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 Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 10:23 pm
The Virgo Outpost, where Babylon had been dropped, stood as an ancient Greek temple--although Virgo would have been the first to tell you that Greek temples were mere shadows of Virgon methods of construction and technology--surrounded by tall trees and natural pools with pebbled bottoms. The groves, as Virgo called them, were monuments to the dead: Knights stationed at Virgo were buried in the Virgon fashion, head up and planted as a tree. The elder trees mixed with yew and maple, caught on the edge of an eternal autumn. Their leaves carpeted the ground, hiding who knew what--ancient treasure?
In this case, the answer was yes.
Entangled in the roots of an elderly yew was a small, finely-wrought goblet of bronze. Motifs of wheat collected just under the curled lip; it was worn down around the base from centuries of use. Soldier Virgo was looking for this cup, but it was not she that would find it. No, it would be the descendent of a long-ago friend.
The Offering Cup glinted up at Babylon Squire from beneath a blanket of flame-red leaves.
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Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 10:54 pm
Babylon Squire was here to help, and he wanted to do so. You never knew when having the Zodiacs owe you might come in handy, plus he was sort of curious about this whole 'go camping in the Oort cloud, rescue civilians' stuff. The ill-tended knights cemetery attracted his attention once he dropped off his supplies - something about walking among the graves of others of this ancient order seemed appropriate, and maybe some of the things missing from the temple had found their way here...?
A glitter of bronze beneath the autumnal foliage caught his eye. Babylon stooped down to look, anticipating perhaps a memorial plaque. What he pulled instead from the litter pile was something far more curious than that. Some sort of ritual goblet, finely carved-
Babylon got to his feet, cup in hand, and glanced around the grove. "Anyone here?" he called uncertainly. "I think I found something-" At least, it certainly looked like something. Bronze goblets didn't exactly grow on trees, did they?
(Although, he reminded himself, these were alien trees.)
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Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 11:52 pm
Virgo heard someone calling, and left the small altar behind her temple to venture into the trees. Not every single one was a grave--just twelve of them, in fact. Three generations of knights, two of senshi. One that was empty, one meant to be hers...
She answered the voice, and was a little surprised at what she found. Another knight? What was he doing in the Groves? Shouldn't they be up at the Temple proper? Well, she wasn't going to complain when she saw the offering cup in his hands. "Thank you," she said, holding out both hands from it. "You're a Mercury knight, aren't you?..."
Mercury. She'd been born there, and she would have been happy to remain with her friends. Lina. Hesperis. Babylon.
The Lina palm had grown tall and strong next to her Altar, but she couldn't find the Light that Babylon had given her. Menachem, she thought. This one looked a little like him, or maybe she was just being hopeful again. She found the more she interacted with Knights, the more she wandered the Temple, the more memories surfaced inside her head... and the more memories she realized she'd lost. "I was born there," she said. "A thousand years ago, anyway. In Babylon, at the foot of the Caloris Mountains. Maybe you've heard of it?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 6:26 am
Babylon passed the cup gently to Virgo, grateful for the intrusion. Too long alone in the graveyard, and who knew what he might find? Worst case scenario, human remains. The squire nodded. "It's the blue, isn't it?" he asked, and felt dumb. Well, it was the blue, or the fact that he wore his planet's sigil in three different places on his uniform.
His look of sheepishness turned to one of surprise when she described his city. There was no mistaking it - how many Babylons at the foot of the Caloris Mountains could there be? "Heard of it?" he sputtered. "I've been there-"
Here, the squire flailed clumsily, unsure if he ought to bow to Virgo or salute her or offer a handshake. Eventually, he wound up performing a curtsey that was slightly awkward and a little bit fey. Not the best first impression and if the old man had seen it, Babylon would have been kicked for sure, but what happened on the Surrounding was going to stay on the surrounding. "Babylon Squire," he introduced himself, holding his voice steady to cover his inner turmoil. "At your service."
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 1:48 pm
"No... it's the sigils." She pointed to them, bronze fingernails catching in the starlight. Dusk--or what passed for it on Virgo Outpost--had long-since fallen. Night was approaching, and weirdly, the leaves on the trees had begun to shine with pale rose light... Sailor Virgo had always been afraid of the dark. Perhaps that was why she had always sought out the Soldier of Radiance for her lover.
He'd been there? She blinked; she didn't remember a lot about knights but she remembered that at least Babylon had certainly never left the city. Not for long. He had to keep the lights going. (She remembered the lights; she watched them, enchanted, when she was small. And still when she was older, with the light glowing from her pendant.)
No, he hadn't just been there. He was Babylon. Virgo did not know what to make of this; as the memories of home had begun to clear--the old man she'd befriended became a knight, and then Babylon Knight--she'd resigned herself to the fact that her friends, that Lina Knight and Hesperis Knight and Babylon Knight were all dead. Now?... "Menachem!" It was an excited sound, matching the bright light in her eyes, and she dropped the Offering Cup in her excitement to grab his hands. "It's me, Aria, don't you remember?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 2:28 pm
Babylon was pretty sure this was what an out-of-body experience felt like, his hands having just been grabbed by an over-enthusiastic teenaged girl who seemed intent on calling him by a name he didn't recognize. And she expected him to recognize her? He'd never met an Aria in his life. "No, sorry," he said slowly, easing his hands away from her grip.
The squire bent down and retrieved the cup once more. He handed it back to her. "I don't." Should he? It seemed strange to him, but then it wasn't like he was the first Babylon Knight to ever live. He uncomfortably met her gaze. "You must mean... someone else. From before."
He didn't know the old man's name, Babylon realized. They'd never gotten to first name terms - not when his predecessor was so determined to be disappointed in him. Did the old man look like a 'Menachem'? Well, maybe. However he was descended from the ancient knight, the current Babylon was beginning to suspect it was on his mother's side - the motto carved into the band of his signet ring was in Hebrew, after all. If the ancient Babylon was a Derouen ancestor, wouldn't the motto be in Latin or French?
He fumbled his lantern into his hands, seeking to add more light. The trees were interesting, he had to admit, but they weren't very good for seeing by. Babylon studied the girl's face in the blue glow. She'd been so excited - and now, suddenly, she wasn't. The squire sighed. Chalk up one more person who was going to be disappointed in him for not being who they were expecting.
"The old man, maybe," he added weakly.
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 3:49 pm
No? But that's how it was, wasn't it? The Cauldron brought your starseed back and you were reborn. That was how it worked, how it always worked. So... no? Maybe he just didn't remember yet. She knew she'd gone through years ignorant of her Zodiac side. Thirteen of them. Twelve and a half. She'd been young when she was awakened--young--and having all those memories filter back to her slowly had been agonizing. Maybe Menachem was in the same boat!
"From before," she asked, unable to keep disappointment and sadness out of her face and tone. Someone else, from before. Why did they always say that... she remembered them, after all.
She scrubbed her face behind her palms. Why did she feel like crying all the sudden? Well, she'd spent the whole day wanting to sob, so this was really nothing new. "Menachem wasn't old. Well, okay, maybe a little, but I was really small..." She watched the lantern for a long moment, and then tugged on her veil. "He was like, forty. When I was eight. He's not old."
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 4:16 pm
Babylon shook his head, confused but feeling truly sorry for her growing distress. He was the cause of it, wasn't he? Unintentionally, of course, because he couldn't really help that this was his first time around. Un-ironically, Babylon was born this way. "There's no before for me," he said, trying to be delicate about it. There wasn't really a good way to put it, though, was there? Sorry, I'm not your deceased friend reincarnated.
He hesitated before continuing, having never really thought about how old the old man actually was. Babylon had always just thought of him as old, but he wasn't... ancient. Not physically, at least. The knight he'd always thought of as elderly was actually, really, only fifty. Maybe sixty. The weather damage to his face made it a bit difficult to tell. "I'm a descendant of the order of Babylon," explained the squire. He didn't want to upset Virgo any more than he already had, and she looked to be on the verge of tears.
At least by lantern-light.
"I'm sorry," he said redundantly. "I think you've mistaken me for the last knight of Babylon. The one before me. I've met him." He was bitchy. Maybe Virgo saw a side of the old man that his protegee didn't. It seemed like a likely bet, at least.
"Please don't cry."
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 4:59 pm
He wasn't Menachem. She plucked at her veil and pressed it just under her eyes, trying to head off even more tears. It was a wonder she hadn't become dehydrated yet, really, but that was easily explained by the fact that potable water was literally everywhere on her outpost, out and open for the taking. Plumbing, even, had remained mostly intact. "Menachem had a baby," she wondered; she didn't recall the two of them ever speaking about family, but it seemed very pleasing to her that he might have had a son or a daughter. Cheerful, even. So life went on after whatever happened to Aria. "Or did you mean something else, Babylon Squire?"
She took her offering cup, and headed off; the trees' luminescence seemed to follow her, the glow fading and then returning. "I'm not crying," she said. She did not sound like she was not crying. "I'm fine. I just, I found someone else I knew and she knew me at least a little bit. I thought, maybe you would too."
They'd been good friends once, Babylon and Virgo. Maybe it would be the same again.
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 5:35 pm
"Yeah, I guess so," said Babylon. Menachem must've, or else he wouldn't be standing here. Being descended sort of seemed to work like that: your great-something grandfather had to exist if you did. Go back in time and kill him and you were erased from existence. "I mean," he added, "I think it's on my mother's side, but it's got to be way, way back. Someone would have mentioned if our relatives back in the schtetl in the eighteen-hundreds were space warriors, right?"
After all, how did you forget something like that?
He followed the senshi, taking a few quick steps to catch up before matching her pace. Although there was nearly no doubt that she was crying, despite her protestations, he decided not to press the issue. Better not to become known as Finn Derouen Who Makes Girls Cry, right? "I'm sorry I'm not who you wanted me to be," he said, although it seemed strange to apologize for that. He'd never been fond of said sentiment in his civilian life, after all.
"I could take you there," he added, although he wasn't sure what had made him think to offer it. "Once this whole mess with the civilians is over, I mean."
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 9:54 pm
She blinked; what was a schtetl? "It would've been a thousand years ago," she said, branches cracking under her feet. Small ones, not big ones; it seemed that Virgo Outpost had been held in stasis, except for the leaves on the trees. If Babylon were to pay attention, every so often she flicked her gaze towards the lantern in his hands. "I guess everything relating to us was erased, though. Senshi and Knights."
Small shrug. It didn't matter, she supposed, since if there'd been information this would be so much harder to work with around civilians. Sigh. "It's okay," she said over her shoulder. "It's not your fault that you're not Menachem. I just miss him pretty bad sometimes. And you look kinda like him, and I just didn't know he had babies."
Aria might have been twenty-four when she died, but Virgo was only sixteen. Children were still cute little fat babies to her. "I'd like that. I haven't been home in forever."
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 10:05 pm
"Yeah," nodded Babylon awkwardly, shifting his grip on the lantern. "Well, you know, I don't think anyone can take their genealogy back that far. We've got to the seventeen-hundreds on my dad's side, but only about the eighteen-sixties on my mom's." A thousand years was just too far back when your family was getting kicked from country to country, running around the diaspora like a bunch of bats out of hell.
It was strange to hear his sort-of mentor talked about so fondly, and with a name, even. Had Babylon been ignorant, to never ask his predecessor more about himself? Though that seemed to raise the question of would the man even answer if he asked and the answer to that seemed to be No. "I guess you were close with him?" he asked, feeling a bit awkward. "I don't think he likes me very much."
Which was putting it mildly. When Babylon wasn't on the receiving end of outright disdain from his mentor, it was the quiet contempt channel.
"I'd like to take you there, then," he nodded. He owed it to her, didn't he?
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Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 8:59 pm
She shrugged a little. "I don't think it matters for senshi. We just appear when we appear, no bloodlines involved!" After all, neither of her parents were magical sailor warriors. They would have fessed up, at least Edmund would have because Aysel was a lot cannier than he was. She offered Babylon a small smile anyway, waving her hands in front of her. One was clenched around the bronze cup, but all the same she seemed to be telling him not to worry about it through hand gestures. "Really close. I'd walk with him while he lit the lights and tell him about things." She closed her eyes. Her friendship with Menachem had never edged towards romantic; she idolized the Knight too much to think of him as anything but a friend even now, so far into the future. "He gave me a lot of good advice! Menachem, and Lina, and Castor." She nodded to herself, fingertips playing along the line of her jaw. The blonde smiled up at Babylon. "Maybe when this is all over," she said. "Maybe I can show you my Light."
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Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 11:03 am
Babylon glanced up at Virgo. "I know Lina!" he said enthusiastically. "Is she... is she the same as she was?" In his conversations with Lina, he'd never actually gotten around to asking her much about what happened when she want to her wonder. Chalk it up to self-centeredness... obviously she'd been able to find her ring, though, if she'd sent out the call.
Not that it was really any of his business. Every time he spoke to Lina, it seemed like he learned something new about her. "I'm glad he was nice to you," added the squire awkwardly. At least someone liked his mentor - though he had to wonder what had happened between when Menachem was the man Virgo admired and how he turned into the bitter man Babylon knew. "I guess I'm still trying to learn from him."
Make no mistakes: Babylon Squire was learning from his ancestor. The bar had been set high, though, and he was flailing for it. "What light?" asked the squire, cocking his head to the side. He glanced down at his lantern. "Like something like my light?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 2:06 am
He got a smile. "I think she is, but I didn't get to speak to her for very long." She didn't know about rings, or anything; she just knew that Lina had been able to help them, and she respected her for that. "We have a Lina tree here on Virgo," she said, thoughtfully, coming to a stop beneath the palm and before the altar. She set the bronze goblet down right where she remembered it being when she had last placed it. Only a few more objects left, she thought, and then she scrubbed her hands along the hewn stone.
Where had the cloth even gone? She had to wonder if it had been stolen, and then she sighed. Hopefully not; the weaving from Avalon had been such a surprise.
"You just have to be patient," she advised. "There's all sorts of tests Babylon Knights have to go through. I know you'll get it."
The blonde looked back to her altar, and then she looked to his light. "Exactly like that, but in a pendant. It was a gift, for when I left. A little bit of light, to remind me of my home."
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