Welcome to Gaia! ::

Considering how often he patrolled and how few other senshi or enemies he'd met in the greater scheme of ratios and chance, Thraen was surprised and initially alarmed when on first henshin-ing he felt a power signature on campus. His gut reaction wasn't one of trying to decipher whether it was order or chaos, just that it was there. After the initial panic faded, and his brain had engaged to be attentive, it was more puzzling than alarming.


What sort of feel WAS that? It wasn't Maia, that was certain. It didn't feel as bright a beacon, yet was stronger than his own. But different. He'd never felt anything like it. Is there a category missing, or that I've forgotten from the primer? Either is likely, I suppose

It didn't feel like it was moving, so Thraen opened his eyes and immediately darted to investigate. It was something or someone worth knowing- strange and different. He slowed when he started nearing where it felt the strongest, near one of the quads and nestled among the lecture halls there. He stood on the quad, looking around for evidence of the nexus of the signature. He hated how imprecise the 'sense' could be- maybe it got better with more experience. Maybe Maia and Athene could practically play hide and seek with it.

Well, nothing like old fashioned brute forcing it- "Marco?"

Hearing the emphatic answer, Thraen shifted into a fox-like trot as he followed over the grass in the general direction of the sound. Given that much, and the fact that the source was silhouetted clearly from a height against the sky, he came to the base of the correct building. Looking up the columns and the neoclassical exterior at the stars and underlit-grotesque medallion faces, the white of the shoulders and arms on her fuku, and the aqua wrap, were a more confidence building site than the dark cowl and pantaloons would initially lead him to believe.

He called up, not willing to trust wholly to chance a stranger with so little white present- and so strange an aura. But the stranger was plainly some time in childhood a member of Earth to recognize the game. And the peal of giggles sounded reassuring and pleasant as water on river stones. "I guess building tops aren't 'fish out of water' when we can all jump so high. "

"I haven't felt or seen anyone like you around the University before. "

"Sort of, " Thraen inclined his head to the woman. Whether to being new or to the congratulations on not getting himself killed he didn't qualify. "Usually an introduction would be first. Admittedly, I haven't felt anyone like you ever. I'd like to know about that before anything else. You feel clean..."

"So you're not an agent or from the mirror. But you're certainly different. Radiant. " The last part slipped out, a personal musing. But he didn't stumble over it, or retract it. There wasn't really a need to- it was true enough with a cowl like the night sky over hair as dark a fall unstudded with stars but glossy. Simpler, more elegant than his own riot of flowers. The draping would make a nice study is alabaster. "I'm Thraen, of Gardens. "

"Is this research nearby? Or?" Easy enough to whip out a tablet with clod capabilities in their day and age, but it was a University, with many labs and private research quarters for grad students and professors. She could be any of the above or none as much as he was a student himself.

Romanticized artist notions about elegance and beauty were thrown promptly out the window with the bathwater and Thraen laughed. Nothing like sniffing armpits to disabuse grace and femininity- replaced with post modernism and loosened corsets. There was no ivory tower here, and she was most probably just a young woman like him. In school or working some regular job, buying razors and ensure at the pharmacy and looking through the paper for coupons to favorite quick meals.

'The Guard' sounded impressive, but she seemed eager to gloss it over. Maybe she was often asked about it if her career as a scout was as long as she intoned. It was information to be learned through friendship and exposure over time, which wasn't something immediately available on first encounters. He let her keep her piece, and didn't question that aspect further, nor the aspect of Science. It sounded a more interesting and useful sort of thing than gardens, but also like it should be impossible- magic of science? Wasn't that an oxymoron?

"It's a pleasure, then." He walked over to conversational distance, that of a handshake, tilting his head quizzically at her notebook. "I have? I've been to my asteroid once. No others. "

"Does it matter for something?"

"Linguistics..." Which was fascinating to him. And it was a good idea- having a better idea of history would answer questions about what happened to all their home-worlds, what the war may have been like before and what their enemies had brought to bear on them then (and may again), and what tactics catastrophically failed the first time. It could also help, perhaps, with the rediscovery of technology that they were missing of could be helpful.

And honestly, at its most basic, he wanted to know about the people and cultures. Faced with a mystery, anyone with an empathetic bone in their body would feel it- the hesitant, wistful, sad want of knowing who those people had been that had built such wonders so far away. Infinitely further than the ruins and tragedy of Pompeii, but mirroring it in conundrum and richness.

"So really, you're kind of looking for a latchkey like the Rosetta Stone- something with enough of a sample that you can start comparisons and finding frequency of glyphs....figuring out what is phonetic or not? I'd love to have a look." He was briefly siezed by the want of an Oreo. She just carried them around? THAT WAS SUCH A GOOD IDEA. But he kept his peace and just gave a wistful sigh as they were put securely and safely away again.

"There's a ruin of ...it might be a conservatory? It's fairly central on my asteroid, among gardens that seem to wrap the rest of the small surface of the place. I haven't navigated to it yet, but there's enough stone-work around that there's a good chance maybe I'll find plaques, steles, or such things on walls or statuary or on the flagging. Gardens are commonly places people put things like that- writing on stone or metal that is likely to last. So maybe nothing huge or multilingual, but I'll keep an eye out."

"I spent most of my time there trying to find the path to the place out of the hedgemaze of arrival. So there's sculpted English-style gardens. There were bridges in the distance and what looked to have once been waterways. So there are probably other sorts of designs, too."

"Visions?"

"Making use of computer power, and not just manpower, would be a big help in something like this. You'd have to do the work, or have someone do the work, of scanning photos or pieces, cropping and formatting, or photo-enhancing, but then once everything was setup you could run diagnostics that would compare and record basic pattern recognitions and usage frequencies, keyword densities, unique character numbers, average line lengths...things like that. "

"Scriptio continua? You know, that's a bit of breakthrough as it is- if you know that some cultures used it, you know that they used reading only for recording, really. It meant that they memorized and rehearsed their decrees, and instead read from manuscript like a musician reads from music. "
"That's more of a cultural revelation, though, than anything that really helps with translations. That really does make it a step harder, without even interpuncts. Pattern recognition becomes more important then. I'd be willing to help as much as I'm able. I love languages. Actually...I just like learning."

"If you organize a group effort, and are willing to have me on, I'm willing to pack a bedroll and some s'mores. Or whatever. I don't mean to be flippant at all, its fascinating."

Simply. Fascinating.

"What is a Surrounding?" She said it like a proper noun, which meant something very different than the negative space that just happened to be surrounding them and everything else that was a Something and not a Nothing. "Oh, on Thraen? What I saw still had plants of a kind. There may be seeds or living plants somewhere, I haven't explored everything by far. So far everything I saw looked to be wholesale petrified. Which is....a strange effect. That process usually requires a dry climate, but its plane that there is water somewhere and I haven't found it or was back when they were growing and planting things. There's also the flood-type petrification- like the bog mummies. You know, " he tapped his chin, "I hadn't thought of that one before. Maybe everything was flooded and minerals replaced the regular structures. Drowning a world though...."

"But we cast magic, so anything is possible, I guess. Why rely on only Earth science to explain the fact that I'm wearing living plants and we all hang out with puss in boots."

Thraen lifted a hand, in submission, "Just talking, thinking out loud. I didn't intend any implications about your research habits. I'm sure they're sound. Loquacious, bad habit."

"I don't know that I'd say languages are my field- they are a field that I have a lot of interest in. I've only got two down so far. I've heard that it gets a lot easier after the seventh, but I haven't had enough time to get that far yet. Well, maybe some people consider music a language, which it is, but it isn't...quite the same. That's a debate for other times. "

He leaned when she did, making an uncertain face, "I.....yeeeeeees, they're alive alright. The flowers and vines. I haven't scraped at the bark boots to figure out if its greenwood or not. I think it is though. "

He pulled a flower out of his hair, vine still somewhat attached a bit to the small bit and offered it out, "It probably will disappear once I power down. But you're welcome to look at it. I've not tried planting any of the uniform bits, actually. But my magic has enough with planting...it hadn't really come up? I make flowers grow out of seeds that I apparently pull out of hammerspace. If I had some flying monkeys, I could steal ruby shoes for all the good the things do me. They don't last long. "

"Do you summon a decanter of water? I'm actually surprised with a name like Aquarius you aren't a guy. The old myth is based on Ganymede and Zeus, isn't it? Eramenos and Erastes, and all that business. I guess that could practically be a game all itself, guessing what magic goes with what names. Oh, but you said you were of Science. "

Science and...wine-waterer? He wasn't sure how that recombined. "Pour the waters fo science to the cups of willing."

"Enlightening." He said it perky, like he enjoyed the waterfall from idea to idea and word to word.