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Eyes skimming down the tablet's display, Hestia paused for a moment and then adjusted the quantity of sugar in the next day's shopping list. The night were getting longer and darker, and there was that warning crispness of autumn on the wind. It'd be fun, she felt, to make some caramel apples this week. Next to her a tall, painfully skinny woman stirred in her sleep.

Half a year and a life away, she'd lectured Retzian on draining the poor and disadvantaged. How the other would laugh, to see her now. And even if Hestia tried to put a certain respect into her actions, it was still using another person, without their understanding. She'd wake up in the morning after a safer night's sleep than she'd ever realize, and there'd be a little more cash in her pocket than before, but in the end, Hestia wasn't treating her as a person anymore.

But if she was on the other side once again...the woman would have been a small cause, a brief moment of abstract concern. A duty to fulfill and leave behind as quickly as possible. It'd be silly to claim both approaches were ultimately the same, but it made Hestia feel a little more contemplative as she held the woman's hand and began to once again, siphon energy off of the woman's sleeping form. Bit by bit, the slow and careful practice of control.

Hestia hadn't looked up when she sensed a lone page approaching, and she was slow to now, For a long moment there was no reaction from her, and then she gently let go of the woman on the bench, settling her first before acknowledging the newcomer.

She needed that time, to consider her initial impulse to assure the girl, to tell her all the ways in which the situation was fine, and that she, Hestia, was a safe person to encounter. They could be, if not friends, at least cautiously friendly.

But was she safe? And was it fine to approach her? Standing up, she gave the apron of her uniform a prim little pat, doing away with whatever invisible dust dare to invade her space.

"If I have, what do you plan to do?" Hestia finally replied, her voice solemn and clear across the night air. She picked out the symbol on the page's uniform and it was a simple jump to assume that Princess Cybele had knights now. Even if she likely hadn't lived to see them. It'd be nice, truly, if some piece of her legacy survived in this form.

She didn't strike out, threaten, or make any grand declarations at Hestia. Nothing wasted on posturing. It was not what she would call cool, or in any other way impressive. It wasn't exciting or fun in the way Hestia had always liked herself. But this page was smart.

Even if she could be smarter.

The words were quietly intoned, her mouth barely moving, "The Sparkling Finish."

Celadon would find the ground at her feet suddenly bursting into a blinding glow. Footing and balance instantly became something to struggle for. And then, directly behind her now, the maid senshi's voice gently continued, "I'm listening."

Unfazed by her own magic, Hestia just slowly walked beside the page, just out of reach, and silently observed her struggle. Not one to panic, then. Nor lash out thoughtlessly to retaliate. She nearly gave into the urge to praise the young woman upon standing back up.

But question...was the page wasting her chance? Or buying time?

"Starseeds are needed, and so starseeds are taken," Hestia intoned. "Powered starseeds are especially prized. And pages are the most helpless of all to defend against us."

She took another step closer, "Even a newly awakened senshi has magic, and yes it was magic. Simple and always at hand. And the greenest of agents, ones who may just be teenagers during the day, can rip out your soul, life, and future rebirth."

And closer, "Are you relying on me to be patient?"

"People can be useful, but they very often fail that potential. A person is fallible where their starseed is a certainty." The page was reasoning very clearly for the situation, though she was clearly new to this hidden side of the world and its conflict. To have another agent was to have a new series of starseeds potentially taken, and further more branching out from there.

At the mention of a General Queen, Hestia gave a small, rare little laugh and spun to slam her heeled little boot into the page in a show that proved senshi were decidedly not limited to their magic. "Then that's one less competitor for my General King."

"It seems you have a gambler's heart, page," Hestia observed, once again she had waited for the recovery. The persistence. And there it was, but it was likely all that there was. At least for now. Like the woman on the bench, the young woman was mostly a possibility at the moment, one that may be led down near infinite paths. Many, very likely, to be much shorter than others.

Her reasoning kept reaching, straining toward a hopeful outcome. Everyone lives, and everyone is happy. Thriving even. It was good, truly, to hold onto hope, to endure and fight for it. But hope, on its own, was not nearly enough. And persistence, while admirable, could just as easily become a form of self torture without guidance.

The page's vision was as clouded as a newborn's, the world she once knew still lingering about her perception with its soft, cloudy shapes. But she needed to see past them and understand the edges that waited. And who was more suited to help clear the way than Hestia?

"But I remain unconvinced. You were given a chance, and you failed," she paused, and then added, "...this time." Because there will always be a next time.

"Scrubbing Bubbles."

The phrase, out of place and seemingly innocuous, summoned a torturous deluge upon the page. By the time it was over the senshi was gone. It would take a full day for the woman on the bench to wake up, the last of her energy abruptly pulled instead of gently siphoned. But she did wake up, once again a piece of unused potential, waiting for the next hand to reach out and lift her up, or ruthlessly take as needed.