Welcome to Gaia! ::

Babel knew her limits, or liked to think she did; even though she would admit there was little art to dropping Babel for Sunny as soon as an aura began to show interest in her, there was a certain radius she liked to be within for enemies, if said enemies weren't moving any which way. There was information to be gained by observation, if she could see them, if she could hear them. What more did she need? She didn't know their names, but sometimes she caught glimpses of telltale black uniforms, and she was Not-Babel as boots raced by on the rooftop above. It was good, to be safe.

Sometimes, though, she wanted more. There had been little intent to donning the Saturnian mantle here, except to test her physical limits, to play it a little risky when she'd seen enough agents - felt enough auras - to know this place was not safe as often as she would have liked. But this was for what she didn't like. The General - Babel bit her lip, trying to focus, trying to think of it as a radar - close, but not; above? Sewer-treks she was happy to avoid, but - twenty-five stories up. That was a considerable amount, for someone who couldn't spend magic to stop a fall, who would almost certainly die if she couldn't catch a windowsill with one hand.
A hundred and fifty feet to land is a lethal drop for almost anyone. A hundred and fifty feet is usually ten to fifteen stories. Babel squinted, again, at the tall building in front of her and fancied she could see the mysterious General at the top; but it was dark, too dark to see that high, even if she'd been staring at the same spot in daytime. Aaaaand that's twenty-five stories. Good to know this is one of those stories that makes me sound like I have a death wish if it ever gets told to anyone. I'm getting a lot of those.

It took time (minutes at most, but it felt longer) for Babel to make her way to the closest rooftop, not quite the same height but close enough to it that a fall would be just the same when it came down to the odds of living. The General was - she'd never seen anyone quite like him, she supposed; it was rare to see someone of that height, and even rarer to pair it with that kind of bulk. All she could manage was an aesthetic appreciation.

The appreciation did not lend itself to the beast readying itself to his side. Babel put her hands up, bracelet sliding halfway down her forearm, eyes wide and her braid like pale gold with what light made its way behind her. "I'm really not interested in fighting you, so -" she swallowed (I am so going to die, this was a stupid idea, I can't believe this is how I'm going to die and I would have liked a cute girl to be here at least) - "So, um. Could you please not sic your youma on me. I don't mean any harm, I promise."

Babel swallowed down the nervous laughter bubbling up into her throat, very much aware of how suddenly small she felt, of how fragile the body was under unexpected duress. Never a poor impression if she could avoid it, but sometimes people were hard to read when she didn't know what they wanted; reading people was too hard already, and she wasn't much good at doing anything but smiling.

She smiled anyways. That much was routine. It came easy, now.

"I've never met someone of your level, actually." Who calls them levels? They're ranks. Call them ******** ranks, you vapid idiot. Her smile twitched a little, strained at the edges for a fraction of the second. God, I'm stupid. "So I was curious about how you got to this point! Your history with the uniform, that sort of thing. And what kind of powers it conveys, too, if that's okay?"

Babel startled when Titanlåvenite moved to her rooftop, eyes wide, a tremor in her stance - but for all that she still kept still, overall, not breaking to flinch and run. (Not that she could run, now, even if she wanted; she would die, torn and broken one way or another, the difference only being between touch and the hard concrete. Babel quieted those thoughts before they could run rampant again.) Silence, scattered rambling; maybe it all came back to mythos, but she wasn't one to know. She raised her palm in mimickry, resettling herself.

"On oath, Babel of Saturn swears to only speech and no act of war." The second part felt unnecessary. Even if she wanted to, what would she do with a bracelet? "My title name -- Babel, Page of Saturn." Her lip curled at 'Saturn', in disgust, in annoyance.

"I do have my ring, yes." The natural urge was to be contemptuous for the following line, because Babel hated it, she was disgusted by it - but it didn't fit any play she could make, would make, so instead she settled for polite bitterness. "Apparently I'm the only one who finds it uncomfortable, to pledge life and loyalty to something millenia-old defying science and knowledge - I haven't brought it up to others. They treat it like it's something to be proud of, that they can't understand where their strength comes from. We're all, um - kin but not kind, I guess, would be the way to put it?"

She was afraid of him, was hardly hiding the fact, but it was the sort of fear someone who had never seen real bloodshed or battle possessed - threaded through with fascination, curiosity, wonder.

"My impulse control is normally better than running to go meet people who could very easily kill me," Babel offered as half-an-apology, knowing it wasn't one and knowing it wasn't an explanation either. "It just feels wrong, on some level, that - that, what, a thousand years ago we lost a galaxy's-worth of civilizations and nobody would have ever known a single thing except for teenagers and their magical powers in this city? You shouldn't be able to breathe on Saturn. If I've ever wanted to pledge my life and loyalty to anything - it'd be the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and by those standards, this is just..."

The Page fiddled with her bracelet, taking a breath, disconcerted in a way she had no way to explain. "All of it upturns everything I'm supposed to know, and everyone is content to let it be a secret war, like it makes sense that way - like any of it makes any sense at all. I don't want any fellowship with someone who just accepts these things, like our lives are some sort of spellbound story."

The face she made was pointedly, childishly petulant. "It wouldn't do anything - there's no way nobody's yet to try and prove any of this to authorities. And it's still as big a mystery as ever, so clearly that didn't work." And I'm just one person. I don't want that kind of stress or attention. But those were selfish thoughts, unkind thoughts, so Babel didn't verbalize them. She had a type of person to be, and deviating from that would be impolite, improper - she wouldn't do it.

(Couldn't would have been the wrong word, for it. She could. But there was so much context attached to it that she never felt brave enough.)

"Given politics, how much of a difference is it? I haven't met any of you who go down on bended knee to regale me with tales of your queen; without this meeting I wouldn't have known you had one." The contemplation was legitimate, but so was the bitterness. "What else can I do, in the end? Everyone has their own brand of escapism. This is mine, even if it's a bad one."

He wasn't wrong. She had nothing to say to that - he wasn't wrong, and all she'd accomplished was embarrassing herself, in front of someone who could have so easily killed her -- Babel wasn't the type to flush in shame, at least, so she had that much dignity left. However little it was worth. (It was worth so, so very little, because she knew herself and she knew what she would give up to live - and she knew how shameful those depths were to everyone else, so of course they were shameful to her too.)

"...Have a good night, General - " a second to pause, to make sure she would say it right - "Titanlåvenite, and thank you for your time." It was all rote and pointless, but she kept to it, backing up as she watched him go.

It was just -

Many walk into the dark with open eyes.

She had something to think about, at least.