Still couldn't quite wrap her head around it, to be honest.
Years later and Andronicus still found herself blown away by the expanse of the Uranus sands. The Sand Sea she called it, with the way the dunes shifted like waves when the winds kicked up. Some days, she wished the waves would swallow her whole, and calm her mind of all it's troubles. Much like today.
The top of the tower opened to the star filled Uranian sky. Opened was a relative statement; the domed glassed roof broke the starlight with thin bands of dark structural supports keeping the glass in tact. For all the destruction and ruin the rest of the tower was in, the pristine roof stood starkly out of place. The very top of the dome housed a slowly spinning symbol of Uranus. Its movement broke the sky occasionally; not quite fast enough to be a nuisance, yet not slow enough to be ignored. A reminder of the constant flow of the universe, she supposed. The constellations were the same as in Destiny City, but were so much harder to see for the tens of thousands of stars and nebulae filling the usually empty spaces. She lifted a hand as if to try to pluck a speck of light from the dark blue backdrop of sky, sighing when she could not.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been on her wonder. She didn't spend days upon days here, but after every class and rehearsal Andronicus came to her tower. Some days, she woke to the dawn light of the Uranus morning. Others, she was gone before the night's chill set in. She cleaned, she tried to decipher books, even once she tried conversing with the Code to little effect. The Squire wasn't sure what she was looking for, only that she could not find it among Destiny City.
Maybe she searched for an escape from the mundane. A wonder with no one in it didn't do much for that, though. She worried her lips in thought as she watched the faint outline of the planet's symbol spin above her. She struggled with it, the idea that she was nothing special and not destined for greatness. Andronicus always felt out of place in the 'mundane' world, longing for something greater and full of magic. Yet when it was handed to her, when she grabbed a mace out of thin air and became more than mundane, she rebelled against it. She sought herself a 'third path' something removed from the dichotomy of good and evil. Androncius fancied herself 'neutral' and 'rogue' but what had she ever actually done with it?
To protect Destiny City from itself. Hah. She thought herself a pariah, when all she was, was like every one else. She was simply mundane.
Perhaps it was out of a sense of duty the drew her to her wonder. Several days were spent moving sand from the lower floors and central staircase, repairing the broken windows as best she could with what resources she had. She used the rubble from the landings to patch up the holes in windows. A rather nice little rock garden outside the tower paid homage to her efforts as well. The landings themselves proved harder to repair. Turns out, even with the added strength of being a squire, sand stone is still really freaking heavy. Andronicus cleaned the landings as best she could, making them at least somewhat presentable and useable. She stopped fretting over the debris left eventually.
The archives took special care, as several tomes threatened to fall apart at the lightest touch. While not much to put away and organize, there was several inches of dust and sand on every shelf. Not all of it came away with a simple dusting either, forcing her to spend hours gently scrubbing shelves and books clean with brillo pads and plastic scrappers. By the time she finished - several long days and nights later - the archives wer cleaner than any room or apartment she'd ever lived in. The books she could not save found a burial within the sands of her tower, and those threatening to disintegrate found themselves placed in sealed plastic bags. Andronicus may not be able to read them, but perhaps some knight down the line would find them useful.
Of odd special note, she found a small stone idol on a leather cord, untouched by the dust and years. It was simply carved, in the shape of some sort of lizard? It seemed out of place in the archives, so she took it to the map room, leaving it on the large table.
The map room was easy to tidy up and organize. The oaken table received a good polishing, and most of the furniture was dusted and Febreezed for musk. The room was by far the easiest to handle, and held the most memories within it. Alexia spend most of her time within the room with her ser, the previous Knight who passed the Gale staff down to her. Andronicus learned scant little about what the staff did, or what else went on. The memories came few and far between the more she spent on the wonder. She wondered if it had something to do with her, and not the wonder itself.
Andronicus sighed softly, staring at the sky.
Was she waiting for greatness to drop into her lap, was that it? Waiting on the sidelines for interaction, waiting for someone or something to take notice of her… Waiting for her mundaneness to go away. The Code once told her that the world wasn't black and white, that her place in the war was what she made of it. Caedus - that was a name she hadn't thought of in months - said something of the same thing. The world would not hand her what she wanted on a platter; that wasn't how the world worked. What she wanted wasn't attainable, either. One person couldn't hold Chaos and Order within their starseed at the same time. One or the other won over eventually. Then… What? She was to sing the tune of Order until she died? She could theoretically find Xenotime and go "hey so changed my mind 'bout Order, let's get Negaversey with it" and make her memories of the future a reality. She could simply never power up again and turn a blind eye to the entire thing.
She could. It was tempting. It was very tempting.
Andronicus was many things. Squire, traitor, occasional lover, to name a few. She wasn't a coward though. Only once in the future had she taken the 'coward's' approach, and it had, admittedly, done well for her. A traitor to her kind in the future and present, Andronicus did what her morals told her to do. She protected those she cared about fiercely and stood against injustice when she needed to.
A flash of a memory flickered through her mind.
- The Knight of Andronicus was many things, but beholden to her princess was not one of them. Even her ser had his moments of rebellion, Alexia noted in various journals of his. What made Andronicus a successful knight of her people was that she focused on her people more than the duties to Uranus. Whether Uranian born or otherwise, she served the people all else. Even if it meant defying the Senshi of the system, or journeying to other planets and stars to do work, never once did the knights of Andronicus falter in their conviction.
Alexia stood on the sands of Mars, surrounded by her allies and Gale staff in hand. The hot sand stung her face as wind kicked up around them, the knights preparing for some sort of fight. She rode some sort of lizard creature, staff held aloft.
Even in the end, her allegiances were her own, and her convictions never wavering.
Wasn't Alexia the same…? Turning her duty from her Princess to a group of knights for the good of the Sol System, a 'traitor' to her people? It mattered not what powered her - it really didn't, and she finally felt herself accept it - but what she did with that power. Who cared what side she allied with as long as she was happy? Why was she so, so concerned with her damned power source that she missed the entire point of what she was?!
The squire bolted upright as the realization hit her.
She'd spent so long fretting over what ran through her veins and how to change it, she never stopped to assess who she was. She was Andronicus Squire of Uranus, yes but that beheld her to absolutely no one and nothing. Scholomance's words drifted back to her, long forgotten, then. The knights were not 'Order' not in the way the senshi were. Knight allied them with Order, yes, but that did not make them rightly 'Order'. They were disposed for good, yes, and most knights sided with Order by default but that did not mean she was, herself, 'Order'. Not if she didn't want to be.
Andronicus was neither Order nor Chaos, she was the 'gray' she kept reaching for. She was gray by stint of where she placed her morals and allegiances. She was gray by her choices in life, in what she did with her power. Renegade… renegade …
traitor, traitor traitor
So be it. Traitor, renegade, rogue she would be.
And damned if she was going to let her convictions falter this time.
[ WC: 1679 ]
