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Twenty-five was a hard place to be. She was old enough to know better, too young to listen to what her head told her was almost certainly a wiser course of action. It always seemed to be that way, with her. She never listened to what smarter people said. She threw herself into fires over and over and over again. Maybe she got a thrill out of it? Maybe because it was easier to explain the way she felt if she thought she had done something to deserve the ache in her chest? Jada had several sins under her belt, all told, but none of them explained and her consistent self-castigation should have made her feel better about them by now. Maybe she was just crazy? She felt it. But that didn't matter now. Nothing from Earth mattered now.

Scylla roiled around her, and she stared out the hole in the catacombs, watching the waters churn, lightning arcing oddly through a sky that didn't quite have the same curve as Earth. The Pillar glowed through the rain, bioluminescence arcing against the falling water and casting odd shadows, but where it may have frightened her on Earth, there was nothing to fear, here. The urns holding the remains of her prior selves lined the theater behind her, and Andromache lay within her dais, funeral rites yet unsaid, and yet- She was able to inhale, able to breathe in and out, timing the pattern of in-out-in-out with the swirl of water that spun around the back of the Kraken. Everything was still, and even in this wildness, she found a modicum of peace.

On Earth, sometimes they said that a soul couldn't find peace without the proper funeral rites. What were the rites, here? She couldn't remember. She couldn't remember if they burned them, or threw their bodies to feed the fish, who would be fed upon in return. Were there words? Rituals? What happened to the people they had protected? She knew, vaguely, what had happened to those who died dishonorably. Sandros- killed in battle as his woman died in birth. It was only dishonorable that he had been defeated, she supposed, even if Zarek had cheated. Funerals were for the living, but on Scylla, once you were dead, you were nothing but meat. There had most likely been no words for him, or her other brothers; their wives had been sold or made slaves, and the names of their former mates likely never spoken again.

Jada supposed funeral rites were neither here nor there; after all, it was peace she sought, not finality. One could be had without the other- Kallichore was one of the most peaceful people that the senshi of the Kraken knew, and she was quite alive. The other woman had gone to her planet and dreamed, and come out on the other side as something different, it seemed; try as though she had, Jada had yet to share in the other senshi's dreaming success. Nightmares, yes- battles she had never fought, visions of what lay beneath the surface of the world. Memories of the sky, staring off the edge of one of the floating mountains, watching others dive down. Watching them fall. Of falling herself, though she always woke up before she landed, same as on Earth.

There was no alcohol here, this birthday, but there were other traditions she could embrace. She kicked off her heels, moving out onto the ledge, watching carefully- the white of the temple reflected odd colors, in this lighting, and she didn't want to miss the edge. The rain battered her, strangely warm, rolling off her skin like it was slicked, beading in her cupped palm instead of pouring off the edges, until she let it fall. She wasn't coming out here to play in the rain.

She moved across the tentacle carefully, spreading out her toes for grip, ensuring each step before putting her weight forward. She knew them, now; knew where each large sucker was, as a foothold. She had come here enough times she knew to watch out for the dips, knew where a smooth patch was that might cause her to fall, in the rain. Jada had come here first when she was still a super senshi- before Audrey had been lost and become Daphne, before Elysion, before the Blood Moon had risen, and fallen. Before Rota, and the drama, before the divorce, when she had still been in so many ways a child.

She settled herself down on the Kraken's head, the place where she had lain so many times before, and stretched out across the fossil, eyes towards the sky. Or not- rain getting in them burned, and she wrinkled her nose, shaking her head. Alright then, eyes closed. The waves still crashed, and the rock against her back still grounded her, and the slow drifting of her mind turned to everything around her-

Breathing. With every inhale the Kraken rose under her, and the exhale was the sensation of falling. The rain was like sinking, and just as she began to slip beneath the surface, another inhale, and the ride began again. With every inhale, Scylla pulsed around her, warm and alive, ready to be remembered. Ready to be awakened. This was the closest she came to peace, on a planet soaked with blood and death. Jada stretched out her limbs, palms down to the fossil, dreaming that she could feel the flesh of the creature, using vague memories and imagination to replace stone.

How long she lay there she couldn't say. Long enough her fuku was soaked through, that her hair and skin were slick with a warmth that beaded more like dew than rain. It tasted sweet on her tongue, not like brine and salt, not like the purified water they had just about everywhere- bland, boring, and sterile. (Everything her life should not be. The thought was a traitor, unwanted and uninvited. Maybe her life was messy because she liked it that way, and didn't know a better way to go about it.) The air wasn't ozone, the lights didn't burn across the sky. She breathed, breathed out, and could feel herself beginning to drift away.

Jada? she could hear her name, rolling through the air like the thunder, startling her from her drowsy reverie. She opened her eyes, sodden lashes sticking briefly, considering. She wouldn't be heard if she called back, likely; but the voice told her it was time to go back inside. Her yawn took her by surprise, her spine cracking as she repositioned herself, clambering to her feet in heavy uniform, preparing for the careful climb back up to the catacombs. “I'll be back,” she told her fossil, patting it affectionately on the- well. She thought this was its head. Jada!

Twenty-five was a hard place to be, starting out; but at least she wouldd be facing it with a few moments of peace behind her, before she had to face the demons she'd created. And perhaps, eventually, she'd remember those rites, and she could put Andromache to rest. Frankly, Jada wasn't sure what it would do for her spirit, but wasn't it worth giving a shot?

Failure. Disgrace. Despair. Jada had tried- she had actually spent hours talking to a useless hump-lump of coral and- and Kraken poo. She had tried to force herself to open up, to present what she had needed, to ask for help- and God- all the gods, big G, little g, mythological- they all knew that Jada Chamberlyn didn’t exactly ask for help with any great semblance of grace. She was supposed to be the one in the position of giving help, not asking for it. Perhaps her planet was trying to teach her a lesson for her small bit of ego? To think that just because she was all the planet had, it would give half a-

Whatever she had hoped, or assumed, she had been proven unequivocally wrong. Jada was in no way, shape, or form any closer to the kind of peace that Kallichore’s prayer had led the cosmos to share with her. August 30th, one full, solid week after her plea, and she was still so far from any grand insight that could even resemble-- ugh! The Senshi pulled off one high heel, throwing it across the open room of the White Temple, watching the shoe vanish into the softly-glowing darkness. It clanked onto the pristine floor, glittering gold near the throne. Her anger was not aimed at the homeworld, exactly; it was just the easiest target, the simplest outlet for the waves of helpless fury that welled up in her, rising and falling like the tides. “You,” Scylla informed absolutely nothing “are an IDIOT. You are a stupid hunk of rock and no one likes you.”

Oh, and like she was so smart, yelling at a ‘stupid hunk of rock’? Her exasperation was the only sound on her entire planet made by something that wasn’t wind rustling a leaf, or the waves crashing on a rock. There was no one here to actually listen to her, and she was raging like something that wasn't even properly sentient could give half a flying ********. Hell, half a limping ********. Hadn’t she already told herself that this failure was going to be inevitable because the cosmos was ambivalent to her? Hadn’t she decreed her quest a failure before she had even truly begun it? So why was she blaming her homeworld?

“You’re still stupid.” sulky, now, the bitterness of a spoiled young woman who had never had anything fail to work out in some small way that she could rationalize to her benefit, even if she had to take the long way around to make it so. Her life had not been without its losses- friends, family, funds, love, a little bit of pride here and there. All that some little corner of her brain could pipe up unhelpfully with right now was that little piece of conventional wisdom: If you live your life as if everything is all about you, that’s all you’ll be left with. Just you. The voice sounded like her therapist, honestly.

That wasn’t a great secret, that the world didn’t revolve around Jada and her wide selection of anxieties, insecurities, and discontents. Not even this one was so obligated to her. But damn, wouldn’t it be nice if she didn’t have to work to find the positive? Her lips continued to thin, her sulk growing more powerful. The shoe continued to glint at her from the darkness. She sucked in a breath, tamping down on the urge to stomp off in a rage, teleporting back to her home and- do…. Something. Anything. Her planet didn’t deserve her today. Didn't need her coming up there with her drama, either. Yet Jada didn’t wander off; the fact that an inanimate lump of rock had no manners, or feelings to be hurt, didn’t mean that the girl who was senshi to the hunk of stupid did not have both.

Jada’s other strappy, magical shoe was jerked off and hurled in the opposite direction of the first, away from the throne. Violet eyes did not watch it fly, nor did she hear a thump. Chances were she’d chucked it out a window, honestly. The planet, of course, remained non-responsive to her pain. Her shriek filled the empty hall, ringing through the pillars, and she reached out with one small hand, lifting an antiquated vase and flinging it. There was no sound of shattering; only the sound of impact, and then a thump, and the sound of something rolling across the smooth, sturdy floor. She couldn’t even break a ******** vase? She should be throwing her fury around on Earth. At least there something about her made an impact. Her credit card.

The last time that the Senshi of the Kraken had been on her homeworld, reaching out to seek aid in dealing with her wounded soul, she had been downtrodden. She had come an already-defeated penitent. Her heart and her mind had been partially stuck on the insecurities that sprang forth from her private meeting with Ptolemy. Having to tell the Dark Mirror senshi about the origins of the Blood Moon, and how the Dark Mirror had come to pass, always made her feel the part of the villain. It was easy to try to shove the truth aside to make it from day to day; the truth that in her silence she had been complicit in atrocities.

Why did she always have to look for external sources to her pain? The answer was right in front of her. She threw herself into everything without looking, she gave and gave, and she loved and loved and supported. She kept nothing back from the people that she chose. She held herself to a standard with other people that tore her insides to shreds. Jada had always been told what to think and how to feel, and when she had become Scylla she had thought it was freedom. She’d made choices that Jada Chamberlyn might not, disassociated herself into an almost dual-life, made herself pretend that behind the fuku there was someone else.

But behind the fuku, she was still the same spoiled, naive, helpless, hopeful, romantic heiress. She mismanaged her pain, tamping everything down, because if she let something crack.... And the circle wound tighter every time. And every time the spring broke it was self-destructive. And every time it cost her so much; and whether she had help or not, she was done with this cycle. It had been broken- until she came back to Destiny City, and its poison. She longed for things like she was Giulia, six years old and full of life,

Perhaps she had done something wrong the last time she had come. That was not a truth she wanted to consider, for it tasted like ashes to admit that yet again, the fault was hers. It was worse, in its way, to consider that perhaps she had received exactly what she deserved.

Nothing.

When she had first come, her homeworld had seemed dead. There had been nothing resembling water. The fossil of the Kraken had been nothing to her but an old garden or gazebo, at first, not the remnants of a world gone by. The air had been dry and cold, and everything had seemed to be barren, empty and dead. There had been more life in the world that had hung in the sky like odd christmas ornaments, so much more impressive than what she surveyed on the ground. Her power had been given by antiquated relics and ruins, so small and insignificant compared to everything else out there. The first time she had seen this world, she had not seen the beauty that might lie just beneath the surface. She had been afraid, and ashamed of how it looked.

The next few times she had come to Scylla, she had seen more. The bottom of the World Pillar had been encased in ice, the buildings on the Isle had looked decrepit, though structurally sound. Plants survived, clinging to cracks and crevices, though there were no animals that she could see. Her mind had filled with memories of the dreken, the devilfish, the terrifying predators that feasted on humanoids and sea life alike. She had pushed her way through the dusty remains of oiled cloths, peered into the braziers that had once been filled with Everflame, and seen only gutted-out embers. She had trudged through dust, through the thick scent of death that had filled the catacombs. She had looked on her old body and wondered why.

It was Jada who had brought color back to this sad, cold world. She had repaired the curtains with her own hands, replacing what she could not. She had swept away dust, opened windows, let the breeze touch the stifled temple. She had gone to the time-ravaged auditorium, full of the remains of the past Scyllae, and she had cleaned up the mess that the Kraken had made, pushing rocks outward, and cleaning dust off to see that perhaps… time had not ravaged so much? Every time she came, the planet was brighter, more beautiful. Every time she had chosen to return to her homeworld, Jada could watch Scylla slowly awakening from a thousand years sealed away in despair.

The statues in the catacombs had never looked away from her progress as she had cleaned her way through restoring the Temple. All of them still glittered with stones and jewelry, hemp, and ragged pieces of clothing. She had found more than just the barely-humanoid guardians that had attracted her attention at first. There were those who looked like they could have been human, and those marked with symbols from other worlds. These statues had been more than just the guards of the Scyllae, she knew now. This area was the tomb to their wives. Their arms. Male and female alike, these statues represented the people who her past life, and the Scyllae before her, had chosen. Had loved. No wonder their jeweled eyes had glittered, frightening her so. She was their ‘husband’ now, and she brought them no honor.

There were a few statues among them that she favored, that she recognized. The cool, sweet lips of Kyma, who had died before her time, slain on the beach helping protect the village and the Temple. The stern expression of Briseis, who had been the wife of Andromache’s older brother before their clan was slaughtered. Nine years her senior, and when Andromache had returned as the senshi of their homeworld, Briseis had laid down her sword and her hard-won status to become the first of the child-Scylla’s wives. Fifteen of these statues had belonged to Andromache, at the very least. Fifteen of them had been the ones who fought for her, died for her, and still stood guard over both the woman in the next room and the child that she had been carrying. They had been proud warriors who had given up glory of their own to serve something greater than just one small clan.

What had Matera told Andromache, in that faded memory? There are many angles from which cruelty can come, and that is why the Kraken has many arms, Andromache. Not so that it can destroy, but so that it may defend its territory from every direction. That was why males and females both learned to fight, that was why biological sex had no bearing on social roles and terminology that came from their own culture. Danger could come from anywhere, and it was not just the job of one person to protect the family. Everyone fought on Scylla, not just for rank, titles, or power. They struggled every day for their very lives against a planet that saw them as nothing but food.

Jada stroked her hand over the familiar, muscled arm of a statue, closing her eyes with a sigh, and grounding herself with the date- September 13, 2017. Another statue under hand, so familiar and yet so different. This one had stones for eyes, two small Messian gems- they still swirled and glowed at her when she looked upwards, different from the onyx chips in most of the others. An honor, bestowed on the favored, perhaps? There were maybe a dozen of them in here with those glowing eyes, out of what was probably thousands, should she bother to count. The statues here had not all been lovers, even if they had all been spouses. Some had lovers of their own, and the 40-plus children born to her wives that Andromache had proudly raised and cared for, that she had mourned when they died, were clearly not all young born of her body. But their parents had been her family, and most had earned their places guarding her grave with years of dedication and love.

What could she take from that? Perhaps it was that while Scylla was not meant for the softer things, there was room for it in their life. There had to be. Andromache had raised a son of her own body among the children born to her wives. She had found a balance, and lived her life to the fullest as best she could, every day. She had loved, and she had fought, and she had dealt with grief. It wasn’t something impossible to do. Emotion was not disallowed, Jada just had to… learn. Time and place for everything. If she wanted a balance, if she wanted help then first, she needed to help herself. What she’d done so far hadn’t worked. Time to try something else.

Don’t give up, ἀγαπητή. You are mine, and I am proud of you. Hands stroked through her hair like a ghost, and were gone.