She'd spent the better part of the last half a day walking the Surrounding. The road was whole, the buildings mostly intact, and the home of the Zodiacs stood strong. Bifrost's boots clicked as she walked, echoing off into space where the sound continued until it was eaten by the darkness. Each step sounded individually, a series of practiced steps almost as if she was counting how many it took to circle the whole thing. She past wonders and outposts, all tempting her curiosity, yet none holding her attention long enough for her sate it.

The Surrounding was quiet as the dead. It had been this way since the battle that had repaired the rainbow road. No one came here anymore. Few people had passes, outside the Zodiac and Chronos knights. Bifrost herself didn't venture into space as often as perhaps she should. Why should she though, when she stared at outposts dark and silent? Libra, Virgo, Aries, Capricorn... so many outposts with no keeper and no guard. So wonders she had no name for devoid of protectors sat littered between the darkened outposts.

(Only once had she thought she heard commotion from Aquarius, but it was so faint and quick she'd discounted it.)

What was the point of all of this, if there was no one to protect it? The Squire stepped up to her wonder, the simple balcony with a pedestal that hid so much more. Prena floated near the railing, looking out into space. The ghostly ancestor acknowledged her descendant with a nod of her head, but then simply disappeared, leaving her to her thoughts.

Bifrost walked over to the railing, leaning against it. She looked up at the stars she couldn't quite see. Why was she chosen as a knight of Chronos, a knight of a guard so fragmented and lost it wasn't even certain people were alive still. What had made the cosmos decide that Mary Tunith, roleplayer and fanfiction writer was to be the knight of Bifrost? Did the cosmos expect her to fight for her own until the last breath? That even when all had forgotten, Bifrost would still look at the stars and remember where they'd come from?

The stars answered none of her questions, silently staring back at her. No one appeared to her to give her what she sought, no visions that told her great things. Just the cold, unforgiving silence of space. She could abandon it, abandon her wonder and her ancestor, and let the line suffer as it would in the end. She could focus on Destiny City and her life, and hoping that she lived through the on coming future.

Lilac eyes looked over the opalescent marble of her wonder, the rainbow road beyond, and the outposts she could see in the distance. This was a part of who she was, though. As silent and empty as it was, her power came from here, her lineage. To simply give up on this would be to cut out the last four-ish years of her life. To give up 'Bifrost' would give up the ability to protect her grandmother, her friends, the city she lived in.

Maybe that was why the cosmos had chosen her, she realized with a small bit of irony.

Even when all was lost, the Keeper of the Bifrost would not abandon her post. No matter if it came down to only her holding the line, she would hold it with her last breath.

For she was the Gatekeeper of the Bifrost, and all who be unworthy shall not pass.

[ WC: 595 ]