Welcome to Gaia! ::

Slipping across the city, Hestia kept her senses at the ready but consciously tried to leave her motions a little bit softer. A little more here kitty kitty than her usual readiness to grab and dash. Tonight she was out and about with a very specific purpose: taking a new visitor to her homeworld.

She'd been feeling something of a plateau when it came to lighting up her world of temples. It was, originally, a spiritual destination. A place of pilgrimage. And while the dozens of fires that she'd managed to light with friends, allies, and the occasional civilian rescue had been a major effort, taking place over the course of years...it wasn't nearly what it should be. Which is why she decided to take a new approach: tourism.

Let people come, not simply because she asked, but because they wanted to experience it; the same way they might want to visit a themepark or a haunted house or try a strange new food. She needed to stop being desperate and start being enticing.

The brochures, still in the works but looking so promising, would certainly help! But before she finalized the printed materials, she needed to refine the experience. And to refine the experience, she needed test subjects. Well, Dwight called them beta testers, but she wasn't sure how that was any different.

Weaving through a dark alleyway, a shortcut to a fairly disreputable park, Hestia kept up the pace and tried to keep up the very gentle, very enticing vibes.

Upon finding a wandering power signature, Hestia had been prepared to stalk them (just a smidge) and see if they seemed a little less on the harmful side. Seeing them come into view, walking toward her was startling, to say the least. She glanced around the park, just on case there was something else waiting in the winds. Like a swarm of tiny youma or a bomb.

After deciding it looked clear enough and that the approaching figure didn't seem about to attack, Hestia beamed and closed the distance. And...

Completely forgot her sales pitch for this specific interaction. But it was fine, she was a minor internet celebrity during the day. She talked to cameras. She had followers. This was definitely within her skillset!

"How do you do, fellow senshi!" She greeted the other enthusiastically. "Say, you haven't been doing bad things tonight, have you?"

Okay. That was a little more informercial than she'd intended. But it was fine.

Hestia immediately lowered her voice, "Apologies, I didn't mean to yell. I just wanted to convey excitement, but maybe the timing was too early?" Then she gave him two thumb's up in lieu of her sales voice.

"But I'm very glad you aren't up to anything harmful, because I would like to offer you an adventure. An opportunity to visit a new world, full of ancient tradition and most excellent vibes." She said vibes like it was a magic keyword, a mystery that one could only find by chance, never through intention.

"Mine name is Hestia, and I would like you to visit my homeworld."

While he was considering, Hestia was struck by the quiet softness of the boy. It made him seem a little small against the looming night. Oh goodness. The urge to get him a warm drink or maybe a comfy sweater welled up within her, making her hands twitch, almost distracting her from his answer.

"That's wonderful," she replied, her own voice becoming much gentler and encouraging, like he just got a very good score on a very hard test.

With one hand she summoned her senshi phone, and then she held the other out to him. "Just take my hand and I'll bring you there."

It didn't take long. One moment it was Earth as it always was, and in the next moment Niter would be greeted by the sight of stars, countless and brilliant across a gently curving horizon. In the distance, ancient ruins are scattered thickly to the point of becoming simple visual noise, here and there are still standing buildings, temples small and large. Behind him, the structures were more whole, clean and shining marble against starlight and round, bobbing glow from dozens of floating spheres of fire. If he saw fit to try breathing once more, he'd find the air full of a taste and scent both sweet and spiced.

There was also, in glaring contrast, a giant banner that said, WELCOME TO HESTIA! There was a cartoon version of the senshi on it, winking and wearing a party hat.

"Welcome to Hestia!" The senshi echoed beside him with a proud smile, "I'll give you a moment to adjust." She gestured to a nearby bench, "Take a seat if you need to. Would you like something to drink?"

The question startled Hestia. In all honesty, she knew very, very little about corrupt senshi. Just that they belonged to chaos, all but transcended senshi could become one, and that they could be purified.

"It's the world's magic," she answered slowly, taking a moment to wipe the bench with handkerchief and gestured for him to take a seat. "In fact, senshi worlds don't really follow what's known about them through Earth's sciences. Their surfaces can be extremely different from their observable size, weather, plants, and animals. They were all inhabited though, before the Fall. People lived here once, and can again, given enough work."

After a moment Hestia asked, a little awkward, "Is this your first time, then? To a homeworld?" Have you never seen your own?

She was, in fact, a little relieved to see Niter get up off the ground. Resisting the urge to brush him off with a handkerchief, she responded with a nod and an uncertain, "I see...well, I'm sure the world of Niter is just waiting for you to be able to go home one day, right? If you wanted to. It'll probably just be out there, forever if you can't right now. This world waited almost a thousand years for me to wake up and come back to it." Her voice grew a bit more firm and confident as she went on.

"I'm sure I can answer quite a few of your questions; I have a whole tour introduction prepared! Are you at all cold?" A world of perpetual night, Hestia's surface tended to be on the chilly side. "We have robes if you'd like one?" A caring sort of fussiness began to emerge in the name of hospitality.

Seeing him get up, the maid senshi gestured for him to follow her toward a nearby building, a little smaller and less imposing, but still bearing that Grecian temple quality that everything else in sight had. There was, in fact a series of robes hanging on hooks at one side, right next to a door with a very normal looking unisex bathroom sign. On the other side, there was what looked to be a tea station, complete with a shiny, fancy service cart. A nearby shelf was neatly lines with gift bags, featuring big red bows tied much like the senshi's.

Hestia immediately set about making tea with a very traditional, "Please don't mind the mess." It was, almost painfully, pristine.

"So to start, every senshi is a senshi, because they're tied to their own special world. In space! This world gives us our powers and tries to protect and help us, and in return we also protect and help that world. A thousand years ago, many worlds began to fall, losing energy and being overwhelmed by corruptive forces. Most sentient life died out in one way or another. Hestia, this world, also died out in such a way. I haven't seen the memories of what happened exactly, but my assumption is that a massive explosion destroyed most of the surface."

None of this was on the actual tour she'd had planned, since she felt magic explained a lot without having to say much more. But she felt that Niter was, one senshi to another, owed a lot more detail.

Turning to gauge his reaction, she asked, "What kind of tea do you prefer? I also have cider and hot cocoa. With tiny marshmallows! There's also," she continued, more carefully, "...a tea made from a local herb. The only plant that grows here, actually. But it does have a certain effect on the mind, nothing strange!" She hurriedly assured, "But it's useful for looking inward, and meditative activities."

Looking at the boy who was all soft, feathery edges and hesitant words, she thought maybe he rarely, if ever, needed such a thing.

"When I first came here, I started having weird visions of my past life on this world. I didn't really understand at first but pretty much every other senshi I've spoken to has experienced something similar," Hestia explained matter-o-factly before reaching out to slightly adjust Niter's robe to lay a bit more neatly. She thought he looked very nice and comfy in it. They weren't precisely how she had remembered, consulting with Dwight on the pattern had led to something a little bit more Jedi-ish than she'd intended. But she was still pretty satisfied with the result.

"We have past lives and when we reconnect with our world, we also start to reconnect to that past life. I think Past Me probably died in that explosion? Or soon after." A thought she didn't care to dwell on. "But nearly every time I visit now, I get some small recollection of that life, a thousand years ago. Which is how I know bits and pieces of this world's history."

Taking out a black stoneware teacup and metal travel mug, the maid senshi tried to assure him, "A big part of that history concerns tending to people, no matter who they are. Offering sanctuary and peace to those seeking it. One of the main tenets of Hestian philosophy is to always seek the path of least harm, to others and oneself. I want you to live a long, whole life, Niter. I wanted that for you even before I met you, and now that we've met, of course I can't allow you to be harmed here. This local tea is just to help with focusing the mind. Part of what you may smell in the air is from an incense made of the same herb, the effect is much more passive and less noticeable in that form, though."

From a stoneware tea pot, she filled the matching cup with a tea that was an alarmingly vibrant red. The spiced smell intensified in the air and again, she reassured Niter, "It's really not poison, look." And she took a sip, eyes closing in a moment of pleasure. Even after several years since the trial and error of developing it, the first sip was still a delightful experience. Spiced and earthy, but leaving a clean, lightly sweet aftertaste. The fact that it helped quiet the internal background commotion in her head, the remnants of a youth defined by certain anxieties, was also a plus.