Welcome to Gaia! ::

There was the ghost of want of a facial twitch that Thraen managed to quash as his eyes scanned over the 'ur' and even more unfortunate '2' of the message his phone chirruped at him about.

Things were changing. And they had to go on doing that, changing. He had to get better. He had to do this right. And since asking Celsus was just out of the question, that left just one other person he knew with the resources and experience to help him. So he sent out a message; and then, he waited.

Queen's own English is bleeding. What is wrong with using something that actually communicates thoughts? Oh, 'idk', not having any? Thraen pushed his cell into the top of his cincher and set to a run-and-jump path. The University was home, Rome, and every road in Thraen's memory had a clear and rapid path back to that place. The grounds of the University he could navigate, probably, blind with no trouble of root, building, or step. Students were a problem no matter what. Thankfully it was close enough to midterms that they were unanimously not out of doors.

Eurydike's signature, a white moon basic flicker of regularity, was easy to hunt down. The Eternal of Garden's leapt from biology to dorm to dorm to eventually meet and match Eurydike's pace side-by-side. "How does the night find you?"

His face- what has happened indeed in the passing of time.

"Less dour than others."

" You've taken wounds and had them healed without word, since last we spoke. You are painted with new scars. " Whatever has been going on, I remain woefully uninformed. "What has marked you? If you feel up to speaking of it."

It was a strange pause of conversation between pieces of information— the matter or emotions both demanded and forbade asking what the price had been. ' I ain't about to open myself or T -' Has T— paid a terrible price? Or the faceless majority of other parents, siblings, children? Did someone die or worse while you walk scarred and still alive and finally understanding my explanations? Bitter lessons can sour a heart black if stirred uncautiously, though. No one ever asked me of my loss, so I never had to talk about it while it bled. Grief is as much not some side show to be poked and prodded for someone else's morbid curiosity.

But the price of silence is as often the assumption that 'no one cares'. It is a cleft stick.

"Are you alright, other than scars?"

"Meeting people is a step in the right direction. I'm glad to hear that much. And of patrolling with them? " Just saying hi, to other senshi and knights, to Penthe, is not actually acting on more than collecting business cards if you never use them, Eurydike. All the more on things even not just patrolling. Maybe not mincing, and stay straight to the point, with the support of the last points being now made experientially clear. "Hospitals are expensive, as is health insurance. Free of strings, do you need any help that way? You or your family? 'T-' you mentioned, once before. "

But it was important as much to let the other senshi know he was listening as much as questioning, and that Eurydike's own speech was acknowledged and offer open information back. "I have been healing. A General broke my arm and the cast is only recently off. My right arm is still weak, and the bone will be another year in fully repairing, according to medical science. "

An already naturally arched eyebrow lifted just a little higher, watching and listening to the shrug, the half-clammed, half-dismissive grunts and blushes on other accounts. "Geese and Gander have differing expectation then? What does it matter if I was or wasn't, by your own actions and words. There's a disconnect, Eurydike. "

"A lot of our lives is frustrating. There's a lot of us that are passive. We wait for others to contact us, and feel alone and unwanted because the others are waiting for exactly the same. We get angry in that, saying there's no family, when its just everyone being too afraid to be a bother to another to realize that its no bother at all. Its sometimes the only excuse to be found since everyone apparently needs an excuse to even talk to anyone else. Yes, it is difficult, painful, frustrating to be the one always having to reach out and touch others. To be the one making the calls. Like any relationship, where one partner is saddled always being the initiator of kisses. But without someone starting that, or even half seeing to it, even a handful of us, no connections will form and we'll all remain just as we are: isolated, bitter, alone, eventually wounded, dead, or corrupted. Or too jaded to power up ever again. "

'An' we got it covered, yeah, thanks.'- which says as clearly that no, you don't. And you resent me, apparently, for asking. How dare I. "How dare any of us ever try to help each other. " Thraen closed his eyes.

The Black Watch is dead. It's purpose pointless and dead even without a first flight. No one wants it. They want led by the hands, but don't want anyone to dare call themselves a leader. They want someone to tell them all the answers, but don't dare ask them to do anything about it.

What am I doing.

"I was alone. I often am, on account of my philosophies in this war, which make me no allies for patrols. I believe in killing, Eurydike. There is no one right or wrong that any man can say, no crystal ball that will tell us the outcomes of our actions, in a war such as this or any other. The debate over capital punishment is as old as the laws that declare it. The arguments are old whether execution, or lex talionis effectively deter criminals."

"Most other senshi and knights would rather civilian after civilian be robbed, wounded, terrorized, and scarred through and through, paid over and over for the chance of rehabilitating each servant of the Negaverse. Maybe they'll attest that they just don't know what they're doing, or that they haven't actualized other beings feelings as valid as their own. But the civilians still pay, night after night. Other senshi and knights pay. And none of the people who have told me I am wrong have ever been able to give an actual argument or account in debate of their own thoughts and philosophies. It's always just 'you're wrong because it's wrong.' "

"What I've found is that no proven murderer, or accomplice to murder, who is executed has ever killed again." Thraen opened his eyes, looking at Eurydike as though searching for something in his face. "It does not earn me patrol partners. Allies. Or even friends. I do what I do out of necessity, not bravado, pride or misunderstanding of what can happen. So I counsel others, who can, to do better. "

He smiles? Am I being entertaining? Is it entertaining how fractured and hopeless this all is? Or...apparently something of the devil may care? Reckless, heedless makes the charge; he struck fast to the road and was on his way. Arms crossed, closed stance. Offended, offput, defensive. This isn't going anywhere, as much as the first time. And now he's riling up about the war, instead of following the point. How do I get this back on track? He's like a train with no breaks and no turns.

"I appreciate that ...I suppose your intention is to say that you would not be adverse to teaming up in the future. " How to actualize the other man's good intentions while not insulting him was feeling more and more impossible. "I did not know that from our last conversation. But this all was an explanation- your tone was indignation that I was alone tonight. "

War is exactly the time, and killing an enemy precisely the moment, I would argue, that sentimentality must be considered. Every enemy is a life. We must understand what it is we are doing- taking- from the world. From another person. We must understand it and weigh it, every time. To take a life is vile, Eurydike, horrible necessity. We must not do so in vengeance. He sounds so much of fear and vengeance, but accepts no counsels. "Your heart runs fast and hot. "