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At some point, Gehenna had lost his sense of direction. He had picked the first path that lead him away from the woman he had left slumped in an alley and walked until he didn't even recognize the part of town he was in. He'd found his way into some dimly lit, pleasantville suburb of Destiny City and stopped only when he came face to face with a short, squat willow tree at the fork of two lazy, quiet roads.

He paused there to look down each, both nearly indistinguishable between their perfect hedges and tiered upper-class homes. Some of the yards were bigger than parks he knew and he was willing to bet these people had spent more money on the gold initials centered in the ironwork on their fancy front gates than he had spent in his entire lifetime. But who was he to judge what they found joy in? At least these were peaceful, non-threatening members of society. They just wanted to groom their rose bushes and have brunch in the morning. That small thought, at least, made him laugh.

He brought both hands up to his face and pressed his palms harshly into his eyes, trying to use the pressure to smudge away his own memories. With no decision leaping out at him about which path to continue, he opted to stop right where he was. He walked forward through the hanging curtains of the willow and let himself lean first into the trunk before slumping to the ground with a single knee bent. His gauntlet, the source of his power and magic, was propped against his knee. His eyes stared down at it like it was a demon, attached to him and impossible to remove.

He flexed the fingers once, then dropped his head back against the tree. Through the long willow fingers, he could see bits and pieces of the night sky and the soft glow of a nearby, decorative street lamp. It was a peaceful place, far away from the war. He could at least pity himself here, alone.

The aura had sparked on his senses once she was within the vicinity and he hoped against hope that whoever it was, they would keep moving on and ignore the Squire's aura sitting beneath a tree. He was just here, minding his own business, and that's all he wanted everyone else to do.

Of course, those frilly skirts were always too nosy for their own good.

His eyes drifted down from where he'd been staring blankly up at the sky and landed on the woman that had stooped beneath the shield of the willow curtains. For a long moment he didn't say anything to her, as he didn't really want to talk about it but his conscience couldn't handle an outright lie either.

So instead, he resorted to subject changes.

"Why are you glowing?" His eyes narrowed skeptically at her face and the elegant patterns traced across her skin. He tried to appear as non-plussed as possible but he was starting to feel the pain of Cinnabar's blows and his own panic had caused a feverish sweat to break out across his skin. There was no pretending you were okay when your body gave you away.

Great. Now she was doing that weird girl thing where they tried to hide how uncomfortable they were with lots of awkward posture changes. He sighed and shut his eyes while she explained what had happened, not that it made a lick more sense when she did.

"I didn't know that planets could communicate with you poofy skirts. Seems like a pretty weird way to get a message across. You look like a lite brite." Normally there would have been a hint of humor with his words but he was to exhausted. His words were gravelly, like he had a sore throat, and barely more than a mumble unless he put effort into speaking loudly. He heard her moving though, so he supposed it didn't matter. When he finally opened his eyes again, he wasn't that surprised to see her sitting in front of him.

Ghen was beginning to think that these women took oaths to be too helpful on purpose. Except for Nemesis. She had obviously missed orientation day.

"There's nothing you can do that will help what's wrong with me, doll." His eyes were open, and he was attentive, but he kept his head leaned back against the tree like it was too heavy to support on his own. "I feel like I was hit by a bus three days ago. It's just the penance." He tried to shrug, but he was weak and it ended up being little more than a shift of muscles beneath his armor.

"I'm Gehenna, since we're sharing."

The reasoning behind it made sense but unfortunately, it also made his mind spiral back into the place he had crawled under the tree to mope about in the first place. These people had done something so right that their starseeds were making them glow with shiny perfectness? If he'd had the energy, he would have laughed at the fact that he was probably faced with his complete opposite in this moment. He had been too ashamed to go to Gehenna for months and even more so now. If those places could give someone more power, couldn't they take it away too?

Maybe that was what needed to happen.

His eyes dropped as his mind strayed, lulled into silence by the somber turn of his own thoughts. The deep, dark pools focused on his own hand and for a moment seemed to forget that she was sitting there at all. Though her words registered, it wasn't until he felt her hand reach out and touch his face that he actually realized what she'd said.

With confusion plastered across his face, his eyes flashed up to stare back into hers. He didn't beat her hand away or move out of her reach, but the skepticism was written clearly for her to read. It was only as her eyes closed that he felt a small moment of protest rise within him, fueled as the elegant markings grew brighter. Yet, as he opened his mouth to speak against it, the warmth of her energy broke his resolve and the words died on his lips before they'd ever started.

It flowed out from her fingers like a warm caress, a summer heatwave breaking waves over his skin. He caught a hissing breath between his teeth and sank back into the tree again, rendered speechless as the warmth eased the soreness of the exhaustion that had settled in his bones and filled some empty place in his core. As her hands retracted, he watched them.

"Better," he said gently. His voice was less gravely as he spoke, though there was something in his demeanor that said physical exertion hadn't been his only problem. He was grateful enough to put that aside for now as he watched her face, curious. Though he didn't pretend to be an expert on this, he suspected that she had just replenished whatever he ran through every time he called his magic. Energy? His fingers flexed without thought, but he'd be damned before he tried that near her.

"Thank you," his eyes flickered away from her face in the wake of awkward gratitude. "Just be careful who you give that to, hm? I know the feel of something too easy to get addicted to."

When the question passed her lips, he winced. Without meaning to, she was poking at a bleeding wound that he had been trying his hardest to pretend was little more than a scratch. Of course, he never would have crawled under a tree to sit and mope about the world if it was really something so minimal.

She'd just given him a gift and despite how much he hated himself, Gehenna felt that part of himself that said he owed her.

"Um", he cleared his own throat and reached out with a hand to pluck at a few blades of grass, ripping them up and tossing them back down upon their roots. He didn't know where to start. He plucked another and rolled it between his fingers, feeling the waxy blade. When he finally looked back up at her, it was with a heavy sigh on his lips.

"I don't know how to explain this to people, honestly." The blade of grass dropped from his fingertips as he crossed both arms over his chest, a defensive position. It was a silly defense considering she was just one pretty, glow-in-the-dark girl that wanted to help but he couldn't help the impulse. His one, outstretched leg twitched, tapping the foot against empty air in a nervous fidget. "I'm sure you know that we have magic too, but mine is.. destructive. I'm dangerous. I know that just sounds like I'm being a conceited a*****e but it's the truth, I can't control whatever.. this is."

The way it sounded out loud made him feel like an idiot, which consequently did nothing for making him feel better about the situation. Could she even understand what he meant? She just seemed.. good. Everything about her screamed purity, from the look in her eyes down to the flavor of her aura. He was just some black hole devouring it.

"I keep hurting people, Ida. People I care about and people I don't, they're all the same to the magic."

The Squire tensed for a moment as she shifted in the grass to sit next to him, but found that it was ultimately easier for him to deal with her questions when she wasn't staring at him. Even if he didn't want anyone to be close to him then, it wasn't like he was going to attack her without calling his magic. This was safe, there was nothing wrong, and he reminded himself of that as she began to speak.

"It's not the same as everyone else." His response was quick, muttered under his breath in a manner akin to a petulant child. Even he heard the sound of this voice, though, and he sighed again in an apologetic way before he tilted his head to look sidelong at her. She really was a sweet girl, this strange, glowing Eternal. She had no idea who he was and she still wanted to help a man that was admittedly flawed and dangerous.

"My magic.." He stopped and pressed his lips into a thin line, trying to decide the best way to describe it. He cleared his throat before he started again. "My magic takes away my reasoning and turns me into something that completely lacks control. It makes me strong and.. merciless. I destroy anything and anyone that gets in my way." He brought his right hand up to show her, the one that his weapon was strapped onto - a gauntlet, simple enough, but with a row of dull metal spikes across his knuckles. The tips were stained red. At the sight of them, even he frowned, then flexed his hand into a fist and dropped it back onto his knee.

"Every time I come to, I've nearly killed someone. Tonight is was some mouthy Nega but it's not always the enemy." Talking had never been Gehenna's thing, or Kamboja's for that matter, but she was a gentle heart and he was vulnerable. He was admitting what his biggest fear was to her, right then, even if she needed to read between the lines a little to understand. It wasn't that he'd nearly killed a Negaverser that upset him, it was that he'd done it without realizing it. His gaze dropped from hers and he tilted his head back to brace it against the bark, swinging his eyes up to the few stars he could see through the wispy curtains of willow leaves. "I can care all I want, doll, but it won't save me."

Gehenna's body tensed visibly as he saw her reach out and remained so as she walked her fingers along the blood stained tips of his weapon. They had caused so much harm, hurt so many people, and she was inviting herself to brush that tragedy through her fingertips like she trusted a man she didn't even know.

Yet even he knew it was silly to be afraid for her safety now because she was right - he was no harm to anyone as long as he didn't use his magic. His muscles unwound partially, slowly, until he had relaxed back into the tree again. His eyes didn't leave her fingers though, he just watched as she proved to him that he was no danger like this.

"It's never that simple." He grimaced a little as he heard himself speak, aware that he sounded like one of those cryptic buffoons. It wasn't intentional. "I always tell myself it will be the last time, that next time I'll be strong enough to win without it, but the truth is that without the magic, I'll be a weak soldier." He uncurled the fingers of his fist and laid the palm flat against his knee instead. Her skin was not much lighter than his own and yet, he felt dark and empty next to the vibrant light he could feel in her. His shame was a stark contrast to something so obviously pure and he had to wonder if the cosmos had entwined their steps tonight just to taunt him with everything he was not.

"I use it when I have to, and there is always a point that I have to." He shifted a little so that he could lean to the side and used his free hand to fish for something tucked behind the buckle of his belt. When he pulled it free, he held it out to her in the palm, glimmering a deep, ocean blue. A starseed. "I got it back, but there's no one to return it to."

Gehenna let her take the starseed from him and examine it, watching her face as she inspected. He was more comfortable in silence, letting her words wash over him as she inspected his hard-won prize. There was something very alluring about a starseed, in a haunting way. He had seen the face of the man this one had belonged to - right before that she-witch bashed his skull in - and yet, he found it hard to believe that something so majestic could belong to such a mundane creature.

When she admitted that she thought she had seen her own, it gave him a moment of pause. Who had she been fighting with so closely to let that happen? And then he realized that he, too, had a starseed. He'd never seen it, he couldn't feel it, but it was there as surely as the one she was now handing back to him. He took it carefully, more delicate with it than his size suggested he could be, then shoved it back where he'd been keeping it.

"I'm trying to figure it out," he muttered after he was done shifting around again. He drew both legs up so that he could prop his arms across the knees, then leaned his head back and shut his eyes. Despite the energy that she had given him, there was something about the set of his shoulders and look on his face that said he was exhausted. He could still feel the places that the lieutenant had landed blows, aching like he'd been bruised down to his core, but it was a lot of mental tire on top of that.

Ida was right, in many ways, but there was so much more to this. Night terrors, cold sweats, visions. His lack of confidence and the fact that he was hurting people was just a tiny scratch on the surface. He couldn't tell her these things, not a stranger, and not when he wasn't ready to admit any of it yet. Gehenna was as much in denial as he was afraid.

"Thanks for coming down here to find me." His eyes opened and he tilted his head sideways to look at her. He'd very much wanted to be alone but he supposed she had done him a favor in preventing another meltdown.