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Alphonse had spent the last three days in bed. Each morning, one after the other, he had shunned the light of day. He could not bring himself to leave for anything - not after what happened.

It was true that the boy had tried to process it the best he could, but his best was just not good enough. There was no explaining the strange encounter and the change that had occurred in him. If he closed his eyes, he would see the image again as if in a dream and he had yet to discover if that dream would turn into a nightmare.

There was no avoiding the harsh light of the rising sun now. Last night had been the most beautiful moon in a long time and it had been oddly comforting as if maybe, just maybe, he could lay like this forever and a vision would eventually come. But the morning sun was a constant reminder that there was still no answer.

Alphonse felt naked as he walked streets he had been down all his life as if he were a sleepwalker. He felt a burning in his chest that he couldn't pin down. What if it happened again?

Without meaning to, Alphonse had found his way to the main street of Destiny City. He recalled that when he first came here as a child he had always loved watching the sunrise as it crested over the horizon and lit up the sky. Perhaps this is why he found himself drawn to this place now.

This was the last place the sun seemed to catch in its glow as it ascended into the sky to take the place of the moon.

Alphonse stopped in the middle of it all as the light caught his amber eyes and he gazed right back into its gleaming light.

✪

Alphonse has known every kind of emotion in his life. From a young age, he had always felt things at a deeper level. Why could he not process his feelings now?

Suddenly, he did feel something... like, for once, Alphonse was not the only one gazing blindly at the sun and thinking strange thoughts.

It was the slightest feeling of unease. Like another presence in a room that should be empty. Like being watched by some spirit you couldn't see.

Alphonse looked over his shoulder. He didn't want to seem frightened. He wasn't even sure anything was there, after all. The light was playing its tricks.

But the boy did, if only for a moment, see a figure in the distance.

The man was dressed in armor with a sword and shield. A cape blew in the wind behind him. A glint of gold glimmered in the sunlight. It was an unusual sight as the sun rose behind him.

Perhaps he was imagining things. The person his eyes told him he saw was much better suited for the pages of a fairytale than here. But there the man was.

Alphonse stood still, clearly staring at the figure, lost in thought. The image from his dream - the woman in the lavender cape - and the one he had briefly seen when he had first transformed reminded him of the man.

One in gold and in the sunlight, the other in lavender and in moonlight.

The similarities couldn't have been coincidence, could they?

He didn't want them to be.

He felt a stirring in his chest. A faint glow barely perceivable. And then a blinding light and the golden incense burner was before him again. Had he really managed to summon it again?

The boy held the object in outstretched hands and felt the sensation wash over his body. The feeling of warmth. The sound of bells. The color of starlight.

Had anyone seen him transform? He was afraid to open his eyes.

✪

Eyes still shut, the boy felt a strange presence next to him. How he knew, he did not know.

There was now a man standing next to Erytheia. It was the same man he had seen in the sunlight a ways away. The new feeling he felt was certainly coming from him. But what was it exactly?

Erytheia was still squinting a bit as if still afraid to entirely open his eyes lest something bad should happen. He was a bit surprised to find the man staring at him with a slightly confused expression as well.

"I - I... powered up." He spoke shakily as if testing the words. "Transformed."

Erytheia glanced down and then back up as if to be absolutely sure he had.

"I am not in any danger," he replied when he finally fully opened his eyes after a long pause.

"At least, I don't think so."

✪

The feeling was warm, earthy. It was the man's aura he had felt. That was certain now.

Erytheia wondered if he, too, had an aura.

He wasn't quite sure of anything right now.

He had really managed to transform! He almost turned away and blushed. He had done so in public and in front of another person, no less. It didn't quite matter that he hadn't thought it would actually work.

Camelot, Royal Knight of Earth.

The boy had a name like that as well. One he had known as he had first transformed. One he knew belonged to him and only him.

"Erytheia of Cosmos."

A sudden wellspring of assurance ran through his body as he said his name. It was if he had not quite owned it before now.

The question had come to his mind quickly as if he always wanted to ask it. When he spoke, it was quite different than he had spoken previously. It was less hesitant and unsure. It was urgent like if he did not say it now he never would and would always be alone.

"What does it mean to be a knight?"

This man before him claimed to be a knight. Was that what he was too? Was that what had happened to him? Had he turned into someone else entirely? And was the knight of Earth before him the same?

Perhaps he was not so alone, after all.

✪

A knight was a protector of something sacred. Erytheia thought that rather beautiful.

To protect the world, his home and Order. It seemed like the legends of old. He couldn't help but picture another time when magic was real and myth was reality.

But this was now. Today, he was a protector of something. But Camelot had said that he was of Earth.

Yet Erytheia was a protector of Cosmos. What did that mean?

"What is Cosmos, exactly? And what are senshi and the White Moon?"

These were things he had not heard of before - not even in stories.

✪

Erytheia was not a knight of this planet, but another. What kind of place could that be?

The page frowned as he thought it all over. He wasn't quite ready for it.

"War...?" He paused before continuing as if it were a battlefield he was about to unwittingly enter if he asked.

"Who are the Negaverse and where do they come from?"

So we are of Order and the White Moon, Erytheia thought pensively. He barely realized that he was now thinking in terms of something bigger than himself.

✪

Cosmos. Senshi of the White Moon. The Negaverse and Chaos.

It was all so new to him, but he now had a duty to fulfill. An oath to uphold.

Alphonse was now a knight of Cosmos.

He mused over what the royal knight had said even after the two had parted ways.

Destiny had its own plan for him now.

✪