Welcome to Gaia! ::

There was rarely anything for Pasha to do once he'd finished his homework. He'd recently picked up his hobby of stringing together bracelets and necklaces again; they were always horrendously tacky, but they passed the time quite nicely.

On this particular night, he'd wasted an hour or two playing dress-up. As a result, he currently wore an ensemble of a short, lacy pink party dress as a shirt, candy leggings, shorts, mismatched gloves, a hat out of the 20's, boots with buckles, and way too many pony bead necklaces (some of which were glowing in the very dim light of the room). He was in the process of creating yet another necklace to add when he heard a strange noise outside his window - it didn't sound like Abel this time.

When he opened his window, his eyes lit up.

"Tal-...Europa! Hi!" He waved frantically, one of the gloves slipping slightly off. "Are you sure it doesn't? It's not noisy or anything, is it? I think they'd know I was up to something if things got really noisy. And they might get mad you're here..." As he spoke, he busied himself by hauling his little body up onto the windowsill.

Pen and cell phone...Pasha had been very careful when it came to any of his Very Important Items, but they'd fallen into disuse as of late, thanks to his fear that his parents might realize something was up. He hmmed as he rummaged through his backpack, where he pulled out a little diary with a cat on front. Shaking it produced a key from its pages, which he then used to unlock the top drawer of his desk. The cell phone (decorated, despite Astraea's comments on the idea) and pen were in tow as he returned to her, just in time to hear about his travels.

"You...what!" He had to put both "daintily" gloved hands over his mouth to quiet himself as a barely audible eeeeeeeeeeeeeee slipped out. SPACE?! This was easily the coolest part of being a Senshi!

Though he hated to lose his fantastic outfit, he did as requested, enduring the transformation that couldn't happen quickly enough. His fingers ran over the hem of the uniform for a fleeting moment - it was hard to get used to his again! - before he returned his attention to Europa, cell phone extended towards her.

"Oooh, tell me the Universe's number, pleasepleaseplease! I promise to follow all of the rules and everything!"

He probably should have asked about "this guy Kurma" and what exactly had happened, but that could wait a little bit. Space awaited him!

It took a great amount of willpower for Pyxis to settle down and really listen to Europa again, carefully taking in everything she said. This stuff seemed really important, like most other Senshi information, and he didn't want to mess it up and ruin his chances of getting into space.

"Well, we've got magic stuff too, so maybe it'll be just the same!" He sure hoped so - space might get overwhelming with all of its huge awesomeness, and it would help to have not only a friend, but a fellow Senshi (and space traveler) along with him. He held onto her hand and took a deep breath, admittedly nervous. Concentrating wasn't his strong point, and if this went wrong...

The sounds of insects and the occasional passing car faded away as he eased into a more relaxed state. The fingers holding Europa's hand stopped shaking with anticipation, now simply flexing with every deep breath he took.

When he finally heard it, it startled him; he jumped just slightly, exhaled, and continued to listen. The music started gentle chimes before growing louder and louder, like an excited parade that might lead him home to a big welcome party. The song reminded him a lot of chasing bugs; of the firefly lights that guided him. It seemed to tug on him, little hands grabbing at something in his soul, and he didn't want to tell them 'no'.

Before he had any idea what was happening, they were snuggled into a cloud of dust. Pyxis couldn't speak, eyes wide at the sight.

Framed by millions of shimmering stars were several large clouds, all purples and magentas and blues, seemingly identical to the one upon which they stood. They looked almost as if they were occasionally dripping, he noted, as the dust on the bottoms of the clouds floated into the depths of space. The clouds were all linked with a translucent film, like faintly rainbowed bridges leading them from place to place. Though still shimmering with a hint of color, the 'roads' definitely looked as if they might have been brighter at some point long, long ago. Faint lights bathed them in blues before quickly fading away again with dull hums. Structures that appeared to be buildings - dwellings? - stood in the distance. Some were dangerously close to the edges of the slowly deteriorating clouds, seeming to imply that the clouds were once much larger. A few crumbled pillars, statues, and what looked like a small, dead garden sat behind them. It was all very beautiful, compared to Earth, but something about it seemed so sad. And next to Pyxis and his bright colors, it was significantly dulled.

"Where....?" he murmured, voice trembling.

"Pyxis," he said, voice still very quiet. It was odd to use the name for the actual constellation, for home, instead of taking the name as his own. As he spoke its name, he smiled; he felt a little warmer. He felt right.

He shifted his feet, watching the dust slowly curl around his bright shoes. It moved so slowly, as if they were underwater, but had a similar consistency to real dust. Pyxis liked to think that it was like pixie dust - Pyxis dust, in this case!

"I only dreamed of places like this! I didn't think...wow!" This time, his commentary was a bit more fitting of a typical Pasha-esque personality. Though he was still awed, the excitement was beginning to seep in again. "It is beautiful! Like...the stuff people make pictures of!" Spoken with true eloquence. He squinted his eyes, the stars blurring, and continued. "It's kind of like marshmallow cereal," he stated, very matter-of-fact.

It wasn't until Europa's mention of sadness that he realized the origin of the strange feeling that threatened to push his excitement away. Something was very melancholy, especially considering this was his real home. To know that it was abandoned, that nobody else was here, that everyone else had...

"Yours? Europa? Europa was deserted too? What happened to everyone?" He squeezed her hand and tugged her towards the closest bridge, wondering what made him immediately assume that there had been others here at one point. Surely there had to be...? "Maybe we'll find some magic stuff!" Well, he could hope. It would be pretty neat to bring Abel a present, after all.

Pyxis almost protested that moons were not that big, but he (thankfully) realized how silly it would be to say such a thing. Of course they didn't look big compared to other planets, but they were probably huge compared to another person.

"I'd like to go! It sounds fun to explore something so gigantimous. And maybe we could find out more stuff when we go together."

Reaching the end of the cloud, he stopped abruptly. The bridge looked like it was meant to support people, but he wasn't really sure if they could walk across. Though he was worried that they might fall to a terrible space-death, he took the first step, watching the colors ripple beneath his feet. It was faintly like the sheen of oil on a puddle.

"Wooooah." He stepped back and tried it again, resulting in the same effect. "Look, look! We can make cool things happen!" Laughing, he released her hand and skipped along the path, leaving faint little rainbow explosions in his wake. If there were ever any question that this was truly his home, the answer was now pretty clear.

"What do you mean, look the way they aren't? How could I tell that? Like, if it's make-believe compared to real stuff or something?" This was a weird concept. Though he briefly considered it, his mind wandered back to the neat stuff that he might find.

Pyxis tried to imagine an experience in which he saw something that wasn't really "now", and figured that it would be a lot like a dream. He didn't think he'd mind dreaming in real life - lately, his dreams had been pretty great. As long as they weren't like Tartaros again...

"The ruins sound nice!" He frowned. No, 'nice' was not a really good word to use when describing the ruins of something that once was. "Well. Nice to explore, I mean. They don't look so nice, I guess." He had barely finished his sentence when he ducked into one of the crumbling buildings, where he glanced around at the dust-covered interior. He could make out a table, several boxes that looked like they might become dust too if he touched them, and a small cup and container of some kind of liquid.

Without thinking, he reached to snatch up the liquid, realizing only when he had it in his palm that it might have broken and exposed him to something terrible. Thankfully, it spared him.

"Hm, weird," was his only analysis of the vessel. "We probably shouldn't drink this. It's space juice."

"Did you find cool stuff?" he asked, holding the little bottle out for Europa to see.