Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was a singular text over his tablet that went out — followed by the gentlest of tugs on Kamacites familiar sunny form. An invitation. Not a demand. He’d never demand anything of this one.

“Sylvite betrayed us—” Prehnite sighed into the ether, scrubbed long fingers through short pastel strands; let them fall heavily into his lap, useless things they were.

Sylvite had betrayed them all. Which meant? That Jet was going to take his head —- of this he was sure. “and I just—“ well ********, that he couldn’t get it together enough to get more then a single sentence free unhampered by heedlessly snotty emotions.

His huffed his hesitation into the breeze, shed the cloak of Generalhood like some weighty thing, trailed on, oh how he could ramble even without a captive audience before him.

“You’re a very kind person Kamacite. I thought it’d be nice to spend some time with you.” to discuss nothing of great importance at all, to snivel like a kicked dog in the privacy of a grotto — Slates grave was the only thing that ever had been worthy of his tears. He wouldn’t waste them, precious bits of salt that they were, on anything or anyone else.

He would sit there though, as Reed, perched on cold marble bound in ivy, and kick his heels over freshly spawned grass blades — admire the clean headstone molded into the Earth; wondering if the was the last of a dying breed.

Waiting for a reply.

Silent as a sunbeam creeping through the canopy, Reed faulted himself for being so in his own head that he hadn’t even noticed Yuuri’s approach — flinched errantly — and then folded like dough into the unasked of hug.

It was actually rather nice…

If he shut his brain off for just a second or two. Shut his mouth and hummed sadly into the comfortable cocoon of silence. Yuuri was soft down and — cotton? Wool? He couldn’t’ve decided if the weather was yet too warm for sweaters, absently realized that he didn’t ******** care.

If he should find Jet, apologize earnestly, and ask the all important question of ‘What the ******** do we do!’ Put it on the poor King to make call’s that, on their face, should’ve been easy…

No, it was easy to say, but to do? To recapture a Princess - to hunt Sylvite down? This wasn’t some impulsive act of purification in the midst of battle, no, it had to have been planned.

One didn’t simply free a Princess on a whim. How could she have done this to them — it wasn’t fair!!

“How’ve you been, Yuuri?” a sighed ask, soft as a feather, he found he couldn’t look up; was ever so careful of where he laced his fingers in the bunched fabric and just — held fast a little while longer..

The hug was very nice after all…and Yuuri never pressed for sounds.

How incredibly thoughtful, and Reed could've laughed - did - some half aborted choke of sound around a slow forming smile. Here Yuuri didn't know him from Adam, not really, and yet?

Such an offer...

The shy man was an absolute ray of sunshine, tucked away amidst all the chaotic sort of turmoil their organization embodied, and surely he deserved better. Especially as an outstanding example of 'why' Reed found he liked Senshi best; even faced with all the magical unknowns and vast chasm between them as mere humans and they as literal 'star beings'.

"I don't know if anything can be 'done', truly," slumped and sullenly resigned, because he knew whatever happened next wouldn't be immediate. What they'd done? What Jet' and the others had accomplished through sacrifice and luck? Happenings that'd all been years in the works! "but if you don't mind me whining to you, just for a moment?"

"I'm sure you've noticed our Rapunzel is absent her holding place, and we've an insider to thank for it." he hoped Yuuri didn't mind, but he'd never complained of his incessant prose before...or maybe that was just a 'yet?' "It hurts worse that Sylvite was someone I..The Queen...trusted," and that was an easier lie to tell. To shunt his own feelings aside and place that sense of 'betrayal' as something to hold on Laurelites behalf, "and now...It is a very tough thing, you know? To swallow my pride and apologize for believing in her." That she was better than them in some ways, escaped of their scars and biases, loyal, kind, deserving!

It wasn't fair. Least of all that he was being utterly childish, so as to whine over it like some great loss. It was nothing. There was no reason at all to miss her, or be angry, or -- when Slate left them he hadn't felt so betrayed! But this? It was different enough that it hurt in some fresh new way.

That little reminder got a smile for the way Yuuri offered solace so simply, like it was a thing second nature to him. Reed only wished he was better at doing the same. He couldn't relay that much of his malingering upset came from the fact that he'd dared to go after Jet blindly, out of misplaced rage; that little interoffice incident? He would take to his grave.

The rest - was it that his ego was nicked? That he'd fallen for her simple sincerity and bubbly joy like a sack of bricks, figured himself so astute and personally disconnected from the rest that he'd never be close enough to any of the others for that to matter. Not to him. Then he'd let his guard down n gone out on a limb over something personal, just to have it all flung up in his face with her leaving...If she remembered an iota of what'd happened before -- no -- even if she didn't? Sylvite needed to die.

"Yes, she did," the words leaden as the feeling in his hands where they wrung in his lap. Like a cage for thoughts, because what remained of Sylvite in the aftermath of what would surely come? They would keep - somehow that seemed right - to fill a hall with the starseeds of traitors encased in glowing stone caskets as nice gentle reminders; that once meant forever meant always. Just because she'd made a wrong choice? Surely that didn't mean what she'd done before didn't deserve to be honored in some way. The very idea of it felt contentious though, all thought's he would've rather been rid of, yet couldn't help but continue to turn over in his mind and pen onto paper and speak outright. "And maybe that will earn her a space here? Think I could fit a few plots in this place--a quarter of an acre is a lot of land to do things with. Between Iolanthe's moonlit walks and the occasional Valencian foraging about? This place might find itself full up." some macabre mix of living and dead in one, but wasn't that how nature was meant to be? Not curated to any sort of pristine cleanliness, or cut from the ties of times toll. It was old oaks and young saplings, the decay of the old and passed leaking nutrients into the soil to feed the new and still growing.

"But, that is -- it's all absolutely dismal to consider. In truth? I've been wanting to delve more into my own projects. Which, that also had me thinking of you? You are ever a bit of sun amidst all this dreck..."

Yuuri spoke on the kindness of the sun, it’s lacking, on a lack of kindness in general, it seemed; as if he wasn’t himself someone to be considered as being kind. If some harshness laid beneath the vibrant, bedazzled folds of his flowing fuku? Beneath the cuddly soft sleeves scented like downy and warm tea? Then Reed was the biggest of fools, had fallen into a docile trap like a desperate bee into a venus’s carnivorous center…

If he was wrong again? Well, he supposed this was a thing he could survive being wrong about.

“Nothing in this world is inherently *kind*, Yuuri. Not on purpose. Not without some measure of trying,” soft heave as he scrubbed errantly at his face, pushed stray fronds off pinkish bang back behind his ears so he could look at Yuuri properly, “However? If something is harsh and gives life — if it is warm and invites staring —“ it earned a shrug, a flock of words to cover his hesitancy at answering the first question with any measure of truth, “I can hardly blame the sun for being too bright anymore than I can a cactus for bearing thorns. Wouldn’t go so far as to call it cruel, though. Beautiful, dangerous, but isn’t that what nature ought to be?”

He just wanted a solarium. Not problematic traitors and their ghosts. But Yuuri deserved an answer about —

“This — he — was Slate…that is, Ochre of Pentacles.” And he would never be comfortable with calling him ‘Shiekh’, even after everything Jet had explained. The way the Princess had…”He made a *choice*. A poor one? Maybe. When I learned of this from the Princess…realized he’d been left behind in the aftermath on that hill?” He was still some kind of angry and sad about that all, even so many months later, even if only with himself still.

Because he maybe realized it was possible that his beliefs were ridiculous. Still. It didn’t make them any less his to own and agonize over. His to follow through on, even if they ended in him failing.

“I believe, when people — *and we are that first* — but, when a significant span of life is given to a cause? By people. When others are saved, and benefit from that service. There should be a place for them — if as examples, or as champions to a cause….as friends we bury. It shouldn’t all be for nothing.”

Sylvite had served a long time also, as had Saquarra, and— Was tenure the cut off point that tripped into madness? Like some cabin fever tainted by the urge to purify!? Reed didn’t know — was far too satisfied where he was now to even consider such things like he had when he was much younger..

Oh, Yuuri

Wide eyes and pensive frown, he watched Yuuri settle, let him; understood that need to be down there on the ground so others couldn't see. Let the man have some measure of space even as his fingers itched to - to what? Comfort? That'd been sylvites thing, and he needed to invest in a volume of colorful sweaters and throws if he were to adopt those patterns as his own; or so he assumed.

"Loneliness can drive a person into all sorts of dark corners," soft, like he was wary of spooking -Yuuri- spirits - the very air around them, he hadn't meant to cause upset. He hadn't even considered if Yuuri knew the man -- but of course more people would've known Ochre than just himself! Would've cared for him. "last I spoke with him? He expressed all of his family had absconded or passed on. His room mate -- Xenotime, she'd evaporated into air like mist."

No more underlings to mentor, no more team. No Xenotime, no Umbre, no brother -- just a solitary feline left to his care, within a box full of ghosts and their music. Reed often wondered if all of them that'd come into service at the tail end of the old regimes demise and new era's dawn, had suffered for it, instead of gained. It seemed anyone of stay and substance inevitably met an end --

And for some? Reed felt an end was justly deserved. That the only way to kill that sort of deep rooted cruelty, was with a proper culling. But for others? Ochre didn't deserve an end, but maybe he'd needed one? That the *choice* he'd made was one last stab at peace--- Reed hoped he'd found it in whatever 'after' existed for Senshi as sweet as Ochre'd been.

"He seemed like someone who'd been through a lot," too much "who'd done so much good on the offset. Mentoring Sylvite, being a friend. I'm so sorry you had to find out like this...."

The topic change was a reprieve from his own mental flogging, piteous as it may have been to continue on with it, except that he didn’t want pity; and so was overjoyed for the brightly waving flag that dragged his thoughts away from past failures and unanswered questions he’d never find the grit to ask. Not now, after so much time had passed and the asking felt like the desecration of something that seemed hushed and hallowed. How it felt like Sylvite had found her own acceptance of things so easily —- Ah, though now? He maybe understood why. It must’ve been simple to slip through stages when the possibility of an end sat just on the other side.

She couldn’tve known she’d survive getting the princess out, because all of their missions were their last missions almost every time; did that destroy the natural lust for life that would’ve dismayed such rash actions? Was being willing to give ones all at some point a detriment when that all swayed in the other direction? Had she stopped caring about being alive…

He didn’t want to think on it. Not for her. Not for anyone.

Turned bleary green eyes on Yuuri like the vibrantly available lifeline that he was and took hold—

“Yes, I first want to — to extend this place to you. I wouldn’t’ve invited you specifically here if I didn’t—“ oh and there was that *trust* word rearing up and demanding space. What a surprise, what gall it had to try and insert itself into his vocabulary just then, hadn't he learned?! But it was oh so very true. He trusted Yuuri. Well then, “I like having you in my spaces. So you’re welcome…always...” several soft swallows and a squeak that harkened back to days of prepubescence. It wasn’t humiliating at all.

“Hem, but yes. I want to build a solarium in the courtyard of the citadel, preferably with your assistance?” He wavered on the dismount. He’d never asked for help before. Wished for it, maybe, but the asking? It felt fresh, new, silly — sat on a grave and being so emotionally illiterate as to chase aside Yuuri’s needs in desperate desire to hunt — something that wasn’t death and dying. “Nothing that exists does so without the sun, and so you’re the one to ask. You have expertise, even.”

And he admired that.

"If I can grow a tree in the Rift? Then I want to assume a solarium would be possible," the 'yes' came so quickly, Reed couldn't help the gently tucked away smile for that enthusiasm, however quietly expressed. He couldn't help but admire Kamacite for that -- Yuuri, it was maybe one of the few things that made the other man so easy to confide small hopeful bits of purpose in. He knew inherently he wouldn't laugh, or brag, or...

"That is to say, I'm hopeful it would be. I know there's likely some variety of components that will be necessary to produce the same effects as a natural sun." he could involve Iolanthe as needed, maybe convert Sonias magical seed into a secondary tree with some aid on that end, the way those things worked in a variety of soil was always a tossup of a mystery, no better could he surmise what it'd become than the outcome of a coinflip -- but he could always hope it'd bear something closer to fruit than poison or thorns.

"Mmh, things I'd need. I'll bother a Soverign or two, maybe see how willing to share in technology our recently acquired 'alien' comrades are. Could also use your abilities? Solar flares, isn't it?" guess and gentle goad, there seemed no end of fire types and their kind amongst Senshi, Reed didn't want desolation or endless raging burning -- he wanted life -- and that? Well, that required the Sun. "Though mostly ---" he could gather up his garden of girls and put them to it, docile things the lot of them, save Mizuki and Hatsya, all burgeoning out to grow into their own lives and take on measures of individuality. He was not, and had never been, much of a leader in that aspect. He followed, did his part, chipped in as often as he could to the endless yawning coffers of their agency with his whole self.

This would be a far more personalized endeavor. Not nearly as death defying as trips into the Rift, or battles for planetary rights beyond the stars. No, just some nice small doing towards making the world beneath their world a slightly more endearing place to live in. It hadn't been so long since they'd re-inhabited the place, and yet? It felt like it'd been too long without any real progress. That some small forms of reclamation had to be sought after, if their enemies were trying to bring life to their own distant stars, then surely they should've been doing the same to their barracks, and courtyards, and the abandoned cities beyond the citadel?

"Mostly Yuuri, your company would be enough. Even if everything else falls through. It'd be nice to at least talk with someone about it who isn't so quick to judge, and you've experience enough to have good ideas." he almost wished now that he'd brought tea and snacks, except it was a terrible place for it, graveyards were nowhere to map out blueprints and workup designs for benches and columns and hash out what sort of youma'd be best for cleaning -- goodness knew he barely trusted most agents to do it. "And? If you ever need anything. You know my answer's 'Yes', too. That should go without saying." had he already said that once before? Was he being embarrassing now?

Did it really even matter.

So long as they were the ones above the ground and not below it. Best to make himself clear, lest he lose his chances on living amidst all the dying going around.