He had been putting this off for far, far too long. Almary knew he had a homeworld out there - one besides Earth - and he knew that it was possible to travel to it. But for some reason or another he simply... hadn't. He'd been too preoccupied with things far more present, far more grounded in his life as it had been, and so had simply never really gotten around to visiting the world he belonged to once upon a time. He knew... somewhat of what it would be like, once he did: empty, and sad, and dead. ...He probably should have brought Massalia or Subra with him so he wouldn't be going into this exploration alone, but Massalia wasn't doing well, and Subra was busy this weekend with something school or family related - what, Almary couldn't remember at the moment, and it probably didn't matter too much, anyway.

But when he decided on a whim to finally travel to Almary-the-world, he hadn't quite been prepared for just how intense that feeling of loss was. Nor, Almary thought as he looked around and very neary choked on the dust that rose into the air as he took a step forward, how dry it was. It wasn't supposed to be dry - while he knew that more on an intellectual level than instinctual, given his magic being tied to mud, there was still some lingering sensation that told him there should be a river here.

Not a fast-running one with clear water, but a slow, sleepy brown one, with soft eddies and patches of land rising up like brownish mounds through the watercourse, revealing the mud that the place. He could almost see it, as he looked around, noticing that he was in fact standing in the riverbed - would, if there were water here, be standing on one such exposed area right now. Then, for the briefest of moments, he did see it, and his gaze followed the water until it landed on a massive building that bridged the river from bank to bank, shiny and glossy and painted in a way that nearly concealed that it was made of the same mud from the river it rested over. And then he blinked, and there was only more dry riverbed, and what might be a crumbled structure where the building had been.

Well, there wasn't anything better to do but follow the old waterway until he reached what had once been the building he had seen. There was still a bridging structure, but its supports had broken long ago, and the body of the building rested on the dry riverbed. Other pieces lay here and there, and while still a decent walk away he could see that some walls still stood, and possibly even some rooms, but the paint was long gone and the whole thing blended into the soft brown of the dry riverbed and the lands around it. Almary frowned, and once he was close enough, he reached out to touch a patch of wall. His hand came away dusted with a light powder, and the chibi senshi wrinkled his nose and wiped it off on his shorts before climbing carefully onto a flat areaflooring.

Almary wasn't sure where he was going, exactly. The center of the building? Every building had to have a middle, after all. Climbing over a crumbled wall, wiggling around a support that jutted up through what had been the floor it held up over the water, and trying not to touch too much of the structure itself lest he raise even more of that dust into the still air, the blue-haired boy made his way deeper into the building. There were more rooms here than he had originally realized, what had once been twisting hallways and passages that seemed to lead nowhere - in fact, it was almost like a small town or a city crowded into one building. How many people had lived here, had ducked in and out of these rooms and slept above a slowly-meandering river?

... How many more had died?

It was a sobering thought, and one that Almary pushed out of his mind as he moved forward. Which was just aas well, because he kept thinking he heard things as he walked on. Voices whispering around him, laughter as he passed through one room that was - and had always been - open air on one side, providing a place for people to gather and take in the sun without ever having to leave the building. A gathering-place, and at one end he could see a raised area; a dais of some kind? Maybe this had been the building - the town... center?

Oh. Maybe this had been what he was looking for. Almary frowned and moved to inspect the dais, which was made out of the same baked mud as the rest of the building; how all of it held together mystified him, but he had heard of mud buildings on Earth so it couldn't be that strange. There were holes in the mud of the dais, four of them, placed in a square.... almost as though something had been placed in it, once.

He blinked, and for a moment he saw what had-been - a chair, carried and placed in with its occupant already seated. A throne. Not his, thank goodness, no, he knew that much, it... this was...

"Grandfather, please - you have to listen! The water level is lower than it's ever been, there are whispers the river may run dry, that the world itself has been cursed." His voice, though it didn't sound like his voice now. A little older, maybe? Far more tired. "The people are frightened, we cannot simply bury ourselves in the nearest mudbank and hope we wake up to a Renewal!"

He stood before the throne, dressed in uniform rather than the garb of his House, pleading with his peoples' ruler not as a potential heir but as the world's senshi, and glared daggers into the - may the river god forgive him - damn stubborn old coot's eyes. "I know there have been dry spells before, but Grandfather, it isn't only happening here. Every river is low! The headwaters aren't flowing; we have no choice but to seek aid!"

Almary backed away and the vision faded, leaving with it a sense of hollow, distant anger. Whatever had killed this place, he knew now, had begun with the water. And he had - he had seen. Had known? He frowned at the dais, wondering if the ruler he had been pleading with - his Grandfather? Had he remembered that right? - had listened to the warnings. But as he thought back to the severe face in the vision, the harsh golden eyes framed by silver-streaked dark hair... somehow, Almary had the feeling that plea had fallen on deaf ears.

Shivering faintly, he backed away and shook his head. He'd known it would be coming to a tomb, of sorts, to visit a world that had been dead for far longer than he had been alive, but - he hadn't been prepared for that tomb to come alive in his own mind. He wanted to go home, and go home now.

... But maybe he'd come back again sometime. And if he did, he'd bring water.

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