Welcome to Gaia! ::

Richtersveld took in a deep breath.

It had been a long day. Coming out to patrol had been tough after a couple of the stories she had helped people work through today. If it wasn't one thing, it was another, and sometimes it felt like the stories in Destiny City were especially tough. Talking to a young adult who had both parents die after they were both, at the same time, stuck in a mysterious coma, another younger person who had spotted youma and had found himself traumatized in a way he had trouble working through, someone she knew was a senshi who still struggled with what he saw--

But she knew she had to.

Richtersveld had never quite heard of taking it easy or taking care of herself, and that was how she found herself on a bench that evening, looking at the sky and observing what stars she could see between the light pollution as she felt the auras nearby. There weren't any youma nearby -- at least, none that she had gotten to on time -- and she didn't feel many auras that pressed of Chaos that she could speak to or drive away.

She did feel a couple of Order auras flare to life nearby, one then vanished nearly as fast--hopefully, that person was just headed to their wonder--but one of them came closer instead of further.

Richtersveld sat up a bit straighter, brushing off her dress.

"Ah, hello," she greeted, politely, lifting a hand to encourage them closer. "Come sit with me?"

Maybe she could see how they were feeling.

She smiled as he approached, taking a quick moment to clock his outfit and see if she could pinpoint what planet he was from. It didn't take her long to realize that his outfit had small crescent moons like Serentatis', and though she seemed to be wearing a nightgown that was almost completely opposed to this knight's suit, the coloration and the symbols were the same.

Another moon knight, then. Interesting.

"Yes," she replied, turning slightly to look more fully at him as he sat down. "I felt your aura and thought we could talk a bit. See how you're feeling. See if there's anything I can help you with. This hidden war is hard, yeah?"

Richtersveld gazed back out upon the city, both blessing the relative quiet and cursing it. The relative quiet meant that there weren't many people out here trying to kill civilians. The relative quiet, in a city this large, also implied just how dangerous Destiny City could sometimes seem. It depended on the area, the time, the happenings, of course--and she might have been looking on it in that way due to her own experiences that day, that week, that year--

She took herself out of that headspace and offered the page a smile once more.

"I'm Richtersveld, Squire of Pluto," Richtersveld was already offering her hand in case that was what he was comfortable with. "It's nice to meet you. I can see you're a Page of the Moon, correct?"

Serentatis had been very new when Richtersveld ran into her after she had splattered a youma-- was the same true for this one?

Richtersveld giggled quietly when Spei quickly corrected himself from the start of Yu. Very new, then, new enough that he didn't default to the name the Moon had granted him. Or, well, she supposed the Code in his case-- It had still taken her a while to completely segment Richtersveld and Shikora from each other. It didn't help that the first knight she ran into was someone she had met as a civilian. "Spei. Nice and snappy."

If she didn't call him out as new just by the way he responded to her greeting, he called himself out as new afterward. He hadn't even known what an aura was. He wasn't only new, he was super new, and he came across one of the people who was willing to help bolster him and make sure he didn't just end up a splat on the pavement she would mourn-- "Aura, yes. All of us people who have been granted with this supernatural power have them. The auras of the people on your side will feel better, the auras of the people not on your side will feel worse."

Worse in what way, though, was hard to describe. She had heard people describe the aura sense differently--like a weight, like a sickness, like something that just gives the wary feeling they should go somewhere else--

She let him tumble his words out, offering a gentle smile when he apologized, "You're not unloading. It's okay." It was, sincerely, and Richtersveld was already easily falling back into her therapist tendencies. "Down here, there's a war of Order--us--against Chaos. How much were you told about Chaos?"

Inklings.

Richtersveld fell quiet for a moment as she checked the auras she could feel. Obviously, she could feel Spei next to her. At the distance, she could tell there was another Order source nearby, further than that she was fairly sure she sensed something faint and Chaotic. It was strange how far she could reach now after years of not being able to. "Those are likely chaotic in origin. Perhaps they're monsters or basic agents." Unlikely to be much more than that, at least, not with how faint they felt; though he was also inexperienced in sensing auras, and that could have something to do with it, too.

Where they were, they were likely to be safe.

"Knight weapons are complex." She figured she'd preface with that warning, looking at the small discus he held. "Some of us gain something better to defend ourselves with. Others of us do not. For my part," she displayed the large succulent terrarium she had that hung off a chain, "unless I intend to use this as a meteor hammer, it's better to keep my distance and use a more friendly angle." That wasn't hard for her, considering she felt deeply uncomfortable even attacking people at the onset.

I will, first, do no harm.

"But Chaos is complex. They do wish to kill us, but it's more than that. Some of them wish to kill more than just us -- they wish to kill civilians, they wish to subjugate Earth to its will." She worried over her bottom lip. "They take energy and starseeds to fulfill what they believe is their purpose. Tell me: did the Code tell you about the specific factions?"

Couldn't quite get away from the monsters, couldn't quite stop the ways that they infiltrated society and attacked civilians and left them haunted. It came as no surprise to Richtersveld that Spei had at least heard mention of them, but it did come as a bit of a relief. She at least didn't have to explain from step one that monsters existed at all.

"Similar, yes. The monsters and agents will feel similar. Agents may feel stronger, sometimes. It depends on the strength of the person behind them, like how to someone approaching us, I will feel stronger than you by virtue of being a squire." It had been six months, but it still felt odd to acknowledge herself as just that. She was a page for years, and she thought that was her destiny especially as she didn't fight. Her wonder had proven her wrong. "The same is for them. A general, for example, will feel stronger than their monsters."

... Well, in her experience. She wasn't sure how that would apply if there was a much stronger youma around.

She nodded in approval of Spei trying a different angle--not only did it sound like a small discus wasn't going to do much other than get Spei hurt, Richtersveld always encouraged less violent tactics--but otherwise seemed primarily concerned about educating about the factions.

She held up two fingers.

"In Chaos, on Earth, there are two primary factions: the Negaverse, and the Dark Mirror Court. The one we are often most familiar with is the Negaverse." She lowered one of her fingers, before raising up four. "The Negaverse consists of agents, senshi--usually our magical counterparts--that they've corrupted and claimed as their own, youma, and the occasional Mauvian." She swapped to just one. "So far as I can tell, the Dark Mirror Court only has senshi, that have once again been corrupted and claimed as their own."

She lowered her hands. "The Dark Mirror Court is quieter and I am not as concerned about them for now, but they are still a chaotic force, and still take energy. I don't think they can take starseeds, though. That's the Negaverse that takes energy, starseeds, and lives, and sends out their monsters into the world. The monsters, we often call youma."

Richtersveld snickered quietly. Just running away from the more powerful wrong-feeling auras was probably one of the better moves he could make at this stage. A joke, certainly, but also just a smart move considering the people they were facing...

He was new enough that she presumed he didn't know who the senshi or Mauvians were--or the Velencyans, for that matter, another complicated piece to the puzzle. She'd explain that in a bit. It was most important he knew what to be aware of, and more importantly at the level he was at, who to avoid. She nodded in agreement when he said that the Negaverse should be the ones he was concerned with. She was unconvinced that the Dark Mirror Court would not become a concern but considering they had bigger problems, she was willing to keep her focus on them for now.

In comparison, taking energy was still problematic, but considerably less of a problem than taking starseeds and allying with monsters...

Her smile was slight and didn't quite make it to her eyes. "They're the ones who send the youma out," she confirmed, quietly. "The youma are part of the Negaverse and I've seen their agents command them."

It was a good question. Chaos for the sake of it would make them a hard enemy to fight. If there was no method to their madness other than a drive to sow Chaos, they would have trouble convincing them of any alternatives. "From what I've gathered, their general purpose is touted as saving the Earth from invaders," she chuckled, lightly, gesturing at herself and then to him, "primarily people like us, those of us who are defending other planets even though we were born on Earth. I think the youma assist them in that purpose because they are not fond of us. They take energy and starseeds from civilians in order to continue to drive forward their mission of driving us to death or off the planet."

Over time and conversations, she had gathered a loose idea of what the youma supposedly had against them, but considering she wasn't a youma nor was she an expert, she could only take a guess at that part.

She chuckled lightly, in part because she honestly couldn't be certain if they were that deluded. They were convinced they were invaders in the first place, even if there was plenty of proof to the contrary. How did they explain the knights of Earth?

It was a reasoning she would be curious to poke them about, but she also couldn't totally fault them. There were aliens in their midst.

... but they had allied with them, it seemed, which made the circumstances endlessly more complex.

"You got it." Richtersveld offered an encouraging smile, before she reached back and pulled something out of her subspace pocket. To Spei she presented a cup of tea, still surprisingly warm. "An herbal blend. I don't want to keep anyone awake at this time of night," she chuckled, "but yes. There are knights of other planets. From what I've gathered, every planet from Mercury to Pluto has knights, plus the Moon, and including Ganymede? There are also knights of the Cauldron. They're named Cosmos knights."

Sadly, she had never met a knight of Castor, so didn't mention that one.

"And yes, there are non-corrupted senshi! They're our allies, people who rely primarily on magic to defend entire homeworlds in space. Their companions are often the Mauvians, who are techwizard cathumans." She paused, realizing how bizarre that sounded, and added, "It's a bit hard to explain."

Spei laughed, but Richterveld's smile was slight as she offered, her tone almost sing-song, "Whatever you're picturing probably can't even capture what they're like."

Of course, unknowingly, Spei was probably closer to some of the Mauvians than Richtersveld could have realized. At the same time, she couldn't have imagined the small cats who could manage to outsmart even the science fiction aliens that had come to their planet, figuring out what parts of the generators they were facing were apparently weak...

"There's a lot of knights like us, honestly. It's good. Strength in numbers." Richtersveld leaned forward for a moment, rubbing her palms against her skirt before straightening her back out. "The Cauldron," was something that was still an interesting thing for her, spiritually. "It's the place where all starseeds come from and where starseeds go." It was the place where they came from and where they would go when their bodies no longer lived. Was Cosmos was a goddess? Was she just a guardian? What was the Cauldron beyond a place where they went? Was it just that? Was it paradise? Hell? Limbo?

"I think the senshi are pretty powerful in their own way. They vary in strength a lot as we do. We have pages, squires, knights, and royal knights. They have basics, supers, eternals, and royals." Richtersveld giggled. "And don't worry about the questions, it's good that you know! They don't have their own Code--I guess they just have their homeworld's energy? I don't have the full context for that."