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It was a little under two weeks until Christmas. The weather was growing colder and colder, until some days it was all that Jada could really do to leave her house during the day, much less to patrol at night. Still, she was forcing herself into it, and rubbing dry and patchy skin with moisturizers that burned on chapped skin, but left her skin clean and youthful still, as though all she had to do all day was sit around like the rich socialite she'd been. Once. Before scars, and death, and nightmares of a world she'd never really been to. Before senshi, and the Negaverse, and talking cats, and the realization that she was essentially an alien from another planet, whose soul lived inside another person now. Had Jada Chamberlyn ever been Michael and Szelem's daughter? Or had the body she might have inhabited been taken over by some parasitic life-form known as Senshi? Maybe, and this was what Jada hoped- what she knew had to be true- this was what had been meant, somehow. That she be born in this body, to these people, with this family. Maybe that was why the population of heard had grown so exponentially- because even for the normal souls, this was now... home.

By the french doors leading onto Jada's private balcony, there was a table, and on that table rested two possessions which Jada guarded from everyone, including her friends, her sister and even her cat, zealously. They were snow globes, identical in shape and form, and inside was the Princess that she and others had been assigned, even reborn, to search for. She'd been careless with them once before and Castor, her cat, had gotten a hold of one. It had been a moment in time, desperately suspended, before the snow globe had landed safely on a pillow laying haphazardly on the plush carpeting. Now they were protected in her room at all times. “Serenity.” she whispered into the cold of her bedroom, kneeling by the table and lifting one of the globes in her hand, turning it over so that she could wind the small key in the base before setting it back down on the wooden desk. The moon princess- her princess, some would say- twirled and spun in the glittering snowflakes that fell through the globe, catching the snow in her hands.

She had listened to the music boxes enough times that she had almost completely memorized this song. Jada had watched the way that the small ceramic Serenity spun in the snow, and memorized the angle of the cupped hands, the peaceful expression she imagined on that small, painted face. Now she took it a step forward, opening the doors to her balcony and letting the cold air and wild snowflakes into her room. The music boxes were still playing, and the young woman took a step out onto the balcony, turning and slowly starting to twirl in the snow, like a slow, steady, living music box. And she spun. The music box played, and Jada's hair moved behind her , brushing heavy against her back, and Jada imagined herself twirling like the dead Princess, who was gone far beyond their grasp. How could they search for her? There was nothing left to find... not anymore. It was something she firmly believed, and it ripped at her more than it ever had before. She'd never felt that finding Serenity was urgent, more a pleasant bonus than anything that would save the world. Serenity had never been necessary, and wasn't, she told herself firmly. It was so easy to say, and so easy to believe... wasn't it?

The song died down and Jada's spinning died with it, letting her body slump into the cold snow, where she lay, until the chill and the damp had permeated her clothes. Up above Jada, the moon poked her shining face through the clouds, only briefly, before hiding again. It was then that Jada stood, knocking the snow off of her side and moving into her room. The music box was re-wound, and Jada closed the french doors with a certain finality as it played. Only once, she told herself. She would only indulge in such a flight of fancy once. The light from outside- that mocking moon had shown herself again- glinted on the ivory keys of her piano, and the golden trim of her harp. Play us, the glints said, and Serenity spun in her music box. So she did, moving over to the piano and laying her head on the body, hands stretching out over the keys. It was slow, as every note held a weight for her that made her hard-pressed to try and share them. It was trying to explain something that held too much to be put into simple terms. Hands that had not played in far too long stuck to the keys, tripping and stumbling over parts, enough to make her want to slam the piano cover down.

This was stupid.

This was...

The first hot, uncalled-for tear scalded as it made its way down Jada's cheek, and the music box finally came to its halt.

One might think that on a mostly dead world, there wouldn't be many places to hide. In the case of Scylla, this wasn't true. The place was mostly coral, nooks and crannies she could have only dreamed of. She had gone back-- gone home, some would say-- every time she could get up the energy, and every time the memories came back stronger. Harder. Crueler. She could just barely remember the face of a man who had been her brother, once. He'd had long black hair, and big green eyes. Sandros.

She'd been Andromache. Andromache Zografos. She'd been... mansenshiloverfighterslavechildsisterdaughterwomanwifewarrior. Memories came to her in pieces, showing her the intricacies of what Scylla had been. Who she had been. Scylla-- it was hard, sometimes, to think of her as Scylla when Andromache had been so much more than just a senshi, been so much more than her past life-- had suffered, and loved, and all of the faint memories that Jada granted was just as fierce as the next. Andromache had done nothing by halves, by pieces, that Jada could see. Could remember. Even in her anger, she went all the way. The phrase 'cutting ones nose off to spite ones face' could have been written for her.

But there were things that haunted her. Not just about the woman she'd once been, but the world she had lived in. There was nothing alive, not anymore. At least not in terms of the animal life. All the 'bodies' she stumbled upon were fossilized bones and carcasses, and many of them were monsters which paralyzed her in fear. There was one creature, the name dancing outside of her memory, she could remember. It reminded her of a huge shark, its head as wide across as three of her would be long. Arms, which looked like scythes. There were squid-like creatures, and there were smaller versions of the kraken, beasts that she could remember riding. On land, she found little enough. Bones of something resembling horses, perhaps, and cows. small feline creatures, and humanoids.

Almost all of the buildings were decrepit. Some were structurally sound, like the building that she had dubbed the 'white palace.' It hung off a cliff, built into it. In front there were two torches, filled only with dust. Ragged tapestries hung in front of the windows, what might have once been well-oiled skins falling to pieces when she touched them. It was marble, or it seemed like it, and when it was dark, the paint of the walls glowed. And one of the windows made her heart sing, for when she leaned out, she could sometimes see what she thought her world had looked like. Miles of ocean, glittering and gleaming. In the distance, the World Pillar, reaching into the sky and into the trench that had been the ocean. Chunks of the ground, which had spun around, hung in place by the oddity of the Scyllan gravity, hosting forests and providing a safety that could never be found on the surface.

Even now, Scylla could not get to the bottom of the World Pillar. It was frozen, stuck in ice that was thick and impenetrable. The life that had been there was solid, and even the magic that kept her from freezing to death in this otherwise uninhabitable place would not melt the ice and show her what lay in the deepest recesses of the Scyllan seas. At night, however, the plants that still survived-- some clinging to the chunks of the fallen Sky Mountains, some the very coral itself-- glowed, lighting up the Scyllan world in colors that couldn't be found on Earth outside of a science fiction movie. Her people had made paints out of these plants, she remembered. And Scylla could remember, when her eyes were closed, what it had felt like to have fingers painting over her body, dressing her for battle. Sometimes, when she sat long enough and thought hard enough, she could remember the act of fighting, holding a sword, and using it.

She'd found a sword, here on Scylla. It had been part of a tomb. Her tomb, or another Scylla's tomb? Maybe a priest or priestess of the Great One. It had been under the White Palace. She'd stumbled onto the entrance, seeing the Kraken engraved on the door. She had ignored the stale air, the smell of things rotting. That smell was in many buildings. She'd pushed open the door, and it was an army of black coral statues. Like a chinese king and their clay warriors, except that these people were all animals, not all quite human. All of them had long limbs and most of them were slender, though there were the stocky and muscled among them as well. All of them had large eyes carved into the faces and aquiline noses. All of them had ears which were delicately pointed, though not like an elf. At least not the kind in that World of Warcraft game her sister and Audrey played. More like the ears in the Lord of the Rings movie. All of them glittered with stones and jewelry, hemp, and ragged pieces of clothing. Their eyes had been on her, inhuman and not alive, and her breath seized. This was not a place she belonged. This was a place for the dead.

Jada had gone anyway, feeling like a grave robber. As she'd gone deeper, her nose had gotten used to the smell of dampness. The flashlight was a small comfort, though nothing shifted in the darkness. She'd screamed when she turned the corner to see what looked like a mermaid, caught in a tentacled grip and being dragged towards a hungry, delicately carved maw. The Scyllans were really disturbed people, she decided. It was almost there that she turned back. Something called her onward. She followed. Scylla came to a room at last, blocked by another door. On each side was a guardian, spears crossing over the door. The faces on them looked familiar, tugging at her heart and making her want to weep. Why? What was so familiar about them? They were flat, alien. They shouldn't make her weep.

Scylla had straightened then, and reached out, pushing the door open behind the spears. They clattered to the floor, the wood disintegrating on the hilts as they fell, leaving only the tips behind. And it creaked open, and she closed her eyes against a rush of light and the smell of sea-salt. This room was not full of the stink of death. Not to her eyes when she opened them again. It was another room, full of child-sized statues, circling the room like bleachers in an auditorium, staring down at a bier. The bier was empty- there were no bones, only a few objects. Each of the statues wore a golden tiara that was painted onto their foreheads, and their outfit- their fuku- was carved carefully, lovingly. Scylla shuddered, realizing at last who this place had been a grave for. Her, and the Scyllas of the past. She could feel her body moving forward, feel herself kneeling on the bier, and abruptly Jada realized this as a memory. What was she not seeing, with her eyes? Outside the window, letting in so much sunlight, the salt smell penetrated deep. Waves flicked over the edge of the ledge. It was High Tide, Andromache remembered. The only reason water was crawling in here. And then Jada was gasping for air, staring at a broken bier and ruined statues. There was a gaping hole in the furthest wall, and the statues that had been so lovingly painted were decimated. Time had ravaged this room above all others.

She had made her way across the room, stepping over rubble, to peer out the gaping wall. And down she stared, at the limbs of the Kraken she had first seen when she came to this place. He was reaching for this room from below, like a loyal creature, not a mindless beast. She turned, a glitter catching her eye among the waste. She knelt, lifting up a necklace of stones that glowed from inside, as if fire lit them, but it was a watery dance. The setting was bent, but each of these gems was perfectly cut, not dented and not damaged by the destruction of the room. They were cold to her touch, even through her gloves, and she pulled her hand away from the metal, sliding a hand from her glove and dropping the valuable into it, a treasure just for her. She knew that necklace. With it was a sword, worn and chipped with use. It had a distinct curve to it, with the blade on the inside. It was something people would more use for downward cutting, not the same type of combat like one imagined with a sword. (A kopis, she'd found out later. Usually used for cutting meat, or mounted cavalry.)

Still later, she had come back to Scylla again, shutting the doors to the rooms. Backing out, unable to stand the thought of turning her back on the alien faces with the eyes that stared and said, 'you failed us.' Unable to stand remembering what lay below the white palace was not something beautiful to anyone but an archaeologist. Feeling like a tomb raider, as she stared at the sword that she had put in a place of honor, looking over the 'sea' and the necklace, which adorned a statue. The necklace that teased her. She'd tried to use the sword, curious to see if she could recapture the feeling of using it. She'd almost cut her own arm off.

Still, every time she came to Scylla, there was something new she learned about the past. Once it was a simple memory of eating, alone with a room full of other women, all beautiful and all armed to the teeth. Another time, she was kneeling on the cold stone, retching, feeling something clawing at her stomach, her head aching as she was lashed. Another time she'd been a child, and she was screaming as someone burned a brand into her back, on her left shoulder blade. Her brother's death. Flashes of little things, all important in some way. They showed that even as an alien, Andromache had still been human.

. . . . .

As she sat in her father's study on Earth, secure in her parents house, Jada wondered what she would remember this time. What she would find. It was something compelling, going there, and each time she ached for something that could never be. One day she was going to get lost there, she feared. One day she would get lost in a dream, and she would fall off of one of the cliffs that were a predominant feature in the stark world. Or she would assume that her world was dead, and she would stumble into the waiting maws of some predator, or carnivorous plant or something. Yet she kept going back, drawn there inexorably and helplessly. This time, when she opened her eyes to Scylla, the White Palace was in the distance. Not too far, maybe an hour or so, walking.

She sighed, looking around. She'd never gone too far away from this place. Even on a good day, she'd walked only maybe twenty miles, in a line, meandering. She'd never explored, never stepped off of the weathered trails to explore deeper into the terrain. What was it like, further inland? She could see the chunks of the sky mountains littering the landscape, the vines creeping out and possessing homes, buildings. Someday, they would take over everything. How did they live without water, she wondered? Then again, they were plants from the mountains that had once dotted the sky. Had there really been water up there? With her question came no flashes of insight, and she sighed. Slowly, the girl moved in the inland direction, leaving the coast behind.

It was interesting. The further inland she got, the more grass she saw. It was thick, and tall, but not obscenely so. It was like nature had kept itself down, just for her. No patches came higher than her knee, and those the thin, slender sea-reeds. And then came the forest, with its vines and wide leaves, trunks as thick around as any Earth tree. It was a whole new side to the place. She tripped over roots and branches, glad to catch no sight of insects or spider webs. Those would have scared her silly. As it was, the stillness of the forest worried her. And what of these plants? What was poisonous, and what was not? What if she went back to Earth with a contagious case of the Space Aids?

She hopped a limb that was almost as tall as she was, and found herself looking over a valley. It wasn't much of one, only about ten feet sunken into the dirt, but it dipped and rolled. Inside was a waterfall, spilling from somewhere further inland, and there were ruined houses in that valley, along with the ruins of what could have been herd pens. Over the valley was flat land, stretching, and some kind of... thing. It glimmered in the sun, and all she could think was 'airplane' or 'blimp'. Some way, perhaps, to get from land to the sky mountains? Scylla couldn't decide where to explore first. She had to get back to the Palace. If she went into the dip, could she get back out? She groaned and went digging into her backpack. Four bottles of water, chilled from the Scyllan air. A little bit of rope. A compass. Chalk. A flint and a small bit of tinder. A flashlight.

She could jump from here, and land safely enough. She'd jumped from this height before, and the land below was fairly flat. Still, as she packed up her bag and scooted closer to the edge, jumping was not what she did.

The senshi wasn't testing the ground with her foot, she would later remember as mistake 1. She wasn't even bothering to worry about anything, assuming that this was her world. She'd be fine here. Nothing would hurt her. Until the ground gave way, and she went over the edge of the cliff, screaming. She landed roughly but uninjured. Her head hurt, and she hurt in a place in her bottom no lady talked about, but it was okay. She'd walk the ache out. She pushed to her feet, eying the basin.

And then she scooted off, towards the water. Was it fresh? Where did it go?

It was a half hour to walk from where she was to where the waterfall splashed against softly glowing rocks. The water was like crystal, shimmering and pure. Jada lifted a few drops to her mouth, touching it to her tongue cautiously, and it was almost sweet! Much better than the stuff from a tap at home. There was probably unnatural amounts of bacteria in it.

There was no one around though, and she was dirty. She was tired. And the water was clean enough, right? She slid under the water, letting it beat at her fuku, rinse the dirt off of her long legs, clean the scratches. It burned against her cuts and she made a noise of pain. Of course it would hurt, it was cold as ice. But since she'd become a senshi, illness didn't stick as long. If she caught a cold, it would be minor, right? She relaxed for a time, splashing and enjoying the water, finally prying herself out of it and heading off in another direction, following the water. The other end of the river was far out of sight. Much more than a few hours away.

The day, which had been young when she started, was growing into late afternoon. She needed to find her way back. She stumbled back towards the cliff, following it around, until she found what could have been a ramp, or a lift, once. Now it was ruins, but there were still cables. Were there really things like pulleys a thousand years ago? There were things like senshi, and moon kingdoms, and ships that had gotten the guardian cats around, so why not a simple pulley?

It took another hour to work her way up the eight-foot cliff with minimal injury, and when she at last stood again on solid ground she stumbled away, not wanting to land on and be impaled by the wooden boards. She ached enough! It was some time before she made it back to the town, and by the time she made it back to the White Palace, Jada was ready to go home, and indulge in a heated bubble bath. Soak the soreness out of her butt, her thighs, her hips, her back, her calves, her feet, her waist, her arms and her neck. Just indulge, in all the things Scylla seemed to be currently lacking. Like heated water, and electricity. Though, would she trade the colors for modern convenience? Could she trade this natural beauty for material goods?

….. In a second. Jada would die if she had to live like this for long. She was soft, not the Amazonian-Neanderthal crossbreed that she knew her predecessor to have been. Jada had curves, and they were not made of iron.

Jada finally skittered up the dirt path to the white palace, and stepped into memory. Outside, the torches of EverFlame burned bright, and inside she could see women's shapes, and the shapes of a few doddering old men. They spoke a language she knew, but did not understand. She belonged here. She was mistress here. She was the senshi Scylla, and this was the temple of the Kraken. These were her people. Andromache moved for a room that was warm, with a fireplace that hosted a few coals of the EverFlame, fire that did not go out when doused with water. She moved into the room, and raised her hands to her throat, pulling off the necklace- the necklace, the necklace again, Jada knew it- and set it onto a bust bearing her face. Hands, large hands, slid around her waist, and a face buried itself in her hair. Andromache turned, slowly, burning with happiness, and Jada stared at nothing, standing in a cold, empty, lonely room.

She looked at the necklace, and the sword, and chose her prize. She lifted the piece of jewelry slowly, carefully, and slid it around her neck. It was something that comforted her, on a visceral level. She would never wear it, she swore to herself. Not with these alien gems that were like nothing on Earth. She would never be able to have it reset, not ever. But it haunted her, and she loved it. Swallowing, the Senshi of the Kraken closed her eyes, kneeling on the floor in front of the old fireplace. She could feel hands on her again, warm, and then she was alone, leather pressing against her back and her senshi cell phone ringing as it came back into range of the signal.


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