Welcome to Gaia! ::

She was running a bit late, as was usual. But what was she to do? There was a lot to be taken care of, still, and her duties and friendships as Scylla would always need to take a backburner to her duties as a sister, at least until everything was settled in and all eventualities considered. Jada could, however, bring a small 'whoops I'm late' gift, and she had selected it carefully before packing it away in the bag that went over her shoulder, along with her bottle of water.

Ida probably had all of the things on her planet that would be needed to promote an adventure, so she didn't concern herself with bringing any sacrificial snacks. Besides, she wasn't sure how long they would be there, and Ida was slim enough Jada wasn't certain that her sugary weakness would exactly be well-received, though she doubted she would be driven off for heresy.

It was nearing 7:15 when she made it to the meeting spot, she when she came into view of the other woman, the Senshi of Orchild was rocking on her feet back and forth, seemingly impatient. Whoops! "Thank you for waiting," she said cheerfully, as way of greeting. "Running a bit behind schedule today, but thought I'd be here a few minutes earlier. How are you, Ida?"

Scylla's eyes lit in response to Ida's warm, bright smile. The other senshi was particularly happy today. How could she herself do anything but let a little of the weight drain off, a relaxed smile coming to her red lips.

"Pretty good, I think," she replied, and there was a moment of hesitation to her- if she knew Ida better, or if this was Europe, she would have instantly moved into greeting range, leaned in for a simple hug. But this wasn't her strangely knit group of acquaintances in Europe, who called each other darling with dubious sincerity and pretended like they cared about each others' feelings. This was home, where... half the civilians she knew were probably negaverse agents, 10% of the other 50% would sell her out to the po-lice and the rest, well.

With a smile, Scylla swung her bag up carefully into a better grip. "Well, let's not waste any more time, then. I'm excited to get to see it, honestly. I haven't been many places other than my own homeworld, so I'm pretty excited myself. My own planet is kind of... murderous." she gave a one-shouldered shrug. "But still interesting."

Settling into life. Scylla knew her own face betrayed her own emotion on that subject- she knew far too well how family could be, She knew well enough that she'd spent time trying to demand it. Szelem may have mostly cared because of the connections she had sought through marrying her daughter to a wealthy bidder, but at least it had been care. "I've been away from Destiny City for a while," she said simply. "Settling in with my wards has been a bit of an experience."

Ida was very glad to be going home, and the enthusiasm was infectious as Scylla clasped her hand happily, soft palm brushing against palm, fingers instinctively offering to tangle as they did with family, with close friends. "I would hate to keep her waiting," Scylla chirped.

"And no, not foster kids. My half-siblings. Our mother passed away and I was the oldest, so I took them. Their father is... well. I wouldn't trust him to take care of a dog that bit me twice." in the moment between one breath and the next, the darkness was left behind and Jada was left blinking into light. Her eyes fluttered open as she inhaled, soaking in the warmth of the planet, eyes adjusting.

It really was a lovely planet- tall grass, perfect sky, unmarred by anything. She saw no clouds spiraling, no mountains spilling through the air, no hanging vines, no beaches. It was grass, and flowers, mountainous trees and flora, and it was... alien, in a way that sang to her. Not like Scylla, but it was the hum of an adventure, and as the other senshi swept her arm over the expanse, Jada let her hand fall from hers and bounced out ahead.

She tugged her hair back into a knot, deciding to enjoy the feel of the sun on her skin- Destiny City was in winter, and Jada had no plans to switch hemispheres anytime soon enough to revel in warm sun. She would have to enjoy this! "It's beautiful!" she said cheerfully, spinning in a wide circle, face tilting up towards the sky. "It is like.... Tolkien. Elves. So organic and just... tangled up with nature and just brilliant." she spun again, arms outstretched, before settling. "I can't wait for the tour." she scurried back to Ida's side, sliding her arm through the other senshi's happily. "Tour!"

It was places like this that made Jada glad she had few enough allergies. People who were allergic to everything almost certainly wouldn't have been able to enjoy the display, though it was likely that over the millennia Ida's people had figured out how to breed hypoallergenic flowers, or the like. or maybe allergies were a new thing, or maybe none of this mattered and she was just so overwhelmed she was going to avoid it all like it was her job to do so. (That was probably the correct answer.)

"Rooted in nature." Scylla's chortle was not malicious at all, and she followed her lovely companion happily, trusting the other woman to guide her steps while Scylla looked just about everywhere but at the ground where she was stepping. She looked off to left, to the right, she looked up and all around, her head practically spinning with interest and curiosity. She hadn't been to a planet that looked like this- the Surroundings just weren't the same, and she'd never been to a planet that wasn't Scylla. And Scylla was certainly a different feeling from this! Not in a good or a bad way, just in that her planet had been violent and deadly, and showed that death in its slumber; this world was just.... lively.

"What level of technology?" she asked with curiosity, content to follow where Ida led her. "Was it close to how we were on Earth at the time, or like we are now? Or was it closer to Mauvian technology? What is the Wishing Tree? I'm fine with a walk- if it gets too much I'll just kick off my shoes, it seems like the kind of garden you could happily walk through barefoot." Garden-- planet? Eh. She peered at the things pointed out to her with open curiosity, pausing near one flower that the woman pointed out to drop to her knees and poke at it with interest, watching the petals move as she gently blew over it.

"Healing, treating, and curing." Scylla repeated it with consideration. "There were a lot of diseases, I'm sure, spread out over the planets. You must have had your hands full. Did you get flora and fauna from all of the planets to try and seek out cures one planet may have had for another planet's ailments? Or just flora, or...?"

She had asked a lot of questions. Whoops.

She was happy to let the other senshi guide her path, even when there was a gentle tug away from the direction in which Scylla wanted to go. Such was life, after all, and perhaps there could be another time to enjoy the minutiae. Now was for the big tour, and Jada pulled violet eyes away with reluctance when she had to, and indulged where she could. It was easy to keep interested, when so many places she looked had something new and different from where she had been looking just the moment before. How many of the plants were medicinal? How many were inadvertent poison?

Carefully, Scylla followed Ida up the steps, idly tapping her fingertips lightly on the hand that led her wrist, feeling relaxed and comfortable here. It was a soothing planet, and the senshi seemed to be equally as relaxed in nature as the planet she protected. Or at least she was a better liar than Jada was. "Who knows what's in the grass should also also probably equate to 'please don't sniff everything without an epipen' honestly. It's a good point, until we're all more familiar with weird alien plants." it was kind of funny- until Ida had commented on that, she'd not even thought of the dangers of allergies or something.

The end of the steps had led them to a waiting room, and Scylla considered it, lips quirking. The doctor would be with you shortly. "The idea of that kind of technology is very interesting," she confessed with a smile, "I wish there was more we could do in terms of helping to bring it back. Spread it out. Especially with Ida focusing on illnesses, just imagine the things that might not even be a problem now. If your planet was more of a giant hospital planet, it is no wonder you had a spaceport." People would have wanted to come from all over, when they were sick. Or curious about medical science at all. Or really liked plants. "The people who wanted your help probably would have been happy to help maintain it."

The wishing tree made her smile. "The wishing tree sounds nice. Could have come in handy. Certainly had a placebo effect, I bet." How could it not? Hoping was a powerful motivator for healing, at least for humans. Mind over matter, and all that. "As for animals, that makes sense. I would think it could still make a demand for meat somewhat more scarce, too- were your people mostly vegetarians?" There were other questions, importing animals, questions on trade that Scylla wasn't sure she'd be able to answer for herself, so it wasn't fair to ask of Ida.

And up more stairs they went, higher and higher up. The colors were vibrant and lovely, but Jada was kind of wishing for an elevator. So too, she imagined, staring down the door-lined hallway, would the patients inside these doors, and the people who potentially needed to help them get there. Stepping in the door, she made her way down the hall, towards the first of the doors. "Knock knock," she said cheerfully, gently pushing the door open to peer inside.

She listened to the other woman with interest, nodding along to Ida's words. "I wonder if all the [planets were like that. Scylla didn't have much of a religion either." They hadn't worshiped the Great One as a god, really. But they had seen it as... something more powerful and dangerous than anything else they knew.

Not exactly the same thing as a tree, and the Kraken certainly hadn't been thought of to grant wishes, but there was nothing on Scylla that she so far remembered that understood that concept, or had embodied it. Children were not something families had to hope for, they were an inevitability; and wishes didn't keep your tribe from being slaughtered or eaten, training did.

Scylla, on the other hand, hadn't had automatic doors. Most parts of it didn't have any doors at all, actually. She'd not yet figured out how to get to the mountains that still floated, so she couldn't even compared the architecture. Couldn't compare smooth wood and quiet near-solid permanence to the bright colors of the town near the temple, inherently temporary and meant to bend in the face of sea storms and monsters.

She was enjoying the tour, a look into a world that she might have once seen, as Andromache; perhaps not. The former senshi had traveled much, when she was a slave, but where she had gone were gaps. And then there was Solon, after almost 12 years of pieces. She couldn't imagine a planet like Ida having much purpose for the mercenaries her world had produced, but the flora and fauna, perhaps the gems?

"I'm not afraid of heights, if you want to show me," she replied to the other woman, peering around the last set of rooms. A hint into who Ida had been, before they were the lovely woman guiding her through a strangely living dead world. "Are there videos on the computer? For hearing the language?"

She supposed it made sense; finding a video on an alien computer wouldn't logically be anywhere close to as easy as it was on TV or in the movies. Even if it was a friendly alien, finding something like that would be the kind of deus ex machina that tended to make the academy award writers boo-hiss. "I imagine there's a lot of stuff in there too, so just randomly clicking might take you nowhere. And that's assuming they recorded video the way we might on Earth. For all we know we're surrounded by holograms we can't even see because we view light on the wrong wavelength or something."

The senshi skipped forward to join Ida as the other senshi beckoned her. Together they rose up the stairs to the top, Scylla's bright eyes taking in the earthy beauty. It was fantastic- Scylla was nothing like this. It was a forest paradise here, and all at one with nature. Talk about environmentally friendly- yet they still had computers, and technology. Earth had nothing like this. Nothing even remotely close. And then- "Oh." she broke away from the other woman, practically bouncing her way over to the low railing, grabbing hold of it and testing it carefully before leaning out, to better see everything. It was fantastic, and from the top of the world...

"It feels like you could fly." and wouldn't it be a lovely view if she could? There was so much here, where her own world was water, and sand. There was probably a lot up in the mountains, but she hadn't landed herself among them recently, and she was almost consistently dumped within an hour's trip to the Temple. Life like this was probably quite far away, or buried under the waves.

When Ida spoke, she turned back around, eyes wide. "Oh," she breathed, shaking her head, "No, this- it's beautiful here. Thank you for inviting me to see it. I haven't been to many other homeworlds past my own and the Surroundings, so it's really an adventure. Scylla's just so... different, compared to this. I know how you feel about the emptiness, so..." she gave a nervous little half-shrug, a small smile. "If I can help give it a little more life, then I am glad to have helped. I'd love to return the favor sometime."