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 Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:14 am
Hyperborea was out on patrol when she felt a familiar aura. The aura of one of her fellow cosmos knights. Either Teide, Hver, or Sarras...or someone new. She thought. She decided to head towards it.
It didn’t take long for her to have her answer on who the owner of the cosmic aura. Hvergelmir. She thought happily. It’d had been a while since she had last seen the cosmos knight and their last encounter hadn’t been a happy one but she still considered the older woman an important friend.
“Salut, ma Biche! How have you been?” she asked as she hurried over to the older cosmos knight.Shazari Hvergelmir had, in the past, considered her role as a knight to be mostly an externally-facing one. Her job was in making connections with Negaverse agents, helping to reach positive accord with them and hopefully shake loose some of Metallia’s hold over their psyches. As a result, there had been a time when she’d considered the activities of senshi and knights under Order’s umbrella to be not really her business. Lately, though, things had changed a great deal. She’d become much more directly involved with the doings of her allies, trying to expand her ability to provide some sort of help and counsel not just to their enemies, but to other knights and senshi as well. As a result, where it used to only marginally bother her that anyone went out on patrol alone, now it was a constant niggling worry in her mind whenever it came up. You’re not safe, she always found herself thinking. And this isn’t emotionally healthy. You shouldn’t ever carry the burden of these experiences alone. It makes things harder for you.It concerned her, then, to feel the lonely glow of a single aura making its way through the city streets, and she followed it — but her concern only deepened further when she saw who that energy was radiating from. Hyperborea. Still alone after all this time. Are you punishing yourself? Or are you just too afraid to ask anyone else for help? Hvergelmir paused that thought in its tracks, reconsidering. Or too angry?She was a difficult case — much heavier and more complicated than Aegir — and one that Hvergelmir felt a personal stake in. Hyperborea was so young, and she had so clearly wanted to connect with her brother and sister Cosmos knights. It was hard not to feel involved with her troubles, as a knight. “Hyperborea!” she greeted, putting on her happiest smile. That was what Hvergelmir felt that the younger girl needed in her life, after all — a bit of sunshine to try and pierce through the dark clouds. A reminder that there could still be some happiness on the horizon. “I’m well! It’s been too long, really. How are you?”
“I’m doing ok. Would you mind if I join you for a bit?” She asked waiting for a response before walking with the older cosmos knight.
“So, I meet three more of our ilk: a squire named Bimini and two pages one named Verona and another named Odainsaker.” She said trying to start up a conversation.
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Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2015 5:06 pm
"You're always welcome to join me," Hvergelmir said, at ease with friendly conversation. "I'm glad to see you're well. I know how busy we all can get." The news of other Cosmos knights, unfamiliar names, was exciting and welcome. "I only know Verona, of those," she said. "She was very kind to me -- I hope we'll all be able to be close. Will you tell me about the others you met? Are they new, like Verona?"
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Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2015 5:40 pm
"Me too, we're all family in a way or at least I'd like to think we are."
"You've meet Verona as well, I'm glad. I was the first knight she met and I don't think I did a good job introducing her to our world, so I'm glad to hear she's doing alright now." She said a small sad smile on her face.
"Oddainsaker is new. When I found her a lieutenant was trying to take advantage of her and steal her star seed, I chased her off though. She was nice and seemed excited, she had never been to space so I took her to Hyperborea and then we went to her wonder." She said remembering the older girl. "She had pretty multi-colored hair, and her outfit was um....rather revealing." She said as her face went red remember the page's uniform.
"I don't think Bimini is new. He's alot older, I think he's like 30ish but he acts like a kid. He was really nice." She said smiling at the thought of her cosmos brother. "I met him when I helped him fight off a youma. He has healing magic and wears these long blue kimono robes. He's really big into video games and jokes. He's a good person but I don't think he thinks very highly of himself at least as a knight." she said shaking her head sadly.
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2015 9:31 am
Hvergelmir smiled encouragingly -- and it was deeply sincere. She'd been so worried about Hyperborea . . . but if the young squire was forming these kinds of positive connections with new knights -- letting people in, even a little -- that was a really good sign. She was, in the end, happier for Hyperborea's sake than she was for Verona or Odainnsaker or Bimini. Finding more knights from their own order was good -- but seeing this lost young girl reconnect with other people was better. "I'm glad Odainnsaker had you to introduce her to knighthood," she said. "It's so much easier with someone experienced who can help you out. You did really well to help her out." The subject of Bimini -- who Hyperborea didn't think was new -- was more interesting. She thought she'd have heard of another Cosmos knight by now. Had he, perhaps, not been powering up? Was it something to do with Hyperborea's supposition that he didn't think very highly of himself? "What makes you say that?" she asked curiously.
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2015 11:39 am
Hyperborea blushed a bit, but it was a good kind of blush. It felt nice to receive any kind of praise from someone she really respected like Hvergelmir. She gave a smile to her cosmos sister.
"Merci. I tried my best." She responded.
She thought for a second before responding to Hvergelmir's question. "Well, he seemed to think because he wasn't a good fighter or had offensive magic he was useless to the war. I mean he was making jokes about it, it wasn't like he seemed depressed. But it sounded to me like he thinks of himself as a useless knight and just uses humor to deflect. He called himself the 'cosmic joke' at one point." She finally said.
"I don't know it might be presumptuous of me to say that since I've only meet him twice." She responded thoughtfully.
"Oh I've also meet three royals. An order princess, Polaris of magnetism, and the prince and princess of the dark mirror, Remarque of puppetry and Leto of camouflage. Remarque even took me to mirror space after I showed him Hyperborea." She said shifting the topic.
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:25 pm
Hvergelmir frowned. "It's a hard thing, being in a war like this. Most of us aren't good at it -- but if we let that get us down, we're vulnerable to losing heart and losing hope. If you can, try to keep supporting him, okay? I'm sure the encouragement will help." The news of the new royals she took less enthusiastically. "I wasn't aware that Princess Polaris had come back to Destiny City," she said. "That's great news. But . . . " Her tone was wary. "How did you meet two of the royal senshi from the Dark Mirror Court?"
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:40 pm
Hyperborea nodded "I will. From what I can tell he's also friends with Camelot so hopefully he's helping him as well."
She wasn't really expect Hver's weary tone when she mentioned her encounters with the dark mirror royalty. "Well I just sort of ran into them on my patrols. I didn't get a chance to talk to princess Leto much, at the time I didn't even know she was a princess." A part of her wondered if it was a bad thing that she had talked to the dark mirror, but they had seemed friendly enough.
"But prince Remarque explained their court to me and revealed that he and Leto are royals. I know that they're chaos but they seem like good people and they aren't aligned with the negaverse anymore so I thought they could be allies of order if not in name then maybe at least in action." She explained
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Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 9:02 am
Hvergelmir shrugged. "We'll take help wherever we can get it," she said. "But we should be cautious when dealing with powerful forces we don't understand, and try to learn what we're getting involved with before we do. The members of the Dark Mirror Court may not be as hostile as the Negaverse, but they choose to serve Chaos, and to drain energy from innocent people to feed Chaos what it wants. There may be nothing harmful in their goal -- to go to space and try and repopulate -- but it's not a goal that makes sense. Senshi already can go to space, they don't need to work at it. It's only in joining the Dark Mirror Court that they lose that ability. Whatever they're trading their powers away for, it's not that. Why did he want to go to Hyperborea?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 10:57 am
Hyperborea looked at her feet feeling somewhat ashamed she hadn't thought about that. Of course they were chaos, even if their chaos wasn't as blatantly evil, it was still chaos and it still made them hurt people. "I'm sorry, you're right. But maybe if the war is ended they could be convinced to purify. Remarque said if he exhausted all chaos could give him he would purify. Um, I'm not entirely sure. He said that he wanted to see the stars from space, so I offered to show him Hyperborea since the stars are really pretty from my acropolis. Though once we got there it turned out my ancestor knew his past life, so the two spent most of the time talking, which eventually became a debate on the merits of order and chaos." She responded.
"I...." She was about to continue talking when she felt a sharp pain in her head that made her stop walking. Suddenly images flashed in her minds, horrible scenes. She saw herself clad in black and silver....killing people....innocents, senshi, and knight. She saw the world burning and Destiny City falling. She saw death and destruction, people she loved either corrupted or killed. And she saw herself betraying order, allowing herself to be corrupted. She saw herself turning on Hvergelmir and choosing to become a general. It felt real, too real to just be some weird hallucination.
Tears began to form in her eyes as the scenes played out before her. "What? What is this? No that's not me! I wouldn't do that!" She cried to no one in particular, shutting her eyes to try and make the images stop. Unintentionally backing away a step from Hvergelmir.
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Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 9:04 am
Hvergelmir would've been genuinely curious to hear what Prince Remarque was touting as the "benefits" of Chaos. Drawing their power from innocent people, rather than a connection to a planet? Traveling to some kind of mysterious mirror world instead of the homeworld they'd had before? It wasn't that she had anything against individual Dark Mirror senshi . . . it was just that she suspected Prince Remarque might be playing Hyperborea for a fool, taking advantage of her innocence and her trusting nature. She was too young to be taking strange men with Royal level magic back to her homeworld. Hvergelmir felt protective of her. "I'd love it if all the Dark Mirror senshi would choose purification," she said. "But if he believes he's getting superior powers from Chaos, that's not a good sign. Power, of all things, can be addictive -- and people find it a very hard thing to give up. They'll often find excuses to keep delaying -- " She paused, because something was wrong with Hyperborea all of a sudden. "Hyperborea?" she asked, alarmed. "I'm right here with you, sweetheart -- what's wrong? Tell me what's happening."
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Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2015 10:27 am
The visions came to an end and Hyperborea was left shaking as Hvergelmir spoke to her worriedly. "I...I saw something. It was like the end of the world. There were these giant holes opening up in the earth, and everyone was dying." She tried to explain it, though alot of what she had seen was still a jumble in her own mind.
"I saw myself, but I was older and....a general. I...I was killing people, knights and senshi." She hesitated before continuing. "I betrayed order, I turned on you. I don't understand though I wouldn't do that but...but why did it feel so real?" She was nearly in tears. "Oh God, Hver I'm so sorry!"
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 10:56 am
Hvergelmir felt her own heart skip a beat, hearing Hyperborea's stammered explanation. Her mouth went dry -- her tongue felt like a lead weight, all of a sudden. She knew those sorts of memories. She too, had envisioned the end of their world as they knew it. "Shhhh," she said, reaching out to lay a hand on Hyperborea's shoulder. "You're safe here. You have nothing to apologize for." Hvergelmir smiled sadly. "What you saw, a lot of us have been seeing. Those were visions of a possible future. Things that might happen." Her tone was firm, confident -- somehow she found that nowadays, after the initial shakiness of memory had past, it swept back out like a wave receding from shore: leaving only her convictions in its wake. " We won't let them." The fear had finally started to lose its bite, for Hvergelmir. Not so for Hyperborea. For her, the experience was new and fresh.
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Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2016 9:41 am
"A possible future?" She asked distressed. She horrified at that thought, what could possibly drive her to willingly corrupt.
"How, how can I stop it, if its possible?" She asked looking up at Hvergelmir. Her mind was racing, trying to think of solutions. She couldn't, wouldn't let this happen, she would never let herself fall to the Negaverse.
Her eyes fell on the mark the rested on Hvergelmir's shoulder, an oath. Perhaps that could save her. A promise like the one Hver made, an oath that would kill her if she fell to temptation.
"Hver, please...will you be a witness? I....I want to make an oath like you." She pleaded.
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2016 9:29 am
Hvergelmir could sense Hyperborea's urgency, her distress. Was that really the best state for the girl to make a big decision in? Wouldn't it be better to encourage her, for once, not to rush into things without thinking them over? Hyperborea was so keenly ruled by her feelings -- someday it might get her into more danger than she could survive. "A knight's oath is a very powerful thing," she said delicately. "You need to be certain of your wording. Certain of your convictions -- and of your motivations. You should always do your best to understand yourself before you go making promises to your Wonder."
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Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2016 7:51 am
Hyperborea took a breath and steadied herself. Hvergelmir was right it would be a bad idea to take an oath without thinking about her wording. She took a moment to think through her words.
"You're right but I know at least this much I don't want to become...that person I saw in those visions. I'd rather die than become her." She said a look of determination in her eyes.
She stepped back. "Code if you can hear me I'd like to make an oath: On my life and honor I swear to never willingly bend the knee to the Negaverse." She spoke to the sky.
The squire of Cosmos shimmered with light before it focused in on her right eye as the light carved her wonder's symbol, the three star infinity symbol, into her iris. She felt a sharp pain as she grabbed at her eye, she hadn't expected that pain. But the pain soon faded away and she was left with a brand set in her right eye, a symbol of her new resolve.
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