Welcome to Gaia! ::

He caught a glimpse of purple light a little bit after sensing the aura, and he thought from the hazy part of him that remembered dreams that he already knew the patterns it would make and who they belonged to, even though the last time he had seen her, at the attempt to purify Bishophite, she hadn't worn them.

"No offense." He called, as he made his way closer, trying to keep a wary eye out for the youma he felt on the prowl as well. "...I was kind of hoping I was wrong about who I noticed. The heck did you do to yourself?"

Honestly, you'd think people would figure out it was a horrible idea with Babylon trotting around cheerfully reminding everyone he'd nearly died after sticking a second starseed into his chest and requiring Cosmos herself to spackle the damage, in so much as she could. Granted Ida's marks were considerably more... hm. Decorative might be a good word. Babylon's were straight curious lines like cracks or circuits, and they looked a lot more like damage. This looked more like she'd been drawing on herself with a glow stick, unless you could feel the extra energy she was bleeding.

"And this is going to sound completely ******** up, but would you belive I had a dream where you had..." He gestured at the glowing marks with a sort of edgy anxiety. "...The whole... glowy... thing. Among other things."

Other things like a new title, a sleep deprived stare, and a tent full of patients. He didn't even know if she could do more than apply bits from a first aid kit, but it hadn't stopped him from dreaming her that way. Or Zia from having matching dreams.

It made him wonder if Ida remembered dreams about scolding him for his battery of scars and injuries and tar burns.

He flinched at the word 'memories' like she'd hit him with something, and for a moment wouldn't meet her gaze.

"I remember you as a princess and a doctor for the camps." He responded, with a little of retaliation in his tone.

"I also remember you kept a kit in the tent for the times I went hunting Bishophite. It's been... bit's and dreams. I've had enough damn nightmares lately, I don't need ones where I can't keep someone from cutting out Hvergelmer's tounge. Or where I purify Titan, only to loose both of them when I should have been there." His tone drifted toward anger and argument, and then he took a deep breath, and got a handle on his anger on the universe.

"If they're memories, wouldn't we have seen it coming?" He finished, folding his arms across his chest. "If they're memories at all, it's a warning more than anything. There's no way to know if it's even possible for me to be a Royal Knight. I was corrupt once. For all I know it would kill me."

Bischophite had told him his starseed looked whole. Undamaged. But one microscopic flaw could be devastating to a structure, and starseeds were notoriously fragile to begin with.

"Besides, it happened to Babylon because he thought it would be interesting to give his own Star Seed some company. It was creepy as hell and it nearly killed him.

He folded his arms across his chest and frowned out across the city.

"Easy for you to call it a memory." he muttered quietly. "I should have been there. I lost them in that life and I...."

He drew in a deep breath and added more quietly, almost to himself, barely audible over the noises of the city around them.

"In this life I've never had them to loose, let alone help them."

"I wasn't even there." He pointed out. He had been a Royal Knight and instead of being there, he'd been captured, bantering with Zircon in a haze. Being studied.

"If we're going to start trying to fashion thorny crowns over who did what in a timeline that we can change, there's plenty to go around." He reminded her, though his crossed arms were tense as he clenched his fists.

"I'm not a Royal Knight, and that's fine. Hvergelmer never had her face cut open, and maybe I can't wield a mighty blade and purify but I can make... I will make better choices. Show them that there's another way. Camelot's the only one wielding a crystal sword and that's fine. It's... fine. We got our warning loud and clear."

And if he kept saying it was fine maybe it would be fine. And maybe he'd get over the urge to punch holes in things. That had never worked to make him feel better as Realgar. It wouldn't make him feel better now. Or it would... but only for the time in which the pain from the outside was greater than the pain from within. He'd already embraced the loss of much of his memories once in order to get over his fury and hurt, he couldn't do that again.

"Good for Thraen." He was a little surprised at that, with their rocky relationship. "Castor's idea won't work. If Bishophite still wants to try and purify, we owe it to him to find out if it's possible."

"We're only doomed to repeat things if we don't try and change them." He growled, firmly. If he were any kind of figure of such religion, he was the angry youth cursing fig trees and overturning tables and whipping people, not a perfect and kind saint. He carved his faith out of fury and fire. "You say you remember everything. If that timeline is set in stone, you'll remember having remembered it."

This was why he was almost relieved to have awakened without a gladius and helmet.

"If you think we can't change anything, that's your headache. Set up your big red box with supplies to remove tar and carve a bull on it now. I say things have already changed, and they'll keep on changing. If there's anything that stays the same, it's that I'll go down fighting. It's what I'm good at. I haven't seen Bishophite for a few weeks, but he came to Zirconia's call. Unless they've promoted his mopey, starved a** since then, I'll assume you're right. He's not a General King. We just have to figure out how to pry the monster out of him without killing him."

And that was the hard part. They'd failed, but then... he'd also seen Vespa. Cracked and broken and terrible. But Vespa had been purified. He'd seen it.

They weren't lost yet.

"I just wanted to check and see if I was right. I saw the glow when I got closer." He thought about her talk of vows to Ida, and thought about Hvergelmer's vow. He'd taken an oath once, in another life, but it had been to stand beside Asterion. What he had left of that bond was around his neck. A little flask of scented oil.

He also knew a dismissal when he heard one.

"Asclepus works at the hospital, if you haven't met, you should go look for her." He offered, since he had nothing else to offer her.

"I'll let you know if I remember anything else that seems significant." He offered. "Too many goddamn bad dreams."

It would be so much easier to sort this out when he could just... sleep... and not think about crystal shards, or Castor, or parallel universes. When he didn't feel like he was being challenged for not fully remembering a terrible future. Wasn't knowing they'd lost everyone enough without remembering all the details?

Maybe that was unfair, but it felt like a challenge to see who remembered the most suffering.

He wasn't sure what else to say to her. He felt scolded for not remembering in full, for not embracing the pain of things that could, that might have been, and then been undone, the way he felt scolded for his attempts to find Bischophite, for the scars and wounds he'd frequently come back with.

He was older than her, but felt that she looked at him like a slightly obtuse child. He remembered mutters, perhaps not from her directly, that he was wasting time and resources. In that time, there had been a long space where he had had nothing other than his war, and an endless path on trying to prove himself to... who he wasn't even sure. Himself perhaps.

He knew it was a flaw in himself. He wrapped himself up in anger and fought the world when he hurt, and he hurt then and he hurt now. Hvergelmer and Naeryfjord had given him reason to not tear himself apart, but he didn't have them now. Just Zia, tearing herself apart over Zirconia, and Themiscara, a bright and cheerful anchor and fellow knight of Mars.

"That explains how I haven't met him." He joked. "I don't exactly fall into his specialty range."

The wish for a night without nightmares was nice, but he felt a weary doubt that it would come true. Eventually it might, but it was almost difficult to imagine that.

"No one's at their best right now. No one that I've talked to." He offered, as a life line. Tears didn't bother him. People cried. There was no shame in hurting. Shout if you need help."

She still bled energy, and he suspected the Youma would come eventually. She would be too tempting.

"Just be careful, ok?"