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 Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2025 9:48 pm
Queen Serenity had promised that something would be revealed to them on the New Moon, and Madriu had waited with more than a bit of concern, if for no other reason than the desire to only witness one apocalypse in his lifetime. Two, if he counted Arcalis's fall, but he hadn't exactly been there for that.
He had also been rather unwilling to let himself be parted from Arcalis himself, given that he'd come back into his life, when all reasonable probability said that sohuld not have happened. One or the other of them should have died, but instead, they were still here, Struggle and Adversity, brought back into each other's orbits by the inevitable gravity of fate.
A star and its planet, reunited once more.
They were together when Madriu felt a little tug--an offer, of sorts.
He turned to Arcalis and extended a hand.
"Did you feel that?" He asked, first, and then-- "do you want to see what it was?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 12:29 pm
Arcalís had never expected that he would find Madriu again, not as he had always known Lex. Part of him hadn’t wanted that, either. Although they had, since the adventure to the moon, begun settling back into each other’s orbit as though neither had ever left, that same part of Arcalís still regretted that his best and dearest friend—his partner senshi, one of the few people who had ever truly known Chrysanthos Samara or who could now truly know Lilitu Hi’skaryota—had also needed to suffer as Arcalís had.
He regretted that Lex had also been left alive, watching as everyone around him died and Chaos killed his planet but would not let him pass on.
Still, having found Lex as himself rather than as some new Sailor Madriu, it was a blessing more than anything else. Being with him and working together to clean up the space where Lex had been living—abandoned houses had so many things to clean up—felt so right, and that in itself soothed Lilitu’s nerves immensely. Going out on patrols together, likewise, made the city around them feel so much less intimidating. Much of it was still unfamiliar territory, filled with languages that Lilitu didn’t recognize and couldn’t read, struggling against a Chaos threat that he didn’t even begin to understand.
(He didn’t understand the coin that he’d found on the moon, either. That, however, felt firmly like a problem to investigate in the future, when the Herald of the Dark Star—the current one, at any rate—had been dispatched.)
But he didn’t need to face any of that alone anymore. He could patrol together with Madriu, adhering close to his side as often as possible. Reaching for his hand when they had the chance to steal those kinds of moments, if they didn’t need to protect themselves or fight anything. Or, such as the case was tonight, tensing against Madriu’s side when he, too, felt something tugging inside his chest.
Arcalís answered with a nod, and entwined his fingers with Madriu’s as he yielded to the summons. One moment, he closed his eyes in a Destiny City public park. The next minute, opening them again, he found himself and Madriu standing back on the moon, right by the Spire where they had appeared for the little investigation party thing that Princes Ganymede had hosted.
“……Huh,” Arcalís said softly, looking around them. “I didn’t think that we could go anywhere on the moon outside of the full. But……” It didn’t take long to spot something strange: one of the doors that had previously been blocked off no longer had the shimmering curtain that barred entry. “Madriu, look at that.…… What do you think Serenity kept in there?”
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 1:34 pm
Madriu sohuld not have been surprised that Arcalis was all for following whatever this call was. Still, it was heartening to know that he had someone so trusted at his side, that they could simply...go. That magic could pull them back to the Moon, and whatever happened, they would be doing it together.
Truly, his house felt more like a home, and his life felt more whole, with Arcalis returned to it. He'd bothered little with the maintenance on his decaying, abandoned home before there was someone else there, but now it felt all the more urgent to make it into a livable space. It felt like having regular access to food and working ways to prepare it actually meant something other than scrabbling for his own survival, which, after so many centuries, hardly felt in jeopardy.
He took a breath, and let himself be brought, just as he had when magic had called him to Earth.
This time, they landed back in the Spire, and Madriu couldn't help but take it in for a long moment.
What a truly incredible place this was. The Moon was so different from home--so much brighter, even after centuries of neglect. Perhaps there was something to whatever magic or technology they were supposed to have.
"Queen Serenity did ask us to wait for the new moon," he said. "Perhaps this is what she wanted to show us. Her answer to Earth's need for protection."
The doors, now unblocked, beckoned. It seemed so obvious, really, that they were intended--welcomed, even--to find out what was behind them, and truth be told, the offered chance to poke around the Moon's secrets was almost too much to resist, even not considering that Madriu absolutely did want to help protect their new world.
"Why don't we find out?" He gently tugged Arcalis with him, pushing the doors open with one hand, and stopping once they were through to take in what was before them in awe.
"Oh," he said, softly. "This is..." He could not even begin to imagine how much effort had gone into crafting the crystal spire before them, housed in this simple room that seemed understated compared to the rest of the palace they'd seen on their previous visit.
And there was a whisper. A memory, or more of that hologram, guiding them. Telling them that they would need to offer their energy, their magic, to it in order to charge it to protect Earth.
"...I'll do it," Madriu said, with little hesitation. If this was a way to help, then he would take it. He would not see another world die. "Arcalis? Kyzaile? Are you with me?" Amor Remanet kyzaile = old madriuan for "partner" w/ connotations of "other half," "indispensable person," etc
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 9:17 pm
Listening to Madriu, Arcalís nodded. He personally hadn’t thought much of what Queen Serenity had said since hearing her say it. Nothing against the Moon Kingdom of old or anyone else, but……everything else about Princess Ganymede’s little shindig had been swiftly derailed by finding Lex in the library.
But now that he had his partner in all the most important things returned to him, Arcalís did need to focus on things other than the Madriu of it all. The chamber they endered did a perfect job of capturing his attention, though. Even without the pressing sense of duty, this place felt sacred. Important, critically so. The welcoming glow of the crystal before them almost made Arcalís forget how serious things were, and how important it was for this to go well.
But—who could actually forget that?
He nodded once more, looking to Madriu and squeezing his hand. “Together again, migadye,” Arcalís said, reaching to place his hand on the crystal, “and never to be parted.”
The term that he used to address Madriu would have caused quite the scandal, once. Old Arcalian had two terms, very close in pronunciation and similar in meaning. Migadi and migadye—both referred to someone in one’s life that one would chose above all others, a companion with bonds forged in fire, not somebody selected for you by societal obligations or by some unseen force of fate and destiny, but the one whom you bound yourself to by choice. But only one of them carried any meanings outside of simple friendship.
Migadi had not caused any scandal, when Chrysanthos had once said it about Lex. He’d said that about Lex in front of Mauritz and, even with Mauritz’s jealousy, he’d never caused a fuss about that. But the connotations wrapped up in migadye, on the other hand……well.
It wasn’t as though anybody else alive but Lex would remember that, right?
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 10:08 pm
Madriu felt his heart skip in his chest, for a moment. Just hearing Arcalis address him that way, with that word...it wrenched something inside him, but in the best possible way. And there was no one to hear them say it and get angry because it was inappropriate for Sailor Arcalis to speak to a Madriuan dog that way, to hold one so dear to him.
Let them all rot. He and Arcalis had survived everyone who had tried to convince them they were better apart, had tried ot force the issue, had tried to break them.
"Of course," he said, and he stepped forward, laying his hand next to Arcalis's.
The first thing Madriu felt, laying his hand on the crystal and letting it draw on his power, was lonely.
The second was cold.
But he had known loneliness, and he had survived it, for a thousand years, and the balm for it was at his side, pouring his power into the crystal, too. And he had known heat, a world scorched dead, and so the cold almost felt welcome.
To save an entire world, he could endure.
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