Long, Beautiful Hair [Open]

[sailorgenerous]

Who: Rarity, anyone with a good reason to be in or around the DA penthouse in the morning
What: Rarity gets her first regain and promptly flips out.
When: February 16th (backdated)
Where: DA penthouse
Warnings: So. Much. Drama.

It has been a long, odd month, to put it lightly. The one thing Rarity can be grateful for is a good night's rest. She does need her beauty sleep, after all - that hasn't changed, at least. She stretches languidly and gets up to freshen up for the day-

And catches sight of herself in her vanity mirror.

There's a long, horrified shriek that echoes through the halls of the Defying Atmosphere penthouse. Anyone investigating the source will find Rarity collapsed on her bed, wailing in overly dramatic despair. The reason: her long, previously black hair is now a deep, vibrant shade of purple.

Comments

[sailorgenerous]

"A secret?!" Ooh, probably not the best choice of words there. "How can I possibly keep this a secret? My hair is purple!" This is, quite obviously, a tragedy.

[exhumerus]

He can understand being shocked but this seems a little over the top. He just kind of decides to wait it out. He balls his fists in his pockets and sighs.

"You didn't happen to do any spooky duets with masked strangers recently, didja?"

[sailorgenerous]

There's over the top and then there's Rarity.

The wailing winds down in time to hear his question, and Rarity looks up, momentarily surprised out of her pity party. "How could you possibly have known that?"

[exhumerus]

"They told you what it was for, didn't they? Where'd you think the hair color came from?" He isn't impatient, but he certainly isn't particularly gentle. His sentiment is a good one, at least. She can't draw so much attention to this.

[sailorgenerous]

"They didn't say much - just that something had been taken from me, and that they could help get it back." She'd been wary, yes, but that hadn't stopped her from agreeing. "And I thought, after everything that's been happening, that I..." She trails off. "I can't say I was expecting this." She's still clearly unhappy about the spontaneous color change, but the dramatics are over, at least for now.

[exhumerus]

Well, if he's managed to startle her into screaming less, then he considers that a victory. The aspect of cause and effect here is pretty important. He comes a bit closer, relaxing now that it's a bit quieter.

"Yeah. That means your natural hair colour should be purple, I guess." He peers at it a little more closely. "Not so bad, really. Li-lac it." He dares a wink. That is to say, 'I like it.'

[sailorgenerous]

Rarity sits up, pulling the comforter up against her chest after a moment's thought. If they're going to have this conversation while she's in her pajamas, she can at least try for a modicum of decency.

She gives Sans a flat, unamused look. There is a time for puns, and this is not it. "It's more of an amethyst, really." She may as well get accustomed to the idea, if it's going to be permanent.

"How did you know?" That's the piece of the puzzle she can't quite fit together - not without further answers. "About the person in the mask, I mean."

[exhumerus]

"Sure, but, have you ever tried making a pun with the word 'amethyst'? That one's rough."

Sans glances at the door, as if checking to makes sure they won't have any immediate visitors. Then, he shrugs.

"I've got some keepsakes of my own, you could say," he says. "They're a lot more radical than purple hair, too. Sorry, amethyst."

[sailorgenerous]

"I'm sure you'll manage." It's sarcasm, yes, but she is fairly certain he'll come up with something.

She follows his gaze to the doorway. Well, if it's going to be a problem, she ought to do something about it, especially since it looks like Sans does not want to be overheard. She steps off her bed, pulls on a robe hanging from a nearby hook, and heads to the door, locking it from the inside. That should be enough, but...she picks up the pillow that she'd hurled at him earlier and puts it on the floor in front of the door, carefully tucking it into the crack underneath. There. There are certain measures you have to take if you want a little privacy from your-

From-

From your what? She's an only child - she never had any siblings, so how would she know what to do to prevent anyone from listening in? It doesn't make any sense-

And instincts she can't explain are not the priority here. She turns to face Sans. "What do you have?"

[exhumerus]

"You sure you wanna see?" he asks, raising an eyebrow and grinning just a little bit wider. He is clearly hamming it up intentionally now. He can't avoid teasing her, it's impossible. "It's pretty spooky."

[sailorgenerous]

Rarity rolls her eyes and heads back to her bed, delicately taking a seat. "Please. You wouldn't have brought it up if you weren't planning on showing me anyway."

[exhumerus]

He shrugs, and takes his constantly gloved hands out of his pockets.

"Nothing wrong with a little commiseration. Goes without saying this is one of those big secret things, capiche?"

With some amount of anticipation, he raises one of his hands and carefully tugs his leather glove off of it. Beneath that, part of a wrist brace is visible - and then absolutely nothing but bone.

"See what I mean?"

[sailorgenerous]

"But of course." She wouldn't have shoved a pillow half under a door if it weren't.

And then he takes off his glove, and she stares, barely able to comprehend what she's seeing. That isn't- that shouldn't be possible- that's-

Very slowly, she reaches for another pillow on the bed - the biggest, fluffiest one she has - and presses it to her face. And screams. Not the dramatic wailing from earlier, but honest to goodness horrified screaming, almost completely muffled by the pillow.

It's a good ten to fifteen seconds before she calms down enough to drop the pillow back on the bed. That doesn't stop the shaking. It's a few moments more before she can pull herself back together well enough to speak. "Are- are you alright?"

[exhumerus]

Sans just sort of patiently watches as Rarity screams - at least she's doing it quietly this time. Most of him is entertained, while a very small part is sort of unnerved. Someday that's going to be all of him. He wonders if people will react the same way, then?

"S'fine," he says, shrugging as he pulls back his hand. "That's how it's supposed to be. Like your hair, but more inherently questionable."

[sailorgenerous]

"Supposed to be?!" Her voice pitches high, and she stops herself short until she can manage to take a breath and calm down. This is...difficult to process, to say the least, and the pillow under the door will only block so much. She tries again, voice quieter. "Are you telling me you're supposed to be a- a skeleton?" It makes no sense- but to a lesser degree, neither does magic or spontaneously amethyst purple hair or odd memories that may or may not be hers. At this point, nothing makes sense anymore.

[exhumerus]

He tucks his hand back in his pocket for the moment. Most of the mirth has passed from his expression by now.

"Yeah, actually. I have it on good authority that that's exactly what I am."

He exhales softly, and then just sort of invites himself to sit down on the bed. She doesn't really know much of this yet, does she?

"You know...that everything here is messed up right?"

[sailorgenerous]

"Oh." The stark simplicity of that answer throws her for a loop, long enough for him to sit down next to her. She grabs the discarded pillow, simply to have something to hold; after a moment of consideration, she picks up another one and offers it to him. Horrifying magical occurrences are no reason not to be hospitable.

"Yes." She's known that almost ever since she joined Virgo, for better or for worse. "Greg's told me quite a bit - about magic, and the odd occurrences, and the hallucinations that might be memories...and then Meril and Marty got hurt..." She trails off, not wanting to bring Rei into it. Let that conversation stay the secret Rei obviously wanted it to be. "If I had known it would be like this, I don't think I would have ever signed that contract." It's almost a joke. Almost.

[exhumerus]

He takes the pillow in his gloved hand, looking slightly ever so slightly bemused, before just plopping it on his lap and leaning on it. He takes his hand out again and hopes she doesn't get all worked up. He stares at he in a moment of contemplation.

"That's the thing, pal," he says, finally. "I don't think any of us came here by choice. And I don't think any of us are meant to be the way we are now."

He holds back on the 'everything you remember is fake' for now. It's a hard pill to swallow.

[sailorgenerous]

She stiffens a bit when Sans takes out that bony hand again, but takes a deep breath and forces herself to relax. This is normal now, at least for Sans, and she needs to accept it.

Of course, every time she thinks she has a handle on the new normal, something comes along and shatters it. "What do you mean?"

[exhumerus]

He glances at Rarity, privately wishing he didn't have to explain this. It's sort of painful to admit - to try to break the news to someone who hasn't had the chance to figure it all out yet. Even he has problems with what they've done to his head, even with all he's been told.

"Well...there's not such thing as living skeletons or natural purple hair here, is there? We're not from here, Rare. You can't treat normal people like they treat us."

[sailorgenerous]

She shakes her head slowly as he talks. There's something that won't quite gel in her head, something preventing her from putting all the pieces he's giving her together correctly, or at least in a way that makes sense. "But...where could we possibly be from, then? And what do you mean, 'like they treat us?'" She thinks she knows - she thinks everyone knows, after the way the month started off - but if there's something else there, maybe Sans will tell her.

[exhumerus]

"Maybe you don't see it yet. But...they can pretty much do whatever they want to us and there's nothing we can do about it. They've forced some of us in Virgo to try to kill people. They've tortured kids for going against them. They've already changed who you are, messed with your memories...do ya really think any of this is included in a record contract?"

He doesn't look at her.

"And it's pretty damn obvious none of us can leave."

[sailorgenerous]

Sans' words line up with what Rei had told her. She doesn't want to believe it, but it's looking more and more like what she wants has never been part of the equation. For a few very long moments, she can't think of anything to say, and she squeezes her pillow tighter.

"What do we do?"

[exhumerus]

He looks towards the door once more, before slipping the glove back over his boney fingers. He's not ready for this yet.

"Keep your head down and try to survive. And when you see an out, you take it."

[sailorgenerous]

Something in her balks at the idea of leaving. Why would she possibly leave? She has it made at Virgo! She has everything she could ever want here!

Except freedom, says a quiet voice in the back of her head. And safety.

"But...where would we go?" It's a sensible question, even if she's waging a minor internal war over the concept of leaving. "We don't exactly blend in." And it is a we - if she does wind up leaving, she is taking as many people with her as she can, starting with the rest of her band and Sans.