Welcome to Gaia! ::

The text had been somewhat unexpected, but was met with eager excitement from its recipient, and within minutes of Toren's text, he had a reply from her, agreeing to join him for a patrol. After the kids were all tucked safely in bed, she slipped out, henshin pen tucked into her boot until they were ready to actually go.

"Hello," she called a bright greeting to her friend- because that was what she thought they were, however subdued he might yet be on the matter- and stretched out an arm in greeting to him. One day he might swoop in for a hug, after all. She remained optimistic in that regard. (She liked hugs. They didn't fix anything, but they made life easier.)

She hopped up on the wall next to where he stood, wriggly fingers claiming the hot cocoa and taking a happy sip. "Thank you for thinking of me," Jada told him, and her eyes were warm and open, "it'll be nice to get out and about. Where were you thinking we should head?"

He reached out, taking her hand, and Jada rewarded his grip with a squeeze, pleased, even as stiff as it felt. One willing touch at a time, until she could manage hugs! It was what she'd done with Caedus- it would surely work on Toren too, right? She hoped so- the senshi of the Kraken loved her friends, and loved her hugs too.

She leaned in, tapping his cup with her own when he saluted her, eyes still happy and bright. "I like cocoa and I like hanging out with you, so it's a win-win and no complaints from me!" she pulled it in towards her face, inhaling the rich smell of chocolate and thinking about how cocoa had become just... a staple. Every time she thought of cocoa, really, she thought of Wolframite, and Gevaudan. Good, bad, and ugly.

Her head tilted attentively when he began his hesitant suggestion, ears open- and her face brightened even more when it finally came out. "That sounds great!" the enthusiasm was real, and her feet kicked out in delight, as she took a sip of her drink. "I haven't been visiting enough places, seeing yours looks like a great time." her voice was a bit loud, but her phrasing was carefully non-specific. "We can always go for a loop or two around the block after, or we have another patrol evening already set up."

No, she wasn't bouncing in excitement, he was. Clearly. "I'm ready whenever you want to go." How exciting!!

He extended his hand to her, and Jada reached out to grab it, wrapping her fingers firmly around it and pressing her fingertips into his palm. "Not hot chocolate," she said with a grin, "but probably a few more shots of espresso than are strictly healthy. You're welcome to babysit, you know, if you're ever trying to remember why raising little people is a bad idea."

Though- Toren had a husband, didn't he? Maybe raising little people wouldn't be in the picture for a while, but- "I would equate their energy level to a very, very large puppy that isn't potty trained and can talk, but I imagine that still isn't the most accurate of assessments." And certainly not fair to the talking, untrained puppy in question.

She slid back off the wall, shaking her head and settling her cup where she had been sitting, pulling her henshin pen out of her boot and powering up to join him, probably quite unnecessarily. She was more than certain any little tricks the old building might have up its (proverbial) sleeve were more than able to be compensated for by Gev, but... she lifted her cocoa back up, squeezing his hand and giving him a tongue-in-cheek grin. "I get enough island paradise visiting Scylla. It will be nice to see something different." Even if it was war-torn and scarred, it would still be another piece of the big puzzle that was space.

She had left Earth before. She had seen the Surroundings, the wonder of Celsus, the massive gardens of Ida. Not as many places as she would have liked to see, but enough that she thought she'd have a reasonable expectation set of no expectations. Despite that, Scylla's grip tightened on Gevaudan's as the world around her shifted, cement and trees dissolving into cobblestones and dessicated plant growth, wrought iron and haunted statues. It was haunted, and it was beautiful, once. Now it was... heart-wrenching. She understood now, what he had meant when he said his wonder had been through a lot.

Even now, the wind howled through empty streets, mournful and longing. It's okay though, she thought, reaching out to brush her fingertips over the brittle, crumbling leaf of a plant, Your knight is home now. You can heal. With love and time it would revive, like Scylla had, and shimmer again. not the same, but different. Now was the time for hope. Wasn't it?

Scylla squeezed his hand tightly, for a moment, letting the Knight guide her carefully through the town, keeping an eye on stones that crumbled under her heels, threatening her ankles, but in vain. "Were the wings decorative, do you know? Or did people here actually have... wings?" The stairs were as unsafe as he had indicated, and it took her a moment to realize some of the piles were... bones. Dust? The the carriage- as they drew near and pushed closer to him as she stared at it in morbid fascination- there were no bones, but the way the bridles just... lay there... "Is the whole town your wonder, or is the church the source?" Scylla wasn't sure how it worked- maybe the church just held his... what did they call it? A codex? Or maybe this was all just a setting for the church, which was, in itself, the wonder.

The wings of senshi- it made a kind of sense, in an abstract sense. The senshi were integral to the planets themselves- it made sense that some cultures, led and ruled by their senshi, would turn to idolizing it, especially in the upper classes. Like nobility, who wanted to emulate kings and queens, and fly close to the sun on which the prosperity of their entire world hinged.

At the top of the church stairs, Scylla turned again, gazing out over the still, haunted town. It felt different to her than Scylla did- she'd had the village at the base of the Temple, but that village had just felt... empty, when she first arrived, the empty cloth billowing in the breeze that came off a frozen sea- but it hadn't felt like agony. Nothing had screamed. There were no bones, no rubble. Anything that could have been scavenged by the survivors of her desperate planet had been. Gevaudan felt... haunted. Like the residents haunted it still.

She entered the church with reverence, watching the Knight stride up the aisle, taking in the glow and the light, swallowing at the broken, gutted remnants. Had someone holed up here, at the end? It's where he'd died... the last Knight Gevaudan.

"That's the worst thing about having a whole world," she told him, "If it goes to s**t, there is no one to blame but yourself, for the lives and the people you lose. It's your world. Your useless protection. Your failed leadership." And Scylla... had they had Knights, like Ganymede? She thought not- they had kings, and queens, people who took such territories unto themselves and ruled, but...

Slow, measured steps took her to his side, before she asked, "Can I get close to it? Is it safe? I've never seen anything like it before." but purple eyes were on the armor and weapons. "Have you thought of moving him? Or her."

She had been a leader, once. Andromache- and the Scylla (Scyllae? Scyllas?) before her had been mediators. They had protected outsiders that came to the planet, and forced the Kings to live in a semblance of peace, when the fighting caused pain to the people who lived on their world. War after war, battle after battle, she'd stood side by side with her warriors, watched them die protecting her, protecting their people, and mourned her losses as lover and friend.

Scylla knew what Gevaudan was expressing- she had felt the same thing, time and time again. Everyone wanted to lead, but the opinions on the war were disparate and fractured into factions. Some cared nothing for the Moon Kingdom that had been, some cared nothing even for their own planets, some sought war, some peace, others balance. Some thought the war was best served by not fighting at all, and rolling belly-up while Chaos rolled over their home like a wave, stealing energy and stealing souls.

"If I were Royal," she said at last, "I would have a hefty job ahead of me to prove anything to anyone, much less everyone. But your Knights are right. Once they served a planet, perhaps, or a Prince, or Princess. And yet we, and they, were pushed back. Our swollen, bloated worlds were devoured and spat back out like rubbish, and it took a thousand years for us to gain a foothold here. Now. If we can't defend Earth, and the people here who need us, how can we even think to spread our forces out to serve these other worlds? You don't count your chickens before they hatch, and you don't leave a rotting mess for someone else to clean up."

Her eyes flicked to his. "The Dark Mirror came from Order," she agreed, "And the Negaverse too. Those corrupted senshi were one of us, and even those lieutenants could have been one of you." and the darkness grew in so many of the senshi still- she knew it. Castor and Pollux, for example- killing without mercy, further along that path than she'd imagined the Blood Moon to be. And in the knights, those who had seen the darkness for what it was... "If you were Royal, in a position to try and organize your soldiers, how would you suggest we police each other? The Blood Moon took Ares' pen away, and she chose to follow the path to Chaos. We cannot sever a Knight from his power for disobedience, or whisk them away and hurt them, like the Negaverse can. Our army is children, horrifically content to continue their day-to-day struggle, with lip-service to the dangers, and little to no way to prevent a hand in their chest stealing them away." It would take a general king but a thought and a breath, and a senshi could be dead- or worse. Even, potentially, a Royal.

Some even went willingly, finding more pleasure in servitude than protecting their flawed populace. It was a terrible situation, and try as she might over the years, there was only hopelessness and a struggle ahead. She knew what she wanted to do, but the path wasn't naked to her, there were no fairy lights guiding the path trough the wood. It was dark, and full of thorns and terrors, and was there truly a right answer to this? Chaos ate everything, but humanity was too. Left unchecked, their planet was going to be no better than those rocks in space they had once called home.

She moved forward to join him, head tilted as she considered the source of his power- his 'Code Piece.' "He might be ash and soil, but you can have a bit more respect for the dead than that." her voice was mild. "He presumably died protecting this graveyard- and this source of power. For you. Maybe for Ganymede. But whatever he was doing it for, he gave you the power to protect the people you love." she reached out, tapping towards his heart with her palm. "A power that is yours to control, not one that controls you, demanding mindless obedience. You don't have to take lives to feed some slavering mouth in the darkness. If you kill, you do it to give that mouth one less opportunity to feed on the people of our city- and our planet."

Family. The word twisted in her gut, bile and nausea at hearing the word- the same one that had been used by another, to describe what Chaos offered. "The Dark Mirror thinks itself a family. The Blood Moon did too. Just because it feels a family doesn't mean it's right." her voice was harsher and more pained than she intended, but she didn't excuse the emotion, or apologize for it. He'd understand- she'd been left behind by her family, And it was for the best- if she had gone, what would have happened to the twins? Or would Szelem have still been murdered, without her friendship as a catalyst?

Regardless, Gevaudan had suggested a viable plan, and she took a few moments to breathe, and consider it. She didn't know many knights, and she'd never imagined stepping up as a leader of anything. Jada was too indecisive, too used to taking orders from others- her mother had trained her well, in that regard. And the idea of taking leadership tips from a woman who had allowed herself to be made- or made herself- a monster... stuck in her craw.

The newest members could feel a sense of protection from their power. That, or course, made sense- so many of the Order royals had vanished. Were they dead? In hiding? Why had they abandoned the people who could have looked up to them? Was it the disrespect and hate flung their way for no better reason than envy? Or the fact some of them had seemed to expect people to fall to heel, as the Negaverse did? But the Negaverse was military, and dissidents would be punished. Order didn't have that option.It made sense that the Negaverse would feel more secure, then.

The truth of what had happened to his ancestor was... not like she had imagined, and her face openly twisted in abhorrence. Her world had been resource-rich, but predator-rich as well- people had been precious, and much as she knew planets had done it, same as kings and queens of Earth, she couldn't- "That's awful." her voice was flat. "And I don't know if it more awful that Ganymede put them in that position, or that her knights didn't step in to intercede for the people and remind their senshi of its duty." The knight had been complicit, and the people had been well within their rights to rise up. My people would have murdered them long before they got to that point, she wanted to explain, but now was most definitely not the time to point that out. It wasn't commiseration, it was just... acid in an open wound? Or a closed one.

"What do you mean, stripped of power." her tone was disgruntled, and she shot a glare at the calmly-glowing Code Piece. "That's ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as people you care about being better off not remembering you." she moved over to him, swatting out at his arm gently as she plopped down next to him, the glowing light forgotten. "If the power was that fickle it would have no one to serve it. And forgetting you is their loss."