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 Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2022 4:14 pm
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A click of her tongue, and Solaris glanced between her subject and her paper. The multimedia pad was thick in her lap, a variety of pages already filled. She'd need to get another one soon. The trees were changing colors. She hadn't seen that before when she first arrived here, she'd been too late for that. But now? Her page was filled with different trees in their gradual shifts, illustrating how the lowering amounts of sunlight affected the chlorophyll in their leaves. At least for some of her subjects, she could visit at night and use the lighting from overhead lamps to help her--during the daytime, she could double-check the colors.
Graphite smudged on the side of her hand, and she sighed, rotating the page and grabbing a mushed blob of eraser to clean up the mess.
Doing things like this--drawing, doing her studies of flora--was a great way to pass time, she'd realized. Parks were amazing for having run-ins of all kinds. Metis and Realta had told her so, and she'd already confirmed it a few times. Made sense for her to just keep up the process for now. Sure, she could keep exploring the city from up high--but every time she felt that wind blow, felt it move through her feathers...
It ached in her chest.
Earth's gravity was too strong. She couldn't just free glide here, much as she could just feel that urge to fall into the updrafts when she found them between large buildings. It was safer to stay in places like parks, where she couldn't get too high up and risk... giving into that old, old habit.
She missed those old days.
Groaning, she rubbed at her eyes, mindful of the graphite on her other hand. Something twinged on part of her mind, though, and Solaris paused, lowering her hand to glance around. She was crouched in a somewhat open area, needing the street light and all that peppered along certain main paths of this park. An Order signature perked up on her radar. Stronger. Not far. So, she looked back to her subject, and sketched out a few last faint lines of leaves and branches. She could stop back over tomorrow in the daylight and do watercolor on this one...
Closing up her sketchbook, making sure to place a scrap, protective page over the work in progress, Solaris put away her materials into a loose cloth bag and began to make her way towards the other energy. Meet them in the middle, if she was right about the direction they were heading.
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Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2022 5:54 pm
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Milling around in her head, she wondered how strong this energy signature was. They were definitely Order--not the creepy-crawly sensation of a... Chaos senshi. That still messed with her, and a violent shiver rocked her as it slithered down her spine. Ugh! But this was stronger than that one--it felt on par with Metis and Athalia, so... Eternal, right?
Ah, another I miss those days...
A smile was stuck to her face, happy to meet another senshi here. Ask them questions about Earth, maybe, hear about some of the stuff they've dealt with--one with that sort of strength backing them should have a few stories, right?
When she spotted the figure ahead, she lifted a hand to wave, the free one not holding fast to the strap of her bag. It took her a moment to actually... accept the nagging in her mind. The old familiarity. The long sleeves, the ornate, gilded and glistening accents... beautiful, luxurious. Not a look she'd have attributed to a senshi from a warmonger people, back when she first met him.
Her hand began to droop, pinpricks of pain welling at her eyes. She'd heard about reincarnation. Metis mentioned some of her memories. The previous Metis, that Realta had awakened after she'd awakened Solaris herself. It could be. A new one. Her lips began to press hard together. It could be that, this could be a new one. She kept walking forward, not sure how she'd explain herself if she burst into tears in front of some poor Earthling who had no idea who she--
Solaris?
A sob popped from her lips as her eyes went wide, her free hand fisting in some desperate attempt to hold onto... something. She felt the tears falling, fat and hot, and heard the rapid slam of her heels against the ground. At some point, she dropped her bag, but her mind was far, far away from the sketchbook and supplies. Lightyears away. A thousand years away.
Someone she knew. Someone who knew her.
Lifetimes of wishing for people to speak to, wishing for those days to come back, screaming till her throat was raw begging for people back she cared for... They crashed over her, pumbling and drowning her.
Solaris was barely able to catch herself to slow down, her wings flaring out on reflex as if that would offer any actual resistance to the air, just mere steps before him. Her shoulders shook, empty hands shaking, flexing--wanting to reach out, but. Her voice was no more steady. "...I stopped asking the gods for things a long time ago, but please... please, tell me you're real, Alastor."
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Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2022 11:15 am
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The outstretched hand… she stared at it a moment, stared at him. Laughed, though the sound was wet and somewhat brittle, as he pointed out the fact her gods likely weren’t involved. "Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes it’s just easier to blame everything horrible on them when you can’t find a way to stop it all from happening."
She could hear it. The way Solarians had screamed at her, begging the gods to reverse those changes. Telling her how she’d failed them. How she was a catalyst, sure—but clearly, not one for prosperity. She’d been a catalyst of a cataclysm, was how centuries of religious screaming and hissing worded it all. After hearing it for so long, it’d been hard to not view it as a level of fact.
And then all those voices went quiet, while she remained.
There was no calming herself immediately. She cried. Not nearly as much as when she’d arrived on Earth and embraced those cold, comforting fuzzy snow bunnies. But her first time seeing someone else from so long ago still alive… it ranked second to her first encounter with life again.
Gently, she took his hand, squeezing as much in thanks as it was to confirm to herself, yes, he is real. Her wings folded tight against her back as if they could shield her from the whirlpool that tried to drag her into depths she wasn’t ready to face.
His questions were an anchor to land that she needed, and she made herself take deep breaths. "I got… called here, I think. Um… back in December?" She rubbed at her eyes with the soft cloth that hung from her hands, finally taking note of the state of his uniform, and energy signature again. An Eternal. Her brow furrowed, and she glanced down at herself. She’d lost that power a long time ago. "What about you? How are you… still an Eternal? Are your people okay? Your world?"
Hope, tiny, sparked, and she looked up at him with wide eyes. Could that be why he was still the same..?
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:32 am
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For a moment, Alastor didn’t answer. There was surprise, maybe even happiness, on his face when he’d realized she was her, but he couldn’t smile and answer her questions honestly.
He held her hand when she took his, and when he squeezed, it almost felt apologetic.
“It’s hard to say. I haven’t seen anyone in a while. But the storms are pretty bad, so I’m sure they’ve just taken refuge wherever they could find it. I’ve been here since December, too. Well, on and off. I was back on Alastor for a while, but I’ve been here for the better part of the year.”
Earth’s years weren’t so unlike Alastor’s, but the differences were still striking.
“I lost my power, too. Long time ago. Some shadows moved in, started causing havoc. Chaos,” he explained briefly. “When I first got here I was half starved,” mostly starved, “and struggling. But I ran into some people who helped. They’ve been great to me, really went out of their way to make sure I was taken care of. I worked my way back up. I think my world was too weak to let me borrow that power, it had to use all it could just to sustain itself. But I got here on Earth and that’s a different story. I’m back, almost better than ever, and getting ready to fix my world.”
He exhaled, somewhat bitterly. “Getting ready to start a war to free it, but. Small steps.”
Backwards, sometimes. But he felt like he was going forward again. Finally.
“What about you?” he asked, but in his heart he already worried that he new the truth.
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2022 11:19 am
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She swallowed thickly. Part to move away the sobs that still shook her a little. Part to force down the bile that rose up as he mentioned bad storms. The idea that some of his people might still live was both beautifully hopeful, and disturbingly crushing to her. Solaris had seen the last of her people die, so far as she’d ever found of them. But maybe not all worlds had suffered the same as hers..? There was a profound hope in that.
He was able to get back to his world? Already, that was a difference to her. She’d not been able to return to Solaris since arriving here. A weird fact—she both missed it, but also felt relief being away from that dead, dying world…
It was harder for the ghosts and guilt to ravage her mind here.
Still, she listened, head tilted as he shared his tale. It wasn’t… dissimilar from hers. The fact he said he’d lost his power and worked back up made her glance again at her own uniform. It wasn’t the one she’d met him previously in. She’d been an Eternal of her own right then. So she… could regain that..?
Her head was spinning with too much info. Too many thoughts bickering and tossing each other out of the forefront.
…fix my world.
Oh. Well that snapped everything into crystal focus. Solaris’ gaze flew back to his, scanning his face for any sign of some stupidly cruel joke. Getting his world back… from that Chaos?
Kyrie had stopped dreaming of such a thing ages ago. It’d been too much…
She licked her lips, taking a breath to try and bring herself back into the present. To answer his question. Her hand holding his squeezed a little firmer, bracing herself. "…they’re all dead, Alastor. I’m the last one, far as I ever saw. The storms knocked out… a lot of our cities on the floating islands. They crashed down into the lower lands and… there’s no bracing for that impact," she said with a harsh, humorless breath one could try to call a laugh. "Chaos hit us like a plague. It starved off populations, they attacked others for their limited supplies… till theirs dried up, too, and then they couldn’t last…" Pale eyes closed, already distant and staring back into events she’d wish and wish forever had never transpired. Her lips pressed hard again, trembling slightly as she recalled the faint, faint images of her parents and siblings in their final moments. It’d still been centuries till the rest of the populations flickered and died out.
"…I still don’t know why the world kept me going." Because it had to have been that. She’d have starved to death or at least grown old during all that time, otherwise.
It took a moment to bring herself back. Solaris sucked in a breath, releasing his hand to step away, turn away and run her hands through her hair. Her wings flexed and flapped absently. Agitated. "So what’s this about a war? I don’t have anything I used to, but I’ve still got magic that can pack a punch." There was a smile there, at least, when she turned back to him. It wasn’t especially bright or warm. But it was there. She was there, even if she had no clue why that was.
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:12 am
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There was familiarity in her words, and Alastor felt a pang of sympathy for her. He understood what it was like to see your world decay, but she was upset enough about her home, he wasn’t going to burden her with news of his.
Solaris was a beautiful world. Not really to his tastes, but only because every part of it he’d ever seen was so busy. It was hard to imagine it lifeless.
He’d had his own hardships with falling rocks, but they’d never built cities on them. Alastor had a strong gravitational force, and debris from passing asteroids and other small collisions tended to get stuck in the atmosphere. Which was fine, except when they blocked out the sun, or collided into each other and came crashing down.
Percy had helped build the technology to safely bring down the worst of them, but even the largest of his debris probably paled in comparison to the smallest of Solaris’. He understood what she meant when she said there was no bracing for that impact; the falling boulders from his skies had destroyed small villages; he knew her own damage would have been catastrophic when they fell.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Solaris. Truly. Earth seems to have its own problem with Chaos, but they haven’t let it take over. It’s strong, though. Different than mine. It manipulates people here. Gives them more strength, more power. Back home, it just consumes everything. Crops fail, the storm won’t let up, we had sickness and disease. And we’ve got the shadows, you know. Lure people into the darkness and you never see them again. But–” he shook his head as if to chase away the thought. “You’re here, there has to be a reason for it. I haven’t been able to figure it out for myself. I didn’t think I did anything special, did you?”
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Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2022 7:28 pm
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A heavy sigh lifted her as she nodded her head. Earth was still thriving. How, she wasn't sure--Chaos was here, yes, but so was life. So was Order. Her nose wrinkled. "...I met a... a senshi that aligned themselves with Chaos," she told him, spitting out the title as if it were foul. "I was warned about Chaos' agents, the Negaverse? But I don't remember them mentioning senshi had betrayed their duties." Or maybe Metis, Realta, and Athalia had, and she'd just... blocked it out. Entirely possible. She still couldn't believe what she'd been seeing and fighting against. A traitor.
But Alastor's description of the Chaos on his world had her sympathetic. He'd done so much for his people, for his world--to watch it succumb to Chaos, eaten away, stolen away, resources failing... Her eyes closed briefly. It wasn't hard to imagine how thin he must have stretched himself to try and save them. She shook her head to his question, arms lifting in a wide shrug. "Not that I can figure? Except that I'm a senshi, and so are you. I know I tried to help my people but... they all grew old," she told him, the last word hissed out painfully. "And I never did. You clearly never did, either. I... I wasn't sure if it was because I'm the Senshi of Catalysts, you know? That catalysts don't change, just the world around them--but you being here and whole means it wasn't exclusive to me."
A thought struck--a distant memory of a long ago conversation, and she stepped towards Alastor with brows furrowed in concern. "What about your husband?" When the words were out of her lips, she realized the potential pain she could have been stirring, and flinched. "I-I mean... I don't... you... you haven't mentioned... him..." And it might have been for a good reason, a fact that made her feel like absolute s**t.
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Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2022 8:05 am
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Alastor’s lip curled a bit at the mention of a senshi aligned with Chaos, and he made no effort to conceal his dissatisfaction with the notion.
It didn’t last for very long, though.
She asked about Percy and things like Chaos and the Negaverse didn’t really mean anything. Solaris knew what she had asked; he could see the way her face shifted, and even if it was only a few seconds, he knew she’d figured it out.
“It was a long time ago,” he tried to reassure, but Devyn had always loved Percy deeply, and he’d never been shy about sharing that with anyone he could. “There’s a new Knight of Sessrumnir now,” he said, because it was easier to let her fill in the blanks than it was for him to say what had happened to Percy. “I like him very much, I’ve been staying with him. He’s looked after me since I got here. So I like to think Perce is still looking out for me in some way. But he’s great,” he assured, because–
Well, he wanted her to know. It didn’t make the pain of losing Percy any less, but he hoped she wouldn’t feel as bad about it if she knew that he had someone looking after him.
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2022 5:55 pm
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Again, Solaris flinched. She’d met Percy, long ago. Already, she’d been bracing herself to meet a new Sailor Alastor. Only to, mercifully, find it was Devyn. That sorrow of knowing someone else she’d once known was… gone… and someone else was standing in their place now… It was a bittersweet thing.
But as she watched Alastor, she knew whatever she was feeling, didn’t hold a flicker of a candle to what he must have felt. So, she smiled, genuinely happy to hear he thought of the current Sessrumnir so well. That he was helping Devyn. That he hadn’t been alone here.
"I’m glad. Really, really glad. I’m… sorry, for what happened. But I’m very, very glad you’ve met him here. He sounds like a good man if he’s helped you that much." The words felt clunky, and she made a face, closing an eye tight and kinda tilting her head. It was an awkward thing to say, but… she hoped it made sense. Kyrie hadn’t been married—too politically charged, too many fights for her to handle around it. But she’d had people she’d once been close with. Old connections she still mourned. People she’d loved, in her way. She could sympathize with Devyn, for the man he’d lost… but she would never try to place herself in his shoes. Not for a loss like that.
If he was saying positive things, though, especially about this new guy? She wasn’t going to press it, or pry about it. It wasn’t her place. She’d rather just be happy Devyn seemed to be doing—at least, outwardly—okay.
"I’d… been bracing myself to meet a… new Alastor, when I first saw you. But… I’m happy to see you again, selfish as that might be." She didn’t forget he’d mentioned taking back his world from Chaos, a war… but it felt so nice to just… talk with someone who understood.
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Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2022 8:40 pm
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Alastor smiled out of politeness, and while it didn’t quite reach his eye, he was appreciative of her effort all the same. He knew what she meant, he knew what she must have thought. He had an idea of what she must have felt.
“I thought the same,” he admitted. “I thought my mind was playing tricks on me when I saw you. It’s done that a bit. But, I’m glad that you’re real. I’m sorry for all that you’ve had to go through to get here, but I have hope that there’s a good reason for it. I don’t know why the universe decided to keep us around, but I can only hope that there’s a good reason for it. Either that, or we’re both just too stubborn to die.”
He didn’t think it was selfish that she should be excited to see him; he didn’t feel selfish to see her. Sympathetic to all that she must have been through, sure, but it wasn’t as if either of them had asked to lose their worlds.
All they could do now was try to pick up the pieces and figure out how to move on from it all.
“You’ll keep in contact, won’t you? Since we’re both here?”
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2022 7:23 pm
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Yeah, it'd been clunky. Ha, and she'd once thought herself eloquent. Well. Maybe she had been. Then centuries happened.
The idea that another Solaris could be standing here was... ah. Would they have been a better fit for it? She smiled, glancing down as the expression didn't meet her eyes this time. A thought in the back of her mind that sometimes grew a life of its own, and had for... well. Probably as long as she'd been Solaris.
"Guess we'll just need to figure out what those reasons are," she said with a brighter, chirp of a grin. Clasping her hands behind her back, she looked up at him face alit. "Sure we've both got a few things to say to the universe, so why not?" Or maybe they just were too stubborn. Hard to tell.
But she was going to keep enjoying the life she had while she had it.
His questions startled her, and she drew her head back slightly with wide eyes. "I figured that was a given," she told him simply, before laughing and holding up her hand. A pale blue and gold phone formed out of subspace, and she began to fiddle with it. "Ugh... I'm still getting used to this... I know it's Mau tech, and that's literally timeless--" The bits of speech patterns she'd begun to pick up from American shows slipped through. "--but I'm not a fan of some Earth designs. Ah! There. Least we can communicate easy with these."
Her head tilted and she considered a moment before asking, "You have a phone uh... not... Mau version, right? Mind if I grab that number from you, too?" Blunt--but friendly--was at least, if nothing else, her seemingly constant through time.
Especially towards people she wanted to actually have friendships with.
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Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2022 10:49 pm
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Alastor shook his head when she brought out her phone and laughed. “No, I’m not very good with them, but I’ve had extensive lessons. I can get by well enough, I suppose, but I’ve had so many questions between this one and the other one. I’ll give you that number, too,” he promised.
“For as confusing as it all is, it’s amazing that they’ve managed to do some of the things they have. I don’t know that I understand how they do it, and I might not ever, but I’m glad they’ve managed it. It’s so much easier to ask the phone a question and it can give you an answer instead of having to go to the library and pore over books to find it.”
He let her get his information on her Senshi phone, and did the same for her. “We have so much to catch up on, I don’t know how we’re going to make enough time for it. But, I hope we can. I don’t even know where to start, but I’m looking forward to it.”
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Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2022 11:10 am
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Hearing Alastor was in a sort of similar boat to her still made her give a snort of laughter. "Everyone keeps telling me they're straight-forward to use, but... not sure I can agree with that. Maybe I just keep comparing them to Solarian tech too much," she admitted with a sigh.
But she was nodding her head to his point. "The Internet is weird. Extremely helpful resource, but also just full of... very... weird things..." That felt like the nicest way to put some of the content she'd found while scrolling through sites and social media...
Exchanging information was quick enough, and Solaris sent the phone back into subspace. Immediately, she grinned up at him, her wings stretching wide as her arms did. "We can start with coffee! Or tea. Whichever. A cafe. Just sit and chat and see where it takes us, yeah? Oh! I can show you my van, too~"
Plans. She was giddy, because she was making... plans. There was so much to talk about, so much to catch up on and cover. Some of it would be far easier than other parts. But she was... happy, for all of it. Not to end something that once was, but... continue it. Moving on from a life that couldn't come back didn't mean entirely abandoning it. Just finding a new way to move forward and add to it.
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