… a shattered dream that’s like a broken memory…

In her cocoon of crystal, she felt… nothing. Not the passage of time, not the collapse of once vibrant cities, not the screams of madness. She heard nothing except for the constant, grating, whispering thrum of Chaos pressing in on all sides. She could see nothing, save the encroaching dark, could feel nothing but its devious touch and clawing tendrils. She’d long stopped wondering how long it had been since she’d stemmed the flow of Chaos over her star, stopped wondering if her people survived or thrived or died. In many cases, she’d just stopped thinking at all.

Why now, she wondered, why did her mind start to move, did feeling start to return to her long crystalized fingers?

Once, she supposed her world was beautiful. Spires of glowing crystal touched the sky above, while buildings made of whorls of silver metal crafted cities and towns and the place she’d once called home. Any who visited from off world would marvel at their construction and just how clean it all seemed. Once, the Sonras, the great high born families that could trace their bloodlines back to the first of the Syoni and the First Senshi, had ruled atop their crystal Tower of Syoni. Their world of Resonance had thrived and flourished, providing crystal to the universe. For generations they reigned, with their Senshi of Resonance from on high, guiding their people into a new age.

Then one day a young girl from the slums of the Tenebris awoke as Sailor Terebellum.

A slowly growing hum rolled through the crystal around her. It pierced through the thrum of Chaos, singing through the structure like the echo of a bell. She could not hear it, but she could feel it. She could feel it like a warm breeze through the trees, or softest rays of sunlight on her skin. It was so new, so different from the constant. She felt her own Resonant try to rise to match it, to build upon it.

… a broken memory that’s like a shattered dream…

Lowborn, but so strong in the old Psyonic blood, this girl was. Where Syoni had evolved from the flopped fur covered ears, the fenlocks around their joints, and the tufted tails, those of the old blood varied in their representation. Seen as the old guard, known only for their rudimentary Resonant and ‘before the proper order of things’ ways, they were given the Tenebris as their home. ‘Given’ was such a Syoni word for it, though.

The Tenebris. A winding labyrinth of crystal and earth beneath the surface. Some parts had once been filled with the crystal that glittered far above, carved out building towers for the high society. Others were burrowed out by the great abyssal beasts that made the depths of the star their home and helped to keep the world turning. It was named so for the dark crystal that it was built out of, and the seeming never ending dark that echoed through it. A perfect location for the old blood to live, do you not think? They said, cruel smiles on their faces. This way, both sides could live in harmony; one, among the stars and heavens as their star intended, and one below, built to do the hard work. It was, after all, the natural order of things.

So for a lowborn Psyonic to be chosen by the star? Blasphemy! A fraud! A heretic! How dare she take that which was rightfully the Syoni’s birthright!?

The hum grew into a song that filled her mind with power. Not power like Chaos lied to give, that twisted and corrupted and took, but power that revived and gave and healed. It drowned out the Chaos around her, growing louder and louder and louder until it was all she could feel, all she could hear.

Burnt orange eyes snapped open as she felt the crystal around her hit it’s Resonant and shatter in a flurry of dust. Energy flooded her, called to her, extended a hand to her and she gasped as air hit her lungs once again. Her knees buckled and she fell to the dias beneath her. The tug was so hard, so demanding that she almost thought it was her bonded, her court, her friends. Her entire body resonated with the energy, almost to the point where it was too much, too intense. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t stop the racing of her heart and the buzzing in her horns.

The buzzing in her horns.

Snow white hair fell around her face as she looked up, hands coming to cradle the curled horns on the sides of her head. They vibrated softly against her fingers, settling after a time as she focused on the sky above. The stars above her blinked back at her, as if also surprised to see her. The air was stale, stagnant almost, but she could breathe it. The crystal around her was dim and dark, tinged purple except for a ten foot circle around her and the dias. That glowed a bright blue - almost painfully to her eyes - against the dark stone around it.

Across from her, illuminated by the glowing crystal beneath her feet, sat a broken and fractured throne, the symbol of the Senshi of Terebellum barely visible in the dark.

… I want to line up the pieces…

She’d never wanted to be the spark of revolution and hatred. In truth, she’d never wanted the mantle of Terebellum at all. She was well aware she was unworthy based on her birth. That did not stop her from becoming a political pawn. The Tenebrii saw her as a chance to reclaim their ancestral homelands and to show the Syoni that they could no longer rule over the weak. The Syoni wanted to use her to keep the Tenebrii in line, and to show them that they were the superior race. Barely fifteen turns old, with the expectations of an entire people on her shoulders on one side, and the weight of the prejudice of another on the other side.

Sometimes she wondered if Chaos had quietly infected her world long before the Silver Millennium fell, nurtured by the hatred and oppression of generations.

One dark teal tipped hand touched the darkened crystal. Tooth and nail, she’d fought for the right to sit in that crystal throne. So many decisions that brought her to this point, to the brink. The friends she’d made… the friends that betrayed her and that she’d betrayed… she could barely remember their names, much less their faces. So many lives intertwined with hers, only to come to an end far too soon, far too dissonant.

It was far too silent, now.

The energy tugged on her again and she looked away from the broken chair and darkened crystal to the sky above again.

...come to where it all began… and you can save your star...

Sailor Terebellum - once known as Sonya Oren long, long ago, closed her eyes and reached out to that pull with shaking hands.

… yours…

… and mine…

- - -

Terebellum stumbled over her feet as the fresh air and loud sounds assaulted her senses. A hand shot out to catch herself against something firm and rigid. Everything was so loud, ringing against her ears. Not, she noted, her horns. No she could not hear here. Perhaps that was for the best, as she winced against the sounds around her. Why did it have to be so…loud…

She glanced around, noting the ground beneath her feet and the great tree she was leaning against. Lowborn she may be, but she was not uncultured. Various worlds had plant life, all in variations of each other if you really looked at them and their Resonant cores. A tree was a tree whether it had leaves that consumed light from suns, or crystals that generated light. This one was definitely one of the former, though it was full of needles over leaves. Colors surrounded her - greens and browns and whites and grays. Something chirped above her and she glanced up to see a tawny little feathered creature - a bird, though not a species she recognized - staring down at her with confusion.

Wait… was that…

She stared beyond the little bird to the light blue visible through the branches and needles.

Blue… sky….

Terebellum stepped around the tree, still trying to find her legs, and stared.

Bright blue sky curved above her, wisps of clouds across its expanse. The expanse was broken by reflective square buildings of all shapes and sizes. Light reflected off one of the buildings, and she shielded her face with a hand. Sunlight. Warm on her palm and face, even in the cold of the air.

Just how long had it been since she’d even seen the sky so blue…

“Cool cosplay!” came a voice from her left. Terebellum turned in a panic, to see a male humanoid wave at her and stick his thumb out at her, pointed up. She forced her face into some form of smile - oh boy, those muscles were unused - and waved back. She’d always been good at mimicry, and he seemed to have a joyful expression on his face. He grinned at her and kept walking down the path.

“Cos… play? I…” she said, voice stiff and disjointed from disuse. She coughed lightly, and looked around. Terebellum did not strictly… recognize this world’s inhabitants but she recalled that the hornless, Resonant deaf humanoids with the rounded ears were humans. The Syoni elite had looked down on her treating with them, over what she could not recall, choosing to look down on them for their rounded ears and relative barbaric ways.

If that was a human… then she was on Earth. On an Earth she did not recognize or know. This place was supposed to help her save her star but how—

Flares of power drew her attention to her left. Several light and several dark. She felt that roiling Chaos, so similar and yet so very different from the Chaos on her star, and began to stalk towards it. Earth was infected with Chaos as well. Was no place a bastion of the light anymore? Was nothing sacred and free of corruption?

White hot emotion boiled in her belly, igniting an inferno she’d not felt in so long. It fueled her steps as she found her Earth legs, it fueled her into a jog then into a run then into a full on sprint as she launched herself into the air towards the roof of a building. Metal contraptions and people milled about below her, not even really giving her a second glance as she hit the roof and kept running.

After so long stuck in time, feeling her body move and stretch chased the frigid chill of the wind away. Her feet crunched against the rooftops, a sharp jarring sound that reminded her of the Tenebrus’ tunnels. Something laid on a horn as she vaulted another alley, lungs burning against the exertion. There was just so much sound here, different tones and pitches and frequencies. Heavy beats pumped out of a window as she passed, really off key singing in another. Ropes of dark... Metal or wire hummed with a power that flowed through them that stood her hair on end when she passed too close.

It was almost too much, but she found herself embracing the surge of sound and light and feeling.

Tere vaulted the next alley, misjudging the distance and catching the lip of the roof with her foot. She tumbled and skidded across the roof with a grunt of pain. Damn. She was out of practice. Moreover…

She wasn’t as strong as she used to be, but she would be again. She’d fought her way to the top once, she would do it a second time. She would do it over and over if she must.

A flare of Chaos shot through an alley beneath her and she chased after them, rage in her heart. She didn’t care what it was, she would bring it to its demise. All Chaos, no matter its origin, were parasites on the universe, only fit to bring ruin and destruction. It could not be reasoned with, it could not be contained or controlled. No, it had to be obliterated, or everything she’d sacrificed would be for naught. Then her star died for nothing.

Terebellum would bring Chaos to its Resonant point and shatter it into dust.

No matter the cost.

[ WC: 2098 ]