Welcome to Gaia! ::

As the ascended senshi reclined atop the gazebo, staring at the endless sky above her and its mirror reflected in the pond below, the vast emptiness of the universe around her felt in sync, for once, with the swelling darkness inside of her being. A giant expanse of blackness, dotted with bright points of energy - that was the way life felt, for her.

It was a bittersweet peace, but it was too much to hope for, sometimes, to just be left alone with it.

Instead she was the spider, the central point of a web of senses, waiting for the buzzing flies to get caught up in her trap. Around her they danced as surely as the stars overhead, swirling to the center whenever curiosity overtook the best of them. Tonight her reserves were too low to tangle with the aura that she knew, as it got closer, was at least on par with her own strength. It was obviously of the order variety, repulsive, like something too sweet on her tongue. She had hoped that it would wise up and just skirt by, but there was some point in its proximity that she knew there would be no turning back for this soul, and her reflections would be halted so that she might answer more of the mundane questions every human being wanted to ask.

Excuse me, is someone there?

A long, irritable sigh escaped her lips for effect as she shut her eyes against the polite query. She slipped slowly from the roof of the gazebo, sliding down until she could catch the lip with one hand, then let herself fall the last few feet to the ground. The landing was silent as her heels crushed the blades of grass beneath them, but she was already visible, it didn't matter.

"Yes," the reply was curt. The Ascended opened bright, quizzical eyes and let them rest on the pale woman, using the spare moments to judge what there was to see. A knight, she had no doubt, but of what allegiance she wasn't entirely sure. The starburst crest was unfamiliar and the closest thing she had ever felt to her brand was..

Her lips pursed as she dropped that line of thought immediately.

"What do you want, little duckling?"

With her first impression forming, Alkaid decided the knight was quite passive, even without her having to outright say it. The way she sunk into the fabric of her cloak, the avoidance of direct eye contact - both signs, intended or not, that portrayed a submissive demeanor. There was a degree of trust in it too, for simply removing her eyes from what was a sworn enemy, oath or not, could have been a death sentence. In the breath of those few moments, she could've rushed her, if she'd wanted.

Luckily, her ever present curiosity was getting the best of her. Especially because of the words that fell from her lips so casually.

"Well, my dear, it's your lucky day." Though her voice held a sudden mirth, as if the shimmery knight had just told her some great joke, her eyes narrowed with the sound. "I'm the only one. Which has me wondering what you mean by one of the Ascended."

Alkaid stepped closer then, bringing her more out of the shadow of the gazebo and into the dim light of the moon hanging overhead. It wasn't meant to be threatening, no matter how harsh the intensity of her gaze had become. As a peace offering, she crossed her arms behind her back, letting the hands lace together just above the curve of her wings.

"Please do stay, you have my full attention. I'm Alkaid."

Hvergelmir, the Knight of unexpected surprises. The knowledge she shared caused Alkaid's brows to raise just slightly, shifting the planes of her face to expose larger gaps at different intersections of the rough, almost stony, flesh. It seemed an unintentional side effect of the motion, but she hadn't missed the way Hver was distracted by the garish cracks in her flesh.

"You have supposed correctly. The first, who has quite a task to complete before we can have a second. I was beginning to doubt the possibility, but here you are, telling me that you've seen it happen." She didn't for a moment doubt that she'd at least seen this future, after all, she'd heard others whispering of it in the hallways when they thought no one was listening. It was embraced less kindly as truth by the agents of the Negaverse, who saw so many of their ranks turn traitorous. To admit that it was true was to admit that doubt could be sewn among them.

True or not, it still said her path was not in vain. It was possible.

"Do you know the names of these others? I have to admit, I never saw these visions that have caused such an uproar." A small, polite smile emerged here, unsettling on the macabre backdrop of her face. "I can't dream."

The small smile faded at Hvergelmir's question, until it had settled her lips back to a thin line. Although it wasn't the first time someone had asked about her condition, it was the first time someone had asked so specifically. The question wasn't a matter of what, but instead, how. The queries seemed similar enough, on the surface, but the answers were not.

She considered the question for a long moment, letting her eyes slide away from the knight entirely, up to some unseen point in the heavens above. It was her star, but the knight wouldn't know that. It was the only comfort she sought anymore.

Alkaid desperately needed to know who she should approach in her mission, but how much information could she reveal without crossing the line?

"Alright," she said at last, letting her gaze fall back to the pale face before her, to eyes not unlike her own. "We'll have a trade, then. Tell me who will join me and I will tell you how I came to be in the first place. You have my word." There were many things that Alkaid was, terrible, wicked things, but a liar was not one. Some semblance of her morality held true, even in her current condition.

Alkaid fell to silence as Hver tried to recall all of the ascended she could of this mysterious future, studying her face for any sign of a lie, or omission. A few names she knew and at least two of them - Ate and Haumea - did not surprise her. Still, even if she'd expected to hear them, she was still pleased to know that she had put her faith in the right ones now. Several others were familiar to her and, though she hadn't spoken to them yet, she made a mental note to find them later.

"Thank you, Hvergelmir." The words were polite, but genuine.

Though she supposed, now, she would at least uphold her end of the bargain. It was always tricky, enemy or not, to decide how much of her story to explain to others. Amphitrite had wanted to hear the awe of Metallia's power and so she had earned a flowery, detailed account. Hver simply wanted to know.

"Ascending, for me, was a lot of circumstantial coincidence. I met a man named Kurma, a very long time ago, who is.. like you, but not. He's a creature of the stars and claims neutrality." Her voice maintained a nearly robotic calm as she spoke of him, but her hands unwound from behind her back and moved to cross beneath her breasts instead. For anyone else, it would have seemed like fidgeting. "Corrupts can't visit their namesakes, but he mourned my loss for me, so we took a trip with his power. As soon as I stepped foot on my own soil, Metallia knew it."

She shrugged then and let her eyes drift back up to the point in the stars, where her own hung, with its true light still disguised by that pesky trick of time and space.

"She sent a General-Queen to claim it by pouring raw chaos power right through me, like a conduit, to the core of my star. I shattered, it shattered," her eyes dropped, and a small smile graced her lips again, "but its all hers, now. According to you, others will be soon to follow."

Alkaid didn't seem surprised that Hver had never heard of Kurma - not many people had - but at least the bit of information she shared confirmed for the Ascendant that he couldn't possibly have been just a knight. His affiliation with Cosmos was the only thing she knew for certain, apart from his neutrality. Kurma was a mystery, even for those that seemed to know him best.

"I wouldn't know about an ability to communicate with others of my kind, that question I can't answer without them actually existing." A pause, and then, "but I probably wouldn't, even if I could." Though she had been telling the truth about not knowing, Hver's words did tell her that whatever abilities she might come to share with her kin, they had done well at keeping that knowledge hidden from the Order soldiers. Without actually knowing what it was herself, she couldn't be sure what benefit it held, but the thought of it was certainly enticing.

The insinuation of pain earned a shrug from her - it wasn't the first time she'd been asked.

"Curious minds always wonder at what this must feel like." She brought a hand up to study the chasms across her palm, then shrugged and let it fall back to her side. "It is not painful, though it is different in a way that would not make sense to you. I won't bother explaining it."

Hver was, however, the first person to ask her about the memories and, as she often found, it hadn't occurred to her to wonder about it herself until it had been proposed. That was the way her mind seemed to work, preoccupied only with the things that mattered.

"Intact is not the word I would use, although I do not think they have been lost either." Her lips pursed as she considered it, digging back through her own thoughts to judge what it felt like. "Things are not separated into before and after, but rather.. important and unimportant. What pertains to my situation, what is necessary to remember, is sharp. Superfluous memories are fuzzy, like recalling a dream from long ago."

What was more was that she was losing her grip on unnecessary emotions, the ones tied up in memories that were entirely irrelevant, but that was something she kept entirely to herself. The more inhuman she seemed, the more caution her enemies would use, which put her at a disadvantage. Even the wise ones, like Hver it seemed, already hesitated. The rigidness to her stance hadn't gone unnoticed despite some sense of curiosity that had gotten the best of her.

"What use is this knowledge, to a neutral party? Kurma also had this same burning curiosity, though it served him no purpose that I ever knew."

A thin brow rose at Hver's offer to help her with the memories, at first unsure how to answer it. Silence took her and she looked away, even going so far as to turn her back on the shimmering knight. If she couldn't attack, she had nothing to fear of her. The heel-clad feet crossed a few paces of the thick, pond-side grass until she stopped and stared out across the still waters instead.

"There's no suffering," she said at last, in a voice that seemed somehow both weary and resolved, "but even if there were, I would have you know that I have no complaints. I am very different, but I am also the same in some regards - my loyalty remains. I have always given everything that I can, and I will give more, until there is nothing left."

There was a pause and even from Hver's view, it would be impossible to miss how she held out her own hand to stare at it, glancing over the cracks.

"And when there is nothing left, I will sleep for eternity, and I think that will be the kindest reward of all."

Her fingers flexed wide and then curled back upon themselves, captivating her attention until she let the arm fall to hang at her side. Then she half turned, glancing back at Hver, considering her and all that she represented.

"I would like to say that I'd take you up on that offer but I am not really sure that remembering things that will hinder my place in this war would be beneficial, to me. I am not a living creature like you, you're very right, and the feelings those memories might bring me.." She trailed off, then ended it in the most human gesture of being at a loss for words that she could think of - a simple shrug.