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 Posted: Tue May 10, 2022 6:51 pm
Izanami's planet was quiet. Not exactly dead silent, because there was the sound of wind rustling the branches of a dead tree, but distinctly quiet. The world was cast in soft twilight, and where they arrived, there was a great dead tree with long branches, in front of a large manor house set on a hill. It overlooked the cemetery below--the one Izanami had found on her first visit.
She sighed, contentedly, an automatic response. Although the grass and trees and other carefully-cultivated landscaping was clearly dead, and when she looked back at the home it clearly showed signs of wear and tear, it still felt....right, to be here.
"Well, ah," she said, "Welcome to Izanami."
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2022 8:23 pm
There it was. Encke didn't necessarily get lost in the fact that this homeworld hadn't rebloomed yet. He was looking at the trees, the grass, the way the sky looked from Izanami as opposed to Earth, to Encke, to Pendour, the manor in the distance, the architecture of the manor in the distance-- Well, he was distracted enough that it took him a second to respond to Izanami, but when he did, he responded with a reverent smile and, "It's beautiful," because it was, and Encke could see and imagine what this place must have been like when there were people living here. "Thank you for bringing me here. I'd love to take a look around." Considering she hadn't been to Izanami much yet, he couldn't imagine there was a lot that she knew about yet, but he wanted to see all he was allowed to. Might have been bouncing a bit in how eager he was. "I can see how this place would bring you peace. Is that a cemetery in the distance?" Was the manor where the person who owned the cemetery lived, or was it some sort of gathering or mourning space?
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2022 10:29 pm
"Thank you," Izanami said quietly. Though it wasn't as if her planet's beauty had all that much to do with her; not yet, at least. Still, it was hers, and the compliment felt worth taking.
She walked towards the edge of the rise the mansion sat on, looking down at the sprawl of the cemetery below.
"A cemetery, yes. It reminds me fot he ones at home--ah, in Tokyo." She smiled, wanly. "I grew up there, and even having lived in Destiny City for almost ten years, sometimes Tokyo still feels more like 'home.'" Especially when her grandparents, her aunts and uncles, so much of her family was still there, and she visited often.
"The grave of the previous Izanamis is there," she said. "It was the first thing I found when I came here. I....lit incense, froth em, and after that," she reached up to toss her hair and let it catch the wind, blowing ash and smoke and cinders and the smell of sandalwood into the air. "I started having all of that flash follow me when I was powered up. So I think....my world liked that. Liked me paying my respects."
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2022 10:45 pm
Encke was happy to see her take the compliment for what it was, and even happier to follow. A cemetery-- he supposed that tracked with her being the senshi of cremation as much as his electricity emanating from his home had tracked with him being the senshi of plasma. When she said her home was Tokyo, that tracked with a few other things she had done--the bow, for one--and he offered her a rueful smile in turn. "I've always lived in Destiny City, so that's the city that feels the most like home to me for obvious reasons, but I've heard similar things from other people who were born elsewhere. My uncles frequently mentioned how much they missed home-- España, that is." He had always wanted to visit other countries when he was younger, but now he was frequently too paranoid. Shoots in other places were even accompanied with some wariness even if he took them. In Destiny City, at least, he knew the threats well. The scent caught his attention even as he was pondering over the fact that she had found the bodies of the previous hers, and he glanced toward her to see the ash and smoke emanate from her. "Oh, that definitely feels like your world liking that. And it makes sense that it would, especially if what you did honored the previous protectors of this planet--" or prior hers, as it were, which was always the oddest aspect of being a senshi to wrap one's mind around. "It's interesting that your homeworld set you here first, of all the places on your homeworld. Perhaps it wanted you to see the ones that came before?" Encke always had his own theories on why they usually ended up in certain spots. The first spot on his comet he had seen was the dried-up fountain. It took him years to realize that was a gathering space for his people, and he found it funny now it had taken him that long...
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2022 11:42 pm
Izanami gave a brief, thoughtful nod. "Home," she thought, was in some ways a mutable concept, and in some ways an incredibly fixed one. There were always places that one might have cause to want to return to, given enough time and enough life lived.
"Do your uncles get to visit often? I see Tokyo when I can, since I styill have family there," she said, "but I don't think I would ever move back permanently, no matter how much I miss it. Especially not now." Not now that she was Izanami. Not now that she had responsibilities so far beyond just herself.
Her eyes cast back down to the cemetery, and she smiled.
"I wonder if my world wanted to impress upon me that I am the next carrier of a long legacy. I know that I heard someone telling....me? My previous self? That she needed to honor the Izanamis who had come before, so I imagine that was quite important here." Tradition. Continuity. Respect for those who had come and gone.
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2022 11:56 pm
When he was younger, he could remember his uncles visiting fairly frequently. Sometimes, his father went with them. Encke had no idea if they had recently, considering he cut off his father and had by consequence cut off that entire side of his family, but, "I think they do," at least, last he knew, "but I think they're pretty attached States-side too. Obviously, they don't have anything tying them here on the level of this, but--" Well, at least, he hoped not. He supposed there was the possibility they were knights, but he didn't want to think of the possible alternatives-- When she said me, he nodded, and he nodded again as she said previous self. "Probably a message, then, from your homeworld and perhaps even from your past self. You get used to those after a while--memories, that is. It gives you a picture of who you were and also, to some extent, who your people had been." Encke spoke like someone who had been to his comet often enough that he had gotten plenty of memories to sort through. "But it's neat, right? To think you're the next one to take care of this place, of a long legacy of Izanamis." Encke couldn't help his laughter. "To be honest, it was a bit strange to me at first I had these other lives," he presumed it was lives, considering there were special scenarios of how to treat the Sailor Enckes of each generation, "but now I don't think I could have it any other way."
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2022 1:25 am
Izanami nodded, thoughtfully, though she was clearly a bit distracted from the discussion of civilian connections to other places. Her eyes were on the cemetery below them, and for a moment--
For a moment, past was present, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw flower petals. When she turned, she watched white cherry blossom blooms blow by her--but they were not just white. They glowed.
The image faded in as quickly as it came, and she turned to look at the dead tree.
"It helps," she admitted, "to know that there are people who did this before. That I am one of a long line, and that every other Izanami figured it out eventually." She grimaced, briefly. "I hope. But there's definitely something comforting about it." She moved to the tree, and ran her hand over the bark. "....I think this used to be a cherry blossom. One that glowed."
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2022 2:11 pm
Encke found himself tracing where she looked, wondering what she had seen. "I hope that they all figured out eventually too." It meant a lot of things: that they made it here, that they had survived until this point, and that they were able to carry on the full legacy of Izanami. it was probably best that they not hyperfocus on that, though, as much as Encke was curious if the past Izanamis had left any kind of record of themselves other than the bodies that were laid to rest in the ground-- Glowing cherry blossoms... That explained why Izanami was looking, and his eyes lit up in interest. Plants of homeworlds always interested him, but he had to admit he had a special place in his heart for the ones that glowed. Perhaps it was because the first plants that grew on Encke's Comet that he realized were definitively Enckean was a blue bulbous glowing flower-- "That sounds beautiful," he followed her, and looked at her to make sure it was alright before touching the bark himself. "It might bloom again. It seems taking care of our homeworlds brings these things back, these things that seem long dead," Encke's smile was soft. "Maybe, some day, with care, it might glow again -- or new trees will bloom, that will glow too."
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2022 2:50 pm
Izanami gave a brief nod, her assent for him to touch the bark. For herself, she knelt down, and traced her fingers over it, and as she got lower, she frowned.
"I would like to see it bloom again," she said, a little distractedly, "it was quite lovely in my memory."
She'd taken the grass for dead, but--she could see, looking closer, that it was not; it was simply a darker color than she was used to, a deep violet instead of green. Which was mostly noticeable by contrast, because not far from the base of the tree, there was a circle that was dead. Withered, black.
"Encke," she said, and she stood, and gestured to it, moving quickly fromt he tree to the circle of dead grass. It smelled...familiar. Like ash, which was what the grass crumbled to under her fingers. "Have you ever seen anything like this before, on a homeworld?"
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2022 3:12 pm
He closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, and let himself touch the grooves of the bark of the tree. "I'd like to see it bloom again too," he remarked, opening his eyes and seeing the way his glow reflected off the tree. A darker bark, then-- Encke noticed Izanami's focus suddenly seemed elsewhere, and his eyes once again tracked her from where she was to where she was going-- oh. That didn't look like it was coming back to life at all. The way the grass crumbled under her fingers drew his attention, and he left the beautiful tree alone, joining her as he squatted down in front of what she pointed out. Perhaps it was a natural part of the homeworld, but it seemed odd that the rest of the grass was still -- a dark purple? Blue? But it seemed odd that this area, in particular, didn't match it. "Like this?" Encke had seen a lot of homeworlds, but he had also never seen a small circle of grass that seemed especially dead, crumbling under her fingers. "No, not like this. I've seen plenty of dead things," including dead creatures and people, in other places, "but not circles of dead grass..." He knit his brows. "Was it like this last you were here?" Was this just how Izanami's homeworld was? She was the senshi of cremation, and the ashen smell seemed ... right, considering what she had shown him. By the same token, it stood stark from everything else. It didn't fit.
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2022 4:02 pm
Izanami sat back on her heels, falling into an almost-seiza almost without thinking. (Her mother would be proud, to see her sitting so perfectly primly.) She reached down to pluck a dead piece, but her touch sent it crumbling, and she withdrew her hand, cautious of destroying anything more.
"This....oh dear," she said, softly. "I didn't see any plants, last time; the cemetery is all stone paths. So I don't know if this was like this before, but..." She reached over to touch the deep purple grass, and it felt soft and alive under her hands.
"I don't think that this is supposed to be this way." It felt wrong. Felt...bad. Made her shiver.
"I think I will need to come back," she said, "and examine it again. But I feel very certain that this is not supposed to be this way."
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2022 4:10 pm
More was crumbling before their eyes, and that definitely cemented to him that this was off. It didn't help that something felt eerie in the air, and perhaps it was because it stood out as so starkly different compared to everything else around -- dead and white and ashen and crumbling -- but by the same token, it just looked... Wrong. He mirrored her actions and touched the purple grass under their feet. No, that was soft. Alive. "I don't think so either." Encke didn't like this. "It seems too ... perfectly isolated." And it seemed ... very dead. "I wonder if anyone else has experienced this." Perhaps this was an Izanami-specific issue, perhaps a rot that the homeworld had faced on the regular back when the place had a whole people living there. Perhaps, though, it was a sign of something else. Kerberos had seen Chaos invaded his homeworld recently, after all. It proved to Encke that stuff outside of their homeworlds could touch their homeworlds... But what? "Do you think we should try to find a way to keep this isolated from everything else, or should we keep an eye on it and see if it spreads?" Encke wasn't sure he liked that either, but--
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2022 4:42 pm
"I don't know," Izanami admitted. "My instincts say to isolate it--I don't want to see anything else die--but I wonder if...maybe...." She winced. "Letting it develop might be an opportunity to learn? And truth be told, I'd have no idea how to isolate it anyway." A fence wouldn't work, there weren't exactly hermetic seals here....
She stood up, frowning.
"I think," she said, "that more information is necessary." Be that from other people or from it growing. "I will have to ask people I meet if they have seen this sort of thing before. Or if they're seeing it now."
She hoped no one else was. She hoped it was an isolated problem. A blight unique to her world, that might then be cured by a solution her memories brought her.
She....was not sure that hope was going to be borne out.
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2022 5:59 pm
His instincts said to isolate it too, but unfortunately, she had a point. What would they even have to seal it? He clocked what was around them--the manor might have something they could use, but he wasn't convinced of that--cemetery, grass, dead trees. He could probably break a few branches off, but... "Yeah," he agreed, shifting in his squat. "I don't think there's any way to make a fence that'll isolate it completely, so I suppose our best hope is that nothing further happens and it just remains this patch..." His hopes weren't high, but. He stood up, brushing his pants off. "I agree. We should ask around and ask if anyone else has seen anything like this." Pendour had seen a lot of homeworlds like he had. He'd start with asking her... "I don't want your homeworld to fall to whatever this is, so I'll help." He had already volunteered himself anyway, to be honest. "Maybe it's just unique to your world too, and we can find a way to defeat it." Wasn't as obvious as, say, a monster, but... But he was certain they could fix this.
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2022 6:48 pm
Izanami nodded, firmly. The only thing to do was observe and record--and to that end, she pulled out her Senshi phone, and took a few pictures of the spot and the area around it.
"For reference," she explained. "And to show people, when I describe it." Easier to do that than try to explain exactly what she was seeing. Plus, this way she could compare photos and monitor its growth between visits.
With a soft breath, she put her phone bakc in subspace, and turned to Encke, extending her hand.
"Thank you for coming to visit my world with me," she said, "and in advance for your help in solving...whatever this is." She grimaced, unhappily. "I hope it doesn't spread too quickly."
Her eyes moved to the dead sakura tree. If this strange blight took that.... no, that wouldn't be fair at all. She wanted to see that tree growing again.
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