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"It's not necessarily about what you're supposed to be doing."

There didn't seem to be a set way to bond with someone's world, not that he had confronted in his experience. Bringing power back, bonding with new life, exploring the world, performing world rituals, cleaning out a cove and letting water run again... It was all individual and unique, and Encke's heart warmed every time someone pursued that connection and every time he could in some way help.

Cybele didn't seem pleased, even if she didn't seem angry. Nothing about her statements came across as happiness for being there, and perhaps that was part of the problem. Perhaps it was something else entirely.

He didn't know, but even as her arms remained unmarked, the planet had changed.

"Coming here and sitting and seeing what you can do about these camps... I feel like that's a good start. I can't say transcendence is necessarily quick, or fast. Took me years to reach something similar, really." He had been going to his comet for years before he discovered what more it could give him. It delighted him all the same, and it was worth working toward.

"I can see signs it's more than a good start, too." As they walked, he took a bit of a wider path, smiling up at the trees that were starting to grow, smiling down at the moss that he could feel under his feet-- and the butterflies. He held his hand out for one, seeing if he could get one to alight on his hand. "Your world is responding, Cybele. It's blooming. There's life here."

But maybe he could help her find something that would let it feel more like she was doing something.

Encke offered her a sympathetic wince. Honestly, he wished he could figure out a way to just produce transcendence quickly. He'd force Basiluzzo and Nectaris through it, first--

"Wouldn't say that necessarily. Work on ... making this place somewhere where you'd love to be."

And honestly, it seemed to him like she was doing a good job of that.

He admired the great tree for a moment, but found himself admiring the other things that she had done. She had torn down decaying structures, and she found a use for those pieces. At some point she had placed a tent down, and it honestly looked rather quaint and cozy, both of which he could appreciate for a little camp like this.

Encke smiled gently at the butterfly as it flitted toward Cybele. "It sounds like she found something that made her fall in love with what her world has." He wondered if that was the butterflies for Cybele, but he wasn't so sure it was. "If she took the time to name each creature, she was caring for each creature her world produced, and her world probably appreciated that."

He spoke of homeworlds and wonders like they were living beings of their own, and he thought sincerely there was truth to that. If they could grant these powers, if they could bring their life back, if they could thrive and respond to love...

"Is there anything here you've connected with so far? You've done a good job so far here, I think."

Love's a two-way street.

For the most part, that was true. Unrequited love was a whole genre of tragedies in romance, but he didn't think that was accurate here, either. If her homeworld had truly spurned her and was intentionally leaving her out to dry, he doubted that either of them would be standing on the surface right now, below a great tree that was blooming, in grasses that were rising with butterflies flying about making their new home there.

"I feel like if it was that easy, homeworlds would just transcend everyone. Doubt any of these places ... for lack of a better word, enjoy falling into chaos. They lose their creatures. Their people. Their plants and their life."

That was what he had seen from going to the homeworlds that belonged to the senshi who had been living out in space.

"But like is how you get to love. I think it likes you too."

Encke moved closer to the tree when she indicated it. The tree was gorgeous, for sure, and he could see the loosest hints of how gorgeous it could become. If it was entirely in bloom, the foliage would cover the entirety of the little encampment...

"What do you talk to it about?"

He pressed a hand to the tree, closing his eyes as he thought about it.

"Do you feel like it's listening?"

"For what it's worth," he offered a gentle smile over his shoulder before turning his attention to the finer parts of the tree, "you are very committed to Order. I can tell. And Anser's vouched for you plenty on that."

A room?

That piqued his curiosity, and he turned to look at her again. Anything about how these ancient peoples lived was always enough to catch his attention. (Anything about space, in general, was always enough to catch his attention, but perhaps that was beside the point.) "If you're offering, I'd love to take a look." But he wouldn't rush her over there, taking his time to join her closer to the entrance into the tree, and leaning in to study it once more as she spoke.

"I think it's understandable not to be happy." Encke followed her eyes briefly, but didn't comment on what he saw. "You just want to be safe from Chaos." It was really all Encke wanted for anyone, even those of Chaos he had to fight. Even, in the most ideal possible situation, people like Faustite. "But perhaps you can vent to it like a friend."

His comet had long felt like a friend to him.

"You're already telling it about one of the loves in your life, right?" He had caught that Cybele used the term girlfriend in reference to Albireo. "If Cybele the World is listening, she hears that too."

It was empty, yes, but that wasn't what Encke was concerned with. It was the natural and the craftsmanship that caught his attention, and once he entered, he moved to one of the walls to take a closer look. The way the roots twisted and turned into each other looked intentional as much as they looked made to be that way, and he loved it.

Felt like stepping into a storybook, honestly.

"Like your past self's taste in bedrooms," he offered, following with a snicker of, "Feels more natural than my past self's choices." Not that his hadn't been built with stonework and "natural materials," but his bedroom was a wider part of a separate living suite in the closest thing his world had to a ruling castle. And as much as he thought Enckeans were a little more grounded than the full opulence he expected out of Earth's royals, it was still ... opulent.

He let the topic rest as he explored it, more interested in helping her through her connection with her world and also whatever else she wished to speak of. His smile softened. "You should let it know that. I think it'd like to know some of the people you love, if it's listening. Maybe it'll show you some of its loves in return."

And maybe it was already doing that.

Albite. That guy.

Nectaris' ill-fated romance, which had been a real romance before--

"You were married to him?" His brows lifted in surprise. "Backs up him being a much different person then than he is now, I suppose. What makes you think y'all were married?"

He presumed she must have received some memories of the sort. Maybe talking about them would help with her connection to this place, too. Make it feel more real.

It was fascinating to hear of people who eschewed technology entirely. It was the complete opposite of his own people; they had figured out how to weave technology into their society, to live with it, and to help them thrive. Encke had long gotten the impression that one of their main exports was their technology, and perhaps planet's like Cybele's had been why. There were some worlds that simply didn't have the technology.

Of course, some of those planets also decided they didn't want them. Harmony with nature indeed; a lot of technology had more trouble marrying with nature. It could, Encke knew that from memory-based and personal-based experience all at once, but...

Didn't remember the details, just that it had happened. She remembered that there were guns, that Albite had indeed once been Praxidike as mentioned in the database and he had also been their partner. Encke nodded thoughtfully, though his expression got even more pensive as he was asked about his own partner.

She was right, he was married. Had he been married in his past life?

Assuredly not.

"I am married, it's true. To Basiluzzo of Uranus, the love of my life. And it would be a romantic notion to think we had been bonded like that before." Basiluzzo had at least implied he had memories when he went to his wonder, so perhaps there was a chance. Was his mind just telling him that because it wanted that romantic notion? Was his mind just telling him that because he was jealous of the alternative? Was his mind just telling him that because he had heard his home helper in his memories gather discarded clothing from someone else-- "But even if we were together in some way, wasn't married. The Enckean Ruling System worked via a rotation of houses, and in the last life it was my house's turn. I was the first born of the generation, so I inherited that position."

He glanced outward, looking to the patterns carved into the inside of the tree.

"But there was a catch to that. Those who inherited that position were not allowed to take partners of any kind. The house's line was at no risk of not continuing, after all. And it prevented from any of the current leader's children seeing how monarchies of other worlds worked and getting jealous, or partners doing the same. There was nothing to gain directly by making a relationship with a leader, and it was banned anyway. To be discovered would at least get you scolded by the council, and if they all agreed you were out of line, the leadership would move to the next house. So far as I can tell, Ig of the Past was partnerless.

"That being said," Encke snorted, "there were at least some signs he wasn't partnerless even though he was supposed to be. Not sure if that was a hidden relationship or questionable escapades."

He'd have to figure it out, like how he'd have to figure out how to find that one neighbour--

It was nice to see her smile like that, and honestly, she wasn't wrong. Perhaps if those escapades had been something he hadn't quite figured out yet, and forbidden love, removed from it, was a sweet concept. Forbidden love was a popular concept in romantic movies for a reason.

But perhaps an element of remembering too much, he felt a slight pang of stress in his chest. Offending the Council with his disobedience of what was a very simple requirement felt like a deep slight.

... Or perhaps it was an element of it not being Basiluzzo. Being in love with anyone else felt foreign. Encke knew that his past self had done all sorts of things in the name of building connections. He had probably met all kinds of people in the process, and none of those were guaranteed to be Basiluzzo. As wide as his net was, it wasn't universally wide, and Uranus would have been closer than, say, Anser's planet was, but--

"Yes and no," concluded Encke, leaning back just slightly, not putting too much pressure on the wooden walls and carvings but needing a place to truly ponder. "Feels strange and foreign to consider myself as in love with anyone else. I don't know what I think about that -- but the universe used to be a lot bigger than it feels now. There's probably a decent chance that I never would have run into him, and with that being Ignatius' reality, maybe feelings would have blossomed with someone else. And it is a romantic notion, even considering that."

Even if he kept trying to consider it as removed from himself, which was difficult. Encke was so used to seeing his past self and his present self as very similar if not one and the same. There was a reason why he used the terminology of myself.

Encke chuckled.

"Honestly, I just wanna get to the bottom of that identity. Was so cagey about it that it apparently is even eluding my memory."

Encke certainly remembered plenty of people...