Welcome to Gaia! ::

Encke was pleased that Methone was just as fascinated by his comet as he was fascinated by her moon. He was proud of the work he had done on it, and he was also proud of the work the comet had done on itself, restoring itself, making itself anew.

He could only remember what it would have been like with people milling around, though...

"Underwater city?" asked Encke, fascinated, as he led Methone up to the largest building in the area. It was the one he knew the most about, admittedly, and thus far when he had taken people on his comet--as few and far between as they were--he had defaulted to taking them into that building. A lot of his memories were concentrated in these areas, too... "Scuba sounds like a good way to get started, honestly. Maybe there's something on your planet, too, that might allow you to get down there? People have ways of accommodating, I think... Or perhaps your people were like frogs?" A pause. "Ah, amphibious?"

That was the word he was looking for, not frogs.

He led her into the building, into a room with a grand entryway, with stairs in the distance that curved up to another floor. The cavernous room was lined with doors, small statues, and even paintings lining some of the walls. While there were still candles around, Encke had mostly put those out, by now; the building was primarily lit by electricity, the light streaming from above from strips and occasional bulbs.

"Memories? They've told me quite a bit, at this point," offered Encke, with a laugh, gesturing around the room. "A lot in here, too. Found out I was actually the ruler here, in my past life, funny enough." Felt like a lot of responsibility, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked it. "We were a proud people. Very egalitarian, though. Thought every Enckean should be treated the same, though the leading house was on a bit of a pedestal. From what I've seen in my memories, we're generally tall, pretty fast, pretty, uh," he wiggled his fingers, "glowy."

He cleared his throat.

"We sent ambassadors to other planets to collect information and more technology, which we used to advance ourselves. We also traded out some of the technology we came up with to others." He wouldn't mention it was because he had noticed a strain in his memories, a strain from his own past life's memories, that they thought other peoples were inferior.

That wasn't necessary to bring up.

"We were pretty proud of our electricity, I think."

Pix must have been Methone's former name. He had a momentary thought that he didn't know what her current name was, but then, Encke didn't really know what many of their current names were. He had done that on purpose.

Keeping his civilian and his powered life separate was the best way he knew to protect others.

If Pix had never gone to it herself, it explained why Methone couldn't think of a way to get down there. Encke had managed to figure out how to get the electricity running on his comet partially due to having a memory of having done the same before. If Methone didn't have that reference point, she'd have to figure it out herself. There was a part of him that was curious if there were foreigners on Methone who were aquatic who lived down there, but he wasn't sure if she'd know the answer to that.

He did know he wanted to see it, though.

"If you ever figure out how to get down there, you should let me know."

He shifted subjects back to his own comet and history fairly easily, especially since he could tell that Methone shifted a bit in thought. Maybe she didn't want to think too much about that at the moment. "A bit surprised, yeah. Definitely wasn't expecting to find out that an entire people followed me at one point," remarked Encke, with a laugh. He laughed harder at the concept of himself having a Midas Complex, admittedly, and followed up his prior comments with a, "I'm not sure how rich I was, exactly, considering the whole egalitarian thing."

He winked.

"Definitely rich in pride, though." When it came to other peoples, perhaps too rich in it. "And electricity." The mention of Mauvians was interesting. Admittedly, Encke hadn't seen many Mauvians in his memories yet... "I wonder if we had any trade contact with the Mauvians. That'd be pretty cool, eh?"

He wondered what contacts he had in general in his past life. Admittedly, it hadn't seemed like he had gone off-comet himself too often except for specific reasons, and for a recurring reason he hadn't quite figured out yet. It seemed like Methone had a lot of connections in her past life, even if they were mostly based out of the Saturnian system...

"Anyway, you're free to look around in here if you'd like. If you want a place to eat," offered Encke, with a laugh, "I do know where there's a nice small dining room."

Encke couldn't help laughing a bit at the idea of his fingers being useful if it was dark down there.

Hell, his whole get up would be, provided it was still able to be seen. Entire parts of his outfit glowed. It was a good thing Encke never had any particular interest in being sneaky, because his transcendence plus his eternal outfit would mean that he would suck at it even if he tried. There was no way he wasn't going to be noticed...

Mauvians did seem quite valuable. It was interesting that he couldn't really recall any memories of them having ever been on Encke. Did the Enckeans have communication with them? In some ways, he hoped they did. It seemed like they were a connection that was almost necessary. Were they not quite as necessary in the past? "Mauvians are so strange. Do Mauvians know much more about their pasts than we do?" asked Encke, with a laugh, as he watched Methone look around the room.

Of course, it wasn't long before she was joining him again.

At the eyebrow waggling, he winked, before offering, jokingly, "You sure you're not looking for the bedroom?" He paused, before adding, with a laugh, "Nah, don't think we'd be eating from a picnic basket there--"

For all their joking, he led her to one of the dining rooms, through what seemed to be a smaller living quarters. He didn't dwell long there, passing by a few doors, moving into an area with a small white, seemingly stone round table with several chairs surrounding it. There was where he playfully pulled out a chair for her, gesturing for her to sit.

The chairs were made of a similar material, but there was a cushion that prevented them from just sitting on stone.

"I've noticed a lot of the tables here are round. Haven't seen many of those, uh, long column tables yet." He had seen some square tables in some of the meeting rooms down below, but nothing extremely long.

When she said bringing dinner would get her lucky, his grin grew, and he couldn't help giving her a mischievous quirked brow and a wink in turn.

The easiest way to his heart wasn't necessarily through his stomach, though he wouldn't say he'd complain about food as a means of flirtation--

After she settled in her seat, Encke offered a gallant, "I try," before he took a look around to make sure the dining room was the way he had left it last. When he noticed a bit of dust sitting on one of the chairs next to Methone, Encke snorted derisively at it, quickly fetching a cloth he had left in the corner of the room so he could wipe it off. And since he took the effort to wipe that particular chair off, Encke sat himself in it. Of course, considering it was the chair next to his guest, he probably would have chosen it anyway--

He took a moment to ponder her questions as he looked over the selection of food Methone had brought with her. Honestly, everything looked so good right now, though part of that might have been the fact he was on his comet with a friend making everything just that much better--

"I think so? The equality thing. What with the egalitarian way my people seemed to be." He tapped his fingers against the stone, thoughtfully. "From what I've seen in my memories, there was little, ah, hierarchy in Enckean society, in general. Even on a familial level."

Well, unless it was to outsiders with no Enckean blood...

Encke swiped something from the table, bringing it closer.

At being humanoid, he nodded. "At least, humanoid enough. I haven't seen many people who were Enckean who didn't follow the tall, fast, glowy-eyed glowy-fingered humanoid model, though due to all of our trade contact with other people," yeah, trade contact was the reason, it was technically true, "there were a lot of people here with different traits, too. Some less humanoid than others, but all Enckean on some level."

He tilted his head to the side a tad. "But there was animal life here, too. A lot of us had a companion animal that resembled a dog."

The food selection was so vast, but ultimately, Encke ended up going for one of the sandwiches. Well, two of the sandwiches. Something was really nice about some ingredients stuck between two slices of bread. He could honestly go for a sandwich almost every day--

Especially when talking to friends in the meantime.

What was he? An easy answer, Encke replying with a grin, "Full-blooded Enckean." Honestly, he wasn't sure if he could be anything less and be the leader. Of course, he hadn't exactly done any research on such. It wasn't like it had ever come up in his memories. The fact that he was full-blooded Enckean had come up before, though, especially in relation to some other things he hadn't quite been able to decipher... "I had all the traditional Enckean features too. Instead of this glowing around the eye markings I have," he gestured widely to his eyes, "my eyes glowed, too. Golden color, kinda like the color of my eyes now, actually."

From what he could tell, Encke looked fairly similar to the way he looked in his past life, with a few key differences, the most primary of them being the fact that he wasn't even human. Enckeans were humanoid enough, though, in general.

Was there a requirement to have dogs?

"I don't think so, the requirement thing, but we sure seemed to like them," replied Encke, with a laugh, before his face fell just a bit. She was right about the animal life. Though he was fairly sure he had enough growing and thriving on Encke now that life could be sustained there, no signs of the animal life that once thrived on the comet could really be found. Maybe there were some signs of it somewhere, or briefly, but he hadn't really found much success in figuring out where it was hiding from him--

"I think it is, yeah," replied Encke, as he took a bite out of his sandwich. "Which is odd, because plants are thriving here, and honestly I think this comet could sustain life. I hope animals start coming back to more of these worlds soon. Will bring them more to life, ya know? Will make them feel more like they did so many years ago."

And that would be one step closer to Encke's goal, really.

"Nah," Encke replied, with a wink, "all full-blooded Enckeans had glowing eyes. And quite a few of the not full-blooded Enckeans, too. I suspect it might've been intended to help with the darkness."

In his years of coming to Encke's Comet, he had definitely noticed the difference in the night sky between when they were closer to the sun, and when they were further away. When they were further away, it was basically like they were living in a permanent night. Probably why the electricity and lighting systems they had created were so useful in the first place, honestly...

He moved on to eating one of the sides, nodding in sadness when she commented that it was too quiet. He agreed. Sometimes, when he walked into the building they were in now, his memories would fill in what it would sound like.

By himself?

It sounded like the place had been abandoned, left to die. It was a ghost town.

He hated that.

The next question about bringing his beau there took him by surprise, and it took a moment of swallowing down his food to actually parse together an answer. What would he say to that? "Well, he isn't powered, so kinda got to get around the whole, no, seriously, I'm sorta from space thing first," remarked Encke, with a laugh.

Strange, a few months ago, he would have never admitted that, not even to a friend. But he liked Methone, anyway, and Richard knew about all this s**t now. There was no hiding him from it. He just ... would make sure not to mention him to anyone with Chaos ties. Or anyone he didn't know significantly well enough. He'd like to think he knew Methone significantly well enough.

"But I'd like to. I think once he got over the shellshock, he'd find it as awesome as I do. It's what I told him when I told him about this -- that I can actually go to Encke, that is," he chuckled, vaguely motioning at their surroundings.