Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Because he's a danger to people who have no business being in danger. Because he shouts about how he's noble and good while ripping apart people who can't begin to stand against him, because he's passing judgement without hearing the crime and the only sentence he's passing out is -death-."

Kairatos burst out, flustered, and anxious because damnit, now that he thought about it, Hver was right. Like something out of the most warped prophesy, CASTOR was a perfect representation of everything most other senshi weren't.

"The senshi are only here because the places they would have been born are gone. They're basicly refugees. I... Goddamnit."

He was not handling this well, but he was just...

"Don't think it hasn't occurred to... well it occurred to me, but if that just makes him a martyr, that's worse than him being what he is. God I want absolutely nothing that he's offering. Nothing."

He stepped away from the small pile of weapons to pace.

"********. I came to keep people alive, not to make things worse."

He didn't mean for his words to come out accusing, which they seemed to take them so, or that they'd been very specific even to her and Kairatos especial out of any of nobles that served the Moon and whatever other courts there may or may not be in the stars. He wasn't sure which words or how used caused the problem. The Bull was swearing and Hvergelmir was saying he was asking anyone to prove anything. But even refugees can understand that they must present themselves to the ruling throne. Why do they not? There'd be no reason for war if the courtesy were obeyed.

The pacing made him nervous, and he watched the glint of the bull's head in the neon lowlight and incandescent lamp of the post.

"I'm sorry....there are reasons that I am not fit for politics. Or for talking. Or most things. " His hands lifted briefly, uselessly in echo. Then fell back to his hips. Then cross around his belt- closed posture but not cross armed-oppositional. "I have nothing I can offer, and it isn't my place. I am no commander, just a soldier. I am no lord. I have only my hands, and you are right-"

"-those were sworn some time ago to Obsidian."

"You are right."
"The hand of the lesser is supposed to reflect the sword of the greater in homage. " I do not want to go mad. I do not want to eat starseeds as my only food. He is hardly a General anymore. I do not want to live in the Rift. I do not want him to be any of those things.

He looked over at the weapons sadly. "You use 'mercy' as a blade of its own."
It felt bloody. "Thank you for coming. For caring to check if someone was alive when you didn't know who it was you came to see. And that .."

He looked to the Bull, still confused, "You did. I don't know why you care if I lived or died by this Castor. I can't say my report about he and his brother, or suggestions of caution with our recruits, will make any difference. But I will do what I can. "

Will I be welcome near her bench now? It doesn't seem likely. Maybe it wasn't right in the first place. Maybe there's no hope for Obsidian at all.

Chaos wormed its way into the hearts of all those who served it. It needed only one c***k in the armor, one tiny fissure through which to dig in its claws and lay down roots -- then, weed that it was, it would set about to growing and taking over the garden for its own. Hvergelmir looked for it, always, invisible and elusive as the Higgs-Bosun, trying to measure it by its effects on its environment because it couldn't be directly observed. There were glimpses of it, just out of the corner of her eye, in everyone she met. In Zippeite's anger, in Schreibersite's desperation, in Bischofite's depression, in Persephone's grief: it found them through their imperfections and it fed on them, promising itself as the answer to each of its victim's failings, while feeding the imperfections to keep its host dependent.

In each of them, where she thought Chaos lay, she could've asked the question:

What do you hate about yourself?

There, in the heart, it waited.

Hvergelmir had thought, for a while, that it simply touched Titan less. That Chaos invested less in leashing him because it didn't need to -- he was obedient and stayed willingly. She had assumed -- stupidly -- that it hadn't bothered to work as many of its barbs into his flesh as it did with his comrades. Now, at last, she thought she saw.

'I am not fit for politics. Or for talking. Or most things.'

How foolish she'd been, not to have realized it.

What do you hate about yourself?

The very thought was an ache in her heart. What else could it be, after all? How else did a cause so vicious, so bloodied, manage to hold such a gentle person in its thrall?

Hvergelmir wasn't sure she could forgive herself if they never managed to help him at all.

"There are people in the Negaverse who might listen," she offered as a reassurance. She could see Persephone in her mind's eye -- still grieving the child who'd died under her leadership. She would care. "They're scattered -- but they're there. It could still make a little difference."

Titan was right, though -- there was not much hope. Even if a group of knights banded together and killed Prince Castor and Sailor Pollux, even if they presented their twin heads on silver platters to the Negaverse, no bell could be un-rung. The Rubicon was crossed.

Things would be worse now. Castor was right about one thing -- people reacted from fear. The Negaverse would answer blood for blood. Innocent people would suffer. Hvergelmir had spent months trying to push their doomsday clock back by a few seconds, and barely gotten anywhere; in a day, Castor and Pollux had thrown it forward by ten minutes.

"There are still rules to war," she said, voice soft and grave, "if there are still people to uphold them. Castor and Pollux don't think so -- but they're wrong. The rules don't stop existing because the enemy breaks them. We have to be better than our enemies even so."

She watched Kairatos pacing. Her eyes were drawn to the way the light behind him flickered as he passed. The old biker bar, its tavern-yellow light glowing over the door.

"Do you gather energy here?" she asked, a thought occurring to her.

Hvergelmir nodded. "Then Kairatos will renounce his claim on it and cede this place to you, uncontested. As a small token of our apology for the deaths of so many. Do your work here as you like -- he won't interfere, and should he seek you here for any other reason, you can send him away any time you wish."

She looked to Kairatos to see how he was taking this declaration she had made completely on his behalf.

"Do you consent to these terms?" she asked the knight of Mars.

Titan's mouth pulled into a line, looking at the Bull again while he made noises to himself in the dim. I don't like pulling starseeds.

But offering that piece of information was pointless- there was neither reason to believe it, nor was there anything that said he had to like it to be ordered to do so. Or to find a necessity in doing it in midst of battle. I don't think this was about any of the three of us feeling like we're on trial. But we do.

"What would you request in return?"

And does that mean that he might actually come here to drink and eat wings?....is that weird or normal? Its what everyone else does here.

"OK taco's are nice but I don't need to be bribed with mexican food." Kairatos smiled, just a little, at this though. "Don't need anything, unless you swing by her bench with some of those weird little handwarmers or something when it gets colder."

He wasn't sure what to ask for, though he had this sudden image of being gifted with taco's becoming an 'thing'. Random nega's showing up with Taco's in tribute in an attempt to gain Amnesty. And locks of hair for Hver, until she was covered with so many that she looked like she'd been going out with a werewolf.

The second image in particular was so amusing he couldn't help but stiffle a chuckle, though the situation didn't warent it, and he expected it would be confusing.

"Sorry. not you... I was just imagining other agents bringing her locks of hair until just..." He gestured to indicate a monstrous pile of hair clippings. "... Hair."

OK maybe it was time to give up for the night and go to bed.

Hvergelmir let out a slow, relieved breath. Not all was lost -- whether or not her little truce with Titan was a little frayed after today's events, it hadn't fallen completely apart. He still drew a distinction between one person and the next on their side, still didn't see them as part of Castor and Pollux's death conspiracy.

She nodded to Titan. "Thank you. We'll leave you to your reports." She crossed to the pile of weapons between them, picking up only her own, then dismissing it into the air and stepping back.