duties you have to the people you hurt in the past." Petra closes the miniature lecture by dragging herself out of the intently thoughtful pout she sunk into and nodding at Love as affirmation of her own words. "If it's important to you, it helps the people who matter, then that's what counts. It's important to Meika that you're a magical girl, Lilian thinks it's endearing, and it's a part of your backstory that you've taken with you and reinterpreted on purpose." Petra holds up a black and baby blue tank top with ruffled sleeves for Love to try on in the changing room next, studying it in comparison to her hair. "And it's really really cute."
Petra Soroka	"I don't ... I don't think I should only fight but..that's still my primary reason to exist." Petra can't help but giggle, covering her mouth up with her fingers and then waving reasurringly at Love who just came out with a new set of clothes. "No, no, I'm not laughing at the-- the outfit's cute. I think that skirt might be kind of redundant with that other red one you got? I guess it depends whether you like the knee length or the shorter one better." "No, I just laughed because..." Petra readjusts her lean on the shopping cart as Love returns back into the changing room, still talking through the door."'It's what I'm for. Being useful to you is how I keep myself sane. I don't know what I'm supposed to do or be if I'm not fighting for you'." "Yeah. The only thing I know how to do is hurt people too. If I'm not given the right people to hurt, then I can't control who it happens to, and I'd rather die than do that again. There's no 'peaceful' world that I can just exist happily in without anyone to fight. I ruin anywhere 'perfect' that makes the mistake of taking me in." Petra takes a breath and then slowly exhales, clenching her fist tight. The employee is nowhere to be seen at this point, so it's just the two of them. "I'm not saying don't fight. Shit, I mean, practically everything I do every minute I'm awake is related to Elite stuff in some way. I don't have anywhere else I could be. I just mean... fighting mindlessly because you 'have to' isn't a sustainable way to exist. You have to... fuck, what would Lilian say. You are a magical girl. But that doesn't mean that's all you are, and there's not just one way of being like that. You're not just your duty; you're not the only person able to do it; and you're more of a person than you're giving yourself the opportunity to be right now." "I really had fun ice skating. And I'd probably like the zoo too. But maybe I'm just getting that stuff from Chevalier Vermilion?" Petra smiles in a tiredly fond way at Love, as if Love is a student rather than a friend for a brief moment. "Well, sure. Where else is it going to come from? You?" "People aren't anything on their own. We're all just made up of little bits of others, all the little habits and likes and scars and everything. There's basically no one with a bit of individuality to them, especially not me, and-- I'm thinking not like you either. Like Lilian. You just need to choose who and what ends up as part of 'you', as much as you can." "How's this? I like snakes. Sneks!" When Love first steps out, Petra's attention flickers to first just assess the outfit holistically, running over the shirt and then stopping at the snakes. She lingers there for a second, then snorts when Love giggles, joining her in a giggling fit a beat later. "Oh-- oh, Love. You're a treasure."
Angela	''It counts as much as it needs to count'' Now that Love has an identity she has been trying to figure that out just what that identity is. Should she be a blank slate since nothing before was, technically speaking, even real? She's asked as much and she wasn't really expecting an answer because she doesn't know anybody else who jumped out of a storybook, but when someone has confidence in what they're saying maybe they don't need to because Petra comes out with something that catches Love off guard. She blinks twice. She's not the brightest. She's not SUPPOSED to be the brightest, after all, so she's just kind of terminally afflicted with pink magical girl brain and even being real doesn't really change up the blueprint. She can be a real person AND a pink magical girl at the same time, thankfully, but this does mean she is exceptionally weak to having her eyes stared into. It is thematically mandated that she blush at the sudden intensity--and she does, on cue! "W..wow..." She says, no doubt thinking something like I didn't expect Petra to think so much about this sort of thing in echoey shoujo thought. She stumbles over her words and manages only some mild Hod-noises until the intensity cools down a bit. Love swallows and twiddles her fingers against one another now that she can actually digest the words rather than just the stare. "Yeah... I'm not really growing up in time so much as...experiences, maybe?" She frowns, always struggling a little to speak cleanly on what's important but always trying to be as sincere as she can be even if she struggles with the wording. But Petra has more to say. She speaks of Lilian, who Love hasn't really met but does know of. She knows that Angela respects her and Love has a complicated relationship to Angela but suffice it to say, she cares what the Commander thinks of her in an obscure way that's hard for her to articulate.
Angela	"I guess I was reborn when I met Chevaliers Cobalt and Vermilion. I love them both so much. Who would do that for Abnormalities like us? Put themselves on the line? Take risks they can't afford to take? And they're in so much pain..." She looks like she's about to start crying--she doesn't rub her eyes to try to stop that but she doesn't quite collapse into bawling just yet, you can just see the beginnings of those tears welling up. ''I sort of had to figure myself out from scratch again too.'' "Was it...as wonderful and scary for you as it was for me?" She wonders, awe slowing down those tears--they still drip out but at a pretty lazy rate rather than just hiccup sobbing like where she was headed. "...I felt...called to Kagoshima. But because I went, people got hurt. I have to protect Kagoshima now, especially since--since Meika won't be able to soon. I can't let her little sister fight by herself." Not again. She now rubs at her eyes to dry them when she takes the new outfit, stepping inside to try out the new ensemble. ''Being useful to you is how I keep myself sane. I don't know what I'm supposed to do or be if I'm not fighting for you.'' "I.... I get that. I actually think a lot of people might be a little bit like that, even if they'd never say it. Most people want to feel like they were useful to someone, right? It's a good feeling. But I think a lot of people are shy about admitting it." ''I ruin anywhere 'perfect' that makes the mistake of taking me in.'' "ahah... In the story, I was the first to...to become a monster because, um, I couldn't exist in a perfect world. If there was no evil, how could I be good? So I decided to be evil so my reason for existing wouldn't vanish." ''Where else is it going to come from? You?'' "There's a lot more magical girl ice skating content than you might think!" Love exclaims, warming up a bit. "But--ahah...Yeah, what she gives to me is stuff I'd never want to lose. I just--don't want to lose her too." The tone has become bittersweet but she smiles at Petra, her eyes blinking. Her pupils are vertical slits the second time around and back to normal the third. "You're so kind to me Petra... I'm glad she has you...even after she forgets me."