Welcome to Gaia! ::

.Wait Before Excercise.
BATTLE ~ Nora and Andrea, and Richterite

Did that just happen?

(( ** in progress ** ))

.You Have Mail!.
SOLO ~ Andrea bored abroad

Andrea's usual room in his uncle's house felt smaller than he remembered, but it was easy to tell why, with how his aunt had gushed about how he had grown. The previous night of their arrival had been filled with lots of food, though the boy got the feeling that a lot of the eager conversation had been aimed to avoid addressing the fact that his uncle was not present. Nicoletta had told him in an email before they had all flown over that her mother had been baking to vent her stress.

The meal, coupled with jet lag, ensured that Andrea slept well that night. He was only just now realizing that the room felt small, in fact, as he watched the light filtering in through the sky light in his top-floor room. He rubbed his eyes finally and sat up, straining as he stretched upwards and yawned, then held his breath for a moment to listen for other signs of life in the large house.

Silence.

Andrea surveyed the small room as he got out of bed. The bed had a metal frame, with a brass-tone headboard, flat on top, with bars. There was enough space on the top to put a phone or small clock, but all of Andrea's bedside belongings had ended up on the small folding table that had been set up beside the bed, apparently long enough to collect a thin sheen of dust. The hand-woven rug that covered most of the floor had been recently hoovered, though it looked faded and had been tamped flat immediately next to the bed. The room was essentially part of a finished attic, and the roof closest to the outside wall of the house sloped downwards so that Andrea had to lean over. But most of that end of the room was occupied by the head of the bed and table, and a chest of drawers. Another open set of shelves rested against the opposite wall, with Andrea's suitcases shoved haphazardly up against them.

He walked over to the wall that separated his room from the one that was its mirror image on the other side of the house, and listened for sounds of his brother. Though it occured to him after a moment that his brother was not one to spend a lot of time in his room, especially if there was breakfast to be had.

The boy changed into clothes and padded downstairs, still keeping an eye out for his aunt or his cousin, or his parents or his siblings. Other than the lingering smell of bread and sausage, no one else appeared to be home. Light streamed welcomingly throughout the house anyway, though - Andrea decided that he felt more comfortable being home alone here than in his own house, in spite of this home being less familiar. The architecture felt open and several large windows offered an incredible view of the vineyards outside.

Andrea stopped in the kitchen and stared at the counter for a minute before realizing that there was a plate with food set aside for him on it. And a note.

Everyone else was out running errands, apparently. And apparently Lucas was actually still asleep upstairs, just very quietly. Which left him with at least an hour or so to kill, most likely. Before they would all go to the hospital together.

Gnawing on one of the pieces of bread, Andrea wondered what he was going to do do. The house was so quiet; the place was not exactly in the middle of nowhere, but he was still about fifteen minutes out of town, and carless moreover. There were a few shops within walking distance, none of them interesting. And waiting around at home just thinking about his uncle being in the hospital was not really an option, either.

Leaving some breakfast for his brother, Andrea returned to his room, and flopped down on the bed, which squeaked noisily in response. He rolled over and stared out the skylight. He rolled over again and counted the bars in the headboard of the bed. He got out of bed and moved his suitcases around, and dug out a book. He opened the book, then sighed and flopped back onto the bed again, placing the open book over his face.

Maybe he could try henshing up here, even though Andrea had decided before he left that he would put the senshi thing on the shelf for a few weeks and focus on his family. He deserved the time to relax, right? He was just not sure whether being a senshi was like a job or some "part of him" - could he just put it on the shelf and not think about it? Was it okay to do that?

He wondered if there were senshi abroad out here in Italy, as well. Did they need help?

Getting himself up out of bed again, he padded back down the stairs to the main floor of the house. It was hard enough to have one thing he did not want to think about, with his uncle being sick again. Maybe a run through the vineyards at senshi speed would do him some good, to keep himself occupied until his parents and aunt returned. Andrea walked to one of the windows overlooking the rows of grapes, and peered out for a long moment. Then he glanced furtively back over his shoulder and moved for the door to step outside. If nothing else, needing fresh air would make a good excuse.

Andrea found a good spot that felt sufficiently hidden beside the house, and - after checking in a moment of paranoia - sufficiently far from his brother's window, and powered up. Almost immediately, Vin felt an itching between his shoulderblades, though. He attempted to ignore it, and started jogging through the vineyards, but it nagged and nagged at him, like there was something caught in his uniform, and he finaly stopped.

Squirming with one hand overhead and down his back, Vindemiatrix could not feel anything back there, but when he withdrew his hand, two small folded pieces of paper fluttered from his palm.

"What..." he murmured, bending down to retreive them. And he remained confused right up until he started to unfold them; then a small smile formed across his lips.

"Well, I guess I'll have something to do for a little while, at least."

.The Italian Job.
SOLO ~ Vin and four strangers

There was this certain feeling that Andrea felt most often when it was snowing out and planning to continue all night, and he had not done his homework for the next day. There was no one hundred percent guarantee that school would be cancelled the next day, and so he always had that lingering doubt whether it would be okay that he was giving his assignments a pass for the evening, but it looked so much like a snow day that he knew he would feel silly staying up late to finish some math or biology, only to end up with a whole extra day.

He was starting to feel the same way about how little time he had spent powered up and patrolling the vineyards and nearby town in senshi form while he was here. Like, was it okay that he was on vacation with his family? There were plenty of other senshi back in Destiny City, and it was true that it did seem like the youma problem was not as bad out here in Italy, but there was still a nagging feeling that Andrea was neglecting his duties.

Andrea knew he was not the perfect model child when it came to homework, but the senshi thing was a matter of life or death. He also knew he was not the perfect model child when he realized how pleased he was with the discovery that the skylight in his bedroom could be opened from the inside, and offered a decent escape onto the roof, requiring only the effort of moving the empty shelves and climbing on top of them. At least the thoughts occupying his mind at night were filled with less and less worry about Uncle Mariano as time went on and he recovered.

Dragging the shelves as quietly as possible to the proper spot in the room, Andrea glanced upwards at the suddenly-inviting stars. He threw the lock on his bedroom door, then climbed the shelves, threw the window latch, and pushed it open.

Cool night air pulled the gathering of warmth at the ceiling out in an instant, and the boy smiled as a light breeze ruffled his hair. With a bit of effort, he pulled himself up and then onto the roof, and then carefully let the skylight window back down again. Fortunately there was a handle on the outside, so that he would have no trouble finding his way back in.

Now the only question remained what to do once he powered up. Andrea changed to Vindemiatrix, and was welcomed by more correspondence from Babylon. He lamented that he could not reply (how was Babylon even sending these messages in the first place?), but he was also not really sure what else he could say. Uncle was okay? Family doing well on vacation? Weather lovely? It sounded like Babylon had a lot more to worry about in the Surrounding, and Vin feared that his own personal details would just seem trivial in comparison.

Vin read the letter, sighing as he finished and glancing upwards, as though he might somehow be able to see a glow from Babylon's lantern from ... where ever he was up there. He felt a pang of guilt, having a nice place to sleep and his aunt's delicious cooking every day, but he also assured himself that he had been taking care of his own family obligations. Helping his uncle and the rest of his family, he could not underestimate that. The whole entire universe having a need for him made it difficult to remember that there were smaller, more immediate universes counting on him, as well. This would be okay.

"I miss you, too," he whispered to the page.

Folding the letter and tucking it away in a pocket, Vin slipped down from the roof and immediately bee-lined for the vineyards. He could just walk around and think, maybe, and keep a mental eye on the area to see if anything that felt tainted by the Negaverse ... wandered by or whatever. He had been following the news as well as he could with his limited Italian (why did they talk so fast?) but had at least gathered that there was no serial killing or sudden influxes of coma patients, or anything else that had that Destiny City brand of misfortune to it.

The air even felt clearer to his senshi senses, he thought after a few minutes as he strode down the length of a trellis of grapevines. No... hanging feeling of doom or whatever in the air, like he felt at home. At the end of this little avenue framed by green, there was a space of perhaps a dozen yards of open land, then the tall fence at the edge of the property. On the other side of that was the road, but it got fairly light traffic.

In fact, just as he stepped out between the vines and surveyed the street, thinking that there must not have been a car down this road in at least forty minutes since it was after dark, headlights lit up the road from off to Vin's right, and the sound of an engine in dire need of service heralded the approach of a van. Slightly startled, the senshi retreated back between the rows of plants and watched as the vehicle passed. A moment later, he realized that he was probably not easily visible from the road anyway, particularly in the dark, and that he was pretty sure that senshi did not have the same rep here in Italy that they did in Destiny City.

Vin laughed at himself and shook his head, adjusting how his hat sat on his hair. He would have to re-bleach his fringe soon; maybe he could get a haircut in a few days and then do it. He walked out from the row of grapes again and made his way perpendicular to the rows now, closing his eyes as he wandered slowly along. His senshi senses were hardly perfect, but he really was pretty sure he honestly felt no darkness in the area. No other senshi, either.

A small part of him almost wanted to stay here. Maybe the space war would find its way here eventually, but for the moment, the peace was nice.

Vindemiatrix reached the corner of the vineyard. There was a tree there, and he ran up it without a second thought. What would it be like, he wondered, to meet a senshi out here? Did the ones from Destiny City make news to other senshi elsewhere? Would they even know that they had allies, or were there so few of them here in Europe?

His thoughts were cut short as a gunshot suddenly sounded somewhere nearby. The sound of it echoed off the hills and a bird, startled from rest, took off from a bush across the road from where the Senshi of Wine tried to get his pounding heart under control and avoid falling out of his tree.

"Dear god," he breathed, eyes wide. Shaking, he lowered one foot to a lower branch to climb down, accomplishing this much more slowly and much less gracefully than he had ascended. Part of him felt he should investigate, but the rest of in insisted that it was perfectly reasonable to avoid people with guns.

Two more shots sounded as his feet touched the grass, and he cowered momentarily against the tree trunk. It did not sound like anyone was actually shooting at him, but it still unnerved Vindemiatrix. He was not even sure he had actually even heard a gun fired before, outside of movies and television. He started to hear other sounds, too, like distant voices and then a louder unearthly shriek.

And he started to feel the similarly unnerving presence of a youma, as well.

The Senshi of Wine climbed the fence at the corner of his uncle's property and hopped down on the other side, and immediately crouched into the bushes. They were somewhat sparse, all the way down the road, but they still provided some cover. Vin realized he missed having buildings to jump on. The lack of city surrounding him here also meant that it was much darker. This would be a different sort of battle, for sure, and he was not sure how confident he felt about that. Vin tried to assure himself that most of it was still nerves from hearing the sudden gunshots as he made his way down the road.

Every few hundred feet along the road, there was a light; Vin decided that the darkness provided more cover than the bushes, at least as he reached the halfway point between two of them. Up ahead, he could see the van from before, pulled over halfway off the road under one of the lights. At least one of the doors was open, and it looked like perhaps two people were moving about the vehicle. As the Senshi of Wine drew closer, he saw that the van was up on a small portable jack, but the two people were not paying attention to the tire. And one of them was holding a rifle of some sort.

The other thing that became obvious as Vin approached was the feeling of the youma, and the noise that confirmed its presence somewhere nearby. It was on the opposite side of the road from Vin himself, but the same side as the car. Occasionally the unarmed figure pointed off towards the scrub on that side of the road, but the one with the gun did not fire again until Vin was quite close.

At the sound of the weapon, he dropped by reflex to the ground. Was it possible for anyone to "get used to" that sound, he wondered as he worked a moment to slow his breathing. After picking himself up, Vindemiatrx decided that now was the best time to cross the street, while still hidden in darkness before he reached the light where the people were with the van. Startling them seemed like a distinctly bad idea.

Clapping one hand down on the top of his head to keep his hat in place, the boy darted across the road and immediately crouched behind the bushes there. They felt distinctly less concealing on this side, but all that went from his mind as he heard the low growl of the youma nearby. Vin held one hand up to block the light from the street lamp from his eyes, holding his breath for a moment as his eyes kept trying to tell him there it is.

And then he actually did see it move, and he figured it was as good a time as any to spring into action.

Once he was already flying through the air to aim a kick at it, his mind decided to wonder if youma could feel senshi like he could feel them. Was he really surprising the thing? He dearly hoped this ambush would work.

It was not a big youma, but it had thick muscles. Vindemiatrix was partly glad he had not elected to try his knuckles against the thing, but he was pretty sure his foot would bruise after he landed a few hits. It snarled and snapped at him and he kicked back. As their battle moved closer to the light, he could see that it had large clubs for hands, with no fingers, and was about as sturdily-built as it felt. It seemed to weaken gradually under Sailor Vin's assault regardless, though, and so the senshi was feeling confident right before he took a solid youma punch to the stomach.

Winded, Vindemiatrix staggered back. Maybe he would have to use wine on this thing, just to dull its wits enough to finish it off quickly. Or maybe it would even relax its hard muscles. He just had to catch enough of his breath to conjure the glass....

And then another gunshot rang out, very close by. The youma's eyes widened in surprise and Vin felt something like wet droplets hitting his face. Then the beast turned to dust and crumbled.

Vindemiatrix's white-gloved hands were in the air before the echoes of the shot had finished ringing off of the surrounding hills.

"I- it's okay!" he called out, feeling thoroughly starved for air after not quite catching his breath before having it scared out of him again. "You got it! I'm a friend!" The senshi of wine gasped down more oxygen, then tried in Italian. "I- I'm a friend!"

The two people approached cautiously; one of them ejected a spent shell from his weapon and loaded another, while the other, a few inches shorter, stuck close behind. When they heard Vindemiatrix's Italian, the pair of them stopped, talking between them.

Both of them were men, wearing shorts with lots of pockets, t-shirts on the tighter-fitting side, and sturdy-looking hiking boots. The one with the gun was taller; his white shirt looked like someone had scrawled something on it with permanent marker, and then the man had turned it inside out to hide it. A short-sleeved orange plaid shirt left unbuttoned over it helped hide whatever was written, but it was dark enough that Vindemiatrix would not have been able to read it anyway. The shorter man had a baseball cap on, red with dark smudges but no team logo. The two men both had dark curly hair, and darker complexions, and the senshi was not sure what language they spoke.

They saw a young boy in hose and a skirt, and a pink hat, out at night, having just fought a monster for them.

The shorter man with the baseball cap appeared to relax after a second, and laughed. His companion lowered his gun, and Vindemiatrix started breathing again.

Baseball Cap said something else to his companion, which caused Plaid Shirt to grin and prod him in the ribs with one finger before approaching the senshi.

"Are you alright?" Vindemiatrix asked in Italian, still a bit short of breath and trying to ignore his pounding heart. He was the superhero here, even if he was in a foreign country, speaking to people who also appeared to be foreigners, and by the way had a gun. He wanted to try to appear as confident as possible.

... Slowly, he lowered his hands.

"Do you speak Italian?" The senshi of wine hoped that they at least had enough of some language between them for understanding.

Baseball Cap replied in a language Vin could not understand, and laughed, and Plaid Shirt swatted him again.

Haltingly and with an accent, Plaid Shirt replied, "I do, very little." Then he looked back at the van. The senshi followed his gaze, and saw two more people there - a young woman in the middle passenger seat of the van with glasses and a checkered scarf around her neck, and another young woman with her hair hidden by a headscarf who leaned over her fellow passenger to see out the window, too. Plaid Shirt flashed them both a quick smile, which they returned, and seemed to relax.

Then he looked back to Vin and asked, "What was ... monster?" There really was no better word for them. "Are there more?" He elbowed Baseball Cap again, and the younger man jumped like he realized he had forgotten something, then moved back to the other side of the van to keep working on changing the tire.

Figuring it would save an awful lot of explanation, Vindemiatrix shrugged. "It was a monster. It's gone now." Then, feeling more confident of his ability to appear confident, added with certainty, "No more here."

Of course he had no way of knowing how far these people were going, or where, but the news reports here in Italy at least made this sound like it was not likely to happen again.

"Do you need help?" he ventured.

Plaid Shirt shook his head, suddenly looking tired. "We will fix."

He moved towards the van as well, opening the passenger-side front door. After taking a minute to secure the gun for storage (much to Vindemiatrix's relief), he stowed it between the front seats and turned back to Vin, rubbing his chin. He opened his mouth to say something, stopped, leaned back into the vehicle and opened the glovebox, then fumbled around a moment before removing a small book. Glancing between Vin and the pages, he flipped through it quickly as though looking for something.

Vin watched him, feeling slightly awkward. Silence stretched for a long moment, punctuated only by the sound of the tire-changing effort on the other side of the van.

Just as he was about to ask where they were going, the side door started to slide open, and the boy looked over to see the woman in the headscarf helping the woman in glasses out onto the grass.

No longer hidden behind the door, Glasses was clearly injured. One arm was wrapped up in bandages that looked makeshift, and were stained dark in a few places with blood. She moved slowly, and, as she stepped out into the light of the streetlamp, Vin thought her face looked a bit pale.

"Hospital?" Headscarf asked cautiously in English, looking worried.

Plaid Shirt shook his head, and the two had an exchange in their native language (was that Arabic, then?) that indicated that the man was reluctant to go to a hospital, and the woman was quite upset about it.

The senshi winced. Glasses' wound looked old enough that it could not have possibly been caused by the youma he had helped them vanquish, but that also meant she had not had anyone see to it in a while, either. Both of the women settled down on the grass, and Headscaf helped her companion start to remove the bandages. It looked like a change was well overdue, anyway.

Vin ventured closer and crouched beside them, looking concerned. It dawned on him that these people may have come from the turmoil in Tunisia. Stories on the news had spoken of worries about illegal immigrants to Italy; it might also help explain Plaid Shirt's concerns with going to a hospital. The Senshi of Wine wished he had some way to be sure the nurses there would take care of them, but it was so far out of his realm of abilities. He would have to settle for having helped keep them from getting killed by a youma.

They had been through enough.

Glasses' wound was not big but it did look bad with a crust of dried blood around it. She cried and Headscarf hugged her. A moment later, Plaid Shirt squatted beside them and touched her shoulder gently.

His attention was on the senshi a moment later, though, as he asked, pronouncing carefully as he read from what proved to be a phrasebook, "We need to go to France. What is the fastest way there?"

Vin blinked, glancing upwards as he thought for a moment. He never did any driving, and he had also not been to France via road from here anyway, but he had seen road signs around. He pointed down the way the van had been headed, then trailed off to the left side.

"A10," he told them. "That's the fastest way from here, but I don't know how far it is."

Plaid Shirt nodded, resting his arms on his knees.

The boy offered the two ladies a weak smile, then realized that perhaps he could help her. Shifting to a kneeling position, he tried to figure out how to tell them what he was going to do.

"I can clean her wound for you," he began. "I have some... magic."

... Even if they understood any of the words (Plaid Shirt was already flipping through his phrasebook), they would still not likely understand what he was going to do anyway. Vin still hardly understood it himself. But once more, he wanted to try to reassure them all as much as possible. He knew what he was doing, at least.

"Standard's Grip of the Grape," he recited, conjuring a stem glass of wine.

Glasses looked the least perturbed, her eyes widening; Headscarf and Plaid Shirt jumped slightly, and looked at each other, then back at Vin. A few seconds later, Baseball Cap looked around the back end of the van to see what was going on.

Hoping they would trust him, he held out his free hand to Glasses, motioning towards her injured arm. Wine had alcohol in it, right? And that helped disinfect. Anything would be better than just letting her live with it, and the magical effect of his particular vintage might help lessen her pain just a little.

It took a bit of pantomime to explain what he wanted to do, but the woman ultimately accepted his offer and held her arm out. Vin leaned closer and gingerly started pouring his wine over the wound. Then, deciding that he was likely going to get some of it on himself anyway, settled for gently rubbing at the dried blood a little with his other hand. First aid-wise, he had no idea what to do for her next, but when he looked up again, the glass drained, he saw that Headscarf had retrieved from the van some clean strips of fabric to re-cover the gash.

The white wine left no stain on his gloves, but the contact had made Vin feel a bit tipsy. Or relaxed, and pleased, at least.

Glasses looked like she felt a bit better as well. She examined her arm all over, with perhaps a touch of disappointment that the magic wine had not made her injury completely vanish, but it was clear from the look on her face that she was at least in less pain.

As Headscarf rewrapped her arm, Plaid Shirt laughed and clapped Vin on the shoulder. He did not need the phrasebook to say, "Thank you."

Then he looked up at Baseball Cap and asked him something, which Baseball Cap hurriedly replied to, and gestured towards the van with both arms. All of the strangers got up, Glasses still with help, and started getting back into the van, thanking Vin as they did so.

Plaid Shirt took the driver's seat and started the engine, which sounded reluctant to turn over, but did so after a few tries. The two women in the middle seats waved, and so did Baseball Cap once he rolled the front window down by hand.

"Good luck," Vindemiatrix called to them as they started to move, and he waved at the van until it was out of sight.

Definitely the most interesting night of senshi homework yet, for sure.

.You're Bringing the Wine.
REGULAR ~ Lenka and Vindemiatrix

You're way too young for my powers!

.Turkey Day Special.
REGULAR ~ Finn and his boyfriend

Family makes everything awkward, but I missed Finn so much....

(( ** in progress ** ))

.Fine Wine Valentine.
REGULAR ~ Babylon and vindemiatrix

What other boy in creation could take Babylon to space Venice?

(( ** in progress ** ))