Scene #8360: The Meddlesome Queen of Space

Owner	Pose
Timespace Riders	The last meeting between Woz and Persephone seemed to go quite well. She had agreed to help Sougo with a bit of necessary personal growth, gotten to know the two of them better, and even set a spark to something warm and beautiful. It probably comes as little surprise that the retainer would contact her again. Unlike last time, the details are curiously sparse. Enclosed, you will find directions to a suitably private spot. Please meet me at your earliest convenience. That spot happens to be a warehouse on Sougo's Earth, in relatively good repair. It must not get much use, and it's located in a part of town that's quiet enough to hear the occasional sound of nature, such as it's able to exist in the city. The cries of birds carry farther than they would, in a noisier part of town, and there are trees enough, planted in medians and along public walkways, to influence the sound of the wind. Passing cars are rare. The building is plain and square, with a fresh white coat of paint. Midday summer heat radiates from the asphalt of the empty parking lot, illuminating both the carefully maintained topiary and the slightly shaded corten steel bay doors. Waiting inside, perched on the rafters, is Woz, right on time. The book he always carries is tucked under his arm, held close to his body. Protectively close. He is angry, and hurt. Though he could hide this from some people, Persephone is not one of them. He leaps down from the rafter. "You have wounded me gravely, Persephone Kore," he says, eyes narrowed, finger pointed accusingly. "Deceived me, for no reason but cruelty. And you have jeopardized my mission." His accusing hand lowers, disappearing behind his back to procure his transformation belt. As it fastens around his waist, it announces itself: BEYONDRIVER! "I demand satisfaction," he says, his voice faltering, eyes burning with a mix of anger and sadness, lips curled into a sneer that won't cooperate with his desire for condescension. Instead, the expression seems to convey that he's barely composing himself. The sleek, futuristic Woz watch is slammed with shaking hands into a gate on the right side. Action! "Henshin." Behind him, a laser grid constructs the holographic face of a smartwatch, as he slams the hatch closed, his hand rising up in a flourish belied by its shaking. Projecting! Future Time! The digital screen on his belt displays an image of his armor, moments before it is projected onto his body by the laser grid behind him. Amazing! Time! Future! KAMEN RIDER WOZ? WOZ?!
Persephone Kore	The birds sing a little differently, a little more warmly and boldly, under Persephone's thrall. The occasional passing car drives slower, its noise downshifted. The heat feels different, more like a warm blanket than a muggy pressure. But maybe that's just me! I see your little star of a heart before I even walk in. It's precious as always, but I don't like the way it pulls at me today. This isn't going to be a nice kind of conversation, is it?" Her expression when Woz drops down is a little disappointed, a little pained, but more than those, 'concerned'. Little breath in, through the nose. Little breath out, through the mouth. If she were following her exercises to the letter, she'd shut her eyes, but even like this, I wouldn't miss your transformation for the world. A smile blossoms on her face, albeit reserved. "You really are amazing," she says, giving the greeble a tiny nod of assent. Her hand cradles her face, red nails trickling down from her near-orange eye like a new constellation. "I love it. This expression of your heart. This way you've found to fight about feelings. But I don't love what the feelings are. Is this even, really, about me? Because I really don't know how to lie." I wish you didn't want to fight me, and the warm gentleness of her aura comes down like a sledgehammer against Woz's heart. Every aggressive action that he could take against her suddenly feels as though it's fighting twice gravity; the urge to violence feels like it's being (gently, warmly) juiced out of him, and only a second thought at the last moment stops the process halfway through. "But," "If what you really need is to be felt and heard, then that's okay. Haha, even I can understand that. Do your best to let me feel it, alright?" Her eyes are inviting, but she adopts no fighting stance. She probably doesn't know what those are.
Timespace Riders	The star of Woz twists and dims, under Persephone's kindness. Surely, it's meant for some other person. And surely, if it isn't, this is mockery. It infuriates him, the boundless expanse of her heart, even as it drowns out his desire to put that anger at issue in a physical sense. It pains him to know how inviting her warmth is, in the face of how disastrous he feels it's been. It isn't about her. Not really. But... >Do your best to let me feel it, alright? "...as you wish, Queen of Space," he intones. Having been lost in his own thoughts, his helmet turned downwards to contemplate the floor, Woz snaps to attention, striding towards Persephone with purposeful haste. He makes it about three or four steps before he breaks into a sprint. A shout escapes him as he springs from the ground into a flying kick. Motion conserved after the attack, he tucks into a roll. A polearm with a green, bladed tip and a touchscreen menu just below it appears in his hands as he rises, announcing itself as the JIKAN DESPEAR. His rising swipe with it conjures an aftershock, a burning arc of green energy that effectively cuts a second time. "You deceived me," he repeats, but this time she can see the associations in the star of his heart. You tricked me into thinking I could have a future with him. His hands take up space at the midpoint of the spear, shifting rapidly with his advance to send the haft after her. "Do you understand all that you have done, with one simple insinuation?! All that you have crushed, with the weight of your heart?!"
Persephone Kore	Persephone's smile fades. He has, at least, that much power over her. But his kick doesn't meet her, because I wish it wouldn't, and even though she turns around (clack-clack) too late to see the rising spear slash after his roll, the physical component glances off an unstoppable force and the energy is lensed around her harmlessly. If she were feeling playful, if this were a joyful kind of fight, she'd take care to allow him a bit more 'give'. But she isn't, and this isn't. It's too heavy for that. "No," she says. "I don't understand. I don't understand at all. I thought I was giving you something beautiful, you know. Both of you. What happened to it?" The warehouse is ceasing to be a warehouse, giving way to the weight of her heart too. Gray regolith spreads out from her heels while the shelves and ceiling fade into starry black. Her hair and clothes drift and flutter in the moon's half-gravity. It is beautiful, but kind of desolate, and a little sad. That's probably why it feels like the most natural thing in the world. (It doesn't feel like there's air, but you can still breathe, still communicate. It'd never occur to her to revoke that permission.) "I want for you to feel my feelings too, though:" Just as he swings the haft, an incredible hammerblow strikes him from above, parting the moonrock as if it were water and leaving him in the center of a glowing crater. Yet it still feels a little half-hearted. This isn't really about you, either. She stands at the cusp, looking down, and her hands ball up with the tensing of her cheeks. "I was so happy to give the both of you something lovely. And I turn my back for just a moment, and the world's broken it somehow. Because I can't watch forever, and my reach isn't 'everywhere' just yet. I'm bad at being angry, Woz, but I think I almost could be?" "So tell me how I fix this. Tell me what broke. So I can be upset with something that isn't you."
Timespace Riders	>Tell me how I fix this. Tell me what broke. So I can be upset with something that isn't you. Woz, knocked off his feet by the hammerblow, seethes at the bottom of the crater. His gloves scrabble for rubble, as if having a handful would change anything. Perhaps it's just a desire to hold something and crush it--to feel reassured that he still has some ability to do so. "What broke." Woz is somewhere else, bending knee to a king in hiding. It isn't Sougo. Not the Sougo Persephone knows, and not even the one that Sougo is afraid he'll become. This man, clad in a regal red robe, receives news from Woz with a disinterested frown. Yet when he speaks, Woz hangs on his every word. When this king's hand compels him, he moves. "If anything broke," he says, his voice ragged with anguish, "It was the lie our happiness was built on!" In giving his orders, the king uses words like 'replacement.' 'Double.' 'Decoy.' He means Sougo. Woz stands, getting steadily to his knees. Steeling himself, he leaps from the crater, landing on the edge after a cry of effort. "Why must there be people like you, Persephone?! WHY!?" Knowing it's useless, he puts his whole body into a haymaker with his right fist. "Every time he is kind to me, every word of admiration he speaks to me, every ounce of care he shows--they are poison to me!" He thrusts with the spear. "Burning inside me, agony--but I cannot speak a word of this to him, because..." It would hurt Sougo to know. If not scare him away. Woz is standing in a city that's a stranger to him, but for the whims of Sougo Tokiwa. His Sougo. Being near him is different now. It makes the heart race, but also forms a pit in the stomach. Shame hangs over every word he says, like a stormcloud. A hard-fought victory has been won, but it's a pyrric one. Words, exchanged between the two of them. His thoughts keep returning to something he'd said. "You spend yourself for the same commoners who ostracized and mocked you. Who would never let you or I be human in the way that they are. They know only how to take--and every step you take towards your notion of a good king is a step closer to the day they will take you from me." "I cannot give you what you want. Don't you understand?!" His hand furiously glides across the touchscreen on the spear. He shouts, driving it forward with both hands, a finishing strike thrown out in desperation. A blinding cone of green energy envelops Persephone--not because Woz believes it will do any good, but out of pure exasperated anguish. The more his anger burns, the more she can see where it's really directed. Himself.
Persephone Kore	"You don't really care about that other king more than him, do you?" It's a stupid thing to do, replying to words Woz hasn't really said. It made her intolerable as a child. Stress brings back childish habits. "That's the lie! Not the feelings. If all that was fake-" "And it is childish. Persephone gets to be the arbiter of what 'counts', and in her frustration, she gets prejudicial. That haymaker doesn't hurt me, glancing away along gravity-curved space. The thrust doesn't come close, because I'm not done talking. It's not your turn. If she were more self-possessed, she'd let him have the satisfaction. "-why does it hurt you so much?" But when she suddenly grasps the core of it, with her eyes widening and tense frown opening in shock, her frustration collapses. She can't be angrier at him than he is at himself. And a tragic attack like that- it was never about me. It's about you. I'm sorry- isn't something she has the heart to wish away. The energy crashes over her, and the spear goes through her chest, because Persephone would never think to wish for her body to be hard. In the moonscape that's half-replaced the warehouse, her un-red blood scatters out behind her in floating droplets. It's beautiful. The look on her face is heartbroken, pleading. Phony steps forward, walking down the spear. It glides smoothly through her until she can lay her hand on the cheek of Woz's helmet. "It's been so hard for you," she says. The way her gaze searches it, you could almost swear she could really see his eyes beneath. "I'm sorry for causing you that pain, Woz. But..." "You have to believe that he could be 'enough'. If not now, then someday." The moonscape diminishes, slowly replaced by the warehouse once more. As its boundary shrinks past those heavy not-blood droplets, they fall and spatter on the floor, one by one. "'Enough' to believe you aren't the person who'd betray him, anymore. 'Enough' that sharing him with the world won't diminish him for you. I think he'd want you to believe that, Woz." "Can you do that? If not for me... then think of it as an order, from the Sougo he will be."
Timespace Riders	You don't really care about that other king more than him, do you? Twist. That's the lie! Not the feelings. Turn. If all that was fake--why does it hurt you so much? A choked noise escapes the retainer. He is frozen, after the finisher. He hadn't expected it to work--and for a moment, terror overtakes him, as his visor reflects un-red droplets floating in space. Behind the visor, his eyes are locked upon hers. Any other time, any other place, up against anyone less kind, there would be deception, from him. Attempted, at the very least. The spear disappears, leaving the not-wound empty. Woz can't bear to look at it, in the face of Persephone's continued kindness. In the face of her pleading. A breath escapes him, pushed out by a sob he'd been fighting back. He slowly opens the gate, and the armor disappears. Without the helmet, he can't maintain eye contact. A hot tear rolls into Persephone's palm as his eyes shut tightly. "Yes," he hoarsely whispers. He has always been 'enough.' It was me who was lacking. The book, returned to his hand, thumps against the remaining slice of moonrock in the warehouse. "I... please forgive me." He withdraws from her hand, taking a knee before her and bowing his head.
Persephone Kore	"Hey," Phony says. Her thumb rubs in circles on his cheekbone, the tiniest soothing gesture. Her other hand covers the wound, hiding it from his view. "It's okay. I'm okay. That didn't happen, alright?" When she pulls her hand away, her sweater's still torn, but the skin beneath the tear is healed. He kneels, and she kneels with him, getting right down on his level. Her arms slip around his back to pull him close; if he isn't careful, his bowed head will end up on her shoulder. It's a good spot to cry. Nobody can see it, not even me. I promise. "Thank you," she says instead of 'I forgive you', even though it means that too. "For being so brave, and for letting me help. I'm sorry, Woz, for not being there for you when you started hurting. I'll try to be there the next time, okay?"
Timespace Riders	Woz is not careful, just this once, when it's alright not to be. When it's alright not to be, he is not guarded. His face finds Persephone's shoulder, and he cries. His hands grasp at the hem of his coat in tight, uneven bunches. "As you wish," he says softly. It means several things, she can tell. 'Thank you,' in so many ways, for her kindness, for her forgiveness, and most of all, for her promise. After a long moment of taking the offered refuge, he sniffles, and takes her hand in both of his, rising. "There is something I must do, Persephone," he says, then gently releasing her hand once they're both on their feet again. "You will hear from me again--under kinder pretenses." He looks down at the book. There are so many complex associations with it. It was given to him, by that other king, as part of his ploy. But as of late... A flick of his wrist sends his strange scarf down, where it swallows the book. Perhaps instead it could represent hope for a better future. The title is almost legible, before it disappears. A moment later, Woz does too, the scarf billowing outwards to spirit him away across nothingness.