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Skeiðbrimir bristled the spines along its legs, then muzzle and head, follow by a shaking from snout to tail that held firm only where its General’s weight kept the corrupt meat and fur pinned down. To ride was to be just south its shoulders while it lumbered at pace and leap along the pavement. Titan noted the bear-thing glanced often at reflections that chased them—parked cars were their own midnight mirrors. To Metallia maybe we are like two circus bears in a fun-house.

Every circus had stages, had this city, and they were expected to perform. With no direct lieutenants or captains of his own, he was free as a General to roam and take quota deliveries of energy balls and starseeds at need, ferry officers, freely hunt enemies and protect other officers who were about the city. Learning Skeiðbrimir’s foibles outside of the Cathedral or the Rift was proving a necessity of that, as they had slowed to a walk, then a stop, in front of a particularly reflective, darkened display window of a restaurant in the core of downtown. The youma grunted at it, and shuffled it’s paws. Titan climbed down from the great back and ruffled the pile of the shoulder fur and spikes, “Do you like, or dislike your reflection? Or mine? “

“Or is it unexpected?”

Skeiðbrimir made a drawn out moaning noise and drooled some on the sidewalk while still eyeing their faces that overlapped chairs upside-down on tables. To the General, it sounded like unease and unfamiliarity. There was something like words in the feral thing’s voice, but not to any language he was familiar with. It was as likely some virtue of their growing bond and “because magic” as any other reason for any part of their ability to understand one another. Or mutual experience: There weren’t many mirrors, or much glass. There was the crystal, but it glowed. Glowing light within isn’t reflecting what’s outside it. And Stone. Stone on stone and poison unwater. I did not see reflections down in the Rift where we met. That might be too much like a self down there.

The brilliant bonfire of an aura woke and drew both their eyes away from the glass and out to the roads and turnings beyond. There was a labyrinth of blocks to guess at between them, but the aura was hale and heartful as his own, oppositional, near enough to overlap and feel each other and a star. Eternal Senshi, but will it run, vanish, or come nearer?

“We walk. Keep an eye up, they like rooves.”

The youma clicked its teeth together, and tongue against them, and fell into an easy pace beside him to start closing the distance.

Lights, it had been aurora lights. It was the one that had brought water during captivity now two years passed. Had he worn the diamond-backed skin that long already? The little one that has said ‘wait here’ in his nervousness to someone who was bound in ropes. “The little noble, Southern Lights. Of the Jotnar. Þrymr, but you say it a little differently. ”

Titanlåvenite had not seen the Northern Lights at Lofoten in years. Björn had not been to Sweden or to Norway in years. “It is Titanlåvenite, but you can still use Titan as before. It is not Captain, now.”

The Senshi could no doubt feel that on his own, but it was worth keeping the conversation going. He paused when the senshi did, pat-patting the neck of the Youma and it too stopped. Drool started dripping out of its mouth, puddling, while it looked at the small senshi. “It has been a long time in this war. It is good to see you are still alive. ”

“Happiness and horror do not live in the same house, “ The words came out deep, distracted in a way as though they chased no longer memories, but the shadows of memories. To be well must mean to feel safe, happy, content, and settled? There were moments of undoubted euphoria, but that seemed different. The miasma of threat, duty, need, and thirst was pervasive. “This is Skeiðbrimir. It is doing well, and likes our jaunts in the city. “

“Are you doing well, Little Noble? To be alive and to be well are very different. And you still have no companion next to you, like I saw you last. Maybe no one else would have fit in that cell, though. The street is much kinder with space, ja?“

‘Returned to Earth’ was pretty plain in meaning, but where he’d been that wasn’t Earth wasn’t immediately grasped. ‘Space’ could have been a sky-full of places. It was everything not Earth the way a man’s whole world became a ship to the open sea. It cold be to his own or some others homeworld. Or where knights went. Maybe there were other places, too. “I went to a senshi world long ago. ‘They are all ruined, ‘ I have heard said. It is glad it was not deadly to you. What did you hope for?”

Zinkenite had known Pomona, had advised him on talking with Avior. That one had gone with the Prince Remarque, rather than to the Sovereigns. It had been a long time since he’d spoken with any of the the three of them. Zinkenite had been clear in his impressions of the senshi worlds, though.

“Hope and fear are hard to find and hard to escape. “

Looking for signs, for guidance, was a wish the General could related to intimately. Little Thrymr had the learning and advantages of caste on his side, but youth… did not nobles look to their kings and queens, too? Or to their churches, gods, and fates in the face of war, starvation and sickness? They did not always choose right. Friends and advisers would not be found on dead places in space, though, and they were the most real, tangible forms of guidance to be found anymore. Where are Odin’s Halls, or his dreams? Where is God, with starseeds and Metallia and alien worlds where people used to be. Were they human? Were they like the starcats? What did they believe. They all died out there and nothing answered.

“Do you believe in gods, Little Noble? Why is hope alone in space?”

“Sometimes it is. Sometimes that’s when we drown.” The general considered the shadows that crept up the legs and hid along the sides of the senshi where streetlamps couldn’t reach. It was easy for the black to sneak up and drown out color. Sometimes it didn’t even have to sneak. “—The gods like fairy-tales. I liked the Norse ones better. I do not think for believing. No matches to what we live. Nothing like starseeds, or stars in the sky with palaces and many nobles. Nothing like the christian god, either. No angels or prayers. “

“You do not look like you found hope being alone. Even if it was necessary. You’ll need some color soon. People and living voices, and the hope of company. Company not all black, like me. As much as I, or any of the throne, can offer you the black again and again. You know to be careful? That we do not have to ask?”

“We are all lucky—finding is easy as walking towards what feels like you, Little Noble. At least there are not so many who wear all black. And not my size.” It should keep him safer from the worst of the Throne. And safer from notions that he’d be less lonely in the Negaverse. He couldn’t think of a memory where any group of senshi, knights, officers or otherwise had functioned as a cohesive, close knit unit. And he’d certainly not seen any instances of joshing around and smiling, but that was expected for either being out to harvest or battle.

“Maybe then your own colors can reach your eyes. You wear many, but you do not reflect them anymore. Maybe you visited the black between the stars, instead of your star, little noble. “ Skeiðbrimir lowed, and drooled copiously onto the pave. The youma pawed once, lightly, wondering when food would be found if this particular senshi was going to be designated Not Food tonight.

“Dawn chases shadows soon, but it will reflect you better...rose and orange and white. If you wander the streets much more. We should return to the deeper dark.”

No, there should definitely be less that have my heart. Less that do what I do, whatever side of all this. And none my stupid head. It was Titan’s turn for his mouth to go wry. Still, he gave a slow nod of respect to the little one. “Rest well, when sleep takes you. And with a glass of water. “

With that, the general lifted his hand to pat the youma-bear-thing, leave his hand there on it’s shoulder as a guide and leash of sort, and turned to walk back into the anonymity of the city.