Welcome to Gaia! ::

Arriving on Castor was warmer than one might have anticipated. The winters were not yet in full, and much of the world's greenery still thrived, and if anything the air's chill was more crisp than wet and cold. Around lingered the half repaired ruins of his lost kingdom, the once towering gates to the royal city held up by masonry that only showed the thought that went into the durability of the warrior world's holdings.

The capitol was a ruin, yet still it held that lingering essence of power of what it once was- a city that encompassed a castle made of ice and stone. A castle that remained fixed in the not too far distance, glittering with the dim light of fading twin suns.

"Alright miss kitty. Ride's over. Unless your feet cant stand a little chill?" He wasn't joking even as he asked it- the ground was cold, and the stone colder. "I don't usually entertain guests aside from Pollux, and it's a bit of a walk until we reach the castle. So..." He grinned.

"Shall I carry you in my arms, or do you want to see if you can handle what my people used to handle on a daily?" He wanted to show her his world, and that did include the full experience of it's cold.

"Hmm." Castor shrugged, remaining in his powered form. Eternal or royal form, being senshi on his world felt more natural to him. Being unpowered it was... off. Like a muffled voice or a thin glove that stopped just short of touch. "Half a mile from here. And yes- it's actually quite healthy. The boars like to roam but don't bother them and they won't bother you. They're kind of like.. oversized dogs? No fear. It's the beetles we'll have to keep an eye out for. In which case... we'll know they're around before we see them." Life on his world was no longer magical to him so much as simply second nature.

He'd become more like Castor than Elzo would like to admit.

"Are other worlds so barren?" He started the walk down the main road, pausing on occasion to note certain buildings and signs of any beasts that lingered. Mostly the horses and boars. "In theory I could live here, but, it would be lonely I think. I like people too much. And for record nothing of Castor is barren." He laughed, then pointed to the castle. "It's got a waterfall off to the side. If you look for it, the floor where it breaks and fills a pool- That balcony was my chambers. It let me see the whole valley. If you want to see just everything? That'll be the spot, god's honest. Even the King's room wasn't as good as mine."

Confusion wound up on his face as she spoke. Was his world so different? He had simply thought his world as well... normal. But then, he also wasn't exactly 'content' with earth any longer and had long stopped seeing himself as an earthling and more as a senshi. As Castor.

"Yes?" He made it a question. Didn't other worlds? "Pollux has them too. And yeah, I mean, There are certain things I remember eating, farming. But I've not tested if they're fit for earthen consumption. I could try, but getting the foods tested privately without the results being sent or found by others is high risk. From both a practical sense and logical one, unless my brother and I are willing to hire an entire facility and staff and risk exposure on a very grand scale, testing the foodstuffs here would be difficult to say the least." He shrugged.

"I could ask people. But then, if they get sick and die..." He shook his head. "It's risky. I know that the boar meat is safe- it's the beetle meat that had to be purified- their acid affects the meat, so we ha a way to treat it so we could eat it. Unfortunately, of all my memories, I don't have that one recalled yet." Not that he could kill one anyway easily to get said meat.

"Is there anything you wanted to see before we reach the castle? There is the cathedral, the garrisons, the workshops, the-" he stopped midway. "...Sorry. I forgot that much was lost in the last days. We.. it was not a graceful fall, my people's fate."

He laughed, the sounding genuinely happy. "Thanks I guess. It's..home. I dunno, I feels better here for me. Like THIS is where I belong? I spent days here at times. Earth it's like-" he snapped his fingers, "it's like moving from NYC to Italy when I was a kid. I felt more like a guest or a temporary resident than a citizen. Didn't matter that I was, but that feeling was there. That's how earth is. It's like a temporary place to me. And don't worry about the negas. That's my job."

He reached over to ruffle her hair.

"...." he kept walking as she mentioned Zirconia's starseed, eyes lifting towards the castle.
"Does this mean you'll be heading back?"

If anyone understood feeling alien in one's own world, it was perhaps, Zirconia. To exist but not to belong. To feel like you could live where you were but know it was not your home, and you'd be an outsider. Possibly forever.

"It's hosting. She is a guest of our world." His mind was clicking wondering. "She's like a guest trapped in a snowstop. She probably would prefer to go home but as is, simply can't." A shrug, Castor kept his pace, and soon enough they ended at the castle. The doors massive and behind the first wall of thick ice and spikes. At first, it appeared to heavy to move, yet a simple push and the path opened to the royal's residence, if it could be called such.

Glittering white marble and worn, aged banners and paintings hung on the walls, while silver and blue crystal veins were threaded into the stonework. Natural light filtered in from crystal glass, some colored some clear. Clear images, scenes of battles, native plants and life of his world littering the decor. It was not broken or fully restored but rather repaired. It was surprisingly warmer and the tile itself seemed to radiate a faint heat.

"Shards of his crystal? I could understand that. Granted, it won't bring him back.. but it is a good sentiment. Speaking of which." He held out his hand, his own crystal summoned, resulting in large spires that lined the walls to glow faintly. "Why did the prince destroy himself? It nearly cost us half the city... but why go to such an extreme?"

"but thing never go to plan." He finished for her, walking down the reception hall towards the throne room. The doors were barely standing, fixed open, signs of an entry forced thousands of years past. Cuts deep into the stone and ice showing the desperation there had been once, to break through..before the splintered remains showed the following results.

"... Speaking as a royal." He sighed. "Divine right to rule is tricky. For Castor I was royalty, but my divine right wasn't the throne. That was an elected position. It was like... There was royaty-my house? My spouse.. what would have been my children. The title of royal was for the lifetime I held it, and when I passed on, so it would pass to the next chosen. But then, Castorian ideas of breeding, romance and... life were pretty odd. But to hear 'the divine right to rule' even from the perspective of a past conqueror, it's not one I can really get. They'd be better off finding the one whom the crystal was most suited for or most fit to rule. It's people like that you should mark with a wary eye." He smiled, the ghost of something behind it, the knowledge he was probably talking to someone who understood it better than him. "Earth and the moon will always be fated to each other- and while I can't say it doesn't matter, keeping a close watch over your neighbor is... only polite."

The throne room itself was empty, the chair at the far end of the hall resembling less a traditional throne and more a bench on which more than one person might sit. Or if one thought to look, a place where a person might lay down. The throne for what splendor it might have held, was removed. A sickly stain of deep brown was pointedly splattered against the back, like someone had hit it with a ball of paint. Yet it wasn't hard to imagine what had actually transpired. There was no body however, and though the signs of battle lingered, armors scattered in perfect formation of what bodies might have fallen, few if any skeletal remains lingered.

Still he walked up, his hand smoothing over the throne, eyes flicking, looking for someone who he knew he'd never see again.
"I cannot say what powers this place. Only that I call, and it responds. It acts organic but I know it isn't. My guess would be magic."

He looked at the stain, lips tightening in memory. "Your Helen made the right choice."

"The reason Castor was efficient was only because we made ourselves a weapon. We lived in a world that raised us to think as weapons without sacrificing our sanity. I was their ultimate weapon, so when I fell-" He pulled himself from the throne, moving towards another door, this one unbroken. It had not been forced.

"You fought to earn your place, to protect what you felt was right. There is no right nor wrong way to rule. Only a way to fail. And that failure is.." he let a breath go, the door leading to a large spiral staircase, ice acting as iron railing, the area seemingly void of the scars of war. "You kept them safe though they did not know it. You did what you thought would help them. Your people were, are, lucky to have you, though they do not know it."

He waited for her, gaze lingering on her, as if expecting her to request samples. "If it is organic, then why is it something so many lack and fail to understand?"

He remained patient, waiting for her to take her fill before motioning that it was time for stairs. The steps were higher than normal, yet he took them like he'd been walking the taller steps for years. Memories filled in motion, it had made his adjustment easier. He'd tripped a few times but now it was second nature. "...." He didn't answer her at first, simple going up the spiral staircase untol they reached the third floor, pausing again for Zirconia.

"I remember more than the fall." He left it at that. He remembered each labored breath, each beat of his heart, the pain of a spear, the sting of blade and bows that dug into skin and sinew. The dull throb of loss and the fleeting feelings of terror until they became a distant scream paired with a sadness and loss he'd never experienced before.
A fall was a gentle word for it.
Death was kinder.

To Castor he'd not fallen. He'd been destroyed.

"Truthfully, I've come to resent earth. It's lack of magic, the foolishness of it all. Weak, corrupt in ways beyond chaos. Somewhere it stopped being my home. Somewhere in thse last few years.. I wanted to come home and stay here." He shrugged. "Yet it's a fool's dream."