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Kallichore took to the streets, pondering why she didn't attempt to kill any of the Dark Mirror Senshi during the battle. Fundamentally, it would have been wiser to cut off the source of their creation altogether - Leto and Remarque, who were the only royals present. If Ares decided to stop being a coward and show up herself... Kallichore wasn't sure 1) she'd survive and 2) she could hold herself back from wanting to make the Smoke Queen eat crimson boots.

The eternal senshi was lost in her own mind, tracing and retracing what her actions were during the assault and what she could have done. She almost missed the odd signature somewhere in the distance. She could have kept going and left well enough alone, but after what had happened with the Dark Mirrors, she was on the fence about letting them roam freely. On the one hand, most probably knew now that they weren't welcome. On the other, killing them seemed fruitless - they'd just be replaced as quick as they were taken out.

The situation seemed a stalemate.

Against her better judgment, Kallichore followed the signature and happened upon...

"Zia?"

The eternal gave her an odd look. "And you too. Are... you alright, Zia? Did you sustain any injuries during the fight?"

She approached the lavender haired woman cautiously, not out of fear, but out of respect. Zia looked a bit worse for the wear. "I remember shouting but there was quite a bit going on and I couldn't keep track of everything like I'd wanted. Somehow I figured something would go wrong but... two royals showing up without any on our side..." Hardly even odds.

"...were you talking about starseeds? Did you manage to snag one?"

"Why would you crush it?" asked she, staying where she was in case Zia wasn't up to having someone so physically close so soon. "It's a soul and it's worth at least keeping an eye on, isn't it?"

Taking a closer look at the seed, Kallichore leaned in and noticed her fractured reflection across the surface. While she'd never seen her own seed, or any other seeds for that matter (at least not at any appreciable distance), the eternal senshi never thought them to be reflective. But with the Dark Mirror Senshi's affinity for, well, mirrors, a mirror-plated starseed kind of made sense. Was this another part of Ares' corruption? "...do all starseeds look like this, Zia?"

It moves sometimes. Kallichore leaned back, a curious look plastering itself across her face and she looked at Zia in a sideways glance. "...what do you mean, moves? Like, pulses? Contorts...?"

The eternal senshi watched closely as Zia... then Zirconia, explained starseeds as only a Guardian could. "...not whole souls... That would make sense. Ares once said she was implanting a soul in the body... something like that, when she baptized them through a mirror or some bullshit."

The fact that the soul wasn't glowing lent even more credence to Zirconia's statement. Things were starting to make sense, small bit by small bit. "So... do you suppose Dark Mirrors are just zombies, if they lack a soul? Or maybe they just... reflect a soul...? I don't know... I'm just babbling."

Leaning in further, Kallichore watched in horror and fascination as the surface of the starseed all but peeled away from Zirconia's finger, as if fearing being scalded. "Jesus..." she whispered, kneeling before the cat woman before her legs cramped. "...it's sickening and interesting simultaneously. But, does it only react to you as a Guardian? Does it react to you in your human form? Or other Guardians..." Reaching up, the eternal meant to mimic the experiment Zirconia performed just seconds before. She meant to graze the surface of the starseed with a gloved finger. "...and how does it react to me...?"

When the reflective starseed didn't react to her touch, Kallichore became perplexed. It must have been her lack of affinity with mirrors. Whatever had happened to this seed, only Zirconia seemed to have an effect on it. The cat-woman's explanation of her theory on the state of the Dark Mirrors was morbid and horrifying, to say the least. Ares' evil had gone deeper and infected more than Kallichore had assumed.

"...their being dead would explain the lack of light. Like you said, the seed shines with the light of the soul and stops shining when the body dies and the soul returns to the Cauldron..." Her eyes remained fixed on the seed, wondering to what extent Ares had destroyed not only the White Moon Senshi she stole the body from, but the soul as well. "Do you think they know? I mean, Ares was like you and Nehelenia - she's sentient and a whole soul. Or at least, she was. But everyone who came after her, Leto, Requiem, Remarque, Mimistobell... Do you think they have any idea?"

Leaning back on her haunches, Kallichore thought it would have been in Ares' best interests to keep her flock as clueless as possible. If one keeps the masses dumb then the masses pose much less of a risk to the ruler. "Is there any way to prove they're dead, Zirconia? If there's no soul then... I suppose it's impossible to purify."

"Hmm. That presents a difficult decision then," she murmured, tilting her head to and fro to catch a glimpse of the starseed's reactions to Zia's prodding. "They are clearly sentient beings whether they are dead or not. Would killing them even count as murder if they were never alive to begin with? And I wonder if presenting this information to them would produce any kind of insurrection. I mean, if I were following someone I believe was right and found out I'd become nothing more than a walking corpse, I'd be pretty pissed..."

They clearly can act independently of Ares, or at least, I believe they can. They aren't forthcoming at all with information about her, which leads to two conclusions: either she's incredibly secretive and doesn't want any information getting out, or she's not around at present. Does she still control them, or did she pass that on to her new royalty?

My powers affect them just like anyone else, so they have a mind of their own... There's so much we don't know.

And it was frustrating.

"Zia?" she said finally, leaning up to look at the lavender-haired woman. "...how far have you tried to mirrorpoke this thing? Does it hurt when you do it? What happens... when you keep pushing?" Kallichore was fascinated by this experiment and it was becoming more apparent as time wore on.

Kallichore listened in silence as Zia explained the harsh realities of what the Dark Mirror did to people. The Eternal had a very good idea initially, especially from her encounters with Ares in the past. But the Jovians forbade killing. Would they change their stance if they knew everything that was going on? She sincerely hoped so. If anything, the perfect solution...

"...the perfect solution would be to eject the alien soul and replace it with the original, but I highly doubt that will ever be possible." Nothing ever worked out like that - nothing in the war was ever that clean-cut. There was never that shining beacon of hope, the light that could erase all evil in the most perfect way, heal all wounds and restore things to the way they should have been. No one had that power, not that Kallichore was aware of, and it was a damned shame. "Do you know if the new royals can continue to create more Dark Mirrors?" If so, that made three royals that needed to be destroyed with the utmost haste...

The noise Zia mentioned was audible to Kallichore and it came across as a low, quiet humming. "I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself for the sake of research but... I am curious to find out how far you can go with it. Do other starseeds make noise? Or is that trait unique to these particular seeds?"