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It wasn't often that Tanzanite came up to the surface, because the surface sucked and she didn't like it there. Perhaps she was still bitter about the whole Cutting Off Her Arm thing, but the world above just generally annoyed her. The sound of cars annoyed her. The shuffling of feet annoyed her. The smells and lights and voices all annoyed her, and perhaps it was because some human part of her missed them. The ability to stay among them.

Or, more likely, she was just more comfortable down there with the other monsters, where she didn't need significant focus to sustain a simple glamour.

Staying in the rift, however, had become more difficult by the day. It was a constant reminder that she couldn't sense them anymore. Neither the small youma among the rocks nor the slumbering giants far below. Her kindred bond with them was just... gone, and without it Tanzanite had begun to wander. Aree Cadence was dead. The black phoenix was dead. General-Queen Tanzanite was dead.

Whoever and whatever she was now paused before one of the darker shop windows, looking at the reflection of a pretty young woman with indigo hair and sad silver eyes.

The oh-so-mighty Tanzanite didn't mope, but if she ever did mope, it would probably look something like that.

anzanite spun around and stumbled back in the same shocked, uncoordinated manner in which she did most things those days. She lived in the Rift and walked among monsters, and yet the simple touch of a human girl startled her. It was another thing about the surface that she was still adjusting to. As a General-Queen, Tanzanite had given up even the simplest glamour, and now it was like using a long atrophied muscle. Still, to be so shocked by a girl...

A girl with long hair and a pretty face that gave Tanzanite pause. Is that all it took? Perhaps not, but Tanzanite looked at Dinara with wide eyes as shocked expression melted away and settled into curios apprehension.

Was she okay?

Tanzanite wasn't certain how to answer that, so it took a long moment of opening and closing her mouth, with little more than an inaudible squeak in between. It could be easily assumed by any member of the Negaverse that she was decidedly not okay... but this was not a member of the Negaverse. This was a human. Something she had forgotten how to be, much less how to-

Tanzanite paused suddenly and her silver eye widened. Her next breath caught in her throat, and she stepped back until her shoulder blades pressed against the window she had moments ago been using as a mirror. This girl was not any normal human. She was a Page, someday destined to become a knight. The wretched woman, wrapped in the civilian glamour of a girl who died long ago, barely kept her eyes from narrowing. That realization gave her a more solid answer to Dinara's question, though it came out in a slightly shaking voice that Tanzanite could not prevent.

“I...”

Want to kill you?

Hope you die a horrifying death?

Hate you and every other member of your species?

Even the lowest Page could've kicked the absolute s**t out of her in her current condition, so Tanzanite swallowed back the long list of threat that first popped into her head. She hated knights. She hated knights. More than senshi, more than their royalty, more than any other member of the Order forces. Still... she felt trepidation.

But the young woman didn't know who or what Tanzanite was, it seemed, and the former sovereign found herself answering with unusual softness and uncertainty.

“I... don't think I am?”

Tanzanite didn't really have friends in any traditional sense of the word. She had companions. She had subordinates, superiors, comrades, and a long list of other things, but the friends category was surprisingly limited. Perhaps that was why she watched the page's hand hanging in the air, before shaking her head gently and wrapping what appeared to be both arms around herself.

How, exactly, was she supposed to explain the worries currently plaguing her mind? Whether or not she would remain that husk of a creature hidden beneath the weak magic. How she was going to avoid a much darker fate should she fail to climb back to her former status and remain a useful weapon in Metallia's war. Standing there, looking at the young woman, she took a step forward to walk alongside her.

Somehow, Tanzanite felt more vulnerable there than she ever had on a battlefield.

“So... is this a hobby?” She forced as strange laugh, “Finding sad girls in need of friends?”

Nice.

It took all of Tanzanite's self control not to laugh at the idea that she was nice. Still, it was strange and interesting to sit there next to a Page, and listen to her talk about her human life. Dinara's mother and father and sister, no matter how awful or good, were human people living human lives with human experiences. There was something strangely fascinating about the whole thing. It made Tanzanite wish she had something similar to share.

Sitting on that bench reminded her of the night she had spoken to Castor, only a week ago and yet it felt like years. Another string to her humanity, snipped by the endless loyalty she showed to a ruthless and punishing deity.So much happened each and every day now that time simply bled together, and Tanzanite was quiet for a short while after Dinara had stopped speaking. It took so long for her to process what was said. Tanzanite could react lightning fast in the middle of a battle, but discussing the simple day-to-day matters of human life took a great deal of thought and focus.

“Do you think they can change?” she asked at last, hesitant and quiet. Her eyes were focused on the unseen horizon, brow furrowed in thought.

“Your parents, that is? Do you think people like that can change?”

Tanzanite listened, and her brow furrowed the longer she did.

Even if it’s not a good change, people can change.

That part, at least, Tanzanite knew all too well. Although it was difficult to remember what it had been like to be Aree Cadence. Charonite had found her standing on a ledge, ready to fall, and gave her a choice. He gave her a purpose. Had she really been any different before, though? At her core, had she ever been like the person sitting next to her?

That answer was easy, but Tanzanite did not vocalize it to the younger woman.

It would be rude to douse her hope, like stomping on the results of some foreign experiment, or destroying evidence of some process she no longer understood. She watched Dinara with a slight smile, and found herself thinking about how easy it once would've been to snatch the page's starseed out of her chest and add another notch to her belt of Order casualties. How simple it would've been to hold it in her hand until it cracked beneath her strength. She looked the girl up and down, uncertain of how to respond.

Tanzanite had not been human in many years, so the idea of changing people with kindness seemed absolutely foreign. Nevertheless, she thanked the young woman and ran her thumb over the soft fabric, seeming as curious about it as she was about the page herself. Tanzanite had performed unimaginable feats, so why was it so difficult to sit on that bench and talk to a human girl? It didn't make sense, but it was apparently difficult enough that she felt a need to change the subject, leaving Dinara's question unanswered.

The way Tanzanite looked at the woman made her seem almost dazed, possessed by a curiosity that she could not shake.

“The way you're dressed... you're...”

Tanzanite paused, as though the word weren't seared into her memory. Knights.

“One of those hero people?”

Deep in whatever scraps of Tanzanite's human memory remained, something stirred. The ghost of a woman, a blue tanktop and long crimson hair. Her mother's gray eyes looking down at her, her pretty face lit up by a smile that the sunrise should've envied.

”Up now, you can do it. All the way. TIppy toes!”

It was the first time she had ever danced, and then... an overcast day. Heavy rain. A drive to the store.

And then Sarah Cadence was gone, leaving her eldest daughter to protect her newborn sister. Tanzanite didn't dance anymore, but she gave Dinara the brightest smile she could muster.

Do you want to be a hero, too?

The Page sat next to her with an unwavering kindness that felt... strange. It was rare that Tanzanite came to the surface, even rarer that she did so using the magic that would make her appear like any other young woman. But being treated like every other young woman? And by a Page, no less? A Page who had never even met a disciple of Chaos, and yet unknowingly sat beside the worst of them all.

“Of course I will,” Tanzanite kept that smile up and lied, “I never imagined I could... actually go to them.”

She did. She had. And the result was breaking Alkaid beyond any possible repair.

And Tanzanite could not find it in herself to regret it.

“But if you’ve never met one of them… how do you know they’re bad?”

As soon as Dinara's kindness brought that precious memory to the surface – up and out of the vault in Tanzanite's mind – Chaos scrubbed it away like a stubborn stain. Her brow furrowed, confusion taking over her smile for a brief moment, as though she had momentarily forgotten where she was and what she was doing. The confusion passed quickly, as her brain reset and she returned to the moment at hand.

Just a little bit less human than she had been before.

Uncertain interest had turned into controlled curiosity, as she watched the Page with her head tilted sideways.

“My name,” she sighed, and a brief sadness came over her. Not for herself, but for the young woman sitting next to her. There were more senshi that had never heard her name than those who had. It was likely the young woman next to her was in the first group, to whom she might just be a strange young woman with a strange name.

“My name is Tanzanite. And when that time comes... I promise we will find one another.”

She smiled, and the expression was surprisingly genuine.

“I will find you.”

That’s one of the prettiest names I have ever heard!

What a sweet, precious thing Tanzanite saw standing before her. Where she usually would see nothing more than a soon-to-be victim, a shining starseed waiting to be removed, she now saw potential. There was so much more that could be made of her, and Tanzanite's narrow perspective since her return broadened just a bit.

She didn't have to kill all of them, though she would enjoy each and every one that she did get to kill. Tanzanite simply needed to find the brightest of them. To return to her previous form – her rightful form – and relentlessly drive the light out of each and every one of those hopeful hearts.

Dinara had accomplished her goal. Tanzanite did seem happier now, although perhaps not in the way she had planned. Her previous uncertainty, hesitation, and questioning were all dusted away by darkness, clearing the former General Queen's mind enough to focus on more important matters than who or what she was. The important question was how Tanzanite could best serve her Queen, and expanding their army while diminishing the Order forced seemed the best way she could do so.

The thought brought something genuine to her smile, and she studied the young woman for a long moment. She memorized each feature and the faint energy of her starseed, the signature unique to each and every human being. Tanzanite had a great deal of experience in that subject, and she tucked away the feeling of the young woman's energy signature in her memory

“Thank you, Dinara,” Tanzanite smiled, “and goodbye. For now.”

And then she was gone, vanishing before Dinara's eyes and leaving nothing but that promise behind her.