Welcome to Gaia! ::

She was right. She had been doing well.

The last time Encke was invited up to her wonder, it was a bit of a mess, and he meant that in the nicest way possible. There had been things that have been scattered everywhere, no doubt in from years of neglect. And it wasn't neglect that was her fault! She got the Wonder because the code decided that she needed it! But it was her responsibility now, and she needed to take care of it so perhaps maybe her Wonder would protect her.

If she was going to insist on endlessly courting chaos boys, it would at least prevent them from getting at her soul. In the end, that was what mattered here, right?

Right?

Encke pulled his head out of the reeds to look into her pleading eyes. "It does look good! I can tell you've been working on it. There's a lot more floral growth here. Have you seen any wildlife yet?"

Considering what was in front of them, he figured that was what this was. This was a conservatory, right? With the kinds of flowers that were growing around, it had to be. She didn't have the benefit of having past life memories that would tell her more about it of course, a lot of what she was figuring out was probably just guesses. Maybe he could make some guesses too?

The other moon knight guy...

Did he know any others? He had seen others, sure, but he hadn't necessarily gotten friendly with them. Encke mostly just knew others besides Nectaris existed, which was a good thing. It was good she was getting to bond with some of her knight fellows.

That was one of the things the knights were supposed to have, right? Guaranteed camaraderie across the whole homeworld?

There was a part of him that was slightly bitter that it took another Moon night convincing her to actually do things up there, but that was quickly overridden by the of course, she's his sister, she's not going to listen to him quite as much. That was how a lot of these relationships went right? At least she was doing it now, and at least it looked good now.

"I love the flowers, honestly--" He was quickly cut off by her enthusiasm, and he quickly shifted what he was looking at.

Oh! Wildlife!

This was definitely a conservatory then-- "That's beautiful," he murmured, daring to step closer to the butterfly and hoping it wouldn't flutter away. Interestingly enough, this would actually marked the second time his arrival on a planet had caused insectoids to show up. Not that he would own that, it entirely belonged to the people who are trying to restore their worlds. But it did feel good.

"I guess you do have wildlife now."

"Tell that to Basi," it was a bit more of a joke now. Ever since he transcended, Basiluzzo was letting Encke come up to his wonder. It felt more finished now or something like that. Encke had never had fear of letting people up to his world when it was still in its beginning stages of restoration, but then again, he wasn't talking to many people at that point. Not many fellow powered people anyway.

That was when Basiluzzo was still a civilian.

"Besides, don't mind helping with the harder stuff. My world got where it did somehow eh?" Through his hard work, mostly. He knew some of it was his world on its own, but before that point, he had to prove that he was dedicated to it.

It seems like the little pink butterfly was leading them to something, so he followed Nectaris' lead in following it. But it ended up landing on was a little pile of dirt, which after a bit of digging turned into this little golden potion of some sort.

He felt like he had seen something like that before...

"Probably is. We are on the moon, after all." Encke snorted lightly. "This whole thing is pretty magical." But what made this one different, and what made the butterfly so determined to lead them to it?

On one hand, Encke trusted her and her knight instinct. On the other hand, grabbing some ancient potion off the ground and drinking it down sounded like a bad idea. A very bad idea. His paranoia and his own impulsive tendencies warred, and that paranoia started to win out as her gaze went distant and glassy.

The ******** did she just drink? Encke found himself grabbing for the bottle itself as if there would be words on it that might explain itself, and explain how to undo it all on top of that.

No such luck. It was just a bottle.

Encke was able to let out a breath he didn't know he was holding as she began to look at the moon and her hands. She still wasn't very chatty, though, which felt unusual. "What part of it worked?" She was looking at her hands the way he did sometimes, still expecting them to be the wrong colour. There was a moment he had to fight off the temptation to do the same.

... Wait.

Stars on her skin?

So she looked ... Enckean? Encke couldn't help a laugh that felt more like a puffed out breath. "You're kidding." The implications behind that were a wild ride from start to finish. Was there some kind of Cosmos-magic at play when she had been offered a place to live at the Bells' house? Or was it just a coincidence?

These days, Encke wasn't too comfortable with assuming coincidence.

Did you look like me, then?" Encke paused. "Or at least similar. Don't want to assume all species of the universe looked incredibly different."

Though he knew from experience now that the Enckeans stood out even among the alien senshi he had met. He wondered how other lost species had looked.

"Yeah, it's pretty distinct." It hadn't taken much for him to be able to pick out who had been native born in his memories. He could pick out the people who weren't like she described, with darker tones and spots that look like stars across their skin. As much as he can see green when he looked down in his hands, he could also see the dark blue with the bright blue spots that painted his skin.

It helped that it was pretty distinctive that they glew.

Encke couldn't help the quirk of a smile when she looked at him and said he had been right. Considering how many times they butted heads over what she thought was him having a wrong impression-- "See? Didn't really make sense that you would get a memory on my comet otherwise." But it was sounding like there was a lot more to it.

If she looked like him, a lot more.

"Purple is a base tone I've seen." Encke glanced down at his outfit. "Not mine, but."

Might've been hers.

... Really weird? Weirder than her somehow being an Enckean? That was wild to think about for him. It having a dream of his for quite a while to discover other people from his comet, and while he wasn't expecting to find them at all, discovering someone who had been and discovering that they had been right under his nose was fascinating. And exciting!

"Alright. You got my attention."

What was weirder than this? Had she discovered something about the comet itself while she was showing off her moon?

Encke's attention was very clearly on her.

Had they been over several times that just because she hadn't been born a senshi or knight didn't make her boring? Yes. It didn't stop him from quirking a brow at her, and he might have made a comment about it if she hadn't kept going.

In retrospect, that was probably her intention by continuing to talk.

To make sure his attention would not wander in an attempt to find more butterflies, he was channeling all of his spare energy into tapping his fingers against his thigh. His gaze was still very solidly on her as she continued to talk she was right, something was clearly adding up here. He was willing to bet it was because she was Enckean herself, of The People herself, so being around him was part of what was making these memories come up.

Why did she look so cheeky?

It was what she said next that about made him spit.

Encke's quirked brow of suspicion became an expression of surprise in real time, which was then followed in a few moments by incredulous laughter as he tried to tumble over all the new information at once. She had been to Encke. She clearly was of The People. She was... Related to King Ignatius.

That rose a bunch of questions and also an expression of delight.

"Huh. So you really are my sister."

His eyes wandered off to take in the setting they were standing in. "Maybe that's how we ended up drawn together." Encke didn't believe in coincidence. "What book was it, could you tell?"

Maybe he had found it at some point on his comet. If it was for him, it was probably in his private quarters. Or his old office, he supposed...

Maybe she wasn't surprised by it, but he was. Perhaps how easily their sibling connection came to them should have been a sign, but it wasn't something he would have ever considered. For one, except for Home Helper, he had never met anyone else who had been connected with his home comet.

Considering that it seemed that other people got reborn, and not just the senshi and knights, there may have been the potential there. It just never struck him to think about it. "I mean, except for the robot I met on Astraya, you're the first one I've met connected with my homeworld. Never really considered it as a possibility."

But it had been staring him in the face the whole time, evidently.

She was right, it was cool. And it did mean that they were connected through lifetimes. Their starseeds had resonated and gotten them back together, somehow. The thought brought a smile to his face, too. "Supersiblings!" Encke accepted the high five with ease.

"Guess we were meant to connect like this the whole time, eh?" No chaos or anything like that could get in their way.

Felt good.

It did make it rather funny she ended up a Moon Knight when The People seemed solidly avoidant of the Moon Kingdom from what he had gathered, but then again, this was a different life, wasn't it?

Encke brought himself back to Earth--or the Moon, anyway--to listen to her explanation. "Oh, Daphne!" He had seen her. "The one with the rainbow tail, right?"

If she was an alien senshi, and who was still alive, he could actually ask her some questions about that. If she was open to it, anyway. He'd keep that in his back pocket. "Love that you came back with something for me. From the barters, I presume?"