Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ganymede was hardly offended by Acubens’ reaction to Valhalla, though he was a little surprised by it since he didn’t think Val had done or said anything especially wrong. He was too much of a nice guy to do bad things on purpose.

Okay, so that wasn’t exactly true. Val had his temper and his moments of mean, but Ganymede knew that his bewilderment over Acubens’ sphere wasn’t one of them. He simply had trouble keeping his reactions to himself.

Really, Ganymede thought it was amusing to see Val making someone angry when that was usually his job.

“Don’t mind him,” Ganymede said, patting Val on the arm and giving him a sweet, sham of an innocent look before turning his attention back to the other senshi. “Val can be unintentionally insensitive sometimes. He doesn’t mean it. He’s really a sweet guy. Except sometimes he goes around punching people in the face, but he hasn’t done that in a couple of months that I know of, so I’m pretty sure you’re safe.”

He decided not to say anything about his sphere or his attacks. Let her think they were awesome. They weren’t, really. He thought they were actually kind of worthless. But he wasn’t going to tell her that. It was kind of nice talking to someone who apparently thought he was impressive. It gave him a nice mini ego-boost, which he didn’t always get in senshi form. He almost felt bad for deluding her, but he figured it was her own fault for making assumptions.

At least he was being social.

“As for the Jovians,” he continued, trying to steer the conversation back toward something a little less heated, “you could always see about coming to one of the meetings and observing and seeing what it’s all about or whatever. If Europa’s been trying to get you to join then I doubt she’d mind. I just don’t know when the next meeting’s going to be. We haven’t had one in a while. But if you’re having trouble making up your mind or figuring things out, it might be a good way of doing that. Or you could… ask me about… whatever… and I could try to answer. Or… I don’t know… I’m not that great at this stuff...”

Valhalla stared at the senshi girl in bewilderment, eyes wide and full of confusion when she all but threw his hand away after a less-than-friendly shake. What just happened...? Did he do something to offend her?

"Insulting spheres...?" he repeated blankly, trying to think how he'd possibly insulted her sphere. Just because he was surprised that there was a senshi of Velociraptors didn't mean he thought it was a sucky sphere, or that he didn't think it was impressive. The comment had been more of a reaction to how many spheres there were and how far across they stretched. He'd been surprised to hear there was a senshi of Chivalry as well, just because he wouldn't have thought it to be something to draw magic from, but apparently it was. Lust had surprised him as well. One would think that he'd be used to it by now and just... not react when the Senshi of Dirt appeared.

He let Ganymede take over for the conversation though, even if he was still unsure of how he'd been insensitive. Sure, he'd punched Babylon, but he'd been getting on his nerves for a while! That didn't count!

She could stop her glaring, though... They were all supposed to be on the same side.

"Who said Europa would be announcing the meeting...?" he mumbled to himself, although not quite under his breath enough to be unheard. It was true, though... With one 'meeting' under their belts, he didn't think there was any chance for them to vote on someone to make announcements and organize things. Pasiphae had been the one to organize the small meeting between himself, Ganymede, and Vindemiatrix... And then Ganymede had been the one to send out the message for the Jovians to meet up at the Surrounding, while he'd been the one to organize the meeting between senshi and knights to decide what to do about the mirrors there. He was proud to be a part of a team that treated everyone equally, without relying on an official 'leader'.

He took a step back regardless, glancing over the piles of presents and making sure Hug-Bell didn't need any help... it didn't look like she did, though. She was pretty self-sufficient, after all.

Acubens let out a breath she didn't know she was holding when Ganymede expressed his past concern. At last, someone who could identify with her. It seemed like everyone else was just fine and dandy with this new calling. She continued listening, however, as Ganymede spoke. She raised an excellent point. Of course she did. Acubens hadn't thought about it that way. She, who was so obessed with language, didn't think to consider the names of the factions. God, she was an idiot. Her gold eyes narrowed as she continued to think about the information she was being given. Still... words were made made.

"But who named the factions? Do you know? How are we to be certain that they are the real names. What if we are chaos and they are order? What if we're both right? What gives us the right to eliminate them, and them us?" Why did she always do this? Acubens always seemed to be able to bring down a good time with her incessant thinking. "But we can't really eliminate the other side. Where woudl that leave us? I hear senshi so comitted to killing off agents of chaos but... doesn't that just make them agents of chaos as well? Murder... it doesn't seem like the right thing to do. But then, if we're all trying to kill each other... are we all Chaos? Is everything Chaos? We're in a war, Ganymede. There is no such thing as peace. Even that knight over there," she motioned to Niflhel as he scnaned the warehouse, "is on edge. I can feel it. If there is one thing I know, it's body language. It's how I knew you two were together. It's how I know he's looking for enemies."

Thinking , she continued. "But then there is the idea that one side cannot exist without the other. Order cannot exist without chaos. If there is no chaos, how do we define order? And if we eliminate chaos, we are no longer order, but chaos itself. And then whoever is left out of the war becomes order by virtue of having nothing to do with the blood shed. But are we really order at all with out killing. I hear whispers, Ganymede, of a Blood Moon Court. Militant and ruthless, they are the chaos within order. And the dark mirror who wish to save us all, they are the order within chaos. If we wish to destroy chaos, do we kill the Blood Moon? Do we spare the Dark Mirror even thought they are the most ordered of chaos?" Acubens stopped herself, shaking her head. It hurt. Too much stuff rolled aorund in it. It was no wonder she couldn't sleep anymore.

“Okay, first?” Ganymede began, trying to keep track of Acubens’ rambling. “The Blood Moon Court? I don’t associate with them. You don’t have to either, if you don’t want to. Yeah, there’s chaos within order and darkness within light or whatever. No one’s perfect. They did some bad things from what I heard, and they got their comeuppance when their leader went and turned herself to Chaos. I don’t know about who’s left of them. As far as I'm aware, they're in shambles. The only one of them I ever met and talked to face-to-face isn’t a part of it anymore, except I don’t think she was too heavily involved in it in the first place. If they’ve changed their ways since then, I have no idea.”

He felt sort of guilty talking about it, given how personal of an issue it all was, what with Europa’s cousin having been involved and becoming a member of the DMC, but he wasn’t going to sugar coat his feelings about them just because of that.

Unless Europa had been around. He probably would have tried to be a little more considerate about it then.

“There’s always going to be a couple of bad eggs, and someone’s always going to make a mistake. I have, other people have, you probably have, too. If anyone claims they haven’t, they’re lying. I refuse to believe that there’s a perfect senshi out there. Everyone has to have done at least one thing wrong.”

He wondered if it sounded as if he was apologizing for the bad things some of the senshi had done. That wasn't really what he was trying to do, though he supposed it looked that way. If it did, well... there it was.

“I don’t intend to eliminate anyone, to be honest,” he told her. “I’m much more interested in trying to find some means of coexistence. I mean, we’re all normal people underneath the disguises, aren’t we? Like the little one-” He stopped to correct himself. “Like Hug-Bell said, they’re human and they’re misguided and we as senshi should be protecting what’s ours, not destroying what belongs to others. And, uhh… I don’t really know how to answer all of your questions, except to say that killing people as a means of stopping Chaos and… ending all the killing… well, it seems kind of counterproductive to me, since… like you said… it’s just… chaotic.”

What the hell was he supposed to say to answer her? He almost looked over to Valhalla as if to ask for assistance, but he didn’t really expect the page to be able to provide an answer any better than he did. He felt as if he was in over his head. This was why he usually just dealt with his own problems instead of worrying about anyone else’s.

“Whatever happens from here on out, what you decide to believe, it’s all your choice. I can’t tell you what to do,” he said, lifting his hands in a shrug. “I know what I want out of this. I know what I intend to do. I know what I intend never to do. I… would prefer that everyone think the way I do, but that’s not really something I can control, as much as I’d like to. All I know is that… this feels right. What I believe in. It feels like I’m doing the right thing. I guess you just… need to figure out what the right thing is for you. I… I hope it’s what I feel, because I don’t think we can take losing any more people…”

Acubens looked back over to Hug-bell as she spoke. "And what do we do with the ones who won't be saved? Do we simply allow them to go about thier business of destruction and death? Do we have any other choice?" Still, she shook her head and forced another smile. "Like I said, I don't really have question, just unease and confusion that I have to deal with myself." Gratned, having someone who thought on the same wavelength as she did to puzzle the problem out with would have helped, but she couldn't blame Ganymede for not thinking like she did. No one thought like she did. In endless questions and spiraling logic slowly circling farther and farther down into unanswerable riddles.

"I can't function off of just feelings. I need answers. Solid, real answers. But that's why I didn't really want to get into it. Too heavy and complicated for this event." Maybe at another time, in another place, but not now. Now they were celebrating the holidays, and though Acubens may not know anyone, and while the massive crowd made her head spin, she was going to try and make the best of it, now that she had dipped her toe into the crowd. She was ready to belly flop into it now, and scanned the crowd for a new face. Someone to align herself with. Who knew, maybe Europa was here. She'd attach herself to her mentor's hip like a tumor if she did find her.

She grinned again, real this time, simply smaller than normal, and looking down to Hug-bell. "I'd heard talk of child soliders, but I didn't know they were real. And enternal at that. You must know what's going on with your station to be so leveled at your age." Her tone was no different than the tone she'd used with older people. The way she saw it, if children were acting like adults, then she would speak to them like adults. Granted, there were kids who she babied because they acted like babies. But that was different. If Hug-bell was going to fight in a war, than in Acubens' eyes, she was just as adult as she was. More so because of her rank.

Acubens' eyes drifted over to the red and grey senshi who'd just entered. She looked shy, albeit not nearly as paniced as Acubens had been just a moment ago. Much more confident and considerably calmer now that she'd talked to someone, Acubens laid a gentle hand on th arms of both Hug-bell and Ganymede. "It's been a pleasure, really. Thank you for speaking with me, a downer though I may have been. But I must excuse myself. Valhalla," he inclinded her head to him in her own good bye.

Acubens arrived at the side of the new senshi with a smile. "Hello," she ventured softly, trying to look as small as possible so as not to fighten the girl. "I'm Sailor Acubens, Senshi of Velociraptors. Welcome to the gathering." She didn't know what exactly to call this thing. Not a party, persay. There was no food, really, and no decoration. It was... a group of milling senshi, really.

Feeling as if he hadn’t been very successful, and now considerably more confused than he’d been when he’d walked in, Ganymede just stood there with an awkward smile on his face and watched as Acubens walked off. He felt somewhat uncomfortable now. He didn’t know if he’d said the right thing, or if he’d just made things worse for her, or if he should even be worrying about it at all. Thinking about it so much kind of made his head hurt, and he turned around to seek out Valhalla as soon as he was free to find him.

“Well, that was…” He trailed off while shaking his head. He didn’t know what that was, but it wasn’t the sort of conversation he’d expected to have when he’d walked in. Truthfully, he hadn’t expected to converse with anyone. Nothing good ever seemed to happen when he did talk during large gatherings like this. Until he’d noticed his boyfriend there, he’d been content to stand in his corner and observe.

“Remind me never to help people sort through their problems again, because I think I’m really bad at it,” he said. He looked up at Val was a bit of a conflicted expression on his face. What else could he have done? Let it go and not say anything at all?

Clearly he was entirely incapable of doing that.

Sighing, he looped both of his arms around one of Valhalla’s and leaned against him. He spared another quick glance over in the direction Acubens had gone off to and was happy to see a senshi he recognized, momentarily letting go of Val with one hand to wave to Pasiphae.

Then it was back to cuddling. Cuddling always made him feel better.

Acubens blushed as she was asked after. She wasn't sure how much of the conversation the other senshi knew about, but the idea that Acubens had managed to make an entire group uncomfortable was still embarrassing. She cleared her throat and reassured, "No, ahh, Ganymede and I were just talking. Well, I was rambling and she was trying to make sense of it. I managed to upset her, her boyfriend, and a little one all in one blow." Acubens mussed the back of her corn rows, where they all coalesced into a mass of beads and braids. The resulting sound was a quiet cacophony of plastic clicking together dissonantly. “But she was really nice about it. Let me wear myself out and then tried to make sense of it all. She helped me more than I think she knows. Yeah, I have more questions but…” Acubens glanced back at the girl, grinning as she watched her cuddle with Valhalla, “I also have some answers. And that was all I asked for, really.” She shrugged again and grinned.

“But, I keep bringing people down with that talk. I’m good at ruining people good moods, be it with my awful temper or with endless questions. My brother calls me Socks, short for Socrates, when I get like that.” After she was done divulging her life story, Acubens only stood beside Pasiphae, grinning awkwardly, trying to find something to say. Oh, she was dreadful with new people. Yeah, she was friendly enough, and considered all new comers who did not piss her off instant friends, but it was starting conversations she was awful at. Quick, what do we know? Senshi of shame. Go with that!

“So…” she began, digging the toe of her boot into the ground. “Shame, huh? I keep meeting senshi with the most interesting spheres. I can’t help but wonder how cool Ganymede’s much be. What do you attack with?” Whatever it was, he had to be cooler than the ability to run fast. That was lame. Super lame. And as much as Acubens loved running, it was useless in a battle.

Pharos grinned nodded excitely, "I know who you are silly, but I guess you wouldn't remember me huh?"

She looked to Ganymede with the same excited grin and gave a nod, "I'm Pharos of Chronos," she said to both looking back to Valhalla.

She wanted to jog his memory without going around spouting I'm Eliza because she did not think the rest of the Zodiac would approve, but she really wasn't entirely sure of that either.

"Um lets see," she said looking at Valhalla, "I met you up on the surrounding int he treasure room and we found that shiny box. It had a name for it, um who did you say," she said not asking but think on it.

"Maia I think it was, yes Maia's shiny box," she continued to grin wondering if he would remember, either way it didn't really matter.