Welcome to Gaia! ::

((Transcribing to here from an old email chain to continue - began while Zink was still a captain - continuing in that vein))

People fascinated him, their thoughts, their dreams, their desires and their drives. Senshi likewise intrigued him for similar reasons. To be so driven by the memory of some dead Princess to do... such curious things and be so blindly sure that they were right in their actions, he told himself that it bore 'closer study', if they could understand their opponents, then surely it would aid them in the battles.

Some Senshi he even respected, their gifts and their skills at what they did were nothing if not noteworthy even if they did not seem to stand out among their peers. Perseus had stood out from the moment she had accepted his hand to Dance. She had wise pale eyes, so striking and so calculating he couldn't help but notice. Had be been more interested in women, he thought he might, for her... have fallen into the trap that Linarite had for Castor... he might have done something terrible like fall in love.

Then again... he approached love quite differently from his peers, he studied it and picked at it like a scab till it either scared into something irreparable, or bled out...quite undone. Fortunately there had been little enough time for that between himself and Perseus, few enough interactions that she remained a shining spot of interest for him, a conflicted want to challenge her...not to a battle of fisticuffs...not again, but to battles of wits.

With her though, it seemed she always chose the playing field...it was her decision his 'princess' among senshi... for how they fought, perhaps even when they fought, though the city was large enough that he could forgive the long absences of their meetings of minds to nothing more than chance.

It was honestly a whim that lead him back to where he had last seen her... just around christmas it had been. He'd dropped off the Chessboard to Adira.. whom he had likewise not seen in some time. He still craved a chess game with her, he'd settle as either Zink or Zac for that though... he wondered if Perseus played chess as he settled on the edge of an AC unit, the cold metal was hardly a deterrent given the view.

The skyline was a harsh edged black, split by the lights of houses and office buildings and the air filled with the sounds of rushing traffic. It seemed more and more that the city never slept, as though each time it dropped into some strange slumber it rebelled into some imperative rebellion. Coffee and energy drinks making the city hum to live around dark eyed souls who clung to the waking world like it was their last hope in a world gone mad, and a dream scape gone to insanity...

On that level he understood them, the need to clutch to something, to find some peace, something solid when the world seemed to have picked itself up and shaken everything like a great beast before slouching deeper into the harsh borders between darkness and light as though it's meandering pace alone would determine the outcome of the every evening war.

"Indeed..." He nodded. "I should perhaps apologize for our last meeting, it's normally you who strikes first, but you -were- attacking my Lieutenant." He said the words as though they had done little more than fire rubber bands at each other across a crowded class room. Something oh so normal and every day forgivable, but at the same time he somehow managed to convey a sincere edge of apology.
"You look different... professional... perhaps I should say 'more Dangerous'..." He offered her a small smile that was all shadows and hints through the fabric of his mask.

"Your promotion suits you...you carry an aura of authority still, perhaps more so." His tone was quiet and admiring.

"Speaking... as someone who prevents event chains of CIVILIANS attacking other civilians..." Which was something he honestly believed he took part of to fill his quota.

Eliminating bullies, adulterers, those who frequented the red light district...pimps, whores... he had a twisted moral compass at best but it was his all the same.

"I'll take cynical over inactive or ignoring any day." He waved a hand casually and gave a small shrug. "Little to see besides a -slight- height increase." He said dismissive. After all his smoke attack remained much the same, with only the launch mechanism having changed at this time.

There was no way of course that he could or would confirm that he now carried with him the crimson crystal that had bonded too him after that night of the Yoma Cake.

"Perhaps I simply came out of curiosity, We've had decent enough conversations before... is that now a crime as well?"

"... How is it then that I can be modest, and yet be filled and surrounded by hubris, I would have to assume you consider yourself exempt... most people who complain of such things do."

His tone was reasonable but calculatedly studious. Her answer, whatever it might be would be important to his opinion of her, for whatever that was worth, but he continued with a more amused tone if guarded.

"With... what exactly?" He replied tipping his head back slightly and arching an eyebrow to study her own face. "Other than a new found hate for 'red velvet anything'..." He tilted his head to one side then rather than the slight back loft of it that gave him more of a professorial look, now looking like an owl instead, and then did a mockery of his own 'frozen' expression from the night with the cake.

"Or was that what you saw." He continued with a small shrug. "I do serve, not rule... it's my job to make sure that other's go un-noticed... if I must. Even if they do something as mundane as... leave via the door."

The implication of course, was that he had covered for someone else.

"When you say it like that...you distance yourself from admitting you have any such pride in your own faction, don't you though?"
He shifted watching her carefully, he knew too well that he had been 'comfortable' when she kissed him last. His hand drifted to his pocket out of habit to roll smoke pellets into his palm.

"If you can see through me, then tell me who has this... thing you think I have." His eyes glittered with far too much amusement at the little game they played with each other. "After all, if I am transparent, then you should know... though perhaps you don't need me to know who it would have gone to the second it was safely away."

Pure honesty... it had indeed left his hands, albeit briefly.

"Now you say that, as though diffusing the situation is a bad thing, isn't it better to try and resolve things...than to fight without ever understanding?"

He leaned slightly away from her. almost casual, almost. "At least we have a queen..." He added, deliberately non defusing. "Perhaps that is the real issue here... I don't think the Senshi have even quite decided if they follow their missing queen. Is that...non defusing enough?" He spread his hands as though he offered her a new platter of words and choices, questions without answers.

"If your lack of a queen or any truly leader, any true UNITY is somehow informative to you...then I am pleased." He bowed needling.
"I have seen your worlds of space... I've seen what became of them and regardless of any personal respect I have for you... I will not let you do that here. Delude yourselves as you will that you are somehow paragons of virtue because you stand against what you are told is wrong, we though are the only ones who have changed.
"I am most pleased to have enlightened you to the source of the utter disorganization in the senshi ranks... scattered leaders all of them warring to be the next queen, the next leader or even just to be autonomous... no, I am not surprised at the fate of your worlds if this is how you have always carried yourselves in the name of love and justice. Perhaps one day you will again be worthy of a unifying leader... but I think not as you are now."

"How blind to assume you are -not-... WE can not leave this world of our own accord, only YOU, why else would senshi who owe some binding to other places all find themselves on -this- particular place...they have no where else to go. Occam's razor... regardless of how much other explanations are -wanted- something rather off is afoot about the ruined worlds isn't there."

His rebuttal was sharp as hers.

"You prefer anarchy then? No one to govern you but yourself where only the strongest have anything resembling a rule? I think that's VERY nearly as bad as those of you who support some Monarchy from the MOON, not satisfied with her own rock she wanted to rule here and failed, now what...you're all flailing about and tossing accusations but forming bonds? We are all fighting for what we believe in Perseus. Perhaps neither of us is right, perhaps the path best suited is somewhere between where we both stand NOW, but at least one of us... is trying to diffuse... when I think all you want right now is a -fight."

He paused his eyes narrowed and cold. "But throwing punches is always the easiest answer... so many have found that to be the answer to 'peace. Don't throw your 'love and peace' at me, your 'peace' to date has been punches and kicks and magical assaults, remember who between us struck first. LOVE... love, can't even rule a heart into anything but pain... where would it lead the world...try logic... try fact."