Welcome to Gaia! ::

For the last few hours, Lyndin had been able to do little more than manage the growing concern he had for the Vanguard. He didn’t usually get messages at this hour, though none of them really kept the same schedule. Every now and then he’d get a strange message–or parts of one, or just a corrupted file. One message was bad enough, but he’d had several in too short of a time for it to be a coincidence.

So, he’d pulled himself from his projects to investigate, and found–

No one who had sent the messages.

And, none of his messages had been going through, either.

Naturally, he worried. Asked around. Tried to figure out where the absent Vanguardians were.

For hours, he had no answers.

And then, they were back at the house. He stood towards the center of the room, waiting for someone to start the story. He’d gotten bits and pieces but it was far from a coherent story. They’d taken a moment to collect themselves, and then they’d all gathered.

He was dressed in full regalia, and if he had been resting and refreshed before, now his concern wore heavy on his face. “All right. Start from the beginning,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

Vyn was tired, but it hardly mattered. There was still work to be done. That the Commodore was already there only simplified matters; otherwise, Vyn would have gone to him. Because that was his duty, and he would do his duty even if he didn’t always feel suited to it.

He didn’t feel suited to it now. He felt young and defeated. He felt bitter and angry. He felt like he might cry, or shout, or throw something — something breakable, something that might shatter against the wall with a satisfying crash, something that might draw notice, that might show anyone who bothered to pay attention exactly how anxious and enraged he was, how much it hurt to try and try, and keep trying, all the while knowing nothing he did made a single bit of difference.

But he couldn’t do that, wouldn’t do that. It would be improper. He was Velencian, and a member of the Vanguard. He had better control over himself than that.

So he stood at attention, eyes bright with restrained emotions, smudged dark beneath with fatigue. Though his hair was a bit limp and his uniform a bit dirty and disheveled, Vyn nonetheless did his best to appear as he should. Calm. Dignified. Behavior befitting a Corporal. Only his hands betrayed him, fingers curled tight into his palms at his sides.

“We were abducted, along with several Mauvians, members of the White Moon, the Negaverse, and the Dark Mirror Court, then stranded on a world populated by inorganic life who claimed to have gained sentience,” Vyn began. He did not quite meet the Commodore’s eye. “Whether or not they were truly sentient remains a matter of debate, as does their claim that the world itself was Astraya.”

By the edge of disbelief in Vyn’s voice, it would be obvious he didn’t believe either.

“Upon our arrival, we found ourselves unable to leave by any means. It seemed as if a strange man might have been responsible for our being there. You might remember him from the hilltop last year. He has the means to teleport, and carries a golden orb. When we arrived, he warned us that the world was dangerous, but offered little else before leaving us to the mercy of the inorganics, who took our arrival as a sign that they had completed some sort of trial that would allow them to acquire starseeds of their own.

“It soon became apparent that the starseeds they meant to acquire were ours. Each of the inorganics was outfitted with a golden orb which, upon reflection, bore similarities to the one carried by the man we encountered when we first arrived. These orbs were their means of taking starseeds. We were able to investigate a ship that had crash landed some time ago, where we eventually came by this information. The ship had most recently been owned by a Mauvian, who ceased to live long before we set foot there. They also previously claimed ownership of the inogranics, which they acquired from various other words. The ship itself recognized us as Velenian and seemed to know nothing of Velencya. It spoke our language and claimed to have seen Velenia before. It seemed to be curious about our use of weapons, as if it found these advancements in our culture unexpected.”

The same overwhelming sense of dread he’d suffered during each foray into the ship seized Vyn again as he spoke of it, but he merely took a breath and clenched his hands tighter.

“Lysvi discovered a beacon that was ultimately responsible for our being there, but as they were the only one of us present at the discovery, I will leave that for them to share. From the ship, we were able to acquire a power cell with enough energy to allow us to warp back to Earth. The ship also presented us with these.”

Finally, one of Vyn’s hands loosened. He summoned a satchel of silvery seeds from the protection of his subspace pocket, which he then held within his palm. He passed the seeds to the Commodore, almost grateful to part with them.

Then he swallowed through a tightening throat and said, with some difficulty, “Sir, Aliez, Andreiya, and Lysvi should be commended for their efforts. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for the rest of us. There were instances of lax behavior and poor judgment unbecoming of our place in the Vanguard.”

Neryn was just glad to be somewhere they considered home, and not, once again, stuck somewhere that was decidedly not. They were tired and sore, but overall whole and intact. Better than they could say for some who'd had their souls stolen temporarily by the robots. Those robots... they'd completely abandoned the Prime Directive and somehow obtained their own personalities and thoughts. They agreed with Vyn's observation that was a matter of debate whether they had 'true' sentience or simply were controlled by the ship they'd crashed Astraya on, but they'd be incredibly convincing in Neryn's opinion.

Which concerned Neryn more than the fact they somehow wanted starseeds.

Lyndin was waiting for them when they arrived back home, and Neryn stood at attention. They kept quiet as Vyn explained what had happened, showing the small satchel of seeds they'd acquired. Neryn had done very little to help the whole situation, except take copious amounts of notes.

"Commodore, I've uploaded all the information I collected while on the ruined world to the database for review," they added, just so he was aware the information existed somewhere. That, and because it made Neryn feel just a little better about not doing a whole lot of work while on the planet.

At the foot of the couch sat Naeria, her long limbs curled in on themselves so that she formed a small ball. She tried to sit as tall as she could. Despite everything that had happened over the last year, a part of her still wanted to impress the Commodore.

An equally strong part of her wanted to hide. That part of her had grown a bit stronger given recent events, when one of the robots that she'd been so curious about had ended up trying to take Fae-Fae's starseed for itself. She'd gotten it back, and everyone was here now, alive, and with new information, and generally no worse for the wear, but Naeria still did not think that she could handle someone spitting blame at her.

There was no way she was going to be able to defend herself right now. Sometimes, she could push through the lump in her throat in order to speak, but she did not think that now would be one of those times. If someone said something negative of her right now, it was far more likely that she would simply start crying.

In front of the Commodore. It would be a disaster.

Even Vyn's general comment had her staring out across the floor, biting her lip.

The information about Kurma, on the other hand, made her chest feel slightly lighter. Speech was beyond her at the moment, but perhaps-

She reached for her ComTech, typing out a message to the entire Vanguard.

Kurma was not the one who brought us there?

That was a bit of a relief, that her friend had not intentionally put them all in danger.

Vyn kept his silence while Lysvi spoke, hands a bit more relaxed now that he’d said what he needed to. He listened attentively and avoided looking directly at anyone. Not the Commodore, whose nose might seem to be of particular interest to Vyn for as long as he found himself unable to look the Commodore in the eye. Not Aliez, whose anxiety and embarrassment were painfully obvious to someone who’d known him as long as Vyn had. Not any of the Cadets, or his fellow Corporals.

If he looked, he might break — a circumstance he preferred to handle in solitude. After, perhaps he would cry in the room he shared with Aliez. Or, if neither of them felt like company, perhaps he’d lock himself in one of the bathrooms and soak in the tub until the water turned cold, a favored Earth indulgence (and later feel guilty for commandeering it for so long, among all the other actions and sentiments he thought he should feel guilty for).

Naeria’s message almost pulled him out of his forced stoicism, almost pulled his gaze in her direction, but Vyn resisted. He swallowed before he could utter a response out loud, reminded himself to be kind and patient, that everyone here was his friend. They were his people. If they’d remained on Velencya, none of this tension would have existed. Surely any changes in their dynamic were the fault of Earth.

Did you not receive Lysvi’s message on the subject? They sent it from the beacon.

Vyn sent the response directly to Naeria rather than all of them, hoping to spare her any embarrassment. That their messages might not have reached the Commodore or any of the Vanguard here on Earth wouldn’t come as a surprise (in fact, it might even come with some relief for Vyn, horrified as he was over Aliez’s mistaken log entry), but he had received every message sent by the Vanguardians on Astraya while there. He’d been given no indication that the others weren’t privy to the same information.

He tried to be fair, tried to make allowances, tried not to let disappointment rise and eat away at him, but it was no easy feat. He didn’t know how the Commodore managed to handle disappointment with such grace.

Perhaps the Commodore simply had no other choice.

Vyn’s fingers curled back into his palms as Tenoch spoke. Briefly, Vyn closed his eyes. He took another calming breath. He would not cry. He would not let the stoic mask slip out of place.

Voice as smooth and impassive as he could make it, Vyn said, “We may not have been trained to expect abduction, but the fact that some of us have been whisked away by mysterious cosmic forces twice in as many months suggests that we should acclimate ourselves to it. Otherwise, defending our own, seeking information, and acquiring resources is exactly what we trained for.”

Lyndin frowned as he listened, not in disappointment, but merely with the gravity of the information they were giving him. Of course he’d suspected something unnatural, but he didn’t like that they were taken. Gone, to somewhere unreachable. Against their will.

Without the ability to contact him.

He accepted the satchel of seeds from Vyn with visible curiosity. He held it carefully in his hand, but his eyes darted from the seeds to the faces of the Vanguard.

“I was receiving messages. Many of the files were corrupted, I was getting worried. I’ve been running programs on my ComTech to try and enhance reception, but I’m glad you're back now. I don’t know where Astraya is,” outside of fairy tales, especially, “But it was far enough away that our communications were disrupted.”

He didn’t sound like he had much faith that it was the Astraya, nor did he seem to put much stock into sentient robotics. But, those things were subjective.

Data, not so much.

“I look forward to seeing what information you’ve all collected, perhaps that will help answer some of our questions. I hope you’ll all submit a report so I can go document this and do further research. The same for all of you,” he said, trying to find some good to take out of this. He nodded to Neryn, “I’ll review any uploaded information as soon as possible.”

He didn’t like what he’d heard so far, though. It just wasn’t sitting well with him. The packet of seeds felt heavy in his hand.

Lysvi had an interesting bit of information, both with Kurma’s age and relation to Cosmos, and his involvement at all. Aliez’s clarification did not bring him any particular ease. Lyndin remembered him.

His face remained still, contemplative.

Naeria seemed as though the whole thing weighed heavily on her, and she and Fae-Fae seemed equally subdued after their misadventure.

“Anything, any of you might have taken, please send it to me. Vyn,” he ran his thumb over the satchel, still trying to piece all of this together. “...I appreciate your thoughtful report. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

Pieces weren’t fully lining up just yet. He scanned the satchel with his ComTech, and waited for the reading to process.

“I will commend you all for your efforts. You’ve all arrived back safely, that’s the most important thing. I am glad you are able to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your peers. We cannot grow if we do not know where we can improve. Tenoch, I hope in your report you will give me as much detail as you can about what you think we could have done to better prepare for something like this. Perhaps I have been lax in my guidance. You are all still under my protection, I don’t want anything to happen to any of you. If this can happen once, it can happen again. We’ll take this experience, and we’ll learn from it. Together, individually. We’re still here on a mission, and we’re still here to improve. We’ll take every chance we can get.”

“Thank you, Naeria,” Aliez said quietly in response to Fae-Fae’s message to them. Knowing that her starseed had been taken made it feel like his heart had dropped into his stomach. He felt sick, knowing that another of their own could have died.

“I am grateful and relieved that you are still with us, Fae-Fae,” he said, honest and sincere. He was a medic, a healer, vowed to protect his fellow Velencians at all costs, even if the price was his own life.

“We should have all stayed together, as Vyn suggested when we first arrived. ‘Our primary concern is each other’,” he repeated Vyn’s words, trying not to let his frustration get the better of him.

He would have liked to see Neryn’s information as well. Did they even have access to their database? He hoped not. Maybe to upload information… but anything else? That was a huge security risk. If the others could see their information, then it was no wonder why Caedus had eluded them for so long.

“Please remember to relay the information I requested, when you return to Caedus, Neryn,” he said as he looked over at them, sadness in his voice more than anything else. “Unless you’ve switched your alliances, since you’re here now.”

He wanted them all safe and healthy, but he couldn’t so easily forget or ignore how Aeleas, Lixian, Vaylin, Neryn, and Valnyr had all abandoned them when the decision came to going with the Commodore or staying to be hopefully taken in by the White Moon.

Aliez hated everything the Negaverse stood for. He disagreed with it, and didn’t want to associate with them. But the Commodore needed all the help he could get to restore Velencya. And Aliez wanted to help save the Commodore’s life as well.

He was frustrated, too, with the others. Others had already admitted to not knowing how to properly work their Source Stone, so perhaps there were very few of them who actually focused on their training.

Why were they part of the Vanguard then?

Why were any of them? Velencya’s Vanguard was supposed to be the pride of their world? But here…? Aliez suspected more and more that the Commodore was provided with a bunch of misfits who didn’t really belong in their society. Himself included.

And try as he might, he was also frustrated with the Commodore -- a thought that made his heart ache like physical pain.

“No one cares about our mission, Sir…” he said before he could think better of it, his eyes already hot with tears as he stared determinedly at the floor.

Their world was dying. The Commodore was dying. And what was everyone doing? Getting swept up in the uniqueness of Earth and the other Worlds and Wonders they could visit.

Obviously there were a few of them that did want to save their world, the millions of Velencians that lived there. Their families. Their friends. And the Commodore.

“Have you all forgotten your parents? Siblings? Those you left behind to join this mission?” he asked, finally lifting his head to look around the room. “A mission we trained for and… we can’t even keep each other safe because everyone has their own agendas.”