The glow from the computer monitor sitting atop the kotatsu was the only light in the living room of the small downtown apartment that Yukio called home. He had just powered up for the first time since becoming Spei, and as luck would have it ran into another Knight, Richtersveld, a Pluto Squire who took him under her wing and helped him figure out what was going on and what he was capable of. She also explained the war to him; combined with the information the Code Piece had given him, he now more fully understood what he was supposed to do and what was at stake. He'd also promised her that he would message her as soon as he found his signet ring, which was located somewhere at his Wonder, to let her know he was safe.

So he powered up again as soon as he got home (hoping against hope that the Chaos aura he had sensed was nothing serious and that Richtersveld could handle it) and stood in the center of the room. The mantra that had been echoing in his mind since he first became Spei, Page of the Moon, was now foremost in his thoughts. Closing his eyes, he murmured softly:

"I pledge my life and loyalty to the Moon, and to Spei.
I humbly request your aid, so that in return I may give you mine."

No sooner had the words left his lips than he felt a whooshing sensation and a slight disorientation. He opened his eyes and looked around. The scene that greeted him was no longer his apartment; and Spei knew in his heart that he was now at his Wonder. He recalled his first visit to this place with the Code Piece, but he hadn't had much opportunity to really explore; he intended to remedy that..

Walking around to the front of the building, he climbed the handful of steps and pressed his hand against the door, its glass panes jagged and shattered. The door opened easily, as it had before, and he poked his head in and looked around before entering, bits of broken glass crunching beneath his heels. He crossed the floor to the center of the open main room; it was just as ornate on the inside as it had been on the outside, the floor littered with bits of broken stone and layered with dust. The sense of hope and anticipation grew as he looked around at the doors to the rooms on this floor. Some had doors, some didn't; most of the doors that were still intact were ajar. Well, he decided, no better time to explore – that was why he had come this time, after all, to look for his signet ring.

He made his way to one of the rooms on the ground level and looked in through the open door. Broken furniture lay scattered around the small space, covered with dust. A window in one wall was shattered. Spei figured this must have been some kind of office, given the way the bits of broken marble looked. There didn't seem to be anything else in the room beyond that, so he moved on.

The other rooms on the ground floor were in similar condition, marble furniture broken and ruined and everything covered with layers of dust. One room he came across, back near the greenhouse, was filled with the remains of gardening tools, decayed and pitted metal rake and shovel heads laying where they had fallen, their handles long disintegrated. He explored the greenhouse for a bit then; cracked pots and broken planters were everywhere, some still filled with soil. Spei could only imagine the lush vegetation that had once been in here, during the height of the Moon Kingdom. A couple of the glass walls were still intact, by some miracle, but the rest were destroyed.

Back in the main room, he went to one of the staircases, carved from solid marble as was the entire building, and climbed the stairs to the second floor. A completely empty room greeted him at his first stop; as he continued, he realized all the rooms up here were empty.

Save one, the room over the greenhouse.

In the center of this open room, hovering above a cracked pedestal, was a glowing orb similar to the larger Code Piece in the Celestial Theater, though much smaller. The Code piece for his Wonder, just where he had placed it. A sense of welcome washed through his mind, along with a strong sensation of hope. He nodded to it in greeting, thinking warm encouraging thoughts. As he thought, the Code fragment pulsed and swirled faster, and now joy accompanied the sensation of hope.

An idea occurred to him, something Richtersveld had suggested just before he'd left. I need to find my signet ring, he thought toward the Code fragment. Can you help me? A strong urge told him to look down toward the base of the pedestal; something glittered there in the dust, something that he hadn't noticed when he first entered the room three weeks ago with the lunar Code Piece. Bending over, he picked it up and studied it. It was a ring, made of a silver metal, decorations that looked Art Nouveau to his eye etched along the sides leading up to the stone, which was something in pale violet he couldn't identify. Carved into the stone was a symbol: a crescent surrounding a series of unevenly-sized concentric circles. Inside the band was the word Spei.

He slid it on the ring finger of his left hand; it fit perfectly.

"Thank you," he half-whispered, nodding his head in a bow; the Code fragment pulsed warmly at him in response. Leaving the room, he descended the stairs on the other side of the second level and stood in the center of the main floor again. Looking around, he gave a sigh that was filled with equal parts hope and determination. He had a lot of work to do.

(wc: 1012)