Asphodel Knight appeared in the middle of a vast city. As his eyes adjusted to the strange sky and the scenery below it, a sense of confusion began to creep in.

He was on the roof of what might have been an ancient apartment building. Everything that stood around him looked grim and imposing. There were steep rooftops and towers and spires as far as the eye could see, and the ground some ways below was paved over with grimy stone. The whole city breathed a silent death rattle around him, and he wondered where the meadow was.

Camelot Knight and Sailor Kerberos had both made it apparent that there was meaning in the places they were connected to: the legend of Camelot had been true in its own way, and there was some twist of fate in an Asphodel Knight and a Senshi of Asphodel both existing. So when he finally decided to follow his pledge to the real life version of Asphodel Meadows on Saturn, he thought some affirmation of that lesson would be waiting for him there.

Instead, he had found an urban ruin that was completely ambivalent towards his presence. There wasn’t anything remotely resembling a meadow, or even an asphodel flower, anywhere in sight. He wondered for a moment if he had teleported to the wrong place — was that possible?

With a tense sigh, he squatted down and tried to think. His stray wisp flitted about his body like a bumblebee, resting in one spot for a moment before bobbing away for another moment and landing somewhere else on his person. It was pretty annoying. He had to wave it away from his face a few times while looking around for landmarks he could make use of. There were a few: a clock tower; a sculpture garden; a theater.

Eventually, his gaze was captured by a smaller building in the distance. It could have easily stayed lost in the imposing Saturnalian architecture and the jet-black trees that were slowly but surely dragging it all down into the ground, if a small spark of intuition hadn’t guided his eyes that way.

It had a softer, more humble appearance than its neighbors. The architectural style was notably different. Asphodel decided to get closer.

For the next half hour, he cautiously hopped and dashed between the rooftops while keeping the building in sight. Eventually the more intimidating features of the city parted to reveal the building’s siblings. There was a whole ring of squat and sturdy homes surrounding a public open space airily decorated with carved columns. Some of the structures had collapsed. One house had been devoured by a tree. There was a well in the center of the neighborhood, with a rusted bell hanging over it.

This village rested in the middle of an acre of so of land, which rippled with twisting vines that covered the ground and clung to the buildings. Was this the meadow, then? It felt like far too small a place, and the city around it felt far too close.

Asphodel’s feet finally touched the ground. He stepped into the village slowly. The house that initially caught his eye had never left his sight, and now it dominated his field of vision instead of being a speck in the distance. It was quite a tense moment to put his hand on the door. He was a little afraid it would crumble under his touch, but it kept its shape and even fought for a moment against his attempts to open it.

The interior design was as modest as the exterior, with subtle decorations featuring six-petaled flowers etched into the furniture. It had the trappings of a comfortable home for a minimalist. There was a small collection of scrolls on a shelf, and a table to read and write at. After appreciating that sight for a moment, Asphodel’s eyes were drawn to another series of smaller scrolls flanking a nearby fireplace on either side.

Each one was placed at a different height and framed by a different tapestry. The tapestries were quite faded, but Asphodel could still make out their designs. Each one featured a specific gardening implement. Among a few others, he saw a hoe, a rake, a watering jug… and a shovel. It felt like a clear invitation to come closer.

To his surprise, the scroll sprang to life as he approached it. It flashed with a lavender light that filled the room before bursting into sparks that floated like fallen petals around his weapon. He could feel it surge with a new power. Something clicked in his head that brought him understanding of how to use it as well. It was as if the scroll had directly transmitted its knowledge to his mind without him having to read it.

Then, a voice like autumn leaves scraping on stone rang inside the room.

“Burial in the Rain… so the new Knight of the Meadows wields a spade.”

Asphodel instinctively flipped around in a battle stance, the mentioned spade at the ready. He narrowed his eyes at the being that had suddenly appeared.

Her ghostly form sat in a dilapidated chair which sagged against a corner of the room. Right next to it was a small table that struggled to keep a simple tea set balanced on top. It looked like it was once a cozy spot to read in, long ago. But now it bore an exhausted sort of tension that was unapologetically reflected in the ghost’s face. She was quite old, with an angry storm cloud of curly peppered hair and a browline he saw in the bathroom mirror every morning.

She looked at him with his weapon, and said, “Your form is awful, you know.”

The woman looked thoroughly disgusted by the Knight’s presence. Her gaze was pure acid. Asphodel couldn’t help but wither under it a little bit. He felt like a child who had just been caught rifling through a forbidden drawer by an unpredictable parent, dreading what was going to happen next.

She continued with a pressed sigh that sounded more like a growl. “And you have no business coming in here, rummaging through my things. Get out of my house.”

It was as though she had no clue she was dead. Or, judging by the look in her eyes, it was just as likely she knew and didn’t care. Both possibilities were equally unsettling. Either way, she occupied the space so naturally it very much felt like it was still her domain, even after all the time it had spent decaying. He could imagine her hovering in that chair for hundreds of years and watching it happen with her own eyes.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m your ancestor,” she curtly answered. A deep, bitter rage sharpened in her features, accented by a cool light with no discernible source. She repeated, “Leave.”

Ancestor. Asphodel took a sharp breath. This was a blood relative from the Silver Millennium. If he was the new Asphodel Knight, did that mean she was the old one?

She repeated, again,

“Leave.”

The metallic taste of hostility filled the room. He decided to oblige her request. As he backed out of the house and politely closed the door behind him, her few words and familiar features stuck uncomfortably in his mind.

He took a few meandering steps outside, trying to get his thoughts back in order. Before he could start considering his next move, though, there she was again — the bitter fire in her eyes burning into his forehead from a simple stone bench nearby. Even though she had just appeared that second, she maintained a dominating presence that once again made it feel like she had been sitting there for centuries.

“Of course this is what it comes to. I linger for a thousand years, and then you arrive, dressed in the full regalia of a Knight without a single lesson of our ways in your head.”

It seemed as though she wasn’t finished dressing him down.

“What did you even do to earn that spade?” she asked. “Clearly nothing! You hold it like you’ve never worked the earth in your life.”

Asphodel looked down at the weapon in his hands. He found that he couldn’t disagree. Tendrils of shame licked at his fingers, and he averted his gaze from both his ancestor and the spade.

He really hadn’t earned this. It was true. As agent Uranophane, Asphodel had risen through the ranks of the Negaverse to wield power stolen from human lives. Then he was granted the same rank among the Knights when Royal Knight Camelot purified him.

To make matters even worse, he originally joined the Negaverse because he had thought the local senshi were running around irresponsibly with power they didn’t earn. It was humiliating to find himself in the reverse position a decade later.

And now his ancestor was hinting at this power of his being part of something more than he could have known of in Destiny City. Something that existed beyond war.

As if to punctuate his thought, she continued:

“I don’t care if your blood is the same as mine, you’ve spent no time here. You’re an alien to this place. You have no right to use my culture as a weapon.”

Her anger crackled through the stale Saturnalian air. Asphodel realized his blood was running at a marathon pace through his veins. Even though no blows had been struck and no magic had been cast, his body was insistent that he was in a fight. He felt his grip tightening on the ebony handle of the spade she was saying he didn’t deserve.

At the same time… he had a mission to pursue, and he needed the power he’d been granted to carry it out.

“You’re not the only one here who’s unhappy I don’t know what I should know.” Asphodel said, cautiously, through gritted teeth. “I would prefer to know how to use this tool properly. So if there’s lessons I was supposed to learn, I’m prepared to learn them.”

Her eyes flared again. “It’s far too late for that,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s no use in trying to teach you anything. It won’t make a difference in the end.”

This woman was infuriating.

“So that’s it? You’re not even going to give me a chance?” Asphodel’s voice was strained with frustration.

“No.”

“Why?”

His ancestor gave a bitter laugh. She rolled her shoulders backwards and gestured her arms wide at the crumbling urban sprawl behind her. It all loomed around the last surviving traces of her humble village, the steep rooftops and spires like the teeth of a vast mouth posed to swallow it whole. “Take a look! Your answer is all around you.”

“This Wonder is dead. It died long before the Silver Millennium ended. It has no need for another Knight, especially not a Knight who knows nothing.” The venom in her voice could have burned through his clothes. “You shouldn’t even have been called by the Code in the first place. It’s an insult to the memory of my people!” She was jabbing a finger at him violently, and it shot a bullet of rage into his gut each time.

“Don’t insult us further by picking through our bones for treasures and secrets you can use in your war. I saw that look in your eye, boy.” She sneered. “You’ve already gotten all the power you need. We have nothing more to offer you. Leave this place, don’t return, and let us rest in peace.”

The tension spinning and spiking in the air finally snapped, and suddenly the bench was empty again. She was gone.

He hadn’t even gotten her name.