Welcome to Gaia! ::

Each night seemed a little colder than the next.

This one was particularly chilly, enough so that Aludra had taken a coat when leaving the house and it was now covering most of her Senshi clothes in plain brown, with only the her hood and her bright red boots on show.

She was crunching through leaves as she passed through the path, moving at a brisk walk, rather than her usual gravity defying leaps and bounds she usually preferred. She wasn’t in any hurry tonight. It wasn’t so much a patrol as a need for fresh, a sense of needing to be out here.

Chaos.

She could feel a presence nearby and every step she took was taking her closer. Aludra paused, waiting, watched her breath frosting in the air. When there was no immediate rush or attack, she started walking again, slow and tentative. She would be happy to talk, if they were.

The face she saw at the end of her path was an unexpected but familiar one.

“Amethyst,” she breathed out his name, couldn’t help but smile back at him. A part of her wanted to rush forward, hug him tight but it had been a long time. There was too many days between them, too many new experiences.

"It’s good to see you. I’ve been fine. And... you?"

The last time I saw you?

In the flesh or in a dream, she wondered but judging by how pale his face had become, it was probably a mixture of both. Aludra looked away, gripping her arms to her chest protectively, as if that would ward of the memories. She’d recovered from the shade attack, young enough to mentally hurdle over it without any trouble. It was the other one that ate away at her at night, the knowledge that in some nightmare future, she’d become everything she hated. All that blood, the madness and delight in pain.

“Of course I have.” She gave a resigned sigh, looking back at the man who should be her enemy. Even now she couldn’t bring herself to think of him that way. “I’ve been hurt a lot but I’m still not giving up. I’ll keep fighting.” That was all she could do.