Backdated to 23 December, 2022 WC: 1,699

The sun was larger. It was one of the first things she noticed as she gazed up at the drifting and racing clouds, sunbeams sliding through their gaps and sheer expanse. Solaris, the planet, sat rather close to its parent star. The heat of which increased the fluxuations and power of the winds on the planet, fueling the majority of the world's aerial biomes.

The gravity was weaker here. That was the second feature she registered. Her body was lighter, the strength of even these quiet winds enough to make her wings flex in instinctive urge and age old wishes.

Land masses peppered the skies. Continents hung on the horizon, the ancient origins of life on this planet, at least insofar as the Solarians and their kin. Rock shouldn't be light enough to float like that, according to some worlds' comprehension of nature, but the extreme power of the magnetic materials up in the skies and those down below in the crust of the planet that pushed against one another along ancient paths and currents, coupled with the lowered gravity, add the high wind currents…

It was alien compared to the rather singular plane of Earth, something she had found interesting to adapt her mind to in some of her travels there. Rocks moving through the skies would be cause for great alarm there, not a mundane occurrence as expected as the tides.

Till Chaos struck.

She closed her eyes briefly as she recalled the faces of agents and communications officers delivering their reports. More land masses--cities, countries, so many people and so many resources...--had fallen into the seas or crashed into mountains, blasting apart more coastal and inland regions in different but equally devastating blows.

So many faces. So many reports.

They'd been afraid, horrified; others had looked at her with such loathing and dismay, needing someone to place the blame upon when nothing else made sense.

And why wouldn't they blame her?

The Herald of Change.

The Avatar of Catalysts.

Pretty titles with empty power, a figurehead to stand before the masses and represent the will of those with true authority who milled around in her shadow, publically. But their will had fractured, fissures had formed in the once solid foundations of factions and faiths. She still stood as the perfect face of the travesty. No other could be as great to blame as her. Not all change was welcomed, after all.

Her people didn't call her a senshi, the concept of Sailor Solaris was more a political concept when dealing with other worlds and peoples. But Kyrie was Solaris, the one who carried a fragment of the world's soul, according to some of their oldest faiths.

Maybe there was some kernel of truth to it, seeing as how she'd remained unchanged for… centuries? A millennium?

She'd need to check her counting books again. Maybe. The magic to return had at least brought her back to the torn up, white-stone city she'd resided in.

Solaris tightened her grip on her backpack strung over her shoulder, and with a heavy exhale when she confirmed her phone was still working and perfectly able to return her to the park, the mantel slid from her form in a golden shimmer. Kyrie didn't mind the weight of the heavy bag, only making sure to hold it in a way to not injure her wings, slung more under her arm than along her back.

White sands danced through the winds that ghosted through the buildings and along alleys, bits of the ever worn stone facades slipping into time. How many of their cities were still standing these days? It was a grim thought she'd dealt with before--too many were destroyed by wars, others by calamities, still more to strip what few resources they harbored to be hoarded by other, smaller, settlements.

Glimmers of stained glass and crystalline fixtures peeked out in the sunshine between boards and reinforcements she'd set up over time to save what had managed to survive. Her own windows had long lost their ability to actually be seen through… but it was necessary, when debris and more were thrown about so regularly.

The sand-picked roads weren't horrible to walk. Erosion had made them smoother in some areas, and had it been raining she might have had to watch her footing. Beneath the warmth of the sun, though? It was pleasant walking weather, even good for hikes if she'd been so inclined.

Kyrie couldn't help how her lips pressed hard, a sneer slipping through her attempts to prevent it from glaring at the calmness of the day against the decay around her. As if something were trying to remind her of better times here on Solaris, after she'd spent so much time around life and that relative peace of Earth.

It was nice at least that her old abode wasn't too far from where she'd been dropped off by the teleportation magic. Her pen was a reassuring weight in her pants' pocket. Her way out. Her safety net.

Her rushed departure had left little organized. She was lucky enough, she figured, that the door had shut behind her. The heavy door fought her grip for a moment before it groaned open, making her wince and cough at the stale air within her home. But no new debris was tossed about from broken windows or belongings torn up by wind. So that was… a plus.

Kyrie knew she was delaying. Of course she was. Putting down her bag, checking on her stock of wood and old food supplies, righting forgotten furniture and bringing her abandoned bedding outside to hang. She even propped open the front door to begin sweeping, cleaning out only bits of sand that might have slipped between cracks. There were no cobwebs to disrupt. No living things to lose cells and form dust.

Yet, some motes still caught in the beams of sunlight through the door as she swept, and Kyrie watched them in silence. Her bedding offered some additional noise to join the hum of the winds, a gentle roll as they aired out after a year of being left on the ground where she'd been in her own despair for so long.

A new sound was jarring, though, and wide blue eyes turned towards the source of the small hiss of air and hum of energy. The little wisp. It hovered outside her door, lightly bobbing in the breeze and Kyrie could only stare in open bewilderment at its presence. It'd… really followed her here from Earth, hadn't it? Or joined her in her teleportation. She'd not even noticed it till then, her mind too full of fears and jumbled memories. One of her hands left the broom she'd made of old brush and fibers ages ago, reaching out for the little entity.

It seemed to shimmer and vibrate, slipping down to hover just above her palm. She could feel the heat radiating off of it, soft and welcoming. Her brows furrowed even as a smile lit her features. "I… didn't expect company, this round," she told it softly, the sound of her own voice on that planet almost enough to make her wince. So much silence, for so long, made even talking or trying to practice music feel blasphemous for ages… though now and then, she'd broken through the overwhelming sensation.

"Not that I don't appreciate it," she added with a growing smile, and the thing gave a ringing hum that reminded her of twinkling bells. Or twittering birds. Or something. It seemed to settle onto her hand, and Kyrie drew it in towards her face, letting her cheek press against the warmth momentarily in a sort of nuzzle. The wisp let out another energy hum, and Kyrie let herself linger like that for a moment longer.

The next deep inhale was… a lot more relaxed than she'd figured it'd be. Her smile remained, and for the moment, she felt a relief wash over her. She wasn't alone here. The wisp had stayed with her when she'd traveled back to Solaris, she still had her henshin pen, could still get back to Earth…

She wasn't abandoned and stranded.

It was the greatest news she could have gotten that day.

As she turned to look back into her home that was finally airing out after… far, far too long, letting in the light of day for the first time in far longer…

She could see the large trunk she'd once hidden her pen in, against the back wall of the main room. There were other trunks, locked away in the couple of other rooms upstairs. She knew they still held old records--charts, field reports, her own and from other people she'd collected the accounts from. Or found over time. Or stole, or…

But these were only a small amount of them. There were others. Caches. Military restocking points, or hidden storages for settlements too afraid of being raided and losing all of what they considered most important to protect, to raids and natural disasters…

"I should have accounts of where the old caches are, at least. I might have to go back pretty far in the records… definitely back to some of the wars… maybe before they really hit, even..?"

That was a daunting thought, and she made a face at the impending headache that task was likely going to be. "...hopefully, someone reported something a lot more recently than all that. Need to find where the bad weather reports came out of, and see if I can backtrack a path… maybe I can find a source to the Chaos that way?"

It was a loose notion, anyway, the best she had to operate on for the moment. The wisp seemed to buzz in agreement before it lifted to settle onto her shoulder. Kyrie huffed and straightened, nodding her head. "Alright. Time to start sorting through all of this."