deercountry | If I turn into another

Who: Usagi Tsukino, people who are bonded with her, and potentially you
What: Usagi is having a mini-meltdown about the Eternal Night
When: First half of April
Where: Usagi's house and then some parts of Cellar Door and Willful Machine

Content Warnings: Past mentions of violence, murder, emotional trauma, past mentions of attempts at genocide

A. Dig me up from under what is covering the better part of me [Closed to those bonded to her]

When it was April 1st and the sun didn't initially rise, Usagi was uneasy but not worried. This was just Trench being its weird Trenchie self.

When the second day came and the sun still had not risen, slowly the memories began to come, unbidden, unyielding, unforgiving and she forced them back and away. It would be okay.

When the third day of it came?

Usagi realized that April might be the new October, and the image of herself, giggling, laughing, bleeding from her crescent moon as she hugged her friends and then killed them, as she went mad and tried to kill everyone, literally, everyone, until Rei ran a sword through her chest-

She panicked.

She locked herself in her room and refused to come out. She locked her windows and closed the blinds as she sat in the corner of her room, knees hugged to her chest.

It's okay, it's okay, it's okay!

She tried to reassure herself.

You won't turn into her, you won't turn into her, you won't turn into her!

She began to shake, trembling and feeling her eyes well up with tears as she hid her face in her knees.

If she stayed right there no one would be hurt, she wouldn't hurt anyone, no one would die.

It was only the third day, it would be okay, it would be fine. She would just stay in here, she wouldn't leave.

Her heartbeat was pounding in her ears and it was hard to breathe, harder to breath.

No, she begged. Please no.

Please, please, please, please.

She can't, not again, not that again. Not her. Not her.

Her margay, Lua, let out soft chirps of concern, trying to nuzzle Usagi's hand to help her feel better, but Usagi didn't even feel it, didn't even notice. Her whole body is trembling and she hugs her knees tighter to her chest and swallows down every sob so no one in the house can hear her.

Unfortunately, Usagi had forgotten that the bonds she had formed were telegraphing everything.

B. Sing this song [Her house - Later in the week]

It was later in the week when Usagi was finally convinced to at least leave her room even if she couldn't be convinced to leave the house. She's jumpy, skittish like an actual rabbit. Every other moment she seems to be looking out the windows only to decide she doesn't want to see, she shuts the curtains of whatever room she's in, and if she's in a room that doesn't have them, she leaves it. The full moon and the endless night is making her blood sing in her body and she immediately hates it when usually such a thing is a comfort because it's her connection to the moon.

So when she hears the doorbell or a knock she practically jumps over the course of her self-induced imprisonment, sometimes even dropping what she's holding and it smashes on the floor or spills all over. She heads over to the door, not opening it. She'll have to clean up the mess in a moment. Her hands are trembling and to stop that, she rests them against the wood of the door.

"W-Who is it?" she calls out. "What do you want?" she tries to hide the fear in her voice but can't.

C. Remind me that we'll always have each other [Around Cellar Door and Willful Machine - Second week of April]

It took constant reassurance, but Usagi has been convinced to at least leave the house for short trips... if only to give her poor kitchenware a break from being broken all the time, or from just breaking something in general in her panic.

After all, as some had pointed out, food was not scarce, no wall of corpses every twelfth hour, people weren't turning into monsters left and right, the water wasn't turned into blood or plants into ash. She was able to sleep a full night's rest without concern, she wasn't sleepwalking, there was a whole list of reasons why this was different. And she was under the moon, not those eyes.

As she walked through Willful Machine, she can softly be heard muttering 'it's okay, it's okay,' as she walks, her hands shaking as she checks again and again at the grocery list and supply list Makoto had written and all the things she was carrying for trade. She was pretty sure she'd need to find a way to make up for breaking Makoto's favorite mixing bowl that had had pink roses painted on it.

She still felt bad about that one.

She would tend to walk from Willful Machine back to her home in Cellar Door. So wound up as she was too focused on just getting home or trying not to have a panic attack in public. So she wouldn't always pay attention...

And would then smack into someone else because she keeping her head down and attention on her groceries. In her surprise, she dropped everything everywhere on the ground. She winced as she heard something shatter... again.

"I-I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there," she was quick to crouch down to pick everything up. "Are you hurt?"

D. When everything else is gone [WILDCARD]
((OOC: If you would like to plot something, please don't hesitate to contact me at

snickersnack or make up your own prompt!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah. That IS something that would bother me.

[Luz, after all, was exactly the type of person that would hate to hurt to her friends, even if she DIDN'T mean to hurt them to begin with. It wouldn't change the fact it happened against her will, or that it could happen at any time. That fear alone, she knew, would leave her pretty paralyzed].

I think this place plays too many mind games on you, Usagi-chan. You're a good person, and you wouldn't think twice about hurting people, yet Trench likes to throw you being here in your face all the time, and make you miserable. I hate that.

[She put a hand, gently, on her back]. So I just thought I'd come by and try to offer you some support, maybe share some food. I don't want to demand too much of your time, but if I could make things a little brighter, I would.

Maybe I'm super... what's the word... suspect? [She means susceptible but doesn't know the word to use. She rubs her arm.]

What... well short of leaving, Luz, there's not a lot I can do about what this place keeps doing to me. [She frowns, looking away. Rei had left... others had too.

At the hand she jumped, pulling away.] I... I am glad you're here. And thank you, too, for coming here, you didn't have to... especially knowing it may not be safe.

You mean "susceptible?" Gosh, I hope not. That just seems needlessly mean.

[Luz was a bit of a library nerd, so she could follow Usagi's line of thinking there].

There's got to be something though! I have all these friends, and they're all suffering from either something that happens here, or something that happened to them from somewhere else! If I have access to this magic, I feel like I ought to be able to do something about it!

[Luz started when Usagi jumped back, but then sighed, nodding].

Right, I'm sorry. That was too forward. And I really wish I could do more.

That, yeah. [She blushed, embarrassed at her lack of knowledge, but that was pretty much par for the course with her, only smart when she was Sailor Moon or Serenity.]

Luz... [She listens and sighs, tilting her head.] Having power... one of the biggest lessons you will need to learn is that you could be the most powerful person in the universe and you can't stop bad things from happening.

[Sometimes having the most power makes you the biggest target.] Having power of any sort means you also have to be okay with feeling powerless at the worst of times.

Like now.

And there isn't... a fix... to this. There is nothing you can do to fix this because it was not you who did this to me. You don't need to ask for forgiveness or redeem yourself in some way, you did not do this.

Sometimes, you just have to acknowledge you're powerless, Luz, even if you have power.

Heh, don't worry about it! This isn't a test!

[Luz absolutely might have made this mistake back home probably. At what Usagi said after though, made the girl take a long sigh].

I know. At least, my mind knows that. When I came to Deerington, right before then I almost lost my mentor. It was, at the time, one of the worst things that ever happened to me, that they were going to petrify her for all time. I felt like the world was telling me that I'd never be able to do anything to help her.

And I did, so I've been trying to fight against that idea as much as I could.

[The lesson to that being that Luz was always going to try, no matter WHAT. That was about all that the girl could do].

Usagi-chan. Since I've been on Earth, I've always felt powerless. Powerless to stop how my classmates felt about me, or being sent to a summer camp to correct my behavior or...or what happened to my dad when I was really young. I've always ALWAYS felt powerless.

So I've always done whatever I could to use my power to try and change things. It's...kind of why I'm here, actually.

[Usagi listens.

But she is immediately aware the lesson she's trying to teach Luz is not being understood. This is going to be one of those things Luz will have to learn on her own.

The powerlessness Luz and Usagi are talking about is not the same thing.]

So are you here for me or for yourself, Luz?

What?

[Luz didn't understand, at least not right away].

I'm here for you! Why would I be here for myself? I...

[Well, she TRIED to relate it as best as she could, but it was possible she was using her own examples and they didn't work].

Do you really think...this is a powerless situation?

[And that was the crux, wasn't it? It was exactly that, and Luz was fighting AGAINST that eventuality. How could she not? Everything in her, in her body and mind, needed to not be powerless, because that was a hole she knew was easy to stay in. At every turn, Deerington had made her feel that way, so Luz fought it, she sought shoulders and then became that shoulder if asked.

Because if she didn't, that hole was a chasm. She'd keep falling, they could all fall, and then what would be waiting for them]?

I'm...I'm trying, Usagi-chan. But maybe I'm not listening? I didn't come here to talk about my problems, I swear. I can deal with them on my own.

I wanted to talk to you, to...

[Make her feel better, at least a little].

Edited 2022-06-02 14:23 (UTC)

If I turn into another

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[[Warning: implied parental death]]

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This reply honestly took longer than usual because I wanted to see season 2 and where Luz ended up