Backdated: August 1st, 2015
Drake stepped off the plane, wincing as his legs attempted to learn how to move again after eighteen hours in a cramped chair. The air of Destiny City flooded his nose – a bit of magic, a tad of smog, and the flora of summer – and he let out a sigh. Two months he’d been gone, since that dance where he’d found Failyn’s cousin. More than that since she’d gone missing entirely. He’d expected two months studying abroad in Japan would have brushed her from his mind entirely, yet the smells of his home brought it all back.
Failyn was gone. Mintaka was gone. His only friend and close companion was gone.
He walked through the airport, long braid swinging behind him like a tail. A part of him knew he had to accept it, that she was gone. He knew it wasn’t his fault, not really. She was strong enough to have told him off if he came on to her. Regardless of the fact that Drake didn’t feel that way about, well, anyone much less her, if she’d felt uncomfortable something would have been said. The way she’d suddenly vanished didn’t make sense for him to have scared her off, either. In all his notes, in all his research none of it had made sense.
She wasn’t the first to vanish like this, of course. May other people had simply gone missing over the years in Destiny City, or shown up as tombstones without explanation. He wondered how many of those had been people of one side or the other, who decided to change their allegiances or simply got caught in the middle of the war. It was hard to find information on either, to be honest. The war was kept mum, even with in-depth Google searching. So many unanswered questions for those close to the person…
Drake frowned, pulling his bags from the conveyer belt. Being in Japan had been almost like being in a different reality. No monsters to fight, no nightly patrols as a senshi. No magic. Just textbooks, field trips and lots of notes. It was such a striking difference, that he’d almost powered up when he remembered his pen was still in the States. Back among the buildings of Destiny City though… He couldn’t ignore it.
Sometimes he wished he could. Sometimes he wished he’d never been awaked by a talking cat. Things were so much simpler when all he worried about were his grades, and college. Did he even have a future now? Did senshi have real lives, even? Or did they hope to get through college and find some paying job to try to get through, just so they weren’t homeless? Did they have dreams, goals, desires? Or did all them just want to move to their home worlds and live out their days there?
He met his father outside the terminal with one very sobering thought on his mind.
What did he want to do with his life?
[WC: 500
