(NOTE: Backdated slightly!)

Sand.

There was always sand here on asteroid Iris. The food apparently once upon a time tasted like sand too (well, at least the sand root did). The sand covered the whole world, as far as the eye could see. Yet, there had once been more to this world than just sand.

Sailor Iris trudged through the desert sands of the asteroid. Last time she had recovered a memory. Today she was hoping to recover something a bit more tangible. Perhaps something that wouldn't fall apart or disintegrate if she touched it. Honestly, it would have probably been much easier to just sit around on her a** and wait for the memories to come back to her, but that wasn't the way the blonde worked. She had to move, she had to actively search for whatever it was she was looking for on this sand-covered rock.

She came prepared with two bottles of water again, and when the heat was unbearable, she'd pop the top to one and guzzle down what she could while still continuing to move forward. She couldn't afford to stop, since it was already so difficult to explore the region. When there was a lack of features upon the landscape, it honestly was difficult to tell whether she had visited a spot before or not. In all honesty, Sailor Iris could have even been walking in giant circles and not known. However, the only saving grace for her was the fact the occasional ruins she encountered did not look familiar.

As she walked, she really wasn't thinking, and eventually swung one of her arms up to her side, as if she was holding something. It was only when she heard a disembodied version of her own voice speak out that she realized she was about to remember something.

"Alright Aque... let's get you out of that harness..." A slight laughter escaped her past self. Without realizing it, her body began to move of its own accord, turning to face her right hand side. Though nothing was truly there now, her eyes saw the face of the Sand Muncher, looking at her in what she could only assume to be a giddy manner. It was very hard to read a llama-animal's expressions. It looked as if her hand was holding the animal's harness with the hand which was up. The blonde girl's body seemed to move again, without her own thoughts guiding the movements. She promptly dropped the water bottles as her other arm moved around to seemingly hold onto the harness she was remembering. Her containers were all but forgotten in this moment as her fingers seemed to remember how to remove an object as foreign as a harness from the overly large llama-beast.

As if Aque was trying to egg her on into moving faster, she could feel something tapping her along the top of her head. Despite not even looking, the senshi of the present just knew that he was using his long ears to tap at the past senshi's head.

"So impatient, Aque!" her past self giggled out before the harness was pulled away. The current Sailor Iris' body still continued to move along with the memory, walking away a small distance to put the harness in the wagon from the memory. "We are almost to the North, so a little bit of play won't hurt anybody, my friend!" Her body was about to turn when she felt something quite a bit heavier placed on her own head. Her past self seemed to be completely amused by this and laughed out rather hard.

Aque had not only followed her to the wagon, but now had set his head upon her in a playful manner.

"We can't play if you are resting your head like that! Up!"

Obediently, the Sand Muncher obeyed, lifting his head up to relieve the pressure that had been on the current Sailor Iris' head.

"Better... now... kneel..." Her right arm gestured as if she was pointing to the ground. In memory, Sailor Iris watched as this large animal did exactly as she requested. It's long tail seemed to sweeping through the sand, almost mimicking a dog wagging its tail, but in just a much longer variety. Without any hesitation, the girl's body moved towards the animal, then on top of the animal. Sailor Iris sat down, and though in actuality she was just sitting on the sand and looking mighty ridiculous, her senses had been dulled to the real world. Her senses belonged to this memory, and right now the hot sand beneath her merely felt like the soft wool that covered the Muncher's body.

"Up!" Her left hand seemed to be clutching onto a small tuft of wool along the back of Aque's neck, and upon that command, she tugged up slightly. Aque, being the good Muncher he was, was soon enough back up on his feet.

"Good... now... forward!" The current Sailor Iris had never been the sort to ride a horse before. Motorized vehicles had always been her thing, and from what she had gathered from her past, vehicles had been her thing in the past too. However, now it seemed as if she was riding a llama that was merely trotting forward at a simple pace. It was a bit bumpy, but somehow it felt natural to her. This whole memory, in all honesty, felt quite natural. After a few moments of this steady pace, her body seemed to squeeze with her thighs against the Muncher's pale body. It was the sign for the pair to go faster, and faster the animal went.

No longer were they trotting, but now Aque was galloping. Somewhere in the back of Iris' mind, she knew that Munchers were not nearly as fast as Crunchers were when at top speed (though how she remembered such a thing was beyond her). All she knew was there was a large grin on her face at the moment, regardless of whether it was from the memory or if it was her present self appreciating this memory in the fullest.

However, the senshi was in for quite a surprise as her body suddenly stood up. In memory, she was still riding upon Aque's back, but now she was standing up as he still moved. She could feel the animal's body thumping down upon the sand then springing back up. Yet, her past self seemed to know what she was doing. She had one foot in front of the other, delicately keeping balance as the animal ran. The current Sailor Iris would have been happy with just this, but then her past self took it further. Without missing a beat, she backed up slightly, then suddenly bent forward, placing hands upon Aque's wooly back and lifting her legs up into the air.

The present Sailor Iris couldn't do a handstand to save her life. Her body moved as if she had been doing this all of her life, her body remembering before she herself could remember how to. Her hands could feel Aque's body still moving and thumping along the desert sands, but she felt oddly balanced.

"Alright, I think we headed out far enough, Aque! Let us head back!" She could feel the animal beneath her turning in a slow curve. Iris could feel herself putting more weight onto one hand so that she wouldn't lose her balance, and once the path turned straight again, her weight was shifted back to normal. Eventually her legs were lowered and her upper body was brought back into the air. She looked ahead across the sands, and where as earlier she couldn't tell anywhere she was going, now she seemed to be able to distinguish the features. She could just tell that over the large hill of sand and slightly to the east, she'd be able to see her wagon once more. For the remainder of the memory, her past and current self remained standing. Up over the hill, and when they began to head east, she could make out the shape of the wagon which had once been her home.

It was then that the memory faded out, leaving Sailor Iris standing there a bit confused as she was no longer on Aque's back, just standing in the blistering sun. A way back, she had dropped her water bottles, and as reality seemed to suddenly fade back to her, nothing could have prepared her for what she saw in front of her.

At her feet was the skull of an animal. It was bleached out thanks to the intense sunlight. Sailor Iris would have never claimed to be educated on what sorts of skulls what sorts of animals had, all she personally could tell was the fact it wasn't human.

Yet, something strange began to happen as she looked this skull over. She fell heavily to her knees, as if her body had grown too heavy for her legs to fully support. However, the strangest thing that began to happen was around her eyes. Sailor Iris might have initially tried blaming it on sand getting in her eyes, for her eyes were just watery to start with. Her eyes managed to fix themselves upon the skull, and no matter how much she wanted to turn away, she couldn't. She couldn't explain anything that was going on, for a sort of ache began to tingle somewhere in her chest. It was the sort of ache that she knew was not from any sort of physical ailment. That ache just continued to grow and grow. It was enough to turn the watering of her eyes into something where water fell from the corners of her eyes.

"F*CK... what... what th'hell... w-why... why is this happening?!" she hollered out in retaliation to what her body was doing. She rubbed brashly at her cheeks to try to get the waterworks to stop, but they only seemed to start flowing even more furiously. The ache in her chest seemed to only grow worse, but began to have some sort of sentiment attached to it. She couldn't explain why, but it felt as if she was mourning for one of her parents, or perhaps even Hank, who was practically a father-like figure at times, despite his awkward ways. It felt as if one of the most important people in her life had died, and she was now crying over the loss. It made her feel helpless and weak, and to be quite honest, it made her feel like all the things she never wanted to feel like. This skull, whatever it had belonged to, must have been pretty...

...Aque... Somewhere in the back of her mind, she got an answer. It didn't help ease her mind or her body. In fact, it only agitated things further. The blonde knew of Aque, remembered some moments, but her memories were far from complete. Sure enough, Aque had been important, but had he been this important? The senshi's emotions could not remotely grasp how intense this feeling of grief was. It was almost as if her past self was mourning through her current self. Her body shuddered as her mind finally accepted this as the solution.

"...it ain't me cryin'... it's her..." she offered lamely, trying to justify herself as she stood up with the tears still falling down her face. A part of her wanted to pick up the large skull and take it home with her, but another part of her knew that it would be disrespectful to remove Aque from what seemed like his final resting place. She stepped back a few times, and eventually managed to step on something that crinkled like solid plastic.

"...oh... right..." The senshi had all but forgotten about the water bottles, but now that she had managed to step on one of them, she leaned down and picked them up again. Even that slight bit of distance between her and what was left of Aque seemed to do wonders for easing that feeling in her chest. She sniffled a few times, since the waterworks had managed to slow down quite a bit.

"...f*ck this sh*t... I'm going back..." She certainly hadn't come back to the asteroid for this. Well, at least that was what she was telling herself. Maybe, in reality, this was exactly what she had come back for.

It was a question for another time.