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It wasn't often that lower-ranked order auras moved towards Astrophyllite. She'd noticed this one about ten minutes ago - the twinkling starlight made her think it was Hvergelmir, but then another moment's consideration proved her wrong. It felt more like a page, if her familiarity with Colchis was anything to go by, and it was sweet and cold like wispy cirrus clouds on a winter day. Surely it belonged to a Cosmos knight... but not one she'd ever met before.

And then, as she considered the aura, it turned and moved towards her.

Astrophyllite froze for a moment, and then she evaluated her situation. She was not doing anything wrong. She didn't have her hand in anyone's chest - she was just minding her own business, and surely no one would begrudge her that, right? So she sat up straight on top of the HVAC tubing she was perched on, smoothed out the front of her coat, and waited.

That didn't stop the page from circling the building and coming up behind her, unfortunately. Astrophyllite spun awkwardly on her rear, kicking her legs over the vent, her composure ruined. It was a cosmos page to be sure, and younger than she herself had been when Zinkenite recruited her. (How young could a page be?)

(She was reminded of Camlann, and his rants about the evils of cats who created chibi senshi.)

"Yes?" asked Astrophyllite, straightening out her skirt again. More French, she thought. Do I look like someone who speaks French?

"I don't like to hurt people," said Astrophyllite, and it was all well and good and perfectly fine to pretend that she was an innocent fairy princess and hopefully not turn this into a fight. An experienced knight would know it was a lie, that no matter how careful she was in pulling her quotas, she was stealing time from people. The tiredness might fade, but if Camlann was right - and she had no reason not to trust what he'd told her when he was Melanite - then she was cutting their lives short.

"I'm going home soon," she answered. She'd turned in her quota already, and she didn't think she needed to start on next week's yet - she'd gotten so used to collecting for Melanite as well that it still seemed easy to meet her needs, even all these months since his departure."I'm fine. I just came up here to look at the stars."

There was a wonder out there for her. Somewhere. She swallowed dryly.

"That's a pretty name," she said. "I'm Captain Astrophyllite."

Of nothing, currently, she thought. It was a sore spot.

Astrophyllite flinched. Mignon, she thought. She knew what it meant now, but she still didn't like having it thrown around. If she let it continue, it would only make her feel dumb. "Please," she said, "Stop speaking French. You're translating the idioms, so you assumed I don't speak it. You're just showing off."

She wasn't smart. She got it. But people who knew they were smart and wanted to show it off were obnoxious. "It's hard being a Negaverser," she said, answering the question anyway. "People give you orders. You have to fill quotas. You think mean thoughts that you don't want to think. If anyone ever asks you to join, tell them to go kick rocks. You're in a good position where you are. You're a Wonder. They'll make you a rock and tell you it's a promotion but it's not."

God, she thought. Why was Hyperborea so happy? It had to be ignorance, she figured. A rookie knight, only a few nights out of the gate... "Anyone tries to make you join," she said. "you kick them in the balls and you run. It's not worth it."

Astrophyllite set her mouth into a careful line, trying to hide that she was uncomfortable with this line of questioning. "Well, good for you," she said. "You're lucky that your magic found you before the Negaverse did. It could have just as easily been switched around. I could have been you and you could have been me." Let Hyperborea go home and have nightmares about that, about her pretty little dress turned into a lieutenant's coat. Was Astrophyllite bitter? Certainly. Zinkenite and Bischofite had said they were giving her power, and all they'd done was corrupt what was already inside her, what would have come out naturally on its own in another few months or a year.

Maybe, if she'd never taken out the garbage that night, she would already be a knight, instead of having to go through this hell.

She thought she had every right to be bitter, and that Hyperborea's question was silly and naïve. "Because I didn't know they were bad," she said. "They've got an awfully nice sales pitch and I didn't have anyone older and smarter looking out for me like I'm trying to do for you." (She'd decided that, despite the French thing, she was smarter than Hyperborea, even though she seldom considered herself smarter than anyone.)

"And now they've got me and it's not that easy," she sighed, picking at the hem of her coat. "They can summon me from anywhere. Do bad stuff to me that I can't escape. Kicking someone in the balls and running would just get me summoned and... and fed to a youma or turned into a monster or something."

She doubted that Hyperborea knew the first thing about purification based on this line of questioning. "How long have you been a page for?" she asked.

Astrophyllite gritted her teeth. "Twelve days?" she asked. "Find some friends or quit now. No one will hold it against you if you never power up again, if you're so scared. You have that option. No one's asking you to fill quotas. No one's going to summon you when you don't play along." Of course she knew what she would do if she were a knight - she'd go to her wonder, and she'd be with her friends, and she'd have magic that came from herself and not from anyone else and she wouldn't have to be scared anymore.

"I know how to get out," she said. Purification, that distant dream that she'd been pursuing for months, since she'd first made Captain. "I'm working on it. I have a plan and when it's ready I'm going to go through with it and then I'll be free."

But she'd made the younger girl cry, and Astrophyllite got up from her seat on the AC housing. She felt a little bit bad about that - but only a little. "I was little and stupid when I joined," she said, cupping the page's cheek in her hand. Was this how Avalon had looked at her, she wondered, when she'd cried after her reassignment? Dispassionately, trying to muster a little bit of pity for a tiny, crying thing? "But you're not as stupid as I was, and they need a General Queen or King to turn you, and there aren't that many. Anyone gets ahold of you, they'll have to call someone first. You kick them. You break their hand. You bite. You run away and you power down and you hide. They can't feel you then."

They probably wouldn't even want you, she thought darkly. You're so little and young and weak. They hardly wanted me.

Astrophyllite cringed, dropping her hand from Hyperborea's face. "Maybe," she said. "But you shouldn't make friends with Chaos. The stuff I told you about being corrupted, it only works if you don't want to go. If you make too many friends on this side, you won't even realize what's happening before they have you. Maybe you'll even go willingly. Maybe you'll even beg."

I am perfect and pure in Metallia's service, she thought, and quieted it. It was a lie. A pretty little falsehood she told herself when she needed to be reassured. If Hyperborea was lucky, she wouldn't ever even learn those words.

"Maybe I'll remember meeting you," she said, "When I'm good. Maybe I won't. We can see about being friends then. Right now, you should go home. It's getting late, and soon the monsters will come out."

She would know. She'd released them.