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Who: Jasmine and Lily Tsukuyomi
What: Training and an encounter
When: Thursday Dcember 4th
Where: Forest outside Fussen

Serious things were coming. It was time to make sure one was prepared. Even Jasmine, who had struggled with responsibilities and staying on top of them, had the sense that they needed to practice, so she'd asked Lily to help her hone her fighting skills.

Her struggles with Blaine didn't have anything to do with it. Nosiree.

By now they'd been combating one another for a fair amount of time, and Jasmine was deliberating on the fact that she didn't feel as fatigued as she should. Oh, she felt sore, and a bit tired, but her endurance was still far more than it should be. Another reminder that she was less human than when she started.

Dammit, no. She was not going to get hung up on this. Not after she'd made a big speech about how she'd accepted all of this. She shook her head, and turned to Lily.

"How you doing, sis? You wanna go another round?" she said, smirking and doing a fake bicep flexing gesture.

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A year ago, the thought of throwing a punch at her sister would have made Lily balk. There's still a part of her that sort of wants to, but... she pushes ahead through it. She'd sort of gotten used to this, from the day she fought that stupid mirror of Jasmine forward.

She's not sure what "getting used to" this says, but... well, that's not something to focus on. For the moment, Moonlight takes a long breath, letting her guard down a bit.

"I... think a break would be good, Jas. I'm not sure I can really keep up with you forever at this rate."

"Heh, yeah, sure, whatever," she said. "I'm superhuman now, I can totally understand that."

Jasmine walked over and put an arm around her sister's shoulder, sighing.

"Man... you've gotten a lot better. I've gotten a lot better. We are total badasses."

Yeah, keep it light. Distract you both from the thoughts about you not being human anymore.

Moonlight rolls her eyes a little bit, crossing her arms. She looks a little amused, at least.

"I wish being that felt like it was enough."

Well, she did look amused for a moment, at least. She manages to sigh and look p at the sky, now frowning. "I keep screwing up, Sis. I can't afford that, not anymore. Not for you, or any of my friends, and... especially not for Winter."

Edited 2014-12-08 08:32 (UTC)

Jasmine paused for a moment, before smiling as wide as possible and pulling her sister closer.

"Lily, do you remember... almost a year ago? After I'd gone off and stupidly tried to get an echo? I was just hiding in my room for days, and you... you came to me to see what was wrong?"

She sighed. "One of the things I said, among all the other stuff was... 'I thought I was worse than you'. That I was a screw up, that I didn't have anything going for me because I messed up all time time, even before I got all the echoes I have now."

She smiled fondly now. "Right off the bat, you told me that you'd never lose me, that I was talented, that I was capable. I'd made one of the biggest mistakes of my life, and you still had plenty of reason to say I was still worthwhile..."

Jasmine looked Lily dead in the eye now. "Well, I'm doing that for you now. Maybe you have screwed up, Lily. But that's just part of this whole stupid mess we're wrapped up in. You're our rock, Lily, for me and Winter, and even if you screw up a hundred times that's never going to change."

She blinks and stares at her sister for several long moments, as she speaks, and after. It takes that long for it all to sink in, and as it does, she finds her eyes misting up a bit. She gives a long sigh and just reaches out herself then, hugging her.

"Dammit. I guess I never expected you to use my own arguments against me, but..."

She pulls back, smiling lightly now. "I can't really argue with that, and... if I want to have a life from here on, I guess I sort of need to remember that sort of thing... If I'm ever going to be as strong as I want to be, I guess I have to stop beating myself up, huh?"

Jasmine leaned into the hug, smiling as she swung her other arm around to hug Lily back.

"Me, I'm just surprised I remembered that far back," she admitted.

"And I wouldn't say stop... that's something people do until the day they die. You just need to get better at managing it. Yeah, the blind leading the blind, I know..."

She gives a calmed breath and leans back, tilting her head to one side and smiling wider.

"You say that, but we've done well enough this far. Though I guess... the last year we've had a lot of help being led outside just the two of us, too."

"Heh, yeah," Jasmine said, nodding her head. "We finally found some people worth appreciating."

There was a short pause.

"So, speaking of which... you figure out what to do for Winter, yet?"

Edited 2014-12-09 07:57 (UTC)

For a split second, the graceful and powerful Cure Moonlight looks terribly undignified as her eyes widen and her breath hitches. She sweeps away, putting a hand back through her long hair, attempting to hide her face from her sister.

"Ah... yes. Yes, I think I'm... pretty set on what I need to do."

Jasmine's grin becomes absolutely insidious.

"So then," she said, "You're really taking that step, huh? When can I see it? You know, the thing. The important thing."

Moonlight crosses her arms, still stubbornly not looking at her sister. "You're assuming an awful lot, little sister."

Jasmine cackled. "But... do I assume incorrectly. That's the important question."

The silver Precure waves a hand dismissively.

"How should I know what you're assuming?"

"Oh come oooooon," Jasmine whined. "You can't hide how you feel there from me... especially after that one phone conversation."

There's a blinding flash, and she reverts back into her normal state. Lily flips her hair back, beginning to walk off from their training site.

"Hmph. If there's something to see, you might see it plenty after Friday."

Jasmine beamed. "I'll be sure to expect for you to share all the hairy details!" she exclaimed, falling in step beside her sister, arms behind her back. "You know I'd just bug you about them if you didn't, after all."

In spite of herself, Lily smiles weakly, glancing back at her. "'Hairy details' doesn't exactly fill me with a whole lot of confidence, Jas."

Jasmine was about to reply, when suddenly, something rustling captures her attention first. She turns towards it quickly, only for... what looks like a bizarre cross between some kind of fowl, a wolf, and a bear to step out into view and glower at them.

"... The fuck is that?!" Jasmine growled, stepping forward in front of Lily and gritting her teeth.

Lily just sort of ... freezes up as she runs across it. She draws in a sharp breath, memory flooding into her consciousness of... a... Desertrian made out of a love letter? Cure Marine yelling at her? ...Yuri couldn't be that clueless about that sort of thing. Could she? That seemed--

Wait. Blink. What the hell is she staring at? The confusion is overtaken with white, cold fear. The young woman takes a few steps back, shaking. Strange, furry creatures with sharp teeth in echo zones did not have a good history with Lily Tsukuyomi.

A phantom pain born from memory courses through her, and her hand instinctively goes to her shoulder. Remembering that pain. Remembering how much Winter and Jasmine in particular suffered afterwards. How close she'd come to death.

"J- Jasmine..." she squeaks, voice higher than she wants it to be.

"... Lily!" Jasmine cries out, as she sees her sister step back in fear. She knows this will leave Lily vulnerable, so she grits her teeth and steps in between her and the beast...

... only for it to stop looming at them menacingly and just let out a bellow that sounds like a long, extended "Grrroooooonk". Like the noise a bear might make when simply calling out rather than roar menacingly.

It just... stares at them now, shuffling its paws idly.

Maybe Lily should or shouldn't be afraid for her life. The creature well isn't doing anything, but... It is unnatural. It caused a pulse, and... Those memories won't leave her. They keep replaying in her mind, over and over and over again. She feels frozen.

The only thing she finds she can do is reach out, grabbing the back of her sister's shirt. She feels like a little girl trying to hide behind someone from something scary, and she's trembling.

Okay, it's not... it's not doing anything. In fact, it seems almost bored with their presence, and after a matter of moments, the beast is simply sniffing along the ground. Jasmine is... for lack of a better word surprised, which is compounded when she feels Lily grab the back of her shirt.

Without even thinking, Jasmine wheels around and pulls Lily into a hug. "It's okay, Lily," she said. "It's not... it's not doing anything. It's not going to hurt us."

Realization strikes her, and she hugs Lily harder. "It's not going to be like last time. I'm here. I promise you won't get hurt!"

Edited 2015-01-23 01:51 (UTC)

As Jasmine turns her back to the creature, that almost makes Lily freak out more. Turning your back on something like that, with all the hair, the teeth, the claws... then she hugs her. She hears what her sister is saying, and she stares - still in horror - at the creature...

...and tears come to her eyes. She doesn't know from where, but they suddenly well up and she can't stop them.

"Oh- oh god, what's wrong with me..."

She tries to be so strong for everyone else. To be there for anyone. Yet always, there's that creeping fear in the back of her mind, that nightmare which never goes away. She's downright horrified of what could be lurking around corners, the small creatures. Those claws. Those teeth.

The giant monsters? Those are fine. She knows how to handle them.

These things... be that fear completely rational or downright irrational, she can't say. This isn't a Vermini, but... Anything like it shakes her to her damned core.

Jasmine just hugs her tighter.

"You're afraid," she said. "You were hurt, badly, and you're afraid. You feel like you lost something, like you failed, and now you're frightened that it could happen again."

It should be shocking, unsettling to see Lily like this, but all Jasmine can think about is comforting her. "It's okay to be afraid, Lily. I'm... I'm afraid all the time. I'm anxious and insecure... You don't need to feel bad for not being strong all the time..."

Lily sniffles. Dammit, why is she still crying?! She feels like a little girl who's hiding in her parents' bed because there might be a monster under her bed. Something which she will neither confirm nor deny as an event that might have occurred when she was a little girl.

So, she too hugs her sister tighter, shaking like a leaf. "I've felt like that all these months... When we went back to Vegas, I never wanted to go anywhere alone, I- I keep looking around corners and alleys, expecting something to leap out at me, no matter where I am... This is so stupid, I shouldn't be- I shouldn't be scared like that!"

"... It's not stupid to be scared," she said. "It's not stupid to be frightened after you've been hurt. It's not stupid to need people."

She pulled back, looking Lily in the eye. "It's not wrong to feel vulnerable. You... you helped me learn that, Lily."

Lily looks her in the eye only a second, instead looking away quickly, choking something back and just pulling one hand back to cover her mouth. "I know. I know that! I've heard it from everyone, and yet- yet I..."

She looks back at the creature again, and her grip tightens a little more. "That doesn't- that doesn't mean I know how to deal with this..."

She wants to run right now. So badly. She wants to run and flee and hide in her room and hug Winter and not talk about her problems.

"..."

Jasmine just held Lily tightly, securely. "What do you want to do, Lily? There's no wrong answer. Do you want to leave this thing? Or do you want to stay and face this?

"If you leave, you're not a coward. But it's not going to attack us. If you want to face it... do what you can to figure out how to endure this... I'll be right here holding your hand."

She looks back over Jasmine's shoulder, still clutching her as tight as she can. She stares at the creature. It's not coming at her, it's not going to hurt either of them, but...

"I can't," she says quietly, sniffling. "I can't... I can't deal with this now. I don't know when I can, but... please, Jasmine..."

Jasmine nodded slowly, and began ushering Lily away from their current location. "It's okay," she said. "This doesn't make you weak. It doesn't."

She gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "I'm here for you. I love you, sis."

Lily clings to her, almost like a lost little girl. She feels pathetic, but... this isn't going to change overnight. She knows that. She sucks in a breath, trying to stifle another sniffle and failing.

"I know," she murmurs, leaning against her. "I know... I love you too, Jasmine."

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