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Babylon gasped as they emerged from the staircase. He didn't know when it had happened, but mistral had clearly been busy if she had the skylight cleared. He broke away from his group and ran across the lobby, the pain in his ribs deadened by his excitement and the lingering effects of the pollen. He wanted to hug her. He wanted to hug her more than he wanted anything else in the world.

"Mistral!" he cried, embracing her. "Mistral!" Babylon sank to his knees, his head resting against her stomach. "It's okay. It's okay. We- we made it."

He pointed to the group mounting the top of the stairs. "Most of us, anyway," he added, looking up towards the skylight.

"Hey," he said, focusing on a bright point in the foothills. "You can see Babylon from here."

Babylon lifted his head out of Mistral's head after a moment, having decided that this probably looked kind of unseemly now that more people were arriving, and settled onto the bench beside her. "Don't let the skylight fool you," he said to Niflhel as the other knight approached. "We're underground right now."

He never got tired of these flowers, though - sometimes he was even curious if they'd grow in soil on earth, but they were so obviously magical... or at least alien.

Pointing to the bright blue spot in the foothills, Babylon said, "Do you see that over there? That's my city." The great blue barrier obscured the individual lights. "We could walk there from here if we wanted to." He sort of wanted to. "The first time we came to Mistral, we actually walked from Babylon and had to dig the entrance out of the snow."

"I actually think I might head over there once we finish up here," he decided. "If anyone wants to come with."

Hvergelmir's pleasant sense of fond reverie gradually faded as she ascended the stairs out of the labyrinth. She remembered her twisted ankle, and Cove's fearful bravery, and Degrasse's desperate pleas, and their group splintering apart. By the time she cleared the stairwell, she felt somber again.

It was good, honestly: Mistral looked ragged, and obviously hadn't had a moment of pleasant, drug-induced relief like they had. It would be cruel and embarrassing to show up radiating sunshine.

Hvergelmir crossed to where she sat, limping slightly to favor her injured ankle. "You did promise to show me your city," she said to Babylon, by way of agreement. "Fair's fair."

Then, setting the device piece carefully in Mistral's hands, Hvergelmir told her, "I don't think anyone believes you would've sent us if you'd known."

Babylon was hesitant to ask Mistral how the other groups had made out: he didn't see any of them here yet, and the scene on the intercom had sounded grim. They'd lost two from their group - what if worse had happened to the other exploration teams? He was almost certain that worse had happened.

"We should wait around for a bit," he said, "See if anyone else wants to go." And Mistral wasn't in any shape to make the trip right now, although he wasn't sure how to tell her so. Maybe she'd already reached the conclusion on her own.

"And you all need to finish drying off," he added. Mimisbrunnr and Niflhel were dressed for the weather, but he planned to give Hvergelmir his cape if they were going to go. "It's about a thirty minute hike," he said, "And it's cold." This being Mercury's night side and all that.

"I've got no idea where Mimisbrunnr is," he said, "But we could go there sometime and figure it out." Mercury wasn't a big planet, but it wasn't tiny, either - the chances of there being three wonders within walking distance of each other were slim.

He turned to Babylon, "I'd love to travel there, though if Mistral needs help with these and she wants I may send a note along to Snowball so he knows where to meet her. I'm sure he'd be happy to keep her company." He looked back to Mistral wondering if that'd help any. "Come to think of it, if there's a lot of snow outside of this -- Sowball'd probably love to come visit here sometime. It'd likely remind him a little bit of Polaris' homeworld."

Niflhel looked up as Sarras appeared and snarled, the Knight didn't move but he was watching the page for indications he was going to swing at Mistral, in which case Niflhel would have to stop him.

"Well I think we're still waiting on one group, Obviously everyone's had it a bit rough." He was even toned hoping to drag any anger that Sarras had towards him, "I'm sure they'll be along soon."

Hvergelmir blinked in surprise at the wet nose snuffling at her hand -- then, discerning that it was, in fact, a dog (of the Earth kind, not the, errr, alien kind, as far as she could tell), she smiled even in spite of the situation and crouched down to give the animal some proper affection. "Oh, hello, little buddy!" she said, even though the buddy in question was in fact quite a substantial amount of dog. "How're you doing, precious baby? Are you good? Are you a good puppy?"

It felt nice to be able to tackle a simple problem -- an animal in want of affection and stable energy (at least one of which two things she could provide). And it wasn't the dog's fault it wasn't sufficiently traumatized by the deaths of Degrasse and Cove -- after all, it wasn't like the dog knew. All it could tell was that something was wrong and people were unhappy.

After a few minutes, there were new footsteps on the stairs, and from them, two more people finally emerged. Sarras, first, and then, behind him, equally bloody, an Earth knight that Hvergelmir didn't recognize.

She was relieved to see Sarras, but -- he looked as despondent as she'd ever seen him. His words to Mistral were tense; and then, Niflhel was speaking, trying to get him to deflect his attention away from Mistral and onto the Saturn knight. It was admirable, but she wondered if describing the senseless deaths of their comrades as a bit rough was a bit much. Hoping to avert another scene like the one they'd had down below between Kairatos and Babylon -- especially since she really didn't think she could handle that right now -- she stood up from where she'd been petting Mistral's dog and moved to put herself in the Cosmos page's line of sight.

"Sarras!" she said, looking up at him. And then -- with a sudden, genuine feeling of dizzy relief, because there was the very real possibility that this was it, they were the last two knights left in the universe wearing the Cosmos star, and that was still better than the possibility of being the very last -- she threw her arms around his neck in a tight hug. Her blood-streaked face was buried in his blood-soaked shoulder, and she said, "Thank God you're okay."

Sarras cast the Saturn knight a classic 'who are you and why do I even care' look when he put himself in between himself and Mistral, and his entire ordeal simply left him too raw to even try to remotely act civil about it. If Nifhel's goal was to drawn his aggression away from Mistral, if even for a brief moment, then it was a success, and Sarras let the words fly without thought or care to who heard him or who would be upset. Right now, he simply didn't care...

"Obviously? Obviously? A grand master of observation there- obviously because everyone here had it rough, that means that the six knights I just watched get slaughtered by her-" He pointed to Mistral with bloodied fingers, then lowered it back to his side before he could lash out or strike her. "-walking-talking murder puppet means absolutely nothing and that I just need to sit down and enjoy the ******** scenery? Right?"

He glanced around himself, all of the beauty and marvel of this place was ruined, and he carried on, not seeing Hvergelmir's approach as he tugged at his own bloodied tunic for Mistal to see. "Take a good look, Mistral. Take a good long look... I heard your voice in there- you watched all of it, didn't you? You remember their names and faces! You remember ALL of them, because all of this is-"

He hadn't see Hvergelmir's approach until she screamed in his ear and flung herself on him, and despite his boiling rage, his nerves from the recent catastrophe on the sixth level made him flinch and only when he was certain that it was, in fact, Hvergelmir and not that damned puppet did he let out a shaky, ragged breath. The way she hugged him was a little uncomfortable to him, but what really got him was the fact that she hugged him in the first place... they had only met once, but he had pictured her to be far stronger in nature and possessing steely nerves when it came to facing down fiercer youma. She didn't seem the type to... cling like this. What was worse that, when he turned his head to look at her, the blood he saw her on elegant white dress and her face... was it from hugging him, or had she...?

"Gel... Gel, don't..." He didn't want the embrace and it had nothing to do with being a macho man. He didn't want to make it worse for her. As disgusting as it was, he didn't want to lose any of that blood, or anger that he had held onto. Anger was the only thing keeping him moving right now, and she was going to try and take that away from him? He wouldn't allow it! He could have pushed her off, but he didn't want to hurt her. What a damn dilemma this was. "Gel, I'm alright, so please... just..."