Welcome to Gaia! ::

Encke let out a heavy sigh as he looked to the skies above.

Stormy.

He knew what was coming. They had seen it look into them and through them. They had seen how it had left Solaris and Keberos in an unknown daze.

And yet, there was no easy answer to what came next.

Encke knew that Solaris held one of the keys. No doubt that Chaos did, too. No matter. Order could and should figure out a way to work without them, the ones who would use a victory here to resume their own mining of eight billion people. There had to be another path.

Could he find it by looking up? Probably not.

It was worth a shot, in any case. Prior prodding hadn't gotten him much further.

Perhaps he'd find something else.

Encke had thought he was alone, so to hear anyone else caused him just a bit of a shock. A bit, though, that was washed down by relied as he realized it wasn't just an alarmed civilian. Caedus.

It had been a minute since he had seen the other, admittedly. It was good to hear that he was still among them and the Velencians hadn't--

"Cae," offered Encke, a truncation of his name as both an acknowledgement that they heard him and that they understood he was staying in the shadows for likely a reason, "lightning doesn't really scare me. Probably not as much as it should."

Something about the whole ... plasma alignment, they figured.

"Could say the same to you, though. Do you have a place to go?" Encke's home would always remain open to Caedus, if the other remembered that. They knew Caedus preferred to keep moving. Considering the events of a few years ago, it made sense, at least.

Encke's brows knit. "If you're certain."

Caedus did sound like he was telling the truth, but he also sounded like he had no interest in talking any further about it. Encke couldn't quite tell if that was because of where they were situated--at least somewhat in the public, though not enough to be obvious--or if because he had other concerns. It was probably best not to press on them right then as much as Encke did actually want to check on Caedus overall. Caedus sounded depressed enough as it was.

He didn't miss the way Caedus had said he hoped he could be useful. By the same token, though, perhaps--

Every storm made Caedus feel ill.

Was Encke truly unaffected? They shifted from one foot to the other in a in-place wobble as they thought a bit deeper on the concept. Maybe to say unaffected in its entirety wasn't quite right. "I'm very used to electricity, honestly. Don't know if you remember the way lightning flies through the sky of my homeworld, and you wouldn't know the way my magic used to work -- would have to electrocute myself to work in close combat at all."

Admittedly, Encke was glad that both his area of magic didn't rely on proximity, and was also glad that didn't seem to be the case anymore. That wasn't the point, though.

"So no, the electricity itself doesn't bother me." That much was true. "But there's... something about this that clings. I think you're right in that it's nauseating. It feels like something is constricting me when it strikes. Variant in strength, variant in pressure, but coiling. Clinging." His brows knit. "Like a snake, almost."

They stopped wobbling to instead shift to rubbing at their arm.

"I think this creature might see us all as prey."

It fit the way it felt like it had tried to hypnotise Kerberos and Solaris.