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In the normal course of things, Destiny City's theater district was not a hotbed of Negaverse or Dark Mirror Court activity. While youma were drawn to human populations and occasionally wandered that far into the heart of the city before being noticed, the more discerning minds of agents and senshi knew better than to avoid people in large groups. Aside that, this area was fairly well-patrolled: Aegir and Hvergelmir were not the only ones to call this particular beat 'home,' and it was an easy place to patrol in costume without attracting that much attention. As a result, the theater district stayed fairly safe.

It was unusual, then, whenever Hvergelmir sensed an agent's aura in this vicinity. Unusual, and she always investigated.

It had been a truly worrying number of months since she'd seen Schreibersite here, long ago -- and when she'd been taken captive by the Negaverse, Hvergelmir hadn't been able to get Buddingtonite to give a peep about what had happened to him.

Was he safe? Had he, simple and gentle-minded as he was, proven too much of a liability for their ranks?

She always looked for him. It was too upsetting to think what the likely answer was.

Hvergelmir followed the aura closer, finally coming to a stop at the entrance to an alleyway, a space between two large theaters. She squinted down into the darkness, hoping to catch a glimpse of a costume. There was a captain here, somewhere.

"Hello?" she called out softly into the dark. "Is someone there? I won't hurt you."

Oh. Oh.

Hvergelmir's heart felt like it lifted and sank at the same time: a strange, queasy flop. She knew this man, though not in this uniform. She knew the answer to the first of her two questions -- how he had come to join the Negaverse -- and had seen it for herself. She'd been there and done nothing for him, saving one of her own instead. It was painful and relieving to see him -- alive and whole, but corrupted. Chained to Chaos.

She put her hand in his without reservation. "Hvergelmir of the Cosmos. I'm so sorry for what was done to you. How are you faring?"

Hvergelmir shook her head. "Any age," she said tiredly, "is far too young for that. Hers. Yours. Mine." It was an ugly topic, and one that had haunted her thoughts ever since she'd awakened to her powers as a knight. How young she'd been, then. How very much young Tara was, years before -- when whatever had happened at Barren Pines that Tara wouldn't talk about had happened. When life had become too big, too dangerous, and too impossibly cruel for her to deserve. "This war is being fought by people too young to measure the weight of it on their shoulders, on both sides. It's not just the children and young teenagers -- it's most of us, and more on both sides every day. Seventeen is still too young to have seen very much of life. Nineteen is, twenty-four is. I don't like to normalize that. You deserved better -- not just her. You're very young to have been signed up for a life time of servitude."

She tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "Is this free time, for you? Are you at liberty, or is this a working outing?"

It was painful, to see someone who'd suffered so much already be so miserable, and still so self-sacrificing. Hvergelmir wished, once again, that she'd been able to do something for the poor boy to prevent any of this from happening to him. It was more sorrow than anyone ought to have to face -- being someone else's slave. Fearing the crack of their whip at any moment.

"There's nothing to regret," she answered with a gentle shake of her head. "You didn't do anything to deserve what happened to you. Your life has value, too."

Hvergelmir reached out to lay a bracing hand on his shoulder, just for a moment. Sometimes human contact made such a difference. He was tall, though, so it was a bit of a task. "It's okay to try to protect yourself. Life is such a gift -- wanting to hang onto it is a valid feeling."

She slid her hand back down, to fold it with the other one over her stomach. "If you ever need energy for your quota, I'll give you what I can. I'm around here fairly often, myself. It's easy to get around, even in uniform."

Hvergelmir listened while Ploutonion defended the idea that he'd deserved what happened to him, that he shouldn't have tried to fight it. That he'd been selfish. She listened -- and shook her head all the while, slow and steady.

"No," she told him gently. "Hush. None of that deserves your shame. Curiosity is one of our best qualities -- critical thinking is one of man's most noble pursuits. I promise you I've spoken to many Negaverse officers, and I've never deserved to have my free will taken from me."

If her eyes were sorrowful, watching him, it was because he was painful to see. With Dionysia, there was a kind of savage grief behind his eyes -- a terror and a loss that clawed at his heart from the inside, covered over with a thick layer of numbness that protected him where he was wounded, tough like a scab or a scar. With Ploutonion, it was different: he worried at his pain, keeping it fresh -- picking the scab to let it fester, sucking air through the cavity so it stung. He had mournful eyes that spoke volumes, that said he drove swords into himself, and each blade was etched with the words You deserved it.

All he deserved was relief.

"Defeatist thinking is never productive -- only painful," she cautioned. "When we fail, we all look back on the past and chide ourselves for the cost of trying. That serves nothing, except to make us fearful of trying anything else. The moment someone convinces you you can't be trusted with your own free will, they've taken it from you." She frowned. "You're far too important to give away."

Hvergelmir raised an eyebrow, her smile wry. "Is it? I'd argue that killing strangers for largely unknown reasons is an interesting choice, personally -- but that's what you all go out and do every day without a second thought. I don't think there's anything really interesting about talking to people I'm in conflict with at all. It seems to me like the most obvious, logical course of action in the world." She lifted a hand to her arm, pointing to the rainbow-glitter mark on her left arm. "This seal marks my oath not to raise arms against any Negaverse officer while your army fights for the sake of defending the Earth from alien conquest. I'm not interested in being dragged into a war with an enemy whose cause I have no quarrel with. Too many of the Negaverse's soldiers are people like you -- people who wouldn't fight if peace was an option."

To the rest of it -- to his very heartbreaking question of why his free will mattered to her -- the answer was simpler. It was a truth that ran so deeply, she didn't have to give it thought. "Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. How can your free will not matter to me? That shouldn't even be a question."

Here, Hvergelmir's eyes turned a little keen. Not with discernment or mistrust, but with something much more inward -- a sharper note of conviction than the bedrock of her ideals she'd already shown, something sidelong and personal. "Many people think a lot of things about what I do or don't do," she dismissed his comment. "I'd be holding my own free will pretty cheaply if I didn't use it to think for myself. Let them judge." Her shrug set the matter to rest.

"I'm sorry there aren't more people around you to care about you. That makes it hard. I don't know what they've explained to you, but this -- " Hvergelmir reached out to smooth her hand over his heart, as she had with Titan so very long ago -- but Ploutonion's hand was bare, and it seemed like an inappropriate liberty, so she drew her hand back, blushing -- and settled her fingers against her own breast instead. "The Chaos in your starseed -- they say it changes you. Makes your heart harder, colder. Bends you to its will. You might feel the loss more closely, otherwise -- I can't say."