Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Are you okay?"

The green-clad senshi leapt down from where she'd been resting--atop an awning, higher on the building than the clear glass--landed quite neatly, with a little flounce of the bow on her empire-waisted dress. "I saw you fall," said Sailor Virgo, brushing invisible dirt off her bare legs. "Sliding like that doesn't always work unless you practice, but it's really kind of useless. There are better things to spend your time on."

She held up her hands in the international symbol for I'm unarmed, her expressive eyes wide and innocent. "Here, let me help you," said Virgo, jumping up onto the brick wall next to the younger senshi; she looked the girl over, grimaced in shared pain at the bare legs. The tentacley detailing on the tiara was interesting, and pretty. She touched her own circlet self-consciously; only boys had a circlet that she'd seen so far.

"I like your colors," she chirped, and she held out one hand. "I'm Sailor Virgo, Zodiac senshi of Innocence. What's your name?"

"Yup," she said brightly, "that's me!"

She held tightly to the other senshi's hand, skirted around her--wow, such a cute skirt! Virgo's skirt shouldn't even count as a shirt, it was so short--and pulled her along until they reached a bench, where she finally let go and sat down, ankles primly crossed, hands in her lap as she leaned back to look at the sky. "Sorry," she said, contemplating the streetlight overhead. "I just don't like standing around waiting for stuff."

For a moment, it looked like she wouldn't answer any questions, but then she perked back up. "Sailor Scylla! So you're a moon senshi. Okay. The Zodiacs are your... sister court, we're the Guard. We Surround and protect the moon senshi, or, well, we protected the Moon Kingdom, a long, long time ago. Much longer back than you can remember." In fact, it had been something like a thousand years. A thousand years was a very, very long time. "Sit down," said Sailor Virgo, Zodiac Guard, patting the bench beside her. "Let's talk!"

Her prior primness was abandoned; she swung her feet back and forth, heels making a sksshh skshhh noise that Virgo didn't seem to mind. "Thank you, I like them also," she said. "If you have questions, Sailor Scylla, I will answer them. Can I call you Scy?"

She gave the newer senshi a sympathetic look, eyes getting a little round. "The Moon Court cats don't tell you guys much, I guess," she said; "I had to tell Sailor Algol about it, too."

Permission to nickname: granted! Virgo was glad that not all moon senshi were as uppity about their names as Sailor Castor, who she still called 'Cas' in her thoughts regardless. She fluffed her hair, watching Scylla for a moment, drinking in details. "Well, I have all night," said Virgo; "My Captain doesn't think I should fight without other Zodiacs around. Um... I'll give you the basic run-down, first, okay? If I am confusing, please tell me, English isn't my first language!"

For a moment, she sat and thought, tapping her upper lip with her index finger. It looked like she was dramatically pausing, but in truth Virgo was going through the memories she was only slowly regaining from her time as Soldier Virgo. (She didn't see "Elke" and "Sailor Virgo" and "Soldier Virgo" as different people; they were all one person anyway. Not merged or anything, just the same person with different experiences.) "Well, you see, you're in the Moon court," was what she finally came up with. "That means you're looking for the Moon princess, Serenity. And you serve the Moon princess, like I serve my princess, Chronos. We're here to fight the Negaverse, who are these really, really bad guys who want to steal starseeds!"

She leaned in close now, stared straight into Scylla's eyes, and said, "So if you see anyone in pants, you need to run away. If it looks military at all, run away!" This wisdom shared, she sat back onto her side of the bench, looked across the street at their reflections in the shiny glass. "At least, until you have better control over your powers."

Then, belated, she added, "Well, Cas--Sailor Castor--has pants. He's all in blue and has an ascot. Don't listen to what anybody else says. He's really nice, so you don't have to run away from him."

Her heart went out to poor Scylla, who had apparently had a bad awakening. Both of them really tired, after... and she couldn't finish the sentence. Her own awakening had been fairly simple, she'd been moving into the dorm room with Serenade Soriano, a stranger, and then some cat had come out of nowhere and said Sailor Virgo, what are you doing! and spat up a pen. She knew that not all of the Zodiacs had had such... urbane awakenings, so it followed that Moon court senshi would not all have easy awakenings like she had had.

"It's okay," she said, "you don't have to tell me." And, after a long moment, she set an arm over the other senshi's shoulder. "I was born in France," she continued, "and it's my first language. I have American citizenship, though. Um."

Should she tell this senshi her name? No, she would do that later. Later was a good time. "Starseeds are life energy," explained Virgo, "They are your heart and your soul, they are what makes you you." She made a face. "I know Serandite, she could be a good person but she's already in the Negaverse and I can't ask the Princess to purify her... I can't impinge on the Princess like that..." And she was a little afraid to find out what happened to a purified agent when they remembered the terrible things they'd done.

"I don't know what they do with the starseeds. My Captain might, or Captain Kunzite. Don't ask Captain Nealite, though, she's a bad guy. And, well, no, the other male senshi I've met, Sailor Atlas? He has short-shorts. Poor Atlas."

Then she stood up, offered her hands to Scylla again. "Okay, Scy," said Virgo. "First, let me do this--sometimes using your powers can attract monsters, so it's best to be safe--Virgo Immaculate Reflection!" Nothing seemed to happen, but the vague 'senshi glow' that Virgo had been exuding transferred itself to Scylla, merging with her natural glow for a pretty Caribbean blue.

Standing next to Scylla, she said, "All right! Have at it, Sailor Scy!"

Virgo laughed, the notes high and sweet. She lived in a world where the bad guys would always be overcome, where the forces of Good and Right were unstoppable, and the thought of another senshi ever doing something to hurt her was anathema. It was very likely that Virgo had never considered that some senshi might one day betray her. So it was with a clear conscience and an upbeat tone that she explained, "We're on the same side; I know the real identities of my whole team and some of the other senshi I've met I know as a civilian, too. Plus, no matter how much you tell me, until you tell me your name I won't be able to recognize you, that's how it works." A pause, and then, "The henshin glamour. The thing that makes people not able to tell who we are. You could be my roommate and I wouldn't know you from--from my own mom in a crowd. Except I would! Because I know my mom, right?"

The threat to Serandite was met with a pat on the shoulder and an understanding look. "They kill, so we kill them too. But always remember that they're human, too, underneath it all. Don't torture them when they have to die." She smiled, sadly, and then explained: "This is my power. If something comes and tries to hurt you, it'll hurt me instead. It will last for one minute, and I can use it twice each time I'm henshined up. The second time will make me very tired, though."

Then she gestured. "Come on, give your attack a go!"

She smiled, and whispered conspiratorially, "You're not my roommate, by the way, my roommate is my Princess."

Protip: Virgo really didn't know when to drink a hot cup of 'shut the ******** up'.

"It's not so bad," said Virgo as she watched the tentacles wrap around the bench. "My power, I mean. I'm getting a really high pain tolerance, you know?" She patted Scylla's shoulder, and then nodded. "Plus, if not me, who? If not here, where? If not now, when? I don't know. It's better that I help those better able to fight."

Something she would never admit was that she liked her powers for that reason; it kept her, arguably the weakest Zodiac, out of the way of those who could deal damage. It meant she didn't hold anyone back and that no one would have to fight to help her because she would be out of the way. "This is a good power," she said as her green glow leeched back into her from Scylla. "Did you choose that target, Scy?"

She thought that she might be a good friend to have, Sailor Scylla. They would have to be Best Friends, clearly, decided Virgo; she would see about finding her new friend a team, because it was unsafe to be out alone, which reminded her... Virgo took the Senshi of the Kraken's shoulders, met her eyes, and said, "Please, please, please, please--"

This went on for a full minute after the tentacles vanished.

"--please don't patrol by yourself, Scy. It is so incredibly dangerous. I'm like, three times more powerful than you are and I still get the shot beat out of me--" This was an idiom, failing it terribly. She probably meant 'snot'. "--so don't go out by yourself, the monsters are getting so strong."

Probably that was enough begging and pleading for the newer senshi to be careful, but Virgo's pleading, tearful eyes stared into Scylla's gray ones for another minute, just to make it obvious how careful she had to be and how worried Virgo was.

Then she straightened up. "I think you're doing pretty well, how long have you been a senshi again? I think if you keep practicing like this, you could get really good at bringing them up and then making them go away!"