Super Sailor Saiph, Senshi of the Primoridal was looking at a dead world. She’d been skeptical when she’d been told that each senshi had a home star or planet. But she’d listened anyway, carefully memorizing the instruction for how to find and get to one’s world. And now, she almost wished that she hadn’t. Saiph had expected to find something like a ghost town if she found anything. What she had not expected were the enormous ruins of ancient, primal forests and crumbling, rotting wood and stone buildings.

Gagging slightly from the scent of plant rot, Saiph managed to get her feet moving. Now that she was here, she wanted to see as much as she could. And, much to her shock, she found bits of dead plantlife that resembled things she’d only read about in textbooks on the prehistoric ages of Earth. Did those plants come from here, she wondered? Or did they come from Earth? Hurrying past those unnerving plants, she came to the first of the scattered buildings and studied it. Wood, stone, and things that looked suspiciously like rather large bones. Closer inspection showed her that this building had been small, perhaps a house. And bits of bright paint peeked out from under the heaps of rubble inside. Bone decorations lay scattered and smashed.

What happened here, she found herself wondering. She knew time could wreak havoc on things, but this level of destruction felt different. There was something very deliberate about it. Did someone attack us? Still pondering the secrets of the past, the green haired senshi continued to walk until she came to a larger building located in the center of the city. It reminded her in an odd way of stables. But if this place had been a stable, the horses must have been bigger than normal or incredibly ornery. The roof was half collapsed, as were the walls, but Saiph took a deep breath and entered anyway. In the dim light that filtered in, she could see large stalls, doors rotten and crumbling.

Something drew her further in. Some strange need to go in and look at the stalls. Running light, gentle fingertips over random surfaces, the girl wandered until she came to a slightly larger stall close to the center of the stable. Glancing down, she saw a twisted and bent panel of thin, rusted metal lying on the ground. Picking it up carefully, she dusted it off, managed to bend it into a more normal shape and rubbed a fingertip along the raised runes on one side. It must have been a nameplate, she thought and carefully set it back into a groove in the door where it must have fallen from. Once the plate was back, she knelt and studied the runes again. Something about them....

Poor Thunderfluff, the thought came unbidden to her mind. I wonder how he died.

It took a moment for that silent question’s true import to hit her. She couldn’t read the runes, but she knew what this one said. It was a name. But for what she couldn’t quite recall. Biting her lip in frustration, she rested her hand on the plate, trying to force her brain to cooperate. So intent on digging through her mind was Saiph, that she nearly missed the odd shimmer as the plate under her hand brightened to a glistening copper color. The stable grew lighter as something very like sunlight filtered in through the skylight windows in the roof. Far-off laughter echoed on the air as even further on the edge of hearing, someone was playing music.

As Saiph crouched there, jaw nearly dropping to the floor in shock, a small group of people came into view, all leading mounts by silver reins. Only these mounts were NOT horses. My dearest gods, Saiph thought, they’re riding Utahraptors. This stable was for housing ******** UTAHRAPTORS. And these raptors were beautiful. The hides glistened in jewel-bright colors and soft feather crests rose from their heads and they clicked and churred to their riders. These weren’t the vicious pack hunters of earth. These were highly intelligent friends. That last point was proved quickly enough as a tiny girl ran crying to one of the figures in the group. Saiph was struck by the child’s long blonde hair and white dress.

“Momma, momma! She said she’d let Thunderfluff eat me if I didn’t give her my doll!”
“Now, Serenity, I’m sure Saiph was only joking. You know Thunderfluff would never hurt you...”

The name struck Saiph like a bolt. This girl. This child was her princess. And she had, apparently, long ago told her princess that she’d feed her to a utahraptor. A soft snort came from behind Saiph and she turned to see a Utahraptor looking expectantly at her. Soft fog grey feathers crested it’s skull and it was a shade of blue-ish grey that resembled a stormy day. A sudden sense of familiarity hit Saiph as she raised her hand to stroke the raptor’s snout.

“Thunderfluff? You’re okay?”

Just as her hand would have touched the face of her oldest friend, the vision faded, taking her friend and Princess with it. The Primordial senshi stood there a moment longer, hand outstretched and heart aching with lonliness before finally lowering her arm. Silent tears streaming down her face, Saiph decided that further exploration would have to wait. She couldn’t bear the almost over-whelming sense of loss that was sweeping over her. She wanted to go home and think and tell Cordy and Hammie about this. And she wanted time to distance herself from her lost past emotionally. With a small sigh, she closed her eyes and concentrated....