Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Look!" said Nectaris, as they arrived. "It's the Moon!"

They were in a field of soft grass and wildflowers, now knee-high except for where the paths cut through to lead to the buildings of Nectaris. However, the sky was one of the most striking things about this place. The Earth spun above them, like a blue-green marble. Nikki liked to stare at it sometimes.

"So, my Wonder, Nectaris? It's like a butterfly reserve," she explained. She hopped and skipped forwards onto one of the paths, spinning under the earthshine and looking much more like her usual bubbly self.

"Two of these buildings were, like, conservatories, best I can tell? I'm not totally sure what the difference between them is, though. Not yet. I mean, other than that the Code's in one of them. That one, though?" She waved at one of the buildings in the back, which was smaller and with less stained glass.

"That's where they studied insects, there's like a lab and stuff in there."

"I don't know why there weren't Moon Knights before," said Livie as she beckoned Kemi forwards, through the growing flower fields and towards the building. "I mean, there used to be a whole kingdom here, from what I figured out? There's a castle. I've been there. So, like, it makes sense that there's knights to go with it."

But there had been something different about this place. Earth had used to have Knights, and so did all the other planets, and some of the other moons, like Ganymede.

This place hadn't, so maybe there was part of the story that she was missing.

"I'm glad there's a place for, like, new Knights, though," she said. "I like getting to be useful even though I don't have a fancy starseed like everyone else."

She glanced out towards the flowers. "Also, yeah, some insects are pretty gross, but the butterflies are super cute. Look, do you see them?" The small white ones were flittering through the field, and there were more of them than there had been last time she was up here.

A fluttering butterfly did, in fact, circle around Kemi curiously. It did perch on her finger, but only for a second, before it decided to land on the pale blue of her hair instead. It settled in there. Nectaris giggled. "Oooh, it likes you!"

She kept on walking, heading towards the biggest of the butterfly houses, since if her guest liked the fields, she'd probably like that part, too. Although she did blink as a larger, dark blue butterfly with some kind of white markings on its wings flapped across the path in front of her at a more leisurely pace than its small friends. She gasped softly, looking after it for a second. "I haven't seen one like that before," she chirped.

She knew that she wasn't going to be able to understand everything that Kemi had been through, but she did listen as the senshi talked a little bit about her world. As they reached the door of the greenhouse, Nectaris turned back around, a soft look in her eyes. She reached out to take Kemi's hand.

"Hey," she said, almost gently. "We might be able to figure out what's happening on your world. Like, fix it. We've done it before, when we work together." She paused. "Although, if you just want to spend time on Earth for a while, I get that, too. Just," she smiled, "Whatever you do, you don't have to do it alone."

Nikki gave Kemi's hand one more squeeze, and then let go so that she could shove open the broken door. "Yeah! We take care of our friends. We help each other. I can maybe introduce you to some more people, too, if you want."

There were people who knew a lot more about space than Nectaris did.

"But anyway, this was one of the butterfly houses, see? I'm still trying to figure out why there's houses for them when I have a whole meadow out there, but," she shrugged. "It's pretty, right?"

The fact that the entire building was made of stained glass meant that the light shone down on them in shades of pink and purple. There was a gaping hole in the roof that ruined some of the effect, but that part was a later problem. "I've been working hard to clean it up and stuff."

Her foot hit something hard, and she glanced down at the dirt. "Wait, there's a bracelet!" She reached down and picked it up with a grin. It looked like the pearl bracelets she was wearing, but with a butterfly charm on it. "There's like, so many artifacts and stuff around here, it's crazy."

Although, something seemed a little bit different about this one, and she stared at it, eyes narrowing as she tried to figure out what it was.

"Would you mind?" asked Nectaris, holding her hand out so that Kemi could get the clasp. Usually if she had to put on this kind of bracelet one handed, she had to use her teeth, and she didn't want to do that when this one had been in the Moon dirt for who knows how long.

She couldn't help but keep staring at the butterfly charm, though. It was pale gold, like the other metal on her outfit, with the wing details inlaid in some kind of purple gem or glass. There was something about it, though.

Warm? Was that what it felt like? No, she didn't think so. Weird. It felt weird. She was gonna go with that.

"Okay, you're gonna have to go with me on this," said Nectaris. "I'm pretty sure this thing is magic."

But, like, wiggling it didn't do anything. It wasn't like Almadel's magic items, where you could usually tell what it did pretty easily, and it wasn't like she had an ancestor around to ask about it, or past life memories that would me useful.

Unless-

"Wanna come with me for a second?" she asked. "I'm gonna ask the Code."

The Code was in the next building over, which meant heading back outside and then shoulder-nudging another rusty door open. This building was similar to the other, with the stained glass walls and some room for plants inside, but it was smaller, and in the center, on a pedestal, was a glowing orb of light.

"Last time I resonated with this, it gave me some answers about stuff," she told Kemi. Which had been kind of awful at the time, since it had given her some answers about her past and the fact that she'd gotten tortured apparently, but, whatever. She swallowed.

She'd processed that one, mostly. She didn't have to think about it right now, and anyway, this was just a magic bracelet. It didn't have some kind of awful past, right?

"Hi! How are you?" she asked, even though she knew this Code piece was too small to talk much. "Any chance you can tell me what this is?" With only a second's hesitation, she stuck her hand into the light. She wasn't actually sure that it was going to do anything, but it felt right.

And then, the charm started glowing.

Then, a glowing butterfly flew right out of it and circled around the two girls.

A friend. A magic friend. Kemi was right. Nectaris knew it, like, deep in her soul, the way she knew that her name was Nectaris and that she was a Knight of the Moon.

She giggled, raising her staff up, and the butterfly perched on the end of it, slowly flapping its glimmering magic wings as it came to rest. "Hi, magic friend!" she said, bringing the staff down again, her breath catching, because now there was a magic butterfly that was just a few inches from her face. She couldn't even.

"Hi, Flutters," she whispered.

"This doesn't always happen," she told Kemi. "You got, like, bonus magic and cool stuff coming up here with me. I hope you had fun!"

People seemed to like her wonder in general. "We should probably head back though. I wanna see if anyone else knows about like, magic jewelry bugs."