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 Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 9:06 pm
The actual trip to space hadn’t, in the end, been so bad. It was what she found there that was disappointing. Despite the knowledge that her planet was dead, she hadn’t...well, expected it to be quite as dead as it was. When she first appeared, it was in the ruins of what looked like it had once been a village - thatched-roof, mud-brick houses, collapsing in on themselves, the roofs long rotted away. The streets were empty of everything but dust. No bodies, nothing to show there had ever been life here.
After a thousand years, she supposed she shouldn't be surprised. Mostly, she was feeling something she hadn’t expected - sadness. This place was sad. Tragic. There had bene people here once, she knew it - and for a moment she could hear voices, calling across the street and into it, crying “it’s her! she’s here!” Exclamations of surprise from all sides, and a swelling feeling of pride in her chest, the knowledge that they were happy to see her...
Penthesilea shook her head, heart racing. What was that? She hadn’t been expecting a sudden vision, or whatever that was. She hadn’t really seen anything, just...felt it.
Suddenly, she knew there was a reason she was here, and it wasn’t contemplation. She needed more of that, more of those whispers, more of whatever it was that had brought her here. As quickly as she could move with two heavy bags, she walked down the street, hoping for another glimpse or a sound or a smell or a feeling...anything at all, to show her more of the past. Her past -- she knew it was hers, it had to be.
She had never been more certain of anything in her life.
She wandered the town for what felt like hours, seeking out any kind of vision - but nothing came. Feeling resigned, she flopped down in what felt like a town square and there was the scent of spices, a blend of familiar and though they all felt familair in this dreamstate and the sound of calling across a market, bargaining, and for a moment - just a moment - she saw colors and bustling people and life.
This time, when it faded, Penthesilea flopped onto her back on the ground, grinning. Yes, she had been here before, but it was ages and ages ago. When she had been another person.
The thought that this was really her land, her place, her people - even if there were no people - was warming.
After a moment’s break, she stood up, and began to work, putting together her tent and starting a fire in the old market square. More exploration could come in the morning.
After all, she had a whole planet to poke at.
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Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 10:17 pm
Penthesilea woke up the next morning, made herself a light breakfast of canned fruit and soup - because really, who cared about what was actually important when she had an entire planet to explore? She wouldn’t be eating at all, except being hungry all day and passing out halfway through her explorations would suck.
So she ate, and then she packed up, because she was planning to keep on going. There would be no staying in any one place overnight - she had a whole planet to explore, and only four days to do it before her mother would be expecting her home. So she trotted down what had to be the main street, until she reached the edge of the little village - and found herself looking at something incredible and surprising.
A forest. It was dead now, many of the trees fallen over, and not a trace of green, but there were the remains of a glorious wood that had clearly once stood on her planet.
Penthesilea’s heart pounded. This was incredible. She ran forward, pushing deeper into the woods and pulling herself up onto a low branch. She was surprised, when she touched the tree, to find that it wasn’t wood - it was stone at least at first; suddenly for a brief moment it was bark again under her fingers and the air was heady with rain and mist and she could hear animal cries and beautiful, strange birdsongs in the air.
A tropical forest, or at least that was what it had felt like. Now, however, it was sometihng even more wondrous - a petrified forest. She had heard of them, in geology lessons in school when she bothered to pay attention, but it was one thing to hear of them and another to stand in a forest of trees that she knew had once been living, in a forest she knew had once been thriving with life.
Life of a sort she could never even imagine, because all of it was gone, now.
As much as every glimpse of her planet’s past filled Penthesilea with excitement, it also made her painfully sad. That wasn’t an emotion she was used to handling - grief wasn’t really her thing, and neither was sorrow. But there it was.
This place had once been wonderful, and something killed it.
She kept walking, further and further, weaving between trees and climbing up and around them. When two particularly sharp petrified branches caught her leg, opening slow-bleeding wounds, she barely noticed, so enthralled was she with the wonder around her. Her only break was a brief one for lunch, when she found herself getting hungry again, and to tend to her small injuries.
It was easy to lose track of time - and from the treetops, when she reached them, she could see a city. It looked in ruins, like everything else, but it provided something important.
It was a goal, a place for her to go. And it looked only a few hours’ walk away, but night was coming once again, and so she climbed down to the ground and found a clearing she could set up in. It was bare, but for a moment she saw flowers, brightly colored ones, strange and unearthly but somehow still familiar.
The longer she wandered her planet, the more comfortable she felt.
This was her place, and no one could ever take it from her.
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Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 11:00 pm
Revitalized by the knowledge that there was an entire city awaiting her, Penthesilea started the next day early. She still had to make it out of the forest, after all - and that would have been much more difficult if the trees weren’t rock, and easy to bounce between in the branches, so she could easily check her bearings from high in the air.
Being a senshi on her homeworld was the best thing she could think of. It felt so right, so complete, and the longer she stayed, the happier and more confident she felt.
She leapt from tree to tree, laughing the entire way. Even with the heavy burden of her supplies, she felt like she was doing well - and she didn’t feel in the least tired, perhaps the biggest surprise of all. She wondered if it was because this was her place, or because she was actually sleeping decently, or what.
Either way, it was freeing, and she was practically flying until she reached the edge of the forest. She climbed down the tree she was in and landed on the ground, and then she walked the last few feet to the crumbled, broken gate of the city. There was a large wall surrounding it, more visible up close than it had been far away. She wondered, briefly, what it was meant to keep out - or keep in - but that didn’t matter. The gate was off its hinges now, and so she could simply walk in.
The outer layer, she was surprised to see, seemed mostly devoid of houses and buildings of any kind. There was a road leading into the distance, and she found herself following it almost automatically.
This had been farmland once, with the road to the inner walls arcing through it from the main gate, and she could see acres and acres of agricultural land stretching out around her - fenced divided crops from livestock. People gathered around the road and called for her.
“Penthesilea! Lady Penthesilea!”
Every tiny little snippet of memory made her feel more like this was hers. The people called for her, the land itself reached for her, and in front of and around her, the planet came back to life in flashes and glimpses.
It was hers, all hers.
She kept walking, her eyes wide as she took everything in. As she stepped, she caught the briefest flashes of voices calling for her - the most she’d gotten, since her coming here. That was fascinating - perhaps this was some sort of well-travelled parade route?
In the distance was a wall, once again with a gate into which the road curved.
This one looked knocked off its hinges, not rotted - genuinely damaged.
That was curious, and she waited, hoped desperately for some kind of flash of memory, because more than anything, she needed an explanation for this. Why was the gate to her city destroyed? Who had dared attack the Senshi of War's planet? Was it even something human?
Nothing came. Not even the slightest hint of memory, not even a whisper on the wind.
She had never been so disappointed.
In front of the second wall seemed a good enough place to set up for the night, so she pitched her campsite again.
Tomorrow would be her last day. It was her absolute obligation to make the most of every minute of it.
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Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 11:06 am
The interior of the second wall was very different from the first. Here, it seemed, was where people had lived - people more well-off than the ones in the tiny village, because the houses were of brick and mortar and stone, and the streets were cobbled. Though everything was crumbling and cracked and broken, it was obvious to Penthesilea that this had once been a bustling town.
In the distance, over the houses, she could see a third wall - but that would simply have to wait. Instead of following the main road forward, to the next undoubtedly broken and battered gate, she ran off in a different direction, taking the time to store her supplies in a house that looked to be mostly holding together. She took a moment to memorize the location before ducking down a side street. After all, she did intend to take those things home in a few hours when she went.
She would have to watch her time more closely, today, than the past few, because she was expected home by nightfall and she didn’t want her mother to worry too much.
Besides, she owed it to the city - both this one and her city on Earth - to patrol tonight, after having cast aside her proper Senshi duties for three nights.
She took a turn and voices calling out for Sailor Penthesilea, a baby being shoved towards her with a request for a blessing - she placed her hand on the child’s forehead. “Grow strong, little one, and become a true warrior,” she whispered.
Penthesilea shook her head, flailing a bit - she’d been moving quickly when the sudden vision came, and halting so quickly had nearly sent her falling over. She touched her fingers to her lips and smiled.
“Grow strong, little one, and become a true warrior,” she murmured to herself, and for a moment her accent was gone, as she mimicked the cadence of her past self’s voice. It had been a blessing to an infant, but it felt like a warming comfort to her.
Grow strong, and become a true warrior.
The words of the woman she had once been felt like exactly what she had been looking for. An answer to her doubts - to the question of what she would do next.
To turn to Chaos would be to abandon this place and all its wonders, to betray the spirits of the people who still lingered here. To betray herself, in a way.
And it would be to admit defeat, to admit that her certainty that she and the side of Order were right and true was wrong. That was something she simply could not do, and she intended to prove that.
She was a soldier, a warrior - the Senshi of War, and to turn and fight for Chaos would be to discard everything she had become.
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