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 Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2025 7:01 pm
Introductions were always just a little awkward for Sailor Aruna. They always had been, for as long as she could remember (not that she ever had been in a position to make introductions very often through her life, that was). She was never as verbose as others, never as eloquent or well spoken, but when it was important, she wanted to make it happen regardless. It helped, in her mind, that the person she was making an introduction to was Murikabushi. He already knew how awkward she was, and how much of a wallflower she had been. She didn't feel as though he would ever judge her on that, and that brought no small amount of relief to her. Murikabushi was easily one of her favorite people in the world, and being around him, being herself around him, was effortless.
Answering questions about magical things for Blarney was easy enough. Until it wasn't. There was so much that she still didn't know, so much that she still needed to learn. She had only been a senshi for a year, although it had been quite the year, so there was only so much that experience alone could lend authority to. So when she was faced with more questions than she had answers to, she figured it was time to bring in another voice, someone she knew did have the experience and authority to back them up. Especially if it was questions about Chaos and the opposing factions. She had neither the time nor the experience that her friend did with any of it, so it wasn't even a question of who she should turn to to assist with the questions the fresh Earth Page had.
Having sent messages to both friends, Aruna arranged a meeting time and place for them. The little abandoned park near her apartment complex had definitely seen its fair share of activity lately, so she opted for another place she knew would be safe; the bench where Kerberos usually was found, where she had met her friend and boss for the first time almost exactly a year ago at this point.
Mindful of her long skirt, Aruna carefully sat down on the bench and waited patiently for both boys to arrive. She smiled to herself as she watched the fireflies around her, enjoying seeing them light up in various colors. She knew it was just one of those Destiny City weird magic things, not alarmed in the least by the unusual colors, but all the same avoided touching them. Just to be safe.
While she waited, she fidgeted with the shimmering star charm she had picked up before coming. The dim light made the colors shimmer almost like magic, and she smiled softly. Even the most simple of things in this city, like this little charm, seemed to hold magic of some sort or another. Maybe not real magic, like the power to summon harpies or cause ethereal landslides, but it at least seemed magical to her. The magic to make her smile, at least. The magic to seem beautiful and otherworldly. The normal sort of magic that didn't have anything to do with transforming or saving the world or any of that.
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Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2025 7:24 pm
Blarney was a little nervous, in spite of himself. Most of the magically-inclined people he’d met had been happenstance; randomly coming across them out in the world. But this was not that - this was meeting one of Aruna’s best friends, one of the people she never stopped talking about.
Blarney wanted to make a good impression. He felt like he needed to show Muri - and Aruna, for that matter - that he'd been listening, that he was worth all the attention and help Aruna had given him so far. He was nervous, a little, feeling very new and stupid, but he could only hope that Muri would take pity on him, as Halia had, and answer at least some of his incredibly numerous questions.
So he was early - or he would have been, if he hadn’t been unable to resist the temptation of swinging by one of the stalls on his way, to pick up a snack and a fuschia StarCharm. As it was, he was right on time, which Madeline would say was the same as being late, but it wasn't like this was a business meeting or an interview. It was a casual meeting that was very important, if only in Blarney's own head.
The sun was beginning to set, which meant the fireflies were coming out to play. He couldn't help but smile, watching them dart to and fro, and had to resist the urge to make himself actually late by chasing them around town like a little kid.
Because he wasn't a little kid anymore. He was a Page of Earth, and he had to at least pretend to act like it. He never felt much like an Anything of Anything, even dressed like this, right up until a monster attacked or a youma appeared - then everything entered bullet-time or his mind remembered what his body had never known or something and he just...knew what to do.
Usually, anyway. Even if sometimes 'knowing what to do' meant 'running very far away very fast'.
Blarney shook his head to clear it. It wasn't the time to think about past successes, and certainly not the time to think about his failures. He had to present a good, confident face for meeting Muri.
Fortunately, the fireflies were only getting more numerous the closer he got to the park. Ever since he was a kid, seeing the multicolored fireflies meant that summer was officially here. Other places just had yellow lightning bugs, he’d learned later, from kids who moved to DC from elsewhere, but his weird little big city had lightning bugs of all kinds of colors. He’d loved them extra much after that, and it brought a smile to his face when he spotted Aruna waiting for them, fireflies floating around her like they were caught in her gravity. He was sure that now, as a member of the magical community, the fireflies would only become more beautiful, more compelling.
Surely, Blarney naively thought, the fireflies wouldn't possibly hurt anyone. This, surely, was one magical thing that could just be good. Right?
“Hey hey,” Blarney called, hopping over the back of the bench to sit on the back, with his feet on the spot where his butt was supposed to be. “Happy Starfest,” he said, smiling as a little blue bug flickered off and on a few feet away from him. “Thanks for setting this up, ‘Runa. I’m excited to meet this Muri I’ve heard so much about.”
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