Welcome to Gaia! ::

The memories of the final night in that strange other world did not fade completely, but they became more manageable with time. After a few weeks, Pendour had powered up again, and by the time the days crept into December, she was going out almost regularly.

There was something of a goal to her wanderings. There were two agents who she wanted to speak to again, although there was not much she could do to find them except walking past the places she'd seen them again and again. She did not find them.

The first time she went searching, she found a patch of pansies that was holding onto their color, instead. The second time, she found a working fountain in a run down corner of the park. The third, she found a page.

She didn't realize that he was a page until she was right on top of him and the aura was hard to ignore. "Oh, hi there," she said, blinking at him. Today was a good enough day she didn't even try hiding her face. Instead, she looked at his outfit, her good eye lingering on the symbols. "What planet are you?"

Her voice was soft, but not so soft, and she leaned forward a little. She didn't think she'd met a knight like this before.

"Oh, maybe I should have guessed that," she said, shaking her head, although the smile never faded. They symbol was more or less just a P, after all. "I just never knew if Pluto had knights, since, um," she glanced to the ground, realizing halfway through the sentence that this might be a touchy subject, "You know," she finished in a whisper.

She brought her hands in front of her chest, interlacing her fingers. "Well, if you're here, it must be a place of great magic. It also makes us a little bit like neighbors." She reached for the Neptune symbol hanging on her belt and tilted it so that he could see. "I'm Neptune. Or, um, Pendour, Squire of Neptune. It's a pleasure."

That would have been the time for some kind of sweeping introductory gesture, only, Pendour had never learned how to curtsy in the mermaid skirt and she couldn't think of much else to do on the spot, so she just ended up waving.

"Voyager's a lovely name," she said. "It really makes you sound like some wandering knight." A voyager could even be something else, like a messenger, or an explorer. It was a name full of possibilities.

“Because of not being an, um, planet, yes,” she said with a small shrug now that she could see he didn’t seem so upset by Pluto’s status. “Well, NASA doesn’t know everything. They think Neptune’s just a cloud.”

Maybe they knew it wasn’t just a cloud, she’d looked online and seen theories about strange weather patterns even a core under miles and miles of atmosphere, but NASA had no clue about the seeming endless ocean, or about the civilization that had flourished beneath the waves.

“If you’re an archivist, I think there’s a lot you’ll like about being a knight,” she said. “We’re all connected to these ancient, magical places. Wonders. You’ll have one on Pluto.” Her smile widened. She was in her element, talking about this. “All the ones I’ve seen are beautiful, and I’m sure they’re all full of history and artifacts, too.”

She smiled for a little longer, letting that sink in, before she pressed her lips together and glanced to the ground. “Earth is, um, not as simple as that.” She looked Voyager over, slowly. “How much do you know about knights, or senshi, or the Negaverse? Are you new?”

He was asking her questions, but she didn’t want to go repeating things.

While Pendour often hosted visitors at her wonder and would generally welcome just about anyone, the thought of scientists probing around at the stones and the bones made something twist a little in her stomach. On one hand, having the carbon dating and the expert opinions might be nice, but on the other, she didn't want too much of Neptune to end up in some museum.

"They may find the wonders some day, but I think it'll take time, especially for the places at the edge of the solar system like ours," she said. They'd only gotten real pictures of Pluto a few years ago. Anything hidden on the surface was still safe from prying eyes for now.

Pendour nodded when he said he was very new, and she folded her hands in front of her as she thought. "As far as what knights are, we're, um," she squinted, "Stewards is a good word for it, I think. We watch over these places, these wonders. They're all different. In the past we had different jobs, but in the past thousand years or so, the wonders have fallen into ruin."

No, that wasn't it. It was no good sugarcoating things too much.

"Well, they've been destroyed by the forces of Chaos, which are now here on Earth. It's what fuels the ones in black and their monsters." Pendour let that sink in for a moment before offering a soft smile. "So we oppose Chaos in various ways, and we also try to rebuild."

Pendour nodded slowly, hands folded in front of her. The annihilation of everyone's worlds was a dark, serious topic, and one she didn't like to think about too much, but it was important for everyone involved in this magical conflict to know about the seriousness of things. Voyager seemed to be taking it well, although it was hard to know the true depth of the situation just from one conversation.

It was easier to talk about space, and his excitement was contagious. She smiled, too. "If you're used to poking around through Earth's ancient civilizations, you might have an advantage when it comes to putting the pieces together up there," she said, giving a quick nod towards the sky. "There's all kinds of archeology. There's physical artifacts, linguistics, maybe even fossils." Her smile tilted to one side. "There's a little Indiana Jones, too. Um, secret passages and magic."

It turned out there was magic everywhere once you knew to look for it. "Well, you're a page, so you're just getting started," she said. "You should already be much stronger and faster, though, and have some kind of item." She summoned her ocarina to demonstrate, running a thumb over its smooth surface. "It starts out for practice, I think. I had to learn to play this before I could unlock its magic and become a squire. It'll probably be something different for you, though."

Although he was already talking so much about fighting. She glanced to the ground. "Anyway, um, fighting's not the only option," she said, voice going even softer. "Chaos is awful, but a lot of the soldiers were tricked into serving it. They can be reasoned with."

Some of them were farther gone than others, it was true, but Pendour didn't want to start out someone's knight journey by encouraging them to hurt anyone else.

“Oh, let me see,” said Pendour. Her smile was almost reverent as she leaned in close, over the little pocket watch, and she ran her pinky over the symbol etched into its surface. “It’s lovely,” she said. “It suits you.” She leaned in closer still, squinting a little, before she straightened again and shook her head. “And I’ve no idea how to unlock its potential.”

No, of course she wouldn’t know. There was a certain amount of advice she could give, about the war and the city and the things she’d seen, but when it came down to it, each knight’s journey was a very personal one.

“Perhaps you’ll find your answers among the artifacts?” She glanced back to him. Since he was interested in that, it was as good a place as any to start. “Or in the city, even. I think some of it comes down to just adjusting to all this.” She gave a vague wave towards her ocarina and gown.

“If you do find someone who wants to leave, there are people who can remove chaos in a process called purification. The one I know is called Camelot, but I think there are others,” she said, then paused for a long moment, fiddling with a string of pearls. “It’s not something all of them are interested in. Some are all broken and far gone, some of them just like the power, maybe?” Of course she saw him glance at her eye, but she didn’t look away. She wasn’t trying to hide the dangers of all this.

“That’s something I don’t have an easy answer for.”

Pendour gave the pocket watch another glance. "Oh, it's an heirloom? That might make things easier." She sent her ocarina off to subspace and started running fingers through her long hair, instead. "I mean, if the knighthood is a family thing, you might have an ancestor waiting for on your wonder," she said, then squinted slightly. "Well, the ghost of one. I know, it's another hard thing to believe, but they linger sometimes to give advice to the next generation."

Unsolicited advice, in her case, but she had faith that not all the knights that had lived a thousand years ago had quite the same issues that Irving did. Even some of Irving's advice was sound, though. For all his violent tendencies, he had taught her much of what she knew about her magic.

She was not going to linger on the thought of him now, though.

"You'd like Camelot," she said instead, smiling gently. "He's Earth, very proper, all knight in shining armor. There's a lot of nice people out there to meet, really."

While the magical underbelly of Destiny City might be harsh, it wasn't all bloodthirsty generals and bitter ghosts.

With a slight tilt of her head, she added, "Some of the names are a little hard to say, though."

Pendour couldn't help but tilt her head a little. Voyager had taken the speech about magic and even the infection of Chaos so well, but now here he was. He'd gone white as, well, a ghost, all just at the mention of ancestors.

"They're just people who can't touch things," she said, making sure to keep her voice even softer than before. "They've got all the goodness and all the flaws in them that anybody else has. They're not guaranteed to be kind."

She squinted towards the horizon, where Neptune might be if it was easier to see from Earth. "Mine has strong opinions that are different than mine, and that caused some frustration for him at first."

He'd been angry and sent her from the wonder crying, but she didn't bring that up. He seemed to be the exception rather than the rule, anyway.

"Still, I'd say they're less dangerous than someone with, um, a physical form."