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Hvergelmir was fairly confident -- no, she was sure -- that she'd felt the faint energy signature of a Negaverse officer somewhere around here. It wasn't too common; usually the theater district stayed pretty quiet. She'd followed the energy almost to its source, though, and however she circled around the theater, it still felt distant. In fact, it felt sort of -- high up. Could it be . . . a Negaverse officer was . . . ?

She looked up.

What would a Negaverse officer be doing up there?

Either there was a Negaverser on the roof of the theater, or one was near enough to it, up in the catwalk for some reason. That was a worrying thought: a show was currently in progress, which meant a powered-up Negaverser hiding up in among the lighting would be hard for people to miss. If that was the case, they'd likely have to kill or incapacitate some of the crew members to go unseen. Was the Negaverser up to something?

It was worth investigating. Hvergelmir took a high leap up to the fire escape, then climbed up the metal steps a few flights until she reached the roof of the building, managing (with some difficulty, in her dress) to finally clear the roof.

There was the Negaverse officer she'd sought -- a lieutenant, she thought, if the aura was anything to go by -- near the small skylight on the roof, lit from below by the stage lights. What was going on?

Hvergelmir walked forward with her hands in the air, distaff nowhere to be seen. "Hello?" she called out. "I'm not here to fight."

Hvergelmir blinked, taken aback. There was something off about the way the lieutenant spoke, something overly simple, like maybe English wasn't his first language, or maybe he was just exceptionally gentle-minded. It wasn't at all what she'd come to expect of the Negaverse. Did they really think just anyone could be crushed into the iron maiden mold they used for making soldiers, no matter the cost to their natures?

Well, it was Chaos. Maybe they did. Either way, he didn't seem violent, at least for now.

"No, I didn't come for the show," she said, taking a few steps closer. "I came to see you. I could sense you from down there, like you can sense me. I was hoping we could talk . . . but if you want to watch the show, I don't mind waiting?"

The lieutenant spoke at a rapid-fire pace, but the things he was saying were straightforward enough that Hvergelmir didn't have any trouble keeping up. He really did seem to be exceptionally agreeable, for a Negaverser. It made her heart ache.

"I hopped up onto the fire escape, yes," Hvergelmir agreed. "No mean feat in this dress, but hey, it pays to be intrepid, right?" She waved her hands in the air as if to bat that topic away and usher in another one. She'd been waiting to have this kind of a conversation with a Negaverser, practicing the kinds of things she wanted to talk about, and she didn't want to let the chance pass before it got off the ground.

"There's no reason we have to be enemies, you and I," she said. "I'd rather get to know you. Maybe if we learn more about each other, you and I could be friends. Do you mind if I ask you some questions about yourself? Nothing too dangerous, and you can tell me if I ask any rude questions or you don't want to answer."

Hvergelmir grinned at the unexpectedly gallant gesture. She'd hoped for a listening ear, but hadn't counted on such extravagant courtly manners. In turn, she gave a silly little curtsy and sat herself down alongside her new would-be friend.

There was a faint smell lingering in the area, but Hvergelmir had had worse recently: first when she and Sarras had been pelted with refuse during a youma battle, and later when Sailor Ate had dumped all the funk and detritus of a city block quite literally on Hvergelmir's head. Half-rotted turkey from a dumpster had a smell that few things could match.

"I don't always know so much myself," she confided with sympathy. "Information about this life can be really hard to come by. But tell me about yourself, that's all. What's your name, with the Negaverse? And how long have you been a lieutenant?"

Hvergelmir choked suddenly, trying to bite back a sudden sob, and it turned into a brief fit of coughing. I don't want to cause loudness or pain to anyone, he'd said.

If she'd thought what was done to Avalon was tragic and inhuman, it was nothing compared to this. To take a boy like this, simple and innocent and utterly guileless -- to take him and pump bile and hatred into his chest where it would slowly but surely destroy him -- to give him a new name and a new, horrible collar and turn him out on the streets without compunction like a pit bull puppy being trained to fight for its owner's pleasure -- it was sick. All he wanted was a sweeter name so more people would like him. And all he seemed to know was how to serve.

Buddingtonite, at least, was a name she knew. Hvergelmir had been new to knighthood, then, and when she'd met him, she hadn't known what a Negaverser was, or that they might mean her harm. He'd defended her from a youma. Tried to get her to join the Negaverse. Issued her an ultimatum when she'd demurred on his offer.

That was a year ago, though, and she hadn't seen him since. It didn't sound like he was still a lieutenant.

She wondered what sort of hideous offer he'd made to Schreibersite, if indeed this tragic, sweet-tempered soldier of Chaos was his handiwork.

"I met your master once, a long time ago," she said, doing her best to keep up a pleasant front. "And I don't think Schreibersite's such a bad name. It's just a mouthful -- but so's mine. I'm Hvergelmir Page of the Cosmos. A real tongue-twister, right? Buddingtonite called me Mira -- you can use that too, if you want."

She shifted into the next topic -- his next question -- pressing a hand flat over her chest as though she was trying to feel the light he was describing radiating from within, where her starseed rested. "I'm what's called a knight. Well -- I will be someday, anyway. Right now I'm a page, which are our knights-in-training, but if I do well, I graduate to being a squire, and then a full-fledged knight. You'd be a page too, if you weren't with the Negaverse -- just like me."

Hvergelmir took a long, studying look at Schreibersite, trying to picture him out of his Negaverse uniform and in the bright colors of a knight's garb, smiling and unafraid, free of the Chaos that shadowed his heart and made his aura dim. "Your master," she asked, the words sounding a little unnatural even though they echoed Schreibersite's own phrasing, "is he kind to you? Does he treat you well?"

Hvergelmir shook her head hastily, not wanting to send Schreibersite the wrong signals. She knew from personal experience how easy it was to get disheartened once you knew you'd put someone off -- and though Schreibersite hadn't done anything to earn her displeasure, that didn't mean he'd be able to see the difference. The last thing he needed was to have a lower self-image than he apparently already had.

"You didn't say anything wrong," she reassured him. "I just swallowed funny, that's all. You don't have to apologize to me."

She shifted in her seat, smoothing her hands over her dress to tug a few wrinkles loose. "I don't have a master," she answered his question. "My power's my own. It comes from way up there," she said, pointing to the twinkling lights of the Milky Way overhead. "I'm a child of the stars," Hvergelmir was romanticizing it a little bit, but what the heck. "Free to chart my own course."

She offered Schreibersite another smile, switching to a topic that was a little lighter to try and get a better understanding of her new friend. His relationship with Buddingtonite was something she'd have to ask about more at a later time. "What do you suppose you might want to do, if you didn't have to work? If money was no object? Me, I always wanted to swim with dolphins."

Hvergelmir wondered idly if Schreibersite had something undiagnosed like ADHD, something that would account for the way he described himself, the way he spoke. Difficulty focusing, working, holding down a job -- trouble keeping his thoughts in order -- apparently a resulting lack of financial means. Everything bespoke some sort of trouble that deserved some kind of help.

Well, Hvergelmir wasn't a doctor. She was, in fact, the last person who ought to be armchair-diagnosing anyone with anything.

But she couldn't help wondering -- was this just one more way that the Negaverse was preying on the weak?

What she knew, for now, was that Schreibersite was definitely in need of help in getting away from his apparent 'master' and his life with the Negaverse. Until they managed to work that out, no one on her side could be that much help to him, not without knowing him as a civilian whose life they could maybe help get in order.

"That sounds fun," she told him. "I hope you can someday. So, tell me -- what sorts of things does your master ask you to do? Is it a fun job?"

Hvergelmir sighed, stretching her arms out over her knees. "Your master was kind to me, once, too," she said, thinking back on it somewhat tiredly. That had been a long time ago. The world was terribly different these days. "Until I didn't do something he wanted. I guess . . . it all gets complicated, sometimes. People fight when they don't really have to." She put a hand out carefully to touch his arm. "I'm glad he's kind to you."

The rest of what he had to say didn't really do anything to lift her somber mood. I am poor, and I am filthy. It hurts to hurt them. It confirmed some of what she'd suspected: he was probably homeless, and maybe in need of professional care to get him on his feet.

So it was true, then. The Negaverse was really preying on people no matter what their circumstances. Schreibersite was homeless and needy, with no desire whatsoever to do the things the Negaverse wanted. Even that wasn't beyond the pale for them.

Hvergelmir definitely didn't have any friends remotely like that.

People who loved you didn't make you do things you hated and still expect to be called master. The thought made her deeply uncomfortable.

"Nobody I serve, no," she said. "I think I'd have to really trust someone a lot, for that. I do have great friends, though -- the best. But they don't really need much from me anyway; they're way better at stuff than I am." Babylon never asked Hvergelmir for anything. Aquarius never asked anyone for anything.

"Me, mostly I just try to convince people not to fight each other. I took an oath not to fight people like you just because we're different. Just because you have," she borrowed his phrasing, "a shadow. I'd way rather make friends."