Welcome to Gaia! ::

All parts of this felt insane—

Why couldn’t Nikki just arrange everything for him!? Why did he have to actually ‘meet’ with other people!! He supposed this was some sort of vetting process, logically that made sense. There was an ever present level of danger here, after all. Danger for him, for who he met with, and even though he wanted to avoid — down to the root of every blond hair — the possibilities of consequences.

No, of failure.

Because he hadn’t given a single flying ******** about consequences before, when it was Matt. Had been happy to lay his neck on every chopping block and do the legwork for him. And others got away with this somehow— Metallia wasn’t omniscient and all seeing. How many agents purified or left or simply died on the regular? Retired in a way. How many ran out to meet order head on, not even for the sake of fighting them, simply because! Yes, it was failure that he feared, failing Nikki the way he’d clearly failed Matt, and Waru, and Aramis, and ultimately himself as he hit the big-red-button on his entire life.

Not because he was being hunted by someone, not because being part of the negaverse was so intrinsically horrible!! It was simply because he could, it was an option for him. One he had the power to make of his own will. If he could simply stop crying and sniveling over it— He supposed he had to, to suck it up and take some sort of responsibility in all of this. To show agency, own his choice, even if he couldn’t quite pin down why the choice felt so concrete now, why he was making it so rashly!? But this was important, somehow, to take this step forward and at least see what it was like on the other side. What it was really like, not Nikki’s rose colored world view, not albite singing about how he wished the stars were full again if only so he could enjoy a real war like their past selves had lost so tragically—-

Cryolite was pensive as he finally powered up for the second time that evening and paced the roof of the library for a time. Thumb between his teeth, every sense turned in instead of out where it should’ve been. Scouring his mind, he needed to find his reason, his purpose, his why
on an internal level.

And then he felt it—- prickle at the edges of his sense of another entity, he stepped off the ledge and teleported into the garden below like a shadow. Blinked for a solid thirty seconds at the living, breathing, mermaid he saw standing before him. Poetic, really, a person of the sea to handle just how utterly out of his own depth he was.

Was this all it took now to move him? Someone asking in soft, dulcet tones about how his day was going? For a genuine check in from, if not Nikki directly – his dearest – then clearly a trusted friend of hers. He didn’t think Nectaris would’ve risked sending anyone who wasn’t close, safe, trusted.

Not for something as risky-business and intimate as this–

For something as absolutely small and insignificant as this had to be for Pendour. What a waste of a thing for Pendour to spend her powers on, asking after his health! Reminding him with her very presence how he’d absolutely failed to extend the same fragile courtesy to Nikki herself, ******** hell, to Fulgurite! Surely both of them had needed him, surely Matt? Matt had needed him, likely still did, and yet—

“She has every right to be worried, I suppose. I’m maybe a very worrisome person for her to be friends with right now. Not so much as others I could think of—but?” he never felt like he knew quite what to do with his hands like this, to do with his expression either. Tucked them into opposite sleeves and held himself still enough, met her greater nod with a minor one of his own. Taking everything in about her at his own pace. “And I appreciate the check in, though I’m the furthest from fine I could possibly be…..” his laugh was genuine, sardonic, tinged with a sadness that lingered in his gaze and the lack of his smile.

“But if you could pass on to her that I don’t wish to be kissed out of this particular mood? Not quite yet. The solution to the issue I’ve got going on at present is, very likely, going to involve things beyond either of our control; mine, hers. Maybe even yours, too?” A shrug following the words, and he didn’t want to feel better yet, to feel saved, spared, or any sort of otherwise. Sometimes? Sometimes he liked to simply sit in things, stew in them, until he found his own way out. He’d brought his floaties, he knew where the lifeguards were stationed, with curly hair and dressed in pink and waiting on the other side. It was everything he lacked knowledge of that made this feel soooo–

Ominous.

Even if all he was doing was having a heart-breakingly level conversation with a – and the ‘Of Neptune’ felt so on-the-nose levels of obvious. Were all knights like this? Was it only Senshi who looked so different from one another all of the time?

“Speaking of manners—” and his utter lacking! He nearly sounded sheepish for how he’d spaced the introductions entirely, so drawn in by Pendour, head to tail, shell to pearl. He winced a little as he caught himself finally and caught himself up. “I’m Cryolite— Dione of Sublimation, and I appreciate the – all of this? It’s a wonderful distraction if nothing else!” He hoped it would lead to more than that, needed it to be more than that, before his nerves strung him up, and along, and carried him away in a haze of remembering all the reasons he should be leaving here and going back home…

Her words got a laugh out of him, a brief spark of a grin that thinned quickly. The thought of Pendour being sent to kiss it all better!! The way he imagined Nikki describing him, all her rosy lenses and loving words. She hadn’t had to live with him yet, though. To deal with his morning breath, or watch him clean surfaces that were already spotless to quiet his mind. Not that Fulgurite had wanted to either—

Except he had. He did. He does still I’m sure of it!!

Syrus knew it! Wouldn’t believe anything else even with the evidence mounting against ******** had thought, with all of himself, that maybe someday it’d be more? That he could coax the man in – could trap him, love him, bribe him, anything please – how sickeningly desperate. How uselessly, warmingly, longing all his pretty feelings were ash in the face of the reality where Matt planned to leave him – ******** stayed – and still didn’t want him at his house? Around his family!?

*It’d made so much sense in the moment – for a year it’d made sense – and then?!*

And now…..

Did he want to talk about it? At any length, in any depth or manner of detail with an absolute stranger of a being who he’d just met for the first time in his life? The truth was that he had people he could talk to if he simply reached out and tried. If he bothered with any of that in the days that had come after his singular, sad attempt at trying to go see Matt in the one place he knew the man couldn’t hide from him.

But he knew what their reactions would’ve been, could hear them now, even. All of their well wishes and soothing words. Their comforting hands, and strong hugs, there-thering him while rage sat in their eyes. Not at him, never, even when he felt he deserved it in some grander part. For not being strong enough *here* for failing Matt *now* at the finish line when clearly the man needed him the most! But he didn’t know what to do when every door seemed barred, drowned, shut behind infinite locks….
He didn’t have whatever it was that made doing this kind of thing so easy for others. He wasn’t Nikki with her endless love and optimism, or Faustie with his calculations, or Tama with his magic-born wisdom and patience. He couldn’t somehow channel Aramis’s effortless ability to brush even the most drastic catastrophes off her shoulders like dust…

He wasn’t Waru – who could love a man on fire and every enemy that’d ever purified - who could love death itself and coo in the face of monstrosities that wanted to eat him alive!

He couldn’t do it before, or now, or since. He couldn’t play war games the way he could play strategic ones. There was such a difference between being cold, and being a killer. Though he lived in a space of grays fully enough that he could let those kinds of transgressions slide? He could love a murderer – mary a killer – but to have to commit to the act himself? To know that it was fight or die and be fine with it, to be relegated to a set-piece behind a desk otherwise.

In his soul, he didn’t think that he could do that. That was why he was doing this to begin with. So he stalled, paused for time, held his breath in contemplative stillness before letting it all out in a hissed rush.

“If I’m being completely honest with you?” he ground his heel briefly, felt his face mirror his own, full of consternation. “I don’t want to talk to anyone about it, nor to be therapized by a stranger — No offense, because I appreciate the check in, truly, with all of myself, but?” letting his arms fall free of his sleeves as he waived the conversation off, as he fought to find that hint of a smile again. “Though, I assure you, I am very conscious of where avoidance has gotten me thus far.” he wondered if it seemed ironic? If he seemed ridiculous to her. Standing here and dodging the parts of his life he couldn’t stand to air in the company of – anyone save the people it involved, really.

“The uselessness of bottling things up…Sadly? If this keeps being about feelings; mine, hers, his – our own – this is how you lose a person I think. Placing feelings over self-preservation—putting love first—” it hurt to say, and no one was hunting him, he knew, the sense of urgency was all self made. He had no need to run, no threats he’d summoned on the horizon. He was giving up no one and nothing by doing this! He hadn’t suddenly stopped powering up and disappeared into the ether! He was checked in on, and spoken too, and encouraged to upgrade, etc.

This was all a choice. His choice. And if he stopped for a second to think it over rationally?

He couldn't do that. Rational had no place here.

There was still a bridge to walk back across, a very empty, open, lonely one. But a bridge nonetheless, with people waiting on the other side of it. Who would’ve taken him back regardless of how far he’d distanced himself from them. Maybe even Matt too – if he played his cards well enough – if he begged long enough – if he tried some new tactic? But his heart still ached from being reminded of how he’d practically bribed the man with sex for a conversation. And everything fell sour at the thought of it. Tasted of horrible wrongness. All the things he couldn’t look past – couldn’t work through without causing undue harm to the others – and that — that was enough to remind him why he was doing this, each and every time. Why he wouldn’t be able to do anything but this. Not now that he’d started.

“You know, I hadn’t actually been aware that he wasn’t seeing her? Our– what do I even call him now? No. It doesn’t matter. ” he chewed the words, ran over in his mind all the ways he would’ve wanted to disparage Matt. All the ways he didn’t, because he felt, ultimately? None of them had been most wrong. Nobody could truly be at fault in the face of something so utterly life changing.

“But I hadn’t been aware– I had written myself out of the equation, placed myself apart and separated from them. If we’d all been talking, if I’d been more involved with ‘them’ instead of only ‘him’. I think this would’ve gone very differently for all of us.…” He thought, surely, if he cared less about Fulgurites feelings? He’d be at his door, kicking it down, demanding his own type of retribution. Not even that the man purify, simply that they talk!! “But none of that happened, and everything else did, and if I don’t work at making ‘moving on’ make sense? Then she’ll lose me here too.”

“So, Pendour? How exactly does one purify—if someone could explain it to me properly so I don’t have to go and ask ‘Albite’ of all people. I think that’d be a rather embarrassing conversation for us to have….” lacing his fingers delicately in front of his hips as he looked at Pendour with determined expectancy. With a plea in his eyes— because what he needed most right now? Was someone to talk him out of talking himself out of what he as doing.

He knew he’d need that, had wanted it to be Matt, or Nikki, or – anyone – truly, but if Pendour was here and offering her generous ear and soft voice? He’d take it as readily as a drowning man would a raft, he didn’t care what it was made up of.

He hadn’t known Sylvite before, lacked some long, endearing history with the kind of person she’d once been. He shook his head ‘no’ in answer, and privately thought it was maybe better that way. If it gave him a more open perspective? Allowed him to come to Nectaris and see her as she was; pure, sweet. His view uncomplicated by any messy feelings time with her former self might have dredged up. He had a hard time imagining it, really. Smashing two halves of a whole together and trying to pick out which pieces to forgo and which to keep.

“That's a fair stance on chaos, and I’ll admit I only know enough to feel like I know nothing at all,” and he realized he had very little to go off of. His singular experience with purification was a failed one. The rest? Stories from the others, Faustites championed chalices filled with starseeds — wailing - gnashing of teeth. A whole carnival worth of morals, ethics, feelings—- and he didn’t like feeling as though he was going in blind.

“I’ve never much enjoyed relying on pure luck and coin tosses, though.” He watched her hand with curiosity, with a small understanding smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

“Especially when I’ll be giving up—-everything,” and his everything wasn’t very much, he knew this, he understood! But it was still all he’d ever had and all he’d ever known. “And it’s not as though there’s some grand offer on the table at the other side of this.” He understood people didn’t talk like that when they spoke of something that felt so akin to quitting a bad habit. ‘Quitting Chaos’, and somehow he’d believed there would be more to it.

It happened all the time, didn’t it? Maybe not always successfully, but—-

“Sometimes? Truthfully, I can’t see what people are bothering to ‘purify’ for.” He was doing it regardless, he told himself, no matter what, pinning down a reason for it fell fifth in line behind ‘make sure order doesn’t murder me’ and ‘make sure I have somewhere to go’ and also behind ‘have someone pencil me in a meet-up with a princess’ — “And yet it happens—there’s not some grand dumpsite filled with wandering, zombie-esq vagrants of the recently purified variety. So you must be taking care of the people you bring over somehow.”

He was making assumptions, he knew. Was basing those assumptions off of Nikki, who had little to complain about, who so eagerly wanted people to join Order. To leave Chaos. And while he could form his own reasons why—-

“So — after all that sacrifice? What comes next— and do feel free to endear me to your cause just a little bit — the idea that I’m stepping from a literal fire into a pink frying pan haunts me only slightly.”

The sight of the scar carved along her body so deep it looked like it’d bitten bone and taken an age to heal, made him flinch in a way the scar that accentuated her facial features hadn’t.

It wasn’t as though he’d never seen scars on a body before — faustite’s were many, myriad, keloid thick and Waru bore them like trophies won with high praise, things worth bragging about. But something about seeing them on Pendour?

Maybe it was the vulnerability behind the action of her showing it to him? Maybe it was knowing full well who it was from — the difficulty he had skewing his view enough to imagine someone like Nectaris of all people being behind an act of violence — any act of violence— He winced for what a powerful, damning, heavy thing knowledge was. Syrus bore it, quietly for awhile, listened on and steeled himself against any more not-so-little surprises.

“If I’d imagined that would take it from him…” he shook his head, banished the thought, because what would he have truly done? It wasn’t as if Syrus had been in on those kinds of things enough to know, had thought Fulgurite would gain his freedom, and found little difference in himself after his own fated advancement. In his own changes, but maybe it was different for someone who had so much time steeped in those kinds of energies? Syrus knew that he himself had not been part of the negaverse for long, that he, Waru, Aramis even? They didn’t have a mountain of years— a tenured position — he couldn’t say what he’d look like once time passed him by. Once those years rolled in without reprieve, until the Negaverses colored his every action, sunk its claws deeper into his life than merely the casing of his soul.

He knew changes had happened though—- small as he’d seen them in some. Was never sure which thing to blame it on, wondering, even, if placing the whole of that blame on ‘chaos’ as a nebulous force was ultimately diminishing fulgurites responsibility in all of this. For the man had to have some—- didn’t he?

“He described himself as worse before you know? Before meeting Sylvite, at least. He made it seem as though she was such an integral part of what had made him better…made his life easier to live?” there was bitterness in his tone, a withheld huff for how he didn’t want to mention how he’d believed he’d made the man’s life better too. Even living in chaos together — bound in it — married in it in so many ways save the ones that ultimately counted to him the most.

He thought he’d maybe talk about it with pendour someday? With her soft understanding. Tones and open, knowing eyes.

“Which—-that’s truly what made all of this as much a surprise as it made this a necessary decision on my part. So necessary that I need people to keep reminding me that it’s worth it to do— that I shouldn’t simply talk myself out of doing this, because you must know it’d be so, so, so surprisingly easy to manage. Even now.”

He stretched the unknown tension out of his limbs with a gentle flex, felt a sympathetic twinge in the shoulder that matched hers rather bodily, and tried his best not to show it.

“But maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised by these kinds of things anymore…that a person can go from being a quasi-murderous debutant to a butterfly petting, purifying wonder…That I want to make sure I walk into something secure enough to make leaving everyone else behind.”

While not leaving them at all—

He would find fulgurite again, Matt, whichever — memories or not? He would try until the last curtain fell. He would try after.

And for Waru?

For Aramis?

Maybe Nikki’s desire to purify the worst case scenarios and lost puppies of the world was a tad bit infectious—- Or maybe he was simply greedy and needy and loathe to let even the things he walked away from go. And, truthfully? Why not leave a safe space for his loves long past to flee too when and if the other shoe truly fell?

“I think I’ll enjoy that most, the practical side of things? This nice little security blanket you’ve all woven. I don’t need too many details — but gods is it nice to hear I won’t be camping out on a planet mid bout of magical-amnesia. That would be a bit of a turn off…gods I haven’t even considered what happens to my identity beyond this….” And it was okay for his laugh to be a little sad, wasn’t it? To be a bit self-pitiable even now?

It was all a lot to take in, the knowledge, hee soft caring gaze. He thought he managed it all stalwartly, had managed not to slip; not at her apology for which he nodded with no small amount of appreciation, not until she asked a question of him all her own. For all that Pendour, who seemed an utterly peaceable sort, bore the scars of battle. It was Cryolite who felt briefly as though he’d been stabbed. Expertly carved open by a gentle hand, all his weaknesses revealed.

Even the ones he’d been woefully unaware of—

The way his stomach dropped as he realized that his only answer here, for this, was that he lacked one entirely. One that would’ve had any honesty to it at least. Oh, he was sure he could’ve dredged something up, spouted off some nonsense, but in truth this was something he should’ve known? Shouldn’t he? What lay in his heart other than some tumultuous mix of grief and joy. What his ultimate goal was —

Not just as a Senshi nor a lover or a partner or— What was he even doing this for? Himself? Them? What did the kind of person he’d become matter, if he wouldn’t be any worse off a person than he was now?! If he’d be exactly the same or completely different no matter what he did?

“I wish Nikki had warned me about how smart you’d be,” he chuckled rawly, finding himself scrubbing a hand across his face, trying to manage whatever emotion stirred there. “I might have come better prepared.” He thought maybe it was right, though? To feel understudied, outplayed. That maybe this was the point of order, some harder road less traveled kind of lesson hidden within the depths of it.

“I think—I think you’ve made me realize everything I’ve been thinking about? This—my future— it’s a very compartmentalized thing. It’s—“ painful, safe, an out he was bearing down on with full force and without looking back for. Without looking inwards for. “I honestly don’t know? I don’t even know if I’ll still be a person I’d like when this is all said and done, let alone what kind of person I’ll want to be! If I even remember enough of this to stick to that ideal.“

He sighed a she gave up clutching his nonexistent pearls in her close proximity, standing like some stunned deer in her presence, he stole more of his space, paced, as if staring at the ground was easier than meeting her eyes. At least for this.

“I suppose that’s why I’m focused on the, ah, the necessities? Room, board, a name to live by— why consider what could be pointless? Especially if I manage to scare myself out of it all the second I start thinking about the rest.” something he absolutely didn’t want to do, something he tried so hard to prevent. This was supposed to help! Was helping, surely. He knew the second he’d opened his mouth to pour a slew of words out that Nikki had chosen the right person for this.

And goodness how he maybe wished she hadn’t—

“I’m not—I’m not like the rest, I think? In my team, at least. I’m complicit now, in so many things. I’ve always been. Complicit and aware and for me the grey areas are so much easier to live in — fences easier to sit on — and I just wanted —“ consternation on his face, frustration as he paused and finally looked at her again. “I shouldn’t have tried to bribe him, you know? And then I agreed to simply—“ like he wanted to apologize, but couldn’t bring himself to manage that just yet. Was sure if anyone was owed an apology it would’ve been Nikki well above pendour, for all the mess he’d helped to cause. For his selfish desires and selfish heart.

“I thought it’d make him change his mind if he thought I’d be with him? That it was me holding him back more than his entire family, the life he’d built with them, the peace he was finally enjoying. Which is terribly vain and narcissistic of me, I know. Rather manipulative, too. To think I’m his moon and stars and he’d hang the world to come with me if only I proved I’d hang my world for him…” he nearly scoffed for the romanticism of it all, the fairy tale novelized quirkiness of it. Truly this was why he belonged with Nikki, wasn’t it? His tendency to do the same things, even when he believed himself to be doing the opposite, and yet? There the tactics were, bare and same, and failed.

“And now that I’ve made the decision to do it? To purify. I simply can’t allow myself to back down. There’s nowhere left to back down too. The rest — all of this — it’s just — it’s stalling as much as it’s soothing my own frayed nerves. Trying to reassure myself this is the right thing to do and not just the ‘spite’ thing to do, you know?”

It was a reassurance he needed, a solid signal for him to pause and take a breath and quit his useless spiraling. The way it startled a laugh out of him, her promises – how much surer she was of one fact above all others. Hearing that made it a little easier to wind himself down and look after her with a more somber smile. Because she was right, wasn’t she? He was a person now, he’d keep being that, the same way Nikki had continued on after passing through light and fire, maybe?

Save maybe not so drastically different — or, ********, maybe Nikki wasn’t so drastically different as all this new light and life painted her to be? To have once been. Maybe it was because they’d only ever seen the tips of each other's icebergs. It was certainly something to think on.

“I promise it’s not you and yours who I believe are doing the stalling,” he huffed as he settled and wrung some excess energy out of his fingers, took another breath, a count of ten. He fully blamed the perceived stalling on himself if ever any had been done. His lapse in oversight that had gotten all three of them squarely here.

Here he was supposed to be the ‘plans guy’, and yet? Every ball he should’ve handled he’d dropped with astounding swiftness. Just, let all that was Fulgurite and Nikki slip through his hands. He might as well have ignored them deliberately— rather than with passiveness.

“It’s all come and gone in waves, the way it feels like this is something I should’ve been working on a year ago–Something that I’m only working on now because of…well…All the aforestated obvious?”

Everything said, everything unsaid by himself. All the ways that stood between them. The way he clung to the words he didn’t quite want to divulge. The way he knew he would’ve had that sweet, narrow focus on anyone else. This wasn’t for anyone else though, not this time. He had to do this for himself. He could acknowledge that the question wasn’t too big though, and she was beyond right.

He simply felt he needed the time.more time spent thinking, less time spent focusing on the logistics of it all. As much as that secretly pained him. If all she could truly promise him was that he’d have his personhood and it was on him to know what to do with it? Then he had to prepare for that more than anything else—

“Do you think I can take this to go as homework then? And maybe sooner than later – work on getting back to you with something like a proper answer.”

His hope, his future, the way his thoughts on those things twisted like snakes in his mind. The way he almost wanted to hold off on seeing Nikki just a little longer — at least until he’d gotten more of a grip on the idea.

“Because you are painfully right and astonishingly insightful. It’s a little dazzling actually, blindingly so. Like getting hit by a train, but in a good way.”