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The air was always cool, here in the dead of space -- whatever atmosphere held firm over the great well of Hvergelmir seemed to be absent weather or changes in temperature. Its origins were very likely more magical than physical -- an island that produced its own air not because it should, but because people needed to breathe it.

Hvergelmir and Zippeite arrived near the center of the island, on the steps that led from the ground up to the well on all sides. Far out to one end of the strange little landmass that was her island, a single, incredibly long pier reached out into the vastness of space, but she'd avoided landing them there. Whatever warnings she'd given, Hvergelmir remembered Zippeite's reaction to the last time she'd disappeared and reappeared, and didn't want to risk him stumbling backward and off the pier, or likewise shoving her forward off of it in a panic. Farther inland was better.

The well itself was just above the steps where they had landed -- at this distance, they could hear its soft burbling -- and above them, circling the well at the top of the dais where it stood, were the high Doric columns that pierced the sky, pristine in their white marble grandeur even after all the centuries they'd stood.

Distant in the opposite direction from the pier were the island's main other offerings -- the temple where Hvergelmir had lived, once upon a time, with its deteriorating stable around the back; and the empty plot where a garden had once grown, its once-thriving plants now all lost to time.

The main attraction, though, lay outside the island itself -- and her Wonder had been constructed to display it to its best effect. In all directions, the sky was absolutely brimming with countless stars; points of light glowed bright or faint everywhere the eye could see. Here, as close to the center of the galaxy as travelers were welcome, the sky looked nothing like Earth's best offering: the stars here were abundant, and the gravity of the galactic core held them close together -- to imagine inventing constellations in such a crush of twinkling lights would've been ridiculous.

"Okay," Hvergelmir said quietly, looking around herself with a small, maybe slightly satisfied smile. "You can open your eyes and let go. We're here."

This, right here. This moment.

This was the moment Hvergelmir was going to point to for the rest of her life and say: Yes. That was done well.

Hvergelmir had visited the Well a few times now -- but never had she felt pride in it like she had at this moment. It had previously been a source of tranquility, of a kind of spiritual rejuvenation for her, but this was the first time Hvergelmir could say she had used it for something. She'd taken the spectacular beauty of her island and used it to show an unhappy teenager that the universe was still full of incredible miracles. That was something worth doing.

"Not too bad, right?" she said, watching him continue to revel in the experience for a while longer. She fixed those images in her brain. This was how she wanted to think about Zippeite from now on: happy. Just happy.

Eventually, just to fill up space, she added, "Right now we're actually pretty close to the center of the galaxy -- so a long way away from Earth. That's the galactic core, that way -- where the stars are really thickly clustered and extra bright." She pointed off in the direction she meant. "I've never brought anyone here before -- you're my first tourist."

Hvergelmir shook her head, mounting the handful of steps to the fountain and sitting along its smooth, marble edge. Maybe if she sat down, she thought, it would help calm his nerves. Zippeite was keyed up again, his eyes already flickering and wary.

"It takes a ton of energy," she answered, drifting a hand in the water of the well behind her. She could feel the faint power of it tingling in her fingertips. "It's about three weeks before I can work up the power to make the jump the next time. Higher level knights don't wipe out so hard -- they bounce back in, like, a week." She shrugged. "I guess you'd think maybe Earth knights could manage it more often, since they're not jumping halfway across the galaxy every time they go, but who knows why it doesn't work that way."

Hvergelmir looked away, into the pool, watching the reflected stars surge and dip on its surface. "I can remember things, sometimes, when I'm here -- like from another lifetime. Like déjà vu. A little more comes back every time."

Hvergelmir's panic level immediately started to rise to where Zippeite's was. She was going too fast with him -- this was all falling apart, it was no good. He was digging in his heels, and soon, her frightful mind told her, soon she'd lose him for good. He didn't want to hear any of this. One revelation -- that senshi and knights had whole worlds in space that they could go to, just by thinking about it -- was enough. A whole slew of revelations seemed to terrify him.

She winced and looked down at her hands, twiddling her thumbs for some way to answer that wasn't either no, there's no such thing as reincarnation or yes, reincarnation is totally a thing!, but somehow managed to prevent her from losing any ground with him.

When Hvergelmir looked up again, she could see the bright pinpricks off in the distance that signified the far-off location of the Galaxy Cauldron.

"Let me ask you something," she began slowly. "What is a starseed?"

"Okay, so -- "

Hvergelmir had been going along a little bit of a path with that question. The starting point was supposed to be Zippeite's question about reincarnation, and the ending point was meant to be him accepting the possibility that it was a thing that really did happen. Unfortunately, she was abruptly sidetracked.

One hand rose to her mouth in alarm, the other one clenched a handful of fabric at the front of her dress like she was afraid she might be sick. (She was, in fact, a little afraid she might be sick.) Her eyes betrayed her further, wide with horror.

"S-sorry," she said in a whispery voice, "when you what?!"

The longer Zippeite spoke, the more horrified Hvergelmir felt. All she could do, while he went on with his explanation of how it was less time consuming and like Mountain Dew and some people got addictions, was shake her head back and forth at him.

No, no, no. He couldn't be serious, he.... they couldn't really be making their soldiers eat them?!

They couldn't...

When Zippeite finally dropped off, finally suggested they head back to Earth, she stared at him for a few long seconds. Whatever precious, happy moment she'd been able to offer him in bringing him here, things had taken an unpleasant turn. There was no option of salvaging the mood now, no chance of turning things light-hearted. She frowned.

"Do you see that bright light, off in the distance, just there? The star a little brighter than the rest?" she asked, voice soft, pointing to the brightest side of the sky, where the absolute galactic center lay. "That's called the Galaxy Cauldron -- and this temple is the closest you can get to it without permission from Sailor Cosmos and her senshi. That's where starseeds are born -- and it's where they go again when we die, until we're ready to be reborn in new lives." Hvergelmir lowered her arm back to her side. "A starseed's not just a little wad of energy. It's every lifetime a person will ever have."

She put out her hand. He was right -- it was better to go back.