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It was never a good thing to leave Elke alone with her thoughts for too long. It was probably never a good thing to leave Elke alone, period; she tended to think too much, to run over things over and over and over until they played like a tape recording inside her head. This happened with simple things, like what is a hooker or why can't my laptop access Google, but it also happened with more complex thoughts. And the only way, as anyone knew, to get something out of your head when it was stuck was to articulate it to someone else.

Attempts had been made to broach this topic with another person; Grayson had given her a look and asked if she wanted to watch the Princess Bride. Unfortunately, she always wanted to watch the Princess Bride, and that had been the end of that.

Now, her best and favorite resource exhausted, she was going to her Captain, who was certainly the most trustworthy resource if not her favorite. (That would be her brother.) Elke smoothed her hair, straightened her uniform, and then knocked on Hero's door. She should be in--she was usually in at this time of day--fussing was not going to change anything, and so Elke stopped.

The sight of the homework made her shoulders tense up a little. She was ignoring a growing stack of incomplete homework to come here. And it was getting to be a very formidable stack, too, about the height of her palm if you counted her algebra workbook. (Elke did.)

She took a seat, fussed with her skirt for a minute, which was less of an indicator of any great amount of mental disturbance so much as it was Elke. Her right wrist was still in a brace from where Taranis had punched the ground; the nurse thought it was a sprain, and Elke had begged off going to the hospital to make sure.

"I don't want to be distracted by the Princess Bride," she said, firmly. "And I don't want to be told I'm too young to know or it's not my business to know or that you'll tell me five years after I've been married." The bluenette waited for Hero's nod of confirmation, and when she had it, she asked, "Captain, do the old rules of the Zodiac still apply?" She continued into a possibly unnecessary explanation: "About relationships?"

She nodded. That wasn't the real question--it was just, if Hero could answer something like that, maybe the real question had a chance at being answered, too. It was a question she had wanted answered, but it was not the big question, the one that had garnered the Princess Bride, ice cream, and pizza on separate occasions.

"No," said Elke, shaking her head. The implication tinted her face a little red. "I have got lots of brothers, though."

This note she rushed on past, to the question she had been asking her fellows to no avail: "Captain, are we going to fail?" Her loyalty to the Zodiac Guard was beyond reproach. No one could deny she tried very hard to be the best senshi she could be; the time she spent in the gym now, paired with her constant collection of bruises she had was a testament to that. It wasn't as if it was someone who barely tried was asking, and the way she was shifting about implied she'd been thinking about this for a good long time.

Before Hero could get a word in edgewise, she continued: "Ally and Jude are dead, and Black Lady did not even really have to exert effort to beat me, and we don't have the Opal Crystal, and the youma are getting stronger and so is the Negaverse. The Lunars can't find their Queen." This summary of events left her clearly red-faced from saying so much without taking a breath. Her hands were tightly clasped, nails digging into the back of her exposed palm. "And I failed my past three history exams, and nothing I say makes the Princess feel better--"

She stopped there, just for a moment. Then, like a summary, she asked, "Is it worth it? Is this, all of this, worth it?"

Definitely not the answer Elke had been looking for, but it was an answer, and the honesty of it would reassure her later. For now, the crease between her eyebrows deepened a little, her mouth quirked in such a way as to suggest uncertainty. If Hero did not have faith in the Zodiacs, who could?--well, Elke, of course. It seemed to be turning into her job.

Stalwart was not a word that she had run across every day. It took a moment for her to process it: Loyal, reliable, hardworking. If Elke had seen how loyal, reliable and hardworking Queen Nehelenia was?... what? She tilted her head a little bit at that. Serenade was very loyal and reliable and hardworking. Of course she was; she was Elke's Princess. Elke considered the Princess a paragon of perfection. But did this mean the Captain didn't? Or was the Captain comparing herself to Nehelenia?...

It was very confusing. Maybe she would ask Aurelia after this.

"But it's not over," she said, perplexed. "We cannot fail if it's not over, can we? It's like..." For a moment, Elke thought of a proper comparison, one that her Captain would get. (Hero was very, very smart but most of Elke's thoughts on unfinished things tended towards shopping or learning how to fall properly or a new language.) "...like quitting at half-time." Half-time was football, wasn't it? That was American.

Was this even working? She squinted at Hero, trying to determine if the Captain looked a little more hopeful. Self-consciously, she shifted in her chair, crossed her ankles and uncrossed them before finally pulling her knees up towards her chest, her heels on the edge of her seat--she was barefoot except for her socks. Had been, actually; it was just a diagonal-ish trip across the hall to Hero's room. "I trust you, Captain," said Elke. Maybe that would help. It was the truth, after all. It should (she hoped).

She watched the Captain, frowning the whole time. So she had failed; Hero still looked... well, Hero wasn't looking at her. Elke looked to the door to see if there was someone standing there, but there was no one. She returned her gaze to the Captain. "We all fell for it," said Elke, stubbornly. "None of us had to be convinced to try to save the Princess." It was true, none of them had. And of course not, she was the Princess, their Princess. Elke would be hard-pressed to find a Zodiac who didn't love Chronos. Who knew what had happened to Scorpio; she was the only Zodiac to live through that trap...

At Hero's statement--proud, of Virgo! Of Virgo!--she smiled a little. But still, it seemed...

"Like," she prompted, and then she colored. It was not her place to pry into the Captain's private thoughts. She purposefully widened her smile, tried to seem more confident. "I'll do everything I can to help you, Captain." Normally, here she would ask for a pinky swear, but again--not in front of Hero. Instead, she reached over and tugged lightly at a lock of the Captain's hair, like she would with Grayson or Andeon. "We're the Zodiac, we'll pull through."

Still, she dropped her hand back to her lap, her smile a little more truly confident. Every time the Captain said she was doing well, she felt more certain, more purposeful. It meant she was doing right, and that she was fulfilling her duties as a senshi and more importantly as a Zodiac. It was enough to make her a little misty-eyed, except she was around the Captain, which overpowered even her instinct to go tell Serenade Hero thinks I am doing well!!

Well... a little bit.

Her smile turned a bit embarrassed, then downright faded. "I always mean to meet someone," she mumbled. In this case, though, Hero was wrong--surely they'd be able to go on. Everyone was getting on just fine and they'd already lost Ally and Jude. Zodiacs were expected, even meant, to die, weren't they? Or was that another thing that had gone out with the rules of relationships? "Everyone would be fine without me," she concluded. "But I will stop going out by myself, really, I promise!"

Gospel truth and a responsibility. Something that Elke definitely could understand, she had been trying to be very responsible lately even if it really wasn't showing. She settled in, her face a little more serious, a furrow between her eyebrows as she listened. Why wouldn't anyone be fine without her? The Zodiac was more than the sum of its parts, it always would be. But she ducked her head, blinking away her ashamed tears. Of course she couldn't be the indulged baby anymore--and she didn't want to be. She wanted to be strong and capable like Hero or Giselle.

"No," she said, scrubbing her face as she picked her head back up. "But I won't be reckless anymore, I'll be a good heart. I promise I will not be reckless any more."