Where was he? Sailor Merope slowly opened his eyes and let out the breath he was holding, still dizzy from the sense of euphoria that his star had called to him. Even now he held onto its lingering notes, closing his eyes to savor its melody. He was all right. There wasn't any pressure here, nothing to make him worry and wonder what would happen if he couldn't hear his star. His star was right here, its melody shifting from a call of adventure and excitement to a triumphant welcome, weaving the melodies together to create the sense of security and relief he had been craving. How long has he lived, oblivious to his star?

He opened his eyes yet again, then closed and opened a third time as confusion overtook him, losing the melody and cosmic connection he had achieved moments before. There was no difference between keeping his eyes opened or closed: both yielded the same fear-inducing darkness. It wasn't right. He knew it. He knew that his star was brighter than this. Would it lie to him? He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, listening. Yes – his namesake was easier to listen to and to connect with. The star was louder, here, but not too loud. Yes, it seemed to say, You are home. Do you not recognize it?

He didn't, actually. He opened his eyes and began to actually look around, aware that it wasn't as dark as he had first thought. There was a soft glow coming from one of the walls. It wasn't easy to move to it; his dark boots knocked against several unseen objects, making the journey perilous. What if he tripped and injured himself? That was a question quickly forgotten as Merope reached the wall, lifting his hands in a subconscious gesture. It wasn't until the movement registered that Merope jumped, flailing as the shutters seemed to spring forth from their restrained position, banging against his arms before he got a hold of himself and grabbed them.

Soft light washed into the room, prompting him to step backwards in surprise. The back of his boot caught on something, forcing the boy backwards as he fell. “OW!” He yelped, wincing and rubbing the back of his head. Merope narrowed his eyes and squinted, looking up and out the window. The pain was forgotten as he beheld his star – his star – with his own eyes. It was bright and clear. Didn't a webpage say that it was a half-hidden star? Something about hiding in shame...? He rubbed his eyes as he sat up. To him, his star was anything but: proud and bright, it outshone the other stars nearby.

The senshi climbed to his feet and looked around. Now that he had light, he was able to see that his initial guess was correct. He was in a room, but it wasn't anything like the rooms he was used to on Earth. This room was... different. Was it the warm color wood? The hanging drapes of blue fabric that matched the blues of his fuku? He blinked, and stared. The wood was still present, retaining its warm color. The fabric he could see in pieces on the ground, and looking up he could see where it had once hung. He knelt down and picked up a piece, wincing. “Whatever came through here...” he began, speaking if only to hear the sound of something, of anything, “Was pretty angry.”

The piece of cloth was placed carefully on the floor as he turned his attention to the center of the room. Walking over to there was easy, now that he could see. He walked around it, stopping only to kneel and work his fingers under it before lifting and setting what appeared to be a table upright again. But there was something about it, something seemingly wrong. What was it? It wasn't the table itself (it was a desk, he realized, there were several drawers he was curious about). Its location? He looked around, brow furrowed. His eyes fell upon the fallen pieces of cloth which he gathered up and piled off to one side, turning around to look again. Yes, there – he could see it now. There were four slots in the floor, and if he could just move the desk over there... Yes! The desk legs fell into the slots with a satisfying thump, in addition to a feeling that made Merope nod and grin to himself. “There we go.”

The boy looked around the room, searching further until he found what he assumed to be the chair. At least half of it, anyway – the back of it seemed to have been smashed off, however the important part was intact. Merope picked the bottom half of the chair up and set it down at the desk before sitting down on it, resting his hands on the wooden desk. He couldn't help but to sigh – this desk wasn't made for him. It was made for someone taller than him. “What were you expecting? It may be your home and where you're from, but it's not as if this stuff is your's.”

Merope stopped himself, staring at his hands. That was a lie – this was his. Was in the past, at least, he knew that for certain. He ran his hands along the desk, frowning. “But if this is mine... Why can't I remember it? Or – wait! Is this only mine because I came here first?” This prompted him to consider what he knew of his fellow senshi. What would they do in this situation? Were their homes also like this? Was it possible for someone else to come here and claim all of this for themselves, when he was there first?

The boy pinched the bridge of his nose, mimicking what his mother back on Earth usually did when she was exasperated with him. “Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Forget all that. Just, forget it Carter. Just... man! Saying my own name is just... weird. Um. Anyway,” he said after a pause, scooting back in the chair. “Might as well see what's in these drawers...”

The first drawer, Merope discovered on the other side of the room, held nothing. It was smashed in half, and Merope could see the dent in the wall where it was flung to. Perhaps someone didn't find what they were looking for? The area around the drawer was clean. “Is it gone already?” It was a disappointment. What was in the drawer? “Hullo, what's this?” The boy lifted the drawer and set it to one side, touching a piece of parchment. He snatched his hand back as he realized belatedly that his right arm was still damp from attacking the youma earlier, leaving behind a droplet of water that was quick to consume part of the writing on the page. If it could be called writing, at least. Merope leaned forward and stared, confusion crossing his face. It wasn't any sort of writing that he recognized.

Determined to bring it into better light, he reached out with his left hand and carefully attempted to pick it up. The fragile paper ripped under his touch, forcing him to snatch his hand back yet again. “Ugh! There's no way I can pick that up,” he grumbled, taking the misplaced drawer and putting it back over the parchment. He would need to return later.

The second drawer he pulled out of the desk contained nothing. Neither did the third or fourth, along with the fifth. The last one refused to budge. He sighed. Someone must have beaten him to it. Did this mean that someone else was here before him? On impulse he went back and checked the drawers, opening and closing them quickly.

sssmph.

Merope eyed the fourth drawer with suspicion, closing and opening it rapidly. His ears didn't lie – he could hear and feel something sliding around in the drawer. He pulled the drawer open all the way and felt around, tapping the wood. It didn't feel like there was anything out of place, or that anything was missing. He stood up from the half-chair and knelt before the drawer, placing one hand in the drawer and the other on the bottom of it. There was a secret compartment! He figured there were at least two inches between his hands. There was a problem, though: how was he supposed to open it?

He didn't know how long he spent in front of the drawer trying to figure it out. What felt like hours to him was in all honesty only twenty minutes – not that he would check his senshi phone. Instead the boy sighed and closed the drawer, throwing up his hands and turning to look around. Aside from the desk, he could see a bench up against the wall, also in slots like the desk was. Why was that? It was as if they needed to make sure the heavy items were in exact specific locations. The wall above the bench was bare, along with the others – though one wall appeared to have ornate metal hooks, as if lifting something between them. Merope approached these and looked up, wondering what was hung there before.

It was then that he nearly tripped for a second time, not on debris (which, now that he remembered to look, was the top part of the chair he was sitting in earlier), but on a chest. He knelt down and carefully touched it, surprised that it didn't crumble away. It was quite solid under his hands, in addition to being quite locked. He couldn't resist picking it up and shaking it – too bad nothing rattled around inside. This was placed back on the ground, his eyes straying to the larger footlocker. This one wasn't locked, but there wasn't anything of interest when he opened it, given that it was empty.

Merope sighed, closing it and looking around. Something jolted him, olive eyes locking on the desk. The chest couldn't have been empty. He opened it again and looked down, tipping the chest over a bit in order to get the light of Merope-star to shine in. Yes! He could see where a more delicate fabric had once lain, now nothing more than tattered remains. There was a dark spot near one of the far corners, and touching it proved that it was a latch. The chest was righted as the latch was sprung, enabling the boy to lift back the top. A strange whiff of scents assailed him for a moment – but then it was gone when he sniffed again, opening his eyes from the reflective flinch.

The bottom of the chest had a couple of bottles, nestled between more of the blue cloth he had seen scattered about in tatters on the floor. The bottles looked interesting enough, however there was something that the boy knew about and wanted to investigate further. He reached in and picked it up cautiously, replacing the fake bottom and closing the footlocker. The desk was as idea of a place to set it down and carefully peel it apart, his heart racing. His hands shook as he moved it around, staring in awe at the treasure he had found. “No way...” He breathed, touching it in reverence.

The sailor scout turned away from the desk and marched to the door he had ignored earlier in favor of exploring the room, grabbing it and pulling it open. It didn't want to budge until he wrapped both hands around the handle and propped his boot against the door frame and wrenched it open. He nearly dropped it as he saw what was before him, letting his fingers slide from the smooth metal handle to stare at what was before him.

His boots echoed hollowly with each step as he walked further onto the ship – no, his ship. How could it be anything else? He knew of pirate ships from pictures and movies, and this fit the bill. It made sense. The smooth wood was bleached almost white by Merope's light, then tinted blue by the swirling dust that he initially assumed was the colored space dust he saw earlier when out with Kurma and company. He spun in a slow circle, looking up. Where there were once sails there were tatters. No usable rope was coiled about on deck, only the limp and weak remains. He squinted as he stared up. Was that a flag up there? Then –

The boy tore his gaze away as he looked not up or down, but across. “No. Way,” he breathed, walking over to the ship's rail and staring. “No way, no way, no way.” He pinched himself, wincing. He was awake. This wasn't a dream. Besides, he knew he couldn't imagine something like this. He leaned over the rail and looked down, confused before turning around and walking to the other side. There was more there, too – he was on some sort of high ground, on what he assumed to be Merope.

In all honesty, he was shaking. The pleasant warmth from the sun did nothing to ease his quakes. It was true that the air was sweeter and not as musty as it was in the cabin, but this... This was swiftly becoming too much for the boy. He turned to head back into the cabin, stopping short as soon as he saw the door. It couldn't be mistaken for anything else. How could it be, with the large metal disk upon it bearing the likeness of his necklace? “I'm a space pirate,” he whispered to himself, touching first his necklace then the door.

Wait. If he was, then what did that make everything else? He turned to face the city of Merope, biting his lip. There was no way he could explore it now. How could he even begin to take it all in? He turned to the door and pushed his way in, narrowing his eyes before applying his shoulder to it. The door opened with a protesting squeak, slamming shut behind him just as fast. No wonder the room still looked new, he realized, whoever built the ship made it nearly impenetrable to the elements, giving it an eery tomb-like quality.

The sailor scout hurried to the desk and grabbed the flag he had found, running his fingers over the dark blue background. There was no way his team would believe him, but with this... He hoped they would. After all, how many flags did they know of displayed the entire Pleiades cluster? Or at least he hoped it was – it looked official enough to him, at least. He tried to fold it back into the tight shape he had found it initially, tucking it into his sash when he failed to do so. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and waiting.

The cold winter air of Destiny City sucker-punched the air right out of him, sending him into a fit of shivers. He was right back at the place they had met Kurma, and by the looks of things he was the only one there. Were those footprints in the snow? He couldn't be arsed to tell who was coming or who was leaving, and he didn't care. Merope shivered, hurrying home in search of the pleasant warmth he had experienced at... home?





It was odd to think of two places as home, he realized later in bed. There was here-home, and space-home... which was the real one? Carter summoned his senshi phone and flipped it open, searching through the new contacts he established only to stop at the newest:

Home
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