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001 Video; UN: Cuddlebunny

[When the video turns on, Usagi looks... well, honestly downright haggard. But Usagi, when exhausted has a bad habit of masking and thus, acts even more bubbly and energetic than usual. And before you ask, no, she's not fine. But she will lie and say she is.

But don't mention the bags under her eyes, that's rude.]

HI EVERYONE!

[She's waving at the screen excitedly in some hopes to not let on the deep exhaustion she's badly hiding.]

My name is Usagi Tsukino! I uh... met some of you before when we first got here but couldn't really properly introduce myself! BUT I CAN TALK AGAIN! [And she's decided to make that everyone's problem.] Actually, I've been able to talk for AWHILE but ANYWAY! So hi!

Anywho! Do you know what I realized last night? I mean, probably a LOT of people have realized this actually but I doooon't think anyone has said it, or, at least I don't think so! Maybe I missed it! Sorry if someone already said something like this!

[She's rambling.]

Anyhow! I realized that while lots and lots and lots and lots of people may already know lots and lots and lots of other people cause ya know, so many of us came from Deerington, there are JUST as many people who have absolutely no clue who anyone else is or where we are or why we're here! I mean, I'm those last two too, but I lucked out on knowing some of you!

SO! So so so! I thought, hey! Why not introduce yourself and then we can all get to know one another and we can all help one another and it will be awesome and we can be all amazing together!

I'LL START!

My name is Usagi Tsukino! I'm originally from Tokyo, Japan! I love cats and rabbits, food, and video games and my favorite hobbies are sleeping and eating but oh oh oh! I like shopping, making all sorts of new friends, playing video games, reading manga and comics, aaaaaand well actually I can't think of anything else right now!

Now it's your turn!

((OOC Notes: Feel free to tag other people, it's essentially an open post.))

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....I will not hold this against you because your mind is clearly foggy due to a lack of sleep.

[Really, Usagi was like the only one in town who could have gotten away with this. Anyone else doing so would have sent him into a towering rage.]

I'm coming over. There's a few things I can try to help you sleep.

Is it a hammer to the head? I can't say I would mind a hammer to the head right now if it meant I slept longer than 2 hours.

[He chuckles.]

It's more gentle than a hammer to the head, I can guarantee that.

[Then he's off, traveling to the Pink Monstrosity on his hoverbike. When he gets there, he just heads on inside instead of waiting to be asked in like the heathen he is.]

Usagi! Time to get you to sleep.

[There is no Sunshine or Eclipse this time to hinder Maul's journey to see Usagi. When he gets to Usagi in person, she looks... absolutely worse in person than she did in the video.

She's paler and thinner, and she was already pretty damn thin and pale to begin with. Her bags are infinitely more pronounced. She's currently curled up on her couch hugging her Luna pillow to her chest and the omni playing all the responses before she looks up and over to the door.]

Hey. Boots off.

[She still very much had a thing about shoes indoors, even if Maul's metal feet were likely to do more damage than his shoes.]

[Maul rolls his eyes but he does as he's told. Boots come off and then he walks over to her. He stares at her for a moment before putting his wrist to her forehead to judge how hot or cold she might be.]

You look terrible.

[He sits down across from her on the couch. He can feel the Dark Side of the Force swirling around him even here in the presence of Usagi's light. That's good. He'll need it to be a solid, steady wave if he wants to make a difference in her mind right now.]

Oh good, you're only like the... [What is counting when you're sleep-deprived?]- you're not the first to say it! Everyone's picking on me! A girl can get self-conscious with all of you saying that, ya know!?

They're all saying it because they care about you. And because, like me, they all know you will run yourself down to the bone before taking care of yourself.

[He pokes her hard in the shoulder with one claw.]

So I am here to make sure you get rest whether you like it or not.

I'm really not trying to wear myself out this time. [She looks at him and frowns, pouting.] I swear. [She rubs her face.] I want to sleep. I honestly, truly do. I've tried...

I've even still got my kigurumis and I wore both of them and the best I managed was two hours.

Believe me, I want to sleep.

I don't-! [Her breath hitched and she was hiding her face in her hands.]

I don't want to repeat October. I can't... I WON'T do that again. But it... it feels like I'm going right down that path again.

[Maul cupped his hand under her chin and gently lifted her head back up so that they were eye-to-eye.]

That's why I am here. To help. You already know the Dark Side doesn't cause just destruction and chaos. Darkness isn't always inherently evil. I did something for Will last year that I think might produce a similar effect on your mind.

[Granted, his reasons at the time for helping the boy had been less than altruistic given his fascination with the Mind Flayer but he also hadn't needed to do anything at all. Maul had helped because he wanted to.]

I just need to relax and remain calm. Close your eyes and just focus on your breathing.

[An idle, exhausted thought that "this move happens a lot to me" entered Usagi's mind but she merely nodded, or well, attempted to. She knows that "darkness" isn't evil. The moon existed in darkness, after all, as did stars. Usagi did all her work as Sailor Moon under the cover of darkness... most of the time. So yes, she knew the darkness wasn't inherently bad.

She was genuinely curious what Maul wanted though.

Still, she trusted him and closed her eyes, trying to push away her thoughts of how this was lining up too much to October and how she would stop herself if it got to be like that.

She had to stop herself from thinking about how she hadn't noticed going mad until it was too late. So how could she stop herself again?

No, no! Her brows knit together and she really focuses on her breathing.

Hopefully, the relaxing and remaining calm would come soon enough.]

[Maul brought his hands up by Usagi's temples. They hovered there in midair as he closed his eyes, pulling forth the Dark Side and letting it flow through him as he found the center of anger and hate that had sustained him for so long. So many people misunderstood the Force. They thought it was all flash and dramatic, magic used by sorcerers in space. Sure, things like moving objects with the mind and physically enhancing oneself to perform death-defying feats were easy for people to see. But the Force wasn't just that.

Vyng seemed to be the one who had gotten closest to understanding when he pegged it as being spiritual energy during a conversation Maul had with him. The Force was in all living things and so it could affect the mind as well as the body. There was a reason both sides, Light and Dark, used meditation as a way to center themselves. Letting that energy run through them allowed their minds to expand and become part of a larger world, to travel the whole breadth and expanse of the galaxy.

Maul had always been good at meditation. If nothing else, it was a way to escape his master for a few hours at a time, to be reminded Darth Sidious wasn't the end all and be all of the Dark Side. So he called upon that energy now, bringing it within his power. Then he entered Usagi's mind, slowly and gently instead of brutalizing it the way he had with so many others in the past, letting himself get acclimated to her inner landscape. When he felt he was comfortably within, he called up the energy of the Dark Side.

With Will, he'd made it into an almost physical form, a hard brick wall to separate him from the Mind Flayer, since that was what the boy had needed at the time. Here it wasn't quite as hard or unyielding. He didn't mean for this to be permanent, just something to ease Usagi into sleep. It was rather like weaving a spiderweb or a cloud of fog, something to make things seen through it a little fuzzy and blurry. He let the Dark Side fill her mind, separating her constantly active mind and the thoughts whirring through it at top speed. With the sleep deprivation, there was a lot of that. Everything slowed down a little and the volume of those thoughts began to quiet for the moment. He sought to put everything in order and make it like a river flowing downstream. Anytime he encountered a particularly stubborn thought or tangle of them, he slowly dislodged them and let them join the flow. When he was in such a spiritual state as this, his patience was near infinite, a stark contrast to his usual personality. This was going to take some time but he had nowhere else to go and nothing else to focus on besides soothing his friend to sleep.]

[When Darkness entered her body, her own magic seized up for a moment. She knew, logically, that Darkness did not mean evil, but it had never been USED on her in any other way than to harm her. But she forced herself to calm down. This was no different than some of the darker things Setsuna and Hotaru did, she had been hurt by light the same way she had been hurt by darkness. She let out a breath, unclenching her jaw.

She shivered a bit as a tingle ran down her spine at the feeling of the Dark Side in her mind, but he wasn't forceful, he wasn't making it so that her magic immediately went "get out." She eventually went into much more even breathing, her magic trusting in Maul, trusting in not going too far. She didn't even realize her hands had reached out to rest atop Maul's legs.

It felt strange, to say the least. Even as she functioned in the night, even though she was a being of the moon, knew that light and darkness needed one another, she herself never used that kind of magic, even though she could. But the strangeness also felt...

Familiar.

Her magic recognized its other half, in the broader sense, the grander notion of light and dark, chaos and order. She felt the tension ease out of her shoulders and the thoughts that kept plaguing her silenced.]

[Maul was caught up in the work he was doing and only noted Usagi's magic as something in the background. If it had actively worked against him, he would have been forced to retreat. Powerful as the Dark Side was on its own, Maul was only a conduit, and would stand no chance against Usagi's power. But it didn't. Much like his friend did in the physical world, it accommodated him, moving over so there was room for him to try and help. He could feel the balance there, light and dark now in tandem as they should be. Balance as there was in the Force.

The worst of the thoughts that had an intensity to them that could not be tamed, things that she was worried about or otherwise couldn't easily let go of, he gently just placed off to the side behind the haze of the Dark Side he'd created. They'd come back, of course, once Usagi awoke but for now there was no need for them to be at the forefront of her mind. The rest were now neatly organized into a free flow of thoughts, idly floating through her mind and the drifting back to be released into the nothingness of the subconscious, the similar way one would think when deeply meditating.

With all that in order, Maul summoned a little more of his own personal power. Mind tricks only worked on the weak-minded, and Usagi certainly was not that, but connected as they were right now he could make gentle suggestions. Getting her mind into a pliable state where it would be willing to possibly follow simple directions had been the hardest part. Now he just made a suggestion with a light touch. 'Sleep.' Not just a word but all the connotations that went with it: resting, dreaming, curled up in a warm ball under covers, letting the body finally relax after a long day. 'Sleep.' He let this all echo throughout her mind and become part of the landscape there, the foremost thing in her mind right now.]

[With him in her head, seeing the worst of her thoughts, he may see someone he recognizes. He will see her in all her glowing glory, her brow dripping red with blood, the back of her gown completely soaked in blood as her tattoo bleeds between her shoulders and down her back. Her smile is wicked as she holds her Tiare in hand and hair is blowing in the wind. There are no corpses at her feet, but rather a land of desolation, empty, barren, destroyed by her hand. She holds out her free hand.

'Are you ready to wake up?' Her voice echoes even as her mouth does not move, Usagi's screaming "no, no no no no! DON'T HURT THEM!" mixing with her constant question.

Over both Usagi's screaming and Serenity's command posed as a question, are cries and yells, screams of pain that sounds like Makoto, Rei, Setsuna, Atsushi, Syaoran, Kyoko, Ichigo, Seiya, and so many others, even Maul's if he listens long enough.

And layered over all that is Usagi's own voice, again, screaming monster, screaming 'never again,' and 'no, not again, I won't!'

But the image, the thought gets pushed away, the screaming becomes distant until it's so muffled it may as well be silent. The thoughts become quiet.

Further and further and further away Serenity's image becomes replaced with the thoughts he provided.

Sleep, calm, warmth, dreaming.

Her breathing became more and more even, tension leaving her body more and more.

Until she was fast asleep, her head resting atop Maul's chest.]

Edited 2021-09-25 18:37 (UTC)

[The sight of the blood-soaked Serenity and hearing the voices of all her victims was a terrifying sight, especially connected as they were right now, feeling all the emotions that had gone along with her rampage last October. Maul had to brace himself as it all washed over him, making sure not to allow himself to get too caught up in it all.

Fortunately, it all started to recede, and he could feel Usagi's mind relaxing the way it was supposed to. Eventually, she fell asleep, and his work was done.

Maul finally came out of the trancelike meditative state he'd been in, pulling out of Usagi's mind slowly so that his abrupt departure wouldn't wake her right back up. That had taken quite a bit of energy but no worse than a lightsaber duel with a Jedi would have. Maul would be fine after a good meal and some rest himself. He picked up his friend in his arms and took her up to her bed, tucking Usagi in. He rested a hand on her head briefly.]

Sleep well, Usagi.

[Then he went off, his good deed done for the day. People liked to think Maul didn't have a pair of hearts but he could still be kind when he chose to be.]

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001 Video; UN: Cuddlebunny

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Video -> Action

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CW: Blood

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