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"Ganymede?"

Cybele appeared from behind a line of trees holding a set of Google Maps directions to the place they'd agreed to meet up. They hadn't really been necessary. Ganymede's bright, almost glowing aura had been easy enough to follow once she was in the general area. A quick look around showed why she hadn't heard of this place, although it being small and run down meant it was probably good for talking without being disturbed.

She saw the other girl and smiled, although it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Hello," she said, a little nervously. Their previous encounters, from the first one where they'd ended up almost screaming at each other to the most recent one on the moon where Cybele had messed up her gender in front of everyone, hadn't gone as well as they could have, but that was why she was here. She wanted to apologize, to reconnect... because despite their differences, Ganymede was the closest thing she had to a mentor, and that was something she needed right now.

She walked over to the slide and sat down, folding up the map to tuck it into her ribbons. "Thank you for agreeing to meet up. How are you?"

Cybele shook her head. "No. This place is fine. I don't really know a lot of places that are like this, for talking. Well, not for talking while powered up, at least. Usually, I stay in the big parks so I can hunt youma." They were usually better maintained, too, for when she did find someone to talk to, but she didn't really mind the rusty slide that much. At least she was in magical clothes that would clean themselves.

She nodded politely until Ganymede mentioned New Years. Her eyes narrowed in concern, and she stared in a way that was sort of awkwardly sad for a few moments, trying to think of a polite way to ask if she had been one of the captured ones. Of course, she realized just bringing it up would probably make it worse for both of them, so she shook her head and tried to smile again.

"I'm all right. A little directionless, but it's nothing compared to when we talked before. I don't know if you remember. That was so long ago, I know, back when I was more or less brand new and so confused I almost corrupted. It was back when I thought having a secret identity meant I didn't have to worry about what people thought of me, so when you told me to question what the Dark Mirror Court was saying, to not fall straight into Chaos's welcoming arms... I freaked out a little, and I wasn't nice about it, but I stopped and tried to figure things out for myself, and in the end I didn't corrupt, so I wanted to say thank you, and to apologize."

The most important part of her speech over with, the part she'd been whispering to herself on the way to the park, Cybele relaxed a bit. "And just to talk, if that's all right. I know I didn't used to be easy to get along with, so I'm trying to reconnect." She needed allies. She had come to the realization that there weren't people in the war who she knew well enough to trust, and she wanted to change that. Ganymede seemed like a good starting place. She had seen her around a bit.

Cybele nodded slowly and did her best to actually listen, biting back several more thank yous. The reassurances that there were no hard feeling were welcome, and she relaxed a little, but it didn't make her feel as much better as she'd though it would.

"I don't think you're that hard to get along with," she finally said. "I know if I say I like you, I'll sound like a desperate third grader, but of my powered conversations, the ones with you have definitely not been the worst. I can manage diplomacy sometimes, but this is a war, and that means sometimes you have emotional breakdowns on complete strangers, and that ends about the way you would expect it would, but... I'm even getting better about that." She shrugged and half smiled. She was consciously careful not to get to close to people, though. She had her civilian life to make friends with people who weren't constantly in danger of death or corruption, so she stayed detached from her allies. That caused its own problems, she was starting to realize, so here she was, trying to be a bit less than stiffly formal.

"I'm still... sort of confused, though. It's the opposite of before. At first, I didn't know what to believe, but I knew what to do: find answers. Then, I found answers, so I knew who to trust but I didn't really have a goal anymore. Well, for a little while, I was trying to be the perfect hero and fight evil and save everyone without much other purpose, but since my upgrade..." She stopped mid sentence and reached down towards the worn rubber chips beneath the slide, picking up a small handful and passing them from hand to hand. "Since I... killed someone right after my upgrade, actually, I don't feel like I've been doing anything very helpful at all. That's... what I'd like to talk about, I think, if that's all right? Just... what the most productive thing to do is, in you opinion."

Very slowly, she looked up.

Shock was not what she had been expecting. She'd been ready for disapproval, even disapproval so strong it destroyed whatever shreds of friendship or goodwill there were between them. Ganymede's expression was enough to make her turn her gaze away again the ground and get a bit defensive internally. It shouldn't have been that surprising. This was a either war, or something very similar, and although Cybele didn't like to consider herself a warrior, she had never been a pacifist. She was the Senshi of the Hunt, not love or kittens or daisy chains.

After a few moments, she looked up, folding her hands neatly in her lat. She wasn't here for reassurance that what she'd done was normal and fine. There were plenty of people she could have gone to for that, and she'd talked to a few, but for now she wanted a different perspective. "You don't have to tell me it's okay," she said. "I know it's not. I hate it, but there's nothing I can do about it at this point." Even now, it was hard to think about it without getting emotional, but this time she managed to hold eye contact and even go back to the small, polite smile.

"I didn't mean talk about killing, actually. Well, not just that, at least. I mean more just talking about productive things we can do, and not necessarily the solution or anything like that, just... ideas." The ideas she were interested in were actually the ones that didn't involve killing. That was an option she had used and would maybe use again, but she needed others.

"Protection is... my goal too, I think. I hate seeing people hurt or killed, and even though I'm not that ideal superhero, I want to do my best to stop it. Even if you're just trying to protect specific people, though, like your family, or anyone you care about... isn't the best way to do that to weaken the Negaverse? There's getting rid of youma, of course. I hunt them a lot, too, and I try to make sure there are never any in my neighborhood, but officers turn up sometimes, too, and..." she adjusted herself in a way that could possibly be interpreted as a shrug, "I've heard of purification, but even if it's realistic, I don't know if I'd be able to persuade anyone to do it."