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Lilian Rook	It's a bit of a weird place to have these two girls meet, but Meika is going to be coming around here a lot more in the future anyways. However private, tender, even sacred the matter may be to her, Lilian has deemed it 'critical; solvable' and already begun hammering together the pipeline for addressing it in practical terms. She does, clearly, recognize how much it means to her. She has, clearly, done her best to give it a certain kind of due gravitas. But she cannot, in the end, know exactly how Meika will feel when the answer to her heart's silent plea is a corporate campus.     It is, at least, a really really nice one. The air here; the taste and feel of it, the crystal clarity and the weird tint of the sun; isn't too dissimilar from the House of Seven Worthies before, albeit fair more hospitable. The absurdity of picturesque landscaping as a form of distancing from civilization holds true, but she at least gets the sense of being within society more than not, able to catch the ambient sounds it. If nothing else, it's the opposite of the places she's usually sent to; banal, forgettable, and left-over. The feeling of 'specialness'-- of 'well, just for you . . .', is something she can taste on every breath.     The building-- the complex? is new to the point of postmodern, and far more pleasant than she might expect from anything along the gradient from medical rehabilitation facility to scientific study firm. Built around an airy circular hub, as is the popular style, the center is given to a semi-natural park space under a domed skylight, broken up by a couple of narrow stone paths and quaint little benches. Polished white walkways encircle its higher flaws, and clean corridors with vivid green walls and white-numbered arrow stripes for directions branch off in all directions. The ambient babble is halfway made by the people moving from place to place, but partly filled with news, videos, prompter scroll, announcements, intercommunication, and whatever else is scrolling from the speakers and image emitters on the walls.     One set of crystal doors leads into the deliberately forested park out back, with high platforms that go to the open air for seemingly no reason, a carefully kept natural-facade pool with seating, and with a bit of a walk, a view of the cityscape beyond. Another indoors goes to cafeteria, where one might have to compete with a lunch rush to grab what is certainly not a cheap meal; if you had to pay for it.     Of course, Lilian had to actually take Meika here, but after a lot of fussing (in her particular way; reserved, worried, but clearly forcing herself to be brightly confident and nervously respectful of Meika's agency, in that 'desperately trying to be a good substitute' way), handing her a visitor ID card, and then a photo and name of the girl she's looking for, she has to scurry off for the time being to attend to, as she puts it, a 'professional family matter.'
Strawberry Princess	First name 'Onyx', last name 'Witch'. That's the girl's- no, young woman's- name.      It's easy to form a mental picture from those data points. Of course the kind of magical girl who'd be here, doing everything she can to hang on, would be the kind to have that name printed on her documents. It fits her face too: thin scars, proud tilt of the chin, alert but slack expression. Her body's an impact vehicle with reality, break the world or be broken.      Only, her eyes don't fit it. They ought to glare at the camera. They're a little gentler than that.      It's not hard to find her. Right out those crystal doors and towards the forest, she's up on one of those high platforms- thirty feet up, maybe- and sitting on the very edge fearlessly. Cleated shoes knock together, and when Meika comes into view, Onyx is watching her from the start like a hawk.      She waits until she's greeted, though, to drop down. Dark-gray ethereal 'wings', strewn with sparkles, flare out and slow her fall just enough. The photo didn't catch that she's almost six feet tall, fit but weirdly noodly at the bones. Maybe her costume would fit her better, but a thin black turtleneck and grass-stained white pants feel appropriate too. Her mid-length hair was perfect black in imago, but here you can see the blonde roots coming through at the part.      "Hey," she says. Eyelids narrow slightly. "It's you? Where's Lil."
Meika Kirenai	The bathroom mirror plays sole witness to the volume of time Meika wastes in front of it. Preparing to meet someone new, let alone someone she knows approximately nothing about, let alone someone somehow *curious* to meet her, comes with a messy slew of considerations. Are those eyebags really that noticeable- God, of course they are. Should I dress up nice? Should I wear a *dress*? Would that just look weirder?     Nothing fruitful gets decided, no matter how much frustration comes from glaring through her reflection. Just like always. My uniform is button-up, that's fancy enough. And I wear a tie. Her uniform is wrinkled, and the tie is against regulation. My jacket's fine, it'll be cold. A worn-out letterman is tacky, but it hides bruises, scars, and bandages well enough. And my hair is-     -    -    -     Something to fidget and fuss over, out of worry and embarrasement, in its sort-of matching half-up ponytail. Meika's hands barely stop fighting at loose strands the entire guided walk in, save for when they're white-knuckled around her messenger bag's strap. For as much as a kid in an un-tidy school uniform might look out of place in a corporate complex, she obviously *feels* even more so.     The badge and the picture are lifelines to clutch to, and Meika's eyes lock to them the second they're in her hands instead of Lilian's. "Chevalier Rook? Are you sure it's even okay for-" She stops dead in her tracks at the name. Oh. That's why.     Sometime between then and the time Meika stuffs the slip away in a pocket, Lilian's vanished. Any sort of 'Oh, right, family is more important' reply to Lilian's excuses is pure autopilot on the magical girl's part- so just like that, the safety harness tying her here is swept away-     Meika is first visible below, nervously walking her fingers across a glass railing, when the clack of cleats alerts her- but there's still a long moment from when her eyes fix on the figure three stories up, and when she actually breaks silence- despite not shouting, her voice carries unnaturally well.     "Miss Witch? I can't fly, like this, if you're expecting me to-" She follows the descent, momentary worry sparking in her throat just before Onyx's wings flare up. "Oh. Whoa. That's- you can still do things like-" It's a bitter taste, to swallow hopes back. Meika does so habitually, and goes silent as Onyx Witch starts to speak.     "It's- I'm me." Guh. Say something sensible instead. "Meika Kirenai, or, Chevalier Vermillion. I don't know which Miss Rook would have... yeah. And she's-" Meika would know before craning her head to look behind her, that Lilian isn't there. But she does it anyways, a slight reprieve from the nervous weight of facing the taller magical girl. "Her family..? I was distracted, I don't... know."     Then, meek and anachronistic, with a matching half-handed wave, she turns back and- "Hi."
Strawberry Princess	However bad Meika's reflection was, Onyx is probably worse. Her eye-bags are mild, but what could've been brushed off as dappled shade from the trees before turns out to be something worse.      An entire half of her body is just slightly bruised. The shallowly-diagonal meridian crosses her face, separating pale from subtly purpled. Maybe Meika's familiar, maybe she isn't: the body brakes before the blood, and it slams the capillaries like a hammer.      "Hey," she echoes again, and her eyebrows arch while her lips shape the word with emphasis. It's a gentle teasing. Even when Meika looks back to break eye contact, she can feel that stare lingering on the back of her head. "Yeah. Allison's been weird over something. If you can't fly, let's sit. I've got a private spot."      It's not as though there's a plethora of potential eavesdroppers. But Onyx turns and walks towards the pool anyway.      "First. I don't wanna hear that name. You're Vermillion. Right? I'll forget I heard anything else." Her voice is so plodding that any feeling at all stands out. Right now, that's 'fond concern'.      "Second, not still," she insists as grass gives way to tile. "Again. I lost it. I won it back. It sucked. Been years. But I would've done anything."      She walks right up to the poolside as if she's about to jump in, without even shrugging off the carrying-case on her back. Then her gossamer dark-energy wings flare again, reach down into the water, and pry it apart like parting the Red Sea.      Onyx hops down ten feet to the dry pool floor, and offers Meika a hand doing the same thing.      "I don't know much about you. You don't know much about me. So I'll start with the important thing. How bad do you want it?"
Meika Kirenai	"Who's Allison?" There's a momentary flinch from being ignorant of something important-sounding. Still, the worry and fear fade back for a moment, Onyx's tone clues the other magical girl in on the faint teasing. "Sitting. Yeah. Alright. And I *can* fly, just not as- you know. I'm good at it, too." Does Meika really have a metric on that? Absolutely not. But if she says so, she hopes it'll be believeable.     Meika is the only eavesdropper present- so it's lucky that escaping her isn't the goal. Still, 'private spot', in Meika's mind, means a meeting room, somewhere abandonded, or food court booth. Not a pool. She lags a full few seconds behind Onyx Witch, quickening the pace of her bootfalls to catch up.     Hands wrap tight enough around her messenger bag's strap to make its leather bindings sqeak. "Right. Vermillion." Mouthing the words, with sound, feels odd to someone she doesn't even know beyond this moment. That denial of anything else is new. She chews at the inside of her cheek. I could make you really forget. Others, too, probably. Huh.     "Not 'still'." The change in Meika's tone isn't to something apologetic, but to something an ounce more fearful. Absentmindedly, as the two walk, Meika's hand fights with the strands of her shock-white hair escaping from where they'd been tucked around her ear. "...Right. I guess that was too much to hope for. But you- you won, anyway." The worry shifts to a lighter note- somewhere between surprised and congratulatory, fading into a short exhalation, as Onyx summons up her wings once more.     A ten foot drop is- well, it's not nothing. But it's not the hardest to mitigate, with a hand to help and the precaution to get lower than just hopping down from standing. On impact, Meika favors only one of her legs- clear in how she raises it, the clap of the single impact muffled before it can echo around the pool bed.     She dallies for a second, purposefully scuffing the bottom of her boots on the dried-off concrete. "...You're not going to let go of the water, right..?" A faint little giggle rings out from her. Bright enough, for just a second. "I should have brought my rollerskates.." 'So I'll start with the important thing.'     Meika goes silent, but she doesn't freeze up- boots keep scuffing, breath keeps rising. Obviously, a question like this was coming. It's a test, right? What happens if it's not enough? Teeth clamp against cheek-skin hard enough to draw blood.     "It's that or I'm gone, right? And- and nobody wants that, even if it'll be easier for- for whoever's out the other end." A possible mis-assumption, on her behalf, to expect Onyx Witch knows Meika is at risk of losing her memories alongside her powers. The magical girl's words are quiet and guilty, echoing against concrete, and dissipating against the walls of the held-back water. "Is wanting to live, enough? Even if it's too much to hope for?"
Strawberry Princess	Onyx sits in the center of the deep end with her legs apart, leans back on her hands, and looks up to catch Meika's eyes. "Promise I won't," she says, with the leaden weight of someone who's broken bones for promises before.      When Meika gets close enough, the water closes back in around the two of them- slowly, under control- and leaves them in a bubble of air, as big as the inside of a van. The water's held at bay by those two translucent graphite wings. Down here, it's extremely quiet and a little blue.      "There," she says, lazily satisfied. Her eyes appreciate the dimmed sun for a moment. Then they flick back down, and she tilts her head in an expressively dis-eased way that makes her hair cascade over her shoulder.      "Privacy. No reason for them to hear. They don't get it," Onyx says. Her wavy gesture conveys that 'them' means 'the rest of the world'. "Some of them almost do. It's nice. But not really. Allison- Lilian's mom- she runs the lab. You know what she said?"      Onyx pulls up her turtleneck to the bottom of her ribs. The scratches on her face and hands are one thing, but that radiating scar looks like she was impaled by something the size of a streetlamp. "That I'd wanna get rid of these when I'm 'hunting for a husband'." She barks a one-syllable laugh. 'Can you fucking believe it?' her lips-parted eyeroll says.      She listens with a little sympathetic discomfort leaking through her disaffected attitude. She probably thinks she understands more than she does. Then, finally, she lazily lolls her head back and just barely looks at Meika over her own cheekbones.      "Yeah," she says. "'Or you're gone'. Because it is dying, isn't it. Not being Vermillion anymore. But trust me. You can't make it easier, just by amputating. 'Keery-whatever' isn't a person. Not without Vermillion. Wouldn't make it on her own."      She looks off to the side at her own wing, and through it at the wall of faint blue. "You probably want it enough," she says. "If you're talking like that. Probably. Maybe be squadmates someday."
Meika Kirenai	'Promise I won't,'     "Okay." Meika is looking at the walls, and not Onyx, as the promise is given. It's kind of automatic, that little extension of trust. The weight in the older magical girl's tone is easy enough to pick up on, and just that hard to ignore.     Shielded in the bubble, Onyx's wings filtering the pool caustics across the two of them, Meika sits down- silent still -and hugs her knees. Loose-laced boots tuck up close, as she (unconsciously or not) tries to take up as little space as she can. Nearly the exact opposite posture as Onyx Witch, despite the van-sized area.     It's a small motion, when first breaking posture, but Meika's eyes fall to the concrete, and trace the scattering brindled light across it with a fingertip. The first color of the rainbow that water scrubs out is red- Meika's eyes, once she pulls them back towards Onyx, still gleam unsettlingly bright where the similar tint of her hair bow and jacket are muted and made browner.     {"If you didn't want anyone hearing, you could've just said so."} There's a tiny, sillier smile that crosses the girl's face. Down here, in the bubble, there's nobody else for her words to find, anyways- but they don't echo, they don't waver, hand-shaped and delivered to Onyx alone. A tangible clarity, like a phone's dial tone dissapearing from the background. Meika is showing off, just that tiny bit. {"I'm kind of good at that. But this is-"} The whispering cuts off. "It's nice of you. And really cool."     "The lab? Is- is this place a lab? It sort of looks like it's one... What'd she say-" Meika's hands clap over her mouth. It's not the same as a wince, though she would, if she tried to imagine what gave Onyx that scar. Still, there's a pervasive feeling to tear her eyes away, that comes a few breaths before Meika actually does. All of mine just suck.     "That's- that's silly. That's not even the ugly kind of scar. And I- I'm..." A stumbling pause, her eyes failing to stay pulled away. When her words resumed, there's the ghost of an embarrassed tone in them. "You could probably find a husband who'd think it was neat, anyways."     It's easier, for Meika, that Onyx Witch only barely bothers looking her way. But Meika closes her own eyes, anyways, hearing the response. "I wouldn't want her to make it, anyways. It wouldn't be fair. But that's-" Whatever she was thinking about bringing up gets cut off. "Probably. Maybe." The parroted words come out like they're coated in glue, sticking in her throat.
Strawberry Princess	"Hhhah. Right? Fits me," Onyx Witch says knowingly, her hand grazing the old injury fondly. Maybe not knowing enough. From the funny angle her head lolls at, maybe embarrassment reads as jealousy. "Don't worry. You'll get some that suit you someday. There's time. Now."      The mention of a husband, again, is the first thing to really make her look uncomfortable. She leans back a little further and reaches out to touch the bubble's edge, focusing on that. Her skimming finger sends ripples across the water-dome's undersurface. "Yeah? I'm not built to be drooled over," she says, without evident hostility. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I need to get uglier."      But that topic isn't one she's eager to linger on. By the time the ripples still, she's back to appraising Vermillion carefully. Her eyes looked dark on the surface, but down here in the blue, it's hard to even tell iris from pupil.      "Your whispers are really pretty," she says, and it sounds the most sincere of anything she's said all day. "See why you want to keep it. Why'd you stop? Conversation's not magical enough?"      But that, too, fades as a topic. There's something at the back of her mind she's spiraling towards. Her legs draw in, mirroring Meika's posture, and she hunches forwards with hands on her ankles.      "Hey. Vermillion. 'Burning out'."      "Ever thought if you'd rather just die?"
Meika Kirenai	@emit     The magical girl giggles, bright notes of agreement on how fitting it is for the other. "I- I have plenty. But none are... most just hurt." Self conscious, she tugs the hem of her skirt lower, the cuffs of her sleeves longer. A beat of pause. "But I'm tough. I could... yeah."     The expression of 'ick' flashes across Meika's face in tandem with Onyx's distaste. A quiet "Yeah," is all she says on it, quietly rocking to tap her heels against the concrete. She doesn't meet the other magical girl's gaze head-on, but it's hard for Meika not to scan her eyes from the corner of her own. 'Your whispers are really pretty,'     "Oh. You think so?" Meika's fingers pinch at the pleats of her ankle-length skirt, restless. She's thankful that red fades out under water's refraction. It saves her cheeks a bit of grief. {"I can keep doing it. I just figured it was redundant, really. Or creepy. But it's as easy as breathing. I can keep it up, if you like it."}     As the mood hanginging in the air shifts, though, 'breathing' starts to feel less like a low bar of ease. Meika's fingernails- ragged, bitten at, unpolished -dig into the skin of her knee, through fabric. 'Ever thought if you'd rather just die?'     It feels, to her, like the only reason to whisper, cut off down here from the rest of the world, would be to try to hide from God. With ugly, bitter guilt, that's what Meika wishes she really could manage. {"...It's hard not to wonder what'd happen, right? If I'd get to stay like this. If Hell is kind that way."}     {"But it's giving up, isn't it, to do that."} That part doesn't ring as a question. It's something barely steadier- a weak denial of the option. {"I'd damn myself for certain. And that'd be that. So what would the point be of having tried this long?"}     {"Besides. I've got a gun if it comes to that."} A simple 'yes' or 'no' might have better fit Onyx Witch's question- but words spill out regardless. It's easier when they're only whispers.
Strawberry Princess	"'Course it's not creepy. It's magic. So it comes from here." Onyx Witch taps her chest. "And you're pretty. So it's pretty. Not hard."      The way she looks out from under her bangs, hunched forward like this, mirrors looking down over her cheekbones earlier. All part of the same constellation of unease. The kid in your class who got their knuckles rapped for fidgeting grew up to be her.      But she doesn't fidget at all, soaking up Meika's words. Even when her eyes have to drop from the tugged cuff to the concrete, she's giving rapt attention.      "Yeah," she echoes, uncharacteristically softly. "'If it comes to that'. Lil ever tell you what I did in Tallahassee? When I thought it was my last day. Took magic from other girls to last a little longer. I was already going to Hell for sure."      Onyx Witch takes Meika's hands in her own, interrupting the skirt-picking. She stands, hauling Meika up with her, and the bubble's roof rises to make room for her stature.      "But you won't have a last day," she says, idle disaffection dropped for aching sincerity. "I promise. If you've ever thought you'd rather die. You want it bad enough to make it."      She smiles. It doesn't suit her. It suits her absolutely. "Okay? Chevalier Vermillion."
Meika Kirenai	'Pretty' is the kind of claim that seems to roll off Meika like water and tile, but with enough friction to make her stare off into the held-back poolwater. The sore spot on the inside of her cheek, dug by her teeth earlier, gets chewed at once more until she tastes iron. Is it really any better if it's from the heart?     She still nods along. That Onyx Witch is saying what she is to be nice, at least, isn't lost on the girl. Even if she just feels guilty for it. {"Nothing I do is as flashy as wings like yours... Those are sick, Miss Onyx. If that's something from-"} Meika coughs into a shoulder- abrupt, her whisper cut off. When she clears her throat, it's just with normal speech once more. "...It's really pretty under all this water."     There's a long moment where she's quiet again, once Onyx's soft words are finished with. Breaking it seems to take a lot of effort from her. "...I haven't heard nearly anything about you. I didn't know your name until..." The crumpled slip with her photo sits heavy in her pocket. "Well. You're here, so." It's a hard deed to swallow, stealing magic. Meika takes more comfort than she should, knowing that it seems impossible for her. I'd never do that to Cobalt, right? Especially since she deserves to stay so much more than I do.     Meika really hopes that thought wouldn't be a lie, if spoken aloud.     Meika is less steady than she'd like to be, getting hauled up to her feet. When Onyx Witch first grabs her hands- knuckles covered in band-aids, always fresh -there's an instant instinctive tightness, telling her to wrench them free from anyone's touch. She doesn't, though, even if she has to shut her eyes tight to power through it.     {"I want to trust you. I want you to be right"} She's right back to whispering. Reversing the instinctive fear, it's now her who's squeezing Onyx's hands tightly- save for the tremble in them. {"But a promise like that is scary. Is that still okay? If I'm scared of it?"}     Meika's eyes barely open back up enough to see the other girl's smile- and her lips move, utterly silent, mouthing something unsaid-enough that the only layered over whisper she lets through towards Onyx Witch is, {"Okay."}
Lilian Rook	Deep at the bottom of the pool, crouched in a little world for two, like the inside of a tent at summer camp, or indoors with glow-in-the-dark stars, it's hard to notice something as inconvenient as reality. Which is good, because reality shouldn't be able to notice in return. Not two girls under the sacred contract of a silly little semi-seethrough ceiling.     Whether that makes Lilian more or less real, for standing in the vague proximity of the yard and calling out for the both of them by voice, as if she couldn't find them if she really wanted to, is purely a matter of personal interpretation. But there is, probably, a limit to how long they can hide from her roaming around. The sound of anxiety is slow to build, but she'd rather not think they're avoiding her.     Pacing around on the green, she's apparently already unbuttoned and removed the blazer she had to wear and let her hair down in the last forty-five minutes already. Or rather, probably the last five. An ID is tucked barely visibly in the front pocket of a white blouse, rather betraying just what grade of welcome she actually was by someone who can enterprisingly try to read it. More importantly, she has what seems to be a drink in each hand, in cardboard cups.
Strawberry Princess	"Yeah," Onyx says. "They are sick as hell, my wings." The words are tangled. But she's confident in them. It's a comfort with discomfort, like the scars she didn't let them erase, like her hair with the blonde roots grown out an inch.      Her smile gets lopsided at the same time her eyes get almost misty. Even holding hands, her hips cock to try and make a little distance. "You're wrong though. Even if it's not flashy. Li'l Lil likes you. So you must be really cool. Not sure she was ever impressed with me." That might be a lie. But it feels true.      Then she untwists, and the distance disappears. She tries to read Meika's lips. Fails to. Her eyes track back up to meet eyes. "Everything worth doing is scary. That's why they make it scary."      Lilian calling makes her look up a little further. Her smile shows every feeling of the end of summer. One hand withdraws from Meika's squeezing, just so she can scratch her own band-aid on her cheek. But the remaining one can convey all the warmth it needs to, in its squeeze back.      "Okay. You don't need to believe me. I believe you. Okay?"      A nod upwards silently conveys 'you mind if I open it now?' And then she does. The bubble swells until it touches surface, becoming a cone, and then becoming the parted Red Sea. "HEY," she calls up, hand amplifying her mouth. "HERE!"
Meika Kirenai	'Not sure she was ever impressed with me.'     {"Huh? Why wouldn't she be? I mean, you're-"} The thought cuts off into silence, as Meika figuratively and literally bites her own tongue. It's a long, long second before she whispers again. {"You know. Cool, and stylish, and all that."}     'I believe you. Okay?'     She nods, eyes squeezing shut as her tight grip loosens, and eventually slips back out of Onyx's hand. She echoes the same 'okay' as before, silent, but obvious on her face, that confirmation back.     The world above, even hushed through all that water, is still just a bit too easy for Meika to hear- but it means Lilian's muffled calls are still recieved.     {"Hey, Onyx? We shouldn't keep Chevalier Rook waiting, right?"} Meika's boots shift and scuff at the pool basin's floor, and she looks up to the other magical girl, for just a short moment- an expectant gaze, that the water will be parted again, is quickly followed by a flashed apologetic smile, the kind you give when preparing to clean a scraped-up knee with isopropyl.     That the secreted-off bubble, the moment it contains, is something that could usher Lilian in too, and not just end for everyone, is lost on Meika in the first moment Onyx Witch starts to open it up. She's halfway through standing up when there's room to, and already looking back towards the flat wall, to climb on out herself-     So she's caught in that awkward, half-standing stance, surprised, when Onyx beckons Lilian over. Embarrassed, she shifts how her shoulderbag sits, and crouches back down again to the cold concrete, even if it doesn't hide her misunderstanding at all to do so.     Once Lilian is actually visible, whether just over the pool's edge or clambering down herself, Meika gives an awkward little wave, and pairs it with a smile. She's back to not using her little whisper-trick, when she speaks up- audibly less steady and at ease. "Did- did the family stuff you mentioned go alright, Chevalier Rook..? I, um, hope it all did."     Eyes track the drinks and not Lilian's expression, even if Meika's shoulders loosen their posture when she notes her more casual presentation. Knees tuck up close to the magical girl's chest, and she hugs them, occupying both of her own hands and making her footprint smaller, down on the pool floor.
Lilian Rook	It's vaguely impressive how Lilian could go from 'nervously wanting her precious little neice to have a good entry interview for college' a little over half an hour ago to looking exactly like she should be drenched in sweat. Seeing her wearing just one layer and with her hair down to her waist gives her pacing around in the grace with her heels still on a kind of 'badly overworked new secretary' vibe that--     Is actually kind of weird. Even a little uncomfortable. What exactly can make Lilian Rook of all people look that utterly mundanely exhausted? Never mind in thirty minutes. She's fought monsters for longer and looked less frazzled.     Lilian's searching stops at the deformation in the pool's surface tension. Idle fascination holds a sound of relief at bay behind parted lips, for only as long as it takes Onyx Witch to call. She walks over to the edge of the pool at a believably relaxed pace, but it's like she forgets to breathe out until she can lean over the side and see the both of them.     "My, I'm starting to get impressed now." she says to Onyx Witch. The statement sounds two thirds as serious as it probably is. "And you were already as resourceful as you should be." What does that even mean? Too late to ask, because she's looking at Meika now. Her head is sort of blocking the sun, catching the light in the edges of her hair rather than turning her face to it, but she can still see the way Lilian looks somehow assuaged by something. "Goodness. It seems you understood each other even better than I hoped. It looks outright cozy down there."     Lilian laughs. It's a perfectly wonderful sound. There's no missing the way she has to strain to do it. The hint of wistfulness and the hesitant downcast of her eyes is unmistakable.     "Ah. That." she replies to Meika. Her fingers shift on both cups she's carrying, starting to get awkward from holding them at that position for so long. "As well as could be hoped, I suppose." says Lilian. Holding the conversation there is inconvenient for the both of them. Her shoes don't quite slide close enough to the lip to cast a reflection. "My. . . mother, is . . ." Lilian's finger taps rapidly on the cardboard sleeve in thought. Her eyes wander off.     A moment later, her shoulders drop, her back straightens, and she abruptly drops from the ledge into the little clearing in the water, with no more announcement than a flutter of skirt fabric and the tap-tap of asynchronous heel clicks. Settling up to one edge equidistant from both the magical girls, she heaves a sigh of utter dishevelment, hands one cup over to Onyx Witch (reeking of sweet orange and carbonated garbage), and then sliding one to Meika. She uses her empty hands to push back her hair away from her face and squeeze her cheeks.     "Allison is selling off her majority shares. We've negotiated most of it already. The transfer has to happen in-person with a notary. It hasn't been a great time for her, or for any of us." says Lilian. She sounds like she's gossiping with Onyx Witch more than she's answering Meika. "I'd rather it have waited, but she wants to be rid of it all as soon as possible. She plans to retire abroad, too. So I have to . . ." Lilian stares between her feet. "It's fine. There's plenty I can do to help people with this. All I have to do is change things around a little."     She stops to say to Meika, "I hope hot chocolate is fine. I realized by the time I got there that I forgot to ask you what you'd like.", just a little apologetically, and then, "You've been . . . keeping busy? Here."
Strawberry Princess	"Huh? Why wouldn't she be?"      "I sucked," Onyx says plainly, while Lilian's heels clack on the poolside. Her voice is quiet enough to- if not actually escape notice- make it clear that it's intended to. "She saw the worst parts first. And she has Strawberry. So."      "... Hey, Lil." Despite all that, the tiny smile she shines upward is sincere. "Almost a decade. Right? Who wouldn't be resourceful. You are."      It's weird to see Onyx and Lilian standing next to each other: it feels normal that she'd be taller than Meika, and wrong that she'd be taller than Lilian too. But after takng the cup, she's quick to sit back down. She moves like she's younger and older than she is, petulant-vibrating energy and achey joints.      "My favorite. Who narced?" The cup's contents look like a fizzy screwdriver, extra-pulpy OJ just a little too thin. She finds a way to sit that's a whole different kind of gangly-crunched and awkward, one leg sprawled out and the other held against her chest to rest her chin on it. "But I hear it eats your teeth. I should stop. They have to last now."      She drinks this one anyway. It can be the last. Overhead, the waters close, casting everything back in muffled blue. The dome is centered on all three of them now. Lilian's not on the periphery.      Onyx's face twitches when she takes the news. Her mouth hides behind her arm on top of her knee, and her eyes shift to look at the curving wall of water. "Oh," she says eventually. "Selling them, to you." Confirming. But that's not really the important part:      "I'm never going to see her again, am I." Her eyes flick up to Lilian's, searching. "She does this?"
Meika Kirenai	'My, I'm starting to get impressed now.'     Meika looks to Onyx, right instinctively back to whispering. {"See? She thinks so. I was right."} There's no real motion out of Meika- so it's just the nature of her tone, that carries the impression of a soft elbow nudge. Her second whisper carries none of that- its tone isn't cold, but closer robbed of temperature at all. {"Maybe that means the worst of you isn't so bad, right?"} 'It looks outright cozy down there.'     Meika giggles- the first tiny syllable of it is silent, but purposefully, she stifles that habit, to let the rest of the bright noise ring out. "Cozy. Y-yeah. The light and the way everything echoes, it's..."     Standing in front of the sun always gives the hint of a halo, to those who do it. The kind that religious paintings use real gold in the pigments for, not the cartoonish floating rings. As such- Meika can only bear to face a second of Lilian's glances down at her, before nervously tearing her eyes away, back to the floor, the walls, the fabric of the skirt she's picking at.     "Better than you hoped? I-" A long, faint exhale, her face still pressed close to her knees. "W-well. You'd- I guess you'd be the one who knows that. Ahah.."     Meika's eyes don't have to follow Lilian at all, or even look her way, for Meika to track her descent- to track the tiny motions of everyone present, really -but it still surprises her when Lilian's landing impact is so quiet.     The magical girl makes a tiny little noise of surprise, putting 'Allison, Lilian's mother, runs the lab' together with that being 'this entire place here', and makes another one realizing that a transfer makes Lilian the one in charge(?) of it all. Dozens of questions race through Meika's head, that don't dare get spoken. After all, the adults are talking.     It takes bravery for Meika to foray even into offering sympathetic glances to Onyx and Lilian, as the topic clearly, obviously stresses or has-stressed the both of them. She gets that much. Still, she can't much hide her obvious uncertainty in the 'what, exactly' all of this even is. It's intentional, obnoxious, manipulative, unneeded of her to let out a muffled (but not silent) little cough, just to solidify the reminder of her presence here.     "Hot cocoa's great. Um, thanks, for it." She seems more surprised to have been gotten something at all, than at the contents. She's not usually a hot chocolate drinker- not for any lack of fondness, it's just a decadence without utility. Both of Meika's hands wrap around the cup, still feeling the warmth through the corrugated cardboard sleeve around it. Fingers tap it arrhythmically.     "If- if talking's busy. Is it?" Responding directly to the conversational busywork term gives a tiny note of something between nervousness and openness. In between speaking, she sips at the drink. "But it's been nice, to get to. S-so. Thanks."
Lilian Rook	'Lil' brings a half-hearted smile to the lips of the girl being addressed. "That's still not fair. I can't just go calling you 'Witch' now can I? Not in polite company at any rate." she says. The rhetorical question slash compliment is answered in a moment of transitory thoughtlessness, still caught in turbulent contemplation at the boundary of the pool even as Lilian settles down.     'Right? Who wouldn't be resourceful.'     "The dead ones, mainly." says Lilian. She looks off blandly into the standing water while Onyx Witch takes her drink, already absorbed in the next thought. "Everything eats some part of you or another." Her eyes stay locked short of the rim of the water, the edge of Onyx Witch's sparkling wings, and the suddenly harsh-seeming boundary of daytime sky. Lilian's fingers pinch at her collar and slowly undo the top button, as if she needs to so she can breathe. "It's mostly fine, as long as you can control what and when and how much."     'Cozy. Y-yeah. The light and the way everything echoes, it's...'     Lilian's readied 'that's so nice' expression is gradually washed off her face as Onyx Witch simply closes the dome again. However blindly supportive she had planned to be doesn't quite survive contact with the petty marvel above her. Unlike red, her green eyes catch the light just fine here; and it highlights the exact moment she glances around herself and finds herself jarringly close to both girls and far from the perimeter. Her shoes scrape against the pool bottom and her skirt rustles an inch up her thigh; she just pulled her knees up a little. Her lips twitch towards a smile, then guilty neutral, then back to something in-between; she's staring at her painted fingernails. Lilian swallows, and it's audible.     'Oh. Selling them, to you.'     "Bryce didn't want them. Katrina doesn't qualify. It was me or it fell outside the family." Lilian says to Onyx Witch. Her tone isn't pleading, per se, but it's exhausted and ameliorating in equal measure. Up close, she actually was sweating. Her blouse is stuck to her in places that are now cold and clammy from stress. "I didn't want that. Obviously. Not just for you, but for me. Because if this place would have seen me a long time ago; if it made the things I needed when I needed them; then a lot would be different." She utters the words like a confession. They don't mean, even sound like, anything less than noble, but they have the horrid weight of only mostly-resolved shame behind them.     'Hot cocoa's great. Um, thanks, for it.'     "It's no problem at all." Lilian murmurs. Even when lowering her voice, it stays exactly as tonally resonant as before, as if incapable of washing it out with the noise of whispers. "Which is to say, you're welcome. But I'm already thanking you for entertaining something so selfish of mine anyways."     'If- if talking's busy. Is it?'     "It is." Lilian says. Her eyes flutter closed, squeeze an extra degree shut, and then a set of her jaw suppresses the secondary expression that might taint her face. "I try to do it as much as I can. People who won't talk about things tend to not do well."     'I'm never going to see her again, am I.'     Lilian draws a deep, shuddering breath. The fact she has no drink stands out more for making sense when taken together with her queasy exhale. "I don't know. It's a lot. Who know how she'll feel in five years. I don't." Lilian says. Her skin prickles with just how weaselly it sounds. She tugs uncomfortably at her collar, popping another button down, and brushes away the loose strands of hair sticking to her neck, but "Matthew's dead." slips out anyways.     "So yeah. She does this. She can't get her happy ending here, so she starts over. I sort of don't even blame her. She's lost too much family already."
Lilian Rook	The awareness that this little world; this beautiful, childish bubble of isolated safety; is exactly the place for rough words and shaking voices and vulnerable topics between girls, makes Lilian's skin crawl. It's the visible discomfort of fitting in. Falling into it too easily, when she shouldn't. Automatically, she scoots herself back a couple of inches, clearing the way if-only symbolically for Meika and Onyx Witch to converse with each other more freely.     "My apologies, Meika. To answer the obvious question, this is a . . . biomedical research firm, owned by my family. Which has run a . . . sort of magical trauma and rehabilitation program, successful enough for magical girls in the past. I studied for it in univerisity; the mechanics of reconditioning a misaligned body to acclimate to the shape left unignorably engraved into its soul; you know. I didn't think I'd actually use it so frequently. But here we are."     Somehow, Lilian actually achieves eye contact, if only imprecisely. It's hard to tell how much the glistening on her eyelashes is just the humidity. Which suits her fine. "I'm sorry it's not more special. But this is the only way I had on hand to make your dream come true. And no one else was stepping up." Her hands, without a drink to safely fidget with, fall around her waist, then clutch at her sides, sliding up over her ribs with folded arms.     "It makes me happy to see you two talking like this. Somewhere that feels right, for just the two of you. I'm sorry if I came back at an inconvenient time."
Strawberry Princess	Onyx rolls her eyes at Meika's whisper, only about nine-tenths as hard as she could. It carries 'fuck offff', but from someone always on full blast, it's practically a tacit concession too.      "But she does like you," she says too while leaning back on her hands, and so out-loud it's an act of terrorism. "Or you wouldn't be here. Look. She's nervous for us getting along." Inviting Lilian's participation by pretending she's not there.      Meika's cough makes Onyx Witch tighten the bubble just slightly, more cozily including her. Lilian's scoot makes her finely adjust it to stay centered. They're both really like this, huh, she thinks with only mild annoyance.      "Matthew's dead."      "Shit." She tilts her head away as if struck. The word feels wrong-but-right from Onyx. She puts more sympathy behind it than even boys do.      (Not for not-having Matthew. Just for the blow of it. She understands that much.)      "So, what. Just that and she walks. Like nobody needs her." The way Onyx breathes that out roughly... "Well, whatever. What's five years, right? I'll have a husband by then." The meaning of this parable is that the future does not exist.      Her fingertips make the tiniest squeak as she tightens them against the tile. Then she unslings her carrying-case from her back roughly, drops it to her lap, and undoes the latches. Click, click, clack. Inside is some kind of slender railgun with fiber-optic harpoons that she is definitely not supposed to have here. And also a couple of cheap cans of lukewarm mimosa, that somehow feel even more illegal.      She rolls one across the tile to Lilian, where it bumps her conspicuously empty hand. "'The things you needed', huh," she says, echoing words from a minute ago that it seemed like she'd ignored. "Never thought you were like us. A temporary person. But it makes more sense."      "Wasn't pity for the weird little freaks, was it? Always felt more like sympathy." Onyx chugs the rest of her fizzy OJ, then cracks the tab on a mimosa too, and shoots a glance to Meika that says half want one? and half don't you dare tell.
Meika Kirenai	'But I'm already thanking you for entertaining something so selfish of mine anyways.'     "You are?" Isn't even putting up with me something I should owe you for? "Um." The toes of her boots rise up off the floor, and plunk back down, something close to a stifled rocking motion. Still, she turns to flash a small, awkward smile Lilian's way. 'But she does like you,'     "Really?-"Cut off by a sharp cough, her starting tone all wrong- way too excited, way too eager, altogether weird. It makes rolling her eyes back at Onyx lack all the usual hallmarks of the expression.     The shuffle of hair, fabric, and the breathing of others echoes deafeningly, nauseatingly loud in the secret little hideout, beneath the waves- well, water, at least- of the pool. It's a comfortable din to hide in the weightless pressure of. It's a stifling hush at the exact same time.     So overhearing 'Matthew's dead.', watching Onyx's reaction and Lilian's non-elaboration in all but tonal implication, feels alien. Death- real death, of people who don't get cleaned up after is something Meika still has precious little experience with- the ways to talk and feel about it an impossibility meant for books, movies, and everyone else.     So, obviously, she blurts out a rushed, hazy, "I'm sorry." about it. She doesn't understand that much. 'I studied for it in univerisity; the mechanics of reconditioning a misaligned body to acclimate to the shape left unignorably engraved into its soul;'     There's a faint, silent hitch in Meika's breath. Obviously, there's a bit of surprise that that's something someone can even study- but even if it's still weird to be out in the multiverse, magic being something a society cares about isn't shocking enough for that. It's something else that causes it. She mulls the words over, and bites her tongue again, to stop herself from asking how literal that is.     {"And it's really worked, doing that?"} Unconsciously, she slips into that whisper, inaudible to anyone but Lilian. Meika isn't even looking her way, as she says it- instead, she glances sidelong to Onyx Witch. The quiet, anxious scoot away from them both is unmistakable as intentional distancing, for one reason or another. Oh. Your worst really must not have been that bad, then, if this is what that left you at.     Meika's habit of biting at the inside of her cheek isn't that hard to notice, in the way she shifts and sets her jaw. It's also not hard to notice the moment, mulling over those thoughts, where she breaks skin and winces. Something that scares her rests in that explanation.
Meika Kirenai	'I'm sorry it's not more special.'     "Huh?" Meika's grip on the cup squeezes, just a bit- the cardboard doesn't make that awful crinkling racket it's prone to. "A- a magic hospital. I've- I've never even imagined there'd really be stuff like this. That- that has to count as special, right?" Less 'trying to assuage worry', and far more 'worry that something magical-seeming shouldn't be'. {"It's got to."} Another slipped-out whisper, that carries more of the certainty her other words can't quite. There's no indication she even realizes she's lacing her words with magic like that. 'Never thought you were like us. A temporary person.'     There's a little noise Meika makes, as she turns to look closer at Lilian, and her posture, expression- just at her, in general. "Temporary person?" she echoes, trying her hardest not to let even a hint of callousness into the curiosity. "...Is that why you're even trying this all?"     Cardboard actually does squeak and crackle, this time, as she squeezes the cup, so-     Quietly, she turns aside, andputs the hot cocoa she's been working through down, purposefully not even bothering to hide how much she's leaning over to stare at the opened-up carrycase. "Woah..." The barest hint of a snicker.     It isn't more than a few seconds, though, before her gaze shifts to what else is in that case. "...Can I have one?" Asking, fully audibly, even before Onyx glances Meika's way with that implicit offer of hers. She knows without reading the label that hidden cans means alcohol, there's no other reason to sneak things like that.     Implicit, back, in Meika's ask, is the obvious self-incriminating pact, that she can't tell a soul or they'll both burn for it. It's an uncomfortably comfortable assurance for her to make.
Lilian Rook	Lilian slowly tilts her head, in that classical soft-noncomprehension way, at Onyx Witch's theatrical overspeaking. "Meika? Of course I like her." she says, choosing the third person instead of going so far as to presume. The way she looks at Meika is one that suspects something unfortunate, but is already sort of resigned to not really being able to keep up with her feelings. "Do you think you did something to upset me?" She considers preemptively apologizing, and falls just short of summoning the quiet anxiety needed. The water is closing overhead. This is too safe a place.     'Shit.'     "Yeah." Lilian breathes. "Shit." Neither girl would understand either word without Unification having handled that detail already. "It's a lot to do. Obviously he didn't exactly make any plans for it."     'I'm sorry.'     "Don't worry about it." Lilian says, and for a moment, confuses her tones, so that the words are delivered with an implied 'haha' before them and a bitter eyeroll imagined after. Disconcerted, she rubs her face and rallies for a second try at seeming respectfully assuaged. "It won't affect anything you need to worry about. It'll all be fine." she says, apparently the best she can manage.     "It wasn't that sudden." Lilian lies, in every way but spirit. "It's sort of grim to say, but you'll understand one day. It just is what it is."     'So, what. Just that and she walks. Like nobody needs her.'     "Please." The single syllable is so much sharper, uttered in this little place. The rasp of Lilian's breath echoes what feels like a hundred times from the stone floor and winged walls. Her fingers are squeezing her knees hard enough to whiten her skin. Her head dips and her shoulders stiffen with the telltale signs of already being stressed to up the threshold she can hide it. "I'm not her. This is as better as I can make it on my own."     Lilian no longer seems to care that the bubble has shifted to center her again. She feels like she's in the spotlight anyways. "You know more than I do anyways." is the last thing she manages to say before talking about herself any further becomes too intimidating to bear. She forces herself to relax instead, gradually pulling her legs under herself and shifting from a curled up hunch to the iconic sideways cousin of kneeling. "So let's talk about that later. Okay?"     'And it's really worked, doing that?'     Lilian freely glances over to Meika at hearing her voice, but hesitance gains control of for long enough that a reply is no longer conversational. The way she searches Meika's face is no doubt looking for what she expects her to do, asking her a private question in a way where she can't get a private answer back. "It does much better than anything else I know." Lilian says. Onyx Witch will probably figure it out. "We live in a reality where anything beautiful has to be built from scratch every time it breaks. That's the way things are."     'That- that has to count as special, right?'     Lilian cracks a soft smile at that. Something about it amuses her in a way that brings back some light to her eyes. Being a little sweaty and dishevelled only puts it in a different frame. "I misspoke, then." she says. Her smile is surprisingly pretty, given the circumstances. "Of course it's special. You'd be hard-pressed to find anything else like it. I'd just worried you'd been expecting something more theatrical. Perhaps with a beam of light and a holy grail?" Lilian laughs. "You're more reasonable than you look."
Lilian Rook	'Never thought you were like us. A temporary person. But it makes more sense.'     That part catches Lilian off-guard. The way she looks when she hears it is uncommonly obvious; the stages in which she processes, disagrees, feels confused, comprehends, contemplates more deeply, and finally shifts herself a little closer, all play out cleanly and in sequence.     'Temporary person?'     "Anyone can stop being themselves if enough things happen to them." says Lilian. "For most people, everything has to go wrong for that to happen. For the rest of us, everything has to go right for it to not.'     'Wasn't pity for the weird little freaks, was it? Always felt more like sympathy.'     Lilian looks back, at Onyx Witch, considers something else a moment, and carefully says without an iota of self-consciousness, "I'm not very good at sympathy, but I'm atrocious at pity." The carry case is already making her raise an eyebrow, but she doesn't address it in any special way. "You have to be much better off than someone, and to have never been anything like them, before you can start pitying them, right? But it's always easier to look down on them when that's true." She scoops up the terribly illegal shitty mimosa as it's rolled towards her as if it's only matter of course. In a place this close, she doesn't think twice about cracking the tab.     '...Is that why you're even trying this all?'     "I don't know what you're thinking, Meika, but I'm not so wonderful a person that I'd try to help everyone I can imagine sharing something in common with." Lilian says. "You're already expecting much better answers to 'why' from me than you do from anyone else, aren't you?" She's already drinking lukewarm alcohol right in front of a teenager, only stopping for breath, and to wipe her lips with her thumb. "I'd like it if you could accept that you can simply be lucky, and that I can be a little arbitrary and selfish too."