Tonight was the night she was going to visit her homeworld for the first time. Armed with her phone, some water and a snack, she stood in the park looking up at the sky. Being a senshi had never been easy, it was terror filled, no matter the friends she had made along the way. She looked to her right and sighed, she missed Abby, Ellicott.

She closed her eyes and concentrated before pressing the home button like Hugbell had instructed her. Honestly, she thought traveling through space would be a lot more disorienting, but instead one moment she stood in the darkness of the city at night and the next she could feel sunlight on her face. She opened her eyes looking around and taking in the houses, or what she could only assume were houses all around her. Everything was covered in green, vines and moss climbing walls and taking over roofs. The cobble road was barely visible for the grass that had pushed its way though, there were even trees in the middle and all throughout most of the walkways. It was beautiful and sad, nature had taken over, making a way, but there wasn't anything other sign of life. It was silent and Rhea was painfully aware she was fully alone.

In the distance she could see several large structures, she was pretty sure they were coliseums of sorts, there were at least 5 of them. She had time to explore, so for now she was going to start with the houses.

She could see the tattered piece of what might have once been flags among the vines, so faded she could scarcely tell what the colors had once been. The house closest to her was medium in stature, not as grand as the houses closer to what she assumed was the main part of this city she landed herself in.

Rhea walked toward the house and headed up to the door. She frowned at the massive wooden door covered in vines before putting both hands on the wood and giving a push. At first it didn't move and wondered if she would even be able to get the thing open, but then the door gave way and came clean off the hinges, toppling away from Rhea and hitting the ground with a hard thud.

“Whoops,” she said, climbing around the door and moving into the building. There was a statue by the door and surprisingly it was of herself or a version of herself anyway. She was young, probably 12 or 13, but she was holding up the happy theater mask, so you couldn't see her face.

She touched the statue, dulled from years without anyone to clean it, heavy with dust and debris. She tried to brush it off a bit and was surprised with the pink stone, the stone was pink. It was surprising and somewhat pleasant. She wondered if it had somehow been dyed or if it was a natural occurrence.

She resolved to bring some cleaning supplies the next time she made her way here and turned to make her way further into the house. She guessed this area would be something like a foyer, it even had a sort of wading pool, which she could only assume was for decoration. Extending to either side were two halls, which she could see lead to more room and on the other side of the foyer it was open to a courtyard. She walked with purpose across the stone floor, the steps of her tennis echoing in the emptiness of the abandoned house and headed out to the courtyard. Stepping into the sunshine again she moved and looked around, everything was green, covered in plants, trees grew all around and most of the courtyard was shaded. Nature had more the most part completely taken over the courtyard. It was breathtaking, but it was hard to see what was in the area. She realized if she really wanted to see what the house was really like, she’d have to remove most of the overgrown plants and it was probably too much of an undertaking for just her. She’d definitely see if her cousin wanted to come with her next time.

She headed further out walking through the open area and loved the cool shade and filtered sunlight, there were flowers trying to carpet as much of the courtyard as the grass. She noted that part of it had been stone, but the biggest tree had pushed that away and the stone slab lay in chunks around the tree. The courtyard expanded into a covered area and there was another pool, this time big enough for swimming, it was again empty, only old decaying leaves that had blown in covering the bottom. Rhea frowned, she was going to need a lot of cleaning supplies. She wondered if she would be here every time she came here. If so, it could be her base.

She moved toward the back of the home, away from the courtyard and into a hallway that led to what looked like a kitchen with a dining room next to it. Both had their doors open, but the dining room intrigued her the most. Against the far wall in between the windows was a stage, on the two front corners were pillars, the pink stone barely visible with the two masks carved atop each, comedy and tragedy. It was curious because it was the second time she’d seen the masks and the tragedy mask struck a chord with her. She moved to explore the rest of the home, which held bathrooms, bedrooms, what looked like a library and something like an office.

After she explored the whole house, she was awed, it was like going to a museum in a way … like a touch and play museum. She had been careful when touching anything, the art work on the wall, she certainly didn't want to ruin. Deciding to check out the rest of the houses she headed back out the pebble road and headed into the house across from the one she had been in. She explored house after house and while the layouts varied slightly they were all very similar and every house had a stage in the dining room, most had statues of different iterations of Rhea and depictions of comedy and tragedy masks.

When she exited the 5th house she had been exploring she found herself in another time. There were people lining the street and there was Rhea headed down the street. The girl was a preteen and was displaying theatrics and acrobatics as she greeted the children doing tricks and giving them hugs and tickles. There wasn't a single person that wasn't smiling or cheering, it was so happy and Rhea couldn’t help but to smile as well. A little girl probably around maybe 7 ran up to the senshi, “Rhea, sailor Rhea! Will you perform at the southeast theater soon?”

Rhea was curious, looking at the little girl realizing she moved past the homes and continued into the city. The senshi stood up tall for the girl grinning, but Rhea didn't get to see the answer because the image vanished and she was alone on the pebble road. Did she just have a vision? That was a weird experience. It had come and gone in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Rhea shook her head and headed toward the city.

The house became more grand as she made her way closer with a house having large courthouses visible from the outside. She was tempted to explore, but she wanted to see what the city had to offer, she could see it becoming more clear the closer she got to it. The buildings were grand with large pillars carved from the pink stone she saw and in the distance on the other side of the extensive city she could see large pink mountains, they were bespeckled with green, but less and less as her eyes climbed the mountain. There was a large building carved into the mountain, but it was far away and hard to make out, so Rhea decided it was an exploration for a longer trip.

She moved along the pebble road so in awe of the grandeur. She felt like it would take her a lifetime to explore it all and wondered if there would ever be a time when she could restore it all. The building had cracks from the wearing of time and the element, much cleaning was needed and plants were taking over much of the road and any free spaces around the building, though much of the ground was lined with stone to keep it clear and easy to travel, though that was only an assumption.

There were a lot of signs that she couldn’t read, but she was sure they were shop signs and signs depicting directions. The easiest and most notable were poles with the masks on them, under the mask was an arrow. There was a pole on either side of the road indicating to go in opposite directions for the same thing. The arrows had words carved into them and which Rhea knew meant something to the direction one would travel in.

She shrugged, choosing the left path, but decided she wasn’t really in a rush. She decided to explore the buildings along the road. If she didn't find the theater today, that was fine, the city was huge and there was always next time.


Word count: 1592