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Encke hadn't really eaten much of anything all day, and considering the amount of activity he did, and even just the amount of muscle mass his body needed to maintain, that wasn't any good.

It probably wasn't surprising how quickly he dug into the bag he had brought with him, going for one of the sandwiches first. He got so into eating it that he almost forgot that he had been asked a question, and when it did dawn on him he should probably give some sort of answer, Encke laughed sheepishly, lowering the sandwich. He covered his mouth with his hand and offered a, "Sorry, hungry," before swallowing the food down and setting down his sandwich for a moment.

He didn't need to look like he hadn't eaten in days...

"I'm glad you like it up here," responded Encke, looking down at the city below. "I do, too. It's nice to just come up here and chill. And sometimes it's neat to try and peek into some of the houses up here. Broke the locks on a few of them."

It had felt rude, initially, but no one else was living here at this point, and no one else was going to be any time soon. Besides, it wasn't like there were any ghosts lurking around the comet--

Right.

"I do, actually. Memories, I mean. I get memories all the time when I'm up here," finally offered Encke, glancing back to Pendour with a grin. "Sometimes they come as flashes of things I might have done, other times I end up piloting myself around the place, thinking I'm back there," as in, thinking he was the former king of the comet, back in the past, going through the motions as if he was actually living in that moment now. "I've figured out a lot at this point, honestly, or maybe just my starseed has told me a lot. Not sure how that works."

He did know that it seemed to be linked to being a reincarnated person, or somehow returning the starseed of the prior person back home. That was how it worked in Scholomance's case, with his memories, Encke remembered. He returned Blaine, and then he started getting memories of his own...

"Silverware looked pretty similar to what we're used to on Earth, I think," remarked Encke, with a laugh. "Maybe a little less on the ornate, though. Pretty sleek looking. Useful.

"But I think I have a pretty good idea of what life was like here, if you have any questions."

And maybe something she said would trigger another memory.

Admittedly, Encke appreciated that she started eating as well. It wasn't that Encke was awkward, or anything, but he felt a little less awkward just stuffing his face if Pendour was also eating something...

When she took the time to start responding to him, Encke listened, picking back up the sandwich and taking a few more bites out of it. No need to eat like he was about to starve to death, but at least Pendour didn't seem to mind terribly much that he was eating. 'Food is very important,' sounded like something one of Richard's brothers would say, though--

The purpose? That was definitely more of a wonder thing, he was pretty sure, but every community had something they strived towards, too. Encke's Comet wasn't an exception to that. Their purpose was the betterment of their people, of course, and the betterment of the peoples around them, though that was mostly through other methods. Sharing their technology. Sharing their culture and ideas. Sharing other things, on occasion...

"I think our technology in general was our speciality, especially our electric technology," offered Encke, with a grin. "My people seemed to want to share that a lot in my memories, and other aspects of our culture, too. We were pretty liberal from what I can tell."

To themselves, anyway.

Food was an interesting question, too, and instead of taking it as an or, he took it as an and, disappearing into thought for another moment as he took another bite of his --

"A feast, sir."

"Have the hounds brought in anything useful? I believe our guests this evening are from a rather carnivorous bunch."

"No need to worry about that. We should have gathered just enough."

"Mm, good. No need to prepare too much, just enough to fill their plates. I'll be happy with whatever's been cooked up in the glowing nectar today--"

"I think our food was pretty plant-based, hydroponics, that kinda thing," admitted Encke, as he came back out of his thoughts and into the present. "I've heard references to glowing nectar, too, so I think those glowing plants might actually be a food source of some sort." He had the thought of trying them, before, but he wasn't sure if eating something that seemed to be literally bioluminescent would just be poisonous for him. Granted, he supposed he was also glowing now, but that wasn't the same thing and also he wasn't about to eat himself--

"There were some smaller animals we used for food on special occasions, I think, but not often."

Solarpunk?

Encke hadn't heard of Solarpunk before, admittedly, but he was curious to hear what Pendour said of it. Technology and nature in harmony, eh? He glanced down at the city below, letting a smile form on his lips. He could see it. It seemed Enckeans were trying to use their land wisely, especially since it seemed like they weren't overfarming animal stock and finding other ways to grow plants besides using whatever limited rocky soil they had around.

He wasn't sure if the way they treated other planets necessarily matched up with the aesthetic, considering they seemed to think themselves better than other peoples, but he certainly liked the sound of it. And it wasn't like Enckeans treated those other people rudely... They were just ... pretentious about themselves...

"I like that," replied Encke, shooting Pendour a grin. He also, admittedly, liked the idea that Enckean culture could have been in some way informing present day art. Made him feel important in some ways, but also made him feel that perhaps there was still a thread between Encke's Comet and the present day, perhaps besides himself. The more threads there were, the easier it might be to restore the comet to its former state.

"It'd be cool to see influences of these outer space places back on Earth..."

He disappeared in thought for a moment, perhaps partially about his second sandwich but mostly about echoes of the past in the present, but he came back in tune when she mentioned the idea of pure nectar being a dietary staple. Shaking his head out of his distraction, Encke glanced down at the city again. "I've seen those bulbous glowing plants, mostly, but I have seen a few other glowing things start showing up recently. There's this one I've seen near the fountain, mostly. Rose-like. Blue-glowing petals, though."

He had thought about giving one to Richard, but that might seem a little weird.

Clean lines and marble and ancient Greece definitely brought imagery to Encke's mind, and he let himself picture himself just standing in the middle of a place with marble flooring and big tall pillars leading into what looked like the Parthenon, or other ancient buildings back on Earth from that time period. Encke was at least a bit familiar with the period, considering how often Greek and Roman mythology still continued to come up in today's media.

It wasn't too hard of an image to conjure.

In some ways, the grandiosity of some of the Enckean buildings could give the place an older feel, but that was quickly muted by the existence of electrical lighting, spires up to the sky that sparked lightning from one building to the other, flowing water... But he knew it was ancient. Encke's Comet probably held a society older than he could really fathom at some point. Now it was just as empty as the others.

But it wasn't really empty, was it? It was full of the marks of an ancient society, sprouting plant life and running water. Encke's Comet had life, even if it wasn't always present sentient life. That, in itself, was exciting. The idea that there were other planets out there that had things that looked and felt entirely different from Earth, from Encke's Comet, from Methone, from Scholomance, from Pendour--he wanted to see it all.

He may have shot her a smirk in turn when Pendour said balls of plasma. He caught that. Also appreciated it.

"We gotta be in some way interconnected. From talking to other senshi, it seems like people knew each other in the past." In this case, he was referring to Methone's references to so many of her fellow Saturn-based senshi and knights. "If we've already seen that, we all had to be tied in together at some point, right? Or at least some of us. Space is huge. Can't imagine we all knew of each other."

That would be far too much of a coincidence.

"But that's what gets me about space too? Space was always so pretty, glowing balls of plasma," he smirked again, "or not. But then I found out that I could go to space and there was an ancient society here. On a comet. That I came from. There were these big buildings and these paths and signs of the life that used to be here, like some sculptures, some gathering spaces. And all of us, senshi and knights, we all have these places in space we're linked to, and they're all so different, and I want to see everything, learn everything, and I don't understand why someone wouldn't want to because it's all so ******** cool and--"

Encke cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry, I'm babbling. I'd love to see if I could harvest some of the flowers, once there's enough of them to do so without harming what ones there are. Maybe I can figure out the old hydroponics systems..."

That'd be handy.

Pendour's reaction to the idea of people knowing each other wasn't all that positive, and admittedly, it surprised Encke for a moment ... well, until she reminded him exactly why she may not have wanted people to make that connection. Irving must have been the name of the cause of all of those bones at her wonder...

"I've mostly seen it with the Saturn senshi and knights, so far? Methone mentioned knowing a few other knights and senshi, for example, of Saturn moons and Saturn wonders." He rubbed his neck, offering a sheepish smile. He didn't exactly know enough people to reassure her that no one knew Pendour of the past. Honestly, what he said may have just made her think it was more likely people knew Pendour of the past. Hopefully the whole element of cultural diffusion and the relationships were enough to distract her from that possibility--

And it seemed that the other things he had talked about had her smiling, so maybe it was best not to focus on that element of what he had been talking about--

"Me too," he smiled, quickly shifting topics, "at the place that belongs to me, thing? I mean, at some point Encke's Comet belonged to everyone Enckean, but I guess that's just me, now." And he wasn't quite Enckean, was he? Sometimes he needed to remind himself of that. He was born to human parents, in a human body, with a human sister and a human partner. Encke didn't scream alien, even if his starseed may have. "And it's cool to think I can influence this place, remake this place, perhaps even make it livable again."

He turned to Pendour with a grin, eating the last bite of his second sandwich before continuing, "I'd definitely love to see Pendour. And maybe see if we can't get the plants growing. Really I'd love to do anything in space, but..."

That was probably figured by now.

Encke supposed he didn't exactly know anyone else from Neptune either, but he figured part of that was his lack of significant connections, especially with knights. It was interesting to hear that Pendour didn't know anyone from Neptune either. Was it a rarer origin?

He was getting sidetracked.

The idea of rebuilding that part of it--the part where this comet was populated, the part where there were people here, a living, breathing society--that was the dream, in some ways. He wasn't sure how he would even get started doing such a thing, honestly. Did he need to convince people to move? Did he need to figure out an easy way of transit between Earth and Encke's Comet? Did people eventually just start being reborn here, or were they all being reborn on Earth? Were the other people from this comet even reborn, or was he the only one, due to being a senshi?

"I'd love to, honestly, if I had any idea how to even get started in that respect. Maybe I should work on the food thing first," he gestured vaguely with a laugh in the direction of the nearest plant life around, though it was pretty barren this high up. "If I can get some food growing here, hell, maybe this could be used as a safe house if needed."

It did have the air, plenty of shelter, at least some water...

If things got too bad, he wondered if he could convince Richard to come live up here.

(Probably not.)

"But yeah, so far as I can tell, senshi were born of their planet. And they were born with the starseed of that senshi. Knights are trained, but Senshi are born into it." The implication there, if there was only one Sailor Encke, was that the prior Sailor Encke would have had to die first. He wouldn't spend too much time thinking about death. "It seems like knights can be born anywhere and kinda end up assigned to a post, yeah? Or all sorts of things really." He paused, before adding, with a laugh, "I guess in theory there could have been an Enckean that ended up a knight somewhere else."

Encke, admittedly, knew jack about gardening, so hearing Pendour explain some things he could be doing interested him. He ate one of the sides he had on him, somehow still hungry, listening to the advise she offered.

For the sake of the plant life on the comet and making sure nothing was invasive, if he was going to try to grow something from Earth on the surface, he'd have to try and find a way to isolate it. Maybe he could figure out a way to make a greenhouse of some sort. Did this place get enough light for a greenhouse? Did a greenhouse need a lot of light? Which one of the things she named didn't really require much light? Maybe he could just get some sun lamps or something. That seemed like an awful lot to get on the comet--

"Peppers and tomatoes?" Encke grinned. "Sounds like we got the ingredients for some salsa." Perhaps meant to be mostly to himself, Encke mused, "Salsa from an alien comet, I wonder if it would end up tasting any different...

"I'd need to figure out a way to make sure it stays isolated from the plant life here, invasive plant species and all that nonsense, but I'd love to try it." He was fairly sure he and Methone had discussed the idea of exchanging plant life, too. Maybe he could just create a garden somewhere on Encke full of foreign plant life. Considering no one else was living here, there was likely space for it somewhere... "Even if it goes wrong, at least I know where to start now. I'm not really a gardener."

Or, really, someone who knew anything about plant life beyond some of the obvious elements--

"I bet Pendour's garden was gorgeous. You could bring it back, ya know, with a little work?"

If Encke could get anything remotely similar to peppers and tomatoes growing, he was absolutely, one hundred percent, definitely making space salsa. He'd bring it to the next picnic. ...Well, maybe not the next one. It took a long time to grow new plants, he was pretty sure. Especially considering he wasn't a gardener.

Or a botanist.

Or really anyone with any kind of bio knowledge--

It was too bad, too, because the concept of a glowing tomato sounded awesome, but he didn't even know where he'd start with trying to create hybrids. Eh, maybe he'd have to figure it out. "You think tomatoes and some of those glowing plants down there might actually go together? s**t, that'd be awesome. I bet the salsa from that would be glowing too. I'd be the coolest kid at all the senshi parties."

At that, he laughed. In some ways, it was too bad there weren't any senshi parties. There weren't a whole lot of ways available for their side to bond and connect, mostly operating alone. On some level, Encke preferred it that way. It meant he didn't have anyone he was expected to follow.

But he wouldn't mind a couple companions or two.

Seeing Pendour look so happy, though, was the best part of anything she had done or said in regards to gardening. Sometimes, considering the whole pile of bones problem, Pendour could seem nervous about her wonder. Gardening seemed to light her up. "I think you should try! You should let me know if you get any like, weird Pendourian vegetables or fruits growing." He smirked. "Or really anything, I'd be interested to see. And try it, of course. Maybe we can make some Pendourian salsa and compare it to Enckean salsa."