[follows so you ditch your vest for a party dress.]

-- and with the timespan of a blink, even less, she was on Castor, in Anakeion. And Anakeion Squire of Castor let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

At first glance, everything looked the way it had two-ish, three-ish, years ago. It looked like nothing had changed, like it was still frozen in time; the temple as it had been at Castor's fall, at Amynta's death, minus every petty little attempt to clean up Anakeion herself had made since she'd first come, and she'd been confronted with frozen dust and splintered bones and barely any grass at all. It'd been, to pardon her French, a ******** tomb.

She'd thought it'd been better, at least. She'd moved broken rubble, swept floors, hauled shovels up through space to dig her way through the frozen ground (complaining the entire way, but doing it anyway). It'd gotten better over time; grass had started to grow, floor tiles had sealed their own cracks over, and the stream nearby wasn't just a dried riverbed anymore. Anakeion, the knight, the girl, had fixed it. It'd gotten better as she spent time and sweat and tears on it. She'd done something, and it hadn't -- it hadn't deteriorated while she was gone, because it didn't do that --

But it was hard to deny the evidence of her own eyes. When she turned around and looked out the archway behind her, where there had been a courtyard full of soft grass she'd happily sat herself down in so many times as a Squire before she'd quit, there was a burnt-in circle of decay.

Initially, Anakeion was too stunned to panic. This didn't make any sense. She felt as strong as she always had, so if something had happened to her Wonder, she would've known, right? She would've felt something, she would've gotten some kind of -- supernatural tip-off -- but when she took some lopsided steps over, hauled a** over the threshold to the courtyard, it looked the exact same as it had before she'd blinked. There was the smell of ash in the air, faint and heady, and whereever she stepped the blighted plants crumbled away. The whole diameter of it - it wasn't the whole courtyard, but it was a good chunk around the entryway. ********. Not good. If nothing else, the boundary between Dead and Alive as far as grass went was clear; there wasn't any half-dead and half-blighted and half-burnt grass, just a line so fine it could've been drawn with a shape tool.

So whatever it was, it probably wasn't spreading. That was good.

...but whatever it was, it'd blighted her Wonder on Castor's ground, and that was bad.

...but it wasn't affecting her powers as Anakeion, and that was good.

...but she really, really didn't want to have to explain it to Encke, or to Viatrix, or to Cepheus, or to anyone she might want to impress (and she did want to impress Encke, even if she didn't want to admit it to herself, because hey - he was hot, and she was a sucker for a pretty face). And that? That was... well, mostly that was ********," Anakeion Squire said, and set her hands on her hips, and thought about it for a grand span of thirty more seconds. And then she turned on her heel, a perfect 180, and hurried off to more of the temple's internal chambers. She could find some help with it in the next couple of days, if she asked around, probably; but for right now, she needed to get moving rubble again. Important to make a good impression!

[wc: 600]