Welcome to Gaia! ::

There were never enough chances to see Ida. Never enough outings.

Hvergelmir arrived promptly, finding Ida already there waiting for her on a park bench. She looked beautiful and far off, like some queen surveying a large territory -- and Hvergelmir was overcome, as usual, by the desire to kiss her. She wanted to soothe the troubles from her furrowed brow.

She bent to do just that.

Her fingers smoothed long, dark bangs out of the way. Beneath them, Ida's symbol glowed bright across her forehead; Hvergelmir pressed her lips to it in greeting.

"Penny for your thoughts," she offered, straightening once more. "You look like you're somewhere very far away."

Ida smelled good. She always smelled good -- and being this close to her made even outdoor, open areas feel warm and cozy. It was a good place to stay, and Hvergelmir rarely drew back from a hug first.

"Things are good with us," she said. "Really good. We've been studying a lot, and if everything goes well, we'll be able to take our exams soon. The apartment's been a little cramped with our new friend staying with us -- but it's good. We've been having fun. We got some old board games from the thrift shop and we've been playing a lot of Mall Madness and Mystery Date. How's school?" she asked, with her chin resting comfortably on Ida's shoulder.

With one hand tucked around Ida's arm, Hvergelmir brought the other hand up to cradle beneath the pack of water bottles Ida was carrying, helping her shoulder a portion of the weight. It made for a nice excuse to stay close as could be, her body turned inward toward Ida's -- and she liked the idea of helping, even if Ida didn't exactly need it for such a simple task.

What mattered was letting Ida know that Hvergelmir was always there for her, to help her and share her burdens, even in the smallest ways. Little gestures could mean so much to someone who was convinced that they weren't special.

"I'm ready," she affirmed, "and at your disposal for the rest of the day. You just lead the way."

She waited for Ida to take them up to her asteroid, watching her process. It was a little different for senshi than for knights.

"July?" she echoed, returning to an earlier topic. "So soon? That's amazing -- I'm impressed."

Hvergelmir shook her head at the offer. "No, I'm fine, thanks." She looked around, watching the way the sun shone across the landscape here on Ida's private asteroid. "It's always so beautiful here," she said. "I wish . . . My Wonder only had a small garden, but it's never shown any signs of coming back to life. I don't know if it ever will. I wonder if it's because the plants there were never native to it in the first place."

She loved her Wonder -- but it was hard not to look over to the dead patch of land on the far side, and remember sitting among the flowers and bushes with Eikthyrnir once long ago. It was hard to see it all as just so much dead soil.

Then again, she didn't have the bond with her Wonder like Ida had with her asteroid. The marks on her skin -- transcendence. She couldn't really expect the same results.

"I like it here," she said -- then looked back. "I like how you look when you're here."

Hvergelmir let herself be led, trusting Ida's knowledge of her homeworld to steer them both true. In her mind, she was unconsciously charting the walkways and paths, tucking the information away with care in the vast recesses of her memory -- but the moment she noticed herself doing it, she thought: Well, that's kind of a silly waste of memory, isn't it? It's not very likely I'll ever need to find my way around on my own -- not when I can't get here without Ida.

It didn't matter. She processed and stored the information anyway.

She'd never truly had it in her to just let information fall by the wayside --even seemingly superfluous information.

"I'd love to see how well plants from here do at my Wonder," she agreed. "And some from Earth, to, for comparison. I know Babylon has plants . . . I wonder if Thraen, maybe...? I mean, you'd think, right? Gardens? You kind of hate to think of just a big sad ball of dirt floating out in space." Hvergelmir frowned briefly.

She waited to see the state of what Ida had tried to tell her she wanted to see. It was one thing to hear about it in vague terms, and another to see it for herself. And while Hvergelmir wasn't sure there was much help that she could offer in this particular situation, she did still want to get a first-hand view. Then, whether Ida liked it or not, maybe she could try reaching out to some other people for their opinions.

Ida was always too keen on carrying her burdens herself. Hvergelmir was grateful she was being offered even the smallest inroads into Ida's confidences -- but it still felt like it was only the barest start. She needed to learn that people would help her, if she let them.

"It'll feel safe again," Hvergelmir promised. "We'll work out what's going on eventually. Remember, this place has survived for thousands of years -- she's very old and very strong."

Hvergelmir shook her head consolingly. "That was a difficult time," she said. "I'm sure he knew it would be hard for you -- he understood enough to know you ought to be told personally, so . . . I'm sure he understands why you might have needed some time to deal with that before you'd be comfortable dredging up old feelings again. He's been dealing with it too, so -- maybe it didn't even occur to him that so much time had gone by, either." She squeezed Ida's hand where it had squeezed tight against her own. "No one thinks anyone else is flippant here, sweetie, it's okay."

Hvergelmir wasn't yet sure what was wrong with Ida's world (other than what Ida had described), but she didn't think putting Ida in an insecure, unhappy mood would help them tackle the problem. She was agitated enough as it was -- she could do with some reassurance.

"I haven't met Shangri-la or Maia yet," she said brightly, doing her best to turn to this new topic with enthusiasm. "Will you introduce me? I'd love to meet your friends."

She wanted to focus on that -- on something upbeat and casual and positive -- not on the possibility that the Chaos infection from whatever had happened with a tree on Maia's homeworld had perhaps spread to Ida in some way.

Then she saw it. The way the sky, once so vibrant, gave way to bleak gray. Her eyes widened, a little.

They drew closer, and Hvergelmir followed the dark-haired girl down another pathway . . . and there, at the end of the path, things opened up into a proper grove town. The place looked blasted, dead and foreboding.

Hvergelmir did her best to temper her expression into something calm, and not to squeeze Ida's hand. She didn't want to worry her further. "Well," she said evenly, "we'll brainstorm together. Have you searched the rest of the asteroid, too, to see what else might've changed? Anything -- bad or good."

Hvergelmir raised their twined fingers to her mouth and kissed Ida's knuckles. "It's okay," she said. "We've still got lots of time to figure this out, and plenty of resources to try looking into. Let's just take a minute, maybe take stock of our inventory. You know this place really well," she offered, because sometimes it was important just to remind people of their assets. "And the more you work at it, the more you'll remember about your world. That helps us. I know it a lot less . . . but maybe we can get our bearings."

She looked around, her eyes scanning outward to find the hard curve of the horizon line. Ida was a small world -- but that could be an advantage, perhaps. "There must be maps of this world somewhere, or a globe," she said. "Try to think of where we could find one. That would help us start."

Power collector, she thought. That was an interesting concept. Maybe something that had gone into overdrive, and was somehow draining the whole land around it? She didn't know enough about Idan technology -- and she didn't want to hazard that theory yet, without knowing more. "What do you mean by 'reacted'?" she asked. "What happened?"