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It was just before midnight on a school night. Sailor Taranis had been out since ten, but it had been quiet. He'd seen neither hair nor hide of a youma or Negaverse agent. The peace was almost disturbing. Were they gearing up for something?

Most of his patrolling was done either alone or with Sailor Magellan. He'd been in a fair number of battles with other senshi, but at heart, Taranis was not a team player. He preferred to do this own thing and just adjust if another senshi entered the fray. Sometimes, he needed the help, not that he was keen on admitting it.

Okay, so he definitely wasn't keen on admitting it. He was at least a big enough person to realize when someone was useful -- like Sailor Dylan, or even Iris, and even that coin-wielding Rosalind.

Weariness tugged at Sailor Taranis's eyes, and he took a seat on the rooftop of a salon. He'd never actually been inside the place, but he certainly hung out on its roof a lot. Under a starry sky, Taranis felt a little more at peace, but something was troubling him. It was his tiredness, his lethargy, his overwhelming sense that they would never find the Princess and that everyone would die or have their heads eaten by Tanzanite.

Sailor Taranis rested his elbows on his bent knees and buried his face in his hands.

Sailor Taranis lifted his head when a voice split the silence. At first, his face was surprised. The expression turned to a frown, and then softened back to apathy. He was too tired to fight, even with the likes of Aurora Namid.

The day that the small child (a Cardian) attacked him had been scarring, but before he passed out, he remembered seeing Aurora become Sailor Polaris, a senshi he had met independently of her human counterpart. He saw her transform into this fuku too. Taranis knew much more about Polaris and Aurora than the Senshi of Magnetism probably knew.

It was ironic, really, that she would be the one to show up when his spirits were so low.

"Polaris," he said, eyes raising to her face. The outfit was skimpy and see through. It distracted Taranis only for a moment. He'd seen senshi wearing weirder things. Hell, he looked like a Boy Scout. "No youma to scare off. Quiet night." Taranis frowned again.

"Do you usually patrol around here? I haven't seen you before. I do. I patrol here." It wasn't defensive, but it wasn't quite conversational either. His lips were just moving, spitting out words while his face was frozen in melancholy.

Sailor Taranis did not look at her. He was still hunched over, staring at the flat gray of the industrial roof. Up a few feet, the eave overhang was tiled with brown Spanish-style pieces. No one could see the actual top so the place probably just put the pretty tiles where they could be seen and saved money by cementing the center.

"No," he said flatly. "I've never been invited to a senshi meeting. I might not have been around then."

Taranis was aware that much had passed in the time he went unawakened. Some days, it angered him. Why didn't Derp find him sooner? Why hadn't she changed him the first month he was in Hillworth and not the last? It was just another question that he figured would never be answered.

"I'm Sailor Taranis," he volunteered, belatedly adding, "Senshi of Sand."

He did not volunteer any information about how he knew her, or that he knew her civilian identity either. Taranis was too distracted to be intentionally cruel, even to the likes of Aurora Namid.

Sailor Taranis did not respond to her offer to help. Sailor Magellan was his senshi mentor, that was that. Besides, knowing that Aurora Namid lurked beneath the fuku made him skeptical of her usefulness. They could barely stand each other as civilians. What would make things so different as senshi? Their appearances might change, but the personality was precisely the same.

He tilted his chin upward, gazing at the moon. It was a crescent sliced into midnight blue. "Or they are planning something," he mused lightly. Cerulean eyes turned abruptly to stare at Super Sailor Polaris. "What is the worst thing you've experienced as a senshi?" It wasn't like Taranis to ask about the good times, but it was very like him to wonder about the bad. He had asked Sailor MuCephi the same thing when they first met. She'd told him about the sailor who was lost to them.

Could that be him one day? Would he become the story that Magellan told?

It was a sobering thought.

Sailor Taranis listened quietly, expression impassive. "Your power backfired and pulled your starseed? But you manipulate metal. How could that happen?" Again, he revealed more of his knowledge about the senshi with the translucent fuku. It might unnerve Polaris now, but it was better this way. If Taranis was in his normal mind set, he might hold it over her head, or otherwise use it to maliciously manipulate her.

Tonight under the cloudless sky, he did not feel vindictive.

He sighed, long and listless. It was a natural thing for him to do. He was always full of sighs. "When I was just a civilian, I had a Nega reach into my chest. Sailor Magellan saved me. She saved me from a lot." Now he was thinking of Dani? Sailor Taranis clearly needed a break. Maybe a vacation. He was vomiting introspection at one of his least favorite people without hesitation.

"I know the drawback to my attack quite well." He held his palm up and flexed his fingers the same way he did when there was a spinning sand blast there. "Face full of sand. Eyes full of sand. Sand in your hair. Henshining down and finding sand between your toes still." Taranis laughed, mocking. There seemed to be other senshi who had more useful powers with less of a penchant for backfiring horribly. Given his lifetime of bad luck, Taranis was not surprised that lurking within him was a power that more often than not struck him and his enemies. Oh well.

When Polaris said she knew his girlfriend, Sailor Taranis raised his eyebrows. The simple fact that she knew Magellan made her seem less vile. It didn't make him like her, but it did soften her to him. "We're very close," he said, nothing more.

His eyes wandered back to the Destiny City skyline. It was dotted with lights. Across the metropolis, street lights changed -- yellow, red, green -- but no cars drove on the roads. It was a ghost town, an empty nest. People were being careful, exceptionally careful. It did not mean the occasional person did not still walk at night, people did, but there was a tension in the air when the sun set. It was like the city itself was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

DC and Taranis had this in common.

There were many things Taranis could have said to Polaris. Instead, he went with one of Parker's old tricks: "Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe." He smiled, wistful. Quoting things made him feel happy, even if it made others raise their eyebrows.

Getting to his feet, the Senshi of Sand stretched his arms over his head. It was late. He would be going back to Hillworth now, much to his chagrin. This conversation had been odd, certainly, the eye of a storm that had been all of his meetings with this girl until this point. Taranis was too tired to think about it, not that night.

He moved toward the edge of the roof. "I should go," he said, lifting one boot to the ladder. "This has been... odd." Gloved hands gripped the railing and he started to climb down. Moments before his head disappeared from view, he said, "Good night, Aurora."

By the time she looked over the ledge after him, Sailor Taranis was gone, disappearing down another alleyway.