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It had been years since he'd used the old phone number- he actually doubted it would work. But the teen crisis hotline had once been the go to for contacting not just Astraea, (or rather, Luna), but Cosmos herself, even if she had long ago left behind Sidra Winters.

Still, Elzo made the phone call, smiling. He planned to track down the elusive cosmic guardian by any means, some less refined than others. In the end a call was a call, and a date was a date and a royal was but a royal who sat by himself on the outskirts of the city, wings folded behind him still missing a final few feathers as they kept reforming, healing after their brutal removal and subsequent prevention.

Here was an ideal location, remote, far from the eyes of Chaos and Order alike. No civilians, no buildings, here, was a small shred of safety where they might stand as near equals.

Here where he mind find the truths he'd hungered for after his stay on a wolrd doomed to die.

He had waited- and she's come. Part of him hadn't expected her to, but the other part of him had. She wouldn't ignore him, but she might not entertain him long.

"Cosmos, looking as lovely as ever. Seemingly also in better health than what was described to me of your last visit to earth." He said nothing of the failed invasion, the attempted strike to the heart of darkness as it were. Getting up to stand, he bowed to her at the waist. Perhaps the only being he'd do so with these days before the royal motioned to the grass.

"I had hoped we might discuss a few matters. I do not want to impose but would you spare me some of your time this evening?" He couldn't help it a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

"I won't keep you till morning- unless of course, you would desire otherwise." He finished with a wink. It had been years, and looking at her now, he couldn't see the same cosmos he once knew. A tiny part of his heart was saddened but- it had been inevitable. Sidra had been human, Cosmos was anything but.

"Moments I will have to savor then." He kept the smile up as she sat down, situating himself across from her and offering his cape as a form of covering. It was still cold and not quite free of winter's chill just yet.

"Trouble follows me as it has for the last 7 years. I find it, it follows me, we fight, kiss, make up, break up, rinse and repeat. Please, when is my life not full of trouble?" Wings fanned out to the ground, a black cloak that trailed behind him.

A weight pressed down on him, and his posture was tense while his words carried his typical humored tone. A coiled spring, he was glossing over the more serious topics he'd had.
"I had hoped you'd offer some clarity and insight to recent instances involving the negaverse. You effectively saved the foolhardy senshi and knights who rushed blindly into a place that would have been their grave. You had to have known the plan would fail." Blue eyes lost some of their sparkle.

"Your sudden willingness to take direct action aside? My guess is this- If we try to kill Metallia without protecting the agents from her, they will die along with her, wouldn't they? She would use their bond and take their lives to preserve herself." He let the question hang.
"The plan was doomed from the start. If not for us, but for countless lives that are nothing more than a monster's pawns."

Castor looked at Cosmos with eyes that said more then his words might. He had gone with them, but knowing well that victory would not come that day. He'd gone knowing the hard truth- he was very likely marching to his death. Sadness mixed to his gaze, he wished he could had had her there if only to have maybe inspired them, but as much as that might have comforted, he knew her position. She was the watcher.

"A bad decision- you honor us with such a light admonishment. Call it for what it was Cosmos. It was a mistake. An error that nearly cost us over 5 years of progress. It was sheep walking towards a slaughterhouse. We failed in our most sacred duty- to protect," Hands held one another in his lap, tightening.
"If I had been weaker, had I broken- Who would remain to protect those I hold dear? Who would be the one who would carry the ugly duty that is killing those who cannot we saved? Who would carry the sins of a self righteous mercy killing?" He forced a cynical smile. "Few are willing to do what I do Cosmos. I will never enjoy that part of me. The part of Castor, of Hail that can only destroy that which stands in it's path."

Anguish and guilt. Head bowed he breathed in then out. Cosmos might understand, but he suspected she would not care for his sentiments. There were larger matters than his fragile pride and self- criticisms.

"I have blood on my hands. I will die and the blood of my past sins will be reborn with me. True, death is not so terrible, but to say our newly born lives do not rise scarred is misleading. Our scars are only better hidden under the new skins we wear. A senshi is sworn to their world, to her people. We have lost that. Few will remember but those of us that do-" He shook his head.

"If we slay Metallia, could the senshi and knights who do not remember their people and worlds face the reality of so much death on their hands?" He looked at her. Not as simple Elzo the man who had been born also as Castor, but as Castor, the being who had chosen to remember his own death and had walked away regretting the knowledge that came with it.
Castor, once a Prince who had lead his people to wars and who had watched them die, powerless and helpless to stop it.

"Alkaid-" He began. "I remember her from when she was still human. Still whole. I loved her once in another life. I called her friend in others. Even now, as I know I must kill her, there is a fondest in my soul for her. But she is like the youma. Once she is gone- she is gone. Metallia's death will surely destroy her. Cosmos, as the keeper of the cauldron I must know, with certainty."

Breath. In and out. Eyes a mist blue of wishing for a chance, a single thread he might cling to.

"If we fail to kill Metallia, if we do not kill her, and risk those lives, risk those souls, starseeds, we risk everything." A pause as he finished. "We risk even the hope of being able to be reborn. The last race that may host us falling to the hunger of a creature that has no mercy for that which is."

"Are humans truly the last hope for us senshi to return?"

"And if we fail here and now Cosmos what life can we offer those meager hundred lives compared to the vast millions that will be consumed should those self righteous fools act recklessly once again?" He snapped at her.

"I do not like the thought of a soul being destroyed. Taken forever- But what good will saving a handful do us if millions, billions more end up with the same fate when Metallia consumes earth? I dwell on the what ifs Cosmos, because so few of them understand just what we're up against in the end. That they cannot recklessly dive into the enemy's gaping maw and expect to walk away again. What will happen next time they act Cosmos? Will you risk yourself once again to pull them from the brink." He scowled at her.
"You are Cosmos, ever watching, doing your best to not get involved, but if not for you getting involved and taking action, you know exactly how much different this conversation would be going."

He took a deep breath and let it out with a shudder. He was hail. Intense and violent. It wouldn't do him any good. It would... not help anyone.
"I am-" He slouched, taking off his laurels to hold them in his hands.

"I am sorry Sidra- Cosmos.I am sorry Cosmos." He corrected himself. "That was cruel and rude of me to say. We saved some but it is nothing more than a handful brought to use by luck and providence. I worry that few understand this. I worry about them. More than many of them perhaps will ever realize."

He fell into an uncharacteristic silence for a while, fingers tracing over the ice cold crystalline stones that formed his crown. The ultimate symbol of his status of royalty.

"If we fall, I expect what you're trying to say is our chances to ever recover will be marginal at best. The decked was stacked against us to start with but if we fall here, we will have all but a devil's gambit if we ever hope to stave off Chaos."

He matched her gaze.
"You do more than tend to the cauldron. You are a force of Balance. And off all beings, you see better than perhaps any other just how important it is that we stop the rise of Metallia, of Chaos here and now. But I would bet you also understand that this fight does not end with one lifetime. It will never end."

Castor smiled. It was fake, forced and trying to hide the pain in his heart.
"That is the curse of a royal. To remember that our fight will never end, no matter what life. We are forever bound to our worlds and our duty. Just as you are to the cauldron."

A beat.

"Sidra Winters- she was nice. I'm glad I knew her, even for a brief time."

"We are-" He had to take another breath. "I hate admitting it- but we need her, if just to give them no more excuses. They want a leader, but they do not want me." He knew why in many ways- "I never wanted to be a leader, not even when I was asked to be so long ago among the old senshi meetings we held in gymnasiums. You're so right in that I do focus on the what ifs but if I do not, who will? Who is left that can?"

He smiled at her though, broken and sorrowful as it one. "Thank you but do not be sorry for us. I promised her a world where we could be together. A life where we could be free. I was wrong is all. It was not to be this life. There might yet be others- that was my wish, my vow. It is in part why I fight. So one day that life will come, and we will be together and have our happiness." Hands ran over his finger fora moment. The ghostly action of a habit, of touching something that was no longer there.

"...If I told you that you are why I have not lost hope yet, would you believe me? That it is because you are still here, that you will still listen and answer me when I ask for you, that it is you who gives me hope? That despite all I do not know and might never know, that you, Cosmos have given me more hope than perhaps any other might? Do you believe in me still?"

"Is it flattery if it's true?" He leaned just a bit closer to wink at her.

"You give hope because you of all being are eternal in a way. Much like the cauldron itself. And while you deny what flattery I lay out your feet you lay it equally at mine." Castor paused once more, a softer gaze in him for a split second before a playful smile cracked over his face,

"It's true, I will always have a spotlight, but it is one I should share. To be honest-" a hand reached out.
"-it is a spotlight I would share if you if you'd have me."

Castor was someone who looked at a person with intensity. When he spoke, it was focused, pointed and often clear. Yet sometimes, he held back, waiting and biding until he felt that the person who he was sharing a conversation with could understand everything that he meant.

It was like a switch. Playful to serious, he was not jesting, we was not mincing just what his words would imply and the weight they might carry.
"I am asking you marry me." He sucked in his breath. "Not Sidra to Elzo, but Cosmos to Castor."

"You may not directly interfere, but you inspire hope. In times past hope came from Princesses and Princes and their unions and bonds. So why not marry me, and inspire hope in those who need it most."

She was not human really, and he doubted charm of his usual flair would have much an effect on her.
"It is not a spotlight, it is a comfort- to know you would stand beside us, to take the hand of one who would die before he would fall to Chaos. Marry me Cosmos."

Castor held his hand out to her.
"And give us a hope so many think beyond approach."