Welcome to Gaia! ::

It turns out, there’s a lot of stuff to get together if you plan on setting up an expedition to another planet. Of course, it helps when it’s done at the push of a button instead of launching in a rocket…but still. Much to prepare.

Quietly, of course.

Not knowing what she’d find (apart from assurances that it wouldn’t be outright toxic to go there), she prepared a kit of some clothing items, a picnic (okay, perhaps it wasn’t the most serious of scientific expeditions), a great big hat (no telling how bright the sun might be), and a very small inflatable boat, along with a tiny outboard motor for it. Hefting that was going to be a bit of a challenge, mostly for the awkwardness of it all.

Once it was all sorted out, she brought it to her parents’ house one Friday afternoon. She chose that weekend because she knew Milo was off at school still, and her parents had just gone on some “business” trip that was taking them overseas for a week or two. And it was much easier to organize the supplies at their place than her tiny apartment. She laid out on the pool deck the supplies she’d chosen, carefully packed so it could all be picked up once they were ready to go.

And then she got in touch with her fellow explorer, and cat extraordinaire, Itsuki, giving him instructions on how to get to the place (or an offer to come get him if it was too much of a hardship). It was on the edge of town, just far enough that the fancy looking house was not wholly out of place with its perfectly manicured lawn and wrought iron fencing around it.

It happened that Hypatia had powered up shortly before Themisto arrived with Itsuki, as she needed the extra umph to pick something up easily. When she heard the cat calling out, she called back, "Come around back, just getting ready here..."

As Itsuki came into sight, she smiled and bowed to him playfully. "I'm glad you're ready for that, because I've got a few things here," she bumped a basket sitting on top of her wad of supplies that she had waiting to be lifted to go. "I think you'll approve." There was the vague smell of sealed away fish emanating from it--she figured she'd bring some seafood in case there wasn't actually fish for the cat to enjoy there.

"Anyway, I guess we should get going, then," she commented, pulling out her senshi phone, and found the 'app'. "I admit, I'm kinda excited to see what's there..."

Hypatia nodded, and closed her eyes, thinking, and trying to sort out exactly what this 'song' was...it took a minute, but she thought she felt something out there. It was less like a song, and more like a...feeling of drifting through a colorful, warm place.

Like a reef, really. Fancy that.

Her eyes opened again, and scooped up the remaining items. "Okay," she said, then repeated more definitively, "Okay. Let's do this." The button on her phone gets pushed and...

WOOSH.

Well. Not exactly. The sensation was a bit more...abstract than that. Like simultaneously standing on the back patio, on a distant shore, and nowhere at all.

Then the moment passed, and Caitlin and her fuzzy little companion were standing on what appeared to be a small, sandy island. Looking around in all directions, there was a massive expanse of water. Endless, blue water, with noticeable swells rolling slowly by.

The most striking thing at a first glance, to Caitlin at least, was actually the sky, which contained one absolutely massive ball of swirling colors and light...it wasn't too bright to look at, which was good as it dominated the sky in its blue and turquoise colors. Peaking out from one side of it was a blast of light that was undoubtedly the actual star of the system. She couldn't tell if it was "rising" or "setting" at this point, but figured they'd find out soon.

Once she'd gotten over the fact that she was looking up into the sky to see an entirely different planet (which, admittedly, took a couple minutes), her attention returned to the waters around them, and the little island. The island itself was pretty plain. A bit of sand mounded up, some bits of dried seaweed here and there, and...nothing else. The only sound was slowly lapping waves on the sand.

"Amazing," she finally said softly.


There was actually one point in the distance that she hadn't noticed yet (it was behind her, and she hadn't completely turned around) which contained something other than endless waves. There was, sticking out of the water some ways off a building of some kind. Several, in fact, although it wouldn't take long to realize that they were not in good condition, leaning as they were, at odd angles and most likely not looking anywhere near what they should appear to be.

The quiet marveling continued for a few minutes, while Itsuki got to work with his fishing setup. Hypatia actually missed the fact that her companion had changed forms at first, so enamored with slowly turning around to be amazed at the whole scene…and to stare up at a gas giant in the sky.

Eventually, though, she turned her attention to her traveling companion, starting off with, “I think there might…OH.” Her gaze had finally returned to Itsuki, and she blinked in surprise a moment before she laughed lightly. “So that’s what you look like! It’s a shame you’re so…” she paused, and lightly touched the side of her head with a finger, “hard to miss like that, because I like it.”

With a shrug, she unwrapped the awkward jumble of items she’d brought with them, showing the (deflated) boat, and a motor sticking out from the side. “I actually forgot a fishing pole, sorry, but I’ve got a mask and snorkel here,” she fished it up and presented it to Itsuki. “You can use it, if you want. I figured we could hop in my little boat here…” as she was speaking, she was shifting the thing to the shore, and at this moment she flipped a little switch and it started a soft whirring noise, as it gradually inflated. “Once it’s pumped up, of course. Maybe we’ll see something out from this little island a bit.”

“You might want to change clothes if you’re gonna go swimming as a human,” Hypatia remarked with a smirk. “I don’t think it’d be all that different, but I could teach you all the same…though,” she looked down at her bag of spare clothes and such, “I didn’t bring any boys’ swimwear.”

“Hmm, do you know if I’ll always return to this little island when using the teleport app?” she asked thoughtfully, as the boat was still inflating. “If so, then I should set up some stuff here…if not, well, might as well bring it along, right?” She shielded her eyes, and pointed in the direction of the structures poking out of the water in the distance. “Maybe try heading over to that thing…whatever it is. Or leave it for another day…might be safer to bring another collection of stuff along before going Tomb Raider.”

“Remember?” she echoed after a moment, and rubbed her chin. “Hmm…not…really, I think. It seems, you know, kind of familiar somehow, but how or what specifically, I dunno. Maybe it’ll come to me after a while?”

“No swimming?” Asked Hypatia with a small smirk. “Are you sure? I’m sure my spare swim suit would fit you well enough.” She had a bit of a mischievous streak now and then, it seemed…or perhaps it was that she just liked the idea of misgendered clothing? Entirely likely.

“But anyway,” she went on, airily dismissing the topic with a wave, “I think we can make it out that way on my boat. We should be fine…and if there are sharks that decide our boat is a tasty treat, I’ll protect you!” She held her arms up, fists clenched, and gave Itsuki a grinning display of (minimal, but magical after all) muscles.

After a moment of that, she put her arms back down, and shifted the boat into the water. “C’mon,” she said, and held a hand out to him. “Plenty of space for both of us in here, so hop in.”

Hypatia giggled lightly at the catboy’s excited antics, and got the little trawling motor started. It whirred with a soft hum and pushed their little boat along at a not terrifically impressive pace, but it did allow them to rather easily peer over the side and into the waters below.

It took a couple minutes to get away from the small island’s breakers, and then they were free to gaze down into the clear waters below. And clear they were…the bottom, with scattered rocks and other motionless shapes, was clearly visible in the light of the sun and giant planet above. The depth steadily increased as they moved further away, until it was perhaps 15 meters down.

The little boat was pointed in the direction of the strange ruins in the distance, and the relatively calm waters ensured that it was a fairly easy course to manage, so Hypatia spent most of the time peering down in.

One thing was readily apparent: Nothing was moving beneath the waves.

It was still beautiful to her, of course, but the apparent lack of life was more than a little sad. “Strange,” she mused after a time, “that there is so little life here…we can breathe, so I would think there’d be something down there…but I just see sand and rocks. You see anything?”

"Well," Hypatia said lightly, "This isn't a very big boat, you might've noticed." She gestured to it, and smiled some. The whole time Itsuki had been hanging off the side, she had situated herself rather far off the opposite side so the whole thing didn't topple over. That would have been pretty inconvenient.

"So we can just climb back in. And I've got a rope here," she patted the bag sitting by her feet, "so I can drag it around with me. I figure...powered up, I should be able to pull it easy, especially with these fins I've got. Just gotta...ditch the senshi shoes. High heels are evil, anyway."

She pulled off said shoes as she regarded Itsuki with a bit of a playful grin. "Now, my outfit should be fine in the water--I've tested that before--so I'll just stay powered up. But your nice clothes there will probably not appreciate it. Lucky thing I've got a change I'd brought for me buut...we're close enough to the same size."

She reached down into her bag of goodies, and after a moment of rummaging, pulled out a bright red ladies' one piece...luckily with a fairly open back, held together with a fabric cross. She looked at it, then eyed Itsuki. "Yeah, tail shouldn't be a problem with this!" She handed it to him, then busied herself with getting the swim fins she'd brought on her own feet.

"I'll hop down in the water so you don't have to get naked in front of me," she told him cheerfully. She didn't seem to be entertaining the idea that he might not like the clothing offered. In fact, she figured he probably wouldn't think anything of it, which was fine by her!