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Encke wouldn't call himself a starseed expert, in spite of the amount he had touched over the years. He would agree that they seemed simple yet complex; something that could hold memories for some, past lives or connections to ancestors for others, could hold magic for some people. But if they were fundamentally someone's soul, it made sense that they were complicated.

"Guess yours was ready to bloom after all that effort."

The bloom reference might have been a bit cheeky, considering.

As they walked a bit closer to the garden, his face broke open into a grin. Her wonder was showing signs of increased life too? He had heard from a couple of others that they had noticed the changes, and the fact that it seemed to be a pattern only reaffirmed the theory he gave to Caedus. Something good had come out of the hell of that night.

Life.

"I felt that too, the comet's energy?" He backed toward the garden when they got to the edges, spreading out his arms and spinning. "And I think the plants here are thriving for it."

It had been spreading out from the areas with lush plant life slowly, but here, in the gardens, was where it was the most obvious. The buzz of little fireflies went from glowing plant to glowing plant and even to some of the ones brought from Earth. The little beetles along the ground and flitting through the air. The moth that flew to land on his head as he laughed.

"Pen, something's alive here."

Something else scurried by him before he noticed.

He watched Pendour's face, watched for the realization, watched for the way her expression froze and changed and lifted and dropped in her shock, and it only brought more joy into his own, wiggling his fingers in his delight as a way to force himself to stay more still.

It was a significance that would have nearly had Encke dancing if he hadn't wanted to stay as still as he possibly could for the moth in his hair. The mist in her eyes was matched by one of his own as the grin that broke his face apart was also matched by a joy he still couldn't quite control.

"We thought plants were as far as we could get, right? Evolution's not that fast, and there weren't any signs of life when we got here and after a decade of coming here it wasn't like any were showing up," he was moving enough despite his control that he did manage to jostle the moth, which fluttered off of his head and back into the garden. He laughed. He gave in to the urge to spin.

The little thing that skittered nearby caught his attention, this time, and he found himself stopping mid-spin -- and ignoring the dizziness that followed in stopping so suddenly -- to take a closer look at it.

Was that--

"A mouse! That's new, too, I," he glanced around a moment to make sure the ground around him was clear before sitting down, "Pen, we can bring our worlds back. In their entirety. Plantlife. Animal life. Electricity and flowing water. It's all here."

She could see that, of course, but it didn't stop his excited babbling.

Encke had diligently kept his efforts up without wavering whenever he could, but he had started feeling the limitations, before. He saw his world restore itself, but in some ways, it had been restored. So much of it felt now like a ghost town that had been suddenly abandoned very recently. There were still functional paths. Things were broken, but not shattered. Even places that previously had been less functional had started to patch themselves up with his help.

He had long started to think that he would never see a jump like this in his lifetime; that what he saw in front of him would be the legacy of the next Encke, and that Encke's goal was to at least make this a space where they could hide if they needed to. What this place had become--

"I've come here a few times since I've noticed it to just see if it's a fluke or to see if it's still advancing or," he laughed, cutting himself off as he looked over to a few of the glowing dots of the firefly bees in the distance. "I brought Caedus here, too, and he asked a similar question. He wondered if I thought people could live here. I need to test it. But the concept of it. The concept."

Encke might have been vibrating. As it was, he was bouncing on his feet, so excited that movement was an inevitable reality, shaking out his hands in his excitement. "This is definitely beyond salsa. It feels like there's enough for people to live here. I have the space. I have the technology. There's food growing here--"

And he had thought of the Velencyans too when Caedus had mentioned it, thought of the possibilities of keeping people safe who the Negaverse had been pursuing, thought of escape routes if necessary. Was it possible?

It seemed natural that he could rely on Pendour to help him test out a few theories -- but how would he even test this; this would take some thinking for sure -- and Encke nodded enthusiastically. He saw the way Pendour's expression fell, though, and attempted to edge away from the absolute euphoria into something a bit more down to Earth, as it were, in a literal sense--

"That's understandable. Can't imagine he'd be excited to see a message from someone who is usually such a problem, right?" Encke rubbed his neck. He didn't know Sessrumnir, personally, but Pendour was familiar with him. Encke would make the assumption that he was a good person and would be worried about Pendour as a result-- "If you get back to Earth, you can disperse the concern a bit."

But the space.

This food, this life.

"Absolutely. I want to explore this. See if this is the limit or if it keeps growing. See if this is a place where people can live. I," Encke was excited, "would like to see this become a safe space. For people who don't have anywhere to go." The Velencians were the most obvious that came to mind. "Or maybe for people who need to get away from someone pursuing them. A safe space for recently purified people, for example."

"Understandable," murmured Encke, rubbing his neck. Considering how much he had seen, it was hard to not stress him out when it came to others he knew being involved. It was getting easier, over time, especially as he reconciled their involvement with the fact that them being powered also meant more protection, but every gap in contact and especially worrying contact made his heart skip a beat.

Best to not let that be the case for Pendour's other friend, here.

He nodded in agreement with later, his expression softening yet further when she said he was already on the right track. And she was right. This had been a safe space for them. When Jet had left them--or him, anyway--injured and surrounded by five youma, it had provided a quick place for them to flee to where they could regroup and patch up.

He wished he could help with patching up, too.

It was a fleeting thought, but one that made him feel a pulse for a moment that he acknowledged and figured he'd deal with later, letting out a happy sigh as he offered his hand out to Pendour. "I hope it can keep being that way. If we can figure out if this is a place where people can stay long-term... I, stars," his laugh was quiet, "yes. Next time we come back here. Let's see what we can figure out."

Encke took it.

Next time. The thought that something greater could come with that next time, that perhaps his goal was more obtainable than he thought, that perhaps there was something more to be saved here, that his wishes for his world would actually come true--

And while his mind blended and merged and morphed that in with the people who looked like the night sky who filled his memories, with lithe statures and boundless energy about their world and learning the universe and making those deep connections, he could see how it would benefit them today, too, and he imagined how much easier it would be if there was just a place where they could definitively be safe.

He looked to Pendour. Needed to get her back. Needed to let her speak to Sessrumnir. He had done what he had wanted to do -- got Pendour to safety. Protected her.

He took in one more deep breath of his homeworld's air as he pulled out his phone.

And with a button press, the two of them were gone.