Welcome to Gaia! ::

"How did they phrase it in Aladdin? Barbaric, but hey, it's home?" Scyllabian Nights? The snort was quiet. Elpis was right- Andromache had made it back, and no one had been able to force her away again.

She smiled as Elpis flopped around in delight, splashing onto her own back to join the other senshi floating on the waves. "Elpis Spring Cleaning. Interplanetary Rummage Sale. Advertise it enough and I know someone will show up." Scylla lifted a hand into the air, and the perky little wisp swirled around it. "I'd put money on some alien we haven't even met before showing up like 'One Senshi's Trash is another Senshi's Treasure!'" Of course, with the current Alien Track Record, something dramatic would happen, but... Welcome to Destiny City (and assorted senshi homeworlds.)

"I don't recommend swimming in the main river in DC." Scylla said dryly. "Lots of Chaos has been dunked in there, some of it might rub off on you. Not to mention the pollution. But we'll find you a river. White Water Rafting is really fun, and Canoeing, and there are places that aren't TERRIBLY far from Destiny City."

But that had nothing else to do with what Elpis had expressed interest in hearing. "What would you like to hear? Basics about the people and how they lived, or share some of the stories I can remember bits and pieces of? I figure instead of telling you about the things I've found you'd rather see them for yourself."

"Nature was heartless. Cruel, looking back on it with my modern eyes, but it was what the people of Scylla had to work with. Low natural resources, monsters trying to kill them when they closed their eyes... enemies grew everywhere that food could not." Scylla kicked her legs, sending her body into a lazy spin. "I told Gevaudan once that the most powerful things on Scylla were not the kind of things you can use. It was Scylla itself. The animals, the people. This planet was made to chew up and spit out the weak."

”Do you know why the Great One has many arms, Andromache?” the two were sparring, wooden sticks in their hands as the Nephelai taught her child to hold a weapon.

It was a memory Jada had remembered once long ago, and she remembered it now, as a beginning.

"Tidbits. Let's see... Religion wasn't too much of a thing. They had a creation myth surrounding the Kraken. Long ago, the Great One broke the earth, casting it up into the sky, making the floating islands. His children filled the seas, and the land was the only place where the humanoids could thrive. There were two species of humanoids on Scylla, Nephelai and Haliai. Most of the Scylla who made it to adulthood were Haliai- those who were Nephelai didn't last long. I- Andromache- was a half-breed. Everyone on Scylla learned to fight and to hunt; children were frequent, because most of them wouldn't make it to adulthood. And before they would be considered an adult, they had to prove themselves."

She dunked herself under the water, feeling the pulse of her homeworld around her, considering. Feeling the roll and the crush of the waves on the shore, moving around her as though she were nothing at all. When she surfaced, everything felt just a little... lighter.

"If you were an offworlder, you needed to come to the Temple. This was where the Kings and clans would come to trade between the Nephalai and Haliai and offworlders; there's an entire village around here that is one of the only permanent living locations on Scylla. Andromache and her wives and children all lived in the White Temple and defended the people who lived around here from day to day threats. Murderfish and stuff- there are etchings of them in the Temple." Including that freaky engraving of a mermaid getting bitten in half.

There was a lot of tidbits to be told. "Anything in particular you're curious about? I could babble about everything I have remembered over the years aimlessly for hours."

Jada could NOT stop the laugh that bubbled up in her as Elpis commented that she hoped she wasn't boring. It started small, then grew into a delighted guffaw that caused the senshi to huff out just enough air that she sank below the waves briefly, choking as water filled all the space in her lungs that her cackle had left emptied.

"Sorry," she choked when she made her way back up above the water, eyes streaming with tears from the warm, salty water that had tried to kill her, "I'm just usually the one who is worrying about being boring." Szelem had tempered Jada's personality into (what Jada would consider, anyways) a rather bland soul; no amount of fashion knowledge or book knowledge could save her from the fact she had been trainedto appeal to people her mother's age, or older, not people her own age.

Elpis' interest in making a gift of one of her wings caused Jada to pause, considering the question of if it was odd as she took a moment to catch her breath. Lord, her gut hurt. She hadn't been so delighted in... how long??

"I don't think it would be odd, actually." Scylla decided. "See, we had- we HAVE- a ritual, on Scylla. It was completing that ritual that brought me... well..." her brow furrowed. "Made me Scylla. Gave me these tattoos. Every Scyllan adult had to complete it- and we opened it to outsiders who wished to test their mettle. They might not be able to survive on Scylla the same way one born to it would, but they could prove their mettle and gain recognition. And, where permitted, we would do the same on other worlds. All of them are alive in their own way, and all of their cultures showed respect in their own way."

Her lips pursed, thoughtfully. "If it feels right to you, do it."

It pleased her to think that someone was enjoying the little bits and pieces that Scylla had learned from scattered memories over the years. "I have some complicated feelings towards the things I learn about the past Scylla. On one hand I wonder what the value is- Earth is nothing like Scylla was, and Scylla's not the right world to host a civilization made from humans. And if we're looking for a laundry list of things not to do, our own history is just as long and checkered."

She watched the other senshi pull a small bit of gold off of her wings, watched the surf swell to steal away its glittering gift, pulling it quickly into the darkness. "Do you know how to dive?" Jada couldn't have said what inspired the question, or why it found its way to her tongue and past her lips.

But Scylla did not simply give gifts. Even in the old days, things must be earned. Gifts were for children, or offworlders; Elpis had shown respect as she knew how to, and so now Scylla would do the same, in traditional style. Of course, if Elpis couldn't dive that would be a different story- then the gift would need to be less traditional, but... well.

Half of the gift would be the sights below the water, wouldn't it?

Thinking that one day these barren homeworlds could one day, once again, host life... that was a nice thought. Even if eons from now would not help them, now; it would then. "All we have to do is stall Chaos, keep it trapped on Earth, I guess? Like white blood cells attacking a virus. Keep it from replicating, somehow." Or from escaping, getting into the 'body' of the universe. The adenoids of the galaxy.

"Well," Scylla chirped, "I'll need to bring you back here sometimes then. You need to earn your gift from Scylla in response." Eyes sparkling, Scylla tried to brush away the awkward look on Elpis' face with an explanation. Lifting her hand to her throat, Scylla removed her necklace, holding it out to Elpis. Set in the cool gold, warmed only by Scylla's skin, was a rich blue gemstone that glowed with its own inner light; deep inside, light shifted and flickered like daylight through water.

"Long ago, my people had... very few traditions to prove they were adults. We tended to follow a very... keep what you kill mentality. Resources were limited, and warriors would take everything that belonged to those they slaughtered. Possessions, children, spouses- you get the picture. If a child killed an adult, they also took their adulthood, as it were." She paused, not wanting to overwhelm the other senshi. "You could steal adulthood, but not reputation. And so most young people chose, instead of through taking a life, to prove their mettle through a far deadlier ritual. These gems served as many things- proof of adulthood, proof of strength, lovers' tokens. They would join a group of other young people, and four times a year they would descend the world pillar, swarming like fish down to the bottom, to collect a gem of their own. They would fight the wild, hungry denizens of the deep, their own people... all to prove themselves. Or die trying."

"Every Scylla had their own Messian gem. I carried my predecessor's, for a while, but it wasn't truly mine. Not like that one is. That gem is proof that I survived the deep- though it is considerably less... monster-filled, now. Becoming an adult is when I truly became Scylla." with one hand, she gestured to her tattoos. "Not only Scyllans did it, however. We had a modified version for the tourists- they would travel with a warrior and their dreken into the deep to collect a gem of their own, and be welcomed as an ally- and a friend."

It felt right, and good, to straighten her spine and say "Senshi of Elpis, in thanks for your gift, we offer you the chance to prove yourself. Will you be the first to re-live this ritual with me?"

Jada listened to Elpis' words in silence, head tilted attentively. It sounded as though the Generalissimo of Elpis was likely never to have had the ability to do something as free as travel, or be a diplomat for their world for fear of their safety.

So Elpis' solemn acceptance of Scylla's offer made the senshi jitter in excitement, and she was so very excited. It took effort for her to keep from trying to rush them away to perform this ritual. But it was far, far below to where the gems formed along the roots of the large coral tree that stretched from the depths of the sea and into the sky above them. Her entire face glowed with excitement and delight that the senshi of metal had agreed to take part in this ritual, and Jada shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

"We can't do it immediately," she said with clear regret, "It's deep, and I want to make sure we're prepared with some things in case anything goes wrong. My own adventure was almost quite the mess because I ran out of oxygen. Our warriors' job in the ritual was to help keep participants alive, after all." Bright purple eyes were positively sparkling. "Can I give you my human cell phone number, and we keep in touch for when I have everything thoroughly prepared?"

Scylla beamed, Elpis' enthusiasm for this fueling her own. It felt right, offering to do this- and she couldn't wait! There wouldn't be much to try and plan around it apart from getting the masks and tanks, a few things to break the pieces of coral that had cut her on the way down when she had completed the ritual herself. Maybe get some things to celebrate a job well done, when they came back up- and maybe some new inflatable boats or something. Some of her other ones had gotten holes in them. Maybe a proper boat would be beneficial? Something less... pollutey?

"Non-volcanic Pompeii is my preferred Pompeii," Scylla commented with a laugh, "and I would love to go to Elpis. There are some murals and plenty of statues up in the Temple, and the catacombs beneath are basically filled with like... a terracotta army, but they are all statues of previous Scyllae. I have a few snacks up there too, if you get the munchies after swimming."

A hum was Elpis' first reply to the comment on the quiet. "It's peaceful, but something feels kind of wrong about it being so?" she asked after a moment. "I hear the waves, and I'll hear the rustling of fabric whipping in the wind, but sometimes I know I should be hearing sandals on stone, or birds, or I'll catch the hint of memory, remembering the laughter of my family. My world is awake, and it is ready, but it's missing this final... seed... of life."

And it wanted to be so.