Welcome to Gaia! ::

Quenton came to life at the familiar thump of weight on the porch, at the window. The hissing and fluffing were expected. Ultimately, he didn't expect Alois' usual habit of being a corpse once he actually got to sleep was likely to have changed given the exhaustion and stress of life as it was, whether there was a youma part of him or not, but it was still prudence not to risk it. Rather than answer there, in the room, Quenton went out to the little porch motioning for the Mauvian to follow. The windows provided a decent seal when they were closed, locking city noises out in the city. Locking words with a cat out of earshot.

He leaned on the bannister for a count of breaths, looking out at the campus and roads. It was a little windy out, making a nuisance of hair and holes in clothing.

"I've already taken two chances. He has died neither time. We've taken one chance to try to purify him, and it did not work. What it did do was establish that when he leaps, if freedom does not give him wings, then he can trust me to catch him and lead him down to rest. "

" All communication, effective communication, is founded on the principle of trust. All good judgements are based on truths. What truths we can all know, beyond all logic and reason for generations are human truths. There is a man there, still. The one that brought you to my door when he finally caught you instead of turning you into purse. The man that learned to think of you as more than a practice body after one simple trust from me believing in him to be able to discuss and learn the merits of things outside himself. There is a man in there that has begun to lean human truths he was missing. "

"Alois has done many horrors, but he has also come so far. He trusts me with that part of him, and with that I will hold on to help him find whatever end it is that he needs. Yes, I could kill him now. Ultimately, he would accept that. But there is a chance that he can be free, if we can find a way and try again. Kairatos of mars took a picture of his starseed, and he's working with others to try and find that other way. It is real in his heart. "

"He is so careful who he truly opened to, because he knew so few actually cared instead of just being curious. But he has come here to sleep with honest purpose in his heart, if not in the part ruled by Metallia. But he is aware of that. Now it is a different battle. To the rationalist, faith and hope are trust that spites not understanding or knowing the path ahead. I don't think he's had them before, and they are so powerful...they are a full measure of the heart all the more when paired with love. If I break his trust now, I don't expect he'll have faith to open again. Trust is gained and loyalty is returned...."

"It is such a chance. "

"You are right to question it. I question it- I would not have taken this gamble before. It is not Prudence not to kill him as he lay down in my power. I do not think this is a matter of prudence now. It is a knifes edge of chance- We trust each other, now we see who proves if the choice was right- who will go the distance. "


"It is appalling strangeness, to try Mercy. I am terrfied, Faust. I have been accused hypocrite before, or inhuman. Machiavellian. But here feels and sees a chance to truly change one life by 'Forgiveness is the greatness of the strong'...patience, faith and mercy. Something was started that even a youma merging with him could not extinguish. We showed him simple happinesses, the true challenges of living, searching, seeking and learning. We let a man truly be a product of his own thoughts and new learning and help him believe he is something of worth and something better than he ever expected of himself or let others expect of him. Just on account. "

"He doesn't deserve it. Who does? What are forgiveness or mercy but gifts. I don't know if it is any place of mine, or power, to have authority to grant such things ....especially if others pay for it. I do not think he is draining people, or following the Negaverse Regime. He could be in much better state if he were. I found him stealing for food. Everything in me screams the wrongs must be paid for- that it is empathy and emotion ruling me now....but then...I don't think it is. "

“ 'The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. '”

"I want to try again, one more time, more than just Iris. I don't know how or what can be managed, but we're working on it. Whether we need to get to Pluto or some further place like the Surrounding to try for distance to loose the hold on him, or if we need to get more than one royal to try at once. We need all the help we can get. I don't know if one soul is worth so much effort objectively, but I'm no longer certain all worths are counted in that sort of gain. That sort of bargaining and weighing gain is what got him where he is- calculating all things to a nicety lacking all empathy."

"But he's learned some of it. And taught me as well. "

"We have to try."

Quenton just listened, letting the words and the soft sensations of fur mull over. There was no rush for answers right away- Alois wasn't going to stir for hours with how exhausted he was. Faust would feel if someone powered approached, but it wasn't particularly likely so close to the Campus- It was like the park. At any hour of the day there was a aura somewhere else to deal with and the statistical chance of being picked out when hidden in a building with more than a hundred units amid lots of buildings with hundreds more was an example of haystacking and needles.

"It is a great risk. " It was said more to acknowledge that he was listening, since it was just accenting to something they bot agreed on. He is plain in offering the regard. 'good decisions' to get where I am. With no other leaders present, we must be willing and able to take up our own reins.

"Straight emotion, 'faith in love' is no place to put faith. Emotions are too inconstant, though the are motivations. Even the start of his arrival- his resolve is thinning. It is true resolve, but he is losing ground bit by bit. Drive is not his strength compared to fearlessness in the face of the unknown. Alois will try anything once, its after that where he has needed stability through ....ennui and boredom. He is a creature of deep thoughts, but of instant action. "

A good foil to one who overthinks, paced slower and act out long term casts...small wonder we'd found joy in each other, kept each other moving and discovering. "He cannot resist Metallia forever, even were I with him all day, every day. Supposedly that Mars Knight, Kairatos, has a photo of his starseed. So he's still reaching out to that group and Iris. If we keep it moving, I think we can try a second time with enough variables switched. One is going to space and trying off Earth where the war and presence of Metallia seems most obvious and present. Another is trying with more than one royal- I need to start looking around to see if connection can be made with a second, or even third and what would make them willing to try. Maybe something of the Knights, not just the senshi. Maybe adding healing magic to sustain the body through the process as the Youma and Chaos are removed. It all uncertainties, but movement. "

"I don't think his resolve and hope will make it if a second try fails. "

"I won't walk away, even if he requests to die alone. A knife is not enough. A sword is not enough. There is no more clean and easy death. I've considered it, what can starseeds eaten repair and youma crawl in and reform- if it fails, I take him away from the scene where the others with their misunderstand panic. I remove his head, every organ, and burn the body until nothing is left. If old burial rites were enough to send someone on to the afterlife, I think I can trust that to be true in modern day. "

"If he doesn't make it to the purification, it will show in hour like tonight. It is proven he can come to me for comfort- he'll keep doing so with the rest of life being so bleak. That's a matter of practicality of rest, food and brain chemicals bringing pleasure. " It was depressing to reduce some aspects of the relation ship to pure science, divested of emotional motivations or safety for any involved party. "If he won't make it, then he doesn't leave. No questions, no hesitation. "

Zeno came to mind. "No evil is honorable: but death is. Death is not evil."

" Happiness and freedom are begin with the understanding that some things are controllable and others not. After that, that our minds are the power we have, they are where our strength lies. His is under attack, and it is from an outside power. I have to try to help free him. If there is one thing that a senshi is meant to do, it is to bring freedom from chaos from without. Chaos from within is a choice, as much as any senshi or knight themselves can do evil. But he is not being given a choice. "

Quenton stooped and scooped the Mauvian up, stomach churned at the idea of the great black body in danger. It was truth, if Faust stayed. His actions put them both at risk. "That you have stayed even this long is a gift, Faust. I am sorry. It is no right of mine to put you in danger. If you want, we can ask around and find a safer home for you- I'm sure there are plenty of senshi and knights who also own very fine pillows. "


Even though I would be grieved to lose your presence.

"I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill... I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together"

"Metallia may be beyond one man's mien, beyond my strength or beyond Iris', but that does not mean she is beyond all strengths. She is an external force, therefore she can be acted on. I should get in contact with Kairatos, be active. See what gains, if any, have been made with the starseed. There is not time for complacency, no rest for me at least. My strength is not yet spent. "

"It should. It is harder to keep the mind straight, to keep the will hard, without rest or sustenance. Starvation delirium and sleep deprivation are both techniques in the arsenal of the penal system for prisoner 'reform'. Or punishment. "


The declaration that he had even been a 'stone cold badass' was its own entertainment. The follow up of doubt in his still holding this title was equally just surprising more than it was hurtful. But it was a valid concern. The kick was just adorable, and Quenton was pointedly forced to not give into urges to play with the padded, fluffy feet in some undermining of Faust's feelings and points of discussion. "I can kill him- it is painful, but it is its own setting free. I do not fear that, Faust. It is the terror that someone has come to me for help whom I care for, admire, and wish to see free, but the odds are so stacked....all for failure. Failing when the want is there all because I am not strong enough in whatever ways the strength is needed. That it is some fool inevitability because the universe has somehow deemed that not only does Metalia generate weapons for wounding compared to our paltry magic....but that it has also seen that no power given to us is strong enough to face her. That even the royals, our supposed best, fail before tests of this sort.

And I am no royal.

Few terrors live in my heart worse than that. "

Realistically it will. What in any of this honestly shows hope? Not much, not much at all. But if I do not try to help him free his mind as far as can be managed before the clock has come to final end, then I fail in all my own purported philosophies- Stoicism.....it allows for mercy of that kind. No, demands it, in the face of such things. Mercy, if putting another through that same pain again and likely death can be called such. Charybdis or Scylla.

"My mind is not changed on that he should die- only that there is allowance for the method of it. Which is strange. You mistake where I put the emphasis of choice- Alois has done evil, many evils, and by his own choosing and volition. The Negaverse did not compel him to torture innocents, murder, steal, vandalize, and generally every other willful destruction of all things decent he could lay hand to. It was choice of his own, even if chaos augmented or made it easier. "

" It was his will to do ill before, free or not, he doesn't have the full capacity to exercise free will, nor the chance to, when he wants to choose right. As he is. It is that very fact that makes it tricky- One right choice does not erase his wrongs. Nothing will erase them. That time is done and cannot be gone back to. "

"Neither will his death bring justice to any of those things done. The death is for those without remorse, without regret- it is preventative medicine to save the present and future lives he would ruin if returned to his former meanderings of idiocies and wheel treading of understanding 'human condition'. Or change."

Or anything he thought he was searching for with sociopathic dissections. "Will you help? We need more than just Iris- whether that means finding this Chronos or Cosmos or a Knight of some sort to help out. I'll ask around about how or where to find and contact them, and also see about Kairatos. Having another asking around would make it go faster. And we need someplace far out.....I don't think I've ever met or heard of a Knight of Pluto. Maybe the Surrounding? Or Uranus or Neptune. Nysa was of Neptune. I don't know any of Uranus either. I'll go get some Galactic almanacs to cross reference them against people I've met to try to get some idea of what is furthest. "

Truer words might never have been spoke. Who does punish Alois much- himself most of all. Perhaps none hate him so great.

Some of the rest was more about subverting improperly made points. It was also enough of a show of how much of where lines lay was subjective to what things were read what way. To outsiders, the burden of proof was one that would as like require airtight examples before a tribunal. They were points raw and uncertain enough in his own mind as it was that he wasn't sure in what paths a line of postulates and proofs lay. "Pointlessness and powerlessness are a lot of what any single senshi or knight are facing down when it comes to purification for any chaos soldier. "

"He wrote 'I'm sorry'. Maybe even for one moment, Alois knew regret. Whether he understood it or not, I cannot say, but he knew it. Consciousness of wrongdoing is the first step to freedom, 'salvation' if you want to call it that, and to true bliss. It means a person can conduct themselves with real Reason, weighing their own guilts and merits to learn from them and to actually conduct change in themselves. "

"I'm not sure what answers to give you, Faust. You tell me to turn my brain off and act on one paw, but ask for rock solid justifications of the acts on the other." He shook his head, looking out. It wasn't toned as a complaint at all. "I don't know. This is strange territory. It is a crossroads of so much hope, and so much hopelessness. You are right though- the simple answer right now is action. If I have chosen to follow Seneca's teaching, 'Regard as loyal, and you will make him loyal,' then there is only to move forward and see if it comes to truth. I don't know if someone has had genuine expectations of Alois before, in a personal arena, that didn't have ties to some gain of their own and not for him. Can honest hope and want for his freedom of choice on his own account with no gain for me or others succeed, or will he be in fetters forever. Most people would want it for their own glory, or because they wanted their friend back, their lover back, some other thing that paid the other person. Or they would focus on the unlikelihood of success so that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if it is unlikely...It is palpable to those who look for it, when faith wanting. He focuses himself always on what he can't do, on how much everyone tells him is impossible. On how much he tells himself things are impossible. "


"Will my fight be one not only without fear, but also without hope..."

I will not falter now. Fear or hope on my part do not matter compared to making it a reality. Will is the Reality. Will is the difference. Now who is skirting Solipsism and quantums.

"I will look for Kairatos when Alois is rested and gone."