Welcome to Gaia! ::

The weather at this time of year was beautiful. The chill of winter was dying down. Trees were blooming, and when the wind blew, petals rained down around Cybele's head and then settled on the sidewalk.

Under other circumstances, maybe sights like that would have granted Cybele something like a sense of peace. It did not, though. War was Cybele's everyday. She could bite down the nerves about that. This was not everyday war, though. Something bigger was happening. If she hadn't noticed the signs in the sky on her world, she would have heard the rumors.

And now there was something to prepare on the Moon.

She would do it, of course. She was ever a dutiful soldier. Her time in the Negaverse had drilled that mindset into her, and even here, years later, a White Moon Princess, she'd never quite been able to shake it. It wasn't a bad thing, exactly. In a situation like this, everyone should likely be a bit dutiful.

She did pause when she felt a knight's aura, though. Networking was another duty she took seriously. Whatever they were going to face, they needed to do it together. When she saw a man in a pink suit, she raised a hand at him.

A Moon Page. Helpful.

"Good evening," she said.

Oh. He knew her, although she thought he had been a stranger. She supposed that wasn't too much of a surprise. She was a Princess now. The title and the aura and the wings made her a bit more visible than the average senshi.

But as he continued to speak, she realized that she did recognize him. You didn't forget the night of the first time you purified someone, even if she'd mostly been along to be the muscle and hadn't had much context for the emotions behind the situation.

She remembered how her hands had shook. She remembered how the color had slowly seeped into Emain Ablach's outfit anyway.

And she did remember Tobias. He'd made a point to be kind to her, when most of the others had just seemed tense underneath the thin mask of politeness. He'd been the one who was kind to Emain Ablach after, as well.

She admired the shield as he presented it. "The Code chose well," she told him. "I think you'll make an excellent Knight." Keeping a cool head like that in emotional situations was half the battle, she thought.

She paused for a moment, almost seeming awkward. "Um." She decided to ask it. "Is he doing all right, Emain Ablach? Things seemed a bit awkward when I left. I didn't want to step on-" she paused, bit back the name Sylvite, "Nectaris's toes and barge into all of your lives to follow up, but I have worried about him a bit."

Regardless of the others, she thought Amoris would know what was happening with him.

"But it's interesting that I met you here. I was actually thinking about going to the Moon."

They were all doing well. That was good. It had taken time, but she supposed that was to be expected where Chaos was involved. It wasn't always easy to forgive, was it, not matter how powerful the influence of Chaos was, how dramatic the transformation afterwards would be.

Even as someone who had been corrupted herself, she understood that. She could feel her own grudges rise up to her chest a bit as she glanced at the Moon symbols on his outfit.

It hit her much harder than it should when he asked if she would come to dinner.

But they're Nectaris's friends, she thought, careful not to immediately let any shock or disgust show through on her face. Amoris had always been kind to her. She did not want to reject him. Still, the tension remained.

She deflected instead. "I'm glad you're all doing well," she told him. "Really. I know it can be a lot, upending someone's life like that. As for your wonder, I'm not sure, but I'd heard there was something that had happened on the Moo-"

She was cut off by a sudden tug of energy. Warm, inviting. She could have resisted, she supposed, but she knew better. The last time she had felt something like this, it had been from the Code, and she could have really used a conversation with something as powerful as that right now.

So she let herself be carried away, and when she opened her eyes. the unmistakable marble architecture of the Moon Palace awaited her. In front of them, there was a door.

"I'd heard that there was something happening on the Moon," said Cybele, slipping away from the small talk and the asking after people's families now that she knew where she was. She pushed through the other half of the door, not hesitating.

She almost seemed more confident here than she had on Earth. She shifted into her Princess form almost without thinking. Her skirts lengthened, as did her wings. Her expression remained serene, even as she stepped across the threshold and a strange feeling of otherness and power washed over her. Amoris startled as the voice began to speak, and she looked over to him, gaze soft, and she waved him forward in a way that she hoped would convince him not to be afraid.

"I'd heard it was something to do with the storms," she said, as the automated speech finished. "With everything strange that's been happening. I was just going to investigate, see if I could find some answers, but," she glanced at the Crystal Tower before the two of them.

"I suppose this is it."

She was a bit nervous at the idea of losing her strength, even for only a short time. Still, this seemed important.

"No," said Cybele. "It shouldn't break anything."

She reached out, but as her fingers brushed the crystal, she found that she was a bit distracted. She could control her face, settle it into making her look like a confident Princess, someone who knew what was going on, someone focused on the mission.

She couldn't control her thoughts in quite the same way.

She was still caught up on the presence of the man beside her. She was still caught up on his invitation.

He'd spoken about the purification, and she'd thought about that night, visualized Nectaris's butterfly cape bouncing in the wind as she smiled at her friends. And then, of course, Cybele had thought of Sylvite.

And that thought led to the familiar nightmare of Sylvite's hand in her chest, a nightmare that haunted her even as she stood here, in this sacred place, maybe a place that was safer from Chaos than anywhere else in the galaxy.

Maybe she did understand why the others had been tense, even as she'd successfully purified their husband. Maybe she did understand why they'd turned him away for a time. Just because the Chaos was gone from someone, it didn't change the past. She understood that. She understood it deeply.

She could hear the panicked gasps, sometimes, that people had given when she'd slipped her hand into their chests, wrapping her fingers around their starseeds. She knew what blood was on her hands. Perhaps that was why she was critical of what others had done during that time, too.

Although, it only seemed to apply to one person. The others she was more than happy to see redeemed when the black washed from their outfits.

In Emain Ablach's case, the other husband, Dise, had forgiven him in time. Now, they were both all right again. Happier.

Could Cybele do the same? It wasn't exactly a parallel situation. Nectaris wasn't her wife. She didn't love her, in any sense of the word, and she didn't have plans to. Still, the anger she was carrying towards her was starting to feel so heavy. It was starting to feel more like a barrier than anything else.

Why shouldn't she be able to go to dinner with Nectaris's friends?

She breathed in. She breathed out. She could feel something inside of her begin to dissolve as the distraction of her anger began to crack and fizzle.

Or, maybe that was just the Tower taking her energy. She could feel something slide into place in her soul, and then the exhaustion began to seep over her, little by little. The Princess form faded away as quickly as it had came, and after a few moments, she stepped away, sagging a little.

Still, she finally smiled at Amoris.

"It would be nice to go to dinner, if that's all right," she said.

Good. He didn't think it was strange that she was asking about all that, in the middle of all this.

She stepped back towards the door after him. "I suppose that's all that was necessary, wasn't it?" She hoped it would be enough. "Thank you for helping me with this. Maybe we can leave now?"

And maybe, if she was leaving some of her anger at the past behind, she would be able to get to know some of the people she had helped a bit better.

That would be nice, she thought.

She held out her hand to Amoris.