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Alastor, Eternal Senshi of Despair

With no update from Urania, Alastor was unwilling to separate from the teenagers again. He hadn’t had to tell Sessrumnir this; they’d instinctively moved with the group. He trusted the young Knights, but he didn’t trust Chaos. He and Sessrumnir kept their distance somewhat, but they weren’t too far that they couldn’t have immediately intervened if something went wrong.

The fog was back, but there was a certain familiarity with it now. Alastor was unfazed but unimpressed. In better times, he would have liked to admire Urania, but now he just wanted to get rid of this Chaos so they had a chance to.

Naturally, he was going to worry about Urania. Being separated, with unpredictable Chaos? Alone? He paid attention to every strange sensation on his radar, just in case.

The doors seemed too sturdy to break through and he wasn’t going to waste his energy trying. Urania had already given them a bit of information about what to expect, so when the machine gave them instructions he was prepared to oblige.

He gave no indication that he was anything but comfortable as he picked up a meteorite and looked down at it.

Alastor had a thousand wishes. He didn’t know what constituted for a greatest wish. He’d dreamed of restoring his world, of making it healthy and seeing it flourish. In his heart, that was as much a duty as a wish. He couldn’t give it up. It was in his blood. He wanted it almost more than anything else.

And yet, Sessrumnir was at his side. Ephesus, not far off. Amarynthos was next to him.

Alastor spoke quietly, privately. He was vocal with his goals, but there was something personal in this.

“My greatest wish is for my family to have happiness and health,” he answered. Let them be safe. Let them live long, fulfilling lives. Let them know love and joy only. Let them find success. Let all their dreams come true.

Let the universe be kind to them.

His world was family to him, too, so the answer didn't completely ignore the loyalty he felt for it. For a very long time it was the only thing he'd had, and it most certainly had a spirit of its own. He wished for its happiness and health as well, but he wasn't sure if Urania's wishing machine cared for semantics.

Guine

Meighei

Answering!

Ngome, Page of Lysithea

“My greatest wish…” Ngome murmured to herself, a thoughtful expression on her face. She had always been one to keep her desires close to her chest, but in this moment, faced with the opportunity to have a wish granted, she couldn't help but let her mind wander to what she truly yearned for deep down.

There was so many things to wish for. She could wish to find her daughter that was taken away from her at birth and finally being able to be a family again. Or she could wish to be stronger, to be able to protect those she loved. There were so many possibilities.

Taking a deep breath, Ngome stepped forward, her gaze fixed on the fallen stars in the center of the room. With a determined look in her eyes, she reached out and picked up one of the star-shaped konpeitō, feeling its energy hum against her skin.

Her mind raced with all the wishes she could ask for, but as she closed her eyes and focused on her deepest desire, it became clear to her. Ngome opened her eyes and spoke clearly, "My greatest wish is to reunite with my daughter and finally have our family whole once again."

Reims, Squire of Ganymede

Reims clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth when the door shut behind them. There was that Chaos fog again, although how they could fight fog was lost on him.

He took a couple of practice swings at the air, seeing how the vapor curled around the aircurrent. He was careful not to swing his sword around anyone. The last thing he wanted was someone to get hurt because of him.

But he was restless. They were supposed to be fighting Chaos. They were supposed to be ridding this world of it. Or that was what they were told.

More than being agitated on his own, he didn’t like seeing his friends getting worked up. He could see Yvoire and Dering being jumpy. He was sure that Rose and Cynthus felt out of sorts as well.

Well, except for Cynthus asking for money of all things. He couldn’t hear what Yvoire wished for, but he looked like he was saddened by it. He didn’t hear what Dering said, either.

Ephesus and Amarynthos were basically hanging onto each other, so of course he suspected they were uncomfortable, too.

Not only that, but that Senshi and Knight that he was pretty sure Ephesus referred to as his parents were close -- not enough to be hovering, but they didn’t seem eager to let them off on their own.

Not with the Chaos in the air.

His greatest wish?

Reims paused as he was handed the little star-like object. He peered at it and frowned.

His greatest wish…?

There was so much he could say. But… the voice didn’t give a timeframe.

“My greatest wish is to get rid of this Chaos so we can get the hell out of here,” he huffed. In that moment, that was his greatest wish that he hoped would come true.

He dramatically swung his sword at the fog again, but it didn’t do anything but make him want to get his friends to safety.

Ephesus, Knight of the Moon

Ephesus knew they needed to get rid of the Chaos before they could go home. Before Urania had her home back. Making a wish on a shooting star…? He had a lot of wishes.

He quietly thanked Amarynthos when the piece of meteorite was handed to him. Ephesus watched Amarynthos. Saw the way his brows furrowed ever so slightly as he pondered over what he wanted to wish for.

Something practical, of course. Ephesus smiled because he knew how logical and realistic Amarynthos could be. Getting rid of the Chaos was definitely important. Getting home safely was important as well.

Ephesus held his piece of star in his hand, and held it up to his mouth to whisper. With his other hand, he reached to take hold of Amarynthos’s.

“My greatest wish is that everyone gets to be loved and cherished by someone else, and love and cherish them in return, for all their lives.”

Being able to love someone wasn’t always enough. The same went for loving someone but them not knowing, or not reciprocating. He didn’t know that until recently. He thought he could love people who didn’t love him back. He thought things would be different if he just loved them harder, or put more effort into it. Or did something right instead of wrong all the time.

But this…? Now? With his family and friends? He felt what it was like to be loved for the first time in a very long time. Maybe ever. He wanted everyone to experience what it was like. To know it was possible.

He knew he would probably be teased, but Ephesus didn’t care. He lowered his hand with the star, and leaned up to give Amarynthos a kiss. They might have been surrounded by Chaos, but there was still love and hope just as prevalent.

Super Sailor Daphne


Not everyone around Daphne was keeping their wishes to themselves, and a lot of what she heard people wishing for was focused on the present moment. They wanted the Chaos gone. They wanted things to work out for Urania.

The cynical part wondered how perfect their lives must be if that was all they had to wish for. It was an empty wish, anyway. Of course she wanted the Chaos gone, too. She'd come up here to fight it, but she'd come up here to fight it with the knowledge that what she was doing wasn't going to be enough.

She remembered what what had happened on Alastor. After they'd all been pushed within an inch of their sanity, they'd won. The darkness was vanquished. The sun had come up.

But the sun had come up on an empty world.

Part of why she was helping Urania was so that Urania would help her, and she did want to vanquish the Chaos on her own world. The reason she wanted the Chaos gone, though, was so that she could lay her family to rest in the proper way.

She would do that, no matter what it took.

She would do it, though, with the awareness that everything she did, everything she overcame? It was all for the dead. It was all for closure. None of it was for life, or for the future.

None of it would give her what she really, truly wanted.

She held one of the stars close, and she whispered into it, tears threatening the corners of her eyes, "I want my family."

Sh

Elliott

As the others approached to take a fallen star, Elliott waited. He did not know if his input as a Mauvian was as important as the input of the others. It was not that he thought less of himself, but he knew these devices were made by a Mauvian. If that Mauvian's inclination had been at all similar to his own, Hoshi-no-Tama likely designed his devices to listen to other members of Order first, fellow Mauvians second.

It was nothing personal, just important to their jobs of protecting the senshi of the wide universe. That had been part of what they were there for, right? There had to be a reason why he felt so deeply connected to every senshi he had met.

It also allowed him to do such lovely things as restore their power, he supposed. Urania recently benefited from that herself. That was likely why he was able to take a little fallen star in his paws and ponder it. Her power had enabled her to get the kind of help she needed, and it warmed him to think that he had been involved.

The orb asked what he wished for, and perhaps that was the most relevant part. He was a Mauvian in what seemed like a hopeless war, trying to help the senshi he had been cosmically appointed to assist do better. That was what he wished for, really. He wanted to see every senshi he interacted with and help do better in their lives.

But was that really it? Something told him there was a deeper sense to that he was not yet naming.

As a guardian, he had taken a personal assignment of someone he was bonded to. The young woman who had discovered him in an alleyway, as he later found out, plucked him up without question and attempted to adopt him. Nembus had referred to it as the cat distribution system, even though he was not to be distributed and she had simply taken him from an alleyway. He had awoken as she was displaying just how big he was to Phaethon, and in both of their flailing to figure out what to do with a Mauvian, Elliott had quickly decided that they did not need to figure that out. He would tie himself to Nembus. Done.

But the thing was, she was rarely Nembus. She was afraid. She would power up and run to her homeworld where she would sit for hours. She would run away when she spotted a youma, run even faster when she spotted from a distance an agent or a chaotic senshi work. Elliott understood fear. He would admit he was a "scaredy cat," as they would say.

But his bonded was not thriving, and his goal was for all senshi to thrive.

"I wish my bonded senshi could find her courage again," murmured he.

He knew she had it. She had written in her records from before she purified that she had apparently once run an entire court.

His wish was for his bonded to find that again.

Alastor, Eternal Senshi of Despair

Alastor hadn’t heard what Sessrumnir said. He heard the faint whisper of his voice, enough to understand that he had spoken even though the words were so soft that they sounded like a mumble to him.

The green light radiating from Sessrumnir’s star illuminated his face but it didn’t need to for Alastor to know what expression he was wearing.

He wasn’t so far from him in the first place but he shifted his weight so he could lean closer, and then he nudged Sessrumnir’s boot with his own. He didn’t intrude on Sessrumnir’s wish, didn’t pry.

Alastor just wanted to make sure the weight of Sessrumnir’s thoughts weren’t swallowing him up.

The sphere had instructed them to return the now-glowing stars to activate the sphere. He’d studied the map and this looked like it might qualify for the Astronomical Clock Tower Urania had drawn out, but what that meant for them–or for her–was unknown. All he knew was that she was trying to get things reactivated so she could eradicate the Chaos.

The color of his wish was lovely. He held the meteorite in his hands for a moment longer before he returned it to the sphere.

Guine