Welcome to Gaia! ::

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night-
Thraen walked carefully through the weather, nonplussed at the notable lack of traction afforded by tree-feet. They were debatably insular as well- whatever log cabins afforded homeowners for heat index, he wasn't feeling likewise in his toes.

At least they're waterproof.

He looked up immediately post the thought, picking up a Knight's signature. A real Knight, like Nysa and Babylon, as opposed to one of their cadet tiers. It could even be one of the two, in some unknown chance of numbers about as likely to be discerned as trying to determine just how many of his own kind were wandering around. But it was the first anything he'd felt all evening, a situation likely accounted to the weather.

Whatever the enemy was, it also had a proportion of kids young as themselves. And most First-World-Problem teens hated being inconvenienced of cold and sopping. Thraen walked in the direction of the aura, curious if it would vanish or go another way. Or even seek him out.

He found it most definitely the latter as it closed with his own soon. The man's headdress was something that drew the eye from the dark before much else. The Senshi of Garden's lifted a weather-wet hand in greeting and called out, "Flung wide, the Sun's cloak is gone from us o'er the edge of the world. We're left behind a spent and exhausted chill, are we not?"

Up close the Knight got broader, thicker and bigger. He was taller by a little, and it visually felt like the guy had to be twice his own weight- an Oak next to a Birch. The lines of his face weren't numerous or deep, speaking of comparable age. College? A Sportsman of some sort?

And I've confused him somehow, though he hasn't lost the smile. Thraen wasn't smiling, but he was neither scowling. His expression was equal parts cautious and curious- intensity in his eyes where it lacked anywhere else. "Jupiter?"

"I heard recent of a team called of that gentilic. Are you of the 'Jovians'? My name is Thraen."

"Fortune brings in some boats unsteered, " Thraen quoted it more warmly than his expression lead. "I seek the Jovians. One is no bad find, having nothing more to go on than bare rumor. "

"I spoke with one of yours. I want to speak with all the teams I can find. There needs to be greater organization. We're all going to be piled in gutters corpse by fetid corpse, otherwise." He looked aside, out into the cold of the night and some immeasured distance. "I want to learn the wills and wants, the philosophy of each. There must be something all can see reason in and agree to. "

"It is a lot to ask as an outside and super senshi, I know. But someone must try." He looked back to Valhalla, or up at him a bit and stepped back a little. Nysa, Babylon and Valhalla now, all three imposing each in their own way and armored. He wished he'd been so lucky. Why don't we all have knights? There'd hardly be a need for Senshi if they all end up so. I can't imagine Aventine the same way, though. Not unless the plate mail came in pink.

"Would you treat with me?"

There it is again. Uncertainty and hesitation in his speech mitigated by period of confidence. Thraen leosquinted for a prolonged moment, the gears moving.

It's something I'm doing isn't it. The sailor quirked, speaking under his breath, "You can't have a visage as one who could break me over your knee-"

and be using filler words while fishing for answers. I've kept an open stance and body language. Is it my face? Big guy like this doesn't seem the kind to be put off by a scar. Is it the flowers? I can't do anything about that.

"I want to understand the 'Many-as-one'. I want to know how your team approaches patrols, dealing with the enemy- do you take prisoners? Do you accept surrenders? What do you do with enemies that are repeated, unrepentant murderers of civilians?"

'life isn’t going to stop for this war, and once it’s over'

"It sounds very casual. "

Like you aren't treating it like a war at all. Thraen spoke as clearly as he could, shortening his sentences. Was it the length? The vocabulary? Maybe the grammar structures. "I met a scout...she's been doing this for five years. Wars don't end on their own, they don't peter out. They are ended when there is a treaty or when one side is conquered. That much is true in history without any opinion coming into it. "

And people are out there dying while you're telling me the Jovians are worrying about what movie opens up Thursday night. One hand clenched, driving nails into the glove and cold-numbed flesh of his palm.

I must be politic. They are children. They are all children who haven't thought about what is going on. About what is really happening. I need to not make an enemy here. If I'm going to GET people to sit and think about it, to listen, I must be like a teacher. I must show them the evidence and let them see with their own eyes. They won't learn if it feels forced down their throats. "You....know what a starseed is?"

"And that many agents tear them out of people. And eat them."

Thraen's eyes started low, looking at Valhalla's hands, lifting to the other youth's eyes as the flames in them kindled to balefire. "Not all. There are those taken by force, and those coerced by fear."

"Evil it is that truth it be- that fear at all be enough to cow the will of men and women. That fear overmaster reason. An organization based in anarchy- they help to protect their families? Is the life they end on the street worth less then, because it is one they do not personally know? "

"There are other kinds of evil, Valhalla. Evils of hesitation to do right because of fear. Evils that are the indifference of good men. We may not have chosen our powers, or to be a part of this. But the police do not have magic. The government does not have magic. We have the power to face this threat at its core, and to bring peace where no others can...if we only have the conviction to finish what's been started. "

"If we have the strength to come together and be an army to face what is already a very military force. It is entirely possible we will die. But I would pay with my life that others did not have to live theirs in fear, did not have to suffer harvesting like wheat in a field, and were not subject to an organization and its allies that treat life on the whole as so cheap to be a harvest."

Peace without violence.
Thraen's eyes lost their light, and he nodded slowly. So that while you are trying sit ins and protests Destiny City is losing its sons and daughters to harvest night after night. Well. It is good to know, to hear. Even if I'm not a part of what can be built doesn't mean I can't try my hardest to see it built. I don't need to benefit. I will sow seeds for trees I will not see, hoping that those who come after benefit. That those who love peace so much will find it.

"You say you speak for yourself, but would you estimate the view of the other Jovians to be similar? Pacifist?"