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 Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 3:51 pm
I
There was no discernible morning at Aquarius Outpost. Its sole tenant simply woke when she had slept enough to recharge from the activity of the day before.
It was jarring for a moment, waking up in a bed she didn't immediately recognize. Back during the Surrounding reconstruction, she had left the few bedrooms her Outpost contained for those who were stranded, usually snatching a few hours of sleep on a chair in the atrium, or on the top of a bookshelf in the library. The only time she'd ever used one of the guest rooms was on the visit when she had met Exidor. And, as she opened her eyes and surveyed her surroundings, that had been a different room altogether.
The events of the previous day came back to her slowly, one at a time. The admission, the fight. The realization of what needed to be done. Leaving home for what she felt was the last time. Arriving at her new- and old- home. All Aquarius had been able to do after that was dump her supplies in the entrance hall, lurch up the stairs, and fall into the nearest bed.
And now it was morning, or close enough. Day one of the rest of her life.
The complete and abrupt severance from her former life was alien, but not upsetting. It would take her some time to get used to things, but she was confident that she would be able to. And at least now she might be able to accomplish something real. For a long time, she had felt that her best shot at ending the war was hidden somewhere in the library. Finding the answer that she sought would be hard, but possible. Especially since she couldn't run away when it got too tedious.
If she had been more focused, more dedicated, how much despair could she have saved herself from?
"It's too late to think about that now." Exidor leaned on the door frame, arms folded crossly. "If you want to have any effectiveness at all, forget what came before. Wipe the slate clean, and simply be more mindful of what you scrawl on it."
That sounded suspiciously like good advice. "I thought you thought this was a bad idea," Aquarius said slowly. There was no reply, which only made her more doubtful. "Why are you trying to help?"
And there was that exasperated look again. "I've been trying to help all along. You've just been too busy wallowing in self-pity to notice. Maybe now that you can't run, my words will have more of an impact. And if that's the case, at least this venture won't be a total waste."
Aquarius' only response was to stick her tongue out at Exidor, and sweep past him into the hallway. And then to stop, as the blankness of her new life struck her anew. She had no school to go to, no people to see. She couldn't even drop by a cafe for a cupcake. She was totally trapped, and at the same time, totally free. As long as she didn't leave the Surrounding, she could do whatever she liked.
Except there was nothing she really wanted to do.
Her stomach growled, and Aquarius couldn't help but crack a smile. "That's as good a place as any to start."
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 3:51 pm
III
Once she had gotten over the initial shock, settling in was surprisingly easy. Considering how much time she had spent there during the reconstruction, and in drips and drabs over the years that followed, it probably shouldn't have been a surprise. But she had expected to have more difficulty living on her own, with nothing to do and no one to talk to.
Only later did she realize that the adjustment was so easy because there was very little adjusting to do. Aquarius had been shutting people out for months. She spent most of her time in her room, idly leafing through her textbooks or watching stuff on the computer. School and dinner were the only constants in her life, and her routine changed little without them.
Much of her time was spent in the library. Though there was no shortage of books in any other rooms of the Outpost, the concentration there, combined with the desk, made it a natural choice for her office, the main place to work on her research. And so she combed through the same books again, expanding her search, documenting common character combinations in a new notebook, as well as new characters she found in her old one. She practiced writing the characters she knew, and tried writing them in new sequences, to see if that would trigger anything. She stood on her head and looked at books in mirrors and held them up to the light, anything that might reveal something new.
When she couldn't tolerate the books anymore, she went downstairs to work in the labs. Most of the equipment there was strange and foreign, and she wanted to figure out what it did. But she also wanted to keep it in one piece, which prevented her from doing more unorthodox experiments. She spent most of her time with the materials she knew how to use- scales and measures, slides and lenses, so on and so forth. Not that she knew what she was hoping to find by examining ancient samples of plants and rocks that might not exist anymore, but it provided a change in pace from searing equally ancient languages into her retinas.
Exidor was of little help. It was nice to have someone to talk to, Aquarius supposed- even if he was a ghost or a figment- but he didn't provide any helpful hints on her linguistics research or her ill-advised experiments. He was little more than a sounding board. And a constant source of annoyance, but then, he was far from the only one of those she had to deal with.
It didn't take long with her to get bored of the few activity options she had. Or to get sick of canned ravioli, or of breathing in sand and dust. And despite her claims to the contrary, she was desperately lonely. She missed Kent's teasing, Yvette's quiet voice, Evie's stubbornness, Dana's wild attitude, Laney's constant encouragement. She missed food that didn't come out of a can, and the internet, and being able to go places when she wanted to.
Except there was no place that was safe, and therefore, no place she wanted to go. Tedium was preferable to despair. And so she stayed, waiting for the meaning of life to show up.
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 3:52 pm
VI
Itchy feet were a common problem at the Outpost. Sand tended to sneak into every crevice, rubbing uncomfortably. Aquarius spent a lot of time cleaning out the thin shoes that came with her fuku, until she decided to ditch them altogether. That solution came with its own share of problems. The floors in the Outpost were uneven, missing tiles in many places, and bumpy and uncomfortable even when they were whole. And tripping on debris hurt even more without the little protection her shoes had provided.
There were some cleaning supplies left over from when the Outpost had hosted its unexpected guests. Most of the cleansers had either evaporated or simply been used up, and she found a number of empty or nearly-empty bottles. But there was a broom and a dustpan and a mop. There was also a bucket, the sight of which filled her with a familiar gnawing fear. She had to hide it in the pantry, behind several urns half-filled with mysterious substances, before she could breathe easily again.
That meant she couldn't use the mop, but the broom and dustpan saw a good deal of action. She swept vast quantities of sand and dust and broken tiles into the corners of rooms and out the front door. After her third cleaning attempt, she began picking out the tiles and putting them on one of the lab tables, in the hopes of reconstructing parts of the floor. After the fifth, she realized she had nothing with which to stick the tiles back down, and no way to get anything she could use. Just like there was no way to throw out the dust and sand and empty cans and cardboard boxes.
"How did you deal with this?" she asked Exidor while she was sweeping, more out of the need for conversation than anything else. It wasn't like he would give her any sort of useful answers. Or be useful in any other way.
As if proving her point, Exidor shrugged, but to her surprise, he answered. "When I lived here, I wasn't alone. There was a society here, albeit a small one. And aside from that, I found other uses for items that were no longer viable in their original forms."
That was more helpful than Aquarius had expected. "As a race, humans aren't conscious enough of recycling," she conceded. "Maybe I can do something about that."
She opened the cardboard boxes and used them as folders and posters and writing paper. The cans were washed and cleaned and turned into cups and supply containers. The floors got cleaner, and her feet became more used to them. They were small achievements, but they were still more than what she accomplished with her work in the library and the labs.
Maybe she could do more of it. Aquarius stopped sweeping the atrium and looked towards the back room, the only one with closed curtains. She had avoided the training hall all this time. The giant hole in the mirrored wall made her nervous. True, she hadn't seen any monsters during her stay, but that didn't mean they weren't out there. And the gaping hole in the wall was practically an engraved invitation. It had been a long-standing desire of hers to fix it somehow, if only for her own security. Not that a wall would provide much of a barrier for a monster- it certainly hadn't stopped the last one- but it might make her feel better.
But if she didn't have the materials needed to repair the floor, she certainly didn't have anything she could use to fix the wall. All she could do was keep the drapes shut and pray that nothing would come her way. All of this would be for nothing if she was eaten by a space monster.
She wasn't convinced it wasn't all for nothing anyway, but she drew the curtains on that thought too, and resumed her sweeping.
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 3:53 pm
IX
The floors had been swept, and swept again. The books were stacked in neat piles according to language and possible subject. The excess papers around the Outpost had been gathered and organized in folders made of empty boxes. After being stared at again and again by someone who was desperate for any kind of breakthrough.
"How long have I been here?" Aquarius asked, splayed on one of the lounges in the atrium. There was no clock, no calendar, no way of knowing how much time had passed on Earth. Not that it mattered. There was nothing there for her, not anymore. But not having any way to mark the time was uncomfortable, and it itched almost as much as the sand that coated the floors of the Outpost, no matter how often she swept them.
She halfway expected an answer, received none, and groaned. It had been however long it had been, and she was bored. Painfully so. There was absolutely nothing she wanted to do, and she'd been staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours in hopes of getting some sort of inspiration. Nothing came. She was sick of laying there, but there was nothing better to do, so she stayed and stared some more.
"Ah, yes." There was Exidor, looking down at her disapprovingly. "I can see why it was so imperative that you come here. The continued existence of the universe depends on your ability to bore holes through solid rock with your eyes, which is why you're trying to hone that skill. Am I right?"
It was a sarcastically phrased question, and Aquarius was planning to ignore it. But she was so bored that she came up with a reply, just to have something new to think about. "You've got to admit, if I could drill through rock with my eyes, the Negaverse would think twice about messing with me."
Exidor's only response was a shrug and a "hmph."
That was over much too quickly, and Aquarius cast around for a new conversation topic. It was simple, really. "Hey, Exidor?"
"Hmm?"
"What did you do? When you lived here, I mean. How did you pass the time?" Whenever Aquarius asked specific questions- what this book said, how to use that equipment- he was frustratingly vague. But more open-ended questions sometimes got answers. And even if this one didn't, it would entertain her for at least a minute or two.
Exidor's reaction was amusing to say the least. He turned red, puffed up his chest, and put his hands on his hips. "I did not pass the time, as you put it. I lived. I had research I cared about. I made advancements in my field. I trained my body. I hosted the-"
"Wait, what?" Aquarius stopped giggling and sat up straight. "What did you say?"
"I wasn't done yet," Exidor huffed.
"I don't care. Go back to the part about training."
Exidor rolled his eyes. "A Zodiac must be in fighting condition, of course. Even you know that. I would often spar with others, or train on my own. You may have noticed the area dedicated to the fighting arts."
"Duh!" was the immediate response, but the wheels in Aquarius' head were turning. "And you may have noticed that it's not exactly in working condition at the moment."
"What of it? You have plenty of space outside-"
That was it! That was what she'd been looking for! "I've found my missing piece!" she crowed, running towards the door and flinging it open.
The perpetual twilight that cloaked the Outpost meant that her eyes needed to adjust to the dim light. The air that swept across the sandy stretch was no fresher than the air inside, but it revitalized Aquarius all the same. The solution, now that she'd found it, was so obvious. Even if she couldn't leave the Surrounding, there were still places she could go. She could explore the grounds, or run along the path. With a little exercise, she'd sleep better at night- or the period of time she referred to as night- and be more productive with her studies. And she supposed that it really would be better to be in fighting condition, just in case.
Not that anything would happen. So there was no need to prepare. It was just exercise. Right.
"You do so much running from your problems, you may want to try sprinting."
"Maybe I will," Aquarius shot back. Running would tire her out, and build up her stamina. It would let her observe the state of the Surrounding. Moreover, it would give her something to do, and something to think about, for as long as she was out there.
She took off at a dash, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling of the packed sand under her feet, and the common sense that demanded a warm-up. Which was possibly why she didn't even make it to the next Outpost before she collapsed, gasping for air, clutching her scraped and bruised soles. She was tired and achy and desperate for a drink.
It took much longer to make it back than it did to go out, and she was so wiped from the effort it took that she couldn't even make it up the stairs. Instead, she stumbled into the atrium and fell into the same lounge she had started from, resting her head on the the flat end and propping her sore feet on the elevated side.
"Back so soon?" Exidor asked, wearing one of his usual smirks.
Aquarius was too exhausted to make a proper reply, barely conscious enough to hear the ghost's rhetorical question. Just before drifting off, she took a deep breath and sighed. This hadn't quite gone as she'd planned, but it was a start.
"I'll go farther tomorrow," she promised, rolling over and letting sleep consume her.
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 3:54 pm
XIII
The lack of a personal trainer proved to be no problem to Aquarius. Eventually.
Her first reckless run had left her far more exhausted than had imagined, and she was mainly confined to the Outpost for the days that followed. Every time she thought to set off on another jog- or even a walk- her body protested with aches and pains that she thought had since abated. Her recovery was obnoxiously slow, unaided by medication. The pain relievers that she usually carried with her were conspicuously absent in her kit; only after she needed them did she remember that she hadn't replenished the supplies since her last fight.
All she could really do was sleep a lot, which was easy enough when there wasn't much else to do. She went through her books as often as she could, since reading was something she could do lying down. Whenever she thought she could bear it, she did simple stretching exercises until they began to hurt. She bickered with Exidor a lot, as he repeatedly reminded her of what a spectacularly bad idea going for such a run without a warm-up had been.
Finally, she was able to roll out of bed without wanting to collapse back into it. Walking to the kitchen didn't feel like a mile-long trudge. She was able to stay standing long enough to sweep the floors again, since they had developed a new coating of sand while she'd been all but bedridden. Still, she took it slow that day, not wanting to ruin what progress she'd made. Being able to move around easily was nice. And necessary, since she had no one to look after her if she overdid it again.
The next day, she felt energized again. After a less-than-hearty breakfast of cold ravioli- she had eaten most of the good food, and was left with the uninteresting options- she headed outside for the first time since her run. There was no sun on her face, no wind in her hair, and the sand scraped the soles of her feet, but it still felt really good.
"Don't you dare do anything as dangerous as your last exercise regimen," Exidor warned. "I won't be able to help if you do."
"You weren't able to help this time either." Sure, he'd been someone to talk to. And since talking was one of the few activities that didn't hurt, Aquarius had been sort of appreciative of that. Until the talk turned to criticism, and it always did. Exidor seemed to be built for it.
He didn't appear offended by her retort. Instead, he folded his arms and waited to see what she would do.
Warming up had to come first. Most of her routine came from her time spent cheerleading, which meant that the emphasis was on flexibility rather than stamina or strength. Both of which she needed to work on. But how? Maybe resistance training would help with strength, but she didn't have any equipment to use. As for stamina, running probably would help with that, if she could go longer without collapsing.
"You'll be able to go longer when you develop your stamina, not while you're still working on it. Focus less on the result and more on the action itself."
"Shut up," Aquarius mumbled, mortified that he was right yet again.
"And start slowly, lest you repeat the same mistakes as-"
"I said, shut up!" But she did start with a jog around the Outpost, rather than heading straight for the gate. This proved to be harder than she'd anticipated. The ground in front of the Outpost itself was hard-packed and easy enough to run on, but as she turned, she could feel the sand shifting beneath her. Towards the back, her journey became less of a jog and more of a plod, as she pulled her feet out of holes they had made and plunged them into new ones. By the time she completed her circle- really more of a wobbly rectangle with a missing corner- she was already tired.
But that was too easy. There had to be something else she could do.
Exidor seemed to watch impassively, but he rose up when Aquarius started to run again. "What did I tell you about overexerting yourself?"
Answering would have taken more energy than she had to spare. And she supposed the guy had a point. Though she ran towards the gate, she turned back once she had reached it, and headed for the other one. That way, she would never be too far from her Outpost, and she could stop whenever she was ready to.
After three full laps from one gate to the other, she was more than ready to. She managed to brush the sand off of her feet- a pointless gesture, considering the amount that still coated the floors despite her best efforts- and go inside, falling onto her favorite lounge.
"How do you feel?"
Aquarius couldn't hear an insult in that question, but she was sure that the ghost was building up to one. "Fine."
"Really? Did you even think about it?"
Either he was criticizing her haste, or he wanted a serious answer. Possibly both. "Tired, I guess. Okay?"
"As tired as you were before?"
That took a moment to figure out, while Aquarius compared her current physical state to the way she had felt a few days ago. "No. Almost, but not quite. I'll probably be okay after I get some sleep."
"Good."
And surprisingly, Exidor was willing to leave it at that. Which was just as well, since with nothing else occupying her attention, Aquarius nodded off a few moments later.
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 3:55 pm
XVI
Building up stamina was slow, and tedious, and no more diverting than any of the other activities available to Aquarius in space. It was neither exciting nor particularly engaging after the first couple of days. Perhaps it was the lack of scenery; she kept within the gates, until she felt ready for a longer stretch, so most of what she saw was sand and stone. Or maybe it was the fact that nothing seemed to be happening. Whatever the cause, after the initial rush the idea of exercise had brought on, it soon became just another part of just another day.
The one nice thing about running was the blankness that tended to envelop her. Her body was so busy that her mind didn't have enough energy to function, so the chatter in her brain ceased. Exidor didn't come along on her jogs- though he could always show up out of the blue whenever she stopped for breath- so she didn't have to argue with him. It was blissfully quiet and peaceful while she ran, accompanied only by the sound of her own footsteps.
It was also a harsh reminder of how lonely she was, but those thoughts never occurred to her until after she came back in.
"Did you have a nice run?"
"S'kay," Aquarius mumbled, brushing the worst of the sand off of her feet. She was starting to develop calluses on her heels and the balls of her feet, which was probably for the best. As difficult as running on sand could be, the hard surface of the Surrounding road had been much worse on her poor soles.
She'd kept it to five laps, barely more than a warm-up, so that she could function after her run instead of falling asleep right away. There were several stacks of books on the long table in the atrium, organized by possible subject. And on the edge, a nearly-empty can of frosting. Aquarius scooped out a gob of it with her finger and put it in her mouth.
Exidor shuddered. "Not only is that unhygienic and unpleasant to watch, there cannot be any nutritional value in that substance."
"Maybe not, but it tastes good." She swallowed the rest and stuck her sugary tongue out at the ghost, who frowned and turned away. Content with her small victory, she turned back to the books.
There was a piece of paper on the top of the nearest stack. Not one that she had brought with her. This one was pristine, unlike the dogeared and faded notes she made and consulted on a daily basis. And it had a bright orange stamp on it, depicting a star rising out of a well.
To Sailor Aquarius of the Zodiac Court,
Hello?
Hvergelmir Page of the Cosmos
Aquarius could feel her heart beating faster as she read the letter again. Not that there was much to it; the names took up much more space than the message itself, but it was the sender that drew the most attention. She touched the picture lightly with her fingers, feeling the tiniest indents from where the stamp had met the paper.
"Laney..."
Exidor peered over Aquarius' shoulder. "It appears that someone is looking for you."
Though Aquarius' main goal had been to dissociate from her friends and allies, she was heartened by the letter. In a way, she would have been disappointed if Laney wasn't looking for her. It was unlikely that she could condemn a knight to a worse fate than having to awaken in the first place. While she still blamed herself for that, at least it meant there was one friend she could keep, despite the distance between them.
But why hadn't Laney figured it out? She had been to the Surrounding. She knew that the Outpost was a treasure trove of information, waiting for the key to unlock it. That Tara- no, Aquarius- would end up there was only logical. So why a letter instead of a visit?
For that matter, how had the letter gotten there at all? It hadn't been there when she went out for her run. In fact, she doubted it had been there when she took her icing break. So how could it just show up? And how could she send a reply? Aquarius felt around on the table for a pen. She had to send something to let Laney know everything was okay, and inviting her to come-
"Knights have their own means of communicating," Exidor interrupted. "You are not a knight."
Aquarius looked up sharply. "Is that your way of saying I can't write back?"
Exidor nodded. "But there are other ways of-"
"I'm not going back." That would make everything she had done, all the boredom she'd suffered and everything far worse, for nothing. She couldn't bear that. And Laney wouldn't want that for her. "She'll come." Her conviction was evident in her voice, which rang out strong and clear in the relative quiet of the Outpost. She tucked the letter into her sash and looked Exidor square in the eye. "It might take some time, but she'll come."
Aquarius had believed that for a year's worth of Wednesdays spent at Laney's bedside, under greater fears and more trying odds than these. She had no reason to stop believing now.
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 3:56 pm
XX
It was, she supposed, inevitable.
The good stuff ran out first: the fruit, the cake mix, the instant potatoes. If Aquarius had been able to take her time and do a proper shop for a trip to space, she would have chosen different foods to take. Granola bars would have been good. Pasta would have been great. Tea was something she had at home and simply hadn't thought to bring, and she was surprised by how much she missed it. It was hard to get started in the mornings without some sort of caffeine boost.
And then there was pizza. Man, she missed pizza.
But she survived without it, something Tara Kavanaugh never would have thought possible. She kept on eating canned ravioli and vegetables and beans long after she was tired of them, because the alternative was starvation. When supplies began to dwindle, she cut her rations, eating just one can a day, then half a can. This resulted in a necessary cut in her physical activity, since she just couldn't keep to her workout schedule with so few calories in her system.
And then the food ran out altogether, and Aquarius didn't know what to do.
"Go and get more before your body stops functioning altogether!" Exidor shouted at her. "Why is this even a question?"
"Because it's not like there's a space 7-Eleven I can stop by to stock my cabinets!" Aquarius shouted back. It was a dumb idea- she couldn't afford to waste energy- but Exidor had started it.
He threw his hands up in the air in response. "You didn't come all the way here just to die a slow and painful death. Did you?"
"Of course not!" But before that moment, she had never seriously considered that she could die. If she didn't change things, it was where she was headed, but how could she stop it?
"You stop it by getting what you need to live! You know where to go. So why don't you-"
"Because if I go back, I lose. I came here to finish things, and if I go back before I do, then I won't be able to. And then what's the point?"
Exidor was quiet for a moment. For a moment Aquarius thought she had gotten through to him. Which didn't really help her situation, but it was always nice to outwit herself.
"Get out."
"What?" Aquarius sat up, not sure she heard properly. "Exidor-"
"Get out!" This time he bellowed, his dark blue eyes practically flashing. "If you're not willing to take your life seriously, then you don't belong here. Find someplace else to hold your pity party. Or you could always decide to do what needs to be done to survive."
"Exidor-"
"Nothing else matters until you secure that. You can cry and scream, and it won't matter because you will be too dead to do anything else. And this time the cauldron won't give you another chance, because you squandered this one. Now, you can do what you're meant to do, or you can find someplace else to sulk, but either way, this is my home and I want you out of here. Now."
He was right. How was it that he was always right? What had she been thinking? "I was probably crazy from hunger," she said defensively.
"Was?"
And with that, Aquarius knew that everything would be okay. "Y'know, Exidor, if you were real I'd kiss you right now."
The ghost watched as she ran to the entrance hall, grabbing the now-empty duffel bag she had dragged in with her. "Then it's probably just as well I'm not real," he countered wryly.
Aquarius grinned, thumbed her nose at him, and vanished.
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