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 Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 7:12 pm
"Kurma, right!" Euanthe nodded, her smile of the bitten-lip variety. "I do hope he knows."
Goodness, Europa had told her about the guy not even an hour ago and she'd already forgotten it. Euanthe swore to commit the name to memory this time.
They walked in silence for a time. Europa seemed to be thinking about something and Euanthe found it easy to fill the lul by gaping at her surroundings. She enjoyed the look of those snow-smoothed arches. The more they ambled here and there and wherever Europa's interest might lead, them the less lonely and more serene the city seemed to become. Euanthe was content to follow along in step with Europa, arms looped together companionably. As before with the now-forgotten tea it was something that was comforting and genuine. Europa, she decided, was just the sort of person you could trust.
She was seized by a desire to ask her if she wanted to get together some other time, out of uniform, but was stopped by the certainty that such a thing would be wildly inappropriate. Europa wanted to meet with her today because she was a good leader and she was strengthening ties within the Jovians, and though Europa's actions were in no way mercenary that didn't mean that she would be comfortable sharing something as important as her civilian identity. Maybe at some future date Euanthe would ask her, when she'd proven herself to be more than skittish dead-weight.
Europa's spoken thoughts tugged Euanthe out of her own. She considered the old door and nodded, smiling. "Let's. Even if we don't find anything informative it'll be nice to get out of the snow for a while. My toes are a bit cold from it," said Euanthe, gesturing at her wet slippers. Hopefully she didn't sound like she was whining. Aside from that (and the general creepiness that came with walking through a dead city) she was really quite enjoying her time on Europa.
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:34 am
The door didn't just open when Europa gave it a nudge - it crashed off its hinges, slamming backwards into the foyer beyond. "s**t!" exclaimed Europa, becoming very still for a moment. When no further calamity befell them, she released a few nervous giggles and stepped across the threshold. It was only slightly warmer indoors, but it made a difference to be out of the wind.
"I feel kinda bad walking on this," she admitted, crossing the door quickly and leaning close for a better look. She couldn't identify the material used - not wood, it would never hold up against the elements as an exterior - but it was exquisitely carved with a floral motif that swirled gently around the doorknob and tiny porthole windows. "They decorated everything." It was like trespassing in a defunct art gallery. The interior of the foyer had wood paneling, which immediately made Europa assume that whoever lived here had been stinking rich. Although there were plenty of wood details in the capitol, she had yet to find any evidence at all that there were trees on Europa.
"It's a house, alright," she declared, looking around the nearest archway into a sitting room slowly gathering dust. A fine layer of ice crystals covered everything. A plush, turn-of-the-century looking sofa at the center of the room had long ago collapsed.
Other than that, the room was surprisingly untouched. All of its luxe accoutrements had simply been left to decay. Europa circled the coffee table. "Still no signs of a struggle," she said thoughtfully, glancing over at Euanthe. "You see any signs of looting?"
Because she didn't. Europa called upon all of her police procedural and detective show gods to help her in her hour of need. What conclusion could they draw from an absence of looting? Think, Europa. Think.
She was grateful to have another senshi here to toss questions back and forth with.
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Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2012 8:00 pm
When the door fell Euanthe screamed. Uh, just a little scream. Really, honestly, it was more like a surprised yelp. Well, that was what she hoped Europa would think of it as. It'd be horribly embarrassing to admit that the door falling over had scared her so badly. Maybe it was just the haunted feeling this old city had was getting to her... The definition of an abandoned homeworld was that there was nothing left alive, no monsters to jump out and harm them, but it didn't stop her from expecting them anyway.
Euanthe slowly untangled her hands, which had clutched at each other over her apparently terribly fragile little heart, dropping them to her sides again. Welp, Europa had gone in so it best to follow. Treading on the door was a welcome change from the snowy outdoors, though the sad little 'squish squish' of her damp shoes on the door indicated she'd be suffering cold-toes syndrome for a little while longer. She paused there, brushing the toe of one shoe over the door's surface in lazy circles. It made her wonder, "A house, hmm? ... I wonder if they took off their shoes when they came in." As she stood on that door she could almost imagine a person standing where she was (though the door wouldn't be under their feet), calling to someone deeper within while they yanked off their boots. She was reluctant to wander in any further. The people who lived here were long dead, but she longed for their permission to enter anyway.
"They must have decided that nothing was worth taking, or... that there wasn't any time to do so. Everyone had to go, even people who'd steal," Euanthe said. Her eyes had settled on the little wet circle her shoe had made, hands clasped together in front of her again. "Doesn't it..." She bit her lip, her voice quiet. "Doesn't it make you sad...? Thinking about what might have happened here. There were people but they're just... gone now."
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Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 7:36 pm
Europa felt a rush of sympathy for Euanthe. She'd dragged the younger senshi into a situation she couldn't expect her to grasp and was asking her all kinds of hard questions about it. The abandoned capitol was pretty high on the ghost town spookometer - she couldn't blame the senshi of tragedy for her shriek.
There was no one around to hear besides her captain, after all. Europa offered Euanthe a gentle smile as she circled the living room, hands pressed against her half-skirt to resist the urge to reach out and touch. Although everything in the parlor had been preserved by cold, she'd risk destroying archeological evidence by touching it. No memories were jumping out at her, which lead Europa to conclude her past self had never been to this house.
"It does," she agreed, turning her back on the room. It didn't seem so important to check the rest of the house, for fear of possibly happening across the former residents. She stood in the foyer for a while, giving herself and Euanthe time to warm up before they ventured back out onto the moon's surface.
"But it gives me something to fight for, you know?" she asked Euanthe, inclining her head thoughtfully towards the younger girl. "There were people here. A whole civilization. Maybe, someday, I can bring it all back."
She thought about this for a moment, and then motioned towards the door. "I can tell you're cold - perhaps we should head back to Earth now?" It had been late when they'd departed for space, and with all the time they'd spent wandering around on Europa it was almost certainly past both of their bedtimes now.
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Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 9:37 pm
Maybe it was just that Europa's apparent surety of purpose was contagious, but for some reason just a few of words from her seemed to make the shadows in the room grow lighter. Euanthe found herself smiling broadly. What Euanthe had been looking at as a graveyard, Europa saw as a starting point. It would be a long time before anything could be done here, to be sure, but Euanthe was impressed that Europa could look at this destruction and acknowledge it and refuse to just let it lie. If the abandoned homeworlds were a dark warning of the consequences of losing this struggle, then they also served as a promise for what could be gained.
"You know what, that would be pretty awesome," said Euanthe, clapping her hands together and wincing immediately afterward. Her fingers had gone quite cold. Hopefully the surface of Euanthe wasn't quite so cold, or else the Senshi was have second thoughts about visiting her own moon. Then again, there was only one way to find out.
Humans did dream of spreading out among the stars... she wondered if it wasn't so much a dream but a memory.
"I'm not going to lie, I don't think my toes can take any more of this place," Euanthe said with a sheepish grin, rubbing her hands together. "But Europa is beautiful, and I'm glad you brought me here. Thank you."
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Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 4:12 pm
As they stepped through the doorway, Europa reached out and took Euanthe's freezing fingers with one of her gloved hands. With the other hand, she flipped her senshi phone out of hammerspace. Closing her eyes, she briefly concentrated on dialing the numbers for Earth and then hit Send.
The icy town vanished from around them, and a moment later both girls were returned to the gazebo from which they'd departed. The winter air was chill in Europa's lungs, but compared to the world they'd just left it was downright balmy. She opened her eyes and offered Euanthe a smile. "I'm always happy to show visitors around my moon," she said. "I hope you keep me updated on how visiting yours works out for you!"
Stepping out of the gazebo, she glanced around the darkened park and checked the time on her phone. "It's late," the senshi of the deep intoned, and stifled a yawn. She glanced back at Euanthe. "We ought to head home, huh?" At least it was winter break so she could sleep in tomorrow morning.
"Thanksfor being such a good sport about this," she added, smile widening.
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 6:02 pm
Going back was a little more disconcerting than getting there, even the moderate temperature change made Euanthe shudder as though she were expelling all the cold from her body. Sadly, the air back on Earth alone wasn't enough to instantly remedy her frozen extremities. Euanthe reflected on her experience while she rubbed her arms to generate some heat. She immediately thought about how tragically behind the people at NASA were. They thought they needed to set their fancy equipment on fire to reenter the Earth's atmosphere, but all they actually needed was the Earth's phone number.
"I will," replied Euanthe with a smile. "And I hope I can show you some day soon." Though she might need Europa to text her that number if Earth wasn't a default contact in the Senshi phones.
"Mmm, that seems like a good idea. Before someone starts to worry." Europa said it was late, perhaps the off-planet trip had done something funny to Euanthe's internal clock because she couldn't get a feel for the time at all. The drizzle that had been tapping so incessantly on the gazebo's roof when they'd left seemed to have stopped now. It seemed wise to take advantage of that, in case it was only a momentary pause.
"Ah! Well, it wasn't hard when I had such a great guide!" Euanthe shrugged lightly, her smile awkward and genuine. Quickly she glanced around the park, reorienting herself and deciding on the shortest path to her part of town. "Goodbye," she said, waving as she started into the darkness, "and thank you again for the lesson in space travel!"
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