Welcome to Gaia! ::

The path she lead Amphitrite along was as familiar to her as the spiderweb of cracks across the back of her hand, allowing her to walk around the worst of the chasms that marred the scorched earth below their feet.

When the corrupt spoke, Alkaid listened without turning to look at her. Her bright eyes remained ever fixed on the castle that grew larger with each step they took toward it, looking it over as if she were concerned for its upkeep. It wasn't an entirely ludicrous thought - with no atmosphere, the world was at the whim of the forces in the universe, though Metallia's structure seemed unharmed thus far. She did hear the words through her silent pondering, and though it took a moment, she answered finally.

"A little over six months after I was brought over from the White Moon. By comparison to my time with Metallia, I suppose that's not very long at all." Her brows narrowed as she thought it over, as if it were the first time it had truly occurred to her. Had it really taken her such little time when she had spent so much longer trying to find the pathway for others? "I ascended four years and some months ago, give or take." What a shame.

As they approached, it was easier to see the half circle courtyard that spread out before the large, double crystal doors of the castle, marked by wide, flat gem flagstones. They were crystal, as all things in her architecture, varying only slightly from the composition of the building itself. At the very center of the courtyard was a single, purple-black gem taller than Alkaid herself, more opaque than the others that jutted haphazardly from the earth around the structure. It was encased by a low, circular bench around its entire perimeter - a mockery of a fountain, perhaps, on a world that would have had gossiping citizens to frequent it.

"There was a man who called himself Kurma. He's older and wiser than he seems, but naive in a way. I don't know what he is, or why he exists, just that he does." The confidence she almost always carried in her tone had been hushed as she began, like someone remembering a dream they weren't entirely sure of. "We were friends, once, and after I left the White Moon he took pity on me in that way that only Serenity's brethren do. I had always assumed he was an unbiased creature, like Cosmos herself, but I don't think that's quite true."

The story paused, for a moment, as she considered something she wasn't entirely wiling to say out loud. Then it was dismissed, and she continued again.

"He wanted me to see my planet because I was no longer able to go for myself, something I'm sure you've noticed by now. There was sand as far as I could see and the bones of my people, buried where they'd fallen in some battle I couldn't remember." A single hand raised, sweeping out before her, to encompass the land that stretched on endlessly around them. "I didn't have time to be horrified, because Metallia already knew I was here. She sent Tanzanite for me, the great youma General-Queen, who was more faithful than I could ever hope to be." The uncertainty in her voice faded and a true, pleased smile spread her lips, remembering now the best parts of her story. "They battled, Kurma and Tanzanite, but it was almost a joke. He has a strong will, and body, but she was a force not to be reckoned with. In the end she threw him out into the stars and without him to stop her, she used herself as a beacon for Metallia's raw power."

The hand that has spread to draw her attention to the world came back to her, palm up, so that she could stare down at the cracks traced along her skin.

"What you see is the result of my being, crystallized and shattered when she poured all of that through me and into my star's core. I suppose it must've hurt, right at the beginning, but it's hard to remember. The fire burned away everything."

Purified.

Alkaid considered the word, and the weight it carried. Purification, corruption, transcending, awakening - all just words to file the change of life into neat little categories. She could understand the need to classify what had happened, to make it fit some mold that could then be used to predict the rest of the war, but truthfully, she wasn't sure if what she had experienced was what others would at all. She wasn't sure if all corruptions were inherently the same, or if any two senshi were truly as much alike as they assumed.

Metallia was the only force in the universe that took drifting vessels and made them something better, stronger, kin. It wasn't so much purification as it was being..

"United. The fire united my being with Metallia."

The bright eyes flickered down to Amphitrite at the sound of hesitance on her lips and immediately, she noted the frown. At first she had assumed the girl was expressing some sadness, over what she was unsure, but then she realized that the corrupt had simply arrived at the same conclusion Alkaid had so very long ago. It was a reason, to be sad, in a way, but Alkaid's lips spread into a smile that seemed almost proud.

"You are a wise little one, aren't you?" One hand raised to cup gently beneath the corrupt's chin, holding her gaze steady on the General's. She considered her, for a moment, before brushing a thumb along her cheek and letting the hand fall away again. She moved on without answering, until she came face to face with the wide double doors of her castle. With one great heave, she pushed them open, revealing the entry hall of her castle. Large pillars lined the center pathway, with inset walls running parallel, and the far side revealed two identical stairways leading up to a second floor. Between them was a second set of arching doors, grand and regal.

"You're right. It is why I am the only one. He mourned the loss of my star too deeply to do the same for anyone else." That smile remained, even as she said the words that had caused her such pain in the beginning. She stepped aside and waved the corrupt forward, into the long hall, lit by an eerie orange glow that ran through the very crystal itself - like lightning trapped in a gem.

"It's no matter, though. I think I've found the way, at last."

The doors shut behind the pair with a thud that echoed through the crystal castle, empty and devoid as it was of all things that were used to soak up sound in human residences. She stepped lightly around the little corrupt and strode slowly down the long entry hall, making sure not to leave Amphitrite too far behind in her wake.

"I'm not entirely sure yet," she admitted, locking her hands behind her back again, just above the wings at her hips. The glimmering cape trailed behind her along the floor, lit by the strange glows of the crystal, making Alkaid seem every bit regal in the crystal castle. It was easy to be the ruler of a realm where no others existed.

"There's a relic, deep in the rift, that I think will help me but it's in a state of disrepair that is.. worrisome." She chose the last word carefully. It was quite possibly irreparable but she didn't want to lose hope, not just yet. Metallia never would have wanted her to find it if it was useless, she had faith in that. She turned back to look at Amphitrite, smiling for the benefit of the girl alone. "I'm positive Metallia will show me the way to reparation eventually, as she does with all things in time."

As they came to stand at the base of the dual stairs, she turned to the left and placed a hand on the banister. "Come this way, I'll show you something else."

She mounted the stairs carefully, one heeled foot at a time, and turned to the hallway of the east wing. It was long and dim, lit by the same odd crystal that composed the majority of the castle itself. Doors lead off to either side, crossing hallways met at intersections, but at the far end stood an open archway with something dark just barely visible at the center of the room.

A small smile formed on her lips as Amphitrite made the comparison between herself and the tower. The apparent pleasure was not just because of her beautiful imagery and the parallel it suggested, but because she, too, had made as much of an assumption. Metallia would take their flawed, Senshi vessels and fill them with Chaos, so that their power no longer relied upon the starseed of their traitorous pasts.

"I think you understand, though a part of me wonders if there is some test in this for me too. A final point to be made by her, perhaps?"

She paused outside the door that they had been steadily approaching, staring into the darkness beyond with a curious look on her face. Whatever lay inside was something important, to her, or it would not have existed in a place so barren of comfort and life.

"A long time ago, my planet was used to ferry Negaverse agents to a greater battle, but as for my stronghold? I can count those who have seen it with their own eyes on a single hand." She held said hand up between them and wiggled her fingers just a little for emphasis. "I only bring someone if they will see it for what it is, or if there is some greater knowledge they might take from it."

Yet as she said that, her eyes shifted back to the room before them and a tightness appeared around her lips. Without another word, she stepped forward, and the room before them grew brighter. It wasn't from any single source of light - the walls of crystal around them simply grew brighter, filled with more of the odd light that seemed to crawl along the walls in response to her own energy. As the room grew brighter, the dark mass at the center was suddenly visible. It was a large sphere of crystal, touching both the floor and ceiling, with trails of thick crystal sprawling out from the epicenter. At the very core of the crystal, visible beneath the thick layers, was a person.

Alkaid stepped close without hesitation and placed a single hand on the surface, staring at the man trapped within as if she had done so a thousand times. Though chaos energy seeped from every inch of her planet, a different strain pulsed dimly from within the crystal itself, from the starseed of the man that had taken her attention so easily.

"General Hematite was the very first."

"A few years."

When Alkaid said those three words, they were spoken with a gentleness generally not expressed by the Ascendant. Was it mere play, as most of her emotions were, or was there something real in the way that she stared up into his face with such a complicated expression? Even Alkaid wondered how much of her still felt the loss of her companion and how much of her simply echoed the sentiment, over and over, unwilling to forget.

To forget was to give up on him. If she didn't remember, who would?

"It's hard to know just how long its been when there is no one left to pursue his revival, when there are so few of us left that even know his name. All he ever wanted was to know who he was, separate of all the lies he's been fed his entire existence, and now.."

The cracked hand she had placed against the surface of his tomb slipped away, falling with the eerie screech of crystal on crystal. There was no warm imprint of her fingers left behind on the surface, no scratch or mark to mar the perfection. There was something in her that still felt, that still mourned. It was there as her eyes finally pulled away from the dark man inside his crystal tomb, lingering for a moment as she considered Amphitrite instead.

"He is simply trapped here, neither alive nor dead, sharing the same fate that fell upon those that cared for and betrayed him. Perhaps they would have known the answer," her bright gaze drifted back to Hematite again, "but they can't speak anymore than he can."

It wasn't often that Alkaid liked to remember the faults of her past, of the past she shared with so many people. The Negaverse had made many, many mistakes. Her memory was peppered with the betrayals and faults of those she had once seen as untouchable and every downfall of command lingered like a stark reminder. To be human was to err, and to err was no simple matter. It was life or death, loyalty or treason.

"The Negaverse is littered with the remains of our failures, Amphitrite. We must remember them."