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"Last week Aegir and I found the chapel-- or what I'm going to assume was a chapel. I can't imagine what it would cost to repair the stained glass, but I'm certain it was beautiful at one point. There's also a staircase leading up not far from it, but I figured I would save that for another time. Most of this level seems to be more closed off and private, so I'm going to assume that it was where Corvus-- where I, I suppose-- spent more time. It doesn't seem to be ravaged, just... Abandoned." She wasn't certain what was worse, truth be told. Nothing had been completely destroyed, as it seemed things on Arsinoe had been, but they had certainly been forgotten.

"If there was a battle here it didn't take place anywhere that I've unearthed yet. It just leaves me with more questions and less answers."

---

"Have the two of you explored anywhere beyond the Archives?" She'd overheard Lucien talking to Cordelia about restoring them and it seemed as though his focus was on gathering information to replace everything that had been lost, but she'd never bothered prodding herself to find out just how far they'd gone in exploring his home world.

"Do you think they would have kept everything in one place? All of the technology along with all of the books and scrolls? I would think it might be for the best to keep some things apart, just in case something were to happen."

"If whoever I was in the past was anything at all like me now, no, I wouldn't have just waited around here for something to happen." Vengeance is taken on behalf of others. The words echoed in her mind as she squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the thoughts aside in order to continue down the hall. She didn't want to think about what had happened to the people of Corvus right now, no more than she wanted to think about how the Sailor Corvus of the past had come across her own demise.

The Space Cauldron had restarted the cycle. That was all that mattered.

"I'd like to think that we made them fight for it, at the very least," she murmured softly before changing the subject. "Do you want to help me see if we can get into the tower?"

---

"Sometimes being a lot smaller than our senshi counterparts makes it easier for us to get into places that they cant." It had given her the chance to explore places that Cordelia hadn't been able to wander, at the very least. "Are your eyes adjusting well enough to everything down here? It's not much further until we reach the bottom of the stairs and then we're heading across the hall and to the right."

"The lower part of the stairs were intact-- stone, like the rest of this place. Whoever built this castle was determined to make sure that it lasted, I'll give them that." It gave her a sense of pride to know what her people had made and what it could withstand. It said something for the way they went about life, as well as the way she herself should think about things.

"We'll only know about the rest of we start heading up them, right? Besides, it's either up or down and down takes us further away from the courtyard."

---

"Good, now this way." Her voice was chipper as she trotted ahead, keeping her pace just slow enough that Sumi would still be able to follow after her. It wouldn't have been right to ask for his assistance and then run on ahead. She'd also told Lucien that she would not lose his Mauvian companion.

Eta paused at the end of the hall, pacing as she tried to remember where she had gone only to take a left turn towards a pile of rubble. "We just have to climb over this and then slip through the doorway and then there's one more small flight of stairs."

"Other than exploring the hall that you and I found the last time we were here together? No, I haven't. I don't know if a flashlight or a lantern gives off enough light for me to wander through the underbelly of a castle carved into a cliff side on my own." A wry grin curved her lips as she glanced at her cousin. "The last thing I need is to find a dragon or some other sort of oversized monster down there-- It also makes sense that you'd keep important things stashed away in a library that serves as a vault."

---

"There are some things that I'm not much use to Cordelia with-- dusting, cleaning, anything at all that requires thumbs, really. While she's cleaning out chambers or trying to figure out how to clear a path I get to wander on ahead. If you could convince Lucien to worry about you a bit less perhaps you would be able to do the same?" Her brow quirked as she glanced back to the ball of fluff. She would have offered to help or tried to pull him up by his scruff but she didn't want him to think that she was of the opinion that he wasn't capable.

"If I can find things that she can't it might help in the long run... And I want to be able to help her as much as I possibly can. I owe her that much."

"I don't know. I've only ever explored the castle and I don't know what else exists outside of it. I'm sure that an entire world's worth of inhabitants didn't just reside in this one castle, but..." She also had no way of telling how large an uncharted world was and unless she could direct her arrivals to specific places there was no way of telling what else there might be.

"If we lived in a world of unlimited funds I'd look into solar panels." Cordelia shook her head, shifting her pack on her shoulder after turning on her lantern to light the way up the stairs. "I haven't figured out what was used to power the lanterns in the halls here either. No traces of oil residue... Not that I know how long that would last."

---

"We'll have to put a bit of work into our own communication devices once we're back on earth so he has a way of reaching out to you. I've been meaning to track down the pieces for one, but... It's been more important to spend that extra time bonding with Sailor Corvus again." Her tail ticked behind her as she waited for Sumi to join her at the bottom of the rubble mound. Once he had she gave him a moment to steady himself before leading him down a narrow hall dimly lit by phosphorescent rocks that had been worked into the pattern on the walls. It wasn't enough to see by, but a trail was still a trail.

"They could have been magic, but if they're not working now does that mean the magic has run out? Or is there a way to recharge it? There are too many questions and not enough ways to get answers." She shook her head as she glanced back over her shoulder to her cousin briefly before her attention shifted back to the stairs ahead of her. The stairs inside the tower seemed to be in decent shape with only a few chips taken out here and there; fortunately nothing that seemed as though it would threaten their integrity as they spiraled upwards.

"Sometimes I envy Knights. They can ask questions of their Code, now that it's no longer spewing lies. If they are descendants they learn from those who came before them. We have memories here, of course, but I'm more invested in our future as it is... Not going back to what was."

----

"Corvus hasn't acted as though I haven't been there, but I know that I haven't been there for her. It might not make much of a difference to her that I'm here now when I wasn't before, but..." The silvery tabby couldn't help but be somewhat disappointed in herself that she hadn't been there for the Senshi of Vengeance. She would do nothing to change the young woman or who she had become, but she couldn't help but wonder if things might have somehow been easier for her charge to bear had she been there by her side all along.

"I think... Ah-hah! Here we are." Eta paused before nudging her way past a door that had been left ajar, hinges rusted to the point of no return. "This is what I wanted you to take a look at, Sumi. Something is still feeding power into it and I am going to hazard a guess that those things over there are pumps... But by the stars I can't for the life of me figure out how to get it going."

"Not all of us had libraries filled with information, Luc." A soft smirk touched her lips, her tone teasing and a bit fond. She wasn't entirely sure that she bought in to his insistence that they had to learn about who they were before. Part of that was fear over what had passed, certainly, but some of it was the determination to build a better future, past be damned. She had to believe that this wouldn't be a repeat of whatever had been before.

Ahead of them a bit of light was filtering in from somewhere, the stairs giving way to a room with window coverings and a roof that had seen better days. A large table had been set off to the side, covered in dust, cobwebs and debris that had blown in from the outside. Two benches were bolted to the floor on either side of it.

The opposite side of the room housed a nook with dozens of slots, some containing scrolls that had likely seen much better days. Cages were hanging throughout the room at varying heights and when she closed her eyes she was almost certain that she could hear clucks, caws and the clacking of beaks. "Luc... It's the aviary."

---

"That's what I would like to know-- after we see if we can get this one working, of course." With graceful ease she leaped up onto the panel alongside Sumi, giving everything a look over as well. "Everything is so old and the tech doesn't look like ours at all... But it's not so old that I'd assume it was steam powered either. I just can't figure out for certain how to turn any of it on."