Welcome to Gaia! ::

Encke chuckled. "I mean, notice I haven't exactly moved back into my house here, either." His house, the ruling house, which he could see at a distance. The tallest spire in the central city, on the tallest building in the center of that city. It made sense that it drew the most attention. It was meant to, of course, and what it housed underneath was a large part of the reason why power flowed to everywhere in sight. "Though you would be welcomed if we had to abandon Earth." Clearly, his world could support it. It had once supported far more than just two people and an assortment of creatures. "But I also meant in this fight against Chaos. Don't have to be a martyr to have an impact."

The last thing he wanted to do was suggest to anyone else that dying was the answer to getting anywhere in this fight. Encke's goal was the antithesis of that. No more dying... well, for Order, at least.

Dying was likely necessary for Chaos.

Ignoring that portion, Encke assisted the kitten out of his lap and came back to a standing position. "But happy to show you around. Sorry there aren't any real beaches here, though." He winked. "What do you want to see? Could take you to where I and several of the first house used to live," he gestured toward the towering building with the Tesla coil-like spire further down one of the paths he had meticulously rebuilt over a decade, "some stores, amphitheatres, the central fountain people used to gather around," as he spoke, he gestured in several different directions, hinting at just how much of this place he had explored.

"There's some gardens, too, and places where there's other animal life around. If you really want to go walking, there's some mountainous terrain off that way," considering Encke snorted as they said that, they doubted that would be Joy's option.

After all, Viatrix had been the one to open up several paths for her while they talked gossip and swam at the beaches.

Whatever he thought was most worth seeing.

It was a hard thing to answer. The Enckeans were an entire people, and he held all of it, not just a place. What pieces would he want to make the most impact? He could take her into some of the housing and business fronts themselves, to show her what his people had found important. He could take her to the Fountain, one of the primary gathering places in this city so far as he had gathered, something of a central plaza or Central Square. He could take her to the Ruling House, which both felt conceited and important in its storage of arts, books, and underground technologies.

Perhaps he'd take her by all of it.

The first stops were less in depth unless she wanted them to be. "Encke's Comet prioritized living with our environment and living with each other. Every person could be important in their own way." They chuckled. "Didn't have money on the world unless you were an off-worlder, so a lot of these businesses were a bit more barter based. I give you baked goods, you give me a tub of newly mixed paint." He cited baked goods because it was clear they were standing in front of a bakery case. The fact that the screens at the back against the wall showed what looked to be baked goods, even as the screens occasionally blurred and popped, might've helped that.

Encke could read the words on the menu without much effort. ... Not that he knew how to make half these things.

Being inside buildings and walking near buildings helped emphasize the fact that Enckean architecture was surprisingly variant. Even as the structures closer to the city centre could belong in classical paintings, most of the older buildings had been built more functional than fancy. (Though all of the buildings were older these days, weren't they?) No matter what, all tended to be made out of stone, which was clearly the easiest available resource to build with; that didn't stop people from showing their creativity by choosing different paints, different plant life, different designs even if everything moved to a coiled spire at the top. "We used a lot of luminescent things. A lot of our plants and animals tended to be bioluminescent, including Enckeans themselves. Guess it was because the place is so damn dark most of the time."

It certainly was right then. Of course, with the lightning in the air, the glowing on the exterior walls, and the technology that worked internally, it was hard to tell.

If it wasn't devoid of people, the place might've been believable as a city that just loved the nightlife.

Encke's fingers breezed over a small bistro table, causing a few birds to rush over to a different nearby table. As he mentioned, as the birds flapped away, they left streaks of light behind, likely from under their wings. "It's funny. I can read what's on the menus, I can visualize people chatting at the tables, but it's not like I can bring any of that back." His laugh was airy. "Feel like I'm in a historical museum even if this place feels like the future."

Idly, he added, "There's a robot over there. Think it's meant to be a business version of the HomeHelpers we had."

He missed the sentient one he had run into. Where had Kurma taken it? Was it alright? Was it alive?

Encke listened to the story of Gouvernail, realizing the more she talked about him, the more depth he had to him, and the more sympathetic she seemed to his position. And it was fair to be, in honesty. He could understand that discomfort, that fear, that unease -- that was how he felt when he had suddenly relearn how to be a normal human again. Though perhaps it had been different for Gouvernail.

"It sounds like he was raised in a different world and was suddenly expected to be something he's not." Encke glanced back toward the birds, tweeting at each other on the table they remained. "It's an uncomfortable position to be in. Why they make stories about it."

Encke had played that part before, too.

They nodded in agreement. "It was, honestly. A millennia ago, hundreds if not thousands of civilizations suddenly went dark. There wasn't anyone to remember them, any knowledge to dig back up." They approached the robot, bending down and asking it a question in a clunky tone that perhaps didn't quite hit until they tried it again. The answer they read made them sigh. "Not like we know how to recreate anything we see on these worlds, if we can even get to them, if we can even remember them, if our past life even dealt with them."

They rose back to their feet, gesturing for Joy to follow them. A few birds followed above head until they grew interested in pursuing a few insects fluttering in the distance.

"I can read Enckean Common, now," noted Encke, as they led Joy through the gardens toward the Fountain, a truly large, unusually lush plaza full of places to sit, enjoy the weather, the performances, conversation, festivals -- it looked like Encke had put a great deal of effort into restoring this particular spot to its former glory. "Still doesn't feel like enough. How can I transmit everything from one people a thousand years ago myself?" Encke chuckled. "But it does result in making things like this easier. We loved our natural gathering spaces here, even as much as we embraced technology. We tried to let both coexist and thrive."

Encke sat on the edges of one of the smaller fountains.

"Enckeans actually pulled this water from down below. There isn't really any surface water here." Despite, there were creatures in these waters -- eels in particular, though the other creatures were aquatic and hard to identify. They had always figured it was just as bizarre as Earthan deep sea creatures.

Joy had a good point in that perhaps a dead language was one of the best things to resurrect. It felt oddly incomplete, really, and he knew his knowledge of Enckean Common paled in what was truly needed to resurrect the language. He could certainly read it, but aloud it was cryptic and incomplete. How could he continue an oral tradition if he couldn't capture it fully?

But there was something to it. "It's interesting to hear other people are pursuing learning their languages intentionally." Encke hadn't necessarily been doing it intentionally. Overexposure had a way of making things stick in one's mind. "But you're right in that there's a lot in learning a language that helps a people carry on. I think that's part of why trying to learn a language can be such a big deal for ethnic minorities, right?"

Of course, they still had people to speak those languages to, to write them to. Encke had exactly one person he knew of who could roughly understand his Enckean scribbles, but even that was unusual and wasn't someone who had lived on his comet. But there was troves of knowledge on the comet.

What about peoples who hadn't a written language at all?

What was she looking at? Encke was getting too deep in reflection-

... What was she looking at?

Encke squinted. Generally, he was used to how the skies looked on the comet. Stars that moved perhaps nauseatingly fast compared to how they should be if they had been on Earth--not at all--lightning flying through the air, especially here, moving from tower to tower and powering buildings underneath. Something seemed to be ... distorting what he was looking at. It looked like something was warping the space behind it and in front of it.

He squinted.

"Huh."

Good answer.

"I'm actually not sure. That's new."

Was it new, or was it something they hadn't been paying enough attention to?

"I guess we were just talking about my ability to read knowledge now. Might be able to get to something that might have a clue." Maybe. Hm. What did he even ask? "Did you want to head that way, or would you rather rest here for a bit?" What the hell was that?

"It's fascinating to think that the languages of Earth Wonders would just be old Earth languages, by the way." That hadn't been something Encke had considered, but it made sense. How many anthropologists would be losing their minds to know that people ... kind of lived that spoke languages they wished they could understand? As they kept staring up at the sky, they added, "And sweet that you read to Gouvernail."

Even as distracted as he seemed, her dry snark sounded just as accurate to the Joy he had gotten to know as he expected, and it drew a snort in turn. "Suppose distractions can be handy there." Seeing that she was getting up, Encke followed. It was as good of a signal as any that she didn't care to rest there any longer, or at least didn't care to distract Encke any further.

He hadn't been expecting to take Joy on a fact-finding adventure today, but there was always a new surprise in the infinity of space, he supposed.

"We do, sometimes. Usually when we get a bit closer to the sun. Actually...," he took out his phone, pulling up a small app that Viatrix had made specifically for him. "We are headed toward perihelion. Last had perihelion two years ago, our period is usually three and a third? Years. So we're a bit closer to having more weather now, at least."

Not close enough, though, to account for that. Probably. Maybe.

Encke took them down the path toward the radial center of the city, the location he now knew by the Enckean name but still shortened to the English Ruling House just so it could be understood. As he had when he had made it to the conduit underneath, he went around the side, taking her to a door considerably less ornate than the front entrance and leading her down steps to a LED strip lit hallway.

"There's a few hub computers down here. Might be able to get information from something." Hopefully. "We held some of our more intensive meetings down here -- oh," Encke stopped for a second, tapping to the side of the painting he had come upon several years prior. On the painting was a portrait of someone who smiled in the way that someone did when they were expected to model for it, genuine nonetheless, the luminescent paints highlighting their eyes, the area around their eyes, and freckled and lightning marks along their skin, along with some bits of their garments.

"I guess an advantage of having been a king in my last life. Wasn't too hard to find this. That's me, by the way. Or ... Was." Still was? "King Ignatius of the First House of Encke, First of Their Name," Encke paused, and with a snort, added, "and some other nonsense afterward. The house rotation was a big deal to the Enckeans. First of the first house in literally twelve generations."

Noting the similarities between those markings and their transcendence markings, they added, "I was a native Enckean."

Encke couldn't help his wheeze of a laugh.

"Oh by the stars, I hope not." ... And now he sounded like he was King Ignatius. "As much as she appreciated all the respect, I think the formality grated her. Or them. Or him. I don't know, it depended on the day. Or minute." Gender didn't seem to have too much weight for Enckeans, and it certainly didn't for their leader. King was a gender neutral term.

... The actual term for leader had been gender neutral, but Encke had dealt with what he had been given by his memories at first-

"Either way, don't think I'm terribly majestic these days." Just a former youma stepping into shoes that were still a bit missized. "Ignatius handled a lot I'm not sure I could." Or even wanted to, for that matter.

"You have to go!"

"Absolutely not! This is for our people!"

"Our people would be safer elsewhere, my counsel, and you can get them there-"

Encke paused, blinked, and shook his head. What was that about? No matter, no matter, he needed to figure out what was in the sky- "Different time with different concerns, too. Don't think Enckeans had to deal with anything like the Negaverse." They continued down the hall, pointing out a few other paintings along the way, including a few in some of the side rooms. They depicted not only other leadership but also scenes of a time lost, discoveries in some, celebrations in others.

When they reached the door of the room he was hoping would help the most, Encke yanked the heavy door open, sliding inside and letting her follow. What sat in the center was a long metallic pole, sparking with electricity that flew upward toward an unseen top. It was surrounded by shielding that prevented the two of them from being shocked by it.

Encke, for their part, went to a computer console and started trying to navigate through the systems. "I'm sure there's an easier way, but if this is a total world thing, I at least know this is connected to all of that." Probably. "Just gotta figure out what to ask the computer search systems. It might be a few minutes."

Encke had filled the silence with grumbling in English and Spanish and garbled alien tongues as he attempted to navigate whatever the ******** he was looking at. It was easy enough to find the rough equivalent of a search engine in the computer systems. Enckeans had not necessarily created the same things, but they had at one point, he was certain. This was ... different. More advanced? Felt like it had passed the point they were dealing with on Earth--

"That's not what -- merida... pues, supongo que sí-"

As something started to click, Encke heard Joy's purr over his shoulder, and a laugh spilled from their lips. "Does it?" To some degree, he had hated that everyone seemed to agree. The thirst he saw on social media had told him enough about that, nevermind the fact that Arra hadn't wasted time dropping him some nice beard oils. "Thank you." Encke paused. "Honestly, I grew it out for an acting role. Seems to have stuck."

Fortunately or unfortunately for Ignacio, in the end-

"Oh, and I'm having to thumb through some Enckean here but -- seems like it's referring to, uh-,"

What the ******** was that word?

Encke sounded it out in a rough interpretation of what he hoped was close enough, before murmuring, in English, "Leylines? Some kind of connector between places, at least. There's some reference to ... mines? Never seen those here."

... Bizarre.

"Ha, right? Leylines sound like some s**t I'd see in a movie script."

And yet, there Encke was, reading a summary of what the leylines were theoretically linking to. Joy was right -- he would think a mine would be easy to find. They were usually obvious holes in the ground with plenty of signage and ... sometimes a bunch of mining equipment nearby. He saw no signs of that anywhere to be found here.

But maybe that was because it wasn't here, not really. Not in the same way.

"It says the leylines are leading to the field behind... the comet? There's a field?" Encke's brows knit. "... I guess even the comet still has secrets."

Encke had never seen anything behind the comet, but what even counted as that, truly? Where the tail was, normally? There wasn't a tail, currently; maybe he could take some guesses...

Why could he suddenly see the lines?

"If this is a literal minefield, I'm going to laugh."