Welcome to Gaia! ::

Here it was at last. Finally, someone in the Negaverse had come around asking not for her, but for another agent. Finally some of the chickens she'd always been expecting were coming home to roost. The Negaverse was starting to investigate some of the leaks in its ship, and was tracing them back to her. That spelled danger for Hvergelmir and for Kerberos, but not just them -- it was anyone she talked to. Everyone from Umber to Labyrinthite to Titanlavenite . . . they could all be implicated. All punished.

Well, she'd thought about this quite a bit. She had some idea of what she meant to say, how best to go about it without endangering any of them. Hvergelmir felt, in this moment, very aware of the mark on her left shoulder, the weight of her promise.

"Yes," she acknowledged, leaving her distaff to rest against her shoulder. "I'm Hvergelmir. But I'm afraid I can't help you find the person you're looking for -- that's not a service I provide." Politely, she added, "What's your name?"

Hvergelmir sighed. "I'm so sorry," she said sympathetically. "You must be so worried."

Kerberos had several sisters. He'd told her that -- that one of his sisters had gone missing, and he'd joined the Negaverse to look for her, and another sister was in the Negaverse like him. And there were maybe more siblings -- she didn't try to push him too hard about the memories he'd lost.

He hadn't said what to do if his sister from the Negaverse came looking for him. She wasn't prepared to answer with certainty until they'd spoken about it.

"I want to help you," she said. "And fortunately I can, at least a little. I can send him a message on your behalf. Anyone can receive messages from knights, as long as they're addressed to the right name . . . and as long as the person's still alive to receive them. You'll be able to find out that much, at least."

Hvergelmir held up her signet ring near her face.

"Message Sailor Kerberos," she said -- then began dictating. "This message is from Erythrite of the Negaverse."

She looked up at Erythrite with a question in her eyes: what do you want to say?

It was painful to hear. This was the cost of all that the Negaverse did, all that their corruption stole away. They sank Chaos into a person like a harpoon -- clean on its edge, sharp as a scalpel, smooth as sailing: but like a harpoon, it was barbed for one purpose. To do even more damage on the way out. To tear a person to pieces just trying to remove it.

And here was the bloody aftermath of the surgery. This mourning, worried family, twice wounded now. Twice grieving a child that would never return.

Hvergelmir looked to the ground until Erythrite was finished. Then, she said simply, "From Hvergelmir of the Cosmos," and the message sent.

"It went through," she said. "So he's alive. I can't promise I'll have any more information for you if I see you again, but -- this is where you'll find me."

Hvergelmir blinked. This was . . . this was news. Kerberos had joined the Negaverse looking for his lost twin sister, and she'd been . . . she'd been there all along? Tiny, grief-stricken Persephone?

Kerberos has a sister? was what she wanted to say. "Persephone has a brother?" was what she said instead. Saying that didn't confirm or deny any connection that Hvergelmir had to Kerberos -- it was a neutral statement in that regard.

Hvergelmir nodded sympathetically once more. She and Persephone hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms, the last time, but it was hard for Hvergelmir to hold much true animosity in her heart for her. Not everyone made the choices that were in the service of moving toward their best possible selves. Not everyone made every brave choice. Persephone was frightened and ashamed: she chose what made her feel safe for another day. What let her go on breathing.

"Persephone's been through a lot," she agreed. "Sometimes when a person's depressed . . . sometimes they can only make the choices that help them survive for one more day. Sometimes that's the best they can do. And we wish for better for them," she said, thinking of Bischofite for a moment, of Sarras, of Labyrinthite -- of all the people she'd loved in some small way, and hadn't been capable of carrying through their darkest hours -- "But sometimes . . . sometimes the road is very long, and we each walk down the only path we can manage."

Hvergelmir smiled, faintly. "Is this how you manage? Worrying about everyone else, holding your family together as best you can?"

Everyone had their own way of coping with struggle, even those whose pain went unseen. Some people coped by caring for others: they found strength in pretending to be strong.

Hvergelmir nodded sympathetically. "I can understand that," she said. "The world doesn't stop for anyone. And there are few places you can go where someone will even slow it down enough for you to think. It's difficult, just getting by. It takes a kind of strength we take for granted."

That was what she tried to provide, in interactions like this -- in places like her bench, or anywhere else she chanced to meet anyone. If all she could do was make the world feel safe enough for someone to slow down just enough to catch their breath, then she'd given them some relief. Everyone alive stood a better chance if they had a moment to breathe. A second of peace.

And it would be good, for Kerberos, to have one of his sisters. Even better for him, she imagined, if he could be part of what led her to her own release from a life as Negaverse chattel.

She could start with letters. Something that felt safe, a way for him to contact his sister without needing to get too close to anything that made him feel unsafe. As it was, she feared his low self-esteem and his attraction to high-risk behavior. He needed slow building blocks, just like Erythrite might.

For now, she'd start small. With someone who devoted so much time to caring for others, it was a delicate, slow process to plant the seeds of the idea that they could care for themselves, too.

"I don't know much about family," she admitted, not able to keep a touch of wistfulness out of her voice. "But I know how hard it can be, to worry about someone on top of everything else. Your family won't move out of the city?"

Hvergelmir was tempted to lie. Yes, she could have said, people who purify do better. They're finally happy. It's good.

The reality of the world was not so simple. No one who'd gone through as much hell as someone who purified ever really walked away from that unchanged.

"Every person is different," she said. "Metallia leaves painful marks on everything she touches, and healing from that takes time -- both for the people who remember what life was life in the Negaverse, and for the people who struggle with the torment of knowing they were part of something like that and not being able to remember it. But most people who leave -- they leave because they couldn't have stayed under her thrall anymore. It was killing them. Being free -- even for the people who struggle to make peace with themselves . . . It's usually at least a relief. A pressure valve being released."

The rest of it was up to them -- each person had their own path. But rarely did any former agent believe things would be better if they went back to the life they'd abandoned.